Tag Archives: current-events

My Take on Gender

Lately there have been several laws both passed and signed, and others proposed by certain states, regarding discrimination against gays and particularly our transgender friends. Transgender people are the T in LGBTQ. The laws, in essence, all address transgender people using the bathroom, as well as other discriminatory provisions, one of our nation’s most existentially critical issues (sarc).

I’ve been more and more incensed about the nature of these real and threatened attacks and feel a need to write about where my anger brings me. I’d like to attempt to clarify understanding of the real issue here, which is evolution. Let’s see if I am able.

After losing in a fairly humiliating way in their futile quest to withhold the joys and pains of  marriage from homosexuals of all sorts the “look here it’s another damned abomination” crowd has gleefully waged it’s attack on number two on their hit list, transgender Americans. As is per usual with this crowd there was considerable forethought put into this strategy, and proposals for laws forcing transgender people to use the bathroom designated for those with the sexual organs they were assigned at birth with were simultaneously issued across the nation. Isn’t it fascinating how all these different people from all corners of the USA all thought of the same vile and restrictive thing at the same time (not). How obviously intentional and strategic.

Once again, the frightened reactionary gang, desperately hanging on to the faux morality of the past, have come up with logical sounding, fear based arguments for preventing transgender women from using the women’s restroom. Safety and privacy. OMG men will fake being transgender just to snap a pic to put on Instagram or maybe use for a puerile and perverse purpose later on in the shower, or wherever they do such things. It is the transgender person who is much more likely to be abused in a restroom than any cisgender person.

A word on the word cisgender. It is a new word for many of us. It is an adjective, not a noun. A person isn’t a cisgender. They are a cisgender person. The word simply means a person who identifies with the same gender as their sexual organs indicate. This separation of sex organs and gender identity is significant and that makes understanding cisgender people important.

A word on the words transgender and transexual. Transexual is an older term that is relatively specific. It normally refers to a person who has or wants to change their sex organs to their identified gender. Transgender is a newer term that is a general term that covers all people whose gender identity does not reflect their sex at birth. Some transgender people still refer to them selves as transexual. One should be aware of and sensitive to how a person refers to them selves. This applies to both nouns and pronouns, Although it can be uncomfortable one should use the pronouns the individual transgender pronoun prefers. Also do not refer to the original gender of the transgender person. A person who transitions from male to female identity is a woman or transgender woman.

The word transition is important as well. It is used to describe the process of transformation from one gender to the other. It is not necessarily a sex change or a switch. Transition can include everything from transitional medical intervention to legal change of name to telling friends and family. Transition can be a different process for each individual. For example, a doctor may prescribe transitional surgery for one transgendered person but not another.

The authors of theses bills and their supporters have picked on this group of citizens, transgender people, because they are the least well known, least talked about, least supported, and least understood of the bearers of that “sexually weird people” acronym, LGBTQA+. They are also at the top of the yucky scale. Men kissing men has nothing on a man desiring to change his sexual organs to match her self identity, her knowledge of self. They are an easy target, low hanging fruit, the fish at the top of the barrel.

These folks have said let’s put a different coat on discrimination, run it out and see if anyone of our bunch feels we have the perfect patsy here, the ideal minority group to frame for the crime of being the other, the weakest and least likely demographic to push back on the bunches self congratulatory need for oppression. It’s the age old scenario of the alpha finding the weakest in the herd to kill, to cull.

But these unfortunate misguided souls are in for a rude awakening. The transgender people among us are not weak, they are not fakes, they are the next wave in the truth of human evolution. They are in the vanguard of understanding the ever expanding universe, the opening up of our hearts and souls to the true nature of our species. Let’s talk a little about this.

In the past the medical and psychological tools to help the transgender soul become more  physically comfortable with their bodies was not yet developed. They had to hide behind wigs and constrictive cloth bands and hats and vests and corsets, makeup and voices. They were usually considered merely transvestites or perverts acting out their gender fantasies. There were only two genders. This conflation of sexual identity and gender identity has been responsible for the utter confusion, misunderstanding and often virulent opposition to the real existence of the other states of gender identity.

Hopefully I can explain my understanding of this reality in an educationally sound way. I make no claims of being correct about this. there are others who can judge my interpretations. But I am being honest in what I say here. The simplest way for me to try to wrap my head around an evolved reality about gender is to separate the sex from the gender. In other words I try not to use sex organs to define gender.

I relate sex organs, hormones etc, to sexual activity, We were all born with sexual organs, male, female, none or both. We use these sexual organs to participate physically in sexual relations. They all are instrumental in determining how we physically appear to the world. Sexual relations have two primary purposes, creation and re-creation. We can either  create new life, recreate those moments of the joy of that creative activity, and/or both.

One of the least understood aspects of sexual behavior is the re-creative element. We were designed to enjoy the sex act as a prime directive for procreating the species. We were programmed to love, enjoy, and desire sex. To deny ourselves the sex act because it doesn’t lead to conception is moronic. Everyone deserves and is intended to know the pleasure of sexual fulfillment regardless of it’s consequence.

What does this have to do with the transgender human issue you say. It has everything to do with it. It means that any combination of sexual partners and coming together of sexual organs among peoples has a divine element. It means that the presence of so called male and or female sex organs has less to do with who a person is and more to do with how they choose to enjoy their God given imperative to engage in sex.

What does this mean? It means that gender identity is unrelated to which sex organs one was born with. Gender identity is who one knows one is. We are only beginning to acknowledge that, yes,  it is a reality that there are two more numerous genders, the yin and yang of humanity, the cisgender people, with sex organs to match their gender identity. But the presence of male or female sex organs and their corresponding physical natures, is not the defining indicator of gender. There are those who exist outside of the prevalent genders, those who have no gender, other genders, or several genders, and they are viable and meaningful humans too.

Knowledge defines gender. Sex organs are for sex. Inner knowledge of gender identity determines how someone presents themselves to the world, regardless of appearance. Sexual preference is how individuals present themselves to each other sexually. There is a huge difference here that has been heretofore nearly invisible. It has been taken for granted that cisgender nature is the only natural state of being. In our society gender and sex have been inexorably conflated. We haven’t had a clue that it could be any different.

So it makes sense that those dragging their feet as time reveals knowledge of self will only see sex as synonymous with gender and force those with the sex organs of their birth to use the bathrooms of that gender, to use their birth name, etc. Little do they know that they are opening the very door they wish to close. To be more precise they are creating a real door they where they had only imagined one.. They are creating a situation where those of all genders will be subject to feeling uncomfortable and unsafe.

It is obvious to me that these bills are not about girl’s safety but rather about certain people’s fears that evolution is passing them by and their need to stop it’s forward motion at all costs. We all know this sets up an immoveable object and irresistible force scenario. And for what, for nothing, to give a bunch of aging white men and their frightened and obedient white women partners a false sense of moral superiority. This is such an excellent use of our legislative time and effort (sarc). Such a noble effort. (not). In reality it is a direct and intentional attempt to make one group of people suffer at the expense of soothing another’s fear.

One final word about the ridiculous argument that cisgender men will fake being transvestites to get into girls bathroom s and do horrible things. You can’t fake being a transgender woman. Let me repeat that, you can’t fake being a transgender woman. These men are fake transvestites. A transvestite is someone who psychologically has a desire and need to dress as a woman. A cisgender man who dresses up as a woman to be predatory is a  fake transvestite. Most importantly he is a predator. But he is not a fake transgender woman.

If a man wants to enter a woman’s bathroom to engage in predatory acts he certainly doesn’t have to go through the hassle of dressing up, with possibly a wig and makeup, and then needing to take all of that off afterwards.. He can just walk in and park in an empty stall. Criminals take the path of least resistance, they don’t make things harder for themselves.

Most transgender and transexual people go through extensive (and expensive) psychological scrutiny, and counseling, over time, before they are allowed  to proceed with becoming physically who they are in their hearts and souls. Many transgender and transexual people need this counseling before they feel comfortable in mainstream society. It takes great courage to be who you really are in the face of intense public judgement.

Caitlyn Jenner did not just throw on a pair of pantyhose one day and declare herself a transgender woman. It can take many months of hard work to be recognized as a transgender  or transexual person. Transgender people know they’re a different gender. than they were born. They are not fakes who claim to be a different gender in order to commit crimes. Someone who is just faking it will be easy to reveal as fake and easy to arrest and jail, If law enforcement chooses to do so.

When men humiliate transgendered females by saying they could claim to be transexuals if they are caught lusting after girls in the women’s  bathroom thats when the steam starts coming out of my ears. There are absolutely no records that indicate this has happened. Such acts of cowardice against innocent people definitively proves to me their malicious intent and pure evil of purpose. This is more than hatred. It is dismissal. I myself can handle being hated and many transgender people can and have handled more hatred than I can fathom. But to be dismissed as a human being, to be considered less than animal, is crueler than hatred.

Painfully, many have not been able to handle the hatred, the feeling that nobody even thinks you are human. They have been beaten down in all ways. Suicide rates among transgender youth are astronomical compared to other minority demographics. It is a public disgrace that government sanction of humiliation of this magnitude even be considered, much less enacted into law. When such laws foment suicide among teens we all become murderers.

I myself am diminished by these inhumane laws; for we are all responsible for society’s evolutionary growth; we are all culpable for the creation of bad law that not only hurts real people but can also kill. When we have conversations about our evolution as a species, especially regarding how evolution is not incompatible with Christianity or any other religion, we will be able to push past the barriers set up to keep us at each others throats. Only through looking into each others eyes and souls with love and empathy can we move forward as one, rather than suffer the pains of natural selection.

If evolution determines that our differences warrant a designation that we are no longer one species, there will be a test, and one of those species will become extinct. This species distinction is not out of the realm of possibility. This isn’t about being on the wrong side of history, it’s about being on the wrong side of existence.

I’m not kidding about this. And if you look inside yourself you know the truth of it lives, if only a faint murmur, a soft breeze. And the winds of time will grow, and engulf you.

While who uses which bathroom is not an existential issue, the evolution described in understanding gender identity most certainly is.

 

 

 

 

Some Thoughts on our Political Process

I received so many calls and emails about caucuses on Super Tuesday that it drove me loopy. I know why I got them and I was still pissed off. I really think the idea of carpet bombing likely attendees with GOTV/ persuasion calls and emails is an outdated strategy that has a reverse effect from what it was designed for. These calls are unsolicited and thus perceived as cold sales calls. People don’t like their lives interrupted.

The problem is the bean counters determined you could reach more voters more cheaply by phone than through the mail. Which is true. And you can’t guarantee people will read the mail whereas you can when you reach them by phone. But psychologically speaking, because of the very fact that the person receiving the mail has the choice to read it, it is a less threatening and irritating means of communicating. Because of this I feel, although the number of folks receiving mail is lower, the numbers that get the message are higher. I also feel that if government is the sender of a caucus notification mailer more people would read it upon reception than if it were sent by the candidates. Along with the information about date, time and place of caucuses, candidates could present introductions and persuasive arguments for government to include in the mailer, so that the voter has additional choice in educating themselves.

We must start treating the voter as an owner of government instead of a customer, a real person of value to society, instead of a number on a tally sheet. Enough of his rant and on to another.

Attending your caucus or voting in your primary is the first step in fulfilling your constitutional DUTY to elect those who represent YOU in determining how YOUR taxes are spent and what YOU can and cannot do as YOU interact with society. There is a direct correlation between your vote and your budget and your liberty.

It seems some of the very same people that insist our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, don’t quite understand what that really means. So many people, including the mainstream media, use the term “our democracy” as short hand for “our government”. This is only partially true. Our government is a Democratic Republic.

Sometimes people forget that we are a republic. I think it’s assumed we know that, since we elect representatives. Thats what a republic is, government by representation. This is the “of the people” part. Our government its made up OF the people we elect.

And yes, we are a democracy, in the sense that our government is elected “by the people”. That’s what democracy means, a government chosen BY the people, usually through free elections.

And the part that is most under attack is the FOR the people part. Our government is supposed to and was designed to work “for the people” and not for corporations or banks or defense contractors. Their interests don’t always line up with the people’s interests. But it sure seems that government works for them instead of us.

So how have these entities taken over. Even though there aren’t a lot of people that run them they have used the thing they have an abundance of that most of the people don’t have. They have an abundance of money. Their money gives them a huge advantage over us. They corrupt the “of the people” by “buying” their hand picked candidates. Largely through the media they have made it very expensive to run for office. The average citizen, without large amounts of donated money, can’t afford to run for anything but small local offices. The people with the money find someone who is attractive and well known and connected and gives them the money they need to run a winning campaign. We all know that nothing is free. For their money those donors get special favors from their “bought and sold” representative.

Having stolen our “of the people” they next work on the “by the people”. First they get their bought and sold representatives to pass laws making it hard for certain people to vote at all. Of course these voters are on to the moneybags and their plan to take over our government. This is why the would be overlords attempt to get their paid off legislators to take way those smart voter’s vote.

Less obvious but maybe more effective is how they discourage people from voting. First they use their money and the elected officials in their pocket to create fear among the people and encourage greed. Then they use the fear and greed to get folks to accept them as their saviors, as the only ones who can protect them and their money. These people will then walk through walls to vote for them.

Next they use a function of the American way of life to discourage people from voting at all. They know that they have their core group of frightened followers who will do anything they say. The fewer people that vote the more electoral power their core has and the fewer people they need to persuade and the more money per vote they can devote to that persuasion. And getting people to eschew voting is relatively easy.

Americans have a finely tuned, well oiled, throroughly developed propensity to assign both responsibility and blame to others. When the corporations and banks, the army of the plutocracy, can convince people that government is to blame for their miserable lives, that all politicians are lazy and crooked and that there is no difference between the parties, plenty of people will just throw up their hands and say their vote doesn’t count. They feel justified in not voting. Their feelings that they have no say in what happens to them are substantiated.

Our government is, by design, participatory. Only by participating do we TRULY respect, honor, and act in accordance with the constitution. If we don’t attend our party caucuses, or vote in primary elections we are giving away our chance to have a say in what government we have.  Do you really think that under 15% of the people, and often much less than that, should determine who will even vie for public office. It just makes it easier for the dominators to dominate. We aren’t going to ever get out from under the yoke of oppression by rolling up and giving up because we think our constitutional duty is meaningless.

That is a bald faced lie.

 

Had it up to HERE

I usually wait longer than a week to chime in on major events, so I can get a reading of how the wind is blowing and respond in that very arrogant all knowing way I am prone to. The event in Charleston SC, though, has blown me away, and all of my above it all superiority has melted away in the fire of anger and disgust. For me this is the last straw.

This is not about Christianity. This is not about gun control. This is not about mental illness. This is not about race. This is not about isolated “lone wolves” abandoned by their society. This is not about crime as anomaly. This is not about terrorism. This is not about meting out justice. This is not about the law or government. This is not about partisanship. This is not about the Confederate flag. This is not about the death penalty. It is all of these things and none of them.

This IS about systemic violence used as a bridge to cross the gulfs created by divisions in our society; divisions created through any number of social ills; social ills created by deeply ingrained ideas of privilege and class structure; social ills created by contending norms of race and wealth and status and political ideology.

This violence is not only that of the physical. It is that of the emotional. It is that of the mental. It is that of the spiritual. That said, it is physical violence, appearing as it does in the densest plane of existence, the physical plane, that is most apparent and observable to us. Therefore it is physical violence that we most relate to and respond to when grieving and mourning the descent of civility into the morass, into the pit, into disintegration. It is physical violence that shoves our weakness as a species into our collective face.

In this culture, the American culture, more than any other, violence is an accepted means of resolving conflict. In fact it is the primary means, the most revered the most glorified means. Let me say that again. Violence is the preferred means of resolving conflict in this our America. Daddies teach their boys that to “be a man” one must learn how to fight, that the best way to settle differences with the other boys is a hay maker to the jaw. Government is made up primarily of those very boys, not far removed from the grade school playgrounds where they learned and perfected using violence as a tool to get their way. They tell us the best defense is a good offense. They tell us might makes right. They are like the husband who thinks he is strong because he can beat up his wife.

We spend an ungodly amount of money on machines of violence, so much more than on assuaging social ills and solving the many other problems that afflict us. We can read the words alright, but cannot seem to actually beat our swords into plowshares. Most of our great spectacles, professional sports, reinforce the message of violence, either overtly or covertly. We continually endorse this ideal of violent conflict resolution through the glorification of violence in all media, and in our blatant acceptance of it’s value.

The constant assault on our civilized sensibilities, at the expense of our mortal souls, and the resulting continuous and senseless destruction of those we love, this is the visible result of consciously or unconsciously applied physical violence. It is the part of the iceberg we can see. But, for me, it is the other forms of violence, the hidden violence of emotion and mentality, that cut society the deepest. Families slice each other up with focused, hurtful words. This too is violence. Businessmen step all over each other in the vicious battle we know as climbing the corporate ladder, the race to the top, rung by bloody rung. Political rivals, sporting rivals, romantic rivals, are not to simply defeat their opponents but kick their asses, to destroy them. We compete not to win but to annihilate. We do not call our rivals opponents but insist they are enemies.

We most readily use violence on ourselves. The fuel that propagates violence is hate. Hate is not the opposite of love as many may say. Hate originates within. It is the self loathing all of us experience somehow, somewhere, sometime, in that place we won’t let anybody see, that gives birth to hatred. Hatred is learned and we can only first experience it through hating something we ourselves are or do, something about our own selves that disgusts and mortifies us, something that holds us back from shining the light of our true, loving selves out into the world. Only then will we see those things in the “others” and hate them too. We begin to see anything that frightens us, or threatens us, perceived or real, and hate the “others” for it.

We use this hate of self to perpetrate violence on ourselves in myriad ways, some of them so subtle as to be nearly invisible and unreachable. These internal wars are the basis for the psychological, spiritual and/or intellectual violence that is so deadly to us and our culture, because of its ability to hide in places we can’t reach, like a virus in our bodies, waiting for that moment of weakness when it can emerge and strike swiftly and with blinding force.

As it is in the microculture of our own consciousness so it is in the macroculture of our relationship to the world. We cannot possibly be the decrepit creatures we see when we look inside. There must be some reason we fail. It must be that other, whoever that other might be. What the world teaches us is disgusting is in the other. We will assign any disgusting failure we want to the other, as long as it makes us feel better, as long as it stops the pain for just a few moments. Hatred and violence is the morphine of painful and failing lives. If we cannot shine our light then nobody can, especially the other, in whom we see ourselves mirrored so clearly. But we mustn’t let anyone know how alike we are. We must destroy the other before anyone can find out.

We need to look deep inside ourselves to find the buried vault of our hatred. We have to remove the multiple locks that bind the vault, one by one, regardless how difficult and wrenching. We must then take what we find there and search deeper yet, to find where it came from, from what decrepit fountain it poured forth. We must dive into that fountain of filth, swimming through the putrid bile of our own, hidden self hate to the source, the pump that forces the hate into our hearts. It is primordial.

It may be true, as many say, we are violent by our nature, it will never change, it’s in our DNA, it’s useless to try. But is that any good reason to give up, to stop trying, to throw up our hands and say it’s bigger than us, we can’t win. When has anything ever been bigger than a human heart full of love. If we truly believe that love conquers all then this is the time to prove it. This is the time to break the chain of violence. But it will take men and women and children with profound love and of unyielding courage, in action, the action of both warming the feet of the frightened and holding to the fire the feet of those both self righteous and only selectively human.

I speak to myself when I say we need to DO more and TALK less.

Americans believe in faith, even if it is the faith that no faith exists.

I have faith we can bury hatred and it’s weapon, violence, under a mountain of love.

Join me.

Danger, intense and emotionally violent rant to follow. Be forewarned.

This is what I have heard on cable news about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa (9,000 cases, 4,400 deaths) since it began in March 2014:

ebola west africa.

This is what I have heard on cable news about Ebola since it came to the USA this month (3 cases, 1 death):

EBOLA EBOLA FEAR EBOLA OBAMA EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA FEAR FEAR OBAMA FEAR OBAMA EBOLA OBAMA-FAIL FEAR EBOLA-OUTBREAK EBOLA FEAR OBAMA-WRONG FEAR EBOLA OUTBREAK TRAVEL-BAN EBOLA OBAMA FEAR FEAR EBOLA EBOLA OBAMA-BAD OBAMA-FAIL EBOLA-OUTBREAK AFRICA-DEATH EBOLA-SPREAD TRAVEl-BAN EBOLA FEAR FEAR OBAMA-WRONG EBOLA-EPIDEMIC EBOLA-FEAR EBOLA DEATH EBOLA OBAMA-EBOLA-OBAMA DEATH FEAR-EBOLA TRAVEL-BAN FEAR KEEP-AWAY-AFRICANS TRAVEL-BAN FEAR OUTBREAK-FEAR FEAR-EBOLA FEAR FEAR EBOLA FEAR OBAMA-WRONG EBOLA OBAMA-BAD EBOLA-OBAMA-FAIL-FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What does this say about the specific appetites of the American people for certain types of news? What does it say about the Mainstream Media that they expend such effort, not only sating those appetites but nurturing others they wish to exploit? What does it say about the fragility of the psyche of the American public and their proclivity for being manipulated? What does it say about the sociocultural dynamic of modern life in the USA?

I do not downplay the extremely serious nature of the spread of this deadly hemorrhagic fever, anywhere on the the planet, to anyone. We must take every known measure and spare no expense to stop its spread. We must be steadfast and diligent. But there is something terribly frightening here and it’s not Ebola. We cannot afford, as a people, to continue the spread of panic inducing misinformation, innuendo and especially politically charged accusations. I’ve had it. I can’t take any more.

Here is a part of my FEAR!!!! That politicizing a deadly disease, a practice which is heinous, disgusting, inhuman, lower than low, and reprehensible, represents an irreversible direction in American politics, one that will contribute greatly to our eventual destruction, not only as a nation but as a species. I would hope against hope that this black moment in history is the nadir of our shame as human beings. However, it is my GREATEST FEAR!!!!!!!! that we have only seen the beginning of this descent into damnation and oblivion.

Nostra Culpa Nostra Culpa Nostra Maxima Culpa

An Economic Epiphany

I freely admit that the subject I probably know the least about is economics. I didn’t take Economics in college, primarily because I both despised and feared Statistics. I have never had more than a passing interest in it throughout my adult life. It is pretty much Greek to me, and outside of the bare basics of supply side and demand side I know very little about the complex influence of the application of various policies on the economy. But in the wake of the recent great recession I have vowed to learn more.

It was a significant epiphany for me that, during the consumption of a soft serve cone at Burger King, a revelation came to me, ostensibly from the bowels of the universe, about the basic nature of economics. It came to mind, as it often does, that the obscene profits taken by certain people were immoral. I was struck by the thought that since there exists a finite amount of wealth this means that as long as there were winners there was a corresponding amount of wealth lost by losers. This troubled me. It made the accumulation of great wealth by CEOs, hedge fund managers, and insider day traders, among others, seem particularly cruel.

The pain and despair of those unfortunate “losers” is not only a personal tragedy but a national one as well. Some of these losers are businesses and their failures carry with them the loss of jobs and production of wealth. And many of those “losers” are not failures in the classic sense of being inferior players of the game. Many of them were merely on the wrong end of an arbitrary decision by the powerful. Their only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So I asked myself, “How do we reduce the numbers of losers without reducing the number of winners at the same time?” After all, people deserve to make profits from their hard work and good ideas. This was when the light bulb went on. It became clear why certain economic indicators were so important to those who care about such things. The answer was growth. If additional wealth is created and the economy grows, then, at least on average, the profiteers take their profits from the added wealth produced and the losers need not lose. Ideally profits and growth are equal and there are no losers. We know this does not happen in nature. There are always some losers. But in growth times the losers are more likely defined by the natural perils of the market than by the dirty tricks of the Gekkoesque, although those indignities still happen with greater than deserved frequency. During periods of growth things in general are not so bad. Lots of winners and few losers.

We won’t go into the idea that perpetual growth is impossible in a capital based system. Not now at least. So we will assume that growth is possible and likely probable. I wondered why growth was so slow today. What could be the cause of profit taking without the creation of wealth necessary for a healthy, free marketplace? It was this phenomenon which seemed to me to be the likely cause of a non growing economy, of winners and losers, and the harbinger of economic weakness with the accompanying recessions. Could it be that there are those who take profits, often obscene profits, without contributing to the creation of wealth in any way, who are some of the main villains in this scenario that creates losers?

There are plenty of people in America who make money, lots of it, and never create one iota of wealth. They do it simply by transferring money or assets from one place to another, one party to another, taking a goodly cut for their facilitation. Another group makes their millions organizing, and often manipulating deals, consolidations and mergers, once again taking their cut merely from having the connections to bring the players together. These people often use other people’s money to make their own, socializing the risks and privatizing the profits. Corporate CEOs take in outrageously big salaries, with gigantic golden parachutes. Their compensation is not commensurate with their value to the business. Another bunch of leeches manage hedge funds, those exclusive mutual funds that exist mostly for the wealthy. These Wall Street millionaires actually do participate in a degree of wealth creation but also take huge salaries for performance that is little better than the average Joe using Charles Schwab.

These people are examples of a phenomenon made popular during the Reagan years. It is the concept of making money without doing any work. There have always been people who did this but in the 80’s it became fashionable. For the huge influx of students who rushed into MBA programs at the same time it became the ultimate goal. The ethic of hard work and playing by the rules gave way to a cut throat race to the top where success was measured only by how rich one could get, how fast and how easy.

I feel that after thirty years or so of this amoral profiteering I call “transactional exploitation” our country was ripe for the kind of economic collapse we suffered in 2008. It was this vampiric greed, coupled with the repeal of Glass-Steagal, that played an important role in bringing on the great recession.

The economy of the early 2000’s was largely driven by the housing construction and real estate markets. To simplify a complex scenario, in the 1990’s Congressional Democrats advocated that we make home purchase available to more Americans. Because home ownership was regarded as a lynchpin of American economic prosperity the Democrats reasoned that making home ownership available to more citizens would help stabilize the economy. They were thinking along the lines of slightly lowered income requirements, lower down payments, longer term mortgages and reasonable interest. Instead the vultures, enabled by the repeal of Glass-Steagall, created toxic financial products which they misrepresented to naive first time home buyers. Banks created nebulous security constructs which led to short term profits but were destined to fail. When the bubble burst it took down the housing market, major lenders and established securities brokerage houses. All of Wall Street collapsed in the wake of this implosion and investors suddenly lost as much as 40% of their assets. We are still crawling out of that hole and yet the vultures keep looking for scams that will make them flush while flushing the suckers they exploit down the proverbial drain.

I do not begrudge talented people from making good livings from the application of their unique skills. But there is a difference between making a living and making a killing. Just look at the words, living and killing. Which word fits better into a just and prosperous society, where all have the opportunity to thrive. Which fits a society where the ladder to success exists, but honest people trying to climb it are stepped on and thrown of by the ruthless or never allowed on it because of the neighborhood they grew up in or the color of their skin or the economic impossibility of getting the education or training they need to be able to climb in the first place.

Somehow society, through our collective ownership of government, must begin to re-balance the value of professional endeavor in America. We must figure out a way to reduce the value of the greedy non wealth creators and increase the respect for and value of under appreciated careers such as educators, scientists both social and applied, nurses etc. We must educate to the point where consensus demands that the gap in earnings between the lowest and highest is not so dramatic.

The transactional exploiters, who imagine themselves job and wealth creators, and those who worship them, aspiring to be just like them, are a bigger threat to the American economy and national security than any of the alleged “takers” so often mythologized by some. It is the alleged “makers” of whom we need to be careful.

Maybe I know more about economics than I imagined.