I dislike Donald Trump

 I hate that this is my first post in a long while, but if you wait for the perfect post you may very well wait forever.

I really dislike Donald Trump. I hesitate to use the word hate, partly on general habit, but partly because hate is an intimate personal feeling, ultimately, my dislike is pointed at a political persona, and it is a persona that is neither unique geographically nor historically. So hate seems inappropriate. However, I strongly dislike Donald Trump's hyper-nationalist anti-instutionalist populist persona fiercely.

I am myself a passionate nationalist, I believe in America and I have a passionate love for my country. I do not mind hyper-nationalism by itself, I find it excessive but I can sympathize with the feelings behind it. But I dislike how Donald Trump focuses the nationalism of himself and his followers on an exclusionary vision of America, one that must hide itself from the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, lest the troubles overseas infect us. I like to subscribe to a vision of America that welcomes the oppressed and takes the demons chasing them as challenges to be conquered rather to be appeased.

But that is a matter of ideals. In concrete terms, no one wants no immigration, very few are willing to realistically grapple with the challenges of open borders, everyone can admit that some people need asylum and that there are some people who will fake asylum and there are wide swaths of gray areas. Most disagreements in immigration come down to differences in degrees of policies, while adding and removing special cases from a system riddled with special cases. I dislike that Trump throws away the nuance of this in his rhetoric (although he is hardly unique in this, the degree and frequency to which he disregards nuance are exceptional, and degree and frequency matter), and is unwilling to wrestle with the full complexity of the situation in his policies.

I dislike Trump's disregard for the long term, his policies focused on short term goals while never asking how will these policies be followed by the other party when the other party inevitably comes to power in the future, because this is not the end of history. It irritates me in profound ways how Trump acts like this is the end of history, that the fixes in corruption and deep economic issues are something that can be fixed in four years without caring what the dismantling of walls between politics and the administration of government do to the long term. Again, Trump is not unique in this, but he does this more frequently and to a larger degree, and frequency and degree matter.

I dislike the emptiness of the winner takes all philosophy he pursues, when that does not look at the costs to the institutions of democracy, which while not perfect in this country, are priceless.

I could go on, but this is probably longer than most people like to read already. Donald Trump is not the devil, not every single thing he does is wrong or every single policy incorrect. In many ways, Donald Trump is the outgrowth of bad tendencies among politicians that have been growing for a long time here and overseas, however, his degree and frequency of those tendencies are exceptional and that matters.

History is long. Despite my nationalism I am not naive, one day the United States of America will become a fading memory. But just as I cherish the lives of my loved ones despite their inevitable return to the dust, I am concerned with the fate of America. Donald Trump did not ruin America in his first term and will not destroy America in his second, however, he may do lasting damage to the institutions and ideals of America that may set the stage for further damages down the line. I think he is bad for America, and that concerns me.

I could be wrong, and I really dislike how Trump rarely seems to consider the possibility, but I admit I cannot see into his head, nor can I predict the future. But I have my feelings and have stated them, and I will hope for the best, knowing the future will inevitably be different and stranger than I can imagine. In the end, all I can say is God bless America and I hope, whether I am right or wrong, America makes the right choice.

An Era of Extra-Ordinary Prosperity

So what to make of the current economic situation? What sense to take of it? Or what sense to take of it from looking at the times through a historical lens, since I imagine most readers will prefer my analysis, at least in part, because of my historical perspective rather than simply my sunny personality (although it is quite sunny).

First, let me recommend you to an excellent article that prompted me to write on this topic (and therefore certainly has some influence over the contents of this post), which has some fine points that I'll probably re-iterate to some extent. The Economist has a nice rundown of the situation in the article called "Working Man's Blues"

Now for my overview:

Well, as a historian who has studied a decent deal, although not a great deal, of material about the Great Depression, I can tell you this isn't the Great Depression. We don't have the majority of the country poor or going toward poverty, we have most of the country middle class, and some perhaps tilting toward lower middle class, with a rather small number in extreme poverty and an uncomfortably high, but not that high, a number in relative poverty. Most importantly we have not had any negative growth, thus technically we are not even in a recession (by the traditional definition, used in, for example Investor Words, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP change).

No this is not a recession, and it is not as Paul Krugman claimed a return to the Guilded Age.

(even ignoring his arguments, he gets the periodization wrong, or at least without providing arguments sets up a different periodization than almost all major historians. The Guilded Age was roughly between the end or the faltering of the Reconstruction (around 1877 when federal troops left the South) and probably at most the assassination of McKinley (ie, the beginning of Teddy Roosevelt's term in 1901), it does not last into the 1920's as Krugman claims, and the Progressive Era is usually dated between around 1901 and around 1920, not starting in the late 1920's or early 1930's as Krugman implies.)

This is an economic downturn. We had something of a boom between say 2003-2007, not as much as say in the 1990's, where we had an extraordinary boom (one of the few eras where real median household income grew, although that measure, like most is questionable, especially given the number of poor immigrants that come to the US), and now there's a downturn. The size of this downturn is rather massive, compounded by problems in economies around the world, high oil and food prices, and the economy-distorting measures taken to reduce the last downturn in 2000 (such as Greenspan's massive intrest rate cutting.))

But that's just looking at it from a historical perspective, looking backwards many years, we can see that, you know what, even in a downturn, we are still at a level of wealth rarely seen in the life of mankind. That can be said for the world especially, but in the US we have the majority of the population with a degree of financial security, although they need to work and worry to keep it, which nowadays means the necessities are satisfied, health is alright, + (and this is actually very historically rare) we have machines and tools to make daily life easier + we have machines and tools to keep us entertained. Taking the long view from the past, that's pretty good, average man-wise.

(That's the tricky thing, because we have to remember, historically the middle class was not the average man. The average man used to be what was then called the working class, which would nowadays be considered the working poor (the current working class is more the middle class). I suppose the definition of the middle class for previous eras was financial security, having the necessities, and being able to aspire to more, or maybe it's just a semi-Marxist vision, those who are not dependent on the means of production of someone else, but who do not themselves own the means of production, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps)

Taking the view of the future though... things are a bit odd right now. Despite all the nations of the world being in essentially one global economy, each country seems to exist in a different world economically, in a way that has little to do with the economic realities of the country. But these oddities always have a bit of sense, and are generally rooted in a very specific past.

For example, why is the US so prosperous now relative to the world? Explaining fully its situation in the 19th century relative to Latin America might be a bit tough, but to a great deal it helped that the ethnic groups which did the discriminating, though the mix shifted, tended to always been a vast majority in the US, which has not been the case in much of Latin American history (the situation of the South as economically backward during this period partially backs this theory). But let's not go back that far, let's just look at the beginning of the 20th century it was on the higher end of the income scales, but similar to Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Argentina and perhaps a few other exceptional Latin American economies. However, it was not devastated by WWII, nor did it suffer from radical economic deviations, and moreover it didn't have to deal with imperialism, or major revolutions. That alone would give the US quite an edge over the rest of the world, whether it explains everything is question, but it explains a lot of the particular oddity of the massive US share of the global GDP.

Similar stories of exceptional luck history wise can be found scattered around the world. Yes, this luck was built on hard work, the US' low-revolution count was built on a strong belief in democracy in the political class and especially among some of the better of our leaders. But we got lucky with WWII, had Latin America gotten involved, as some Latin American countries wanted to, we might have been as devastated as Europe.

Yet historical luck is not a way to build a lasting prosperity. And despite whatever good qualities of the American people might have, we are not so exceptional as to have the economic fundamentals to maintain our privileged position in the world, and thus relative to the world we are sinking. I had hoped that it might be the case that the world might be catching up fast enough that in absolute terms we would still maintain our lifestyle for the immediate future, but that may be a bit uncertain. I suppose that's not surprising, after all, when the working class caught up to and merged with the middle class, the middle class did lose a lot of their old perks, such as even the lower middle class having servants.

But let me not be too gloomy. We might be destined to sink somewhat relative to the rest of the world until we reach a point reflecting our size, resources, skills and attributes, but that place is still pretty high in the world. Moreover, even if things might even be sinking in absolute terms, the future still holds the potential to raise us up with the rest of the world, even if perhaps at a slower speed. And then once a bit of the adjusting is done for the past, perhaps then we can grow naturally, with our long-term growth being reflective of the long-term economic trends of our nation. Until then...
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But as I said things aren't so bad now, and while the future might have some roughness, it is unlikely to hold a new Great Depression any time soon (although I'd advise against any predictions going to infinity). The true reality that we are going to face though, is that economic moments, like all moments, pass, and the situations change, and control of the course of events will always allude us.

But that just means that history will always be surprising.

A belated happy birthday

These last few days have been immensely busy for me, while my blogging lately has been immensely unorganized and unfocused. But it seems sad to let July 4th pass without mentioning it.

So let me go out and say it Happy Independence Day!!!

Happy Birthday America!!!

Sorry it's 2 days late.

But I suppose I do need to explain why I care so much about July 4th.

Or well, I don't, but I will.

July 4th is Independence Day, remembered for the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which may or may not have happened two days earlier, exactitudes in history are rarely 100% accurate), the moment regarded as the birth of America.

And I love America.

(Ah here's the rub of the matter, I'm talking about why I love America, why didn't I start out with that. Because I can do whatever I want, buddy-boy).

I'm not much for ultra-nationalism. I'm in fact very critical of it. As I have expressed elsewhere, I don't believe nations are gods to be worshiped. But to call them an unreal imaginary construct does disservice to imaginary constructs. Nations are not in our blood, they do not define us, they do not hold claims over us, but we can imagine them, jointly with the world, and we can create something quite grand.

A community, a history, a geography, the shape of some ideals and mental ties that forms an amorphous blog of a national culture.

But most of all, it is a shared dream. That dream is of a people to love, some vast mass of people who you don't know but who you share an indescribable connection to, to love them and for them to love you. That is perhaps the best way to spell out the contours of nationalism.

Yet there must be a wariness. That shared dream of love can become an exclusive love that idealizes only the mental construct of a nation without realizing the humanity behind it that stretches so far beyond it.

But if I've described nationalism, I still haven't described America.

But America is another shared dream, different perhaps from most others, since it was a dream within the dream of liberty, and since its reality was very different from the dream which begot it. But there is definitely a history to America, the name conjures some discreet shapes and some blurry edges but there is enough to give America its own category and territory in the historical tradition. And there certainly is a geography, a land full of contrasts and wonders that boggles my mind at times (again with certain blurry edges (ie areas of uncertain belonging) like the Native American reservations). And there certainly is a community of Americans, there is a people who share a love for someone they can't describe, who is great and terrible, ugly and beautiful, but who touches the our souls with something more than the some of her parts...

Ah America, she is a dream, she is not a divinity, she is not a metaphysical body, but she is something... something to love.

Why do I love America?

Why does anyone love anything more than the fellow-being amount?

Something in her essence, an im-parsable part of her make-up, appeals to me more than any other country or identity (save Christian, ah, that's the limit, I will not defy God for the sake of America, even though I love her).

But if that is not enough of an answer, well, there are mysteries in life one must accept, and if you are not satisfied with this, just accept my patriotism as one of those mysteries.

But anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

The Great Companion of Man

War. I was tempted to do a bad pun, like starting out with: war what is it good for, etc. But that seemed disrespectful, especially given the context in which that song was written (that's one of the burdens of knowing the history behind these songs, I imagine the many comedic videos, such as the Rush Hour trailer, were likely (although not necessarily) made by people who weren't thinking about the historical context of the song (Just to given some more exact information the song in question is "War" by Edwin Starr, written in 1970 in protest of the Vietnam War)). (Actually one of my annoyances with many journalists is their disrespectful use of puns, like for example saying the cultural changes in China are a "Cultural Revolution," I mean it's somewhat forgivable if the article focuses on the differences between the Cultural Revolution and Chinese culture today, but really...)

Actually writing about war is always a dicey endeavor, but people have written about it and in many, many different ways. You can take a funny angle to it (MASH, Hogan's Heroes, etc.), a satirical angle to it (Dr. Strangelove, etc.), a tragic angle to it (Letters from Iwo Jima, etc.), a triumphant angle to it (Glory, etc.), and there are more ways of looking at war. In fact, I say with a decent amount of certainty that war can be written from any perspective of the human experience, because war is so central to the human experience. That's a bit of a weighty, vague sentence, but essentially, war is when humans dispose of some or all of the basic rules of conduct in pursuit of some goal put higher than not only their lives, but the lives of entire peoples.

Yet, the human experience should not be reduced to war. Often that is the prelude to the common 19th century belief that war was not only the great companion of man, but his essential lover. No, humans can pursue just goals just as passionately and just as successfully within the rules of society that prevent such catostrophic conduct. In fact, if one of those just goals is the appreciation of the beauty of the human spirit, war is best avoided.

But one would be naive, and again, disrespectful to ignore war and its impact on history. Wars are often decisive events in the shaping of people and states, and when they are not, that is an immensely important fact unto itself. And thus the historian must be familiar with war, must not flinch from blood nor from horror, and must stare into the abyss, taking care not to let the abyss penetrate his soul.

With that melodramatic introduction, let me give some quick facts for those who enjoy or find useful quick facts. Here is a brief summary of the wars of the United States of America (I apologize that many of the conflicts are generalized, I will try to go into them more particularly later, but I ended up spending more time than I planned covering the general essence of the historian and war).

1775-1783 - The American Revolutionary War

1783-1794 - Conflicts and Rebellions related to the establishment of the US federal and state governments

1798-1800 - Quasi-War

1775-1900 - Wars with various Native American powers, often connected with the wars with Britain, intensifying in 1865-1900

1812-1815 - War of 1812

1846-1848 - Mexican-American War (some might include the Texas Revolution 1835-1836 as part of this, although Texas was not part of the US till 1845)

1861-1865 - American Civil War

1893 - Semi-Intervention against Hawaii

1898 - Spanish-American War

1898 - 1913 - Philippine-American War (till 1902) and suppression of remnants

1903 - Semi-Intervention against Columbia for Panama

1916 - 1917 - Punitive Expedition against Mexico

1907 - 1933 - Latin American Interventions

1917 - 1918 - World War I

1918 - 1920 - Russian Intervention

1941 - 1945 - World War II

1945 - 1981 - Cold War Conflicts

1950 - 1953 - Korean War

1959 - 1975 - Second Indo-Chinese War (Vietnam War, Cambodian and Laos Interventions)

1979 - Grenada Intervention

1982 - 1984 - Lebanon Intervention

1991 - Persian Gulf War

1992 - Somali Intervention

1994 - Haiti Intervention in support of Aristite

1995 - Bosnian Intervention

1998 - Iraq Bombing Campaign

1999 - Kosovo Intervention

2003 - Liberian Intervention

2004 - Haiti Intervention - escorting Aristite out of the country


2003 - Current - Iraq War


Sorry for the briefness, but I got carried away with the intro. I hope to expand on all of this later, but till then, the History is out there.

You're not really white, you're more pinkish

I'm Indian, and I love my Indian heritage, and I'd call India my second most favorite country, but my primary nationality identity (although my primary overall identity would probably be Christian) is American. Still I like to joke occasionally about brown pride. I mean it's more of an ethnicity thing (although I tend to identify more my identity as Malayali). I also acknowledge the legitimacy of black pride among African Americans. But then when you go with white pride, I've got to really to object.

Well if you can have black pride why not white pride. Well, let me explain a little bit. With African Americans you have a common history, common customs, and a common artistic history, although it is integrally mixed and integrated with general American culture (that's why although I admit to the idea of an African American ethnic identity, I'm a bit more skeptical about the idea of a purely black culture). However, whites... well who are whites? European descendants? Well I guess, but most of them immigrated before the idea of a pan-European identity was that well-established, many are from ethnicities that historically have not been identified as European, and many of the communities in the US have histories of deep conflicts between each other. When it comes down to it, although white is used in the census as all Caucasian (including Arabs), it really amounts to basically the non-minorities. And so basically white identity is based on the idea of who it excludes, and well, that seems pretty shallow, and honestly very easily and almost always hateful, with very little to hold it together as a source of love.

But then what should white people do about their identities? Well, come on, they have their own ethnicities. There aren't really white Americans, but there are Irish Americans, Italian Americans, German Americans, English Americans, etc. And sure you can celebrate that heritage and you can have pride in that, because it is a celebration of a common history of community and experience.

So to all you white pride people out there, get back to your roots, and I mean your real roots, look up what country your ancestors came from and use that for pride, or simply chuck it all out the window and just use American for everything (even though even with a strong ethnic identity, you can still keep your primary nationality identity as American), but just remember, it's not just you pinkish skinned people who are Americans, it's anyone who loves America deeply and truly.

My American Dream

Greetings all, now given how I explained that many of my sessions have titles that have nothing to do with that actual content of the session, I must now contradict that and give a session that does factor in with the title. But then again I did give the cavet that the non-relation between session and title was not a definite rule (or at least that was implied) and I said that that was mostly the case for personal sessions and this (at least once I get through this introduction) is a topical session, so in short if you're surprised by the title relating to the topic then you're a bum.

So having read that you would probably assume the title had something to do with the American dream and if you did so then you would be right. However if you assumed that this session was actually about my personal American dream you'd be wrong, the "My" part of the title is actually just a shoutout to Scrubs which I usually watch while I write my sessions. I will at some point visit the subject of my American dream because I'm just that interesting, but today I will start with a little something I've been thinking about which is my favorite movie Rushmore and one of my favorite books The Great Gatsby.

Both I think have to do with the American Dream, The Great Gatsby more famously but also Rushmore. What is the American Dream you may ask? You may ask, but you'd be asking a computer, and that would be a little crazy but anyways I think the American Dream really comes down to chasing a goal and a dream with all your passion and not giving up. The Great Gatsby was like that, Jay Gatsby chased his dream of being a man that could win Daisy's heart, that is the ideal rich swinging 20's man. But Rushmore was like that too. Max Fischer is always chasing after a dream with all his heart and passion, at first I really couldn't tell what his passion was about but then I thought about that opening scene where he is dreaming about giving the perfect answer to the ultra-complicated math problem and that gives the whole class no homework (or is it A's) for the semester (an unattainable dream for him since he is an absolutely horrible student, just like being Daisy's perfect man was ultimately unattainable goal for Gatsby since the means which he used to become a rich man stained him in front of Daisy). And then factoring in his absolute love for the school (the Rushmore of the title, a elite private school which he got ad and all his ton of extra-cirricular activities it occurs to me that his dream, his true dream is to be the absolute perfect student. Unlike Gatsby his dream intially is not attached to a romantic factor (although it actually might be a desire to please his dead mother who first recommended him to the school), but later it takes on a romantic dimension when he falls in love with Ms. Cross a teacher at Rushmore for little kids. His dream takes on an added dimension now, to become the man that Ms. Cross wants (he believes he can do this by building an aquarium and acting as spunky as her late husband, and also by becoming a perfect student as his later attempts to get good grades I think show), I think these two dreams are actually intertwined especially considering Ms. Cross is a Rushmore teacher.

But ultimately tragedy ensues. With Gatsby it is the loss of Daisy whose husband reveals Gatsby's true nature as a bootlegger and ultimately shatters his image as the perfect rich man. With Fischer the fall is more prolonged and complicated. First, he is expelled from Rushmore due to his pursuit of Ms. Cross, then after several rebuffs he is finally told off by her after he gets her fired from Rushmore. He also loses his best friends, an eccentric millionaire who becomes his rival for Ms. Cross, and his sidekick who like Daisy has his image of the protagonist shattered. Fisher is ultimately defeated, and actually he takes his defeat worse than Gatsby, for a moment giving up his dream (although it is suggested that Gatsby does this as well, you have to take into account the unreliable narrator who is also trying to justify his life I think, where he eventually gives up dreaming). I could bring out the parrellels more, but that would take time I don't have (maybe I'll turn this into a more formal essay and post it up somewhere later), so then we must move on to the aftermath of the fall. Here the differences between the two become very striking.

While Gatsby retains one good friend, the narrator, who attempts to encourage him, he is ultimately surrounded by fakes and as the narrator points out "careless people" like Daisy and her husband. These people ultimately cause Gatsby's demise because they play around with people's lives and then avoid the aftermath, like Daisy's husband whose affair sends his mistress running wildly into the street, and Daisy who finishes the job by killing (accidentally running her over, but still carelessly) the mistress. This sets into motion Gatsby's demise (they actually might have had a more direct role by directly the mistress' husband to Gatsby's house, but this is a matter of interpretation). With Fisher it is different, and ultimately I think it is because he is not surrounded by careless people, but by caring people. His disillusioned friend, his father, the girl he rejected all help him to recover and pick a new dream, a better one, which is to try to help all those around him. And in the end, despite the grave problems his friends and associates have he does help all of them. He achieves his dream, he may have been hurt badly and lost some hopes along the way but ultimately he recovers chooses a new direction and really wins.

Gatsby I think could have also chose a new dream if he was given the time, especially since he was stronger than Max and did not sink into the depression Max did. The narrator might suggest he did but again I think this is just the narrator trying to justify his choices, when he left Gatsby, Gatsby was smiling. Even if he had the depression I think Gatsby could have recovered after all he recovered from his first rejection from Daisy and maybe hopefully with the help of his friends he could have chosen a new dream especially since he recieved the news that he was better than the whole lot of the rich people with a smile, perhaps understanding finally that it was true. But he didn't have the time to recover or choose a new dream, because the rich people in whose circles he hung around were careless, most especially Daisy and her husband, and they destroyed him with their carelessness as well as destorying the poor husband of Daisy's husband's (I should by now start using his name Buchannan) mistress (Myrtle). Fischer triumphed because he lived in a better world of caring people.

Maybe that's what we need in America. Not a country that's less ambitious or less willing to pursue our dreams, even though often the dreams are ill-chosen (Max's dream of being a perfect student was certainly ill-chosen since it was a dream that was ill-suited for him, someone who was bad academically, and overall it didn't make sense because eventually you have to leave school (a fact he was trying to avoid in the beginning of the movie, partly simply by ignoring it or trying to add another year his stay at Rushmore)) and/or lead to spectacular failure. What America needs is people who are caring, who will pick up those who fail and help them regain their cofidence and find a new path. Maybe America needs people who will take responsibility for their actions (which Max in the end had to do as well, which was part of his process of recovery and his new dream of helping those around him), instead of Daisy and Buchannan who ignored their responsibilities and the fall-out from their actions. Maybe in such a kinder world, Gatsby could have survived and reached his potential. Maybe instead of the narrator saying in the end I think Gatsby was alright (I'm paraphrasing), he'll say of course Gatsby was glorious. And if that's what I need, and I think it is, maybe it's time we all aimed are lives towards that and started treating each other with a spirit of love and caring, without forgetting though to dream the magnificent dreams (I think dreaming that magnificently is also an act of love, a love for the goal and a love for the world that allows it, as well as a love for the human spirit that is capable of such passion and the Creator of that spirit), the kind of dreams that made Gatsby great even in defeat. That's at least how I think, and that's at least how I think. Anyways, I thought it was neat that I could combine ideas from two of my favorite works, and so now that I've done that I realize I actually need to get going (to Rutgers, to get credit for an internship to help me along in pursuing my dreams, of course, I must be careful never to forget to act with caring). So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart (this phrase actually works very well for this session), and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!