Virtue and Vice: An Ethical system based on Justice

A Moral Vision of a Better America

In 1897 Henry George, soon before his death, Henry George wrote an article called "A Menace and a Promise" which opened:

“Though we may not speak it openly, the general faith in democratic institutions, where they have reached their fullest development, is narrowing and weakening; it is no longer the confident belief in democracy as the source of national blessings that it once was.” [Menace&Promise par 1]

Writing in 1897, when workers were losing their battle with Owners. Henry George lived in a time very much like us. A corrupt GOP setup a system of giant monopolies and monopolistic corporations whose power and influence gave them private separate advantage (Locke's definition of tyranny) over most of the people of the country. The result was a tiny 1% living in immense wealth and ostentation and overlording over many of the rest of our people. Efforts to combat the inequality and corruption involved had been frustrating. Populists had elected Grover Cleveland, only to see him betray his promises to them and go along with laws that made the lives of the overlords even more oppressive. Later Progressives would face many of the same problems and this would continue until FDR, in the 30's managed to merge the two movements.

Henry George, however, understood that the biggest danger was not from the corrupt and powerful overlords but from people accepting the inevitability of corruption!

The Thunder is Rolling In

The Thunder is rolling in.

The storm is coming near.

It's been steamy quiet all day.

steam rising into the stratosphere.

Soon the trees will be tormented

and a storm will be here.

 

It's summer,

I should let the cat in.

 

II

 

Crack, Crackle, and then boom.

The rain has begun to fall.

A swarm of tiny drops

So gentle and small

I can barely see them through my window.

 

III

 

Now they are hitting the roof finally,

with energy!!

Drilling a steady sound.

But it is still mostly a quiet puttering sound.

The worst of the storm isn't yet on the ground.

 

IV

 

Will the lightning strike near?

Or simply pass us by?

Will terror touch down?

Or this be just another summer storm?

I don't know.

 

I could look at the radar maps.

And see the in swooping enemy.

Like Bombers in an old movie.

The Lightning is near and like daylight.

The Boom is like artillery.

But today I'd rather let it surprise me.

I'm already hunkered down.

There is no place outside my house that draws me.

And I'm up high, I won't drown.

 

I can watch the rain swoop over the mountains.

Watch the clouds drown the mountains in fog.

Or I can sit in my comfortable chair,

and marvel at nature.

 

V

 

What is nature?

Where is my Garden without the rain?

Would I love the desert?

Where the dust swirls

and the heat is never interrupted?

 

VI

The Storm passed.

Now it's quiet again.

 

Thank God when it's just a storm

 

Christopher Hartly Holte

Review of "A Tale of Two Cities"

The New York Times has the following article:

A Tale of Two Cities, in 1886, and Events That Shaped a State [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/a-tale-of-two-cities-in-1886-and-events-that-shaped-a-state.html?_r=0]

I've been writing about Henry George because I'm in love with the man's thinking. Not necessarily his economics so much as his ethical thinking. That being said I'm not the only one learning from him.

The Author is reviewing a Book by Professor O’Donnell and writes:

“Professor O’Donnell, who teaches history at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., writes that by transplanting himself from California to New York, George gained a national forum for his “single tax” on property, which was fundamental to his platform.” [Events That Shaped a State]

The author is mostly interested in the navel gazing history of New York City, but sure enough Henry George had the chutzpah to take on both the Tammany Hall machine, the unstoppable Teddy Roosevelt, and the City of New York. The result was a loss for George. Now if George had thrown in with a coalition with Teddy Roosevelt Roosevelt would have won. Which brings us to the present when we have Bernie Sanders running as a Democrat. We've learned that democracy in the United States starts with people fighting to build coalitions:

“Representative Abram Hewitt, a Democrat and pro-labor industrialist, won with 90,552 votes over George, who took 68,110 as the candidate for the United Labor Party. In third place with 60,435 votes was a 28-year-old Republican, former Assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt. George’s supporters claimed that the election was stolen by Tammany bosses (who would have had to appropriate only 14 votes at each of 812 polling sites).” [Events That Shaped a State]

	Tammany Hall was eventually destroyed by an insurgency within the Democratic party culminating with Robert Kennedy defeating Tammany Hall in 1966. (see Archived Article)
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/06/29/page/1/article/kennedy-beats-tammany-hall

“Tammany had earlier tried to buy George with a seat in Congress. Why would they, he asked, if the Democrats figured he couldn’t win anyway?” [Events That Shaped a State]

It takes Moxy to beat a Machine. And both Bobby Kennedy and Henry George Had it:

“You cannot be elected,” William M. Ivins, the city chamberlain supposedly said, “but your running will raise hell!” [Events That Shaped a State]

But nobody can do it alone. If George had had followers and fellow travelers with the same dedication and moxy he had, he might have gotten even further. Even so he fought Tammany Hall and set the stage for others to do so successfully later.

“To which George replied, “I do not want the responsibility and work of the office of the Mayor of New York, but I do want to raise hell!” And he did.” [Events That Shaped a State]

The article also talks about Gouverneur Morris and his attitude towards common folks:

“That diversity was reflected in Gouverneur Morris, who “expressed disrespect or even contempt for New York’s common people at the same time he was risking his life and welfare to write a constitution that would keep them safe and free,”

Democracy and Good government in the United States has always been a bottom up struggle. I make the case that they are one and the same. The Morrises, their allies and frenemies, tried to transplant the Sea Dog Aristocracy of Britain to the Colonies along with it's con artist secret corruption and private, separate advantage. Not so much consciously, but simply because of their selfishness. On the other hand people like Henry George...

“and James Fenimore Cooper, who chronicled the unfettered life and other noble causes while criticizing abolitionists, and Thomas E. Dewey, a Republican who championed civil rights, environmental protection and great public works like the New York Thruway.”

stood up for and uplifted common folks, and at the same time fought corruption in all it's immoral forms.

The Cup Glowing in the Dark

The cup is glowing in the dark.

What an amazing thing.

I don't know if I'm hallucinating.

Or the cup is made with radium.

 

All I know is that I've been poisoned.

And the whole world is poisoned too.

And I am standing here making a libation

when I really don't know what to do.

I don't have any other tools.

 

We protest and march, Kayak and bark.

And the Powers ignore us on a good day.

Meanwhile the cup is glowing right in front of me.

and that glow isn't in a good way.

 

Will my skeleton glow when they lay me to my rest?

Will any pure places remain, where life can take refuge?

Do they really mean to contaminate everyone and everything?

are they really such fools?

Christopher H. Holte, 6/16/2015

Scaling up "the Jungle" -- Trashing Food Safety Laws

Ultimately food safety enforcement requires Point of Origin Laws. But at the moment we can't even enforce Country of Origin laws because of the power of the corrupt World Trade Organization Courts (WTC) and existing international regimes. If we continue to pass bad trade bills this will only get worse. The International of Giant Multinationals seem to be aiming at a regime of weak overall world government, strong but corrupt courts, and chaos at the State (national) level to maximize their own power and Influence. This should look familiar.

In the 19th Century Giant US companies used the same strategy on a national Scale. Powerful companies using States against one another, packing the courts, the Senate before we changed how it was elected and buying or owning officials of a weak United States Government so they could run their own baronies, oppress labor and ship cheap dangerous products around the country. This is the world of Upton Sinclair scaled up to International scale. If we pass the latest round of Trade Agreements we'll be agreeing to an International Jungle of Corrupt Conglomerate rule that would make muckrackers like Upton Sinclair scream from their graves. To read more about Upton Sinclair read:

The Jungle

http://www.online-literature.com/upton_sinclair/jungle/

Smoke

For my Brother it was his esophagus,

for my cousin it was his lungs.

For my sister in law it was her pancreas,

for my uncle it was his tongue.

They all went up in smoke.

 

For some of my relatives it wasn't smoking,

but going into black coal dark caves.

But others of my relatives grew the weed on their farms

And built fortunes on it's addictive charms.

We paid a price for those extractive fortunes.

For my Grandma it was heart lung failure,

She was a Lucky Strike babe.

And she came "a long way Baby" before the smoke killed her.

 

I watch my son, cough his lungs out every night.

And because he smokes, I know something isn't right.

If he'd gone to war I could rationalize "how brave."

But when he smokes out on my porch,

it's I who have to sweep up the cigarette butts.

After I remind him he's nuts.

I'm deathly afraid he'll go up in smoke,

Before I've taken my final toke.

 

Christopher H. Holte

Dedicated to that big leafed weed that has no good use other than poisoning things.

Say's Law is a Myth!

In the Book Adam's fallacy, the author, Duncan K. Foley mentions Say's law, defined within as

"that in the aggregate there cannot be chronic excess supply of labor" (boy is that "law" a laugh)

He then makes the even more true observation that the immediate effects of increases in labor productivity is to impose increased costs on labor!

Basically the book "Adam's Fallacy" refutes Say's law and a number of other mythic elements to classical economics!