Category: Commentary

Back when I was a supervisor of analysts (last millennium, when dinosaurs roamed the National Mall), I had a weathered, paper copy of a Washington Post article in my desk drawer. The article was a summary of data developed about income percentiles in America (who makes how much, from the 1990s). There was little dispute about the data itself, and the article appeared with little fanfare and quickly passed into oblivion except for my faded copy. Sometimes when I wanted to test a potential (or aspiring) analyst, I would pass them the chart and ask them what were the strongest analytic judgments they could draw from it. I made it clear “just use this data, don’t try to add to it or fight it.”

The Brookings Institute has kindly updated that data (here), and the Washington Post covered it again. Here’s the key chart:

If you want to go back to the commentary or data, please do so, but go ahead and take this test (mentally): what judgments can you draw from this data? Again, don’t fight it; the answer is staring at you!

Middling analysts would focus on the point that the middle class is disappearing. Well, the median segment did drop from 47% down to 36%. Yet all three “middle class” segments went from 84% to 85%. Some analysts wanted to argue inequality was growing since the rich segment rose from 0% to 2%; while inequality may be growing (Brookings suggests it is), it is not evident from just this chart. The lowest two segments fell from 47% down to 29%. The bottom three fell from 94% to 65%. The best analysts honed in on the most dramatic change in any single group: the 450% rise in the upper middle class, from 6% up to 33%. So the most telling analytic line is: more Americans moved from the poor, lower, or middle class into the upper middle class.

The data can tell no other story. Why? Simply put, for every person who fell from a higher category, more than one person had to rise, in order for the numbers to hold up.

Three additional points. First, this data is longitudinal, that is, it covers the same people over an extended period of time. This eliminates the possibility the changes in outcome resulted from different people in the study at different times. Second, it does not include government transfers such as welfare, family assistance, etc., so it underreports the actual level of income for the poorest segment. Also, other charts displaying the data in the same study point out that the number of people moving from one income group to another increased (both up and down), meaning these groups are not static. While movement down the income chart grew more, movement up by more than one level also increased. Which is a long-winded way of saying there is still considerable movement between the income groups, and more variability with smaller numbers of big winners.

This does not mean there are not people who have suffered economically over this same time period: by sex, race, ethnicity, undereducation, technology change, and a myriad other reasons. But for every such case, the overall data still improved, which is quite remarkable. Brookings made much of the loss of the middle/middle class, the growth (as they see it) in inequality, and the increased number of people moving “down” the spectrum. But the overall movement into the upper middle class is just as telling. And that’s a little good news.

One might assume (based on my criticism of BLM, “defund the police,” “the talk,” and arguing whether data proves racial disparities in policing) that I don’t think race matters in the States. One would be wrong. I have always stated racism is evil and evident across the globe yesterday, today, and sadly tomorrow. Which does not counsel passivity, but cold realism in approaching solutions. Solutions will never be total, only partial, and we must focus on continuous progress to avoid backsliding. But soldier on, we must.

If you have ever met a real racist–not someone just #hashtagged as one–you know that there is little one can do to change his mind. The repentant racist is a rare breed: not exactly extinct, but always on the endangered list. One can, however, conform a racist’s behavior. Even a committed racist gets tired of constantly having to defend himself from public scorn. Thus society made public use of the n-word so offensive it changed from acceptable (among many) to unacceptable (excepting rappers). What a racist mutters under his breath in his own home? Another story.

This is a work everyone can undertake: identifying the small acts of racism that occur everyday (ask any person of color) and stand against them. No need to be boorish: simply pointing them out as unacceptable will do. This is solidarity in action, and we all need to spend time thinking about how we enact it. Whom security guards follow in stores, when people assume skin-color automatically denotes wealth, why some people seem suspicious in some neighborhoods: examples where we need to check our personal biases and those around us. But this is no small thing. We can never ask people of color to stop thinking constantly about race if they are constantly reminded of it!

So much for atmospherics; what about policies?

You’re probably unsurprised I oppose reparations. If the sums were small and symbolic, I could probably be convinced, but then why bother? If you are in favor of the larger amounts being considered, I ask you to also consider the data on what happens when average people receive a financial windfall. It rarely turns out well. Not to mention, reparations involve all kinds of messy moral questions. Who is black, and how black does one need to be? This is the kind of racist genotyping the Confederacy engaged in! Why should the sons of Vietnamese refugees, the granddaughters of Irish indentured servants, or the great-grandchildren of Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg pay?

Racially-tinged policies are always a double-edged sword. Where there is a clear and proven case of racial discrimination, it may be just (and constitutional) overtly to consider race in the solution. Thus if a college or institution has a track-record of excluding a race, they may make a conscious choice to hire or promote people of that race for a time. But there is always a cost. As people of color so chosen will tell you, they suffer a stigma that they did not merit selection, but for the color of their skin.

Thus I strongly adhere to the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, who said “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” I mention this to note that the policies I propose are never tied to race directly, and thus avoid the stigma of racialist policies. Still, these policies would directly affect black Americans, the subject of our recent strife. I propose two policies. The local policy could be implemented immediately and make an immediate difference. The national one is long-term, designed to address historic imbalances.

At the local level:

It is amusing that big city mayors (almost always Democrats and often Progressives, to boot) rail on about segregation while maintaining the racist zoning policies that created that condition. There is a reason there are no affordable housing options in Georgetown, DC: zoning regulations. Before you finish reading this paragraph, Mayor Muriel Bowser could propose and the DC Council could approve the construction of small, tasteful, affordable family-housing in Georgetown. Mutatis mutandis, Chicago, New York and hipster Seattle.

Rather than trying to remake DC Ward 8 (the poorest, most crime-ridden section of the District), the local government could start integrating wealthy neighborhoods by (1) allowing affordable housing to be built there, (2) subsidizing the development and the movement of people to those areas, and (3) where necessary, using the powers of eminent domain (at fair market price, naturally) to obtain land. Why don’t they do it? Politically powerful and wealthy benefactors oppose it: NIMBYism at its racially-tinged finest. Despite decades of Democratic governance, most of America’s largest cities are more segregated than they were in the 1960s!

Is this important? Growing data sources show that one’s zip code at birth/childhood is a better predictor of health, wealth, and success than any other factor! We’ve tried for several generations a weird experiment in separate-but-equal: keeping poor people–mostly minorities–segregated but pouring money into schools, policing, and social services, with little to show for it (according to the protestors in the streets). Good neighborhoods already have less crime, better schools, more grocery stores and parks and enrichment activities. Integrating appropriate numbers of the poorer into such locations would involve little overall change to the neighborhood while reaping huge rewards. But don’t hold your breath.

At the national level:

Much is made of the relative distribution of wealth in America, including the racial imbalances. While some of the more exaggerated claims have been called into question, America has greater wealth imbalance than most advanced industrialized nations (and thus has it ever been, by the way). Furthermore, the net worth of a white family ($170,000) was almost ten times that of black family. Even accounting for the fact that the median white family was two parents with some college, while the median black family was a single mother with a high school education, this is astounding.

While I believe the breakdown in the family–specifically the two parent, nuclear family of yore–is the culprit, I would suggest the federal government focus its efforts on the children. Politicians who propose “baby bonds” are on the right track. Paid by the federal government to children when they reach adulthood, these transfer payments would help reduce the wealth imbalance at the critical juncture when youth either go to college or join the workforce (i.e., the exact time when some capital makes a huge difference).

The bonds should not be based on race but the financial status of the parent/s at birth: if below a certain cut-off, the federal government starts investing US savings bonds in a numbered account for that child, accessible somewhere between their eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays, payable only to the child (not his parents, nor his beneficiaries). The amount is open to debate, but should certainly cover a degree at community college. The money should be paid against receipts for things like tuition, vocational training, new job expenses or starting a business: not simply disbursed to be spent on tattoos or avocado toast (or a tattoo of avocado toast, even). Such a program has predictable costs (not all immediate) and could even be prorated to cover (grandfather, so to speak) some children already born.

Both of these programs are expensive, but we’ve spent trillions getting nowhere, apparently. Neither program guarantees success: for example, there is some evidence that racial segregation in housing is also a result of conscious choices by racial minorities. Both policies tackle root causes (lack of opportunity) while avoiding racially-associated pitfalls. These programs benefit from the fact they acknowledge the federal-state structure inherent to our system of government. They are eminently “do-able.”

Let me end where I began. Policies are all well and good, but remember, despite equal opportunity there will always be unequal outcomes. What we should strive for is the day when–even at first glance–we judge the other ‘by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.’ This is an unending task (in this world), but one which requires no political leadership or legal change, just personal commitment. Let us begin.

Black lives? Blue lives? All lives? So many slogans, so little effort to understand and address issues. When the shouting starts, the thinking usually stops. Such is the level of discourse in modern day America, or at least in the social media-driven, twitterized version of America.

“All lives matter” is a truism not worth repeating: water remains wet; sorry, but no film at eleven. “Blue lives matter” is a riposte: if you didn’t say it before you heard the original, you’re just being provocative now. But “Black Lives Matter” is all about, um, well . . . now, visit their website and tell me. Ending “state sanctioned violence”? “Disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family”? “Dismantling cisgender privilege”? If you wish to chant it, there’s quite a chorus of beliefs associated with it!

Words used to matter, but not so much anymore. Like Humpty-Dumpty, people have taken to insisting “words mean exactly what I say they mean!” So we now have the slogan “Defund the Police” which is instantly followed by the comment that is doesn’t really mean “defund the police.” If only words were the problem; actions speak louder.

There is a reasonable case to be made that symbols of white racial dominance (e.g., Confederate statues) help create an environment propagating racial discrimination. This is a nuanced argument that doesn’t suggest eliminating these symbols fixes everything, but it helps. Such an argument requires–nay demands–a deep understanding of the history involved and a willingness to confront that history as it was, alongside the humble realization that the past happened under different standards.

For example, many Confederate monuments were erected in support of the “Lost Cause” mythology as a reminder of continued white dominance of Southern blacks. Yet the naming of US Army bases after Confederate military leaders happened as a result of a Congressional compromise to encourage southern states to support the US Army. The military reintegration of the former Confederate States into the Union is an amazing case study in success. It began with Lincoln’s commitment, to wit

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

The healing continued with General US Grant’s order for his soldiers to refrain from cheering as General Robert E. Lee left Appomattox Court House in defeat: “The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.” When Confederate General John Brown Gordon led his men to surrender their arms in a formal ceremony days later, Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain called the Grand Army of the Potomac to attention and rendered a salute, to which Gordon responded: honor facing honor. Slightly more than thirty years after the nation’s bloodiest war, a healed United States Army was ready for combat once again.

And yet, and yet, all this honor and healing came at the cost of the Jim Crow South. History is messy that way.

That is a nuanced, historically-informed conversation. We are not having that discussion. We have mobs tearing things down, burning things, and attacking those who disagree with them. How many Americans of any color knew who Braxton Bragg was? I did, but I’m a civil war geek; but seriously, when so little history is taught, how can such a name retain power?

Argument swirls around the symbolic meaning of the Emancipation Statue in Washington, DC, funded by freed slaves, especially the symbolism of a slave kneeling before Abraham Lincoln.

Most of those debating the statue don’t even know that when Lincoln secretly visited the just-captured Confederate Capital of Richmond, Virgina, (days before his assassination), word spread of the Great Emancipator’s arrival, and real slaves really knelt before him, calling him “Father Abraham” and “the messiah” and trying to touch his shoes! Today we have poorly-schooled protestors arguing about the symbolism of a statue of something . . . that . . . really . . . happened. Apparently, wokesters today know better than the freed slaves who paid for the monument.

Surely the nation could do without Confederate “Lost Cause” memorabilia; if that is important to you, make the case (I’ll probably agree with you). But make sure you know the history first. And if we are going to decide Washington or Lincoln isn’t sufficiently “woke,” we better be prepared to go where the history leads. Off the top of my head? Elihu Yale was a slave-trader; Leland Stanford exploited Chinese laborers for his railroad while calling them an “inferior race.” Only yesterday (in historical terms) FDR herded Japanese-Americans into camps. I await the universities renaming, and of course the removal of the FDR memorial. Bye-Bye Rhodes Scholars!

Better for all concerned if our youth learn some history before deciding to judge it. Reminds me of a great Indiana Jones’ movie quote:

Names change and statues go up and come down. Real problems remain. In Part II, I invite you to consider what America needs to do when it stops shouting and starts thinking again.

I started writing this piece a while back, then put it on the shelf “to cool.” As I suspected, the media would give me another chance to engage, and they just did. There’s a New York Times article entitled “Black Behind the Wheel” (link). Here’s an excerpt that interested me, dealing with when the driver, a black man, was pulled over many years ago in rural Arkansas:

I heard the shrill siren of a patrol car, and saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I cut off my music, and pulled to the side of the highway. A white patrolman, hands on his holster, moved toward my vehicle. . . . I was petrified. When the patrolman asked for my license and registration, and where I was going, I channeled my elders. I kept my hands visible and was performatively polite, even reverential. This routine always fills me with self-contempt, but here, on this lonely highway, it seemed to be working. The policeman disappeared into his patrol car, and left me waiting and waiting. Eventually, he returned and without a word, handed me my I.D. and walked off. I sat there for a few moments, shaken. I lived. But a part of me died that day.

Ron Stodghill, “Black Behind the Wheel”

The writer’s reference that he “channeled his elders” calls to mind “The talk.” Perhaps you’re already familiar: “The talk” is a discussion black parents have with their children, explaining how to behave when the police inevitably confront them, just for being black in America. The talk may be prefaced with a lengthy discussion of violence perpetrated against innocent victims, or the inherent racism of American society in general or police forces in particular, but it always ends in a series of rules: here’s how to behave to avoid becoming the next statistic.

The premise of the talk is that very bad things can happen to you for almost no reason, if you’re black. The point of the talk is to provide some rules for how to behave with cops; if you follow these rules, you may avoid providing any reason for police misbehavior. To that point, it all makes sense to me. What confounds me is: I had it. Not just any talk, not a vague discussion, but “the talk.”

My Dad gave me the talk when I was a teenager, and we were the whitest of white-bread families living in a quintessential small town in the middle of middle America. My Dad was a career State Police Officer: more than thirty years as a patrolman, detective and senior leader. He wanted to pass on to me exactly what the police were thinking, what they are trained to do, and how to respond. It went something like this:

For the patrol officer, there is no such thing as a routine stop. When a police officer pulls a vehicle over or stops someone on the street, they do so for a reason, and it is not to complement them on their sartorial style. Since it almost always involves some negative outcome (a fine, an arrest, or just an ass-chewing), there is always the possibility of the recipient reacting badly. If the police officer forgets this, his next stop may be his last.

The officer is not on a hair trigger. He just realizes he is ruining your day, your week, or maybe even your whole life. He takes no joy in this, but it is his job. He is used to hearing excuses, threats, crying, pleading, swearing; he doesn’t like it, but it is nothing new. Your stop or interaction is unique and important to you; to him, it’s one of ten he will have during the shift, and they all go down mostly the same. Every day. For a career.

The officer must quickly make a judgment about you as the person being apprehended. In the officer’s world, there are two types: “regular people” who are generally remorseful and compliant, and “jerks” who want to confront, resist, fight, or flee. If there was ever a time when first impressions are important, this is it. How the interaction goes down generally depends on in which of these categories the officer places you.

Because of the inherent uncertainty of the interaction, the first rule of police interactions is to establish and maintain control of the situation. This means the officer is in charge, and the other person is under the officer’s control, responding to the officer’s commands. Nothing else happens until the officer establishes control, and if he loses control, nothing else happens until he re-establishes control. Notice that there is no accounting for the views of the individual: no debate, no discussion, no protest. Control must be established and maintained. The officer will give you a series of commands based on his training, view of the situation, and what he suspects has happened. He expects you to comply, even if the commands make no sense to you.

I listened to my dad’s talk and took it to heart. As a practical example, back in college days, a buddy and I went out joy-riding on the interstate in upstate New York. He gunned his muscle car up to almost one hundred miles-per-hour as we flew down the open road, until we heard the telltale wail of a siren catching up from behind us. As we pulled over, we both had a good laugh until the officer used his loudspeaker to order the driver to turn off the engine, drop the keys out of the window, exit the car with his hands behind his head, and kneel next the car door. I was still laughing until the officer ordered the passenger–me–to do the same. Excessive, no? When it was all said and done, the officer explained that a similar car had been used as a getaway vehicle in an armed robbery that morning, so we were initially given the full “fleeing felon” treatment . . . but only a fat speeding ticket in the end.

When I have been stopped for speeding, I turn off the radio (I never access a phone in a car), and wait with the window down, my hands at ten-and-two on the steering wheel. I only respond to the officer, never initiate or extend my remarks. End with “sir” or “officer.” Make no excuses. Answer only what is asked. Be completely honest. I make no move without first explaining what I intend to do, and then asking the officer for permission. I make it clear to the officer by my words and actions that he or she is in complete control.

How has that worked for me? Pretty damn well. I have a penchant for exceeding the posted speed, at least on highways (not where pedestrians are present). In over forty years of driving, I have received exactly one ticket from an officer (I don’t count a couple speed camera tickets, as they are just a tax for driving fast). I got that one for doing twenty-five in a fifteen mph zone of desert highway at the entrance to Fort Huachuca, Arizona in 1983.

Oh, I’ve been pulled over many, many times for speeding. The worst case? Seventy-five in a forty mph stretch of I-395 in downtown DC about twenty years ago, during morning rush hour. That officer was leaving morning PT at his station and couldn’t believe how I blew past him as he entered the highway on-ramp. He was sweaty, angry, and ready to chew me out. When he asked for license and registration, I explained the former was in the inside pocket in my suit coat, the latter in the visor above my head, and could I please reach for each in order? When he asked how fast I was going, I said “at least seventy” and he corrected me to “seventy-five.” He asked if I knew what he could do because of my excessive speed and I replied he could have me incarcerated overnight for going more than twenty-five mph over the limit (it pays to know local laws if you intend to break them). He asked, with several colorful adjectives and adverbs, whether I was late for work (“no, sir”) and what could possibly justify going that speed (“nothing, sir”). So why was I speeding, he demanded? I explained that I had been stuck in traffic on the 14th Street bridge, and when the traffic cleared I just gunned it on the briefly open road. No good reason, just an explanation. Our calm exchange helped him regain his composure, and after giving me a good butt-chewing, he left me with a verbal warning and the admonition that if he ever caught me speeding again, it would include a visit to a station.

This was not a one time thing. Every time I have been pulled over (save the Military Policeman in the desert), I have received nothing more than warning. As a teenager, I even talked my way out of a “failure to stop” at a stop sign by calmly explaining that I had stopped, but the officer could only see my vehicle after I proceeded through the intersection. It helped that there were huge snow piles on either side of the street, and that I had completely stopped.

Now I am not advocating using these rules to avoid due punishment. I am simply arguing that the rules embodied in the talk work. Many police interactions today are filmed by bystanders or body-cams. And in so many of the cases, the suspect flees, or argues, or resists, or swears, or spits, or refuses to comply. Apparently the message from “the talk” about the rules is not getting through. Check out this Washington Post story, which makes much of a traffic stop for running a stop sign. The embedded video is seven and a half minutes long, but it includes nearly everything someone can do wrong. Luckily, it ends with a simple arrest, not a homicide-by-cop. But if you google so many of the more famous incidents which are heralded as exemplars of police brutality or racism, they inevitably begin with the individual not behaving according to the rules of “the talk.” Mr. Garner. Ms. Bland. Mr. Brown. Apparently even Mr. Floyd. And the list goes on.

Let’s be clear: nothing excuses kneeling on a man’s neck for almost nine minutes. I’m not arguing here about the justice or injustice of these cases: I’m arguing about “the talk.” I hear that so many people are giving “the talk,” but I wonder about that because I am not seeing much evidence anyone is listening. I doubt folks are listening because their actions don’t correspond to the rules of “the talk.”

I remain perplexed why the writer in the Times article felt self-contempt for behaving the same way I was taught to behave. More confounding, why he wrote “a part of me died that day” when his behaving according to the rules of “the talk” worked? I want to suggest “the talk” is important, and that behaving by its rules is neither contemptible nor demeaning: it just works. for everyone.

That’s a talk worth having, and one to which more people need to listen.

Don’t look it up: you know the word already! When the band Boston cut their record-selling first album, you certainly heard a radio DJ refer to it as their “eponymous” album, and somehow you figured out the album title was just their name. Eponyms, names which develop a permanent meaning on their own, have a long history. For the person, they are a source of immortality: statues can be torn down (oh. can they!), histories forgotten (or never learned), but words, they long outlast us.

Sometimes brands become eponyms: most people reach for a kleenex when they sneeze, and who doesn’t google something they don’t know? But for individuals, it’s a rare honor. Well, there was ancient Sissyphus, who gave us our favorite adjective for endlessly uncompleted work. Dr. Mesmer sold us a technique to hypnotize, and Elbridge Gerry donated a political tool for manipulating elections. Then there is Charles Cunningham, or at least that was the name he used during a visit to the States in 1881.

Charles was an English land agent and tenant-farm owner in 19th century Ireland. He was not particularly mean or greedy (for his type), but was still disliked by the Irish peasants who worked his lands. After a dispute over rents, the peasants decided to stop working for him, and encouraged (in the way only the Irish can, with a shillelagh) everyone else in the locality to join in. No bread from the bakery, no mail from the postboy, no goods from the grocery. Charles had to call on Orangemen from Ulster to salvage his crops, protected by soldiers, at his expense. There was no violence (sure and begorrah, a miracle), but the costs to Charles were ruinous, forcing him to leave Ireland for good. He left with his reputation intact, but not his good name. See, his full name was Charles Cunningham Boycott, and his name came to signify the kind of protest which brought him near to ruin.

The Irish peasants’ rebellion against Mr. Boycott was peaceful, proportionate, and purposeful, to borrow the three rules I suggested for protests. Peaceful, since while there were insinuations of potential violence by both sides (and a long history of real violence), none happened this time. Proportionate since they limited their actions: they didn’t shutdown the province or target his relations. Purposeful in that Mr. Boycott was the source of the protestors’ concern: they left the Orangemen, the Crown, and the Union Jack out of it. Oh, and they were successful!

Which is a long way of getting to the subject of boycotts. In today’s hyper-partisan world, where all things associated with the other side are not only wrong, they are evil, boycotts are much called for. There is always a danger in such actions: what if the target is not whom you thought? What if otherwise innocent people are harmed? How well do you know the actions, reasons, and intentions of the party for whom you’re supporting a boycott? Ah, nevermind!

As a helpful guide to all sides looking to avoid conducting business with evil, I’ve gathered the data (and sources, at the hyperlinks). I’ll use the general terms Republican and Democrat, as that is the way campaign contributions are counted in the States. The data actually shows how the employees of a given firm donate, as the companies themselves cannot do so under federal law.* And I’ll note where some the donations break equally, but what does that mean? Does it demonstrate evenhandedness, or a particularly amoral view that as long as they give roughly equivalent money to both sides, they’re safe from partisanship (but guilty of hypocrisy)?

As to the links, Business Insider covers the Fortune 500 top donating companies here. Progressives seem much taken with boycotts, so the Progressive Shopper has a site (and a Chrome extension) to guide you. They go beyond the basics of who-gives-how-much-to-whom and include such other issues as “Fox News Advertisers” and “pink-washing.” Finally, Goods Unite Us lets you have the data as an app.

Staying on the correct side of the lines is complicated. Democrats would want to fly only British Airways, Virgin Airways, or something called Evergreen International Airlines. Except that last one has longstanding ties to the CIA! Republicans are safe with United, American, and Southwest, but Delta splits down the middle. Anyway, Boeing and Lockheed Martin give almost equal money to both sides, so you’re going to need to check the make of your plane in addition to the airline, to remain unsullied.

Republicans will have to do without FaceBook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, ATT, Verizon, and Intel, so learn to program with Java, operate on Linux, and can you still get dial-up? Since they have so much time on their hands without the internet, Republicans can shop at Home Depot and Publix, use Revlon products, and eat at Chick-fil-A and Papa John’s, all off-limits to true believer Democrats.

No gassing up at Exxonmobil for Democrats, no caffeinating at Starbucks for Republicans. According to the money, Amazon is sort of ok for Democrats, but they “are a Fox News advertiser, enable the gun industry, fund anti-abortion politicians, ‘pinkwash’ LGBT+ rights, and dodge taxes” . . . but don’t even think of shopping at EBay or WalMart instead! Most major financial institutions split evenly, as does Johnson & Johnson, Best Buy, and Target. Best to check further first. Exhausting, no?

Yet that’s the easy part. How to discern the implications of the policies of a major multinational? Apple is famous for standing up to the US government to protect the privacy of its customers, but enables China’s government to spy on its own citizens. What about the difference between a corporation and its franchises? What about the individuals? Is the manager at your local REI a tree-hugger or a survivalist boogaloo boy? How would you know? If you really care (and that’s the point, isn’t it?), most states have laws requiring public records of campaign donations. So you can check these things out.

Federal records, check. State records, check.

Boycotts can be an effective, if sometimes slow-acting, tool: the treatment of South Africa under the apartheid regime is a case in point. They can be faster and more effective when done locally (per Mr. Boycott). Yet there is a difference between holding someone accountable for their direct actions and shunning them for some second or third-order relationship. Life seems so much easier when lived in a bubble of certainty: “don’t be evil” as Google proclaimed. But the truth is so much more difficult to face. So have at it, but remember: no excuse for not knowing, the data is out there, if you really care.

*Yes, it is possible for companies to create PACs and use other means to funnel money to candidates, parties, and campaigns, but that just muddies the water further.

No doubt you’ve heard of the ancient Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times.” It’s a legend, of course, and no such statement exists in Chinese; the closest aphorism is something about it being better for dogs in routine times than for humans in changing times. The saying remains popular despite its lack of provenance (it appears in 1930s England) because it rings true. All change is hard; great change is phenomenally difficult.

Seems like we do live in interesting times. Of late, we’ve had protest and riot coming on the heels of plague and economic collapse, following populism and climate change and financial disaster, which was preceded by accelerating technological advance and geopolitical change. Phew!

Some Christian sects constantly survey the news for signs of the impending End Times, and these days they have plenty of ammunition. Actually, they always have. There is a constant historical theme of how important and decisive today’s events are. What first-person histories we have contain comments by people great and small about how amazing it was to live through, well, any period of history. And from the standpoint of the individuals involved, it was all true: it was incredible (to them) to live through the era they did. Judgment Day remains scheduled for mañana.

This notion rises to its zenith in Presentism, a philosophical mistake that emphasizes things now at the expense of things past. It shows up when people treat current events as unprecedented, current fads as enduring or inevitable, and evaluate history using current standards. Presentism requires a unique combination of lack of historical knowledge and collective egotism. We’re witnessing an amazing peak of Presentism today.

I’ve seen claims we’re on the verge of a fascist takeover of the United States. Some cite secret conspiracies about vaccines, chips, or tracking apps. Several have quoted my favorite bomb-thrower, Thomas Paine, to the extent that “these are the times that try men’s souls” and call for action! Presidential abuse of power, crime, protest, anti-semitism, racial violence (especially by the police), and technological change are peaking. Except that they aren’t. Some are increasing, others stagnant or decreasing. Plus ça change . . .

Thomas Paine may be the ideal (if ironic) icon for our times. Paine was a failed English businessman who, at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, avoided debtor’s prison by emigrating to the colonies. His signature writing style was a clever mix of diatribe and well-turned phrases, making him easily the most followed writer during the American Revolution. His fellow revolutionaries (and historians since) credit his tracts, especially “Common Sense” with being the fuel that ignited the larger movement.

As it turns out, Thomas was a one-note wonder. His bombast was always stuck on “high” and he inevitably destroyed friendships with shrill accusations. He moved to Paris during the French Revolution, cheering it on as it went from Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité to guillotine, garrote, and grotesquery. He was saved from execution only by the happy coincidence of a jailor’s misplaced mark on his cell door, and the impending turn of the tide against Robespierre, the architect of his imprisonment. He remained an ardent fan of the cause.

Paine ended up safely back in the States, but turned his ire on the one icon above reproach: George Washington. Paine accused Washington of hypocrisy, treachery, and vainglory, doing no damage to Washington’s legacy but cementing Paine’s reputation as a bitter polemicist. He died separated from his former friends, practically unmourned. When an English admirer later disinterred his remains for more honorable reburial in England, the remains were lost.

Thomas Paine was a wicked good writer, and many of his ideas about freedom and equality were as stirring as they were ahead of his time. Yet he couldn’t brook disagreement, viewed compromise as surrender, and saw excess as pure zeal. If atheists named patron saints, he’d be the patron saint of Twitter, if not social media writ large. Somehow, he was right about the revolution, but wrong about so much more.