California must reject "Nazi-thought" inour Union government and consider anon-violent civil war for states' rights

"This is the United States of America. It isn't Nazi Germany, and there's a difference. And we don't take children from their parents, until now and I think it's such a sad day. "
                                                                              - U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.)

This I awakened to read an explanation by the Attorney General of our "more perfect Union" as to why his policy of concentrating "unacceptable" children in camps was different from that of Nazi Germany. You can click on the image below to learn more:

Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday played footage of former CIA director Michael Hayden and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) comparing the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant families with the practices of Nazi Germany. “Well, it's a real exaggeration, because in Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country,” Sessions replied adding "Fundamentally, we are enforcing the law. Hopefully people will get the message and not break across the border unlawfully."

The U.S. Attorney General just explained actions taken as "ok" according to the law because he wasn't working for the German government in 1938 trying to solve the Jewish problem, he is working for the U.S. government in 2018 trying solve the brown people problem. That's an explanation he could use for building concentration camps with gas chambers and ovens.

After all, he is just following orders.

Unfortunately, earlier that day Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said at a meeting of the National Sheriffs’ Association in New Orleans: "“This department will no longer stand by and watch you attack law enforcement for enforcing the laws passed by Congress. We will not apologize for the job we do, or the job law enforcement does, or the job the American people expect us to do.”

This is what is known as the "Nuremberg defense" where in Nazi Germany genocide was the law and people were given orders pursuant to duly passed law. And much like in Nazi Germany, there is no immediate threat to the health and safety of the American public that would justify that defense.

Enough is enough. It is time for a non-violent civil war to reestablish states' rights. We can't protect people in Alabama, but we can protect them in California.

Back in 2005, I created a website Three Californias dedicated to dividing California into three states. It soon was used as a reference by others on the web because there is a surprising dearth of focused information on my state. And this November California voters will have the opportunity to vote on a ballot measure to create three California's.

A discussion of what today is known as a #Calexit was included. I knew then that obtaining Congressional approval to allow California to become a separate nation-state was likely to be laughingly referred to as "tilting at windmills" task.

Even seeking approval to create three states out of California would be an uphill battle at best. And it would only slightly improve for Californians a grossly unfair situation that the inherently undemocratic U.S. Constitution gives each voter in Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota three votes for President for every vote cast by a California voter. The cost would be a serious disruption in the economy.

In 2005 it was clear to this writer an effort to reorient those living in the other 49 states had to be made. What happened in the 2015-16 Presidential election cycle, seemed to add urgency to that goal. And on June 17 in my other blog I was still trying, with a very long post An American 21st Century Kaleidoscope versus a Civil War? Saving the Union is a struggle against pots, bowls, and mosaics, between individuality, identity, and assimilation, amid unprecedented wealth disparity.

But with this new "discussion" it is clear. Americans east of the Sierra Nevada range have a worldview, even the establishment class, one which could not be changed without a revolt.

Yes, in April of last year in the post here The Chilling Blurt-Blats of Trumpists: Jeff Sessions' Hawaii Incident reminds  us to heed Sun Tzu's The Art of War I expressed a strong concern about the Attorney General of our "more perfect Union" known as these United States:

    But as a fellow American whose frame of reference is Californian, I must consider Jeff Sessions' frame of reference in the context of his childhood and adolescence from the facts....
    It isn't just that Sessions was born and raised in, and lived most of his life in, Alabama, a geographic region historically different from California, though that might give a hint. It isn't just that since the early 1700's no male in his paternal lineage ever called home a place outside the southernmost part These United States.
    Rather it's all that plus the fact that his great-grandfather died at the Battle of Antietam fighting for the South in the Civil War, and that his grandfather, his father, and he are all named "Jefferson Beauregard" Sessions...

• as in Jefferson Davis was selected as President of the Confederacy at the constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama.
• as in Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard.

    Now I know those names were commonly used among white families in the South after the Civil War. And I know that Jeff Sessions didn't name himself. But most other people likely will not share a perspective, a way of looking at things, with Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III - including most any American whose lineage includes no one from the Slave States

But Sessions is just an obvious symbol of a system gone bad.

By 2005 I had concerns about the Bush Administration versus California. But at no time did Bush, in order to win an election, attack trade, migration, or California's history, culture, and largest ethnic group. In fact Bush in speeches after 9/11 took great pains to protect Muslim-Americans from discrimination.

The 2016 election discourse set off loud alarms and the second minority-vote-elected President in the 21st Century was disconcerting.

In popular culture we have made caricatures of Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini. That is foolish. Hitler, for example, was a struggling veteran of WWI who decided to become a politician, ultimately running for national leadership. In free and open elections at his peak he won 43.91% of the vote in March 1933. By most estimates he had a 40% core popular support and, by 1938 when the economy was going well, only had about a 20% fearful residual opposition. Using today's polling methods, the other 40% were "independents" meaning they had no idea what was going on.

This old Native Californian thinks it is time to recognize just how different California is from Ohio and North Carolina and why California needs to insist on a traditional view of citizenship based on the Constitution and states' rights. California needs to build a mythology around individuality and achievement.

Let's begin with a statement of historical facts. Migrants created the California we know today while white illegal aliens from the United States made California a part of the Union. What 96%+ of Americans don't recognize is the United States government run by the ancestors/predecessors of the current Deplorables and the establishment who...

• from 1880-1943 prevented the families of one group of Californians - the U.S. citizen children of Chinese immigrants - from bringing their family members into California, targeting only this ethnic group of Asians, 
• from 1930-1946 in the Mexican "Repatriation" rounded up and deported one group of Californians - American citizens of Hispanic heritage
• from 1942-1945 rounded up another group of Californians - American citizens of Japanese heritage - and put them into concentration camps, and
• in began 1954 Operation Wetback which resulted in 1,078,168 arrests and deportations by the U.S. Border Patrol resulting in several hundred United States citizens being illegally deported without being given a chance to prove their citizenship.

Sorry America, but we Californians cannot permit a repeat of this kind of bigotry, discrimination, and violence against our people. Since the election, as well as during the campaign, we observed that focused violence and bullying is growing in the U.S. as a result of Donald Trump.

These are signs that what few elements of a democratic society exist in the United States are endangered, a fact which has been confirmed repeatedly.

As noted in How Stable Are Democracies? ‘Warning Signs Are Flashing Red’: "Americans who say that army rule would be a 'good' or 'very good' thing had risen to 1 in 6 in 2014, compared with 1 in 16 in 1995" and offers this disturbing chart:

Which brings me to Hillary Clinton who said (emphasis added):

"I think we know what we're up against. We do, don't we? Donald Trump has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn marriage equality, and if you have read about the ones he says he's likely to support, he's not kidding. In fact, if you look at his running mate, his running mate signed a law that would have allowed businesses to discriminate against LGBT Americans. And there's so much more that I find deplorable in his campaign: the way that he cozies up to white supremacists, makes racist attacks, calls women pigs, mocks people with disabilities -- you can't make this up. He wants to round up and deport 16 million people, calls our military a disaster. And every day he says something else which I find so personally offensive, but also dangerous....

"...You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

Perhaps verbalizing that observation was a foolish mistake for a Presidential candidate. But now because over 50% of Americans under age 50 apparently cannot bring themselves to say that it is essential to live in a democratic country and 1-in-6 Americans think they would be better off under a military dictatorship, I have to go where many Americans don't like to go in their political debate.

Clinton is a policy wonk who understands what the difference was in Germany from 1934-1939 between (a) those who were were in political power, (b) those who were members of unacceptable minorities, and (c) those who were neither. Most of those who were neither, which was most of the populous, saw a slight improvement in their economic status and were quietly accepting-to-supportive. Those who were in power flourished. Those who were members of the unacceptable minorities were sent to concentration camps where most were murdered by the state.

And Clinton knows that the ancestors/predecessors of the current Deplorables of her parents generation offered up the same attitudes as their Deplorable descendants towards refugees as demonstrated in this survey done just before WWII:

As the Fortune article Here's Fortune's Survey on How Americans Viewed Jewish Refugees in 1938 says about this result so similar to today's attitudes regarding the Syrian refugees: "So much, then, for the hospitality of our melting pot."

Oh, we're not that bad now - we wouldn't let them get slaughtered, you might say. Here are the Gallup poll historical results that show the numbers haven't changed much:

By political party we see just how the results skew with Democrats favoring allowing refugees while 84% of the Deplorables prefer to allow the children of Syria to be slaughtered just like their grandparents did the German children in 1938:

California in the 21st Century is, of course, the Bluest of the Blue states. In the era of Trump bigotry, Democrats gained a super-majority in both houses of the Legislature, it has seven partisan state executives offices all filled by Democrats, two Democratic U.S. Senators, and 39 of 53 (almost 75%) of its House members are Democrats.

And, of course, California Leads The Nation In Resettlement Of Syrian Refugees.

We cannot participate in a nation that is dominated by a political party which has 84% of its members advocating allowing innocent children, women and men to die in a war for which that party's previous President is responsible for inciting.

We cannot accept Trump, supported by the Deplorables, ordering a defacto reinstatement the 1929-1936 Mexican Repatriation carried out by American authorities which forcibly sent 1.2 million U.S. citizens into Mexico, most of whom didn't even speak Spanish but just had "the physical distinctiveness of mestizos."

And, as a Pacific Rim economy, we cannot risk Trump destroying the value of our trade and migration reality.

Trade, migration, and the economy are not the only issues Californians need to evaluate. California's social and cultural policy orientation was broadly attacked with Trump supporters threatening violence.

Though we Californian's have struggled at times with social and cultural policy issues, the fact is since the Gold Rush California has been a leader in creating equal opportunities and a safe community for any migrant from any place - Ohio, China, Chile, Samoa, India, Oklahoma, Japan, Honduras. We have generally tried to provide a fair approach to what we know as civil rights issues.

Today, whether the civil rights issue is abortion, same sex marriage, legalization of marijuana, gun safety regulation, workers' rights, climate change, expression of religion, minimum wage, higher education, use of technology, etc., Californians seek fair answers and work to implement fair solutions. Settling for the status quo has never been a comfort zone in California.

Consider the abortion issue. On June 14, 1967, then California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the groundbreaking Therapeutic Abortion Act. If a "Trump Supreme Court" simply nullifies Roe v Wade, as the Washington Post article What abortion could look like in America under Donald Trump notes only a few states have Pro-Choice laws following California's example while many more have Pro-Life laws:

It is time to protect all those living in California. We need to push hard to wrench back as much of California's sovereignty as we can.

Or we could just sit back and continue to watch an old, white Alabaman determine what civil rights people have and a rich, super-religious, anti-gay-marriage white Michigan suburbanite privatize our school systems.

And we could allow government officials to abuse children because it is the law. Though it really isn't.

Why factually these United States is a more perfect Union, not a country, nation, or state

One cannot understand the range of emotions experienced - and related opinions held - by Americans, without having an awareness of the world of the men we call the Founding Fathers of the United States. Particularly, we need to understand the language they spoke, the meaning of the words they used. Late 18th Century Colonial English might seem to resemble the language of 21st Century America, but it is not the same language. 

Political disinformation in the United States for 230 years has created confusion about certain words important to an understanding about what was new and different in the world after the Revolutionary War.

Key to the confusion is the American jumbling together of words that once had truly different definitions and implications - country, nation, state, and union.

For purposes of clarity and simplicity, as used here from this point on the following words have specific meanings based upon pre-17th Century concepts:

• "Country" means "any considerable territory demarcated by topographical conditions."
• "Nation" means "any distinctive population with a common language, culture, and considerable history."
• "State" means "a central civil government or authority that exercises the legitimate use of force within defined geographical boundaries."
• "Union" means "a number of states or nations joined together for defined purposes to be accomplished by a separately created autonomous authority."

Using those definitions, the Cherokee Nation is a nation. Italy is a country and a state. Japan is a country, a state, and a nation. The United States of America is none of these. It is a union of states.

 

It's not a country - here's why

Again, "country" as will be used here means "any considerable territory demarcated by topographical conditions."

As explained in Wikipedia:

    In English the word has increasingly become associated with political divisions, so that one sense, associated with the indefinite article – "a country" – through misuse and subsequent conflation is now a synonym for state, or a former sovereign state, in the sense of sovereign territory or "district, native land"....
    The equivalent terms in French and other Romance languages (pays and variants) have not carried the process of being identified with political sovereign states as far as the English "country".... In many European countries the words are used for sub-divisions of the national territory, as in the German Bundesländer, as well as a less formal term for a sovereign state. France has very many "pays" that are officially recognised at some level, and are either natural regions, like the Pays de Bray, or reflect old political or economic entities, like the Pays de la Loire.
    A version of "country" can be found in the modern French language as contrée, based on the word cuntrée in Old French, that is used similarly to the word "pays" to define non-state regions, but can also be used to describe a political state in some particular cases. The modern Italian contrada is a word with its meaning varying locally, but usually meaning a ward or similar small division of a town, or a village or hamlet in the countryside.

For purposes of sharing an understanding of the political world as understood by our Founding Fathers, here is a map of Europe at the time of the creation of the United States of America:



Fundamentally, Europe was divided into constantly warring empires with shifting boundaries. While topographical conditions may have slowed some conquests, our concept of "country" did not set boundaries for kingdoms and empires which are "states" by our definitions. And that was an attitude that Europeans brought to the Americas and which has resulted in a blurring of the terms "country" and "state."

As can be seen on the map below, North America is a large geographic area with significant topographical conditions:

Click on image to see a larger version!

If a people whose only mode of transportation on land is walking "discover" such a geographic area and through walking logically divide it into more than one division without intent, it is reasonable to assume that the dominate shape for divisions would most likely be in a north-to-south direction,  more or less. And indeed, the result of an actual natural migration produced this map:

Further some predominantly English-speaking Europeans came along and, initially struggling just to survive, began to occupy a land bounded by topography:

But these folks were Europeans used to warring empires with shifting boundaries not constrained by topography. So over the next 150 years in defiance of the idea of a topographically-defined "country" they and their descendants drew some lines dividing that continental topography in illogical ways...

... and, more irrationally, even further like this:

To summarize, the United States is not a "country" defined by obvious topographical extremes. Even the oceans did not stop it from including Hawaii as one of the internal "state" governments even though it is 2,500 miles from the American Continent. In fact, the Rocky Mountains were known as the Continental Divide but even that didn't suggest creating separate "countries" based on topography. The United States is not a country as we define it.

 

It's not a nation - here's why

As it will be used here "nation" means "any distinctive population with a common language, culture, and considerable history." And it is this map that indicates a division of the North  American Continent by "nations" of indigenous peoples...

As already discussed, the American "melting pot" did not include those indigenous North American nations, African slaves and their descendants, and the indigenous Spanish speaking residents of lands purchased or conquered by the United States. Not only that, the United States encouraged immigration from around the world, such as from China to build the Transcontinental Railroad, resulting in these maps today...

...which makes it very clear that the United States is not a "nation" by our definition as "any distinctive population with a common language, culture, and considerable history."

As a reminder, as explored in another post Saving the Union is a struggle against pots, bowls, and mosaics, between individuality, identity, and assimilation, amid unprecedented wealth disparity the historical fact that the term "melting pot" was a concept to encourage immigrant "English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes" who back home in Europe constantly fought wars with each other to form an English-speaking culture. Had anyone before 1920 suggested adding other races, they would have been met with incredulous laughter.

So it is a perfectly logical outcome of this history that emotionally for many within the United States "nationalism" means only white English-speaking nationalism. But that doesn't reflect the population born and living here.

Again the United States is not a "nation."
 

It is not a state but rather a union - here's why

As it will be used here "state" means "a central civil government or authority that exercises the legitimate use of force within defined geographical boundaries." Given the definitions accepted here, most would want to say the United States is a "state."

Except, of course, within the defined geographical boundary that is the United States pursuant to Constitutional law there are 50+ "state" governments which independently exercise the legitimate use of force within defined internal geographical boundaries. There is nothing confusing about the wording of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:

    The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So the United States is not even a "state" in the our use of the word (for this discussion entering into the arguments over the so-called "implied powers" is not relevant). Rather, it is a "union" which means "a number of states or nations joined together for defined purposes to be accomplished by a separately created autonomous authority." The following is the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States (emphasis added):

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

And here is where the confusion exists. In that document, the Constitution of the United States, a "Union" was formed. That "Union" meant "a number of states or nations joined together for defined purposes to be accomplished by a separately created autonomous authority."

The existing real states jointly assigned the Union the limited authority to use a very few of their powers and functions while retaining the vast balance of powers of a state to themselves.

Americans seem to be confused about that. Perhaps that is because political history is not something we think is as important as, say, how to use technology to see cat videos to make us laugh. But sometimes we need to consider the concept of a "union" in the context of the American Revolution and Constitution which happened in the last quarter of the 17th Century. It literally was all the latest in government.

"Founding Father" Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 which meant that even our oldest Founding Father had a clear understanding of the then new, cool British concept of a "union." That is because over the first two years of Franklin's life the concept of a political "union" was formalized during the process of creating Great Britain which most Americans probably think was created by the Romans at the time Jesus was alive.

Wikipedia provides a brief insight into what we frequently shorten to Britain:

    The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, Great Britain itself entered into a political union with the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
    Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland. The legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. The continued existence of legal, educational, religious and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England.
    In 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy....

In a different Wikipedia entry we can also learn:

    The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain".
    The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707. On this date, the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament united to form the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster in London, the home of the English Parliament. Hence, the Acts are referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. On the Union, the historian Simon Schama said "What began as a hostile merger, would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world ... it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history."

It might surprise many that within the Constitution of the United States the term "country" never appears. The term "nation" appears only in reference to "Commerce with foreign Nations" and to "punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations." The term "state" does appear, but always in reference to the proposed union of 13 states - you know, the real states per our definition which was the definition understood by Benjamin Franklin and the other Founding Fathers.

On the other hand, besides in the preamble quoted above, the term "union" is used as follows:

• New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union...
  The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...
• He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union...
• Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers...
• To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union...

In the lifetime of the "Founding Fathers" prior to the Revolutionary War, Great Britain was clearly understood to be newly created as a "union" which was a revolutionary acknowledgement of a political idea. Because of the words used in the Constitution, it would be fair to say that the United States was created as a "union" of somewhat diverse states, where "state" clearly referenced 13 central civil governments that exercised the legitimate use of force within 13 defined geographical boundaries. This shouldn't come as a surprise, as for the Founding Fathers a "union" was a new and improved concept of political organization.

And is it surprising that the winning army in the Civil War was the Union Army? Was not the Union Army a land force that fought to keep and preserve the Union of the collective states? Did you never wonder why they called it the "Union" army?

In fact throughout the 19th Century, the Union was known as "these United States" which is a plural designation meaning more than one state. Titus Munson Coan who in his 1875 article "A New Country" in which he coined the term "Melting Pot" uses "these United States are" a decade after the end of the Civil War while trying to argue that it is a country, though what became the American Melting Pot "transforms the English, the German, the Irish emigrant into an American" creating a "great nation of Christendom."

Coan's piece was written after the 1849 approval of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican-American War, which permits Spanish-speaking brown folks to remain in the United States entitling them "to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution; and in the mean time, shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without; restriction." Coan's piece was written after the Civil War when the slaves were freed and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted which begins: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." But Coan had no confusion about who is in the American "nation" which is similar to most today's Americans of European descent living in the Red States indicated above.

But still, Coan wrote "these United States."

Linguist Mark Liberman in When did the Supreme Court make us an 'is'? noted that, contrary to one of his previous posts indicating the change to "the United States is" may have been made after the Civil War, he learned that Minor Myers of the Brooklyn Law School prepared a study Supreme Court Usage and the Making of an 'Is' which examined the use of the phrases “United States is” and “United States are” in opinions of the United States Supreme Court from 1790 to 1919 and determined that the plural usage was the predominant usage in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s and did not disappear until the 1920's.

As one comment speculated it is likely the plural persisted "at least through Reconstruction, and I'm afraid it hasn't entirely disappeared in some quarters."

No it it hasn't disappeared, and sometimes the use of the plural in the 21st Century creates a political buzz. For example, on Thursday, April 25, 2013, speaking at the dedication of the George W. Bush Library,  then President Barack Obama asked God to bless "these United States."

Don't dismiss this as if it were Bush fumbling a speech. Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years. In his 2013 inaugural address he closed with "Thank you, God Bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America." Obama understands that those who drafted the Constitution never intended that the Union be other than "these states." When he says "these" states Constitutional Law professor Obama knows full well that it is "these" states that make up a Union.

Again, the singular usage "the United States is" did not become the "common" form until after World War I when it became obvious that the Union functioned as an "is" in a complex international scene where people could kill each other in the millions based on their "is-ness."

We need to understand "these United States" is a union created solely for purposes of a common military defense and assuring economic success of the numerous and separate states, not regulate mundane issues such as who can have sex with whom. That's one reason why in 1792 Americans insisted on leaving establishing government churches to the real states.

Democrats, about that tax reform bill The unseen Republican political strategy as Ryan says minds are going to change

Here's everything you need to know about the Republican tax bill (aka the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017), the most significant tax reform in 30 years.

In early 2018 the federal withholding tables will be scaled downward (see IRS notice). By March 2018 almost all middle class folks who draw a paycheck will see an increase in their take home pay resulting from that reduction in federal tax withholding. Let me repeat this for the Democrats and cocktail party liberals out there. By March 2018 almost all middle class folks who draw a paycheck will see an increase in their take home pay.

DEMOCRATS, QUIT TALKING ABOUT THAT TAX REFORM BILL!

Democrats are, and apparently will continue to be, telling those folks their extra take home pay will be reduced to nothing by 2027, or in some cases 2023, or 2025 or.... Well, it's complicated and it will be different strokes for different middle class folks.

And they'll be telling those folks, the majority of whom are personally in a-bit-to-deep debt, that the federal government's debt is going to rise, by some number which no one knows.

And maybe those liberals will publish for each other to read some long working papers and brilliant magazine articles on the inequities of the tax bill.

In any event, the "pointed-headed intellectuals" will be telling each other how bad the tax bill is/was.

And they'll share that discussion with the middle class workers who will be puzzling how what they are being told relates to their reality - extra bucks in the paycheck. (Yeah, ok, their electronic payroll deposit.)

If asked about the possible disappearance of that extra take home pay, the Republicans will explain that if the Democrats in 2017 had just joined them in cutting taxes they could make the middle class tax cuts permanent - all it would require is a one time rule change. And they will explain that the voters could replace the Democrats with Republicans and that will get the job done.

And the middle class folks who might just vote for Democrats in 2018 because of morality issues will be asking those very same Democrats in 2020 if they're going make permanent the Republican tax cuts for the working folks. Because they know that almost every year income tax rule adjustments are approved and that sometimes, such as in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 when a bunch of extra tax rebates were sent out, the deficit issue is ignored by Democrats.

After all, the tax cuts for the rich and corporations (who donate to the Democrats as well as the Republicans) are permanent. Why would the Democrats in 2020 oppose that for the working folks?

So to summarize, all you need to know is that in 2018 most folks will take home more income because of the Republican tax cuts. By 2020 they will understand that it was the Democrats who made their tax cuts temporary - Donald Trump will tell them it is true. And it might be the simple truth.

(Note, the 2017 tax return most people will file in April 2018 - as well as January 2018 payments for those who pay taxes quarterly - will continue to follow the 2017 current tax code.)

Some will argue that it's not going to be that simple as various deductions change in the bill. Right? The LA Times offers this information for some real Californians:

The first thing you notice that the only loser in the the new tax bill lottery was the couple that owns a house. As explained by the Times:

    Maya Bader, 39, and her husband Matthew Pratt, 41, bought a new house last year. Between mortgage interest, property taxes and California income taxes, they took more than $58,000 in deductions....
    The plan allows taxpayers to deduct up to $10,000 in combined property and state income taxes....
    But Bader and Pratt, like many Californians who own homes and have good incomes, will still lose. They deducted more than $26,000 in state income and property taxes last year....
    They’ll also lose out on a deduction for interest paid on a home equity loan....
    Richer child tax credits will shave $4,000 off their tax bill.

With this explanation we can see the reality of who loses. Let's begin with income:

To begin with, to be a loser among these four examples, your household income must be in the top 14%. And to be a loser you apparently have to be unaware of the 2008 housing market bubble crash and go deeply into debt to buy a very expensive house.

The couple that rents itemized less deductions and, because the tax plan almost doubles the standard deduction and puts them in a lower tax rate, they will do better seeing their net income rise about $500 per month (compared to the $125 decrease on the homeowner couple). But that means that their federal tax will drop from almost $41,000 per year to almost $35,000 per year.

What is obvious to many Californians is that the federal government tax policy will stop subsidizing unjustified housing price inflation harming lower income folks in California urban areas.

Both higher earning couples in the Times story itemized. In the first part of 2019, as tax filing season gets underway, those taxpayers will be figuring out on their tax returns whether to take the standard deduction or to itemize. The losers will continue to itemize, but the couple with the highest income will probably stop itemizing.

Based on past statistics indicated in the chart below, just consider how few voters will be interested in all the BS in the press about various deductions. But then the press has to fill either space (print media) or time (video news):

Again, the new plan nearly doubles the standard deduction and alters the available itemized deductions (though it does away with the exemption system). So that percentage of taxpayers who itemize likely will go down making tax filing simpler for more people.

And for the Millennials who likely will have to live with much of this tax bill for 30 years, it may be a winner for those working and/or trying to get an education or training as explained by CNN Money.

Regarding all the other stuff in the tax bill, the average American knows that most of the rich and some corporations will do better. As they always do, along with their accountants and tax attorneys.

Really old people with memories know that it was a Democratic Congress that passed the Revenue Act of 1964 when the top tax rate on the relatively few rich folks that liberals carry on about was dropped by 20%, and that the Democrats controlled the House in 1982 when it was dropped by another 20%  and that the Democrats controlled both the House and Senate in 1988 when it was dropped by another 22%. Thus despite the warnings of Republican Dwight Eisenhower, the Democrats dropped the top marginal individual income tax rate from 91% in 1960 to 28% in 1988.

Since then it has gone back up -1991 to 31% and 1993 to 39.6% -  so now this big tax cut drops it all the way down to 37% from 39.6%.

What exactly again is the problem with this again, Democrats?

If anyone thinks the general public will understand and remember the intricacies of this tax bill in 2020, they are deluded. Let me offer a recent article on the bill from one of my sources of information on matters related to municipal issues which discusses complex special provisions in the Bill almost nobody in the general public knows about like "the brand new Base Erosion Anti-abuse Tax" (BEAT), the fact that "engineers and architects won a special exemption in the tax bill", and other matters.

Finally, while some corporations are big winners, some policy surprises lurk in this bill, maybe even for Donald Trump supporters, maybe even for Donald Trump who is never going read it. Consider this article The GOP tax bill is a massive victory for globalization. The possibilities when considered over the long term could mean economic opportunities for struggling California corporations such as Apple and those opportunities could accrue to California with the right incentives.

This is why we see the headline Speaker Paul Ryan: 'Minds are going to change' on Republican tax bill.

Of course, we all know that for any number of reasons before November 2020 the world's economy could be hit by a recession/depression or the U.S. could be hit with runaway inflation or...not. But one of the lesser-known aspect of the plan could create major economic growth: the provision that lets companies fully deduct their investments in plant and equipment in one year. When accelerated depreciation was introduced in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, according to Tax Foundation modeling the long term impact was an increase in the GDP by 2.69%.

The thing is, that tax bill is a winner for the Republicans and particularly the Koch Neoliberals who already dominate politics in America.

And the bill is a winner because it represents a dozen compromises, where Republicans have had to compromise with each other which resulted in such things as tuition waivers continued, employer tuition assistance remains non-taxable, some state and local taxes remain deductible, etc. No Democrats were involved in the compromises.

Right now the Koch Neoliberals are cheering the current liberal media/politicians sexual morality campaign because they understand that the very-repugnant-to-them Roy Moore received the following vote:

Nonetheless, in 2017 it's the Democrats who are putting at risk the most Congressional and legislative seats in the sexual morality campaign.

The Republicans understand that for American voters in 2020 it will be all about "the economy, stupid" meaning how much money the folks take home. And they will be taking home more money because of the Republicans.

That's because Republicans understand if you don't win, you have no power. For Democrats, it's about some complicated discussion among the indignant, not winning.

Foolish planning and the inevitable wildfires What could have been learned from John Steinbeck about California's true climate

The smoke obscures our vision of reality when it comes to wildfires. This week while reading California's Climate Emergency in Rolling Stone I was confronted with this statement:

In the hills above the Pacific Ocean, the world crossed a terrifying tipping point this week.
[...]
As the largest of this week's fires skipped across California's famed coastal highway 101 toward the beach, rare snowflakes were falling in Houston, all made possible by a truly extreme weather pattern that's locked the jet stream into a highly amplified state. It's difficult to find the words to adequately describe how weird this is. It's rare that the dissonance of climate change is this visceral.
[...]
For years, climate scientists have warned us that California was entering a year-round fire regime. For years, climate campaigners have been wondering what it would take to get people to wake up to the urgency of cutting fossil fuel emissions. For years, we've been tip-toeing as a civilization towards a point of no return.

That time is now.

Well, yes and no. As John Steinbeck said "...God save me from amateurs. [...] They have the authority of ignorance, something you simply cannot combat."

California has a climate history clearly described in the writings of that California native Steinbeck, most significantly in his second novel To A God Unknown published in 1933 which tells an allegorical tale of the California experience.

The protagonist, Joseph, comes to California to create his future. He discovers a place of apparent wealth and promise. And indeed he appears to be achieving all that he dreams. But over time, tragedies strike and drought undoes his life work.

The story is about the arrogance of Californians who hold the belief that their efforts as humans, individually and collectively, create orderly wealth in a place where natural wealth has always existed in its own order of things.

Steinbeck later acknowledged that To A God Unknown was the hardest for him to write, taking him more years than his better known works. Part of the problem is that he initially tried to adapt a play written by a friend but kept adding context based upon facts as he understood them. And what he understood from the generations of Californians who preceded him was the truth about the land and the water, a truth we need to face.

    About every thirty years there have come periods of rainlessness to Central and Southern California. These desolating years seem to come creeping up out of the white desert to warn the west that it will one day die as the desert has died. They are like the Reminders of Death at an Egyptian feast ....
    And now the periodic drought had settled on the land. Little by little, year on year the water was sucked from the ground. The hills looked gaunt and hungry and pale. The bones of many thousands of starved cattle were whitening on the ground. Two families of Waynes packed up their possessions and drove away. Joe watched his dying land with terror and with loathing. - From an early draft of To A God Unknown by John Steinbeck

Sadly Joe's "terror" derived from a normal California weather cycle. Twenty years ago in 1993, Scott Stine, Ph.D, of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at California State University, Hayward, completed a research study entitled "Extreme and Persistent Drought in California and Patagonia During Mediaeval Time" which was subsequently published in June 1994 in the academic journal Nature. In it he offers the evidence, now supported by others, that indeed before and after the year 1000 AD California had two droughts that lasted well over 100 years.

In May 2001 the website Sierra Nature Notes: The Online Journal of Natural History News in the Sierra Nevada published a followup article by Stine "The Great Droughts of Y1K" in which he explained what he believed to be the weather pattern associated with the 100+ years droughts:

    One may reasonably ask why these droughts occurred. The simple answer lies in the wintertime configuration of the "storm track" (a.k.a. the "jet stream" and the "polar front") over the northeastern Pacific. When the storm track persists over California for much of the winter (as it did, say, in 1982, ‘83, 86, and ‘96), many Pacific cyclones are steered over the state, and we accumulate much precipitation. When the track lies to the north of California, the fronts are steered away, and the region remains dry. This latter case prevailed during the 1976-77—the one period of our instrumental record dry enough to provide an analog to the Medieval droughts....
    Evidence is now emerging that the "dry-winter-in-California, wet-winter-in-Alaska" model holds true not only for 1976-77, but for much of upper Medieval time as well....
    ...Persistent droughts, moderate by Medieval standards but strident relative to our "normal" conditions of the past 150 years, drew lakes and rivers well below their modern levels on numerous occasions during the past two millennia, most recently during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Indeed, increasing evidence indicates that there is little that is climatically "normal" about the past century - and- a-half; it appears, in fact, to be California’s third- or fourth-wettest century-scale period of the past four or more millennia.
    Since statehood, Californians have been living in the best of climatic times. And we’ve taken advantage of these best of times by building the most colossal urban and agricultural infrastructure in the entire world, all dependent on huge amounts of water, and all based on the assumption [it] will continue as it has during the past 150 years. Yet even in these best of times we have run out of surplus water, and we fight over allocation.

So yes, Climate Change may very well be speeding up the return to an "upper Medieval time" dry weather period measured in centuries. We could, of course, have simply read Steinbeck's story which  begins as California migration stories begin and ends with an expression of regret:

   After a time of wandering, Joseph came to the long valley called Nuestra Señora, and there he recorded his homestead. Nuestra Señora, the long valley of Our Lady in central California, was green and gold and yellow and blue when Joseph came into it. The level floor was deep in wild oats and canary mustard flowers.
[...]
   Joseph leaned back against his saddle again, and suddenly he chuckled. "I will go," he said. "I will take every means. Look, Juanita. You know this place, and your ancestors knew this place. Why did none of your people come here when the drought started. This was the place to come."
   "The old ones are dead," Juanita said soberly. "The young ones may have forgotten."
   And time passed and Joseph grew grey too.... "I should have known," he whispered.... "I am the land," he said, "and I am the rain." - from To A God Unknown by John Steinbeck

Indeed, the young ones do "forget" in the sense that from generation-to-generation people start over by leaping at opportunities without studying to learn the lessons of all times before them. And so in California there was this:

When the dust came up, people were starving; they had no place to go. Naturally, they went in a direction where they would not suffer from cold: they went toward California. They came in the thousands to California. - John Steinbeck in an interview on British radio

Life's struggles brought millions of migrants from states east of the Rocky Mountains to California as recognized in the above John Steinbeck quote. It also brought millions of migrants (which the other migrants called immigrants) from other nations. And because from 1950 through 1988, the California economy was rich by all comparative historical standards, they kept coming.

Ignoring history and Steinbeck, Californians bought land and built buildings and were and are homeowners and businesses owners. Now they have to live with what always was the normal California climate. And they need to quit calling it a "drought" when history and science tell us most of the 20th Century was a very extended wet cyclonic period, an abnormal time.

What we cannot do honestly is blame it on Global Warming which at worst only accelerated an inevitable timeline.

And we are not going to "fix it" because we are the environmentally aware California.

In fact, as explained in the San Francisco Chronicle despite our environmental activism California is the source of more harm than ever and it is just possible that human population growth and related governmental planning for real estate development based on historical scientific studies going back as long as ...oh... a couple of decades is a cause:

Over the course of just a few weeks, a major fire can pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than California’s many climate change programs can save in 12 months. Scientists debate whether California’s vast forests are emitting more carbon dioxide through fires than they absorb through plant growth.