Progress and Poverty: The Life and Warning of Forgotten Crusader, Henry George

by Nomad

Outside of the academic world perhaps, few people have heard of the name of Henry George. That's a real pity since his observations about economic inequality are as timely as they are essential to our own day. 

A Pyramid On Its Apex 

So long as all the increased wealth, which modern progress brings, goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent. The reaction must come. The tower leans from its foundations, and every new story but hastens the final catastrophe. To educate men who must be condemned to poverty, is but to make them restive; to base on a state of most glaring social inequality, political institutions under which men are theoretically equal, is to stand a pyramid on its apex.

The life of Henry George reads like a novel from another age. George was born into a large, lower-middle class and devout Episcopalian family in Philadelphia in 1839 . His father was a publisher of religious texts and insisted on a religious education for his son.
By 14, George had left the religious academy and was seized with a wanderlust. In April 1855, young George at 15 went to sea as a foremast on the Hindoo, bound for Melbourne and Calcutta. 

After 14 months at sea, he returned to Philadelphia and began working as a printer. Ever restless, George traveled to California where he married and started a family. Despite marital and familial happiness, times were not easy and according to his own admission, there were times his family was close to starvation. 

He tried unsuccessfully to become a gold miner in British Columbia before finding work as a newspaper printer, journalist and eventually editor and newspaper owner. 

Politically, George initially leaned toward the Republican party of Lincoln but later, after viewing how corporations and industrialists were corrupting the party, switched to the Democratic party. He was a staunch opponent of the railroads which as he saw it were benefited only those fortunate enough to have a financial interest. Everybody else, he said, was being thrown into poverty. Such a stand proved to be his undoing when he attempted to run for politics in the California State Assembly. Executives from the powerful Central Pacific Railroad apparently went to some lengths to ensure George's electoral defeat. 

Incidentally it was from a minor- seemingly unimportant railroad case in California from around that time - along with a few precedents built upon that original case- which provided the Supreme Court a basis for its outlandish Citizen United decision. The Court somehow decided that corporations possess rights equality to citizens, that is, as the Republican candidate in the last election famously said, corporations are people.

America's Stunning Hypocrisy on Indian Marital Rape Laws

 by Nomad

After a judge in India decided that rape laws could not be applied to married couples, it was easy in the West to sneer at the utter backward-ness of the world's largest democracy. Clearly women are still treated as second class citizens.. there.
Yet how much difference is there between Indian laws and laws in the US regarding spousal rape? The answers might surprise you.

In India, issues related to rape have in the last few years been, for the first time a matter of public discussion. In a sign- perhaps- of a flourishing democracy, ideas on this subject are evolving at a rapid pace. Yet, in some respects, public attitudes might seem hopeless trapped in the past.

For example, the question of recognizing rape within the bounds of marriage, marital rape or spousal rape, is still a thorny one in India. The syndicated news story below provides us with an example.

Marital rape is officially legal in India

A judge in India has officially confirmed that rape laws do not apply to married couples — once you’re legally wed, forced sex is no longer a crime.

What’s especially chilling is that the judge, Virender Bhat, was hearing a case in which a woman alleged she had been drugged, then forced to marry, and then raped — in other words, she hadn’t consented to the marriage or the sex. Bhat said there was no evidence that the accuser had been drugged, but he also said that if the woman’s husband (identified only as Vikash) had forced himself on her, that wouldn’t qualify as rape under Indian law....

This isn’t the first time marital rape has been an issue in India. Recently, after a student was raped and murdered in Delhi, a committee headed by former Indian Supreme Court chief justice J.S. Verma made a number of recommendations for improving India’s rape laws, including doing away with the marital rape exemption. According to the Verma Committee’s report:

Under the Indian Penal Code sexual intercourse without consent is prohibited. However, an exception to the offence of rape exists in relation to un-consented sexual intercourse by a husband upon a wife. The Committee recommended that the exception to marital rape should be removed. Marriage should not be considered as an irrevocable consent to sexual acts.

The country strengthened its sexual assault laws based on the committee’s recommendations, but the marital rape law remained unchanged — and this new ruling just reconfirms it.

This story- replete with the colorful images of India- made a few waves on the vast Internet sea.  But it was really only half of the story.

Before we get on a high horse and "tsk, tsk" at that backward India, it is important to add a little perspective. India is not any more backward in this respect than the 38 other countries where marital rape is not recognized as a crime. This includes nations like Nigeria, Kuwait, Singapore, Uganda, Mongolia, Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. From Afghanistan to Zambia, the laws, in effect, do not allow wives to refuse their husbands' demands for sex.

Here's something else you might find surprising.

Paul Ryan, Bill Bennett and the Exclusive Country Club Mentality

by Nomad

This quote by Herman Melville was the impetus for this post about two well-known conservatives, Paul Ryan and Bill Bennett.   Whenever you hear two elitist white guys pontificating about what's wrong with the "inner-city" culture, it's hard not catch the faint scent of racism. 

Paul Ryan and the Dog-Whistle

On March 12 of this year, Republican Paul Ryan was on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show to share his brand of wisdom about poverty in the US. He was quoted as saying:

"We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning to value the culture of work, so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with."

The whole conversation was absurd on so many levels even Melville could not have held back a chuckle. Of course, the thought that unemployment is a just moral/culture failure no doubt provides a welcome sense of superiority to some of the more privileged among us.

A Stand against Evil Corporations or just Progressive Hypocrisy?

by Nomad

I saw this photo online the other day. It is pointing out, I suppose, the inherent hypocrisy of the Left and progressive when they condemn corporations. 

(If you read my blog at all, you'd know that this is not a view of mine.) 

Still, there may be some validity to the argument. I have my own counter-arguments to the idea this image is promoting. I will refrain from sharing my opinions... with great difficulty.

It's more important to me to hear what you think. Do you agree or disagree with the position? Why? 

How would you counter this argument?

Musical Sanity Break: Van Morrison- And It Stoned Me

by Nomad

The magical power of water is the theme in this Van Morrison song. From the downpour that nearly spoils the day, to dive into the fishing hole, to the quenching of your thirst.
"Oh, the water. Get it myself from the mountain stream."