Prayer, Superstition and Malheur

Ammon Bundy (a mormon) recently cited God's command - "I was asked to do this by the lord" and "I did it how he told me to do it" - in occupying the Malheur Wildlife Reserve. 

In doing so, he Bundy outed himself as a prophet: "A divinely inspired interpreter, revealer, or teacher of the will or thought of God." Which is hardly shocking considering the non-response to George W. Bush's claim of divine marching orders behind the invasion of Iraq. 

"Prayer" in today's United States has been transformed by evangelicals into a conversation with God that deals with worldly maters. Prayer, to the evangelical, is often means of asking for something in the world to happen. Anyone in a Southern town is familiar with "prayer requests" that seek to increase the likelihood of some worldly outcome by having more individuals express their will to God that it happen. Prayer can also be a means of receiving orders on how to act on a worldly matter, such as with Bundy, Bush and many paranoid schizophrenics. 

The Koch brothers' fascist (I'm serious!) roots, the nature of fascism, professional values . . . and Citizens United

"Socialist" has become a term of abuse, a burden that any Democratic Presidential aspirant must shed. "Fascist" would seem to be the inverse of socialist. However, many would reject the application of "Fascist" to someone  on the right as shrill or at least figurative. After all, the Nazis are our picture of evil, its platonic form in modern minds. But closer inspection yields that fascism does not have at its roots exterminating entire ethnicities. That was just a means to the end of consolidating power: as Goering put it at Nuremberg, "All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." If a group of people is troubling you as a leader, claim that they're attacking or against the country, a fifth column waiting to emerge as soon as the conditions are right. 

There's nothing inherently fascist about this; what's more fascist is being willing to tolerate it and any other repugnant means of securing power. Which is where Fred Koch, the father of the Koch brothers, enters the picture. His business was built upon the funding of the most notorious totalitarians of the 20th century. As reported by the Guardian: 

John Lennon's Working Class Hero and my previous post

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear

It's only gotten worse since Lennon wrote that. There are fewer ways to make a decent living in this country. The jobs that remain wherein a decent living can be made are fiercely competitive to win. The fear rarely ends with the job; when qualified people who desperately want your job abound, you'd better not do anything to lose it. Like publicly stand up for things that might piss off your boss. Like being your own man. 

As soon as you're born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all.

I was in law. One thing that made me change career paths was realizing that many highly desired jobs in that field have blurred the line between being at work and being off. Young associates are given a firm-specific Blackberry when they come aboard. If that thing starts flashing at 12:30 am, it's time to return to work, even if they don't have to get out of bed to do so. Somewhere, in the back of the young associate's head, they are always at work.

Top Federal Income Tax Brackets over Time

In this post I'm focusing on brackets, not rates. Averaging 20 different top brackets over a century (all inflation adjusted to 2013) yields an average top bracket threshold of  $12.4 million.  Our current top bracket of $406,000 is 3.3% of this figure.

Brackets: Averaging the number of brackets for the same years, yields an average number of 17.8. Our current number of brackets is 7.

                

My opinion: there are many reasons to consider expanding the number of brackets and doing so above the current top bracket. Tax revenues could remain the same while per-capita disposable income could increase. I think that such an increase would lead to a more stable society and a healthier economy, with more money being made by Americans being spent on goods and services.

This is without even treating the demise of the "Middle Class" as a self-evident harm as is common in today's political discourse. Adjusting brackets and rates seems like the simplest way to keep the middle class afloat. 

Of course, the individuals interested in a person making $400 million paying the same amount in taxes as a person making $400,000 are those who make more than $400,000. Our current political system allows individuals to wield influence in proportion to cash on hand. This probably needs to be changed before politicians begin to discuss obvious solutions to problems that, to many in this country, are obvious.

Chart below the jump: