Posted on by Fred

In Defense of Socialism

Let’s begin with where we agree.  Regardless of your ideology, we would both like to maximize freedom for as many people as possible.  Because we are both empathetic and compassionate people, we would like to minimize suffering for as many people as possible.  So, where is the conflict? 

The debate is over the best way to do this.  Some people believe Capitalism is the best system because it ensures innovation, competition and allows everyone to participate.  It’s infinitely superior to the Feudalism it replaced.  Others recognize the value of Capitalism, but also see what has become of it.  It has its own shortcomings, too.  It’s transformed the American government, as well as those of several other democracies, into oligarchies where a few wealthy people have nearly complete control of the economy.  They have the jobs and the tools needed to do the work, and they make all the decisions without input from those who are doing the work.  Is there an alternative to this?  Shockingly enough, I think there is.  Let’s explore some other ideas.

Since we first began living in tribes for survival, we have needed a practical means of trading with one another.  You need my chickens.  I need your corn.  We can try to find some fair way of working out how many ears of corn equal a chicken, but this becomes impractical quickly.  So… we invented money.  A chicken costs between $3.00 and $30.00.  An ear of corn goes for around $1.00.  This worked well for a while.  But, soon enough, we began owning land, and that changed everything.  Suddenly, we had lords who were landowners.  The name persists today.  You pay rent to your landlord.

Feudalism was the idea that most of us would work the land for the lords in exchange for a small portion of the value our labor yielded.  Nobles owned the land, and there was little freedom for anyone who was not a Noble.  This gave maximal freedom to lords and minimal freedom to the rest of the people.

Capitalism changed that.  Merchants began to gain autonomy from the lords.  This required enormous social change, including violence.  Capitalism increased freedom for many more people.  Well done, Capitalism!

Under Capitalism, in its current incarnation, the boss has the most freedom.  The boss decides on the money you earn.  You produce something.  They sell it to someone else.  How much that is worth is determined by how disposable you are.  The more people who want your job, the less that job is worth.  If I’ll do it for less money than you will, you’re out of a job.  If someone will do it for less than I will, I’m out of the job I took from you.  It’s not a question of how well we do it, but how cheaply it can be done.  The less spent on wages, the more is reaped in profit.  Slavery did this beautifully.  It was a one-time investment; plus whatever money was required to keep the human alive and strong enough to perform the work.  The labor was free.  The existence of slavery is, however, abhorrent to nearly anyone living in the 21st Century.

Under Feudalism, you worked for the Lords.  Under Capitalism, you work for the boss.  In either case, you work for someone else, and increase their wealth, or you risk homelessness and hunger.  Anthony Tagonist used to tell me I’m being melodramatic when I talk about people starving.  It turns out, I’m not.

In 2018 six million children experience(d) food insecurity.[35] (The organization) Feeding America estimates that around one in seven children or approximately 11 million, children experience hunger and do not know where they will get their next meal or when.[36] The wide breadth between these sources’ data could possibly explain that food insecurity is not all-encompassing of hunger, and is only a solid predictor. 13.9% of households with children experience food insecurity with the number increasing for households having children under the age of six (14.3%).[36]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20USDA%2C%20in,lacked%20access%20to%20a%20vehicle.

While it’s true that few people starve to death in America, this doesn’t excuse hunger.   It’s an exceptionally unpleasant state.  And it’s completely avoidable.  We throw away enough food to end hunger.

USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates that about 30 percent of food in the United States goes uneaten at the retail and consumer level.

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/04/16/food-loss-farm-level#:~:text=USDA%E2%80%99s%20Economic%20Research%20Service%20(ERS)%20estimates%20that%20about%2030%20percent%20of%20food%20in%20the%20United%20States%20goes%20uneaten%20at%20the%20retail%20and%20consumer%20level.

We have enough to feed ourselves.  Capitalism makes it undesirable to do so because there isn’t enough profit in it.

We have enough housing for everyone.  There are many more empty homes than there are homeless people. 

The White House reports that as of 2019, over half a million Americans don’t have a home to sleep in on any given night, while almost 17 million potential homes were standing empty.  If the overall numbers of homeless citizens weren’t shocking enough, between 2017 and 2019, there was an increase of over 34,000 unsheltered homeless people nationally – even before a global pandemic and expected recession.

All this, while the number of empty properties around the country has increased by over 1.1 million since 2010, leaving over 12% of all housing units in the US vacant as of the latest figures in 2018.

https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/

We can’t provide everyone with shelter because it’s insufficiently profitable.  In America, there are few places you’re allowed even to sleep without some sort of authorization.  Sleeping in the woods, if you get caught, can get you arrested if you haven’t gotten some sort of permit. 

There is more freedom under Capitalism than under Feudalism.  It is still, however, not a shared freedom.  It does very well for those at the top, but the majority of the pyramid, at the bottom, still have to struggle just for survival.  There are more ways to ascend the pyramid under Capitalism, but these opportunities are not equally available to all people, and, even under the most favorable of circumstances, still require an element of luck. 

In my Father’s generation, one person could earn enough under Capitalism to support a family in a decent home.  That is becoming increasingly difficult all the time.  Capitalists own the jobs.  They also own the homes.  They are buying them as cheaply as possible, and then they are renting them out at higher rates than ever before, or they are waiting until they can sell them at the greatest profit.  That’s what Capitalism does.  Homes are not seen as places to live.  They are seen as commodities to be bought and sold for profit. 

“One of the reasons housing prices have gotten so out of control, is that corporate America sensed an opportunity,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) last week at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, a panel he chairs.

Brown took direct aim at private equity firms and corporate landlords in particular.

“They bought up properties, they raised rents, they cut services, they priced out family home buyers, and they forced renters out of their homes,” he said. (This happened to my roommates and me a few years ago.)

Investors have been snapping up homes in and around downtown Cleveland at a staggering rate, putting three of the city’s Zip codes among the top 15 nationally in the rate of investor purchases last year.

Sally Accorti Martin, the former longtime housing director for South Euclid, a small city east of Cleveland, testified at the hearing that a majority of the city’s roughly 1,600 rental units are now owned by companies from other states, and that tenants have suffered as a result.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/housing-market-investors/

So now, the wealthy control both the money we make and how much of it we pay simply to stay alive. 

Capitalism is superior to Feudalism, but it still doesn’t provide much freedom for many people.

Is there an alternative?

Before we go any further, it’s important that we have a definition of Socialism.  It’s a scare word that few of us understand.  With that in mind, I’m going with the definition from The Oxford Dictionary.

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

If I suggest we consider Socialism, you’re going to point to the countries that have tried it and would appear to have failed catastrophically.  Ha-Joon Chang tells us in his book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism:

It is not true that almost all rich countries have become rich through free market policies.  The truth is more or less the opposite.

All of today’s rich countries, including Britain and the U.S., have become rich through the combination of protectionism, subsidies and other policies that today they advise the developing countries not to adopt.

We’re taught that Socialism is when we give the government control of everything.  We don’t like much of what the government does.  Few of us trust the government.  Consequently, the idea of handing over everything to the government sounds dystopian. 

I agree.  I’m less than pleased with the efforts to make the American government into an authoritarian dictatorship.  If I tell you that we’re going to give the government more control, you will think of the things you hate about the government.  In my case, it’s trying to deal with any programs: Unemployment, Disability, Food Stamps, and the DMV are all horrible.  It is also the obvious and blatant corruption seen in nearly all of politics.  I promise I’m on your side with disliking much of the government.

When we think of Socialism, we think of economic catastrophes, and we decide that Capitalism is better in comparison.  The problem is that we can’t really do any sort of scientific breakdown of this.  Every country starts in a different place, and comparing one to another really doesn’t work.  Socialist experiments are usually begun in countries where Capitalism is already causing massive economic suffering.  The countries were weak when they started trying to reform them.  To expect miraculous overnight success is unreasonable. 

Salvador Allende tried a Socialist experiment in Chile in the 1970s.  What were the results?

During its first year in office, the Allende Government achieved economic growth, reductions in inflation and unemployment, a redistribution of income, and an increase in consumption[citation needed]. The government also significantly increased salaries and wages, reduced taxes, and introduced free distribution of some items of prime necessity[citation needed]. Groups which had previously been excluded from the state labor insurance scheme (mainly the self-employed and small businessmen) were included for the first time, while pensions were increased for widows, invalids, orphans, and the elderly[citation needed]. The National Milk Plan affected 50% of Chilean children in 1970, providing 3,470,000 with half a litre of milk daily, free of charge.[8][9][text–source integrity?]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Salvador_Allende#:~:text=During%20its%20first%20year%20in,and%20an%20increase%20in%20consumption.

Then why did he fail?  There are many reasons, but one of them is certainly that The United States did all it could to ensure Socialism would fail.

The U.S. administration of U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon, then embroiled in the Vietnam War and Cold War with the Soviet Union, was openly hostile to the possibility of a second socialist regime (after Cuba) in the Western Hemisphere. There was clandestine support by the U.S. government to prevent Allende from taking office after election: On 16 October 1970, a formal instruction was issued to the CIA base in Chile, saying in part, “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup.  It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October, but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date.  We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource.  It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden”.[29]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Salvador_Allende#:~:text=The%20U.S,hidden%22.%5B29%5D

It’s easy to see why The United States would like Socialism to fail.  If it is shown to work elsewhere, a case could be made that it might work here.  If we tried it in America, it would not be ideal for those with the most.  It would mean redistributing the power in this country.  If the people have a voice in the decisions to be made about how to run a company, those with the most money may well have a little less.  The people are likely to want more for themselves and less for the bosses.

The argument against Socialism is that there have been so many failures when it was tried.  This is true.  Socialism fails frequently.  On the other hand, a slightly altered version of it, called Democratic Socialism, tends to work well.  We have seen evidence of this in several countries.

Some argue that there has been no completely socialist country that has been successful, only countries that have seen success in adopting socialist policies.

Bolivia is an example of a prosperous socialist country.  Bolivia has drastically cut extreme poverty and has the highest GDP growth rate in South America.

Other countries that have adopted and enacted socialist ideas and policies to various degrees, and have seen success in improving their societies by doing so, are Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democratic-socialist-countries

Is Socialism the only way to improve things?  I doubt it.  In fact, Socialism already exists in America, and we enjoy it.  Your military, your police and fire departments, your trash collection, your paved roads, and your schools are all examples of Socialism.  The most obvious example is Social Security.  It says, among other things, that your value to the world doesn’t end when you become too old to work anymore. 

Heather Cox Richardson told us something about the beginnings of Social Security.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that.  It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services.  It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

  • Her nightly newsletter, 8/13/2022

It was the idea that rugged individualism doesn’t have to be the only way to be an American.  It realized that we do better working together to help one another than we do with the attitude that “I got mine; you get yours.”

Socialism, for me, is best described in one of my favorite quotes from Captain Picard, in Star Trek: First Contact.  “The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives.  We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.”

For me, the most important question isn’t one of ideology.  The question must always be: how can we do better?  Capitalism is better than Feudalism.  Something else, perhaps some form of Socialism, is going to improve on Capitalism.  And then, we will work to do better than that. 

That’s the way of the world
Plant your flower and you grow a pearl

–Charles Stepney / Maurice White / Verdine White

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

Unlocking Our Minds

We go through life with certain truths about which we have no doubt. 

Faith in God is, for many people, unshakeable. 

Italian, Florentine God the Father about 1430-40 Egg tempera on wood, 12.8 x 13.1 cm Presented by Charles Ricketts and Charles Haslewood Shannon through The Art Fund, 1922 NG3627 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG3627

The idea that hard work makes one virtuous is beyond question.  It is a priori true that laziness is a vice, and lazy people deserve nothing. 

We know, in the same way we know the sun will rise in the morning, that all people are either male or female.  Sex and marriage are to be between one man and one woman, and any variation from this idea is unacceptable. 

Money is essential to the operation of the world. 

Changes in these ideas are not to be tolerated.  This is the way the world, perhaps the entire universe, works, and if someone has a problem with it, they are a troublemaker who is to be shunned, ignored, dismissed, and, if need be, arrested.  Sometimes they are even killed.

It is for us to decide what help, if any, is warranted and what punishments are appropriate for those who are different.  Prisons should be places of unspeakable horrors to ensure they provide maximal deterrent to crime. 

There are two political parties in our country, and no others will be taken seriously. 

And what have all these Undeniable Truths produced for us?

At least half of Americans are struggling to make ends meet.  Some studies place it as high as 70% of us.  These are two links I found quickly on Google.  There are plenty of others that will give you similar numbers. 

https://www.adeccogroup.com/future-of-work/latest-insights/70-percent/

You’re Not Alone: 52% of Americans are Fighting to Make Ends Meet

Our economy is usually measured by how well Wall Street is doing.  The problem is that many of us own no stock at all.  It’s out of the question for most of us because we’re trying to pay rent and eat.  Investing in the Stock Market is, at best, risky.  It can be disastrous.  When the Stock Market crashed in 1929, the myth is that investors were leaping off tall buildings.  That isn’t, evidently, true.  On the other hand…

Behind 1929’s building-jumping myth, however, may be the larger truth that the onset of the Great Depression did correlate to an increase in suicides.  Based on statistics reported by Galbraith in The Great Crash 1929, the suicide rate in the United States increased from 17.0 per 100,000 people in 1929 to 21.3 in 1932 during the worst of the financial calamity.  The pattern was much the same in New York… 

People may not have been leaping off buildings by the dozens, but during the final months of 1929, American newspapers reported terrible incidents involving those who lost nearly everything in the Crash.  The day after Black Thursday, Chicago real estate investor C. Fred Stewart asphyxiated himself with gas in his kitchen.  When the market took an even further dive on Black Tuesday, John Schwitzgebel shot himself to death inside a Kansas City club.  The stock pages of the newspaper were found covering his body.

https://www.history.com/news/stock-market-crash-suicides-wall-street-1929-great-depression#:~:text=Based%20on%20statistics%20reported%20by,the%20same%20in%20New%20York.

While investing in the Stock Market can be profitable if one is both smart enough and lucky enough to make it work, most of us aren’t, and even those who are good at it can be destroyed by it. 

A better measurement of how well the economy is doing might be found in how many people are struggling.  Those statistics are above.  The economy consists of more than the wealthy.  Most of us are not wealthy.

So, our Eternal Truths haven’t done much for simply surviving.  Money is a blessing for those who have it, a curse for those who don’t, and it can turn from blessing to curse in a single day.  This, however, is the way the world must operate, isn’t it?  No other ideas are allowed.

Our faith in whatever God (or lack thereof) we have chosen is supreme.  We learn what is right and what is wrong from that faith, and there can be no doubt we are right because we’ve been taught that to doubt our beliefs is a sin.  And, without doubt, ours is the correct faith, regardless of how many others there may be.

Anthropologists estimate that at least 18,000 different gods, goddesses, and various animals or objects have been worshipped by humans since our species first appeared.  Today, it is estimated that more than 80 percent of the global population considers themselves religious or spiritual in some form.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-food/202107/why-do-humans-keep-inventing-gods-worship#:~:text=Anthropologists%20estimate%20that%20at%20least,or%20spiritual%20in%20some%20form.

It’s extraordinary that we’ve beaten the odds so completely.  There are roughly 50 people listening to this podcast.  I’m willing to bet here on The Front Porch we have at least 5 different forms of Gods.  For me, it isn’t a problem that someone has beliefs that differ from mine.  The problem comes when those beliefs cause them to hate someone else.  Jesus was pretty clear about hatred, and since his is the most prominent view among those who are not me, let’s see what he says in Luke: 27 – 36

27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

29 And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

One of The People on The Porch, who I believe considers himself a Christian said, “You don’t have to work.  If you choose not to work, I choose not to support you.”  That doesn’t seem to fit well with what the leader of that religion preaches.  To review, Luke 30 says to give to anyone who asks.  It says not to ask for anything in return. 

The retort, of course, comes from Thessalonians.  To be clear that’s not Jesus.  “Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Those are the people handing out advice in this book of the Bible.  And what do they say?

 10For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. 

The Bible can contradict itself.  Jesus says to avoid hating, and Paul and his friends are up for letting people starve. 

Take what is useful to you in your religious beliefs, and allow yourself a few other possibilities.  Let’s recognize there are any number of reasons people aren’t doing what you call work.  Or shall we continue to say, “This, however, is the way the world must operate, isn’t it?  No other ideas are allowed.”

Religious faith is often cited as the reason for intolerance.  A Facebook friend of mine posted the other day, ““I identify as” is synonymous with “I pretend to be.””  I’m told by another friend that pretending doesn’t change the facts.  In both cases, this is said with contempt for people who are trying to understand themselves in a different way.

Who comes out ahead when we limit people’s abilities to find their own identities?  Socrates and several other Ancient Greeks told you to “know thyself.”  That was at least 2,400 years ago.  It’s not a new thing.  Again, however, we’ve decided people may do that, so long as they stay within tightly defined parameters.  I’m heterosexual and quite comfortable being male.  That’s nice for me.  I know people to whom this doesn’t apply.  You probably do, too.  Why can’t they try to become whatever it is they feel they need to be?  How does it hurt me that someone I love very much was declared to be a female at birth, but sometime afterward discovered they were more comfortable being male?  Why do I care what they have in their pants unless I’m in a sexual relationship with them?  How does their quest for meaning in their lives hurt me?  Why should I feel the need to ridicule them for trying to find that meaning? 

If your answer is that God made them a particular gender, my response is that God also made them a person who was not comfortable as that gender.  God made them someone who wanted something different.  If one is true, the other is, too. 

My feeling is that the universe is unimaginably diverse.  It is filled with wonders and terrors beyond our most startling and beautiful dreams.  Humanity is the Universe’s Effort to understand itself.  To gain the most complete understanding, it must see itself from the greatest possible number of perspectives.  To my knowledge, humans are the only form of life in the universe capable of understanding at all.  There is a mathematical likelihood of there being other intelligent life in the universe, but we haven’t met them yet.  Douglas Adams would tell you that dolphins have a unique perspective that may be of some use to the Universe.  I suspect that dogs, cats, snakes, spiders, and maybe even bacteria all have their own ideas about the nature of the universe, but I can’t prove that.  I’m in favor of encouraging as many perspectives as possible.  I’m mostly in favor of allowing people to live their lives in the ways they choose so long as they’re not hurting anyone else.  I’ve only said that about a billion times over the course of this show. 

Or do we need to decide, again, that this is the way the world must operate and no other ideas are to be allowed?  That’s an incredibly limiting way of seeing things, don’t you think?

We’ve taken it upon ourselves to decide who deserves what.  I find that frighteningly arrogant.  I think everyone – and that means all human beings, whether you or I like them or not – everyone deserves to live as well as possible.  I don’t believe only some people deserve a place to sleep tonight.  I don’t believe only some people deserve to eat.  I don’t believe there are people who deserve the horrible atrocities they are forced to endure.  I’m more interested in rehabilitation than I am in punishment.  The worst people in the world became who they are because of the experiences they had.  I don’t have to like them, or what they did, to recognize it’s better for them, and it’s better for the rest of us, to help them become people who find meaningful lives in which they can live in the way they choose, without hurting anyone else. 

Let’s stop despising differences.  Let’s learn to celebrate them.  Your way of viewing the world is different from mine, and I respect that.  I would like us all to respect that others think differently than we do, and that they’re allowed to think that way.  You’re allowed to despise diversity, and I will accept that.  I only ask that you not ridicule others who are different.  I ask that you allow them to live their lives and find their own meanings, as I do for you.  Yes, we disagree.  No, I don’t want you to have less because of that.  I don’t want you to be punished in any conceivable way for that.  I will hope to get you to unlock the treasure chest of your mind to see the world just a little bit differently than you did before we started.  If I can do that, you’re in a better place, and you’re a kinder person than you were before.  That kindness benefits all the world.  How can you object to that? The universe is filled with endless variation.  My favorite Vulcan once commented on that: “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.”  The Vulcans even have a lovely emblem for that.  The idea is the basis of their philosophy. 

Infinite Diversity exists whether we like it or not.  Look at the pictures we saw a few weeks ago that show us a portion of the Universe the size of a grain of sand.  They illustrate how vast the Cosmos is.  The Diversity is mind boggling. 

Let’s embrace the fact that more than one way of life is possible.  Let’s celebrate the differences in ourselves and in each other that add so many more hues to the palette we are all using together to paint our Intergalactic Self Portrait.   

And, yes, like Billy Joel, “I love you just the way you are.”

Posted on by Fred

“One Planet, One People… Please?”

Nearly 40 years ago, when I was an adolescent running around in as much of a hormone haze as I now am surrounded by the Fog of Idealism, I was as madly in love as a boy could be with a girl whose intellect and compassion I admired nearly as much as her physical form. When you’re 16, it’s difficult to see much beyond appearance. Or, at least it was for me. Perhaps today’s adolescents are more enlightened than I was.

Among the reasons I fell in love with her was her Idealism was seductively attractive to me. She was a member of a religion of which I had never heard, called Baha’i. I had, even then, no supernatural beliefs, but I loved the idea of unity that was at the core of her religious beliefs. She had on her car a bumper sticker that has the unique status of actually affecting me. It said, “One Planet, One People… Please?” I have never forgotten the words. Now, I believe, she’s off living with her husband on a farm somewhere, and we say hello to each other occasionally on Facebook, but we don’t really have a serious friendship anymore. Her influence over my thinking, however, has only grown in the intervening decades.

She was the water and sunlight that made the seed planted a decade earlier grow and flourish. What planted the seed? It was Star Trek, of course.

I’ve been a lifelong Star Trek fan, and I often think of how The United Federation of Planets evaluates a new civilization. They consider not only its technological situation, but how that civilization treats its people. And, because they’re looking at alien planets, the societies they encounter can have any number of traditions, values, and ideas. They try to be respectful of all of them.

This is the Preamble to their Constitution:

We, the intelligent lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets, determined

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of intergalactic war which has brought untold horror and suffering to our planetary social systems, and

to reaffirm faith in the fundamental intelligent lifeform rights, in the dignity and worth of the intelligent lifeform person, to the equal rights of male and female and of planetary social systems large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and mutual respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interplanetary law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

And to these ends

to practice benevolent tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and

to unite our strength to maintain intergalactic peace and security, and

to ensure by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods that armed force shall not be used except in the common defense, and

to employ intergalactic machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all intelligent lifeforms,

Have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.

Written by Franz Joseph (Published in the Star Fleet Technical Manual)

I believe the general ideas expressed above are a good starting place for our world. They are asking for us to respect fundamental human rights (although, since they’re dealing with many other sentient species, they refer to them as lifeform rights), to make social progress, and to keep peaceful and friendly relations among the different species.

In order to be admitted to the Federation a planet must have a one-world government. And this idea frightens the hell out of people today. I don’t understand why this should be the case.

One need not forfeit individuality to recognize one’s membership in the human race. Yes, different cultures have different values and traditions. They have different religions. They have different economic structures. Their skin colors and languages are different. Some have different ideas about sex. But, they all have blood, hearts, lungs, and all the other organs all human beings share. We all need to eat, to have a place to sleep, to have medical care, and to be able to spend our minutes in the ways that we choose without harming others.

We have decided, by some sort of universal consent, that time and money are traded one for the other. We have further decided that if one cannot or does not trade time for money, or find other ways of collecting enough of it, a person has little value. Your human value is determined by your market value. And that is simply wrong.

First, let’s recognize the we are at the summit of humanity.

200,000 years ago survival was our only concern. It was all the earliest humans could do to avoid being eaten, or to find a way to eat, themselves. Shelter was whatever they could find, and medical care was, for any serious purposes, non existent. But we did survive, and we did it because we worked together. No single human could have flourished then, and it’s doubtful one could now. If one of us is doing well it’s because of the contributions made by others for the last 200 millennia.

We have always made life better by working together, but we began to segregate ourselves into different tribes of one form or another. They can be based on specialization, on shared beliefs, on gender, race, or ideology, or national origin or citizenship in a particular country. But the tribes are there. The separation is there.

I submit the separation is counter to continuing to improve our world. Instead of trying to defeat each other, we need to try to cooperate with each other to find the solutions to our shared problems, and to find ways of making life more pleasant for all of us.

Another element common to all of us is that we have limited time on Earth. We can discuss afterlife at a different time, but our time here is extraordinarily brief. Few of us will be here for an entire century. None of us will be here for two. And, to our knowledge, that’s all the time we get. Ever. Once a minute is spent, it can never be recovered.

You and I will each get, perhaps, 50 million minutes. Why should we need, in the 21st Century, to trade so many of them for dollars? Most of us won’t even get a dollar per minute. If you earn $52,000,000 in your lifetime, you’re among the very few. This world works very well for the few. It works very poorly for the many. “The needs of the many,” as Spock would remind us, “outweigh the needs of the few.”

This doesn’t mean the few should be forced to give their dollars to the many. I’m not advocating that. Instead, I would like to see the dollars of the many used to benefit the many instead of the few. We have enough to ensure that all of us have the basics of survival. We can eliminate the need for slave wages by ensuring no one ever needs to take a job that pays less than a person’s minutes are worth just so one can keep living for a few more minutes. Instead of being about survival, money becomes about flourishing financially.

What would this world look like?

Everyone has enough money for food, rent, utilities, and clothing appropriate to the environment in which they live. Any decent civilization would provide that to all of its citizens. Those that don’t are never viewed well by the Federation.

Everyone has medical care sufficient to keep one not just alive, but healthy. Dr. McCoy never asked anyone for an insurance card. Had the Captain asked him to, he probably would have said, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a bureaucrat!”

Everyone spends their minutes in ways that are meaningful to them, and that contribute in unique ways to making the society a better and stronger one.

Everyone is appreciated as the individuals they are. No one is expected to conform to the expectations of others, so long as they aren’t hurting anyone else. Each of us chooses our own path through life.

Isn’t this world impossible?

No. It’s not. Flying was once “impossible.” Going to the moon was even more “impossible.” Communicating in the way you and I are this very moment was also once “impossible.” Things are impossible only when we decide they are impossible, or they are expressly forbidden by the laws of physics.

What do we need to do to bring about such a world?

First, we have to agree that we want to. Then, we need to try.

What are the logistics?

I don’t have a clue. I’m not an economist. I’m not a politician. I’m a drop of water in the Colorado River. There are experts in such areas. I suggest they work out the details, they do the research, they gather the data, and they work it out. And, to no one’s surprise, people have been doing this for quite some time. Buckminster Fuller spent most of his 87 years (not even the full 50,000,000 minutes we hope to receive ourselves) trying to figure out how to implement plans that would benefit 100% of humanity. The ideas are there.

What are some of the ideas?

Today, we are beginning the discussions about changing our economy in a way that benefits more people. Universal Basic Income is now a fairly well known term. It wasn’t unheard of previously, but no one really had any interest in it after it failed during the Nixon administration. Today, the idea gets airtime, although not much. Is UBI enough? No, of course, it’s not, but it’s a step in the right direction. Medicare for All isn’t enough, either, but we’re moving closer to the public health care we really ought to have.

frededer.home.blog/2019/10/01/which-are-the-people-who-should-die-for-a-lack-of-little-green-pieces-of-paper/

Living wages aren’t the whole answer, either, but they are at least one more piece of the puzzle.

frededer.home.blog/2019/06/11/hard-work/

What Should We Do, Then?

The most important thing to do is to agree on our shared vision. If you see some reason to oppose the Idealistic vision I’ve discussed, I hope you’ll communicate to us what the basis or your opposition is. Why, in essence, should humans suffer unnecessarily?

Having done that, perhaps we can get a few more people to share it, and, in this way, we can begin, as little drops of water, to carve out the Grand Canyon. We can talk about the best ways of improving humanity, and we can share diverse opinions. We can find common ground, and we can move forward to become a world worthy of membership in The United Federation of Planets. I want very much to be qualified to join the Federation. Don’t you?

Wouldn’t it be lovely if Vulcan ships had been monitoring our progress for the last century, and they saw that we have moved toward slowing the spread of racism, at least insofar as we have made it socially unacceptable, illegal in hiring, and making it possible for someone who was not white to become President of the United States? They would see that we have begun to accept that people can have sexualities that differ from the norm, and those differences are no one’s business but their own. We have even accepted their right to marry just as it is given to everyone else. The Vulcans could observe that women have won the right to vote, to be in power, and to live their own lives independent of men. They would see we have begun.

Yes, we have light years to go, but we have begun the journey toward not only the stars, but to the deeper unexplored realms of what humanity can actually accomplish. Let’s keep moving down that road, together.

Posted on by Fred

Combatting Hatred

You can’t change the world; only your corner of it.”
— My father, Alan Eder, quoting my grandpa, Enno Schuelke, September 12, 2001

“We’re on track for a million illegal aliens to rush our borders. People hate the word ‘invasion’ but that’s what it is. It’s an invasion of drugs and criminals and people. You have no idea who they are.”

Donald Trump

Invaders, by definition, need to be stopped. They are almost invariably met with violence.

Look at the examples of the usage of the word.

“To enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent: Germany invaded Poland in 1939.” – Dictionary.com

If we believe the mythical “Others” are invaders, the logical response is to kill them, isn’t it?

This is the leadership we have. We are told we are being invaded. How can an American who believes this President be expected to act differently?

We can argue about gun control, but it’s a blind alley. We’re never going to make meaningful changes in those laws. If we didn’t do it after children… CHILDREN!… died at Sandy Hook, we certainly won’t because of a few “others.”

But, why do we have to accept the idea that those whose skin is darker, whose national origins are different, or whose sexuality, or gender identification, or religious beliefs are other than the majority are somehow bad? I’m sick to death of the argument that Mexicans are welcome if they come in legally. That’s bullshit, and the person making the argument knows it. It takes years to become a citizen, if you can do it at all. The first step is to determine eligibility for naturalization. That step alone can take 3 to 5 years. There are 9 additional steps.

The information is here:

https://www.path2usa.com/us-naturalization-eligibility

What they really have in mind is keeping America filled with people who are like them. We want only white people. If that’s not true, why are we building a wall at the Southern border, but not the Northern? We don’t seem to mind Canadians coming in.

My plea is really to give up our hatred. The most important question is who is better off for this?

I am better than some people. I am not as good as others. This is determined by my abilities and my behaviors. It has nothing to do with my race, gender, sexuality, religious or political views. The same is true for everyone else.

If you want to hate me, and there are many who do, then hate me for what I do. Hate my liberal opinions, but not the fact that I’m straight. Hate my Idealism, but not my religious views. Hate my speaking out against Hate. Hate my writing. Hate my reaching out for help. Those are all choices I have made. They are open to scrutiny. I was born male. I had nothing whatever to do with that. I was born in America. I deserve no credit for that.

Why should I hate someone because she’s female, or because he is homosexual, or because her children were born in Guatemala? Who is better off for that? How is my life better because the lives of others are worse? I don’t become taller by pushing someone else down. I don’t become richer by denying wealth to someone else.

We don’t need to be told to hate.

Hate leads to fear. Someone else is going to get something that should have been mine. I know that these people are bad because they weren’t born in America. It’s because of them that my life is no good. I am afraid of them invading and taking what is supposed to be mine.

Fear leads to violence. I can’t let them invade. I have to protect what’s mine, and what belongs to the rest of my tribe. They don’t belong in my country any more than a cockroach belongs in my house. The only thing to do when you’re invaded, is kill the invaders.

Violence leads to suffering. My mother, my son, my wife, my best friend… someone… is dead. I won’t see them again. No more laughing together at jokes that aren’t really funny. No more hugs and love. No more of the joy of seeing their eyes light up when I walk into a room. No more breathing for this person I love. And this hurts like a bitch.

Haven’t we had enough suffering yet?

What if we realized that a person had no choice about being born? No one chooses where or when to enter the planet. No one chooses the color of his skin (beyond tanning, I suppose). No one chooses her sexual orientation. No one chooses his gender. Is it reasonable to hate someone for things over which he had no control?

Hatred can be useful. I hated Osama bin Laden, not because he was from another country, not because his religious views differed from mine, and not even because of his sexual identity. I hated him for stealing my sense of security by slamming planes into buildings and killing thousands of human beings who were every bit as deserving of their next breath as I am of mine.

But I didn’t generalize that hatred to include all people who shared his religion. As it turns out, there are millions and millions of perfectly nice Muslims in the world. I have no cause to hate them. And it doesn’t do much to make me feel better to hate anyone. Do you enjoy hating others? I find it’s kind of a burning sensation in my chest that I would rather not have.

Again, it’s worth asking, before you do anything, “Who is better off for me doing this?” Sometimes, it’s something small. If I make a burrito, I’m better off for doing it because my blood sugar won’t drop, and I won’t be so hungry. But when it’s something that has the potential to hurt someone, it becomes a more serious question.

I understand, to some extent, the need to blame someone else for the conditions of our lives. I certainly don’t like mine. There’s at least a 70% chance I’ll be homeless on September 1. That makes me afraid. I would love to blame someone. But… who will it help? I still have the same problem to handle whether it’s the fault of President Trump, “The Others” (whomever you may choose), myself, my roommates, or the landlord who is selling the house in which we live. Blaming someone won’t get me a new habitation. Since I don’t like being angry, I don’t see any point in wasting emotional energy on hating someone else. I’m no better off for it. Neither is the subject of my blame.

If we can stop looking for scapegoats and start looking for solutions to our problems, we are more likely to be happier. It is intellectual cowardice to decide that someone else is responsible for our lot in life.

I’m told that there are websites called 4chan and 8chan that are dedicated to promoting Hate Speech. They have the absolute right to do this. I would never want to take away Freedom of Speech from anyone. Since I can’t stop them from spreading their message of hate, what can I do? I can fight their words with mine. I do what I can to spread a message of Love and Acceptance. Just as those sites incite violence, so I hope to incite peace.

We can legislate all day and into the night, and we won’t end the problem of gun violence because its root – Hatred – can’t be killed by laws. If we want to end this we have to stop the hatred. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it better than I can, so I will leave you to ponder his words in the context of mine.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.


Will you join me, please, in advocating Love over Hate?

Posted on by Fred · 3 Comments

The Aging Existentialist: Seeing Myself from Someone Else’s Point of View

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards…

Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

I wrote an essay recently about being referred to as an Online Panhandler. I expressed that I don’t know whether I fit the definition of Panhandler, but I see nothing wrong in being one.

The essay is here, in case you would like to read it.

frededer.home.blog/2019/06/21/online-panhandler/

A good friend of mine left this comment.

…Regarding panhandling, “there, but for the grace of god, go I”. (Could substitute “rank good fortune” for “god”.) There too, but for the grace (of) god, goes your friend who passed judgment on you. You seem to feel the pain of the world and you don’t question the only sane response, which is compassion. You seem to share what little you have with others, and want to do more. You seem to draw your circle of inclusion far beyond your immediate environment. Your friend draws his/her circle of inclusion very close to himself, hoarding what he/she has, and condemning those who by choice, necessity, or circumstance find themselves in a very different place. On more than one occasion I believe that I have told you I think, although you and I have never met, that you are a good man (not perfect, but a good man). May I suggest that you write an essay/analysis of MY “judgment” of you? I think it might be a more challenging exercise, but one that might be quite illuminating. You don’t even need to post it, but by posting it you might get feedback that might also be illuminating for you. Take care Fred. I still think you are a good man.

Ross hardwick

To answer him requires a bit of philosophy. Not too much. Don’t worry.

I was first exposed to the idea of Existentialism when I was 15 years old. I had returned from Iowa, where I came perilously close to becoming a confirmed Lutheran, and my father, a confirmed atheist and Professor of Philosophy of Education, had me audit his class. I wasn’t old enough to get credit for it, but I paid attention. And, while Dad rejected Existentialism, as did one of my heroes, Charles Frankel, I found it seductive. Frankel called it cosmic despair. I suppose he was right, but I found much in it that I loved, not the least of which were most of Monty Python, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, and The Graduate. I also loved Sartre’s The Wall. (Long before Pink Floyd had any ideas on the subject.)

While there is much to reject in Existentialism, such as the idea that there can be no certainty, and, therefore every choice is a Leap in the Dark, (it’s really not… yes, anything can happen, but one has experiences upon which to rely for making choices. It’s possible the Sun won’t set tonight, but I’m proceeding on the assumption it will, and not to do so is foolish.), there is also one part that has stayed with me into my old age.

When you choose, you choose for Every Man.

When we say that man chooses himself, we do mean that every one of us must choose himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses for all men. For in effect, of all the actions a man may take in order to create himself as he wills to be, there is not one which is not creative, at the same time, of an image of man such as he believes he ought to be. To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen; for we are unable ever to choose the worse. What we choose is always the better; and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all.

Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a humanism

When I make a choice, for myself, I try to ask what I would want anyone to do in my position. If I choose Cruelty, I am endorsing it. If I choose Kindness, I’m advocating we all make that choice. To say I believe in Kindness is meaningless if it doesn’t influence my behavior.

My irritation with many Christians is that the best of their beliefs do nothing to guide their behavior. They use the bible as a weapon, and a cause for hatred. I don’t really believe that was Jesus’s intention. To quote from Harper Lee, “You are too young to understand it … but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of – oh, of your father.” – Miss Maudie

I know Christians whose beliefs guide them toward Love, Compassion, and Kindness. These are people I like. I may disagree with the path they chose to arrive there, but I like where they’re standing, and that’s what really matters.

So, what does it mean to be Fred, from the point of view of someone outside of Fred, like my friend, Ross, who is quoted above? He observes my penchant for Kindness and Compassion, and he finds them admirable. I see them as the only reasonable default position. I try to be what I think all men should be, but I have no doubt I fail from time to time.

I openly discuss both my Kindness and my Poverty. They are parts of who I am. They are parts over which I feel no shame.

I don’t generally discuss the parts of my character of which I’m ashamed. Do you? But, I suppose it’s important to be as honest about my flaws as I am my shining palace built upon the sand. What are they?

  • I should bathe more often than I do. A shower is out of the question for me, because it’s not a question of if, but when, I am going to fall and hurt myself. So, I take baths when it’s essential, but not with nearly the frequency I should. If you saw me when I was sitting at the computer writing, I would look mostly homeless. I could change this about myself, but the advantage of being alone is that I have no need to concern myself with the opinions of others about this. The fact is you can’t see me. My lack of hygiene is doing nothing to hurt you.
  • I think many things about which I’m not proud. I have all sorts of ideas and fantasies and dreams that are entirely inappropriate. On the other hand, those are mine, and, as it turns out, I may think what I wish. You’re not allowed to attack me for my thoughts. My words and actions are open for discussion. My thoughts are my own.
  • Though I believe Trust is the basis of every relationship, I lie sometimes. I loathe that in myself. And, sometimes, it is beyond my ability to control. That, however, doesn’t excuse it. I’m endorsing lying in everyone, and I’m eroding the Trust that makes society work. I haven’t decided, yet, what to do about it.
  • I rely too much on the Kindness of Relative Strangers. I should be able to support myself, now, but if I were on my own, I would be done. I don’t make enough to live alone. I have no retirement left, so I will work for what remains of my life. I’m not proud of my inability to support myself, but it’s a part of who I am, and to deny it is to lose a part of my identity.

That pretty much makes up my faults. I’m sure others find me arrogant, or think that I’m too much of a Grammar Nazi, or that I am selfish. I’m sure others could add hundreds of items to the list. Those, however, are the ones of which I’m most acutely aware.

But those who see me as Kind and Compassionate are seeing the parts of me I like best, and that I try to make my defining characteristics. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but you’d be surprised how few people have read all 44 of my posts. So, it bears repeating.

When I was in High School, my AP English teacher debated Shakespeare with me. She was wrong, and I was right, but that’s beside the point. (I’m kidding. She was brilliant, even if she didn’t love Hamlet enough.) One of the things we discussed in her class was Marc Antony’s words about Brutus.

This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man.”

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

I’ve always been slightly suicidal. I loved the way Brutus died. “Great Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will.” Beautiful!

And from the time Mrs. Julien brought it up to me, I decided I wanted Marc Antony to be able to visit me, in the final five minutes of my life, and say about me what he said about Brutus. He has to know everything I’ve done from the moment I was a fertilized egg up until his arrival, and he has to see the elements mixed in me such that he could say, honestly and without equivocation, This was a man.

I would like to be Atticus Finch. I’d like to be Hemingway’s Santiago. I’d like to be Capt. Kirk. I’d like to be my Father, who was a mixture of all those men. He would be pissed about the Capt. Kirk, but that’s all right. He had Kirk’s ability to reason morally. He had Kirk’s courage.

I can’t be any of those men. I have to be me. And when you’re old, diabetic as hell, broken, broke, and more than normally unattractive, you would be a fool to reject someone for being different from you. I will reject someone for behaviors I can’t tolerate: Cruelty, Insensitivity, and Unwarranted Selfishness are on the list. For an explanation of Unwarranted Selfishness, you can read this…

https://frededer.home.blog/2019/04/02/unwarranted-selfishness/

But someone who is a good person is a good person even if their beliefs differ from mine. She’s still a good person if her sexuality differs from mine, or if his politics differ from mine, or if his taste in music is so different from mine that he doesn’t even like The Beatles. (Although, to be fair, I’m going to have to have a LONG conversation to figure out what’s wrong with him!) If you’re a good person, I’m proud to call you my friend. How you got there is irrelevant to me.

And now I think of Kermit.

He tells me it’s not easy being green. And, I understand. I’m much like him. I don’t stand out. I’m not colorful. I’m not attractive. I’m not wealthy. I’m not strong. I’m not capable of a lot of things. But… this is who I am. And I’m okay with being this guy. I think the world still needs a Fred. I can handle that part.

I suspect the world needs you, too, but I don’t know, yet, exactly why. I hope you can find out and tell the rest of us.

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

The Meaning of My Life



There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

Hamlet
Act 1, Scene 5

Yesterday, not for anything close to the first time, I should have died. I woke up to find a strange woman standing over me while I was lying in bed. She was a paramedic. She had just brought me back to consciousness when my blood sugar had dropped so low that it was undetectable by medical equipment. I’m alive because my roommate checked on me, found me irretrievably unconscious, and called 911. She has done this more than once.

I should have died, in what I think would have been a beautifully appropriate way, a couple of years ago when my blood sugar went so high that it was off the scale. I was alone then. There was no one there to save me. One of my friends, though, became concerned when she couldn’t get me on the phone, and, though she was out of town, she sent the Mesa Police to do a wellness check, and they took me to the hospital. I had gone into Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I would, undoubtedly, have died alone in a cheap motel room had she not interfered. Frankly, that would have been, at the time, my preferred way to shuffle off this mortal coil. It didn’t happen, though. Someone kept me alive.

This has happened at least half a dozen times in the last four or five years. I was at a place where I was unable to help myself, and someone came to my rescue.

When I posted about yesterday’s incident on Facebook, more than one of my friends suggested that there is a reason that I keep cheating Death. Their reasons are, whether they say it directly or not, supernatural. God, or some other force like Him, is not letting me die.

I love my friends, but I reject that answer. Why, Fred? The evidence is there. Some force keeps intervening to keep you alive. It must be God, in some form or other.

Why must it be God? I believe you’re making what is commonly called The God of The Gaps Argument.

What’s that?

The God of The Gaps is defined, as follows, by Wikipedia.

The term God-of-the-gaps fallacy can refer to a position that assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, which is a variant of an argument from ignorance fallacy. Such an argument is sometimes reduced to the following form: There is a gap in understanding of some aspect of the natural world… (God is required to fill that gap.)

Wikipedia

I’ve been guilty of committing this fallacy, myself, on more than one occasion. How else can one explain the Genius of Mozart or Shakespeare? They are light years beyond what any human being should be capable of doing. Yet, they do. This can only be some sort of supernatural result. They have connected with Something Beyond.

But, that is simply intellectual laziness on my part. Their work exists. It was produced by humans. Therefore, we know, by definition, humans are capable of such feats. They even managed to build the pyramids. We’re one hell of a powerful group, we humans.

Does this mean I entirely reject the idea of there being Something Beyond? No. I don’t. Hamlet tells Horatio, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” I’m sure he’s right. I have absolutely no doubt that there are forces in the universe that I don’t – or can’t – understand. And when Science shows them to me, I’ll accept their existence.

I have, from time to time, felt myself, for as much as a week once, connecting with Something Beyond. I simply had everything working. I was in my stride. My writing was at its best. My social skills were on the mark. Women liked me. I knew how to earn more than enough money to survive. I was feeling music acutely. I was moved to tears by Mr. Banks singing “A Man Has Dreams” in Mary Poppins. I could feel the Jedi Force flowing through me.

However, that doesn’t require a supernatural explanation. It’s a part of human experience. How do I know? Because I’m human, and I experienced it.

I had no special powers. I could levitate precisely nothing. I was unable to fly without the assistance of an airplane. I was entirely unable to read anyone’s mind. I simply was making everything work, all at the same time. And it was beautiful.

I think Mozart and Shakespeare were able to make their Art work all the time. I can’t imagine how wonderful that must have felt. Mozart rarely even did second drafts, that rotten bastard! You will never read a word of mine that hasn’t been through at least 3 or 4 drafts. And even if I did 3 or 4 thousand, it could never approach the level of Shakespeare. That’s not false modesty. That’s an understanding of what Shakespeare is.

So, if I’m not willing to accept a supernatural explanation, what explanation do I accept? I’m not sure I’ve found one yet. But, there is one I’m considering. It has to do with Love.

If you’ve spent any time with my Blog, you’ll see I’ve had more than a little to say on the subject of what Love is. It’s best, and most succinctly, defined as the feeling that someone else’s happiness is at least as important as your own. Well being falls into the same category.

In an upcoming story about my secret alter ego, Horace, his Grandpa tells him this about love:

I guess you might begin to suspect there’s something going on when you can’t stop thinking about some girl. Although, more often than not, that’s just a case of overactive hormones. But, it is a part of it. If you think a girl is really pretty, and you think about her all the time, and if you wonder if she has enough to eat, and if she’s safe, and when nothing makes you happier than making her happy, and all of that sort of thing… well, maybe, just possibly you’re in love. But, I wouldn’t count on it.”

Fred Eder

Love is also a Force. It compels one to do things as certainly as gravity does. When you love someone sufficiently, you can’t tolerate their suffering, and you will take what ever action is necessary to stop it. It really isn’t a matter of choice. It’s just what you do. You can’t keep from doing it any more than you can keep your heart from beating.

The one common thread I can find in all of the incidents of my Salvation is that someone I love was involved. I have reason to believe those who saved me also loved me.

After quite nearly plummeting to his death, Captain Kirk tells his best friends, “I knew I wouldn’t die because the two of you were with me. I’ve always known I’ll die alone.”

Love, in its most powerful form, continues to keep me alive.

But, why should I keep living? Yesterday one of my friends said, “Fred, there’s a reason you are still alive, clearly. Something you need to investigate, learn about, before it’s too late. Any idea what it is? I have an inkling…”

And that is a pertinent question. What is it I need to do with my life while I still have it? This was my reply:

I think I need to learn to write in a way that can help the world see its commonality. Someone I love very much guided my thinking on that idea 40 years ago when she said, “One planet, one people… please?” (It was her.)

I’m trying to figure out how to make that dream a reality. I have no delusions of grandeur. I don’t believe it’s any more possible than it was for Atticus to get a Not Guilty verdict for Tom Robinson, or for Santiago to get his marlin back to shore, but I admire those men for making the effort.

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what,” (as Atticus told Jem.)

I believe in that.”

Fred Eder

What does My Life mean? What is the purpose of my continuing to suck up everyone else’s oxygen?

I think Captain Kirk began to teach me in April, 1967.

Edith Keeler tells Kirk, “Let me help.”

Kirk replies, “A hundred years or so from now, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words, even over ‘I love you.‘”

I’ve often hoped that I might get to be that famous novelist. Since he was talking to Edith Keeler in 1930, I have 11 more years to get there. If I can live that long. Of course, I would have to be living on “a planet circling the far left star in Orion’s belt.” But, hey, one step at a time.

The idea of Let Me Help has guided most of my life. I was an Elementary School Teacher for just shy of 30 years. For me, my classroom was the Enterprise. And, arrogance be damned, I was an extraordinary Starship Captain.

I retired in 2016. I thought, like Kirk once did, that I was done making a difference. As it turns out, I wasn’t. I have found that my words can still make a difference. I can still be of help with them. I can sometimes move people. I can sometimes make them think. I can sometimes reinforce their beliefs. I have even, from time to time, been able to inspire someone.

If I can find a way for my words to help bring the world together, to make the Dream of “One Planet, One People… Please” a reality, I will have made a difference. I don’t know how to do that, yet, but I promise you I’m working on it.

What yesterday most revealed to me was that I still have a desire to live. This is new for me. I’ve been ready to die for several years now. In fact, the last time the paramedics showed up, I was a little disappointed they brought me back. Hamlet tells me, “The readiness is all,” and I felt ready.

I lost a little of that readiness yesterday. It occurs to me there are still things I would like to do before I’m gone. There is Love still to be experienced. There are words I still need to write. There is Music I still want to hear. I find delight in small things people do. I need to talk to my Mom every night at exactly 7:37 so she knows I’m okay. I hope to have another pastrami sandwich someday. I want to have a little ice cream before bed. These are all reasons to want to live.

And my friends have given me those reasons. And those reasons are a product of Love. So… what keeps saving me? I believe it’s Love.

You may believe it’s something else, and I respect your belief, even if we don’t agree. But, for me, Love is the most powerful Force in the Universe, and I believe it’s why I’m still alive.

I’m working on finding the Meaning of My Life. I hope my thoughts might have helped you to find the Meaning of Yours.

Posted on by Fred

The Undeserving Poor

“Don’t say that, Governor. Don’t look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: ‘You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.’ But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that’s the truth. Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what he’s brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she’s growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.”




– George Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”

What makes one person “Deserving” and another “Undeserving?” Certainly we would all agree those who hurt others deserve punishment in some form or other. Can we also all agree that, simply by virtue of having beaten incredible odds just to be born, we are all deserving of food? Shelter? Clothing? Medical Care? No, probably not.

The Puritan Work Ethic has trained us all to believe that a person deserves only what he or she can earn by trading their time, and some form of effort, for rewards. To the extent we can contribute, we deserve something. This made sense for America’s earliest settlers. If Per Hansa and Beret didn’t work hard, frequently, and faithfully, their family would certainly perish. And their hard work was rewarded with the necessities of life. They were fed, clothed, sheltered, and to the extent possible in that time, granted the best medical care available. (If you haven’t read “Giants in the Earth,” I recommend it. It’s the story of Norwegian immigrants who settled in the Dakota territories in the 1870s.)

But even they depended, to some extent, on other families in the area to help them from time to time. “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” That’s not new information. That’s Aristotle. We need each other from birth. Few and far between are the infants who can survive entirely alone.

So, it seems to me, that at some point, we must grant a person the right to rely on others. We do this, without much debate, at the beginning of life. The overwhelming majority of humans are born into some form of society. It may be a good society or a bad one. The infant has no control over the society into which he or she is born.

We have a choice, as adults, about the society in which we live. We can either accept it, reject it, or something in between. We may criticize it, or we may seek another one in which to live. We may also seek to improve it.

Some place between birth and adulthood we give up the right to rely on others. Is this morally right? I don’t know, but, at least in The United States in 2019, it seems to be true.

Now, we must not only contribute to society in some way, but we must find a way that society values highly enough to pay us a living wage. None of us, anymore, is Per Hansa, chopping down the trees in the area to build the house in which his family will live. We rely on each other for roads, for the production of food, for schools, for military and police protection, for fire departments, and a host of other things. We are a social animal. We cannot live entirely alone. Our work is not for our benefit alone. It is to benefit the society in which we live.

If someone is unsuccessful in that effort, we seem to have decided, that person is undeserving. And that’s where I have my problem . Why is a person undeserving?

We seem to have declared that one must live a life within certain boundaries and norms. We now have the resources to treat every living person as though he or she were a newborn. We can provide everyone with all they need to survive.

Robert Frost is a great poet. He made a living writing poetry. That poetry certainly improved my life. J.K. Rowling is a great writer. She made a fortune writing books that certainly improved my life. I have great respect for both Frost and Rowling.

I feel sure, though, they would both tell you that there are other poets or novelists of whom you have never heard, of whom you never will hear, who are their superiors. And those poets and novelists will work at whatever jobs they can find to support themselves. They weren’t fortunate enough to get published. They weren’t fortunate enough to become popular successes. But they contribute in the same way Rowling and Frost do. Do they truly deserve less? Why?

We’ve moved from philosophy to economic theory. Now we will hear from critics about the virtues of capitalism. It certainly works for some. There are those who amass great wealth under that system. There are others who simply can’t do as well. And so long as we subscribe to the idea that they don’t deserve any more than their skills and efforts allow them to earn, it’s not a problem that many people are poor, underemployed, and not able to pursue what matters most to them because they are required to try to find the funds to survive.

But, what would life be if people didn’t have to do that? Why do we insist that they earn little pieces of green paper to be deserving of a decent life?

I was fortunate to have what I think was an excellent childhood. I had parents who loved me, supported me, taught me, understood me as much as any parents can understand their progeny, and protected me. They allowed me to figure out who I wanted to be. And not surprisingly, I wanted to be Batman. That didn’t work out. I wanted to be Atticus Finch, Santiago, Holden Caulfield, and Aaron Sorkin. None of those worked out, either, though I like to think there are pieces of those men inside of me. Sadly, there’s not a trace of Batman to be found in me. There might be a little Captain Kirk, though. I also wanted to be a teacher. They helped me to work that out. I managed, after a fashion, to make a living.

But, does that mean I deserve more than someone who had no parents, or whose parents were child abusers, or criminals, or simply didn’t love them? How is that the fault of the child? Why does she deserve less than I do?

Certainly, we don’t all deserve jet planes and swimming pools, but is it really unreasonable to ask for the necessities of life for all people when it’s so easily given? If we could be done with, “I got mine; you get yours” I feel like we could begin to make the sort of society of which we can be proud. We provide for our babies because we love them. Is it really unreasonable to ask that we love everyone at least enough to let them live some sort of life?

“You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one.”

— John Lennon
Posted on by Fred

The End of Minutes

I don’t fear Death. To be clear, I make no claims to being a brave man. I don’t believe I am. I have a deep fear of pain, and people scare the hell out of me. But Death… not so much.

I don’t believe this means there’s anything wrong with me. There are plenty of things wrong with me; I just don’t think this is among them. Why don’t I fear Death?

I have no convincing evidence concerning the Afterlife. I know there are nearly as many beliefs about it as there are people on the planet. They can’t all be right. It’s possible they’re all wrong. I have to begin with this simple truth: I Don’t Know.

If there is an Afterlife, since I don’t know one way or the other, I will deal with it when I arrive. I don’t spend this life trying to secure a good spot in the next one. One of my heroes, a little boy named Theodore McArdle, from the Salinger story, “Teddy” seemed to think he could have been closer to final Illumination had he lived one of his previous lives differently.

“I wasn’t a holy man,” Teddy said. “I was just a person making very nice spiritual advancement… I met a lady, and I sort of stopped meditating. I would have had to take another body and come back to earth again anyway – I mean I wasn’t so spiritually advanced that I could have died, if I hadn’t met that lady, and then gone straight to Brahma and never again have to come back to earth. But I wouldn’t have had to get incarnated in an American body if I hadn’t met that lady…”

J.D. Salinger

Now, I find these beliefs lovely, even though I don’t share them. I don’t know them to be wrong, and because I like Teddy so much, I have no trouble in seeing the Beauty in these ideas. And these beliefs help shape Teddy’s behavior, and I find his behavior admirable, so there is even more cause to like these beliefs. Their effects seem to me to be positive. If you knew Teddy, I think you would share my opinion.

Your beliefs are, I hope, as powerful and useful to you as Teddy’s are to him. And I have no reason to believe they are any more right or wrong than Teddy’s.

My belief concerning the Afterlife is simply this: it’s irrelevant.

I know that I have this life. I’m living it. I’m typing at a keyboard I hope someday to replace because many of the letters have become obscured over the years. I must be alive. Descartes aside, I believe I am who my senses and experience tell me I am. I find the interesting and lovely belief that this is all an illusion to be as irrelevant as the Afterlife. I am capable of perceiving the life I have. I’m not capable of knowing anything else.

My beliefs shape my life, too. Since I Don’t Know what will happen after I die, I want to make sure every moment in this life is the best it can be. If I spend a dollar, I can go to work and make another one. If I spend a minute, it’s gone. I can’t ever get it back. It needs to be well spent because I don’t have an infinite collection of them. They will, in fact, run out. And I haven’t the slightest idea how many of them I have left.

I certainly have more minutes behind me than I have in front of me. I’m 56, I’ve been hospitalized for Diabetic ketoacidosis more than a dozen times, and my body is pretty much shot. I’m more than halfway through my minutes. They could end abruptly at the end of this sentence, much as Teddy’s almost certainly did shortly after he explained his view of the Afterlife. I simply don’t know anything except that I have this particular minute.

Why don’t I fear Death, or The End of My Minutes, then? Because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I could be the healthiest man on Earth. I could take perfect care of myself, and I could live to be 130, perhaps a bit longer. But, inevitably, I’m still going to die. All I can do is put it off.

Being afraid of it would be a product of a belief in some form of Afterlife. Otherwise, Death is just infinite sleep.

To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause… – Hamlet. Act III, Scene 1

I don’t have to share Hamlet’s pause. For me, Death is precisely what I had previous to being alive. I was, to my knowledge, Nothing before I existed. I expect to be Nothing again. I don’t fear Nothing. It’s certainly not painful, and there are no people to scare the hell out of me. There is, in fact, no me at all to suffer.

While I’m alive, I hope that I can live a life such that I can have my one strange, supernatural fantasy come out my way. In the last five minutes of my life, Marc Antony shows up at my bedside. I always have him kind of glowing. And he’s clearly Marlon Brando. And he knows everything I have done, and all that has happened to me, from the time I was a sperm racing toward the egg, up until that very moment. And, in my fantasy, Marc Antony can honestly and objectively reach the conclusion that: His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that the nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man.” That’s all I hope to be able to achieve. I feel like it would be enough. After that, Death is a Welcome Companion.

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

The Dilemma of Us vs. Them

I am human; so are all of you. At this point, everything else, sadly, becomes exclusionary.

I’m male. More than half of you are not.

I’m white. Again, more than half of you are not.

I’m straight. I don’t have the statistics but certainly many of you are not.

I’m an Atheist. The vast majority of you are not.

I’m more than half a century old. I’ve eliminated another large group of you.

I’m an American citizen, and we can break that category down even further. I’m also a Democrat, a Liberal, and a member of the Lower Class. There are even fewer of you left in my particular box.

So, my basic group of “Us” includes very few of the people I probably like most. I see no advantages to belonging to any groups beyond being human, if it means the exclusion of others.

What are the benefits of separating ourselves from others? Why would we do it? If there were no advantages, I feel sure no one would bother.

I’m not a sociologist. But, in the minuscule research I did, I found that sociologists believe that the advantage of associating with those who match our categories is that we advance in life by being around people that fit our labels. This can be our social class, our gender, the opposite gender, financial status, and any number of equally arbitrary, and, I believe, meaningless categories. And while I agree this is probably true from the sense of one’s career, it seems to me to limit one’s experiences unnecessarily.

Many of you fit few of the same labels I do. Does that mean that I can learn nothing from you? Does that mean we can’t understand one another? Does that make me worthless to you? I believe the answer to all those questions is No.

Your experiences have been distinctly different from mine. When I learn about them, I can understand you a little better. If I can understand you a little better, I can also understand all human beings just a little better. You’ve added to my experiences, and I learned something from you. And, finally, it helps me understand myself a little better.

We probably speak the same language. You can understand what I’m writing. There’s a good chance I can understand what you’re writing. We are very different in many ways, I’m sure. But we can communicate. And from that, we can reach the beginning of an understanding of one another.

If I am of no value to you, it’s a good guess you wouldn’t have read this far. We can have value to one another without ever meeting, or even speaking. I don’t know what my value to you may be, but your value to me is, if nothing else, that my thoughts are being considered by another consciousness. That’s an exhilarating feeling.

I’m not interested in excluding anyone from my life based on a category. If you’re an asshole, that’s one thing. But assholes show up in all categories. It’s not your category differences that bother me; it’s simply that you’re an asshole. I can learn from you anyway, but I probably don’t want to hang out with you.

Mozart was, I’m told, a complete asshole. The thing is, I don’t care. I love The Marriage of Figaro, regardless of the details of the personal life of the artist who created it. I just don’t want to have him over for dinner.

For all the ways that we are different, we’re almost certainly more similar. We’re not just all human. If you prick us, we all bleed. We all have hearts that beat. We all eat food. We all need water to live. We all go to the bathroom, or if not, excrete waste in some form or other. We all need oxygen. We’re all living on the same rock in space, all at the very same time. As far as we can tell, we are the only living beings in the universe. We have quite a bit in common.

We gain nothing of actual value by deciding We are good, and They are not. Intelligent decisions are made about individuals, not categories. If I wanted only to have people like me in my life, I would be limited to straight, atheistic, diabetic, old, mostly dead, Star Trek fans who think that Enterprise was better than it got credit for being, and all the post TNG movies are pure crap. I don’t believe I have a single reader left in my category. I’m doomed to solitude. What a bummer for me.

If, however, now that I live in an age of international communication, and in a deeply connected world, I can have a greater diversity of people in my life, and I can, I hope, learn from whatever it is that you share with me, or with the world in general, then my life is richer for the experience. Is that selfish? Yes, I suppose it is, but that’s the subject of another essay.

If we can agree to this simple proposition, I believe the world would be a better place:

There is no Them. We are all Us.


Imagine all the people sharing all the world,
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

John Lennon