Westering Was Once The American Dream

Between 1790 and 1959 Congress admitted 37 new states to the United States. 50 is  a lot of states.The Russians once had 15 states in their union and did little to develop new states. The Europeans have 27 in their union and take in new states whenever they feel like it. But they don’t develop them greatly either. Wow, did we Americans once take in and develop states! Westering, to move to a new state for more opportunities was once the dream of every true American. Washington killed the dream by not admitting any new states since Hawaii in 1959. Even just a few new foreign states admitted to our union would mean using again worldwide the greatest most fabulous wealth-creating economic union-of-states development system ever created on the globe by humanity in the whole history of the world. 

Daniel McNeill

www.amazon.com/author/graceisall

Why Washington Will Not Fund Testing For Coronavirus

Funding individual testing for every American to fight the coronavirus amounts to giving back what Washington takes in from taxes. It doesn’t give back money in any form to  directly benefit individual American citizens. Washington’s partnership with businesses and the rich who own property, stocks and businesses is an exclusive arrangement. Washington has never set up any program to benefit Americans directly. All its programs and agencies funnel money out of the hands of individual Americans and into the hands of corporations either directly or indirectly. Social Security, the most successful public program ever created by Washington, is not funded by federal tax receipts. Its money comes from a separate payroll tax. Social Security is funded by taking a percentage of workers wages. Obama Care is an exception, it appears, to the rule. It is set up to be funded by federal tax receipts. However, it turns out that it is a huge subsidy to Insurance Companies who take as profits more than 50% of the monies they receive. Uncle Sam doesn’t give directly to individual Americans anything of value using tax money. That’s the rule. That’s why there will not be the large-scale federal-government-funded massive program of testing necessary to successfully conquer the coronavirus and get the economy functioning fully.

    How does the government in Washington get away with what appears to be no more than  massive public thievery? It creates by its partnership with businesses a huge pool of money gushing forth from Washington in swirling rivers of money unleashed by  men and women connected directly to power in the Federal Government. These rivers of money irrigate not only the American economy but the global economy as well. All politicians do in Washington is spend money without spending it directly for Americans. It’s the rule. The huge supply of money gushing forth from Washington is both a drug for the rich and the fiscal and monetary grease necessary to prevent the American economy and the global economy from screeching to a breakdown. At the height of the coronavirus crisis, states asked Washington for medical supplies in its possession. The son-in-law of the President, Jared Kushner, understood that nothing in Washington belongs to Americans. “It’s ours,” he said. He proved he knows how Washington works.

    The situation is not as bad as it seems for Americans as long as they understand that the government in Washington is a public supercorporation. They are not shareholders in the corporation because they are not paid any dividends but they splash along happily in the huge monetary pools formed by the waves of money coming from Washington. And Washington works well as an international government necessary for world security. It patrols the world with its military. Its financial system keeps money flowing securely worldwide. Washington has supported Americans in the past by adding states to the American union. Americans should urge it to continue adding new states because this is the best way it can offer them fresh new economic opportunities.

Daniel McNeill

www.amazon.com/author/graceisall

Taking A Load Of Coal Up The Hill

Taking a Load of Coal Up the Hill

    In the 1950s when I drove a cab on Saturdays there was little action in the morning around downtown Boston. We got in a cab line early at a big hotel and waited a long time for our first fare. If we were lucky, we drove a businessman to the airport. People were not crowding the streets on their way to work. We all knew that the most action Saturday mornings was in the cab line before a supermarket in Dudley Square.  Black ladies had no car, When they exited the supermarket they had two or three bags of food and they needed to take a cab home. The line of cabs there moved fast all morning. We drove the ladies home to a hilly area nearby. They paid us 55 cents and usually gave a dime tip. If you worked there all morning and downtown Boston all afternoon, you were sure to make a day’s pay on Saturdays of around ten dollars.

    A friendly cabby advised me about making money driving black ladies home with their shopping bags on Saturday mornings. He was white with a reddish complexion and somewhat fat. I  remember the smile that came to his face as he made a racist  comment after giving me the profitable advice. It was not a full joyous smile. It was nuanced. It was smug but it had a touch of guilt about it. It was a smile by someone who knew he should not smile but smiled anyway. But before I tell what he said, I have to say that I never judged the man negatively for the racism he expressed. Why? Because I realized that his racism was in me and in all us whites. Some whites judge that they have risen above racism against blacks. I’m sure they would have judged us cabbies as being racist because of ignorance, because we were crass people, because we were failures, because we were not superior like they and we did not realize how cruel racial prejudice is etc. etc.. Something within me prevented  me from reacting negatively to what the cabby said. This something within me was racism. Yes, I like blacks. Yes, I graduated from college and learned I should be superior to racism. Yes, I had black friends. But I did not react negatively to what he said. That means there is something in me because I am white, something evil, something that is in all whites, something permanent, something so rooted in our being that we will never get rid of it. “Take a load of coal up the hill,” he said to me with his smile.

Daniel McNeill

www.amazon.com/author/graceisall

What US Government Rules?

Who has the power to govern in the United States? It is an historical fact that the Federal Government has been weakening the sovereignty of the states since the Civil War. Practically, this has meant that the state governments who do 80% of the work governing have been given less and less support by Washington which has never seen any problem with weakening their power. As long as Washington by its governmental actions took up the slack, there was no problem. Or better it seemed there was no problem until now. The coronavirus epidemic means that the states must now govern as the Constitution originally intended. They must act as though their sovereignty was very nearly as strong as in nation states. Governor Cuomo is governing New York state just as the Constitution originally intended. He looks to Washington for support just as the Constitution intended that he do, that is, it was intended that there be a central government with limited powers because states need a central government to do certain things they can not do or that Washington can do better. But there is a more important question to ask now about the historical fact that Washington for generation after generation has been weakening state power. The question is: what government do the American people accept as having the right to govern them? The truth is that the people have never accepted that Washington alone had the power because they could never escape the reality that they were governed for the most part by one of the states. But they accepted passively state authority and accepted Washinton as the government. Now with the coronavirus they are being governed actively and vitally by a state. There are many signs that they don’t like it. Men have invaded state capitol buildings armed with rifles to prottest state rule. The American political system has always been a kissing cousin with anarchy because no one of our 51 governments, state and federal, are fully sovereign. Once the people decide they can do whatever they want because there is no government strong enough to stop them thay may in fact be able to do what they want. Remember what Henry Thoreau wrote in his article Civil Disobedience: “That Government Is best which governs not at all.” Washington may yet regret the drastic way it has been weakening over the years state sovereignty. It may have been teaching the American people to be indifferent to all governments and to rule themselves. A dangerous state of things. Now Washington needs the states to act as sovereign states and they may not have enough power to prevent anarchy.

Daniel McNeill

www.amazon.com/author/graceisall

The Silent Generation Is Dying Silently

They are in their eighties now. They were young in the 1950s. They were silent then because they were too young to fight in the war and as a result they missed out on the creative bustle of the 1940s.They were young in the 1950s but nothing happened then worth getting excited about. They enjoyed being young silently. Those who survived until now are either quarantining silently  or in hospitals dying silently. The big difference  is that now everyone else of all ages everywhere in the world is also silent. Nothing is happening because nothing can happen. The coronavirus won’t allow it to happen. It is shutting us all up.  We have all become suddenly silent like the silent generation which is still silent waiting for the death that is hitting it harder than other people of other generations because its survivors are in their eighties.Silence is not golden. Silence is the first cousin of loneliness which is silence with an ache added. Dark bitter aching loneliness, as Thomas Wolfe wrote, that knows “the roots of silence in the night”.

Daniel McNeill

www.amazon.com/author/graceisall

The New Humpty Dumpty In Washington

What will the replacement for Humpty Dumpty be like? Joe Biden is waiting quietly on the sidelines ready to put back up on the wall the old Humpty Dumpty. It won’t work. His pieces can be fastened back together but the old power he had before Trump and the coronavirus is gone. He was whole and solid when he used his power to unify with his financial and military power the global economy. The coronavirus has ended the world’s need for the US government to be a champion of globalism. The old nationalistic economies are already back. Exports and imports will never come back in the volume they had before. States have closed their borders. They will make due with what they have and import and export only bare necessities. What if the new Humpty Dumpty decided he should be a global champion of political freedom? What if Washington decided to admit any new state to its union of states who wanted to join? What if poor states all over the world decided that the best thing they could have was democratic freedom? If they can’t be rich why would they not vote to be free by becoming a new American state? The new Humpty Dumpty in Washington is ready to receive new states. He will fall off his wall again unless he gains for himself some new bold role. He can still keep dollars and other currencies roaming the world looking for limited possibilities. But fighting for a new form of political freedom for the globe will keep the new Humpty Dumpty sitting solidly on his wall. Daniel McNeill
www.amazon.com/author/graceisall