Dana Blankenhorn

20th Century Blues

The 20^th Century was the bloodiest in history.

World War I. World War II. Vietnam. Afghanistan. The Gulf War.

And those are just the wars the U.S. was a direct party to.

There were lots of others. In all cases they were caused by fear. Fear of the other, or the other side. Nations battling nations for dominance like rutting goats.

There was some hope, after the Cold War, that those days were ending.

They didn’t. Russia just regrouped, and China decided they wanted to play, too.

Humanity can’t afford this. Never mind who’s right and who’s wrong. (We’re right. They’re wrong.) The waste of natural wealth, the continued abuse of fossil fuels, the climate can’t handle it.

Unless we can find a way out of the current conflict with China, our grandchildren won’t have a livable planet. There’s no Planet B.

Rope a Dope

You may be too young to recall, but the greatest fight in history occurred in 1974.

“The Rumble in the Jungle” was more noteworthy for the tactic of challenger Muhammad Ali than the result. Ali called it the “rope a dope.” He held his forearms against his body and let George Foreman punch himself out. Ali won in the 8^th round.

In the war against Trumpism, Joe Biden is using the same tactic. It requires patience, discipline, and getting hit a lot. But a politics based on always attacking exhausts the attacker. It leaves them open to a counterpunch.

To make the rope a dope work, you must take some hits. Gandhi knew that. Dr. King knew that. People must see the cliff they’re falling into. Not just what the monkeys on Fox News claim, the world organ grinders like Rupert Murdoch are shaping.

The Limits of Senior Power

If I were around 100 years ago, I would be dead. Instead, I’m rich. (Pictured are my grandparents, May and Edmund O'Donnell, in 1918.)

It’s a demographic and economic transformation that is destroying hope for change in America and (perhaps) making us the last generation.

Until recently, people lived their first 20 years dependent on parents, the next 20 as parents, the next (if they were lucky) 20 as grandparents and anything past that dependent on the children. Most of the world still lives this way.

But starting with Social Security in 1934, and continuing through general prosperity to today, America has turned this on its head. Seniors aren’t just living to an average age of 83, we’re doing it with money. I’m just a 68-year old journalist but, thanks in large part to a wife who works in tech, I’m a millionaire. We own our house. We have enough invested to guarantee a fine retirement, God willing. There may even be something left when we’re gone.

This has changed political incentives. There’s no better example than Florida where The Villages, a huge retirement town of 150,000 (almost all of whom vote), has turned the state’s politics on its head. Add them to those already living up-and-down the state’s east, west and south coasts, and you get a huge state entirely devoted to short term thinking. Education, the environment? Fuck ‘em. We’ll be gone.

The Why of the Guns

Guns have replaced drugs as the tool of systemic racism.

When I was young drugs were effective at this. Push drugs on young black people who are unemployed and feeling hopeless. Arrest the black people doing the drugs. Toss them in jail and they’re not only slaves (for the duration of their sentence) but non-voters for life.

It worked.

But as white folk started getting sentenced, and as black families learned better, you needed a new mechanism.

Lax gun laws are the mechanism.

Righteous War

America hasn’t fought many righteous wars.

In the 19^th century the Civil War was righteous. Everything else was conquest. The “winning of the west” was a slow motion genocide. We took the Southwest from Mexico. We took the Philippines and Puerto Rico from Spain. We teach it as democracy, as freedom. It was empire.

World War II was righteous. In retrospect, I’m glad we fought in Korea.

Other than that? We have been involved in more coups, in more places, for worse reasons, than the British Empire ever thought of. Vietnam was not a righteous war. The Gulf War was not a righteous war. Neither was the Iraq War. Afghanistan began as a righteous mission then turned into a distinctly unrighteous war.

Americans have the blood of the world on our hands, and we deny that every day. The difference between the parties is that Republicans do it more systematically.

2023: Look on the Bright Side

If we’re to get through 2023 alive, we’re going to have to take joy where we find it.

We certainly didn’t find it in journalism this year. Editors on every beat have taken to writing aggressive, clickbait headlines, designed to provoke feelings of anger and depression. They do it because they’re rewarded by the algorithms of a failing Internet business model. They do it to boost traffic.

This is even true on my business beat, where every negative headline has a positive corollary. Rising prices create incentives and profits for producers. Rising interest rates mean savers can finally catch a break. Layoffs create opportunity for other employers while the job market remains tight.

The headlines are misleading because they take just one side. They make it appear the economy and markets are terrible even though the former is not.

2022: The Global Cold War

It was clear in 2020 that Americans were at war with ourselves.

In 2021 that became a Cold War, mostly played out in the media and state legislatures. There were some violent outbursts. There always are. But for the most part it was our war.

In 2022 that war became global. Russia invaded Ukraine. China ratcheted up its rhetoric about invading Taiwan. Afghanistan and Iran criminalized every woman in their countries. And the war became hotter here.

With the good people of this country activated, we won some notable victories. We held off the horde in our general election. Ukraine held off Russia. China’s economy rolled over, giving Xi Jinping something else to think about. Iran’s women revolted. Jair Bolsonaro lost his re-election.

The Enemy is Religious Nationalism

The 2022 election mostly put Trumpism into the rear-view mirror.

What it revealed was the larger political battle of this decade, between secular democracy and religious extremism.

I’m not against God. But there are two problems with religious nationalism.

First, it’s intolerant. Wherever one religion rules, its adherents outlaw any faith but their own. This is true for Hindus in India, for the Russian Orthodox, even for Buddhists in Burma. It’s true for Jews in Israel and for fundamentalist protestants in the United States.

This remains true despite every great religious teacher, from Gautama to Vishnu to Confucius, from Moses to Jesus to Mohammed, all the way to Joseph Smith, teaching first the way of tolerance. Love your neighbor. Care for the less fortunate. Seek the enlightenment of faith for yourself.

It’s the leaders of these faiths, the Popes and the Mullahs, the Rabbis, and the Brahmins, who twist it into something else. There is a reason for this. Those faiths that adhered to tolerance were, over time, wiped out by leaders of the intolerant. This is the true original sin.

Hopium and Copium

As the election approached, my fear rose.

I gave up on the news. I turned off the TV. I hid myself away and got high on Hopium.

Hopium is a warm feeling of hope, the idea that people are good, that they’ll see things as they are, that they’ll do the right thing. It came mostly from Twitter, then mostly from Simon Rosenberg, who followed the early vote for The Democrats. They were coming out, he said. Coming out in numbers. Coming out by the millions. Coming out nearly everywhere.

I don’t recall there being early voting when I was young. In New York everyone did it on the day. I remember an Election Day line in 1976, when I was at Rice, but it wasn’t very long and the weather was warm.

What Xi Jinping Doesn’t Know

Dictators can do many things.

They can hold territory. They can terrorize people, even kill them.  They can force our bodies into lives of drudgery and poverty.

What they can’t do is whip people into creativity.

Xi Jinping is betting he can. By controlling what people see and hear, by whipping up patriotic fervor, he thinks he can make China a dominant economy. Many western analysts agree.

He’s wrong. They’re wrong.

This has nothing to do with western investment. It lies in the nature of the 21^st century economy. Because money no longer comes out of the ground. It rains down from the clouds. Technology provides added value. That trend is accelerating.