Musings of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian
Social issues, intl affairs, politics and miscellany. Aimed at those who believe that how you think is more important than what you think.
This blog's author is a freelance writer and journalist, who is fluent in French and lives in upstate NY.
Essays are available for re-print, only with the explicit permision of the publisher. Contact
mofycbsj @ yahoo.com
Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Punish the first coup attempt so there isn't a second one
Friday, November 26, 2021
The 'labor shortage' is due to the lack of 'positive work cultures', not laziness
The Lake George Mirror newspaper had an interesting interview with Lisa Ochsendorf, director of the Warren County Employment and Training Administration. She pointed out that higher unemployment benefits had little impact on the available labor pool in the county.
"We saw only about 300 people rejoin the workforce in August and September," when jobless benefits ran out, she said.
She pointed out that the workforce is roughly the same size as in September 2019, prior to the pandemic, and that the size of the full-time workforce has been "remarkably stable for the past two decades."
"We keep hearing that people don't want to work but that's not really the case," she pointed out. "COVID is an issue. Child care is an issue."
She added a point that is common sense among workers but seemingly controversial among the pundit class: in order to attract and retain workers, employers must create "positive work cultures."
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than US citizens
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
The only Republican ideology is nihilism
But the nuclear war against efforts to overcome COVID and finally bring our society back to something approaching normal is a perfect illustration of the destructiveness of the Trumpism. They were lying when they said #AllLivesMatter.
Sunday, November 14, 2021
Conservatives are better than liberals at organizing
Friday, September 10, 2021
Remembering 9/11
Up until that point.
This hasn't been seen since because of what happened next.
In our name.
And worse still, encouraging "allies" to join in.
And we are certainly not more united because of this avalanche of inhumanity.
The internal unraveling of America succeeded more spectacularly than the 9/11 terrorists could possibly have imagined. The mass murder was done by foreigners but the subsequent disintegration was entirely self-inflicted.
Bigotry always does as much damage those holding such views as it does to the objects of the hatred. This is true of individuals. And as the last two decades have shown, it is also true of societies.
Fires are only extinguished when they are deprived of the oxygen they need to survive. The fire of division is nourished by the oxygen of bigotry. It's long past time to starve that fire.
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Worker shortage or rational labor choices
In the middle of a deadly, worsening pandemic, choosing not to accept such working conditions strikes me not as lazy but as entirely rational.
This situation also reminds us how much the service economy is based on paying people crap wages with no benefits and them taking it precisely because they don't have a choice.
Monday, August 16, 2021
Afghanistan: another failure of "nation building"
The US spent 20 years, around $1 trillion (closer to $2 trillion if you count long-term costs like treatment for soldiers), over 2300 American soldier lives - to say nothing of time, money and lives spent by European and other countries - trying to build Afghanistan into a viable state.
By many accounts, the Afghan army was staffed by decent men who were not given the tools to succeed by their corrupt political non-leaders.
All that money, time and lives and the country is heading back to square one with the barbarians back in control. It's a tragic day for the people of Afghanistan, who’ve seen many tragic decades.
No one seriously believes another few months or years would've made much of a difference in that regard.
Can we Americans please finally admit that imperialism and nation-building is something that can no longer work in the modern world (ignoring whether it was ever morally justified)? Let's stop starting wars that we are incapable - that no one is capable - of finishing. In the end, the only people who will have benefited from the last 20 years is "defense" contractor stockholders.