More Adventures in Shutdown Shopping

This past week I made my first foray to Costco since the earliest days of the pandemic shutdown here in Washington.  Even in normal times I try to minimize my trips to Costco since I do not like crowds.  But these days I am pretty much resigned to waiting in line to get into food stores so I figured I'd just bite the bullet and hope for the best.  I passed on the early open hours for seniors and showed up maybe a half hour after the regular all-comers opening at 10.

The line stretched about halfway down the side of the building.  It definitely looked shorter than the line I encountered on my last visit.   About two-thirds of the people in line, myself included, wore masks.  We were all naturally spaced out (social distance-wise, that is) by our shopping carts as we steadily made our way to the entrance.  At that point I discovered that the line followed a snaking path around barriers created with empty pallets where we proceeded in a stop and go manner as employees allowed customers to enter in small groups.  In all it probably too 15 to 20 minutes to gain entrance.

Inside the store, the experience was quite different from the usual.  Instead of  crowded aisles, the store felt relatively empty with plenty of space to keep my distance from others.  I did not have to weave my way around gaggles of shoppers.  I wasn't looking for any high-demand items and found the few things I wanted quickly.  Checkout was fast.  My total time in-store was probably about the same or less than my time in line.  Not as simple as shopping at Costco used to be but in the scheme of things, reasonably tolerable.

Two days later I went to Trader Joe's during the 8-9 am senior hour.  The line was shorter than earlier visits but it still took about 5 minutes to get into the store.  Like Costco, TJ limits the number of people allowed in at one time so the aisles were not crowded.  TJ is a much smaller store so space was a bit tighter than at Costco so I was closer to fellow shoppers there.  But I was in and out fairly fast and wore a mask so my exposure was relatively limited.

Watching the evolution of retail social distancing and infection control strategies has been interesting.  All of the places I regularly shop for groceries initiated control procedures immediately following the governor's order in early March and have fine-tuned them in the weeks since.  Yeah, it's inconvenient but infectious disease experts advise that we really do need to keep away from each other.  I don't think they are making that recommendation as a joke or part of some obscure conspiracy (although watching protesters gathering at state capitols to protest shutdown requirements suggests that plenty of conspiracy theories are out there) so I appreciate that the grocery stores I frequent are doing a good job of keeping food available and us apart while we procure those needed supplies. 

Coronavirus Shopping News

The COVID19 pandemic has definitely altered my weekend grocery shopping routine.  I tend to shop early in the day since I  I don't like crowds.  Friday mornings I head to Trader Joe's and Grocery Outlet on the west side around 8:30 or 9:00 so that if I want to go to Costco I can get into the store when it opens at 10.  This past Friday was different. Trader Joe's did not open until 10. Rather than hang around for an hour, I headed to the Tumwater Costco which I figured would be a zoo.

The gas lines were typical for that time of day (drive right up to an open pump) but the store was very different.  A half-hour before opening the line stretched across the front of the store, wound around the side and was beginning to stretch around the back toward the loading dock.  People weren't practising social distancing but I managed to keep my distance and place in line by standing off to one side.  My trip to Costco was somewhat discretionary and I debated bagging the whole thing but the line began to move, slowly at first but then pretty briskly, so I went with the flow to see what would happen.

What happened was that the store was well-prepared.  They had carts lined up facing the entrance with employees disinfecting the handles as they rolled a cart out to each customer.  Once inside it was more crowded than normal at opening time on a Friday but not much worse than a normal day at a peak time (except for the clusterfuck around the toilet paper pallets).  I managed to find what I wanted and, best of all, rolled right up to a checkout lane with only one person in line.  That's when I noticed that all lanes were open which I guess was Costco's attempt to avoid long checkout lines were people are bunched together.  Except for the wait to get in, it wasn't worse than any normal Friday morning.

Back at Trader Joe's I found a short line at the entrance but it moved pretty quickly.  They had an employee disinfecting carts at the door but once inside the store was very crowded.  Navigating the aisles was tricky at times.  Some items weren't available although I did manage to nab one of the last three chocolate slabs from an otherwise empty shelf.  I was tempted to grab a second one but my conscience slapped down that notion pretty quickly.  Despite the packed aisles and unavailable items people were courteous.  We all navigated as best we could, although each close encounter felt like stepping on a booby trap whose impact would not be readily apparent.

This morning's trip to the Eastside Co-op and Fred Meyer brought more of the same.  A typical Sunday morning at the Co-op is maybe 10 shoppers and one checkout with a short or no line.  Occasionally, a second checkout might open if a line begins.  Today, I was met at the entrance by a staff member who told me that only 20 people are allowed in the store at a time (I was number 15) and recommended that I use a disinfectant wipe and food handler gloves that were available at the door.  He also suggested that if I didn't absolutely need some items, please pass on them so that others might have access.  I found everything I was looking but the paper product shelves were completely empty and canned goods were in very short supply.  Three of the four checkout lanes were open, each with up to three people behind the person checking out.  Keeping our distance pushed the lines back into the grocery aisles.

Fred Meyer wasn't too much different than a normal Sunday morning except for the near-empty shelves in some aisles and notices of limits on certain products.  Th bakery section no longer sold individual donuts and pastries--only in packages now.  Some of the self-checkout kiosks were closed to allow shoppers to maintain distance from others.  

No doubt, this experience is nothing extraordinary, just mine. It does give me a real appreciation for the employees who not only come to work in a crowded environment but have also altered  their operations to accommodate the challenges of accelerated demand and anxious customers.  It's not exactly wartime combat but the work comes with some serious risk.  If I am uneasy during my rather limited forays into crowds, I can only imagine how it might feel to an employee whose exposure is far greater than mine.  

I made a point of thanking them all for their efforts. 

More Capitalism Waiting to Happen

All my life I've heard the stories of oppressed peoples who rose against their oppressors to secure justice and freedom.  From colonial patriots to  pioneers to the "Greatest Generation", America has collective imagery of triumph over distress. 

So I guess I should take heart when I look at the forces arrayed against the public interest.  According to the national myth, the good guys win.  Looking at reality, the story is less positive.  Money wins, if not immediately, in the long run then.  And even when it loses, money can often manage the results in its interest.

These gloomy thoughts are amply illustrated by Gary Rivlin's article, "How Wall Street Defanged Dodd-Frank", in The Nation.  It's a case study of massive lobbying on behalf of private interest at the expense of the public.  It's all-too-typical of how national policies are established.  A hard-fought, not-perfect-but-good-start attempt to regulate the excesses that crashed the economy is slowly whittled to nothing by the same monied interests that created and profited from those excesses. 

And this is simply one front in the corporate wars.  The Trans-Pacific Paratnership is a "free trade" agreement that gives preference to corporate interests over silly, "un-scientific" national and public interests like social, enconomic and  environmental concerns.  Think NAFTA only bigger  Add in the US-European Union trade negotiations and it looks all too much like the private interest and profit has won despite our best efforts.  

This tells me that the myth of good triumphing over evil is only part of the story.  Any victory will be hard fought.  Nor will any victory be complete or final.

Capitalism Waiting to Happen

West, Texas.  Upper Big Branch.  Deepwater Horizon.  Santa Barbara.  Triangle Shirtwaist.

Something to think about on this 44th Earth Day.

Nothing But Your Chains

Steven Pearlstein had a long piece in the Washington Post that asks some hard questions about the morality of a capitalist economy that distributes rewards so unevenly.  Pearlstein notes that both left and right have some serious misconceptions as the basis of their perceptions of capitalism.  The entire column is worth the read but I was struck by his his strong focus on inequality, not to mention seeing this idea addressed so prominently in a MSM publication.

In our current debate over capitalism, too much attention is focused on whether, how or how much to redistribute the incomes that markets have produced, with too little focus on the institutional arrangements that determine how that income is divided up in the first place. Such a focus would take in everything from minimum-wage laws to labor laws to the rules of corporate governance. At this point, the markets’ uneven distribution of income has become so dramatic that it threatens to overwhelm the ability of a progressive tax-and-transfer system to keep up with it.

Capitalists assume that their rewards a ordained by the Invisible Hand of the Free Market (aka God) when in fact capitalism is a man-made system that gives capital vastly more power and reward than it gives to labor.  In our overheated capitalism on steroids, that imbalance leads to a small owning class and a much larger owning-far-less-or-nothing class.

You'd think that, rich as they are, the owning class would understand the perils of inequality, that hoarding all of the wealth leaves far too many with nothing to lose.  Karl Marx may have been wrong about the  Communist Utopia but he was dead-on correct about what people with nothing to lose can do.

Forging Links

The details of the European fiscal crisis are complicated but a very simple explanation is that that Europe, like the US and other nations, has an economic system that does not provide the opportunities for many people to maintain the basic necessities for life. The solution requires international cooperation, so watching Britain refuse to join the rest of Europe out of concern for its "national interests", leaves me less hopeful that the world's nation states will reach consensus on far more challenging problems such as climate change. Add corporate control of finance, communications and government to the equation and real change looks very unlikely.

As a long-time critic of the nation-state, I am embarrassed that that the alternative turned out to be the global corporation. Global corporations, accountable only to shareholders for profit, easily compete with nation-states, pursuing corporate rather than national interests. If not wholly the equal of national governments, large corporations exercise considerable influence in promoting their maximum profit. Large corporations are in many respects a form of supra-national government with interests that transcend geographic boundaries.

The sheer dominance of hyper-militarized corporate thought and culture in America and less militarized, but no less strong, corporatism elsewhere in the world makes me feel like the embattled rebel. Outnumbered by a vastly more wealthy and powerful force. Everything of value at risk of extermination. No way out. It's a daunting and hopeless feeling. My life is not personally at risk in this scenario but other lives--the many in this world (and yes, America also) who lack basic necessities and live on the margin--are at risk. In the long run the entire planet is at risk of a consumption-based economy managed in the interest of short-term profit and narrow private and national intests.

That's why people around the world are speaking out and demanding change. The sheer mobilization of alternative voices, voices mostly ignored and dismissed by the corporate media, this past year is one of the great events of my lifetime. Americans finally began to loudly demand change, to resist a corporate culture that has demonized the idea of collective solution to public issues. This week Russians are protesting in large numbers. I can hope but can in no way assure that all of this direct democracy will create change for the better. It will create change and that change will create opportunity.

My antidote to the embattled rebel feeling is reminding myself that I am part of a chain. I may not actually see or experience the just and equitable society I seek--my "promised land"--but my efforts will be part of that society's heritage as it comes to fruition. This year's outpouring of humanity in demanding change has vividly reminded me of my place in the chain.

That seems like a good attitude to take into 2012.

Shared Ideology

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell..
--Edward Abbey

Capitalism also begins with the letter "C" and hews to the ideology of growth. Presumably that growth benefits all. Judge for yourself how that has worked out.

We have, however, certainly all experienced the prodigious downside of capitalism.

Something To Be Thankful For

Last night I heard an interview with economist Richard Wolf on Between the Lines. He was speculating on the prospects that Occupy Wall Street may have for transforming the US economy, and quite possibly world-wide change as well. He sounded pretty upbeat, noting that in the many years he has observed social movements their focus was typically single issue. Occupy and its related movements question the entire premise of our economic model, they question capitalism itself, something he has not seen before.

That's good news since the Earth is a finite planet whose laws trump human conceits. If we continue to consume everything, then ultimately all we will have is waste, a diminished planet that supports limited life forms (maybe). All of which means that capitalism based on consumption is not sustainable.

Naomi Klein makes a similar argument in The Nation. She argues at length and convincingly that meeting the challenges of climate change with require revolutionary change in the way we think about economic and societal organization. Simply put, capitalism is not compatible with a living ecosystem.

So the ideas are out there and being discussed. They are more visible now than six months ago. And that discussion will continue. Another interview on Between the Lines was with two media organizers from Occupy Wall Street. They said that the movement was more than the encampment; they had offices and other spaces that are sill in use after their eviction. Here in Olympia, the same is true and the encampment received support from the many local progressive organizations.

The discussion will become more lively here in Washington on Monday as the Legislature meets in special session to carve another $1.7 billion from the state budget after receiving the latest grim revenue estimates. Occupy groups, community action programs, other Peoples' Advocates from around the state will converge at the Legislative Building for an extended occupation for the purpose of educating legislators on the reality of life in this capitalist economy. Events are planned each day. It's not necessarily a sleep-in but will certainly be a notable presence.

Of course, all this may come to naught, as so often in the past. But at least the ideas are in play, a necessary first step. I can be thankful for that.

Procrastinations

An article about energy competition and exploitation in the South China Sea tells me that the world will do no better in making the conversion to a sustainable economy than I do in making difficult major life decisions. Difficult decisions are easily postponed because there is still time. Yet one day there is no more time. The shit happens and you deal with it as best you can, knowing all along you could have done something to prevent it. It's happened to me.

In my experience American society and the world seem about the same, only on a much larger scale. We know that an exploitative economy based on growth is not a sustainable option on a finite planet, the only planet we have. It will end. Putting some thought into how it will end and how we will leave a living planet to future generations would be a gift to those who will inherit the aftermath of our capitalism.

But we don't because that would involve confronting contradictions and making hard decisions. We continue to consume and rely upon fossil fuels that are not only limited, but they are also costly (dollars and soldiers). The resulting carbon emissions bid fair to change the planetary climate in adverse ways. We have all these reasons that we should be seeking viable alternatives and yet we do not.

And it's not a new issue. Americans have been talking about "energy independence" since the 1973 Oil Embargo and sustainability has been part of the discussion since the 90's. But we've not moved away from fossil fuel dependence in all that time; real change was never cost-effective. That's genuine procrastination.

Still, change will come and the decisions will make themselves. Real change will be not only cost-effective but also absolutely necessary. Our species will learn to adapt. Or not. It's that simple. Mother Nature truly bats last.

In the meantime nations are rushing to claim, control and exploit fossil fuels, building up military forces and harassing competitors. Same old. Same old. And no real solution at all. Only temporary advantage.

post script

The original title for this post was "I'm No Better" reflecting that like the world, I avoid difficult decisions. But after writing the last paragraph, I realized that I am not "rushing to claim, control and exploit fossil fuels, building up military forces and harassing competitors". I am better in that respect.

More Business as Usual

Water flows downhill. Greed expands.

J.P. Morgan Securities rigged bids in at least 93 municipal bond deals in 31 states for eight years beginning in 1997, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Thursday.

The government said the firm agreed to pay $228.2 million to settle charges by the SEC and other state and federal authorities, including the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Municipal bonds are supposed to be safe, tax-exempt investments that help local governments and nonprofit organizations fund public works projects such as roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. But recent enforcement actions have portrayed this seemingly staid corner of the banking world as having been a feasting ground for corrupt financiers.

Read the entire article and you begin to wonder why J.P. Morgan is still allowed to do to business and senior executives not imcarcerated.

On the Mend. Yeah. Right.

Economic recovery, capitalist style:

Two years after the recession officially ended, companies are adding fewer workers despite record cash stockpiles and healthy profit margins.
[...]
Including discouraged workers and those working part time, but who would prefer full-time work, the “under-employment” rate jumped from 15.8 percent to 16.2 percent.

Unemployment has topped 8 percent for 29 months, the longest streak since the 1930s. It has never been so high so long after a recession ended. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent.

And those who do have jobs are earning less.

Job Creators, my ass. More like Freebooters.

On Anarchy and Utopia

My current non-fiction reading these days is The World That Never Was: a True Story Of Dreamers Schemers Anarchists & Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth. It’s a well-written account of 19th century anarchism, its early utopian ideals and the evolution of many anarchists into political violence and terrorism. Butterworth does a good job of showing how economic distress and autocratic repression led thoughtful utopians to believe that violence was an appropriate and legitimate expression of anarchism. He also shows that the various nations’ intelligence services, especially Russia’s, contributed to the anarchists’ journey into violence in order to discredit all opposition to autocracy. The intelligence services also made sure to remind the public and their governments of the anarchists’ “inherent” violence and danger to keep their budgets increasing. The World That Never Was covers the period roughly 1870 to World War I and is incredibly complex and detailed—the thumbnail biographies of the many actors runs to 18 pages.

The similarities to present times are intriguing. Then, as now, a small band of violent extremists have frightened governments well beyond the extremists’ actual capabilities. In the process, the extremists’ actions compromise other opponents of unjust and repressive regimes. And then as now, the politicians and opportunists take advantage of the violence to fatten their budgets, spy on their own citizens and resist all change.

But I digress.

Anarchism and the various other utopias grew from the revolutionary thought and ideals of the 19th century, a time when people were beginning to understand their individual worth and identity. This awareness trend began in the Age of Enlightenment and continued through the American (“All men are created equal”) and French (“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”) Revolutions as people challenged their relationship with state authority. In the 19th century people challenged economic systems that concentrated wealth at very great cost to workers. In response to the many miseries of industrial capitalism, visionaries offered their ideal utopias. Whether those ideal societies were ever fully formed, practical or even real does not diminish their power. For better or worse, many were inspired by those visions which could justify any measure of self-sacrifice up to and including homicidal violence. And to be even handed, the state and privileged elites were equally capable of homicidal violence in defense of their wealth and privilege, a utopia they were actually living.

So I got to wondering what are the visions that motivate modern society, to what utopias do we aspire in this age of Obama and Boehner? Here’s what I come up with.

The industrial capitalists pursue a utopia of infinite profit and exploitation at the lowest cost. Capitalism is pragmatically realistic and flexible; it has no inherent form and will adapt to whatever arrangements maximize profits, controlling the arrangements as much as possible. Once gained, the profits are left fully to the capitalist discretion. The capitalist utopia is not actually a utopia since it largely exists. But as long as public policy makes any demands of capital, profits are at risk and must be defended. Since most people in this world are not capitalists or benefit to any great extent from its gains, the capitalist utopia has limited appeal. Those to whom it does appeal have the wealth and connections to successfully pursue their interests but those interests are often risk disapproval or even outright rejection by the many who do not profit or are harmed by capitalism’s relentless pursuit of profit. Something more palatable is needed for the masses.

The Republican Party offers that modified capitalist utopia with its free-market promise of jobs for all if only taxes are lower and government does not interfere with the capitalists or spend much. The Republican utopia conjures an image of growing prosperity as unregulated markets create full employment with good wages for anyone willing to work (the “deadbeats” can just go away) and low taxes on the earnings of those hard-working people. Unlike the full capitalist utopia, this one doesn’t exist and requires a certain amount of self-delusion to believe in. America has experienced three decades of free market ideology that has produced great wealth for a few and growing insecurity for the majority and somehow Americans still believe in the infallibility of market.forces and that somehow everyone will finally be rich just as long as government doesn’t interfere.

The Democratic Party utopia is…well, not much in comparison. The best I can figure is that the party aspires to be relevant to people’s lives much as it was in the New Deal and decades following when public policy did, in fact, reign in the excesses of capitalism. But that utopia clashes with the reality that the party depends on capitalist-corporate money for its survival. The Democratic utopia still flickers in some outposts of party thought—Russ Feingold, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Raul Grijalva—but it hardly rates as a mobilizing vision. It does, however, fit the original Greek meaning of utopia: “no place”.

Tea Partiers have as their utopia much the same as the Republicans but with more emphasis on guns and “the Other” (read: non-white persons. Tea partiers don’t trust government at all (except for Medicare and Social Security and National Defense) but they are also suspicious of the large corporate institutions, a healthy skepticism that is the movement’s saving grace. The Tea Party utopia is small-town, Main Street America, where business is local and everyone knows their neighbors and their place.

The Libertarian utopia is also a variation of the Republican Modified Capitalist utopia but for Libertarians, all institutions that infringe on personal liberty are suspect and the more public those institutions, the more suspect. The Libertarian utopia does not accept the even the constrained public sector that is a necessary component of Republican Modified Capitalism.

Once I get past these three, I run out of obvious and easily described utopias. There are certainly many on the Left. I can generically describe a Leftist utopia as a world of free people living in harmony with their environment, a world at peace and with social and economic justice for all. I can’t ascribe that vision to any one group but I think I’ve covered the key bases. Beyond that the ideals will vary in detail and differences that are both the bane of Leftist organizing and at the same time an incubator of creative thought.

Maybe I describe utopia in that broad sense because that is my personal vision of utopia. Paul Signat’s painting, “In the Time of Harmony”, depicts an ideal I to which I can easily subscribe. But I’m not naïve, the painting leaves many important questions unanswered, questions essential to living in any society, questions essential to sustaining life and effecting change. Those unanswered questions are the challenges, the ‘reality”, which renders ideals, if not unattainable, then highly difficult.

Despite the difficulty or even the likelihood that I will never see my utopia, I am still motivated to advocate and pursue it in any way that I can. Just as nature evolves over time, so too does society. I’ve seen attitudes, beliefs and policies contend and change during my life, not always for the best but always changing. Since I strongly believe that all persons are my equal, I am bound to do all in my power to recognize, acknowledge and ensure that equality as the society in which I live changes and evolves .

”All men are created equal” and “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” make a fine set of ideals for me. A call to the barricades or a guide to living this only life I will have. Either way works.

More One Party News

Chris Hedges at Truthout:

There are no longer any major institutions in American society, including the press, the educational system, the financial sector, labor unions, the arts, religious institutions and our dysfunctional political parties, which can be considered democratic. The intent, design and function of these institutions, controlled by corporate money, are to bolster the hierarchical and anti-democratic power of the corporate state.
[...]
The menace we face does not come from the insane wing of the Republican Party, which may make huge inroads in the coming elections, but the institutions tasked with protecting democratic participation.... Fear the underlying corporate power structure, which no one, from Barack Obama to the right-wing nut cases who pollute the airwaves, can alter. If the hegemony of the corporate state is not soon broken we will descend into a technologically enhanced age of barbarism.
[...]
And the longer we refuse to confront corporate power the more impotent we become as society breaks down. The game of electoral politics, which is given legitimacy by the right and the so-called left on the cable news shows, is just that—a game. It diverts us from what should be our daily task—dismantling, piece by piece, the iron grip that corporations hold over our lives. Hope is a word that is applicable only to those who grasp reality, however bleak, and do something meaningful to fight back—which does not include the farce of elections and involvement in mainstream political parties.

This is an Outrage!

Goddammit. The USofA spends seven fucking years fighting in Afghanistan so the Afghan Air Corps can fly RUSSIAN helicopters!! Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick! What the fuck are we fighting for if we're just going to hand business to the god damn Russians? I mean, they're still Commies, you know--they just talk and act like capitalists because it makes money for them. After all the sacrifices our brave men and women in uniform have made,you'd think the Pentagon, wouldn't dishonor their service like that.

Sheesh! What are they fighting for if our patriotic defense contractors are going to be left out in the cold? Why, it's as if the whole fucking affair is a waste.