Quote of the Week...from Clint Eastwood

Baxters over there, Rojos there...me right smack in the middle.  

                                                      ---Clint Eastwood, from the movie A Fistful of Dollars

Akira Kurosawa's 1961 Japanese movie Yojimbo, where a roaming samurai serves as the nameless character Clint Eastwood portrays and the plots of both movies tend to intertwine, culminated in a successful lawsuit by the Japanese filmmaker...but 1964's A Fistful of Dollars is much more widely known and launched Eastwood into superstardom.  Eastwood's unnamed character, a roamer as well, rides into a small western border area town bedeviled by two rival crime families: the liquor traders Rojos and the gun merchants Baxters.  Standing between the two families' houses, out on the balcony with the local bar owner Silvanito (played by José Calvo), Eastwood makes the above remark gesturing first toward the left and then to the right, anticipating what he will do to take advantage of the conflict between the two gangs as he manipulates them to violence against each other.  As for me, I'm not bent on messing with anyone...much less organized criminals...but sometimes I, too, feel as if I am "right smack in the middle" between two polarized groups of people.  Take running, for example.  Ever since I could run as a little kid, I discovered that I could usually do it faster than almost anyone else...for short sprints. I really wanted to be able to sustain that speed in longer runs, but as I went through high school, I discovered that my abilities in that department plateaued at a relatively uncompetitive level on varsity teams.  But distance running as an open social activity began to explode in popularity during the 1970s...still, from 1976 up to 2008 I avoided racing.  Since then, I've participated in about 100 events ranging from 5K (3.1) miles to marathon (26.2 miles) and usually in a pretty decent shape of training and fitness, putting me "right smack in the middle" as good ol' Clint would say, gesturing toward the left at the elite athletes and toward the right at the bottom-finishers (instead of the cinematic Baxters and Rojos). I can further extend this "right smack in the middle" notion to interaction with a number of families either obviously wealthier than me or much poorer. I don't know whether it is me or them with our respective attitudes, but although I am pretty much in the middle, average as far as my material wealth is concerned, I'm either perceived as being poor or rich to these others...with a resulting slant in how I'm seen and judged: but I'm just me, the same person!   I'm a materialist, too, but beyond a certain point with it I've grown to see that ostentatiously flaunting "stuff" and wealth...or, on the other extreme, deploring the material state I'm in and getting defiant and bitter about it...as exercises in futility.  Fortunately, I also know some people, with whom I've had the pleasure to spend time with recently, who either have substantially more material wealth than I or substantially less, and they...God bless them...don't make an issue of the disparity as if I've done anything wrong.  I don't tie my sense of self-worth in with my economic status (and I lived a spartan, monk-like existence for a number of years in my young adult life) and don't appreciate others trying to impose their judgements on me. But maybe that's just me setting my own identity as well "in the middle": move over, Clint...

Fatcat Political Candidates

The notion of very wealthy individuals capitalizing on their financial resources and position to successfully enter politics isn't anything new...we've seen this done on a dynastic scale: just look at the Rockefellers and Kennedys from the past century.  But recently the idea has arisen that since candidates who are already super-rich cannot be corrupted by special interests and don't need to seek campaign resources, then they are somehow nobler than the "rabble" of less-affluent aspirants who must seek out others for contributions.  Our current president is obviously one of these fatcats and has made much of his wealth, not only to give him an image of integrity and independence among his supporters but also as a sign that here is a success story, someone who works hard and knows how the system works on many levels.  In the wake of Donald Trump's 2016 election, we're seeing more of this type using essentially the same strategy, albeit with different takes on the issues. I remember billionaire real estate entrepreneur Jeff Greene's candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Florida governor in 2018 and three billionaires who either were or are running against Trump for president in 2020: former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has since dropped out due to professed health concerns, retired hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg.  As for Greene, after essentially torpedoing the efforts of his chief rivals through vicious negative ads, Florida Democratic voters in the primary rejected both his candidacy and those he attacked, resulting in a weak, fourth-tier candidate getting the nomination.  Steyer and Bloomberg are both faced with Democratic Party rules for their debates which require a certain threshold number of people giving them campaign donations before they qualify.  The silliness of this rule, which was originally intended to keep candidates from funding their campaigns primarily by cash-rich special interests (with implied strings on the contributions), is actually making giving money as important as expressing voting preferences in public opinion polls.  Steyer has tried to adapt to this rule while Bloomberg is bypassing it, blanketing the media with ads and placing his presidential hopes on "Super Tuesday", March 3rd...when many states vote for their delegates...

Where do I stand on the super-rich and politics?  It depends on their political philosophies and where they stand on the issues.  Do they have an elitist notion that by dint of their wealth and social status they are better than everybody else and merit privileged treatment or do they recognize that this great nation is a pluralistic and diverse society whose 300+ million citizens have their own legitimate contributions and concerns?  But since just about all the major candidates for president, billionaires or not, are comfortably affluent and probably think they're a cut or two above the rest of us, I would ask the same question about each one of them.  Of course, I have just one vote for president in the primary election (in Florida) on March 17th and then just one more on election day in November...who knows in which direction the malleable electorate will allow itself to be manipulated and swayed, but that's democracy for you...I can only do my own miniscule part and then brave whatever the results are...

Will Tom Steyer Influence Presidential Campaign as a Candidate?

Hedge fund billionaire and long-time Democratic Party political donor and activist Tom Steyer has just declared himself as a candidate for president and will join the already heavily crowded field jockeying for media attention and name recognition.  Steyer has the advantage of having placed nationwide television ads throughout the past two-plus years calling for Donald Trump's impeachment and has built up a large database of supporters from which he may draw upon to obtain the necessary diverse source of contributions that the party demands in order to qualify for its televised debates.  It is doubtful that he will make tomorrow's cut to qualify for the second round of the debates to be held at the end of this month, but he's probably looking further ahead anyway and has plenty of his own money he can spend on television ads.  Steyer, besides his "Impeach Trump" movement, is known as a long-time advocate for the environment, especially when it comes to fighting climate change and developing alternative sources of energy.  Besides that, he should be more of a moderate along the lines of current frontrunner Joe Biden and might end up cutting into the former vice-president's support. I'd like to see him on the stage next to the other candidates and hear what he has to say, but then again I thought there were already way too many participants and the number needs to be whittled down.  But don't expect that to happen with the second round at the end of this month...it will be the same format with two debates, each featuring ten randomly selected candidates.  As for Tom Steyer, his being very wealthy doesn't bother me in the least, but I'm afraid that this won't fly very far with many other Democratic voters who are wary after real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity Trump's election...