Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Question 1

Has George Kunath, a retired NYC attorney who never misses any of our meetings by always participating via Skype, engaged in a weekly multi-hour gabfest with Yours Truly for 28.5 years since we were partners 1988-1997 when George was our worldwide coordinating tax partner on Mobil Oil?

Answer 1

Yes.

Question 2

Does George know as much about the workers of Ohio’s factories and foundries as Yours Truly knows about the workers of Michigan’s factories and foundries (ref Q&A-13 thru Q&A-20 of the First Short Quiz)?

Answer 2

Yes.

George was born and raised 1948-1970 in Parma, Ohio, which is the largest suburb of Cleveland. The overwhelming majority of its families are headed by blue-collar workers who work in the factories and foundries.

George attended a Catholic parochial school with 300 per grade level until high school.

Upon reaching high school age, George spent his summers in a TRW Foundry where he also worked weekends during the academic year so that he could attend St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland to which he commuted the 18 miles each way each day.

Then George continued to work in the TRW Foundry so that he could attend John Carroll University, another Jesuit institution. He also commuted from his parents’ home in Parma to the John Carroll campus in University Heights, another Cleveland suburb.

George is always easily embarrassed when we are in a group of people and I tell the others that during his last two years at John Carroll, George crossed paths with Tim Russert during his first 2 years at John Carroll.

Which is true literally because, statistically, their paths must have crossed zillions of times on such a small campus,

Even if my ribbing is not true figuratively because, as George always tries to explain, he does not believe they ever met.

Anyone who has read Tim Russert’s autobiographical “Big Russ and Me: Father and Son – Lessons of Life” knows that Tim Russert was proud of working every summer on garbage trucks with his beloved father “Big Russ” in order to finance attending John Carroll University and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

Tim Russert never forgot his roots!!!

Which is why, during the 16 years that he was the legendary Moderator of NBC’s Meet The Press (1991-2008) he was revered, despite being the toughest interviewer on television, because he was so kind and humble, a “Real Mensch” as we would say in NYC!!!

But back to George Kunath.

He did so well at John Carroll University, despite working part time in the TRW Foundry, that he earned a scholarship to Boston College Law School, yet another Jesuit institution. (But then, the Jesuits were a teaching order and the majority of Catholic educational institutions are Jesuit.)

However, despite spending his career in NYC, George is frequently in Ohio to visit relatives and old friends and attend reunions. So he still has “his finger on the pulse”!!!

Question 3

During our weekly gabfest last Monday (Aug 22), did George and Yours Truly marvel over why The American Media wants to treat Hillbilly Elegy as an authoritative analysis of workers in the Rust Belt factories and foundries of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania?

Answer 3

Yes!!!

Question 4

Were our minds boggled over the dissimilarity of the profoundly-dysfunctional small Hillbilly family that moved recently from Kentucky into Southwestern Ohio, when contrasted with the typical workers in Michigan and Ohio factories and foundries who, for many generations, had made the conscious choice to Live The Good Life of raising a family in style in a beautiful home with, typically, a lake-front weekend/vacation home as a blue-collar factory/foundry worker?

Answer 4

Yes!!!

Question 5

Shouldn’t The American Media have realized that Hillbilly Elegy did NOT fit what The American Media thought it already “knew” that workers in the Rust Belt factories and foundries “cling to guns and religion”?

Answer 5

So one would think!!!

BTW Question 5 was formulated last Tue (Aug 23) with the famous phrase in mind that Senator Barack Obama had used 4/6/2008 in a closed-door San Francisco fund-raiser to finance his Presidential Campaign -- where he claimed that Rust Belt voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion.”

For a week, the news media was in an uproar as Hillary Clinton pounced on the remark “as reflective of an elitist view of faith and community” according to the Sunday NY Times of 4/13/2008.

And it was widely reported during the intervening week that this might be Candidate Obama’s Waterloo.

However, the Sunday NY Times of 4/13/2008 also reported that Candidate Obama had defended himself on the grounds that “he was not trying to play down the importance of religion or gun rights. ‘Lately, there has been a little typical sort of flare-up because I SAID SOMETHING THAT EVERYBODY KNOWS IS TRUE,’ Mr. Obama said…”

So if Candidate Obama was correct in 2008 that “everybody knows” that Rust Belt voters “cling” to “religion,” I repeat Question 5!!!

Question 6

After all, does Hillbilly Elegy even contain the word “religion”?

Answer 6

Hillbilly Elegy does discuss “religion” at some length (pp. 92-99).

But only to describe how NON-religious Hillbillies are in general, and how NON-religious all of our author’s relatives were.

Except for his biological father who had become religious when he formed his second family. Our author recounts that when our author was 11, he lived briefly with his biological father and was exposed to religion. Our author’s own mother had gone through several marriages and multiple-short term liaisons and was now so violent toward our author that it was no longer safe for him to remain in her care. So our author lived briefly with his biological father until our author’s grandparents took permanent custody -- a grandmother who had been prevented at the last moment from committing her FIRST WANTON KILLING of a complete stranger at the last moment as a young teenager and a grandfather who had been shunned by the grandmother when our author was younger for perpetual drunkenness.

The “religion” of our author’s biological father???

Our author records (p, 90) that his grandmother with whom he would soon be raised, characterized the biological father as a “Holly Roller” who “handled snakes and screamed and wailed in church.”

Is it any wonder that by our author’s own account, he did NOT even acquire any knowledge of the existence of the second of Christ’s TWO commandments which is to love your neighbor as yourself???

If there is really anything eye-popping about Hillbilly Elegy, it is our author’s discussion of how NON-religious hillbillies are, in stark contrast to the long-time residents of the Rust Belt.

And how the NON-religiosity of hillbillies in general (he references several national studies of Hillbillies - pp. 93-94) makes them a quite-uncivilized group prone to violence, both domestic and toward strangers, and quite dysfunctional.

NB: In addition to citing (pp. 93-94) the studies of how NON-religious hillbillies are, especially contrasted with the long-time residents of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, our author cites (p. 92) “MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber” for the principle that: “It’s not just that people who happen to live successful lives also go to church, it’s that church seems to promote good habits.”

And yes, that is THE JONATHAN GRUBER who was the architect of both Obamacare and, earlier in Massachusetts, Romneycare. And who notoriously, JUST LIKE THIS PAST SPRING Ben Rhodes (White House Deputy National Security Adviser) notoriously bragged publicly that President Obama had lied to journalists and the American people in order to get the Iranian nuclear agreement implemented, was caught on 3 different videotapes that became public last year in which he mocked “the stupidity of the American voter” for believing President Obama during his drive to have Obamacare enacted.

Question 7

And does our author's profoundly-dysfunctional godless Hillbilly family from Kentucky appear to share any of the seriousness with which the overwhelming majority of Rust Belt workers and their families PRACTICE their religion?

Answer 7

No.

Question 8

After all, wasn’t it to a great extent the citizens of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania who fought The American Civil War to eliminate slavery because it did NOT comport with their Christian religious duty to “love their neighbors as themselves” including slaves?

Answer 8

Of course!!!

Question 9

And didn’t The American Civil War leave 620,000 dead and 1,100,000 casualties in its wake?

Answer 9

Yes!!!

Question 10

And wasn’t Gettysburg PENNSYLVANIA the famous Civil War battle that turned the tide against The Confederacy?

Answer 10

Yes!!!

Question 11

And wasn’t President Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address (“Fourscore and seven years ago…”) a tribute to the human devastation in that battle = 23,049 for the Union Army (3,155 dead, 14,529 wounded, 5,365 missing) and 28,063 for the Confederate Army (3,903 dead, 18,735 wounded, 5,425 missing) which, incidentally, comprised more than one-third of the Confederate Army?

Answer 11

Yes!!!

Question 12

Does The American Media seem to confuse whether the recent uptick in drug abuse in The Rust Belt is evidence of an erosion of the Moral Fiber of its inhabitants, with the Destruction Of Their Way Of Life by the Exporting of American Jobs in whose wake the resulting despair has Driven To Drugs many of its victims?

Answer 12

So it would appear.

Question 13

BTW, why hasn’t there come into common usage the phrase Driven To Drugs to describe what used to happen fairly rarely in The Rust Belt when it was described by the pervasive phrase Driven To Drink?

Answer 13

God only knows!!!

Question 14

Is the implied criticism of The Media Elite’s derision for anyone who “clings” to “religion” logically sound from a philosophical/scientific perspective?

Answer 14

Absolutely not!!!

Everyone forgets that “PhD” means a level of proficiency (doctor) OF THE PHILOSOPHY of astrophysics or biochemistry or whatever the Doctor of PHILOSOPHY is in.

Why this universal reference to philosophy???

Because philosophy, in essence, is the study of how we “know” what we think we “know”!!!

And scientific “knowledge” is constantly being revised or discarded!!!

But even more important than philosophy in general, is “existentialism” in particular!!!

Whose most-famous exponent was René Descartes who was famous, in large part, for the statement “I think, therefore I am” which appears in his “Discourse on Method” and in his “Principles of Philosophy.”

But virtually everyone overlooks his next sentence in which he scrupulously argues (and I am paraphrasing since I don’t have his works in front of me at the moment) --

“Even if I am deluded into falsely believing that I am thinking, nonetheless there has to be something that is capable of being deluded, so I still exist.”

Existentialism goes on to teach that the only way you know anything about the rest of the world is through your five senses -- sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

And then Existentialism goes on to ask whether you have ever awakened from a “nightmare” in a cold sweat.

And, if so, whether the “nightmare” seemed real.

And if so, why you now “think” that the “nightmare” was not real.

Existentialism then points out that EVERYTHING you experience could be a dream. And you have only seized upon a subset of your dreams that seems to have some consistency, and labelled them “reality.”

But existentialism points out that you can NOT prove that the subset of your dreams that you have labelled “reality” in fact exists.

You may, in fact, be the only thing that exists.

And you will not know until you have “died”!!!

So all of those things that the scientists have claimed to “know” in the subset of your dreams that you have labelled “reality” may merely be a figment of your imagination.

The same as everything else except you, which is the only thing according to Descartes that you can be certain does exist.

The scientists may be right!!!

Or the scientists may not even exist!!!

Question 15

What is socialism?

Answer 15

Socialism has been defined by economists for ages as the Governmental Ownership of the Means of Production.

Question 16

Would socialism have prevented the War on American Workers comprising the Exportation of American Jobs pursuant to the so-called Free Trade Agreements beginning in the 1990’s?

Answer 16

Please read on.

Question 17

Isn’t it true that Exporting American Jobs is really another way of looking at Exporting American Capital?

Answer 17

Yes.

Question 18

So even if socialism has been defined by economists for ages as Governmental Ownership of the Means of Production (as distinguished from Communism which has been defined by economists for ages as “from each according to his/her ability and to each according to his/her need”), how would governmental ownership of the Rust Belt factories and foundries have prevented them from being destroyed by competition from factories and foundries in third-world countries that employ impoverished workers who earn only “starvation wages”?

Answer 18

Socialism could NOT have prevented Rust Belt factories and foundries from being destroyed by foreign factories and foundries that employ third-world workers for “starvation wages.”

Question 19

Isn’t the key to American prosperity THE RETENTION OF AMERICAN CAPITAL to benefit American workers?

Answer 19

Yes.

Question 20

Did 1968 Executive Order 11387 prohibit the Exportation of American Capital?

Answer 20

Yes.

Question 21

Was 1968 Executive Order 11387 promulgated 1/1/1968 at the beginning of President Lyndon Johnson’s last year in office?

Answer 21

Yes.

Question 22

Did 1968 Executive Order 11387 continue in effect FOR THE FIRST FIVE YEARS of President Richard Nixon’s Presidency until 1/29/1974 (for a total of 6 years)?

Answer 22

Yes.

Question 23

Does an erudite legal analysis of 1968 Executive Order 11387 appear in Duke Law School’s Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 47-63 (available on-line at http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol34/iss1)?

Answer 23

Yes.

Question 24

Although the primary objective of the 1968 Executive Order was to reduce the deficit in America’s foreign balance of payments -- (A) did the retention of more American capital in the U.S. mean that the additional capital would have to be invested in domestic projects that would employ more American workers, thereby reducing or eliminating American unemployment; and (B) did the resulting increase in the ratio of capital employed per American worker cause the real income of American workers to rise?

Answer 24

(A) Yes. (B) Yes.

Question 25

Is there a CRYING NEED in America today for all three objectives to be served?

Answer 25

Obviously!!!

Question 26

Did we, as one of our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail campaigns, implore President Obama to Renew 1968 Executive Order 11387?

Answer 26

Yes.

Question 27

Was that Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail campaign approved unanimously at our 2/12/2014 meeting in direct response to President Obama’s 1/14/2014 “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone” solicitation of suggestions for Executive Orders only 29 days earlier?

Answer 27

Yes.

Question 28

Is it tragic that another 2.5 years has elapsed without a renewal of 1968 Executive Order 11387?

Answer 28

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 29

Does the failure of President Obama to renew 1968 Executive Order 11287 2.5 years ago demonstrate that even a Lame Duck President who will never run again is still “owned” by The Establishment because he believes it is more important to raise campaign contributions for other candidates running in 2014 and running in 2016, than to “lift a finger” (or at least lift his pen) on behalf of American workers?

NB: As with Questions 26 and 27 of the First Short Quiz, we have always defined The Establishment as the billionaires who “own” virtually all the pols of both political parties as a result of campaign contributions and who “own” many members of the media and who “own” many members of academia.

Answer 29

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 30

Have Dana Milbank (Washington Post OpEd Columnist 2000-present, syndicated in more than 200 newspapers) and Robert Kuttner (Business Week Columnist 1984-2005) been essential guides to our understanding of American politics ever since we studied for our 2/14/2008 meeting 8.5 years ago their newly-minted best-sellers “Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes That Run Our Government” and “The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Properity” -- because the thesis of both Messrs. Milbank and Kuttner was that NOTHING is done (or NOT done) in the cesspool known as Washington DC except as the result of campaign contributions which comprise EITHER bribery of the pols OR extortion by the pols?

Answer 30

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!