Steer or Drift? (Part Two)

(Editor’s note: This is the second and final segment in this two part series.  The first segment explained how the founding fathers provided the ship (our federal government) with a precise yet sophisticated steering mechanism.  Given a record level of wealth disparity in society today, the problem devolves to one main consideration: whether to steer the ship --- or simply to drift.)

In the present context, the promise of economic freedom and prosperity has exhausted its supply of natural opportunities.  Its redemption, attempted unsuccessfully by T.R. in 1912, fully 100 years ago, may prove to be beyond the patience, the power and the wisdom of the American people and their leaders.  But if the promise is not kept, democracy, as it familiar to us, will no longer exist.

What a wage earner needs, and what the interests of a democratic society require, is a constantly higher standard of living.  If it is to earn the wage earner’s loyalty, a democracy must recognize the legitimacy of his demand, and make the satisfaction of it the essence of its public policy.

Many say we have passed the point of critical mass where the drift of indiscriminate individualism requires the increasing control of property in the public interest.  A more scrupulous attention to federal responsibility naturally follows the concentration of corporate and individual wealth, dedicated only to the further proposition of perpetuating its gains.

Unless American independence emancipates itself from its traditional illusions, its spirit vanishes.  Perhaps the American people understood this if only instinctively by the 2008 election, choosing to seat a leader who has begun a new chapter in the process of steering once again.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to be either all steer or all drift.  The two principles can and should peaceably co-exist, working together if not always in perfect harmony.  Each, however, must make a legitimate concession to the other.  Both the individual and national interest must sacrifice their extreme elements for the joint benefit of individual distinction and social improvement.  The two principles must become subordinate to the higher principle of human welfare.

However, it can be expected that the privileged classes will be hospitable only to those reforms which spare their privileges.  But their privileges cannot be spared, to the extent that rational ideas may achieve any decisive influence in their political life.  The consequences would be the cultivation of contempt for intelligence, the excessive worship of tradition and complacent social subserviency.

It would be intriguing to view the vexing problem of inequality of opportunity through the lens of human welfare ahead of any other legitimate interest.  The goal would secure the benefits of the existing organization, while casting the net of opportunity over a larger social area.

Conservative principles, traditions and national history require only the gradual alteration of adverse social conditions in the name of progress.  Perhaps a people can best exhibit its common sense so clearly as to be contemporary without breaking the ties of historical anchorage.  To move too suddenly by uprooting any essential element of the national tradition would come at a severe penalty, as ordinary citizens discovered when they decided to cut slavery out of their national composition.

It is assumed the people wish to escape the need to regain their health by means of another surgical
operation.  They must then consider carefully how much of a reorganization of traditional
institutions, policies and ideas are necessary to achieve a new, more stable national balance.  They must also consider that any disloyalty to democracy by way of national policy will in the end be fatal to national unity.  In steering the ship toward meaningful equality of opportunity to complete our great unfinished business, seldom has so much been at stake.

-Michael D’Angelo

Steer or Drift? (Part One)

(Editor’s note: This is the first article in a two part series on how we resolve complex problems here in America under our democratic system.)

How do we keep our American core values in a continuous state of progress?  Is it prudent to charge ahead proactively?  Or should we delay and react passively to conditions?

Fortunately, the founding fathers provided the ship (our federal government) with a precise yet sophisticated system of navigation.  Over the succeeding generations, the problem of forming a more perfect union came to be simplified to one main consideration: whether and when to steer the ship (Hamilton) --- or simply to drift (Jefferson).

The stated goal has never varied much, an equality of opportunity for all citizens, regardless of status, with special privileges to none.  When that equality was at risk, it was time to steer.  Once achieved, it was time to leave it alone and drift.  The aim was “a better quality of human nature effected by a higher type of human association.”  Its foundation was “mutual confidence and fair dealing.”

But some say Hamilton was guilty of over-steering, to the extent that his capitalist system is dogged by the ill effects of preferred status, unscrupulous competition and selfish materialism.  Others say Jefferson’s fundamental principle gave rise to an indiscriminate individualism, fatal “to both the essential individual and the essential social interest.”  Over-drift was akin to abandoning ship.

Yet liberty and equality of opportunity, each a desirable principle, are often at odds.  Insofar as equal rights are freely exercised, they are bound to result in inequalities, made to be perpetual.  The “marriage,” which the free exercise of equal rights is designed to consecrate between liberty and equality, “gives birth to unnatural children, whose nature it is to devour one or the other of its parents.”

Consequently, the principle of equality of opportunity cannot be “confined to the merely negative task of keeping individual rights from becoming in any way privileged.”  It must go further.  The nation’s task in its collective capacity must progress to a selection among the “various prevailing ways of exercising individual rights” those which contribute to national and individual integrity.”

As a threshold matter, whether and when to steer the ship demands a national consensus.  But when does an issue become national, requiring centralized action?  To be sure, there were those in the 19^th century who believed that human bondage was merely a local issue which failed to meet the threshold.  Others in the 20^th century believed similarly in the throes of economic depression.  When is the line crossed wherein action in one’s own best interest is in fact unreasonable?

Such is the suspicion of reasonable men to subject themselves to the corruptive and abusive effects of political power unacceptably concentrated.  Better to stall and prostrate the legitimate legislative function with a jammed circuit board of competing economic special interests.  Better yet to neuter the executive function, while decrying the judiciary to stick to legal interpretation and refrain from activist law making.

Perhaps human nature is such that there will be those who deem the ship to be in a safe port, sheltered from

the storm, where steering is not necessary.  Just as soon as there will be others who, with a sense of alarm, see the same ship as careening toward a direct confrontation with rocky shoals or the Titanic’s iceberg.  Perhaps there can be no effective reconciliation between these contrasting visions.

All the while, the pendulum swings back and forth.  We steer, then drift.  The process repeats itself.  Each cycle brings us arguably closer to a more perfect union.

(Editor’s note: The second and final part in this two part series contemplates how our society can steer its way back to good health, given a record level of wealth disparity.  By moving too suddenly, the danger of uprooting any essential element of the national tradition would come at a severe penalty, as ordinary citizens discovered when they decided to cut slavery out of their national composition.)

-Michael D'Angelo

The Baltimore Riots and the Kerner Report

Spring 2015 witnesses riot and civil unrest engulfing the streets of Baltimore over the tragic death of an unarmed black man while in police custody. Thorny issues relating to law enforcement priorities and practices, racial profiling, due process and fundamental fairness under the law bubble to the surface once again.

For those old enough to remember, scenes from Baltimore conjure up images from the 1960s, standard-bearer for racial unrest in the modern civil rights era. Were the Baltimore riots (and events perhaps yet to come) the result of the mistreatment of just one man? Or is there more involved? As the national economy ebbs and flows, prosperity in this age of acquisitive individualism appears to have bypassed Baltimore’s inner city neighborhoods, which remain largely unchanged in 50 years.

Why did they riot in Baltimore? Why did they riot in the 1960s? Are events related?

The 1960s riots took place in the Watts section of Los Angeles, as well as several other major northern US cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Washington, D.C. and Newark.  The riots were not confined to the US, however.  Great Britain and South Africa also experienced race riots during this time.

The riots had begun in 1965, due to mounting civil unrest, and continued for three successive summers.  President Lyndon Johnson appointed a federal commission on July 28, 1967, while rioting was still in progress.  He determined to learn the cause of the race riots and unrest.  Upon signing the order establishing the commission, the president asked for answers to three basic questions about the riots: “What happened?  Why did it happen?  What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?”

The commission’s final report, named the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, or Kerner Report, was released on February 29, 1968, after seven months of investigation.   The 426-page document became an instant best-seller, with over two million Americans purchasing copies.  Its basic finding was that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic opportunity.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. critiqued the report a “physician’s warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life.”

One of the commission’s core findings was that the federal government had engaged in unfair and discriminatory loan practices.  For example, in important matters of employment, education and housing especially, federal low interest loans under the GI Bill were made available to World War II and Korean war veterans who were white, as an incentive to flee to the “safety” of the suburbs, where a better quality of life awaited.  Black veterans were illegally denied equal treatment under the law.

The Kerner Report’s most infamous passage warned, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white --- separate and unequal.”  The report berated federal and state governments for failed housing, education and social service policies, also aiming some of its sharpest criticism at the mainstream media: “The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men’s eyes and white perspective.”

The federal commission concluded that the riots were the result of poverty, police brutality, poor schools, poor housing, attributed to “white racism” and its heritage of discrimination and exclusion.  The equation was a simple one: no education, no job, no housing and no political power equaled no hope.

Following the riots of the 1960s, America’s suburbs continued a trend of becoming more white and its cities more black.  This phenomenon occurred as much in the North and on the West Coast (Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Trenton, Camden, Cleveland, Oakland and Los Angeles) as in the South (Atlanta and Charlotte).

The Johnson administration had the report analyzed but dismissed its recommendations, however, on budgetary grounds.  Soon the Great Society would be sidetracked anyway by external events in a far away place called Vietnam.  The War on Poverty would be swallowed up and replaced by the Nixon administration’s War on Drugs, with all the attendant shortcomings of that campaign.  Some argue persuasively that the resulting discriminatory enforcement of these laws was by design --- and is alive and well to the present day.

Is this some of what's going on --- and not going on --- in Baltimore?

-Michael D'Angelo

Democracy and Self-Determination

Imagine the world in 1776. Rather than the history we have come to know, a foreign country imposes arbitrary boundaries around a fledgling conception of the United States of America to serve its own purposes. The European white settlers, imported African slaves and indigenous local native American Indian population are not consulted. They are thrown together in a haphazard arrangement of mercantile expediency, told they are a nation and admonished to get along as equals.

Democracy is self-rule, freedom in its purest collective sense. Self-determination is a process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and government. Individually, it is a process by which a person controls their own life.

If only democracy were to be so simple.  Perhaps once upon a time it was simple.  But, today, when one nation’s economic “foreign policy” interests clash with a people’s right to self-determination in some other place, near or far, it gets complicated.

A New York Times editorial flashes across the screen with the nebulous title, Iraq’s Cycles of Revenge. Laying out the peoples and interests which comprise present day Iraq, the piece paints a worrisome picture of chronic behavior which is difficult to modify. Unfortunately, the piece merely scratches the surface of what may really be going on there.

For a better view, one need go back at least a hundred years. If it were only to be about democracy and self-determination, as President Wilson had envisioned at the Palace of Versailles peace table, to settle the differences which remained (among Western powers) at the end of World War I.

Long planned by Great Britain and France from the early days of World War I, the balance of the former Ottoman Empire was “partitioned.” Though not completed at Versailles, the partitioning facilitated the creation of the modern Arab World. The League of Nations then-governing world body granted the United Kingdom mandates over Mesopotamia and Palestine and Jordan. Out of the former, the nation of Iraq was conceived.

The British navy’s conversion to oil during World War I had provided the critical military advantage over its German rival, which was still using coal.  Consequently, absent its own domestic source of oil, Great Britain’s “Mandate for Iraq” was, purely and simply, a plan to implement a foreign policy initiative whose goal was to secure a safe, abundant domestic oil supply.  First and foremost, the oil would be used to power the royal navy in continued military domination of world shipping lanes.

The administration of the plan facilitated a secure supply of Arabian oil over land to Western Europe.  Britain identified the lines of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as the most favorable supply routes from the cities of Mosul and Basra.  Britain then struck upon a set of arbitrary lines around the physical arrangement, through which it could administer both efficiently and productively, and called it “Iraq.”

Suffice to say the local inhabitants were not consulted.  Consequently, it mattered little to Britain that the new nation would have a Shiite Muslim population in the south and east, Sunni Muslims in the west, and the nomadic Kurds in the north.  The latter group also had a significant population north of the arbitrary border, in southern Turkey.  As between the Shiites and the Sunnis, the Sunnis (Saddam Hussein’s people) were the decided minority, so Britain decided to arm and provide them with the local ruling authority under the mandate.  Some called it “nation building 101.”

These three disparate groups had little in common otherwise, with claims of Holy War made as early as 1920, when Muslim leaders began to organize an insurgent effort.  A fatwa (religious ruling) was then issued, which pointed out that it was against Islamic law for Muslims to countenance being ruled by non-Muslims.  Muslim leaders thereafter called for a jihad (holy war) against the British.  Following World War II, with the torch of leadership of Western Civilization effectively passing from the British to the Americans, the phenomenon of Iraq officially became “our” problem.

In the aftermath following the toppling of its former dictator in 2003, the idea of an “Iraqi revolution” seems absurd, given the arbitrary nature of Iraq.  Let’s face reality: The indigenous population is no more “Iraqi” than we Americans are from Mars.

If it is about American core values of democracy and promoting human rights, what part do national energy security and our economic dependence on the commodity of oil play?  Are stewardship of the environment and the common duty to pay forward for future generations primary considerations?  How vital are American core values of equal protection of the laws coupled with freedom of worship as against thorny moral issues of race, color, creed and gender distinctions?  What is the relative importance of countering extremism, regardless of cause?

Above all, what part is to be played by ordinary citizens?  Who is to serve as our guide?


-Michael D’Angelo

The Union as a Positive Force

Unions are a positive force for good in American society.  They have been largely responsible for important initiatives that perhaps the ordinary citizen sometimes takes for granted.

Progressive reforms which unions have consistently advocated include safe working conditions, increasing the minimum wage (known also as the “living wage”), a limitation on hours, the elimination of sweatshops, employer paid health care in case of accident or injury, paid time off for maternity and profit sharing.  They also exist as a necessary reminder to an increasingly hostile management structure which otherwise would have little problem keeping for itself all the profits of labor’s sweat.

One of our national political parties (i.e. - Democrats) in our two-party system remains decidedly pro-union.  Those who seek reminder need merely reference the recent bailout of the Detroit auto industry in the midst of the Great Recession of 2008.  Roots trace to passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), one of the twin pillars of FDR’s New Deal social safety net, which delivered the right of every worker to join a union of his or her own choosing and the corresponding obligation of employers to bargain collectively with that union in good faith.

Through the idea of bargaining collectively, a union is able to obtain benefits for its workers which an individual worker would simply be unable to obtain for himself.  It’s what unions do.  It’s why they exist.  An ordinary citizen need look back no further than to see that life was not very pretty for the individual worker prior to collective bargaining.  And it’s why a majority of ordinary citizens seem to prefer a world which contains unions as opposed to one which does not.  With collective bargaining removed under the equation, also removed presumably under the new law is the state’s corresponding obligation to act and bargain reasonably and in good faith.

The other of our national political parties (i.e. - Republicans) seeks to do away with a union’s right to collective bargaining, the friend of the middle class for more than 75 years, especially in the public employee sector.  It does this under the facade of a smaller, “cuts only” government approach which exposes an underlying agenda to dismantle the social safety net.  Ironically, as one new component of the social safety net (the popular Obamacare) begins to take hold and gain traction, another (collective bargaining) stands to be eviscerated.  Most recently, Wisconsin became the 25^th state to pass so called “right-to-work” legislation, achieving a half way point among the 50 states on rolling over once powerful union foes.

Of ominous note, while popular “individual” rights may have asserted themselves on the federal union shop floor, statistics show that wealth disparity between rich and poor has increased to a record level --- as union membership has decreased.  And so it may come as little surprise to some that income inequality has worsened at a time when union membership has fallen to levels not seen since the 1920s --- immediately preceding the Great Depression.

Bill Kraus, a moderate who worked on his first Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate campaign in 1952 and later ran the campaign and office of GOP Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus, called the right-to-work shift the deepest change in state politics since Progressive leader “Fighting Bob” La Follette rose to prominence during the Progressive Era nearly a century ago.

Kraus describes himself now as a politically “homeless” man without the shelter of his former partisan affiliation. “A lot of settled things have become unsettled,” he said.  “It's very radical and the question we don't know is whether it's a reflection of a changed Wisconsin or a group in power that have misread their mandate and are more lucky and blessed than right.”

Blessed by whom?  The dark image is of the purchased politician, a Theodore Roosevelt hot button, whose advocacy reflects neither morality nor ethics but rather a symmetry with money flow and the oligarchs who empower him.  The blessing of a benign creator is merely self-serving --- but necessary --- propaganda.  “Blessed is he,” it is said by so called Republican Jesus, “who lets the market decide for him what is moral.”

Human welfare --- the constitutional delegation of federal power to the general welfare to promote sustainable capitalism and environmental stewardship in the pursuit of happiness --- be damned.

-Michael D’Angelo

Elizabeth Warren: "The Game Is Rigged"

“The game is rigged.”  To the student of US History, the ring of this provocative statement should sound more than just vaguely familiar.  We should permit a digression before returning to this theme.

Does the statement sound more authoritative, echoing as it does from the US Senate floor of the nation’s capitol?  Its present day author is US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), progressive champion and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau architect.  If one did not know better, one would think she’s itching for a fight.  She wouldn’t be the first.

Sen. Warren, populist advocate, laments that consumers, families and the poor have been “chipped, squeezed and hammered."  At the 2012 Democratic National Convention she states that “Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends.”  She continues: “After all, Mitt Romney’s the guy who said corporations are people.” Republican Mitt Romney would reinforce that rigged system, she said, while President Obama would continue his work to dismantle it.  Warren adds “No, Gov. Romney, corporations are not people.  People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance.  They live, they love, and they die.  And that matters.”

Sen. Warren’s new book is called A Fighting Chance (Metropolitan Books, 2014).  It spells out in detail how the game is rigged.  A typical passage follows:

“Here’s what I see out of this.  Washington works --- for those who can hire an army of lobbyists and lawyers.  It just doesn’t work so well for families.  I saw it with the big banks.  They cheated American families, crashed the economy, got bailed out, and now the five biggest financial institutions in America are 38% bigger than they were during the crash.  They still swagger through Washington blocking reforms and pushing around agencies.  They break the law.  And no banker even faces the inconvenience of a trial, much less a little jail time.  The game is rigged.”

In July 2014 Sen. Warren travels to Detroit, speaking out in support of her book’s ideas:

“Today, many powerful companies look for every possible way they can to boost their profits and to boost their CEO bonuses.  They try to run more efficient companies.  They try to grow faster.  They try to beat out the competition.  But many of them have another plan.  They use their money and their connections to try to capture Washington and rig the rules in their favor.  From tax policy to retirement security, those with power fight to make sure that every rule tilts in their favor.  Everyone else just gets left behind.  That’s what we’re up against.  That’s what democracy is up against.”

And for the grand finale: “A kid gets caught with a few ounces of pot and goes to jail.  But a big bank launders drug money and no one gets arrested.  The game is rigged.  And it isn’t right.  It’s rigged.”

There’s an awful lot of substance weaved in here.  A former Harvard professor, Sen. Warren is by all accounts an extremely intelligent woman.  The War on Drugs swallows up the ideal if not the cause of the War on Poverty --- and just beneath the surface there lies the continued control and subjugation of the black race and people of color more generally.  And today, poverty is not restricted to people of color --- many whites share the tattered cloak.

The catchphrase ‘The game is rigged’ is, of course, bespoken of frustration.  But here’s the interesting part.  Sen. Warren knows that the game has been planned this way all along.  The frustration dates back more than 200 years.  It is Thomas Jefferson’s frustration, as well.

The new constitution for the young country with the fledgling democracy does not endorse a particular economic system.  Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposes the economic system of capitalism on the successful British model. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson objects.  As with most issues he faces down, President Washington is unable to fall back on precedent. 

Jefferson says that Hamilton’s system flows “from principles adverse to liberty, and was calculated to undermine and demolish the republic.”  It does this by creating an artificial class of wealth with certain inherent privileges to certain of its benefactors, which were not the privileges of all citizens.  These benefactors, not by coincidence, are the system’s creators and protectors --- they are members of the US Congress.  Hamilton’s plan, a class system favoring money, would violate the unfettered freedom of the individual to pursue happiness.  It sounds as if Jefferson’s saying that the game is rigged.

Taking Jefferson's arguments into account, before ultimately rejecting them, President Washington’s fateful decision in favor of Hamilton’s plan envisions the greatest good for the greatest number.  Its success by almost any reasonable measure is beyond question.  And so, when Sen. Warren says ‘the game is rigged’ and this is what democracy is up against, isn’t she asking ordinary citizens to question the wisdom of George Washington?

On any legitimate scorecard, it’s a mighty tall order. 

-Michael D’Angelo

Hamilton's Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

“And so this is freedom.”  Peering up at the tall buildings dotting the skyline around New York City’s enchanting Madison Square Park, it poses as much a question as a statement.  No doubt the atmosphere is exhilarating in the confines of this midtown Manhattan landmark, just up the road from Wall Street.

“Yep!” comes the succinct reply.  Of note is not so much what the answer states but how it is stated.  The smile is broad and confident.  The chest and shoulders are thrust outward with great pride, like a peacock in full bloom.  The speaker is a recent college graduate who got a job on Wall Street, working with money.  His father has made a career at one of the big multi-national banks, one that has grown too big to fail.

“Was it your dream to work on Wall Street?  Is this what you always wanted to do?”  The questions are familiar.

“Yeah, but I intend to work here only a few years.  Then, I’ll have the money to do what I want --- get married, have kids, raise a family, buy things, travel … .”  In talking about his dreams, in essence the American Dream, the conversation remains lively, continues for some time.  The questioner permits this indulgence, as the door has been opened.

The questions continue to probe: “Where did you go to college?”

“Union College, in upstate New York.”

Founded in 1795, Union College is one of those quaint, smallish liberal arts colleges which dot the Northeast landscape, with an old Yankee reputation for where the affluent send their children.  Many of the kids who live in the Northeast corridor, and in certain pockets on the West coast, conduct their affairs as if attending a school which costs north of $60,000 per year for four years is not a privilege but an entitlement.

It is time for an off speed pitch: “Hey, do you know that Franklin Roosevelt’s father went to that school?”

He replies: “No --- that would be news to me.  I thought I was aware of all the famous people who went to our school.”

The questioner's curiosity turns to what else this recent grad might be unaware of.  He is free, that much is true.  But does he contemplate the reality of his freedom, within this concept we call liberty?  Does he know that the pursuit of happiness has in fact pre-dated the phenomenon of Wall Street where he works?  Does he realize that Wall Street is, and remains, man’s artificial creation?

What if there were no Wall Street?  What would he be doing then?  He has gone to Wall Street, because he is incentivized to go.  Does he envision himself as a pawn, or rather --- like a sheep --- chasing money?  Hamilton has set it up this way, of course.  An astute student of the most useful “science of human nature,” Alexander Hamilton has incentivized greed, that vice so prevalent on the dark side of human nature.  The result conceives the physical greatness of the state, as in material possessions, some say at the expense of a benign creator.  The rest (including the pursuit of happiness) would fall neatly into place behind it, so the theory goes.  No wonder Jefferson has objected so strenuously.

Individuals should enjoy as much opportunity and freedom from interference as is necessary to the efficient performance of their work.  The making of fortunes has been of the utmost benefit to the whole economic engine, contributing greatly to economic efficiency and productivity.  They have been overpaid, but it has been earned.  Individuals must continue to be encouraged to earn distinction by abundant opportunity and with cordial appreciation.

But individualism is threatened when forced into a common mold, as when the ultimate measure of value is the same, and is nothing but its results in cash. This subtle point does not diminish its importance.  The pressing need is to discredit a democracy of indiscriminate individualism and promote one of selected individuals obliged constantly to justify their selection, as, for example, by adhering to a broader standard, which includes the disinterested, ethical obligation that distinguishes the unselfish citizen from the mere hoarder of gold.  In truth, individuality cannot be dissociated from the pursuit of a disinterested object.

To the extent that the rule has tended to create a powerful yet limited class whose object is to hold and increase the power it has gained, should it be perpetuated?  Should individuals be permitted to outlast their own utility?  Or must individual distinction continue to be earned?  Hostility is not dependent upon the existence of advantageous discriminations for a time, but upon their persistence for too long a time.  Put another way, can economic power at least be detached in some measure from its individual creator?

Take the inheritor of a fortune, who has an opportunity thrust upon him, an economic privilege which he has not earned and for which he may be wholly incompetent.  Individual ability is rarely inherited with the money.  But by virtue of that power he is primed to exploit his fellow citizens, whose own opportunities are thereby diminished.  His position bestows upon him a further opportunity to increase his fortune without making any individual contribution to the social character of the nation.

The money which is a source of distinction to its maker becomes a source of individual demoralization to its inheritor.  His life is organized for the purpose of spending a larger income than any private individual can really need.  In time it can hardly fail to corrupt him.  As a consequence, the social bond upon which the political bond depends is loosened.  The result is class envy on one side, and class arrogance or contempt on the other, unity coming at a cost of a mixture of patronage, servility and debt.

If Union College has taught this, could the lesson be revived?


-Michael D’Angelo

Map Keys ... a Milestone

“It is impossible to make a man understand something if his livelihood depends on not understanding it.”

-Upton Sinclair, muckraking author

Map Keys, a signature expression of the Life among the Ordinary blog, surpasses 1,000 page views.  It can be found here:

http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/04/map-keys.html

-Michael D'Angelo

Preserving the American Dream ...

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS ... 

Preserving the American Dream through meaningful equality of opportunity.

Certain conclusions may be drawn about the umpiring when the 400 richest Americans possess more wealth than the bottom half (150 million) combined.  And the conclusions are not all positive.  In the end, society's unrest may be traced to a failure to uphold Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism ideal of basic social justice which puts human welfare first.




Life among the Ordinary: Completing our Nation's Great Unfinished Business presents a rare, independent voice which celebrates the pursuit of happiness through the lens of our imperfect yet predictable human nature.  The product of comprehensive, multi-year study sets the reader upon a course to explore the provocative question:

Is there a practical solution to preserve the American Dream

which empowers ordinary citizens to do it themselves?

-Michael D'Angelo

Life among the Ordinary: Completing Our Nation’s Great Unfinished Business (Most Popular Blog Posts)

Here are the five (5) most popular posts from the blog dating back to its inception in November 2011:

1.   Map Keys (996 views):

http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/04/map-keys.html

2.   Theodore Roosevelt and Noblesse Oblige (871 views):

http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/tr-and-noblesse-oblige-part-one.html

3.   The “Unnatural Alliance” (622 views):

http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/07/unnatural-alliance-part-two.html

4.   An Independent Voice (538 views):

http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-independent-voice.html

5.   Thomas Jefferson’s Personal “Pursuit of Happiness” (507 views):

http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/thomas-jeffersons-personal-pursuit-of.html

Happy reading!

- Michael D’Angelo

Life among the Ordinary - Press Release

(Editor's note: The publisher's press release announcing the publication of Life among the Ordinary: Completing Our Nation’s Great Unfinished Business, is re-printed below.)


Local author publishes a comprehensive study of the American Dream: a “love letter to the ordinary citizen”

SARASOTA, FL – July 29, 2014

Local author Michael D’Angelo has announced the publication of his first book, Life among the Ordinary: Completing Our Nation’s Great Unfinished Business, a multi-year production which celebrates the pursuit of happiness in Western Civilization from the Founding Fathers to the present. The book, which has been published and released by Sarasota-based independent publisher Suncoast Digital Press, Inc., is currently available for purchase via Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats and in a special premium hardcover edition via IngramSpark.

It presents a rare, independent voice which permits the freedom to tell a story through a different lens, using only the eyes of an ordinary citizen within our imperfect yet predictable human nature. In 2014 the US middle class is under unprecedented duress.  D'Angelo examines the specific trend of human welfare throughout American history—courageously identifying the root cause of society's unrest. He explores a provocative question—is there a practical solution to restore meaningful equality of opportunity and preserve the American Dream which empowers ordinary citizens to do it themselves?

The book is acclaimed as “a significant contribution to the perennial dialogue about reform in American life” (Jeffrey R. Orenstein, Ph.D., political scientist and author), a "relatable, authentic and accurate assessment of where we are as a culture" (Tom McManus, co-editor, Journal of Management Development) and "a very powerful source on human behavior and how we evolve" (Dr. Paul Forti, consulting psychologist). D’Angelo's presentation is equal parts academic analysis and opinion, artfully balancing the need for change against the obligation to protect the status quo as we plan today for the challenges of the future.

More information about D’Angelo and his work, as well as how to purchase it, can be found at http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/ or contact the publisher via email bbingham@suncoastdigitalpress.com.

-end of release-


Here are the important links to purchase the book in the desired format ...

... hardcover:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-among-the-ordinary-michael-dangelo/1119913796?ean=9781939237231

... paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-among-Ordinary-Completing-Unfinished/dp/1939237254/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/186-9886105-7975904

... digital (kindle):

http://www.amazon.com/Life-among-Ordinary-Completing-Unfinished-ebook/dp/B00L9HIS48/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr&qid

Life among the Ordinary: Completing Our Nation's Great Unfinished Business

(Note:  Readers are treated here to a sneak preview of the write up which is printed on the hardcover version’s front and rear dust jacket inside flaps.  A formal press release announcing the book’s publication will follow.)

Is there a practical solution to preserve the American Dream which empowers ordinary citizens to do it themselves?  Life among the Ordinary is the product of comprehensive, multi-year study to find out.

Happiness is the aim of life, and virtue is its foundation.  Hamilton’s plan uses the forces of human nature to create an artificial class of wealth with privileges to its benefactors which are not the right of every citizen.  Jefferson says the system flows “from principles adverse to liberty” and is “calculated to undermine and demolish the republic,” narrowing the government into fewer hands and approximating it to a hereditary form.  Washington’s fateful decision under man’s creation envisions the greatest good for the greatest number.

Jackson stakes his popularity on a common man oath.  Government must grant no privilege that aids one class over another and act as an honest broker between classes.  Prosperity abounds in a land of opportunity.  But the new standard of worship for American society is and remains money, moral issues aside, as the war which Lincoln so deplores came.

The Industrial Revolution produces enviable physical results.  But at the dawn of the American century, Theodore Roosevelt reflects that there have been “two great crises in our country’s history: first, when it was formed, and then, again, when it was perpetuated … .”  The third great crisis is upon us, the struggle “to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity.”  He concedes the vitality of faith:

 Friends, perhaps once in a generation, perhaps not so often, there comes a chance for a people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights.  The doctrines we preach reach back to the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount.  They reached back to the commandments delivered at Sinai.  All that we are doing is to apply those doctrines in the shape necessary to make them available for meeting the living issue of our own day.

A handicapped president helps vanquish a Great Depression and restore the ordinary citizen’s faith in democracy, making capitalism more humane.  Some criticize F.D.R., calling him a socialist and his New Deal socialistic.  But the aim is merely to multiply the number of American shareholders.  “Is this socialistic?” he asks with a hearty laugh.

Yet despite the achievement, what has really changed, if anything?  “For the many,” Robert Kennedy observes, “roots of despair all feed at a common source.  …  Our gross national product … measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worth while.”

America enters the 21^st century with record wealth and income disparity.  The fight for change among people who can't speak for themselves appears to be no match against the power of the entrenched status quo to restore the failed, old order.  At the crossroads the great crisis is in full view.

It’s along the “dimension of economic opportunity,” President Obama notes, “the chance through honest toil to advance one's station in life,” that the goals of the civil rights era “have mostly fallen short.”  The “measure of progress” is “whether our economic system provides a fair shot for the many ... .  To win that battle, to answer that call --- this remains our great unfinished business.”

Is there a practical solution to restore meaningful equality of opportunity which empowers ordinary citizens to do it themselves?  The book sets upon a course to take the reader on a journey to that place.

-Michael D'Angelo

Note:  To learn how to purchase the new book in the reader's choice of hardcover, paperback or digital formats, see links to the right.

Publication Announcement !!!

Life among the Ordinary: Completing Our Nation's Great Unfinished Business --- the book, a product of comprehensive, multi-year study --- is published !!!

Here are the important links to purchase in the desired format ...


... hardcover:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-among-the-ordinary-michael-dangelo/1119913796?ean=9781939237231

... paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-among-Ordinary-Completing-Unfinished/dp/1939237254/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/186-9886105-7975904

... digital (kindle):

http://www.amazon.com/Life-among-Ordinary-Completing-Unfinished-ebook/dp/B00L9HIS48/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr&qid

A formal press release regarding the book's publication will be issued shortly.  Please keep an eye out for it!

And thanks for all your support!


-Michael D'Angelo