The Dichotomy Series

Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us lo go ever further and further in our pursuit of truth- Hymn of the Universe - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Part 1: America’s Dichotomy, Peak China, Peak Russia et Alia?

Boeing, South Carolina and the World - The Employed, the Spectators and Healthcare?

After Boeing moved some of its assembly operations to South Carolina, the mayor of Greenville, S.C. opined that in the future, there would be two categories of people:

• The skilled, trained and educated who would be gainfully employed and;
• The untrained and unskilled -who would watch the former work.?

“The ballooning costs of healthcare act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy," - Warren Buffett

Education, Taxation, Health, Jobs, Culture and the Mule’s Second Kick?

The New Social Contract

“To reach a port we must set sail –Sail, not tie at anchor - Sail, not drift.” - FDR

Jean-Jacques Rousseau identified the post- feudal relationship between the state and the individual. He did this in his essays?The Social Contract?and?L’Emile ou L’Education.

Napoleon also recognized the pivotal role of education on society when he addressed the French Council, the Conseil with:?Education is the most important of all institutions, since everything depends upon it, the present and the future. It is essential that the morals and political ideas of the generation which is now growing up should no longer be dependent on the news of the day or the circumstances of the moment...Men already differ enough in their inclinations, their characters and everything that education does not give and cannot reform...Let us have a body of doctrine that doesn't vary and a body of teachers that doesn't die."?

A Little History

In the early 1900s, Teddy Roosevelt, a vigorous and charismatic American president, failed to lead in winning rights for African Americans and women. He also failed in his advocation for national health insurance. Two events informed what would become his presidency:

• When a Republican freshman in the NY State Assembly, Teddy Roosevelt visited cigar makers in their NY tenements. He was appalled to see whole families suffering from eye, skin, lung ailments resulting from exposure to raw tobacco.?
• After convincing Congress to withdraw the troops, some of whom he had led in Cuba, and riding his San Juan Hill exploits to national fame —thanks to a idolizing press, Roosevelt seized on the public outrage from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to set about reforming America. In his 1912 run for president, he called for:
• Universal health insurance
• A national public health service
• Insurance for the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled?
• The end of child labor

Roosevelt was not at the forefront on race, on the rights of women, or health. He endured more defeats than successes in the areas that he fought for.?

It was left to his relative, his eventual successor, FDR, to create the institutions that would lead America to unparalleled economic development after the debacle of the Smoot-Hawley trade tariffs, after the cycles of competitive currency devaluations - the race to the economic bottom - that resulted in the Great Depression and WWII.?

“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” - FDR?

Education is the first role of the statesman - FDR

“There is no education in the second kick of a mule.” ~ old Kentucky adage

Continued