Mariner stumbled across a small analysis that suggests the United States is struggling with an ingrown caste system very much like the caste system that exists in India. Americans don’t pay much attention to India (they should, it’s a sumo nation). India covers a large part of Asia and has a cultural history dating back six thousand years. The culture is a mix of authoritarianism, Buddhism, Hinduism and a current political structure instituted by the British occupation during the age of Colonialism (1600s to mid-1900s).  Rather than devote pages of copy to describing India’s history, mariner will provide simplistic comparisons between the two caste systems. A simple chart describes India’s caste system:

The smaller type in parentheses is helpful. Twice Born, loosely interpreted, means those who were born under normal circumstances but remade themselves into successful leaders of the nation, religion or wealth. In the United States a similar structure exists with different terminology. For example, where would the reader put the white-college-successful democratic party? Where would the reader put the labor class? Taking into consideration India’s stronger theocracy, where would the reader put conservative evangelicals? And obviously, where would descendants of slavery be put? And the Oligarchs and capitalists?

Mariner hopes this is enough information to demonstrate how castes work. Certainly the two systems don’t reflect identical cultures but the point of the analysis was how hard it is to deconstruct what are, in fact, culturally cemented castes. The samples mariner used for the United States date back to the nation’s origin. The first settlement introduced slavery from the get-go. Remember the Puritans? Remember Native American genocide? Etc. etc.

That the Declaration of Independence says ‘all men are created equal’ doesn’t displace Western Civilization’s long practiced, class-based social structure.

Having read the analysis – just a paragraph in a larger article about politics – mariner now has a different perspective about the troubles the U.S. is having. Maybe people can’t break embedded castes but a pandemic plus artificial intelligence together are having a go at it. Primarily, the changes are superficial and economic in nature, caused by recent changes in elitist society. Unfortunately the embedded castes like racism, Christian theocracy and plutocracy will be around for the foreseeable future.

Is there a U.S. comparison to India’s sacred cows (in light of the fact that the United States virtually eliminated the existence of the American Buffalo)?

Ancient Mariner

In a couple of weeks, the nation will be exactly one year from the 2022 General Election. Yes, we feel like this is a long way out there but the party troops have been organizing for months. Trump republicans are locked in to win their primaries and have spent a fortune in state promotions. Most elected representatives and senators are from guaranteed republican states.

The Constitution mandates 435 House members distributed according to population. Currently 220 are democrat, 212 are republican and there are 3 vacancies. Looking at state representation, 22 states are democratic and 28 are republican – including 23 republican states where the Governor, legislature and courts are all republican. Ironically, just 19 percent of the nation’s population lives in these red states.

Both parties have split in two; the republicans have become enchanted by authoritarian capitalism while the democrats have championed a socialist revolution reminiscent of the 1960s. Add to this the results of the 2020 census which moved several representative seats toward the south and west. [Based on population shifts recorded in the 2020 Census, there were six US states that gained congressional House seats: Texas (2), Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Florida, and North Carolina; and seven states that lost seats: New York, Illinois, California, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.]

This noisy imbalance, in a nation based on one person, one vote has reached a painful cacophony – which falls upon the citizenry like bird droppings (Mariner loves to mix metaphors). At a time when the planet is racing into a totally new reality, the world’s most profound democracy is dropping bird poop.

Another issue is the age of the legislators who stopped experiencing new insights in the 1990s. Below is an excerpt from an HBO interview with republican senator Bill Cassidy. The interviewer is Mike Allen:

“1 big thing: Senator backs senility test

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, told me during an interview that he favors cognition tests for aging leaders of all three branches of government.

• Why it matters: Wisdom comes with age. But science also shows that we lose something. And much of the world is now run by old people — including President Biden, 78 … Speaker Pelosi, 81 … Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, 70 … and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 79.

Cassidy, a gastroenterologist, told me during our wide-ranging interview in Chalmette, La., that in your 80s, you begin a “rapid decline.”

• Noting he wasn’t talking about specific people, Cassidy said: “It’s usually noticeable. So anybody in a position of responsibility who may potentially be on that slope, that is of concern. And I’m saying this as a doctor.”
• “I’m told that there have been senators in the past who, at the end of their Senate terms were senile,” Cassidy added. “I’m told that was true of senators of both parties.”

Cassidy said it’d be reasonable for Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and executive branch leaders to submit to an annual evaluation in which they would have to establish cognitive sharpness.

• “We each have a sacred responsibility to the people of the United States,” Cassidy said. “It is not about me. It is about my ability to serve the people.”

Mariner has great expectations for the 2022 election. Don’t you?

Ancient Mariner

Mariner saw that the reconciliation bill in Congress is available for review and download. He was eager to scan through the document to have a sense of its direction. The first page of titles came on the computer screen. In small print it said the bill has 2,465 pages! Scanning this document would be like crossing the Atlantic Ocean one glass of water at a time. It is true that the reconciliation bill is a benchmark bill that if passed would shift the national philosophy in a direction that hasn’t been active since the early 1960s.

Despite the Vietnam War and the racial riots during the sixties, there was an air of emerging freedom and opportunity. This air of future happiness (it was called Camelot) faded quickly after JFK’s assassination in 1963 and died along with Bobby’s assassination in 1968. The 1968 election was as raucous as the 2020 election.

LBJ took over after the JFK assassination and pushed through the remaining key legislation (intended to build A Great Society) that in those days made exceptional progress for civil rights, tax cuts, Medicare and other liberal programs that haven’t been headline news until the current Presidency. When Lyndon did not run for a second term and diminished support for the Vietnam War, the war was doomed very much like Afghanistan today.

So the nation has come full circle. Shamefully, the nation has made little progress toward racial equality, has put back rich-friendly tax rates and now faces competition from the planet itself. Further, the third branch of government, the courts, is not the neutral arm it is supposed to be – despite Justice Breyer’s new book to the contrary[1]. The public trust of the courts has fallen into the 40 percent range. This is serious because the courts are the trusted ballast that prevents storm waves from coming over the gunnel and sinking the ship – something that destructive bias causes.

It is a hellish time, in the midst of a hurricane, to try to turn the sails toward a new image of nationhood. Mariner fears that the sails can’t be turned during the next several election cycles. The nation needs a new crew in Congress; the rudder of electoral representation is broken; the electorate is as clueless as the government at this point. In the midst of this hurricane is a tornado called climate change which will make current issues about immigration and housing seem like child’s play.

However, let’s hold onto hope that the electorate is tired of this crap and may surprise us in coming elections.

Ancient Mariner

[1] The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities.