UPDATE

Still here, struggling.  Carry on. 

When I went to college, seventy-four years ago, five percent of adult Americans had four-year college degrees. This meant that aside from doctors, most lawyers, dentists, college professors, most [but not all] high school teachers, and such, virtually no adults had college degrees.  I cannot recall whether universities offered MBAs.  My first father-in-law made it to the rank of Vice-President of Sears, Roebuck without the benefit of a college experience, let alone a degree, and there were more private than public tertiary institutions.

America was a severely economically stratified country, although corporate presidents made twenty or thirty times the salaries of workers, not a thousand times.  But because of the relative rarity of college degrees, the economic mobility of working-class American men [I will come to women and African Americans later] was less obvious. 

Today, three-quarters of a century later, a third of American adults have college degrees. Sixty percent of young Americans start college, but since only 55 percent finish, the college educated portion of the population is still only at one third.

I have spent the last four months, lying in bed and watching television. During that time, I have watched hundreds of hours of commentary on the political situation. I cannot think of a single commentator who does not have a college degree. I should like to try and experiment and that has almost never been attempted. Let me ask what America looks like to one of the two thirds of the population without a college degree. To such a person, most of the good jobs are closed off. Without a college degree in America today, an ordinary American cannot be a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, a nurse, a college professor, a high school teacher, a middle school teacher, an elementary school teacher, an FBI agent, a Wal-Mart store manager, and in most large cities, a police officer, or a management trainee. It matters not how ambitious or hard working such a person is, he is simply denied those opportunities for lack of the educational credentials. 

The truth is, even fifty or seventy-five years ago when the minority of workers had any real shot at the good jobs in this country but because access to such jobs did not require such credentials, it was possible to conceal that lack of access from view. 

Today, there are more than 3,000 college and university campuses that offer a four-year degree. And I'm not talking about those elite institutions that virtually guarantee their graduates of the upper middle-class jobs with salaries over $100,000 a year, with pensions, benefits, paid holidays, and the like. The United States is the third largest country in the world. Only China and India, each with well over a billion residents, or larger, because the United States has so large a population, it is possible to make the mistake of supposing that the concerns of the one-third with college degrees, especially when being discussed by people who have college degrees, constitute a totality or at least the preponderance of the concerns of Americans. But even that enormous population is only one-third of all the adults in America. 

The obscene character and performance of Donald Trump and his characterless followers make it easy to dominate our attention. But the real question is how such a desperate group of protofascists could command such support of virtually of half the voting population. Once we recognize the real character of America's population, the answer becomes obvious. The democratic party in the recent decades has become the party of the educated third of America. Because of the complexity of America's history with slavery, and the almost self-destructive embrace by the republican party of anti-abortion politics, the democratic party has been able to conceal from itself it's lack of commitment to the interest of the non-educated two-thirds of the population (one of the many ironies of the education of the electoral fiasco that has just played out before us is the fact that Joe Biden is the most genuine supporter of the interests of the non-college educated class). If we managed to survive the next several years, a survival that will be made more probable if Hakin Jefferies manages to gain control of the house perhaps, we will finally begin to ask whether the interests of the two-thirds of the AMerican population without college degrees should be made central to the concerns and mission of the democratic party. 

(Dictated from my bed in the skilled nursing facility at Carolina Meadows with the invaluable assistance of Erika Hamlett)

THE RETURN OF THE IRREPRESSIBLE

Four months ago I slipped in the kitchen and banged the back of my head on the floor, producing a subdural hematoma.. Thus began a saga that led me to the emergency room at UNC hospitals, and put me on a ventilator for five days. At one point the neurological team treating me were ready to give up, and were only dissuaded by the intervention of my son, Tobias and my doctor, Thomas Keyserling.

Now, three months later, I am much improved, although consigned to a wheel chair [as much by my Parkinson's as by the effects of the fall.]

There is one small problem:  I failed my swallow test.  As a consequence, I run the risk of pneumonia in my lungs if I eat or drink anything.  Hence I receive all my food through a tube in my stomach.  I have not eaten or drunk anything in three months.  Sigh.

I have a good deal to say about one thing and another.  But it will take time.  I hope you amused yourself in my absence.

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI

 I managed to make it through college, graduate school, and a Harvard instructorship without owning a car, but in 1961, As I set out from Cambridge, Massachusetts to find out whether there was a world beyond Harvard Square, I decided I needed transportation, so I bought Sam Todes' ancient Plymouth for a $100.  The next year, when I got married, I decided wanted to get rid of the car but I could not find anybody to buy it or even take it away. I will never forget calling the police department and having a Sgt. lean in conspiratorially to the telephone as he said "dump it in the river." Eventually i did find a garage that would take it away for $25 (that is to say, I paid them $25 to take it away.)

Now, 63 years later, I have decided my car owning days are over, so I shall do something or other with my 20-year-old Toyota Camry and rely from now on on the transportation of others.As losses go, it is small one.

SAD NEWS

Yesterday, by way of an anonymous comment on this blog, I learned for the very first time the devastating news that Noam Chomsky a year ago had a massive stroke and is still recovering slowly from it.  There is really nothing I can say save to hope that he makes a full recovery in time. Norm is five years older than I and I suppose it is hardly surprising that he is having serious health problems, but if anybody wants further proof of the nonexistence of a good God one can simply reflect that Henry Kissinger lived to be 100.  Lord knows, it is long past the time when my prayers would have any effect even if I knew to whom or to what to direct them. If anyone has recent news of how Norm is doing. I would appreciate an email.

DON'T KNOCK TECHNOLOGY UNTIL YOU HAVE TRIED IT

In the past three weeks, I have suffered a dramatic and significant decline in my mobility, for reasons that my doctors have not yet figured out.  My ability to get around with a three wheeled roller is almost nil, I have fallen four or five times at home although fortunately have not hurt myself seriously, and even getting to and from my car is almost impossible for me. However, I have just discovered that my retirement community has just purchased a bus that is wheelchair accessible. Today, when I went to see my doctor, I got on my three wheeled electric scooter, which I use everywhere in my home, went down via elevator and out to meet the bus, got on the bus, got off the bus, made my way to my doctor’s office, saw him, came back home, and never once had to get off my scooter until I was safe at home. That may not seem like much to you youngsters in your 60s and 70s but believe me, to a 90-year-old with Parkinson’s disease it is miraculous

 

Now, if I could just fix the world everything would be fine withal

THOGHTS BY A NINETY YEAR OLD ON THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY

 

Dylan Thomas

1914 –

1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light