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To start with I want to make clear that The Declassification Engine is a fantastically well written and engaging book. However, it is a book designed to make the reader concerned, to draw their attention to an issue in the American governmental system that most people might not be aware of, despite this issue’s grave importance to our understanding of the past, present, and future. 

The Declassification Engine demonstrates the growth of government secrecy beginning in WWII, and the growing refusal of Presidents, advisers, security agencies, and the military to declassify records long after any protest of “protecting national security” can be justified. So why hide or destroy records that are inconsequential to national security? As Connelly makes very clear throughout the book, too often government and military officials use the cloak of secrecy to hide crimes committed, cover up incompetence or miscalculations, or to mask the needless waste of taxpayer money on inefficiency and harebrained boondoggles. 

On top of all of this, the book also points out two other crucial issues created by this cult of over-classification. 1. The over-classification of information is damaging to both democratic accountability, and genuine national security. When presidents use secrecy to try to control the narrative of politics, or the CIA uses it to hide all the illegal things the agency has done throughout its history, it becomes so much easier for actual sensitive secrets to be leaked in this confusing quagmire. And 2. The deluge of needlessly classified government records, especially in the digital age, is making it literally impossible for the undermanned and underfunded National Archives to sort through it all. If we don’t put more emphasis as a nation on declassification and accountability, then we are at risk of huge numbers of documents being “lost” or just deleted because no one can sort through them all. The potential loss of our history and the possibility that corrupt or incompetent officials might be able to escape the scrutiny of future histories should be a worrying prospect for us all. 

The one big ray of hope in The Declassification Engine is that many of the tools that the government uses to classify and surveil us can be used to help uncover what the government doesn’t want us to know, why they don’t want us to know it, and who in the government keeps the most secrets. Connelly describes in this book how he and different groups of data scientists can use algorithms and machine-learning to look for patterns in government documents. With these tools one might be able to find out what topics in a given time period receive the most classification, or whose name does or doesn’t appear often in top secret documents. This kind of examination, if properly developed and used correctly, could unlock a whole new avenue of approach to how historians research American political history. 

I absolutely loved reading this book. A couple of years ago I started using a notebook to mark down pages numbers of books I read so I can quickly return passages that I thought were exceptionally well written and thought provoking, or if the author has an interesting primary source quote. Since I started doing this I’ve read dozens of books, and it’s become an informal but demonstrative way to see how much I liked a book or how eye opening it was, the more page numbers I write down, the more I enjoyed it. And looking at how many page numbers I noted when reading The Declassification Engine, I really liked the book. On average I made a note for one out of every ten pages, far more than most of the other books I’ve read since I started doing this. What I love about books of this type is that not only are they well researched and informative, they also broaden your horizons and provide fresh perspectives for those reading them. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with everything said in the book, it’s reasonable and thoughtful enough to appreciate its convictions.  

For example, in one chapter of the book Connelly discusses programs the CIA conducted during the Cold War like MK Ultra that investigated whether mind control through new drugs was possible. MK Ultra was a hair-brained scheme from the start, demonstrating how secrecy often fosters incompetence rather than creativity and progress. But MK Ultra has become a monolith for conspiracy theorists for two important reasons, 1. The CIA was willing to conduct experiments on American citizens without their consent, proof that the government is willing to violate our fundamental rights if they feel as if it will serve their interests. And 2. Much of the documentation about MK Ultra was deliberately destroyed to cover up what was done. 

Connelly speculated that programs like MK Ultra when they were revealed to the public have fostered a mistrust in the government and science in general that can help explain why there was so much hostility to science about climate change or to vaccines during the COIVD-19 pandemic. I had never considered this perspective before. But after reading this idea I believe it is very plausible and to an extent helped alleviate some of my own bafflement to the rampant and vicious anti-scientific views held by so many Americans. 

This fear of the government’s intentions is especially understandable from Black Americans and other minorities. Reading this book reminded me of incidents in American history like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where Black Americans with syphilis were treated like lab rats to measure the effects of untreated syphilis. How much harder is it for a black man to trust the CDC now when they know that their lives have been treated like disposable petri dishes in the past, and systemic racism is still alive and well in the US today? This is the kind of long-term harm that government secrecy can do, especially when it is used to shield the guilty from consequences. 

Conclusion:

I believe that The Declassification Engine is an important book that needs to be read by as many Americans as possible. America desperately needs to rethink its policy of official secrecy. Our current system is bloated and unwieldy, making it next to impossible to have democratic accountability while also failing to safeguard legitimate secrets. The Declassification Engine is part wake up call, and part warning. This book makes readers aware of the flawed regime of secrecy we have been living in since the Second World War. And it’s a warning of the history that could be lost if we don’t act soon to change what the government keeps secret and why.

I would describe The Declassification Engine as a book that takes an honest look at American history, as opposed to the whitewashed history every student learns in school (government secrecy plays its part in that whitewashing). If you’re interested in other books that take an honest look into America’s recent past I would recommend two other brilliant books to pair with Connelly’s. The first is Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, by Spencer Ackerman. The second book is Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire, by Jonothan Katz. I’ll provide links to all three of these books below.

Links to Books:

The Declassification Engine:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-declassification-engine-what-history-reveals-about-america-s-top-secrets/18909336?ean=978110187157

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-declassification-engine-matthew-connelly/1141365354?ean=9781101871577

Reign of Terror:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/reign-of-terror-how-the-9-11-era-destabilized-america-and-produced-trump-spencer-ackerman/15725547?ean=9781984879790

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/reign-of-terror-spencer-ackerman/1138261754?ean=9781984879790

Gangsters of Capitalism:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/gangsters-of-capitalism-smedley-butler-the-marines-and-the-making-and-breaking-of-america-s-empire-jonathan-m-katz/18729615?ean=9781250135582

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gangsters-of-capitalism-jonathan-m-katz/1139229901?ean=9781250135582

Introduction:

In recent months thanks in large part to the settled lawsuit from Dominion voting systems, we have learned a great deal about the inner workings of Fox News and how many of its most important news anchors feel about their viewers, their colleagues, and the people they are supporting on the air. And the culture and priorities of Fox News have become clear as well. Basically, Fox News is and always has been a conservative propaganda wing of the Republican party, and they are more than willing to sacrifice any principles or integrity in the name of profits and retaining their audience. Now this has been a relatively big news story, and at the time of this writing it is still a developing story. But my question is, why isn’t this an even bigger story? Why aren’t these Dominion lawsuit revelations shaking American society and forcing us to question how we produce and consume news? This question I will discuss in Part 1 of this piece, and in Part 2 I will engage in a bit of shameless “I told you so” to Fox News and the strategy conservative media has been using for at least the past 25 years.  

Part 1:

Why haven’t the revelations brought to light by the Dominion lawsuit about the inner workings of Fox News been a huge event that immediately and fatally damaged the legitimacy of Fox? I think there are two key answers to the question. 

1. The title of this piece, outrages exhaustion. I don’t know if this was actually planned or if it was accidental but one of the brilliant things about Trump and his presidency was to create so much controversy, with every single day bringing new crimes and new scandals, that it made people exhausted to the point of apathy just to keep track of everything. Now imagine trying to do anything about all those scandals and outrages on top of that. In addition, the lack of real consequences for people in power when they commit crimes is also depressing and exhausting. Trump has done a brilliant job of demonstrating how much the justice system protects the rich through the example of his own life. Trump has been getting away with crimes his entire adult life and no one can fail to notice how money and power equals immunity from punishment (his recent indictment at the time of this writing notwithstanding). Returning specifically to Fox News, not only are Americans apathetic to scandal now, but I would also use the analogy of a vengeful wife slowly poisoning her husband over a period of years by adding arsenic to his coffee. If Fox News started their network as fascist insurrection apologists America might take more notice. But since Fox has been incrementally increasing the amount of poison over the past 20 years we fail to notice the cumulative damage it has had on our society. 
2. For many (myself included), when we learned what the Dominion lawsuit revealed we all said “no shit.” It was less of a revelation and more of a confirmation. “So, you’re saying that Fox News is an evil corporate megalith concerned only with money and propaganda? That’s so obvious it’s like saying the sun rises in the east or that water is wet.” What has baffled me for years and is still true even after all of this has come to light is that Fox seems to have won its own war for legitimacy. It is still the case that in polite society we all have to pretend as if Fox is some impartial and credible news organization, when the truth is that it has always been a blatant propaganda machine concerned only with pushing their own agenda. Fox “News” has always reminded me of a scene in the Silence of the Lamb film when Hannibal Lecter cuts off that guy’s face and wears it to escape. Well Fox cut off the face of real journalism and has been ghoulishly wearing it for decades.

Anyway, another reason that these Dominion revelations have not gotten the reaction that they deserve is because that reaction of “no shit” was only felt by people who already disliked Fox. However, for those who watch Fox their reaction is much different. Mainly, most of them didn’t react at all, because they haven’t heard about any of this. Because guess which network didn’t cover the Dominion lawsuit or its aftermath? Or, if Fox viewers have heard about this they either don’t understand what the Dominion lawsuit was about, or they just ignore it.  

Part 2:

Now if you’ll forgive my moment of bragging I’d like to take a quick victory lap and say that I was at least partially right about how Fox News’ strategy of peddling conspiracy and paranoia could backfire. One interesting thing that was brought to light by the Dominion lawsuit was the discussions had by Fox News pundits right after the 2020 election. Fox telling the truth about the election, especially when Biden won Arizona, made a lot of Fox viewers very angry. Telling the truth hurt the Fox brand and this is the dilemma that Fox has made for itself. It has spent decades creating an audience of ignorant and fearful people to make money, but Fox has had to become ever more radical to appease their increasingly irrational audience. But if they keep getting sued by companies like Dominion for the insane things they spew on their network they might not be able to afford to make one huge settlement after another to make the problem go away. But if they don’t keep their rhetoric insane enough, then their audience might leave to find someone who will say the things they want to hear. So, Fox is caught between trying to keep their audience and avoiding constant and costly legal headaches. 

In my book that was released in 2022 I made a short story about a conservative political party whose strategy to keep voters and stay in power was to brainwash as many people as they could with a cocktail of conspiracy, ignorance, and paranoia. In this short story I asked whether this paranoid and ignorant monster could ever bite the hand that feeds it, or even eat the hand that feeds it. Watching Fox’s dilemma, I need to adjust that imagery slightly. The paranoid and ignorant monster isn’t biting Fox’s hand, it’s becoming unsatisfied with what Fox is feeding it, so it’s looking for a new hand to feed it what it wants. 

Conclusion:

Fox News has been a malignant cancer destroying American society from the inside since the moment of its horror filled conception. A thousand ancient curses to everyone who created Fox, perpetuated it, and still make money off of it. The End. 

I wrote this piece in response to the mass shooting in… (it doesn’t matter at this point, pick whichever shooting is in the news right now, I’m sure there are plenty to choose from).

Introduction:

         I think a question that people should ask themselves more often about the issues and conflicts of the present and their importance is: How will people in the far future view our actions or inactions? I was thinking about this question when it comes to the mass shootings and completely overlooked gun violence in America. When people in the future look back on America’s culture of guns in the early 21st century and our refusal to do anything about gun violence, how will they judge us? And if that judgment is harsh, do we deserve it? My answer is yes, we do deserve to be judged harshly by the future, and I’ll quickly try to explain why I think so. 

Part 1:

If you ask me, America’s attitude toward gun violence has evolved to the point where “ordinary” shootings are completely ignored and mass shootings are basically ignored. When we see news of the 4 thousandth mass shooting this year, we all say, “oh isn’t that sad,” and then we move on. Part of that is just the sheer quantity of shootings, their frequency has an exhausting and benumbing effect on all of us. But I think this numbness has let a dangerous attitude settle into all of our heads; we think that this is normal and that there is nothing that can be done. This is a question I asked in my book, and I will repeat it here. What would it take to shake Americans out of our apathetic stupor when it comes to gun violence? How many people need to die in a mass shooting for us to finally say enough is enough? How horrific does the frequency of violence need to become before we finally demand that sensible gun legislation be passed? When are we finally going to dispense with the national myths that we are still some frontier settlers that need a gun above the mantelpiece to guard ourselves and our loved ones? Every time there is another unnecessary and horrific mass shooting, I think to myself; “Okay this has to be the tipping point, something is finally going to change.” And I’ve been disappointed again and again by the constant cycle of people saying that something needs to change and then it doesn’t and then we rinse and repeat for the next shooting. 

When people in the future look at gun violence in America, especially the relatively unique phenomenon of mass shooters, I think they will have two big questions for us. 1. The solution to rampant gun violence is obvious, so why didn’t we implement it a long time ago? And 2. As a long-term solution, why didn’t America do anything to fix the broken society that churned out mass shooters with the reliability and efficiency of a factory assembly line? I will address question 1 in Part 2 of this post, so confusingly I am going to start with question 2.

I want to emphasize a point I made a moment ago that the phenomenon of mass shooters isn’t unheard of in the rest of the world, but it is far rarer. And certainly, part of the problem with mass shootings in the US is the copycat effect. So why isn’t the US more committed to adjusting our society that will help alleviate the conditions that lead to this mass violence in the first place? I think a short answer to that question is crass but accurate, and it can apply to many societies in the past and present: it’s easier to maintain the status quo, however horrific it may be, than to change it. Just imagine all the issues the US would need to solve in order to become a more just and equitable society. Entrenched and systemic poverty and racism, corruption, healthcare reform, mental illness, and a million other factors that all swirl together into a soup of discontentment. Not to mention that throughout human history there are always people actively and consciously working against progress, making meaningful change all the more of a Herculean labor. So, from that perspective it might make a perverse kind of sense as to why so many are so willing to accept gun violence as an unavoidable fact of life, rather than an issue that can be addressed. I’m not saying that I agree with this brand of despondent acceptance. But it does take a significant effort to overcome that despondency, and that effort has to come from individual conviction.

Part 2:

But these big systemic and societal issues take a lot of time and arguing over what the problem is, how to solve that problem, and how to implement that solution. All of that is a necessary process of living in a free society. However, the short-term solution to reducing the death toll from gun violence is patently obvious. Less guns. That’s it. So why hasn’t the US figured that one out? Are Americans stupid? Well, they are, but less guns is an idea that can’t be missed even by the most dull witted. So, what’s happening, why has the problem of gun violence been increasing, and why have we been regressing when it comes to gun safety (and we are currently regressing in a lot of other areas as well)?

Well remember how I said a second ago that there are always people working against progress? Anyone who makes money off of maintaining the status quo is going to fight like a cornered animal to make sure that their cash cow isn’t taken from them. But I think there is more to it than that. I think there is a flaw in people’s thinking on a societal level that creates a mental trap for people.

Something I read in a book described what I mean in a profound and succinct way, and ever since I read this book, I have remembered this concept and applied it many places. The book is called “When the War Was Over,” by Elizabeth Becker about the Cambodian genocide, the events leading up to it like the Japanese occupation of French Indochina (of which Cambodia was a part), the genocide itself, and the Vietnamese invasion which eventually put a stop to the Khmer Rouge regime. At one point Becker describing the Khmer Rouge used the phrase “that they were reaching the end of their logic.” A truly profound observation made in a few words. 

Just in case it isn’t clear what “reach the end of their logic,” means I’ll try and explain it quickly. As I understand it, this phrase describes when a group, individual, or whole society acts under certain false assumptions, and the longer they refuse to question or alter their assumptions, the more and more that those false assumptions lead them into making insane decisions. “Reaching the end of their logic” means that there is no one around to ask if there should be a course correction, or that there are people who can see that a course correction is necessary, but for whatever reason their advice goes unheeded.

I think the United States is in the latter of those two categories. We are reaching the end of our logic when it comes to sensible gun safety measures. But people have been literally begging for decades for course correction and they have been ignored every time. And as gun violence and mass shootings become worse our “solutions” are becoming increasingly insane. Look at what’s been happening in US schools in the past decade. Instead of doing the sensible thing and curtailing access to deadly weapons, we instead are expecting students and school employees to adopt a siege mentality when they walk into a school. More armed security, active shooter drills, proposals to arm teachers, development of things like bullet resistant backpacks or panic shields to deploy in classrooms. After the school shooting in Nashville (at the time of this writing there has only been one school shooting in Nashville that I’m aware of), you had Fox “News” pundits saying that the problem with schools is that they have too many doors. Just think about that for one goddamn second readers. How is it that we have reached the point where doors are the problem? And let’s not forget why public buildings have multiple exits labeled with signs in the first place, it’s in case of fires. If there is only one way in and out of a building, and there is a fire, a huge number of people will either be killed by the fire or be trampled in the stampede to get out. This still happens all the time in countries with no building safety regulations, or where those regulations are ignored.

  So, what’s next? Are we going to brick up every door and window and turn every school into a prison that no one can escape from in the event of an emergency? How far are we going to go before we finally reach the end of our logic and circle back to the obvious answer of “less guns?”

Conclusion:

       Some might be wondering why I titled this piece “A letter to Future Historians…” The reason is that historians try as hard as they can to remove their own cultural biases that they have when they view the past. As much as they can they try to jettison their own assumptions and try to understand the culture and assumptions of the time period they were writing about. They often caution their readers or students with statements like: “I know it seems strange what people did in the past. But you have to internalize the fact they were born and raised in a different society, with different values and judgements.” Basically, it means: “You had to be there to get it.”

         So, when people look back on the cultural history of America in the early 21^st century they might be completely baffled as to how we could let the problem of gun violence go on for so long and not only did we not do anything to stop it, at pretty much every point we made the problem worse. At this point a historian might step in and say: “You can’t judge these people too harshly; you don’t understand the context and mindset of the people living in that time period.”

         Well, to any future historian reading this, I am an American living in the early 21^st century, and I don’t understand our mindset. We do deserve to be judged harshly. Our behavior is inexcusable, both from our leadership and the general public. We should have solved this problem decades ago. We should have been able to prevent thousands of needless deaths.

         And to make a broader point, I think if you look carefully at any historical issue or time period you can find reasonable pulling their hair out in frustration trying to warn everyone what’s going wrong and how to fix it. Most of the time the advice of these people is completely ignored. So, I wonder if we shouldn’t be more critical of people in the past who failed to listen to reason. 

         To the people of the future, when you look at America’s response to gun violence I say, don’t hold back.

P.S. I really hope that one week after I write this it looks silly because some sweeping gun safety reform swept through Congress and changed the culture of guns in the U.S. forever. But I’ve been disappointed so many times now that I wouldn’t bet on it. In fact I’d bet on the opposite like conservatives passing some insane legislation like “Guns for babies” or “One police armored car for every school.” 

            Anyone who has read my book or previous blog posts have probably figured out that I’m interested in domestic and international politics, both current and past. For this piece, I wanted to discuss strategic dependency. What I mean by strategic dependency is that when a country or countries’ societies are dependent on a certain resource to function. This resource can be anything and it has changed for different places at different times. It could be tin and copper ore used to make bronze in the Bronze Age, or it could be the crude oil and natural gas that the world economy is still addicted to currently in the 21^st century. I wanted to discuss this topic in two parts 1. How strategic dependency constrains what politicians can and cannot do and 2. How it affects their rhetoric. As with a lot of the topics I discuss, both of these parts blur together in the real world but for the sake of clarity I’m splitting them apart.

Part 1:

            What inspired me to write about this topic was a fascinating discussion on the podcast The Rest is History. The hosts of the podcast were doing a series on FIFA’s world cup, and they arrived at the topic of the host nation of the 2022 games, Qatar. For years before the 2022 World Cup journalists and news publications had been publishing story after story telling the world about the horrible conditions that migrant workers were experiencing as they built the infrastructure for the games. Many of them had their passports stolen as they lived in appalling and unsanitary housing, and reportedly thousands died in atrociously unsafe working conditions. It was essentially modern chattel slavery with people being treated as disposable tools. So why don’t we hear about the United States or Western European governments demanding investigations or sanctions against Qatar for their barbaric practices? Luckily for Qatari government, they sit atop some of the largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world. The demand for the resources that Qatar controls is constant, and governments who depend on Southeast Asian energy imports cannot afford to antagonize the people who provide their lifeblood. It would be as if energy dependent nations were a patient getting a constant blood transfusion from a volunteer, the patient cannot risk upsetting the volunteer and risk them cutting them off. The need for essential resources has always controlled the strategic calculus of states for all of human history. It’s almost ironic in a way, people in positions of political power often see themselves as masters of the world, and in many ways they are. But at the same time, they are also caged by the unchanging dynamics of politics and strategic dependency.

            Just a quick note, why didn’t we see more ordinary people demanding that their governments act against Qatar, or at the very least condemn the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar? I think the ancient Roman poet Juvenal said it best when he coined the phrase “bread and circuses.” For most people, as long as they get their appetite for spectacle satiated, they don’t much care who suffered to create that spectacle. Or to quote another intellectual powerhouse, the TV show SpongeBob SquarePants, “No one cares about the fate of labor so long as they get their instant gratification.”  

Part 2:

When one sovereign power is forced to import a strategically important resource from another sovereign power, the dependent power has to tread very carefully in order to keep their access. This includes political rhetoric; politicians cannot risk upsetting those that they depend on. But rhetoric can also be a tool that politicians wield in order to help them gain access to resources they need. Let’s see how both of these cases might play out in a short hypothetical.

 Imagine that the United States turns its glutenous eyes towards a relatively small but oil rich nation. The US wants access to this oil, but the local strongman who rules the country is a staunch nationalist who plays the great powers off of one another in order to stay independent. Using outright force would be too much of a provocation to be feasible. But there is an alternative. While the CIA finds people within the country with frustrated ambitions who would be amicable to a US alliance, politicians within the United States begin to denounce the dictator to all the world’s media outlets, and to the American public. These politicians earnestly and convincingly condemn the dictator’s extrajudicial executions, restriction of the press and other civil rights, and other aspects of the repressive police state. When the CIA funnels money into the right hands to help foment a revolution to overthrow the dictator, US politicians cheer on the revolution as a triumph for democracy and human rights. The clique that is swept into power also offers very generous terms to the US for their oil resources.

There is some initial optimism that the new regime will be more democratic and less authoritarian than the previous one. But those hopes are soon dashed. The new ruling elite didn’t have a principled objection to dictatorial power, they just wanted to be the ones wielding that power. So how does the United States respond to this new anti-democratic regime? Nothing. In fact, they do less than nothing. US politicians didn’t have a principled objection to dictatorship abroad either, their concern was getting someone friendly to US interests in power. Now the rhetoric of US politicians shifts from calling the oil rich country a repressive police state to a bringer of stability in a chaotic region.

Hopefully this quick scenario demonstrates how political rhetoric can be a tool to either gain or keep access to strategically important resources. The particulars of who, what, and when in this game have changed countless times over millennia. But the dynamics of the game have remained basically unchanged.

Conclusion:

            From a moral perspective this geopolitical game of always fighting for a steady supply of important resources is pretty revolting. This is a game where compassion and basic humanity almost always loses to the grim “necessities” of politics. At this level of national and international politics people’s lives are treated like a currency to be bought or traded if the value of what’s being traded is deemed worth it. I wanted to make that clear before I offer the slightest caveat in the next paragraph.

            This is something I discussed in my book, and I first heard the concept in an episode of the Hardcore History podcast about the first World War; that is the concept of leaders often being forced into a sort of prisoner’s dilemma when it comes to resources (another way in which politicians’ actions can be limited as I alluded to in Part 1). A world leader might make the case for their conduct as follows: “I didn’t like what we had to do to get our hands on those resources. But if we didn’t secure them our rivals would have, and that would have made us weaker while they became stronger.” The idea behind this statement is that potentially conscientious or principled leaders are forced into acting ruthlessly because they have to ensure that their state remains strong. They might not like the rules, but everyone is forced to play by them.

            I’m not sure I buy that argument, at least entirely. But I do think it helps explain why this process of resource dependency looks achingly similar no matter what time period you choose to look at in history. And it looks like this process will continue long into the future. What resource and where it can be found might change. But how the game is played to hold those resources will not change.

P.S. If you got the reference that I made with the title of this piece then I salute your knowledge of WWI history.

Quick Note: I finished writing this piece just before the massive derailment and subsequent chemical spill that happened in East Palestine, Ohio in early February 2023. Workers in the industry had been warning for decades that something like this was bound to happen as companies prioritized profits over safety for the environment and their workers. While it’s no consolation for any of us, in my small part I want to join the chorus of “I told you so.” It will be interesting to see if anyone reading this in the far future, or even the recent future, will remember what happened at East Palestine, or if it will be forgotten as just another small town destroyed by greed and shortsightedness.

                At the end of 2022 several unions of railway workers in the United States threatened to strike as a way to improve their working conditions, especially more paid sick days. Eventually after some tense negotiations a “compromise” was reached that all but quashed most of the union’s most important demands. While these negotiations were ongoing there was a lot of discussion both among news outlets and in the general public about the potential strikes. Mostly these discussions revolved around whether or not these unions were right in threatening to strike at all. Should these unions and the workers they represented have risked large-scale slow-downs or shutdowns of our nation’s railways as we were approaching the holidays?

                Many people in this discussion opined that it was selfish for these railway workers to potentially strike as the nation was still reeling from the pandemic, inflation, and a possible recession. What right did these workers have to disrupt a vital transportation artery?

                I disagree with this line of thinking, and it’s why I decided to talk about it in this post. Why do I disagree? Let me change the question I asked at the end of the last paragraph into a statement that I think reflects the subtext of the question. Instead of “What right do these workers have..”  I think what people are really saying is “I don’t care what those people’s working conditions are like, I’d prefer they do their jobs without complaint, so it won’t affect me negatively.” In my opinion, the attitude that animated people opposed to a potential strike was one of, “I’m not willing to make sacrifices or be inconvenienced so that others can try and better their lot in life.”

                Why do I think this? Mostly because I’m utterly pessimistic, and I think people can often be myopically selfish in their worldview. I know life is difficult for everyone, and we all have our own lives and worries that necessarily occupy our time. But I think this myopic selfishness goes beyond the mere fact that people are busy and caught up in their own lives. An easy example of this is the wealth inequality that has existed in practically every settled society for all of human history. Imagine some of the world’s wealthiest people today. They do not have nearly as many of the same struggles or worries that the vast dregs of us do. Yet do you see them committing their lives to charity and good deeds to help those less fortunate than themselves? And no, I do not consider the ultra-wealthy donating a pittance of their total fortunes to be charitable, mostly I suspect they do that so they can get a tax write off. There’s a school of thought in philosophy that posits that an action cannot be considered moral if there is an ulterior motive for that action. According to this school of thought, a wealthy person donating to charity to pay less taxes is not moral. The point of this digression is, even when people are not burdened with the daily struggles of life, how many of them think of someone other than themselves?

                To return to the topic of the recent strikes, a lot of Americans were unwilling to support the potential strikes because it would hurt them in some way financially. And there is no doubt that is true, at least in the short term. But where I think many Americans, and people in general, go awry is that they only think in the short term, without considering any long-term benefits or consequences. Sure, a strike in some key industry would hurt the economy in the short term. But wouldn’t people who are happier, better compensated, and more fulfilled in their occupations be a good thing for the global economy? Wouldn’t we live in a better society if we were all willing to sacrifice a little to improve the lives of others? Couldn’t we raise everyone’s conditions if we were willing to be a little selfless? Wouldn’t the rising tide raise all boats?

                If we adhere to the logic that no one is allowed to strike or protest for better conditions if it hurts us or the economy in some way, then no one is allowed to strike ever. If we want to live in a society that values people over profits, then we need to be willing to support people when they speak out about ill treatment. Someone might retort that we should only support protests or strikes for better conditions as long as they are reasonable and not selfish or outlandish. While in theory I would agree with that, I think that logic can be taken too far. After all, it isn’t selfish to demand to be treated fairly and with dignity. The values I thought we had as Americans is that we all have a finite amount of time on Earth, and that if we sacrifice some of that time at work, we should be fairly compensated and treated with respect. Those are the values that Americans should remember when they see people demanding respect and appreciation for their work. And they should also consider that if we refuse to help one another raise our standards of living, we might all be inadvertently helping keep one another down.