The Appalling Loss of Political Ethics

 

Well, the rats are finally and slowly beginning to leave the sinking ship.

Over the past almost 4 years we have seen a handful of ethical Republican leaders stand by the principles of honesty and accountability that we have a voted right to expect in all our public SERVANTS.

They braved the castrating effects of caustic, repulsive bullying, defamation, and personal attack from a verbal weapon-wielding presidential poser, his scathing rebuke and retribution, and held their ground.

During all of this, many of us have been wondering – where are the Republican leaders? Where have they been? Why are they silent in the face of this massive and preposterous attack on the Republic for Which They Stand? Their silence has been deafening, mystifying, horrifying and sad. Worse yet, the tacit support indicated by their silence has been frightening. Our hearts have been broken, our hopes deflated, our trust badly battered, and our sense of democracy threatened.

Now, as the skies darken over this administration, with no hope of pulling any publicly approved millions-of-voter hoax over the American people’s eyes congealing into undeniable fact, the hangers on, the coat-tailers, the helping-themselves-at-the-table satellites circling around the horn of plenty of handouts for those who flatter me, or at least shut up – because shutting up is complicity – are sensing the sinking of their golden goose ship of power and plenty and leaving the table. They are jumping off by disagreeing with an illogical, unfactual, unskilled, unmanageable, demagogic, presumptive, unqualified impostor. They are speaking the truth, facing the facts, and publicly acknowledging them to what may be left of their voters. Whew. Finally. Some real reality.

But may we watch and count and remember with our eyes open. These late-leavers are those who sold their political souls for personal gain. If they did it once, they will do it again. It is in the nature and grain of their political persona, hidden beneath the surface, showing in actions and screaming in silence. No personal gain at the political table, they leave and go looking for crumbs of approval from the voters who put them there in the first place. Did they do their job standing up for the welfare of those whom they were charged to serve as they gobbled at the table of Trump plenty of power for a few, maybe for you if you are loyal? You decide. You are the voter. But remember what they did not say, what they did not do, as they sat at the table with a wanna be dictator. Remember.

We can shine the light of the failure of political ethics clearly on Republicans in this instance, but in truth what is at stake here is political ethics in all arenas, in all parties, in all individuals seeking to take on the role of SERVING the people of this country. And one thing we may have lost in this muck is the personal ethics we bring to the process of choosing and voting for our servant leaders. If we can be led to vote for someone with no appropriate life experience and qualifications perhaps we are not as familiar with the qualifications of the job position that needs to be filled. Perhaps we are voting with unhealed emotions of anger, fear, pain and revenge. These origins will never lead us to healthy leadership. We, as a people, have personal healing and self-examination to do so that we have clear eyes minds and hearts to vote with. Ethics and self-honesty begins in each person and becomes a communal expression as we choose our leaders. Ethics begins with us, the voters, and ends in Washington DC.

Farewell

 

Well folks, the show is almost over.

After January 20^th people can go home and begin to watch the re-runs.

It’s been a good four-year season for a “reality” TV show packed with hype, hyperbole, and shockingly exciting autocracy. Featuring rip-roaring conflict, hidden drama, blatant manipulation, comedic conspiracies, subtle violence, unacknowledged repression, a demagogic main character, sad humor, and magnificent mismanagement, the longest running season of The Apprentice is over.

Trump has kept his audience well entertained, with exciting new episodes occurring almost weekly and daily twitter promotions that kept his followers on the edges of their chairs with delight.

We bid adieu to a fantasy run. The one where everyone wants to be in the seat of power and tell others what to do and where to get off. The private dreams of control and revenge acted out through a surrogate playing to his best accolades.

The show is over folks.

Go Home

Watch the re-runs.

Law and Order - for Some or All?

 

Of course, we must have law and order. The basis of any society is organization and cooperation for the benefit of all. Laws and order are essential to our communal survival and prosperity. And in America so are the freedoms, equality and self-government contained and guaranteed for all within our constitution.

Society is constructed to give greater power and survival to its members through shared communal resources, skills and talents. They must be for the benefit of all for a society to survive successfully, otherwise it will topple. The big, huge vision of a Democracy is to do just that. Provide a society in which all can flourish together. This society, with its attendant rules and structures, law and order, exists for the benefit and welfare of all its members. None of our societal institutions were meant to treat one segment of the population differently than others. 

The operation of Law and Order today we are told by Black, Indigenous, LBGTQ and People of Color, is doing just that. It is, they say, the work of Bias and Prejudice, built-in preference and privileges expressed in so many, many facets in our society that we white, straight folk are not aware of because we are used to current conditions we consider "normal" and "just fine." Right down to religious values that support our views. We will use everything we have to make ourselves right.  

While Law and Order were purported to be the instrument of a perfect society to preserve and defend freedoms for all, they were actually created to protect and defend white people against all possibly threatening others. Research it. Our white ideals have been subverted, often with very clear intention by some, but for most of us, completely without our knowing, realizing or understanding. The problems of racial and sexual persecution and suppression are couched in the ignorance of our minds and the hardness of our hearts.

And that is what all the fuss is about today as we stand polarized over is there a race problem or is there not in America. We are not a perfect people and we do not therefore create perfect societal structures. The United States is a people in process, moving toward an ideal with a set of values that embraces life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all within its borders. This ideal naturally and logically excludes the concept of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for one segment of its population at the expense of other segments of its population. When, as a people, we become aware of these kinds of inequities in our country it is our duty as citizens of these United States to examine the issues and make every attempt to correct our course and keep us on the mark set by our struggling forbearers who gave up so much in pursuit of this ideal; they sacrificed everything for it to create a place of freedom and safety for future generations. That is the purpose of the democratic government they created for us, and the charge they have handed down to Americans through the generations. Do we take it or leave it? To leave it is to leave Democracy and drift into autocracy....

We must always be on guard for the subtle slips and sidewinders that distract us from our path as a country and very slowly change the operation of our systems to different outcomes. They are the result of our personal griefs and angers, fears and hates that influence and determine our choices and our votes, our actions and our speech. We are each responsible for holding the values and vision entrusted to us by preceding generations. That means we are each charged with examining the values instilled by our parents and theirs before them, to the values expressed in our Constitution. We are each charged with allowing that Constitutional vision to expand and grow with each new generation and every global situation we face in our life journeys. 

We cannot, as Americans, blindly trust in the proper application of our national values by agencies and institutions set up to do so, but must continually re-visit these institutions, holding them and ourselves accountable for making conscious choices to apply the founding values we profess in the ever-changing landscape of human existence and interaction within our borders.  We, the people, are responsible for the slow gentle twisting of our national values and vision, through whatever life incidents have shaped them, to support unrecognized biases. We are responsible. Our institutions reflect the choices we make and carry out our wishes. Not only is Law and Order not exactly what we think it is, many of our core assumptions about the equality of  social opportunities and benefits reflect these same discrepancies. Today is one of those times of shining an uncomfortable light on places that need change.

Law and order of the people, by the people and for the people, is a big inheritance and huge responsibility to embrace and grow with the changes needed to serve all ethnicities and cultures citizened within our borders. This is the charge of our Constitution. And let's not forget that our founding vision and the economics of what was really happening in America, a land discovered and exploited by European countries for economic gain and world power through colonization and imperialism, differ greatly. Our real history and our story are not congruous. Teaching a realistic view of the forces that actually shaped our country, one that includes this disparity between our intentions and our origins and actions, will help provide a solid basis for making informed decisions. 

To deny and repress voices of dissent crying for a review of our systems by labeling them as vicious and un-American by exaggerating negative impressions and mis-reporting or mis-interpreting reports, is to ignore the process of democracy instilled within our fabric that pays attention to the voices of all members of society and to repress the only process (that of assessing and revising to extend our vision and values more clearly to all) that keeps us truly free and American. Let’s welcome those who do not feel law and order are being applied justly and equally to all into the discussion tables with those who feel there is not enough law and order. Let's invite them into the legislative halls and the future planning of America. It is the very same cry our visionary founders are shouting to us through the centuries. Are we open enough to listen or will we drown them out with protestations of our rightness under a set of invoked laws and beliefs? Law and order equally for all to ensure the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness without repression and persecution of one group by another only occurs through listening to the voices of all. That is a truly Great America. Let’s work on it – together.

 

Thoughts on Campaign Conversations to have following Meet the Press this morning

 

 

Relief Bill - Authoritarianism in Action: They missed a big opportunity on Meet the Press this morning when discussion of the relief bill came up. Trump’s Chief of Staff said the President has a 1.3 trillion-dollar package that the Democrats are keeping from the American people by not agreeing to Trump's terms.

What is really happening is that Trump is unwilling to negotiate with the Democrats in any way. This is the leadership model he uses and will use for the next four years if re-elected. No negotiation, no listening; his terms his way. It is a clear expression of authoritarianism, which can, in the right clothing, with the right clean up, look like good, strong leadership - but this is misleading.

      Good leadership brings all the pieces to the table and puts together a solution that works for everyone – A win-win or at least an attempt at it in the best form possible. Donald Trump offers no such solutions for the American people. He offers his solutions and his only will he accept, even if he says otherwise. This is the discussion that needs to be held publicly.  The one around Donald’s leadership style. Authoritarianism versus leadership. What the vision of our founding fathers was for presidency in the United States and how has this developed over the years leading to the ability and ease with which the current administration continues to subvert this role? For an interesting article discussion on the historical development of the presidency check this Washington Post Article interview with Ray Raphael who wrote “Mr. President: How and Why the Founders Created a Chief Executive” Here is another good piece on the Presidency from US History.org. *

       Corona Virus - Leadership skills: the American public needs to understand that Donald’s leadership (or lack of it) on this one event is not the issue. What is being revealed here is Donald’s lack of leadership skills across the board. Because he cannot negotiate, listen to or compromise on anything that involves communication with those who do not agree with his views, he cannot provide leadership here. The leader of a free country voted into office and governing a diverse population needs the ability to delegate and use the skill and expertise of the people on his team for the good of  all the people in times of crisis as well as times of calm. It is a learned, embedded skill. Instead, Donald spent months (of precious activation time) trying to wrap his head around medical matters so that he could appear to be expert in them. Rather than acknowledging a problem and turning to experts to provide swift solutions he doubted the voices around him and spent precious time trying to bring himself up to speed in an area where he had no real knowledge because he wanted to be the one to appear knowledgeable and hold the limelight at the microphone and have the people hail him as an expert and a hero. (Good and honest managers attract and retain good responsible honest people around them and then let them do their jobs.)  His lack of knowing and sensing what was the true issue, lack of ability to listen to chosen experts and lack of ability to coordinate his team and to inspire and bring people together are lack of true leadership skills seen in every area of his administration. The corona virus just hit us all at once instead of in little pockets of areas one at a time as do his other actions and decrees that take away benefits and freedoms from the people. Here, with Covid 19, his lack of leadership skills is more evident because it is widespread and single-pointed in time.

      This conversation needs to be held with the American people. What are true leadership skills and how will they benefit us as a country? Someone who retreats from a crisis and does not believe what experienced experts are reporting and then replaces them all to match his personal beliefs is a person who does not have the skills to guide a nation through any crisis except perhaps for one where he can put his finger on the button and order his troops to war. Leadership skills need to be discussed. Authoritarianism versus Democratic.  People need information to begin to re-assess their own perspectives and we need to consistently repeat and repeat the information over and over and over…. No one has called this behavior out consistently in this repetitive manner. Let’s get on it right away. There are two months left.  We have already seen the efficacy of Donald’s repetition of whatever he wants his base to believe. It works. So let’s use this one successful tactic he has given us from his own arsenal and go for it. Keep repeating ideas and skills to your friends and family. Don't talk Trump, talk leadership skills. Talk the ideology of authoritarianism versus democratic leadership. Ask people what they want the most. Fast relief from pain (authoritarian action) or a cure for the illness (democratic process)? 

             The Rule of Law – Rescue or Repression? The Thin Blue Line, the Law and Order issue:

Again – this sits well within an authoritarian style of government. What you cannot control you suppress, repress and destroy. Every dictatorship on earth has done just that. The solution to problems of racial inequity will not be solved by restoring law and order through suppression of the many voices of American citizens being expressed through civil protest. There is no question Donald Trump wants to outlaw protest. We need to explore motivation honestly here. Everything he does is pulled together within the thread of establishing an authoritarian regime. {Violence is an issue and part of this plan to move us toward a "friendly dictatorship" form of government  – and that just erupted again when Trump support protesters interacted with social justice protesters. Social justice people died at the hands of Trump supporters. This is a violent administration that wants to use images of military dominance to support it - check the pictures and then look at Hitler's rally images} Use of the ideology of Law and Order further puts the country in danger due to escalating the confrontational elements between law enforcement and freedom of expression and putting the police on the line as enforcers rather than protectors. The answers lie in the leadership qualities and skills that Donald Trump does not possess nor does he fill any part of his government with people who have those qualities to stand in for him. The Law and Order mis-ideology needs to be discussed, dissected and explored in public conversation. Peace is not restored through law and order. Peace is restored through addressing the issues.

Donald has not acknowledged the validity of the issues raised by protesters nor promised to address any of their concerns or needs or expressed any honest condolences over the killings of black people and racial inequities in the country. Not acknowledging issues that he is not prepared to handle (anything that opposes his views) is another authoritarian leadership trait exhibited by Donald Trump. What does that say about the leadership currently installed in the White House and its ability to lead all the people of this country, not just its own base and those who agree with Donald's agenda?  The job of a president is to bring us together; those who agree and those who disagree with whomever is voted into office, and take care of the entire country. This is supposed to be a democracy - a free and open society with self-rule, not the rule of  someone's version of "law and order." This concept needs to be discussed and explored in public conversation. We must make space for one another, not repress and deny one another. All must be heard - all - on both sides, and all views must be discussed and dialogued together - all views. Once we are all heard we are not divided. We may disagree, but we are not divided. Humans have a basic ability to hear and understand one another. This builds trust and a strong country where we can act together in spite of our differences. That is role of leadership. 

Basically, we need to spend time taking apart the issues to have a discussion around the leadership qualities and traits we may be looking at living with for the next four years. Exposing authoritarianism and the lack of true leadership and management skills that have dominated both Trump’s presidency and businesses and are changing the face of democracy in this country is an important conversation. Donald Trump’s changeability and inconsistency needs to be re-visited. His constant shedding of advisors and changing of leadership positions must be continually re-highlighted. The issue of how quickly someone falls out of favor and is terminated has created gaps in our leadership at very fundamental levels. The fact that so many of this administration's former leadership team members have expressed dissatisfaction with what they are seeing happen in the White House needs to be remembered verbally and re-visited and talked about consistently as we face the future together. The lack of stability all of this creates which has led to the inability to muster forces in the face of a national health crisis, or any crisis is the danger – not specific issues over which we can argue but conversation around exploring the leadership qualities that have governed in the last four years and the ones that we will choose to govern us for the next four years. Are they truly authoritarian? What does that mean to different segments of our population and what do the terms democracy and authority really embrace? What is healthy authority and what is not? What is a healthy democracy and what is not? Why are we drawn to what we are drawn to and how will our inclinations expressed in our votes make our country truly strong from the inside as a whole, a true leader in a free world that honors the dignity and human rights of all people?  Let's take a closer look and remember we are all eating at the same table.

*            AUTHOR	ushistory.org
TITLE OF PAGE	The Evolution of the Presidency
TITLE OF PROGRAM	American Government Online Textbook
URL OF PAGE	//www.ushistory.org/gov/7a.asp
DATE OF ACCESS	Sunday, August 30, 2020
COPYRIGHT	2020

 

Federal Government Terrorizes Protesters - A Study in White Fragility

An Op Ed Piece

Unlawfully unmarked Federal Troops have invaded the city of Portland Oregon to provide a show of Federal force with which to threaten and bully other cities in other states into suppressing protests supporting societal change for equality and justice for people of color in the United States. Now the tide of bullying extends to other states as well.

The true message of Portland and what is going on these days is one of white fragility in its most eloquently elevated condition. The greater the push for equality the greater the use of force to keep that change from taking place, once again reinforcing the underlying purpose of law enforcement in this country as being that of protecting the institutions and systems that keep white privilege in place. As the voices of change call out for equalization, those steeping in the security of white privilege feel threatened, become extremely alarmed and call for help to keep their institutions in place.  After all, says the white privileged person, we are all good people. We mean no one any harm. Please protect us from these irate and disturbed unhappy people. Please make them go away so everything can stay the comfortable same. Call in the military if needed! Do not let our way of life perish! Taking no responsibility for the systemic suppression they live in that directly harms huge portions of the population and therefore they are able to claim innocence and cry for protection. The use of force is then justified to protect their very white way of life and the systems they are comfortable with. 

Does this somehow not remind one of the French Revolution? The simple happy playing of the days by those with income, wealth and the means for a happy life that allowed the aristocracy to ignore their responsibility to the people upon whom their way of life depended until an uprising of what finally became utter hatred was spawned that brought them to their death and ushered in a military coup? Is this not the basis of white fragility? The heart-felt fear of loss of those with privilege? And is not that fear the basis of class war and revolution? Is it not the lesson of history – that those who ignore the cries of their brothers and sisters do so to their peril? That the innocently guilty cry innocent on their way to the guillotine? That a whole class of people is punished for its blind existence in and dependence upon the privileges it refused to acknowledge and felt entitled to?

Can we not learn anything from history? Must we repeat the blindness over and over again? Will we not listen – listen to the voices crying in our streets and take a second look at ourselves? True disaster will be heralded by the deaf and the blind. The very worst that they fear and fight to keep from happening will come upon us all collectively unless we begin to move toward change. Toward equality. Toward true freedom for all. The human spirit will not suffer constant suppression and oppression. The blood of our brothers and sisters killed through oppression, repression, and violence calls to us from the streets. The cries of those standing for them call to us from the streets. For all the Evangelicals out there – God is listening. Not to your prayers and cries for help, and remonstrances of innocence, but to the cries of the blood of the dead and their brothers and sisters calling to Him in the street. Wake Up.

Tell your dog to lay off. Quell his military trained private forces sent to defend and preserve your  way of life and your dominance and supremacy by attacking and suppressing "others",  and put your hearing aides on and listen. We are all hanging in the balance waiting for you to wake up. Sitting on the precipice of your disaster. This whole society with all its light and freedom will go down the slide into autocracy and military dominance with you, if you, the good white people, choose to stay deaf. The light of freedom will go out in America because of you. And you will think it is everyone else's fault. You will not even see it happening. It will feel like "the right thing" to you....until it is far too late. Wake UP. 

It's NOT About the Economy

It is about living - The quality of it

As determined and powered by our creation

Fueled by

• Acquisition – maintenance – expansion
• Fear – survival - insufficiency
• Or by sustenance, pace and peacefulness

This time of economic shut down has birthed new realities

There are many who cannot survive without constant work at low pay to maintain minimum standards of the ability to live safely with basic needs met

There are many who have not needed to hop on the nearest airplane and go off to a business gathering to make more stuff or to a vacation place to relax and get away from it all

Staying home is not a bad place

Spending a lot of time with your family is not a bad thing

Not having the basics to stay home and be well with your family is not a good thing

Being well is everything

How shall we re-purpose our economy – can we re-purpose it into meaningful work with meaningful income for the support of living in a place of health and sufficiency for everyone? What might this take?

Perhaps a realignment of thinking in terms of the belief system that says if I have less it will not be enough and if you have enough I will have less because there is not enough for all. Understanding the economic thinking behind our work-based society that must continually escalate to provide more and more and more to stave off having less is critical to changing the balance of work and living. Changing the balance of work and living is essential to our health and well-being.

Economy is not about work. It is about creating the ability to live. Living is not about being in constant physical need and it is not about being in a constant state of feeling that one needs more more. Both are fear-based systems.

Perhaps during this time of shut down some of us have learned to live a little more simply. 

To spend a little less money going after things and a little more time with ourselves and our loved ones. Perhaps we can be quite content with what we have. Perhaps we can live a little more simply and still be happy.

Perhaps we have realized through this time of shut down that no matter what we have tried to do all our lives it has not been enough to bring us security and sufficiency. We cannot create sufficiency for ourselves and our families. This needs and calls for change.

Perhaps we have learned during this time to help our neighbors. To notice need locally around us and take care of it rather than rushing off to work and letting an agency do the work of caring for those in need around us.  

Maybe we are simplifying and localizing just a bit, and maybe, as the “economy” re-opens, we will bring some altered values with us to the workplace – seeing and realizing it as the means to and end of living more simply and helping others more personally, rather than as a personal statement of success, a way to stave off some ill-defined value of not having enough, and all the trimmings that can go with our actioning on that value in our lives. Maybe we have become more aware of the escalating state of working harder for more and more of whatever means success to us with less real living.

Maybe we are going back to work with a new understanding and a raised self-appreciation that will not stand for inequitable and unlivable wages and an unhealthy lifestyle.

This time of shutdown has been a time to experience new values and ponder that effect in our lives going forward. Yes, business will not be as usual. There will be a new normal. But let us look at that new normal from the place of altered values as well as from the place of altered operations. The eruption of awareness around racism and injustice of this current time is not a coincidence. It is an uncovering of the values that are not working in our society – and the economic as well as social impact of these values on populations that are marginalized for the purpose of creating abundance for other segments of our population.

This is an opportunity to re-purpose rather than re-open the economy. Re-envisioning the values that underscore our work and life to create a more equitable society that allows abundance to flow to all its members in good measure – less for some, more for others. 

Can we do it? Can you do it? Can I do it?

What would that look like and how can we do it together?

A Convenient Little War?

I wrote this Monday January 6. Posted Thursday the 9th. Interesting to see that developments have followed right along these lines so far...

“Where reason ends, violence begins.”  - author unknown

I was doing some research to see how the parties fall on the event of making war – it turns out they are pretty much the same. As a country we have been at war – constantly – under presidents of both parties. The Democrats have actually started more wars than the Republicans. However, it is the use and length of wars as political instruments that interests me here.

The most recent being the most convenient example, I am looking at the pointed political use of the game of war being played in the Middle East in structuring and running our country.  This is evident in the ignition and re-ignition of hostilities in the middle east that were the hallmark of the Bush eras and passed on to subsequent presidents to deal with as a convenient resource or a rancorous recurrence, depending on how they are viewed and used. Whenever needed, there is always a convenient diversion and popularity boost to be found in promoting, escalating or deescalating overseas violence to become the great and wonderful protector and leader of the American people and preserve their way of life. And that is exactly what a number of American Presidents have done in our very human and foible-filled past.

While all the patriotic hoopla and rhetoric of this effort goes on, no one seems to mind or notice national debt tripling into billions and trillions, companies and executives fattening on war budgets garnered from tax revenues, and piddling little items at home such as racial and gender equality, the relocation of jobs to tax free countries to line already rich pockets at the expense of American workers, loosening of environmental protections. burgeoning medical costs, an overrun drug industry, increased hate and violence at home, and now, hopefully, impeachment.

Who would impeach a President so obviously posturing heroism rhetoric and cowboy actions? “Imminent Threat” is a powerful and unconfirmable term being used liberally by an administration with a reliable history of untruth. And in truth, Mr. Trump is following a long and successful, though possibly distasteful, line of multiple presidents who have used overseas incidents to create domestic support. A nice little war is a political management tactic, an economic booster and a great distraction. “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” - Bertrand Russel, Unpopular Essays. A convenient little war, or the threat of it, is a great way to solidify a voting base and a great way to beef up support for turning a blind eye to clear misuse of power. More and direct information on the impeachment charges was being released as Trump ordered the attack on Soleimani in Iraq. 

In a recent NY Times "On Politics" article Lisa Lerer points out Mr. Trump’s appealing to both hawkish and isolationist arms of the Republican Party in his most recent strike hard and pull back tactics. More evidence of the use of this move to consolidate his base and distract and divert the American people with the threat of war. I was bemused this morning as I read her article offering these views in the NY times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/us/politics/trump-iran-republicans.html

Authorizing an inconsistently over-scaled covert strike to incite an international incident to consolidate a base at home – a suspicious use of power? Borderline misuse? But legal, all legal. Yeah, we’ve got that. Right here. Made in America.