A Message to American Oligarchs

Hi all – thought you should hear from the rest of us out here – not the angry ones, just the here ones living their normal-ish lives  every day, working, raising kids, vacationing, having ideas and dreams and starting small businesses or working with  nonprofits to help make this a better place, planning for kids’ colleges and weddings, getting older and making those finances and livings work out as we do, and celebrating with our families and friends, striving to take care of the sick and impaired and working to make healthy environments for the future.  We plan, plant and grow, produce and build, offer services, live our lives and contribute to our communities.

We do not hate you. 

We do not hate you for being incredibly and unimaginably rich, or powerful. We are absolutely fine with that. Be as rich as you are comfortable and happy being. Be powerful. Be the financial backbone to parts of our economy, politics and prosperity. We are grateful for what you do and for your power and presence in the many worlds of America. You are necessary to all of us, and we appreciate your providence as you prosper.

Remember

Do not forget where you came from! Remember the beginnings of your prosperity. The opportunity and environment that allowed you to prosper, build wealth and create your vast holdings and spheres of influence. Remember the hard work of all those who helped you build – the laborers, the office and financial people, the people whose work provided the basis for your success. Investors, yes, but their funds rested upon the backs of those who physically perform the work as well.

Remember that what brings growth, which is ultimately what fuels prosperity and wealth, is work. The grinding work of the every day person getting up in the morning to their alarm clock and looking forward to their Dunkins or Starbucks. When you get so layered away from them, you believe that your work is to tend to your money – to feed it, invest it and make more money for investors and yourselves. All that money rests on the back of the entire economy of everyone working. Money is indicative of labor and production. The more productive we are, the more you thrive. Money is the final tiered result of human production and activity.

Do the Math

Thus – and this is simple math – to increase wealth increasing productivity is essential– managing costs flows in harmony with increasing productivity. These two must always be balanced. If cutting costs hurts the worker it hurts productivity, which is the cornerstone of wealth.

Our message? Evey decision needs to be made with the bottom of the line contributor, not the top-of-the-line profiteer, in mind. Why? When your workforce can live the quality of life they are working for, production increases. When they go home at night to a secure home with food, water and heat that is satisfying for them, when they can afford to take care of and educate their children and plan for vacations and retirement, envision building their own wealth and prosperity, they work better and more. “Without a vision, the people perish.”  When people have a vision and the opportunity of personal prosperity and security, you, the wealthy, prosper.

When the rich squeeze out the living of the many productive working people, cut their benefits and freeze or reduce the incomes that give them the quality of life they are seeking by over focusing on cost cutting, the economic system is out of balance, and you the very rich, lose wealth. Your returns diminsh. While your objective is to grow your wealth in cutting costs, raising prices and getting rid of taxes and benefits, your returns will not experience the rate of growth expected and then you will want to cut more because you are focused on the bottom line, the money, instead of the producers. The oligarchy of suppressive and oppressive cultures will never be as rich and powerful as those of the free, supportive nations. Supportive cultures offer freedom of expression, choice, lifestyles and supporitve work benefits to those who produce as well as services for those who are needy and sick. They offer the opportunity for individual dreams and passions. And boy does that environment produce when the field is open for everyone, and anything is possible. When dreams can be dreamed and pursued, greatness is made. Just like you made yours.

Make America Great

That is what made America great and will continue to make it a great place for you and for the rest of us. The sea of economy must float all the boats – small and very, very grand.  No matter how removed you feel, perhaps insulated by your wealth, we are still all in this together. You, the rich and powerful, will prosper in direct relation to how your policies and politics treat us, the small and powerfully prolific producers. Thank you.

 

HOPE

The dust is settling

The political fires are over

Some lost hope

Some are rolling in clover….

Another election has gone by, and I have post-election thoughts to share. I have resurrected my Google blog as this is where I feel comfortable posting about things of politics, beliefs, and hope.

Right now, 51% of our country is rolling in hope and joy. They have felt dis-inherited from their own country and have threatened violence in their deep angers and bitterness. Now they have their hero coming into place. Their hopes are high.

Forty-eight percent of the country is in despair, holding their breath, making contingency plans and hunkering down for a long - hopefully only 4 - years.

There is hope for all.

Now is the time for all of us - the 51 and the 48 - to come together to hold our newly elected leader accountable for his words both vague and clear, unpromised or dimly promised promises, and his actions. Fifty-one percent are expectant. Let them be fulfilled and joyous – may their times of hoped-for prosperity come to fruition. May inflation go down, wars end, small farmers flourish, and the rural working people prosper. May they receive the more affordable living they hope for, may they receive good health care for their daughters and themselves, be able to care for their elders, earn good wages and enjoy happy retirement. May they live in freedom and may the values of family living and integrity be preserved. May they feel safe and heard and may America be regarded as a great and good influence upon the world. May the national debt go down and our economy thrive.

And may the 48 percent be present to highlight these expected accomplishments, or the lack of them.

What can we, the disappointed, do?

Now is the time to watch, observe and comment. As things fail to live up to our countrymates expectations, we must be the patient and kind vocal commentators that help to keep the dreams alive. When the economy gets worse instead of better, when our allies do not view us as friends and our supporters are those who oppress, we need to raise a voice of comment to our 51 percent family and friends, calmly and lovingly pointing out where words, actions and results do not match or produce the desired and expected effects.

When their and our daughters suffer and die from preventable reproductive issues and the infant and maternal mortality rates rise as they have been, we need to talk about it. When costs are higher, not lower, when tax breaks and sweet favors flow to the very rich while the working people suffer, we need to talk about it with our families and friends. When health care becomes hard to get and does not cover what is needed, we need to talk about it – not accusingly, but commentatively. When small farmers see their lands and livelihood suffer and disappear, we need to talk about it. When internment camps and ethnic and gender group persecutions disrupt the flow of daily American life and when federal disaster response is a disaster, we need to talk about it. When prices rise due to tariffs, when higher education is unaffordable and public education puts our children behind the economic world curve, we need to converse around the supper table, in the grocery store, at the mall, in the parents’ meetings.

We are all in this together, 

for better or for worse. Let us ride the times with gentleness but with clarity and compassionate courage and speak, speak, speak in kindness with our neighbors.

These may not be the times we hoped for, but they will present the opportunities we need to bring our country’s people together. And that is the true source of hope.

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. 

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.

Itching Ears

My political side is up right now. The other day a bible verse came clearly to mind.

It was a phrase – that of “itching ears” from my bible studies. Here is Wikipedia on the biblical origin: “The terms is found only once in the Bible. in 2 Timothy 4. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Another version puts this as: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.…”

I was listening to the diverting rhetoric of the Republican party in its attempt not to deal with the straightforward question of the impeachability of an act by our president. Rather than responding to the issue, party members attempted to use unsustainable points of order to strike the entire subject from the record. The act in question? The president’s use of the resources and strength of the American people which had been clearly directed for support of our allies to further his own political agenda for re-election by coercing a foreign power to intercede against his then leading political rival. And this is not the first president who may have acted in violation of the trust of the nation whose laws they are sworn to uphold, but that is no reason not to shine a light and correct a course that has been strayed from. Everyone else has done it is no excuse in the eyes of anyone who has parented. And we are the parents of our president. Our president is elected by, and accountable to, us.

In the ensuing weeks since this event surfaced, we have been subjected, as we have been repeatedly since Donald Trump entered the presidential race for the 2016 election, to verbal assertions that garner inflamed emotional responses utilizing contradictory and insulting verbiage, but are shown, upon analysis, not to be grounded in fact. They are verbalizations tailored to “itching ears.” Itching ears are the hearts and minds of those who are emotionally charged around a subject to the extent that they cannot and will not hear anything beyond their own emotional construction. As millions of Americans suffered economic woes brought upon by a culmination of financially and power-greedy commercial and political actions, the stage was set for those who became emotionally vulnerable as a result of their suffering to cheer along anyone who promised revenge, who derided the perceived establishment and appears to be a champion by supposedly bucking the system.

The problem is this verbiage is shouting to the wind. And speaking of the wind imagery – herein lies another biblical Jobian verse, 6:26 – “Do ye hold words to be an argument, but the speeches of one that is desperate to be wind?” Or: “Do you mean to correct what I say, and treat my desperate words as wind?” And Job 8:2 “How long will you go on like this? You sound like a blustering wind,” or: “How long will you talk and keep saying nothing?” In this time, we must determine who is saying nothing and who is saying something.

For how long did those in political and economic power treat the desperate pleas of our hurting citizens as the wind while they washed theirs hands in wartime enterprises, unbalanced budgets, mortgage schemes and golden parachutes? The stage was set for a blustering wind to come in and appear to wipe them all away. The awful fallacy is that while the honest people who have suffered so much cheer and rant for this piece of wind, that same behavior is flaunted under their noses and disregarded by them because of the veil of words it operates under. This administration is seen to be one of the most shockingly corrupt in our history but is supported by those who love the emotional release of the rhetoric of revenge and heroism. Donald Trump has mastered his style through TV ratings. He has learned that he can create his own reality and get millions of people to join him in something that looks wonderful and has no substance. Like a true actor….

And so itching ears are deceivable ears. When inner rage and injustice surface they lead to revenge. When honest and noble goals and ideals are uplifted, they catalyze change. Reversion is never going forward. Backwards is never as good as it was remembered. And yet that is the vision preached – that we go backward to a time of greatness. A pull toward the sense of emotional calmness and economic security felt in the past. The greatness of yesterday will not fit in the fabric of today. We live in a constant relationship with the happenings of the world and the times. One cannot plunge the whole world into a time machine back to days of different understandings and values. We must go forward, and we can only go forward - whether to greatness or to calamity.

Beware of itching ears that collect only the rhetoric of those with whom they agree.

Christopher Columbus!

Well I did some looking around this morning and it seems there is a lot of controversy over the celebration of Columbus Day.

I am not a historian, nor have I studied both sides of this controversy in detail. I am painting with broad brushstrokes here.

There are of course two schools of thought – one says Columbus brought destruction, greed and death, domination and exploitation to the Americas. The other says he was a courageous explorer credited with opening up the Americas. 

Columbus’s dichotomy is a very human story. Five hundred years from now, how will our portraits hold up against the standards of time? Will they be a type of Dorian Gray composition, a dubious life painted over with the bright hopeful colors of what we wished to be, or perhaps the other way, painted as ogre-ish and ugly on the outside by others with no seeing or understanding of the softer truths of the heart inside? We tend to paint a picture of Columbus as evil villain or heroic explorer. Take your pick. Which Columbus would you like for your personal own? And will the real Columbus please stand up? 

The Columbus question can be argued ad nauseum:  his voyages to the Americas resulted in opening up and putting the continent on the map as a place of global interaction. A new set of nations and countries were brought into recorded history and entered the world stage as recognized players.

And in the course of that discovery there is the pure human horror of “man’s inhumanity to man” played out in the ugliness of the cruel exploitation and extermination of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

This story, our story, the story of the Americas, is not an uncommon or unrepeated one throughout history. But we have highlighted this part of history in our home hemisphere for special treatment and attention. And rightly so. It is our side of the world, our responsibility to look at and learn from. Perhaps our heightening sense of awareness and social consciousness is fomenting the need to take a closer look at our societal behaviors and beginnings.  Countries, peoples and races have been overtaking other countries, peoples and races for all of our known human history. Brutal expungements of entire populations and species have been our unwitting trail of development in the huge panoply of the struggle for survival. Even before recorded history the archeology of a region reveals displacement and usurpment of another’s territory and right to live. Every single human is responsible for every single act, and every single human is part of a larger, societal mindset and force that operates through each of its members to preserve itself. 

Is Columbus a hero or a demon? Or both? Even if he was completely motivated by the lust for gain – remember he was funded to produce that for Spain – somewhere at his heart he had a big vision. And he worked desperately hard to bring it to pass. Winning the support of the monarchy in Spain was his huge break. Everything he had dreamed of and wished for suddenly had financial legs to stand on and wings to fly with. What a word to us who have big dreams, ones that in the depths of our hearts seem lustrous and noble, about the judgment of time and the incalculable effects of momentum and expansion upon a kernel of creative thought when released into the stream of the societal consciousness present at its day. 

Are we responsible for that very societal consciousness? You bet we are. Every tiny kernel of it is a thought, belief or action played out across millions of interactions every day. We are building it all the time, you and I – not our leaders, not our religions, not our economies – us, just us. We are the microcosm of the whole, like the atoms and molecules and cells in a body that determine its health, strength and direction. The whole is a reflection of the individual one. And so it does come down to

Christopher Columbus

Had a dream

All did not come out

As well, it seems

As the dreamer dreamed the dream.

And so we go

Along each day

Thinking we have no power

To sway

The direction of others,

Unknowing along the way

That we have sown the seeds

Of tomorrow today