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.

 

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.

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.

What We Stand For...

(I wrote this after the mid term elections two years ago; it's thoughts and plea stand for today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow....)

One day after mid-term elections GOP announces goal,

Denying re-election.
If the shoe were on the other foot it would read the same way.
What a sad collection
Of oppositional delectation
We have gotten ourselves into

You’d think we could think this through

Beyond something more than next election day.
Maybe we need to go back to school
And re-learn how to play
Not by the rules – those figurehead tools
Of seeming to look correct

But really learning how to get along and share

And work with those who oppose
To bring about a compromise
Inclusive of diversity
Allowing freedom’s choice to be
Someone who thinks differently
Than me.

You’d think we could think this through!

Old Abraham said it best
Who wants a fine house once to build
Must not tear down the rest
Could we just for once instead
Concentrate on curing ills
By finding a way together?

Where is choice A and B without

The shouting match and clout
Of proponents spreading doubt
About the other view,
As if only one will do?

Can we not find our way through

To combining and forming a new
Path, wider than the last
Allowing different stories to exist?

What we stand for counts very much more

Than everything we oppose.
For when all is said and done
The victory’s been won
There’s nothing left to toast it on.

We’re led astray.

Distracted, re-directed

So as never to view clearly
The point we’re working to
But rallied to stand firmly
‘Gainst the one we disagree.

Once finished we’ve lost the sight

Because we never forward looked
Beyond the getting our way.
Victory is for today
The rest of us live tomorrow.
There is a better way.