Debt Limit Dishonesty

 In Stephanie Kelton's book, The Deficit Myth, she pointed out that the notion that the government should be run like a household or a business is incorrect. First, government serves a special function in society that is not equivalent to a household or business. It serves the people and provides vital services for communities. This is true at the federal level as well. Government does not exist for the purpose of profit like businesses do. It is also not on a simple budget with income and expenses. Government budgets are more complicated because the government, at the Federal level, creates and issues the currency. And so if the Federal government shows debt on its books, that's not necessarily a bad thing like it might be for an individual or family.

Why is government debt a good thing? Since the Federal government is the issuer of the currency, then it follows that its spending is not taxpayer funded (that's a myth). The government creates the currency, and then disperses it to various entities. If the government has debt, that means the currency is in the public domain and can be used by others for various projects/activities. Treasury bonds are sold as a means of covering the debt. The US government hasn't borrowed money from some mythical evil lender. It has "borrowed" the money from itself. The increase in the currency supply is simply an entry in a digital ledger.

Debt is likely the wrong term to use because it implies something that isn't really happening. It would be better to think of this concept as money in circulation. If that number gets too high, it could be a problem, but that depends on a number of other complex factors. Needless to say, the US government isn't at a point in which there is too much money in the overall supply.

The arguments over the debt limit are disingenuous and dishonest. The government is not a household and it is not a business. Households and businesses don't issue currency, so they have to operate under different rules than the US Government. But politicians either know this or they're just plain stupid. The term government debt has been part of the public lexicon so long that it is hard to change the conversation about it. The idea that the current debt is something we are passing on to future generations to pay back is complete bullshit. There will always be debt, if you want to use that term. It's how the government operates. By the way, notice how these same politicians seem to have no concern about passing a climate disaster on to future generations. That's how you know they have no concern about the children of the future. The debt is simply a political weapon to bargain for spending cuts and tax cuts (how do tax cuts help the debt???).

Why do conservatives want spending cuts? That's a good question, and it has nothing to do with reducing the debt because they don't care about the debt (Notice how the Federal deficit always increases more under Republican administrations than it does under Democratic ones - why is that?). To answer the question of why Republicans want spending cuts, take a look at what gets cut. It's never the military. It's almost always programs designed to help people. They are the so called "entitlement" programs for those "other" people that are frequently on the chopping block. By cutting these programs, the demand for them is not decreased, but instead, that demand can now be shifted to the private sector in which a profit can be made. In other words, spending cuts enable the privatization of key services that the government has been fulfilling for decades. Any government spending on these programs will then be coordinated through private entities. This is similar to how private contractors engage with the military now. The government will become more of a cash cow for corporate America. That's how conservatives see government spending - not as something incurring debt, but rather a large pool of money that they would like to get their hands on and use to generate larger and larger profits. That's what would happen if Social Security is cut and then privatized. The big banks would then be in charge of that large pool of money which they could use for a variety of purposes with no real guarantee for citizens that they will have to pay out benefits. 

So, the debt limit discussion has nothing to do with the debt. It has everything to do with shifting more and more money into the hands of large banks, large corporations, and the oligarchs of our society. As usual, the average voter doesn't realize this and is instead triggered by the word debt. They react to the notion that the government needs to control its spending, especially on social programs and other fluff like education. Military and police budgets are never put on the table. Those budgets always seem to be able to find new cash - where do you think that comes from?

The next time you see politicians decrying the debt situation, know that they are full of shit. Whatever deal they reach, you will likely end up being worse off (unless you are an oligarch, then congratulations are in order).

Snowflakes

 It's ironic that the people in the US who decry those to their left as snowflakes infected by woke-ism are the biggest snowflakes of all. Has there ever been a more fragile generation? From the thin-skinned politicians like Trump and DeSantis to conservative pundits to your average MAGA obsessed groupie, they can't handle any whiff of criticism of their "way of life." Their default answer is to act out with vitriol and cruelty. There is always a bogeyman in the conservative sphere. In the past it was blacks, and then gays. Now it's black people again and trans people. The necessity of the bogeyman in the discussion points to the necessity of vilifying the "other" - the one who is not like "us." For conservatives cannot bring themselves to embrace the whole of humanity. They need to feel special; they need to feed that part of their ego. That's why they're white supremacists. They have an egoistic need to feel better than others or else they might realize that they are just like everyone else.

You can see this need to feel superior in everything they do. They deny others their human rights. They demand everyone subscribe to their version of morality. They enact legislation preventing other people from voting. Conservatives are so threatened by the idea of a diverse society that they are fighting it to their literal deaths. So many of these conservatives are old and white, and will be gone and forgotten in a few years. They are in their death throes, but while they are still here, their goal seems to be to make the US a living hell for everyone else. 

One thing your average conservative voters cannot see is that they are pawns in the struggle for money and power. Because conservatives have such a strong need to be right and to have their way of life validated as the best, they are easily manipulated into anger by politicians who actually know better. Want to mobilize voters on the right? Create a faux controversy like a migrant caravan, trouble at the border, gay marriage, abortion, trans rights, Sharia law (remember that one?!), or the specter of socialism on the rise. None of these issues represent any sort of threat to white conservative voters, but they are presented as existential threats to their way of life. They're not. Although they are real issues affecting real people, the answer isn't to outlaw or deny people their rights because you don't agree with them. This is why conservatives are snowflakes. They can't tolerate disagreement with their worldview. They react emotionally in Pavlov-ian fashion - completely conditioned. There is no rational thought occurring because their threat detector is on high alert. Paranoia and doom rule their minds. It's sad to see people who are generally good and ordinary turned into paranoid and hateful folks who are making the US a more dangerous place to live with each successive day.

Black Lives Matter - Don't Miss The Point

A common response to the Black Lives Matter movement has been "All Lives Matter." I get why people are saying this. Of course, all lives matter. But they're missing the point.

So let's do this. If you're response to Black Lives Matter is all lives matter, then I want you to go and tell the police that all lives matter. And tell them that all lives include Black lives. So perhaps they should stop treating Black people as if their lives don't matter. Because...wait for it...Black Lives Matter too. See how easy that was.

Violence and Groupthink

I watched the Danish film “In a Better World” last night and it got me thinking this morning about violence between individuals and between groups.  I find it interesting that when we are younger, an effective strategy for dealing with a bully is standing up to him in a forceful way.  Bullies are often insecure individuals who use power and violence to make themselves feel better, but when challenged they’ll often move along to a new target.  The film showed such a sequence in which young Christian beats the bully, Sofus, with a bicycle pump and threatens his life with a knife.  Sofus is no longer a threat to Christian or his friend Elias after this episode, and in fact Sofus makes an overture to Christian to become friends.

Such a solution on Christian’s part wouldn’t be necessary if more was done at an institutional level to address bullying and its root causes.  That’s a separate discussion, but suffice it to say that victims of bullying are often left to themselves to deal with it, and fighting back may be the only option for some.

However, when it comes to groups, a show of violence generally leads to more violence.  Why do individuals react one way and groups another?  Is there some dynamic of groupthink involved?  Perhaps it’s due to the fact that not all group members are directly affected by the violence so it becomes easy, and less personal, to continue the cycle.  I feel like that’s part of the problem with the US’s perpetual war in the Middle East.  It’s simply too easy to continue to commit “faceless” troops to the violent conflict.  And once committed, it’s not easy to extricate our forces, as there is no definitive “victory” being sought.  Stopping the conflict will only invite criticism from more members of the group who do not have a personal stake in the violence being committed, and would be a threat to one’s career.  Those in support of violent conflict have done an excellent job of using emotions to drive groupthink.  Fear of terrorism and extremist Islam (ISIL), hyper patriotism (American exceptionalism), and outright hero worship of our troops are all examples of the emotional mechanisms being used against the American public, and they have been very effective.

I did a Google search on groupthink and the violence of nation states, and the results were interesting.  The vast majority were concerned with the actions of terrorist organizations, movements like Occupy Wall Street and #BlackLivesMatter, and other communist/socialist collectivist movements.  I find it strange that there was almost no discussion of the effect of groupthink on US political leadership in the War on Terror.  It seems to me that this would be a fascinating political science research project especially with so many different group dynamics.  As a society, are we too afraid to look in the mirror and honestly assess our role as a nation in the present cycle of perpetual war? 

I do appreciate that the question of how to deal with terrorism is not an easy one.  While I think it’s important to realize how we arrived at this point from a root cause perspective, we have to deal with the present and how to move forward.  Many of those committing terrorist acts have such a different mental model of the world from our own that dialogue is nigh impossible.  Over the last week, I have been listening to “I Am Malala,” and it’s frustrating to hear about the Taliban and it’s impact on Malala’s home valley in Pakistan.  Their beliefs are so antithetical to modern Western civilization that I’m unsure of any basis for negotiation.  Both sides believe the enemy is extreme (and wrong) in its view, and both are correct.  There must be moderate voices on both sides; people who know that the cycle of violence solves nothing.

Just because both sides are extreme doesn’t mean we shouldn’t negotiate or at least continue to make attempts to do so.  The world is not a better place with more violence in this conflict so the moral thing to do is to determine a solution to end it.

What to do about 'Religious Freedom' movements

The new Religious Freedom Act (aka, Freedom to Discriminate) legislation in Indiana got me thinking this morning about why human beings – or at least a large segment of them – seem to default to distrusting others that are different.  There is always someone to hate and mistrust:  gays, blacks, muslims, atheists, Taylor Swift.  Is it the survival instinct in our brain working on overdrive trying to find things to be afraid of?  Are these people addicted to the chemicals the brain produces by feelings of fear and anger?

We know that all signals the brain interprets first go through our survival system – the reptile brain – which evaluates the threat factor of external stimuli.  Is this a threat to my survival or not?  If yes, the brain starts producing chemicals that engage the possible responses of fight, flight or freeze.  If no, the signal is passed on to the more rational part of the brain for further interpretation.  For the most part, we are able to let most of the occurrences in our lives through this filtering layer so that we can then process the events more thoughtfully.  Most situations we face in modern life are not life or death, but for some, the threshold of what is a threat seems to be low thus allowing fear and anger to dominate their lives.  This becomes an addiction.  Welcome to Fox News as your threat response dope dealer!

Getting back to Indiana’s recent legislation - at a rational level, I think one would have difficulty defending the ethics and morality of some of the Bible’s passages on homosexuality.  Those views seem so 1^st Century!  Haven’t we progressed, even a little bit, from the social views of 2000 years ago?  Of course we have, but homosexuality isn’t quite mainstream yet so the Religious Right is putting up a fight as its views are in the death throes.  Giving religious justification to discrimination is a last desperate act, but sadly, those in power in many states have mobilized fear and anger to a point in which they have the votes to enact such legislation.

People who want to discriminate against others based on their religion are simply finding phrases in religious texts that support their views.  There are plenty of passages within the Bible that contradict the negative treatment of homosexuals and call for love of all people, but those sentiments tend to get ignored as it’s much easier to hate than it is to trust and love.  Negative emotions come more easily than positive ones when confronted with differences in people, religion, and politics, yet it is the display of positive emotions under these circumstances that reveals depth of character.  It is in a word uncommon, but wouldn’t it be great if we could turn uncommon into common?  Trust and love can leave us vulnerable to the thoughts and whims of others, and that can be uncomfortable and possibly even perceived as threatening to our sense of self.  However, there is power in vulnerability; it can be the foundation of connection between two human beings.

As I come to the end of this, I’m not completely clear on the point I’m trying to make so I’ll wrap up with this.  I understand how such legislation gets enacted.  From an early age, many people are taught to distrust those who are “different”, even fear them.  That programming is not easily overridden, and it surely won’t be changed through ridicule, boycotts, etc.  Those measures may exert pressure on the State of Indiana to reconsider their stance, but they will only further marginalize and alienate the people who support such measures.  As difficult as it may sound, a dialogue of some nature must be established with the religious right, probably at an individual level, to start the process of reconciliation and promoting equal rights for all.  Futile?  Probably.  Perhaps the long-term strategy is to just wait for Millenials to start governing since their level of tolerance seems much higher, but not having a dialogue with the religious right is akin to the conservative viewpoint of “we don’t talk to our enemies.”  Can we learn to empathize with the opponents of gay rights?

Go Your Own Way

A couple of nights ago, I had the misfortune of watching The Unbelievers, a documentary following Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss around the globe engaging with audiences on reason and science.  The film is simply a visual travel scrapbook with clever soundbites interspersed. It lacked an overall theme, was very disjointed, and brought no new information to the viewer.  As a supporter of atheism and secular causes, I was disappointed and had a hard time understanding why it was rated so highly.
However, something Dr. Krauss said in one of the many conversations shown did provoke a thought on the difficulty that some believers have in subscribing to the full doctrine of their religions.  Should they have to?  Most religious texts were written well over one thousand years ago and the world has changed quite a bit in that time.  What may have been moral or acceptable in the 9th Century may be different today, and to deny such change is to deny reality and progress.
Perhaps Joseph Smith had the right idea when he started Mormonism (at least in concept, not necessarily execution).  If you're a believer, why not start your own religion or create your own doctrine?  Since there's no evidence of god anyway, it's not as if anyone can prove you wrong, and you can follow beliefs that are more consistent with who you are and the moral code of the present day.  Why should you be restricted by the world-view of someone who lived two thousand years ago and knew far less about the nature of the universe than we do in 2015?  You should not be.  Think of the freedom that would bring.  You could celebrate the religious holidays you like and maybe come up with some new ones.  You could stand up for social progress and not feel guilty that you were in opposition to the stance of your religion.  Eliminate the conflict and start the religion of YOU.  Define the morals and ethics of your religion.  Draft a set of core values and live your life by them.  Be at peace with your choices and most important, promote peace and compassion in the world.

Police and their toys

How is it that communities have the funds to arm their police with all the military grade toys they want (and most assuredly don't need) yet they can't fund music and art in their high schools?  No doubt about it, this is what a security state looks like and what's most dangerous is that many of these police officers don't have the requisite decision making skills to properly handle this equipment.

Perhaps if we invested more in the education of our community and helped them to succeed more, we wouldn't need to have a tank battalion in every town.  Just sayin...

Do What Is Right

With the debt ceiling limit and the supposed “fiscal cliff” approaching, this is one of those times when I wish I could meet with President Obama and say “dude, what are you doing?”  I think a piece of the President’s legacy is at stake in these negotiations, and at issue is whether this President wants to become the man who initiated the end of Social Security as we know it.  Perhaps that last statement is a bit melodramatic, but I honestly believe that once the door to reducing Social Security benefits is opened, it will never be closed again.  It will only get worse, and eventually the whole fund will be privatized thus ending one of the greatest social achievements of 20th century America.

Earlier today, I read some leadership quotes from the late Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and one of them was “Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good.”  Is cutting Social Security the right thing to do?  If it is, I’d like to hear the rationale for that.  Obviously, I don’t think it is right and it appears to me that Mr. Obama is including it in the negotiations as an enticement for Republican support.  He’s valuing making a deal over doing the right thing.  That’s the only way I can explain his obsession with bi-partisanship in negotiations during his first term in office.

At the same time, the President has been skillful in creating a schism in the Republican Party over raising taxes on the wealthy, and that’s something for which he should be lauded.  The question remains though, does a cut in Social Security really need to be part of the deal when it has nothing to do with reducing the deficit?

Back to the leadership quotes from General Schwarzkopf - my sense is that Conservatives will love these quotes, but somehow find a way of ignoring them in their everyday lives.  Take the quote I referred to earlier in which Schwarzkopf said “do what is right.”  How can you justify selfishness and greed as being the right thing to do?  They speak of deficit reduction, but have no interest in taking any meaningful action on it.  If they actually cared about this country, they would invest in its success rather than divesting in its people.  How can improving our infrastructure, roads, high-speed rail, etc. be the wrong thing to do?

I do hope that we are coming into a period in which there is recognition that the Republican Party is bankrupt of ideas, both practical and moral.  Continued exposure on this front needs to occur, yet they are still dangerous.  Republicans control the US House of Representatives and thanks to gerrymandering across the country, may do so for some time.  However, this is not a time to make concessions to irrational shrills for the profit obsessed wealthy.  They’re not interested in making things better, they are only interested in staying in power.  So my request of the President is to expose their fraudulent philosophy, and in the words of General Schwarzkopf, do what is right.  Please.

Conservative Leadership - Oxymoron

If you’re a Twitter user, you may occasionally receive emails with suggestions of other Twitter users to follow.  I recently received such an email and one of the suggestions was @ChrisWidener, a leadership expert who happened to be followed by a good friend of mine as well as several others that I follow.  That all sounded appealing to me and I usually like to follow such people on Twitter, so I clicked on the link to check out his timeline.

One of the first tweets I noticed on his timeline mentioned the word “thoughtful” and Charles Krauthammer in the same sentence.  And he was being serious.  I find Krauthammer’s views to be neanderthal-like which kind of makes sense since he actually looks like a neanderthal.  Regardless of Mr. Krauthammer’s physical and intellectual shortcomings, this timeline inspection process was not going well at all at this point.  I’m not sure anyone can recover from the unintentional comedy of that first tweet, but I kept looking, and let’s just say, it didn’t get any better.  It was at this point that I read Mr. Widener’s full profile description which mentioned his conservative politics.  Things fell into place at this point.  That piece of the description was notably absent from the email I received.

This quick foray into the mind of a conservative got my thinking about leadership and conservatism and whether or not these two terms have much of a relationship.  Mr. Widener’s timeline does have some useful advice on personal responsibility and other success principles with which I wholeheartedly agree, but dispensing such nuggets is not leadership.  It’s education.  Is it possible he’s confusing the two?  To be honest, I didn’t delve any further into Mr. Widener’s work because quite frankly I couldn’t stomach it, but “Leadership Expert” does sound impressive and who doesn’t want to be a leader?  No wonder he has so many followers - just not me.

However, when I think of leadership, I think about having to deal with real life situations and getting a group of people through it in such a way that the whole benefits or at least comes out better for it.  Leadership addresses reality while modern day conservatism does its utmost to deny it.  At Conservatism's core is complete self-interest and when you look at who stands to benefit the most from the current conservative platform, you see pure greed from the nation’s most wealthy 2%.  They have no interest in leadership, only power.  They serve themselves and subject the rest of the population to a kind of social darwinism that seems completely ironic given the Republican Party’s total reluctance to believe in evolution.

When I consider the idea of conservative leadership, I struggle to think of even one person on the Right whom I would consider to be a great leader.  Leaders do the right thing, not what’s only in their self interest.  And when I refer to the “right thing”, I mean acting ethically.  Character traits such as respect, compassion, honesty, integrity, fairness, kindness are just a sampling of what great leaders actively display on a daily basis.  Name one conservative who demonstrates these traits - I can’t.

Responsibility

I find it somewhat humorous that Conservatives, who are always preaching personal responsibility, can do nothing but complain, whine and make excuses for why election results didn't go in their favor.  Isn't that behavior the exact opposite of what responsibility means?  Uh, yeah, it is.

In sports, we laugh and sometimes pity athletes who talk this way.  I suppose we should do that in politics as well.  Let's take the case of Mitt Romney.  Suggesting that he lost the election because Obama gave gifts to various groups of people proves beyond a doubt why he wasn't qualified to be President of the United States.  He didn't lose because of anything he did.  No.  Obama cheated and gave stuff to people so they would vote for him.

Please Mitt Romney, just go away and never enter our lives again.  If you were truly worthy of being President, you would take responsibility for your loss.  Own it like the man your followers thought you should be like.  Instead, you acted like the entitled little rich brat that many of us thought you were.

Two Questions to Help the Undecided Voter

While there are many complex and nuanced issues to consider in this election, I think there are two simple questions that can assist voters in selecting a Presidential candidate on Election Day.

1. Is money the most important thing in your life?
2. Do you make more than $200,000 per year?

If you answered "yes" to both of these questions, then Mitt Romney is your man.  Feel good about casting that ballot for him and enjoying lower taxes for the next 4 years, while the rest of the country continues to descend in to despair.  If you didn't answer "yes" to both questions, but are leaning toward Mr. Romney, then you are in all likelihood voting against your own interests.  Romney's policies only benefit people who answer "yes" to the above questions.

One caveat on the above - an Obama victory in November will very likely result in a "Grand Bargain" on Social Security and Medicate in 2013.  This is disturbing.  Ironically, a Romney victory might actually save Social Security and Medicare from cuts since Democrats would likely not cooperate with the Republicans effort to cut these earned benefits programs.

Geniuses

Jack Welch thinks the latest jobs report was cooked, and Donald Trump agrees with him.  Trump also thinks that the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez needs drugs to play better.  Why do we care what these people think?

Making money is a skill and there is no doubt that men like Welch and Trump are geniuses at it.  Their financial intelligence far exceeds that of the average person.  Intelligence in everything else?  Perhaps not so much.  Yet because our society worships money to such an extreme degree, people like Welch and Trump are sought after to provide their thoughts on a whole host of topics of which they know nothing.  We somehow equate financial genius with just pure genius.

To make my point, let's take the case of another skilled genius - Alex Rodriguez.  In baseball, A-Rod is one of the best players ever.  His baseball IQ is way above the average person's.  He has many adoring fans (as well as detractors).  Why aren't we asking him what he thinks of the jobs report?  Or the recent Presidential debate?  Is it that we recognize that baseball genius doesn't qualify him as an expert on everything else going on in the world?

Bottom line - I don't give a shit what Jack Welch and Donald Trump think.

Good People

I know that many of the people who are supporting Mitt Romney in the upcoming Presidential election are good people who want the best for their country.  They want America to be strong economically and a country they can be proud of on the international stage.  But when will these same people realize that today’s GOP has no interest in America?  For as much as conservatives use the idea of America to emotionally attach themselves to voters, their policies and proposals serve a small group of people who worship profit.  And that group of people doesn’t need an economy that serves all Americans.  It only needs one that serves them, and that’s the one we live in today; an economy in which large multi-national corporations have tons of cash and are generally prospering while many Americans struggle financially.

What would be their motivation to change the current conditions?  Answer:  there is none.  As long as corporations and the rich in this country can make money in this economic climate, there will be no improvement. In fact, things will only continue to get worse.  If Republican policies championed by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are put in place, deficit hysteria will drive our economy into the ground.  The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, and economic and social mobility will continue to get worse.  Jobs will be lost here at home, but corporations will continue to prosper with their global markets and the fact that our own society has become consumption addicted.  We want gadgets and things even when we can’t afford them, and the marketing of these products convinces us that we need them.

There really isn’t a single good thing that Mitt Romney will do for the actual benefit of this country, but when will the average moderate Republican wake up and realize that?  A Romney presidency could make things very ugly in the next several years.  If it happens, settle back and watch the rich get richer at the expense of those who don’t have enough money to buy politicians.

Smells Like Teen Spirit and Remembering Kurt Cobain

I was listening to the radio earlier today and was reminded that this is the 17th anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain. That factoid brought me back to the Fall of 1991 when Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was released. I don't exactly remember the first time that I heard the song, but I do remember the first time I really "heard" the song, if you get my drift. I was driving home from the Attleboro, MA train station in my 1987 Honda Civic back in the days when I worked in Boston at Shawmut Bank. At some point on Rte. 152 on my trek home, the song came on the radio, and I recall paying special attention to it because it was different. The lyrics weren't especially meaningful, however the sound itself was new to my ears. For me, it alternated between rage and sophistication, but in a coherent way. It truly was the song "that started it all" with respect to modern alternative music. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" paved the way for a new era of bands and brought alternative music into the mainstream like never before. Every time I hear it on the radio, it reminds me of that day in '91 and I smile to myself knowing that this song was the song that started it all.

Thank you Kurt, and thank you Nirvana. We miss you.

The Descent

While politicians do nothing but play politics (see here for an example of what I'm talking about), the country descends into a further mess. A "No Compromise" strategy from the Republicans (as dictated by their leader, Rush Limbaugh) ought to tell the American people that the GOP has no interest in doing anything to help the country. They simply want to be in power to serve the super-wealthy and their corporate masters. And as we dither around, the world passes us by. How does it feel to be a citizen in a country on the way down?

Keith Olbermann on the Tea Party and Election Day

Keith Olbermann had an informative Special Comment on MSNBC last night detailing the strange and sometimes dangerous views of Tea Party candidates. Not only do we have to vote next Tuesday to try to prevent this disaster from happening, but we also need to convince other sane individuals to not vote for these Tea Party candidates. Ignorance is not a virtue.

Take 20 minutes and listen to what Keith has to say:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39875964/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/

Health Care Reform and the Big Picture

While it looks like Health Care Reform may be passed today, it’s important to understand that this bill is only the first step in improving this situation in the United States. The bill is by no means perfect, and the politics around it have been absolutely vicious, but it is an important event in our history because it bucks the trend of privatization and corporatism that conservatives have been pushing since Ronald Reagan. Doing something for the common good is not evil, regardless of what the lunatic fringe at Fox Propaganda may be broadcasting 24/7.

So the real work is now just beginning. Democrats and Progressives must remain strong as opponents of HCR will become more and more vicious in their attacks, saying anything to derail this initiative. This is a fight for the hearts and minds of Americans as privatization and corporatism have been disastrous for this country. This is an opportunity to prove that a government can be beneficial in the lives of its citizens. This is an opportunity to reverse the brainwashing that has many Americans thinking it’s acceptable to spit on members of Congress and verbally attack 11 year old children. This is an opportunity to stand up and say that unfettered greed is not good.

If we are to compete with the likes of China in the 21st century, we must come together as a team, as a society. Today, we are too fractured and we can’t get anything done because we aren’t focused on the work we need to do to make our lives better. Our government is distracted by unproductive wars. Our people are apathetic and ignorant of our dire circumstances. America is on the decline, yet we don’t know it. Perhaps I’m attaching a bit more importance to this Health Care bill than most, but I think it’s the first rung on a ladder out of a huge hole that’s been dug in the last 30 years. Let’s see how far up the ladder we can get in the next 5 years.

Glenn Beck attacks the Commie Pinko Liberal Atheist!

Media 101 - Stenography?

Here is a copy of an email I sent to CNN this morning regarding the "Exclusive" they had with John McCain and Joe Lieberman this morning on State of the Union with John King.

Advertising an "exclusive" with John McCain and Joe Lieberman is like hyping a sale at WalMart. Both happen every week. Those 2 are on all the time pushing one side of the aisle's point of view - bottomless pit of money for war, nothing available for health care, don't reform Wall St. How about asking Alan Grayson to appear on your show to provide counterpoint rather than simply playing stenographer to their dangerous narrative?

It's no wonder that there are so many Americans out there who think the Republicans actually represent a viable solution to governing the country. They're allowed to push their bullshit rhetoric on us continually without fact checking through programming on the major networks like State of the Union on CNN. Is stenography now a substitute for journalism? It's become dangerous to the future of this country because people hear these views so often, they start to believe them even when facts (pesky little things) disprove them. I wonder if these television media members feel any responsibility to truth or are they simply caught up in being faux celebrities who get to mingle with the powerful of this country. Of course, there's no money in speaking truth to power.

Related Example: George Stephanopoulos allows Rudy Giuliani to say "no domestic attacks under Bush" without comment on Good Morning America. Giuliani tries to clarify later in the day on CNN, but still gets it wrong.

Unlearning The Lessons Of Childhood

As someone who has several nephews and a niece under the age of 11, I have seen the struggle of parents to teach their children one of the most basic human lessons - sharing. Most children don't gravitate toward sharing straightaway, but eventually the lesson sinks in even if it is only for an hour or two. But why do we even bother to teach our children to share in modern day America? Isn't sharing the exact opposite of what we preach to other adults and for that matter, other nations?

"Greed is good" is a popular quote from the 1987 movie Wall Street, but instead of just a quote it has become a mantra for the powerful and wealthy. It has led us to believe that the accumulation of wealth is the most important thing in our lives and that we shouldn't share that wealth with anyone including our fellow Americans. Talk of government programs, social services, assistance for the poor is scoffed at as un-American, socialist, big government spending nonsense. In fact, those programs are downright evil. Thus we have entered the age of Corporatism and Privatization.

But was America always this way? Was America always a "lookout for number one" kind of society? The answer is no and you need only go back to the first half of the twentieth century for examples when people and government acted for the common good. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal was an effort to bring relief to a country in the ravages of the Great Depression. Numerous government programs were created to bring relief to the poor as well as regulate the machinations of capitalism. FDR also asked Americans to sacrifice for the nation's war effort in World War II and Americans responded in kind.

The thought of such sweeping reform and sacrifice for the common good in today's America sounds ridiculous. Even universal health care is branded as "socialized medicine" with the insinuation that socialism is evil. Yet American society is approaching a tipping point in which the gap between the wealthy and the poor is increasingly vast and may become irreversible. Our society could be permanently fractured if this discrepancy in income levels is allowed to continue unabated. Unfortunately, creating this gap has been the strategy of Republicans since the rise of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and is in full bloom today under the watch of President Bush. And because of the brainwashing that the current generation of Americans has gone through believing that government is bad and socialism is evil, even a Democratic hopeful like Barack Obama may not be able to change how we think as a nation.

The question is will we realize in time that in order to be a great country, we must first be a great society? And in order to be a great society, we will at times have to do things for the common good. That brings us back to the lesson of sharing that we were all taught at one point in our lives. Is it possible for adults to re-learn that lesson or will the errors of free market capitalism and privatization continue to reign? Maybe we should let children show us the way.