Prerequisites for Greatness

My asterisk key is taking a beating from quoting Trump without typing the full words he uses.  “Shi*hole,” “P*ssy,” etc.  So there are now nations that Trump perceives are latrine-like.  Before I yell “how dare he!” (I know.  It should read “how dare him” but that just does not sound correct.)  I take a deep breath and realize there are likely Americans who agree with him.  Yes, Americans.  Land of the free, home of the brave, the pillar of democracy and the home of civil rights and diversity Americans who would rather see America as a white man’s land with not a care in the world for the world.  And with that realization it occurs to me that until we are able to walk away from some of our beliefs we will never achieve greatness.  In fact, I believe we will not survive.  So what are those beliefs that not only keep us frozen in time but make it impossible to move forward to better times?  Here is my list:

Globalization as a concept has been a failure for virtually everyone except multinational corporations.  Corporations get it that healthy economies everywhere promote their own growth and prosperity.  Individual humans tend not to get that so much.  We still act as though we can see international boundaries if we look out the window of our airliners.  We cannot.  Such boundaries are man-made so they can be man-changed, or perhaps we should say people-changed.  Nationalization must stop.  If people are suffering in Bangladesh or Haiti or Puerto Rico or Burundi or Syria or Afghanistan we will feel the effects here just as we feel the effects here after hurricanes and typhoons, mudslides and fires, tsunamis and tornadoes somewhere on the planet.  We must help those who are hurt and injured and need food and shelter.  It is one planet and we are all stuck on it.  We must think globally because all that happens impacts the entire globe.  It is not a choice.  It is reality.  A nation that says, “My nation comes first.” will be the nation left out in the cold when the storms hit and the people of that nation realize none of us can survive for long without all of us.  It also means that there is no way to be born on this planet and be considered an alien.

Weaponization and militarization is prima facie the antithesis of world peace.  No wars are fought without weapons.  Now that we already have enough atomic, nuclear, and hydrogen bombs to blow up the planet many times over it seems foolish to allow more to develop.  We actually have people who are certifiable with their fingers on the buttons that can kill millions and destroy the planet. We have got to find another approach to the brinkmanship and the deterrent philosophy.  Weapons do not solve problems, they exacerbate them.  We always assumed that if the mature nations of the world controlled the nukes everything would likely be OK.  Those days are now gone.  Even nations that were formally mature have devolved to name calling and bullying.  It is not a safe planet anymore.

Religious beliefs are killing us.  Anyone who believes their god is THE god, and if their god whispers in their ear telling them what is good and what is bad, and who is good and who is bad, then those believers feel authorized to hurt other people, even kill other people in the name of their deity.  That is obscene.  Even worse, some of the theists promote practices that are harming the planet immensely.  Unless we can get population growth under control we will all starve or die of thirst.  Any religion that opposes contraception control must cease and desist immediately.  Any religion that opposes the rights of human beings based on skin color, nation of birth, gender, sexual identity, and sexual preference is harming human beings and must cease and desist immediately.  Any religious belief that is willing to mandate that 50% of the humans on the planet must be subservient to the other 50% must cease and desist immediately.  We are losing too many contributions from women for our own survival and they must have the right to govern, be free to learn and drive and dress as they please, and to govern their own bodies regardless of what some insecure male religious leaders teach.  We are not likely to ever simply eliminate religious beliefs because some folks will always feel the need for mystical and mythical explanations of things.  However, those beliefs have had a hand in more deaths and more discrimination and more persecution than almost anything else I can name.  There are millions of people who worship hundreds or thousands of deities and all of them believe they are right and they are the chosen ones.  Until we can realize it is not in our worship of the unseen that makes us great, it is the help and support of those in need that makes us great.

Fossil fuel dependence must also end.  We are destroying our planet and we are not only not prepared to evacuate we have nowhere else to go.  We can no longer allow those who have made fortunes from the discovery, refining and marketing of fossil fuels to continue to do so.  We must implement clean, renewable energy immediately.  We must protect the cleanliness of our water and our oceans and the very air we breathe.  We must stop driving cars and motorbikes and ships and planes that burn fossil fuels.  It is only if we do this across the globe can we save the planet.

So there it is:  nationalism, weaponization, religious beliefs and fossil fuel dependence are the prerequisite beliefs that must be abandoned in order for us to survive.  I have hope that we can move in these directions. 

At least I did have hope until a year ago when we inaugurated a President who believes we should go backward and support the very belief systems that will doom us.  America First will doom the planet.  It is impossible to become great again when we have never been great.  We have never been great because we supported fossil fuel dependence, bigotry, nationalism and conservative religious beliefs.  We must let go to move on to greatness.  The hoarding of wealth is not a sign of greatness.  Living as a member of humanity is.

America is Dummy-Downed

Trump could not have surprised me more when he tweeted that he was a stable genius.  If he claimed to be able to walk on water that would not have surprised me as much because that would not only be immediately verifiable but it would contribute to the data that makes him certifiable and delusional, and even his evangelical followers would scoff and be offended.  But to claim genius level mental ability in light of all the observational data of this man, is truly galling.  Those data include his vocabulary that hovers between 4^th and 6^th grade level, his lack of knowledge of science, his lack of knowledge of history, his lack of knowledge of the Constitution, his lack of knowledge of the Bill of Rights, his lack of knowledge of policy and economics, his inability to accept a reality that differs from his delusions, and on and on we go.  He is proud to announce he does not read books.  He is not only not a genius, he is a poorly informed, poorly educated man.  Genius does not need to announce itself.  Genius is obvious. 

How in the world have we reached a point in our history where this man has adamant supporters who believe we just need to give him a chance?  There is, sadly, only one explanation I can see.

We have become anti-intellectual.  We have become stupid.  We have reached a point where knowledge, science, expertise, understanding, scholarship and research have become irrelevant when juxtaposed with arcane belief systems.

For instance, we know that people with a college degree earn 31% more in their lifetime than people with an associate’s degree, and college degreed people earn 74% more in their lifetime than people with just a high school diploma.  Of course there are outliers.  But given the dramatic difference in earning potential one would think every public school would be pushing students to go to college.  But I have sat with school board members who articulate that “not everyone should go to college.”  Really?  Is there a group of students you would like to see underpaid in their lifetimes?  Why would you want that?  Because those board members did not go to college so they have formed a belief system that is contrary to fact.

Why do conservative parents worry that if their kids go to college they will be influenced by liberal college professors?  Simply put, college professors tend to know much more than the average population and therefore tend to be liberal.  When students have grown up only hearing the conservative side of an argument and then begin to see the facts, the data, the research, they tend to become more liberal.

Have you read Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, Locke, Bacon, and Hobbes?  Our founding fathers had.  Our nation was born on intellectual principles mapped out for centuries by the best minds on the planet.  The entire notion that people should rule rather than kings or queens or military dictators is not a notion that sprung full grown from the head of Zeus in 1776.  Our democracy was grounded in great philosophy.  Liberal philosophy.  The very notion that the rich, wealthy, powerful and/or ancestry should rule was anathema to our foundation.  The notion that all men are created equal, that all should be able to pursue life, liberty and happiness, that rights of freedom of the press, freedom of and from religion, freedom to protest, freedom from false imprisonment, etc., were so important that they needed to be included in the Constitution.  We have lost sight of those intellectuals and the great work they did to establish this nation.  They were not perfect, and in hindsight we see the flaws in their practice regarding women and slavery.  But they were liberal thinkers.  They were intellectuals.

When Trump talked about draining the swamp he was really talking about removing those people with knowledge, expertise and experience from the halls of government.  There could not be a more clear declaration of anti-intellectualism than that phrase.  Trump is creating a new swamp.  His swamp is anti-intellectual.  He has made appointments for positions where family and friends and supporters means so much more than expertise and wisdom.  We now have a bureaucracy considerably less well equipped to handle the challenges of today than we had before. 

As a kid in church on Sunday morning we sang from a hymnbook.  There were not only lyrics, there were notes, keys, meter, clefs, and dynamics.  I learned to read music in church, further advanced by learning to play instruments as I grew older.  Now even that is no longer true.  We have a church service where lyrics are projected on a screen and no one can or does read music.  We are dumber.  It is very difficult to value the fine arts when one does not possess the skills of even the simplest forms of those arts.  Sadly, those services with projected lyrics are self-proclaimed “contemporary” services.  Lord help us.

As a college student I was taught to question everything.  I was taught critical thinking.  I was taught problem solving.  I was taught to examine my belief systems in light of the truth, facts, science and knowledge.  Now, to suggest to those without such skills that perhaps they may want to examine their beliefs is not only a waste of time, it may be viewed as fighting words.

“For every complex problem there is a simple solution.  And it is wrong.”  H.L. Mencken.  An intellectual who understood that the solution to immigration issues is not a wall.  The solution for creating jobs is not to give the wealthy tax breaks.  The solution for promoting peace on planet earth is not to insult other leaders.  The solution to saving the climate of our planet is not to withdraw from international efforts to do so while making the pollution of the planet easier.  And on and on.

Whether you believe it or not, scientific truths remain.  Those truths do not need for you to believe in them because they are true.  The planet is about 4.5 billion years old, not 6,000.  Humans and dinosaurs were never on this planet together.  Evolution is real and a scientific fact.  The earth is not flat.  We orbit the sun, not vice versa.  Global warming is happening.  Humans have caused and contributed to global warming.  90% of all life forms in the history of our planet are now extinct and we are in the midst of the 6^th great extinction event.  There are more gifted kids in China than there are total number of kids in the US.  All true.

We should be concerned.  Very concerned.  We have in so many ways abandoned our heritage of seeking truth, seeking justice, exploring and learning.  We enjoy all the benefits of modern science and math and archeology and geology and history and physics and chemistry, etc., etc.  Would those who chose to belief false beliefs over science be willing to sacrifice all the benefits of science?  I do not think so.  But frankly I see it as unethical to ignore or deny science while using a computer, a cell phone, a microwave in an air conditioned home, and taking modern pharmacology to live longer. 

Intellectuals are not evil people.  They want the same things everyone wants.  They just study, learn, think, review, and question everything.  They would never place personal loyalty above commitment to noble causes, facts, science and truth.  If beliefs conflict with facts intellectuals will go with the facts, not deny them.

Please read a book.  Please befriend an intellectual.  Intellectuals are becoming an endangered species and we can ill afford to progress and prosper without them.

Backward School Accountability

Over the past 30 years or longer school reformers have implemented a host of strategies under the stated purpose of improving schools.  Those strategies have included rigorous high-stakes standardized tests, increased prerequisites for teacher certification, teacher competency tests, teacher retention based on students’ test scores, school choice, financial vouchers for parents, standardized curriculum, etc., etc.  Each of these strategies has focused on the students and the teachers, and if schools did not show improvement using these strategies professional educators could be removed or replaced. 

It is almost funny that when we learned these strategies do not work, state and federal governments have implemented even more of those very same strategies.  If the high-stakes test does not work to improve student learning as measured by the high-stakes test let’s make the stakes higher.  Brilliant!  If certifying teachers is more difficult and students do not perform better let’s make getting a teacher certificate even more demanding.  If public schools are not performing better let’s take some money away from them and fund a charter school!  And if that does not work, let’s let the rich parents who already pay school taxes in addition to private school tuition be exempt from school taxes via vouchers.  Brilliant!  All these strategies have served to stress the public school system, reduce money for the public school system but create profits for testing companies and charter school companies while students languish and teachers crack under the pressure.

So, we must assume that those who implement such strategies do not do so to improve public schools.  They do so because they are willing to support the results, that is, schools do not improve but private companies make a lot of money.  The more pressure on the public school the more money the private enterprises make.  That is the most immoral formula there is, make kids suffer so that entrepreneurs can make more money. 

What we need to do is to turn the accountability upside down.  If a legislature proposes high stakes tests and the evidence is outcomes have not improved then we need to abandon that effort and remove those legislators.  Same thing true for charter schools.  If a state implements charter schools and the public schools do not do better, then the charter schools must go and the legislators who created them.  On and on and on.

Suddenly the implementation of a so called reform to improve public schooling will be revealed for what it really is, not a strategy to improve public schools, but a strategy to improve the wealth of a few.  Any legislator guilty of such an implementation should probably be prosecuted for child abuse, but I would be content if they were summarily dismissed and a special election was held. 

Do not tell me you are here to help when 30 years of data prove you have done nothing but hurt the children in public schools and professional educators while enriching the likes of Betsy DeVos and empowering the likes of Dan Patrick.  If that is not a crime it sure as hell ought to be.

What’s Wrong with the NFL?

Headlines today tout the issue in professional football:  fewer people are watching the games.  So, why are fewer people watching the games?  I have some thoughts to share after the full disclosure that I love watching football and am a supporter of the Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys, and hope someday to support a winning team.  Set that aside, these are reasons that discourage me from watching NFL games:

Every televised game has a lead announcer who describes the play-by-play and an “analyst” who tells us what just happened.  Many of the analysts are former coaches or former players.  The best in the business in my humble opinion is Chris Collinsworth.  The worse, absolute worst, is Jon Gruden.  It is clear he remains a frustrated coach.  He does not so much provide analysis as he shares what he would do if he was the coach.  I don’t want to hear that.  Don’t tell me it is time to run up the middle or throw a screen pass.  Just analyze what I just saw and don’t predict what will happen.  If I have to watch a Gruden game I do so with the sound muted.

I am also put off by the entire sports analysts’ entourage.  If I have to listen to one more group of overpaid, poorly (but expensively) dressed former athletes and coaches sit around a semi-circular table telling us what they think has happened, will happen, etc., I am going to scream.  I don’t care what you think.  I resent the fact that you guys, and now gals, are making a small fortune just talking about football.  Every guy in every bar in America can do the same, and many have more insight and humor than any of you.  Just have commercials, show the half-time shows, or show highlight reels and get the talking heads out of here.

I am growing more and more sad watching professional football, or college ball and high school ball for that matter.  I know I am watching men in prime physical condition encouraging the onslaught of CTE.  Every player will have some brain damage, some more than others.  And I wonder how long bright young men will be willing to perform in this sport knowing they are killing their brains.  In many ways, it is time for the sport to radically change the rules or the equipment to protect athletes.  Otherwise, the brightest athletes will not play and the less than bright will continue to migrate toward the less than bright end of the scale.

I totally support players’ rights to protest peacefully.  Kneeling before a game does not offend me because I know America is bigger than its symbols and one of the ways it is bigger is that we allow protests.  What I have a hard time mastering is the thought that these adults want to be seen a serious citizens with an issue until they score a touchdown at which point they become terrible juvenile vaudevillian dancers.  I hate the celebrations.  It does not happen in baseball, golf, track, basketball, etc.  Only in football do grown men do stupid little dances after they do something they are paid to do.  Be like baseball players and if the fans continue to clap, turn around and tip your cap.  The message you send is “I am great and to hell with the concept of team.”  Please, grow up.  I will respect your humility but not your personalized celebration.

And football has saturated the market.  Games on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, sometimes Friday is way too much.  Just play on Sunday.  All those games expand the need for talking heads and they need to go as well.  Even if a game is not on the TV there are always people talking about the games that have been on TV or will be on TV.  That is too much.

I have Netflix and Amazon Prime and CBS all access.  Television in general has dramatically improved.  Almost any time of the day or night I can find quality television to watch, and if it is not being broadcast I can watch it via one of my subscriber services.  If a Thursday night game competes with my favorite TV show and one of my teams is not playing, I will watch the TV show and skip the game.  As the quality of TV improves the football fan base will shrink.  We will stop watching millionaires playing a game under the direction and ownership of other millionaires.  

In the end I suspect football players will go the way of the gladiators, and billion dollar stadiums the way of the coliseum.  If so, high school boys and their parents can stop dreaming of a free ride in college that will scramble brains and actually focus on academics, which, silly me, I think is the purpose of school.

Should the Rich Rule?

Various sources number the millionaires in our country at either 10.8 million, or 6.8 million or 4.8 million.  Regardless, the number of people who control liquid assets in excess of $1 million dollars has risen dramatically.  They represent either 8.6% of American households, or 5.4% or 3.8% depending on the number of millionaires you choose to go with.  Another way to look at our wealth is to recognize the top 1% wealthiest folks control 24% of our nation’s liquid assets, and the top 5% control 59% of our nation’s assets.  That is a small number of people controlling a huge amount of resources.  The opposite is also true, the bottom 70% of American households control less than 10% of our wealth.  And the gap between the top and the bottom is growing.

The Urban Institute considers anyone with an income of $100,000 or more to be in the upper class.  The Census Bureau notes that the median income is $24,600 and the average income is $32,000.  Poor households earn less than $24,000.  So just for the sake of clarity, let’s call the upper class the people who make more than $100,000; the middle class are the people who make between $24,000 and $100,000 and the lower class those folks who earn less than $24,000 per year.

Given those numbers I wonder if we believe majority votes rule, or do we believe majority assets rule?  Do we believe in democracy or plutocracy?

It must be great to be a millionaire or a billionaire.  They get all the secular stuff they want: houses, cars, jets, clothes, vacation trips, etc.  More than that, they do not worry about the things most of us do.  They are not worried about setting enough money aside for retirement because they have so much money.  They are not worried about health care costs or health insurance because they either buy the best or just write a check when needed.  They surely do not worry about their kids having health care protection.  Nor do they worry about the kind of education their kids will get because they can buy the best education available.  

Evidently, what they do worry about is paying taxes so that other folks get health care, or other folks get food subsidies, or other folks get social security, or other folks get Medicare or Medicaid, or other folks get quality housing, or other folks get quality education.  The rich do not want to pay for the things they can provide for themselves.  They do tend to support paying taxes for military expenditures because they know being protected from aggression is a good thing.

Welcome to the new budget.  It cuts taxes for the wealthy and cuts services for everyone else.  The wealthy benefit the most.  The middle and lower classes benefit the least.  Teachers can no longer deduct expenses for their classrooms, but rich folks can deduct tuition for private schools.  And on and on it goes.

And as if that is not enough, the wealthy have enough disposable cash to contribute heavily to political candidates and shape media coverage.  There are wealthy folks in this country who spend millions of dollars supporting candidates that follow a philosophy that protects the plutocracy (a.k.a. rich folks).  They do not spend those dollars just in the races where they live, they spend those dollars across the entire nation so they can influence the election of conservative candidates everywhere.  They support candidates that support a trickle down economic theory though such a theory has never worked.  They own media outlets like Fox, a network that candidly admits they support the conservative agenda more than they support the reporting of facts.  They advertise on the programs the likes of Limbaugh keeping him in business.  The US Supreme Court even ruled in Citizens United that corporations can give big bucks to political candidates.  Big bucks buys a lot of ads and a lot of yard signs.  Most amazing to me is that the wealthy have spent big bucks to convince the middle and lower classes to support their agenda.  Why people making less than $100,000 a year would support the conservative agenda can only be explained as a product of the expenditure of big bucks on dubious claims.  Thinking people see through it.  Many do not. 

Big bucks promulgates the myth that middle and lower class people will benefit from supporting the conservative agenda.  The most bizarre data in the US is that middle class, working people support Republicans when the Republican agenda is designed to protect the plutocracy and make sure that the rich do not suffer, but allow the middle and lower class to suffer.  That can only be explained by looking at the propaganda spewed by the plutocracy and the fact that so many folks are buying it.  So many have bought it, in fact, that the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of our government are now controlled by pro-wealth party members.  By spending money the minority have bought the majority at the polls.  We have moved from a democracy to a plutocracy and not even noticed.

But the outcome in the Alabama senate election gives me hope.  Perhaps if enough people vote the tide can change and democracy will again rule over plutocracy, as it should.  I am not anti-rich people.  I am anti rich people convincing poor people that the agenda of the rich helps the poor when it does not.  The rich are able to do that convincing by spending money.

So, what needs to happen now?  Several things.  The current proposed tax bill should be scraped and totally redone.  The wealthy and corporations do not need tax relief.  They need to get on board supporting social services for the least fortunate.  Children should not lose heath care.  Health insurance should be the right of every American.  Public schools must be funded and end charter schools and voucher programs.  Social Security and Medicare should not be touched by a Congress seeking more money to spend on other things.  Net neutrality must be preserved.  Environmental protections must be re-instated.  We must join the rest of the world by supporting the Paris Accord.  We must overturn Citizens United.  We must take female reproductive decision making out of the hands of old White guys and religious zealots and put it in the hands of women.  We must stop empowering so-called Christians to discriminate based on their faith.  And we must make the purchase of a weapon much more restrictive.  And on and on. 

Only in a nation where the vast majority shows up to vote and they cast their votes with knowledge and understanding of the differences between candidates will we in fact have a representative democracy.  How can we do that?  Make election “day” a week and include Saturday.  Allow on-line voting.  Automatically register a voter via income tax or driver’s license issuance.  Perhaps even establishing a penalty fee for those who do not vote.

Radical?  I don’t think so when we look at how far down the road we have drifted from democracy to plutocracy.  Our history as a nation, as an international model, has been to protect minorities, expand civil liberties and provide safety nets for our citizens.  Every time we abandon that to protect the wealthy and business interests we have chaos as in 1929 and 2008.  We seem to be very slow learners.

Another major concern for me is to find a way to limit those who would prefer this nation to be a theocracy rather than a democracy.  Those folks are even scarier than the plutocrats because they believe God is on their side.  But that merits a separate post.

When you have the opportunity, please vote.  It matters.

Christianity First

If one more person tells me to put Christ back in Christmas I am likely to take his or her head off. How in the world can people live with their hypocrisy? How about putting Christ back into Christianity first? The dominant political thinking in this country now is to protect the rich, promote the rich, and give the rich tax cuts. Seems to me Jesus had something to say about that.  The dominant political thinking in this country now promotes the end of health care for children and poor adults.  Seems to me Christ had something to say about that.  The dominant political thinking in this country supports robbing Social Security and Medicare so that the rich can have tax cuts.  Seems to me Christ had something to say about that.  The dominant political thinking in this county now is to tolerate the abuse that showers down on Blacks, women, Muslims, Hispanics, gay, transgender, etc. Seems to me Christ had something to say about that. The dominant political thinking in this county is to ban Muslims and Latinos from coming here. Seems to me Christ had something to say about that. Meanwhile, the support of the dominant political thinkers stands behind pedophiles, bigots, sexual assaulters, climate change deniers and liars. 

If there is a God he or she better wake up his or her followers before they destroy not only this country but the late, great planet earth.

Followers of Christ appear to have shifted from an agenda of love, tolerance, support and caring to an agenda of me first, anger, fear and bigotry.  Any one wrestling with his or her faith during this time of year has but to look at the followers of Jesus, watch what they are doing and saying, to see what is in their hearts.  It ain’t pretty.  Give me an atheist who cares for the sick, promotes the poorest among us, cares for those who are cast offs in our society, and supports humans regardless of their physical characteristics or belief systems over the so-called Christians I see today. 

You want Christ back in Christmas?  Put him back in Christianity first.

Give Trump a Chance?

I keep hearing the phrase, “Give Trump a chance”.  I just heard a pro-Trump author interviewed on the Today show and he said he loves Trump because he is so genuine.  So genuine?  He is a consummate liar.  And once more I wonder:

If we know Trump constantly lies and Joe supports Trump, what does that say about that Joe?

If we know Trump has sexually assaulted 16 women and Jill supports Trump, what does that say about Jill?

If we know Trump is a bigot and Sam supports Trump, what does that say about Sam?

If we know Trump sees women as sex objects and Sally supports Trump, what does that say about Sally?

If we know Trump cannot consistently bring himself to condemn the white supremacists and Mark supports Trump, what does that say about Mark?

If we know Trump has personally attacked members of the media, members of his own appointed cabinet, other heads of state, and anyone who dares disagree with him and Paula supports Trump, what does that say about Paula?

If we know Trump does not know history, geography, foreign policy or economics and Donnie supports Trump, what does that say about Donnie?

If we know Trump has appointed family members and people with no knowledge or experience to important government positions, and Sue supports Trump, what does that say about Sue?

If we know Trump is willing to share right-wing, white supremacist British videos known to be false and Brandon supports Trump, what does that say about Brandon?

If we know Trump continues to attack and blame Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama despite the fact that the election is over and he won, and Ann supports Trump, what does that say about Ann?

If we know tax payers are forking over millions for Trump’s golfing outings at his own properties and Paul supports Trump, what does that say about Paul?

If we know Trump was involved in collusion with Russians regarding his Presidential campaign and business dealings, and Carolyn supports Trump, what does that say about Carolyn?

And if knowing all the above anyone suggests that Trump is genuine, we should let Trump be Trump, and that he deserves to be given a chance, what does that say about such people who take that position? 

Deplorable.

Give Trump a chance?  To do what?  Escape?

Hell no.