21st Century

Another Shot In The Foot

Nov 03

The recent government shutdown over a stupid power play by right wing extremists, along with their threat to cause the United States to default on its debt, were more than just political theater and more even than a showdown episode. It was an exercise in self-destruction.

Yes, it was destructive to the Republican Party. On the other hand, the Republicans stopped being true conservatives at least 35 years ago and instead have focused on transferring wealth to the already rich from all the rest of us, ensuring our prisons are full of chronically voiceless people and starting unnecessary wars. So, who really cares if the Republican Party is in self-immolation mode? Just let them burn to the ground and perhaps some sane voices will emerge from the ashes.

The self-destruction you need to pay attention to is that of the United States of America. We have threatened the entire world with financial catastrophe. We have demonstrated repeatedly that our primary goal is national dysfunction. We have marginalized the majority of Americans. We have dramatically expanded the ranks of our poor. We have declared that we don’t want to fund the education of our children. And we do want to arrest and torture people without so much as charging them with a crime and then keep them imprisoned endlessly. All of this stands in stark contrast to the values we say we believe in like truth, justice, democracy, fairness, opportunity and other worthwhile attributes.

Given that contrast, what do you suppose the people in the rest of the world think when they hear the happy words but see the not-so-happy deeds? Surely, our mixed messages pull the rug from under their trust and confidence in us. Don’t imagine that is a small thing.

Trust is the cornerstone of relationship and we are in continuous relationship with a global society. For many decades the standard of world trade has been the American dollar. It is the symbol of global influence enhanced not just by military might, but also by trust and confidence in our values and our dependability. Once those things are gone, the money of some other country will step in and be the global standard and the United States will be a second tier country.

We are in a headlong rush to hand over world leadership to China, led with daring forcefulness by crazy Americans who tell the world that the United States cannot be trusted. They do that by paralyzing our government and threatening creditors with our default and those exercises are scheduled for a replay in the middle of January.

For more on the American Brand and the crazy messages we give the world, review Bruce Terkel’s blog here. Then comment below with your ideas about how to stop us from repeatedly shooting ourselves in the foot.

This Just In

Oct 14

October 15, 2013 – Washington DC

In a joint press conference called late yesterday by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), accompanied by Republican House Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Reince Pribus, Chairman of the RNC, it was announced that President Ronald Reagan will no longer be the beating heart of the Republican Party.

For decades the idol of conservatives and the touchstone for everything on the political right, Reagan has been summarily rejected as unfit to hold that lofty position any longer. Boehner explained to a stunned crowd of reporters and hangers-on that this has been coming for a while. “The last straw was the realization that President Reagan would not have gambled with America’s national and international integrity by threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling,” said Boehner. “Today everyone knows that we can just stiff whoever we want in order to get everything we want. I mean, debt ceiling? Get serious.”

“President Reagan had the stodgy attitude of days long gone,” McConnell added. “That dog won’t hunt in today’s world.”

Not to be outdone at the microphone, Congressman Cantor invoked the new Tea Party mantra first voiced by Congressman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), saying that a default on our debt wouldn’t be a big problem because, “We have plenty of money coming in.” Cantor continued, “President Reagan just didn’t understand today’s world and we will no longer invoke his name with every exhale.” He paused and added in a quiet, contemplative tone, “It will be an adjustment for all of us”

In the closing moments of the press conference Chairman Pribus took to the microphone and said, “I just want to make sure that you have a clear and accurate context for this. All of America’s problems can be traced to one source – the Democrats. Sadly, they forced on America a president who wasn’t even born in this country and he has single-handedly shut down the federal government.”

The conference ended with no questions allowed and with no indication of who the new beating heart of all Republicans will be. However, a possible hint came from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who was standing nearby, wearing a tri-corner hat and being cheered by Sarah Palin who winked and screeched, “You betcha.”

What Do You Want?

Oct 06

A fundamental question in all negotiations is, “What do you want?” Of course, there are other questions each party must answer but everything hinges on knowing what you want. Absent that, all negotiations are just exercises in defeating the other guy for no clear purpose other than the opportunity to do a little chest beating. Not much good happens from that.

Indeed, On Thursday Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) said of the government shutdown, “We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.” And, in fact, nothing good came from that, except for Stutzman’s hand getting slapped by other Tea Party people for making them all look stupid.

The answer to the “What do you want?” question for each side in our ongoing DC dysfunction is “government.” The Democrats want government to be an active agent in society. The Republicans continue to follow the slick campaign quip of Ronald Reagan, “Government is the problem.” That is to say, what Republicans want is to do away with nearly all government. To that point, Grover Norquist has told us that he wants to reduce government in size such that he can “drown it in a bathtub.” And, due to 2010 redistricting, the Republican extremists have managed to shut down much of the federal government and have threatened to default on the nation’s debt in pursuit of their government destruction goal. Apparently, nothing is sacred to them in their quest – not even our national honor nor the world economy.

This is not a situation where each party is equally to blame for the mess we’re in. This is the result of a few dozen radicals holding the United States and the world economy hostage.

The question for all the rest of us is, “What do you want?” If you want to terminate all the things you have come to expect from government, then the extremists’ view and their Machiavellian methods are for you.

On the other hand, what you want might include the protections that only a functioning government can provide, things like meat inspection, careful review of drugs before they’re used on your children, air traffic control so that the airplane on which Granny is riding doesn’t go bump in the night with another airplane, ensuring that our kids get an education for success both today and tomorrow, building and maintaining our bridges and interstate highways, all national security functions, funding the research work at the National Institutes of Health so that when you get sick there is medical help for you and so many other important functions. If that is what you want, then it just might be a good idea to contact your representative and senators in Congress and tell them to shape up, especially if one of them is a Tea Party zealot with his/her gun pointed at Uncle Sam (aka you).

As always, the behavior you tolerate is the behavior you get.

One more time: What do you want?

The Greater Good – Part 2 of 2

Oct 02

Books have been booked and blogs have been blogged. Pundits have pundited and liars have lied. The consensus seems to be that the invasion of Iraq was about oil. Clearly, it wasn’t about WMD’s or Saddam’s non-existent links to al Qaeda. So, let’s play with the oil theory.

We are now in the Situation Room. Seated around the table are President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and the head of the CIA, George Tenet. The topic is global energy stability and U.S. national security. The concern is that Saddam is a loose cannon with the second largest known reserves of oil on the planet and he could upset world order.

President Bush declares, “This is about Amer-ka and we have to focus on the greater good. Besides, I don’t like that guy.”

Rumsfeld raises his hand. “You’re right, Mr. President. If Saddam gets any more unpredictable the world oil markets could become crazy and force major disruptions to our national well-being and even threaten our future economic and political stability. We must devise a plan to protect us from the ‘known unknown’ outcomes.“

“We’ll invade Iraq,” snarls Cheney. “It’s simple, plus it will be quick and easy. We’ll just apply massive force, topple Saddam’s regime and install a new U.S.-friendly leader.”

Rumsfeld lights up upon hearing Cheney’s idea, “Our soldiers will be greeted by Iraqi citizens tossing flowers to them. Best of all, the war will only last a few weeks and will cost just $300 million. And, get this: we can pay for it with Iraqi oil.” There are big, self-satisfied smiles all around the table.

President Bush is really getting into it now and says, “That’s a great stratergy, Dick. Oil market confidence’ll soar, we’ll have a continuing supply of cheap oil and the Amer-kn way ‘a life and our national secur-ty will be assured. Plus, we can make ’em into a democracy just like us. It’s all ’bout the greater good, get it? And don’t you just love simple solutions to complex problems?” Everyone at the table agrees with the boss.

“But wait,” Rice says. “We can’t just tell the world that we’re going to invade Iraq because we want their oil. We have to come up with a cover story for the invasion.” That is when they begin to craft a lie about the smoking gun being a mushroom cloud. And, because this conversation happens just months after 9/11, the tie between secular Saddam and Islamist al Qaeda is fabricated and, voila! An American hunger for retribution is served by providing the lynch mob with someone to lynch.

George Tenet has been quietly scheming as he listens and can no longer contain himself. “We can get real creative here. We’ll make up a story about yellow cake from Nigeria, telling everyone that Saddam is making the yellow cake into weapons grade uranium. We’ll tell everyone that Joe Wilson is a liar and we’ll out his wife, Valerie Plame. How ’bout you handle that, Dick?” Cheney grunts.

“Oh, wait!” continues Tenet. “I just thought of the best part. You known those flimsy little aluminum tubes we found in that abandoned trailer in the desert?” A few heads nod affirmatively. “This is great. We’ll tell everyone that Saddam’s going to pack his enriched uranium into them. Hey, Colin – how ’bout you spout that one at the UN?” Powell looks at Tenet, then to Bush, his brow furrowed.

“Look, Colin,” continues Tenet, “We’ve got the intel and we can spin it any way we want. We can make it sit up and bark, if that sells the program. It’ll be a slam-dunk.” Powell acquiesces.

Cheney blurts, “We’ll probably take some heat for this, but we can sidetrack criticism by doing some illegal stuff. We’ll call it legal and then we’ll stonewall critics by saying, ‘So?’ This is a no-brainer.” Cheney snarls again.

Let’s leave that imaginary meeting and scratch our own heads about “the greater good” and other paths that might have served it.

If the issue was fossil fuel energy, we could have pursued a path like the one we’re on now, poking more holes into the ground in America and in different ways than ever before. In fact, we are now extracting more fossil fuels domestically than at any time in our history. Our dependence on foreign supplies has dropped from 60% a few years ago to 36% now and none of that domestic extraction cost the life or limb of any military personnel, nor did it cost the U.S. Treasury even a buck. And we didn’t become even more hated throughout the Muslim world as a result of finding our own oil.

If the bigger picture of energy (i.e. beyond just burning more hydrocarbons) and its impact on national welfare and security were the issue, there is far more that we could have done. We could have elected to take some of the billions we spent on war materiel, resources and personnel and instead put that into research and development of alternative, renewable energy sources, as well as a better battery for electric automobiles. Indeed, just imagine what we could have accomplished with 12 years of well-funded research and Yankee ingenuity.

There is a lot of craziness that can be rationalized using the words “the greater good”. Too often the only participants in discussions about the greater good are those with a limited or bizarre imagination, capable only of short-term thinking and with a vested interest in the outcome.

There are wacko-birds in congress right now who think that the greater good will be served by the United States of America, the bedrock upon which the world economy rests, defaulting on its debt. Never mind the global catastrophes that will be visited upon us. Ignore the massive economic depression that will put tens of millions of Americans out of work. Just take it on faith that the crazies wearing the propeller hats of the Tea Party, the new American terrorists, understand “the greater good”.

But once again those controlling power have a limited and bizarre imagination capable only of short-term thinking and with a vested interest in the outcome.

We need better than that.

Deliberative Leadership

Sep 22

Given the current impassioned debate surrounding Syria’s use of chemical weapons, the implications of US military action and President Obama’s handling of the situation, this is a good time to revisit a lesson from World War II.

Look at the chart below (click here for a sharper image) that details war deaths.

Just to make the central point clear, here in tabular form and focused solely on military deaths, is the same information:

Russia 9 -14,000,000

China 3 – 4,000,000

Yugoslavia 446,000

United States 417,000

United Kingdom 384,000

Romania 300,000

Hungary 300,000

Poland 240,000

France 217,000

The numbers for France, Poland and several other countries would be much higher had they not been overrun within days, making formal military confrontation minimal.

Although the US was a major player in what were essentially two wars waged concurrently, the number of US military deaths, while tragic, was relatively low. For that we can thank President Roosevelt.

A great deal of the US participation in the European war was through the supply of war materiel to other countries. Indeed, both wars had been ongoing for years before the US became involved. Looking at the numbers above, it is apparent that we did a lot of arms supplying and proportionately far less bleeding than many of the other combatants.

That was Roosevelt’s genius in action. He was deliberative. No rash decisions. Everything well thought out. He thought about both the intended and the unintended consequences. There are a lot of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who survived that decade thanks to Roosevelt’s thorough and rigorous thinking, and that is the lesson.

The next time you hear someone whining about President Obama’s “dithering,” about his taking time to think instead of taking immediate action, about him being too “professorial,” be sure to hear that for what it is. It is the sound of a chest thumping, “shoot first and ask questions later” pea brain without the capacity or good sense to think before doing irreparable harm. You’ll find that you’re listening to someone without the capacity to hold more than one thimble-sized thought in his head at once, which is exactly the kind of mental limitation that gets America in trouble, like in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We tried shallow thinking for most of the past 32 years and almost without exception it has backfired. We need leaders who have the good sense to adjust when circumstances change. We need thoughtfulness in our leadership performed by someone with the capacity to hold several complex ideas in mind at the same time.

Deliberative leadership. Celebrate that, America.

Note to obstructionists: Stop whining about people being smart. It’s a lot more valuable than people being dumb.

Why There Is So Much Push-Back

Sep 05

* * * Special Friday Edition * * *

Lyndon Johnson had what was termed by the press a “credibility gap”. You have to factor into your understanding of that term that this was two generations ago when the press was loathe to use the word “liar” and there was still some respect for the office of the President. Johnson played fast and loose with facts and managed to get us deeply entrenched in a war that was not ours but which eventually killed over 58,000 Americans. That ignited a profound distrust of government that persists to this day.

Richard Nixon told us that he was not a crook, even as he obstructed justice, another nail in the coffin of trust in government and politicians.

The Gipper played on the strongly held public distrust of government, telling us that government wasn’t the solution to the problem, but that government is the problem. That was an effective campaign slogan. During that campaign he also told us that we had to reduce government spending, debt and taxes. Once he became President, he dramatically increased all three.

Bill Clinton told us that he didn’t have sex with “that woman, Ms. Lewinsky,” but of course he did.

The Big Cahuna of lying to Americans, though, is George W. Bush. He lied us into two wars, the enormous consequences of which cannot yet be fully calculated and which will be felt in this country for generations.

Look at the chart above – I know it’s too small to read within this post, so click on it to view it with its source material and read the entire piece. It tells the story of the Bush administration’s lies, deceit and even its internal back stabbing to jam the American military into Iraq under false pretenses.

We know now that Bush didn’t let facts and truth get in the way of what he said and did. We know that he and his team knew they were presenting lies to congress and the American people. Thousands of Americans are now dead and eight times that many bear wounds, all of which were sustained because of Bush’s lies. Our standing in the world, especially the middle-east, is severely damaged due to Bush’s heavy handed dishonesty. This is well beyond the frequent indictments of Bush’s intelligence; this is about entrenched governmental dishonesty and that sorry episode continues to shake our confidence in government and our participation in foreign affairs to this day.

Whatever your belief about action that America should take in response to the repeated use of sarin gas by the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, just understand that your skepticism of governmental claims and projections of outcomes of proposed actions is well founded. On the other hand, your entrenched distrust of government may well unbalance your thinking.

Voices

Aug 11

Eighty percent of Americans who know of the over-reaching, legislation-from-the-bench Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case – the one that ensured unlimited money influencing our politics – want it reversed. That number varies by just a handful of percentage points, depending on respondents’ political views. This issue is the venue where ultra-left tree huggers and hair-on-fire Tea Party members can join hands, sing Kumbaya and wave Don’t Tread On Me flags, all at the same time. The trick in getting action on this is to expand the number of Americans who know about the CU decision so that we can exert sufficient pressure on lawmakers to pass the 28th Amendment to the Constitution to get big money out of our political process.

It was to that educational purpose that I crafted the Money, Politics and Democracy program that I have been delivering to various local groups for the better part of a year. I delivered it last week to a fledgling group in DuPage and Will Counties who care enough about this issue to leave their front porches on a lovely summer evening and sit in a hot meeting room in order to learn.

Be clear that I have another motive in my talk. It is to motivate people to take action. And it is to that point that I direct you to an essay by Jesmyn Ward in today’s New York Times entitled A Cold Current. Her story is about racism, the devaluing of people by “othering” and how we react to that. There is a parallel to her story in today’s economically punitive America.

Think about the America you believe in, the one you want to leave to your children and grandchildren. Look deep into your notion of The American Dream. You better think about it, because we are crafting the America we will bequeath to your descendents right now. It is just possible that the dream that you hold dear for your dear ones and yourself is a different dream than that dreamed by the leaders of our pharmaceutical industry, our energy barons, the fabulously wealthy individuals – the 1%. That is because those people are exactly like everyone else in this sense: We all act in what we believe to be our best interests.

I don’t even remotely imagine that the Koch brothers arise every day with sights on the evil they might do or the mischief they can create for most Americans. As the titans of Big Pharma spent $390 per second fighting Obamacare, they weren’t doing it to ensure that our healthcare system remains the worst among industrialized nations. Neither do the leaders of the American Petroleum Institute air its television ads with the pretty blonde in a black pants suit in order to create more super-hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy so that more Americans might suffer and die. They do those things because it is in their financial best interests to do what they do, so they spend the big money to make their voices heard. It is all about the voices.

So, rather than putting your effort into demonizing the big bucks class in America, your energy needs to be focused on making your voice heard. Let go of any notion of instant gratification, because this is a long term push. Just understand this: If you don’t make your voice heard, people with a very different dream for America from the one you believe in will have their voices heard, because they will be the only ones talking.

Now go read Jesmyn Ward’s piece. Read it first for her message about racism. Then read it again and substitute “classism” and you’ll understand.

The American Disease

Jun 30

We have an advanced case of The Stupids.

This disease can be contracted by constant exposure to public officials saying and doing idiotic things. It results in eventual Stupids fatigue, marked by lack of reaction to outrageous behavior. Here are some common causes of this nationally debilitating disease.

Bible-thumping zealots tell us that 9/11 happened as God’s punishment for our nation’s sins. They say we deserved it.
Deeply repressed homophobes wail in their self-righteousness and tell us how we should live our lives, as they thump bibles from atop their moral superiority. Then we find out that they are homosexuals. Worse, we tolerate their hypocrisy because later they “repent.” Same for governors who hike the Appalachian Trail – in Argentina – and serial cheats who run the Christian Coalition.
Fools blabber constantly about rape, somehow inventing a concept of “legitimate rape,” with its implication that some rapes are not real rapes. We are left to guess at what that means, but it sounds like they think some rape victims were “asking for it” and don’t deserve to be seen as victims of criminal assault and battery. Other fools tell us that in the case of pregnancy due to rape, “A woman’s body can shut that down.”
Michele Bachmann can’t figure out in which state Paul Revere made his historic ride, or distinguish between John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy, yet she got re-elected.
Our elected officials have kept us in a near-constant state of war for over 30 years – some argue that the number is 60 – and we tolerate the dead kids and the dead economy.
Richard Nixon declared his resistance to exiting the war in Viet Nam saying, “I’m not going to be the first American president to lose a war.” (October, 1969) So, 45,000 more American men and women were killed before America inevitably lost that war. That set the stage perfectly for all politicians to make every issue about themselves and their welfare and not about the welfare of America and Americans.
John Boehner wants to lock up IRS people before an investigation is even attempted or charges filed.
Chuck Grassley still thinks that, “They’re gonna pull the plug on Granny” and nobody calls him on his lie.
Rand Paul still thinks that we should not aid hurricane victims.
Paul Ryan still tells us that privatizing Medicare is not privatizing Medicare and half the country believes him.
We now have two Governor Ultrasounds, as the Republican legislature of Wisconsin and its Governor, Scott Walker, have joined Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia and have decided that they know better about medical care than a woman’s doctor, so they require a vaginal ultrasound before any abortion. And the OB/GYN has to read a statement to the patient that forces the doctor to lie to his/her patient. Then the patient gets to pay for all that fraud.
The gun bill failed, even though 90% of Americans wanted it to pass. Perhaps a cover reason for it can be found in the bazillion amendments to the bill, most of which have nothing to do with firearms and many of which are stupid on their face. And once again Americans have tolerated their elected representatives caving in to the NRA.
Global warming deniers base their claims on complete bunk and the corporate run media, in its fair and balanced way, continues to let them air their views. Worse, we’ve done next to nothing to deal with the looming danger that global warming will bring, largely driven by our voracious appetite for burning fossil fuels and our corresponding willingness to enrich the oil companies at the expense of planet Earth and its inhabitants.
Congress actually passed a law that protects Monsanto from prosecution if its genetically modified seeds prove to harm or kill people. This is the same congress that bemoans lack of accountability in our education system.
We continue to pull money out of education, even though our future national welfare depends upon our kids being educated and prepared to compete.

We are distracted by these circuses and, clearly, this barely scratches the surface of the idiotic stuff that has been going on for so long. Here is the key:

Re-read Number 6. It is all about the self-interest of the politicians to advance their careers. In order to do that they need big money. To get big money, they have to do the bidding of people who have big money, meaning extremely wealthy individuals and corporations. When they do that bidding, they are working for the monied interests, not for the interests of America and Americans. That keeps us from dealing with our very real issues, like global warming, for example, because the oil, coal and gas industry people want to ensure the continuation of their gravy train. Same logic for guns, healthcare and the lot.

We cannot change human nature and politicians will always look out for their own best interests. So, until we deal with big money in politics, not much will get better. Not any time soon. Not until disaster strikes. Maybe not even then. Think: Sandy Hook Elementary School followed by the failed gun bill, that failure being courtesy of threats to lawmakers from the NRA.

Most of us don’t feel disaster until it is in our faces and it becomes personal. That is simple human nature at work and it is why, for example, we fail to stand up to the big money bullies who would allow an assault rifle in the hands of the fool next door.

Have you stood in a line for eight hours to vote? Hundreds of thousands of Americans have had to do that and that is disaster. Has a vaginal ultrasound been forced on you or someone close to you? That is disaster. Have you felt the bottomless depth of pain over children being gunned down? That is disaster. Does it bother you that you might be targeted by the NSA? It should, because that is a disaster.

The America you believe in is being stolen from you bit by bit, and it will be gone unless you and I disengage from the boob tube and the rest of the distractions that gobble our time, energy and attention and we at last speak up. Speak up to get big money out of politics. Everything turns on that.

The Stupids is a curable disease and you and I hold the cure.

A New American Award

Apr 06

Nanoarchaeum Equitans Virus

The smallest known organism

There are scientists who feel that viruses are not the smallest organisms because they lack a cellular structure. Others believe that this condition is not disqualifying and it is this group of scientists whose views are invoked for this noteworthy recognition, The Virus Trophy.

Our nation has been poorly served by many of our leaders. They have engaged in debates over issues designed solely to distract and polarize us. They have refused to do the work to create the actions our nation truly needs and have instead concentrated their efforts on what serves themselves. In short, they have focused on making us small at a time when we desperately need big thinking.

Our country wasn’t built on small thinking or by small men and women. It was built by leaders who were giants and by the American people who worked hard, looked after one another, sacrificed and did the right thing. There was a shared belief in doing whatever it took. We built a country.

Now we find our leaders telling us all of the things that we cannot do. They teach us to lie and to be hypocritical, to diminish one another and to defeat ourselves by rejecting learning and science. They tell us to be afraid of one another.

They say stupid things, like telling us that the way to stop the killing of 33,000 of us every year with guns is for more people to be packing heat. Actually, we tried that. It was called the Wild West and a lot of innocent people got killed, until at last we figured out that it was counterproductive to safety for angry people to be running around with loaded guns. Of course, more people having guns serves the gun manufacturers quite well and it serves those who receive campaign contributions from them, too, but it’s small, selfish thinking.

And so it is . . .

– for bible thumping haters of all stripes

– for social program haters who lie to us

– for those who tell us that austerity will lead to prosperity, this in the face of well known economic principles that make it clear that austerity leads to contraction of the economy and poverty for the people

– for self-serving fools who tell us to “Drill, baby, drill” when doing that is a certain trip to climate catastrophe.

It’s time to stop thinking small.

We need to rebuild America so that our bridges are strong and safe. We need to rebuild America so that we transmit electricity with minimal losses of the power that we generate with renewable resources. We need to embrace all Americans, even those who are different from ourselves, both because our diversity is our strength and because it’s the right thing to do. We need to reaffirm that our true international power cannot be found in unnecessary, punitive wars, but in the strength of our influence, the juggernaut of our culture and the power of our economy. We need to stop pretending that we can kill our way to security and instead take action to make friends. We need to deal with the displacement that will occur when we stop building unwanted and unneeded weaponry and repurpose those skilled workers for building 21^st century America.

It’s time to think big.

That is why the first awarding of The Virus Trophy goes to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. He has spent over four, small-thinking years focused on just one thing: “To make sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president.”

Oddly, I had thought that a senator’s job was to represent the people of his/her state and to provide leadership to move America forward. I had thought that the oath of office required our leaders to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. For McConnell, though, those things seem to have been secondary at best.

There are other stupid, distracting, small-minded things that he has focused his energy upon in order to un-focus us from what is truly important and to keep us small. Most of his energy has gone into opposing anything that President Obama promoted, regardless of the devastating effect of his actions on America and Americans. All of that in the aggregate is what demonstrates McConnell’s true smallness and the richness of his deserving of the first Virus Trophy. Congratulations, Senator McConnell. However, you’re too small for America, so please take your award and go away in 2014.

Perhaps you’d like to extend your congratulations to Senator McConnell for winning this smallest of awards. You can do that here. And be sure to pass this along to the Kentucky voters you know – so that they know.

America in 2083

Feb 06

It is nearly unthinkable today that we legally enslaved people right here in America until just 150 years ago. It is similarly unthinkable that only wealthy, white landowners were allowed to vote for a very long time and that women gained that right just 93 years ago. It took over 50 years of focused struggle to fix something as obviously broken as that. Unthinkable.

It was only 48 years ago that African-Americans gained full voting rights and the beginning of their relief from voicelessness. It was around that same time when we at last decided that discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin was not okay. It is unthinkable that it took that long.

This is not ancient history. This is recent stuff remembered well by most Baby Boomers and it shakes our sensibilities today that our American forebears could have tolerated, much less practiced such amazing discrimination.

How do you suppose Americans seventy years from now will see us? Will they be as baffled at our practices as we are in viewing history from our perch today? Here’s a list of predictions of how adults seventy years from now will see us.

They will be astonished at our national polarization and the fear and hate that spawned it and which has resulted in our national dysfunction. Historians then will struggle to piece together a narrative to explain our penchant for shooting ourselves in the national foot.

Americans in the last quarter of this century will wonder why there was a debate over private ownership of people killing machines, like assault rifles and large capacity ammunition magazines. And they will shake their heads in astonishment that we had a low prohibiting the purchase of such killing machines and then allowed that law to lapse.

The people of tomorrow will find it unthinkable that we had a law that required background checks of citizens purchasing guns through retail stores but required no such background check of purchasers of guns sold at gun shows or through personal exchange. Future Americans will wonder at the spinelessness that created such a law.

People will find it unthinkable that we had a healthcare system that was driven primarily by a profit motive, rather than a public health motive. It will likewise be unthinkable to future Americans that we had a system where significant health crises caused half of all personal bankruptcies and where millions of Americans had to make tradeoffs between medical care and food. And people tomorrow will wonder how it was that we tolerated the decades-long escalation of healthcare costs resulting in the most expensive healthcare in the world. They will shake their heads in confusion over how, at the same time, we allowed our healthcare outcomes to deteriorate relative to the rest of the world. A common refrain will be, “What were those people thinking as Americans suffered?”

Parents of children in 2083 will scratch their heads trying to figure out what people of today were thinking when they allowed their elected officials to cut funds for public education and incrementally destroy it.

Americans will be aghast that we allowed corporate and special interest money to poison our politics in such a way as to make otherwise sensible politicians behave in reprehensible ways. They will wonder why we tolerated the dishonesty that served to perpetuate the careers of those same politicians and enrich their benefactors, while impoverishing the rest of America.

Late in this century voters will shake their heads at our 8-hour lines to vote. They will ask if we really did tolerate that attempt to disenfranchise Americans. It will be unthinkable.

American children will read in their history books that we had national debates about whether we Americans should torture people and that we actually did torture people. Children will wonder if there are printing errors in their e-textbooks. They will hope in vain that the torture was actually done by the Soviet Union or during the Spanish Inquisition and will wonder how such a thing could have ever happened in America.

Future Americans will ask how we could imprison people and charge them with no crime, refuse them due process of law, deny them legal aid and imprison them without limit. They will ask, “Did we do that in America?”

Americans in the last quarter of this century will be damning us for our national refusal to deal with the reality that the Earth is warming and bringing with it catastrophe. They will be angry that the sea has risen to the point that we will have lost much of Florida, that the Great Plaines, the greatest food engine the world has ever known, will have become a Great Dust Bowl and that the residents of lower Manhattan all have fins. They will be furious at us for our shortsightedness, our greed and our outright stupidity. It will be unthinkable to them that we missed the obvious.

Of the 172 democracies on the planet, America now ranks 138^th in voter participation. Tomorrow’s Americans will wonder why we sat stupefied in front of our televisions and let others’ short-sighted self-interest rule the day and ruin America.

It might be worse. People in 2083 may take for granted the path that led to their pitiful lives, and that they, like we, are polarized and unable to accomplish anything. They will say that of course there are the fabulously wealthy few, and then there are the rest of the citizens scrambling for crumbs. They’ll say that’s just the way it is.

They may assume that torture and unlimited detention should always have been okay and that every household needs assault weapons and a huge cache of ammunition. Healthcare and education will be only for the rich then, so the people of tomorrow may not wonder at all about the destructive path we’re on today because it will have led to the woeful America that is painfully familiar to them.

And that’s the way it will be unless we Americans take action right now. Not next year or in the next administration or in any particular administration. Right now. Our grandchildren are counting on us.

“If someone like you doesn’t care a whole lot,

“Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss

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JaxPolitix

Disambiguation from the political and social musings of Jack Altschuler