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You’ll Koch On This – Chapter 2


Reading time – 41 seconds

The city of Nashville, TN is expecting major growth over the next 20 years, including the expansion of its population by about a million people. To help deal with current congestion and to get ahead of the coming glut of cars on Nashville area roads, the city is proposing a 7.1 mile bus line with a dedicated highway lane in order to reduce commute times and the frustration of everyone. What could be bad about that?

Apparently, the Koch brothers can find something bad about it. They are major supporters of Americans for Prosperity (hmmm, for which Americans’ prosperity might that be?) and that organization is working to ban the proposed bus line. They have named any number of brainlessly dumb reasons for that, but they have put their money muscle into action. That’s probably a good idea for them, because more buses means fewer cars and that might ding the profits of Koch Industries – especially if the disease of public transportation spreads to other cities and fossil fuel consumption is curtailed.

That is a bit like opposition to solar power. Sometimes the solar panels on the roofs of houses produce more electricity than is consumed. That results in the electric meter running backward, a reasonable financial credit for the homeowners. The Kochs are fighting that, too. They don’t like incentives for clean renewable energy. It’s bad for their fossil fuel business.

In these cases and in the case presented in You’ll Koch On This – Chapter 1, the Kochs are acting in their short term self-interest and in each case the interests of the rest of the American people are at risk. Screwing public workers and screwing the air we breathe is just fine with them.

Getting past that myopic vision requires thinking that goes beyond the life expectancy of the Koch brothers and any of the billionaires who fight progress to keep their claws dug into their very profitable status quo.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with self-interest. Our job, though, is to understand the unbridled greed that is harming us in a thousand ways, to wake up and take action to stop the economic bullying being done by the few at the expense of your lungs, your wallet and the planet you live on.

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Breakfast With an Old Friend


Reading time – 52 seconds  .  .  . 

He lives in Santa Barbara, so of course our catch-up conversation included discussion about the homicides at UCSB – he lives just 3 miles from where the murders took place. He’s a bright and inquisitive guy and he asked me what I think the core issue about gun violence is and I could not come up with one; I came up with a list and he added more. Before blaming everything in the NRA, consider this:

  1. There are many deeply patriotic people who read the Second Amendment as an absolute right to gun ownership and they are very vocal about it. While you may disagree with them, just understand the depth of honest passion others have.
  2. We as a nation have never treated mental illness with the same depth of view or finances as we have for people with obvious physical ailments, so often people don’t get the help they need. Back in my CEO days there was an insurance cap of $10,000 coverage for mental health – lifetime limit!
  3. We have severe limits on involuntary hospitalization, which often leaves mentally ill people on the streets and suffering. Some of them go on to make others suffer. It is probably right that we make it hard for anyone to be locked up without their consent, so this is a gnarly issue.
  4. The determination of whether someone is mentally incompetent is often relegated to the police who do not have the skills for the task.
  5. We have a violent national culture compared to other first world countries, there is almost one gun in private ownership per citizen in the United States and having a gun available makes impulsive murder easy.
  6. Big money doesn’t want any curtailment of firearms ownership because any limitation is bad for business. And that is more important to them than six dead kids in Santa Barbara.
  7. We have a political system that requires candidates to raise enormous sums of money to get and stay elected, which means that they become beholden to big money contributors. This is a bi-partisan issue because that’s the way the game is played and that means that most legislators don’t want to vote against big money interests, including that of the arms manufacturers. Distasteful as it is to write these words, getting and staying elected is more important to some of these folks than six dead kids in Santa Barbara.
  8. The NRA is at least a twofold problem. First, they are the lobbying arm of the gun industry, so they are all about maximizing gun sales and twisting congressional arms to make that happen. Second, they like their own power and will do whatever it takes to retain it, so they twist those congressional arms even harder. And all of that is more important to them than six dead kids in Santa Barbara.
  9. Firearms are manufactured in many states and legislators don’t want jobs to disappear from their districts because that might cause them to lose their next election, so they vote against gun safety legislation. That is to say, legislators keeping their jobs is more important to them than six dead kids in Santa Barbara.
  • There are so many simple, common sense things we can do to begin to reduce gun deaths in America, like:
  •     – Universal background checks for the sale or transfer of any firearm
  •     – Laws that prevent convicted violent criminals and mentally unstable people from purchasing, owning or possessing a firearm
  •     – Mandatory trigger locks
  •     – A total ban on assault rifles and other strictly military hardware

None of these – not even all of these – will stop all gun murders in the US. But they will begin to stop the carnage and some of our kids will lose the bulls eye that is now on their backs. Tragically, none of these things has happened because of the dreadful numbered list above. Not even after Sandy Hook Elementary School.

This list is just what came to mind during an informal conversation with a friend. What are we missing in this complex issue?

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Support The Troops


Reading time – 59 seconds  .  .  .

Memorial Day 2014 – You’ve heard that a thousand times – and you do support the men and women in our military. Perhaps you thank them for their service when you pass them in an airport. We’ll be on the Village Green this morning to honor those who died to protect us and we’ll look for you there.

Perhaps you display the flag on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Some precious few of us volunteer at a VA facility. But do we really support our military men and women as they need us to do it?

We let our politicians put them in harms way in two avoidable wars, resulting in a quarter of a million casualties. That doesn’t sound particularly supportive.

We sent them to war without body armor, vehicle armor or even an exit plan. And we deployed them over and over again. Some spent so many years in a war zone that they had no clue how to survive outside that hostile environment – like at home. That doesn’t sound very supportive, either.

The Veterans Administration is supposed to help our vets and in large measure they do that very well. But shortcomings can have lethal consequences.

Our veterans are killing themselves at the rate of nearly one per day. The actual number is difficult to pin down, as reports of suicides and causes are measured in several different ways and the Pentagon’s own numbers are imprecise. Regardless, hundreds of our troops are taking their lives every year, some due to PTSD, others due to drug abuse. Others succumb because of an intolerably long waiting list at their VA hospital and the resulting complete lack of medical care. They desperately need our support.

The problems with the care provided by the Veterans Administration have been well known for decades. I don’t know the root causes nor do I have an idea what level of funding would ensure proper care for the expanding number of our veterans who need our support. The certainty I have is that playing the blame game, like firing Gen. Eric Shinseki, will not fix the problems. Politicians grandstanding and histrionically wringing hands will not fix the problems. And you and I tolerating this neglect of our military men and women will not fix the problems.

The behavior you and I tolerate is the behavior we get. Clearly, we have been tolerating this. And there are troops in their graves whom we mourn on this 2014 Memorial Day who didn’t need to be there so soon. They deserved better than that.

It’s time for us to support our troops by demanding better for them. That will be a fitting commitment from us to those who committed everything for us.


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

When They Pry . . .


ConstitutionReading time – 89 seconds

Amendment I – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

But the Supreme Court ruled that the city of Greece, NY may conduct Christian prayers during their meetings. That sounds a lot like establishing a religion.

And George W. Bush and the Republican National Committee set up “free speech zones” during their convention in 2004, making for lots of areas where there was complete abridgment of freedom of speech and the people were not being allowed to peaceably assemble. At the same time reporters were getting clubbed by police in Minneapolis, which made freedom of the press not so free.

Amendment II – A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The most curious interpretation of that belongs to the NRA and other Second Amendment thumpers. They conveniently ignore the first 13 words and focuse solely on keeping and bearing arms and not the reason for arms ownership.

When that amendment was passed there was national security concern that there might be a second British invasion, and they weren’t thinking about The Beatles. There was neither a standing American army nor the means to finance one, so citizens had to be able to leap into service in a Militia on a moment’s notice and be ready to fight; hence, the right to “keep and bear arms.” It was never about private citizens protecting themselves from the United States government. And today we have a Militia – our National Guard and standing army – so there is no national security need for the people to “keep and bear arms.”

Amendment IV – The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Is this really confusing to the NSA?

Amendment VI – In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence [sic].

We are still holding over 100 men at Guantanamo, none of whom has ever been formally accused of a crime. None has had a day in court. All have been there for years. So much for a “speedy” trial.

Amendment VIII – Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

What part of “cruel and unusual punishment” did George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and John Yoo, DOJ “Torture Memo” author, not understand about water boarding? Our own laws call water boarding torture, as do the Geneva Conventions.

I’m traveling around the country delivering Money, Politics & Democracy presentations because there are big money influencers and big political forces who have and want to continue to shred the Constitution. Well, they can have it to shred when they pry my cold, dead hands from the tattered remnants of it.

Are you with me?

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

A Little Help For Wild West, USA


Reading time – 63 seconds  .  .  .  

Scene 1: Cliven Bundy has refused to pay the bill for grazing his cattle on federal land for the past 20 years and is holed up on his ranch, hiding from the Feds. He is surrounded by his cattle and an army of white supremacists toting automatic weapons, a chip on their shoulders and gallons of testosterone. They don’t recognize the government of the United States or the State of Nevada. The only law they recognize is the county sheriff. The good news for the county sheriff is that Bundy’s is a federal offense, which means the sheriff isn’t the one who has to face down Bundy and his army of loonies. I bet that helps the sheriff to sleep better.

Scene 2: On his MSNBC program of May 5 (click on “The NRA Hates This Gun”), Chris Hayes presented Andy Raymond, a gun dealer in Maryland who wanted to start offering for sale the Armatix Smart Gun, a pistol that is specifically designed to help prevent accidental shootings. The gun crazies went nuts, imagining that this product would be the start of government mandated control of firearms. Once Raymond’s intentions became known to the gun totin’ public he started receiving death threats, his Facebook page was flooded with hate mail and, self-preservation being what it is, he quickly backed down, declaring that he won’t sell the gun. A gun dealer in Los Angeles recently went through a similar experience.

We have a serious problem: America is rapidly devolving into the Wild West, where everything is controlled by whoever has the biggest gun. That is not a metaphor. This is about real guns and live ammunition in the hands of absolutist people with hate and revenge in their hearts and heavy starch in their brains. It is of a piece with Sharron Angle calling for “Second Amendment remedies” as a cure for “the Harry Reid problem.” That’s serious stuff. What are we going to do about it?

I think it’s time that we agree with tough guy conservatives like Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who know that there is a military solution for everything. They seem, for example, to admire their new fair-haired boy, Vladimir Putin. They like his muscular ways, like riding a horse without a shirt and posing with a tiger that someone else shot. They like his boldness, even as they want the US to send arms to non-Russian Ukrainians so they can fight the Russian army, so let’s get bold.

Let’s hear more of that “military solutions for everything” talk from those guys, but this time aimed at the Bundy radicals. Send in the Marines to arrest the lawbreakers at the Bundy ranch and put an end to rule by automatic weapons and death threats. Let the world know that America will not be held hostage by Islamic terrorists or by American terrorists.

And if McCain and Graham can’t get the Marines, maybe they can call on Vladimir Putin.

But seriously, exactly where is the outcry from conservatives over Americans breaking the law?

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

O’, The Irony!


Irony

Reading time – 111 seconds  .  .  .

In my Money, Politics & Democracy presentations I’m careful to avoid any of the demonizing of individuals that is sadly so common in our politics. Instead, I focus on the dysfunctional system that forces good people to compromise themselves. The engine of that is the insanely high cost to run a political campaign, driven primarily by the crazy high cost of television advertising.

Over $10 million was spent in the Illinois 10th Congressional District race of 2012. That was for one House seat for just two years and represents only the money spent by the campaigns. Between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown over $80 million was spent for that Massachusetts Senate seat. In 2012 over $2 billion was spent in the presidential race and over $10 billion was spent in total for all federal elections.

The message in that is that to get elected and stay elected, people have to do fundraising continuously. As much as 50% of politicians’ time in office is spent grubbing for dollars for the next election. Further, small contributions won’t get the job done, so they have to suck up to the big bucks donors. And that leaves them beholden to those big funders.

SuperPACs are funded by already crazy wealthy people and corporations. They spend their money primarily on negative television advertising and, generally speaking, it is pretty effective. The result is that our democracy is held hostage to the big funders of political campaigns and SuperPACs.

The only way to change that and reclaim democracy – rule by [all] the people – is to enact a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that will do two things: first, allow for the regulation of money in our politics; second, make it clear that corporations are not people, nor should they necessarily have all of the rights of people and that the rights of corporations may be outlined and limited by government. The only way that amendment will get passed is for us to elect legislators who will make that happen.

Senator Tom Udall (D – NM) has proposed such an amendment and expects that there will be a vote in the Senate. Of course, we don’t know whether it will pass with the necessary 2/3 majority – it might – but prospects for it to even be put up for a vote in the House seem dim, considering the obstacle mentality of House leadership. Clearly, it will require a bunch of reformer types to be in Congress to get this done. That is where Lawrence Lessig comes in.

Lessig is one of the clearest thinkers about the issue of big money stealing our democracy and I recommend any of his YouTube (here’s one) or TED (here’s one) videos. Now, though, he has identified that to make change it is necessary to play the political game and get a little dirty, to wallow in some of the same mud we want to eliminate in order to effect reform. O’, the irony of that!

To that end – to get big money out of our politics – he is organizing a SuperPAC to help to elect reformer types who will get that amendment to happen. Take a look at his video about this and watch all 5 minutes – see what you think of what he is doing.

I strongly recommend giving your full consideration to the dreadful state of our democracy – which is just this side of a full oligarchy (rule by the wealthy few) – and then take appropriate action. Just thinking about this issue isn’t enough. We – you and I – must take action.

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What Your Bloodhound Knows


Reading time – 77 seconds  .  .  .

In a most accessible essay entitled The Umwelt, David Eagleman gives perspective to a 1909 concept of Jakob von Uexkull explaining the varied perceptions different animals have to their environmental signals. Snakes, for example, are practically blind to what humans see, but they have amazing vision in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum where we can’t see a thing. Were we without special scientific equipment, we would never know that it exists. In fact, we are only able to see about one ten-trillionth of the electromagnetic spectrum, so limited are we. And we go about our daily lives largely ignorant of even the possibility of so much more to be seen.

And that is the point.

Cliven Bundy is a cattle rancher in Nevada who has refused to pay his bill for grazing rights on public lands for over two decades. By definition, he is a cheat and a thief. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at last decided that enough was enough and sent some people to confiscate his cattle. They were met by an army of angry white supremacist radicals equipped with automatic weapons and threatening to kill the BLM people. Interestingly, those belligerents brought their women and children and placed them in front of themselves so that if there were a firefight, the BLM folks would wind up shooting innocents. Such is the courage and integrity of Bundy’s extremist pals.

(Side note: If the Black Panthers had greeted law enforcement officials that way in the 1960s, how would they have been treated? Actually, we know the answer to that question, as do the survivors of the Cook County state’s attorney’s police raid that killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in their beds. But, of course that doesn’t matter any more, as the Supreme Court has recently assured us that ours is a post-racial society, where, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” – Chief Justice John Roberts. Gosh, that sounds easy – let’s all just do it.)

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/Has_the_Supreme_Court_ended_affirmative_action_at_the_college_level.html#Xg7uUszwidafvzHS.99
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/Has_the_Supreme_Court_ended_affirmative_action_at_the_college_level.html#Xg7uUszwidafvzHS.99
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/Has_the_Supreme_Court_ended_affirmative_action_at_the_college_level.html#Xg7uUszwidafvzHS.99

On April 24, 2014 Bundy held a news conference and reiterated that he doesn’t believe that the U.S. government even exists. Furthermore, he told the attending reporters and his sycophants about “The Negro” on welfare and wondered aloud if blacks were better off being slaves picking cotton. Oddly, that brings us back to Eagleman’s essay – by way of your dog.

The olfactory capability of a bloodhound is a thousand times more powerful than that of a human being. We humans recognize the smell of fresh baked bread, the delight of a rose and the odor of a freshly relieved skunk and it would be common for us to assume that we know all of what is available to be smelled. But if your bloodhound had the intellectual capability for such an analysis, he would laugh at us for that.

Back to Cliven Bundy. He is certain that he knows the truth. He is not just an extremist; he is an absolutist. He knows. Yet to borrow from Eagleman’s essay, what if Bundy and his white supremacist buddies, ”  .  .  .  could be infused with the proper intellectual humility that comes from appreciating the amount unseen?” Bundy and his blind army of hate haven’t a clue what resides outside their bigoted view and your bloodhound would laugh at them for their ignorance.

There are a lot of people in positions of power and there are also many in other positions that provide them with a very loud megaphone, like Sean Hannity at FoxNews. Even with their severely limited vision, myopic as Bundy’s army, they are certain that they know the truth. What if they could be infused with that intellectual humility and they could acknowledge that there might be more in the universe than the tiny slice they know? What if all of of the absolutists could?

Yeah, I know. That’s just too crazy a dream.

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Upcoming Calendar


Reading time – 21 seconds  .  .  .

About a year ago it became clear to me that, while 4 out of 5 Americans who knew about the catastrophic Citizens United case wanted it reversed, too few of us knew about it. Education, it became obvious, is a must if we are to turn the country back in the right direction. And because I do keynote speeches and workshops with a focus on leadership in my day job, I took it upon myself to put together a presentation for the purpose of educating and motivating people to take action.

The program is entitled Money, Politics & Democracy and I’ve delivered it around Chicagoland and also in the St. Louis area. The comments have been strongly positive and I’m wanting to reach out to others, so if you have a venue where a speaker delivering a strictly NON-PARTISAN message to restore some sanity into our government, please connect me to that venue. And no, I don’t charge for doing these presentations. Like this blog, it is about making a difference.

Want to find out what it’s all about? Here are a couple of upcoming public presentations:

I will be presenting to NorthWest Suburban Organizing For America (NWSOFA) at 7:00PM on Tuesday, April 22. Here is a link to information on the session.

The next public session will be at the DuPage Coffeehouse on May 7 starting at 7:00PM. Information for my presentation isn’t up on their website yet, so click on this link for a PDF with program information.

Will you be there? Drop me a line so that we’re sure to connect.


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

“I Don’t Subscribe to Global Warming.”


Reading time – 31 seconds  .  .  .

That is what Nebraska State Senator Beau McCoy said. He is running to be the next governor of the Cornhusker State and I’m guessing that he thinks his Luddite position will play well to Nebraskans, figuring that most are low information voters. You know the drill: treat people as ignorant, learning-hating rubes and exhort them to distrust science and anything they cannot immediately see with their own eyes.  In sales it is called the “scare ’em and save ’em” method and it is very manipulative.

Of course, he speaks for dozens – perhaps hundreds – of other Republican legislators in state houses across the country and in Congress as well. I’ve singled out Republicans only because this lunacy is not commonly heard from Democrats, although there are a few examples. Most of these people are well educated and know better. Nevertheless, they dread the impact of doing something – anything – about global warming, fearing that doing so will come back to harm them at the polls. Here is how that works.

Should these legislators pass laws to combat this Earth-threatening danger, the wallets of their BIG campaign contributing benefactors would likely be lightened a bit. Those BIG money folks wouldn’t like that and would look for other candidates to back in the next election, candidates who will carry their water. That would result in today’s legislators losing their jobs because they had the spine to stand up for positive action to protect our children and grandchildren.

So, it comes down to a choice for each legislator: Bravely do something about the increasingly severe weather that will wreak havoc all around the globe in just a few short decades, or myopically focus on their short term self-interest to keep their jobs and pretend against the awful reality predicted by 97% of climatologists around the world.

Sen. Beau McCoy has decided on the spineless route in hopes of being elected to higher office. He says that he doesn’t subscribe to global warming. Maybe not, but it is being delivered to his address anyway.

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Yesterday’s Horse Races


Reading time: 39 seconds  .  .  .

We have spent the last 69 years preparing to fight the Cold War, which ended 25 years ago.  That means that for the entire duration of those 25 years we have maintained a military readiness, funding all the weapons that won’t be used and all the soldiers who will not fight, in order to fight a war which will never be waged   At the same time, we have failed to be prepared politically or militarily for the conflicts that actually did present themselves to us.

We elect legislators who manipulate the system, who are rewarded by that same manipulation, and then we re-elect them because they have rigged the system so that they win.  Later we complain because we lost and the system doesn’t solve our problems.  We’ve done this dance countless times, yet here we are yet again.

We complained about the Too Big To Fail banks, then allowed most of the lawbreakers to get away with their lawlessness without penalty.  Of course, those banks make very big donations to people in Congress who need that cash to get elected and stay elected.  I wonder why Congress doesn’t write tougher laws that would crack down on those Too Big To Fail Banks.  Also, the oil companies, the gun manufacturers, Big Pharma, big agriculture and a bunch more.

I keep saying this because it is true: Big Money in our politics is the mother of all of our political dysfunction.  It makes otherwise sensible, good people in Congress do things that shoot most of the rest of us in the foot.  Changing that will require an amendment to our Constitution that explicitly allows for regulation of donations and expenditures relative to political activity.  For that to happen, our legislators will have to feel the heat from millions of us.  Pathetically, less than 15% of eligible voters bothered to show up for the primary elections just held and less than 37% are likely to vote in the general election in November.

So, go sign a petition calling for an amendment to the Constitution to start the process to stop our national insanity.  Contact a group local to you that is working to get this difficult task accomplished and find out how you can be part of the solution, because if you aren’t, you’re just another part of the problem.

And show up to vote on November 4.  Your vote counts big time.

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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