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Why There Is So Much Push-Back


Bush Lies

* * *  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.


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

Predicting The Future


Sarin Cannisters* * * Special Tuesday Edition * * *

The word “Anschluss” became well known in 1936 as Hitler’s Germany annexed Austria.  Two years later the next newly familiar name was the Sudetenland, the predominantly German speaking part of Czechoslovakia.  Hitler’s pact with England’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain paved the way for the rest of Czechoslovakia to fall into German hands and in 1939 Poland fell to the Nazis in just a few days.  Then in 1940 Hitler incrementally overran Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and it wasn’t looking too good for the Brits at that point.  All this took place with the world pretty much watching from the sidelines as though people expected something different to happen after each country fell to the German blitzkrieg (another word that became well known then).

On September 8, 1974 newly ascended President Gerald Ford issued a “full, free and absolute pardon” for “  .  .  .  all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in .  .  .  ”  Many were the conspiracy theories about a supposed pact with the devil that spawned a Ford presidency and a pardon for an American who had not yet even been indicted for a crime but whose guilt was obvious.  Nevertheless, the pardon stood and, other than having to resign from office, Nixon got away with his lawbreaking.

1985 was a fine year for labyrinthine presidential dealing, as President Reagan and his team negotiated a three-way swap of arms to Iranians and sent money from the arms transactions to the Contras in Nicaragua.  The arms going to the Iranians were supposed to buy goodwill, such that the Iranian government would exert influence to get 7 American hostages released from their imprisonment at the hands of the Army of the Guardians of the Iranian Revolution (Hezbollah).  The U.S. sale of arms to the Iranians was a violation of the then-current arms embargo on Iran.  Providing money to the Contras in Nicaragua was in direct violation of the Boland Amendment.

Interestingly, of those indicted for their parts in this nefarious scheme, a handful received a sentence of a short term on parole.  A few went to prison for a little while and of those, nearly all were pardoned by President George H. W. Bush, himself a key player in the conspiracy but who never had to answer for his lawbreaking.  President Reagan was clearly responsible for the entire illegal operation but he was never charged with anything other than poor oversight of his national security team.  That is to say, he got away with it.

In the waning days of George W. Bush’s second term the major U.S. financial institutions began to fail under the weight of the house of cards they themselves had allowed to be erected and Bush told us we had to act immediately to rescue them because they were “too big to fail.”  We sent trillions of dollars their way and, even as fraud had plainly been committed, no criminal indictments were issued against the perps.  Those same financial institutions are now far larger than they were when they were “too big to fail” and their smoke-and-mirrors investment schemes continue.

Bush also lied the U.S. into two wars and compounded his lawlessness by authorizing the torture of hundreds of prisoners, an act that is in violation of the Geneva Conventions and others, as well as a clear violation of United States law.  Not a single person involved in that lawbreaking was indicted for anything and the Obama administration has made clear that it will not prosecute.  All of the lawbreakers have gotten away with their crimes.

There is an ongoing pattern of crime at the highest levels that continues to go unpunished.  What is significant about that is the certainty that bad behavior unpunished is a guarantee of more bad behavior in the future and that is exactly what has happened.  Let’s take this knowledge to the present crisis.

It is clear that Bashar al-Assad has no compunction about killing over 100,000 of his countrymen, nor has he any concern over using weapons of mass destruction, like sarin gas (stockpiles pictured above).  Failing to punish that behavior will ensure that Bashar al-Assad will do more of the same or worse in the days to come.  And the story is even bigger than that.

We are facing an upcoming nuclear arms threat from Iran.  So, too, and likely more immediately, is Israel facing that threat, given that the Iranians have sworn to wipe Israel from the map.  We have told the Iranians that they must abandon their development of nuclear weapons and comply with international agreements to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.  We have been clear that failure on their part to comply will be seen as a threat to the United States, which will compel us to take direct action against that threat.

But are our threats of action against Iran believable if we fail to confront the use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria?

The world sat on its hands as Hitler incrementally annexed most of Europe.  In the United States we allowed Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama to break major laws with impunity or fail to prosecute those who did.  Each of those then-current issues and failures to act ensured the next wrongdoing.

The pattern and the message are unmistakable:  The behavior we tolerate is the behavior we are certain to get over and over.  But now the toleration of bad behavior could lead to worldwide catastrophe.


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

Bull Connor Would Be Proud


Bull_Connor_(1960)Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920’s and rose to be the Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, AL.  That gave him oversight of the city police and fire departments and the power to enforce segregation, which he did with stunningly brutal efficiency.

It gave him the power to direct the police and fire departments to sic attack dogs and train fire hoses on peaceful, legal demonstrators, many of them children.  Four little girls were bombed to death in the 16th Street Baptist Church under Connor’s watch in 1963.  His influence is surely behind the Alabama State Troopers who used their billy clubs to crack skulls on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday in 1965.  He intentionally caused police to arrive 15 minutes after the arrival in Birmingham of a Greyhound bus full of Freedom Riders in 1961, allowing the waiting mob of hate spewing white Klansmen to beat the Freedom Riders with metal pipes, clubs and bats.   Oppression and violence were just fine with Bull Connor.

The wholesale use of violence has abated considerably since those days and surely America is a better place for people of color today.  Nevertheless, we have a long way to go to live up to our creed for all Americans.

And so it was significant that so many gathered for the “Let Freedom Ring” event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 2013, commemorating the 50 year anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech.  So many were there, like Rep. John Lewis, who marched with Dr. King, Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama, Julian Bond, Amb. Andrew Young, Oprah Winfrey and many more.  Important things were said and renewed momentum for progress was urged.  But something was missing.

Missing was anyone on the right.  No Republicans stepped to the podium.  Not a moderate.  Not a conservative.  Not a Libertarian.  Not a single Republican.

President George H.W. Bush was invited, but he is old and not well and was unable to attend.  President George W. Bush also was invited, but he is recovering from a heart procedure, so he did what he could and sent a statesman-like letter.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Eric Kantor were invited, but all refused to speak for equality, for justice, for jobs, for freedom for all Americans.  They didn’t even send a note.

The messages delivered by their absences are unmistakable.  First, Republicans don’t care as much about equality, justice, jobs and freedom for all Americans as they do about appealing to the far right crazies in their party.  Second, it is more important to Republicans to diminish the President by refusing to share a podium with him than to do what is best for Americans.

On a day dedicated to honoring the memory of people and events that changed our country and are a seminal part of American history, the Republicans told Americans that they really don’t care much about them.

It is often more difficult to look at a picture and identify what is missing, than to identify what is present and does not belong.  In this case, it is glaringly obvious what is missing.  Bull Connor would be proud.


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

Slogans


WizardAt the National Speakers Association convention earlier this year, Bruce Terkel delivered a powerful keynote presentation on marketing.  During that speech he explained that President Obama’s 2008 slogan “Yes we can” was the second best marketing slogan ever.  It is positive, it is inclusive and it is enabling.  Sadly, Republicans utilize a different slogan strategy.

Tom Coburn (R–OK), Ted Kruz (R-AZ), Michele Bachmann (R-Mars) and a bunch more Republicans want President Obama impeached.  They offer no high crimes or misdemeanors of which they think he is guilty.  They just want the sentence carried out without bothering with an indictment or conviction.  Their slogan seems to be, “Say anything to marginalize him.”

Paul Ryan continues to promote his Republican budget – only it isn’t a budget.  It is a plan to privatize nearly all of government.  This is just another example of Republicans putting lipstick on a pig and telling us it isn’t a pig, like the original Patriot Act that actually was unpatriotic and like Operation Iraqi Freedom that didn’t free the Iraqis but did chain us to perpetual war.  Their sleight-of-hand slogan is, “Fooling you with a lying label.”

I wrote here recently that the Republicans got nuthin’ because they propose nothing that will benefit America or Americans, other than the billionaires to whom they are indentured.  They lambasted President Obama at every opportunity regarding a budget.  Then Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Tanning Salon) presented the 2010 Republican budget that had no numbers in the entire document other than page numbers.  (Accounting note: If there are no numbers, it can’t be a budget.)  On the infrequent occasions that congress does manage to pass legislation to make things better, like the Dodd-Frank bill, Republicans immediately start the process to dismantle it piece by piece.  This slogan is obvious:  “Whatever it is, we’re against it even if we used to be for it.”

The House did pass a farm bill.  It gives Big Agri-Business multi-billions of dollars.  That same bill eliminates support for food stamps.  One in six American children lives in poverty – it is double that number for people of color – and The House intends to take the food out of the mouths of those kids.  The slogan: “Starvation makes children more self-reliant.”

Two of three poling places in North Carolina are being closed, leaving local college students with obstacles nearly impossible to overcome in order to vote.  A pregnant woman in Kansas, victim of a brutal rape, cannot do anything about it.  The school teachers in Wisconsin, who have sacrificed pay over and over in exchange for the promise of an adequate pension when they retire, are now having their pensions stolen from them.  None of that is an accident.

The Republicans are so bereft of offerings that they are putting the majority of their effort into stopping Americans from voting in order to win elections and cram through legislation to produce results like the examples above.  If they can’t stop people from voting, they use district gerrymandering to make votes inconsequential.  For example, Texas is 45% white but the Republican controlled state legislature has ensured that 70% of the districts are white Republican, thus marginalizing people of color.

Perhaps this kind of Constitutional blasphemy has not permeated your world yet.  Just understand this:  it will.  Right now they are coming after people of color, poor people, first time voters, the elderly and the infirmed.  After that it will be another group, then another, because a power hungry minority will never have enough control to satisfy themselves. Look to history and you will see the repeated story of incremental loss of rights concurrent with the rise of totalitarianism.  That is what voter suppression accomplishes, so “Coup by disenfranchisement” is the Republican slogan.

“You know, I would have at least some respect for the Republicans who pass these laws if they would just come clean and admit they are trying to keep everyone but old white guys from voting like it used to be in the good old days.  But instead, they make up stuff.”

Gaylard French of Waxahachie, TX
The Dallas Morning News
Letters to the Editor, August 18, 2013

We can sit back and pretend that our country is not being stolen from us, but sooner or later we’re going to have a very bad day.  The Republican slogan for that is, to quote Dick Cheney, “So?”

Bruce Terkel was asked the obvious question by a member of the audience at the close of his keynote to the National Speakers Association convention.  “If ‘Yes we can’ is the second best marketing slogan ever, what is the best one?”  Terkel didn’t miss a beat, replying, “See your doctor for an erection lasting longer than four hours.”

Are we that easy to manipulate – with just a slogan?


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

Voices


VoicesEighty 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.


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

The RNC Has . . .


izzy_santaIzzy Santa, RNC Hispanic Communications Director as seen on MSNBC Weekends with Alex Witt, July 27, 2013.

Here is a shortened and pretty accurate transcription of dialogue:

Witt:  The president indicated that there are Republicans who agree with him in private.  Is that true?

Santa:  The President’s programs have failed and Democrats are abandoning him.

Witt:  In talking about Obamacare, the President said that the Republicans can’t just be against; they have to be for something.  What are the Republicans for?

Santa:  Obamacare has failed.

Witt:  How do you think the President’s immigration plan will work for Hispanics?

Santa:  The President’s immigration plan is a complete failure.  (Ed. Note: There is no plan in place yet, so nothing has failed except the passage of the bill.  It is bottled up in the Republican controlled House.)

Witt:  Another question.

Santa:  Attack Obama, blah, blah, blah.

Here are the observed RNC Rules, as consistently obeyed by Michael Steele when he was RNC chairman, Rience Pribus, current RNC chairman and Izzy Santa:

  1. Always attack President Obama and Democrats.
  2. Never answer a question or offer anything creative, new, constructive.
  3. Always attack President Obama and Democrats.

Memo to RNC:  That’s all ya got?  Ya got nuthin’.


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

Number 14


IllinoisI’ve written many times about how big money steals our politics and our democracy and about how victories to make change for the better are hard won.  Those victories are critical, though, because without change the big money people will continue to incrementally buy America.  They will continue to disenfranchise more and more Americans.  They will continue to make themselves immune from accountability.  They will continue to ignore the slide into poverty of millions of Americans.  They will continue to stoke war, benefit the war materiel industries and waste the lives of our children.

Yet every now and then there is a ray of hope – a quiet thunderclap – and that happened on May 31, 2013.  That is the day when Senate Joint Resolution 0027 passed the House in the State of Illinois legislature.  It is a resolution calling for a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reverse the terrible slide into corporatocracy, a demand to allow regulation of money in politics.

This is a big deal and one not easily accomplished, yet it happened.  It happened because tens of thousands of Illinoisans demanded this change and insisted upon a formal declaration from the state being delivered to congress.  That is the power of the voice of the people.  While the resolution is non-binding, it makes the demands of the people clear for our national legislators and lets them know that they ignore the people at their own political peril.

The good news didn’t stop there.  In June, Delaware became the 15th state to demand the same thing and on July 2 the Oregon Legislature passed House Joint Memorial 6 (HJM 6) calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment overturning the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. F.E.C.  There will be more states and more municipalities that will join the call because the people know that something is wrong and they want change.

So, make your voice heard at MoveToAmend or Common Cause or any of the organizations working toward eliminating big money influence in our politics and striving to restore our democracy.  Do it because the voice of the people – yours and mine – can set us – America – back on the right course.


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

Special Ice Cream Edition


bjlogoWhatever your issue, budget, debt, global warming, immigration, guns, healthcare, civil rights or any other topic, the reason things aren’t getting better is because of something that controls your issue: Money.  Big money.  Big money that influences elections, politicians and distorts the will of the people into the will of the very few enormously wealthy people.  For more on that, take a look at Larry Lessig’s TED talk.

Should you doubt that big money influence is preventing the will of the people (that’s you) from being done, just recall the recent vote on background checks prior to gun ownership.  Have you ever seen an issue in the United States where 90% of the people were in agreement?  That’s highly unusual and one would expect those who represent us to get the message and vote accordingly.  Didn’t happen that way.  Enough of our politicians flagrantly voted against our wishes because of big money influence and they caused the wrong result.

The Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream guys have something to say about that.  You can read about it here on the CNN Opinion blog.  They explain it better than I do.

Just because those gun money politicians defeated the sensible gun ownership background check that you wanted doesn’t mean that they can defeat everything that we want.  We Money StampAmericans are united in opposition to big money buying our elections and our country.  So, get off your Barcalounger, get a stamp here and get the message out so that next year we will elect candidates who will begin to make things right.

Is this issue important to you?  Comment below and then email this to 3 friends.


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

For Purist Lefties and Windshields


WindshieldI’m surely talking to myself here, but this just might fit for others, too. JA

*********************************************************

The Radical Right provides enough material in a single sentence of extremism than can be corrected in a 750-word response.  I’ve heard as many as three fictional facts in a single short sentence.  Let them go on for two minutes and it’s such a dizzying array of fantasy that it’s impossible to know where to begin to correct the falsities.  Those guys know how to spray incendiary, divisive and destructive language.  They’re really good at demanding that everything be decided their way and insisting that that they never make mistakes.

For example, don’t you just hate it when the far righties tell us how safe George W. Bush kept us?  Try telling that to the kids whose mother or father was crushed to death in the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.

Those far righties want to end Medicare and Social Security and they have concocted fatuous, misleading names for the programs they designed to do just that.  Then they have had the gall to tell us that they don’t want to end those programs.

When 20 little kids were gunned down in Newtown, CT the far righties made sure that we didn’t do anything to begin to limit access to the kinds of weapons that make it easy for violent people to do such things.  They insist with self-righteous fervor that they have the one true interpretation of the Second Amendment and they ignore the demands of the rest of us, as they pursue campaign cash to support their careers.

So we call these people crazy.  They are hateful and mean.  They are dishonest in sixteen different ways.  Our guts snarl and our spittle flies as we yell at our windshields.

To pull a Columbo, there’s just one more thing.

What is it that you were saying as President Obama worked toward compromise with congressional Republicans during all those iterations of budget and debt issues?  What was it you were saying as he failed to press for universal health care?  Now he’s offered chained CPI as a negotiating chip.  I’ll bet you had serious juice about those issues and your words for him might have sounded a lot like your comments about crazy righties.

Obama let the Republicans kill his jobs bill, even as they were telling us it was all about jobs, jobs, jobs.  You pilloried the Republicans, but did you also lambast Obama for his lack of leadership on the issue?

How many times did you wail that Obama gave up his negotiating leverage by caving in at the beginning of discussions with Republicans?  It seems that President Obama just won’t be the absolutist leftie some want him to be.  Maybe you’ve sprayed a coating on the inside of your windshield over that.

We can keep strolling down the path of all the ways Obama and the Democrats have failed – surely that has happened.  Yet here’s the key point:  governing is compromising and nobody gets all of what they want all of the time.

The Radical Righties have done a really good job of strong-arming America for over a decade.  Their demand that everything be decided in the far righty way is incomprehensible to many; just get that a similar demand from the far left is just as incomprehensible.

For those who get off on anger, who feel powerful by living in their disparagement of anything and anyone who disagrees with them, I have a news flash:  You are a lot like those whom you pillory.

Fight for what you believe in.  Oppose what you disagree with.  Just don’t be so certain that you have the one and only true vision of what is best, lest you become a yet another ideological roadblock and put the inside of still more windshields at risk.


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

Pogo


Pogo 2As the heat subsides from the immediacy of the Boston Marathon bombings and shootings, our national dialogue naturally turns to more contemplative issues, like preventing such attacks in the future.  Concurrently, we continue to wade in the morass of Sandy Hook and our elected leaders blather ineffectively over action to prevent more gun massacres.  The connective tissue between those seemingly different situations is angry people acting out violently to, in their minds, right a wrong or to make a statement and be heard or because some mental illness led them to kill.

Setting aside mental illness as a motivator, what we have are people who do horrific things, yet those very same things seem sensible – even mandatory – to them.  The popular saying is that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

It is never popular to suggest that we have a part in what goes on elsewhere.  We’re more comfortable pointing fingers at the crazy, violent people.  But what if there are things we can do so that we don’t spawn so many people who see violence as their only option?

Here’s Human Being 101 on this: every one of us has a fight or flight response ready to be triggered instantly.  It’s located in the so-called reptile brain, the oldest component inside our skulls, and its operation isn’t ruled by notions of consequences, fairness or reason; indeed, it isn’t ruled by conscious thought at all.  It is survival level stuff as practiced by alligators and it works really well for – guess what? – survival.  It isn’t good for much more than that and that’s the problem when we humans feel threatened or wronged.

Impulses from the reptile brain flood our system ten times faster than thoughtful deliberation and we go primitive quicker than the snap of fingers.  This is the kind of stuff that is handy for recruiting members for militias, for white supremacists and for al Qaeda.  All those recruiters need to do is to smear “others” as threatening what the recruited hold dear, like their loved ones, their country, loyalty, right over wrong – you can make up your own list – and the sign-up is easy.  All that fierce reptilian stuff feels good, because when it’s engaged we feel powerful.  That’s especially useful for manipulating those who have felt disempowered, ignored or bullied.  Violence feels to them like strength and, perhaps, like it is their only remedy.

Next thing you know the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is blown up, 6-year-old children are blasted apart by 10 bullets each in Newtown, CT and Americans are blown up at the Boston Marathon.

We have an unlimited supply of people exhorting us to primitive, violent redress to every conflict.  Their chest thumping and their simplistic solutions appeal to our desire for quick resolution and to make us feel safe.   Indeed, our war drum beating legislators seem to believe that most problems should be resolved through military means.

For every Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. insisting that we be non-violent in dealing with our grievances, there are hundreds of others rattling sabres.  Humankind has always been short of peacemakers.  Actually, it is a hazardous profession, as those folks have a way of becoming prematurely dead, thanks to ever-present violent people who feel threatened.

Just get that clobbering other people will not convince them not to attack us.  That applies to the Muslim world, the various places where we expend ordnance in order to prove to ourselves that we’re Number 1, as well as to our neighbors across town who may be somehow different from you and me.  Come to think of it, I’m not too sure of you.

That last was, of course, tongue-in-cheek.  It is meant as a placeholder for all the ways we “other” people who seem, well, other.  We can succumb to fearing whoever might appear to be different or we can get past that.  John Lennon said it well:

“If you want money for people with minds that hate,

“All I can tell you is brother you’ll have to wait.”

We have to figure out that we cannot dominate and kill our way to security and comfort because that just leads to the next generation of people who want to attack us.  Nothing is going to get much better until we figure that out.  Pogo said it best:  “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The way we have been is not who we have to continue to be.  Perhaps – just perhaps – we can find remedies to our individual and collective challenges.  We’ll all need to do our part in that.


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

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