Vision

Answers


Reading time: 2:20; Viewing time – 4:00  .  .  .

I’ve been wrong. I’ve been short-sighted and reactionary and embarrassingly foolish. The embarrassment is because I know better.

Something didn’t feel right and then I read Nick Kristoff’s A 12-Step Program for Responding to President-Elect Trump and it was then – at step #3 – that I knew that I had tripped on the attitude diving board and done a belly flop onto the political pool deck.

Step 3. I WILL avoid demonizing people who don’t agree with me about this election, recognizing that it’s as wrong to stereotype Trump supporters as anybody else. I will avoid Hitler metaphors, recognizing that they stop conversations and rarely persuade. I’ll remind myself that no side has a monopoly on truth and that many Trump supporters are good people who want the best for the country. The left already has gotten into trouble for condescending to working-class people, and insulting all Trump supporters as racists simply magnifies that problem.

I know that Kristoff is right, that nobody has a monopoly on the truth and that having voted for Trump doesn’t mean that someone is a racist. Indeed, I’m wondering what percentage of Trump voters were simply so convinced of the evil of Clinton that they were willing to ignore Trump’s negatives – or the percentage of Americans who chose Trump because at least he was speaking to the suppressed rage they’ve carried in their gut for decades due to government having so consistently ignored and abused them.

I’ve been frustrated listening to righties who claim the high ground of patriotism and love of America, who imply or outright say that they have it right and others simply aren’t patriots. I often have imaginary conversations with them and explain that I love America every bit as much as they do and I very much want to excoriate them for their closed-mindedness. At this moment, though, my aforementioned embarrassment extends yet further, as I’ve realized that I’ve been thinking about them with a closed-mindedness of my own and it’s as harmful as theirs.

Flagrantly demonizing people is wrong no matter who does it. Stereotyping is wrong when I do it. On the other hand, calling out hate mongers is the right thing to do.

Kristoff advises letting go of Hitler metaphors, so let’s play with that a bit. “Alt-Right” includes Neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, militias, the Posse Comitatus and likely other fringe hate groups. Trump has installed Alt-Right hater Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions as his attorney general and he’s bringing hyper-anti-immigrant hotheads like Mike Flynn and Kris Kobach into his cabinet. He has promised to round up Hispanics and to discriminate against Muslims and make them “register”. He stereotypes African-Americans as ghetto bums and continues to refuse to repudiate the hate mongers, including the seig heil morons. And Kristoff really wants me to let go of the Hitler metaphors? I don’t know if I can do that. I’m not confident that refusing to see a Hitler-like pattern is a good idea, because the hate induced catastrophes always begin this way. A key part of our answers moving forward lies in opposing the haters and stopping the bullies.

Meanwhile, we’re left with the rest of the question about what to do for our country, and I – perhaps you, too – need to take a step back and do a 12-step program – or maybe an 11.8-step program – and find some balance, accept that some don’t see it our way, but that doesn’t make them wrong or foolish or hateful or bad. Then perhaps we can all start finding some answers.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA

– See more at: https://jaxpolitix.com/8280-2/#sthash.Vem4eKsP.dpuf


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

First They Came


Pastor Martin Niemöller

Reading time – 1:22; Viewing time – 2:32  .  .  .

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

“Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

“Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

It always arrives wrapped in a flag and starts small. We humans are nearly insensitive to and largely tolerate small changes, but small changes accumulate and become an avalanche that overwhelms. Pastor Martin Niemöller knew that as he railed against the cowardice of German intellectuals when the Nazis came to power. Note that the Nazis arrived on a wave of German frustration and rage over terrible economic circumstances and that they were democratically elected. Does that pattern sound at all familiar?

When I was a young teenager I confidently told my mother that the human atrocity that was the Nazis couldn’t happen here – not here in America. She looked me in the eyes fiercely and told me that it could. I didn’t believe her, even as her words scared me.

Now Donald Trump has told us that he will be coming for the Hispanics and then he said he’ll come for the Muslims. Who do you suppose will be next? And next after that? This pattern has been followed repeatedly throughout history, so it should come as no surprise to any of us that an unrestrained populism of angry people led by a sociopath always has catastrophic results. It’s already started. Watch for the guest essay on Wednesday and you’ll see. And Trump has already begun his excuses.the-work-goes-on

This is your country, so what will you do to prevent that from happening? What will you do to ensure that this is a country of hope and inclusion, the kind of America you believe in? We have seen that phantom idealism in the form of protest votes and abstaining from voting produce nothing more than a temporary illusion of self-satisfied purity, even as they allow the worst to happen. I assure you that ignoring the situation, refraining from speaking up and waiting for others to take action will not help. In fact, being passive will make things far worse.

What will you do?

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Insidious


putin-on-a-bearReading time – 1:49 plus 44 seconds for the Bonus Section; Viewing time – 2:31  .  .  .

Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and he penned a most interesting essay in the New York Times entitled How a Russian Fascist Is Meddling in America’s Election. It is a worthwhile read if you want to understand a bit of Vladimir Putin’s anti-America behavior. It seems that Putin, the object of Donald Trump’s heart-pitty-pat bromance, is much enamored of the now deceased Ivan Ilyin, whom Snyder described as “a prophet of Russian fascism”.

Ilyin was all about the demise of individuality and democrace, which he saw as evil, both of which he saw as evil. He believed in some idealistic oneness of Russia ruled by a “national dictator” who would be “inspired by the spirit of totality,” whatever that means. If you are an ordinary Russian citizen and a hammer and sickle Russian fanatic, that might sound pretty good to you, And it will stay that way until the commissars snatch you from your home in the middle of the night and send you to a Siberian labor camp. And why wouldn’t they do that if individuals – you – are evil and have no individual value?

It’s so very Soviet Union yesterday.

Which isn’t the main point for us, but it does provide context. Snyder writes,

“For a decade, Russia has been sponsoring right-wing extremists as “election observers” – most recently, in the farcical referendums in the Crimea and in the Donbas region of Ukraine – in order to discredit both elections and their observation. Since democracy is a sham, as Ilyin believed, then it is right and good to imitate its language and procedures in order to discredit it. It is noteworthy that the Trump campaign has now imitated this very practice, supplying both its own private “observers” and the advance conclusion about the fraud they will find. [emphasis mine}

“The technique of undermining democracy abroad is to generate doubt where there had been certainty. If democratic procedures start to seem shambolic, then democratic ideas will seem questionable as well. And so America would become more like Russia, which is the general idea. If Mr. Trump wins, Russia wins. But if Mr. Trump loses and people doubt the outcome, Russia also wins.” [emphasis mine]

How in the world can Donald Trump be about making America great when all that he says and all that he does rips at the very fabric of our democracy?

BONUS SECTION – PLEASE ASK THIS QUESTION AT THE DEBATE:

Mr. Trump, before and during this campaign you have said ugly things about women, including calling them dogs and worse, as well as fat-shaming one of your own Miss Universe winners. You have steadfastly refused to moderate your comments and you have refused to apologize to people you have harmed with your cruel words, much less to the rest of the women of America. Now we have seen a video of you clearly objectifying women, making cruel and lewd statements about them and claiming with pride that you are free to commit sex crimes with women because you’re a star. You responded to the unveiling of your horrific statements with a limp apology.

Given that your words and your actions loudly proclaim your disdain for women, explain to all Americans why we should even consider the possibility that as president you would care about and respect over half of us – girls, women, daughters, spouses, mothers, sisters, friends – and look out for their welfare. And don’t tell us yet again that you respect women, because it’s manifestly clear from your words and actions that you don’t.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA

– See more at: https://jaxpolitix.com/7836-2/#sthash.J67dlWgD.dpuf


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

America Through the Looking Glass


Antique Looking GlassReading time – 37 seconds; Viewing time – 55 seconds  .  .  .

You’ve heard comments about the multiple Trump bankruptcies and failures, but to really understand you need to read the meaty account of them in Newsweek, Donald Trump’s Many Business Failures, Explained by Kurt Eichenwald. As you read it, keep in mind that Trump has told us repeatedly that he’ll be the greatest president ever because he’s such a great businessman and a winner. Eichenwald’s essay puts the lie to that nonsense.

Trump wants you to believe that he knows things that you don’t know, and he’s right. You don’t understand, for example, that failure is success. You just don’t get that a lie is better than the truth and that innuendo, insult and slander are hallmarks of personal greatness. All of us but Trump missed the fundamental life lesson that fraud is the calling card of great virtue. To any sane person, it’s craziness.

But the true craziness of our time is not Trump and his dishonesty; it is that 30 percent of the American electorate is so enraged that they support him and cheer anything he says that feels like a “f**k you” aimed at others. They are so enraged by all the lies and sellouts over so many years by those in power that they mindlessly latch onto Trump’s permanently raised middle finger.

What have we done?

For a fuller understanding of the Trump alternate universe, take a look at Katy Tur’s piece on the Marie Claire website and you’ll see that life around Trump is life through the looking glass. Can that possibly be good for you or even for Trump’s 30 percent? Could America as we know it survive that?

Thanks go to ABS for the pointer to the Newsweek piece.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

I Got It Wrong


Declaration of IndependenceReading time – 2:39; Viewing time – 4:08  .  .  .

I’ve long lamented the lack of a clear vision for America from our leaders and our candidates. They promote various programs, laws and policies but never seem to connect them to a clear statement about the kind of country we want, effectively swatting at symptoms with a ready, fire, aim methodology, which has brought us to our current condition.

Then it came to me. It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

And it’s in the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity  .  .  .

It’s the whole thing. The Big Picture. The reason. The why. It isn’t a slick campaign bumper sticker slogan, like “Shining city on a hill” or “Morning in America,” so those passages from long ago take a bit more effort to remember and they aren’t neatly organized into a single, focus-grouped focal point, but instead have a number of points. Still, the intent is pretty clear. Our problem seems to lie in the wrong-headed efforts that do not lead to that intent.

For example, the Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 as a barrier to bank failure in order to prevent another Great Depression. One of its provisions prohibited any combination of business practices from among three financial functions that included commercial banking (home mortgages, savings accounts, etc.), speculative investment banking and the insurance business. That worked pretty well until 1999 when the Newt Gingrich Congress sent a bill to President Bill Clinton that repealed Glass-Steagall and he signed it into law. That led to things like collateralized debt obligations, derivatives and a number of other financial products that pretty much nobody understood, not even the smart guys. It was Las Vegas style gambling with your money but without your consent and you never even held the dice. The result was the 2008-2009 economic meltdown that nearly crippled the entire world economy. The removal of the Glass-Steagall restrictions did, indeed promote the general welfare, but only for already rich people. It didn’t promote the general welfare of the country or of most of its people. It was classic congressional action that was absent of focus on the vision.

Another example is our election system that puts candidates on their knees begging for campaign contributions from, say, the NRA. That does a great job of promoting the general welfare of the gun industry, but it most assuredly doesn’t insure domestic tranquility.

Billions of dollars of subsidies go to the fossil fuel industries each year and that is great for the welfare of those companies. But the subsidized use of their products is starting to cause the streets of Miami Beach to flood. It’s causing severe storms in some areas of the world and drought in others and is slowly but at an increasing pace choking the planet. Without question that is an assault on our unalienable right to life, yet we continue the subsidies and fail to promote an all-hands-on-deck sustainable energy strategy that would support our citizens’ right to life.

So, I got it wrong. There most surely is a vision. We just have a remarkable facility for losing focus on it.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Salve for the Bern


TortoiseReading time – 77 seconds; Viewing time – 2:37  .  .  .

I know you’re more than disappointed. You’re angry, disturbed, frustrated and wracked with despair. You know what’s wrong and you know what will fix it. You have a vision of how America should be and you want change from the hateful, harmful, even suicidal path we seem to be on. The urgency you feel is real and you want that change to happen right now. And the hope for reform that you invested in Bernie is dashed.

Well, buck up, Bubba, because true and lasting change takes time.

Gershom Gorenberg, writing for Moment Magazine about the disenchantment some have with Israel, has advice that applies to our society, our politics and our hopes that we placed in Bernie:

“I can best define despair in politics as unrealistic pessimism. History gives evidence that dedicated, organized people can bring about political change. The creation of Israel is, in fact, one example. The civil rights movement in America is another. I’m certain there were people who told Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham not merely to move slowly (we’ve all heard about that), but to give up hope: “Look, Reverend, Jim Crow is entrenched policy. America’s promises are a sham. Give it up.” King didn’t. To bring about political change, you need to keep two conflicting recognitions constantly in mind. One is that it’s urgent. It must happen today, because the situation is intolerable. The other is that transformations require a very long march.

“When you despair, you exempt yourself from the slog. Declaring that nothing can be done, you stop asking what you can do. You become an un-indicted co-conspirator in the status quo.”

The hare never wins the race. In the fight for reform, we must be the tortoise. Bernie’s campaign may be over, but the fight for reform goes on. So, one thing we tortoises can do is to vote on November 8 and encourage everyone we encounter to do the same.

Pass this along to other disappointed people youThe work goes on know – they’re feeling let down, too, and need your help to rekindle their flame of hope instead of giving up. That’s what you can do, because giving up is not an option.

Thanks go to Steve Sheffey for the Gorenberg quote.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Yooge


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yooge

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yooge

Reading time -122 seconds; Viewing time – 4:04  .  .  .

Now that we’re in the midst of the political conventions and immediately following the Trump narcissist extravaganza, it’s time to do something unusual, to separate from cable blather and give our full attention to reality.

Trump’s 1987 book “The Art of the Deal” was presented as an autobiography by the then-38-year-old Trump. In truth, Tony Schwartz is the ghostwriter who penned every word of it and he has an irreparably guilty conscience now for having done so. His Faustian bargain with Trump and the truth about Trump’s dishonesty are detailed in the July 25, 2016 issue of The New Yorker magazine in a critically important piece by Jane Mayer, author of “Dark Money.” Schwartz tells us that in writing the book, “I put lipstick on a pig.”

You need to read this piece to fully understand:

    1. That Trump really is a sociopath.
    2. That Trump is impulsive and has no attention span.
    3. That, “Lying is second nature to him.” “He lied strategically. He had a complete lack of conscience about it.”
    4. That Trump has no regard whatsoever for the people he falsely claims to champion.
    5. That the only thing Trump wants to make great is his public attention. For Trump, it is not and never has been about America.

On that second point Schwartz says, ” .  .  .  that it’s impossible to keep him focused on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes  .  .  . ” His experience with Trump left him with the clarity that Trump has, ” .  .  .  a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” Those are really bad personality flaws for someone who is Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful military. The job of president requires the ability to learn and understand deep and complex issues and all the implications surrounding them. Says Schwartz, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

Regarding Trump’s claim to care about the poor and working people, “In the past seven years, Trump has promised to give millions of dollars to charity, but reporters for the Washington Post found that they could document only ten thousand dollars in donations – and uncovered no direct evidence that Trump made [the promised] charitable contributions from money earned by “The Art of the Deal.”

To illustrate the impact of the last point about public attention, George W. Bush wanted to be seen as a war president. He proceeded to lie us into invading Iraq, which led to ISIS, the Syrian civil war, an unrestrained Iran, terrorist murders around the world and our never-ending Middle-East wars, all because Dubya wanted the public attention and image of war president. And Schwartz tells us, ” .  .  . that Trump seemed driven entirely by a need for public attention.” What do you suppose that sort of personality disorder might mean for our children and grandchildren?

It’s crucial that the American people know and understand the frightening truth about this P.T. Barnum-like charlatan before it’s too late. So send this blog to everyone you know, lefty, centrist or righty, informed or not and tell them to click on the link to Mayer’s article on Schwartz, just as you will. Tell them to read the piece – it’s startling – and then to pass this along to everyone they know. Because this is about reality – actual facts – from the guy who studied Trump like no other and knows the truth about him. We can handle the truth; what we can’t handle is a yooge sociopath in the White House.

So go ahead – do it now before the next hyperbolic news cycle breaks your concentration. And remember – and I mean this literally – we’re all counting on you.

You can watch Tony Schwartz on Bill Maher’s Real Time – RNC Convention Edition here starting at 22:20.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

A Man for Any Season


Seal_of_the_United_States_National_Security_Agency.svgReading time – 2:31; Viewing time – 3:26  .  .  .

In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001 the people of the United States were in the mood for a few things; chief among them was security. Not long afterward President George W. Bush started the National Security Agency’s warrant-less wiretapping program. Bush’s own Justice Department later reported that it could not certify the legality of that program, a euphemistic way of saying that the program was illegal.

The program had a hard stop date of March 11, 2004 and needed a sign-off by the Attorney General in order for the program to continue under the terms of its original authorization. Shortly before the reauthorization deadline, Attorney General John Ashcroft became quite ill with what was diagnosed as gallstone pancreatitis and doctors had removed his gall bladder. He lay in intensive care, a very sick man.

On the night of March 10, 2004, the night before the reauthorization deadline, White House Counsel Alberto R. GoSeal_of_the_United_States_Department_of_Justice.svgnzales (the same legal counsel who had declared that waterboarding was not torture and was, therefore, legal) and President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. were on their way to Ashcroft’s intensive care bedside to strong arm him into signing the re-authorization that he had refused to sign prior to becoming ill. Ashcroft’s deputy Attorney General was James Comey, who was acting Attorney General due to Ashcroft’s incapacitation. When Comey learned what was about to happen he rushed to the hospital and prevented the strong arming, while at the same time refusing to sign the re-authorization.

Bush later authorized the illegal surveillance himself and caused it to continue. That was the last straw and Comey and the rest of the top officers in the Attorney General office were prepared to resign en-mass, refusing to be a part of an administration that would subvert the law. Bush then backed off, agreeing to make changes to the program.

400px-US-FBI-ShadedSeal.svgThat is the same James Comey who issued a blistering assessment of the use of private email servers by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and at the same time said that his FBI team found no evidence of criminal intent and recommended that no legal action be taken against Clinton.

This is the same James Comey who stood his ground during the hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as several Republican members attempted to impugn Comey’s integrity, suggesting political considerations bent his judgment and that he allowed for a double standard of justice, one for the Clintons and another for everyone else.

James Comey

FBI Director James Comey

We now seem to have an overabundance of people focused solely on political advantage for themselves, who want to warp the understanding of events into whatever fantasy serves them and whose spines seem to be a bit too flexible. They don’t care whom they trample or how they crush integrity.

In contrast, how refreshing it is to find a man like Comey who stands up, speaks truth to power, saying, “Not on my watch.”

For full details of the 2004 hospital confrontation, read the Washington Post report here.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Leadership


Statue of LibertyReading time – 2:21; Viewing time – 3:22  .  .  .

We have suffered decades of partisan demonizing, this coming mostly from Republicans following the creation of their “50-State Strategy”, a cruel, scorched earth program to deny any Democrat any legislative or PR victory regardless of the consequences to the American people – that’s you and me. If that rankles your Republican sensitivities, show me the list of Democratic efforts designed solely to block any Republican victories. Pick any decade you like.

We have suffered years of mean-spirited bloviating and name calling, essentially 10-year-old brat on the playground behavior, now perfected by Donald Trump. But don’t forget Congressman (R-Hell) Joe Wilson calling President Obama a liar during a State of the Union address. We are at one another’s throats, with destructive words as common as dandelions. As Joe Scarborough said the morning after the shootings of Dallas police, “We are a nation on edge.” A guest responded by saying that we have to identify why that is so. A significant driver of our being on edge is our insistence on creating a “we-they” culture through demonizing one another and the concomitant lack of leadership to bring us together..

I hate to say it, but President Obama is not a great leader. He’s not even a good leader, this at a time when we need greatness. He’s smart, I believe his heart is in the right place, but leadership is called for and if he has it, he doesn’t show it to us.

I do this for my day job, so trust me on this: A fundamental of leadership is standing up and saying in strong and clear terms, “THAT way.” It’s about who we are and what is most important. Some call it a vision statement. For more clarity on this, watch Simon Sinek’s TED talk, Start With Why. He points out that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t tell us that he had a plan. He did have a plan, but that wasn’t his message. His message was that he had a dream and that message of his dream moved a nation.

All of our strategies are what we do in order to go “THAT way”. Our tactics are how we do the strategic things – that’s the problem solving stuff. In the absence of “THAT way” clarity, we spin our wheels and go nowhere. And that is where we find ourselves right now.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders garnered a great deal of support for the simple reason that they consistently put their “THAT way” message in front of people desperate for a vision.

We are hungry – starving – for a vision and a leader to declare it. In our fear and frustration we are killing one another and cannot manage to extricate ourselves from never-ending war. Our people are being fed poisoned water and one in six of our children is living in poverty. We continue to stuff carbon dioxide into an already overheated atmosphere and deny anything is happening that will harm our children and grandchildren. And we are killing young black men.

Which way is “THAT way”? And who is the leader who will stand up and declare a vision we embrace and then lead us there? We need that leader right now.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Challenge of 1776


Continental Congress

Second Continental Congress

Reading time – 1:33; Viewing time – 2:39  .  .  .

Actually, they tiptoed up to the Declaration of Independence. There wasn’t a mad rush to shove parchment in King George’s face and everyone was aware of the self-imposed threat to life and property, should they, ”  .  .  .  assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,” and , ”  .  .  .  declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Yet they did that, even with only tepid support of some of the states. We are left to deal with that separate and equal station, this collection of individual states – and deal with leaders who now seem destined to continuously knock heads against one another.

Our present lunacy is not without precedent, yet that is scarce comfort, as our politicians frantically race to the bottom of human disgust. Those debating independence during that blisteringly hot summer of 1776 in Philadelphia argued with passion, but they did not pour their energies into rank personal attack devoid of meaning, nor could they have contemplated our politics as snake oil salesmanship.

And here we are, 240 years later, a divided United States.

We all value loyalty, personal independence, toughness, honor, safety, collective pride, respect, fairness, caring, inclusion and more. The sociologists explain that our problem is that we individual humans place different emphasis on those things and that leads to very different behaviors. And each of us is certain that we got it right and cannot fathom how anyone would disagree with us and we are annoyed by and intolerant of the idiots who foolishly don’t see it our way.

Surprise: The Founders had to deal with those same human dynamics. Yet, somehow they managed to create a new and united country.

If they could do that, exactly what is our problem right now?

FranklinGo to your community parade tomorrow and, as the fire trucks, clowns and floats, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops and the politicians vying for your vote pass by, recognize that we’re all feeling our way forward, just as they did in Philadelphia all those years ago. As Benjamin Franklin said to the signers, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

We have big challenges right now, so it’s time for us to hang together.

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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.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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