leadership

Backlash Quiz


Reading time – 127 seconds  .  .  .

Mohammed Mosaddegh was the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. In 1953 he was deposed in a coup d’état orchestrated by British MI6 and the American CIA, along with foreign oil firms. They established Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as the absolute ruler of Iran. That was a handy thing for the Brits and the Americans, as it ensured an uninterrupted supply of cheap Iranian oil. On the other hand, the Iranian people did not like that very much.

The Shah turned out to be a brutal dictator. Not surprisingly, his people did not care for that either, and in 1979 he was shoved out of the country as part of the Iranian Revolution. To express their displeasure with America for forcing this monster on them, the Iranian Guard took 52 people from the American embassy and held them hostage for 444 days. Today the Iranians are making atomic bombs. Funny how pissing people off has a way of producing backlash.

The west and most notably the United States has maintained an enormous footprint in the Middle-East for over one hundred years. For example, we have provided the assurance of control of Saudi Arabia by the House of Saud. That has kept American oil interests firmly established and has ensured – guess what? – an uninterrupted supply of cheap Saudi oil, often to the detriment of the local population. Come to think of it, Osama bin Laden was a Saudi. Hmmm. Funny how pissing people off has a way of producing backlash.

In addition, over those decades the cultural imprint of the U.S. has been both enormous and anathema to the locals. Again not surprisingly, the locals haven’t liked that and that, in part, led to al Qaeda. Those people want their section of the world to themselves and have devised a strategy to get it back. Here is a part of their strategy:

  1. Provoke the United States and the West into invading a Muslim country by staging a massive attack or string of attacks on US soil that results in massive civilian casualties.
  2. Incite local resistance to occupying forces.
  3. Expand the conflict to neighboring countries, and engage the US and its allies in a long war of attrition.
  4. Convert al-Qaeda into an ideology and set of operating principles that can be loosely franchised in other countries without requiring direct command and control, and via these franchises incite attacks against the US and countries allied with the US until they withdraw from the conflict, as happened with the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but which did not have the same effect with the July 7, 2005 London bombings.
  5. The US economy will finally collapse by the year 2020 under the strain of multiple engagements in numerous places, making the worldwide economic system which is dependent on the U.S. also collapse leading to global political instability, which in turn leads to a global jihad led by al-Qaeda and a Wahhabi Caliphate will then be installed across the world following the collapse of the U.S. and the rest of the Western world countries.

Funny how pissing people off has a way of producing backlash.

Which brings us to ISIS/ISIL. They are barbaric. They rape, torture and kill indiscriminately. They have beheaded two Americans and a Brit and we want revenge, our pound of flesh. While that may be a normal human reaction, think about the consequences of killing more Muslims. Those still living would not like that and, well, it’s funny how pissing people off has a way of producing backlash.

This post touches on just a few examples of predictable retribution for our long history in the Middle-East and of course there are more. The point is that when we do things that produce impoverishment, suffering and death for others, those remaining want to hit back, just like we want to hit back at ISIS/ISIL right now. If we do that, if we allow ourselves to be sucked into that rope-a-dope, we will be playing right into the strategy outlined by al Qaeda and ensuring the next atrocity that will be visited upon Americans.

If you always do what you’ve always done,

you’ll always get what you always got.

I understand muscular chest-thumping and I appreciate the desire for simple solutions to complex problems. But, really, we’ve seen this movie and we know how it never ends.

Pop Quiz

  1. Are we dumb enough to set ourselves up like that again?
  2. Exactly who will benefit if we stay at war in the Middle-East? Hint: Follow the money.
  3. Bonus question: The Soviet Union collapsed in large measure because they had to keep up with U.S. militarily expenditures and at the same time they bogged themselves down in a long term war in Afghanistan. In the process, they spent themselves into economic collapse. Is there anything in that for us to learn? If so, what is it?

You get 10 points for each correct answer and a perfect score gets you entered to win an all expense paid trip to the next Ground Zero.

Insert your answers below.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to subscribe and do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

Confession


Reading time – 111 seconds  .  .  .  

I wasn’t a 60s radical. I wasn’t even politically conscious. In fact, I was essentially out to lunch regarding social and political issues. I missed the marches, the sit-ins, the banners, the demands for change, the chanting in front of the White House. Even Woodstock passed me by. “Clueless” was pretty much my M. O.

That produced unintended consequences, as choices always do. One of them was related to the Viet Nam War in ways that I could not have predicted.

President Lyndon Johnson had raised the deployment of American troops to that country to over half a million by the time I was a senior in college, with my 2S draft deferment on really short, shaky legs. I came home on winter break from college to have a most serious talk with my father. He was a WW II veteran and a hater of war, with a rock solid sense of responsibility of service to America. I inherited that sense of service from him and I knew I had a duty to serve, especially at a time of war, a time of national need.

On the other hand, that war was an abomination from the start. It was, in fact, being fought by the North Vietnamese first against the French and then against American troops by people trying to liberate their country from outside aggressors. That is to say, they wanted to be free and we were on the wrong side of that David and Goliath story, and my sense of morality and justice would not let me participate.

That produced a tug-of-war between duty to serve and duty to morality and it is what brought me to that discussion with my father. For the first time in my life I did not know right from wrong, so I asked him what was the right thing for me to do. In my mind’s eye I can still see him walking up to me and putting his hand on my shoulder and saying, “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”

That wasn’t the answer I wanted, yet it surely was the right answer and I thank him to this day for the wisdom he offered me with his words and for giving me the space and the imperative to grow up.

I did not serve due to a medical technicality, but the avoidance of service left a hollow place in me that should have been filled by service to America. That has stayed with me for decades and it is the unintended consequence of my choices.

Things have changed and I’ve grown up just a little more and have found a way to serve my country. It is through these blogs and the discussions they spawn. It is through my presentations of Money, Politics & Democracy: You Aren’t Getting What You Want* to groups around the country. Its purpose is to educate and motivate Americans to action in order to change what is happening, as big money and corporations having he same rights as people continue to muscle our country away from us.

Perhaps you remember the scene in Star Wars where Obi Wan and Luke are talking and a hologram of Princes Leia pops out of R2D2. She implores Obi Wan to help her home planet of Alderaan and she finishes by saying, “Help us, Obi Wan. You’re our only hope.”

Obi Wan then says to Luke, “We must go to Alderaan.” Luke protests, listing his reasons and excuses to avoid going, to which Obi Wan replies, “But, Luke, she needs our help.” That was all the reason Obi Wan needed.

America needs our help right how. She has enormous problems that grow greater each day and the dream of Madison and Jefferson, Lincoln and King and the millions of refugees from other countries – your ancestors – is in peril.

Perhaps you were and have been politically active. Perhaps you were disengaged, as I was. Regardless, the imperative of service remains and its call is in the air right now.

You are Obi Wan and America is Princess Leia: Help us Obi Wan. You’re our only hope.

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* Invite me to present to your group. I promise an hour and fifteen minutes that will educate, entertain and, if all goes well, motivate people to service. Besides, the program is a freebie. That’s my service to country, my give-back, my pay-it-forward to a country that has been so very good to me. Please help me to serve, Obi Wan.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to subscribe and do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

The Heavy Lifting


Reading time – 53 seconds  .  .  . 

There are grayed-out Boomers working in organizations and sitting on committees focused on creating reform in America. Truly, some never lost their ’60s idealism. But what is happening now is nothing like what happened when we protested for an end to the war in Viet Nam, for civil rights and for voting rights. Today, so many Boomers are just dealing with the demands of ordinary life. They are now focused on a questionable financial stability into what used to be called retirement years but now is quite different than what was promised and is laced with uncertainty.

There are some X-ers involved in creating reform, too, but not too many, as most are, like so many Boomers, hunkered down and just dealing with the demands of ordinary life. For them it’s the house, the kids, jobs (that’s plural because of today’s need for dual incomes), the vet bill and their eye-crossing debt in the midst of – guess what? – uncertainly.

So, who is going to power the reform that we so desperately need?

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Millenials!

Yes, it’s Millenials. Strange beings from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal man. Okay, enough of the Superman introduction.

I wrote last week of the amazing journey of the folks at NewEraColorado.org and their quest to wrench sky clogging, climate crashing fossil fuels from the clutches of Big Energy and start Colorado down the path of citizen control of power generation. When they win their fight, they will have shown the rest of us the path to breaking the stranglehold of oligarchy in America. These are Millenials showing the rest of us the way forward. Wake up to the reality that it is their future and they are motivated to make it what they want it to be.

“I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA
May 7, 1960 (est.)

Our Millenials are doing most of the heavy lifting, but chances are that you want pretty much the same future. So pitch in – with your actions. Find a way to contribute. I know you heard the call:

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

JFK, January 20, 1961

He was right then and he’s still right today.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to subscribe and do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

The Playground


Reading time – 47 seconds  .  .  . 

Boy, was I wrong.

I grew up the same way everyone did. I was a kid. Adults were bigger. They were in charge. They knew stuff. They were really good at making a serious face. Parenthetically, as I write these words, I now wonder why I ever wanted to become like them.

In any event, they were the models. Be like this. Don’t be like that. This is how adults behave and it is a bunch different from the way children behave. Grow up.

So I did. We all did.

Except for one thing. As Al Capp, creator of the L’il Abner comics, frequently wrote in his offerings, “It is immediately obvious to the most casual observer,” that adults aren’t so different from children.

When I was 10 years old I was a part-time tough guy on the playground. When I wanted to get my way and persuasion wouldn’t work, I’d just muscle my way to it, so I understand self-centered bullying behavior that discounts the wants and needs of others. Adults would never do that, right? I mean, they’re grown ups and they’ve gotten over childish behavior, having learned that it isn’t just all about them, that they have to live with others and – dare I say it? – compromise. They get that, right?

Actually, no, not right. George W. Bush repeatedly told us, metaphorically speaking, that he would hold his breath until he turned blue unless he got his way. Unless they get their way John Boehner, Ted Cruz and others are all about shutting down the government once again, spitting in the face of 313,000,000 Americans.

Recently, we were treated to an audio recording of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. This five-term legislator, serving as a leader in the world’s most august deliberative body, spoke to a bunch of really rich guys on Fathers Day. He promised that if he didn’t get his way he would attach a rider to every bill to prevent any expenditure of money and thus paralyze government.

Clearly, some people didn’t grow up; they just grew older and they continue to behave like 10-year-old bullies on the playground. Tragically for so many of us, lots of them work in Washington, DC.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to subscribe and do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

What We Need


Granny DReading time – 126 seconds  .  .  .

Doris Haddock is not a well known name, but you might know her as Granny D. She saw clearly the corrupting influence of big money in our politics and on our country and determined to do something about it. To draw attention to this issue she set out on a 3,200 mile walk across America, from California all the way to Washington DC. When she began this brave journey on January 1, 1999 she was 88 years old. When she completed it on February 29, 2000 she was 90.

Granny D saw something that ever-more Americans are seeing, that our democracy is in grave danger due to the dishonesty and inequality inherent in our present election system. Whatever issue is of greatest importance to you, be it global warming, gun safety, human rights, international trade, voting rights, immigration, fracking or any of the vexing challenges before this nation, big money in our politics is the mother of the dysfunction that prevents solutions from being implemented and allows things to steadily get worse.

We have massive unemployment and, every bit as bad, massive under-employment. We have brilliant people who cannot find a job. Perhaps that is an issue that you don’t deeply feel just now, but when your knees go bad, you will wish that some truly gifted person had been working in a lab and had found a way to re-grow the cartilage in your joints. When you contract cancer, as so many of us will, you will wish that one of our people with a head full of amazing potential had been able to get the education that might have led to a cure. When your adult children are living in your basement, burdened by overwhelming school debt and without a chance for a job, you will wish that our politicians did more than tell us that it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs. You’ll wish they had done something about it.

Both Pew Research and the Gallup Organization have done polling on how we Americans feel about our government. The staggering truth is that 81 of every 100 Americans does not trust our government. In recent years one of the biggest trust killers has been the growing economic disparity between the rich and all the rest of us and that is aggravated largely by money-driven political actions and inaction.

Elections are insanely expensive, largely due to the cost of television and radio advertising. The 2012 presidential contest alone cost $2.1 billion. The senate contest in Massachusetts between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown cost $77 million and the current senatorial contest in Kentucky looks like it will cost over $100 million. About 75% of that money will come from outside the state, meaning that the decision on the next senator from Kentucky will be driven largely by very rich people who don’t even live in Kentucky but who want to ensure a senate that does their bidding.

Don’t imagine that all politicians are dishonest because that simply is not true. On the other hand, it is impossible to raise enough money to mount a serious campaign in most federal elections if money is raised solely through small contributions from local citizens. That leaves candidates having to solicit large contributions from big donors. Another way to say that is that the system requires that anyone who wants to serve must put themselves in a position of becoming beholden to rich benefactors. And that is the problem.

In a study done by Larry Bartels of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, it was found that only wealthy constituents gain the ear of their elected officials. Nobody is listening to the rest of us, so rich people get what they want and everyone else goes wanting.

A study done by Gilens and Page found exactly the same thing about policy making. And these studies have proven with research what every American has known for decades. The problem is that the situation continues to become worse and is bringing us to an America that almost none of us wants.

People in power rarely give up their power unless they have no alternative – that’s just human nature. They have engineered a system that keeps people afraid of speaking up for fear of losing what little they have managed to secure for themselves. But while part-time work at minimum wage and with no benefits can be tolerated for a while, there will come a time when the patience of the American people will run out, when people simply won’t have it any longer. We the people will let the politicians know that if they want to serve, they must serve us.

If 81% of us don’t trust our government, that is not a partisan issue. If 90% of us believe that there is way too much money sloshing around our political system, that is not a partisan issue. If for many years nearly all the economic gains have gone to the richest 1% of Americans, that is not a partisan issue. We really are all on the same side of this.

It is time to wake up. It is time to stop ridiculing the Occupy Wall Street crowd just because they don’t have a formal hierarchy and a central organization. It is time to stop ridiculing Tea Party people just because some of them are flamboyant. The words may sound different, but the demands of those two very different groups are remarkably similar regarding money in politics. It is time to unite as Americans, left, center and right.

Granny D was correct: When we solve the big money problem, we’ll be ready to solve all the rest. And that is what 99% of Americans want.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to subscribe and do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

When You Ain’t Got Nothin’


VIDEO NEWS FLASH!

Mike Papantonio is the host of Ring Of Fire Radio, along with Bobby Kennedy and Sam Seder.  He was the main speaker at a recent event and I was honored to be asked to do a short presentation to set the tone for the day and to introduce Mike. You can watch that program here.

And Mike’s wonderful presentation is online. He is a master and I urge you to have a look – watch it here.

Now, on to this week’s post.

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Reading time – 66 seconds  .  .  .

Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone hit the charts in 1965 and quickly became a classic. One line in the song is,

“When you ain’t got nothin’ you got nothin’ to lose.”

And, of course, that’s true. If you’re at the bottom, there is no downside risk to nearly anything. Now let’s flip that around.

People who have amassed lots of wealth and who have before them the opportunity for even greater wealth have everything at risk. Or, paraphrasing Dylan’s words, when you have everything, you have everything to lose. It’s human nature to want to protect what we have, so the more one has at risk, the more fiercely one will resist change and fight to protect all that one has accumulated.

And now you know why the 1% maintains a stranglehold on the status quo. Now you know why America’s vexing challenges never get met, why you don’t get what you want and why prospects for your children and grandchildren look so bleak.

All that fierce status quo protecting is going to require a great force in order to change it. Yet if things are to get better, if our problems are to be solved and if the future is to be the way you envision it for your children and grandchildren, the status quo will have to change. But what do you think we can do about it?

Hint: Anthropologist Margaret Mead gave us the answer:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

You just might be one of those thoughtful, committed citizens who will change the world. In fact, here is something you can do TODAY.

CRITICAL HEADS-UP: Tonight at 7:30PM EDT there is an important online screening and discussion (yes, you can watch in your jammies) of the 30-minute movie LEAKED: The Internet Must Go. If you want tLeakedo find out what net neutrality means, if you think the internet should not be a tool solely for the benefit of the wealthy, sign up, show up and tweet up tonight.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to subscribe and do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

Hello – Is Anybody There?


Reading time – 71 seconds  .  .  . 

Thirty-five years ago Ronald Reagan went stumping for himself and preaching the false dogma of “trickle-down” economics. Sadly, he succeeded in selling that idolatrous religion and the trickling down turned out to be a vaporous mirage for poor and middle-class Americans, while floods of cash inundated the already wealthy. Funny how conservatives find wealth redistribution to be abhorrent, except when it’s redistributed to them.

Meanwhile, Reagan’s voodoo economics continues to be promoted by the Republicanistas under various names, but the program is always the same. And the conservatives’ reverse Robin Hood scheme is just one of the harmful programs the Republicanistas have succeeded in embedding into America with self-aggrandizement as their focus. Gotta believe that took some planning.

For example, we know that a bunch of congressional Republicans met on election night, 2008 and decided that their policy moving forward would be to oppose everything that President Obama would favor. There was no concern for the harm that would be done to Americans by their diabolical plan and they have made that cruel strategy stick even to this day.

Indeed, they have opposed the very healthcare, gun safety and diplomatic policies they had previously championed just so that President Obama wouldn’t have any victories. They have held all Americans and all of America hostage by opposing every program that might have promoted the creation of millions of good paying jobs for Americans and would have accelerated economic growth that would benefit everyone. Then they criticized the President for not having created those jobs. The oddest part of this is that the very people who are suffering because of all the Republicanista “Who cares about you? It’s all about me” behavior – ordinary Americans – have been propagandized and twisted into supporting the craziness that harms them.

In short, the Republicanistas have been extremely good at keeping their vision clear, sticking to their policies and strategies and they have produced exactly what they wanted to produce: They have maintained power even when they were not in power and they have the fat wallets to prove it. Clearly, some decades ago a bunch of smart people got together and mapped out this grand, self-serving vision and the grunts in Congress have done a masterful job of doing their part to promote it and make it succeed for them.

The results for 99% of we 314,000,000 Americans have been devastating, which begs the core question: Is anybody doing any long term planning for the rest of us? I’m not talking about knee-jerk reactions to the latest jerky thing some flame thrower said. I’m not even talking about important issues, like having a solid and sane immigration policy. This is about a much higher level of thinking and planning than that: Where is the leader who has the vision? What is s/he doing to create a decades long march in the right direction?

Hello – is anybody there?

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to subscribe and do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

You Aren’t Getting What You Want & Snowballs


Reading time – 91 seconds  .  .  . 

Last month the Senate rejected a bill that would have allowed for the refinancing of our over $1 trillion of student debt in order to take advantage of today’s low interest rates. Elizabeth Warren commented about that saying, “With this vote we show the American people who we work for in the United States Senate: billionaires or students,” And they did show us. Clearly, the 56 senators who voted nay are working for billionaires and – dare I say it? – bankers, and you and/or your kid are not getting what you want. Welcome to perpetual debt, not what you want.

We still do not have universal background checks prior to gun sales, even though 90% of Americans want that.

We still have the highest cost medical care in the world and the highest rate of infant mortality, as well as the highest rate of death from ischemic heart disease among 17 high income countries. Yes, you want the best healthcare in the world and, no, you are not getting it.

This post could be filled with critical American issues (climate warming, infrastructure crumbling, voter suppression, continuous war, children living in poverty and hunger, etc.) but the fundamental point is that we Americans are clear about what we want and our elected officials are instead delivering only to the wealthy 1%, leaving the rest of us to fight for scraps while in clear view of a rapidly collapsing American dream.

The cure for all of that is to get big money out of our politics so that our elected officials can focus on meeting the needs of Americans, instead of being beholden to the wealthy and having to do their bidding.

To that end, I am delivering a program I crafted, entitled Money, Politics & Democracy: You Aren’t Getting What You Want and presenting it wherever I can. It is well received and accomplishes its purposes of educating people about what is going on and providing motivation to get out of that La-Z-Boy and drive change. ACTION STEP: Invite me to present to your group.

Yet my program is not nearly enough. Creating the momentum for reform will require the voices of millions of our friends. The good news is that we’re getting more and more to join this chorus.

MoveToAmend.org is one of many organizations that is reaching hundreds of thousands of Americans. ACTION STEP: Go to their website and sign the petition.

Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) has a bill in the Senate calling for an amendment to the Constitution, the purpose of which is the kind of reform we need. No, it is not perfect. No, it probably won’t even be brought to the floor of the House for a vote. Yes, it is an important step in the right direction, so: ACTION STEP: Find your senators here (use the search box in the top right corner) and call their offices. Talk to the nice staffer there and tell them that you want your senator to co-sponsor Udall’s bill and then vote aye when it is up for a vote.

Larry Lessig is doing something about getting those mountains of cash out of our politics. He has formed a SuperPAC, the purpose of which is to eliminate SuperPACs. ACTION STEP: Go to his website and kick in a couple of bucks to put a stop sign in the faces of Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and the other Billy Billionaires who are disfiguring America.

BTW – See how easy it is for you to make a difference? Keep doing it.

What else can we do? What else can I do? What ideas do you have to keep this snowball of public demand for reform rolling on, gaining size and gaining speed?

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

Doing More of What Doesn’t Work


Colin PowellReading time – 79 seconds  .  .  .

General Colin Powell is one of our most decorated soldiers and a most respected American. He is also a student and has learned a thing or two along the way, some of which were learned at the cost of the blood and the suffering of many.

The Powell Doctrine presents a series of questions, all of which must be answered affirmatively before U.S. combat troops are deployed. These questions are:

  1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
  2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
  3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
  4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
  5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
  6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
  7. Is the action supported by the American people?
  8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

Note that Powell has amended these questions to include the use of every tool and resource available to achieve decisive military victory, minimum U.S. casualties and the rapid ending the conflict, should military force be employed. The Powell Doctrine is broadly supported by our military because it makes sense.

These questions are straightforward and clearly many of them would have been answered in the negative prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, had the Powell Doctrine been considered. That escapade, though, is over. Now we are faced with a different dilemma in Iraq.

There is sense to the statement, “You broke it, you bought it,” and we surely did break Iraq. There is sense to the claim that an Islamic caliphate stretching across the entire Middle East may become a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. And there is sense in having concern for the safety of ordinary people in the region, this because of the brutal and barbarian tactics of the ISIS fanatics.

All of that is true, but:

1.   It is not yet clear that a vital U.S. national security interest is threatened.

2.   We do not have a clear attainable objective.

5.   There is no plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement.

7.   The action is not supported by the American people.

8.   We do not have genuine broad international support.

If we cannot meet these five (and maybe more) of the eight criteria, all of which must be met in order to decide to go to war, then why in the world would we re-engage militarily in Iraq?

We have now sent 300 advisers to Iraq. What if they aren’t enough to accomplish whatever it is the advisers are supposed to do? Regardless of the number we send, doing more of what doesn’t work won’t make it work. We should have learned that lesson after incrementally increasing troops deployed to Viet Nam to over half a million. Doing more of what didn’t work served to produce thousands more dead troops and hundreds of thousands more dead Vietnamese. And perhaps it produced one other thing.

Truty, Justice and the American WayHow come we seem to be in nearly perpetual war? We would love to believe it is to maintain national security and for truth, justice and the American way (cue George Reeves in his Superman suit, arms akimbo, standing in front of a waving American flag). Instead, let’s try reality: Follow the money.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

What To Do About Arrogance & Indifference


Reading time – 73 seconds  .  .  .

In his stunning article in the June, 2014 The Atlantic exploring the issue of reparations for our American treatment of slaves and the effects on their descendents, Ta-Nehisi Coates quotes a Chicago Tribune editorial from 1891 that addresses this same issue:

“They have been taught to labor. They have been taught Christian civilization, and to speak the noble English language instead of some African gibberish. The account is square with the ex-slaves.”

Every point in that passage carries the stink of arrogance and of self-serving indifference to the ongoing pain caused to others.  Arrogance and indifference, though, did not end with the 19th century.

97% of climate scientists tell us that the stuffing of Earth’s atmosphere with carbon dioxide and methane will result in a rise in sea level of at least 3 feet within the next 85 years.  Couple that with the fact that South Florida (Miami, Palm Beach, etc.) sits roughly 5 feet above sea level and you can see that it won’t take a very big wave to submerge the entire lower half of the state. All it takes is to have passed 8th grade science class to understand this and a 97% margin should be enough expert opinion to persuade all of us (and especially Floridians) that we have a severe problem on the very near-term horizon, but arrogance and indifference rule the day.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) declared on ABC’s “This Week” that, “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it.” And InsideClimateNews.org reported, “During the past three years, [Florida Republican] Gov. [Rick} Scott, a climate skeptic allied with fossil fuel companies, has led a systematic unraveling of nearly all the climate policies passed under his predecessor [Gov. Charlie] Crist” (italics added). Gotta wonder if these guys missed 8th grade science class.

Let’s see, we have a Florida senator who has presidential ambitions and who doesn’t want to alienate his base of knuckle dragging Luddites, so he sucks up to them by denying reality – he is just that important to himself. And we have a Florida governor linked to the fossil fuel industry, so he blinds himself to our inevitable and disastrous future in order to help his fossilized buddies, who likely help him.

These officials were elected to serve the very people who will lose everything as the ocean swallows their homes. Many will drown, as the tides rise and storms become ever more severe and catastrophically Katrina the state.

It seems that the short-term political self-interests of these politicians is far more important to them than the soon-to-be dire fate of their people. Clearly, their self-interests are steeped in arrogance and indifference.

So it is throughout the political world for issue after issue. It is no different than the arrogance and indifference of the Chicago Tribune a century and a quarter ago.

It is not just Floridians who better get to the polls and vote these self-serving people out of office. The tide is already up over 9 inches and it’s rising on every one of us every day, both metaphorically and literally.

By the way, lower Manhattan has about the same elevation above sea level as South Florida. So does Los Angeles.

Mayday PACWant to know what you can do about it? Vote the arrogant ones out of office and replace them with reformers. Watch this.

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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 offering your comments, as well as by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


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

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