This is Sparta!

Reading the Paul Ryan "healthcare plan"..looking at what Betsy Davis wants to do to public education, all while adding money to the already largest and most capable military the world has ever seen...and I'm starting to understand. This is becoming the movie "300".

These doughy, over fed rich white men imagine themselves the ripped and cut heros of Sparta. Strong with their sixpack wallets full of the gains of a rigged economic system,  full of overpriced wine they can brag about but not appreciate and with none of the character or dignity of any of the leaders of our storied past, they swagger in front of the masses, proclaiming all who lack their capabilities as "weak".

THIS IS SPARTA!! They say to single women without access to birth control or healthcare, to the children in poverty without access to a decent meal or public school, to the children with leukemia in a family without healthcare.

To the old or aging..to the veteran returning from war. To the manufacturing worker made obsolete by factory closings or automation.  To the full time workers in poverty due to an inability to make a minimum wage a living wage. THIS IS SPARTA!!

To drug offenders corralled and brought to private prisons..their only crime trying to profit in the same way big pharma does selling oxy to the desperately poor and disenfranchised. A never ending war on the poor.

THIS IS SPARTA!! Is the rallying cry as we kick all these people to the edges of our culture, ignore the plight of the systematically oppressed, their children and all those who in the course of their lives sustain a tragedy from which they cannot recover or continue without help.

This is the culture of our overfed, over indulged, over tolerated congress and political class, enabled by the very people who are being kicked to the curb - sold the lie that they are Spartans and that its the OTHERS who are the weak free loaders.

Here's the truth - its a fucking movie. A myth. None of us are Spartans. None of us never fall. None of us are beyond a life destroying tragedy. None of us are beyond the risk of unemployment with all that that entails. We will all get sick, grow old, die, lose loved ones.

We don't throw our children out to a freezing wilderness with a spear, and hope they return having killed their first dire wolf. Most suburban mothers I know check parental references for play dates. So clearly we are not Spartans.

All of our children need to grow up in safe, nurturing environments - with access to healthcare, education and all the tools that will help them make a go of this life.  Not all of them have parents who are Spartans either.

It's so much easier when we can look at those who have less or are homeless and tell ourselves a story about how they did that to themselves, how we are so much better. How do you know who you would be if your roles from birth were reversed? How do you know what you'd be willing to do (or give up on) if brought to desperate enough circumstances?  THEY ARE NOT SPARTANS LIKE ME!! THEY ARE WEAK, I AM STRONG! THIS IS SPARTA!

...no...not really.  There, but for the grace of God, go I..go us all.

With income disparity at highs not seen since the age of the robber barons, and a President channeling Charles Lindbergh and his fascist "America First" bullshit, the first things we can think to do is take even more away from those who have the least, and expand the military so the strongest of them can serve in future wars for oil.  This is not America. Not even close. It's not even Sparta ..which wouldn't allow itself to be led by men who cowered from any opportunity to serve their country.

This is a con job, defrauding millions, run by con men selling a dream that has been eroded to the point of non existence....and we are easily conned, having discredited education and the wise. We lack the courage to help the oppressed, and so are easy to oppress. We lack the tenacity and wisdom to find the truth, and so we are easy to lie to.  We lack the courage to face each other and decide to change our country, and so we are divided by those who have power.  We lack the courage to care, and so grow to expect we are not worthy of care.  Most of all, we have forgotten to aspire to a dream of America, that all men are created equal and are truly free..that we welcome others to join us in this grand adventure that is our country.

We are not Spartans. We are not even Americans. We are the conned sheep of a billionaire class. Helplessly fighting for a place at an ever diminishing trough, all the while blaming our fellow sheep for want of anything to eat, without an ounce of compassion for those left in the cold.

There but for the grace of God go I.

A quiet acknowledgement of our shared humanity. This is a phrase one can build a human soul on, and with enough human souls, a country with a human soul.  One with mercy, compassion, wisdom...and from those things...courage. To stand and defend the weak, that is a warriors code.

We are not Spartans.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Why I resist.

Why am I protesting this president? I'm male, white, and I have a job in the financial industry. I have a great company health plan. I stand to get a tax break.. see Wall Street get to produce another bubble.. in short, this administration is entirely in my favor.

The short answer is that I care about OUR country. I would rather give more of my income to insure that everyone has healthcare, that we work to reduce climate change and find cleaner energy. That we educate all our children.  That we act responsibly as a global citizen.

I vote and pay taxes to build a better country, not to burn it down.

And that's why I will #resist
Yes, we can.

Violence is not the answer.

After Dallas, I started hearing people say that violence is not the answer, and I heartily agree. What struck me about this is when it was introduced to the conversation. We don't say it in response to mass shootings..or in response to excessive force or deaths at the hands of police.  
It is easy for people to agree on this statement when its made broadly..just like theres a sentiment, and perhaps a good one, behind saying that all lives matter....but these saccharine platitudes are also used as billy clubs to curtail discussion of our problems of race and violence in this country.

If "violence is not the answer" is to have any real meaning then not taking up arms against the police ALSO applies to the idea that we should demilitirize the police..end no knock raids..increase penalties for violent offenses and illegal weapons. End the targeting of people of color for stop and frisk.

When we say "violence is not the answer" and apply it only to situations where the aggrieved pick up the gun, then we are really saying "their violence is not the answer", and accepting the violence done in our name towards the aggrieved.

If you really believe that violence is not the answer, then stop dropping bombs in the middle east. All we are creating is more violence that comes back to us. People who have watched their children, families and loved ones incinerated by bombs will never stop fighting. Would you? Would I?

If you believe violence is not the answer, then work towards changing drug enforcement policies - which have led to the disproportionate targeting of black communities. Have real, enforced licensing requirements for firearms. Mandatory training. Laws that enforce responsible gun ownership. End stop and frisk and racial profiling. Enforce police body cam adoption. Institute new rules of engagement that require scaled back use of firearms and tasers.

If you believe violence is not the answer, then do not allow it to be done in your name. Do not allow voting rights to be (re)stolen from those who are already second class citizens in our country. Save and create opportunities for those who have been systematically denied them.

Share power and privilege. We have created an apartheid state that is enforced at a distance we don't see, but we know exists all while pretending it doesn't. Look at our neighborhoods. There are walls of police enforcement around the areas we drive through while locking our doors. We know this is true. This separation and unspoken fear and prejudice is a quiet form of violence that we do casually and without thinking. The police we criticize are enforcing the world that we have decided we want. It is hypocrisy to criticize the police while failing to look deeply into our own souls..policing is an extension of our society and of us.

Teach your children not to fear people who look differently. Integrate our kindergartens and our elementary schools. Children who grow up playing with each other, and going to school together will change our country, and for the better. For all of us raised with the baggage of our generation, we can say, as Bobby Sands did, our revenge will be the laughter of our children, not because one group needs to create a revolt against another, but because we must have the revolutionary courage to come together and create an America that is truly better, for all of us.

When we learn to embrace the idea of building communities together, where there isn't a black america and a white america, and the police are not a tool of our unspoken apartheid, then perhaps we can say that all lives matter. Until then, we MUST repeat, loudly and with the full weight of our belief in a better world, that #blacklivesmatter.

The One you Feed

A whole lot of the bad and the ugly about America is being brought to the front of our national consciousness through this mockery of a Republican primary process, and put on display before the entire world.  All this ugly, all at once.

Our ever present difficulty with race is reflected in police shootings, campus protests, the black lives matter movement. The white response from those older than millenials is largely lacking empathy or downright racist.  "All lives matter" is a statement that simply says "I negate your right to highlight anything you perceive as my racsim, even if it may threaten your life."

Our police continue to march towards militarization. Andy Griffith and Don Knotts are gone, replaced by armored soldiers in SWAT gear carrying assault rifles and shotguns. I guess we're not in Mayberry anymore.

We are anti immigration, even for refugees fleeing horrific poverty and violence. Even for children.

We continue to drop bombs and deploy drone strikes throughout the middle east. People die. Sometimes our targets. Sometimes not. Collateral damage.  Ebola breaks out in Africa. The American impulse? Close the border!! Doctors who go to help are just stupid. They can't come back.

On immigration, if they aren't stealing our jobs (the ones citizens wouldn't take without unionizing or fighting for improve wages and conditions), they must be rapists and criminals...and some, I assume, are good people.  When we could link (specifically) latin american immigration to ebola, or terrorism, we leapt at the chance, despite the fact that there was never a shred of real evidence.

Meanwhile on foreign policy, 300,000 Iraqis and tens of thousands more of largely innocent people have died and will die based on our continued manipulation and interventions in the region for our ongoing geopolitical energy strategy.

For those of you who don't know, Russia's interest in keeping Assad in power is the construction of a pipeline to Europe that they want to control with their Assad puppet. Our interest in ousting Assad is we want our friends and allies (our Saudi Sunni Wahabbist) friends to control the pipeline.

Turkey also has an unsung part to play. They too, would like an Assad regime change as they would also have a stake in the pipeline. Thats why their bombs for Isis keep falling on Kurds, and why so much of ISIS oil is purchased by them..and why ISIS fighters have been treated in Turkish hospitals.
In case you didn't know, Turkey is a part of NATO.

Its interesting to me that we are turning innocent Syrian refugees away from our border, and so many people went crazy over a treaty with IRAN,  when fifteen of the nineteen plotters of 9/11 were Saudi citizens, and Saudi Arabia bankrolls and exports Islamic extremism globally. Their princes get to go to American Universities...but I guess if you have oil and money, we'll overlook the color of your skin and your religion.  Saudi Arabia gets a US crony oil pass.

On the one hand, ISIS fighting Assad is in the west's interests. On the other, ISIS is a terrorist group.   ISIS wouldn't even exist if it hadn't been for our misguided invasion of Iraq and the disbanding of the Iraqi army.  So you can begin to understand our difficulty (and Russia's) in pretending to fight ISIS when the reality is it's all about Syrian regime change, or opposing it.

If you can examine this and come away with the impression that we are some kind of shining city on the hill,  I admire your myopia.

Based on the data we have, we are killing more than 100 people for every one westerner killed in terrorism OR in war.  I'm sure some of you are saying "good" as you read this.  Many of those people are women and children. Some are just old men. Some are fathers. Most were people just caught in the middle between extremists and the west. Keep saying good. I'm sure it helps your soul.

For the past seventy years we have continuously meddled in the middle east, either by meddling in governments, through direct or indirect military interventions, or through proxy campaigns by our regional allies or puppets. Saddam was one of those, once. Remember the Iran/Iraq war? Bin Laden was too. Remember the Afghan defeat of the Soviets?  He was an American hero back then.

All this blood on our hands for fossil fuels. The same fossil fuels that enrich those who control them. The same fossil fuels that are destroying our planet.  The fossil fuels that enrich those who pay the lobbyists who fund the superpacs ....well, you get the idea.  The world will be carpeted in skulls, and still we will drill for oil and fight over it.

I don't expect everyone to read up on all of this and to be horrified at what we do in the name of maintaining dominance over the global energy supply. If you haven't figured that out by now, you never will.

I do expect people to have empathy. To have a soul. To see the darkness in their own hearts and have the courage to reject it.  I expect people to see a father holding his sons drowned body and think, "there but for the grace of God go I".

I expect people hearing about an ebola outbreak wanting to do everything to stop the suffering, and not react in panic, demanding that non existent flights from Africa be halted.

I at least expect our leaders, and news organizations, to try to rally the best in us, and not to turn us into cowards by feeding us misinformation and pandering to our basest prejudice and fear.

I expect people seeing child refugees fleeing from south america, child refugees fleeing gang violence, horrific poverty, and a drug trade (which largely serves an American consumer) as the victims they are - and not "ebola carriers" or potential middle east terrorists.

In case you're wondering, it was our politicians and news organizations that helped to create that impression, without one fact.

I expect people seeing what has happened to create the Syrian refugee situation, and to see those refugees, fleeing with their children, dying on the way, drowning in the mediterranean, and walking over open country as the victims they are, and to respond with the basic humanity and empathy we should have.

I expect us to recognize when others shame us.  FRANCE was the country attacked - and they are taking in THREE TIMES THE REFUGEES WE ARE.  Next time they disagree with one of our asshat schemes for an invasion, maybe we should listen instead of renaming french fries.

I expect us to see when our liberties are being abridged, when the inclusive nature of our society is being abbrogated, and when our public services, like the police, are doing more oppressing than serving and protecting.

All of these behaviors are a reflection of our national soul. Our attitudes as a whole reflect who we are and who we choose to be.  We are allowing the absolute worst in us to be put on full display, before the entire world.  When one of our major parties, not some fringe skinhead movement, KKK, or far right independent movement, is talking about building walls, mass deportations, forced identification programs...we have a problem.

The horrible truth about Germany and the rise of the third Reich is not a testament to the evil or some special quality of Germans at the time. It is that the third Reich can rise anywhere hatred and intolerance come to rule. When love and compassion dies. When our empathy for our fellow man is eclipsed by our fear and our greed.  When our institutions pander to our fear and loathing of each other, to xenophobia.

When cameras and increased reporting by citizens demonstrate the extent to which police have become a tool enforcing institutionalized racism, and assault becomes an acceptable approach for enforcement we have a problem. When SWAT team deployments grow 20X over ten years, you have to ask why.

We live in a democracy. Police serve and do the will of the people they serve and protect, not the will of some dictator or fascist government.  So any attack on the police is ultimately an attack on the will of the people.

Equally, when we give the police a pass for abusive behaviors, directed at any particular group, it is a reflection of the will of the people.  The police are the enforcers of the collective will of our society.

If the people as a majority are intolerant of racist behaviors by the police, or excessive force, or unequal application of the law, then the police force will ultimately reflect that.

Of course the reverse is also true. If we make it okay to give white kids a pass on minor drug offenses, but arrest black kids. If we watch different enforcement of the law based on race and excuse it or do nothing..if we can't be bothered to even have a trial when there is a question of wrongful death, or even collect data to understand the scope of the problem,  then that too is a reflection of the will of the people.

My point is that the way police behave doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens because we support it actively or through passive agreement with their actions.  Healing issues of race doesn't start and end with the police or any of our government institutions. It starts with white people looking in the mirror and acknowledging their racism. 

A better marriage doesn't happen when a husband can say "well, I don't beat her anymore". Improvements in a culture or a relationship with longstanding divides take years of effort, self awareness, and progress. It will also take patience, compassion, love and understanding to get there without continuing to kill each other, and so it is with all people.

They say that this is a Christian country. Would that this were so. I don't believe any of the sentiments we express in our media or our politics, and increasingly on social media reflect that. 

I believe our problems as a people and a nation are much better reflected by a story from people that predated us in this land. 

An old man was teaching his son how to grow to be a good man. As they sat together, the old man said,

‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.' 

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’

As people should be careful about which wolf they feed...so should nations. 

Rant: You're Fired!

So the latest on our national circus clown act is that Trump apparently thinks POW's are losers.

Note to veterans, if you don't return home unscathed with hundreds of enemy scalps, the Donald doesn't really like you. He only likes "winners", so in his world John McCain is no hero..he was captured and therefore a loser.

I would have thought that ignoring the facts about Mexican immigrants and accusing their government of sending rapists and criminals here (to rape our white women) would have been enough to get him drummed out of the primaries and ignored as a buffoon by the voting public...

...but you can never really lose money betting on people's support for an inadequate white male flaunting an oversized ego, his inflated business acumen, and his self reported prowess with a multitude of beautiful women..even his daughter is open game for the Donald. People (or the press) don't even bother to uncover the facts regarding how he actually made his money, which is one wikipedia search away.

What I find so revolting about the fact that he is briefly the front runner is the sense that we are losing the battle to retain a sense of collective intelligence and wisdom, and ultimately, dignity.

The more someone like a Palin or a Trump is given actual legitimacy, the further we have moved from the dream that is America and move towards one that is a crueler and less worthy culture.

Education. Culture. Beauty. Art. Craftsmanship. Tradecraft. Honor. Integrity. Decency...we have a long list of words which are part of our collective set of ideals..the things we believe our country stands for.  Ask yourself how well we have been applying these as a litmus test for those we choose to represent us. How proud are you of our government?

The fact that McCain though he had to run a Sarah Palin to whip up the crazies was the beginning..but the Donald is not the end. He's a middle act who will certainly not succeed, and thankfully this latest gaff will likely drive him out of significance...but his brief time in the spotlight, with a majority of Republican primary voters putting him in the lead is a harbinger of things to come...even more politics of personality versus those of reason, wisdom and informed intelligence.

Ignorance and the uninformed made fearful of the other, whipped to a frenzy by the propaganda which serves as news.  The politics of division. All of these are the tools of petty despots pandering to monied interests with no regard or consideration to the world they would build.

The Donald is a clown playing with these tools.

The next demagogue may not be. He or she might be someone with a little more subtlety and political ability.  Enough to win over the next tier of voter..and that thought scares the crap out of me. An America armed to the teeth, helmed by someone as unworthy as a Trump or a Palin. God help us all.

You remember how that was - Dick Cheney with a hand puppet.

A world where "the winners" take all, and the wounded and have-not "losers" are at best ignored and "unliked."  Where there are only good people and evil people. Where diplomacy is for wusses and force is the default answer.

I still have hope, but as a friend of mine is fond of saying, "Hope is not a Strategy". Wish I had some ideas on that.

LBJ MLK and Selma

Just a quick observation.

Apparently, the controversy over the movie "Selma" revolves around whether LBJ is depicted as supportive enough for civil rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act.

The movie, and a lot of the historical record indicates that LBJ came to office with a legislative agenda which was essentially a series of initiatives focused on helping the poor while also building infrastructure in the United States.

FDR was LBJ's idol, and he considered ending poverty and building the United States infrastructure of transport, power and communications, especially in impoverished areas his primary focus.

So what we have here is a period in American history where the debate is:

Should we protect voting rights and insure civil rights for all citizens first, or work on ending poverty and improving the lives of all Americans first.

So like today's politics. Good to see not much has changed.


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Police officers are not soldiers

We are blurring the lines between soldiers and policing, and that is a huge part of the more general issue of disproportional use of force in the US.

Drug raids by SWAT teams look an awful lot like house raids in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the increase in the use of raids of this type does an awful lot to dehumanize the populace in the eyes of those participating in the raids.

Too many cops exposed to this approach to policing can begin to see the job from the perspective of soldiers operating in a hostile area, that all affronts to authority must be met with force and dominated.

Far too many incidents, involving the mentally ill (now a Supreme Court case), people of color and poorer whites (the common denominator being poverty) have come to light demonstrating excessive use of force.

Perhaps dialing back the size and scope of swat teams, ending the drug war, stopping patrols with military weapons and riot gear...and reminding everyone that the mission of a police force is not subjugation...but to serve and protect our nations people.

Maybe we can start by pulling cops in paramilitary gear out of port authority and penn station.

This isn't Afghanistan.


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