Anger at Boomers: We Can’t Allow Ourselves to be Manipulated Into Setting One Generation, Race, Religion, Gender Against Another

In writing and publishing two of my last three blogs, I ran into people angry at Boomers or the 60s. The anger was sometimes loud and aggressive, and it was difficult, when it was in a one-on-one situation, to say anything in response that the attacker would hear. One person criticized my post on resolving to vote and imagine a true democracy, claiming I was glorifying the Boomers and blaming Millennials for the situation we are in today. I never mentioned Boomers anywhere in the piece, although I clearly spoke from a Boomer perspective, being part of that generation myself. In the other post, I described someone who blamed Boomers for DT.

 

Where is the anger and blame coming from? Certainly, people are feeling hurt, possibly that they were treated unjustly. But what is the source of that hurt?

 

At the heart of one critique was a study by Yascha Mounk at Harvard who had found that the people of the 1930s who fought the Nazis said democracy was extremely important to them, and people born much later (like Millennials) did not value democracy as highly. One reason for this difference, speculated Mounk, was that Millennials and Gen-X’ers had not fought against Nazis or against other non-democratic governments in order to safeguard democracy. The younger generations of Americans were not familiar with the threat to our freedoms these other governments could pose.

 

The critic said I had claimed Boomers had fought the Nazis and thus knew what it was like to face a threat to our democratic institutions. Maybe I wasn’t as articulate as I could have been, but clearly we Boomers could not have fought against the Nazi Germans. We weren’t alive yet. Once alive and speaking, we certainly heard about the war and Nazis quite often, from relatives who had fought, as well as from the news and literature, as we were born right after the war had ended.

 

All of us alive in the US in the 1950s felt the threat of Soviet Russia daily, whose leaders threatened to destroy US democracy. We went through the McCarthy Era, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and “duck and cover drills” that were created in fear of a nuclear war. Likewise, people today are feeling the threats of gun violence, global warming, increasing terrorism, the loss of democratic institutions, etc.

 

While young people in general tended in the past to vote at lower rates then older people, as I said in my earlier blog, this is changing. The Pew Research Center, whose statistics showed, for example, that the number of millennials who voted nearly doubled from 2014 to 2018 ⎼ and more voted than older generations of Americans. Things are changing quickly, and I welcome this particular change. Young people today are leading in several fronts, including the environment and ending gun violence.

 

Boomers are attacked for dropping out of society and also for dropping in and becoming greedy capitalists. For being too idealistic and for not caring at all about democracy. For drugs, sex, and rock’n’roll or being without morals and for being too judgmental. I was attacked for dropping out of society to return to the land as well as for supposedly claiming Millennials were responsible for all the ills of our society today, or for DT ⎼ but I never said they were responsible. Neither are all the Boomers or Gen-X’ers. The people who support DT are responsible.

 

The 60s decade was alive with experimentation, protests, art, music, and the promise of great political and social change, of increasing equity and opportunity. It was the decade that saw not only the anti-war movement but civil rights advanced, and the passing of the Voting Rights Act, Medicaid and Medicare. And early in the 70s, we saw the women’s rights and environmental movement grow, the Clean Air Act passed and the EPA created. The Clean Waters Restoration Act was passed in 1966 and the Clean Waters Act in 1972, all resulting in a great improvement in air and water quality. There was Woodstock ⎼ and there was Altamont, the assassination of a President, his Presidential candidate brother, as well as civil rights leaders.

 

But although we heard President Eisenhower’s warning in 1961 about the Military-Industrial Complex, the people of the 60s grew up in a capitalist society, as did everyone else who was born in the US alive today. Some of the super-rich capitalists are Boomers, but you can’t blame Boomers for capitalism.

 

But much of the promise of the 60s rebellion never bore fruit and fell apart, and there is anger about that. The 60s became the 70s. And then the 80s, Ronald Reagan, and the economic divide between the top 1% and the rest of us started to increase once again. The limitations on the rich that were enacted just before and during the war and were extended through the 60s and 70s, were undermined or terminated in the Reagan years, and the economic divide has been getting worse ever since. And the Boomers did not stop that injustice.

 

According to a study by the Boston Consulting Group in 2017, around 70% of the nation’s wealth will be concentrated in the hands of millionaires and billionaires by 2021. Matt Bruenig of the Peoples Policy Project, said “…the top one percent owns nearly $30 trillion of assets while the bottom half owns less than nothing, meaning they have more debts than they have assets.” And according to CBS news, the rich pay a lower tax rate than most in the middle class. If my math is correct, and we took the total income earned in the US in 2018 ($17.6 trillion) and divided it by the number of full-time workers (128.57 million),  we get $136,890. Imagine that as the salary of each worker. All this accumulation of wealth in so few hands is undermining the future for most Americans.

 

Many factors contribute to the ease by which we attack each other, but one could be social isolation, which can negatively affect our physical and emotional health. How we use social media and other technology plays a big role here. For example, instead of going out to the movies, or to work, or to shop, or even gather with friends, more of us stay home on our computers, Prime or Hulu or Xboxes or FB or texts or whatever. This makes it easier for us to experience loneliness, anger, and lose sight of the humanity of others. Face to face communication is so much more than words. It is the felt presence of a breathing being, and texts, written words, even images cannot replicate that.

 

With all the talk about different generations of Americans, it’s easy to pit one generation against another.  But a generation is simply a group of people born at a certain time in history under a certain set of conditions, and we need to remember that. Any statistics about a generation can be useful to know, but it is just a generalization. In-between the generalizations are the truths about individual people, and it is those individuals who we meet in the gym or on the street ⎼ or who write blogs.

 

There is cause for anger, but it should be directed at the actions of those super-rich people who are trying to undermine democracy right now by setting one generation, one group of people ⎼ or one race, religion, or gender ⎼ against another. And we can’t let ourselves take part in that manipulation or allow it to succeed.

 

 

This post was syndicated by The Good Men Project.

 

 

 

 

 

For the New Year, Imagine A True Democracy and a President We Can Respect

What are your resolutions for the New Year? Before I discuss one of mine, let me give the  context.

 

Last week, did you read DT’s letter to Nancy Pelosi about his impeachment? Or listen to the impeachment hearings? Many of us talk about the constant lies by DT and how the GOP has become his army of deception. Or we joke about it because the deceptions are just so blatant and outrageous that it’s too incredible to believe that he said what he did, or we don’t want to believe it. But it’s true. We are witnessing the GOP defining truth as whatever DT says it is as they attempt to create a dictatorship right before our eyes.

 

DT’s letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi is so full of lies and distortions stated so forcefully and blatantly that I cringed reading it. The GOP during the hearings were so off base in most of their comments that it appeared to many news commentators that we were witnessing an alternative reality.

 

We’re facing the possibility that anyone who opposes DT will get investigated or arrested as a traitor. DT called any GOP who oppose him, as well as FBI officials who investigate Russian interference in our election, “human scum.” He has accused Democrats of treason for opposing or impeaching him, a label he earlier applied to the New York Times.

 

His Attorney General, William Barr, has been acting as the President’s agent, appointing US attorney John Durham to investigate former CIA Director John Brennan for his stated views on the investigations of DT’s Russian connections. Barr’s DOJ also opened a criminal investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe of Russian Interference in the 2016 election.

 

We’re facing the possibility of our public schools being further undermined by the GOP and replaced with private, yet publicly funded, Charter and Christian schools where education quality is formally tied to economic class and/or race and critical thinking is limited and controlled through standardized testing. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has worked for years to end public education and build “God’s Kingdom” here in the US.

 

Back in 2016, Diane Rehms had three guests (Moises Naim, Alina Polyakova, Yascha Mounk) on her NPR radio show who discussed their analysis that many Americans had been taking democracy for granted. Yascha Mounk said that when Americans born in the 1930s were asked how important it was to live in a democracy, over two thirds said it was of top importance, ten on a one-to-ten scale. When, for example, Millennials in the US were asked the same question prior to 2016, less than one third thought democracy important.

 

Maybe some Millennials did not understand then what they understand now, namely how it would be like to live in a dictatorship, Fascist state or an oligarchy, where the majority of citizens of a nation had no institutionalized power. They never fought a Fascist government, for example. They did not understand that democracy in a large and diverse nation meant compromise and required effort and were focused only on the negative side of US politics. They did not understand that once the institutions of a democracy were undermined, it would be extremely difficult to build them back. Now, 2 years later, I think more of them, and us, recognize the value of democracy ⎼ as we see it murdered before our eyes. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of millennials who voted nearly doubled from 2014 to 2018 and outvoted the older generations of Americans.

 

Even though 49.3% of eligible voters voted in 2018, the highest percentage since 1914 to vote in a midterm election according to the United States Election Project, the number of Americans who do not vote is astounding. In 2014, the turnout was 36.7%, the lowest in 72 years. In the Presidential election of 2012, it was 58.6%. In 2016, it was 60.1%. This means about 40% of Americans didn’t vote. Why?

 

The Pew Research Center says 4% of voters did not vote in the past due to “registration problems,” like being expunged from the voter rolls or due to having a criminal history, and the problem is getting worse. The Brennan Center found 4 million were purged between 2014 and 2016 and more are being purged in GOP controlled states right now. In fact, one of DT’s advisers said on tape that voter suppression was the key to the GOP’s efforts in 2020. Other people are apathetic, too busy, think the system is corrupt or they lack information. Some argue that the vote is meaningless, the Dems are just as bad as Republicans, or the vote doesn’t affect their daily life.

 

Imagine everything that you think is wrong or falling apart now getting worse ⎼ police attacks on people of color, or the court system being biased, or more children of immigrants being separated from parents, or public schooling destroyed, or roads, water supply, and electric becoming even more undependable or unsafe. Imagine being jailed for speaking out against a politician’s corruption. Imagine tanks…

 

Or imagine the opposite future. Imagine education being considered as important as military defense and schools being designed to promote the well-being and expand the critical thinking capacity of each individual student. Imagine higher education and vocational training easily affordable by everyone.

 

Imagine health care that is comprehensive and affordable. In France, for example, health care is much less expensive and open to everyone. Two of my cousins live in France part of the year and have described to me how easy it is to see a doctor and how much less it costs. Doctors have even made house calls for them.

 

Imagine the costs of phones and phone service (which is much higher in the US than Europe, for example⎼ DT’s FCC, headed by Ajit Pai, has worked to decrease controls on providers and increase costs to consumers) and the quality, speed and cost of internet service improving. Imagine alternative energy being cheaply available to everyone.

 

Imagine scientific research into medicine, alternative energy, and simply a better understanding of our universe being applied to political policy and admired alongside emotional intelligence, diversity, and compassion. Imagine friends and neighbors getting together in groups to advise politicians. And imagine voting is encouraged so much that it is a national holiday. Imagine a President we can respect, who knows the facts and will speak truthfully (even most of the time) about the state of the world.

 

This is why we vote. The difference between one future and the other is largely up to all of us, up to our votes, and up to how much political action we take. And it might be up to how willing we are to talk with anyone who claims voting and politics don’t matter.

 

So, if this is how you feel, this is the year to act.

 

This post has been syndicated by the Good Men Project.

It’s So Easy to Lose Our Heads: The Need to Secure and Advance Democracy

It is so easy to lose our heads. To get angry or depressed or want to run and hide. Or blame someone ⎼ that’s always been a strategy to clutch at. Blame this person or that group. Blame Muslims, if you’re a supporter of T, or blame Congresswomen of color or just women. Or just people of color. Or just journalists. Or people who actually examine the news and think critically about it. Or scientists⎼ that’s a clever strategy. Blame the people who actually study our universe and invent things and keep our technology and healthcare, etc. advancing.

 

Or blame the Democratic Party and DNC. But wait. Some of my FB friends do that, too. Fellow progressives, liberals and lefties. Afterall, the DNC has certainly been despicable at times in the past. Some even claim the Democrats are no better than the Grand Old Party, the party which is no longer republican, but despotic or dictatorial, or the party of denial, denial of global warming, of the facts in the Ukrainian scandal, of facts, period. The GOP will deny global warming, but the Democrats just won’t act, they say.

 

This equation of the two parties distorts the reality and undermines our ability to act effectively. Just compare the efforts of the GOP, for example, to undermine voting and women’s rights and public education while protecting foreign interference in our elections and increasing the wealth of the wealthiest Americans, with the record of legislation passed by the House since the election of 2018.

 

We know the costs to ourselves and others of the blame game. When we look inside ourselves, we can see and feel it. It is the deadliest game out there in terms of creating suffering and delusion. To blame like this we build a wall between ourselves and the rest of humanity and the rest of the world, between what we see and feel and what we won’t. And we use emotions like fear and hate for the construction materials. The more we use fear and hate, the more we crave it.

 

We should support Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg or Joe Biden or any of the other Democrats for President. Support whomever we feel will do the best job at building a truly democratic nation, creating a sane environmental and energy policy, providing good, affordable health care for all ⎼ and will support an equitable and meaningful public education system. But support them in a way that doesn’t undermine the other Democratic candidates in the general election if our favorite is not chosen.

 

Above all, we must keep in mind that without defeating T and his supporters, all that we hold dear might literally be destroyed. We can’t allow ourselves to lose our head or hope. Getting a little depressed might be common sense but we can’t let it go further than that. It’s just not an option we can afford. We must all put in time not only for getting T impeached, but for winning the Presidency and the Senate, getting out the vote and educating people about what’s at stake.

 

And we can’t allow ourselves to destroy possible alliances with would-be allies in the effort to unseat T and his followers. No matter how much I want Elizabeth or Bernie or Pete or Cory, I don’t want T.

 

We, those of us who truly value and want to strengthen democracy in this country, need someone in the White House who will listen to us, the people, not just rich white men. Who will give us a chance at saving our environment and thinking clearly about the problems we face, and who care about the other people and species that live in this world with us.

 

Many of the old Democratic politicians were bought out by corporate interests. But this is a different time. And this is a different party. Even if Democrats weren’t focused enough in the past on global warming, gun violence, etc. we have a chance with them, right now, that we will never have with T’s GOP. We must use this chance. Maybe we can also make the Democratic Party the party of democrats.

Is It Arrogance, Ignorance, An Impeachment Wish, Or All Three?

Hiding Investigations Crucial For the Rule of Law Behind Ones That Undermine that Rule

 

Last week was dramatic and this week more of the same has been occurring. We have heard clear evidence, once again, of possible criminal acts by T, lies and distortions topped with extortion. We’ve seen the President and his minions try to cover up, obfuscate, or distract our attention from what T did and attack those who reveal what occurred.

 

But this latest series of revelations regarding the Ukrainian affair is so obvious a violation of what any President should do and so obviously screams for impeachment, I wondered, once again how much of T’s behavior is from pure narcissistic arrogance and the craving for absolute power, how much from ignorance, and how much is it an impeachment-wish?

 

The most obvious evidence that the phone call between T and President Zelensky of Ukraine is impeachable (aside from the transcript of the call itself) comes from State Department official David Holmes who testified last Friday behind closed doors and will testify before a public hearing this Thursday. If you haven’t heard about his testimony, he overheard a phone call from the Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland to T on July 26th, the day after the infamous phone call that is at the heart of the impeachment proceedings. This second phone call took place on Sondland’s non-secure cell phone in a restaurant in Kiev. Holmes could hear Mr. T clearly, as the Ambassador held the phone at a distance from his ear because the President was speaking very loudly.

 

In the July 26th call, T asked Sondland if the Ukrainians were “going to do the investigations?” Sondland replied that they were ready to do anything T asked of them. Later on, Sondland told Holmes that T only cared about “the big stuff.” When asked if the war in Ukraine was “big stuff” Sondland clarified that “big stuff” referred to anything that personally “benefits the President, like the quote, unquote, ‘Biden investigation’ that Mr. Giulani was pushing.” Saving Ukraine from Russia or supporting democracy were not “the big stuff.”

 

Earlier last Friday afternoon (11/15), I also felt a mixture of outrage and disbelief when I heard about the President’s tweet attacking Ambassador Yovanovitch during her testimony to Congress.  This tweet destroyed any pretense that the President cared about the law. It was not only a clear and very public example of witness intimidation, but it was done on the day it was announced that T’s adviser, Roger Stone, was found guilty of witness intimidation and other crimes.

 

The main point of the phone call between T and President Zelensky, as David Holmes and others made clear, was to force the Ukrainians to do T’s bidding. If they wanted a public meeting with the U. S. President and the military aid passed by Congress, they would have to announce they were undertaking two investigations, one into the Bidens and one to create evidence supporting the Russia backed claim that it was Ukraine that interfered in the 2016 election, not Russia.

 

This is a strategy often utilized by the T administration and other Republicans in the past. Remember months of investigation into Benghazi and the eventual revelation that Mrs. Clinton followed procedure and that responsibility for the deaths at our embassy lay elsewhere? Remember “Lock her up” and T’s continual attacks and calls for investigations not only of Hillary Clinton but President Obama?

 

In the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017, possibly to detract from Russia working to help him win the election as well as to counter the fact that he lost the popular vote, T claimed that millions of people voted illegally, despite there being no evidence to back up that claim. David Becker, from the Center for Election Innovation & Research, and others have examined Trump’s claim. They found no evidence of any massive illegal voting or fraud.

 

Despite the lack of evidence, T went on to appoint a White House Commission into voter fraud. The commission, despite being conducted by T supporters, also found that no state in the union uncovered any significant evidence of voter fraud and the commission was disbanded in 2018.

 

This strategy has been used to smear Democrats and undermine the rule of law. It is being used to attempt to make any investigation of T meaningless by creating counter and unwarranted investigations of their own. It is part of his larger tactic of attacking anyone who disagrees with him and creating fear in his political or economic opponents.

 

All through the Mueller Investigation, T claimed, without any evidence, that the investigation was a “Witch-hunt”, that it was based on shoddy intelligence or illegal wiretaps or a bias against him. When the Mueller Investigation was coming to an end, T and his GOP sycophants pushed to “investigate the investigators.”

 

The Trump DOJ has started several investigations to advance their agenda to hide the facts of T’s abuse of power and utilizing Russian interference to win an election. Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz has been examining how the FBI obtained a warrant to wiretap Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

 

The DOJ has now opened a criminal investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe into the Russian Interference in the 2016 election. This investigation is being overseen by the Attorney General himself, William Barr, although it is being officially run by John Durham, the U. S. attorney in Connecticut. The targets of the investigation include FBI officials like James Comey, or anyone that was part of the Mueller team that could be accused of anti-Trump bias. Durham has been asking witnesses if the CIA somehow tricked the FBI into opening the Russia probe. Mr. Barr has personally participated in the investigation. According to the New York Times, he has flown to Italy to speak to their Prime Minister, and also contacted officials in Australia and Britain, and possibly Ukraine.

 

A recent blog by Mark Sumner for Daily Kos speaks about this and Barr’s efforts to protect T with a report on the Russia investigations. The report is due to come out before Thanksgiving and aims to re-write history and distract from the impeachment proceedings. It will repeat Russia’s claim that it never interfered in the 2016 election and attempt to discredit the evidence of 16 U. S. intelligence agencies to the contrary. And it will claim that T has been unfairly attacked ever since he was called the winner of the 2016 election.

 

Barr has often attacked the Democrats and the courts for working against the President’s agenda and, according to NPR and in his own words, working to “cripple the T administration from the beginning.” His position is that there are almost no legal restraints on T’s presidential power. He accused Democrats of the “systematic shredding of norms and undermining the rule of law.” According to Neil Kinkopf, a law professor who testified at Barr’s confirmation hearing, Barr believes that any dissent or opposition to the president is contrary to democracy. This is in line with T calling for Democrats to be arrested for treason for opposing him or calling for his impeachment.

 

So, this is what we face. I don’t know if T has a secret wish to be removed from office or not.  But I do know that if I had had any doubts about why T must be impeached or legally removed from office, ASAP, this evidence would convince me. The fight here is to preserve the rule of law, preserve our rights, freedoms, and the principle that political power resides in the people of this nation as a whole, not one person, party, class, race or gender, and not Russian or other foreign agents. And we must be prepared to defend those rights.

 

 

This blog was also published by The Good Men Project.

 

 

 

 

 

Impeachment Tremors

Since the news broke about T’s latest abuses of power in the Ukraine, and the Democrats in the House started their more formal impeachment investigations, I keep switching from being ecstatic, sad, and terrified. Ecstatic that what I and millions of others have wanted for the last two years might finally take place, namely the impeachment of a would-be dictator. Sad and angry that our nation and political situation has sunk so low and so many people are suffering because of the actions of this administration. Terrified by the realization that this man would risk destroying our nation and system of constitutional law in order to maintain his personal power or serve his personal interests, as we’ve possibly seen not only in the Ukraine but in Syria.

 

Syria, despite the latest cease-fire, is at best an example of incompetence, at worst a direct sell-out of our allies and security. But let me stick with the Ukraine phone calls.

 

You probably know the general story of the dramatic and chaotic events that have taken place and been revealed this month regarding Ukraine. President T withheld the money Congress had allotted to them to fight for the preservation of their nation against a Russian invasion. He then pressured the President of the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and come up with information to support his fabricated claim that Russia never interfered in the 2016 election in order to get that aid. The White House released its own summary record of the conversation between T and President Zelensky of Ukraine, which took place in July, 2019.

 

T’s guilt is shown not only by his actions and public comments but by his way of dealing with anyone who opposes his immoral, unlawful, or abusive behavior. He attacks, without any evidence, anyone who tries to hold him accountable of whatever it was he himself apparently did, and calls for investigations, unwarranted investigations, of his own.

 

He inappropriately, possibly illegally, and certainly in a manner that threatens US interests, withheld the aid needed by Ukraine. Although he shouted many times “No quid pro quo,” his own words, his chief of staff, and records released by his own White House show he did just that….

 

 

To read the whole post, go to the Good Men Project.

The International Strike to Save Our Planet: A Time to Act

Many have wondered what it would take for the general American public to go on strike. We have seen countless examples over the last two, almost three, years of this president violate the humanity of children and immigrants, lie, sacrifice our national security, act in support of misogynist judges (or ones who have credibly been accused of sexual assault) and White House employees who have done the same, support white nationalists and demonize minorities, fail to act to prevent massive incidents of gun violence even against school children—although this last did lead to huge demonstrations ⎼ and act in ways to undermine the constitution and rule of law. And now, tomorrow, an existential threat to the environment might lead to a strike of school children and hopefully thousands, maybe millions of people.

 

Why don’t we act? Are we too wrapped up in our social and work lives, or working too hard to put aside the time, or just feeling hopeless or overwhelmed? Or, regarding the climate, the warming of the planet, the weird weather, the changes in the environment, changes that happen so slowly that we don’t notice it until weird weather becomes hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornados and fires? Or is it that some of us can read and digest the science while others believe the lies by T, his GOP sycophants and some corporations that there is no scientific consensus on global warming, and we imagine what we see before our eyes is just bad weather or bad luck?

 

Americans increasingly understand the threat posed by Global Warming. A poll by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation  reveals that 8 in 10 people understand that human activity is fueling climate change and about half state that action is needed immediately.

 

Tomorrow, thanks mostly to young people like Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old Swedish student and activist, the Global Climate Strike will begin. There will be strikes throughout the US and other nations. New York City will excuse students absent for the strike. And it won’t be just children, but adults, indigenous groups, workers, seniors, etc. Everyone who can, should. Everyone who can’t strike can make phone calls to politicians and CEOs, send in photos of signs proclaiming your view on protecting our earth, write letters to the editor, sign petitions, etc.

 

Actions will continue next week. On Monday, 9/23, the UN will hold a Climate Action Summit, to ramp up efforts to curb greenhouse gases set out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which Mr. T opposes. A second strike will be held on September 27th.

 

Tomorrow’s our chance to energize the nation to what we must do to save our planet ⎼ and democracy. To find events in your neighborhood, go to the GlobalClimateStrike website.

Who Are You?

Who are you, Mr., Miss or Mrs. T supporter? How can those of us who detest your leader understand you? And, in terms of the next election, how much effort should we spend in trying to talk with you about the problems that face us all?

 

Are you someone who has lost not only your job but your trade or profession, or afraid of your job and your respect being lost? Or of losing your home, social security, schools for you or your children? Are you someone who thinks this country is controlled by elites, by billionaires, who want to replace you with people from other countries?

 

Billionaire CEOs have certainly been sending businesses overseas or replacing people with machines. And a few billionaires have more wealth than all of you non-millionaire (or billionaire) T supporters combined. But this distrust of billionaires is something you share with the liberals you say you distrust or hate. Liberals are, in this regard, your natural allies. And if you truly distrust “elites” and billionaires, why did you support giving them even more power and money in the form of huge tax cuts that you are paying for? Why support a system that pays CEOs 287 times more than their workers?

 

If you distrust billionaires and the elite, why do you support T, who claims to be a billionaire and who bows to certain elites? Did you buy his line that, since he is so rich, he couldn’t be bought? Or that, because he was a successful businessman, he could run this country like a successful business?

 

No President has been bought off as much as T has, or so blatantly treated the office of the President as a business venture to earn profits not for you or for this nation, but for himself. Every time he takes a vacation at one of his golf resorts or stays at his own hotel, you the taxpayer directly pays him. Many foreign politicians also pay him. You have to wonder how much our foreign policy is motivated by personal profit for him. And look at how he runs his businesses. He certainly does not do so to benefit his workers or the customers he supposedly serves, as in the example of Trump University. He runs the country as if you werehisservants who he could use and discard without proper compensation whenever he wished. Many have characterized T’s style of running the business of the US government as a criminal enterprise.

 

You might reply, “But Democrats are the same, or worse, and at least T does it openly.” Sure, there are immoral or unethical Democrats. But this is a tired old line. No Democrat comes close to T. The only politicians in recent US history who exceed or come close in terms of criminality, hiring billionaires to their cabinet and committing criminal acts are Republicans, like Reagan, Nixon, and Bush II. …

To read the whole piece, go to The Good Men Project.

We Need to Believe Our Eyes and Ears: We Have A Manchurian President

The Manchurian Candidate is a classic movie from 1962 in which Russian Communists initiate a plot to use a brainwashed American soldier as a sleeper agent to kill the candidate for American President. Evidence would be revealed to show the Russians were responsible. The Vice-Presidential candidate, someone controlled by the Russians, would then succeed him and be able to assume dictatorial powers to safeguard the nation.

 

In the reality we face today, there is no brainwashed sleeper agent (I think), no Presidential candidate that is killed. However, as the Mueller Report made clear, a Democratic candidate and our electoral process was attacked and undermined by Russian agents to sow discord and put into office a man who now serves their interests. Many of the facts about T acting in Russia’s interest against our own have been in the news repeatedly. But it is so devastating a picture it is hard to accept. We have a Manchurian administration.

 

Just imagine what the Russian government would want from an American President. They could not defeat us militarily, so they would have to attack us from the inside. They would not just want to end our sanctions on their government but would try to destroy our democracy and turn us into an ally or puppet state.

 

They would do this by dividing our nation so much that we would be in a near civil war. They would instill fear of violence in our gathering places and schools. They would create fear in one group of all others, so this group would feel under attack and they would strike out, de-stabilizing the social fabric of the nation. And they would undermine efforts to prioritize combating domestic terrorism.

 

They would undermine the rule of law.

 

They would suppress the vote, undermining our democratic election process in fact as well as our faith in that process, and create so much chaos and confusion, fear and anxiety, that the American people would eventually want to turn to a dictator just to get some peace.

 

They would undermine our democracy further by having the President talk about not leaving office after a second term or claim violence would ensue if he lost an election or was removed from office. He’d spread lies of a cabal working against him from the inside, manipulating the election, so we wouldn’t recognize the Russian manipulators and their agents. They would begin this process by not acting to secure our own electoral integrity from Russian and other hackers. And they would get their supporters in Congress to obstruct bills requiring that contacts between politicians and foreign agents be reported to the FBI.

 

They would undermine the economy through chaotic trade policies, take away economic power from the middle class and direct it to a small group who would work with Russians for their own gain. They would act with a lack of fiscal responsibility, including running up a massive debt so the government would not be able to flexibly meet a recession or other crisis. They would politicize the Federal Reserve Board so it serves as a functionary of the T family.

 

They would undermine the free press, install propaganda networks to control information, accuse protestors of being a violent threat to law and order and thus make protest illegal.

 

They would spread so many lies they would undermine the possibility of discerning truth from fiction so Americans would not believe that what was happening was really happening.

 

They would attack anyone who opposed them, calling them treasonous, in order to create the impression traitors were patriots, and establish a de-facto dictatorship.

 

They would undermine our standing in the world, undermine the idea of democracy itself, and undermine our traditional alliances so we were isolated and distrusted. They would sing the praises of dictators, in Russia and North Korea, for example, and ally us with the same.

 

If you look at our nation today, everything above is exactly what has been happening since T was elected.

 

A Review of A Few of the Details:

 

On February 27, Michael Cohen said: “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power…” Cohen’s revelations of Trump as possibly threatening the government, the constitution and rule of law with violence, affirms what many have suspected ever since T was elected, but it is frightening to see our fears stated so bluntly by someone who knows Trump so well.

 

Cohen is not the first to speak of this threat. Roger Stone warned America in 2017 of “insurrection” if Trump is impeached. Politico reported that Stone said, “Try to impeach him. Just try it. You will have a spasm of violence in this country, an insurrection like you’ve never seen.”

 

As the Mueller Report makes clear, the President clearly asked for and accepted Russian aid in the 2016 election. He also, once in office, cut sanctions on Russia, for example, on Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of Putin. In Helsinki, while standing next to Vladimir Putin, T sided with Putin against our own intelligence community,, claiming the Russian dictator spoke strongly in denial of the claim Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The President tore up the notes of his discussions with Putin.

 

According to Admiral Rogers, the head of the U. S. Cyber Command, Trump failed to even ask NSA how to protect our election system from hackers. The New York Times reported that Kirstjen Nielsen, before resigning as head of the Department of Homeland Security, became increasingly concerned about Russian activity in the US. But she was told by White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney not to bring this up with Mr. T. As a consequence, she never met with the different cabinet secretaries to coordinate a strategy to protect our elections, nor did she inform Americans of the latest version of Russian attacks on our nation.

 

And “Moscow Mitch” has blocked any bills aimed at protecting our elections from coming to a vote in the Senate. FBI director Christopher Wray announced he shifted resources to counter the Russian threat, largely without any White House support.

 

Instead of going after the Russians who attacked us, the Mueller Report reveals T tried to get the Department of Justice to prosecute political rivals in the U. S., most notably Hillary Clinton ⎼ to avenge or protect himself, not the nation.

 

The Mueller Report documents10 times T may have obstructed justice. According to page 6 of the document, Flynn “informed the government of multiple instances, both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation. The defendant even provided a voice recording of one such communication.”

 

Mr. T has driven wedges between the US and our allies and has lowered the standing of the US in international affairs. He has failed to adequately staff and support the state department and other non-military agencies meant to protect our national security. He has also granted security clearances to people with compromised histories despite being warned of the danger these clearances could pose to our security. All of this has made us more vulnerable to attack.

 

We could go on and on with T’s criminal behavior, and behavior that threatens our democratic institutions and our humanity. T has clearly used hate to divide our nation to a disturbing degree. A Pew Poll shows that we are more divided now than in the early 1990s, maybe more divided than any time since the Civil War. He has attacked Hispanic people, African-Americans, Muslims, LGBTQ, and women, especially powerful women, like journalists or members of Congress.

 

The wealthiest among us are now so rich that 3 individuals own more wealth than half of the population. And the GOP tax cut is only making income inequality worse. T promised the 2017 tax cut would pay for itself, create a surging economy, increase wages, repatriate money hidden in foreign countries, decrease middle class taxes, but little of that has proven true. In fact, it has reduced federal income to a degree that it might threaten our economic stability and security.

 

So, if the President isn’t a Manchurian President or consciously working as an agent of Russia, he is certainly weakening our democracy and our nation. We know this, or most of us do, but we can’t let our anxiety or anger get in the way of doing all we can to sweep him out of office, by the ballot box or by criminal proceedings.

 

This post was syndicated by The Good Men Project.

 

Money, Hate and Fear: When Too Much Goes to Too Few

Yesterday, 20 people were killed, 26 injured, in El Paso, Texas, previously one of the safest cities in the U. S.. In Dayton, Ohio ⎼ nine dead. The previous Saturday, in Gilroy, California, 3 dead. According to the New York Times, there have been 32 different incidents of mass shootings this year. According to the Gun Violence Archive, in the last 216 days, 251 people were killed in incidents of mass shootings.

 

And who are the people doing this killing? In most cases, at least the ones with hate as a motive, it is white men. According to the Mother Jones archive, of the last 22 mass shootings, 21 were by men, 13 were definably white. According to the New York Times, the El Paso murderer considered Hispanic immigrants a threat to whites. He joins a long line of white nationalist murderers, from El Paso, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Christchurch, New Zealand, Munich, Germany, and Norway.

 

But who is responsible for fueling this hate? One obvious answer, in the US, is the President who speaks with hate and incites it. He called immigrants and asylum seekers at our border an invasion, of rapists and criminals, and just recently attacked an American city as a “disgusting, rat infested, mess” and attacked the African-American Democratic Congressman from that city.  According to an analysis by the Washington Post, in 2016 the counties in the US that held T rallies experienced a 226% increase in hate crimes compared to counties that held no such rally.

 

According to the manifesto of the shooter in El Paso, Texas, he was not originally inspired by the President’s rhetoric; but since his language mirrors the President’s, he was emboldened by it. According to the Intercept and other sources, so was the MAGABomber, and the Neo Nazis murderer of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, etc. Many Democrats, including Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders, have laid some blame clearly on the President. 2016 was the only year on record before 2019 with more domestic mass shooting deaths than days and 2019 is on track to eclipse 2016 by far.

 

The other fuel for hate is greed and money. The people who have been killed are the victims not only of hate being used to gain political power, but of too much money in politics. The Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2010 allowed corporations and unions to spend freely on elections, and reinforced the fiction of corporate personhood. It released corporations and the super-rich from most restrictions on the buying of politicians. It said that corporations, like people, have the right of free speech. And making political contributions was a form of protected speech, not to be restricted.

 

Combine this with the increasing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands and you have a Congress incapable of governing and of enacting laws to protect our nation. America’s wealthiest 20 people own more wealth than the bottom half the population, own more than 152,000,000 people combined. This great wealth gives a few people the means to out speak thousands, even millions, of voters.

 

Hate and money are fueling what Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg called a “national security emergency.” Another Presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren, spoke about gun manufacturers owning Washington. But it is not just the NRA and gun manufacturers whose unfettered lust for great profits contributes to hundreds of American lives lost each year. The concentration of wealth and the power it bestows on a few people is killing us and undermining any chance of democracy.

 

And then there’s climate change, also exacerbated by the ignorance of consequences caused by the lust for profit and leading not only to the loss of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in economic losses, but an existential threat to human civilization.

 

In order to save our nation (and world), end the violence and the social disintegration it can cause, and create an economy and political system “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” we must begin by demanding that our politicians work to control gun violence and limit the power of money in politics. Then we can begin to work on hate and more systemic changes.

 

When so much goes to so few the rest feel ⎼ and are ⎼ excluded, whether we understand what is happening or not. Democrats will only win when they speak to these realities, and the fears and outrage they cause, in a way most can understand. They must counter the fear with hope grounded in a sincere concern and understanding of others and the threats we face. This is how they, or we, win the next election and expel hate from office.

 

This post has been syndicated by the Good Men Project.

Listen for the Earth Breathing: How About A Moment of Calm and Clarity?

In these times of great fear and anger over the inhumanity and chaos in our political system, we need to find some sort of calm and clarity inside ourselves or we’d want to turn away from the news or go nuts. If we don’t find some sort of clarity, how could we have any idea of what political or social actions to take? How could we help anyone else in need if we can’t help ourselves? So one thing I do is meditate, and treat myself and others as kindly as I can. If I can do nothing else, at least I can do that.

 

Close your eyes, take a comfortable breath, and simply listen. Many of us do this too infrequently. We don’t give ourselves a break to listen deeply to other people, to our own inner voice, or to the earth breathing. So give yourself a break. Give yourself this one moment. And listen for the earth breathing. Can you hear it?

 

Maybe it’s summer and a cool wind breathes in and out, cooling the day. Sometimes, it is a deep breath. Sometimes it’s very shallow. Sometimes, you can’t hear or feel it and you wonder if the earth is alive at all.

 

Then you hear bird calls, especially in the morning and at dusk. And bees and maybe other flying creatures…..

 

To read the whole piece, go to The Good Men Project.