Month: July 2022

How can Americans have a say in what their representative government does ostensibly on their behalf?

The obvious answers is: vote, run for office, work on grassroots campaigns, work to elect responsible, progressive officials who will work for their constituents.

But when that is not enough. What then? Protest? Political activism? Yes. And yes.

We all need to be more politically active. That is our civic duty. After all, it is supposed to be a participatory government.

But even after doing all we can, when we have a government that does nothing and ignores what most people want? What then?

The simplest truth in the system that we have is that if it hurts financially or becomes a problem of economics, it can change the world.

One attention getter is a general strike. A general strike that is organized, well planned, and committed to remain in place until the desire goal has been achieved is an option. No. It’s never easy and yes, it does require some sacrifice. But there is no doubt that it is a very effective tool.

George W Bush likened the massive protests against the war in Iraq that took place in NYC which had hundreds of thousands of participants, and those in hundreds of cities around the world to “focus group activity”.

George W Bush simply blew off these protests as insignificant because he wanted the war in Iraq and he wasn’t going to let protests prevent him from getting the war he wanted.

On the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency, hundreds of thousands of people crowded into the U.S. capital for the Women’s March on Washington. What was Trump’s reaction? Zilch.

These protests involved 100s of thousands of participants. But they are being treated as if they mean nothing.

It has become routine for our elected officials to blow off protest when they go against what they want.

How can a plurality or majority of Americans be a part of the decisions and policies that the government makes without their input being totally dismissed by their elected officials?

How can Americans excercise any kind of agency in their government when the government does not acknowledge or accept the American people taking part in their own government?

The American government has never really encouraged the American people to take part in the decisions and policies that it makes and taken what the people want into consideration. The American government has never devised a way to do this. The American government does not have a way, outside of polling, to know what Americans think and want.

As Americans, how much do we use the mechanism of referendum to determine public policy and governmental decision making? We don’t. At least not on a regular basis. The government does not have a mechanism that the people can use to communicate with it in a reliable and easy way.

A recent article in the NYT asked some of their opinion writers to write an article about something they got wrong. One of them, Zeynep Tufekci, commented that she had thought these large scale protests had had the potential to change policy but realized that even these very large protests, by themselves, needed more to create change. She stated that in the large protests and movements for social change in the past, like the civil rights movement, had been successful because they were organized, followed a plan, and had a commitment to the project through its completion. Not for it to just be a single, one off event. And that is why it was eventually successful.

So, how can Americans have more of a say? It cannot just be a single event, a single protest, no matter how massive. To get anything done, Americans will have to organize. They will have to have a plan. They will have to be committed. And they will have to stick with the plan until they achieve parity with a government that has thus far excluded them and gain actual assess to the decision and policy making of government, even if it is only on an occasional basis.

On important matters it might make all the difference in the world.

It was never my intention to disparage anyone, evangelicals included. If you think that is what I have done that is your opinion. But it’s an incorrect opinion. But, fair enough. What follows is what I believe based on my own observations and experiences with evangelicals. These are my own opinions and observations. Whether anyone else thinks similarly or disagrees with my assessment doesn’t really matter to me. This is not an invitation. I am not going to engage in any argument or further discussion on this topic because I’m really just not interested.

You asked me to provide what I think the term evangelical means. So, even though I am certainly not obligated to do so, I’m obliging. I hope that you will appreciate that I did so because I didn’t have to do it.

Evangelicals identify themselves by their evangelism. They claim to accept Jesus Christ as their savior and invoke his name all the time. It is their mission to get as many people as they can to accept their beliefs and practices. I do not think of them as being honestly religious people because they don’t practice what they preach. They don’t follow the teachings of Christ even though they are always stating publicly that everything they do, they do for him. In fact, they often violate the four principles listed above: Love your neighbor. Feed the poor. Heal the sick. Welcome the stranger. That contradicts and goes against the teachings of Jesus and, in fact, is hypocrisy. Instead of doing what they claim to do and follow Jesus, they follow their church leaders and their evangelism is often commingled with politics. That’s not religion. It’s politics.

It seems to me that in christianity there are two kinds of worship. There is the worship of Jesus, his life, what he taught, and a commitment to living as Jesus attempted to teach people how to live and take care of each other. The other form of worship in christianity is a worship of the Bible as gospel and a reverence not for Jesus but for church leaders. This form of worship is distinct from the worship of Jesus and his teachings. In this form of worship, the emphasis is adherence to the Bible’s most vindictive, retributive, vengeful and apocalyptic passages, not on the teachings of Jesus. This is the form of worship that is embraced by evangelicals.

Capitalism is not all bad. It has the potential to be the best economic system for the human species.

Capitalism is only as bad as all of its various defects and abuses: a “free” market (and the government that supports and condones it) that rewards monopolies and greed and hoarding, that bestows the shareholder and corporate execute minority class of the population with greater privileges and opportunities than everybody else, that dispenses with utilitarianism and makes rules to assure the profit and bottom line of businesses at the expense of doing what is best for the largest number of people are all examples of some of the abuses of capitalism.

Examples of abusive capitalism also include the exploitation of low wage workers, and the unfairly imposed withholding of any opportunity to grow and participate by the middle class in the wealth (the economy) it produces, and the injustice of the business lobby using the government to impose laws that unfairly and disproportionately disadvantage workers and stifle the organization and representation of labor.

Modern American capitalism is also fixated on the notion that bigger is better and the biggest is the best which means that monopolistic policy in macro economics is triumphant and it stamps out the smaller and medium-sized businesses and the mom and pop types of homegrown economy that made the United States a great economy in the first place.

The other non-economic problem with capitalism is the tendency it has to make laws and rules that disregard the integrity of the health and well being of the environment and the planet. This type of disregard of nature is the kamikaze aspect of capitalism that makes it such a dangerous threat to our continued existence as a species on Earth.

These are just a few examples of what makes capitalism look so bad. These conditions do not have to exist and they could all be reformed to create a more just and fair market where all people are lifted out of poverty or stagnation and every person is able to enjoy more opportunities to grow and share in the wealth that all workers contribute to the economy.

“It’s 2022 and 157 Republicans just voted against marriage equality. That’s where they come down on this issue. In 2022.”

United States Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigeig

This mindset is stuck at some point in the past when social, public and legal repression was ever present in the way people lived and behaved and before people lived lives that are true and full. But we as people have evolved and ARE living lives that are true and full. Nothing that is done by the Supreme Court or by government will ever reverse that fact. The Supreme Court ruled on marriage equality when it wasn’t under the control of a socially regressive conservative majority that apparently is now reviewing the possible human rights that it granted in its own rulings that it can take back from the people. This conservative Supreme Court will overturn every human right that it ruled on that it can. Eventually the government will have to codify equality into law. Equality of women and men, or all races, of all religions and atheism, of humanity. Human rights are not violations of the Constitution. Eventually equality and human rights will be enshrined in immutable law in the United States if it is ever going to become that true shining beacon it claims to be. And the Supreme Court will not be able to overturn, reverse, or take it back. Especially if it is “settled law.” 

Requiem for Radio Free America.

I lament and grieve the extinction of independent, creative, community-based, diverse radio programming and ownership.

I lament the fact that the United States used to but no longer has a media landscape that was smaller, more local, fun to listen to, played music that was actually enjoyable to listen to, and had interesting content before it was all bought by fewer than ten large conservative media corporations that prefer to transmit crass commercial ads and output, garbage noise, and boring manufactured music, and that do not allow or promote anything independent, fresh, new, fun, or community-based.

Yes, there are a few independently owned and operated radio stations that have managed to stay on the air mostly because of listener support. But they are the exceptions in the vast expanse of radio that is hate-filled, stokes insecurities and fear in listeners, and is crassly commercial.

I feel very sorry for all of the areas in the country where there is nothing to listen to on the radio except for hate speech and ranting, christian music stations that are just as bad because their message is so exclusionary and judgmental and hypocritical.

There is hope, however. Instead of listening to any of this noise people can choose to turn off their radios and listen to tapes and CDs, podcasts that match their preferences, audio books, and in the few places where they are available, support those small, independent radio stations that are independent, listener supported, community based and that have creative programming and good music.