If I were sufficiently mentally ill to run for President of the United States, I believe my campaign slogan would be, “Humanity First.” How odd that I found a candidate who stole my idea. His name is Andrew Yang. He keeps that a bit on the back burner, and he generally uses “Moving Forward,” which is undoubtedly more inclusive of various ideologies. Humanity First is an Idealist’s ideology. It includes, to me at least, my core belief that there is no Them. We are all Us.
Moving Forward is political. Humanity First is philosophical. To win an election one must be concerned with the political spectrum first, I suppose, although I find that the least desirable part of the idea of running for office. The measured words based on poll results and popular opinion are the enemies of honesty.
Donald Trump billed himself as an outsider. He was not among those who measured his words. He said what he believed. I should, therefore, admire him. I oppose him, however, with all the power my words grant me. Why?
What he believes is as changeable as an infant’s diapers, with which it has any number of elements in common. I rarely know what he means. He simply abuses the language I’ve spent a lifetime learning and loving. He makes it into a weapon of mass destruction of the ability to think coherently. He exhibits no interest in Humanity. He chooses words of separation, and he mocks the empathy I believe to be at the core of being human. Even if I supported his policies, I would loathe his rhetoric.
I will, of course, support any multi-cellular animal that runs against the President in 2020. The first priority is that we change the President before we become a dictatorship. If he gets a second term, I have little reason to believe he will leave at the end of it. He will become what America was designed to defeat.
Having said all that, I have strong preferences. My favorite candidate is the most idealistic, and, quite possibly, the most politically savvy. Yang wants to enact many of my dreams, particularly in that he wants to fix the ills of the world from the bottom up instead of the trickling down bullshit we’ve been sold fruitlessly since Reagan.
He also has the ability to unite Conservatives, Progressives, and even this Idealist. A good example of that can be found in the increasingly quickly blooming “Moving Forward Podcast,” hosted by Rio Verndonir and Corey Cottrell.
Rio is is one of the few Conservatives I know who is capable of changing a Progressive’s mind. While I still disagree at the core with the idea that all people should be self sufficient, he’s made several very powerful cases on the podcast that have made me reconsider my positions on certain issues. He and I could have a great debate.
He never leaves himself open for the easy attacks, though. No use of the Whataboutism that has become the hallmark of the hijacked word Conservative. No ad hominem. No misapplication of quotes. All my easiest avenues of attack are unavailable with him. I’ve never had a more difficult time writing an article as I’ve had for the past couple of weeks trying to come up with my Idealist’s response to his Conservatism.
Corey does an excellent job of supporting the Progressive point of view, and while he’s clearly the first officer to Rio’s captain, he doesn’t lay down.
And here’s the part that is most unbelievable: They can disagree ideologically all day and all night, but they agree on the solutions Yang proposes. Yang appeals to the Conservative in Rio by being a business man. Unlike Sanders, Yang doesn’t loathe the wealthy. He respects them, but believes they need to pay their share, and he’s getting them to do that with the dreaded VAT tax that my more Progressive friends fear.
He appeals to the Progressive in Corey by concerning himself with the Have Nots. Give people $1000 a month, and suddenly there is freedom they had never imagined before. Two or three homeless people could find a place to live together just on that. That place gives them a chance to shower, which increases their odds of getting a job. It gives those who can’t work an address from which to apply for the benefits they need to survive. It gives them a little something to eat. No, they can’t live entirely on that money, or at least not in the way most of us want to, but they can exist. They can fight to survive. They have a chance they won’t get from tax cuts that have no meaning for them.
Giving the money to the Middle Class gives them an opportunity to explore some of the areas of life that were previously unavailable to them. Why take a lousy job when you have the opportunity now, with your guaranteed income, to find one that you enjoy, perhaps even one that pays you to do what you love?
In my Idealist’s world, we would live in a post-scarcity society. We would welcome automation, and we would allow the machines to do the work we no longer need to do. I can be stoned and go to the store for the much needed Eskimo Pies because I will have a self driving car. I have the money I need to survive, because we have come to a place where we can feed and house the world. We are all working on improving ourselves and mankind instead of working 60 hours a week in a futile effort to pay rent, eat, and hope you might have enough left over to go to a movie once in a while. We have time to enjoy being alive. We can read a book, we can watch a movie, we can enjoy a sunset, (or a sunrise… Corey has started broadcasting those daily on YouTube, and it’s more beautiful than you might think) and we can sit up at night thinking all we want because the alarm clock isn’t in charge. We’re done building Walls and calling people “Illegals” instead of human beings, because we all have enough, and we have no need to invent scapegoats for our lack of resources.
I live in reality, however, and I recognize that this isn’t going to happen for a very long time. The longest journey begins with the first step. Universal Basic Income is the beginning of our trip down The Yellow Brick Road. Oz may turn out in the end to be the charlatan behind the curtain, but even he knows what matters is courage, and the ability to think, and to feel, and to love.
The Progressives can enjoy the idea of guaranteed health care for all.
The Conservatives can enjoy the injection of money directly into the economy when people begin to buy more because they have more. Each transaction creates a new job. The job creates more wealth. The wealth creates another job.
There is a feeling that Idealists loathe the wealthy. We don’t. Nor are we jealous of them. I, for one, am happy for them. They’ve managed to figure out a way to prosper in our society. This is good.
What I object to is the idea that only those who have already achieved wealth have any right to it. The idea that wealth is the result of hard work is demonstrably untrue. If hard work created wealth, the waitress working 60 hours a week, 51 weeks a year, would make more money than the lawmaker who works less than a third as much. It’s that some have skills for which our society pays well, and others have skills that are valued at far less. I recognize that’s part of how capitalism works, but that doesn’t mean that anyone should be without the resources to survive. I am a skilled teacher and writer. I can’t make a lay up shot to save my soul. Michael Jordan will have much more than I will, but I don’t believe my contributions to the world are any less valuable than his. Do you?
This is the sort of discussion you’ll find on The Moving Forward Podcast. There are no claims to absolute truth. There is no hidden agenda. It’s a discussion of… believe it or not… ideas! I invariably come away from an episode rethinking my own ideas. Some of them are reinforced. Others are challenged. New ones appear on my horizon.
Eleanor Roosevelt is reputed to have told us, as I’m sure you’ve heard several thousand times (though I challenge you to find a video or show me the book in which she wrote it), “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” You’ll find a little of each in this podcast, but the events and people are always discussed in the context of ideas.
If we have a chance of saving the world, it will come from discussion of ideas that might accomplish that lofty goal. We will never accomplish anything by attacking each other. Epithets are not to be mistaken for arguments. The moment someone comes out with “Libtard” or “RepuliKKKan” the discussion is polluted beyond salvation. It’s no longer a search for solutions. It’s a symptom of the cocksure ignorance that will block any solution that doesn’t fit with our team.
“You can’t change the world,” my Grandpa Schuelke told me when I was a boy, “but you can change your corner of it.”
In this corner, I present to you the ideas of Rio and Corey: The Moving Forward Podcast.
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.
– Emily Dickinson
Imagine
As I write this, the world seems to be turning upside down. The President has been impeached. John Bolton has offered to testify before Congress, if subpoenaed, to tell us what he knows about the President’s behavior. Iran is looking for revenge over the assassination of one of their military leaders. Australia is burning. Refugee children are dying in cages. Homelessness and poverty are rising. Suicide rates are up; life expectancy is down. To turn on the news today is to invite a heaping helping of despair. Worse, there is the helplessness that follows despair like a shadow. The world is out of control, and, we are told, we can’t change it.
I take a different view. “Yes, we can,” as one of my favorite Democratic Presidential candidates said during his campaign. I believe there is much that can be done to change the world. The point of both my blog and my podcast is to find our path to the more just, humane, and hopeful world that we Idealists believe should be the birthright of all human beings.
In 1971, John Lennon asked us to “Imagine.” The world he described was a beautiful one. It’s been nearly 50 years since then, and we don’t seem to be much closer. There appears to be plenty left we believe we need to kill and die for. The need for greed and hunger continues to grow. But we can get to such a place.
Today, I ask you to imagine a world without poverty. I want you to imagine a world in which everyone has a place to live. We all have our own beds, our own bathrooms, our own food and clothing. We have the medicine necessary to keep us alive and healthy. We have the time to spend on the things we most enjoy. We have the time to better ourselves and our world. We exist for more than mundane work. We exist so we can find meaning and joy in our lives. Imagine, in short, John Lennon’s “Brotherhood of Man.”
We can, and, I believe, inevitably we must, get there.
There are several obstacles to overcome before this world can exist. Mr. Yang has ideas for each of them.
Climate Change
First, we need a planet that will sustain us. The fact that ours is in jeopardy is not even worthy of debate. Australia’s fires, all but destroying the country, are directly related to the fact that the world is getting hotter. If we do nothing to change this, regardless of what a perfect civilization we create, there will be no means of living in it. Our first priority needs to be saving ourselves from a planet that won’t support us. If we can return it to a condition that is conducive to human life, we can begin to make those lives more meaningful, interesting, and productive. We might even find a bit of happiness along the way. The climate is a challenge in the present. Climate Change is a challenge to our future.
Like many good candidates, Mr. Yang has ideas about how to keep the planet capable of sustaining human life. What makes his ideas different? They will not simply address the idea that the change can be slowed, if not halted entirely. Mr. Yang proposes moving America to higher ground now, before water, over which no one has any power, does damage we can’t easily repair. There are things we can do in the present, based on what we’ve learned in the past, that will help us in the future. Mr. Yang has more than 10,000 words on his site concerning the need to deal with Climate Change and the best methods to do so. I will, then, quote just these few as examples of real things that can be done, right now, that will help:
Research coastal communities that are likely to be impacted by rising sea levels and provide property owners with information about risks and options.
Make up to $40 billion available in subsidies, grants, and low-interest loans to individuals who wish to elevate or relocate their homes, or move to higher ground.
Help communities plan for rising sea levels with expertise and information.
Invest $30 billion in high-risk cities to build seawalls and water pumps, upgrade roads and sewer systems, and rejuvenate beaches to serve as barriers to rising sea levels.
I have confidence he can keep the planet in good enough shape to continue to support us for quite some time. Beyond that, I know that he is a “numbers guy.” He listens to the science, he uses facts and data, and he seeks the opinions of those who know more than he does to find solutions to the problems we face. You should check out his high tech ideas for combating climate change, including folding mirrors in space. How very Star Trek of him!
The Climate is only the first step to creating the world we all want.
Humanity First
The next step is to end poverty. This is simple to do. Buy it off. Everyone gets a basic income that guarantees them the bottom two bricks of Maslow’s pyramid. Our survival and safety needs are met. Before you start screaming Socialism, please understand that it is nothing of the sort. Socialism is when the government owns the means of production. This is what Mr. Yang calls “Capitalism that doesn’t begin at zero.” I want you to imagine what this would mean.
First, it all but ends homelessness. With Yang’s Freedom Dividend of $1000 a month, people can now get together to rent a house. There are more than 18 million vacant homes in America today. There are roughly 600 thousand homeless people. In short, we certainly have the room to house everyone. The facts can be found here:
It gives workers power that, at the moment, belongs to employers. Instead of working simply to survive, we’re now working to make things better for ourselves. We’re already surviving. If your boss is a prick, you can find another place to work without having to worry about making rent next month. Your Freedom Dividend has that covered for you. This will lead to better, higher paying jobs, complete with improved working conditions, because we’re no longer slaves to employers. We have the power the wealthy have worked so long to deny us.
Martin Luther King told us:
“The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance condensed into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper class until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.
The curse of poverty has no just of justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”
The only thing keeping us from a truly free world is the idea that money matters more than people. Yang’s slogan “Humanity First” is more than a catch phrase. It’s the simplest statement possible of the most powerful truth we all need to recognize.
We have heard Black Lives Matter. We heard the reply All Lives Matter. Both statements are true. I maintain that the life of the panhandler outside of Circle K matters precisely as much as yours, mine, Yang’s, Trump’s, and even more than my cat’s. (And I love my cat deeply.) We are all human beings. We are all here for a very brief time. We all have a human right to the best existence we can create for ourselves. And that existence should not be dependent on the whims of the wealthy.
I have no objection to someone being wealthy. It’s often a reward for hard work, innovation, courage, creativity, or simply good luck. I’m happy for the people who have wealth. I don’t ask that they sacrifice it on the Altar of The Poor.
But money is Freedom. The more one has, the more choices are available. Jeff Bezos can do, within the law, anything he wants at any time he chooses. The panhandler at Circle K can’t do much of anything at all. They occupy the far ends of the Economic Spectrum.
America has always been The Land of The Free. Freedom is the cornerstone of our country, and the desire for it is probably the last idea that still unites us. How we get there is the subject of endless debate, but we all agree that Freedom is an American value.
Aaron Sorkin put these words into the mouth of Jeff Daniels in the opening episode of “The Newsroom.” The scene is frequently called “The Best Three Minutes in Television History,” but only by people who never saw the whole scene. (You need at least 7 minutes to get the real value.)
“And with a straight face, you’re gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom! So, 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.”
And that’s a narrow definition of Freedom. It means, mostly, that you’re allowed, as John Mayer suggests, to “say what you need to say.” Governments have less and less problem with this idea all the time because they have successfully ensured that most of us now have the attention span of a rabbit on crack. “Go ahead and express your ideas,” they think. “No one’s going to pay attention to anything beyond what will fit on a meme or a bumper sticker. You’re no threat to us.” I believe they’re wrong. When poverty is eliminated, we’ll have more time to devote to ideas. Our attention spans will increase, and that will, by itself, add to our Freedom.
Freedom begins with the awareness of choices. I can’t choose to listen to an artist of whom I’ve never heard. I can’t read a book I don’t know exists. I can’t choose to express my ideas in a blog or a podcast if I haven’t heard of those media. With more of my time to focus, I can learn much more.
Freedom continues with the material means to fulfill your wishes. While I won’t try to argue that we should all have equal access to everything (I don’t really deserve a 3 million dollar mansion in Beverly Hills), it is beyond debate that everyone deserves the basics of survival. If we can be sure of survival, we can devote our minutes and our energies to the pursuits we believe will be of greatest benefit to ourselves, and to the world we all share.
A Freedom Dividend allows you to choose what to do with the money the government collects. Bureaucrats hire minimum wage workers to sit at computers pre-programmed with algorithms based on regulations passed by people who know nothing about the problems faced by people living in poverty. These workers tell the poor whether they deserve any help. They tell them how much. Then they take it away if the poor start doing any better, thus trapping them into an endless cycle of failure. A Freedom Dividend does precisely what its name suggests. It increases your Freedom, my Freedom, and the Freedom of everyone else in America. It makes us, for the first time, truly The Land of the Free.
Yang’s Freedom Dividend, including how we pay for it, can be found here:
Automation, as Mr. Yang has told us repeatedly, is going to change the world. The work of humans will be done, with greater speed and accuracy, by machines. This could spawn disaster or utopia. The last comment Stephen Hawking ever made publicly discussed this very idea:
“Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”
While technology seems to be a scourge because it is stealing jobs from human beings, it is, in fact, if properly applied, a benefit to humanity. We will be free from mundane, exhausting, and dangerous work.
Technology is here whether we like it or not. It’s the reason you can read this. It’s the reason you can hear it. It’s running your bank, your stores, your traffic lights, and most of your life. We can no more shut it down than we can turn off the sun or dry up the oceans. It’s up to us to make it work for us.
Imagine, again, robots who can clean up after us. They exist today. Wouldn’t it be incredible never to have to do the dishes again? How much would you love to have a machine to fold your clothes? We already have little robots running around doing the vacuuming.
The only question to answer is whether these will be readily available to everyone, or will they belong only to the rich? One way to ensure that all of us share in the benefits of technology is to give us all an economy that allows us to participate in the world. Yang’s Democracy Dollars would put $100 per year in the hands of every American to donate to any political campaign they wish, thereby removing the power of the wealthy to buy the elections and politicians who ensure the money stays with them. This will give us the chance to see the technology working for all of us instead of just The Few. These robots won’t make us lazy. They’ll make us free to use our minutes for the things we want to do instead of the things we have to do.
It’s time to recognize The Puritan Work Ethic is obsolete. Relaxing and enjoying life doesn’t qualify a person as evil. We simply don’t have to work as hard as we once did. Our lives are no longer necessarily dependent upon our labor. We are finally, after 200,000 years, becoming free.
An Improving Economy
With poverty vanquished, people have money to spend in their local economies. Small businesses prosper. The money we all have speeds through the economy. The Velocity of Money is a measurement of how many times money changes hands in the course of a given time. If, for example, someone spends $10 at the local market, and the owner of the market spends the $10 at the local restaurant, and the owner of the restaurant spends it at the movie theater, that $10 bought $30 worth of goods and services. It provided 3 times its value to the economy. It will often do much more. And the more money we put into the economy, the more it will grow. This will mean more jobs, better pay, improved working conditions, better family relationships, and decreases in both domestic violence and suicide. It will quite likely reduce crime. When desperation dries up, much of crime evaporates along with it. We become safer.
This is an opportunity for us to produce, to quote Mr. Sorkin again, “the world’s greatest artists AND the world’s greatest economy.”
Why will we be able to do this? We will have the time. We will be freer than we’ve ever been before. Instead of struggling through mundane tasks that leave us as exhausted as they do unfulfilled, we are spending our lives doing the things we most want to do. We are making meaningful lives for ourselves. We are living for more than survival.
The Ideal World
Imagine with me now the world in this kind of economy.
Let’s use our friends from one of my earlier posts and podcasts, Sylvia and Christina, a pair of young women living together to save money, as examples of the possibilities available to residents of our Brave New World. They both have jobs that pay more than minimum wage, but neither of them can really survive alone with that money in this Cowering Old World. Now… let’s give them the Freedom Dividend.
The rent on their two bedroom apartment is $1400 a month. With their Freedom Dividends, their rent is paid, and they have $600 a month left. That pays for their food. All of the rest of the money they make can now go to paying off the car, going out to dinner once in a while, perhaps taking a vacation now and then, and paying all of the other bills they face: car insurance, cell phones, utilities, school loans, gas in the car, child care, and, of course, health insurance. Yang has a powerful plan for healthcare as well. It doesn’t go as far as I would like, but it’s a step in the right direction. You can find it here:
The girls move closer to fulfilling lives instead of simple survival. And when they spend their Freedom Dividend, they’re increasing the Freedom of those who earn the money the girls pay.
That’s the immediate future. But, what about the more distant time when this is a normal part of existence?
We can create a world where automation is a friend instead of an enemy. Most human tasks are given to robots of one sort or another. There is less need for physical labor, and greater need for creativity, thought, Art, Philosophy, Science, and Spirituality. Our world is thriving. Our minds are expanding. Our hearts are embracing the diversity that makes anything possible in this world. Human potential becomes limitless.
Donald Fagen said it best:
“What a beautiful world this will be What a glorious time to be free
On that train all graphite and glitter Undersea by rail Ninety minutes from New York to Paris (More leisure for artists everywhere) A just machine to make big decisions Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision We’ll be clean when their work is done We’ll be eternally free yes and eternally young”
Is that too optimistic? Perhaps. But I agree with John Lennon:
“You, you may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you will join us And the world will be as one”
Emily Dickinson’s little bird could tell us that Andrew Yang can lead us to a kinder, more compassionate, and more unified world. When poverty is gone, cooperation will be more important than competition. Hope, which is the seed of Love, will grow like weeds when life is free from desperation. And Love will save the world.
Andrew Yang ended his book, The War on Normal People, with these words:
“Through all of the doubt, the cynicism, the ridicule, the hatred and anger, we must fight for the world that is still possible. Imagine it in our hearts and minds and fight for it. With all of our hearts and spirits. As hands reach out, clutching at our arms, take them and pull them along. Fight through the whipping branches of selfishness and despair and resignation. Fight for each other like our souls depend on it. Climb to the hilltop and tell others behind us what we see. What do you see? And build a society we want on the other side… get up, it’s time to go. What makes you human? The better world is still possible . Come fight with me.”
Let’s begin our fight for our Brave New World by electing Andrew Yang President of the United States.
Did you know that if you had a billion dollars, you could spend a dollar a minute, every minute of every day of every week of every month of every year for the next 1900 years? I looked it up. It’s much different from being a millionaire. If you’re a millionaire, you could do the same thing, but for less than 2 years. To possess a billion dollars, then, is to have more money than you could likely spend in 19 lifetimes. It’s more than enough for you and the next 18 generations of your family to be certain it’s unnecessary ever to do a minute of paid labor of any sort. You are as financially free as anyone could ever want to be.
That’s great, Fred, but what’s immoral about that?
When a person has more than he can possibly use, it seems to me, that person has an obligation to the rest of the world that has made this possible for him (or her). There are those who have recognized this, and I admire them for it. J.K. Rowling gave up her status as a billionaire by donating more than $150,000,000 to charity. She’s helping to improve the world. Good for her. Good for any billionaire who does what she does. Bill and Melinda Gates are also to be congratulated. But… here’s the thing: we still have homelessness.
But, the homeless didn’t earn their money. Why should those who worked hard and earned money be required to help the lazy?
“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”
— Abraham Lincoln
It’s true, I suppose, that billionaires have toiled and worked to earn bread, and that the poor and homeless are eating it, but the slaves are the poor, not the wealthy and the powerful. It has always been so. It will always be so.
When you have more than you need, you can help others without hurting yourself. To fail to help is, to me, unwarranted selfishness. I have been the fortunate recipient of more help from my friends and family than I have deserved, and each time someone else reduced, by a not insignificant amount, their ability to do things for themselves because they did things for me. This is what it means to be a decent human being. It is the recognition that others are as important as you are. It is an understanding that each person’s suffering is, to some extent, your own. It is an understanding of what John Donne told us all those years ago:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
It’s estimated that Jeff Bezos is worth more than $115 billion. What does this mean? It means that he could spend enough, every minute, to send my roommates and me to Outback for dinner. And he could keep doing it for 1.9 millennia. We can do this, ourselves, perhaps 3 times a year.
It’s estimated homelessness can be abolished for 20 billion dollars. Bezos has the money to do this 5 times over, and he would still have enough to spend $15 a minute until the year 3920.
I don’t expect people to hurt themselves to help others. But, I really don’t see how Mr. Bezos could possibly be hurt by helping millions of people. I don’t know why Mark Zuckerberg, or Bill Gates, or any of a host of others don’t end world hunger, end poverty, and end homelessness all by themselves. If you can do good, and you can do so without endangering yourself, how is it possible to choose not to do it?
Forbes claims there are 607 billionaires in the United States right now, with a combined worth of 3.111 trillion dollars.
Yes, Fred, but those people did something extraordinary to earn that money. You have no right to demand they give it away.
“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.” – Adrian Rogers
I agree with Mr. Rogers to the extent that it’s wrong for one person to work for something without receiving the benefits of his labor. Where I disagree is how much that labor is really worth. In most cases, I think the labor is worth much more than it is paid. In many fewer cases, I believe the labor is unimaginably over priced.
I congratulate Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates for their accomplishments. I am grateful to them for the things they did. They absolutely deserve wealth for their contributions to the world. But… THAT much wealth? They have (or had) more money than they could ever spend. It becomes pointless to have more. There’s nothing more for them to do with it. They can already buy anything they want at any moment in time. They’re never going to worry about having enough for a pack of cigarettes, let alone paying rent, or going out for an evening’s entertainment. I don’t deny they deserve that. I’m happy to contribute to that. Again, they earned it.
But… when you have more than you could spend in 19 lifetimes, it seems to me that one is simply a dragon hording his treasure. It may be yours, but it doesn’t serve you in any way. It could be serving a much higher purpose than adding to itself. If you leave a billion dollars in an average savings account, doing absolutely nothing, you get 2,000,000 a year in interest. It’s just sitting there. It’s not buying anything. It’s not adding to the economy. And you get 2,000,000 for absolutely nothing. Jeff Bezos could have more than a hundred such accounts. That’s 200 million dollars a year for… what exactly?
It’s not their job to take care of the citizens. It’s the job of the government.
I agree. As I have written many times before, to the extent that any civilization includes homelessness, poverty, hunger, a lack of education, or insufficient medical care for all of its citizens, that civilization is a failure. It’s my opinion we should have been doing something about this 40 years ago. Instead of the clearly failed “Trickle Down Economics,” that increased the already, even then, widening Income Inequality, we should have been spending the money to make sure everyone had a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, schools to attend, and the healthcare they needed. I believe we should be doing much better at this by now. The government has the primary responsibility. But, many people will disagree with me on this. That is an argument for a different essay.
This is not political. It’s personal.
The fact that people with this kind of power allow homelessness to exist is simply wrong. There is no alternative case that I can see. If you can make a convincing one, I would love to hear or read it.
They allow these things to exist in the world, when, with no significant effort, they could end them.
I can’t save these children.
I can’t give this man a place to sleep.
I can’t get these kids a washer and dryer or a home in which to connect those appliances.
All of this suffering is going on, right now, today, this very minute, and any billionaire could end it simply by deciding to do so. Failure to do so is immoral. What right have you to more than you could ever possibly need when others will never have enough to be sure that they will have a place to live next week? It doesn’t matter to me whether you earned it by saving the world or by enslaving your employees. You are equally morally bound in either case.
When you are willing to recognize this old man’s right to exist is precisely equal to your right to exist, that his suffering is unnecessary, and that we should value him as highly as Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the rest, you will have begun to be morally enlightened, assuming you’re not already so. When the billionaires take positive action to end suffering, they will have erased my contempt, and they will have earned my gratitude and admiration.
Until then, being a Billionaire is Inherently Immoral.
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…” – Charles Dickens
“I need to remember this…” – Don Henley
My world was filled with both joys and sorrows this year, as, I suspect, was yours. I lost a dog to death, and a friend to politics. I was forced to trade a big backyard for a small covered patio. I found encouragement and courage from those who love and support me. They made it possible for me to begin a new chapter in my life I had never before considered. If you had told me in 2018 that by the end of 2019 more than 2,500 strangers would read my work, I would have asked what you were smoking, and if I could have some please. If someone had suggested I would have a podcast that would get played more than 500 times, I would have thought they were selling something. I was wrong.
So let me, as Mr. Henley suggests, “offer up my best defense.”
I learned this year. My Idealism has come into sharper focus than ever before, because I keep writing and talking about it. I have a clearer vision of the world I want to see. I don’t know the logistics. Perhaps I will by this time next year, but I doubt it. I have friends, though, who have ideas about this, and perhaps I can learn a bit from them.
I read several dozen books this year. I’ve been all through time and space in the last 365 days. I spent moments with people both admirable and horrible, and I learned from their experiences. I shared their joys and sorrows, and they became mine. I made friends, both fictional and living, this year. They’ve expanded my horizons and my heart.
I have been the fortunate recipient of unwarranted love, and I have encountered unthinking hatred. I found greater love for myself, and from my cats. I became a Cat Person this year.
I have seen my country’s constitution attacked, viciously and repeatedly by some, and then bravely defended by others. I’ve seen Freedom threatened, and I’ve seen Liberty fight back. I continue to hope.
I don’t know what the coming year will bring, but I will help, in my tiny way, to make it a world more interested in humanity than in money, more concerned with finding cooperation in love than in fighting in hatred, and more tolerant of, and, delighting in, our differences.
I hope that both you and I can grow this year. I hope we share ideas, aspirations, fears, and triumphs with each other. I hope we understand one another just a little better.
In 2019, “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” – Maya Angelou
“Let us go then, you and I” into this New Year. I wish you health and happiness. Live long and prosper.
Christmas Time is here. Regardless of your beliefs, the holiday season is a Time to Love. Many people are unhappy with each other today. We are a deeply divided country. We are angry. We are, ourselves, hurting, and we are hurting each other. And that’s a part of the reality of our time.
The Beauty of Christmas is that it’s an opportunity to step away from reality. In the New Year, we can return to hating one another. We can return to accusations and denials. For just a few days, though, let’s turn our attention elsewhere.
Let’s remember that we really are one people. We are all sharing this rock hurtling through space. We all love someone. (Except Tom Riddle; he is incapable of love… but that’s another story.) We are, I hope, all loved by someone. If you feel unloved, I’m here to tell you that I love your existence.
Whether we disagree about everything is irrelevant. What matters is that you’re a human life. You have your own spark of divine light. You have your own unique heart. You have value because you’re a member of my species. Your contributions to the world aren’t finished yet. Your kindness to others can continue to make a difference. I am honestly glad you’re on the planet. I would like to walk with you a little farther, perhaps to the next bend in the road where our paths must, like two roads in a yellow wood, diverge. I’ll be taking the road less travelled by.
The season is a chance to pause, just for a day or two, and reflect on the joys we still have in life. I have more than my share: I have cats who tolerate me, and one of them cuddles with me almost nightly. I have people who love and support me. I have a voice to which a few people listen from time to time. And, most of all, I have the time and the ability to do the things I want to do. That’s the greatest gift a person can have. I need no others.
We give gifts because The Magi began the tradition more than 2000 years ago. It’s a means of sacrificing something of ours to bring joy to someone else. Gift giving is, itself, an act of love. Gift giving is a part of the traditions of nearly every culture this time of year. Giving gifts means being, in some way, with someone we love. This season is, in fact, a Time To Love.
This is the time to ask yourself what gifts you have. I promise if you dig deep enough, there are more than you think. Find them. Proclaim them. Love them.
Christmas is a time of Magic. There must be something in the air at the Solstice that causes a strange change to come over all of us. Complete strangers wish each other “Merry Christmas” or some version of “Happy Holidays.” Charities are swamped with donor and volunteers. Forgiveness comes more easily. There seems to be a universal agreement that, at Christmas, love and kindness rule the day.
We believe, in our own ways, in the magic of Santa Claus. NORAD tracks his progress every year. Children watch the skies. Adults still listen for the reindeer’s broken bell ringing in the early morning hours. Some of us can actually hear it, even now.
We believe in the beauty of the magical birth, on that Holy Night, of a child who would change the world. We lie in the hay, with the babe in the manger, seeing unimagined possibilities and unlimited potential at the beginning of this life, and, indeed, of any life. We are all, with the baby Jesus, innocent and loved.
“Every year when I was little, Daddy told me a story about The Great War; how on Christmas Eve an English soldier started singing Silent Night, and from the other side of the trenches, the German soldiers joined in. And then they crossed the enemy lines and vowed not to fight each other the next day. But the sun rose, and their commanders told them to charge, and they did. I don’t know why that story makes me feel hopeful. Maybe it’s that good will exists, even if it’s small and weak. There’s a chance it may grow up one day.” – Lily Harper, “I’ll Fly Away”
There’s nothing supernatural about this magic. I maintain it is the magic of love that helps us to illuminate together the lantern in our lighthouse, guiding one another away from the swirling, foaming Ocean of Inequality and toward the Ideal World. I don’t know why that fact makes me feel hopeful. Maybe it’s that, even if it’s for only one day, there’s a chance it could extend a little farther, and we can walk just a little farther together, until finally, Love becomes the world’s beacon, and we all grow up one day.
I wish you love and joy in whatever holiday you celebrate. Take this time to reflect on, and in, Peace on Earth, and good will toward all living things.
There was a time when facts and evidence were all that were necessary to convince people of something. Most of you are willing to accept the fact that the Earth is round, more than 6,000 years old, and orbits the Sun, without objections. These facts don’t contradict any part of your identity, and they are not subject to the Dunning – Kruger effect. This is the idea that when we know a little about something, we believe we know all about it. We’re not smart enough to know we’re not smart enough to get it. Most of us know enough about astronomy to know we know very little.
An example of the Dunning – Kruger effect I saw recently involved a comparison between two photographers. One had just begun taking pictures. He believes he knows about 90% of what there is to know about photography, although he knows less than 20%. The other has been a photographer for 7 years. He has learned enough to realize there is much more to know about photography. He feels he knows about 70% of what there is to know, and his estimate is probably correct.
Those who don’t know enough to know there’s a lot more to know are difficult to persuade of any new ideas. They believe they already have it all worked out. If, for example, you honestly believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old, it’s unlikely that even an astronomer or geologist could convince you of the facts. The more one learns, the more one realizes how much more there really is TO learn.
Socrates said, “All I know is I know nothing.” That, for me, is the beginning of wisdom.
In The Information Age, where we can look up nearly any fact in only a few seconds using our phones, we can learn more quickly and easily than ever before. There’s certainly something on Google that will give you superficial answers, and if you dig more deeply, you can learn more. There are 200 million active websites in the world. One of them will have the information you seek.
Why is it that so many people believe things that are simply untrue?
I’ll give you an example from last week. There was yet another debate on the Facebook page of a friend of mine, this time concerning impeachment. One of my friends made the claim that the entire phone call that is the basis of the impeachment was a fake invented by Adam Schiff in order to attack the President.
The evidence of the authenticity of the President’s phone call to Ukraine is so easily found in a Google search that it’s almost impossible to miss. The White House released a transcript of the call. Whether it’s complete, or accurate, is certainly open to debate, but the fact that it occurred is something even Republicans and Trump, himself, admit. But, my friend had heard this from “someone,” and she believed it. I never convinced her otherwise. She doesn’t know enough, yet, to realize how much she doesn’t know. And her unwillingness to believe facts presented to her makes it almost certain she will never know more than she does now.
“Education is man’s going forward from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.” – K. Johnson
Now, if this were just an isolated example, I could offer my sympathy, and I could let it go. But this is frighteningly common. I have any number of friends who are convinced that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election, even after that story has been debunked, repeatedly, and particularly by Fiona Hill, who knows much more about it than most people do. She’s an expert in the field, who tells us the story is Russian propaganda. My friends believe these things because they are repeated by Republicans, who we expect to tell the truth. The Republicans are lying, however, and even though the evidence is against them, they’ll repeat the lie so often that, in time, enough people will believe it to do them some good.
And now we come to the point. President Trump has been impeached.
Mitch McConnell recently announced that there is no way the President will be removed from office. As the Majority Leader in the Senate, he almost certainly has the power to ensure that outcome. Lindsey Graham has proudly proclaimed he has no interest in being a fair juror. He’s already made up his mind before the trial has begun. Neither of these men would be allowed to serve on any normal jury if they had made such public pronouncements. But, in 2019, in the United State Congress, it’s perfectly acceptable. Why?
The fact is that those who support Trump know only what they want to know. They easily brush away inconvenient facts by proclaiming them to be “fake news,” following the example of their cult leader. They see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. And anything less than positive reported about the President is to be considered evil.
Many of my friends are Trump supporters. These are good and moral people. They care about my welfare, and the well-being of others. And now they are more than willing to overlook “Grab em by the pussy!” They can ignore the evidence of corruption found in his charity defrauding children suffering from cancer of millions of dollars. The fact that Trump admitted it in Court does nothing to convince them of the truth of the story, or they will simply ignore it. They tell me it was okay for President Trump to tell Representative Dingell’s wife that her late husband might well be burning in Hell. It was only a joke, they tell me.
They point to all the good things he has done for the country. We have the lowest unemployment in many years. The GDP is up. These, they tell me, are good things. Never mind that many people are working two or three of these jobs in an effort to make ends meet. So what if 78% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck? What does it matter if life expectancy is falling? Children in cages are the responsibility of their horrible parents who put them in that position in the first place. They should have stayed in their own countries. They are welcome here, but they must come legally.
Many of these are statements made by low information voters. Contradictions to those statements are easily found on the internet on any number of reputable sites. And, that, of course, is the second problem.
The Love of Alternative Facts
We’ve decided that only sites we like are reputable. We’ve decided CNN and The Washington Post, MSNBC, The New York Times, and even the news divisions of CBS, NBC, and ABC are not to be believed. Even Fox News is becoming unacceptable from the point of view of a Trump supporter.
We must all recognize there is much we don’t know. We must know enough to know that. And then, we must put aside confirmation bias and the Dunning – Kruger effect, and find the facts. Why? Just because some liberal told you to? No.
Our country is teetering on the edge of dictatorship. That the President behaved unethically and immorally is beyond dispute. Even the Republicans don’t try to debate the facts. They are right there in the transcript released by the White House. Republicans complain about the process, but Democrats have granted their every request in the Impeachment Inquiry. The President has been invited to participate, but has both declined to do so, and said he’s being denied due process at the same time. That’s the sort of pretzel logic that Trump supporters are willing to accept because of their devotion to Dear Leader.
The President Must Be Removed
If we allow the President to involve a foreign country, in any way, in the outcome of our elections, the heart of democracy will have been cut out of the body politic. If our elections are not only for sale to the highest bidder, and if we’re allowing foreign countries to attend the auction, or worse, we extort their cooperation in seeking dirt on our opponents, we have no country left. We will become a dictatorship.
That’s not hysterical hyperbole; it’s a statement of fact.
The Republican Senate has already publicly proclaimed there will not be a fair trial. The question facing us now is simple. Are we willing to lie down quietly and watch our democracy evaporate? I, for one, am not.
If you believe it’s appropriate for the trial to be decided before it’s begun, then by all means, leave me a comment and explain your reasoning. I beseech you not to engage in Whataboutism. If your claim is that it’s okay because of the way the Democrats in The House handled the inquiry, you have no argument. Why not? One of two things is true.
If they had a show trial, ignored evidence, and had decided the outcome before the inquiry began, and you believe that to be bad, then you can’t defend the Senate doing the same thing. If it was wrong for The House, it’s wrong for The Senate. Whataboutism doesn’t fly.
or….
2. If The House handled it properly, but the evidence is unconvincing, then a fair trial in the Senate is imperative. This means considering all the evidence, and that means allowing the Democrats to call witnesses who have direct knowledge of the events. It’s not that The House did sloppy work; it’s that they were denied witnesses and documents they subpoenaed.
In either case, a fair trial is necessary. Without it, we will have set the precedent that any President can do as he pleases so long as his party holds a majority in either The House of Representatives or The Senate. If you have The House, you’ll never be impeached in the first place. If you have The Senate, your impeachment can generate nothing more than a show trial, with a predetermined outcome.
If your argument is that we are ignoring the votes of 63 million Americans, I would remind you that the same Constitution that provides for impeachment also provides for the Electoral College that made it possible to ignore the votes of 66 million people who voted for his opponent.
My roommate and I attended an Impeachment Rally this week. It’s the little I can do to attempt to change the world. I hope these words help to make a tiny difference in the world, too.
I rarely ask my readers to do anything, but this is an exception. Please let your Senators know that a fair trial is of paramount importance to you. The survival of the last, best hope for a free world depends on it.
I know that there are many writers and podcasters who have a massive following. I know they make a living doing what they do, and that they change people’s minds about ideas. I have respect for them. I believe what they are doing is important. It can make a difference. I, however, like my quiet anonymity on my little Front Porch. My podcast, “The Front Porch Podcast” has an estimated audience of, I believe, 15 right now. While that’s embarrassing for many, it’s really the way I like to envision it. It’s just me talking to a few folks. If you’d like to join them, I have 18 or 19 episodes up as of this writing, and you can find them here:
I believe I lost one of the few fans my podcast has today. And that’s a shame, but it is probably also my fault.
He believes I share too much of who I am, and it makes me appear too flawed. I don’t deny my flaws. In fact, I’m rather fond of them. He believed I had the potential to be a sort of cultural warrior. I don’t believe I do.
The following was the last of my writing he read. I’m posting it here to make it less likely that I misrepresent myself in the future.
Dear Listener
I never saw myself as a warrior. I’m more of a Vulcan than a Klingon.
I have no shame about who I am. I do have some pride in it. My experiences have shaped me into who I am.
How I learned what I learned is relevant to understanding both it, and why I believe it.
I don’t mind admitting that Captain Kirk began shaping who I became when I was 4 or 5 years old. I think it’s important to recognize both the power and value of Art.
Religion and Art
Where most people have religion, I have Art.
Religion has 3 main functions:
1. To answer questions we can’t answer by traditional means. What happens after I die tends to be high on the list.
2. To give one a moral code. This is good. That is bad. Nearly every religion will decide those things for you.
3. To offer comfort. Religion is lovely when someone dies. The idea that my father is in a better place would bring me comfort if I could believe it.
Art does the same things.
1. It answers questions that can’t be answered in traditional ways. One thing that I am fairly certain that will happen after I die is that the Art I have created will live on. Maybe only for a day or so, but it would continue to touch people.
It also gives me some beautiful ideas about what happens when we die. I don’t know that any of them are right, but it’s still nice to think about.
2. It provides a moral code. I learned my morality by learning to empathize with fictional characters. I have wept when Tom Robinson was convicted, and I have cheered when Sherlock Holmes caught Dr. Roylott. No one wrote me a set of rules. They showed me in books and movies and paintings and music and dance.
3. I find my comfort in Art. When Spock died, Dr. McCoy said, “He’s never really dead… as long as we remember him.” I understand that feeling.
Hemingway told me, “Man is not made for defeat; a man can be destroyed, but not defeated.”
Being Human
If I am open about who I am, I make myself more human. I am at least as flawed as anyone else. I am nothing special. I just believe some things about the world, and I hope I can get a couple more people to share the idea that homelessness, poverty, and hunger are failures of civilization. I would like people to believe that Us vs. Them is a bad idea. There is no Them. We are all Us.
If I can get a few more people to consider those ideas, that’s enough for me.
I don’t want to shout in a stadium… ever. I want to talk quietly on my Front Porch with anyone who cares to listen.
As
I write this, near the end of November, 2019, it is almost certain
that President Trump is going to be impeached. It’s important to
know when I’m writing this, because I would like it to live longer
than this week. Its historic value, at least to me, is enhanced by
understanding the context in which it was written.
For
my readers who don’t follow the news closely, here is where we
currently are.
On July 25, 2019, President Trump called the President of Ukraine. During that call, we know President Trump asked Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to investigate Trump’s Presidential Rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, to determine if they had committed corrupt acts. The entire call is in this link.
The
relevant parts of the conversation, quoted from the document Trump
declassified on September 24, 2019, are these:
President
Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country
has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like
you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine,
they say Crowdstrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy
people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of
things that went on, the whole situation … I think you’re
surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to
have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like
you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole
nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert
Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started
with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it
if that’s possible…
Mr.
Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor bf New York
City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him
to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows
what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to
him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United
States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with
in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The
other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden
stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about
that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.
Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you
·can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.
This
is clearly a request for the Ukrainian President to investigate
Trump’s political opponent. The woman to whom Trump refers is Marie
Yovanovitch. She later testified in front of Congress. She was a
United States Ambassador under 3 different presidents, both
Republican and Democrat, before she was smeared by several people and
removed by the President. She is an expert on Ukraine.
At the
same time that the President was asking Zelenskyy for help, Trump was
holding up sending nearly $400 million of military funding to
Ukraine.
The
accusation, which began when an unidentified Whistle-blower reported
the call, is that President Trump misused his Presidential power to
gain a purely political benefit for himself, while disregarding what
is best for the country. He was, in effect, bribing Ukraine to get
dirt on his political opponent. This brought the Latin term “quid
pro quo” to the forefront of the American lexicon for a couple of
weeks. The term means, simply, “This for that.” Was the
President holding up desperately needed money that Congress approved
for Ukraine to fight its war with Russia until Ukraine announced it
was investigating Biden and the possibility that it was Ukraine, and
not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election? The President has
said repeatedly there was “no quid pro quo.” His Chief of Staff,
Mick Mulvaney, said publicly that there was, but it was a common
technique used in foreign policy, and that everyone should “get
over it.” Mulvaney walked that statement back a few hours later.
As
of this writing, Congress has produced a dozen witnesses, including
Ambassador Yovanovitch, testifying on national television about what
happened. They corroborate the Whistle-blower’s account sufficiently
that the Democrats are not calling him (or her) to testify.
Republicans want to know who the Whistle-blower is. They want him or
her to testify.
Preliminarily,
Republicans attacked the process of the impeachment. They said it
was unfair that it took place behind closed doors, and without
Republican representation in the room. There were, however, more
than 40 Republicans present in the closed door hearings, and the
hearings subsequently were broadcast to the American people.
Mr
Trump denies using US military aid as a bargaining chip with Mr
Zelenskyy and has repeatedly insisted his call with Ukraine’s leader
was “perfect.”
He
has called the impeachment inquiry a “witch hunt” by
Democrats and elements of the media.
The current
Republican defense comes in three parts:
– Ukraine’s
president said he felt no pressure
– The Ukrainians were unaware the aid was held back
– Us Military Aid was eventually released
The entire article from which the above was quoted appears here:
It’s important,
also, to understand that impeachment doesn’t necessarily mean the
President will be removed from office. First, the House of
Representatives must write Articles of Impeachment, in which they lay
out the reasons they believe the President should be removed from
office. Next, there must be a trial in the Senate, presided over by
the Chief Justice of The Supreme Court, and 2/3 of the Senate (67
people) must vote to remove him from office. As this would require
more than 20 Republican votes, it is unlikely, at this moment, that
the President will be removed from office.
My
Opinion
Whether a President should be impeached or not has nothing to do with how good the President is. The point of impeachment is to prevent any president from abusing the office. The same standards must apply to all Presidents. If JFK or FDR or any of my heroes, whose policies I liked, abused the power of their offices, I would still support impeaching them. If my current hero, Andrew Yang, were elected, and he fulfilled every one of his promises, and then he asked a foreign government to help him get reelected, I would want him impeached. It’s not whether we like the President. It’s whether his behavior warrants impeachment. There is debate on that issue. There are many different opinions. We’ll get to those next.
Opinions are not all equally valuable.
I would hope we
can all agree on that. This doesn’t mean everyone is not entitled to
one, but they’re not entitled to have me take it seriously. Let me
explain.
If I woke up this
morning, and went out to my car, and it failed to start, I could ask
either my doctor or my mechanic for an opinion about this problem.
My doctor is a very intelligent man. He knows much more than I do
about many, many things. But, he isn’t really the person I want to
ask. I would rather have the opinion of my mechanic. He knows more
about cars than my doctor.
If, at the same
time, I woke up feeling sick, I would value my doctor’s opinion much
more than I would my mechanic’s on the issue of my health. I would
think this would be obvious.
But, I’m expected
to grant the same weight to the opinions of those who know nothing
about climate science as I am to those who have studied it for a
lifetime? I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I recognize there are
a nearly infinite number of things I don’t know, but others do. I
will listen to those in the best position to have an opinion. That
will be those who know the most about it.
My roommate
showed me an article on Facebook last week about a family that had
the difficult problem of a child who was born male but desperately
needed to be female. The family did what I would do in such a case.
They sought the informed opinions of experts on the issue. Is this
just a phase? Is this something out of which the child will grow?
Is it a serious issue? How do I know? They sought the answers to
these, and a host of other equally important questions, from those
who know more than they do. No one knows their child better than
they do, but they may certainly know more about the child’s
condition. The information is available. It’s a matter of finding
it, and from a reliable source.
And now we come to the point:
H.G. Wells
“Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe.” –H.G. Wells
Our
bizarre idea that all opinions are to be treated equally is putting
us way behind in the race.
The
Impeachment Inquires, and the reactions of people to them, have
brought this fact into stark relief. Fiona Hill, an Ambassador with
decades of experience, who has studied Russia most of her life, and
who has written a book about Putin told us, “Based
on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this
committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did
not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps,
somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative
that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security
services themselves.”
And
yet, we are to reject her analysis of the situation as “just her
opinion,” and take equally seriously the idea that Ukraine
interfered with our elections because the President and Republicans
have said they did. There is no credible evidence backing this
claim. The Soviet Union has perpetrated this fraud on the American
public, and Americans are helping it along.
We
have all of our Intelligence Agencies telling us that Russia is
responsible. We have experts telling us as much. And, because of
ideology, many reject the opinions of experts. And this is
dangerous.
We can’t know everything. We can, however, as a collective, listen to those who know more than we do. The opinions of Fiona Hill and the United States Intelligence Community are more reliable than unverified claims made by those who have a significant reason to lie to us. This isn’t a question of liberal bias. It’s a question of recognizing our own limitations, and then seeking to fill the gaps in our knowledge in the most reasonable ways.
I am beginning to believe we are no longer going to be America.
I
believe we may already have been defeated by Putin, and he did it
without ever firing a shot. He got a stooge in office, and he has
used him to continue to divide the country, making us weaker all the
time. A house divided cannot stand. I have made an extraordinary
claim. I must, therefore, provide extraordinary evidence.
First,
the Ukraine Scandal benefits Russia.
As
Dr. Hill told us:
“The
goal of the Russians was really to put whoever became the president,
by trying to tip their hands on one side of the scale, under a cloud.
So if secretary, former first lady, former senator Clinton had been
elected as president, as indeed many expected in the run-up to the
election in 2016, she too would have had major questions about her
legitimacy. And I think that what we’re seeing here as a result of
all these narratives, this is exactly what the Russian government was
hoping for.”
Next,
we have at least 2 dozen examples of Trump being irrationally
friendly to Russia. Here are just 7 of them.
We
know the Russians interfered in our elections in order to get the
President elected. Whether President Trump invited their help is
open to question. He undoubtedly benefited from it.
He
stood next to Putin and told the world that, even though the United
States Intelligence Community said Russia interfered, he couldn’t
see why it would be Russia.
Trump
hired Paul Manafort, who has worked on behalf of pro-Russia
politicians, to be his campaign manager.
President
Trump blocked language in the GOP Campaign Platform that included
sending lethal aid to Ukraine in their battle against Russia. He
did, however, wind up giving the aid to Ukraine.
Trump
has defended Putin for being a killer, asking if the reporter
questioning him believed America was so innocent of killings. (This
is called Whataboutism.)
Trump
repeats Russian misinformation, or lies, about what happened in
2016.
Pulling
out of Syria gave Putin an advantage. Turkey could move freely, and
Putin took control of our military bases without any effort. He
didn’t ever offer to pay rent.
What
is there, still, that Putin could want in order to be in control of
our country? He has a President who does what Putin asks.
Does anyone need to reminded that Russia is the enemy? Do we need to remember that Putin kills journalists and others who are in his way? Is there a reason we need to cozy up to them? Don’t they represent everything America opposes? I thought we all agreed Communism was a bad idea. I know that Russia is technically a Republic, but a Republic is not led by a dictator. Putin is a dictator. It was less than 70 years ago that the Republicans led the charge against anyone even suspected of being connected to Russia. What happened?? (Yes… they were way over the top during McCarthy, but that’s not really the point.)
My Opinion
I
don’t expect anyone to pay attention to my opinions. I have no
particular expertise. All I can do is read, listen, and pay
attention. I can fact check. I’m not concerned with you agreeing
with my opinion. I’m concerned with you considering your own.
I
base my ideas on the opinions of those in the best position to be
well informed. I want to find those whose motivation to lie is
minimal, and who have spent more time learning from experience than
from reading Breitbart. There’s nothing evil about actually learning
something. A degree doesn’t make you an elitist. It makes you
someone who has opened a book.
In
these times, the myth that all opinions are equal is actually
dangerous. We are on the brink of being effectively taken over by a
dictator. Our own politicians are spreading lies perpetrated by
Russia in order to keep power. If we choose to believe that it’s as
likely as not that Ukraine interfered instead of Russia, we’re likely
to make dangerous decisions.
I
don’t know the Earth is round from my personal experience. I’ve
never left the planet to be able to see it for myself. I do,
however, know
the Earth is round because people who have studied it have shown that
to be true repeatedly for the last couple of millennia. My opinion
about the shape of the Earth is based upon the best information
available.
My opinion that we are being, or have been, conquered by Russia is also based on the best information available. I’m hearing from experts that Russia, not Ukraine, interfered in our elections. I know this because 17 US Intelligence Agencies have told me so. I know because Fiona Hill told me so.
The Danger of Propaganda
A propaganda poster from the Soviet Union in the 1920s
When
people continue the myth that it was Ukraine, they are doing the
Russians’ work for them. Foreign powers interfering in our elections
is bad enough; getting assistance from our leaders is intolerable.
When we pretend that all opinions are of equal value, we forfeit our
ability to decide anything intelligently. Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes
repeat the Ukrainian Interference Myth as though it were a mantra. A
Republican Senator, John Kennedy (no, not the President… he’s
actually dead… I also know this, thank you), said that nobody knows
whether it was Russia or Ukraine who interfered.
“I
don’t know, nor do you, nor do any of us,” Kennedy said. “Ms.
Hill is entitled to her opinion.”
No!
We have facts. Facts lead us to conclusions. We sacrifice our
judgment at the price of our freedom. This will not do.
America
is facing an existential crisis unlike any we have ever considered.
We are being overthrown by our own voters who are being deceived by
leaders who repeat what they know to be Russian lies.
We
can stop that from happening, or not. If we choose not to do so, we
will have lost the race between education and catastrophe. We will
lose the Freedom that is at the heart of being American. If we agree
on nothing else, can we at least agree that Freedom is worth
defending with our votes, if not our very lives?
There
are many bad things to be said about Social Media. It is often used
to propagate lies, to misinform people, to divide our country, and to
avoid meaningful conversation. I deny none of its evils. I am aware
of them all, and I deplore them.
For
all that, it’s also nearly all of my social life. I think the more
of a physical
social life one has, the less of an online social life that person is
likely to have. I have friends whose online presence is limited to
pictures they post, or in which others tag them, at social events.
They’re at weddings, birthday parties, and anywhere else that there
are large groups of people. And, in their pictures, you can see that
they are not only comfortable, they are often radiant in their joy at
being in the company of others. I’m happy as can be for them. I
like to see my friends enjoying their lives. Sadly for me, they’re
not spending much time online, so I get to interact with them much
less than I would like. Some of those people are among my favorites.
It makes me a little sad that we can’t be closer.
Those
who have a larger online presence tend to have fewer photographs of
themselves at social events. You will rarely see such pictures of
me. I don’t feel comfortable in the presence of other people. I’m
told this may put me somewhere on the Autism spectrum. I don’t deny
it, but I can’t prove it.
If
I’m at a social event, there must be emotionally powerful music
playing, or the event was essential to a loved one. I’m hoping to
leave the house next week to celebrate my birthday, and the birthday
of my best friend, two weeks late. It will be the only social event
I have attended in 2019. I don’t see myself socializing again until
sometime in 2020. People scare the shit out of me.
The
worst part of my social life being confined to Social Media is that I
find myself far too concerned with numbers. I find I enjoy getting
“Likes.” “Loves” make me pay even more attention. And, this
interest in numbers seems to change who I am. I get more responses
from cat pictures than I get from the actual work that I do. I
noticed today that several people liked an article I posted, but none
of them actually read it. The longer something is, the less likely
anyone will pay attention to it. I’m a person seeking social
interaction in an environment where the attention span is about 7
seconds. I prefer to be noticed for my writing or my podcasts. I
take no pride in cat pictures, but I post them more often than I once
did. Someone will notice.
Perhaps
I should find another place for myself on Social Media. Facebook is
all I know. I’ve heard of Twitter, but there’s even less space there
to express oneself. If you know of a Social Media space where people
have more time and longer attention spans, I would be grateful if you
brought it to my attention.
Absent
that, I have to change my thinking. There are those of you who come
here and read what I write. Some of you even like the writing I do.
Some will discuss it with me. The number of you decreases daily, and
I believe I will have to stop looking at numbers to tell me who I am,
lest I find myself to be less than I hope. That can’t be good. It’s
certainly not an advantage in fighting depression.
I
have already decided I won’t be defined by how much money I can earn.
I must also choose not to be defined by how many “Likes” I can
earn. I’m still the same Fred. You’re still the same you. The
numbers don’t tell us who we are. We do that for ourselves.
Thank
you for taking the time to be one of my numbers. The smaller they
are, the more each one means. You mean a great deal to me.
Nearly
40 years ago, when I was an adolescent running around in as much of a
hormone haze as I now am surrounded by the Fog of Idealism, I was as
madly in love as a boy could be with a girl whose intellect and
compassion I admired nearly as much as her physical form. When
you’re 16, it’s difficult to see much beyond appearance. Or, at
least it was for me. Perhaps today’s adolescents are more
enlightened than I was.
Among
the reasons I fell in love with her was her Idealism was seductively
attractive to me. She was a member of a religion of which I had
never heard, called Baha’i. I had, even then, no supernatural
beliefs, but I loved the idea of unity that was at the core of her
religious beliefs. She had on her car a bumper sticker that has the
unique status of actually affecting me. It said, “One Planet, One
People… Please?” I have never forgotten the words. Now, I
believe, she’s off living with her husband on a farm somewhere, and
we say hello to each other occasionally on Facebook, but we don’t
really have a serious friendship anymore. Her influence over my
thinking, however, has only grown in the intervening decades.
She
was the water and sunlight that made the seed planted a decade
earlier grow and flourish. What planted the seed? It was Star Trek,
of course.
I’ve been a lifelong Star Trek fan, and I often think of how The United Federation of Planets evaluates a new civilization. They consider not only its technological situation, but how that civilization treats its people. And, because they’re looking at alien planets, the societies they encounter can have any number of traditions, values, and ideas. They try to be respectful of all of them.
This
is the Preamble to their Constitution:
We,
the intelligent lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets,
determined
to
save succeeding generations from the scourge of intergalactic war
which has brought untold horror and suffering to our planetary social
systems, and
to
reaffirm faith in the fundamental intelligent lifeform rights, in the
dignity and worth of the intelligent lifeform person, to the equal
rights of male and female and of planetary social systems large and
small, and
to
establish conditions under which justice and mutual respect for the
obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interplanetary
law can be maintained, and
to
promote social progress and better standards of life in larger
freedom,
And
to these ends
to
practice benevolent tolerance and live together in peace with one
another as good neighbors, and
to
unite our strength to maintain intergalactic peace and security, and
to
ensure by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods
that armed force shall not be used except in the common defense, and
to
employ intergalactic machinery for the promotion of the economic and
social advancement of all intelligent lifeforms,
Have
resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.
Written
by Franz Joseph (Published in the Star Fleet
Technical Manual)
I
believe the general ideas expressed above are a good starting place
for our world. They are asking for us to respect fundamental human
rights (although, since they’re dealing with many other sentient
species, they refer to them as lifeform rights), to make social
progress, and to keep peaceful and friendly relations among the
different species.
In
order to be admitted to the Federation a planet must have a one-world
government. And this idea frightens the hell out of people today. I
don’t understand why this should be the case.
One
need not forfeit individuality to recognize one’s membership in the
human race. Yes, different cultures have different values and
traditions. They have different religions. They have different
economic structures. Their skin colors and languages are different.
Some have different ideas about sex. But, they all have blood,
hearts, lungs, and all the other organs all human beings share. We
all need to eat, to have a place to sleep, to have medical care, and
to be able to spend our minutes in the ways that we choose without
harming others.
We have decided, by some sort of universal consent, that time and money are traded one for the other. We have further decided that if one cannot or does not trade time for money, or find other ways of collecting enough of it, a person has little value. Your human value is determined by your market value. And that is simply wrong.
First,
let’s recognize the we are at the summit of humanity.
200,000
years ago survival was our only concern. It was all the earliest
humans could do to avoid being eaten, or to find a way to eat,
themselves. Shelter was whatever they could find, and medical care
was, for any serious purposes, non existent. But we did survive, and
we did it because we worked together. No single human could have
flourished then, and it’s doubtful one could now. If one of us is
doing well it’s because of the contributions made by others for the
last 200 millennia.
We
have always made life better by working together, but we began to
segregate ourselves into different tribes of one form or another.
They can be based on specialization, on shared beliefs, on gender,
race, or ideology, or national origin or citizenship in a particular
country. But the tribes are there. The separation is there.
I
submit the separation is counter to continuing to improve our world.
Instead of trying to defeat each other, we need to try to cooperate
with each other to find the solutions to our shared problems, and to
find ways of making life more pleasant for all of us.
Another
element common to all of us is that we have limited time on Earth.
We can discuss afterlife at a different time, but our time here is
extraordinarily brief. Few of us will be here for an entire century.
None of us will be here for two. And, to our knowledge, that’s all
the time we get. Ever. Once a minute is spent, it can never be
recovered.
You
and I will each get, perhaps, 50 million minutes. Why should we
need, in the 21st Century, to trade so many of them for
dollars? Most of us won’t even get a dollar per minute. If you
earn $52,000,000 in your lifetime, you’re among the very few. This
world works very well for the few. It works very poorly for the
many. “The needs of the many,” as Spock would remind us,
“outweigh the needs of the few.”
This doesn’t mean the few should be forced to give their dollars to the many. I’m not advocating that. Instead, I would like to see the dollars of the many used to benefit the many instead of the few. We have enough to ensure that all of us have the basics of survival. We can eliminate the need for slave wages by ensuring no one ever needs to take a job that pays less than a person’s minutes are worth just so one can keep living for a few more minutes. Instead of being about survival, money becomes about flourishing financially.
What
would this world look like?
Everyone
has enough money for food, rent, utilities, and clothing appropriate
to the environment in which they live. Any decent civilization would
provide that to all of its citizens. Those that don’t are never
viewed well by the Federation.
Everyone
has medical care sufficient to keep one not just alive, but healthy.
Dr. McCoy never asked anyone for an insurance card. Had the Captain
asked him to, he probably would have said, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a
doctor, not a bureaucrat!”
Everyone
spends their minutes in ways that are meaningful to them, and that
contribute in unique ways to making the society a better and stronger
one.
Everyone
is appreciated as the individuals they are. No one is expected to
conform to the expectations of others, so long as they aren’t hurting
anyone else. Each of us chooses our own path through life.
Isn’t
this world impossible?
No.
It’s not. Flying was once “impossible.” Going to the moon was
even more “impossible.” Communicating in the way you and I are
this very moment was also once “impossible.” Things are
impossible only when we decide they are impossible, or they are
expressly forbidden by the laws of physics.
What
do we need to do to bring about such a world?
First,
we have to agree that we want to. Then, we need to try.
What
are the logistics?
I don’t have a clue. I’m not an economist. I’m not a politician. I’m a drop of water in the Colorado River. There are experts in such areas. I suggest they work out the details, they do the research, they gather the data, and they work it out. And, to no one’s surprise, people have been doing this for quite some time. Buckminster Fuller spent most of his 87 years (not even the full 50,000,000 minutes we hope to receive ourselves) trying to figure out how to implement plans that would benefit 100% of humanity. The ideas are there.
What
are some of the ideas?
Today, we are beginning the discussions about changing our economy in a way that benefits more people. Universal Basic Income is now a fairly well known term. It wasn’t unheard of previously, but no one really had any interest in it after it failed during the Nixon administration. Today, the idea gets airtime, although not much. Is UBI enough? No, of course, it’s not, but it’s a step in the right direction. Medicare for All isn’t enough, either, but we’re moving closer to the public health care we really ought to have.
The
most important thing to do is to agree on our shared vision. If you
see some reason to oppose the Idealistic vision I’ve discussed, I
hope you’ll communicate to us what the basis or your opposition is.
Why, in essence, should humans suffer unnecessarily?
Having done that, perhaps we can get a few more people to share it, and, in this way, we can begin, as little drops of water, to carve out the Grand Canyon. We can talk about the best ways of improving humanity, and we can share diverse opinions. We can find common ground, and we can move forward to become a world worthy of membership in The United Federation of Planets. I want very much to be qualified to join the Federation. Don’t you?
Wouldn’t
it be lovely if Vulcan ships had been monitoring our progress for the
last century, and they saw that we have moved toward slowing the
spread of racism, at least insofar as we have made it socially
unacceptable, illegal in hiring, and making it possible for someone
who was not white to become President of the United States? They
would see that we have begun to accept that people can have
sexualities that differ from the norm, and those differences are no
one’s business but their own. We have even accepted their right to
marry just as it is given to everyone else. The Vulcans could
observe that women have won the right to vote, to be in power, and to
live their own lives independent of men. They would see we have
begun.
Yes, we have light years to go, but we have begun the journey toward not only the stars, but to the deeper unexplored realms of what humanity can actually accomplish. Let’s keep moving down that road, together.
Sex! Sex! Sex! That should
grab most people’s attention. Now let’s see if I can keep it for
more than 8 seconds.
One thing I believe all
human beings share is an interest, in one form or other, in sex. Our
preferences may differ, but I suspect we all enjoy orgasms. There’s
absolutely nothing “dirty” about them. They’re simply the
pinnacle of human joy.
But, if we’re going to enjoy it as completely as possible, we need to pay attention. If my mind is on baseball, as I’ve been told it ought to be, I’m not really going to get as much out of the experience as I would if my mind is on my partner. I think a fair case can be made that she deserves my undivided attention since she’s being as physically intimate with me as is possible. She didn’t just hand me a really good pastrami sandwich, which I would also enjoy. She gave me something much kinder and more valuable. Or, at least she did unless it was a pastrami sandwich from Tommy’s Joynt in San Francisco, which is really too good to be a sandwich. Those things are supernatural.
The American attention span is shrinking at an alarming rate. If you write more than 20 words in a Facebook post, it’s unlikely anyone will read it. “TL;DR,” which means too long; didn’t (or don’t) read,” is becoming more and more common. We don’t take the time to engage (or even write) a complete thought.
When I was in high school,
40 years ago, my American History teacher claimed, with dismay, that
the normal attention span was 7 minutes, and that was why Bugs Bunny
cartoons ran that long. Today, according to Microsoft, the attention
span is only 8 seconds. We can do better than that. If you’re still
reading, congratulations, you’re doing better than most Americans.
You’re the reader I value most.
I completely agree with the
idea that our minutes are our most valuable possessions. If I spend
a dollar, I can go to work and earn another one. When I spend a
minute, it’s gone forever, and nothing I can do will retrieve it for
me. I want each one to be the best it can possibly be. I try to
have as many pastrami sandwiches as possible, now that sex really
isn’t likely to be a part of my life anymore. And even now, a good
pastrami sandwich is rare in my life.
I don’t want to give you
tricks to increase your attention span. There are about 1,000
articles in a Google Search that will give you those. I want to
convince you that it’s worth the effort.
The best minutes you are
likely to spend are those to which you have devoted all of your
attention. When you delve deeply into something, it becomes more
interesting, even compelling, and the minutes you spend keep becoming
more and more cathartic. This is true of any form of Art.
Stravinsky takes longer to get than The Romantics, but the minutes
you spend give you a greater high. In short, if you choose well,
your time has greater value. Just as sex is better if you’re paying
attention to all the little details, so is Art… and sex is a form
of Art, too.
Beyond enjoying your minutes
more, you are more capable of solving problems if you have taken the
time to consider ideas in a little more depth. You need the whole
concept, not just the meme sized McNuggets. What do I mean?
“Good fences make good neighbors.”
Robert Frost
Robert Frost is telling us that boundaries in our relationships are healthy. We must always keep someone on the other side of our fences. He’s endorsing separating ourselves from others. Isn’t he?
Mending Wall
No. You got only the
McNugget. You missed most of the meal. You don’t have time for the
explanation, but if you can find the time and attention to pursue it,
read “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost. “Something there is that
doesn’t love a wall.” The idea is deeper than it seems.
My story, “Two Moments,”
can be read as either the sad acceptance of the end of a relationship
or the brutal and horrifying end of a life. It takes a few minutes
to absorb the ideas well enough to enjoy it. A few more minutes will
allow you to consider questions I don’t answer for you. You learn
about yourself by deciding how you see it. What could be more
interesting than yourself? You just need to invest your minutes.
There’s a scene in a movie
called “Klute” in which Jane Fonda, playing a prostitute, is
having what appears to be passionate sex with a John. As she’s
moaning and groaning in pretended ecstasy, we see her stop a moment,
look at her watch, and then go back to playing her part. Her
attention is elsewhere. She’s not enjoying her minutes. What a
waste.
Choose where to spend your minutes, but spend enough of them to get the most you can out of each one. Make your minutes Prime Rib more often than McNuggets. Prime Rib costs more, but it’s much more enjoyable. Give your minutes the attention they deserve.
I believe it is difficult to understand poverty until you’ve actually
lived it. Reading about it is usually insufficient. You can’t
really understand it until you are hours away from homelessness. You
don’t get it until you aren’t sure what you’re going to eat, and
you’re excited you managed to get a quart of milk so you can survive
on cereal a little longer. You don’t conceive it properly until
you’re forced to live with others, do all the housework, and pray to
a God in whom you don’t even believe, that they don’t throw you out
because you can’t possibly survive on the money you can make.
When you have to humiliate yourself twice a year at DES, you begin to
understand. When you are doing your third GoFundMe, and being called
an Online Panhandler, your understanding begins to dawn. When the
car you had paid off gets repossessed because you had to borrow money
on it, at obscene interest rates, to pay rent for one more month,
your understanding deepens.
When it becomes month after month, year after year, you understand.
When friends and relatives tell you what is wrong with you repeatedly
because you don’t have enough money, you understand how poverty
really feels.
It isn’t just hoping that things get better. It’s the fear that
comes when they do. You realize this is almost certainly going to be
followed by The Fuckening. It’s that unexpected catastrophe for
which you had no opportunity to prepare. It always looms just around
the corner. Your $750 car breaks down. Someone ends up in the
hospital, and that costs work time, and that’s less money you have
next month.
The Fuckening is when, just when you finally are making it, and you
have enough money to make it this month, your landlord sells your
house, and you have to find a new one in which to live. It’s when
they hit you with a $140 bill you didn’t know you had so you can’t
pay rent that last month, and they won’t take a partial payment
because they’re a corporation and not a person. It’s when you have
to beg your best friend’s boyfriend to rent you his old house because
your credit is so horrible that no one else on the planet will, and
now that you didn’t pay your last month’s rent, you’ll never get a
decent reference when you do apply. Poverty is when you don’t even
dare to apply because it’s a non refundable $165 for the three of
you. You can’t afford to lose a bet and your odds are lousy.
Poverty is paying $1400 a month for a 2 bedroom house that’s not
worth more than $1100 a month. You have to pay that price, though,
because it’s the only deal anyone is willing to make.
Poverty is having to show a friend your budget and pay 50% interest
on a 3 day loan so you can put gas in your car. Poverty is your
roommate getting chewed out by the cashier at Wal Mart because she’s
using food stamps. It’s being belittled for not working hard enough,
even when she works 40 to 50 hours a week, and she still can’t make
ends meet. It’s when she gets to be humiliated by a cashier who is
somehow, evidently, not on food stamps herself, because she must have
some other source of income, and she needs to be better than
somebody, and your roommate will do just fine. Sure, you can
get her manager to chew the cashier out, and explain that’s not how
she should treat her customers, but the damage is still done. And
you can’t help but feel sorry for that cashier.
They say Poverty can actually reduce IQ due to all the stress and
anxiety. I like to think I’m no stupider than when I had almost
enough money to live alone. But the longer I live in it, the slower
I become. I feel a little less worthy, each day, and I have to keep
reminding myself I’m doing the best I can. I have to try to stay out
of the hospital. I have to remind myself that choosing not to eat
and taking 50 units of insulin is not really the answer, no matter
how tempting it sounds. It’s wrong to make someone wish they didn’t
love you so they could have been spared the pain of your demise.
The more you try to change the world, and the more you fail, the more
you feel as though you really are as worthless as the Marketplace
says you are.
Sometimes, if you write about it, it helps a little. Not much… but a little. And when you live in poverty, a little is all you can ever hope to get.
We, the people, the teachers and parents, the brothers and sisters, the adults and the children, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, and ensure domestic tranquility, require an educational system that allows our children to learn not simply facts, figures, skills, and mechanics of life, but to explore their own potentials and find what makes them unique, following courses of study designed specifically for, and by, each student. In each person’s uniqueness is the potential for contributions unimagined by anyone else. Our children need to be prepared not for a life of drudgery defined by empty but exhausting minutes of their lives exchanged for money, but for life defined only by the limits of their own imaginations and abilities. Such an educational system must be the goal. As John Dewey told us, “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy. ”
How we reach that goal
is open to discussion.
In this document, we
will make suggestions that we believe will move us closer to that
goal.
But, a larger goal is
the society in which a school system such as we advocate can serve to
help us create The Ideal World. This is a world in which no one is
homeless, there is no poverty, everyone has enough to eat, the best
medical care is available to everyone, and, more importantly, the
citizens are truly free to contribute in a way that is satisfying,
creative, and expansive .
This is not a Socialist
society. It is Human Centered Capitalism. It’s a world in which
there is a solid foundation on which to build, instead of a safety
through which to slip.
These ideas are just
that: Ideas. Ideas are always open to attack. We recognize there
are many other ways to reach the goal. We are certainly willing to
consider alternatives. We hope you will consider ours.
There
are approximately 74 million children in America.
There
are approximately 100 million parents. There are approximately 3.7
million K-12 teachers. Our plan is to bring benefits to all of them.
The
Yang Gang K – 12 Educational Plan
Article
1: School districts will eliminate grade-levels.
Students will pursue their interests and master the skills needed to
advance their interests. They will move up in the same way they are
accustomed to progressing in video games. When they master one
level, they advance to the next. They move as quickly or as slowly
as their abilities allow. Their age is as irrelevant to their
education as it is to their ability to play a video game. I’m
certain most 10 year olds could beat me in Mario Brothers. They have
mastered it; I have not.
Students
are not in a race to the finish line, because there is no finish
line. Learning is a lifelong activity.
Article
2: Learning must be fun.
Play is the most important part of childhood. Through play,
children explore their identities, create social bonds, and learn how
to interact with the rest of the world. This isn’t simply a 15
minute recess a couple of times a day. This is directed, organize
play time. Research indicates this is the most powerful form of
learning at young ages.
A
great deal of research has concluded that play-based learning is
genuinely and positively [useful in] student learning and
development. Kathryn
Hirsh-Pasek,
a well-known child development expert in the Department of Psychology
at Temple
University and
a Senior Fellow at the Brookings
Institution, argues
that humans
learn best when at least one of these four pillars are present:
Individuals
take an active role in the learning environment
Article
3: Learning will be, to the greatest extent possible,
Project Based Learning. The objective of Project
Based Learning is that students pursue their interests through
creating solutions to problems that can be presented to others. The
results are greater long term retention of information, the reason
for learning becomes immediately clear to students, since they are
learning what they choose to learn to complete their projects, and
student engagement is increased. Some, but by no means all, of the
advantages are the following:
Researchers
have identified several components that are critical to successful
PBL (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008; Ertmer
& Simons, 2005; Mergendoller
& Thomas, 2005; Hung,
2008). While project-based learning has been criticized in the
past for not being rigorous enough, the following features will
greatly improve the chances of a project’s success.
A realistic problem or project
that aligns with students’ skills and interests, and requires
learning clearly defined content and skills (e.g., using rubrics, or
exemplars from local professionals and students).
Structured group work with groups
of three to four students, with diverse skill levels and
interdependent roles; team rewards; and individual accountability,
based on student growth.
Multi-faceted assessment, with
multiple opportunities for students to receive feedback and revise
their work (e.g., benchmarks, reflective activities); multiple
learning outcomes (e.g., problem-solving, content, collaboration);
and presentations that encourage participation and signal social
value (e.g. exhibitions, portfolios, performances, reports).
Participation in a professional learning network, including
collaborating and reflecting upon PBL experiences in the classroom
with colleagues, and courses in inquiry-based teaching methods.
Students will present their work to the selected audience. Their
pride in their accomplishments will be increased, and their desire to
learn will be enhanced.
Article 4:The
Home Environment will be improved to allow for the best outcomes.
Most studies tell us now that academic outcomes are more related to
factors outside of teacher control, and that the biggest factor is
the home from which the students come. There is no Silver Bullet to
make all homes the ideal environments for raising children. There
is, however, one thing that can be done to help. We can end their
struggles for survival. The tension caused by wondering whether the
family is going to make rent, keep the lights on, or feed and clothe
the children is sufficient to cause any number of unnecessary
problems for families. Domestic violence rises as survival is
threatened. Suicide rates and drug overdoses are at an all time
high, and the life expectancy in America has actually dropped in the
last 3 years. While we can’t cure all these problems, we can help to
reduce them by ensuring that all families have enough money to
survive. Children benefit from stable home lives. These facts have
been known for more than 50 years, at least since 1966 when we had
the
James Coleman Equality of Educational Opportunity (EEO)
study.
This is why a Freedom Dividend, of $1000 a month for every adult 18 and over, must be implemented. If we want to improve educational outcomes, we need to reduce poverty.
Article 5: All learning is individualized. Through technology, we now have the means to ensure that students have the resources to learn what they want to learn, at the pace at which they can learn it. There are on demand videos readily available, even now, for students to learn any skill needed in order to complete the projects they choose to do. Software, perhaps even in the form of video games, can be created that will engage children in interesting activities that teach them what they need to learn.
Classrooms need to be equipped with computers and other technology for students to use to learn what they need to complete their projects. The technology must be updated as necessary to keep it both functional and cutting edge.
Article 6: Teachers will be paid a living wage for the area in which they teach. If a teacher needs a second job in order to make ends meet, that teacher’s effectiveness drops quickly. The teacher’s attention is distracted from the students because when the teacher’s day is over, it is also just beginning for the second job. This creates exhaustion and the inability to function at one’s best. This means a teacher in San Francisco, where the cost of living is exceptionally high, will make more than a teacher in a city where the cost of living is lower. To attract and retain teachers, it’s essential that the pay is sufficient to attract the best and brightest.
Article 7: High stakes testing is eliminated. Tests are used only to determine mastery of a subject. They are not used to determine the quality of a teacher, or to decide anything about the students’ futures. Students are in charge of their own learning, without regard to test scores.
This
is, by no means, an exhaustive list of all the changes we need to
make in order to return education to what it is intended to be.
These are a few preliminary ideas. They are all open to change based
upon data that emerges. Other ideas are welcomed.
We
must have an educated populace in order to ensure that America’s
Experiment in Democracy can succeed. An uneducated citizenry can
solve no problems. We must be able to discuss alternatives to find
the best ways to reach our goals.
A
government based in reality, and not simple adherence to ideology, is
one that can function most effectively. An educated population is
one that is adept at the fact checking that has become an essential
part of our lives. Such a population is not easily deceived. It may
be divided on solutions to the problems it faces, but it will be
united on what the facts are. This is the ultimate goal of public
education.
This
is the time to reform not only the schools, but the world in which
they function. We have taken 200,000 years to reach this pinnacle of
humanity. We now have the resources to feed, clothe, shelter, and
medically extend the lives of all human beings. Many sorts of labor
will become unnecessary, and we can begin to pursue our interests and
passions. We can help humanity to improve itself by recognizing the
unique value of each individual. When we shed the scarcity based
economy, and replace it with a post scarcity philosophy, we will
improve the lives of all of our people. This must be our goal.
These are a few steps we can take to reach it. When we all work
together, more steps, and, quite probably, better ones may be found.
Let’s begin that work today, while we still have time.
My
life is, in most measurable ways, much worse than it has been in
decades. I’m probably at just about the lowest point I have ever
experienced. The idea that it is going to improve much from here is
difficult to believe. I have no money. It’s unlikely that I will
ever have any. I have been on the edge of the abyss, both
intentionally and not, more times in the last 3 years than I have in
the 53 preceding them. Homelessness is never far from me. Death is
always at its heels.
From that point of view, I ought to be miserable. If I measured my happiness only in material form, my depression would have beaten me as surely as Rawlings once put one of my alter egos, Frank, on his back on the mat looking up through eyes obscured by his own blood dripping into them. (It’s in a story I wrote nearly 40 years ago. “The Boxer” was written when I was in materially better condition.)
And
for all that, I am, in many ways, happier than I have been in my
life. At this moment, I’m sitting at my computer, typing this. I
just finished another Star Trek book while sitting in the backyard
with my soda, a pack of cigarettes, and a very nice bowl donated to
me by my best friend’s boyfriend, who is also my landlord. Phil
Collins is singing “If Leaving Me Easy,” my soda is on the desk
to my right, and, for this moment, I can think of nothing else I
would rather be doing.
It
can be argued that I am lazy. That may even be true. I’m not
convinced, anymore, though, that Sloth is a sin. The universe can
continue to unfold whether I go and do unpleasant and exhausting
activities or not. I’m not hurting you by sitting here. You could
argue my food stamps are taking your tax dollars, and I have no right
to that. I would disagree. You know me, by now, well enough to know
I’m an Idealist. I believe all of us deserve the basics of living,
simply for being here, and because life is all too brief to waste it
on unhappiness. In either case, I am living within the system that
is now present, and I am finding my own way as best I can.
And
I am spending my time in ways I find to be best for me. I had no
alarm clock to destroy my morning. I still have them in my life, but
not with the daily horrors they once held. On Sunday, I had to face
a 3:30 AM alarm so that I could get to Prescott to teach my Defensive
Driving Class. The real fear wasn’t just the alarm. It was that I
might end up in the hospital in the time following it. It’s
dangerous for me any time I exhaust what is left of my body. I just
got out of the hospital, for the 13th time in 3 years,
last week. But I redoubled my efforts to ensure my health was as
good as I could make it, and I took the necessary precautions to
allow myself to help myself when I was so far from home. I had both
food and insulin with me at all times. I needed the food, but the
insulin was left untouched. I did well. And now I don’t have to
face that horror again until next Sunday. Until then, I am free to
choose what to do with the time that is given to me. And I find
happiness in that.
Would
I be better off going back to my last post-teaching job selling
DirecTV to unsuspecting old women? I would then be earning money,
but I would despise myself again. I’m not making the world better;
I’m making it worse. I’m depriving people of their money by offering
them something that isn’t worth what they’re spending. They submit
themselves to commercials that interrupt whatever they might have
been enjoying prior to their invasion. Netflix is cheaper by far,
and it’s free of commercials. I see no contribution to the world in
my efforts. I see only that I am trading the minutes of my life for
little green pieces of paper. I would rather have the minutes and do
with fewer dollars. I can do good things with my minutes. This is
one of them.
I
get to experience some happiness this way. Is there more I would
like? Certainly. I would be thrilled to have enough money to go to
California every time Sara Niemietz and Snuffy Walden play. I would
love to be able to have nicer equipment for my podcast and my videos.
I could really use a new backup drive for my music. A nice car
would be lovely. But, I can live without those things, and I can
find happiness in what is available to me.
Gandalf
told us, “All we have to decide is what we should do with the time
given us.” I
think we all need to be more capable of making those decisions. I
don’t believe life should be merely a struggle for survival. I don’t
think it has to be. I think we can do better as a civilization for
those who inhabit this planet, if we decide we want to do that. I
would never want to dictate to people what to do with the time given
to them. But I would very much like for all of us to be able to
decide.
How
can we help them do that?
I’m
not in charge of the world, and I make decisions for no one but
myself. But, for those who do have the power, I would recommend
this: Give all of our citizens enough money to ensure they can meet
their basic needs, and then let them each decide how to better than
themselves, and for some of us, how we can better the rest of
humanity. What are the logistics of this? I don’t pretend to be an
economist, but Andrew Yang, a fairly obscure Democratic Presidential
Candidate, has some ideas about how to do this. If you don’t like
his ideas, there are others that might accomplish the same goal that
you might consider. My concern isn’t the logistics; it’s the idea.
How can you object to the idea that our citizens ought, actually, to
be Free?
Freedom
isn’t merely the absence of coercion. Freedom is the ability to see
choices, and the education to select the choice most likely to bring
about the desired outcome.
If
there is one thing upon which all Americans, whether they be
Democrats or Republicans, Socialists or Capitalists, Atheists or any
variety of Theists, Anarchists and Legalists, all agree, it is that
we should be Free. Freedom is the first door that must be opened
before anyone can begin the endless search for happiness, for
meaning, for purpose, or for passion.
Let’s
free our citizens from the oppression of poverty. Let’s not worry
about what they will do with their lives once they are free. If we
really believe we must enforce The Puritan Work Ethic with the threat
of poverty, of homelessness, of death, I don’t see that we’re The
Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave. Life need not be unduly
unpleasant in order to be worthy of living. For this moment, I have
the Freedom to enjoy the Time that’s been given to me by my choices.
For this moment, so do you, lest you wouldn’t be reading this.
Freedom is the natural state of life. Let’s work together to find a
way to allow people to spend their lives doing what they want. Let’s
find a way to set humanity free.
What
have I decided to do with the time given to me? I’m going to try,
and almost certainly fail, to change the world. What will you do
with yours?
Fred's Thoughts 