Posted on by Fred

Voting Is a Moral Responsibility

It’s easy to decide that we can’t be bothered with politics.  We have our own lives.  We must make dinner, we have to get to bed on time so we can get up in the morning and go to work, and we have relationships that are more important to us than which politician said what.  Whether your boyfriend texts you back promptly is infinitely more interesting than what The Supreme Court decided about whether you can get an abortion, or religion in schools, or who can marry whom.  Regulating Health Care, whether Medicare can negotiate for better prescription prices, and who will pay for hospital stays are abstract ideas that don’t seem to matter in our practical world.  I get that.

But here’s the problem.  If we see no farther than our own backyard, we are likely to find the landscape outside of it, in which we all have to function, will be changing significantly, but slowly, so we don’t really notice it.  And sooner than you think, what’s happening outside your backyard will make its way into your home, your life, and your soul.  If we don’t think about more than 24 hours in the future, by the time we notice what’s happening, it’s likely to be too late.  When we can’t vote anymore, we will have lost the little power we have to change things, and we will watch our rights being stripped away more and more quickly.  Fascism flourishes in apathy.

I’m not saying you need to quit your job, give up your life, and go work for some political campaign.  I would like you to be aware of what’s happening so you can do what little you can to change it.  

Okay, Edmund Burke never said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” and I don’t know who first did.  I also don’t care.  It’s true regardless of the source.  I would, because I live in 2022, amend it to change “men” to “people,” but otherwise, I stand by those words.  Evil persists.  The effort to take our freedom of thought, of speech, of opinion, and, perhaps more importantly, our freedom to choose for ourselves is constant and ongoing.  Will someone else stop it?  I certainly hope so.  I can’t stop it.  What I can do is vote for those I believe are most likely to slow its course a bit. 

What would I like you to consider when you go to the ballot box?  I would begin with January 6, 2021, and the effort to keep power from being transferred peacefully from one President to the next.

I would pay attention to the efforts to restrict voting rights.  I would look at how many legislatures are trying to pass measures to invalidate the vote entirely if those in charge don’t like the results.   It’s happening here in Arizona already.  I’m including a link, and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to understand that this matters.

https://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/proposed-law-would-allow-arizona-legislature-to-overturn-presidential-election-results/article_c2a70681-59c0-512f-ba86-2bf23128f9ee.html

I would also pay attention to Supreme Court decisions.  They have already stripped bodily autonomy from half the population.  They are going to revisit the idea that we should be allowed to marry whomever we love.  They are going to consider the possibility of banning contraception.  In short, if a woman has sex, she is required to give birth to the child, regardless of the circumstances.  I’ll remind you that a 10-year-old girl in Ohio was forced to travel to Indiana to terminate her pregnancy because after The Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade, Ohio banned all abortions.  It’s doubtful a 10-year-old would even survive giving birth.  I won’t bother to give you links to this story.  It’s easily Googled.

This is enough to help you understand that what’s happening in America today is as important as how long it takes your boyfriend to reply to your text.  The time to stop the transformation into an authoritarian dictatorship is running out.  The least you could do is vote for those who have the best chance of stopping it. 

The Republican Party was, in my lifetime, composed of decent honorable people with whom I often disagreed.  There are still a few such Republicans.  Liz Cheney is one.  John McCain was another. 

What is called the MAGA Republican Party has none of these, or if they do, I haven’t seen them.  And that’s the party that is taking power.  If you don’t know who Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene are, that’s okay.  If you don’t know who Matt Gaetz is, life will go on.  But, these are the people who are elected not only to represent us, but to make laws that will have direct effects on you.   You don’t need to spend an hour a night watching the news, but you should at least know the basics.   This will allow you to be aware of the threats, and it will help you meet them.  If you just want a basic nightly rundown in five or ten minutes, read Heather Cox Richardson’s Facebook page or subscribe to her newsletter. 

When people are threatened by and refuse to engage ideas that differ from their own, they become dangerous because they can’t be swayed by conversation.  When words become worthless, all that’s left is violence.  Nothing good will come of that. 

An authoritarian dictatorship is on its way.  Many people are already coming up with contingency plans to escape America if the fascists are successful. 

It seems to me the only tool we have to fight this is our ballots. I advocate using this tool because once violence begins, it almost invariably gets out of control, and does so with alarming speed. It means, at the absolute minimum, someone will be hurt. It usually means someone dies. Whatever Good we believe we bring about with our violence is denied to The Dead. We have absolutely failed them.

Many, if not most, of us have no means of leaving America. Should it become the authoritarian dictatorship the MAGA Republicans are trying to create, we will be trapped here. We will suffer. Many of us will die.  You may be certain they won’t tolerate dissenting opinions such as mine.  Fortunately, I’m very small.  I won’t be at the top of the list of people who need to disappear in the dead of night never to be heard from again.  This is what happens in dictatorships.  It will, in fact, happen here if we allow it.  The biggest voices will be the first to go.  Sadly, I can’t afford to move out of my place at all.  Getting to another country would be impossible for me.  I would be forced to wait until they come for me.

For this one moment, we still have the power of the vote. I recognize it seems unimaginably small. But enough people doing a little thing makes a massive difference. And that power is one denied to millions around the world. It is one that was once denied to millions of Americans.

People have fought and died for that right. They have been lynched, tortured, and they have endured unimaginable atrocities for the right of all of us to go the ballot box. Failing to make use of that most fundamental right is more than a slap in the face to those who struggled so long and hard to win it for us. It is essentially pissing on their graves as we passively watch ourselves collapse into a dystopian nightmare from which, for far too many of us, there can be no escape.

Of course I’ll be voting. I couldn’t mail it in because I was in the hospital. Where I live in Mesa, there have been reports of armed people watching early voting ballot boxes. They may watch me drop my ballot in one of those boxes and shove their metal substitute penises straight up their asses. I don’t really believe they’ll shoot me. If they do, it will do more for the cause of freedom than my single vote ever would. I can think of many worse ways to die. And I would prefer being dead to living in the Hell to which they would like to condemn me.

The Road to Fascism is paved with claims that what’s happening is no big deal.  For example:

January 6 wasn’t a big deal.  Very few people died.  Everyone was fine. 

That sort of attitude normalizes the hatred, fascism, and violence that were on display that day and are swelling in America and throughout the world. 

I recognize how difficult it is to find Truth.  The Media that tells us what is happening is filled with agendas.  CNN, MSNBC, and Fox all rely on Confirmation Bias, or the idea that we tend to believe those things that best fit our ideology, and we reject those that don’t.  They make money by feeding us what we want to hear.  That’s respectable in Art.  It’s worse than worthless in Journalism.  We can all choose our own media outlets, but most of the time we must separate the Spin from the Truth. 

Since we’re not there to see what’s happening in the places where laws are being made, we are forced to rely on the Media to tell us.  You have your sources.  I have mine.  Neither of us can be entirely sure that we understand all of it. 

One of the rare exceptions is the January 6 Committee Hearings.  We could see every minute live.  Complete videos are still easily accessible on YouTube.  You don’t need to listen to media spin.  You can just watch for yourself if you want to invest that much time in understanding what happened.  Most of the participants were Republicans.  To say that it’s partisan is simply untrue.  Both sides of the aisle came together in a search for the Truth.  They’ve invited the former President to come and tell the truth.  In fact, they have subpoenaed him.  If he complies, I promise it will be worth your time to watch and listen, without Spin.

I sympathize with the idea that you don’t want to put 18 hours or so into that pursuit.  You have a much busier life than I have.  I work when I’m feeling well enough to sit at this keyboard.  You probably spend 40 hours or more at work every week.  I don’t leave the house.  You have a social life.  I get that.  I honestly do.  The best I can recommend to you is to find someone you trust to give you the basic facts.  If you don’t trust me, find someone you do trust, and try to look beyond your Confirmation Bias.  Give them more than 5 minutes to explain.  At least once.  Then… go do your most important civic duty.  Go and vote.  Do it while you still can.  You may never get another chance.  You owe it to those who fought and died for that right.  You owe it to all of us.  It is a moral responsibility. 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2lGBQHL8t1a8hld5PSmEqC?si=e8939fb4d3f54b53

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

Freedom is Under Attack

My best friend, Stephanie, is on vacation in Norway.  She left America, and the shit hit the fan.  This is obviously her fault.

I already spent an entire episode on the January 6 Committee Hearings.  I won’t go any further into that now, but those started right around the time Stephanie left.  Since she’s been gone, half of our population has lost the right to bodily autonomy.  That’s a polite way of saying pregnant persons don’t get to choose what will happen to their bodies anymore.  They can now be turned in because their periods are irregular.  There are bounties available for turning in someone you suspect might have had an abortion. 

https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/blog/wtf-an-abortion-bounty-law-in-2021

One of The People on The Porch, whose identity I will not reveal, suffers from a condition called PCOS.  What is that?  I didn’t know, either so I looked it up.

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a condition in which the ovaries produce an abnormal amount of androgens, male sex hormones that are usually present in women in small amounts.  The symptoms of PCOS may include:

  • Missed periods, irregular periods, or very light periods…
  • Infertility 

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/polycystic-ovary-syndrome-pcos#:~:text=Polycystic%20ovary%20syndrome%20(PCOS)%20is,that%20form%20in%20the%20ovaries.

How is this relevant?  It makes it likely that a woman suffering from this condition could be suspected of having had an abortion.  There are places where she would have to prove she didn’t.  Is this really what we want? 

The Attack on Freedom doesn’t end there.

They have just put religion back into public schools.  The government now gets to “encourage” your religious belief.  The defense I am hearing is that it’s “voluntary” to remain when the football coach is conducting a prayer on the field.  Justice Sotomayor disagreed:

Sotomayor’s dissent, which included photographs of the prayers in question, suggested that she thought the majority was not describing accurately the factual circumstances of the case.

“As the majority tells it, Kennedy, a coach for the District’s football program, ‘lost his job’ for ‘(praying) quietly while his students were otherwise occupied,’” she wrote.  “The record before us, however, tells a different story.”

Her dissent also pointedly noted that the school district tried to accommodate the coach by offering him a place to pray, off the field.  “Again, the District emphasized that it was happy to accommodate Kennedy’s desire to pray on the job in a way that did not interfere with his duties or risk perceptions of endorsement,” she said.

She said that it was “unprecedented” for the court to hold that Kennedy’s conduct, “taken as a whole, did not raise cognizable” concerns of coercion.

Sotomayor stressed that students could have felt coerced to join in the prayer and pointed to the fact that the court in the past has “recognized that students face immense social pressure.”

She said that they look up to their teachers and coaches as role models and “seek their approval” and that players might try to gain a coach’s approval to secure a stronger letter of recommendation for college recruiting or more playing time on the field.  “The record before the Court bears this out,” she wrote.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/27/politics/football-coach-prayer-high-school-supreme-court-kennedy/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/19/politics/joe-kennedy-football-coach-prayer-supreme-court/index.html

While it’s true that no one was physically stopping players or fans from leaving, physical pressure isn’t all that is involved.  Fitting in with others is a vital part of our social development.  I hid my atheism for years because I was already enough of an outcast in public school.  I couldn’t take the chance of being any more different from my classmates.  And, yes, it happened to me in fourth grade.

“You know why it should be front and center?  It’s not the first amendment, it’s not freedom of religion, it’s not church and state.  It’s not abstract.  It’s the fourth grader who gets his ass kicked at recess because he sat out the voluntary prayer in home room.  It’s another way of making kids different from other kids when they’re required by law to be there.  That’s why you want it front and center: the fourth grader.  That’s the prize.”

– Toby Zigler, Season 2, Episode 8 “Shibboleth” in The West Wing written by Aaron Sorkin

I’m an atheist, and I can say that now because I live alone, I practically never leave the house, and the fact that lots of people don’t like me for that isn’t as difficult to handle.  If I were still in 4th grade, I don’t know how I would deal with it. 

I have no problem of any kind with the fact that many people I love have very different relationships with the universe than I do.  One of the people I love most became a minister a few years ago, and I’m proud to say I was among her biggest supporters when she was studying.  It was something important to her, and I want for her all the things that make her happy.  Her religious beliefs helped to shape her into a kind, empathetic, loving person who wants to make the world a better place.  We’re standing on the same ground about that.  We just took different paths to get here.

Now The Supreme Court is telling us we need to be a part of the majority if we don’t want to feel ostracized.

What else are they going to do?

They’ve made it clear they’re just getting started.  One of my gay friends is doing all he can to shore up his legal rights to protect his marriage because that’s on the agenda.  The Supreme Court is not only telling half of the population what they have to do with their bodies, and they’re not just saying we need to adopt the religious beliefs of those around us if we don’t want to face shunning (or getting our asses kicked at recess), but they’re also telling us who we can love, and how we can love them.  They’re going to revisit gay marriage and contraception. 

In his concurring opinion, Thomas — an appointee of President George H.W. Bush — wrote that the justices “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell” — referring to three cases having to do with Americans’ fundamental privacy, due process, and equal protection rights.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/thomas-constitutional-rights-00042256

One of The People on The Porch told me this on Facebook:

My marriage is about to be invalidated.  Just got off the phone making lawyer appointments to update our wills and trusts.  Technically if they repeal 14th amendment-based decisions, I’ll have to move into the spare room.

Fred Eder

Name Deleted, this is entirely unacceptable.  I don’t know what we can do beyond voting in massive numbers, and, I hope, increasing the size of SCOTUS so we can dilute the power of the fascists who have been working toward this for 40 years.

The idea that you can’t love whomever you choose should be offensive to any person with a molecule of empathy in their souls.

We are being told what we can and can’t do with our own bodies, who and how we may love, and what religious views we must have.  Any one of those is an outrage.  Collectively, they add up to the foundations of a dystopian nightmare.

I don’t have the power to fight this level of Evil.  I could never make it to Mordor to destroy the Ring.  My hopes for survival are pinned to a Frodo of whom I’ve never heard to restore what little freedom we have left.

Fred Eder, ah well I was in the streets in the 80s and 90s.  I’m staring turning 60 in the face.  I had hoped that our actions in those days would pave the way for equality, and they did….  for a while…now the fascism is back with a vengeance.  Didn’t think I’d have to, but I will pick up signs, bricks and more to stop this.  The Christian Taliban ain’t getting their way on my watch if I can help it.

Fred Eder

Name Deleted, I’m glad you’re healthy enough to do this.  I can barely stand up.

All I can do is talk to the 50 or so people who listen to my show every week.  My hope is I can get one or two of them to vote for, advocate for, and take whatever action they can to protect what little is left of our Freedom.

Thank you for all you have done to help keep us free.

I’ve seen on Facebook recently the unattributed quote that “The road to fascism is paved with people telling us we’re overreacting.”

I don’t believe I’m overreacting.  More than half of the population has lost an important right.  I understand opposing abortion.  I would prefer that no one ever needed one, but the fact is that those who get pregnant do sometimes, for reasons that are none of my business.  They’re none of your business, either. 

The idea that we get to decide for anyone other than ourselves, when, with whom, or how we should have sex is unconscionable.  What goes on between consenting adults is of no concern to anyone but them.  The Supreme Court, however, has decided that government should be just small enough to fit in everyone’s bedrooms.  You may not have sex with a member of your own gender.  You may not use contraceptives with your partner.  You must have a baby if you become pregnant.  This is what our Supreme Court wants to tell us. 

“That’s not what they’re saying at all.  They’re saying it’s up to each state to decide these things.  They’re not taking anyone’s rights away.  They’re giving rights to decide back to the states.”

Oh yes… States’ Rights.  I know I’ve heard of that somewhere before… Where was that?  Oh yes… There was a thing called The Civil War.  That was about States’ Rights, too, but in that case, it was about the rights of some states to own other human beings.  I don’t believe there is anyone listening who would be in favor of slavery today.    

I know, though, that many of us are opposed to abortion.  Some of us oppose it for religious reasons, and others simply think of it as murdering babies.  Let me be clear:  No one wants to murder babies.  I would do anything in my power to save the life of a child.  So would anyone else listening now. 

How could we reduce the number of abortions people have?  This is a question worth pursuing. 

First, we could minimize some of the reasons pregnant people feel the need for them.  This would include not outlawing, but distributing freely and everywhere, all the contraception people need.  If people don’t get pregnant in the first place, they don’t need abortions.  If you oppose abortion, I hope you would support this.

Next, we could ensure that all the prenatal help a pregnant person needs is freely and widely available.  If you oppose abortion, I hope you would support this.

We could also improve the financial circumstances of pregnant people so they can afford to raise a child.  We could get them all the diapers, food, formula, day care, and any other assistance they need to be able to raise a child.  If you oppose abortion, I hope you would support this.

Will this end all abortions?  No.  Of course not.  These are only some of the reasons people get abortions.  But if they keep even one person from having an abortion, isn’t that closer to what you want?  Isn’t something better than nothing?

And, making abortion illegal in roughly half of the country won’t stop abortions, either.  Wealthy people who become pregnant will still find places to obtain their safe and legal abortions.  Poor people won’t have as many options, and I think these are the people The Supreme Court is targeting.  They can’t afford to run off to another state at will to get their abortions.  They will need to get dangerous illegal abortions, often performed by people who are not qualified. 

I would prefer, too, that no one needed an abortion, but there are any number of times when they are necessary.  And it’s nothing any pregnant person wants in the same way they want an ice cream cone.  It’s something they need for any number of reasons that I have no right to judge.  What scares me the most is that the fascism won’t end with the freedoms that are being curtailed for ever-growing segments of the population.  It’s that the people who want to restrict our freedoms are not exactly known for their loyalty.  They wanted to hang one of their own on January 6, 2021.  If you’re thinking that this isn’t going to affect you because you’re straight, or male, or Christian, I would like to remind you that Mike Pence is all those things, too.  Please don’t believe that when the violence begins, you’ll certainly be spared.

One of my most intelligent friends, Greg Smithwick, pointed out today on his show, “So Local Live” that once the violence begins, it’s difficult to control.  This is important to remember.  Yes, I want to stop the attacks on Freedom while we still can.  No, I don’t advocate violence, although I know many of you feel it may be necessary.  I hope you’re wrong. 

One of the things that I believe is going to help us to avoid a Second Civil War is our diversity.  There are people of differing political views in every state in the nation.  There is no exclusively Republican or Democratic state.  There are liberals in Arizona.  (Hi, I’m Fred, have we met?)  There are conservatives in California.  I lived in one of their trailers for a couple of months.  I don’t see our two states going to war because there are enough people on the opposing side in every state. 

Every night at 6:05 PM (It used to be 7:37 PM, but Mom is falling asleep earlier now) I talk to my Mom.  We have nearly the same conversation every night, and it ends with me saying, “Now you know I’m okay, and I know you’re okay, so we can both relax and get a good night’s sleep.”  What I fear most is the day when I won’t be able to make that call, or to tell her I’m okay.  I don’t feel confident that I will be able to do that indefinitely.  Fascists don’t like people like me very well.  The only thing I have going for me is that I’m so small I might escape their notice, at least in the beginning of the rounding up of enemies of the state.

Regular listeners know that on The Front Porch, I like to leave you with hope.  I want us to continue to Shine.  This week, that hope comes from one of The People on The Porch who posted this on Facebook last week when I said that freedom is under attack, and that I’m terrified:

It’s more likely that this measure will prompt a backlash that institutes some needed reforms.

1) Now a constitutional amendment securing the equality of women as well bodily sovereignty has become urgent.  It can be worded in a way that makes it dangerous for even the most obstinate senators to vote against.

2) The Supreme Court will now come under heavy and sustained political fire for a very long time, and so perhaps term limits (18 years?) will gain support.

3) Gay marriage, contraceptives, interracial marriage, and so on cannot be subject to surprise attacks, because everyone is on alert now and no one can be caught by surprise.  There’s a paradox that when you think you’re safe, you’re not, and when you’re on high alert because your guard is up, the vigilance actually means you’re in less danger.

Fred Eder

Thank you for giving me a little hope.  This terror does horrible things to my depression.  There’s a part of me that just wants to find a way to run as far from here as I can, but I have no way to do that.

This is not the America I grew up believing in.  This is no longer the great shining beacon of Freedom that made me so proud as a child.  We have been watching it happen slowly for 40 years.  Now it’s coming to fruition, and if we don’t stop it now, we will never be able to survive.

Fred Eder, it is still that shining beacon.  There is simply nowhere else for the people of the world to turn to for a vision of the future.  Russia?  China?  Europe?  Japan?  They’re all in demographic decline, and have a small, narrow, ethnocentric interest and perspective.

America remains the last best hope for the world – a multi-ethnic democracy where cults of personality must eventually lose out to and be subordinate to the rule of law.

We’re being tested.  Although it is difficult to see in the darkest of night, the version of America that’s worth fighting for is still winning.

So… without violence, what can we do?

Greg suggested getting 10 people all the help they need to be sure they’re registered to vote.  You’re my 10 people.  If you need help, you can ask me.  I’m not any sort of expert, but I can do the Google Search for you if you have difficulty. 

I don’t have any money to contribute to the people or causes that might lead us out of this nightmare.  I barely have enough money to make ends meet, even though I’m getting the greatest deal on rent I ever could hope to have, a friend sends me money for groceries sometimes, and I get support from The People on the Porch.  My Disability check wouldn’t even pay the rent on the smallest apartment in my town.  I rarely have triple digits in my account at the end of the month.  There are times I don’t even have double digits.  If you’re someone with extra money to support the causes in which you believe, please donate to them.  While I don’t like the fact that our world is based around money, that doesn’t change the fact that it is.  Money helps get things done.

The last time I attended a protest was, I think, 3 years ago.  My former roommates could correct me on this.  They were there.  My memory is not to be relied upon for accuracy.  When we got home, I was throwing up for most of the night.  There was some discussion about whether I needed to go to the ER yet again, but they gave me some sort of pill that stopped the vomiting, and I was all right.  I think it was heat stroke and exhaustion.  I was healthier three years ago than I am now.  I don’t have the physical strength to attend a protest.  If you do, and you can do it safely, I encourage you to go.  You don’t need to do violence.  You just need to be there.  Numbers make a difference. 

I have no skill in organizing anything.  I would make a mess of it.  Are you good at organizing?  Excellent.  Use that skill.

All I have the ability to do now is this show.  I’m hoping to rally all 50 of the people who listen to the cause of change.  Whatever you can do to help, please, please, please do it! 

Stephanie will have returned to America by the time this hits Patreon, so perhaps it will all have stopped by then, since, clearly, it was her fault all this happened in the first place.  America can’t survive without her.  But, just in case my reasoning here is faulty (you might check out something called Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc sometime), I’m asking you to help save Freedom before it is gone.

Oh, and on a side note, Greg, you said on your show today that you’ve been supporting me on Patreon for years.  If you have been, I didn’t know that.  Are you my Mystery Patron?  Has your identity finally been revealed?  If that’s you, thank you!  If it’s not, could you please send me a little of what you’re smoking?  It seems to be better than mine. 

And I want to remind you, dear listener, once more, that I love you. 

Posted on by Fred

Andrew Yang Is The Voice of The Hope for Freedom

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!

His entire plan can be found here:

https://www.yang2020.com/blog/climate-change/

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:

https://askwonder.com/research/vacant-homes-america-l752wf6cy

What else does this do?

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:

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/

Automation, Robots, and Artificial Intelligence

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.

His Democracy Dollars plan can be found here:

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/democracydollars/

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:

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/medicare-for-all/

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.

Posted on by Fred

All We Have to Decide…

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.)

https://frededer.home.blog/2019/04/04/the-boxer/

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?