Living up to Sunshine

 My granddaughter's dog died today. Her name was Sunshine and she graced us for a few days shy of fifteen years. Kudos to my daughter for finding her and gifting her to her daughter. Kudos to my granddaughter for naming and cherishing her. For Tabatha Sunshine was unfailing, the constant companion, the frolicking tug of war playmate, the hug always waiting to happen, the warm body to cuddle with at night. A friend once told me it's not so much what you say or do that matters as it is how you make people feel. If I could inspire just half the love that surrounded Sunshine, I would count my life a success.

What I Don't Get: Our Love of Guns and Our Fear of Immigrants

My friends,

I've got to be frank with you. I'm confused. I'm confused why we are so closely divided about a bunch of issues. I feel like we've left common sense at the door and are just following some rabble rousers who are egging us on to follow our basest and meanest instincts.

I see folks with guns walking into malls and stores and schools, killing bunches of people, all ages, all colors, and we still think it is OK for our neighbors to own machine guns. We still think it's OK that I can buy a gun more easily than I can get a license to drive a car. 

Now I'm going to say something crazy here. The second amendment is ridiculous in this day and age. You don't need a gun to protect you from the government. You don't need a gun, because it won't work. If the government wants to detain you, do you really think a gun is going to stop them. Heck, they can just sit outside your house for a few weeks and wait for you to get hungry. You can't stay inside forever. 

The notion that the second amendment keeps us safe is garbage. It would be laughable if it weren't so serious. It would be laughable if it weren't so sad. We have allowed a bunch of self-centered, power hungry cowboys to convince us that it's more important to own our own pistol, with no license or regulation, than it is to keep our neighbors safe, than it is to keep our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters, our children safe, our two and three and four year old children safe. I'm confused. If we are seriously weighing the pros and cons of guns versus our neighbors' lives, how do we sleep at night after choosing guns? I don't get it. This should not be controversial. 

I'm not suggesting you can't own a gun. I'm suggesting you can't own a machine gun, or a bazooka, or a hand grenade, or a tank. These are weapons of war and they have no place in our homes. That's my opinion. Now I know there are some folks in this country who fervently believe they should be able to own a tank or a machine gun if they want one. And I support their right to say that and believe that. I just doubt they are anywhere close to a majority. Yet we can't get a majority of your Senators to ban machine guns. Folks, our neighbors are dying because we are making it easy for deranged people to buy a machine gun and kill us with it. This is insanity. I just don't get it. Do you?

Here's something else I don't get. There are a bunch of white guys, and one of them is a very popular commentator on one of our major news channels, who claim that those of us who are white politicians are in danger of being replaced by our neighbors who are immigrants and who are not white. This is obviously an attack on people of color. 

But before I get to our color differences, can I just point out that ALL of us in this nation are immigrants. Well, almost all of us. Our Native American brothers and sisters' great great great grandparents were not immigrants. They were here before the rest of us immigrants arrived, and they were largely removed from their lands by us, the conquering immigrants. And our Black brothers and sisters' great great great grandparents were not immigrants either. They were slaves, brought here in chains, against their will, and their descendants were not freed until 1863. They were technically free in 1863, but in all honesty, they couldn't even vote for another hundred years, and we have so much racism in this country that fifty-five years AFTER the 1964 Voting Rights Act was passed, half a million of us marched on June 6, 2020, DURING A PANDEMIC, in 550 different towns and cities, protesting the death of George Floyd and so many other Black Americans. The good news is that so many of us who marched were white. The bad news is that we needed to march in the first place. 

But let me get back to my point, almost all of us are immigrants or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. So for a commentator to proclaim with alarm that immigrants are taking over our country is non-sensical. Immigrants have been running our country since it was founded. 

Now if it's certain immigrants our friend doesn't like, well that's not surprising. Why, you say? Because one of the great ironies about us Americans is that, as diverse as we are, we have always struggled to accept each other, especially our newest arrivals, especially if we arrived in large groups. One year it was the Irish, another year the Germans, another year the Chinese. The list goes on and on. We have always struggled to accept "others", shamefully sometimes for centuries, sometimes for decades, and far more often for those of us who are not white, yet our saving grace is that our nation was built upon the principle that every human being has the unalienable right to be here, regardless of her birth, regardless of her religion, regardless of her status. Thomas Jefferson penned those thoughts in 1776, and the entire world knows it. 

Here is a fact. Our diversity is world renown! We are hands down the nation with the largest number of immigrants in the world, four times more than any other nation. Why is that? Given the virulent way we have treated blacks and other immigrants of color, from slavery to Chinese exclusion laws to Japanese internment camps, why do so many people still flock to our shores?

I think the most important reason people reach out to us is freedom.

We have this idea that freedom is important, even if we have had a hard time living up to it.

When Thomas Jefferson penned those words "all men are created equal", he didn't have the foresight or wisdom to include men of color, or women at all, but he did mean to challenge the notion that some people are more worthy than others just because of their birth. He was declaring that earls, dukes, kings, or queens, are no more deserving than the children of farmers or tradesmen.

And to our credit, though it has been painfully slow, we have agreed and inscribed into our constitution, with amendments, that "all men" does indeed mean "all people", all men and all women, men and women of every hue, of every skin color, of every idea, of every sexual orientation, of every religious persuasion, of every economic status, we have declared to the world that all of our citizens are equal, all are entitled to find a job, all are entitled to free education, all are entitled to vote. Just as important, all are entitled to debate this, to question it, to discuss it.

Vladimir Putin. Xi Jinping, Victor Orban, hear me. Any person in the United States can disagree with me, loudly, openly, and that person won't be arrested, won't go to jail, won't lose their job, won't lose anything. Why can't that happen in your country? What are you afraid of? Freedom?

That principle of equality for all has been the bedrock of our nation. It is who we are. And as immigrants of all stripes have reached our shores, that principle has guided us as we wrestle with very human emotions about valuing people who don't look like us, who don't think like us, who don't pray like us, who don't eat like us.

Yes, we have lost our way, many, many times. Slavery, a hundred years of lynching's, hundreds of broken treaties with our Native American citizens, internment camps for our Japanese American citizens, the list is long and shameful and painful. And our pain in reciting it is nothing compared to the pain our neighbors experienced while enduring it.

It's ironic that the very core of our nation, the very principle that each of us is equal to and is as good as another....this principle feeds our diversity, even in the face of years of discrimination. The irony is that our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution promise freedom, promoting diversity....I mean, seriously, who is not attracted to freedom....and for many of us, particularly those of us who are white, that diversity is troubling....which is not surprising.

Humans the world over are not used to people who are different, especially if we live in more homogeneous communities. We're suspicious. We worry. We find ourselves treating these different strangers with less compassion than we treat strangers who look and think like us. 

But for those of us who happen to get to know these different strangers due to whatever happenstance, we find they aren't so different. They have worries and joys just as we do. They have jobs to get to, children to raise, parents to care for, friends to commune with. They have talents, they have difficulties, they have strengths, they have weaknesses, they have viewpoints, they have backgrounds that often turn out to be similar to ours or our parents' or grandparents', or that may be very different yet worth learning about. 

The human experience is so rich. We are both so alike yet so magnificently different. To digress, just for a minute, I have always been confused and surprised when folks, usually devoutly religious folks, proclaim that gay people are bad or wrong. Gay people need to be cured. God couldn't possibly have made people gay on purpose. Really? God doesn't have the imagination or capacity to create gay people? God can create amoebas and dinosaurs, oxygen and hydrogen, 17,500 species of butterflies, but not gay people. I think some of us are underestimating God.

We all eat, breathe, and love. We may eat different food, and love with different customs. But just as we tell our children as they find themselves with a new baby brother or sister that there is plenty of love to go round, so we will find that we too can appreciate new and different customs, foods, thoughts, clothes, smiles and faces. And that is a strength.

The diversity we have and, scream though we may, our willingness to embrace it, enriches our nation and serves as a beacon for others.

Our diversity can help us understand other nation's problems. Our diversity can give other nations confidence that we have the capacity to understand where they are coming from and help them.

Our diversity can give us the capacity to understand each other in our own country, to help each other, to support each other, as we go to work, raise our families, and participate in our communities. I encourage you to treasure our diversity, to reach out to your neighbors, to get to know each other. We are our strength, we are what makes our nation great, we are greater because of our different backgrounds and circumstances.

Stay well and God Bless.

Who Can Replace RBG

We lost a great lady. That's really a misstatement. This great lady spent the last sixty-one years massaging the law so that women and minorities could have the same rights as men. Sixty-one years of labor in today's world is a long life, and sixty-one years of fruitful labor is a celebrated life, so I don't think we should be saying we lost anything. I think we should be thankful that we gained so much from RBG.

How do we replace her? Honestly, we would be really greedy to assume we can. RBG's don't come along every day, much less be in the right place at the right time.

The democrats are going to wail that the republicans should wait until next January to select a replacement. That's ridiculous. If the democrats were in power, would they wait? If you think so, I've got some real estate on the moon I'd like to show you.

Democrats, shame on you for losing the Presidency and the Senate. Suck it up, and get back in the game. You know the rules. If you're tired of losing, convince the voters you should be in office. And when you're back in office, convince the voters you should stay in office. Try making decisions that work for minorities and those without power or money. Try acting like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and maybe you will match her run of sixty plus years of fruitful labor.

"It's the Economy, Not the Deficit, Stupid"

Health care, the environment, education, law and order, the military, jobs, social security....we have so much to do! How will we pay for it all? The deficit is killing us! 

All of that is true, except for the last statement. The deficit is NOT killing us.

Stephanie Kelton's "The Deficit Myth" is a welcome and clear explanation of how our government pays its bills. And how does the government pay its bills? The simple and straightforward answer of course is that when Congress authorizes X dollars for Y projects, the Treasury prints X dollars to pay for Y projects. 

Our Constitution authorizes our Congress to instruct the US Treasury to create dollars whenever it needs to pay a bill. Period. End of story. Most of us know that and are comfortable with that idea. And since 1971, when President Nixon took us off the gold standard, those dollars have no relation to gold or any other commodity. The US Treasury simply creates the dollars out of thin air. It can create dollars for the next thousand years, and the system will work just fine.

The hue and cry arises when the taxes that the government receives don't equal the X dollars that Congress has spent. We think that is a problem, and this is where we are misinformed. The revolutionary idea that Stephanie Kelton (and Warren Mosler before her) so clearly explains is that our government's expenses and the taxes we return to the government have no relation to each other. Our government's expenses DO have a close relationship with inflation, but they DO NOT have a relationship with taxes. 

This idea that expenses don't relate to taxes is going to take some getting used to. The idea that the government can create trillions of dollars out of thin air without causing "the system" to collapse is going to take some getting used to. Read Ms. Kelton's book and mull it over. Most of our leaders don't get it, which is extremely disappointing. They are supposed to be taking the time to think about issues like this carefully and thoroughly, and they are failing miserably. Some of our leaders, however, did get it, long before Kelton and Mosler made this idea accessible to the rest of us. Stephanie Kelton writes this about JFK when he was making plans for his moon-shot speech fifty-nine years ago:

There was a time when our political leaders had this figured out. For example, President John F. Kennedy sought the expertise of Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin, who served as an advisor to Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign and then as a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers. Tobin recalls JFK asking, "Is there any limit to the deficit? I know of course about the political limits....But is there any economic limit?" When Tobin confessed that "the only limit is really inflation," the president replied, "That's right, isn't it? The deficit can be any size, provided they don't cause inflation. Everything else is just talk."

The fact of the matter is that 1) the federal government simply creates money whenever it wants to pay its bills; 2) too much money in the economy is only a problem when inflation occurs; 3) taxes are not used to pay the government's bills; they are used to combat inflation and income inequality. 

Why does any of this matter?

For starters, stop thinking the government will run out of money. That is impossible. Physically impossible. The government has been printing money based on thin air for decades and it can keep doing it for the next five hundred years with no problem. It cannot run out of money.

Will the money lose value? As in inflation? Yes! That is definitely possible, and Congress and our leaders will have to pay attention to that as they manage government spending.

Is inflation a problem now? No. The last year we had inflation greater than 4% was twenty-nine years ago in 1991. 

What should we consider as we debate what things the government should spend money on? We should consider the needs of our citizens within our free economy. What do they need that the economy is not providing well? For starters, universal health care, a federal job guarantee so our homeless population disappears, public schools run by local governments but funded by the federal government on a per capita basis so that inequality in public schooling disappears, sensible environmental and climate change regulations and incentives so that our Earth does not disappear, a robust social security program.

The list goes on and can change over time. The issues will be whether the program is better suited for the private sector or the government sector, not whether the government sector can pay the bill. The government can always pay the bill. That will never be a problem. 

A real problem will arise when we have created more jobs than there are people to fill. Won't that be a wonderful problem to have!! Then, and only then, will we have to cut back on government jobs. 

Another real problem will arise when inflation starts to rise. Then we will have to raise taxes appropriately to pull some money out of the economy. Our taxes are used to fight inflation, not to pay for government spending. 

Our taxes are also used to smooth the excesses of the private economy. In the 1950's, an average S&P 500 CEO's salary was about 20 times greater than the average worker's salary. In 2017 it was 361 times greater. Progressive tax rates were never designed to pull in more money to pay for government spending. They were designed to discourage people from making outrageous amounts of money. Back in 1950 when someone reached the 90% tax bracket, he ideally thought he might as well share that last million with others in the company since the government was going to take so much of it from him!

We should get rid of regressive taxes on the federal level as much as possible. We don't need FICA or the Medicare tax. If we have a federal business tax, it should be progressive, designed to discourage monopolies.

Our economy is our strength. Our workers are our strength. The free economy works best with a strong government partner. A strong government is a smart government, that asks the right questions. The right questions for the government are, what jobs does the community need that are not being fulfilled by the private sector. The question is not, can the government afford the task. If there are available workers, the government can afford any task.

Be Transformative Mr. Biden

Dear Mr. Biden, 

Please don't just tell us how badly President Trump is doing. Tell us how transformative and exciting your administration would be.

We are not enduring just a pandemic. We are enduring the federal government's inability to respond. The dead are predominantly people of color, but there are still enough white corpses to make white voters rethink who should be running the government. Between pissed off white voters and enraged people of color who may have stayed home in 2016, we could see a realignment of power this coming November. More importantly, due to the pain, due to the economic devastation, which was so avoidable, people may be willing to consider transformative policies.

Mr. Biden, focus on our problems and be honest. Your opponents may disagree with you, but they will respect honesty, and the difference between an honest candidate and President Trump is frighteningly stark.

Here is what I would love to hear from a Presidential candidate:

My Friends,

Our biggest problems today are our health, our economy, and our planet, though not necessarily in that order, and we need a vital, functioning, science driven government to legislate and deal with these problems. Yet some would have us believe that law and order is our nation's critical issue. So let's address that head on, and then return to the other difficult problems. 

Our nation was built on racism and white privilege. That's not subjective. It's a simple fact. Slavery was written into the constitution and the only people who could vote in our first election in 1788 were white male property owners.  Our nation was born with the sin and stain of slavery and it took one hundred years for us to right that wrong with a horrific war. In 1865 we passed laws outlawing slavery but we did not change minds and hearts. We did not look deeply into our souls and acknowledge that our African American brothers and sisters were just that, members of our family, who had been egregiously wronged. We white Americans did not open our hearts to the rest of our family. 

So it took another one hundred years for white America to pass some more laws, in the 1960's, attempting to right the wrongs of slavery and racism. I say "white America" because in the 1960's 98.5% of our elected officials were white. Fifty years have passed since the 1960's, and where are we? 

For starters, we have made progress. The Congress governing today, the 116th Congress, has 116 members who are our black and brown and non-white brothers and sisters. 22% of our Congress is people of color, which is a boon for all of us, because when we share our power and our wealth with others, we benefit from their wisdom and life experience. We need the perspective of all the people in our nation, if we are to be successful in facing the problems of our lifetimes. 

And one salient perspective from our brothers and sisters who are black and brown, is that they are stopped by police, they are targeted by police, they are killed by police far more often than their white brothers and sisters. Are you surprised? Come on. Are you really surprised? My black friends are not surprised. It is the year 2020, one hundred and fifty-five years since the Civil War ended, and every one of my black friends has had this conversation with their children: "If a policeman stops you, you could be killed. Don't run, don't talk back, don't argue. You could be killed." I don't have one white friend who has ever had this conversation with their children. This is black and white. This is a cancer. This is not OK. And this is why we have had demonstrations across the country this year. 

So what do we do? Do we get rid of the police? Of course not. Do we change requirements for being a police officer? Probably. Do we bury our heads in the sand and say there is no real problem? No. Do we pretend that racism doesn't exist? Our brothers and sisters of color expect more of us. Can we rise to the occasion? Our young people are demanding it. Ending this scourge of racism has been painfully slow. Centuries have passed. Yet each generation sees progress. Each generation demands progress. So we acknowledge we have a problem. And we work to find a solution. We work. We be honest and we work. I don't have all the answers. I have some. I'm sure sending military supplies to police departments is not part of the answer. I'm sure providing racial sensitivity training for police departments is part of the answer. I'm sure pretending we have no problem is not part of the answer. I'm sure that supporting leaders who own up to the problem is part of the answer. White leaders. Black leaders don't need to own the problem. They have lived it their whole lives. White leaders need to step up. In big ways and in little ways. Cops have to stop shooting black people. That's big. And when my black friend visits my white suburb and browses through the department store, the clerk has to stop shadowing her. That's little, and that's not OK. And when my black friend decides to make the leap and look at a house for sale in my white neighborhood, the real estate agent has to show her the house. That's big, and that has to happen. 

We have a problem, friends, and we need to talk about it. We need to take racism and discrimination out of the closet, hold them up to the bright light of day and slowly but surely wash them away. Wishes won't make this happen. And since we are still dealing with the scourge of slavery one hundred and fifty-five years after the Civil War ended, I'm sorry to say that one more administration is not going to make this happen either. But we have to dialogue, we have to work, we have to point in the right direction. Our current President speaks of African nations as "shithole countries" and of Mexican immigrants as "drug dealers, criminals and rapists." That is not the direction we want to take. That is not the dialogue we want to have. In fact that is the polar opposite of the dialogue we want to have. 

We are a nation of immigrants. Our diversity is our strength, if we use it. The people in our nation who have fought the hardest, who have struggled most, are our citizens whose ancestors were slaves, are our immigrants from war-torn nations, are our immigrants from impoverished nations. All of us have family who, at some point in our history, came to these shores, struggling to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Native Americans are the only original American inhabitants, and they too have struggled mightily to deal with the incursions of those of us who came afterwards. Immigrants, people of color, our neighbors on the margins, enrich our communities. They bring energy and dynamism and love and gratitude to our communities. When we welcome them, when we help them, we enrich ourselves. But they are different, you say. They're not from around here. You're right. They are different and they are not from around here, and that can be scary. But I'm going to make you a promise. If you can find your way to open your hearts, to open your doors, to open your communities, to people unlike yourselves, you may find that your lives grow in ways you never imagined possible.

And we dearly need to push the bounds of what is possible. As I said at the outset, this pandemic has brought to light the inadequacies of our government. The pandemic is hurting all of us, but it is hurting disproportionately those whose jobs have been lost. They have lost not only their source of income, but also their source of health care, at a time when health care is of supreme importance.

Health care should not be tied to a job. It is a burden for employers and it is tumultuous for people unemployed or moving between jobs. The Obamacare health exchanges were designed to fill the needs of people between jobs, but they are functioning erratically, with premiums and deductibles far too high.

I am proposing a medicare for all plan that has no premiums, no supplements, no doughnut holes, no insurance companies, no drug costs. If you are sick, you see the doctor. If you are well, you see the doctor. There is no bill. There is never a bill. Period.

This pandemic has put many of our citizens out of work. Businesses are wary of hiring. That is understandable. So I am proposing the federal government will create a federal jobs program open to everyone. The government will find you employment and pay your salary within your community. It will be a baseline salary, but it will be a live-able salary. It will pay the rent and food bills. We don't want the government in the business of creating business, but where the free market cannot meet the needs of all its citizens, government can and should step in and fill the gap.

Education is another casualty of this pandemic. Education has long been an ailing byproduct of our economic system. While public schooling is free for all citizens, it is paid for primarily through property taxes, adversely affecting our poorer towns and cities. The pandemic has only exacerbated this method of funding. Thanks to record levels of unemployment, particularly in poorer communities, city and town budgets are suffering greatly. I am proposing that the federal government  fund public education in all communities, based on a per capita formula. The local communities will continue to control and manage their schools, but the federal government will provide the base funding.

There are many more proposals our party has to invigorate our communities and nation, and we will discuss them in future talks and debates, but before we leave today, I want to address the elephant in the room.

How do we pay for these noble and worthwhile programs? 

Well I can tell you one way we will not be paying for them and that is with taxes. In fact, I am proposing that we eliminate the federal corporate or business tax entirely. We will also eliminate the FICA and medicare tax. They are regressive taxes and we don't need them. We do need the federal income tax, and we do need to address inequities in the federal income tax rates, but I need to clarify a very important point. We don't need the federal income tax to pay for federal government programs.

Why?

We don't use taxes to pay for government programs. The federal government is the only entity authorized by our Constitution to create money. 

 

You may be surprised to learn that the government does not require taxes to spend money. You probably know that the government spends far more money than it collects in taxes every year. The difference is called our annual deficit. So how does the government do this? How does the government spend more money than it collects in taxes? The government prints some of it, but mostly the government creates the money using key strokes on a computer. Every year the government creates as much money as it needs to pay all its bills. Those bills include social security payments, medicare payments, expenses Congress has authorized for bombs, planes, roads, bridges, schools, etc. Whatever Congress authorizes, the government pays. The government does not need taxes to spend money. It simply creates money whenever it is needed. That is the role of the federal government.

Another role of the federal government is to take money out of the economy. We do this for two reasons: avoid inflation and prevent excessive income inequality. We don't take money out of the economy to pay our bills. We don't need to. We can print it. Keeping track of the federal deficit is a waste of time. The federal government does not keep a budget like your household budget or a business's budget or your local or state government's budget. The federal government's job is to maintain full employment and keep inflation at a stable and steady rate. If inflation is high, the feds will raise taxes and pull money out of the economy. If inflation is not high, there is no need to pull more money out of the economy. Whenever we do pull money out, we should do it progressively, so that those of us making millions of dollars a year pay at a higher tax rate than those of us making thousands of dollars a year.

Policing, crime, and drugs. I am proposing that we decriminalize all drugs. Taking drugs is an addiction, an illness. It should not be a crime. We don't criminalize smoking or drinking. We should stop criminalizing drugs. Release all non-violent drug related criminals from prison. Abolish mandatory minimums and three strike laws. Create federal guidelines and training for police.

Voting: set national standards for creating voting districts. Require the electoral college to respect the popular vote (in effect abolishing the electoral college).

Judiciary: set Supreme Court Justice terms to 18 years, with one replaced every other year.

Military: cut our military budget. A lot. We are not the world's policeman. We should not be. Other nations have the right to set their own destiny. We should not interfere. If we see wrongs committed, discrimination, genocide, we should offer our nation as a refuge for any who wish to come. Beyond that it is up to each nation to grow itself.

Climate change is going to be the twenty first century's greatest challenge. We should join others in that struggle. What companies will emerge to meet this crisis. How will our government join with business to address this world changing phenomenon? This should be our focus. This will be our future.

Government is hard. Good government is extremely hard. We need people who are driven to serve their communities more than themselves. We need talented people. We need people with demonstrated skills in science, education, foreign affairs, the environment, public policy, law, medicine. 

And we need voters. We need all of you to vote. I know you are busy. I know you have families and jobs. I know many of you go to bed at night exhausted, struggling to make ends meet, with little time to dig into the intricacies of politics and government. I get it. And I wish there were some easy way for you to see the difference between candidates, but usually there isn't. Most candidates are more interested in falsifying their opponent's positions rather than promoting their own. Turns out it is a heck of a lot easier to bad mouth your opposition than it is to put forward an honest account of what you plan to do in office. 

I urge you to listen to each of us who is running to represent you. I don't think you have any difficulty naming three, four, or five issues that you wish government would tend to. Are we candidates talking about those issues? Do we have plans to deal with those issues? Do we sound like we really care about those issues. 

I've tried to tell you where I think our nations needs to go. If you agree with me, I'd appreciate your vote. And I urge you to vote for the folks running for Congress in my party as well. Give my party a chance to make a real stab at the problems we face. Give us four years, and if we don't make headway, throw us out. If you give us a chance, I'm not worried about coming back to you in four years for an evaluation. I think you'll be more than pleased. I think you'll be relieved. I think you'll be invigorated. I think you'll be impressed with our coordination of business and government, working together to solve our problems, to explore frontiers and dimensions we have yet to even imagine.

Proud to be an American....A Slap in the Face...Michelle....and the Press

Michelle Obama may say she's proud to be an American. I sure as hell can't. She has been through the hell of Driving While Black, Walking While Black, Shopping While Black, Sleeping While Black, Living While Black.

Michelle Obama had every right to say back in February, 2008, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback … not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change." And she got blow-back for that honest comment. Oh did she get blow-back. Her opponent's white wife wanted everyone to know that "I have and always will be proud of my country." I wonder how proud Cindy McCain is of that comment now. 

Was Mrs. McCain trying to tell the world that our history of slavery doesn't matter? For any thoughtful American, that's all Michelle's comment was referring to. The audacity! While Living While Black, Michelle was elated that a substantial portion of her nation's people were supporting a black man for President.

I don't think Michelle Obama was guilty of saying it like it is. I think she might have been guilty of optimism.

But Michelle Obama is nothing if she is not honest. Only Michelle Obama can cry out to Blacks and People of Color who didn't vote...."You know, the day I left the White House, it was painful to sit on that stage, and then a lot of our folks didn’t vote — it was almost a slap in the face." It's true, Michelle and Barack did not deserve that slap in the face. I can't say the same for all their white friends. Doesn't mean that whites don't work their asses off to create good government. Doesn't mean they can't be frustrated when they lose. It does mean, however, in today's world, that a white person has no leg to stand on when he turns to a black man and says you screwed up. The screw up of not voting pales in comparison to the screw up of slavery and jim crow and red lining and lousy schools and lousy job opportunities. The list is so long. The list is so embarrassing long.

Any white person today who calls out I'm proud to be an American has to be incredibly insensitive and ignorant of how people of color have been and are treated in this country, or just plain happy to be in power.

Don't get me wrong. I think there's a lot to be proud of in this nation, first and foremost the freedom of the press. Sometimes that single institution, the free press, has almost single-handedly addressed the massive wrongs by the Congress, the Executive branch, and the Judiciary, all three of whom have worked tirelessly over the years to subjugate people of color. For centuries Congress passed laws that subjugated non-Whites, and the Executive branch happily enforced those laws, and the Supreme Court upheld those laws. Only free speech and a free press allowed solitary voices to rail against these abuses.

We can also be proud that Apple Computer invented the iphone. As powerful as speech is, people readily ignore it. The truth of video is harder to deny. 

You will never hear me saying I'm proud to be an American. America has too much history that should sadden, if not shame, an empathetic, if not god-fearing, human being.

You will, however, hear me say I'm grateful to be an American, grateful to live in a nation supported by millions of people of color who, despite their history of suffering, strive to make their communities and their nation rich and vital. 

And you will hear me say with vigor that I am proud to live in a society that values and nurtures free speech and a free press. That freedom above all separates us from a host of nations that suppress their people because the powerful know that their power does not emanate from the people, but rather from a gun. 

Maybe a hundred years from now a great or great great grandchild of mine will comfortably say, "I'm proud to be an American." Today we have a long, difficult road to travel, if we as a people are to right the injustices and inequities that still exist in our culture. That, however, is a road and a task I can say I am proud to be a part of.

2020: 75 Cities Are Rioting. Where Are Our Leaders

Another  Black man was killed by the police. Again. And it was caught on video. Again.

And people started marching. People marched in 75 cities across America last weekend. Can you imagine the frustration. 75 cities.

Businesses burned.

Where are our leaders?

Surprisingly, there are mayors, governors and police chiefs and cops on the beat responding first with sympathy. When was the last time you saw cops taking a knee with demonstrators? From California to Florida, North Dakota to New Jersey there are pictures of police marching and kneeling with demonstrators.

There is still police violence, but finally mayors and police chiefs are calling it out.

What would I like a leader say?

The violence has to stop. The violence against our Black citizens has to stop.

What else? How about a quick history lesson.

This nation was built on the backs of slaves.
For one hundred and fifty years slaves toiled and then our nation was formed in 1776.
Of our first twelve Presidents, only two, the Adams', did not own slaves.
It took another hundred years before the Civil War was waged and the legality of slavery was over.
The reality of slavery, however, lived on with barely a hiccup. For the next hundred years lynchings and ACTUAL LAWS kept Blacks subjugated as second class citizens.

Not until 1968 did the Fair Housing Act prohibit discrimination against people of color. But laws are enforced by people in power, and 50 years after the Fair Housing Act redlining is alive and well in many parts of the country, most recently documented in Long Island, NY, in 2019.

And police brutality is also alive and well in the United States of America.

Folks, demonstrations and riots don't erupt across 75 cities in America because one black man was killed by police. Demonstrations and riots erupt across 75 cities in America because one MORE black man was killed by police. We have to own up to this racism. We have to say enough.

White people have to say Enough.

Black people and people of color have been saying Enough for four hundred years. White people have to join them.

This is a stain on our nation, this scourge of racism.

What would I like a leader to say about all this?

First the killing has to stop. You'd think I were referring to gang shootings. Nope. Cop killings.

Body cameras should be mandatory. If a cop is involved in a killing without a body camera, the cop should lose the presumption of innocence.

Police departments should reflect the community they protect. If the community is 50% people of color, the police should be 50% people of color.

But life for our citizens should not just be about avoiding death by police, crazy as that sounds. Life should be about getting a fair shot at a decent wage, a decent job, a decent home, a decent school. 

For some of us, a decent job, a decent wage, and a decent home is indeed what life looks like. For others, not so much.

Back in the 1980's Ronald Reagan was a two-term, popular President and ran on the slogan that government was the problem and needed to be reduced. He was not being honest. Nor were people who wrote his speeches. They were annoyed that poor people were getting government subsidies. And they were VERY annoyed that Black people were getting subsidies. So they created the myth that poor people and Black people in particular are lazy, shiftless, not working hard enough to get ahead. And we slashed government programs designed to assist people with lower income in our society.

There were actually two themes running strong in the 1980's. The first and age old theme was racism. The second, and younger theme was the triumph of the market place. Triumph to some. Tyranny to others. Whites have used the market place for centuries to hobble Blacks and people of color. Why are all the people in control white? 

The violence has to stop. The violence of subsistence wages while our economy creates billionaires has to stop.

Capitalism is a great environment for creating exciting, innovative products. But in a morally equitable world, capitalism needs government to set parameters. Apple's job is to make a super iphone. It's not Apple's job to be sure it doesn't pollute the community or pay substandard wages or engage in unfair competition. All those jobs belong to the government. Government matters.

What would I like a leader to say about this?

Our government created and perpetuated the environment that fostered and nurtured slavery and racism. Now our government champions capitalism. Our government should own up to its past and make things right.

Slavery was wrong. Lynching was wrong. Racism was and is wrong. Poverty is wrong. Homelessness is wrong. Relegating people to gang infested communities is wrong. Cop killing is wrong.

It is ironic that we both share a history of racism and scorn for non-whites and also have clearly been advantaged and strengthened by our Black brothers and sisters and our many immigrants.

Pretty much every immigrant group to arrive in this country has been scorned outside of the early pilgrims. The Irish, the Poles, the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese...name a nationality and you can be almost certain it encountered friction on our shores. It is strange, because we are known as the nation of immigrants. It is strange because it is obvious to many many people in the world that our very strength comes from our diversity. It is strange because having endured discrimination themselves, one wonders why so many immigrant whites mock so many non-whites. White privilege certainly comes into play. The white aristocracy, the whites with the real power, the whites with the money have been all too happy to perpetuate the idea that whites are smarter than non-whites. But it's bullshit. Pure unadulterated bull shit.

This racist crap will cripple us. It has to stop. Race baiting has to stop. Blaming others for our troubles has to stop. Crippling others so we can have more is a false hope. It has to stop. The children and grand children and great grand children of slaves in this country, the immigrants in this country who have been brutalized, these people are the true strength of our nation. Ignore these people if your goal is for America to become insignificant. Hold back these people if you want to put out our light. For our light will only shine bright when all of us are well, when all of us thrive, when all of us can use our talents and industry to invigorate our communities.

Just as we cheer on our athletes, and laud our successful business people, and honor our scientists, doctors, artists and teachers, so also should we weep when our neighbors suffer. If her child goes to school hungry, we should worry as if our own children were hungry. If her son is shot in his youth, we must feel the pain as if our own son were cut down. If our neighbor is lynched, we must be appalled as if our own family were violated. And if whole neighborhoods and communities are suffering with this blight, we need to be vocal. We need to have a national discussion about morality. About right and wrong. About good and bad. So much of life is grey and complex, but some things are black and white.

Slavery is wrong. Murder is wrong. Racism is wrong. 

Our history books do not but should state with appalling frankness that our country was founded on the backs of slaves. Our history books barely mention the land stolen from Native Americans.  Our history books ignore the abuses endured by the Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Indian Americans and a host of other Asian Americans, primarily because THEY LOOK DIFFERENT FROM WHITE AMERICANS. Latinos are the latest non-white immigrant group to reap the benefits of racism.

What would I like a leader to say about this?

Racism is wrong. Poverty is wrong. Homelessness is wrong.

I think it is fair to say that as long as we, as a species, have the ability to create billionaires, we have the cash to solve our problems. And I'm not saying we get rid of the billionaires. I am saying, however, that as a society, as a community running under rules of government, we adjust the rules so that becoming a billionaire is a little bit harder and rising from poverty, a little bit easier. There is no doubt that those two circumstances are related. Billionaires could never exist without government and laws to support their success. Similarly extreme poverty would never exist without government and laws facilitating its existence. The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we fix it.

Honestly, fixing poverty, ELIMINATING extreme poverty, is possible. Physically insuring that every adult and child has the means to obtain food and safe housing is within our grasp. There are communities and nations on this earth, today, that DO NOT HAVE A HOMELESS population, that do not have children hungry, much less malnourished. Those nations are far less powerful, far less influential than the United States of America. They made the societal commitment, the emotional commitment, the political commitment to insure that hunger and homelessness do not exist in their communities. That was the difficult step to take. Writing the laws, marrying government programs with private programs, that is the easier step. Not easy. EasIER.

Good government is not EASY. It requires care, commitment, passion by its representatives and senators and councilors, mayors, governors, firemen, policemen, town clerks, teachers. All these people and more are elected, appointed, and paid by our citizens. All of these people and we, the tax payers, work together to create a vibrant society. We work together. WORK. Governing well is work. A good government does so much. It creates an environment for business to grow. It creates an environment for people to grow old! It also protects us from threats: hurricanes, wild fires, pandemics, extremists. This is hard work. And we have a multitude of people, eager and ready to join hands.

What would I like a leader to say?

We need to join hands. We need to use all the talent in our nation. We need to encourage all the talent in the world to meet the world's problems.

Our current President has a penchant for deriding his opponents, and he frequently views whole swaths of humanity as his opponents, so we hear about "shit hole countries," referring to nations in Africa, and "when Mexico sends its people...they're bringing crime. They're rapists." If someone reads this twenty years from now, one hopes they will be astonished a leader could survive with such vitriol. But the hate speech of one person is not the key issue, even if that person is a President. The key issue is that he is not alone. He can pack a stadium with thousands of supporters who cheer when he mocks his adversaries.

How does we respond. We can stoop and call this President and everyone who voted for him malignant, hateful, racist, stupid, the dregs of society. That passion may feel good, cathartic, invigorating, but it won't change many minds. Let's rise above the name calling.

It's a bit harder, but perhaps more effective, to focus on the issues. This is hard because issues are complicated in all sorts of ways. But an honest effort to examine them may cause people to pause, listen, evaluate, re-evaluate, and however they conclude, respect you, the messenger.

Respect is wanting in today's dialog. Respect is wanting in many of our vital institutions. The John McCain's and Ted Kennedy's of the Senate are missing.

The issues. What are the big issues? The really really big issues? Hunger. Housing. Health. Wealth and poverty. Education. Climate change. These issues are all interrelated, intertwined, and to solve any one of them successfully will be to address all of them.

Can we solve these issues? Do we have the intelligence? Do we have the cash? Yes, we have the intelligence. Yes, we have the cash.

Do we have the political will? Do we have leaders willing to call out inconvenient truths, willing to point out our mistakes, willing to lead us together. That is an open question. Only we, the voters, have the power to demand it.

What would I like a leader to say?

Slavery is wrong. Murder is wrong. Racism is wrong. Poverty is wrong. Homelessness is wrong.

Who of us running for election cares most about these issues. My friends, you need to pay attention. 

Then you need to vote.