Category: politics

Arkansas and the Nation — Do We Have a Constitution?

https://www.5newsonline.com/video/news/local/arkansas-prison/franklin-county-prison-site-may-undergo-on-site-archaeological-work-ahead-of-construction/527-33b60464-ae22-4edf-86ec-a2a6576b58dc

Well, pig soooie y’all, doncha just love Little Miss Gub’ner Sarah and her special skills at getting her way? She decided she wanted a plop a prison down in Franklin County where people are outnumbered by rabbits and deer, so by god she’s gonna have it, by hook or by crook! Methods so far include secret purchase of land and not taking ‘NO!” for an answer. When questioned, her typical non-answer ensued:

No matter what the locals want, Miss Sarah is gonna ram this through. But the legislative committee tasked with approving funding said “NO!”

  • A bill to appropriate up to $750 million for a new Franklin County prison failed in the Arkansas State Senate for the fifth time on Tuesday. 21 voted for the bill on Tuesday, the highest number yet. 9 voted against, and 5 were marked as present. 27 yes votes were needed, as a three-fourths supermajority is required for an appropriations bill to pass. https://www.4029tv.com/article/franklin-county-funding-senate-fails-fifth/64422978

Still ramming, the GOP Gov’ness continued to ignore the will of the people, something she apparently learned at the knee of Mr. Trump, for whom she spent two years lying as his press secretary. Currently, as of May 16, 2025, she (and the Department of Corrections following her orders) have taken the next step, apparently under the belief that sooner or later she’ll successfully run over local (and state) concerns:

  • Franklin County, AR (KATV) — The State Board of Corrections tonight selected builders for a controversial prison project in Franklin County. In a special meeting tonight the board selected Nabholz Construction, a prominent Conway-based construction company, and J.E. Dunn Construction Group, based in Kansas City to partner on the project. They took that step despite the legislature’s unwillingness during the recent session to approve a $750 million request to fund the project. Still the board is armed with $75 million that had previously been appropriated for prison construction – and they’re using it to move the process forward. [By now the estimated cost is $850 million. Stay tuned for further cost escalations.]

This fits right in with the operational mindset of the GOP. In Arkansas, that has meant stifling the voice of the people despite the state constitution’s protection of the right to petition, as described in Article 5, Section 1:

  • The first power reserved by the people is the initiative. Eight per cent of the legal voters may propose any law and ten per cent may propose a constitutional amendment by initiative petition and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. Initiative petitions for state-wide measures shall be filed with the Secretary of State not less than four months before the election at which they are to be voted upon; provided, that at least thirty days before the aforementioned filing, the proposed measure shall have been published once, at the expense of the petitioners, in some paper of general circulation.

Since Sanders took office, her handpicked attorney general and legislative minions have made every effort to hamstring the petition process, concluding the 2025 legislative session with the following:

  • Act 153 clarifies that the certification of ballot titles for initiatives, referendums and constitutional amendments as well as the signatures collected for those measures would only be valid for the next general election.
  • Act 154 expands the attorney general’s existing authority to reject a proposal if it conflicts with the U.S. Constitution or federal statutes and prevents the sponsor of a measure from submitting more than one conflicting petition simultaneously.
  • Act 218 requires signature gatherers, known as canvassers, to inform potential signers that petition fraud is a criminal offense.
  • Act 240 requires canvassers to request a photo ID from potential signers.
  • Act 241 requires canvassers to file a “true affidavit” with the secretary of state, the executive branch office that oversees elections, certifying they complied with the Arkansas Constitution and state laws related to canvassing, perjury, forgery and fraudulent practices in the procurement of petition signatures. Signatures submitted without the affidavit would not be counted.
  • Act 273 disqualifies signatures collected by canvassers if the secretary of state finds “by a preponderance of evidence” that they violated state law collecting the signatures.
  • Act 274 requires potential signers to read a petition’s ballot title or have it read to them; failure to ensure this would result in a misdemeanor charge against the canvasser.
  • Act 453 requires canvassers who are paid to collect signatures to be permanent residents of Arkansas. A sponsor of a ballot measure would be fined $2,500 per paid canvasser hired who does not meet this requirement.

This deliberate effort to block, restrict, hinder, impede, delay, inhibit, obstruct, undermine, and otherwise derail the efforts of Arkansas citizens to collect sufficient signatures with which to place a proposed measure before voters is a direct assault on citizens’ rights as clearly stated in the constitution. This most likely is an aftershock of the successful 2016 medical cannabis petition effort, the outcome of 17 years of citizen efforts. The likelihood of citizen efforts to further legalize cannabis, protect women’s healthcare rights, and other non-GOP ideas has driven this outrageous conglomeration of legislative foment and the governor’s veto of legislation that would allow drive-through delivery of legal medical cannabis to qualified patients from licensed outlets.

  • “This legislation would expand access to usable marijuana, therefore I am vetoing this legislation,” Sanders stated.

Never mind that a more informed point of view about marijuana would greatly reduce the need for new prison space… **

This is authoritarian thinking, apparently well learned from Trump and other GOP operatives (Stephen Miller springs to mind) in how to circumvent not only the letter of the law as written in the U.S. Constitution, but also the intent. Apparently the Founding Fathers didn’t know what they meant to say when they wrote “…no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Also, the Founders also apparently failed to designate skin color when they wrote “that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is . . . a citizen of the United States.”  And so forth.

As things whittle down to the bone with these Republican yahoos, We the People are either going to have to settle for a king in the White House, or rise up. It gives some hope that over 200 lawsuits against Trump administration efforts have been filed. But, as repeatedly noted in the histories of democracy, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

**Possession of 1 ounce (28 grams) or more with two prior marijuana convictions is a Class D felony, carrying a penalty of up to 6 years in prison and a $6,000 fine. A total of 4,976 arrests for marijuana were reported for 2023, the last year available for such data. Huckabee is on record for opposing expansion of the medical marijuana program and legalization of recreational marijuana.

What Democrats Did Wrong

Party leaders failed to see the long term need for younger, more vigorous candidates. The bulk of Biden’s term suffered from his shuffling gait, whispery voice, and apparent mental decline. Not that Trump is so much younger, but his demeanor as a bully conveys a message of strength. Sadly.

Dems also failed to foresee Biden’s inability to win a second term and consequently failed to hold a 2024 primary that would have introduced all best possible candidates. Call it allegiance to a venerable old warrior (Biden) or inability to break out of an established order of candidate precedence, or fear of the unknown, this lack of a so-called ‘fair’ fight in selecting a presidential candidate played a significant role in Harris’ defeat.

Sorry, but Kamala Harris was not popular in the 2020 primaries from which she withdrew for lack of funding. Built-in negatives aside from her mixed race and being female included her speech affectations which make her seem smug. One would think that the defeat of Hillary would have been lesson enough. For now, the fight is still between present day realities which are incomprehensible to conservatives and the “good old days” when men were ‘successful’ if they knew how to saddle a horse.

During Biden’s term, there was no apparent coherent approach to illegal immigration. This played into Harris’ weakness on this issue, which Biden appointed her to address. Whatever policy recommendations she made failed to make news cycles. As noted by the Washington Post, “Harris, in fact, has never been in charge of the border. The Department of Homeland Security manages migration. Her immigration role for the Biden administration has included boosting U.S. aid to Central America, traveling to the region and discouraging potential migrants from making the dangerous journey to the United States.” Be that as it may, if there had been a strong Biden policy on illegal immigration and prominent promotion of those policies, Trump wouldn’t have been able to make that topic a centerpiece of his campaign.

https://abc13.com/migrant-caravan-immigrations-and-customs-story-migrants/4690683/

Yes, boosting U.S. aid to Central America is foundational to stemming the tide, as Harris knew. Sadly, the fact is that coherent immigration policies addressing root causes aren’t enough to stop people seeking better opportunities for themselves and their children. If your children are starving and your home and livelihood are daily threatened by violent gangs rampaging through neighborhoods, you too would leave behind everything you’ve ever known and walk to the promised land.

THERE IS NO GOOD SOLUTION to illegal immigration. There is no fence high enough, or military/border guard personnel vast enough to make illegal entry impossible. As climate change advances, more and more populations will face starvation and violent domestic turmoil. The U.S. cannot take them all. No one can. This message must be made clear. Trump’s plan to deport millions WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. This is whack-a-mole thinking.

Biden, in the seeming tradition of Democrats and, in the words of Michelle Obama, “went high” when the Republicans “went low.” But we’re dealing with primitive thinking where the hero bashes the villain over the head. With no head bashing, there’s no hero. The villain wins. It’s past time for the Democrats to develop more than one track and start bashing. To greatest possible extent, yes, don’t give up the vision of a better world—peace, love, good vibes. But we also must carry a big stick and when somebody needs to get bashed over the head, bash the son of a bitch. The Biden administration’s justice department took waaaay too long quibbling over how/when/why to prosecute Trump for his shocking illegal acts. He should never have been free to run for re-election.

Not that Biden or the justice department had control over local and state prosecutions, but the failure of appropriate federal action left the door open for Trump to escape from prosecution in lower courts, as is now obvious. It was the first Trump presidency which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court, and that will be the case again. His sponsors are playing the long game, moves that have been feverishly planned since at least the 1950s. The strategy is to whip up fear and hatred to drive conservative voters to the polls, desperate to buy God’s favor by forcing the entire nation into a theocracy. None of this matters to Trump, whose entire plan involves self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, and eluding justice.

True to their religious belief system, conservatives prefer government which regulates what the population does in their bedrooms and allows the business segment to run wild. The opposite is true for liberals, who believe what people do in their bedrooms is no one’s business and what the business community does can ONLY be regulated by government. Who else can force corporations not to dump industrial waste in our rivers? Ensure clean drinking water and safe food supplies? Mitigate the onslaught of pandemics? Enforce design and construction standards for roadways, bridges, and buildings?

These requirements of government are easily forgotten by a fearful, angry electorate who is not educated to understand these fundamental duties, an electorate even more distracted by a wannabe dictator whose success depends on agitating division with lies and false promises. This can only be effectively countered by an equally vociferous Democrat whose presence and actions meet the pseudo-strength of a candidate like Trump. Potential right-wing demagogues have the advantage of money flowing from a huge array of business interests. Liberals have only the People to carry on the framework for freedom established by the Founding Fathers:

  • We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Foundational to this vision was EDUCATION. Public education was not an afterthought of the American Revolution – it was a core ideal of our Founders. They maintained that a well-educated population was the only means of ensuring America’s future. The roots of taxpayer-funded public education in the United States can be traced back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647. The colony passed a law that required towns to establish schools, made children attend school, and allowed the state to levy taxes to support schools. This traditional determination now stands at risk from religious forces who have managed to divert tax dollars into support for private, religious schools which often slant their programs to fit a religious agenda.[1]

Could Obama have warded off this SCOTUS situation with his nomination of Merrick Garland for the post by steamrolling the Senate?

  • It is in full accord with traditional notions of waiver to say that the Senate, having been given a reasonable opportunity to provide advice and consent to the president with respect to the [Supreme Court] nomination of [Judge Merrick] Garland, and having failed to do so, can fairly be deemed to have waived its right.  Here’s how that would work. The president has nominated Garland and submitted his nomination to the Senate.  The president should advise the Senate that he will deem its failure to act by a specified reasonable date in the future to constitute a deliberate waiver of the right to give advice and consent.  What date?…90 days is a perfectly reasonable amount of time.

– Excerpt from an op-ed column in The Washington Post on April 10 by Washington, D.C., lawyer Gregory L. Diskant, who is in private practice and also serves as a member of the national governing board of the liberal advocacy group, Common Cause.

  • “The Appointments Clause [of Article II] clearly implies a power of the Senate to give advice on and, if it chooses to do so, to consent to a nomination, but it says nothing about how the Senate should go about exercising that power.  The text of the Constitution thus leaves the Senate free to exercise that power however it sees fit.  Throughout American history, the Senate has frequently – surely, thousands of times – exercised its power over nominations by declining to act on them.

 – Excerpt from a commentary about the Diskant column by M. Edward Whalen, president of the conservative advocacy group, the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, published April 10 on the National Review Online’s Bench Memo.[2]

Equally appalling was the lack of foresight by none other than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who refused to retire during Obama’s presidency, which would have allowed another justice to step in on her coattails. Despite her excellent record and unfailing support for liberal causes, a bit of hubris caused her to cheat the future of a suitable replacement.

Democrats need to wake up! Making nice is not always the best course of action when we’re dealing with not only ignorant tyrants like Trump but also foreign bad actors with their thumbs on the scales.

[1] In June 2022, in Carson v. Makin, the high court held that when governments choose to subsidize private schools, they must allow such funds to pay for religious schools. A majority of current justices appear to believe that excluding religious groups from government programs is a violation of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Although court precedents prohibit direct funding of religion under the establishment clause, the current court could decide that if the state funds secular public charter schools, religious public charter schools cannot be excluded from such funding.  See https://www.freedomforum.org/government-fund-religious-schools/

[2] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-could-obama-bypass-the-senate-on-garland-nomination

The Rich and Social Security

I’m sorry to burst everyone’s bubble about the rich and Social Security, but I believe it’s flat out wrong to think it’s as simple as the rich should pay “their fair share.” Compared to everyone else, they already pay their fair share because what each of us pays in Social Security tax is based on our income. The rich earn more, so they pay more.

The sticking point is the cap, the amount of the tax to be collected before the assessment stops. So what “pay their share” actually means to those hoping for reform is “get rid of the cap.”

But what would that mean?

“In 2024, the maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security tax is $168,600, which is up from $160,200 in 2023. This limit [cap] is also known as the contribution and benefit base or the taxable maximum. The tax rate for wages paid in 2024 is set by statute at 6.2 percent for employees and employers, each. This means that an individual with wages equal to or larger than $168,600 would contribute $10,453.20 to the OASDI program in 2024.” And no more.

“The federal government adjusts the Social Security cap annually to keep pace with inflation based on changes in the National Average Wage Index. Earnings above this amount are not subject to Social Security tax or factored into Social Security payments in retirement.”

So at the maximum level of taxation this year, a person would pay a total $10,453.20 into the system.

And what does this person draw in benefits?

“The maximum Social Security benefit depends on age, earnings, and when benefits are taken. In 2024, the maximum benefit is $3,822 per month for those who retire at full retirement age, which is between 66 and 67. For those who retire at age 62, the maximum benefit is $2,710 per month, and for those who retire at age 70, the maximum benefit is $4,873 per month.” 

To earn the maximum Social Security benefit, individuals must have been a high earner for 35 years and wait until full retirement age to claim benefits.

The ‘high earner’ contributing to the fund based on $168,600 for 35 years would have a pension balance of over $5,901,000 by retirement. At the $4,873 maximum monthly payout for the retiree, this amount would be depleted in 100.87 years, hardly a likely remaining life span after retirement age. Even living 20 years past retirement age, that person would only recoup about 20% of what he paid in.

On the other end of the tax calculation, a low income earner of $35,000/year might contribute far less than he/she will actually be able to receive at retirement. An employee sees 6.2% of his earnings withheld from his paycheck while his employer pays another 6.2%, for a total of $4,340/year based on $35,000/year. A self-employed person has to pay the entire 12.4% into the fund. Either way, thirty-five years later, that person will have accumulated $151,900 in his benefit fund.

Depending on the age at retirement, let’s say 66 years, his monthly benefit amount would be $1,846. Fortunately for him, if he lives twenty years after retirement, he will receive a total of $443,040 in benefits, a total of $291,140 MORE than he paid into the system.

Yes, there are significant numbers of men who die before they can claim any benefits, although their widows and/or minor children can draw on those accounts. A widow who never earned an income can live on her dead spouse’s benefits for the rest of her life, an amount which can easily skyrocket into large sums as about 16% of the men and about 34% of the women live to ninety or beyond.

Currently, life expectancy for women is 80.2 years while for men, it is 74.8 years. About half of women drawing benefits receive amounts based on their husbands’ earnings. Calculating by averages alone, the 5.4 years that women live past the male average death age creates a disproportionate amount of benefits paid that exceeds taxed earnings.

There is no cap on how many years a person can receive benefits. The benefits continue until death. The longer we live, the more benefits we receive.

So there’s no method by which the “rich must pay their fair share” when it comes to Social Security. Nor is the equity in promising widows a lifetime of benefits based on the husband’s contributions.

But wait! Aside from Social Security, a far simpler method of taxing excessive wealth is a more effective income tax rate. Consider the following:

  • According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.
  • According to leaked tax returns highlighted in a ProPublica investigation, the 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes from 2014-2018—a “true” tax rate of just 3.4 percent on $401 billion of income.[1]

That’s not paying your fair share. Instead of rewarding wealth over work, our tax system should ensure that billionaires play by the same set of rules as the rest of us. It’s good for the planet, and it’s essential to the preservation of our democracy.[2] An easy method of capturing a greater portion of excessive income is the wealth tax plan advocated by Sen. Bernie Sanders:

Key Points:

  • Establish an annual tax on the extreme wealth of the top 0.1 percent of U.S. households.
  • It would only apply to net worth of over $32 million. Anyone who has a net worth of less than $32 million would not see their taxes go up at all under this plan.
  • This would raise an estimated $4.35 trillion over the next decade and cut the wealth of billionaires in half over 15 years, which would substantially break up the concentration of wealth and power of this small privileged class.
  • Ensure that the wealthy are not able to evade the tax by implementing strong enforcement policies.[3]

Aside from higher income taxes on the 1% super wealthy, another major misconception about Social Security is the idea that the government has “borrowed” money from the fund and that’s why it seems to be running out. Yes, the federal government borrows Social Security funds. This is a mechanism that was built in when the program began. The point being, the government is required to pay the money back with interest.

  • Social Security income is deposited into two financial accounts called trust funds – the Old-Age Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund. The trust funds are used to pay out Social Security benefits and cover administrative costs.
  • The trust funds hold money that isn’t needed in the current year to pay benefits and other expenses. By law, that money is invested in special Treasury bonds that are guaranteed by the U.S. government and earn interest. This adds to the fund. The Treasury is obligated to pay back the money it borrows with interest, according to AARP and the Congressional Research Service, and the SSA says the federal government has never failed to do so.[4]

Another misunderstood program is the Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, similar to Social Security, which guarantees a minimum level of income for aged, blind, or disabled individuals. It acts as a safety net for individuals who have limited resources and little or no Social Security or other income. Individual States have the option to supplement Federal payments for SSI. Currently, states fund about 33% of the program while the federal government puts up the remaining 66% ($55.4 billion in 2021). SSI is financed by general funds of the U.S. Treasury — personal income taxes, corporate taxes, and other taxes. Social Security taxes collected under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) or the Self-Employment Contributions Act (SECA) do not fund the SSI program.[5]

We can and should argue for change. But we need to start out with the facts.

[1] https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/

[2] Ibid

[3] https://berniesanders.com/issues/tax-extreme-wealth/

[4] https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/social-security-verify/how-government-borrows-social-security-trust-funds/

[5] https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-17-008.pdf

The New Peasants

https://knightstemplar.co/what-did-peasants-do-in-the-middle-ages/

We need to stop thinking like peasants. We no longer live under the rule of a king or an aristocratic lineage of dukes, earls, and what not. We citizens of the United States (and most modern democracies) hold equal shares of power over ourselves, each of us with the right to assemble, speak our mind, and vote in order to maintain a government that protects us from any force threatening to bar our path to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Apparently some among us have forgotten, or more likely never learned, that this is our gift as Americans. They are the 21st century serfs who plod along ignoring their rights—and their duties—as American citizens. Observers most often label these new age serfs as ignorant, but that’s not entirely the reality. These modern serfs are willfully ignorant, a choice they have made in order to avoid thinking.

True, thinking is a troublesome exercise. Thinking requires the gathering of all pertinent facts on any particular issue. Such fact gathering requires not only the time and effort of the exercise, but also possession of skills in such areas as rationality and research. These skills are taught to children in their school years, but the teaching is clearly inadequate. This inadequacy is not necessarily the fault of the teacher or the school system or the curriculum, although all three can be at fault to some degree. More likely the inadequacy is due to parents not practicing thinking at home.

This kind of generational non-thinking used to be the norm, back when most of us were serfs. Those were the days when a few traditional skills sufficed in meeting life goals. A serf served his/her lord—the duke, earl, or even the king—who made his expectations clear. A woodsman was to cut and haul wood. A farmer was to plant, cultivate, and harvest crops.

As explained in Wikipedia:

  • Serfdom is the forced labor of serfs in a feudal society. In medieval Europe, serfs were peasant farmers who worked without pay for a lord. In exchange, they got to live and work on the lord’s manor. They also got the lord’s protection. Serfs had more rights than slaves (for example, serfs could own property). However, they were not completely free. They could not move, marry, or leave the manor without the lord’s permission. In most serfdoms, serfs were legally part of the land. If the land was sold, they were sold with it. Serfs worked in their lord’s fields. They sometimes did other things related to agriculture, like forestry and transportation (by both land and river). Some also worked in craft and manufacturing … like the village blacksmith, miller or innkeeper. Serfdom developed from agricultural slavery in the Roman Empire. It spread through Europe around the 10th century. During the Middle Ages, most European people lived in serfdoms.

Serf children grew up learning about life from their parents, a life that followed the rules set down by their lord’s demands. The sawyer’s sons were sawyers. The tanner’s sons were tanners. Owned by their fathers as girls, females were handed over to their husbands to serve as wives and mothers, subject to his absolute control.

Those rules made it easy to decide what to do without having to think about it.

https://americanantiquarian.org/millgirls/files/original/8a8abec89136208b78c319d282bac1e1.jpg

Ah, those were the days. There were established rules about not only what work to do each day, but what to wear (same homespun garments as the day before), what to eat (same basic gruel and bread as the day before), what to believe (acceptance of one’s humble place in life because the Bible said so), and so forth. Even a free man could become a serf if he owed a large debt. He would make an agreement with the lord of the land. The lord would keep him safe, give money to pay his debt, and give him land to work on. In return, he would work for the lord. All his children would become serfs.

So while our early ancestors arrived in the American colonies fresh from their peasantry, only a few of them brought with them the practice of thinking. This is the resistant strain of human nature, to do what the parents did, to blindly accept a set of rules to follow, to spend our days laboring to satisfy our lord and master. The goal has shifted only slightly in that we labor in the belief that if we work hard enough, we too can be a lord. This is the fantasy that controls so many, that someday when we’re lords, we won’t want the government to tax us. This is the thinking that allows the rich to pay taxes at the same rate as the rest of us, when their incomes surpass by billions the amounts we earn. Meanwhile, we bow down (at least mentally) to the lords who have achieved ‘greatness’ through wealth or power.

After all, peasants believe, how could lowly persons such as ourselves manage to decipher the intricacies of big business or political process much less discern the many aspects of personality and manipulation employed by the lords? How are we supposed to know what is true? We must believe what our chosen leaders tells us. Never mind what news source may or may not employ actual journalists, or who provide ‘news’ instead of ‘entertainment.’ It’s all a lie anyway, they say, throwing up their hands, disheartened.

Well, yes, these are difficult mental tasks for people who never learned how to research or reason. Besides, we’re busy trying to keep a roof over our head and food on the table.

A full 34% of the voting-eligible population did not vote in 2020, which saw the highest voter turnout since 1914. Even more concerning is the popularity of wannabe dictators like Donald Trump whose supporters openly ridicule education, basking in the praise of a man who “loves the poorly educated.” It should be no surprise that Democrats control 77% of the U.S.’s most highly educated Congressional districts (107 districts) while Republicans control 64% of districts where the fewest people went to college (107 districts).[1]

There is no controlling force that coerces individuals into peasant thinking. Such a role is heavily influenced by tradition and hardly mitigated by many educational opportunities. Community plays a role as well, either offering role models who use thought and action to move beyond peasantry, or by warning of negative results for those who try to move beyond their family traditions of non-thinking. It is often easier to remain in the trenches than to climb out, especially when one has failed to grasp the tools which make climbing possible. Plus, who wants the responsibility of stepping up to the plate? I might swing and miss.

Our society and especially our educational systems are failing to penetrate the mental laziness of lingering peasantry enticing us to depend on lists of rules handed down by lords. Curriculum for all schools, public, private or religious, should provide the methods of rational thinking in order to protect malingering peasants from their self-destructive (and democracy-destroying) behavior. Curriculum requirements should include debate where fact-based points are presented on a chosen topic. A thorough understanding of civics and history should form the core of classes that also teach language arts and mathematics/logic. At strategic points in those school years, there should be lessons in conflict resolution as well as introduction to introspection.

The answer is stepping up to our human potential, NOT to install a wannabe king.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/us/politics/trump-presidential-campaign-voters.html

[1] https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/midterm-election-house-districts-by-education/

Pity the True Believers

Washington Post 2016

What will happen to them, these lovers of Trump, the men and women who act as if he is the next risen Christ, or at least the best man possible to lead the United States of America? What will happen when the inexorable turn of the wheels of justice finally finally grind him into the ground?

Will they weep? Yes. Will their anger grow exponentially to the point of ignition? Yes.

When the inevitable happens, and yes, I believe in the Constitution and our system of laws that have steered this nation through war and despair for over 200 years. I believe that Trump will finally be held accountable for all his lies and frauds and empty promises that continue to spill from his deteriorating mind, mouthed in nonsensical phrases and welcomed with open arms into the aisles of churches and the homes of the True Believers. I believe that the witnesses and the attorneys and the juries and judges will do their duty, that he will be convicted of his crimes against the people and the nation, that he will at some point have to face the truth about himself.

Nothing could be more terrifying for a man like Trump than to face the truth about himself, that his life was wasted in harming his fellow man, that he was a thief and an adulterer and a rapist, that he could produce nothing of value in this world. That he had every material advantage given to him by emotionally-vacant parents, and he squandered that gift in his ignorance, in his greed and desperation for his life to hold some meaning but never did.

What will these people do who hold him up before themselves and now will find him cast down into the filth of human failure, deceit, corruption? When the revelation of his amoral guilt opens their eyes with blinding light, will they refuse to believe the truth? Will they take up arms and storm the courthouses and prison, crying out for his release, demanding a new day still grasping for that promise, that fable of his greatness?

They believed. They tied their lifeboats to his ship, that great phantasm of belief that he was the strong man, the savior of our times, that their lives could be made meaningful and fruitful under his leadership. As the seas heave and roll, tossing his ship into wreckage, will their boats also capsize, splinter into driftwood to drift back to the littered beaches over the coming weeks and months?

Somewhere deep inside, most of the True Believers sense the truth, that Trump is a fool, an emperor without clothes. They know in that secret room of themselves that they have followed a lie. But for many of them, the truth is too painful, too terrifying, and their solution is to speak of war, that they will take up arms to defend their savior, that they will emerge triumphant in a new America led by God Almighty with Trump seated on His right hand.

These are the fantasies of those who have never seen war, who know nothing of the price we paid in the last civil war when 620,000 men died fighting their neighbors and even their kinsmen over a belief that had long since lost any claim to righteousness. In their glorious imaginings of redeeming the nation, the radical right imagine the fight as taking down the Bidens and the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi and other figureheads of ‘liberal’ democracy without realizing that the fatalities they wish to bestow will instead be their neighbors and their kinsmen.

“Confederate dead Miller Farm, Antietam Battlefield, September 19, 1862,” House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/32956.

Will justice for Trump open the door to insight, even epiphany, for his True Believers? Will they be able to accept the truth of his malfeasance or the rectitude of the courts’ judgement? Some will. Some already have. But some will not, and for them we probably should feel compassion for their loss of a dream, of a self-made parody of a god, a feeble man who misled them, made promises he couldn’t keep, presented himself in a fictional persona simply to aggrandize himself no matter the price to be paid.

The private, personal cost will be great for those True Believers unable to let go of the fantasy, that they alone stood by a true hero. They will not be treated kindly by history.

The Continuing Israeli-Palestinian Agony

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/16/after-over-100-days-of-war-palestinians-fight-hard-hit-areas-of-gaza-and-fire-rockets-israel.html

Many Israelis and Jewish people worldwide recognize the futility of Netanyahu’s relentless attack on Gaza under the excuse of protecting Israel from Hamas. The United States is caught up in a tangle of its historical sympathy and generosity toward Israel and the current reality of Israel’s genocidal violence against Palestinians. The truth is, the more Palestinian deaths, the more certainty that Hamas will never die. Every bomb dropped recruits more support for Hamas.

The U. S. and President Biden’s situation is a classic Catch 22. Should we take a hard line with Netanyahu and his rightwing government, setting down an unequivocal rule that no more financial or military support will be forthcoming if Israel does not step back and reorient its Palestinian policies? The logical (and fair) solution would be the formation of a Palestinian state and returning the Israel/Palestine borders to the 1967 boundaries.

[My personal view is that the attempt to create a state of Israel was a mistake from the start. The fond dream of Zionists, this effort to reestablish a Jewish state after 2,000-plus years, was absurd and unnecessary. No other religion has its own ‘state.’ Religion is a personal choice, not appropriate justification for the establishment of a nation. Imagine if we forced a partition of England as a homeland for Methodists!]

Back to the Catch 22. If Biden takes such a step, he risks losing political support from American Jews and evangelicals. This comes at a critical time in American politics as the extreme right wing hopes to bring Trump into a second term as president, which in itself could spell the end of our democracy.

For Biden, evangelicals won’t be much of a loss, since most are already lined up for Trump in the deluded belief he is a “flawed vessel” for the hand of God. This is a form of religious schizophrenia. Historically, Christians hate Jews because they killed Jesus. BUT THAT WAS GOD’S PLAN, right? Creating then sacrificing his “son” in order to provide forgiveness for humans? So logically, Christians should LOVE Jews for the crucifixion as a manifestation of God’s plan.

In reality, Christian ‘love’ of Israel is a self-serving strategy. “American evangelicals are among Israel’s most ardent advocates, compelled in part by their interpretation of scripture that says God’s ancient promise to the Jewish people designating the region as their homeland is unbreakable.”[1] American evangelical support for Israel has exacerbated conflict along Israel’s boundaries in encouraging settler expansion.[2]

  • “For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.”[3]
  • BUT: “When it comes to anti-Semitism the Religious Right falls under two great clouds of suspicion. First, contemporary anti-Semitism originated in and was nourished for millennia by Christian condemnation of Jews for the crucifixion of Christ and for their continued rejection of Christ as the Messiah. Second, political anti-Semitism has most frequently and disastrously arisen from right-wing governments and ideologies from the Czarist pogroms to Hitler’s Final Solution. …Historically, the strong and traditional religious beliefs of evangelicals and fundamentalists have both engendered religious particularism that makes them critical of followers of other faiths … and encourages antipathy toward Jews for rejecting Christ now and in the past.[4]
https://worshipleader.com/leadership/awakening-prayer/
  • The right also loves to use the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” to promote a conservative Christian agenda that conveniently erases the several thousand years during which “Christian values” included beating, forced conversion and murder of Jewish people. …Christian philosemitism, especially on the political right, is often linked to support for Israel. Evangelical conservatives have long embraced Israel in part because many believe it’s important for fulfilling end times prophecies (in which Jews convert or go to hell). Evangelicals also have a strong connection with Israel and the holy sites located there. Israel’s oppression of Palestinian people and its conflicts with its Muslim neighbors also feed into right-wing ideology, specifically Islamophobia.[5]
  • The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the U.S., has explicitly rejected suggestions that it should back away from seeking to convert Jews, a position which critics have called anti-Semitic, but a position which Baptists believe is consistent with their view that salvation is solely found through faith in Christ. In 1996 the SBC approved a resolution calling for efforts to seek the conversion of Jews “as well as the salvation of ‘every kindred and tongue and people and nation.'” …Most Evangelicals agree with the SBC’s position, and some of them also support efforts which specifically seek the Jews’ conversion. Additionally, these Evangelical groups are among the most pro-Israel groups. (For more information, see Christian Zionism.) One controversial group which has received a considerable amount of support from some Evangelical churches is Jews for Jesus, which claims that Jews can “complete” their Jewish faith by accepting Jesus as the Messiah.  [6]

Without doubt, for Joe Biden facing the November 2024 election, he must temper his choices of policies toward Israel in consideration of the American Jewish vote, which has traditionally aligned with Democrats.

  • For most of the 20th century since 1936, the vast majority of Jews in the United States have been aligned with the Democratic Party. During the 20th and 21st centuries, the Republican Party has launched initiatives to persuade American Jews to support their political policies, with relatively little success.[7]

Are enough American Jews outraged by the Palestinian death toll and allied threat to Israel’s future to vote for Biden even if he places firm conditions on the continuance of U.S. financial and military aid? As reported January 8, 2024 in the Jerusalem Post, “Gallup’s tracking of Americans’ views on Netanyahu since 1997 indicates a recent negative shift, with a 47% unfavorable rating against a 33% favorable rating. Notably, Republicans maintain a more positive view of Netanyahu, with 55% favorability, in contrast to 14% among Democrats and 30% among independents.”[8]

Whether this shift in opinion would hold if the U.S. no longer supplied Israel with 2000-pound bombs and other weapons in its relentless attack on Gaza remains an open question. But world opinion increasingly demands a change of U.S. policy toward Israel, and the U. S. is the only entity with sufficient leverage—the threat of withholding all U.S. aid—to force Israel to make changes that Netanyahu and his cohort adamantly oppose.

The so-called two-state solution is unquestionably an important first step, with boundaries between the Palestinian state and the Israeli state established along the fraught 1967 lines (with updated adjustments). Additional terms would include U.N. peacekeeping troops in place to enforce demilitarization on both sides as well as U.N. and mandatory Israeli funding in restoration of Gazan infrastructure.

Solutions rely on the Arab world’s acceptance of Israel’s existence in their midst and on Israel’s acceptance of its new boundaries without any expansion. If ARab states expect to hold a respected position in world affairs, it’s past time for the Arab world to embrace modern social norms—no more cutting off fingers, heads or other body parts, no more burning people alive or other bloody jihad. The savagery of Arab attacks on its ‘enemies’ is contrary to their own best interests, just as is Israel’s genocide against Gazans.

It’s time for Israel to live up to its religion with its idea that Jews are “God’s chosen people” not in order to believe themselves above any laws or superior in some way, but in order to fulfill the mission of proclaiming his truth among all the nations of the world.[9] Contrary to the “buy my ticket to heaven” ideas of the evangelical Christians in its support for Israel as a nation, it seems the message preserved in the 2,000 to 2,500 year-old-writings of Jews is that anyone embracing the Jewish faith must serve as a messenger “to make God known to the world.”

https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2014/07/joint-jewish-muslim-fast-against-violence.html

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/us/american-evangelicals-israel-hamas.html

[2] See https://theconversation.com/us-giving-to-israeli-nonprofits-how-much-jews-and-christians-donate-and-where-the-money-goes-201920

[3] https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481

[4] Smith, Tom W. “The Religious Right and Anti-Semitism.” Review of Religious Research 40, no. 3 (1999): 244–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/3512370.

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/christian-led-caucus-protecting-jewish-values-no-thanks-ncna1287802

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Christianity

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews_in_politics

[8] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-781227

[9] See, for example, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-quot-chosen-people-quot

Israel & Palestine — My Two Cents

The utter absurdity of the current situation in Israel/Palestine could have been predicted for the last 75 years. Did anyone really believe that you could move into a man’s house and “give” him the hall closet to live in and he would accept it?

Yes, I understand that the Jews had suffered horribly under Hitler’s attempt to eradicate them. And long before that, the history of their horrific treatment deserves understanding and condemnation. But why did anyone think that what existed in Palestine could be rearranged like chess pieces and no one would care?

Jews, Arabs, and yes Christians all lived side by side before 1948. What was wrong with that? If Jews needed a safer place to live than mingled through other countries—which, by the way, is how ALL OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS exist—they had the freedom to relocate to Palestine without anyone declaring it a Jewish state.

Even then, after 1948, after Israel had been recreated as the homeland of “God’s Chosen People,” it still wasn’t enough. A settler movement to expand grew in this new nation. How many times have I watched news reports showing Israeli bulldozers pushing over the homes and ancient orchards of Palestinians? How many times have I worried that sooner or later there would be hell to pay for Israelis for their lack of respect, their utter disregard for the dignity and rights of Palestinians?

Recently, since the October attack occurred, I’ve learned that certain groups of American “Christians” have been funneling money to the West Bank to support the continuing spread of Jewish takeover of Palestinian lands.

  • But evangelicals’ support isn’t simply driven by a theology that compels them to love the Holy Land, detached from its convulsive domestic and global political implications. For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.[1]

Allow me to just say here that if God exists, if this is the message of divinity, HE/SHE/IT does not need evangelicals or Republicans to facilitate the “end times.” 

When you pull back the curtains in search of real answers to the conflict—or, frankly, just about any conflict—you need look no further than the nearest gathering of religionists. Israelis don’t respect Palestinians because they’re not Jews. In fact, just about any review of Israeli/Jewish attitudes about their position in the world, historically, will reveal a people convinced they are God’s Chosen People and their suffering is part of their destiny until God sends their Messiah to rescue them.

Also, I have a bridge to sell you.

Not that their perpetual victimhood doesn’t have legitimate legs to stand on. Ever since the establishment of the Christian religion back in 400 something AD, Jews have been the whipping boy. Read up. I won’t clog my narrative here with that history. Suffice it to say that they have been horribly abused, discriminated against, and otherwise mistreated.

And that is largely because CHRISTIANS blame the Jews for not becoming Christians, not accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and on top of all that, for being the instrument by which Jesus was crucified. Never mind that it apparently was God’s plan all along that Jesus would be crucified. Why not blame God?

But onward with my rant. This entire episode currently underway is a ridiculous, outrageous crime against humanity. I’m not talking about the despicable attack by Hamas on people, the beheadings, the mutilations, the kidnapping. I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m talking about the ongoing Israeli attack on civilians in Gaza. It is war crimes. It is genocide. It is the worst possible course of action that Netanyahu and his cohort could possible choose.

Why? Yes, of course Israel has the right to protect itself. But that’s just about the flimsiest excuse for the last 45 days of hate-fueled violence one could imagine. Yes, of course Hamas hides in tunnels, shelters behind civilians. Israel has one of the most advanced military forces in the world, thanks again to the Western powers. Without Hamas, there would be no ability by Palestinians to try to regain their pride, their homes, their independence. The United States, Britain and other Western powers that set this nightmare in motion back in 1948 have PROMISED to protect Israel, which is why the region bristles with our jets, helicopters, drones, aircraft carriers strike groups, nuclear powered submarines, and more men in addition to the troops already over there. According to the Pentagon,

  • The firepower from these warships is a deterrent, but it is also to help protect the 45,000 U.S. service members and contractors that are stationed in the Middle East. Most are in Kuwait, but thousands are in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon has also deployed 1,200 troops to the Middle East, though not to Israel, since the war began. On Oct. 26, the Defense Department announced it was sending 900 troops, primarily for air defense, to the region. Another 300 troops, mostly ordnance disposal, communications and other support, were announced Oct. 31.[2]

Surely we all recognize that the U.S. and others see Israel as our surrogate in the Middle East. We could have cared less about the Middle East until oil came into the equation.

Meanwhile, Arab nations in the region are understandably “concerned” about the situation. They’ve never been pleased with the arrogance of Western European powers thinking they had the right to insert themselves in the middle of their lands, brush aside Palestinians, and install a Jewish state where none had previously existed for 2,000 years. Gee, imagine our outrage here in the U.S. if world powers decided to restore Native Americans to their original lands!

But onward to my primary point here—and yes, I have one. Or two.

Israelis are not uniformly in support of Netanyahu. For months reports have been broadcast of massive protests, not about the exact issue now burning up the airwaves, but about the heavy handed arrogance of Netanyahu and his right wing fanatics in not only their abuse of Palestinians and their lands, but also within Israel itself in the attempts to dilute the power of the judiciary in the march toward a more totalitarian regime. Sadly, too many Israelis are apparently willing to allow the right wing to control the country.

That march, by the way, is full steam ahead right now as Netanyahu envisions a complete takeover of the remaining shreds of Palestinians land, most assuredly Gaza “for an indefinite time,” but hinting at also taking over the West Bank. The purported goal is to eliminate Hamas for once and for all.

This is stupidity at its most absurd. Where the hell do they think Hamas came from in the first place? It came from Israeli disrespect and abuse. If they think Hamas is bad now, wait until the next generation of Palestinians rise up in memory of the current genocide. Because killing every single man who has identified with Hamas and taken up arms will not end Hamas. Even murdering every Palestinian, man, woman, and child, will not end Hamas. Hamas is an idea, an assertion of the right of a people to exist, and if Palestinians are wiped off the face of the earth, other Arabs will rise up in their place to continue to assert their right to exist.

On the other hand, Hamas has done themselves no favors with their barbaric methods of protest. The entire Arab jihad against the West is a disgrace to the history of Arab culture and accomplishment. Beheadings, burning people alive, torture, and other despicable methods of violence accomplish nothing except to convince the world that they are savages.

  • Since the late 20th century, the word jihad has gained remarkable currency: used by resistance, liberation, and terrorist movements alike to legitimate their cause and motivate their followers. The Afghan Mujahiddin, the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, have waged a jihad in Afghanistan against foreign powers and among themselves; Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, Daghestan and the southern Philippines, Bosnia and Kosovo have fashioned their struggles as jihads; Hizbollah, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad Palestine have characterized war with Israel as a jihad; Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group has engaged in a jihad of terror against the government there and Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda have waged a global jihad against Muslim governments and the West. The importance of jihad is rooted in the Quran’s command to “struggle or exert” (the literal meaning of the word jihad) oneself in the path of God. The Quranic teachings have been of essential significance to Muslim self-understanding, piety, mobilization, expansion and defense. Jihad as struggle pertains to the difficulty and complexity of living a good life: struggling against the evil in oneself – to be virtuous and moral, making a serious effort to do good works and help to reform society. Depending on the circumstances in which one lives, it also can mean fighting injustice and oppression, spreading and defending Islam and creating a just society through preaching, teaching and, if necessary, armed struggle or holy war.[3]

So of course, like the Jewish extremists who waste hours bending and babbling at a wall, Islamist extremists waste hours bowing and babbling toward Mecca, all of them ready and eager to pick up the nearest weapon and hurt anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe.

Which brings me to my main point in all this. Basing 21st century actions on the fabled mythology of ANY religion is ridiculous, sickening, stupid, and otherwise despicable. Just as evangelicals support Israel in its takeover of Palestinian lands, so do Muslims support brutal treatment of ‘infidels.’ In my opinion, any ‘gods’ who advocated and/or condoned brutal treatment of any kind FOR ANY REASON have long since lost their right to be worshipped. These Abrahamic religions are long past due for elimination from human society.

Evangelicals around the world are to be condemned for their acceptance, even the embrace, of violence. Violence for revenge, for gaining some fulfilment of words written 2,000 years ago, is NOT what either Muhammed or Jesus Christ talked about. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, they said.

  • Muhammed: “Never aspire for confronting your enemies (in a fight). Pray to God to be among those who seek living peacefully with others. But if ever you confront them (in a fight) be patient and know that Heaven is as close to you as the shades of the swords.”
  • Jesus: For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Ephesians 2:14-18

Obviously extremist Muslims and Christians don’t read their own literature; their ape brains have yet to evolve to higher forms of humanity. I take faint hope in the slow but steady deterioration of religious belief making progress, finally, toward a world without war. Without religion. It remains to be seen if the current conflict flashes over into the Armageddon so desired by evangelicals, or if sanity will prevail.

[1] https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-military-assets-in-middle-east/

[3] https://www.unaoc.org/repository/Esposito_Jihad_Holy_Unholy.pdf

2024

Joe Biden wanted to do the right thing, make a bold move, and so he promised to make his vice president a woman. While, as a woman myself I applaud the sentiment, I now see that he has painted himself into a corner. I have nothing personal against Kamala Harris—I’m sure she’s intelligent, skilled in her profession, and has all the right motivations in her heart.

BUT – and you knew a ‘but’ was coming, right? But she has zero charisma. And in a job where it’s not cool to upstage the president with policy ideas or championing big issues, she can only come across as a silly token. With a younger president, this wouldn’t carry as much punch, but with Biden’s age already past the average life expectancy for men in the United States (77.28 years), it’s relevant that observers on either side of the aisle would be concerned about Harris as a potential president.

This is why so many Democrats (not to mention everyone else) are voicing concerns about the current Biden/Harris ticket for 2024. It’s not just that Kamala Harris seems less than forceful or skilled—we really haven’t seen her shine because that’s not the role of a VP. It’s that these are terrifying times we live in, and it’s human nature to look for a strong leader especially in such times. This alone accounts for much of Trump’s appeal. Despite the fact that he understands virtually nothing about the job of a president or the many important aspects of the United States in world affairs, he comes across as a strong leader. This is all smoke and mirrors, of course—the fake tan, architectural comb-over, and elevated shoes make him appear to some as if he’s a healthy sportsman; the loud authoritative voice (well, mostly, until his words trail off into a familiar whine); and the positive spin he puts on his daily tribulations, obviously wishful thinking coming out as fake news.

Biden, on the other hand, is often speaking in public in a whispery voice. His footsteps across a stage, up or down stairs, or anywhere else, are slow and careful. His haircut somehow manages to look unkempt with that little layer of hair that sticks out around his back collar—he needs to give up some of his hair for a closer cut. These are visual/auditory obstacles to any hope of showing him as a vital, strong man. In a perfect world, we would not be misled by these obstacles. Instead, we would pay attention to his abilities and accomplishments—unquestionably major achievements that result from his long career as a statesman dedicated to a just society.

Sadly, I’m worried that no matter how well the campaign might illuminate those accomplishments, many voters will judge on appearances.

One solution would be to replace Kamala Harris with a more dynamic vice-presidential candidate. I can think of several experienced Democrats who would reassure voters of competent leadership in the circumstances of Biden’s incapacitation. I floated this idea on a Facebook post and was immediately excoriated by some of my female friends. Harris, they say, deserves more respect. Well, yes, of course she does, but you’re living in a dream world if you don’t see that the General Public does not share that opinion.

In short, it is my opinion that no amount of touting Biden’s accomplishments or respecting Kamala Harris is going to reassure voters that this is the leadership they want or need. By default, the most horrific possible candidate has a chance of winning a second term, and the nation will never recover from that.

Never.

The forces driving public anxiety are greater than ever before. It’s not just the conservative-progressive debate, burn books versus read more, cut government programs or continue working toward a more just culture, leave-it-all-to-God versus progress and evolve as humans, etc.

It’s that this was the hottest summer on record, evidence of the long-heralded advance of climate change.[1]

It’s that right now, Russia is led by an autocratic psychopath who dares the world to stop him from a) taking over neighboring nations, b) using nuclear weapons, c) enabling Kim Jong Un, d) murdering any domestic opposition, and e) blockading international waterways.[2]

It’s that Artificial Intelligence technology has arrived at the threshold of independent thought and action that could threaten human existence.[3]

It’s that the majority of Americans don’t understand the scientific method, or how science works, meaning that technologies we all use—Internet for example, or cell phones, or GPS, or targeted chemotherapy—are mysterious useful toys but not compelling enough for us to respect the science that has created them.

It’s that a significant portion of the population is too lazy to read or learn beyond their set prejudices and ignorance, thus remaining easy prey to rumor, fake news, and magical thinking (God will take care of us). A select few power brokers take advantage of these deficiencies by using hot button issues (abortion, gay marriage, racism) to instigate fear-driven voting.

It’s that the core of conservative voters are facing statistics showing that the nation is moving inexorably toward a non-white and non-Christian majority. “Remember, the predicted and projected end of a white Christian majority in this country is what’s driving most of our worst political trends right now. It’s not ‘economic anxiety’. It’s the arrival of minority-majority America.”[4]

The Seattle Times https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/fox-news-spins-lies-in-the-service-of-greed/

Worst and most tragic of all, now in the United States of America, there is not an accepted source of factual news. As famously remarked by Trump’s press secretary, there are facts and then there are “alternative facts.”[5] FOX News is the mainstay for conservative audiences, even though court judgments have confirmed that the network lies repeatedly, and more such cases are in the pipeline.”[6] FOX itself has defined their “news” as “entertainment,” not a source offering factual information by any journalistic standard. Yet despite losing nearly $800 million in penalties in one case and expected to lose even more in upcoming trials, FOX continues its campaign of fake news. One wonders about the motivation of FOX owner Rupert Murdoch; the New York Times reports on Murdoch’s accomplishment with Trump’s presidency which, “cemented Murdoch’s global influence.”  

What Murdoch expects to accomplish aside from his “global influence” remains a mystery. Is $5 billion not enough? He’s built a family empire that has resulted in animosity between his children. He’s created a crisis in the United States not only in politics but in the growing chasm between segments of the society which has led to the current level of daily gun violence.

  • In the 22-year history of the network, the Fox News Effect had never been more pronounced. A March study by Navigation Research, a Democratic firm, found that 12 percent of Fox News viewers believe that climate change is mostly caused by humans, compared with 62 percent of all other Americans. At the same time, 78 percent of Fox viewers believe that Trump has accomplished more than any president in American history, compared with 17 percent of other Americans.[7]

Meanwhile, the Biden/Harris White House lists its achievements and the world pays little attention, or in the case of Republicans, outright deny the veracity of the list.

  • Lowering Costs of Families’ Everyday Expenses
  • More People Are Working Than At Any Point in American History
  • Making More in America
  • Rescued the Economy and Changed the Course of the Pandemic
  • Rebuilding our Infrastructure
  • Historic Expansion of Benefits and Services for Toxic Exposed Veterans
  • The First Meaningful Gun Violence Reduction Legislation in 30 Years
  • Protected Marriage for LGBTQI+ and Interracial Couples
  • Historic Confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Federal Judges of Diverse Backgrounds
  • Rallied the World to Support Ukraine in Response to Putin’s Aggression
  • Strengthened Alliances and Partnerships to Deliver for the American People
  • Successful Counterterrorism Missions Against the Leaders of Al Qaeda and ISIS
  • Executive Orders Protecting Reproductive Rights
  • Historic Student Debt Relief for Middle- and Working-Class Families
  • Ending our Failed Approach to Marijuana
  • Advancing Equity and Racial Justice, Including Historic Criminal Justice Reform
  • Delivering on the Most Aggressive Climate and Environmental Justice Agenda in American History
  • More People with Health Insurance Than Ever Before
  • Lowering Costs of Families’ Everyday Expense
  • The Inflation Reduction Act Infographic

For each item on this list, there’s a link to a greater explanation of these efforts.[8] But who is reading this?

Really, who reads? The public is conditioned to pay attention for maybe a 15-second sound bite.

The truly alarming reality is that our primal instincts are engaged in this time of unprecedented crisis, personal, national and global. We want a strong leader we can believe in. It seems extremely risky to depend on an enlightened element of our population to do the reading and thinking necessary to continue to support Joe Biden when there is a dedicated segment swept up in mindless support of a man who presents himself as a strong man.

We can always hope for quick justice on any of Trump’s many indictments and/or a firm ruling on the 14th Amendment which states, in part, that any American official who takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution is disqualified from holding future office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.       

We can also hope that ole Sleepy Joe and Ms. Harris somehow figure out how to sell themselves as a dynamic duo, but I wish there was a Plan B waiting in the wings.  

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-summer-2023-hottest-on-record

[2] https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/psychologist-putin-is-a-psychopath-and-loves-bloodshed-3606460

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/06/02/the-15-biggest-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/?sh=29f9a17b2706

[4] https://twitter.com/axios/status/1703223852539474292

[5] “’Alternative facts’” was a phrase used by U.S. Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway, during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017, in which she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement about the attendance numbers of Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Spicer would “utter a provable falsehood”, Conway stated that Spicer was giving “alternative facts”. Todd responded, “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_facts

[6] https://www.axios.com/2023/02/27/rupert-murdoch-admits-fox-news-hosts-peddled-election-lies

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/new-fox-corporation-disney-deal.html

[8] https://www.whitehouse.gov/therecord/

Some Painful Truths

Above, supporters of former President Donald Trump are seen protesting his indictment in Manhattan, New York, on Monday, April 3, 2023. KATHERINE FUNG / Newsweek 4.3.23

Others have said how, once a person has been duped, it is almost impossible to convince them they have been duped. They’ve bought in, hook, line and sinker. Never has this been more true than in the present day. Despite all our education and media and news report, our ‘advanced’ culture, nearly 40% of the U. S. population still holds a favorable view of Donald Trump.

Who are these people?

While they tasted the bait, times were glorious! They owned the world, vindicated in their every idea, belief, and prejudice. Racism wasn’t really racism while they tasted the bait, but rather the righteous validation of their belief in whiteness.

Thus it was for the role of women, made from Adam’s rib to be his helper. Subordinate. The weaker vessel, made to suffer the agony of childbirth to give man his offspring, a punishment for Eve’s original sin. Not to speak in the church of God Almighty—white male, of course.

It goes without saying that the homosexuals and transwhatever were scum of the earth. Hardly worth mentioning, not worthy of recognition much less any right to exist, work, marry, or enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Equally unworthy of mention were the heathen believers in Allah and other blasphemies, seeking to secretly infiltrate America with their insidious brown-skinned conspiracies to destroy the great God-given white nation we call America.

And so it continued for four glorious years as time after time Trump’s words and acts magnified and validated the prejudices. Never mind that God sent a plague, that over a million people died, under Trump’s watch. Never mind that he oversaw, indeed, implemented, a continuous scroll of misdeeds and treachery that threatened the very foundations of the U. S. Constitution. None of that mattered while the bait was ingested, while all the validations of hate surged through the hearts and minds of the true believers—the duped.

Now, with the efforts of honorable leaders eager to restore the nation to its solid foundations, its core philosophy that all of us were created equal, the duped refuse to accept the evidence. Refuse to read the indictments. Refuse to think that some, all, of the allegations might actually be true. No doubt even a trial and conviction will be denied by these folks.

Is this a matter of willful ignorance? Yes, but that’s not all.

In academic studies, subjects asked to distinguish truth from lies answer correctly, on average, only fifty-four per cent of the time. This is a result of several mitigating factors, not least of which is a sense of allegiance to the people and information sources we have already trusted. For example, in a Stanford University study,

  • A third type of bias comes from our existing political alignment, in the form of partisanship. When it comes to news and information generally, one’s identification as a Democrat or Republican, or one’s self-image of being liberal vs. conservative, has a big impact on what we readily believe or reject in the news, regardless of its truthfulness. As uncomfortable as this may be to accept, abundant research shows that people frequently reject news that’s inconsistent with their political ideology, and are prone to accept news that’s consonant with their political orientation. Like it or not, research demonstrated quite clearly that most politically-oriented fake news during the 2016 US election campaigns was consumed by conservatives, with Donald Trump supporters being especially likely to encounter and visit fake news sites. …Hillary Clinton supporters were more likely to visit fact-checking websites and less likely to visit fake news websites. Trump supporters were less likely to visit fact-checking websites and more likely to visit fake news websites.[1]

Similar conclusions have been confirmed in multiple studies. Lee McIntyre, research fellow at Boston University, has published several books on the conundrum of duped people.

  • One of the deepest roots of post-truth has been with us the longest, for it has been wired into our brains over the history of human evolution: cognitive bias. Psychologists for decades have been performing experiments that show that we are not quite as rational as we think. Some of this work bears directly on how we react in the face of unexpected or uncomfortable truths. A central concept of human psychology is that we strive to avoid psychic discomfort. It is not a pleasant thing to think badly of oneself. Some psychologists call this “ego defense” (after Freudian theory), but whether we frame it within this paradigm or not, the concept is clear. It just feels better for us to think that we are smart, well-informed, capable people than that we are not. What happens when we are confronted with information that suggests that something we believe is untrue? It creates psychological tension. How could I be an intelligent person yet believe a falsehood? Only the strongest egos can stand up very long under a withering assault of self-criticism: “What a fool I was! The answer was right there in front of me the whole time, but I never bothered to look. I must be an idiot.”[2]

Trump supporters are not the first group to suffer this terrible cognitive dysphoria. The Civil War is not over for many who cannot accept that what their ancestors fought and died for might have been wrong. In their multitude of righteous excuses for the Confederate cause, the war was not about slavery. Rather, the Lost Cause was based on six tenets:

Credit: Cook Collection, The Valentine
Original Author: Unknown
Created: ca. 1907
Medium: Photographic print
Publisher: Valentine Richmond History Center

1. Secession, not slavery, caused the Civil War.

2. African Americans were “faithful slaves,” loyal to their masters and the Confederate cause and unprepared for the responsibilities of freedom.

3. The Confederacy was defeated militarily only because of the Union’s overwhelming advantages in men and resources.

4. Confederate soldiers were heroic and saintly.

5. The most heroic and saintly of all Confederates, perhaps of all Americans, was Robert E. Lee.

6. Southern women were loyal to the Confederate cause and sanctified by the sacrifice of their loved ones.[3]

The fundamental truth is that the war was about the South’s determination to continue its use of enslaved people to generate the bulk of its wealth. Tens of thousands of people of Southern heritage have bought into the falsehood of the Lost Cause, continuing to display the Confederate flag and nurse their invisible wounds.

Likewise, millions of people today are standing firm in their belief that Trump can do no wrong, that he was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, and other similar dross. Don’t bother them with facts. Their minds are made up and their egos depend on it. One can only hope that enough of them will overcome the cognitive dissonance to accept that Trump was not sent by God Almighty to bestow an all-white conservative dispensation on the United States of America, but rather that he was and is a corrupt man clever enough to dupe 61,943,670 voters (2016 election).          

                                                            

Whether Twain actually said this remains an unproven irony.

[1] https://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/why-we-fall

[2] https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-cognitive-bias-can-explain-post-truth/

[3] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the/

Arkansas Education: Part II—The Health Problem

Arkansans’ popular breakfast of biscuits and gravy is high in calories
and saturated fats and low in nutritional value.

Under-nourished or malnourished kids can’t learn. Arkansas ranks at the very top of states whose citizens die of chronic lower respiratory diseases (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma) which are caused by tobacco smoking, indoor and outdoor air pollution, exposure to allergens and occupational agents, unhealthy diet, obesity, and physical inactivity. The state ranks 3rd nationally in deaths from heart disease, diabetes, and kidney disease, and 6th in death from cancer.[1] Clearly the population needs to learn about better nutrition.

First of all, consider that without proper nutrition, people are more likely to self-medicate with drugs including cigarettes and alcohol because these substances make people feel better even when they are in poor health.

One potential means of addressing some of these health problems would be to require public school education in nutrition, including practice in preparing healthy meals. At least one semester in this specific curriculum for both male and female students could break into this cycle of poor health. A two-week summer course (required) would bring students to work in community gardens as well as learning to cook with fresh produce.

Start Early

The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program in Arkansas is a first step toward better health, but fails to live up to its promise by setting income guidelines at 185% of poverty level. There is no guarantee that a person with an income $20 or $2,000 above the poverty line is adequately informed about nutrition. The WIC program also requires applicants to have a ‘nutritional need’ but the ‘needs’ outlined for acceptance do not approach all the real nutritional needs a woman might have for herself and her fetus/child. Most importantly, WIC is voluntary, and a person must apply in order to gain this support. Every pregnant woman, upon her first visit to a physician, should be assigned a caseworker who will ensure that nutritional education and support is provided. [A passing grade of C or above in a high school nutrition class would provide exemption.]

It goes without saying that the school breakfast/lunch program must serve as the best example of nutritious meals. Federal standards pushed by former First Lady Michelle Obama have gone a long way toward meeting this objective. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act changed nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program by requiring that schools serve more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fat-free and/or low-fat milk more frequently and less starchy vegetables or foods high in sodium and trans fat.[2]

Studies have shown the direct correlation between nutrition and academic performance.

Research suggests that diets high in trans and saturated fats can negatively impact learning and memory, nutritional deficiencies early in life can affect the cognitive development of school-aged children, and access to nutrition improves students’ cognition, concentration, and energy levels.[3]

A vast body of research shows that improved nutrition in schools leads to increased focus and attention, improved test scores and better classroom behavior. Support healthy habits and consistent messages: Nutritious school food helps students develop lifelong healthy eating habits.

Sadly, one of the first acts of Sanders’ mentor Donald Trump in gaining the presidency was to reduce the school nutrition standards. The Obama-era policy suffered a series of rollback measures which allow for less whole grain, more sodium, and more flavored milk despite a 2018 analysis of more than 90 popular chilled flavored dairy milks which revealed that a carton of flavored milk can contain as much sugar as a can of soft drink, with many of the bestselling brands containing more than a day’s worth of added sugar in a single serving.

The overweight condition of both Trump and Sanders (and her parents and siblings) illustrate their lack of understanding in nutritional matters. Nutrition is fundamental to a child’s future prospects, and without public investment in health, too many students will not succeed no matter what schooling they receive.

The Huckabee Family

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/arkansas/arkansas.htm

[2] The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act provides meals to children that normally could not afford those nutritious food items. It also allows schools to have more resources that they may not have had before. A study in Virginia and Massachusetts concluded that children in schools were eating significantly healthier meals when their parents or guardians were not choosing their food, but the school was. While looking at the nutrition value of 1.7 million meals selected by 7,200 students in three middle and three high schools in an urban school district in Washington state, where the data was collected and compared in the 16 months before the standards were carried out with data collected in the 15 months after implementation; the information found that there was an increase in six nutrients: fiber, iron, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and protein. While providing new meals with improvements in fruits, vegetables, amount of variety, and portion sizes, the calorie intake has also transformed.

[3] https://www.wilder.org/sites/default/files/imports/Cargill_lit_review_1-14.pdf