Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 11 & 12

The following was originally posted on Facebook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 11
Actions vs Consequences

To be brutally honest with ourselves, we must admit that the election of Barrack Obama to the presidency divided the country in a way we had not seen before and that we did not expect. It galvanized a portion of the country into blind opposition from the day he took office. They were livid that we could elect that N*****. They questioned his legitimacy, they called his wife names, and they refused to cooperate with anything he proposed. This is all hard to hear; it is hard to say. It is, however, true.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 9 & 10

The following was originally posted on Facebook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here

Part 9

Where is My Roy Cohn?

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused spies. They were tried in the early 1950s for giving secrets about the American atom bomb to Russia, convicted, and executed. The only real evidence against them was the testimony of David Greenglass, Julius Rosenberg’s brother-in-law, who admitted to passing the information, and the fact that the Rosenberg’s, who always maintained their innocence, were members of the Communist Party. Many on the left at the time were convinced the only reason they were convicted was that they were communists. The judgement of more recent historians is that they were guilty.

Issues, Policies, and Politics – Parts 7 & 8

The following was originally posted on Facebook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 7 – History and Reality

History, we are told, is the best teacher.

Those who ignore history, we are told, are doomed to repeat it.

But we don’t experience history. We READ about history, and here are many, many history books. Just because something is written in a history book doesn’t make it what actually happened. With history, like with media and the press, you have to be careful about the source, and it is useful to compare sources.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 5 & 6

The following was originally posted on FaceBook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Part 5
PARADIGM CHANGE OR REVOLUTION

 If the government we have is not the government we need to solve the big problems that arise, what do we do?

We obviously need to change the government we have.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Parts 3 & 4

The following was originally posted on FaceBook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 3

So, power and money.

Despite what you may think, there is nothing intrinsically bad about either of these things. It depends on how they are used, and that depends on the people using them. All of our problems and all of our solutions depend on people.

Issues, Policy, and Politics – Part 1

The following was originally posted on FaceBook.

Since some of you don’t follow FB, I thought I would repeat this series here.

Part 1

There are important issues that need our attention.

Unfortunately, you can’t solve the vast majority of them.

Here’s an example: income inequality.

We have people in this country working several jobs who can’t afford to both feed their kids and put a roof over their heads while others, no brighter, nor more deserving (no matter what the prosperity gospel says), make millions.

It is a huge damn problem.

Right, Wrong, and the Character of a Nation

It would appear that we face a political crisis which many liken to the days of Watergate.  While there are similarities, what we face today is unlike anything we have faced before, and we are lying to ourselves if we do not admit that and dooming ourselves if we do not face it.

During the Nixon administration everyone knew that breaking into the Watergate Hotel was wrong.  Everyone knew  that Nixon’s cover-up of that break-in was wrong.  Both Republicans and Democrats looked at the evidence and knew it was wrong.  It wasn’t just illegal; it was wrong.  Nixon placed the well-being of his presidency and his party above that of the country and the law and the congress and the country said “that’s not right.”  Members of his own party went to Nixon and told him his presidency could not survive what he had done.  He may have been “Tricky Dick,” but he wasn’t a “Stupid Dick.”   He resigned.

The Iron Mask of the Mind

There’s something about this election that baffles me.

It has always seemed to me that climate change is the most important challenge we face now or will face any time in the near future.  I’m hardly alone in that thought, of course.

Bernie Sanders said it outright and was mocked by many on the right.

If we continue on our current path we will, according to scientists, make large portions of our earth uninhabitable in the future.

But if we truly believe our scientists (as we progressive Democrats say we do), if we really believe that we are about to face massive population shifts, droughts, sea level rise requiring the abandonment of huge portions of the world’s coastlines, why are we talking about almost everything BUT climate change in this election?  If the US military has climate change as “significant threat to national security”(1), why is it that the US House and Senate can’t even admit it exists?

How We Got To This Point – Part II

“America is great because she is good,” according to a quote generally attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville.  “If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Hillary Clinton alluded to these words in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.  “And in the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump doesn’t get:  that America is great – because America is good”

Before Hillary, Bill Clinton quoted them almost verbatim in 1994, and before him Dwight Eisenhower used the line in a 1952 speech. 

Why Bernie

More than a few Democrats I love and respect are considering supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary election. The Democratic field is all of two people, and the other candidate is a household name with exceptional political pedigree—so the decision to vote for a relatively unknown “democratic socialist” Senator from Vermont is not the path of least resistance. If you’re a Bernie fan, I assume you’ve chosen to support him because you’ve read, you’ve studied, and you’ve differentiated. If you’re on the fence, I ask that you do just a bit more reading, studying, and differentiating before you buy into “feeling the Bern.” I respectfully submit the following six questions for your consideration in this effort.