Mourning in America

These last few weeks have been rough for me with the passing of my padre and the Presidential election – of late my feelings ricochet from denial to despair, grief to anger, and everything in between – and I’ve not really known how to respond to these highly fraught events.

But one thing I’ve had the luxury – the privilege – to NOT feel is scared, and for that I’m thankful.

The post below addresses the fear that many marginalized groups are feeling right now.

I hope Trump supporters can empathize with these fears and do their part to help quell them.

xo 

“If you say you voted for [Trump] based on gun rights or economic issues, or because you think Hillary really was that awful, and in spite of his rhetoric, rather than because of it, I believe you.

If you're in my life, I clearly don't think you're a vile hateful person.

But if you're now watching protests across the country and you don't understand why, or think they are just being sore losers, let me break something down for you.

These people aren't just angry or sad that someone they didn't support won the election, they're scared.

They're black Americans who hear talk of law and order and remember a racially charged stop and frisk program, or see an emboldened KKK holding a celebratory parade.

They're Muslim Americans who worry that spitting in their face is now okay and violations of their rights to assemble and their rights to privacy are about to come.

They're LGBT Americans who fear not just of the loss of marriage rights or restaurants gaining the right not to serve them, but of an administration that thinks it's more important to research electrocuting the gay out of them than AIDS.

They're Hispanic and Latino Americans who are scared their children will be bullied in schools, and their families ripped apart while their culture is mocked.

They're women who are wondering if we've normalized groping, and if their career endeavors will be judged by their face and body, and not their minds

I believe you when you say you didn't vote for any of these things. Most of America wasn't thrilled with the choices we had in this election.

But if you didn't know that this is why they're protesting, if you think it's really just about free tuition or more government giveaways, then you, like the elite liberals you love to castigate, have also not been listening.

If you're tired of being called a bigot, then you need to use the same voice you used on Tuesday and speak out against these things fully and clearly.

It's not enough that you didn't say them yourself.

You need to reassure your friends and family members who feel like they no longer have a seat at the table that you still stand with them, even if your priorities were different on Tuesday.

If you aren't willing to do that, then you have no right to call for unity." - Michael Rex

RIP Padre

Going High

A high school classmate of mine, Leesa Coble, recently posted this on FB:

THIS PIECE! I'm in awe of how many right notes this piece hits about how truly dangerous and genuinely deeply rooted in white robes and hoods Trump's anti-immigration stance is. Yet, the writer barely mentions him, it's sublime. Jason Cordero, perhaps this speaks to some of the questions you posted about earlier. This turnaround gives me hope in humanity when it feels like so many have lost theirs. God, I wish I wrote this.

Two days later, I responded:

Thank you for sharing this with me, Leesa!  I certainly agree – it’s a very inspiring article.  Sorry it’s taken so long for me to respond… :/

Nevertheless, here’s where I think the rubber meets the road in this piece, when a student asks a question in the school’s online forum similar to the ones (I think) you were referring to:   

“'Who’s clever enough to think of something we can do to change this guy’s mind?’”

That’s something I’ve been wondering aloud for many years now – how do you change someone’s mind politically?  

Most answer with some variation on the futility of such efforts – there simply is no way to dissuade people with different political leanings – but I don’t believe that and Matthew Stevenson certainly didn’t either.  Maybe we just need to look at our tactics.

Could we liberals learn something from how Matthew helped change Derek’s mind?

Or should we continue to believe it’s impossible because some of our favorite tactics (a facile meme, a sick burn, or le snark du jour) tend not to persuade our political opponents but do the opposite?  (As one student in the article states, “'Ostracizing Derek won’t accomplish anything.’”)

I’m a little ashamed to admit that when “Mathew decided his best chance to affect Derek’s thinking was not to ignore him or confront him, but simply to include him,” telling his friends “to treat him like anyone else,” I had to choke back a mordant chuckle.   

Was that idea “clever” or simply kind, human?  

  
Now, granted, it’s pretty easy for me to sit here as a cisgender male with plenty of privilege to say, “Be kind to people that don’t like you,” since I obviously haven’t felt the hate as fiercely as people in marginalized communities have.  But look how being kind worked out for Matthew, whose Jewish ancestry ascribes him to one of our most historically marginalized groups.

He helped change a hateful heart to an accepting one.

And, sorry to be “that guy” with the MLK quotes, but this reminds me of a passage in his book, Stride Toward Freedom, when Dr. King talks about the people that bombed his house with his wife and newborn daughter inside.  

“They say the things they say about us and treat us as they do because they have been taught these things.  From the cradle to the grave, it is instilled in them that the Negro is inferior.  Their parents probably taught them that; their schools they attended taught them that; the books they read, even their churches and minister, often taught them that.”

Doesn’t that sound like Derek’s childhood?  King recognized and acknowledged the humanity in his enemies just as Matthew did in Derek, and they both got positive results.

King told the crowd that had gathered at his house after the bombing:

 “'If you have weapons, take them home…’  I then urged them to leave peacefully, ‘We must love our white brothers,’ I said, ‘no matter what they do to us.  We must make them know that we love them… This is what we must live by.  We must meet hate with love.’”

Or as our FLOTUS put it, “When they go low, we go high!” 

I try, but Matthew Stevenson most definitely does.

Thanks again for sharing! :)

Outliers Who Support A Liar

I’ve heard many things said about Trump supporters but here are a few myths that my amazing colleagues, lovely friends, and loving family members who support him have dispelled for me:

Trump supporters are stupid. Sorry, almost without exception the people I’ve talked to who support him are very smart, extremely intelligent, and have college degrees (some with Masters) not to mention that many, like my colleagues at school, work with some of the most under-served populations in our society, which leads me to…

They are hateful. Again, not from my experience. All of the aforementioned are thoughtful, caring, loving people whose generosity knows no bounds. I see it every day. 

And finally… 

Public schools are almost exclusively liberal. Haha, I know! I was shocked, too, but it’s NOT true. At least from my experience, many teachers support Trump (and many are female, too!)

Which begs the question: Liberals, what are we doing wrong? 

Why can’t we get these loving, lovely people to vote for our candidate??

They are NOT Klingons!!

"What's a Kardashian?" - Overheard conversation between two 5th graders...

Haha, I KNEW i had a good class this year!!

My College Educated Sister is a Trump Supporter

Alas, it's true!  I still love her all the same though.

After posting the Nation article and comment on Wednesday, my sister vehemently pushed back... The following is my response:

Thanks for the thoughtful comment, sis!  

Interesting first question… to my very imprecise, clumsy statement…

Honestly, I’d rather not think Left/Right – it’s too divisive – Divide and Conquer merely serves Plutocrats, allowing them to loot and plunder while the Red and Blue are so busy beating each other black and blue, we don’t notice.

In other words, if the 99% of us (which mathematically speaking includes the 26% of Americans that identify as Republican, the 29% that are Democrats, and the 42% that are Independent, according to a recent Gallup Poll) stopped bickering and worked together, we could make some progress in this country.

For example, have you ever seen these data from the OECD?

Health care spending, per person, 2011:
United States: $8508
Canada: $4522
Germany: $4495
France: $4118
Australia: $3800
United Kingdom: $3405
Japan: $3213
Spain: $3072
Italy: $3012

We’re getting fleeced! Privatized medicine is a racket!

Both Left and Right should be up in arms about that!

Why don’t we save money and socialize medicine like most of the industrialized world?

You’re correct “socialism is not how this country was founded,” but do you really want to get into our nation’s brutal racial history with regard to Africans and Native Americans that were killed, forcibly taken from their land, and/or enslaved to work for free for others’ profit?

Yes, “hard working Americans should be rewarded for their efforts,” (and I am, thank you), but does that negate their responsibility to their country and community?

Could Jeff have started and run a successful business in Afghanistan or Iraq?

Haven’t taxes allowed him to have the infrastructure necessary to have a thriving small business and hire employees from an educated work force?

You may be right about small business taxes being too high, but despite that, don't you think both Jeff and my uncle have made a pretty good go of it here in one of the most sought after areas in the world to live, beautiful Southern California?

Side note, I take it you will be voting for Prop. 64, which would legalize weed for recreational use? (We voted for medicinal use 20 years ago, in 1996.)  If not, couldn’t small business people (like your cousin Nick) benefit from lifting this pointless prohibition?

The weed-conomy in Cali could be the next Gold Rush!

And sorry, can’t give big business a pass.  Seems to me that some of our biggest banks get to privatize their profits and socialize their losses.  Talk about disincentivizing honest, ethical, hard work.

So maybe we do agree on welfare – we shouldn’t be giving it to our biggest companies.

But I’m curious how “taxation and government regulations… de-motivate very hard working and talented Americans” like Jeff…

What about the hard-working single mother of a child in my class that works two jobs just to pay her bills?  She’s the one that qualifies for “freebies” like free lunch for her child because her money goes to rent of her small apartment, money for the Laundromat, and the bus fare to get to her jobs.

Thank goodness for the patriotic, taxpaying Americans who pay for her child and many more like hers to have a free public education like you and I got.

Speaking of public education, did you have Mr. McGuire for American Government at Kennedy?

Reading your comments reminded me of his old axiom about politics:  “Where a person stands depends on where he sits.”

From where I’m sitting, economic issues are only one part of the national discussion.

And when I see where someone like my student’s mom sits, I feel extremely lucky.  

I’ve never had to worry about socioeconomic, racial, sexual, or gender issues.

President Camacho

Interesting piece in the Nation, but I don't really agree with the conclusion this article draws: that we'll see a legitimate, neo-fascist, populist candidate for Prez in 2020.

I'm optimistic that if we Libs can competently and compassionately continue the conversation Sanders started during the primaries, we can push our country away from both conservative and neo-liberal policies.

Progress takes time (and patience, my radical friends ), but we've come so far already (LGBTQ rights), I'm confident if we employ smart politics, we can make America a far more equitable country.

Clinton Rules and Trump Wins

Yesterday, I wrote online that I think Trump will win because our MSM play by The Clinton Rules.

My buddy and bandmate, Mike, disagreed.  Below is my response.

I sure hope you’re right, and I’m wrong, Mike.

I didn’t say that Trump hasn’t received “overwhelmingly negative” press.  (And what is it they say about “all press” anyway?)

I said that The Clinton Rules dictate that she is held to a different standard than other public figures, and all things being equal, it will cost her the election.

Over the last 20 plus years, there have been too many examples of this to name, but just for one recent case:

Did you notice the difference in how Matt Lauer (sadly, a totem for our upper-end mainstream media) treated Trump as opposed to Clinton at the Commander in Chief forum?

           

After burning at least a third of the interview asking Clinton questions about her emails (for which she’s been found to have broken no law), he directly suggests that her behavior may be “disqualifying.”

Contrast that with Lauer’s treatment of Trump supposedly being against the Iraq war. 

How many follow up questions did he ask? 

Zero.  Zilch.  Nada. 

He passed, sitting like a potted plant, politely deferring to power.

Did he challenge Trump on that Birther nonsense he was spewing a few years back (incidentally, using that same mainstream media to sew seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of President Obama)?

Yeah, right. 

Did he ask if either of those two things were “disqualifying?”  Of course not.

Again, how many questions did he ask Clinton re: email? (And seriously, was he really going to get some crucial NEW information that congress, the FBI, and the inspector general DIDN’T get from her on national TV?)

Michael, please!  Clinton Rules stipulate that she must be held to a different standard than other candidates!

Even Rutenberg gets in on the fun in his article…

Notice how he nicely mentions all the “’gates’ affixed” to Clinton while conveniently forgetting to say how phony all those “scandals” were. 

Why would he do that on the front page of the Paper of Record? 

Could it be because they promoted that nonsense on those very front pages 20 years ago?

Gene Lyons wrote all about it in, Fools for Scandal:  How the Media Invented Whitewater way back in 1996!

Joe Conason and he wrote The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton in 2000.  It was even turned into a movie!

Again, these books discussed our mainstream media, not right-wing talk radio.

Today, Nicholas Kristof suggests one reason Clinton Rules still apply is because, “We all fall into” the trap of media narratives, as he graciously includes journalists along with us plebs.

Could it be we citizens have fallen into these traps because we see these narratives and storylines in our mainstream media over and over and over again?

Facts and context be damned in our national discourse, there's a story to tell!

Vox had a piece I posted the other day discussing the potential conflicts of interest with Colin Powell’s foundation, America’s Promise while he was SOT. 

The takeway was that we don’t know if there were conflicts of interest precisely because of the trap of media narratives and the Clinton Rules.  To wit:  in our mainstream press narrative, Colin Powell is cast as a good guy, so his charity hasn’t received the scrutiny that the Clinton Foundation has.  

I could go on, but alas, gone are the days/nights that I could spend hours upon hours thoroughly researching adequate rebuttals, at least for the time being…

But needless to say, Mike, I still fervently hope you are right about Trump.

Friends Don't Let Friends Watch Friends

Maybe, on a subconscious level, this is why I never watched Friends...

We Could Be Heroes...

Behold!  The power of mainstream media narratives and the different treatment their "heroes" and "villains" receive...

But when the press thinks of you as a good guy, leveraging your good reputation in this way is considered a good thing to do. And since the charity was considered a good thing to do, keeping the charity going when Powell was in office as secretary of state was also considered a good thing to do. And since Powell was presumed to be innocent — and since Democrats did not make attacks on Powell part of their partisan strategy — his charity was never the subject of a lengthy investigation.

Which is lucky for him, because as Clinton could tell you, once you are the subject of a lengthy investigation, the press doesn’t like to report, “Well, we looked into it and we didn’t find anything interesting.”

And here's another case in point.

The Pernicious Inanity of Sean Hannity

Nice to see the New York Times call out Sean Hannity by name, someone (like Rush) who's spent the last two decades making millions of dollars by dividing this country with misleading misinformation and half-truths. Or, as "conservative radio host Charlie Sykes...lamented in an interview with the Business Insider, 'We have spent 20 years demonizing the liberal mainstream media... At a certain point, you wake up and you realize you have destroyed the credibility of any credible outlet out there.' Therefore any attempt to debunk a falsehood by Mr. Trump, he said, becomes hopeless."

Thanks, Obama!

"I love the sound of breaking glass!"

Sick Burn

So, apparently the newest insult for 5th graders to say to each other is, "You're related to Donald Trump!" 

Lol!

White (Rock Star) Privilege

So, lemme get this straight: Known plagiarists, Led Zeppelin did not rip off the song "Taurus," but Pharrel and Thicke stole the spirit of a Marvin Gaye song?? Sounds like bull to me!

Those intellectual property lines certainly are blurred.

AW Ban

I've seen people on FB suggest that nothing will happen after this latest mass shooting, but we ALREADY passed a ban on assault rifles back in '94.

Remember the ballyhooed Crime Bill we heard so much about during the primary? It effectively banned the type of weapon used in Orlando.

But instead of discussing the wisdom of letting that law sunset after ten years, we "liberals" decided it was better to use it as another way to attack the candidate who made a speech supporting it at the time because she said, "Super predator" and "bring them to heel" once, and that was SUPER racist and SO much worse.

Come on. We can do politics a lot smarter than this, my friends. 

Can we please talk about re-instating that ban now?

Hmmm, I wonder...

How do you think the Presidential polls would look at this point if the Democratic primary had finished a month ago like the Republicans? Do you think the presumptive nominees would still be neck and neck? In other words, could the ongoing primary fight be depressing Democratic poll numbers against Trump right now?

Donkeytown Battle

It’s Battle of the Bands in Donkeytown again. 

Local favorites, The Clints are being challenged by a surging, upstart group from Indietown called The Sands. 

While The Clints have spent years slugging it out in local bars building the Donkeytown scene, the exciting sound of The Sands has sparked unexpected enthusiasm nationwide, rallying many new supporters to Donkeytown for the first time.

As always, the residents will decide the winner.

The Clints, stalwarts of the Donkeytown scene, have definitely put in the time, supported lesser-known “down-ticket” bands through the years, and cultivated alliances that have lasted decades. 

But if familiarity breeds contempt, then The Sands still stand a chance since their fresh, exciting sound energizes Donkeytown residents who feel that The Clints have sold out, filling them with zeal not felt since The Bamas first burst on the scene (and won), 8 long years ago.

Both bands are brilliant.  The crowds roar their approval.  Both bands feel they should win.  Their fans passionately make their cases for why their preferred band was better.

If you were a 25-year resident and supporter of the Donkeytown scene, whom would you choose?

           

And would you really be surprised to hear that some residents were biased in favor of the band that’s been supporting their local scene for the last 25 years? 

Would it surprise you to find that the ground game of the band from Indietown was not be as strong as the band with the venerated connections to Donkeytown residents?

If The Clints win because of this, is the competition “rigged?”

Does this mean they “cheated” and “stole” the contest?

Or would they simply be politically reaping what they’ve sewn?

BOBs Berners

I actually lean Sanders, but Bernie or Bust people give me pause. 

Do they really believe the hype? 

Has the 30 year press jihad against Clinton damaged her so much that people will believe any negative thing ever said about her? 

"Hillary was a Goldwater girl!!" Yeah, when she was 17! 

Are we to disregard her last 47 years of work as a Democrat because she was raised in a Republican household and shared her family's views as a teenager? (I don't know about you, but I'm kinda embarrassed about some of the things I thought and did as a high schooler. lol)

"She's racist!!" You can't be serious. 

Did you know that at the same time she was a "Goldwater Girl," her Methodist youth minister taught her about MLK and took her to meet him? Did you know that the issue of Civil Rights was fundamental in her decision to change her party affiliation? 

Have you done any research into her life's work advocating for children, the poor, disadvantaged, and people of color? (School desegregation, SCHIP, etc?) 

And do you seriously think that after helping so many people and in spite of so much negative press, she's only doing it to get rich and powerful? 

Bernie or Busters, please! Aren't there easier ways?? 

Finally, aren't we liberals (Sanders and Clinton supporters) all about standing up for the little guy? 

Isn't defacto Trump support the exact opposite? 

How much privilege does is take to suggest that our society's most vulnerable groups can "suck it" for 4 years of Trump because one doesn't deem Clinton sufficiently pure enough to vote for her?

Yeah, I'd like to vote Bernie too, but why needlessly jeopardize marginalized communities if we can't? Sad!

In Which I Respond to BOBs

The article from the previous post points out many of Sanders' vulnerabilities -- liabilities that less media coverage has allowed to go unnoticed -- including opposing public schools (as well as some somewhat salacious views that I'm sure Trump would have no problem exploiting). 

Has Sanders changed his mind on those things? 

As a public school teacher, I sure hope so! 

If we don't allow politicians to change their minds, what good does it do to politic at all? 

Why try to persuade anybody if it's already a zero sum game? 

Do you think that maybe Clinton's changing her party affiliation due to her exposure to MLK and the Civil Rights movement informs her decision to change her mind in the present? 

Yes, some Sanders supporters are "die hard," but that's what I don't get.  Is being so tribal really a good thing? Doesn't that just allow us to play in a fantasy world where there is One True Hero and all the "others" villains? 

Do Liberals really think the world is so black and white? Aren't we, the Liberals, interested in nuance and shades of grey? 

Does this lizard brain mentality allow for human foibles or does it only facilitate dehumanization of people (even ones on our side) allowing us to call The Others "leeches" and magically granting us the ability to mind read Others' motives and "secret agendas?" 

As I asked before, aren't BOBs purest of pure ideals ultimately going to harm the most vulnerable in our country? 

Isn't that the opposite of Sanders' message and the definition of privilege?

Hillary or Bust?*

We all know that Clinton is a damaged candidate, but she's also resilient, a survivor. And while Sanders obviously hasn't received as much media coverage as some candidates, this has almost certainly helped him avoid the type of scrutiny that Clinton has had to endure for 30+ years. How many of these potential Sanders vulnerabilities have you heard about?

*lol

BS Getting Some Love from Across the Pond!

Honoured that The Bottled Spirits have been named the "Band of the Month" for April 2016 by the British blog, Music to die for.

Check it out here.

Annie Are You Oll Korrect?

I found this article about the history of the word, "OK" fascinating.

You see, long before our most common abbreviation like OMG and LOL existed, their 19th century predescesors were just a bit more interesting.

Apparnetly in the 1800's it was fashionable to alter the spellings of common phrases and their subsequent abbreviations.  So "no go," for example, would be changed to the homophonic "know go" and abbreviated k.g.

And this is how "OK" was created.

According to research by Allen Walker Read (who also studied the F word) and published in a book by Allan Metcalf, "OK," while having cognates in many different languages, (from Louisiana French "au quai" and the German "Ober-Kommando" to the Chocktaw "Okeh") actually originates from an abbreviation for an altered spelling of "all correct" (oll korrect) that was first published as a "joke" in an 1839 Boston Post article.

PKH? (Pretty Kool, huh?)

Hillary Clinton "honest and trustworthy?"

Nice to see that, finally, after twenty years of covering both Clintons for the Wall Street Journal and NYTimes, Jill Abramson is now brave enough to publicly state in her piece for the Guardian that, "Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy" and "There are no instances I know of where Clinton was doing the bidding of a donor or benefactor."

Far be it from Abramson, though to discuss twenty years of her and the mainstream media carrying water for the conservative attacks on Clinton's credibility, which, as Drum notes have, "successfully poisoned not just the electorate in general, but even the progressive movement itself."

The Bottled Spirits on Vinyl

Attention Patrons of the Arts 

and 

Supporters of Content Providers!!

The Bottled Spirits are currently accepting pre-orders for their 13-song, self-titled, debut LP coming Summer/Fall 2016

Reserve yours here

Thank you!

"Mothballs & Bloodmeal" Video

As promised, here's the official video for the Thingz song, "Mothballs & Bloodmeal" from our album, Red Future.  Enjoy!!

Drum Major Instinct

Check out the latest DiDacTicNaTioN!!

Freddie and Ratty

Here's a GREAT excerpt from the soon-to-be published Queen Unseen, an autobiography written by one of the band's roadies, Peter Hince (AKA Ratty) about his time on the road with Queen. 

Lots of interesting insights from someone who was there!

David Does Dallas (with SRV!)

Here's a good use of 2+ hours...  Listen to this 1983 soundboard recording of Stevie Ray Vaughn rehearsing with David Bowie in Texas for the Serious Moonlight Tour!!

Since Earl Slick ended up playing guitar on that tour in SRV's stead, this bootleg gives listeners a good idea of what could have been...

Argle Bargle, Bafflegab, and Gobbledegook

Maybe you've seen this meme floating around the internets...

A conservative friend of mine recently shared it with me on FB and suggested that I teach it to my students at school.

Here is my (lengthy) response (for the tl;dr version, the title of this blog post pretty much sums up my opinion of the meme):

Teach this to 10 year-olds?

I guess I could teach a lesson on how to properly attribute quotations…

A cursory Google search for Dr. Adrian Rogers instantly showed that the attribution at the bottom is wrong.

Aside from that, Wiki notes that the good "Dr."/Pastor Rogers (b. 1931) spent most of his life defending the literal inerrancy of the Bible and once said some pretty inflammatory things about slavery.  He was pro-life, pro-death penalty, and pro-hetero to the point that he boycotted Disney because he perceived that they promoted homosexuality. 

In other words, his Southern Baptist Christian beliefs were completely antithetical to the West Coast Methodist beliefs I was taught at my church every Sunday.

And while all this doesn’t address the content of the meme you posted, it does raise a red flag for the reader to proceed with caution… 

Warning:  Bafflegab Ahead!  (I guess I could teach my class a new vocabulary word, bafflegab…)

Anyway, here goes nothing…

1.  “You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.”

Seems like a bit of a straw man to me, as if freedom is strictly an economic concept.  Also, it implies that the economy is a zero-sum game where there is a set limit of money.  But, sure, let’s pretend those things are true and imagine “the total amount of money in America is, say, a hundred dollars, and one person owns $97 of those dollars,and you make a law saying that that one person has to give a lot of that money back to the government and the government will give it to all the people who just have a few cents, they would be more prosperous…”(emphasis added)

(Again, are we conflating wealth with freedom?  YMMV)

But if you’re thinking that’s unfair to Mr. $97, think about how the opposite has been true throughout history.  Governments have legislated the poor out of freedom by legislating the wealthy into (even more) freedom using “capitalism’s primary weapons: colonialism, imperialism, systems of taxation and slavery…The Spanish,the British, and now the Americans have been the most merciless and brutal exploiters of both human beings and resources in history…We in North America reside on land that was stolen from indigenous populations followed by brutal systematic genocide, and then followed by generations of institutionalized racism and exclusion.  Women, African and Native Americans were barred from the political process and any semblance of economic power until well into the 20th century.”

I do teach my students about The Trail of Tears, and even 10 year-olds tend to think Native Americans were treated pretty unfairly.

2. “What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.”

I don’t think that’s usually the case at all.  Everyone benefits from paying taxes for education (even if your kid goes to private school) because an educated work force helps our economy.  Everyone benefits from police and fire departments (even if they don't regularly call on them) because they keep our homes, businesses, and cities safe.  Everyone benefits from available health care (even if you haven’t used it - everyone will in their lifetime) because going to the ER costs all insurance customers.  These are but a few examples. 

Besides, that quote could be describing CEOs making hundreds of times more than their employees or even TARP, the program that used billions of our tax dollars to bail out AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, and the auto industry.

3.  “The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.”

While economically speaking, this may be true, why does it seem like individual welfare recipients are always demonized but not the corporations that cost our government billions?  Or do fiscal conservatives agree with politicians like Bernie that our current economic system tends to let corporations privatize profits while socializing their losses?

But, if we’re talking about laws the government makes, then #3 is not necessarily true.  The government can give equal marriage rights to queer folk without taking away heteronormative marriage.

4.  “You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

Would that that be true for cancer cells!  (Or our elites that want to divide this country into warring tribes of left vs. right all while multiplying their wealth.)  

Alas, you can multiply wealth by dividing it.  You can divide labor by creating different companies and that creates more wealth.  You can divide workloads to maximize efficiency and that multiplies wealth.  

But even if you couldn’t, you could still distribute wealth in a more just and equitable manner.  Our democracy is based on equality.  But capitalism doesn’t much care for (or need) equality – quite the opposite – it needs competition, winners and losers.  Our democratic government is there to check capitalism’s power, on behalf of all of its people.  When that check is corrupted by money, then equality and true democracy cease to exist.

5.  “When half the people…”

50%?  Really?  Again with the Us versus Them language, pitting citizens against one another… needlessly tribalizing us as a nation.  Once more, we could flip that around with the CEO/janitor scenario, but really, doesn’t this whole meme seem a bit silly now? 

Clearly, these Five Very Definitive Statements have all sorts of caveats. 

Basically, they are meaningless, pseudo-intellectual rubbish when scrutinized for more than a few minutes, hence the title of my post.

Let It Bleed

Hear, Here!

"Hail, Caesar"

Since I'm a huge Cohen brothers fan, a few days ago I wrote a comment defending their latest movie from criticisms by some viewers that "expected much more from the Cohen brothers" or said, "The plot never developed."

Here is my comment:

I'd be curious to hear what Cohen bros movies you do like... maybe you prefer their dramas? I hear ya about the plot, but I think the theme of competing belief systems embodied by the brilliantly funny characters trumped plot in "Hail, Caesar." (Laurence Laurentz? "Would that it were so simple," "Call me Laurence." Come on, Fiennes was a riot, as was the entire cast!) This theme of competing belief systems presented the viewer with questions like: Who holds more power in the secular world, the American military (Lockheed) or American pop culture (Hollywood)? Or who holds more power in the religious world, Catholicism/Christianity or Judaism? And who has more power in the political world, communism or capitalism? I was entertained by this "dialectic" (Haha!), a serious theme of competing beliefs (faiths?) interwoven throughout an ostensibly comedic movie, to the point that it subsumed the plot for me. That, along with the excellent characters/performances and the note-perfect re-creations of period genre movies (westerns, musicals, drawing-room dramas, etc), made "Hail, Caesar" a joyful, if not thoughtful romp.

Let me know what you thought about the movie in comments.

2016 Election: Devolution is Real!

This year will be the seventh time I've voted in a Presidential election since my first in 1992.

And besides the 2000 election, this will be the most significant and consequential contest in my lifetime.

The main reason being that four Supreme Court Justices will be in their eighties by 2020, so it's likely that at least one could be replaced by the incoming President, potentially shifting the court's balance of power.

But that's not all... 

In my lifetime, a Democrat has never succeeded a Democrat to the Presidency.

Think about that.

Republicans did it with George H.W. Bush succeeding Reagan, but Democrats never have.

We came close in 2000, but the 5-4 split favoring conservatives on the SCOTUS at the time prevented that.

Just think how different the aughts would have been with Gore succeeding Clinton:

No war in Iraq.  No tax cuts for the upper 1%.  A continued focus on Al-Qaeda that may have prevented 9/11.  An administration that would have made global climate change and research into renewable energy a priority.  Government agencies run by competent directors like James Lee Witt who showed what a helpful resource FEMA could be when natural disasters like hurricanes hit during the Clinton administration.  Imagine how different the response to Katrina would have been...

In other words, a Gore administration would have been a continuation of many of the programs and policies that showed government could function for the American people.

Alas, the 2000 election was very consequential.

Now don't get me wrong, neither Clinton nor Gore were perfect...

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," NAFTA, Welfare Reform, Mass Incarceration, and the repeal of Glass-Steagall (to name a few things) all happened under Clinton/Gore and were quite antithetical to liberal/progressive interests.

As a matter of fact, it was quite common during Campaign 2000 for liberals like Frank Rich of the New York Times and myself (at the wise old age of 27) to declare there to be absolutely No Difference between Candidate Gore and Candidate Bush, and so therefore, Go Nader!

Sigh...

Which brings us to the 2016 Presidential Campaign and the fight for the heart of both major political parties.

On the left we have an unapologetic Socialist versus an unapologetic Centrist.

I've read articles making the case for Sanders and articles making the case against him.

Each side has liberals I respect making their cases (Chomsky and Krugman, respectively).

But each of these articles were written prior to last night's Democratic town hall non-debate in Iowa.

And while what I saw may not change my primary vote, it certainly displayed each candidate's strengths and weaknesses more starkly.

Sanders' strengths speak to my progressive heart.  He is willing to forcefully call out the most destructive force this country has seen in my life time, income inequality.  He puts these values in action by not accepting SuperPac monies and is still competitive thanks to his ability to motivate the grassroots.  He has a consistent record of fighting for progressive interests, and his populist appeal excites people much like Obama did in 2008. 

Clinton's strengths speak to my pragmatic heart.  She's spent most of her political life on the national stage and has not withered or wavered.  She's a survivor.  She embodies public service despite 30 years of acrimonious, sexist, and demeaning attacks.  She has unimpeachable (sorry) foreign policy experience and has worked with leaders around the world for many years which means she's ready to go on day one, not needing any on-the-job training.

So I'm vexed. 

On the right, the rise of Trump shows us absolute, irrefutable proof that DEV-O were/are right:

Devolution is real!

And a President Rubio or Cruz as an alternative doesn't exactly disrupt our descent either.

Consider their crazy tax plans (and please keep in mind that conservatives routinely bemoan the size of both our national debt and deficit):

Trump's plan would cost $9.5 trillion over ten years, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Rubio's plan has "$6 trillion dollars of unfunded tax cuts," over ten years, according to Paul Krugman.  (Update:  $8.2 trillion according to CNN Money)

Cruz's plan is by far the most radical, with estimates ranging from the more "conservative" cost of $8.6 trillion dollars to the more "liberal" estimates of $16.2 trillion over ten years!

Just for a frame of reference, during the first Bush/Gore debate, Bush proposed $1.3 - $1.9 trillion dollars in tax cuts (depending on whether you used Bush's or Gore's numbers), and that was when our government was running a surplus!

We all remember how well our economy did after Bush cut taxes, and we got those $500 checks...

Obama has spent the last 7 years slowly but steadily fixing an economy Bush helped wreck.

But Democrats must pull off an historic win this November in order for our country to continue to reap what Obama has sewn.

Republicans winning the presidency would mean a government completely run by one party and the work of the last 8 years undone.

Can our country survive Republicans gutting the government again?

I love that the Sanders Campaign has kept the message of income inequality in the media since OWS.

That's awesome and commendable.  The issue affects all Americans every day.

But this election is about more than one issue...

Actually, I take that back.

But the one issue is which candidate can prevent President Trump?