Describing the supplantation of the American Dream

And in the back of one of D.C’s fine eating establishments, in luxury of actual white plaster, parlor palm and ficus plants and painted art on the walls, the ultra rich and politically powerful sat and discussed, over whiskey and cheese, the future of the American Dream. If the average American was a sycophant – a net drain on their riches (through taxes), because of average person’s needs, then how could they reverse and exploit that?

To you - the 4th wall – let’s face it, the rich have little need for government. They can buy security, educate their kids, get their medical needs taken care of, get their packages sent – so if the average American needs these things, the average American is then a slave to them.

Back to the conversation. The elderly gentleman in the corner – we will call him Mitch, says “Follow me for a moment. If we can separate services from government and give them to business, free of investment, we reduce our taxes and improve our ability to charge for these services. Even better, since the publicly funded government has already put in infrastructure and we say it is poorly managed and convince the public that business is more competent than government – and that the current government system is untenable and we should give it to a business or businesses to run – then we not only get to set and sit at the table, but we’ve managed to steal the table itself.”
“So we will call that privatization and frame it as Freedom. Freedom for us, from taxes, but position it as Freedom from this horrible thing called “Government”, that doesn’t run efficiently and only provides for the lazy and ner-do-wells.

And as the conversation turned to Unions, which fought for fair wages and working conditions, it was recognized that these further diminished the wealth of these powerful men, who believed themselves creators – not caretakers. And they needed a context in which to place the Union as “anti-American” and so they looked at things like mandatory membership and picket lines and said, what about the guy who still wants to work when collective bargaining is taking place? Isn’t he being oppressed by all these other people wanting to bargain? Protecting the individual could be used as an excuse to take away their collective power.

So we will call efforts to kill Unions “Right to work” – and along with Union killing, we will protect ourselves from any responsibility for laying off or firing an individual. That’s our prerogative.
And then the lady, we’ll call her “Betsy”, goes on a diatribe about Public education and that it creates liberal thinkers, doesn’t support religious education (how unfair that people who want their kids to attend a religious school have to pay into public education too). And then how education, especially secondary, used to be more exclusive, both in class and racial terms, and longed for the days of segregation, which invented the school voucher system as a way to keep white kids from having to go to school next to black kids. If we just removed the funding for education, privatized it and made it “pay to play” – we could take the funding that was there and make it into vouchers that could be used for religious and for-profit schools, we would remove the funding for public schools and make a profit – and we could we could go back to control of content, to insure that science does not contradict our religious and money making pursuits and ideas.

We’ll call this “School Choice” and frame it as Freedom too.

And the subject turned to Health Care (actually to Health Payment System and Pharmaceutical regulation) and said that regulation and government management was taking profit opportunities away from insurance providers and subsequently, eliminating a huge opportunity for profit.
And as each of the cabinet members in turn discussed their areas with the campaign financiers, it became evident that in order for profit to win over virtue;

• People needed to believe that Business was competent and Government was not.
• That taxes were robbery.
• That Capitalism was viewed as a form of government, that functioned on it’s own, in place of government.
• That propaganda was needed to connect publicly funded service with Socialism and Communism, to be able to use these age old references to instill fear and stear people away from them. After all, they eliminated “profit” from the equation.
• That allowing religious freedom was dangerous and subsequently redefining religious freedom as the Freedom to discriminate against those who don’t hold your belief system was a further means to control the masses. 
• That Globalization was evil, because it means that we are competing with the rest of the world, who are poised to surpass us in every area, because of investments in education and government programs to help their people – who outnumbers us 4 to 1. And competing means losing control of markets.

As they moved through one by one, it became clear that the plan, while still in operation, was succeeding.

Now, I’ve framed this as a meeting, but really, it’s been thousands of meetings over the last 80 years. It’s been funded by Fossil Fuels, The Gun Industry, other big industries (like Pharma, Insurance, Agriculture) a handful of very, very wealthy people. And there’s a constant theme;

• Gain control of the government and people
• Reduce or eliminate tax on the wealthy by dissolving government, to a large part, to privatize services for profit and control it where market control can be established. (These folks only claim to be capitalists – they are actually monopolists – they only support the invisible hand to the point they can control it). 
• Reduce regulation in every situation, because it requires investment and management.
• Make as much of it permanent as possible

We need public investment. We need to remove profit from politics, Health Care Payment (My doctor should make  good living as should nurses and other practitioners. Hospital systems should be well funded, but should not be making a killing. People who manage health care payment should not be making a killing, yet insurance is by far, the most profitable business in the country. The profit motive is counter to the health care of the individual – it treats the individual as a number, only an investment while they are inexpensive.

We need to recognize and partner with other countries. We need to work for sustainable energy, sustainable farming, sustainable everything. That requires widely available public education where again, profit motive can be the enemy of individual improvement.

Good business is not more effective than good government. They are both human systems. They both live and fail on the availability of capital. The difference is, business always has to walk away with more money than it put in – that is profit. Government does not. It has to walk away with something more than the money that was put in – and that Is healthy and viable people.

Business and profit have a valuable place in our democracy but we need to be careful about allowing capitalism be mistaken for a governing system – or that it owes anything inherently to the well being of the people involved. As an economic system, it is every man for himself. As a society, that is anachronistic and we need social responsibility along with capitalism to survive. It is the balance that is needed to give everyone the chance to pursue life and liberty – and we must get back to it. Urgently.

Forgiveness

Our muddled past.

Can our core selves change on important topics? Scripting, race, sex and gender issues?
Can we forgive transgression? Do we believe that we can learn?

The human mind and soul are infinitely complex things. We ascribe societal rules of conduct for safety, for comfort and sometimes, unfortunately, for societal control of others for personal gain (or prevention of perceived personal loss). Sometimes these rules are laws. Sometimes they are unspoken - and in some cases, largely ignored, to hit some critical mass and suddenly be known.

And there are degrees of infringement. Although I believe intent is important, it appears to be a subtlety lost on the court of pubic opinion. Let's take an example -

We find Harvey Weinstien abhorrent (and he is) for what he did and his case of err is clear and he deserves what he gets. But when power is wielded with non-sexual intent - for instance, when an upper level individual in a corporation is instructed to lay off 1000 plus workers - and is at risk of being fired if they won't, if their conscience prevents them from upsetting and destroying lives - isn't there some of the same dilemma? Power is being used to force another into an uncomfortable and even personally damaging situation.

Take Al Franken then - guilty of bad form and some misogynistic actions – and not downplaying the serious nature of these. His comments and apologies make me think he is able to learn and grow from those mistakes.

Is every sentence to be handed down to be a banishment for life? Certainly we all carry lessons around. I've made mistakes of many types and those lessons stay with me and shape the better person I think I am today. But lessons are best when they are not eternal punishment. We should save that for people who cannot be forgiven. They need to be locked away either physically or societally in some cases. For the betterment of the whole.

I cannot always let go of my mistakes. And it starts out as self punishment. But to keep a lesson close is very different than eternal punishment. And it sometimes takes time to change from a punishment to a lesson.

A personal example - in 7th grade, I was 13 and played junior varsity basketball. After practice one day, a girl I knew asked me out. I had never dated anyone, although I was definitely attracted to her - she was very pretty, I was scared out of my mind. First, I was pretty shy around girls, especially girls I was attracted to. Secondly, she was black and I am white. My family never held up race as a barrier - I was raised in a very unbiased environment, but in the 1970s, interracial dating wasn't mainstream.

I wasn't unkind, but I turned her down. I personally was ashamed. One of my life regrets now (and I'm fortunate not to have tons to drag behind me, but I didn't know how to stand up to these particular fears yet). I missed the experience of knowing someone I actually did want to know because I was scared. Variations of that mistake in romantic and non romantic contexts (without racial implications) played out through my younger life until I realized that my fears of either hurting myself or my fear of hurting others - rather than thinking they would understand me, prevented honesty and subsequently actually prevented my happiness - and sometimes theirs.

I'd like to think that I would not make those mistakes today. So I believe in learning. And I'm not asking for anyone to forgive our societal monsters - the rapists, the racists, the greedy liars.

I'm supportive of the outing of these people. I do think there are some who subsequently are lumped in there, who have made mistakes, certainly, but don't deserve the lifetime banishment, which I believe should be reserved for the Bill Cosbys,  Martin Skhrelis and Harvey Weinsteins of the world - those who would subordinate others to their wishes and greed.

I think we need to look on those who commit lesser offence and see what their intent was - and when in their life it was - and understand that we can learn and forgive bad actions. And forgiveness is something that is healing for all parties - it improves the lesson and the outcome. So we should search our hearts for it where possible.

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