What I want is accountability in Congress

Regardless which house, which party, I want them free from special interest $$ and influence. All of them. NRA, OIL, Pharma, Insurance, Agra, Wall Street.  Business does need a voice, but right now they control.

Congress can have panels to solicit opinion from business, from individuals. No campaign contributions above individual levels (like the old $2500). None. I want them free of agendas that hurt our health, destroy our environment. 

There are 25 (or 100, or 1000) ways to solve a problem. We need to consider all ideas and find those that meet these needs. But the laws themselves need to be authored and vetted by accountable representatives and their staff. Legislation that isn't written by lawmakers should not make it to congress. 

No business should sponsor onboarding for Congresspersons (they do now). Training congresspersons should be funded by the American people and trained in an unbiased fashion to understand congressional procedure.

Campaigns should be limited to 4 weeks prior to an election, preparations limited to 6 weeks before that. Most members of the house spend half their term campaigning for their next term. There should be a cap on the $$ they can spend, per capita of their state population on advertisements and outside interests should not be allowed to fund political campaigns.

We need campaign reform. If we take the money out of politics we remove a lot of the impotence to push agendas that are contrary to the well being of the Republic.

Inaugural Thoughts

Today I celebrate the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It marks the spring coming out  of our struggle for the past four years. It marks a return of sanity, human rights and the first female and minority Vice President. No small thing.

I do not celebrate the leaving of Trump. It’s welcome relief, without doubt, but it feels like it’s too serious an occasion to dance on a grave - partially because I mourn the death and destruction he left in his wake, partially to mourn former brothers and sisters who succumbed to the propaganda and turned on their fellow human. I cannot celebrate anything close to an end while their intolerance and Ill will still pushes the agenda, sits in shadows today licking wounds, looking for ways to return that sickness to power.

I’m not looking to rub salt into wounds. I’m looking to find ways to help the good led astray to find their way back - truly back, to reason. I don’t need or want revenge but I’m not giving amnesty - I need people to live with what they supported in the knowledge it was wrong. I’m looking to make sure that those who persist cannot find their way into power. Accountability must win the day. And then we need to focus on ourselves.

At the base problem is the whole idea that it’s unfair to people who struggled to ease struggle for others (in a way that impacts their money or time or sense of fairness), to pay it forward. We have to get over fairness- not everybody finds the same life and it’s not only ok to have a society where part of our contribution goes to someone other than ourselves and our companies - we improve our own lives when we improve the world, even if it impedes our struggle for self achievement. We instead work for equality - everybody has an equal chance - and at the base can eat, have shelter, live and love. We remove the impediments of discrimination and poverty.

This isn’t asking for anything we don’t already know is right. Every religion in the world proposes this. But we have a long, long way to go - farther than we did 4 years ago.

So - I celebrate the change, the good. I celebrate the new and welcome relief. I support the way of human rights, as I’ve always supported and I hope for my fellow humans, that we see clearly that our future is not independent from one another. Regardless of where your head is at, reality throws us together. Embrace it and know your success and the Success of the human race is one in the same. Our circumstances are not always the same, but our lives are inexorably intertwined.

Happy Inauguration day - in the spirit of the day, we’re just getting started. 

Peace

Martin Luther King Jr. understood that violence precipitates non-accord. You cannot violently seek peace and expect lasting peace as a result. 

Look at the middle east. 

Look at Kashmir.

And on and on.

Having outlined many times, the steps to non-violence as correcting an issue, his first steps were to gather facts to show injustice exists.

In the case of racial inequality this is unfortunately easy. Less easy today - we don’t have racist signs up in most businesses, we don’t have laws promoting segregation. But we still have black people dying at the hands of the establishment, which is, even if strictly by populace, 70% white.

We cannot effect change with violence. Our protesting must be disciplined and well documented. We need to purge those who would do violence from the protest, by organizing, and purifying for our cause. Those that cannot hold back, cannot take being hit and arrested need to be kindly thanked for their passion, but sent home. Otherwise we have no moral ground from which to stand. 

Dr. King had to deal with mis-information too. Racists and the KKK pushed a hate campaign that has had a lasting effect on so many Americans - hate that continues to exist today. Hate that has been fed recently and renewed through propaganda.

But violence will not end that hate. Violence will not win their cause. It will only beget more hate. And lives are lost - and not until the body count and pain get to be enough does the process de-escalate, sometimes, and allow another chance at peace, but now with battle scars and hate boiling in the background. 

Education, patience, perseverance and non-violence are the only way we are going to get to a lasting peace. 

It’s hard to convince a nation of gun owners, of rugged independent scripting, of national heritage rooted in our own self image of defying odds. Our ancestors did that to a large extent so we don’t have to. 

What we have to defy is misinformation. Our life and death struggle today, in this rich country will be to recognize when we’ve been lied to and when we’re being manipulated and to stop the manipulators.  It’s a mental struggle. It’s an economic struggle (there is money behind misinformation, frequently). It requires significant thinking. It requires education. It requires discipline. It requires critical thinking. It requires discussion. 

Before we ever get to have our voices heard we have to be able to show, without a doubt, that injustice has occurred and then we get to start negotiations. Dr. King followed Gandhi. We need to follow their example if we are to get to a meaningful next point. We need new laws that help press the telling of truths. We need places for people to air grievances and we also need people who are grieving to be open to having their ideas challenged for truth. It’s easy to distract majorities from looking at system oppression of a minority by telling the majority they are the ones who are being oppressed. Classic misdirection. We fall for it often.

As I experience my privileged life - which I indeed worked and work hard for, but is easily understood to be privileged (one only has to look at oneself and understand if you have food, shelter, things you enjoy) - I have to step back to continuously understand that and contextualize myself. 

Only then can I start helping others think about how to change society so that everyone enjoys their right to love, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Dr. King is integral in all of it and his legacy and influence have weighed on my mind for a number of years now, prompting change in who I am and how I perceive my fellow humans. I hope he has a similar impact on you.

“The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows”. Martin Luther King, Jr.

https://soundcloud.com/tobias-venar/peace

Remember who we are talking about.

Mitch McConnell, according to sources close to him, wants Donald Trump removed from the Republican party. This I don’t doubt.

Trump is a distraction for the Republican party. He’s too divisive to carry out a lasting agenda.He bashed through the walls but now he and his children have announced the Republican party doesn’t belong to the Republicans anymore - it’s the party of Trump (they have literally said this).

No vote for conviction in the senate will take place before Biden is in office because Republicans would have to take responsibility for removing this president from power along with Democrats. He claims he’s not sure how he will vote, but the President has committed impeachable offenses. 

If he waits until Dems have the majority, he gets - the removal of Trump and the possibility of him running in the future - so help in extricating him from the party, and he gets to blame Democrats since they will hold the majority. That will, in his hopes, distract the base and allow them to still consider themselves Republican (rather than shatter into the Trump Party and the Republican party - if that happens, they have no chance in the foreseeable future to control power.

He’s pretending he could lead Republicans to convict the President so he can get the Dems onboard. And I wish I could believe in good intentions, except I remember who we are talking about. 

This is an attempt to get what he wants (control of the Republican party, with the Trump base, more or less intact, without responsibility - he can point at Trump, but more importantly, he can point at hated Democrats. 

This is also why Dems are pushing for this to happen now, while Republicans still hold some political responsibility - Trump won’t be convicted with the current majority unless they have a hand in it.

I think our strategy needs to be clear. We need to make sure either it happens right away, or McConnell’s strategy is clearly known and understood by the Trump base. He cannot succeed if Trump supporters abandon him. 

Yes, Dems will have to make sure the country is safe (at least in this way) once again at political expense. But we don’t need to hand the keys to Mitch willingly to try to carry out legislation in a way that eventually concatenates Trumpian demolition of things like the EPA, The Post Office, Voters rights into law.

Not only do we need to remove Trump, we need to reign in the radical Republicans and help them get back to being true conservatives and moderates. People who have their different agenda but have America, not just themselves, truly at heart.

Free speech is not freedom from accountability.

Politicians like a microphone, a megaphone, a bully pulpit (a phrase coined by Teddy Roosevelt). How do I know?

For several years I had the joy of being a member of a band - The Blues Devils, here in Pittsburgh that started by playing Democratic party fundraisers called "Blues for Blues" and in the course of those events (we played many others too) there would come time in the evening for the guests of honor to talk.

Once the Microphone was handed to a politician, we knew the evening, musically was either over or it was going to be a long time before we got it back.

Not that we didn't want to here what these folks had to say. Just saying, politicians are attracted to situations where they can speak.

To me, this explains why some world leaders have decried the twitter ban of the President. Some have said it should be a public vote. Some have said big tech needs to be regulated rather than having their own rules.

For me, taking that particular microphone away, when the person is using the platform in a manipulative, dangerous way - and has done so multiple times - well, it's perfectly OK.

They still have mechanisms to speak to everyone in the country. Mechanisms, like a press room, that have more accountability - they have to answer tough questions, from multiple angles.

We should be worried when these folks get unlimited access to platforms to deliver messages. Where there is no accountability for what is said.

Free speech says you say what you feel. You have that right. But free speech is not free from consequences. If you incite people to violence, if you do things that smack of sedition, you have to be prepared to deal with the seeds you have sown.

It is why free speech can exist. We think about what we are going to say, how it will effect people. We weigh what it will do and mean. If you don't, then you are living in a self centered universe that makes everyone else less important - that person is a sociopath at the least. Giving sociopaths unlimited voice is a tremendous mistake. There needs to be checks and balances - accountability - for how they move the public, because their moral self won't provide restraint.

Not all politicians are sociopaths. But all of them are attracted to the Bully Pulpit, in a way similar to an alcoholic looking for a drink. It's OK to cut them off and send them home to sleep it off. It will keep them from driving drunk. They'll get to speak another day.

I believe social media needs to be moderated. And I do think we can come to some legal ways to do that - but it cannot be in the hands of the politicians and likely should not be left in the hands of the general public.

Tech companies having individual choice allows us, at this point, a check and balance. Like our three branches of government, it provides accountability. Until we figure out a way to regulate without giving direct control to the politicians, it's protection we need to preserve.

Addressing the propaganda

The following was posted by a well intentioned friend. This piece of propaganda below is actually crafted to make it seem like we must accept our current condition or make a win/lose decision for our country. I’m going to address these point by point - my comments follow **, the paragraphs without them are the originals. 

From a Friend:

I didn’t write this but it needs to be shared. 

"This morning, I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, lives are never going to be the same. ** True enough. That’s the case every day in a changing world.

I have been confused by the hostility of friends. I look at people I have known all my life so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone. 

** There is a lot of animosity amongst us - it has to do with the approach we take to humanity. And a lot of these views have been repressed by wanting to “fit in” or “not get political”. But we are past a time when we can turn blind eyes. A difference of opinion over what clothes we like is not the same as our difference in how minorities, LGBTQ+, people of non-christian faith and  immigrants are treated - for instance.

They are so filled with hatred for one man that they are willing to sell their own country away.  

** Here is where reality really departs. Democrats views are not for hatred of Trump. The hatred of Trump comes from viewpoints he is enabling - but are coming from people that are trying to control outcomes to maintain racism, to maintain class gaps, to make the wealthy wealthier and keep the poor in their place. The viewpoint uses religion as a seperator rather than following the principles of religion. Please indulge me for a couple of minutes through the rest of these comments.

**The country is being sold away by the Republicans as we speak. They are disassembling the government and society that Franklin Roosevelt helped initiate in the forties. The rich and the powerful know that you cannot have a well educated, well maintained middle class and be able to keep cheap sources of labor and low taxes on the rich. They view the common man as a leach - and I’m not just talking about the poor. I’m talking about people demanding clean air and safe drinking water. About demanding affordable health care. 

You can't justify this insanity. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind.

** What insanity? People demanding racial justice? Health care? A common set of laws that works for equality? The protests you see are the effect of decades of repression and systems that are left to management by the greedy.  Fantastic profits can be made without abandoning the public good. It’s only when you subvert the public good for more profit that you get what we have.

We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan to us.

** Socialisms and Democracies both succeed and fail. But nothing has been proposed to socialize our government. Universal healthcare is an idea that has been used in socialisms but is not socialist itself. We do this in business all the time. My company insures itself, cutting out the middleman and taking on it’s own risk in order to keep costs low. They do this by cutting out some of the profit. That’s what universal health care proposes - same doctors, just a payment mechanism that says we don’t make money off of the management of the payments.

Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.

** It is un-American to only count Americans and ignore the fact that we have a population of legal immigrants - and some illegals. Regardless, they are humans and we need to plan with everyone in mind. The fear is that the information is used to only consider citizens and then we have a system that is built for oppression.

People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.

** Nobody says there is no such thing as gender. What they are saying is that gender is more complex than just a physical body. There’s a large part of the population that understands that those that are in a body other than the physical gender they identify with are treated as a second class - are forced into the shadows. This is called gender identity. The same concerns are there for secual preference. These are part of a person's identity and they should not be discriminated against based on who they are.

Universities that advocate equality, discriminate against Asian-Americans in favor of African-Americans. 

** There can be instances of problems with rules we put in place to work towards equality. They have to be fixed. Nobody in the Democratic world is advocating discrimination.

Criminals are caught-and-released to hurt more people, but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of THEIR rights.

** We can have law enforcement without abuse, without murder. Nobody argues against stopping criminals, but we do maintain laws to make sure people are considered innocent until proven guilty - and that includes treating them humanely - even after they are incarcerated. We also know that many are imprisoned for non-violent crime - like smoking Marijuana and that these and other non-violent offenders can be released safely and where needed, included in programs that help them be productive members of society.

A victim is held responsible for defending themselves from a Criminal and the criminal is then considered the victim. 

** We have prosecutors who are advocates for victims. They are not left defending themselves - this is clearly a lie. We appoint lawyers to defend criminals that cannot defend themselves because they are considered innocent until proven guilty. This is a justice system that we developed over centuries. It is not perfect and is subject to racism and other issues - which we continue to work to correct. 

People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.

**Reparations are a complex issue. And although it’s been discussed, nobody so far has been made to pay reparations. But just because you personal have not owned slaves doesn’t mean these people and families haven’t been affected. This holds true for slaves - it holds true for native americans. It is only a discussion right now and we should reflect on and discuss how to best address the sins of the past.

After legislating gender, if a dude pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.

** This is incredibly insensitive and wrong. Transsexuals are not “Dudes pretending to be women”. They are people that consider themselves misgendered. There are many aspects to this but to reduce it to this is to say “I don’t care about who you are”. And that is not who we are.

It was cool for Joe Biden to "blackmail" the President of Ukraine, but it’s an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquiries about it.

** This is a lie. Read about what Biden did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/us/politics/joe-biden-ukraine.html

People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their choice and their degrees.

** Public education is the bedrock of a democracy and society has evolved to a point where a k-12 education no longer guarantees a job. Many countries provide college education for all that are interested and able to meet the academic standards. In most cases doctorates and other programs after that are privately funded. In regards to loan forgiveness - we need to understand that we need doctors, for instance, more than ever and that there are vast disparities in what it costs to get a medical education and what it now pays (while $80k a year seems like an excellent starting salary, if you have to pay $400k to get that education, spend and additional 6 years in school, with interest, that becomes close to a million dollars which might take that person 20 years to pay off. We need to get to a situation where education is reasonable. And yes, we fund education for all because it improves the conditions we all live in. Education is a cornerstone of civilization.

Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.

** Come on. This is a false comparison and a lie. Yes, your dog needs to be vaccinated. People come to this country for healthcare and we vaccinate against polio and tuberculosis here - not everyone has that luxury - but we can still treat people. These are very few. In general, we don’t let people in this country with know communicable issues. 

Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang-bangers who jump the southern fence are welcomed.

** illegal immigration is a reality. But to portray south of the border immigrants as gang bangers is clearly a racist trope and we need to understand how to work with the situation. The doctors and engineers, etc… who are going through rigorous processes are being subjected to this to ensure they’re not taking our high paying jobs without bringing a unique skill that is needed. We do need immigration reform, but it needs to come in human forms. An illegal immigrant is still a human, first and foremost and we recognize human rights in our constitution. And this statement is racist.

$5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care for illegal immigrants is not.

** I could make the same comparison of 750 trillion in military spending and 1.5 trillion for healthcare for all of our people. It’s a false comparison. We could do both if it made sense - but walls will not prevent illegal immigration. It will actually make it into a less human situation than it already is. It will force people to live through torture and get involved in human trafficking, which the Republicans claim to be against.

If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.

** this is false. We should prosecute those who fraudulently bribe their way into schools, but the federal government does not offer funding or scholarships for undocumented  immigrants. There are some private scholarships for this - but there are few.

And, pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us "racists"!

** The claims of racism come from the efforts that have been made to discount discrimination, to suppress voting in communities with higher minority populations. Racism because look at the statement above “Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang-bangers who jump the southern fence ...” portrays people from Mexico and central/South America as “Gang Bangers”. That’s racism.

Nothing makes sense anymore, no values, no morals, no civility.

** How can we be civil when you are trying to enforce laws that separate families, that allow the poor to starve, that put white lives over minority lives, that discount people’s fundamental identities, who the love, how they love, work to keep them poor and uneducated, deny basic human rights. There are values. Human values. There are morals, but they are secular so they can be applied to all people, from every religion. People need to be held as equals - which we still don’t do and see repeated attacks on rights of women, minorities, those with alternate sexuality, gender identity, religious beliefs.

We are clearly living in an upside-down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right.

** This is an Orwellian misrepresentation and false equivalents. In order to be part of our world, our laws need to be secular. They cannot follow a particular religion and your morality is tied up in your religion in terms of the finer point. Abortion has always been a trigger point. So is capital punishment. Those fall into a Woman’s choice for their body and human rights respectively. It’s not upside down because not everyone feels the same way about these things. That is why there is no pro-abortion standpoint. It’s pro-choice - each person decides for themselves. When life starts is a religious and scientific arguement. Most folks that are against capital punishment are against it because it is dealing with a human life that has been confirmed and we have an imperfect justice system where mistakes are made. So we say we don’t kill people - where there is concern we lock them up for life. But it’s again, not upside down - it’s just complex and requires each person to think about what it means.

Wake up America. The great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, is taking on water and sinking fast.

**Bullshit. Wake up America - we have a diverse population that needs to able to pursue life and liberty without having to worry about someone persecuting them for the color of their skin, their religion, gender identity, sexuality, age, country of origin. It says that even criminals in our country get a fair trial and that we welcome people from all cultures - including the tired and poor into our shores. It means we take care of everyone - nobody’s starves and people don’t die because they cannot afford medical attention.

**This country isn’t going down. It’s working and changing, as our forefathers intended to constantly become a better version of itself. We only see setback when 

Self centered people believe the scarcity myth and think that someone always has to lose in order to win - or that their winning means have to oppress another.

**Our freedoms depend on our understanding our rights and privileges stop as soon as they infringe on others - not offering formalized prayer in schools isn’t prevent schoolchildren from praying. It’s not forcing them to pray to a god they don’t worship. It’s not religious discrimination. The twisting of words, as above, to make decency seem like madness are exactly what Democrats are fighting. 

Copied and pasted. I suggest you do the same!

** sure, feel free to send with my annotations. Thanks.

This isn't over

We have to understand the situation we’re in. 

Trump supporters will feel unheard. Allowed to fester this will turn into more insurrection, more violence. Because they have been lied to and have bought the lies and the conspiracies, they need to be brought back from the edge. 

That means this President and his family and close supporters need to be forced to tell the truth. Legally compelled. 

And even if that were to happen - and it won’t, there will be those that will shrug it off and say he said what he had to because he’s under duress. 

There needs to be an anti-propaganda campaign. It needs to include bi-partisan endorsement. It needs to include campaign reform. It needs to include stronger laws on public fraud and social media, Television, Email and other forms of bulk communication. It needs to include independent audits of voting systems prior to elections and it needs to include national funding and administration of election security.

As reprehensible as these peoples views are, we have to acknowledge that they exist, will be hard to change and in the meantime, will act on them.

The Trumps and others will continue to try to motivate playing on fears and using deceit. They will tell these people they are special and that their racism, their extremism, their religious extremism is their right and that they are being persecuted by “the mainstream” and the mainstream media. 

We need to be smart about this. We need to understand how to deal with Fraud without taking away free speech. We need to understand how to disrupt false propaganda. People should not be allowed to lie to the public without consequence.

We need to be prepared and diligent.

New Years 2021

So many New Years posts this morning (as expected) that I won’t have time to reply to all of them - please know I hope that 2021 brings you what you need - including happiness, safety and health.

As I get older, it’s more and more evident that the government plays roles that business and religion, with their individual missions cannot, in creating the ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness. When done right, it is the guardian of the people, a public investment in ourselves. Education, security - both physical and social, it manages the logistics and makes sure that singular objective systems - like capitalism - have boundaries for the public good. Think of it like this;

If you are in the ocean as a floating body, you have only a slight chance of surviving at sea. If I put you in a boat, that is designed to navigate these rough waters, there is still turbulence, but your chances of making an ocean crossing are very good. 

Government is that boat for all of us. The privileged can afford private boats. 99% of us need to pool our resources in order to do things like make sure our food and medicines are safe, that the public welfare and health are looked after, that we have mechanisms that allow us to make money and safety nets to help us survive when these don’t work. 

That is not big government. That is a right-sized government. Religion provides a path for the spiritual, free trade provides a path to money and the government protects our ability to worship, work and live without the ravages of the other systems impacting our lives to the point where we cannot survive. 

That is why we need to put in check forces like lobbies and campaign finance. They seek to promote something other than the public good. Yes, we need to make sure regulation is only what is needed - and we will have enough argument about that. But our laws need to be written with the people’s interest in mind and right now a large amount of our legislation is written by lobbyists and special interest think tanks. 

We have to put safeguards back in place and make sure they are necessary and can stand assault. We need to rebuild our public systems - education, health, environment and our ability to work with other nations, and our interior and our ability to manage the public welfare. All of the dismantling that has taken place can only be brought to good by rebuilding better and more resilient infrastructure. 

It’s a huge job. It is one that needs to start right away. It needs all of our voices to come to semblance of collaboration, but we need to push against those who will try to keep that from happening - because it will impact the wealthy. It will impact businesses that currently pay little or no tax. It will impact those that make bad loans and while we’re in the struggle we need to protect the poor, the middle class and everyone’s right to live and thrive.

Our government is not a thing separate from ourselves, that runs itself. It requires us or it becomes a tool of the greedy, the self serving, the tyrant. At the very least our votes, but our voices, our ideas - they need to be the drive - not the money.

So - elect politicians that represent reform of campaign finance. Elect officials that are oriented for the public good. Follow legislation, question decisions and peacefully protest so injustice gets seen and dealt with. Insist on accountability and understand, at the same time, that we are all human and mistakes are made (in business, in religion, in government, in being human) - they just must be understood and corrected. 

Not everyone will contribute the same amount, the same effort or to the same level. That’s part of humanity - we are each born with different gifts and weaknesses. Some will have to lift more. Some will be unable to lift. 

“Wow, that seems like a lot of work for a lot of us, Toby.”

Yes, it is and will be. But what will you give to have a peaceful loving world where we all can thrive? You give what you can - your thoughts, your support, your time, your vote, your voice, your sweat,  your heart. Many already do and many more are needed.

May 2021 be evidence of your good hearts and minds against the forces that compromise us. May it bring you a large measure of love and joy, and health and well-being.  ❤️