Category: Politics

Who Are the Abolitionists of Our Times?

What peculiar institutions do we embrace today that modern abolitionists see as evil?

Humans are an evolving social species and in every era some people see further than others.  They understand that common assumptions are wrong.  19th century abolitionists could see that slavery was a vile institution where most were blind to its cruelty.  They wanted to abolish a long held practice that other people embraced dearly.  This brought about the war of America against itself that was so violent that no other enemy has ever come close to hurting us so much.  And even though the war came to an end in 1865 some people are still fighting it today.  It’s very hard for people to change.

What I ask:  What evil do we embrace that is invisible to the society at large that a few people rightly want to abolish today?

The list could be quite long and it might take a century or two before the issues become obvious to everyone.  Evil is not invisible.  Evil doesn’t take a century of social evolution to see.  Evil is ignored.  Everyone in the 19th century should have seen that slavery was evil.  Southern states embraced slavery because it benefitted them economically.  They had to rationalize the practice.  The framers of the Constitution had to carefully dance around the issue in words.  Our forefathers accepted a level of cruelty in life that we can’t rationalize, but instead of feeling enlighten, we have to ask:  What cruelty do we rationalize so easily?  What vile practices do we embrace because we don’t want to see its evil because it profits us?

The first thing that comes to mind are animals.  Factory farms are nightmares of animal cruelty that slaughter billions of beings each year.  We’re also destroying animal habitats worldwide and causing extinctions only slightly slower than mass extinction events.  Given our trends, we’ll start surpassing some of those events soon.

The second thing that comes to mind is how we’re destroying the environment for future generations.  A century from now the the people of the world will hate us far worse than we ever hated slavers, colonialists, Nazis, Communists, terrorists, serial killers or child molesters.  Our excesses will make us the worst of the worst.

Most people today if confronted will go, “Huh, not me, I’m not doing anything wrong.”

And you can’t claim ignorance because we do have our own abolitionists.  They are out there.  They are telling us what’s wrong.  We’re just not listening.

JWH – 2/5/12

If I Had a Super PAC

There’s an old Bruce Cockburn song called “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” that if I was musically inclined I’d adapt to modern times and write new words and sing, “If I Had A Super PAC.”  To understand a little bit of what a Super PAC is read “Newt’s Shop of Horrors.”  Basically, if you’re wealthy you can make political war for or against political candidates so long as you don’t align yourself with any candidate.  In essence it allows individuals and corporations, folks with lots of dough, to weigh in political and do the dirty fighting for the candidate of their choice.

In the old days a six-shooter was considered an equalizer.  It didn’t matter if you were big and strong or little and weak, the implication was guns made everyone equal.  The Bruce Cockburn song ups the ante to imply you need a rocket launcher to be equal in our modern world.  Well, now it seems to be equal in politics you need a Super PAC.

The inherent problem of Super PACs is only the rich can afford them and thus the rich have more political influence.  What Timothy Egan’s article says about Republicans fighting each other with Super PACs is it ironically illustrates why they are unfair.  Mr. Gingrich helped promote the creation of a Super PAC and now he’s suffering from the results of an escalating war.

I’m poor and liberal, but I got to thinking, what if I had a Super PAC, what would I do?  Not that I’d really use one – I mean, I don’t own an assault rifle (hey, I’m liberal) but it’s fun to think about what one would do with a Super PAC.  If a big gun makes you feel like you have a big you know what, what must welding a Super PAC make you feel?

Our polarized political society is creating all kinds of escalating political weapons.  Take the hacker group Anonymous – they attack corporations they deem unethical with hacker tools.  Arab Spring showed us how little people can overthrow powerful tyrants by using Twitter, Facebook and other social media.  Conservatives and NRA members probably never picture liberals armed to the teeth, so I don’t imagine Republicans pictured Democrats with Super PACs, but after the conventions I expect both parties to bring out whole legions of Super PACs on both sides.  What we have to ask are Super PACs weapons of mass destruction that should be outlawed?

Expect shock and awe attacks on President Obama of all kinds.  But also imagine what liberals can do with Super PACs.  Republicans are going to claim The Comedy Channel started the escalation.  Then countered with Fox News.  Researcher should graph the growth negative ads in politics and the evolution of rhetoric to unbelievable levels.

I find it painful.  If I had a Super PAC I’d attack the legality of Super PACs, but instead I’ll just turn off my TV.

JWH – 1/7/12

For more fun on Super PACs, read my friend’s Bill blog, That’s Interesting…

Why Do People Want To Be President?

Why do people want to be President?  I used to think they wanted the job because they had a visionary solution to fix the problems we all face – but that’s naïve.  We’re polarized instead of unified.  Each Republican claims they are the unique true conservative as if their rivals were deviating from a script that defines the ideal American. 

The Republican candidates make no effort to appeal to all Americans but to the extreme conservatives.  I’d like to know how many people are very liberal, liberal, middle of the road, conservative and very conservative, but finding that breakdown is hard.  Help will be appreciated.

The U.S. POPClock stands at 312,789,991 Americans.  Anyone wanting to be President must represent all those people.  The reason why politics is so polarized is only a fraction of that number get a candidate that matches their political beliefs.

Finding statistics on party affiliation is hard.  I did find out in 2010 there were 137,263,000 registered voters or about 59.8% of those eligible.  Here is a report from the U.S. Census on the 2008 voter demographics.  It covers age, sex, race, education, income and other statistics, but not political parties, but is a good snapshot of American voters.  Infoplease has a chart of voter turnout for the years 1960-2010 that suggest about half the people registered to vote end up voting for Presidents.  In 2008 132,618,580 people voted, or 56.8 percent of the voting age population, which is very close to the population of registered voters above.

So in 2008 there was about 300,000,000 Americans, with 231,229,580 eligible to vote, with only 132,618,580 voting, and so the winner actually represented less than a fourth of the country.  And if that winner is extreme conservative or liberal, it means a large hunk of American citizens are unhappy.

The Occupy Wall Street movement points out that 1% of the population holds most of the wealth.  The rich can’t politically get what they want on their own.  Republicans claim we need a smaller government, but isn’t that to acquire the federal wealth?  California went to a smaller government and now people hate it.  If you shrink the government who gets that wealth?  Everybody or the 1%?

Is there any candidate that tries to appeal to all the people?  Or do they each campaign to get just enough votes to win knowing that votes from the largest subgroup wins the game?  Are conservatives really the largest subgroup in America?  The 1% can’t elect who they want on their own so they’ve allied themselves with radical conservatives.  Do they actually represent America?

There is something terrible wrong about a leader that appeals to such a small segment of the population, especially when it appears to be for greed.  Evidently people want to be President not to help the country, but the most vocal subgroup.  Is that really democracy?

JWH 1/2/12

Presidential Aptitude Test (PAT)

This morning the idea came to me that we should have a SAT type test for candidates running for political office, and especially for Presidential candidates.  I checked Google and this idea has come up many times before in magazines, newspapers and by other bloggers.  One of the earliest examples of this concept was a letter to the New York Times in 1992.  It’s a good idea – especially after watching the Republicans go through debate after debate this year.

Think about the severe certification process we have for accountants, lawyers, doctors and teachers?  Why shouldn’t we have minimum standards for politicians?  Now most people will say the grueling gauntlet folks have to go through in the press is the aptitude test for politicians, but that only seems to weed out people that can’t handle campaigning pressure or flush out sexual bad behavior.  It’s more of a beauty or popularity contest – like picking the King and Queen for homecoming.

Most people who have the nerve to throw their hat into the ring to become president usually have experience in Congress, were state governors, or were successful businessmen, and on a rare occasions were generals.  Now running a state is probably the closest job to the job skills required to run the country.  Personally, I don’t think the skills acquired in the Senate or House is really equal to those it take to run the country.  And although the President is the Commander in Chief, I don’t think running the Army provides the same skills either.  And I can see why some people might think a successful CEO should be good for the job of President, but that only works if you think of the country as a business, which it’s not.

I want our President to be very smart, but there’s a lot of political analysis that suggests that Americans don’t like intellectual presidents.  However, since our country seems to be going down the tubes, I think we need to think hard about the job qualifications and quit thinking of picking a president by who we want to drink beer with.

What’s really needed is a renaissance man or woman.  Someone with a MBA and CPA, and J.D.  But we’d also want someone with a Ph.D. in American History and another in World Affairs.  It would also help if this person had a medical degree and was a scientist.  Once you start thinking about all the areas the president needs to know about, it’s no wonder the job doesn’t belong to a committee of experts.  And I think most voters feel the President do get their smarts from their advisers – but wouldn’t you also think the President needs to be smart enough to know what their advisers are talking about?

If the Education Testing Service (ETS) offered a PAT test for Presidential candidates I would expect anyone I was willing to vote for to have gotten high scores in most of the vital areas.  He or she wouldn’t have to be a genius, but I want people that scores in the top 10 percent of all areas.  Is it demanding too much to think that the man or woman that leads us has to be a straight A student?

So what areas of knowledge should a potential President be tested on?  These are subjects not related to his/her personal qualities like vision, leadership, charisma, perseverance, ability to communicate, focus, ability to listen to people, etc.

  • Law
  • Economics
  • History
  • Government
  • Science
  • Business
  • City, State, Federal and World Trade
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Philosophy, Rhetoric, Logic, Ethics and Religions

Most Republicans have a myopic view of economics – cut taxes.  They also seem anti-science and anti-education.  And after the grilling reporters have been giving them for months I would think they all would do poorly on the PAT test.  However, even though Obama is considered well educated, would he excel in all these areas?  My gut hunch would be he would have the highest PAT scores except for Gingrich, who is bookish for a Republican, but he might not get all As.  I think Obama is far more scholarly than Gingrich, but I just don’t know to what depth.  Wouldn’t you love to see their test scores to know for sure?

I’ve often wondered if the true job requirements and public scrutiny keeps 99.999% of all qualified applicants away from applying for the job of U. S. President.  I also wonder how much real power the job of U. S. President can have at improving our lives and the country.  Is there a man or woman in our country that could have done a better job than Obama?  Would we be seeing strong economic growth and low unemployment if John McCain had won the election in 2008?

President Bush and now President Obama have pushed for a system to quantify the performance of teachers – people who must meet state certification laws.  Shouldn’t we expect that same kind of quantitative measures and certification for politicians?

If we tested our politicians and then compared their scores to performance over time we’d know if test scores mattered.

At the very minimum, and a just for fun kind of thing, I wished all the candidates running for President would take some standardized tests on American history and government.  I’d really like to know how they all do.

JWH – 12/3/11

Protestor Insensitivity

Newt Gingrich tells the OWS protesters to “Go get a job right after you take a bath.”

To me that has all the sensitivity of telling the peasants “Let them eat cake.”

In a time when millions desperately struggle to find a job, it’s very insensitive to tell anyone in this country to “Go get a job” as if jobs were freely available.  If more people had jobs we wouldn’t have protesters, or is that too hard for you Mr. Gingrich to understand?  As someone wanting the job as our leader, I don’t think you are doing your job of understanding what America needs.  Of course, conservatives have one answer for all our ills – lower taxes.  In good times, it’s lower taxes, in bad times it’s lower taxes, during war time it’s lower taxes.  Mr. Gingrich, I don’t think you hate the protesters because they don’t have jobs, you hate them because to solve their problems requires raising taxes.

Do all Republicans study the same group speak manual?  I hear this get a job and take a bath line all over now from folks on the right.  It’s the same automatic response I heard in the 1960s.  Hey, pay attention, today’s protesters aren’t hippies, look close at this film, the protesters are well dressed and clean.  They are normal students, and according to one professor they are extremely good students.  The only reason they might need a bath is to wash off the pepper spray.

But back to the issue of telling people to get a job Mr. Gingrich – the protestors actually are working at their job of protesting the wrongs in our society.  This has been a nasty job that few people would take for years because we’ve all been too busy getting ahead in life and not paying attention to how things are actually working – which is badly.  Now we’ve discovered that millions of people in America are out of work, one in six are on food stamps, and the rich are getting so rich they are leaving very little money in the GDP to be divided by the 99%.  Someone needs to be protesting.  Hell, it should it should be your job Mr. Gingrich, but hey, you already work for the 1%.  Republicans are quite industrious at protesting Barack Obama, but they total slackers at protesting the real problems in America.

When our leaders fail us and economic times are bad, there are lots of jobs in the protesting profession.  Anyone wanting the job of President in 2012 better get used to protesters.  Mr. Gingrich, you know history.  The OWS protesters are cute bunny rabbits compared to the violent mobs of angry poor we’ll be seeing if you keep downsizing the government and cutting taxes.

Nor are these protesters doing their protesting job badly.  They were following the correct rules of passive resistance set down by Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.  Everyone is focusing on the first part of this video where the officer sprays the kids with orange pepper spray – but everyone is ignoring the sublime second half of the film.  The onlookers in the crowd start chanting, “Shame on you, shame on you” and they keep chanting “Shame on you,” until the police back away and leave.  Even the police knew they had made a mistake.  Look at their faces.  Most of them knew the protesters were doing their protesting job properly, and they had made a mistake in doing their police work.  But you didn’t see that Mr. Gingrich, all you see is your lower taxes playbook and worrying about the cost of parks and bathrooms.

Mr. Gingrich, I don’t think you are doing your job properly, so shame on you.  In 2012 we need a leader who will listen to the people and see what 100% of the people need.  This leader needs to stop reading from the group think teleprompter.  Don’t tell Americans to get a job, because it’s your job to create jobs.  Shame on you Newt Gingrich for being such a lazy fat-cat politician.  If politicians had been doing there jobs millions wouldn’t be out of work today.  You need to get another job – but not the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I’m a law and order kind of guy.  I don’t want to see Kent State or 1968 Chicago again.  I hate seeing the police forced into being the bad guys during another social upheaval.  Politicians who use inflaming rhetoric attacking protesters are the trouble makers to me.  To all in that crowd that clapped for you Mr. Gingrich, shame on them too.  They don’t have a clue as to what freedom means. 

Those kids at UC Davis were clean and orderly.  Sure, at some protest rallies they get idiots who do stupid things and use a protest event to go crazy – those numbskulls you can pepper spray all you want.  But if young people, out of work people, and old people with dwindling pensions want to protest, they got a right to in this country as long as they do it nonviolently and orderly.  Give them the facilities to hold protests as long as they are willing to show up for the job.  I don’t want America to be compared to Egypt or Syria where they shoot protestors.  We should all be supporting our kids new interest in politics.

JWH – 11/21/11