Suckers!

 

Last year I wrote a post about Hate. Since then, I have seen the situation get worse. Our two political parties, I will call them A and B for my purposes, have found the secret weapon to keep us divided. And people are piling on! The secret weapon is hate. 

I'm reminded of Dr. Seus' Butter Battle Book, a Cold War parable. In it, you see the signs of hate manifesting. While our differences are less trivial than how we butter our bread, the techniques are the same. We pick a side. It doesn't matter which one. We call the other side our enemy. We must defeat them!

The A party wants to ban books. The B party wants children to read whatever they want. These narratives are designed to divide. The likely reality is that no sane parent wants their child to read whatever they want. How do we best go about ensuring that our children read books that are age appropriate? Banning them from schools and libraries is one way.

What people believe and what our political leaders tell us they believe are not the same. You will not know this unless you talk with people with different beliefs. Our leaders don't want you to do that. The starker they can make our differences, the more hate they will foment. 

We generally don't talk with people we hate. We do talk with people who have differing viewpoints. If political leaders keep us from talking with one another, they control the narrative. That's just what they want! Meanwhile, life is not getting better for most of us. They're not doing anything about it, and as long as we don't talk with each other, we're not helping either.

We lose -- they win! Suckers!

Who Made You Hate?

 

Almost everyone I talk with these days hates some group of people. My Trump supporter friends hate Democrats. My progressive friends hate Trump supporters. My anti-vax friends hate the CDC, WHO, and the FDA. My friends who don't trust anyone in government hate Bill Gates and the drug companies.

It seems that everyone has someone or some group to hate. Is hate a natural response to people and ideas we disagree with? I don't think so. In the six decades or so that I've been on the planet, I have seen people vehemently disagree and actually still like each other. They were able to compartmentalize their differences and recognize that good people aren't necessarily the same as them.

I sat next to an older woman on a plane once and having struck up a conversation with me, she determined that this was an opportunity to share her evangelical message with me. Her hope was to convert me to her brand of Christianity during the flight. When that didn't happen, she offered to pray for me. How can you argue with that? Even if you don't think it will make any difference, her response to our disagreement was a hope to save me -- not to see me dead.

I've been reading a book entitled Cultish. While I don't think it is a great book, the ideas in it have caused me to realize that lots of groups have coopted the tactics of cults to manipulate us into isolation. They have essentially cut us from the herd, so that we can become "us." As you know, for every "us" there must be a "them." Or does it? Must we have "them?" I heard someone say recently that there really is no "them." It is a political construct. "Them" is used to divide us and create stark lines of right and wrong.

We would do well to show some empathy to the people we disagree with. In all likelihood, there is some truth in the ideas about which you disagree. 

A good example of an issue we face in the US can be found in Israel. Maybe you have asked yourself why the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is so intractable. It seems to me that the answer to this question is simple. The Israelis want a democracy. However, they also want a Jewish state. The problem with this is that there are so many Palestinians living in Israel, that if they made the West Bank and Gaza Strip part of the country, Jews may not be a majority anymore and Israel wouldn't be a Jewish country.

The alternative would be to give up the Gaza Strip and West Bank to the Palestinians so they could for their own country. However, if they did that Israel would have an enemy combatant right on their border with all the protections that Statehood provides. Other Arab nations might decide to trade with and financially support an independent Palestine. This could make retaliation for military strikes more difficult for a separated Israel. So, there's no incentive for Israel to support the separation.

The parallels between this situation and how some white people feel about black people in the United States are hard to ignore. When they say "make America great again," the "again" refers to a past in which white people didn't have to compete with non-white people for the full privileges of citizenship. Most people reading this won't understand this, but if you are a working class white person, who is struggling to make ends meet, you can't help but think that life would be a lot better for you if you didn't have to compete with so many immigrants and people of color.

These feelings are part of a cultural transition that will take many generations to complete. We are not through it yet. You can respond to people that feel this way with hate, or you can recognize that these feelings are real and despite the good intentions around building a nation where true equality exists, the road to it is messy and tolerance and empathy will get us down it faster than hate.

Our leaders aren't interested in tolerance and empathy. They win by keeping us divided. If all people stand together in seeking a reasonable path forward, our so called leaders would need to work together to enable real solutions to the many challenges our nation faces as this would be the basis for judging their performance. That's hard! Hate is easy. The language of division is simple to learn and easy to use to keep people from expecting anything other than the other side loses.

When us citizens are divided in a win-lose situation -- everyone loses except the people manipulating us to hate. It's time we come together to take back our government and demand less hate and more collaboration.

Should DEI Be For Everybody?

 

I live close enough to Oxford Michigan to be indirectly impacted by the acts of young Mr. Crumbley. Now, the whole Crumbley family is in it together. If you've been watching this story unfold, you know that "someone" helped the parents hide (by the time you read this, the authorities may have rounded them up, too).

You may be wondering who would want to help them? If you pause to think about it, you probably already know. There are a considerable number of Americans who have become very disenfranchised from official society. Their de facto leader is Donald Trump. They are "his people" and he knows it.

Here's the thing: "we" had better decide soon whether we want to work to bring these people into the tent, or continue the current escalation of what is evolving into a civil war. Shootings like Oxford aren't going to go away. It's time to wake the fuck up and see what's happening. Put your hindsight glasses on and ask yourself, "if things turn ugly, what would I have been willing to do to prevent it?"

At no time in modern history has a war been won outright in battle. Ultimately, both sides have had enough and dialog puts an end to it. So, how about we skip that battle bit? What kind of dialog are we willing to have with our free spirited, nationalistic, and gun toting, fellow Americans? Are we willing to listen? I mean REALLY listen with your curiosity hat on, not your "I'm going to prove you wrong" hat?

One thing I have observed is that most often, there is some truth in any position. For example, here's some truth (at least as I know it). The Second Amendment was put in place because the colonists had just used their personal armory to overthrow their sovereign leadership. They recognized that when the citizens become so disenfranchised from their government, they must have the means to take back control.

So, we can sit here and call all these people, who are showing up in public with automatic weapons, criminals and keep trying to lock them up. Or, we can figure out how to reach out now and avert any further escalation. de Klerk and Mandela had it right: truth and reconciliation is the best path forward. In your heart, you know this.

So, I ask you to start by looking into your own heart and see your hatred for what it is. Can you let go of it? If not, don't be surprised when the people you hate, hate you back! We're all capable of love. We just need more of it.

Okay, so why that title? Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion can't be selective. If one group co-opts the definition of these words to exclude a group summarily, they have missed the point. DEI is hard. Really hard! If you want to actually practice it, then EVERYONE gets a seat at the table. If there is real hatred between people for one reason or another, we must start with tolerance and empathy on the road to acceptance. I guess it's the struggle. Hopefully, we shall overcome one day.

Belief in Facts Doesn't Make them So!

 

In the last 30 years, the world has make a fundamental shift. The shift was so subtle, you may not have even noticed it. Let me net it out for you. If you are much over 30, you probably remember a time when if you wanted to know something, your sources for knowledge were: books, magazines, radio, and network TV (usually three channels).

So what, you ask? Here's what. Every one of those sources had a responsibility to do research into facts before reporting their findings. When your reporting is scrutinized by thousands or millions of people, it behooves you to get it right, so these providers of information go directly to the best sources available. If they are writing about a train wreck, they will talk to people who where there to gather first-hand evidence of what happened. They will talk with multiple such sources in order to corroborate information to make sure it is consistent. This type of research is painstaking and time-consuming, but the professionals we entrust to do it are paid to do the work.

What this meant is that we all gained our understanding of the world through the same lens of knowledge. We had fundamentally different views of how we should proceed then as we do today. I'm not talking about political or social philosophy here. I'm talking about the factual foundation upon which we build our beliefs.

Fast forward to the birth of social media and blog posts. Now, almost anyone on the planet can become a reporter of information. They have no professional guidelines. They have not professional training in reporting facts. They may not even have any interest in facts at all. Yet, their voices can be just as loud as that of network TV news (even louder when all then networks pick up their story and rebroadcast it).

What Can You Do?

What saves us is that there are still people and sources out there that have publicly committed themselves to doin the research and getting the facts from the source, just like in the good old days. Some of these sources may have a political bias and the spin they put on the facts they report might not agree with your philosophy. Fine! But, look at the facts. Learn to distinguish a fact from some unsubstantiated statement with no supporting evidence behind it.

I leave you with a classic example: Youth vampirism by Hollywood elites. Do you know where this rumor came from? Do you believe it? Might it be true? The answer is: I don't know if it's true or not and neither do you. You can either choose to believe it or not. However, before you decide, you might want to gather some facts. One site I like to use for checking on conspiracy type theories like this is Snopes. What Snopes will tell you about this particular example is that it started with an article containing a completely fabricated quote by Keanu Reeves. This is not to say there isn't evidence that the practice exists. There is. In fact, there was a company called Ambrosia that offered teenage blood transfused into people over 35 for large amounts of money. 

This story was reported in Huffington Post. They did the type of professional research that I've been talking about here and demonstrated that the guy that started this company is a "snake oil salesman" of the first degree. Read it for yourself. 

Get the facts! Learn what a real fact looks like and how to separate it from all the BS that comes your way. In our internet connected world, it is an essential skill.

We're All A Bunch of Suckers!

 

Have you ever been played and then find out about it and feel stupid for allowing it to happen? Well, at least you found out. What if you are being a sucker right now and don't even know it yet? Well, it's true! You and me are both suckers!

How did this happen? The same way it always does. Some clever people give us a choice. The thing is, both choices suck, but when we have options, most of us will pick one. In some cases, we could have the ability to make up our own option and choose that instead, but in the case of politics, it's really hard to start another party.

So, you and I chose a political party. Maybe you're just going along with what your family or friends have chosen. Or, maybe you gave it a bunch of thought and picked the one you thought made the most sense to you. In any case, your choices both sucked, but you picked one anyway. Then, you started listening to the stuff your party's mouthpieces told you. After a while, it all starts to sound pretty "correct." They explain why that other party's approach is messed up and that sounds pretty "correct," too.

Here's the thing, they tricked us into not talking to each other! If we did, we'd find out that most of us want the same things out of government. Sure, we won't all agree about how to go about getting it, but so what? If we all want the same things, then if we weren't suckers, we'd elect people who took it upon themselves to actually do what we want.

That's not what we've gotten. We've got a bunch of scammers and con artists who have convinced us that if that other party didn't exist, you'd get exactly what you want, but since they do, you get NOTHING! I call BULLSHIT! It's time to WAKE UP and flush the whole lot of them! Even that old white guy you've been reelecting since you were able to vote.

Let's get rid of anyone who has been there for more than a few years. When we elect a new batch of politicians, we will be sending them a clear message that we're done being suckers. "Go to work and do the job we hired you to do!" Make no mistake, those politicians are paid with our hard earned tax dollars. They work for us and if you're like me, you're tired of having them jerk you around. We've got serious problems and we all know what they are. Let's get them fixed -- or at least try for god's sake!

Love Really IS the Answer

 

About 2000 years ago, there was a guy who pointed out how nice it would be if we all just loved each other. Fast forward 2000 years and many people who still worship that guy are hating on about half the population of our own country. What's up with that?

There is so much hate on both sides of the political divide and the problem is so simple: most of us are behaving like sheep. We're allowing the people we look to for social guidance to lead us apart. They want us apart because that separation gives them power. But we shouldn't live to serve them. We should live to serve all the rest of us! 

How can we best serve each other? Let's start with love! My brother has a little saying at the bottom of his emails:

"Every time you encounter another human being, believe that they love you, and you will treat them as if they do..."

Maybe it runs in the family, but I believe that if everyone lived by this practice, we could easily get past our real differences. I say "real" differences because, as someone who actually appreciates an open dialog with people who don't share my views, I know just how close together we all are. Those that are managing to control many of us with their rhetoric would have you believe that people that don't share your views are evil. However, if you actually talk with them using an open heart and mind, you discover that the differences are tiny.

As a result of approaching life this way, I have accumulated friends, people I love, who don't share many of my ideas of how to make a better world. Here's what I've learned: like me, they want a better world for everyone. To me, this seems like a great starting point on which to build. I'm not a politician or a social engineer, but when I have conversations with my friends about the problems we face in the world, we come up with all types of ideas for solutions that we both agree would be good.

Most of these ideas start with tearing down the power centers that would like to keep us from having these conversations. For the people that would manipulate us, these conversations are the most dangerous thing. Personally, I like the idea of being dangerous to them. Some people talk about "the swamp" in Washington. The political mouthpieces would like you to believe the swamp is only in that other evil side -- it's ALL the swamp. "We, the people" will need to drain it. It starts with a few people with different views pretending to love each other. Practice makes perfect. I know it's hard after everything they told you, but why not start today anyway? Let's see what happens!

Bye Bye Democracy!

There's so much fake news out there these days. Why would you trust me? Don't! Check anything that sounds like a fact for yourself. Fact #1: The Patriot Act was sold on the basis of finding foreign actors that would use terror on civilians to manipulate governments. Fact #2: Terror is a word that has had its meaning distorted since the act was put in place. What is the difference between asymmetric warfare and terrorism? Do you know? It's an important distinction.

When small actors, whether they be governments, religious sects, or independent warlords; go up against larger actors, they must use asymmetric warfare. They fight with snipers, roadside bombs, and suicide bombers. When they use these tactics against military or government targets, they are not terrorists. When they use them on civilians, they are.

This matters because when we brand a group as terrorists, the Patriot Act becomes available. That means our government can whisk away anyone who is suspected of being involved without due process. If that "anyone" happens to be a U.S. citizen -- bye bye freedom!

Meanwhile, we continue to ratchet up military spending. There are no major wars going on for the U.S. right now, so what are they doing with all the money? Well, a chunk of it seems to be going to new ground vehicles and personal armor. Guess what they're doing with the old stuff? Fact #3: They're shipping it to domestic law enforcement agencies! You may have seen some of it in the streets lately. Police are looking more and more like the military.

Between the Patriot Act, the expanded definition of a terrorist, and police militarization, we have the makings of the perfect storm for a complete take-over. Couple this with a White House that is siding with the police to drive a wedge between them and the rest of the citizens and it's not hard to imagine a tipping point that ends badly for democracy.

We think these things can't happen in America -- land of the free. Look more closely. Freedom can be defined any way you like. Even the most autocratic regimes will generally leave people alone if they play along. Freedom is about the right NOT to play along. A quick look at what's going on in the streets these days should be a warning.