Demanding the truth

I’m reading Arguing with Zombies by Paul Krugman.  Everyone should read it but that’s not why I am writing this. The point of this piece is to challenge all of us to demand the truth from policy analysts and politicians.  The facts instead of my truth, your truth.   Maybe the American public was never told the truth.  We certainly have had less access to it for decades. Is it the result of 24 /7  news cycles? Entertainment news? It doesn’t matter but somewhere along the way we lost our critical thinking. As a result pundits can spin the truth to suit their policy goals.  As a result we turn into sheep herded this way and that. The polarization is now obvious and the negotiations almost unheard of.Compromise? Hardly! 

What are we to do? We need to ask more questions.  The media has to vet what they say. We don’t need entertainment news.  We need facts and thoughtful discourse.  Let’s have the facts about health care. The post office.  Voter suppression. We at least need to have the discussion about truth and facts and about spin. 

Not the country I know

I no longer recognize my country.   I say that because as we have witnessed the protests across the country we have also witnessed police brutality.  Behavior that is callous, uncalled for, and in violation of our constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. Beside that it brings into question our basic humanity! Yesterday an elderly man was shoved to the ground By police in Buffalo,  New York and left bleeding on the ground as a phalanx of police walked past him.  Protect and serve? And the police said he tripped and fell. And the mayor talked about their training. There was no violence or looting going on! It was broad daylight.  50 cops then resigned in protest to support their suspended colleagues because after all they were only following orders and doing their job. Protect and serve?
We have known as a country that their is something fundamentally wrong with our police. Their culture their training, whatever... We have excused this brutish, murderous behavior stating 99 % are good cops.  No, they re not. If we witnessed this same pattern in health care , or sports or anything else we would have concluded something was systemically wrong instead of blaming “bad apples “.
Let s call it what it is and fix it. Part of what it is , is a basic loss of human decency and civility. Basic personhood.  We see that we have lost it in our discourse, our partisan politics , our leadership and our racism. This is OUR problem. The police are showing us who we have become as a country. They are the empowered authority we have paid to protect and serve. They have failed us and we have failed them.

Health care failure

Farhad Manjoo wrote an opinion piece in today’s NY Times.(March 26). He asked how is it that this country can’t  produce a 75 cent mask?  It occurs to me that this crisis is an opportunity for this country to bring back manufacturing.   A start might be critical medical supplies. Even if the government had to subsidize. How much of the military budget should be redirected to be prepared for the kind of war that the Coronavirus represents?  The greatest country in the world can’t make it’s own masks? So how do ordinary people like myself begin to get this idea out there? What advocacy group would embrace this idea? What are the politics of this? 

When is hitting women okay?

So it has been too long since I have written. I could offer any number of excuses but suffice it to say that I am overwhelmed daily with the things I want to rant about.  So instead of writing about them , I have taken to torturing my circle of friends with my opinions on a myriad of issues.
A recent news story shook me out of my reverie, well okay not exactly a reverie, shook me out of my funk long enough to start writing on this blog again.
So a young woman on the beach at Wildwood was spotted by police having alcohol on the beach.  The questioning by police ended up in a video of the police punching her repeatedly because she resisted arrest.  Horrific. Heart stopping. The chief of police of Wildwood put the young punks, oops I mean policemen on desk duty, saying a thorough investigation would be conducted and that not all the videos of the incident had been released.  Suggesting that this beating by police of this young women could be discovered to be warranted! What? Say what?  Wait a minute! When did it become okay to hit a woman? A friend of mine replied. Good thing she was white otherwise they would have shot her! What?  What?  I cannot begin to express my sense of outrage as the video went viral and the talking heads brought it to the nightly news.   No one questioned hitting this women period.  The question was whether she deserved it or not! What? What?
So tell me that parents are teaching their sons that s it’s okay to hit a woman under certain circumstances.
Explain to me what you think children are taking away from this debacle.
The police have lost their way.  Not one of them seems to have a moral,human compass.and I don’t want to hear about a few bad apples.  Every day there is a story about police brutality. Every single day. Training is clearly not the answer. A baseline of “feeling threatened” is too vague and subjective to be allowed to stand. Police in other countries have managed truly threatening situations without resorting to violence. Why can't we figure this out?

Dereliction of duty

If you have ever doubted that colleges or other schools of higher education have become businesses -big business, then how do you explain such callous disregard for the very students they are expected to educate and dare we hope protect?   Again this week we we have learned the excruciating details of the death of a fraternity student left for 12 hours at the bottom of the stairs where he had fallen following a hazing that involved copious amounts of alcohol.
Currently the focus is on prosecuting the young men of that fraternity for leaving the young man at the bottom of the stairs without calling for help. They should be prosecuted. But holding them responsible does not address the larger problem.
As I see it the administration of the school, Penn State ,this college this time, needs to be held responsible.  What happened to administrations taking charge and making it clear that alcohol is not tolerated at their school. Since when, unless the financial bottom line is the only thing that matters, are children allowed to behave so irresponsibly or even illegally. When young people go to school even at the legal age of adulthood,18, who among us believes that gives them the unfettered right to do whatever they p,ease whenever they please. We ,in society, live within the bounds of rules and regulations and also ethical and moral boundaries.
For decades it was also understood that sending your child to school meant that they were under the watchful eye of the parental authority you   transferred to the school. Somewhere along the line schools, and much of society, have abdicated their responsibilities to provide guidance and safety for young people.  So given all that , why is it such a surprise that young people at schools of higher education are simply out of control?

It just has to be said!

It just has to be said.

I have not blogged in a long time as life with its incessant demands for participation have swept me away.   But today, two days out from an historic election ,I like everyone else needs to get my two cents in. It doesn't t matter who I voted for.  What I understand from my little myopic view of the world is that people in this country are done with same old same old from Washington. As I write this , coverage on TV is about how the New York Times,this country's flagship newspaper, missed the boat on election. Let me tell you who those young journalist's are. They are the sons and daughters of the wealthy elite that this country is currently designed to support. The majority of those young people are not from little dying towns in the middle of this country.   I m picking on the NY Times just cuz it represents the problem. We are a meritocracy. If you go to the best schools and get the highest GPA you have a chance to make it in this country.  You have money, connections and a perspective on life that is different from most.
     

This country is made up of millions of average Joe's who are struggling every single day just to make it.  Every single person in this country except for the wealthiest are just trying to get by. For the last twenty five years middle class folks have worked 2-3 jobs to stay afloat. Robert Reichs pointed out that the middle class is staying afloat on credit cards as well. College is the new high school except you have to pay a fortune to get in or come out with astronomical debt.  AND because business, big business, got Washington to pass IRA's etc to do away with pensions and pass on retirement responsibilities to the people this country started a downward spiral.   So you come out of school with over $100,000 in debt and you have to save for your future. Housing costs are astronomical.  Food, transportation, health care costs a lot.   People who are lucky enough to have employment ,pay for day care and eventually school supplies and after school stuff so their kids can get into college and be in debt and find no job afterwards.

And us old people. Don t get me started. We know that you cannot survive on Social Security even if you paid into it your entire life. But if you go back to work what you earn is limited until you reach that magic age of 66 plus.  Guess what folks?  Unless you have saved millions of dollars  you will not be able to live even then. And on it goes. Medicare? Lol! Find a really good doctor that accepts it? Hah! Those doctors can't make a living accepting Medicare.   Who benefits from Medicare? The insurance companies because the highest users of health care are picked up by the government .

Save money for retirement? Another hah!  The banks for the little folks are gone.  My daughter can pay 8.25% daily interest on her school loans even before she graduates, but a savings account returns interest that is laughable. AND you now get to pay for the privilege of having a savings account unless you can promise a $250,000 daily balance. REALLY?

So the average joe looks at someone who has come here from another country and thinks whatever they have they have taken from me and my family. Terror attacks await around every corner.  Etc.  so whatever your particular angst is - that 's where the anger is directed.  It s not rationale. It s human.  Our government is broken. It doesn't work for us even when a much needed health care reform bill is finally passed. It s too complicated it costs too much and covers too little.   It didn't factor in that health care is now a business that relies on Wall Street for survival.  Wall Street! The McDonaldization of America marches forward! Bigger is better! Efficiency rules!  We are widgets in the service of the rich! That s what the anger is about!

Life lived on CCTV

Why does this bother me? What? That your entire life can be pieced together the minute you step out of your house? The use of CCTV has become an accepted fixture in our society and yes other countries as well.. I didn't agree to this! In discussion with millennials about the pervasive invasion of our privacy, the standard response is if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. But that is so not the point.