Tag Archives: Government
Bill
I’m starting to get old. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind getting old. What I do mind is the inevitable. And, honestly, I never thought I’d be ready for it.
Recently, I wrote an article about my roommate in college who passed away. Tom was a good friend of mine, and he was always my greatest advocate.
Bill was also a great friend of mine. But he and I had kind of simmered on our friendship for the only reason that I now lived in Texas, and he lived in California. However, whenever I got the opportunity to travel back to California, he and I returned to our friendship almost as if we had never parted. A short while ago, I received a message that he had passed away, too.
One of my recent plans had been to make it back to California so he and I could hang out again. Now, I don’t have a single reason why I would make the trip. Bill’s no longer there.
So, let me tell you about Bill. He used to work for a bunch of computer gaming companies. When I was working for Maxis (and then EA), he would be working for companies like LucasArts and Microprose. He was an actual pilot, so when those companies were designing flight sims (like Xwing, Tie Fighter and F-15 Eagle) he was always there testing out those types of games.
One of my favorite stories was when he was testing X-Wing, and the producer had told him that it was impossible to destroy the Imperial Star Destroyer that was producing all the enemies in the game, he spent days flying missions against it until he turned off the damage on his own vessel and finally destroyed the Imperial Star Destroyer. After a couple of days, the developers indicated that it was impossible to destroy the Imperial Star Destroyer.
Having felt like he had laid down the law, the developer thought nothing of it as Bill spent days flying endless sorties against the Star Destroyer, and then he destroyed it again. But this time on the hardest level.
The developers, after discussing it amongst themselves, decided to add a readme file on the main disk indicating that “if you destroy the Star Destroyer, you might not be able to finish the game.”
One of my other favorite stories of his exploits was the origin of his ecology degree from UC Berkeley where he had gone to college after his time in the Army as an Army pilot. He was on the original GI Bill, and the way it used to be structured was you could continue your education until you graduated, and then it was over. So, Bill being like Bill was, continued until he was about finished with one degree and then he would change his degree to something else. He did this for a very long time until the Department of the Army sat down with Berkeley, and an offer was made that he could choose several degrees (of his choosing), and they would confer it upon him. So, the ecology degree ended up being one of the ones he chose, just cause it sounded kind of cool.
My other favorite story was one that everyone wished they had done themselves, and it involved the pettiness of a ticket he received from the city that was for several hundred dollars. And add to it that they had sent him a threatening letter if he didn’t pay it immediately.
So Bill took the train to downtown and walked in to pay his bill. And he brought a handful of dollar bills to pay it.
So, the clerk took the money, counted it and determined there were several dollars missing. Bill swore there was an exact amount, so the clerk spent quite a while counting it again. This time, she came up with a different amount, but not the amount that was supposed to be there.
So, this went on for several more rounds until a supervisor came over, grabbed the money and counted it himself. He came up with a number far below the amount required. So he told Bill he’d have to get the proper amount and return.
Bill swore the amount was correct. He’d counted it a bunch of times before coming in.
The boss started counting again, got about a third of the way through and then just shoved the money into a drawer, saying: “Fine. He paid the right amount. Give him a receipt.”
So Bill walked out of their with a happy grin.
Now, these are all stories told to me by Bill over the years, and the one reason I believe him on each story is because he told me these stories over and over, thinking he was telling me them for the first time. So, if they didn’t really happen, at least he believed in them. And that was all I needed.
Bill was one of those people who had brilliant ideas that were completely out of left field. I remember when I had a theory about how gravity was a physical property, not just an action on something else. I thought it was completely original, but the second I told it to Bill, he started analyzing how my theory might actually exist and exactly how we could test it. Unfortunately, neither of us had an actual spacecraft needed to test it, but we discussed it late into the night, throwing theories back and forth.
The point being: A guy with his degree from Berkeley in various disciplines was capable of going toe to toe with a guy with a physics degree from West Point. And his analysis was good.
We’re a couple of months away from the actual release of Starfield, and as much as I long to play it, I really wish it would have come out earlier, because this is the type of game Bill would have loved. And he would have found a way to break it, too, cause that’s what he did.
And no one did it better.
School Shootings in the Lone Star State and the US of A
There have been a few serious shootings in Texas recently. There have been a few serious shootings in the USA as well. To put it bluntly, there have been too many shootings in places there really shouldn’t be any shootings. And sadly, this probably doesn’t surprise a whole lot of people.
You see, we’re getting used to this sort of thing in the US of A. Random people kill random people for no reason. And we don’t bat an eye. We moan and we speak out and we offer thoughts and prayers. And then a few days later, someone does it again.
Do we change the laws to make it tougher for people to do it. No. We don’t even dare attempt to think about that. That would take away our freedoms…to kill random people, I guess.
But that got me thinking about this whole thing as it’s been happening a lot in Texas. You would think that people would sit down and then start to realize that something needs to happen. IN TEXAS. But no, the mindset is that this is a national thing, so the answer needs to somehow come from the national area, whatever that is. We could solve this sort of thing on a local level, and then perhaps the national level would start to get better as more and more local areas responded with the right legislation to make sure this stuff doesn’t happen. But we won’t.
So, that means we need to solve this on a national level (or a state level, if that really exists as well). But state level won’t happen because Texas is Texas, and as long as guns are involved, Bob with the gunrack in his pick-up is going to reject any such plans to make Texas safer. Instead, the answer is to arm more Texans with higher powered rifles, and then somehow that will solve the situation with a sense of a “good man with a gun is there to stop a bad man with a gun” that only ever works on television shows where writers decide who wins and loses in a showdown.
But we won’t do anything nationally because we kind of suck nationally. The NRA has managed to pay off enough people on one side of the house to do nothing long enough that another election will come along and then the NRA will pay a new group of people to make sure enough don’t do anything. Look, I’m all for the idea of guns and the 2nd Amendment, but right now we’re trying to counter children killing children because of perceived reasons and threats that none of us have any control over stopping.
Our country is kind of screwed up right now, and no one seems to want to address that. Our leaders don’t lead any more but respond to the other side as if people who believe differently than we do are dangerous and must be put down. I don’t remember it ever being like this before. When I was growing up, if you were liberal or conservative, you didn’t think the world would be a better place if all of the people on the other side of he aisle were dead. You came up with either better ideas than the other side, or you came up with compromises that would cause the other side to say “hey, that’s good enough for me” and then we all went home and watched Jeopardy or whatever show we liked at the time.
Today, the two sides don’t even have a friendly conversation any more. That’s bad.
If we want to solve our problems, we need to do a few things going forward:
- Stop thinking of the other side as the enemy. Progressives want to change things for the better, and conservatives like to keep things as they are or as they might have been at some period in the past. Historically, both sides were against fascism, communism and genuinely evil people. Now, both sides are convinced the other side is one of those negative things I jus mentioned.
- We need to remember what the purpose of this country was from its foundation. It was designed to be the shining light in the midst of darkness all around us. Becoming the darkness doesn’t somehow make America better or great. We seem to have forgotten that in lieu of short-term goals.
- The gun lobby needs to be put back in its place. It was never meant to become the overriding lobby to end all lobbies. It was meant to be one of many different ideas that people would consider whenever it came to legislation and directions for the country to take. As a lobbyist that has full control, all we’re ever going to see going forward is shootings that kill so many loved ones that we’re never going to stop going to funerals and wondering why Washington can’t put a stop to it. We need to pull back on this string and put America back on it proper course.
I say this with mixed thoughts because I’ve become so used to us doing nothing and hoping for miracles. The truth is that miracles don’t come unless you’re willing to put forth the work to make them happen. Sure, you can pray for one. But look where that’s gotten us so far.
Simple Reasons Why Progressives Don’t Do Well in Red States
As a political scientist currently working in the State of Texas, one of the things that often bothers me is whenever the national media tries to create a narrative that a red state is potentially turning purple (i.e., previously conservative state starts trending towards becoming more liberal). Whenever I read (or hear or watch) such proclamations, my immediate thought is that I’m receiving wishful thinking much more than actual news content. But every election cycle, these claims happen, and as often happens immediately after the election, rarely do those predictions come true.
This was my thought when there was so much effort put into claiming that Texas was going to be turning blue during the last election (and slightly before it). In recent memory, there were claims that Beta O’Rourke was going to overcome Ted Cruz for US senator, which never happened. And then there was a weird belief that President Trump was going to lose to Joe Biden in the state vote, and now I’m hearing claims that due to “popularity” Beta O’Rourke has a strong chance of becoming governor against Greg Abbott when he runs for reelection. Again, wishful thinking along with further beliefs that the state is on the verge of becoming that ever so elusive “purple” state.
Probably not going to happen.
But it could. If only progressives actually did something about making those predictions come true, something they NEVER do no matter how much blustering they do.
Now, before you get all “Duane, stop with your crappy conservative man-child crying,” I should probably point out that I’m not saying these things because I want red states to remain red, but because I’d be quite happy if they did turn blue, or at least purple. I just realize they’re probably not going to, and the reason is the rationality for why these areas always stay the same.
So, your argument right now is probably, “okay, smarty pants, tell us how progressives can actually win in these areas if you think you know better.”
And therefore, I will.
First, progressives need to understand the canvas on which they are trying to paint this bizarre approach to “winning” future elections. And they need to understand why their predictions rarely come true. And then, second, once they understand those reasons, they need to work as a network to make sure that they actually do something to change their direction, because continuing to pull from the same playbook is never going to achieve long-lasting results that work in their favor. So, here goes:
Stop treating conservative behavior as inherently wrong. Instead, try to understand conservative ideals and see how they can start to fit into a progressive agenda.
Being a progressive means being a person who advocates for change. But in order to convince people to want to change something, you have to do more than just point at something you don’t like and say that’s wrong. You need to have actual solutions. Example: One of the hot issues in Texas is guns. Saying that people have guns is bad isn’t going to change the mind of a person who grows up believing that guns are a part of the national fabric and that it may have served as a necessary evil in the building of this nation. Pointing out that guns are used to kill people might seem like a logical ploy to persuade, but all it does is point out a simple fact that doesn’t lead to alternative outcomes.
Think about it this way: If I give up my guns in order to achieve some elusive sense of safety so I don’t accidentally kill myself, I’m still stuck with the struggle of logic once I realize that bad people use guns to hurt other people, and thus, being without a gun means always being perceived as a victim to actual armed people. It doesn’t even matter if I’m already a progressive; I still exist in this society where guns already exist, and unfortunately, there are people who tend to use those guns to do bad things to other people. It feels inevitable that one is going to need guns in order to simply survive. Or we take another page from the conservative playbook and realize that we can cut down on guns eventually, as long as we bolster up the police forces that work around us to protect us from those evil people who want to do us harm.
But honestly, why do we even think that there are people out there who want to do us harm? How many of us have actually seen those “people” face-to-face on a daily basis? I’d say not many of us.
Most people will understand the threat of violence due to a situation or two they may have encountered in their lifetime, usually when they have gone into a bad neighborhood or just made a stupid decision that didn’t turn out as good as they hoped it would end up. Maybe your house or car was broken into.
But let’s look at that last possibility (mainly because it’s the most likely one to occur to someone rather than random violence). How would having a gun have made a burglary or a car vandalism (that led to property loss) have turned out better? I’d argue that in most of those cases, a gun wouldn’t have made a single difference because most of those incidents happen out of your sight.
Yet, in one’s mind, he or she is going to perceive that incident as “violent”. And if anything, you should be asking yourself how that conclusion was reached, because in the end if you’re arguing for gun rights as a way to counter such horrible circumstances, logic would tell you that a gun wouldn’t have made a difference whatsoever. Yet, it’s often tied to issues like this one, and is on one’s mind when making future decisions about such policy issues.
So that begs the question: Where did we get such ideas that petty crimes are somehow tied to the senseless violence we perceive exists all around us?
Well, where do we actually experience this type of violence that so much of us believe is prevalent? Well, this might surprise you, but if you think about it, the majority of us encounter this type of violence in the media we consume as a natural part of our lives. If you watch television on a regular basis, you’re inundated with more violence than you can possibly imagine. Just yesterday, I received the line-up of new shows on one network alone (CBS), and I was overwhelmed by how many of their television shows airing right now are all about police and crime (NCIS, NCIS: Hawaii, FBI, FBI: Most Wanted, FBI: International, S.W.A.T., Magnum, P.I., Blue Bloods, CSI: Vegas, Bull, the Equalizer, and NCIS: Los Angeles). That’s just one network.
Now add all the other networks with the violent shows they air, and the add in all of the 24 hour news that constantly tells us how much in danger we are from practically everything that exists around us (from school shootings to crazy people on the national highways), and you start to see a sense of why people go to bed and then wake up in the mornings convinced that violence is going to be coming at them from every direction. Keep in mind that a lot of this programming we consume comes from historically liberal sources (meaning mostly fed to people who would tend to be progressives). That doesn’t even get into the mass hysteria that is fed daily on right-wing media channels that take that sense of fear and turns it up to 11.
And then go into those areas saying that “we need to control guns”, and you have an immediate response of hatred for practically everything else that you have to say after that.
And that’s just one issue. Now imagine you have five issues of progressive importance that you want to feed to a red state. Let’s just choose 5 random ones that tend to get trotted out a lot: guns, abortion, health care, national defense and education in schools. Keep in mind, there are hundreds to thousands of other issues that could be important to any one individual, yet for the sake of simplicity, I’m keeping it down to just these five to show how difficult it is to maintain a party message that can sway an audience that doesn’t already agree with you.
We talked a little bit about guns already, but let’s just touch on the others for a moment.
Abortion: Remember, you’re appealing to the average person in a red state. Most often, the arguments used to “sway” people on this issue are along the lines of “my body, my choice,” which if seen on a surface level can be perceived to be specifically a gender based issue that would only be important to a woman who might be seeking a potential abortion. Yet, the people who seem to be boisterous about this are both men and women, and they’re often split right down the middle of the issue itself. Conservatives tend to gravitate towards arguments that point out connections to religious doctrine, even if that religion doesn’t have actual policy or doctrine on that specific issue. Many people are willing to just turn off thinking any further about an issue if they suspect that a religion they follow might side one way or another on this particular issue (quite often selective, depending upon parish and specific leadership of any particular church). Rational people can make some pretty irrational decisions based on erroneous beliefs, yet they’ll cling to deal life to those beliefs, regardless of how much persuasion is attempted to reverse those decisions.
Health Care: Most people who have health care don’t even know what their health care covers. Due to insurance secrecy, they quite often don’t even know how much they’re paying for the prescriptions (and usually don’t find out until their insurance doesn’t cover it). Some people with crappy coverage think they have Cadillac coverage, and some people, like members of Congress, have the greatest coverage of all and somewhat suspect that everyone should be happy with the coverage they have, even though their constituents have little to no coverage.
National Defense: Most people don’t know how much of the national budget is spent on defense, and even those that do tend to not have a clue how much corruption is built into the system to reward major defense industry corporations that provide munitions and logistics. And when we find out, we tend to just file it away under “stupid things the government does” because we have little to no say so on how spending is decided. Years back, there was a national outrage about how much the government was spending just to buy hammers for the military, and then almost immediately after, the outcry stopped. Did we fix the problem? No. We just stopped paying attention to it. That alone defines our approach to dealing with national defense.
Education in Schools: There is so much baggage wrapped up in education that it’s almost hard to determine what to do about the transgressions that occur here. Much of the debate from conservative channels on education is that it is used to indoctrinate younger people to liberal values, yet much of the debate against conservatives is that they are trying to use education to indoctrinate people to ignore much of history, like slavery, the honoring of confederate leaders, and even the presentation of confederate symbology. Progressives tend to boil it down to simpler terms, as all three of those issues are generally wrapped around in the ideology of promoting racism, and thus much of the problem tends to be addressed in attempts to shame conservatives into compliance. And to their chagrin, it rarely stings as much as they hope it will. More on that to follow.
Which brings us to the real problem that progressives have when trying to change the minds of red state ideology. With the Internet came a new process for dealing with dissent, in which our old procedures were to participate in public forums where both sides could present their side and then let the public decide. The Internet destroyed the gatekeeper model, in which the media was often the go between for the two sides, and now because distance is no longer an issue, the Internet allows like minded people to converse with each other and completely ignore any opposing viewpoint. Rather than direct confrontation, the subsequent result has been either shaming or cancellation. Shame was the previous model, in which addressing such divisions in the open would result in change of procedure or policy. Think of it as the Karen Effect, in which the original approach to dealing with people who were caught on film doing bad things was to shame them, exposing their behavior, which would push them to try to do better in the future. Now, take that Effect a bit further, and no longer do we just try to push such behavior in the open to use shame as a change agent, but now we tend to use that same vehicle to locate the original offender and then hunt them down until we can expose them to their employers and get them fired if they ever do something out of line. In other words, we stopped shaming for the sake of changing their behavior but are now shaming them to bring about their complete destruction.
This is a major reason why shame isn’t working with red state behavior. If a governor does something that is perceived as horrific, like Governor Abbott of Texas did when he claimed eliminating abortion wouldn’t be an issue, especially with women who were raped because Texas would somehow magically eliminate all rape, well, the first part of shaming was utilized when pointing out that Texas doesn’t even process a fraction of the rape kits it gathers. But because shaming doesn’t work any more as a change agent, the attempt is to use that same shaming process to build about an eventual removal from office (as they’re arguing that it may assist Beta O’Rourke in his future campaign to become the next governor).
So, what solutions do we have that might actually cause progressives to do better in red states? Well, for one, progressives need to actually address issues that can make situations better for all. Every issue has multiple potential responses that could serve to solve those problems in ways that don’t necessarily attack the right as the “cause” of the problem. Like I mentioned with gun violence, attacking gun owners as bad people doesn’t cause people to buy into the argument; it alienates people. Whereas, attacking the element of fear itself, more of a Rooseveltian approach, might actually lead people to think that the need for a gun isn’t as prevalent as it used to be. Sure, there would still be people who would want guns (something that shouldn’t have ever been a problem), but it would no longer be perceived as something necessary just to survive on a day to day basis.
Think about countries like Great Britain. They don’t have the gun violence that we have, even to the point that their police don’t often feel the need to carry guns (unless they perceive a situation that would warrant it). But look at their police procedurals they air on their networks. Quite often, the detective detects, rather than participates in mass shootouts that make Quentin Tarentino blush, something practically every police procedures in the United States does. We feed into the fear here, and thus, make it a part of our culture. There’s certainly something to be said for that.
Part of the problem red state people perceive with progressives is that progressives don’t generally take red state people seriously, but treat them like children who would do so much better if they just swallowed the red pill. That’s NEVER going to convince them. You don’t win anyone over by treating them as if they’re stupid, even if they sometimes act that way. Fox News and OANN didn’t come around because that source of news has always been there; it came about because liberal news treated them like illiterate imbeciles. After a certain amount of time of being told you’re a moron, you’re going to stop listening to that type of news and look for sources that don’t treat you like you’re stupid. When conservatives watch Fox News, they generally don’t feel threatened by the people who tell them the news; unfortunately, the style of news is designed to scare them of the bigger world, but newsflash: The liberal media sources have been doing that all along; the only positive conservative news has for its viewers is that it doesn’t insult them while scaring them.
The days of Walter Cronkite types of news coverage have ended. The news is no longer dispassionate and dry. Instead, it’s filled with tons and tons of news celebrities that have image consultants and follow specific agendas. In 1960, you watched three anchors deliver prepared news reports. In 2020, a dozen or so people sit around a desk and argue their personal opinions, and quite often even someone who tries to use facts gets drowned out by people who laugh and quickly change the subject.
And I’ll let you in on a little secret that progressives don’t really ever reveal to themselves: Elections are cyclical, which means that in one election cycle, they might convince a bunch of people to support their ideas, but in the next election those ideas will be dropped to the junk heap by a very impatient public. Just getting people to even participate in the electoral process is a chore, which is why whenever I hear poll numbers, I laugh because I realize that when someone on the street says he or she is definitely voting for one candidate or party but then when it comes to the election, he or she is too busy updating his or her Instagram page to worry about frivolous things like elections.
People are generally fickle, and they rarely vote for their best interests, even if they vote at all.
Coming Under Fire…trying to achieve the honor of being placed on the highest court in the land
Years back when I was in the Army, a grizzled NCO pulled me aside one day and explained something to me. Now, if you’ve ever watched an old Clint Eastwood war movie, or one of the many like it, you’ve heard this story before, so I’m not telling you something you probably already shouldn’t know. But I’m going to tell the story regardless, and even though you’ve heard it before, I’m going to explain how hearing the story doesn’t mean anything until you’ve experienced it. Anyway, it goes like this:
Two new lieutenants or two new privates come into a unit for the first time. They’re fresh out of combat training and ready for their first assignment. Soldier A is gung-ho and looking for a fight. Soldier B is scared of his or her own shadow and looks like the one most likely to run from a fight. And then shit goes down for the first time and the whole unit is under fire. Soldier A marches into the theatre of battle looking ready for the fight, but when the first shot is fired, finds he or she can’t even move, freezes and basically fails everyone, including oneself. Soldier B, realizing that Soldier A is under fire and unable to move, jumps into the fight, drags Soldier A from the battle and fights back oncoming forces in the process. Soldier B proves to the be hero, and Soldier A has disappointed everyone.
Trial by fire we call it.
People often tell this story, thinking it is specifically about battle but fail to understand what it actually means. It means that everyone lives within their own narrative and tells their own stories. But until something happens that tests one’s own abilities and shows that person that everything you’ve prepared for doesn’t explain a current dilemma, and you have to develop a new narrative based on walking through fire, you don’t really know how you will ever handle the stress of having to pull yourself out on the other side. Will you honor yourself and others? Or will you fold and prove yourself to be a complete failure? You can tell yourself you’re going to do one or the other, but until you’re truly tested, you never know what you’re going to do to get to the other side.
I’ve been fortunate, or unfortunate, to have had that test come across me a few times in my life. And each time has helped me to build upon my beliefs of what I thought might happen. So far, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve not had an encounter turn out to be the opposite of what I hoped it would be. Sometimes, the outcome hasn’t emerged as best as it could have, but at the same time, I feel confident in the sense that I’ve not humiliated myself or brought dishonor upon anyone else in my care. Sometimes, that’s all you can hope for.
So, let’s talk about Brett Kavanaugh. A few days ago, he was undergoing his trial by fire as he was made to face a past accuser and to confront a hostile Senate that wasn’t about to let him just play legal games when answering their questions. Instead of just owning up to simple failings in his past by saying: “Yes, I drank a lot, and I made a lot of mistakes back then, but I’m trying to be a much better person these days. That’s all anyone can do.” he took the frat boy-no consequences approach and from what could be seen just bullshitted his way through the entire confirmation hearing, hoping that partisanship would keep him from having to take any responsibility.
And that hurt a lot.
As a veteran, my one thought watching this whole disaster on the screen was that I’d never be comfortable under fire with this guy backing me up. To be even more blunt, I wouldn’t be comfortable getting drunk with this guy in a bar. This is that guy that breaks a crime while drunk and then blames you, even though you were throwing up in the bathroom the entire time, telling the cops he only had two beers.
The trial by fire moment in this man’s life put him in front of the nation and asked him to make the right decisions. To quote the grail knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “He chose poorly.” While he may still get a chance to get on the Supreme Court because of partisanship alone, most cases of trial by fire only get one chance to get it right. In a combat unit, he’d be that one soldier relegated to holding up the rear until the colonel can transfer him out of the unit where his actions won’t threaten to get any other soldiers killed. You rarely get a second chance to prove you’re no longer a coward. That first time is all a group of soldiers will allow; they may never trust you again.
While even if he was denied the Supreme Court pick, he’s proven he doesn’t even deserve the lofty position he already has, but he’s life locked into that position as well, meaning that he snuck his way into the elite unit and there’s really no way to usher him out. He’s now like that brigadier general who got his position by doing administrative work his entire career and once discovered to be a complete failure at combat is now being sent to some office in a corner of the Pentagon where he can’t affect anyone again, at least until someone can convince him to retire.
But I fear we’ve not seen the last of him yet.
And that should frighten a lot of people because the only reason this guy will ever be allowed a second chance is to fulfill a quota of people who just want a slot filled by someone on their side. And even they know he’s a horrible pick for the position they’re going to pigeon him into.
And the sad part is that there are so many other better people who should have been considered and seriously vetted instead of him. But they probably won’t be, so we’ll be stuck with him for decades.
The Hidden Ramifications of the #metoo Movement and the “Funnel of Male Response”
Yesterday, Rob Porter, a top White House aid, resigned from his position due to allegations that he abused his former wives. So far, Chief of Staff John Kelly has mistakenly thrown his political clout into defending Porter, and conservatives are starting to feel the negative effects of having stood behind an abusive person for so long (and even after discovering the revelation of abuse). What’s interesting to me is what no one seems to have really noticed: The response has been the same response we’ve always gotten, but the results are turning out to be completely different.
That needs a bit of unpacking, specifically to explain what it is I’m talking about. The reason for that is people want so badly to turn this into a partisan issue because it looks so good as one to people who might benefit. But in reality, it’s anything but a partisan issue. It’s one of gender.
And that’s something that a lot of men don’t really want to talk about. So, let me explain.
In the past, when allegations come forward about a man abusing a woman, it’s had to make its way through a really weird news cycle I like to call “the Funnel of Male Response.” Men have historically held the reins of power in both government and news media, so when a woman made a claim of abuse, there was always a male decision maker who either had to decide whether or not to run with the story, or to respond to it legally or politically. Whether through backroom deals, collusion, or straight out incompetence, the issue was often ignored or given so little attention that it was like there wasn’t a complaint made in the first place.
In a really interesting tweet from Emma Evans, she points out that her mother needed her father’s permission to open a checking account and his permission to keep her checking account after they were married, even though she actually worked at a bank herself. So, just one generation ago, a spouse of a man pretty much had no permission to conduct business in society without the direction of a patriarchal figure.
Fast-forward to today, and you start to see why a woman being abused by her husband is probably getting very little attention from a very male-dominated media and male-dominated political environment. Using that “Funnel of Male Response”, think about how practically every political issue involving violence against women has been handled in local, state and national government. First, there’s a claim of a male having done something abhorrent to or towards a woman. And then the male response is almost always one coaxed in the blanket of how it affects that specific male rather than the woman who made the claim. How many times did we hear a male politician say something like, “I have daughters, so I wouldn’t want that sort of thing to happen to them”, “I would never want to see that happen to a woman I love,” or “As a father or husband, we must enact this legislation to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen to women.” Basically, the commiseration in most of these cases or types is that a male patriarchal figure is responding as a male effected because of his proximity or relations to women.
This is why when we hear a response from John Kelly, stating “I can’t say enough good things about him” and urged Porter to remain in his position, we’re hearing the kind of response we typically hear about these types of circumstances. Senator Orin Hatch kind of sums up the problem by his own responses to this story in which he started out defending Porter (and calling the accusers “character assassins”) before realizing the political ramifications of being on the wrong side of this issue and then started talking about how such behavior is not acceptable, if it happened.
And that sums up the majority of the responses we’ve been getting from most other political allies of Porter. After the “#MeToo” movement, there was a call to believe female complainers and to support them going forward, but as expected, the response has been to go the direction we’ve always gone, and that’s to play the “they need to prove their accusations” before we’re willing to state any sense of belief. And then, as if by script, once enough evidence is given, the powers that be will “accept” the punishment that comes and almost always there’s no approach to somehow change the environment so such a circumstance never happens again.
Which brings me back to pointing out why this problem is pervasive and almost immutable. Our society has not evolved enough to push beyond the rationalization that men still think the world revolves around them. Hell, I’m a guy, and even I realize that sometimes I fall into that sense without even realizing I have. One thing that has been so wonderful about the #MeToo movement is that it is sometimes silencing the male response and even eliminating the Funnel of Male Response in such a way that the usual mechanism of schema that men tend to rely upon don’t even get the opportunity to interject into a conversation. So, instead of a male directed approach of dealing with how Harvey Weinstein is just a symptom of a bigger problem, a wave of firings happened instead, so that Weinstein has been completely powerless in his ability to respond, which is EXACTLY the opposite of the circumstances that he used to “allegedly” cause the problems he did that ruined his life and career. What the #MeToo movement has done is provide rapid speed in responding to allegations that used to have a filter that could never be removed.
And yes, it’s going to cause problems for a lot of men who will probably get swept up in the movement to provide a new sense of accountability. But hopefully, once the first wave of this has run its course, a correction will take place, and then through punctuated equilibrium, we will achieve a new, level playing field where such atrocities against women are ever allowed to take place. For me, that is what I hope will be the true ramifications. Unfortunately, I suspect the actual ramifications will be male blow back where things sort of go back to the previous status quo again because people who have the power aren’t usually all that generous in giving it up, even if it is exactly the right thing to do.
Popular television treats politics so that conflict is inevitable–and is slowly making us comfortable with it
Last week, I spent some free time watching the political drama, Madame Secretary with Tea Leoni. Well, actually, I didn’t watch it WITH her, but it does star her. And for those of you who don’t know, the story is about an ex-CIA section chief who gets the call to become Secretary of State after the previous one dies in a plane crash. There’s lots of intrigue and “West Wing”-like drama, so it’s one of those kinds of shows. But after I finished watching the first season, something started to stick with me, and it’s been bothering me ever since.
The whole show seemed to be about an intelligent woman who basically makes decisions to keep the US from falling off the brink of disaster. Weekly. Which means that there’s usually some huge incident that threatens all sorts of horrible ramifications, and through some quick-thinking ideas, she fixes it. And then it started to get me to think about other shows that are similar to this. There was the previously mentioned The West Wing, which pretty much had the same kind of crisis of the week as its main element. There’s Scandal, which is basically the same thing. There was, for a very short time, Commander in Chief, which yes, did the same thing. There are comedies, like Veep, that do this sort of thing. Then there are action shows like 24, The Unit, Contagion, Flashpoint, and so many others that usually involve some kind of national emergency that requires people to fix those situations almost overnight.
Which got me to thinking that this is how government is being introduced to a lot of people who probably don’t know a lot about what people in government actually do. I remember years back when I told someone my title was “counterintelligence agent” and that person immediately assumed I was an American James Bond, going undercover and killing bad guys. Okay, it was exactly like that, but I digress. No, it wasn’t, but let’s just leave it at that.
The point is: If popular media presents the idea that government is nothing but a group of people who work from one crisis to the next, how hard is it to assume that people are going to start thinking that crisis situations are natural and to be expected? I remember someone once asking me what it was like being a CI agent, and I said it was usually boring and lots of paperwork. The person thought I was lying to protect her.
I’m worried that this sort of exposure the population has to “government” is exactly what makes it possible for people in government to argue that we need things like the PATRIOT Act or waterboarding of prisoners for information that they rarely give up during torture. When people discovered that the NSA was wiretapping Americans, the response was along the lines of “duh, of course they are.” That really scares me for the future of this country because I think we’re moving down a path that is taking us quite far away from the original path this country was set on when we first embraced the ideas of liberty and democracy.
I’d say more, but my show is on, and I need to make sure Jack Bauer manages to save the day.
The Problem With Our Government and Classified Information
For those of you who already know me or about me, you know I used to be a counterintelligence agent. I worked with and about classified information. It was basically my job. What I’m about to say now is probably going to be taken as a bit of hypocrisy or at least with a sense of strangeness. You see, I don’t think most of what is classified these days really should be classified at all. I’m being nice by saying “most”, but in actuality, I mean none of it.
The first part of the problem is that we classify way too much. If some decision-maker thinks there’s a fear of our “enemies” finding out something about what we’re doing, he or she immediately feels that information needs to be classified. In my time, I’ve seen people feel the need to classify newspaper articles. Yeah, I’m serious. Mass-printed and mass-distributed newspaper articles. Someone in our government (and by someone, I mean a LOT of people) reads an article in a newspaper and then decides that information needs to be classified, so it gets made “Confidential”. Then someone up that chain reads the release, feels it’s even more dangerous if our enemies find ou about it and upgrades it to “Secret” or even “Top Secret.” Meanwhile, some farmer in Utah is reading that exact document with his morning coffee because it came from a newspaper, not from the CIA. Yeah, that happens a lot.
Which brings me to the philosophical part of the argument. If we were an autocratic government, or a dictatorship, or some country that basically lives its existence by doing evil deeds in the shadows, well, then, I would think we need to classify a lot of things. But that’s not supposed to be our government. We’re supposed to be a nation that exists as one where the people make the decisions. The people decide who goes into office. The people decide who creates new laws. And at a lot of times, we vote for a lot of the laws that run our very lives. At no time did we elect a dictator-in-chief, nor did we ever sign up for a Master-of-Secrets. We have a free press because our news people are supposed to be able to tell us what’s really going on so we can properly decide on the right people to keep representing us for the laws we would like to see enacted.
A perfect society should have no secrets. At all.
I know the immediate response to this is “but what about our enemies???” The thought is that we need to keep certain information from our enemies to make sure they don’t know what actions we are taking against them.
Okay, why are we taking actions against anyone to begin with? Cause they don’t like us? Cause they hate us? Cause they do dastardly things targeted at us?
What would change if we were more upfront about the information we collect? We have entire police agencies that operate mostly in the sunlight, yet they are still quite capable of stopping a lot of really bad people. Sometimes, they don’t tell the whole story of what they’re doing, and most of the time when that information has been revealed, it turns into a bit of a scandal, and the Monday Morning Quarterbacks indicate that they probably should have been a lot more honest about what they were doing. And even if that wasn’t the case, our police agencies collect information until they make the arrest. And then the courts are privy to the information. We generally don’t try people with “secret” information. The few times we have tried to do that, it has backfired horribly. And yeah, I know there are a couple of instances going on where we’re doing exactly that. Mark my words: Those will backfire horribly, too.
An important question to ask is why do we have enemies in the first place that we have to keep information from? I think if we dug deep enough, we could probably find some circumstances we did in the past that made things as they are. Some, maybe not. But that still doesn’t indicate a reason for having to keep information confidential from people we generally don’t trust. If the Iranians know that we have lots of cruise missiles on ships parked off their coast, knowing about it is probably not going to do them a whole lot of good. But even so, I’m not advocating telling our “enemies” about our troop movements, but about changing our mindset from one of secrecy to one of sunshine diplomacy. We are a very powerful country. If a potential enemy sees us on their doorstep, classifying stupid memos doesn’t change the fact that they’re going to realize that they’re being watched, and they’re being watched by a pretty powerful potential foe.
You see, the problem I perceive is that our secrecy is being used as a type of cloaked power that it was never designed to be. The press, our check on government, is told that it can’t find certain things out because of “national security” when most people know there’s absolutely no national security at stake in most cases that phrase is used. What’s generally at stake is embarrassing information that certain actors don’t want to reveal to the press because it might cause them to lose their leverage in the cloaked power of secrecy they currently maintain. A fresh slate means that people can make honest decisions based on honest observations. Way too often in the past, someone in power has stated that something cannot be revealed because “government knows better”, which is slang for “some moron in government thinks he knows better than you do.” Sorry, but I call them as I see them.
The biggest problem I perceive in my suggestion is that people will constantly cling to the old adages of Cold War philosophy, thinking that diplomacy is a weapon rather than a tool. We still think in terms of how another country can benefit us rather than how we can use this mega machine of democracy to develop more democracies and, in turn, fix our own. Because in case you don’t realize it, since 911, we’ve moved further away from democracy than we have in decades, and we’re still cascading down that path towards oppression. And most of us don’t even see it because we’ve been blinded by nearly a century of having gone the other way.
Government should never be used as a vehicle to drive over its citizens, but as an implement to take those citizens to somewhere better. Right now, we’re going through a pre-election period where absolutely NONE of the candidates are talking about that better road. Well, one of them maybe, but he’s being cast aside as inconvenient rather than as an actual player. Which means we’re going to have nearly an entire decade of continuing to travel down the wrong path without ever realizing we’re not even traveling to the place we set out to go when we first started.
Why white privilege is the wrong battle to be waged in seeking equality and justice
There’s been a lot of talk lately involving the concept of “white privilege” and how quite often a Caucasian will misunderstand his or her benefits of being white while trying to appear just towards those who do not maintain the same generic status. Some examples are the #alllivesmatter versus #blacklivesmatter, which is often used as an erroneous argument of “I care about everyone, not just a particular race.” And then from there a whole diatribe is usually leveled on the idea that anyone who is born white exists in a world of privilege that others can never reach.
Some of it is correct, but in reality, people with diabolical purposes are using these arguments to create a false dichotomy, something I often equate to a framing issue rather than a normative one. Let me explain.
The argument is that someone born white has certain advantages that are not afforded to someone who was not. Examples include: Cops tend to shoot non-whites more than whites; whites are less likely to be convicted of crimes than are non-whites, a white male with a prison record is more likely to get a job than a non-white person with a prison record, etc. Many of these can be summed up in this comic about white privilege. What people don’t seem to understand when they post these kinds of arguments linking to this type of information is that it doesn’t mean what they think it means.
When someone makes that argument about white privilege, it is followed by an insinuation that those are actually benefits, rather than lucky brushes against much worse circumstances. The fact that I’m a white male should not then be met with “well, aren’t you lucky that you don’t get railroaded by the system by cops who might hate you.” It should be met with “cops shouldn’t be railroading anyone anywhere”. It’s like we’re already on top of a slippery slope that is continuing to force us back to unwanted situations rather than we should all be on a flat surface trying to make sure that no one creates the slippery slope in the first place.
This is why #alllivesmatter is not an adequate substitute for #blacklivesmatter. Sure, all lives matter, but all lives are not being targeted. Black lives are. Therefore, a movement to make sure that doesn’t happen became necessary. #Alllivesmatter creates an “issue” that doesn’t actually exist so that if that takes the other’s place, we’re left with the situation we stared with: People doing nothing because it doesn’t affect them.
So, what’s my point? Stop focusing on white privilege because that is not the problem. The problem is the opposite: Minority Disadvantage. THAT is the issue that should be dealt with rather than trying to create a wedge between those being oppressed and those who might actually care that there are people being oppressed. This is why Occupy Wall Street was such a powerful voice that quickly got squelched by those who feared its power. The real oppressors are the ones who actually do have the power, the one percenters who control manufacturing, media and even the police forces. Without turning this into some outdated communist manifesto, the problem is that the people who need to band together aren’t because the people creating the messages for them to follow have done so in a way that only creates an us versus them dynamic but in a way that never actually addresses what needs to be addressed.
So, how do you find answers in a civilization that is so blinded to its actual problems? Well, we could do what my grade school teachers always said: Start at the beginning. How did it happen? If we trace the time back hundreds of years, it’s not hard to figure out that the government we live under was created by rich people who wanted to continue being rich (meaning others would have to be poor). This isn’t the social model people constantly think we’re living under because that social model would actually look at the group of people around us as equal and in need of the same benefits as everyone else. We don’t live in that society. Sure, we pretend to, but when it comes down to it, a person who has little is going to always have little to none, whereas someone with much is probably going to end up with even more. That’s the civilization we live in.
How do you recognize that if you’re currently living within its infrastructure? I can conduct a simple experiment just by walking into a bar and talking to the first woman I see. In the US, the chances are that the conversation will hover on what my job is (and how much I make) before it turns into anything more interesting. I’ve had this same conversation in many other nations, and strangely enough, it was usually me that thought I had to bring up money as apart of what makes me be me. It took years to realize that the further away I moved from centralized capitalism, the less focus there was on income as what someone is worth.
So back to my original question. What steps should we take to lead to a future of equality and justice?
I hate to go all Socratic, but if you want justice what steps are you taking to actually achieve it? Do you hold conversations with people who aren’t like you? Do you comment when someone says things that lead to injustice and inequality? I’ve listened to conversations in mixed demographics where some people have said some awful things about people not present in the conversation. What I find interesting is how many people don’t say a thing, or even worse, escalate the conversation to even worse levels. Speaking up in these circumstances is difficult, and I’ve felt the tug almost every time I have done so. But what bothers me is how often those moments go unremarked, almost as if they’re okay.
The same thing is happening today in our political atmosphere. We have some politicians saying some awful things, and so few people are even casting a light on these moments other than to treat it as a news cycle rather than say: “Hey, by the way, there’s an awful racist running for office. Here’s what he said.” And even in the few circumstances where this has happened, the people listening are responding with the thought process of “yeah, but he’s better than those other guys.” If our canary in the mine is at this level, we’re going to be breathing some pretty toxic fumes sooner rather than later.
So, what’s the answer? Right now, I don’t perceive one because I think we’ve moved so far down this road that we’re not going to turn around. Sure, a nation can adjust, as many have before (I mean, face it, we aren’t ruled by divine kings any more, so eventually we can make huge changes), but I don’t see our current civilization all that anxious to try to make things better for everyone because until someone is scrounging for scraps in the gutter, people aren’t all that focused on change. And when you reach the gutter, people stop listening to you and wait for you to die. So, rational change isn’t to be expected.
Irrational change, however, is a different story. That’s the sort of punctuated equilibrium that no one ever sees coming. Unfortunately, we’re coming closer and closer to having that as our process of change, only because most other methods have fallen on deaf ears or were dismissed by people who are pretty happy with the limited value of the status quo.
But what do I know? If I was truly wise, I’d be a rich entrepreneur and well rewarded in the society in which I live. There’s a joke in there somewhere, if you look hard enough.
The Problem of Dealing With Race By Invoking Historical Ancestors
Race seems to be a big issue these days. I guess that’s a good thing. It means people are thinking about the concept and discussing it with others. At least that’s my hope. In some cases this is massively necessary because it helps deal with oversights that have been going on way too long. In other cases, not so much. What I see is that in those types of cases racism as a concept is used as a process to silence others or to beat people over the head in an attempt to collapse all disagreements under the blanket of racism, even if the individual artifacts we’re discussing may have had little to do with racism (which is why blanket criticism is used).
But this post isn’t really about that. Like I said, I’m glad people are addressing racism. There’s just way too much of it present in this day and age, even though a lot of closeted racists would really like to put forth the idea that racism is gone (so they can stop being rightly accused of being racists, or at least apologists for the same). What this post is really about is one of those commentaries that shows up in these discussions, and quite often this commentary comes in groups of people who don’t actually deal with racism in any way.
I know that sounds confusing, but let me explain. People who address and call out racism are quite often those who are directly affected by it. Racism directed toward race is more often addressed by African-Americans in U.S. society because let’s be honest: African-Americans are far more the targets of racism here than most other demographics. Sure, any minority race and/or ethnicity is a potential target for racists, so I don’t want to make an argument that assumes otherwise. But overall, African-Americans are going to have a better chance of perceiving racism more than a Caucasian because racists are pretty one-sided when it comes to this dichotomy. Sure, an African-American can be a racist, but part of what makes racism as powerful a weapon as it is is because it also has a mechanism of power to be used against the victim. A group of African-American racists standing around the streets of Wall Street aren’t going to chase a non-African-American away from Wall Street because the background of Wall Street doesn’t support such an attempt to alienate the victim, but a group of Caucasians targeting a non-Caucasian on a street of Wall Street might cause someone from that targeted demographic to think that Wall Street isn’t a safe place to hang around. The point is: Racism involves power, but it also requires power in order to be effective.
As an academic, I find myself around a lot of people who quite often invoke specific arguments whenever it comes to the idea of racism. I’m also a moderator on a very active current events message board, so I see all sorts of commentary that comes from that origin as well. And what I’ve come to observe is something I don’t believe a lot of people realize seems to be happening around them. And specifically, this sort of racism that is happening today is also very localized in its temporal vicinity (the time it inhabits right now). As a result, people today who are frightened of being perceived as race-challenged (or “racists” for lack of a better term) will do everything possible to avoid being cast as villains in this dynamic. As such, it’s not surprising to hear someone say something along the lines of “I’m not a racist because I have a friend who is black.” Okay, that one is kind of obvious because we’ve all heard that one and know how it’s almost become a punchline to a joke no one wants to admit making.
No, part of the problem stems from an argument that orchestrates how a lot of people who are a part of the problem that they don’t even acknowledge exists. We all know the argument, even though we don’t think much about it because we discard it because of its simplistic nature when we should have thought about and realized why it makes things worse rather than explain things away. You know you’ve heard this argument whenever you hear someone say “Well, my ancestors are from Europe, so I wasn’t responsible.” It’s one of those arguments made in hopes of closing off conversation (and hoping the topic changes as well). But think about it. If someone’s ancestors were from South Carolina, does that make that particular individual responsible for racism that happened 150 years ago and several generations ago as well? Probably not. But that’s only if you feel that responsibility ends with theoretical people who may or may not have been personally involved. Are people complaining about stuff that happened in the 1860s? I don’t think they are. We all know that horrible things happened back then, and we all pretty much agree today that if we could change things, we would make sure they didn’t happen again. Or would we?
And that’s where that argument that gets made loses its traction. There are problems happening today, and rather than deal with them today, we have people saying they shouldn’t have to be responsible because they weren’t around 150 years ago. But again, the problems exist today. What are any of us doing to change things here and now? I would argue “not a lot” because if we were all doing something to make things better, my belief is that things would be better.
Instead, we have ghettos, slums, income disparities, fenced off housing, more cops than educators, hostility towards certain populations, massive corruption in places that should be making a difference, and finger-pointing rather than any desire for accountability. An example is the City of Detroit. It practically collapsed due to white flight and inner city corruption. Instead of solutions that work to fix these problems, we end up with right versus left rhetoric, race baiting and people who support corrupt leaders because to not do so means giving ground to racist rhetoric. In other words, NO ONE is seeking to fix the problems, and the few who are seem to basically be drowned out by the people who find more importance in criticism and looking for scapegoats.
So, what’s the solution? Well, let’s stop caring about what the color of someone’s skin is and start looking at how we can make the neighborhoods of people prosperous and worth living in. That means also changing our criminal codes so that “crimes” that don’t hurt people stop being crimes. If “drugs” are seen as a problem, convict people to treatment programs rather than criminal institutions. Some aren’t going to be fixed the first time, but a responsible civilization doesn’t give up after the first time. It keeps trying until it works.
We also need to change our financial circumstances to benefit all. Yeah, a lot of very rich people are going to hate that. But having a few pissed off people and a civilization filled with thriving individuals seems like a good trade off. This A. Rand society of doing well and screwing over everyone else needs to end.
We need to stop going to war because some group of people don’t think like we do. Different thinking people should be interesting, not enemies. The reaction is that we need to do this because there are people out there trying to kill us. They’re trying to kill us because we always go to war against people who don’t think like we do. That tends to lead to diminishing returns. Change the thinking; change the outcomes. It can be pretty simple. Of course, the naysayers will say no because they only know the institution that we are currently in and like the frog in a well who sees only the circle of light in the sky, we’re never going to see constellations in the paths of other wells if we never get out of the well we’re currently stuck in. Just saying.
Or we can keep doing the things we’re doing and hope that somehow things get better. But they won’t. So good luck with that. I’ve given up trying, so I’ll be playing video games while the world crumbles around me. At least I can accomplish something with a high score. They don’t give Nobel Peace prizes for that, but I guess that’s just cause I don’t own an army that kills a lot of people. Yet.