Are you satisfied with President Obama?

Before I begin, let me say that I voted for Barack Obama for both of his terms.  I believed his message of hope and change.  And he started off really well, with the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the initial pullout of our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the bailout of the automobile industry with the requirement of fiull payback before the executives could get their bonuses. 

The Affordable Care Act was at first a good start, but came to represent a sellout to the insurance industry rather than a real reform of American health care. Yes, it has it's good points, like the end of pre-existing condition clauses in insurance policies for example, and the millions more people who can get insurance.  But it's not enough, and will never be enough as long as corporate interests are served before the needs of We the People.  He missed the boat on this, which should have been single payer like the rest of the civilized world.  But that can be written off as the need to compromise with the Republicans in Congress in order to get anything passed on that issue.

In all honesty, I bagan wondering about his commitment to that hope and change when, after his first year in office he kept seeking compromise in spite of the fact that Congress kept refusing.  And of course there was his turnaround of the commitment to get our troops out of the Middle East as well as the expansion of actions that have proven counterproductive to peace and stability in the region, like Syria and Libya, pushed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  That expansion has had the effect of increasing the role and influence of ISIS/ISIL by creating power vacuums that the terrorist organisation has been only too willing to fill:

Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall

How ISIS Spread in the Middle East

  Yet I still supported him through most of his two terms.

What started the change in my thinking was when, against all legal precedent, he ordered the assassination of an American citizen by drone a couple years ago.  No arrest, no filing of charges, no conviction or sentence in any court of law.  Then I began looking back at his record, but in spite of his courting corporate support over the people in general, I still supported him. 

That support was enhanced a bit by his rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline for the reasons he stated:
Citing Climate Change, Obama Rejects Construction of Keystone XL Oil Pipeline

Then came his relative silence on DAPL.  He said next to nothing about the peaceful protesters of that pipeline being abused by law enforcement and private (corporate) security forces, and did absolutely nothing.  True, the Army Corps of Engineers rescinded (temporarily!) consent for the construction, but it's unclear whether this was at President Obama's direction or if the Corps did this on their own in response to the validity of the reasons for the protest.
And nothing is being done about Energy Transfer Partners' refusal to accept changes in the pipeline's route in order to protect the environment from catastrophic damage.  In fact they have a record of causing such damage:

Iowa's pipeline safety record spotty

And let's not forget the lackluster economic "improvements" which, although generally better than the depression we were headed for, is still in a rececssion, with many people who used to earn a decent, even upper middle class level, paycheck, who are now stuck in lower-wage, and even minimum wage, jobs, and more low=paying jobs being created to replace the higher-paying ones that have been lost:

Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones

All of that being said, if we were to do it all over again, I would still have supported Obama's candidacies, but I would also have urged people to hold his feet to the fire on his campaign promises.  He was, in fact, the best person for the job in comparison to his campaign opponents in both 2008 and 2012.

© 2016 by Don Rice Jr.

Think Critically

"The Washington Post published a report that cites officials who say they have identified individuals connected to the Russian government..."

Let's break this down, shall we?

Un-named "officials".  Suspicious right form the outset.

"... who say they have identified..."  But only on their say-so?

"... connected to the Russian government..." Connected in what way?  Career bureaucrats? Aides? Spies?  Again, no indication of how they're connected.

Let's look further, shalL we?

"By acknowledging and digging into the increasing evidence..." What evidence?  None has been released, at least not to the general public, that I'm aware of.

And the statement that those unknown Russian government people "...gave WikiLeaks emails..." is nothing more than allegation and innuendo until, if and when, it's proven to be true.  At present there is no reason to take the word of government officials or mainstream media that gave every appearance of being in the bag for Hillary Clinton even prior to her securing the Democratic nomination.

It must also be noted that nobody has released the original emails to verify that the tampering or changing alleged to have been done by the Russians actually happened.  If they were tampered with or changed in any way, the originals would prove it.  But they haven't been released.  Why might that be?

I really don't care who leaked the emails. If the only thing up for dispute is who leaked them, and nobody is addressing whether their accurate copies of the originals, then that's really all that matters. And if they are, in fact, accurate representations, then something is very wrong within the DNC.

Critical thinking isn't really all that difficult.

 ©2016 by Don Rice Jr.

Just stop it!

Reportedly the Dakota Access Pipe Line is being rerouted around, not through, Souix lands.  This is a good start, but doesn't really address the issue of polution form broken pipelines, which are all too common, especially with the company running the show.  But important an issue as that is, it's not what I'm writing about today.

You may or may not know that this would be the second change in the pipeline route.  It was originally routed through a wealthier area before it was moved over to the tribal lands.

Bismark, North Dakota residents protested the pipeline coming through their town out of fear of damage to their water supply.  It didn't take months and months of protests during which they were arrested by the scores and by the hundreds and locked in kennel-like cages.  There were no dogs sicked on them.  They didn't have water cannons turned on them.  They weren't turned away from buying supplies in local stores.  They weren't shot in the heads with hard rubber bullets or gassed or assaulted by militarized police and private security forces.  And they didn't need lawyers or retired military veterans to come to their defense.

None of that happened to the residents of Bismark, N.D.  All they had to do was register their concerns, and the pipeline was re-routed away from them.  And the residents of Bismark have the nerve to complain about the Native American people who have been protesting for months the very same issue for their lands and water supplies?   GTFOOHWTBS.

To the people of Bismark who are doing that complaining: Take your white racist crocodile tears somewhere else.  We the People of these supposedly United States, who come in all races, ethnic backgrounds, religions and whatever else, don't need your fake patriotism or your bigoted attitudes.  Those things won't help our country.

 ©2016 by Don Rice Jr.

Stop The Blame Game

What caused Hillary to lose was a combination of a variety of things. Lack of enthusiasm, yes. Voter suppression, yes, in both the general and the primaries. But I think the biggest factor is the mood of the electorate, i.e., We the People, to turn against business as usual, to reject the status quo.

The Democratic party, by whatever means, shady or legitimate, rejected the only primary candidate who is not part of the establishment forces supporting the status quo. Hillary talked a good fight, but only after being pressured by Bernie Sanders’ rapidly rising polling and vote numbers. 

This left the field wide open for Trump to come in as an anti-establishment candidate, even though many of his statements during the campaign were and are repugnant, and win the general election.

Who is to blame for all this? I would say all of us who call ourselves either Democrat or progressive. Those who supported Sanders but switched to Hillary, those who didn’t switch, those who supported Hillary no matter what and denigrated anyone and everyone who disagreed with them are at fault.

 
But now the time for blame is over. We must reach out to our opponents on both the left and the right, and form working coalitions to get more progressive candidates into office on all levels of government, to pass progressive initiatives in every state, and to groom a true progressive to challenge Trump in 2020.

To accomplish that, we must find common ground on which to to build this progressive movement, Our Revolution, into a force to be reckoned with. If we don’t do the work, we will have nobody else to blame.

Namaste',
Don

 ©2016 by Don Rice Jr.

Moving Forward

Over the past several days since Election day, there has been a great deal of vitriol being hurled on social media.  Everyone wants to blame everyone else for Hillary Clinton's loss, too many are refusing to look at the reasons for that loss, especially from people who did not vote for her.

We've all seen the video clips and news reports of people being taunted, insulted, beat down, told to leave the country, et cetera.  And the anger is clearly on both sides.  Real winners don't rub people's faces in their loss a some of the Trump supporters have been doing.  And real progressives don't attack other progressives out of anger at a differing perspective.  Yet those are the things that are happening.

Many of the people expressing anger because others didn't vote the way the Clinton supporters thought they should have lost sight of the basic truth that we are all human and we all err at times. 

The troubling part is that many people on both sides of the situation claim to be Christian, yet their actions show that they are Christian in name only.

Perhaps even more to the point of what's happening lately in reference to the Bible, especially for those who call themselves Christian, is the neglect for living by trhe teachings of the man  called Jesus the Christ. 

I do not call myself Christian.  Yet I have studied the Bible for many years, seeking the larger truths within the teachings of the Bible.  I herewith offer what I consider to be perhaps the most profound of those teachings:

"For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them." (Luke 6:32)

"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?  47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?" (Mat. 5:46, 47)

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them..." (Mat 7:12)

"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20)

Since Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism, let's take a look at that too.

The Jewish Rabbinical teaching in the B'reshith Rabba (Genesis Rabba) teaching reads: "If thou despisest any man, thou despisest God who made man in His image."

I had a discussion with someone on Facebook who insisted that my vote for Jill Stein was actually a vote for Trump.  No matter how I explained that this wasn't so, she refused to budge.  I don't despise her or hate her because she stubbornly refuses to see someone else's perspective.  It's the action and attitude that saddens me, and I sincerely hope that people will wake up and realize the harm they're doing by being hateful and vindictive.

What it comes down to is that we should treat others the way we want to be treated, not the way they treat us, or to despise them because we disagree with them.  If we did that, then there would be no chance of harmony, simply because nobody agrees totally with anyone else all the time.

Instead, we must seek to understand each other better and not stick with our prejudices and one-sided perspectives.  And we must seek the common ground between us, for only there will we be able to find a way out of this quagmire.  Then, and only then, will we be able to move forward as a nation.

Namaste,
Don

©2016

Democrat Paul Penzone unseats Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio | Cronkite News

Democrat Paul Penzone unseats Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio | Cronkite News: After holding the position of Maricopa County Sheriff for more than two decades, Joe Arpaio has lost his seat to Democrat Paul Penzone.

Election 2016: The Bigger Picture

So Donald John Trump will be the next President of the United States.  What does this mean for the country?

The truth is that we won't really know until after he takes office.  But the more important question is this:

How did we get here? 

There is a traceable line of cause and effect that goes back at the very least 50 years or so.  It really goes back long before that, but for the purpose of this writing, 50 years is sufficient as a starting point.

What happened then that led to this?  And how did it lead to our current condition?

The 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education was perhaps the starting point, but it wasn't the cause of today's difficulty.  No, the cause was the reaction to that decision. 

A program of massive resistance was begun in Virginia by political movers and shakers.  This led directly to the creation of "segregation academies".  And the concept spread throughout the country.  Not only in the realm of education, but also in businesses.

This program was designed specifically to circumvent the Brown decision, and to continue the segregation of every institution in the nation, both public and private, including commercial enterprises.  And the program expanded on Jim Crow laws as well as northern de facto segregation most if not all of the other states that make up what we call America.

Segregation academies are still around, and educational segregation is growing via charter schools, though it must be noted that not all charter schools are segregation academies.  Segregation in education, especially in charter and religion-based schools, is not only racial.  It is also based on disability, gender identity/sexual orientation, and economic status.  There are, of course, variations between and within these types of schools, based largely on the ruling principles each school and type of school is founded upon.

Academic achievement has gradually decreased in many, if not most, parts of the country, based largely on the same factors endemic to segregation, although certain segments of the population have shown marked improvement.  Black women, for example, are the fastest growing group of college graduates.  And the lowest scholastic achievers are mostly in the southern states.

Added to all of this is something the establishments of both the Democratic and Republican Parties failed to take note of.  That factor is the rapidly growing dissatisfaction of the people in all parts of the country with the status quo.  People are sick and tired of empty promises and eager for real progress rather than going backwards.  And that includes the ever-increasing gap between rich and poor as well as the perception that our so-called leaders are bought and paid for by the corporate elite.

As a result, more, many more, people in America are ready for a change in leadership.  The two major parties put forth the most disliked candidates for President in our nation's history.  And only one of them was not part of the political establishment that people are tired of.  Too many people saw this election as a choice of the lesser evil, which candidate would do the least damage.
  
But the problem is even deeper.  The Democratic National Convention, through the state conventions, chose a candidate who was not only viewed as deeply flawed, but also shown in every major poll to be incapable of beating most of the Republican candidates, and might... MIGHT... beat Donald Trump.  That turned out, obviously, to not be the case.  The candidate whom polls showed could easily beat Trump was turned away. 

Setting aside the belief by many, including me, that Bernie Sanders was cheated out of the nomination, the fact is that he could have and probably would have beaten Trump, while Hillary Clinton stood a very slim chance of doing so.  As can be easily seen in hindsight, the polls didn't lie.

The Democratic establishment has only itself to blame for this mess.

© 2016 by Don Rice Jr.