I've not often used Facebook to express my political views, other than to like some posts and subscribe to and repost a couple of things from certain political and religious blogs. I've long felt it is too easy to get pulled into Facebook algorithms that only support one's own views; so I've been cautious about my posts and I try to read some things by writers of different sides of the political and social spectrums. I eschew a hostile, angry, conflict filled environment and believe that honest dialog and the willingness to work with people of various beliefs is paramount to our survival as a free people. Doing this in a calm, respectful manner seems necessary for people to feel good about working with others with divergent viewpoints.
In the wake of what is happening after the recent elections in our country, and the horrible strife and conflict that has filled our nation, and our media feeds the past few years I feel compelled to share my views and take a stand. I don't know that I have any more insight than others, but my first degree was in Anthropology and Sociology and I learned to compare and evaluate systems of cultures and social changes; so maybe I have something useful to say. You can be the judge of that.
I do not write this to argue with anyone, nor with the expectation that I will change anyone's mind. I write this to fulfill what I believe is my obligation to participate in our nation's democratic/representative process. I fear that this may cost me some friends. I hope it does not. The value of a true friend is irreplaceable and to be treasured, despite, or maybe because of our differences. Taking a stand, for me, has become necessary, albeit a bit tardy, but still necessary.
The changes in our country over the last 65+ years have been far too numerous to list outside of a sociology text. Suffice it to say that many of the ideas and events of the 50's, 60's and 70's to move our country toward being a more equitable, just, and open place are still being played out now with minority groups, slowly moving into positions of power and more people able to act on the promises of the American dream. Although unfair discrepancies in income, housing, health care, and education, still maintain the vast racial and social divides in our country, progress is occurring.
We like to believe that we live in a country where people care about others and are willing to sacrifice to help others, where newcomers can make a fresh start and contribute to the greater good. There are millions of individual examples that support this view. However, the reality is that we live in a highly competitive culture. In competition there are winners and there are losers. What makes a wealthy competitive society a moral one, is the willingness of the winners to assist the losers, to prevent the have nots from living lives of drudgery and constant fear, of making sure quality education and basic necessities are available to all.
It often seems that the winners (the haves) in our country are unwilling to give up any bit of their comfortable lives to enable others to have a chance at having better lives. Was our nation a more equitable place before the rise of the middle class, when many more were poor? Did the rise of the middle class, and the zeal for having more and more stuff, merely create a buffer between the rich and the poor and temporarily satisfy the majority while allowing the wealthy to become super wealthy? Did the middle class become so fearful of losing what they gained that they believed the poor and disenfranchised would take what they had if they couldn't stop those who were different from finding their own way to the table of prosperity? What a perfect scenario this was for the rich to exploit the time, labor and income of everyone else. If you don't believe that happened, think about Voodoo Economics (Reganomics), the creation of enormous wealth with borrowed money under the guise of trickle down economics. Only the crumbs trickle down and the bills on that borrowed money have to be paid sometime, think - the 2007-08 economic crash.
As the poor became further marginalized, and those who could play the game of being middle class became more consumed in the greed they were told was expected of them, the super rich became wealthier and wealthier. Since the 1970s we've seen the buying power of the middle class dramatically erode and the promise of General Electric's World of Tomorrow (see 1964 World's Fair exhibit) become a remote fantasy, lost to the greed of everyone. The stratification between the poor and the rich grew greater and greater. In other words the poor got poorer and the rich got richer and the middle class got complacent and developed a compulsive consuming way of life, without even realizing it.
Ok, enough social and economic stuff. I could write all day about this and never explain it all.
This brings us to the election of 2016 and the rise of a master con man and his willingness and ability to exploit the fear and greed that has grown wild in our culture.
In case you don't know me well, I've always thought Donald Trump was a con man, a terribly flawed person, and not fit to lead anything, much less to care for the interests and needs of a nation. Perhaps the fantasy of great wealth that we've all succumbed to in one way or another, and Trump's TV presence made him seem legitimate to many people who were afraid of their lives changing and losing the way of living they wanted. Many Americans bought the fantasy that everyone can have all they want or close to it, everyone can be rich, that hard work and luck are all that is needed. After all it is hard to imagine things being different from what we've experienced and expected - from what television has convinced us is the way we should live. Yet, there are winners and their are losers. Not everyone can be rich. Maybe anyone can be, but not everyone.
But I think Trump and other narcissistic, psychopathic oligarchs like him, (Yes, I believe the man is sick with greed and with the success he's had at conning, bullying, and intimidating people his entire life.) Trump and those like him understand the fear that most people have of not having enough, and fear of others taking what they have. Trump and those of his ilk are brilliant at exploiting and using such fear to pit various groups of people against each other. Within that conflict and tension, which they promote and encourage, there is tremendous room for them to take from everyone, in all aspects of society - business, environment, education, religion, civil rights, and social mobility. Trump, and others like him, will do whatever it takes to get what will fuel their accumulation of riches and power. They will lie, cheat, steal, and manipulate people and laws to get what they want. They will sacrifice everything that is good and right about our country to be rich and powerful.
I know many of my conservative Christian friends believe that God can still use someone like Trump to achieve the plans of the Divine. I can't believe that a loving, caring god would allow someone to perpetuate the suffering of others just to achieve the Almighty's plan. I cannot be a part of an organization that believes in such a scheming deity. Supporting someone like Trump is antithetical to my understanding of all major faiths and is in reality just a way for people to justify their own lust for money, power, and possessions. When you factor in our conditioned desire believe in an America and a world that never was, then you have a populace ripe for the fleecing.
Trump's need to hang on to power for ego, for wealth, and for power's sake itself, has become more glaring than ever in the last few months. His willingness to corrupt the outcome of the election in order to stay in power strikes at the very foundation of our republic. He would allow untold numbers to die from a preventable illness out of his own fear of losing power. I find no truth in Donald Trump. There is only an insatiable craving for more - more at any cost, even the cost of our votes, our choice, the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands. He and his close followers would discount the votes of millions in order to get their way and to continue their attack against much of the good that has been hard won in our country. Such actions should strike fear into the hearts of us all.
Here is My Stand.
Politically I am an Alaskan independent. That puts me in a very ambiguous political category. The terms Liberal and Conservative have lost so much of their meaning in the garbled, overused way we apply them, that I cannot fully identify with either. I believe in issues, in people, not in party.
I steadfastly believe in the rights of women to chose what they want for their own bodies and in laws that enable them to have such choices.
I believe in the obligation of the strong and the wealthy to help those in need; this includes those who are hungry, those who are sick, those who need education and opportunity, and those who need shelter from persecution.
I believe that wealth and privilege must be earned in a fair and just manner, not by exploitation, and stoking the fires of greed and fear.
I also believe that I have a right to keep my own guns for hunting, recreation, and protection, yet I do not believe that private citizens should have military weapons. I also do not believe that registering my guns will allow our government to take the right to own them from me.
I believe we the people must work to create and ensure that government, on all levels, is responsible to all people.
I believe that people have a right to love, live with, and marry whomever they choose and to express that love without fear of being harmed, shunned, or denied their right to fully participate in our society.
I believe our tax system is badly broken, and that the poor and the middle class carry far too much of the financial responsibility for running our nation.
I believe that we the people have the right to practice our religion without interference from the government. This must apply to all religions, but that right must be tempered by the necessity to be responsible, caring citizens and by the need of all people to have access to a better life.
I believe that the need to protect and preserve the Earth for the benefit of all people and creatures, including future generations, must supersede the consumptive lust that we have to accumulate more and more.
I believe that our desire to live as we want must allow room for others to live as they want.
I believe that we can work beyond our fears to reach out to those who are different and find ways to live together in cooperation and harmony.
Lastly I must condemn and repudiate Donald J. Trump's behavior, ideas, and policies. His actions reveal a person willing to set friend against friend, brother against sister, father against children, mother against parent, race against race, religion against religion, class against class, and nation against nation. He is firmly in the lineage of tyrants who have come before him. It is likely that only our nation's reliance on law and our governmental system of checks and balances has spared us the horrors other countries have experienced from history's long line of despots.
To what purpose has he done these things, you may ask?
The accumulation of wealth, greed, status, lust, and unbridled power, I must answer. And I resolutely stand against him and those who would enact and share in his ideas. As the large number of votes Trump received in this November's election reveals, if we want an open, truthful, fair government for all, then we have much to be concerned about in the coming years and a great deal of work ahead of us.
I know this was long and wordy. As I stated in the beginning you may choose to unfriend me over what I have written. If you do, please let me know. Although it may sting a little, I will not think badly of you. What I have written is important to me. I feel that I've remained silent too long. This writing is part of who I am. It is truth that I believe. It is for love of country and my fellow man and woman that I must write these things.
Peace be with you all.
Bob