Caring for Children

I was raised by a stay-at-home mom.
My parents were both raised by stay-at-home moms.
I never met my father's mother, but my maternal grandmother used tell me stories about growing up.
She was grown, old enough to vote, when the 19th amendment was passed.  She was also married by then.
She had wanted to go to nursing school, but her family talked her into normal school.  She never got to work as a nurse, which was her life dream--she also never got to work as a teacher.  Married women could not do either of those jobs.  Thus, stay-at-home mom.
My own mother never knew a world where women couldn't vote.  She was a WWII bride, marrying right after high school graduation.  And while she had worked in the family business after school and weekends (think depression, think survival of the family) she only worked outside the home a very short time, while her husband was in the army.  She did find jobs after my sister and I were grown, and it seemed to make her feel better about herself, more capable, more independent.
The baby boomer generation of women are split about in half between those that didn't have to work while their kids were home and those that did.  It was a complex dynamic, with some stay-at-home moms doing so because their families were very traditional and so they carried on with a family constantly on the brink of poverty.  For others, the decision was based on the ability of the husband to support a family without a second income.  More than a few working mom's and poor stay-at-homes were envious of those women.

My own mother was that brink of poverty, stay-at-home.  She was always there for us.  All our meals were homecooked.  Most of our clothes were homemade or hand-me-down,  My father bought a house that hadn't been finished and finished it himself.  My mother was never very proud of that house.  It looked like he had finished it himself.  Not hillbilly, but the cabinets looked more like 1900 farm house than 1960 factory.  We had a "picture window" that he made from scrap metal and a welding torch.  It looked fine to me, but it didn't look exactly like the neighbors' picture windows.  She wasn't the only stay at home back then, but there were a few working women.  Most were secretaries, but one was moving upward in a corporation.  The other stay-at-homes were either married to white collar workers or were home with teenagers.  She had a huge garden, canned and froze everything she could grow.  She sewed and repaired clothing.  She took in laundry and ironing. She was called by more than a few of the other stay-at-homes to get rid of a mouse or help with a kitchen disaster. Her dentist called her a firebrand.  She was busy as a stay-at-home mom.
By the time I had children, there were very few stay-at-home moms.  There was jealousy of unemployed welfare moms and of rich men with  country-club wives and nannies.

AND there was childcare.

• It was expensive--if you made more than it cost, it often made the final NET very close to minimum wage, which was better then, but still hard to live on.  A husband with a good income was a perk, and if it was good enough, it was possible that staying home was as profitable as working.
• It was scary--it didn't pay well and because women were not valued and mothers were not valued and caring for children was seen as a thing that "Any old fool can do" the people you left your precious little connection to the future with was barely educated, very young, possible suffering from some chemical issue--who knew--the media tweaked that fear up pretty high a few times in the past, add some real abuse/deaths and it was so scary that living at poverty level seemed good.
• It was limited, as in most catered to 8:00 to 5:00 workers, but all those women in nursing, factory work, shift work, weekend work had no options or maybe one distant, very scary option involving an index card--i watch kids, 24/7 any day cheap--desperate mom or what?
• There was family, but no one wanted to use 40 hours of their week for your kids.  And, if they weren't working they wanted compensation and didn't want to pay taxes on the little money, so bye-bye tax credit (when that started--when did that start?)  That frequently meant an obsessive search for relatives that liked your kids, would watch them for a day or were open to shifting them to someone else for part of the day.  

When my children were little, there was talk of employers opening daycare centers so they would be open when your job was, in a hospital or a never-close store, that is important.  They needed to be affordable, we all wanted them to be a job perk, but business is business, and childless people are the first to make comments about their own mother's staying at home or the personal choice of whether to have kids or not and poor people shouldn't have children if they can't afford to care for them.  I always wondered if they thought those working mom's should have just drowned them like kittens since they weren't born into a proper home.
They are still talking about workplace daycares.  And now there is griping from people whose children are grown and who have no children because of the possible 1 year maternity/paternity leave.  Yes, we all want a year off paid, but what does that say about me if I already survived that awful first year of sleeplessness, daycare fear, poverty and guilt (for not being a stay-at-home mom with a wealthy husband) if all I want if for everyone else to have to go through the same thing--unless they are wealthy.

We really are crabs in a bucket.
We don't want what is best of children.  We just don't want any one else to have it easier than we did.  We aren't concerned with what is best for the happiness and success of children.  We don't want everyone to have a better life--we need someone to do bad so we can feel good about our own lives.

A look at America's top employers.

I remember when I voted for Ronald Reagan and his Trickle-down economics.  I look back and wonder "who was I".  In all honesty, I may have just loved "Death valley Days" by 20 mule team borax.  I decided to take a look at the theory in a little more detail but suspect I will get lost in the details.  So let me start with a preview of what I'm thinking.

The way it was originally explained is that rich business men would by things and would hire people to work for them, and by doing that those people that they hired would have money and would therefore hire people and buy things, and those people that were hired and bought things would create jobs for more people that would buy things.  (it's vague, i get that)

So, I thought I would look at the country's top employers.  (hired the most people, not were the nicest.)  I'm not going to look at the government jobs although between all the various departments, they are the biggest.  I will leave that to someone with higher security clearance than I have.

Number one is Walmart.  They employ over 2.2 million people.  Their average pay is $8.81/hour.  If they work full-time that is over $18,000/year.  Walmart prefer part time as they then don't have to provide benefits such as insurance, vacation, or sick time.  Their CEO makes $19,000,000/year.  The owners made a profit of $3.1 billion in 2014.   It is very hard to imagine anyone working at the same company being 1000x more important, but when you consider that $19,000,000 is a guarantee that the CEO will side with the profit over the fairness to the employees, it was Fortune 400 chump change well spent.

Next is Yum! brands, employing over half a million people.  Who?  The biggest fast food corporation in the country.  They are currently down to TACO BELL, KFC, Pizza Hut and Wing Street.  They pay most employees minimum age,  and under $13.00/hour for managers, with a big jump for financial analysts (over $100,000/year) (aww, so money is more important that what you sell!, got it)).  The CEO made $11.3 million plus a nice stock package.  This is a Fortune 500 company.

Third on the list is McDonald's, employing slightly less than half a million people.   The bottom pay is as low as they can legally go, the company does seem to offer improvement for those individuals that aren't just "fast food workers" though.  Throw in the fact that a very large number of McDonald's are franchises, and thus employed by the owner of the Franchise, and you start seeing that pay information may or may not be reliable.  The CEO stepped down in January this year, and had recently seen a decrease in compensation so he was making less than $10 million/year.  The franchise owners, a big part of McDonalds profits (from selling/leasing/whatever you call that), were not doing as well as they expected.  A lot of mom's and pop's saw a franchise as a grab at the brass ring.  In a lot of those shops, the franchise owners are working longer hours and for less money than they had ever thought possible.

IBM also employees slightly less than half a million people.  The CEO of this company recently saw her salary increase to over 1.5 million.  The average salary is $75,000/year.  While their is much grinching about low pay for experience, and less than great pay for very skilled positions, I have nothing to say.  (Makes me think that we may be looking at two different populations.)

Next is KROGER.  Kroger is the second largest supermarket chain in the USA.  It employees 400,000 people.  In 2014 the CEO made about $9.5 million.  Most jobs start between minimum wage and $15.00/hour.

Now, Target, employing about 400,000 also.(besides the familiar Target bull's eye, they have Dayton's, Hudson's, Marshall Field's, and Mervyns)  Their pay scale for workers looks like Kroger's.  starts at minimum and tops out fast till you get to the big main offices.  CEO in 2014, $28.2 million.

Home Depot, whom I owe my soul and first born due to basic repairs, pays $8.00 to $23.00 and hour, with most being under $11.00/hour. CEO--$1.3 million for a Bachelors in Business.  He did really improve their profits.

Hewlett Packard employees about 300,000 people, the CEO recieved $1.5 million with a compensation packet worth $19.5 million.  (I'm guess that is more than sick time and insurance).   Average employee salaries look to run slightly less than IBM, so IBM might not grinch so much.  

General Electric, which is older than me--at least--is next on the list, also employing about 300,000, but slightly fewer than HP (like GE only different).  GE is a huge, multinational conglomerate with a bunch of branches, . It is the most
profitable corporation in the USA.  CEO last year was compensated over $18.5 million. 

• GE Capital
  • GE Capital Aviation Services
  • GE Energy Financial Services
  • GE Real Estate
  • GE Americas
  • GE Asia
  • GE Europe, Middle East & Africa
• GE Energy Management
  • Industrial Solutions
    • GE Power Electronics
    • GE Power Components
    • GE Critical Power
    • GE Intelligent Platforms
  • Power Conversion
  • Digital Energy
• GE Oil & Gas
• GE Power & Water
• GE Home & Business Solutions
  • GE Appliances
  • Consumer Electronics
  • GE Lighting
  • GE Intelligent Platforms
• Electric Insurance Company

GE Technology Infrastructure

• GE Aviation
• GE Transportation

Healthcare

• GE Healthcare
  • Amersham plc
  • Datex Ohmeda
  • Whatman

Former

• NBCUniversal (now owned by Comcast) 

There is no way to find an average wage for the above behemoth.  I hope  their employees all do very well, all the way down to the housekeepers.

Sears is next, with wages that look like they start at the minimum.

The list goes on, but there is a theme--these huge employers  have very well paid top staff, very average for function paid skilled employees and a whole lot of bottom rung employees that need government assistance.
The argument about raising the minimum wage  hurting the small business owners was probably created by the big dogs that can pay all the c-suite and investors big money bonuses out of the money they saved paying the minimum and slightly higher wage earners barely enough. (that means our taxes are subsidizing their bonuses--they didn't hire a single low wage person whose job didn't have to be done, they are important, but our current supply of unskilled or low skilled workers is high and every company loves to act like the are hiring them out of the goodness of their heart.  Don't buy it.  I can't find someone to mow my lawn for less than 40$/hour.  They bring the equipment but if the lawn job--think every 14 year old boys summer business--is worth more than minimum, then probably cleaning your toilet and wiping up the mess from your kid in the Mctoy house is also.

Most of us have at least one relative that is stuck in the world of minimum wage.  It's tough.  It was tough 40 years ago and is 4 times worse now.  Back then you could find an apt that took about half your take-home and it was all bills paid.  You could get gas for under 50 cents a gallon, bread could be found at 4 loaves for a dollar, tuna for a couple of quarters--and the TV was free if a bit snowy at times.  If desperate one month because your budget was wrecked by a car breakdown or a medical bill, you could live on baloney sandwiches for a month and survive.  Basically, eat badly for $10 dollars a month, but eat every day.

Welfare expects $4/person per day anymore.  And that is also eating badly.

Every struggling person I know (and a lot that are no longer struggling so much), loves to gripe about the lazy, idiot that should have gone to 1. school, 2. college, 3. stayed out of jail, 4. stayed off drugs, etc. etc, etc, read as  "I'm pointing my finger at you because no matter how hard I have it, I didn't screw up as bad as you did"  It's what we do.  It's sort of like looking down your nose at the handicapped person and saying  "I'm just grateful that isn't me" then griping because they get government assistance.  The fact that we have groups of people that are outsiders that we think of as welfare people--other races, other religions, nontraditional lifestyles, foreign-born, makes bigotry even easier to maintain.

But let's face it.  We will never hate the rich, successful CEO, the highly reimbursed investor. 

We just want to be them. 

It's how we measure success these days.

CORRUPTION.

cor·rup·tion

/kəˈrəpSH(ə)n/

noun

• 1. dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery "the journalist who wants to expose corruption in high places" synonyms: dishonesty, unscrupulousness, double-dealing, fraud, fraudulence, ... moreantonyms: honesty
• 2. the process by which something, typically a word or expression, is changed from its original use or meaning to one that is regarded as erroneous or debased synonyms: alteration, bastardization, debasement, adulteration

 College history--American post-civil war, was very focused on specific instances.  It led me to believe that it was both rare in the past and unheard of in modern times.

•   During the Truman (D) administration, 196 local IRS staffers were found to be corrupt,pervasive systemic scandals, such as the role of money in normal politics, which purchases access and influence. Neither are 'revolving door' stories, which is the practice of hiring government officials to promote or lobby for companies they were recently paid to regulate. Though some rules now apply, to a great extent this is legal in the United States.

• Veterans Health Administration scandal of 2014 - It was discovered that officials in the Phoenix VA hospital lied about how long the wait times were for veterans to see a doctor.^[1] An investigation of delays is being conducted by the Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General.^[2][3] The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, General Eric Shinseki, voluntarily resigned.^[4]

• ATF gunwalking scandal – Attorney General Eric Holder was held in Contempt of Congress after refusing to release all documents which the House of Representatives had demanded concerning the Fast and Furious gun walking operation. (2012)^[5]
• Martha N. Johnson, head of the General Services Administration, fired two top GSA officials and then resigned herself after it was revealed that $822,000 had been spent in Las Vegas on a four-day training conference for 300 GSA employees. (2010)^{[7][8][9][10]}

• Dennis Hastert (R-IL) pled not guilty to charges that he violated banking rules and lied to the FBI in a scheme to pay $3.5 million in hush money to conceal sexual misconduct with an under age boy from his days as a high school wrestling coach.(2015)^[21][22]
•  Aaron Schock (R-IL) resigned his position after weeks of allegations that he used campaign funds for travel, redecorated his office with taxpayer funds to resemble the Downton Abbey TV series (a series about English nobility) sets, and other questionable personal uses.(2015)^[23] Schock's senior adviser Benjamin Cole resigned his position because he allegedly condemned "hood rats" and "black miscreants" in internet posts. Schock's office stated, "I am extremely disappointed by the inexcusable and offensive online comments made by a member of my staff.”

Hands in the cookie jar corruption seem most likely to create scandal. but there are other kinds.  Cover-ups of criminal behavior by those that are in law enforcement.  Cover up of creepy medical practices aimed at increasing profits with no benefit to the patient. Participating in routines that you know wouldn't look good on the evening news is not that uncommon.  And employees need their jobs.  If an opportunity to advance and make more money arises that involves a slightly shady side--that just might be job security.

What happened to our internal moral compasses?  When did we stop saying "I can't do that, that would be wrong"   Don't start about the loss of religion in our lives, some of the biggest and most horrifying stories come straight out of religion.  Religion is not internalized.  Beliefs are.  And in America these days, we have no problem espousing a religion while condoning practices that are forbidden by that same religion.

I'm not talking about accepting homosexuality or not stoning witches.  I'm talking about ignoring the very universal beliefs such as loving our neighbor and caring for the sick and poor.  I'm talking about forgiveness and acceptance.  I'm talking about being honest and keeping your word and doing what you say you will do.

How did corruption become all right as long as you don't get caught.

Who do we think we are?

Being born in the center of the US of A to a very traditional, cliche of a family for that time period, I always had certain beliefs about who I was and who we--me and all the rest of the Americans in the USA were.  We all loved our country when I was little, and no one here didn't.  My perception was less than 3 foot from the ground back then, and strongly colored by parents that grew up in the Great Depression and were military during WWII, and all their friends were also depression kids that went to war to save the world.

Back when I was short--really short--a regular "shorty" if you listen to some music--I knew with the power of the mind of a child that I was lucky to be an American.  I knew I lived in "the land of the free and the home of the brave".  I knew that soldiers were heroes.  I  knew that the POTUS was the smartest, kindest, most perfect leader of the world and that is why we voted for him.  I knew that we were all equal, all of us, every last one of us, that the law was fair, that justice was blind and was handed out in equal and fair amounts to each of us--just like Halloween candy when I went trick-or-treating.

My view was not a world view.  I was in a segregated school.  Everyone in the school went to a protestant church--the catholic children's families could afford the church school at least for a few years.  We had a few "Indian" children, but in my state, everyone had a Cherokee princess as a great-grandmother.  There were a couple of kids that had mothers from Asia, and they looked a lot like the "Indian" kids.  Everyone acted the same------like a kid"  Not that there wasn't variation among kids;  those that had lived there all their lives, that had parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents in the area, they were a little cliquish, and everyone knew who was really poor and who only had one parent.  Poor kids were rather avoided--mostly due to the smell, it was the early '60's and except for 2-3 families, everyone was rather low on the economic totem pole therefore who we saw as poor frequently meant lacking indoor plumbing.  Reality is, the really well off family was a lawyer, big, big house and exotic animal heads on the wall of the study.  My family was in the middle, the bottom edge of the middle, but the middle was big.  The kids didn't really talk about the kids with one parent;  if it came up, it was due to the rarity, and eventually (go to school with the same 60 kids for 12 years) we knew, but it was more likely our parents were gossiping about that than us.  Parents were ubiquitous to us little people.

By third grade we knew all those patriotic songs that schools used to sing, "My country tis of thee" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Country,_%27Tis_of_Thee#Lyrics , "America, the Beautiful" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful ,  "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" , "This Land is Our Land", "God Bless America", "The Marine's Hymn", "The Star-spangled Banner", "Yankee Doodle Dandee", "You're a Grand ole' Flag".  That usually got us through a couple of music classes per week.
We all knew the words.  The words were poetic, grand, idealistic and made old soldiers cry.  Except for the national anthem, no one ever had us look at the lyrics or why the song was written.  Woody Guthrie would not have been impressed with how his song was used.

We also were raised on black and white war movies and news talk about a nuclear war---and we were all scared of "RED China" and Russia. We all knew that the USA was the good guys, the white hats, the best country in the world.    I was in College before I realized that the only country that had ever used a nuclear weapon was my beautiful American States.   That is also when I learned that Women were not necessarily included in that bill of rights and we had not approved the Women's Equal Rights Amendment.   The varnish was cracking and the truth was coming out.

We still raise our children to believe those songs, although the teachers that are doing the teaching may not be as enmeshed in it as they once were.  Most people still say things like  "America, love it or leave it"  "We are still better than every other country in the world so quit your whining",  "If you can't succeed in America, you can't succeed anywhere".  We are USAcentric.  We don't know about other countries except in relationship to wars in which we either fought against them or allied with them.  If you ask most children where a city is or where the person that invented something was from, they will guess America.
(read this for a nice side trip --
http://markmanson.net/america   )

We did not invent everything.  Many of the things we take for granted were invented long before Columbus arrived here--here being the Caribbean and not Plymouth Rock.  We did not discover everything, many of those basic Scientific discoveries were made centuries before the USA began, We are one nation, big, but not the biggest--we are number 3 in population, with both China (#1) and India (#2) being about 4 times bigger than us.  Geographically, we are also third, with Russia in the first place and China in the 4th place.  (Antartica, which is basically an unoccupied Continent in the second place for Size--who new Antartica was bigger than the USA?)  We are not the oldest, some will claim we are the oldest democracy, but we are not a democracy, and ancient Greece was also a Republic.

Maybe, the USA is really great at raising Cheerleaders.  We have an amazing PR department for our own citizens.  We have class for every citizen on patriotism.   Or maybe we are just drinking our own snake oil.

The media--corporate version, social media, questionable media like FOX where everyone knows what they are doing and if they only watch FOX they have no perceptual difficulties, has been telling us who we are since I was a child.  Public Schools, with their curriculum chosen by the politicians, has been telling us who we are via approved books on history, social studies, civics and government for as long as public school has existed.    Everyone born in this country has been told who we are.

So, before anyone tells me to leave if I don't like it--wait.  I don't like it.  I love it.  I love what I was told it was.  I love the ideal of it.  I love the myth that is my country's history.

I just want to make the reality match the original promise.  We can be who we thought we were.

The value of life, the cost of living

How is it that at a time that the cost of living is so how most people can't afford anything beyond basics, the value being placed on living creatures is so infernally low.

Trophy hunting is back in the news.  Every turn-of-the-century rich person had animal heads hanging in the man's version of the parlor.  Not this century of course, but the beginning of the one that just ended.  Most of the trophy's since that era of traveling to the jungles and savannah to kill something on its way to the endangered list have involved the heads of deer--think skinning cows that eat only grass, you know, like a cow, but have antlers, or large, well lacquered fish from a trip to the ocean. 

The fact that a bunch of rich, men's men from over a century ago would put dead things on their wall is not amazing.  Back then, we only studied animals and plants after we killed them, specimens floating in formaldehyde and butterflies pinned in glass covered boxes.  The idea of actually studying them alive, watching how they behaved was seen as odd and ridiculous--they were stupid animals, they didn't feel pain like we did, didn't think like we did.

That same time frame, we set lovely pictures of dead people, frequently posed as if they were alive, in our parlors.  We made wreaths of their hair and displayed them for all to see.  We pressed the flowers from their funerals and fastened them in frames.  We loved death. 

We also displayed the dead bodies of criminals in their coffins, and displayed the bodies of living and dead people and animals that were seen as "freaks".  Death decreased their value, but only slightly over the long haul and the net was good--they no longer required food and living space. 

We still have plenty of people that think like those individuals that loved to go ogle a three legged child or point and laugh at the corpse of a bank robber.  We don't have a lot of people creating art and jewelry from their dead loved one's hair. 

Today, most of us are making money that is going up very slowly.  While the cost of living is averaging an increase of over 3% per year, wages are topping out at 2% for most of us and that is by merit, if you are an average employee or an unvalued employee, you are getting less than that.    That means we are all peddling as fast as we can, but the bike isn't moving, its slowly going backward. 

The cost of staying alive is barely attainable for many of the people on the planet.  The cost of staying alive for many animals is beyond them.  We have grand creatures that have long been the symbol of courage and strength and regalness that are not even safe in a protected preserve.  We have little creatures like sparrows and squirrels and possums that litter the edges of roads making only those with great heart question if we couldn't do more to stop all the death.  The cost of living is very high for most living things.  We have valued life very low these days.

Life is the one thing that we humans can't create.  We can reproduce and we can even clone using science, but that thing that separates living from unliving---we haven't really got it.  Reality is, the clone, like our own reproduction, requires a living cell to start with.

Life should be the most valuable, most honored and most important thing to us.  So why do we spend money to kill.  Why do we gripe about the space taken up by other living things and the way the place they live makes the place unusable to us.  Why are we blind to our own evil.

Each of us, each living human has more in common with a butterfly or lion or mouse than it does with some manmade thing that we rave about or beg for or dream about.  Things are not ever more important than life.  People are never things, just as trees, bunnies, dogs are not things.  Being poor, being ill, being homely or disfigured or scary to look at does not make any living creature a thing.

Its time to raise the value of life. 

Perception and what we believe.

"If information doesn’t square with someone’s prior beliefs, he discards the beliefs if they’re weak and discards the information if the beliefs are strong.
strongly held beliefs continue to influence judgment, despite correction attempts—even with a supposedly conscious awareness of what is happening."

The above quote is pretty boiled down.  If you want to know where it came from, copy and paste to your favorite search engine and it will tell you.

Lao Tzu knew something of this, or didn't know something of this---its complicated.

Stories about full cups and half-full cups and empty cups are often used to describe our thinking.  We use such analogies to explain positive attitude, negative attitude, gratefulness, and even openness to demon possession.  The thing to remember, sometimes an empty cup is not just good, it's a goal.

My favorite analogy with a cup has to do with giving someone more when their cup is full.  It's related to beliefs.  And compares beliefs to preconceived notions.  A little like prejudice but more consuming.

Take, for instance, a child raised in a fundamentalist religion.  Their world view is created by those beliefs.  The can't see scientific theories about the origin of the universe or about where people came from or even astronomy, without having their world view thrown into cognitive dissonance. 

Cognitive dissonance makes us uncomfortable.  It makes us question things we have never questioned.  It's like a mental earthquake. 

Some people are good at compartmentalizing--they put religious stuff and science stuff and their own moral compass/lack of moral compass into places that don't interact.  It allows them to believe the religion of their childhood while practicing business tactics that are hard on poor people and taking classes on astronomy at the university for their required science class.

"This is business, it isn't personal"

Compartmentalizing gets rid of cognitive dissonance.  It allows us to maintain conflicting beliefs for the long haul as long as we don't get all crazy and try to avoid hypocrisy or worse, try to examine our own beliefs with an honest and open mind.

Most people that lose the ability to maintain the beliefs of their childhood will either relegate the belief to one of harmless childhood magick--like Santa or the Easter Bunny, or they will become angry.  If you talk to a lot of atheists you will find they were raised in a religion, and their current "there is no god" belief has at its center, the belief that the religion of their parents was wrong, therefore--"there is no god"  A lot of teenagers that play with Satanism do the same thing.  They have not actually changed their beliefs, they have only changed how they feel about those beliefs.  It's a lot like a reaction formation.

The cup was full, it's still full, but they no longer like the taste of the beverage.

Emptying the cup is tough.  It requires tearing down the silos maintaining those compartments.  It requires not just the clear eyed examination of the beliefs that shape an individuals world, but the ability to identify what is colored by a belief versus what is just objective fact.

I'm not sure objective fact exists.  The one thing no scientist can eliminate from any study is the observer.

We all have beliefs.  We know our religion is belief.  We know that our faith is belief--no matter what we have faith in.  We know that anything we can't detect with our senses is dependent on a certain amount of belief. 

But what about our faith that our senses are telling us how things really are.  Colorblind individuals don't see the same as most people.  Creatures that use echo location, individuals that see sounds, animals that can differentiate thousands of smells---do we really believe (see how I threw that word in there all innocent) that we all share a common factoid-filled world? 

For those individuals that compartmentalize, for those individuals that allow themselves to only see what their beliefs--religious, moral, cultural, language-based, family-based--it doesn't matter, what they believe is all they can perceive.  They create their own reality.

So for those of us that are brave enough to examine our own inner worlds,  improving the current world we live in falls to us.

Be brave.