That won't work.

"THAT WON'T WORK"
If you have ever said that about anything, and there is plenty our there that that can be said about, but if you have ever said that about, say, Universal Healthcare, or free college education or clean energy, then you need to ask yourself three questions.
1. Who told me that will never work.
2. Why do I believe that will never work.
3. Why are all three things occurring successfully in other countries.

Tough questions.

We have all said things won't work that did.

My grandfather believed so strongly that men going to the moon would not and could not happen that he hooked it to his belief in God.  He died before we made it to the moon, so no crisis of faith there.
Gave his children pause, though.

Leonardo DaVinci drew many things that would never work, like helicopters and such.
The Telegraph, Telephone and Television were all three pipedreams at one time.
Women as voting, thinking, productive (not talking babies here) members of society was at one time an absolutely ridiculous set of ideas.
A non-white, non-male ruler has been a "won't work" repeatedly, but has now happened successfully all over the world---repeatedly.
Educating poor people, laborers children, farmers children, girls, etc., etc., etc., has been seen as pure foolishness.

So, right now, if you are calling the idea of everyone having equal access to healthcare something that won't work---why?  Why can't we do what those other countries are doing.

These green countries have done it. Some for over 70 years.  Besides ourselves, we are in the company of some of the poorest, most unstable, least safe countries in the world.

Why can't we join the free world on Healthcare.

Next is free public college education.  

Once upon a time, there was no public education at any level.  The idea of letting everyone spend time learning to read and write and do arithmetic was ridiculous.  Most of the people would never be anything but general laborers, farm hands, maids, and cooks, and blacksmiths and barrel makers.  No one really wanted to take those children out of the workforce, and yes, they were working by 7, maybe at the family business, maybe in the coal mine or on the land owners farm or in town for the wealthy households providing maid service and livery service and go-fer service.  Why teach them to read and write and do arithmetic.

But we did, and it helped many people NOT have to spend their lives in menial jobs that wore them down and bored them mentally and convinced them life was hopeless.  Don't get me wrong.  There are people that love service work.  They feel fulfilled when they are making someone's life run smoothly and look beautiful.  But, if you can't choose not to live that life, can anyone say you DID choose to live that life?  

Everyone wants choices, they want to dream and not have those dreams crushed by accident of birth.

For a lot of people, the choice of college is never seen as an option, they are too busy trying to survive childhood, and know that no one can pay for their college.  But, if they knew they could go if they just made the grades????  How many lives would that change.  How many hopeless poor kids would dream bigger and work harder in school.  In cities with free community college to students from that city, enrollment increases by over 10%.  It's not Scandanavia.  Students still need some source of funds for living while they are in school and there is no telling how many can't go due to needing to work fulltime to find a place to live and eat.  I do know that our minimum wage jobs are not going to help students out much.  And poor parents can't always afford to keep feeding and housing children after high school graduation.  It may take several generations to stop the "crab in a bucket" mentality of poor parents that couldn't go to college, that now don't see themselves as needing to help their own children in college when they are still struggling daily to survive.

The following is a table of college affordability rankings by country.  It is not a world map.  But we are far from the top.  Our income inequality makes this a very tough price for our poor to lower middle class.

Last thing, but far from least, is clean energy.
This one really freaks me out a little.
We, especially in Oil-rich states like mine, but also in those with lots of coal mines, are so loyal to fossil fuels we can't even consider doing something better.  We call Natural gas "clean" because it is a clear gas, but the air contamination of burning it is little if any better than oil or coal.  And the possibility of leaks; of gas, of pipelines, of coal ash disposal sites, is huge.

I realize that tobacco farmers denied smoking was bad for people, self-preservation and all, but denial will never make fossil fuels clean anymore than denial will prevent cancer and heart disease.

We know how to eliminate most of this, how to change to clean energy that will be cheaper---and there in lies the problem.  Cheaper is not the energy folks goal.  Profit is and always has been the goal.

Dirty energy is big money.
Expensive school is also big money.
Private healthcare is big money.

People enjoying the benefits of having those three industries stay full of money, full of profit, expensive, will never, ever say, we can do this better, cheaper, faster.

And as long as their money is lobbying our lawmakers and supporting those superpacs, they will keep staying fat and inefficient while not benefiting those of us that need them most.

Maybe its time to change "that won't work" to "Let's do this for us all".
It's actually past time.

Dear President Donald.

Trump Administration Transferred $9.8 Million From FEMA To ICE.  
That is a headline from an Article on NPR.
It is an item being reported by most other news reporting bodies as well.
"They" needed more money to handle the asylum seekers that were entering the country illegally.
To "process" them. and "house" them.
This occurred with not one but three potential hurricanes approaching land that is part of the USA: the east coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and Hawaii (another island--don't forget the 3 thousand plus that have died in in Puerto Rico because, you know, water all the way around it--of course, most of them died because of the hurricane, but when it first hit, that number was 60ish, the rest died of our own failure to rescue them from the aftermath of a destroyed infrastructure and no food/water/medical supplies actually getting where it needed to go.
Of course, most Puerto Ricans are a) poor and b) brown.  Not exactly your supporters.  And definitely not your kind of people, if they weren't already US citizens, you would be building a wall around them.

But, how is the money for the disaster relief of US citizens a slush fund for a personal prejudice against asylum seekers.

If you really want to fix our immigration problem, stop all immigration.
All of it.
No one from another country comes in, no one goes out.  No more of this bringing in the well-educated or monied people from other countries---they are just taking up our jobs and our houses and our AIR.  They can stay where they are and fix their own homeland to be more like the USA if they like our country so much.
We can pull all our soldiers back, line them up across the southern and northern borders with automatic weapons, but about 50 yards back, and they just shoot anyone that crosses that line.
The other side is welcome to get 50 yards back from their side also with their own soldiers in case anyone is crazy enough to try to go to their side---because no one ever tried to go to Mexico or Canada to seek asylum--and anyone in that vvvveeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyy wide football field across both borders is target practice.

Of course, we just, kind of declared WAR against Mexico and Canada, but our soldiers will not go out of the country ever again----and they will always know what they are protecting.
I do believe that trade with all other countries will need to end at that point.  We won't be importing or exporting to our neighbors with this going on since you don't enjoy a secure and safe business relationship with countries you are at war with.

But what if Canadians or worse, Mexicans, travel to a place that we allow to send ships or planes with merchandise from and ride in that way.
That won't do, we can't risk those people coming into our country that way either, so no more imports of any kind.

And, if we don't buy their stuff, they are most likely not going to want to buy our stuff.
Even if they still want our stuff, we can't risk those ships and planes returning with hidden Mexicans and Canadians on board.

The downside, Mr President, is all those countries with your hotels and casinos and golf courses might decide that Americans can't own property in their countries.

You will never be able to play golf anywhere but the USA.

And, you better be nice to Melania once the border is closed, no replacements coming in after that.

I mean, if we had done this in in 1880, we wouldn't have you over here either.
Where is that time machine when you need it.

An addiction to winning.

Florida had another mass shooting.
An angry gamer just shot last years winner, and some other gamers.
Why?
Why!!!

We, in the USA, have created a world in which it is more important for our children to WIN, to be WINNERS, than it is for them to be happy, healthy, and comfortable in their own skins.
We have fathers that push their kids to play football, forget about that sissy brain injury stuff, "be a real man".
And sons, raised by those same fathers, not only buy into the idea of risking their brains, their future, for high school sports and winning, but then turn around and push their own sons in the very same way.
Because, Football players are winners.
No one brags about losing while playing football.
No one brags about losing at any team sport.
Because, currently, team sports are all about beating someone else's butt.

It is possible to play individual sports competing only against yourself, but then we wouldn't have all these competition and Olympics and events if it wasn't still about beating someone else's butt.

Sports are not the only thing that we in the USA enjoy competing in.  We compete in Music, Acting, Dancing, Painting, Cooking, even eating.

But our big competition is the game of life--and the winners are announced by Forbes once a year.
Money is the big competition.
Are you smart enough, hard enough, greedy enough to win at life?

Small towns have their own variation of it, since few of them can compete with the big dogs.  They have the biggest farm, biggest house, nicest car, name on most city buildings.  Drive through most places and you can name their biggest winners just riding though the town.

A wealthy person once told me that she didn't think that wealthy people should be taxed as much, so they can give to their favorite charities and the high taxes decrease the amount they can give.
All I could say was that poor people want to give to their favorite charities also---even if it won't be enough to get their name on the building.  To her, I obviously wasn't even supposed to be playing her game.

Am I angry because I'm not rich?
No.
I am angry because I'm discounted for not being rich.
Am I angry because I'm not a winner?
What a ridiculous concept.
What even is a "winner".

Definition of winner

: one that wins: such as

a : one that is successful especially through praiseworthy ability and hard work

b : a victor especially in games and sports

c : one that wins admiration

d : a shot in a court game that is not returned and that scores for the player making it.

But the idea that "winning" is actually an addiction, that was a recent insight.

Addiction may involve the use of substances such as alcohol, inhalants , opioids , cocaine , nicotine , and others, or behaviors such as gambling; there is scientific evidence that the addictive substances and behaviors share a key neurobiological feature—they intensely activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement, many of which involve the neurotransmitter dopamine . Both substance use disorders and gambling behaviors have an increased likelihood of being accompanied by mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety or other pre-existing problems. "activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement" Nothing on earth does that like winning does it for some people. Me, I'm more prone to wine and chocolate, but mostly because I don't like the feeling that I made someone else feel like a loser. I've felt like a loser. When we tell someone to "get back on the horse, don't wait" they are basically telling them to not let that loser feeling turn into an aversion you can't shake. When we compete with others, we are agreeing to be judged according to someone else's standards and then placed into categories according to those doing the judging's judgement regarding those other people's rules. Every time I see a parent whack their kid in the back of the head when he or she misses a ball, give them the evil eye when they don't even place, or tell them "maybe this sport just isn't for you" when it was obvious they had fun, they just were average; I want to scream "Leave them alone" "This isn't even about you" But it is, because now that they are too old to win at their sport, they can only win if their offspring is winning. Did you know there is a gene for grip strength?, for being a warrior vs being a strategist? How about for fast twitch muscle fiber? How about for perfect pitch, academic achievement, reaction time and episodic memory. All of those exist, but those without them are not losers, they have their own genes and those genes helped them to survive just like the others did. The fast twitch muscle fiber is common in elite athletes, but unless both parents are homozygous for it, the kids are not that likely to get it too. And, a gene does not mean that a kid will not prefer reading too sports. AND, why do we place so much importance on sports?!? Because we like winners. When you have kids getting ready for college, the high school is all about getting their athletes to college, they want to get those good students that competed in debate and competed in science fair and tech and computer all in the colleges. But what about the students that just made consistently good grades, went through school basically invisible. Are they losers? Have they already been determined to be losers, NOT winners based on nothing more than they didn't compete. We have millions of things created by barely known people and then mass produced by totally anonymous people. Does that mean the woman that sewed my favorite blue jeans is a loser? How about all those stunt doubles in the movies, most of us not only wouldn't recognize their faces, we wouldn't recognize their name, because they are listed in fine print at the end of the credits. Those movies would not be the same without them. Are they losers? We have people like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, both are as famous as can be, they were evil incarnate, the fodder of multiple books and movies and copy cats. ARE THEY WINNERS? I think I would remove all references to winning from childrens' lives. We talk about competition and winning like it is just part of life, but is it really? Or did we just make it part of life. If one child loves playing ball and one loves painting, aren't both having a great time. If one child runs fast and one child runs slow, aren't they both getting their exercise? If one child remembers everything they see and one learns to categorize everything so he/she can remember, aren't they both learning? Are we so tribal, so focused on war, so determined to not create a world better than our hunter/gatherer ancestors, that we can't learn to value everyone for being who they are? Most of us like winning an occasional game of checkers or a ribbon for our jelly at the county fair, a little recognition of doing a good job, but can we not treat those that didn't win like losers? And we do make people feel bad for not being the best. Pretty soon, enough years of being treated like an extra in your own life will cause the person to start feeling pretty replaceable, unimportant, worthless. It is my theory, and I have some good but anecdotal evidence, that addictions are are things we start for the purpose of coping, and then continue because they make us feel like we are better. Sometimes, they make us feel like we are better when we are really getting worse. Sometimes, others can see what is really happening better than we can. And just like the alcoholic blames other people for his own inability to keep drinking AND maintain his work standards and family duties and interpersonal relationships, the "Winner" blames others every time he/she does not win, it is never the fault of the "winner" because "winners" are always the best. Their have been plenty of people addicted to winning. When I was a kid, their were neighbors always trying to keep up with the Jones', but our Jones' were not named Jones. When a fancier car or mailbox or sofa appeared at the home of the Jones's not named Jones, the others in the neighborhood would suddenly start having similar cars or mailboxes or furniture store vans appear. Amazingly, there were also those that didn't even try to compete, usually older, perhaps wiser, or maybe they had already seen that particular cycle come through too many times. We currently have a President with an addiction to winning. Because he routinely refers to himself as a winner and everyone who disagrees with him is a loser. He is older, but apparently he is also hooked through the nose, as they used to say about those old coke addicts. Perhaps it is time to examine our motives for continuous one-upmanship. Am I trying to be the best of the best of the best? Am I trying to be better than those around me? Am I trying to be better than I used to be? That isn't a terrible goal as long as I'm being honest about who I'm competing with. Am I trying to be good? Good. No comparatives. No competition with anyone else. But such a hard goal. Hard for toddlers and hard for teens, hard for parents and hard for old codgers. Today, I'm going to be a good person, feel free to join me. No winners will be announced tonight. It will be goodness for goodness' sake.