Short term profit at expense of long term survival

Humans are the only species capable of seeing the big picture and also ignoring what they see to get what they want right now.

We are currently a country polarized by politics, surrounded by evidence of ignorance about current events, decisions made not based on facts or research, but on whether or not the person telling us the thing is on our team or if what they say makes us feel safe or better than or justified in not changing.

We are not here for the first time, pollution for profit to the point of killing our selves and any other living thing, hate that makes us commit atrocities in the name of god,  loyalty based not on goodness or rightness to a group, but on whether or not it makes us feel like we are on the winning side because being on the winning side, even if they are some scary, evil, crazies, just might get us a better deal personally.  We are predictable in our inability to learn from our own history.

 In the latter part of the 13th century, in an effort to reduce air pollution, England’s King Edward I threatened Londoners with harsh penalties if they didn’t stop burning sea-coal. However, the king’s regulations–and those of subsequent leaders–had little effect. (i stole it here http://www.history.com/topics/water-and-air-pollution)

Acid rain was first discovered in the 1850s,  I heard about it in the 1960's,  it sounded scary, but basically it is bad for the life of anything made of concrete (infrastructure) or limestone--and living things.

 By the late 18th century and first part of the 19th century, coal came into large-scale use during the Industrial Revolution. The resulting smog and soot had serious health impacts on the residents of growing urban centers.Water pollution intensified with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, when factories began releasing pollutants directly into rivers and streams.  (killing ourselves? that is my job, if you make them play by the rules, they might not hire me).

In 1948, severe industrial air pollution created a deadly smog that asphyxiated 20 people in Donora, Pennsylvania, and made 7,000 more sick.

 In 1952, pollutants from factories and home fireplaces mixed with air condensation killed at least 4,000 people in London over the course of several days.

In 1963, in an effort to reduce air pollution, the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Air Act, and people screamed about the risk of their jobs if the big companies had to follow rules.

 In 1969, chemical waste released into Ohio’s Cuyahoga River caused it to burst into flames and the waterway became a symbol of how industrial pollution was destroying America’s natural resources.

A couple of years later, congress passed  the Clean Water Act (1972).  More complaints about jobs, cost, loss of money from those that are loyal to those that need workers.

 In 2006, the Environmental News Service (ENS) reported that “more than 62 percent of industrial and municipal facilities across the country discharged more pollution into U.S. waterways than their Clean Water Act permits allowed between July 2003 and December 2004.”

In 2007, almost half (46 percent) of all Americans resided in counties with unhealthy levels of either ozone or particle pollution, according to the American Lung Association.   CNN reported that “up to 500 million tons of heavy metals, solvents and toxic sludge slip into the global water supply every year. In the developing world [according to UNESCO] as much as 70 percent of industrial waste is just dumped untreated into the rivers and lakes.  (Most of our citizens gripe about this, those folks aren't on our team, forget that the companies are frequently owned by the same individuals)

  And we humans are revolting.  ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions)  We have been revolting and rebelling as long as someone thought they were in charge of the group.

Looking at all these revolutions, they are caused by 2 things:
 Anger and frustation--usually over either unjust governance in which one group is treated as better than or more deserving of favor, and income inequality, in which one group has all the money and the other group is destined to spend their lives toiling for enough to eat while trying to provide for their families.

Not one revolution or rebellion should have ever been a shock or surprise.  Angry and frustrated people get louder and louder as their tolerance for feeling used and mistreated rises.  We have the historical lessons to warn us about this.  It has happened thousands of times in the past.  Why do we never do anything to prevent it from getting there.  Why do we never recognize the unjustness or the inequality.  Why do we blame the victims of the greedy and powerful--even if we, ourselves are not powerful and have almost nothing.  We send our children to die for their causes and we argue for them when if they were in another country, we would want them dethroned.

Financial shenanigans have been causing woe to the point of the collapse of nations for ever.  The Medici Bank became too big to fail, then failed, the sudden influx of (stolen, the oil in the middle east has nothing on the allure of riches that the plunder of Central America had to the conquistadors) rich resources.  The sudden inflation made some rich, but ultimately created a horrible gap between those that could afford to live in the inflated times, and those that could only do without.  And North America, as it was first taken, then sold off, created quite the Real Estate bubble long before we were a 50 state nation.  Inevitably, in each of those events, the rich get richer until it peaks out, then the poor get poorer.

Why do all of these easily foreseeable events keep playing out through history?

Because of greed.  Humans have a greedy gene.  And while people like Sister Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela seem to be nicer, more farsighted, more capable of seeing the connections between how we are all treated, for most of our leaders, the idea that people without power don't count,  is the way of the world.

If you see those people that are angry about being poor or frustrated by being treated badly on an institutional level and think  "this is gods will"  "this is how it has always been"  while denying that you are much more like them than the people that are benefiting from the income inequality and the unjust governance, you just might be confused.

I think its called "stockholm syndrome".

(And yes, If you can't get in your personal jet and come out here to slap me in person, I'm talking to you)

Separation of church and state

Human rights.
They are not something up for popular vote.  They are something everyone that is born human has at birth. How was that ever in doubt.

I thought I was equal to everyone else as a small child.  I never, ever thought that there were things I couldn't do because of the circumstances of my birth.

Some would refer to that as naivete.  Others might think it more a sign of wishful thinking or delusional thought disorder or even just plain "putting on airs"

I prefer to think of it as proof that we all know we are human from the minute we are born.

Recently, there has been a lot of political movement surrounding rights--and they are all human rights--there are no other kind.  We have the recent right to marry the person you love whether or not they are of a different sex, the right to be another race without being treated inferior, the right to be female without being treated inferior, the right to be born in another country or speak a different language without being treated inferior and even the right to commit a crime, pay the price society demands and then return to society without being treated inferior.

Most confusing, though, seems to be religious rights. beliefs, and free speech.

Do I have the right to believe whatever I want?  Of course, try stopping that right, mind control is not even policeable.  Do I have a right to talk about those rights?  Free speech, sure," sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me".  Co-dependence aside, that is ultimately true.  Now when the words only purpose is to invoke violence, that is not speech, or at least not JUST speech.  It is as illegal to pay someone to commit a crime as it is to commit a crime yourself.  If your speech purposely motivates--pays for-- a criminal act, it is criminal, if not in the eyes of the court, at least in the eyes of those that can recognize ethical and moral deficiency. And let's not forget that a thing can be criminal without being morally wrong.  The people making up the laws are not perfect.  The people writing the holy books are also not perfect, and last I checked, no holy book even claims to be without human touch.

Most of us know right from wrong long before someone has told us what to hate and despise.   I'm not talking about the shame and humiliation of a fashion faux pas.  But when a child sees something that disturbs them, like a person kicking in the face of another person, they no that is wrong and they don't forget.  If the person doing the kicking is someone they love, they may go to great lengths to justify that thing, but they were disturbed.

Right now, we hear a lot about the rights of religions.

Religions are belief systems.  The people that believe them are protected by their own inability to have their thoughts policed.

A church, mosque, temple, sanctuary, whatever, has the freedom to follow its own beliefs, but only so far as those rights do not take the rights of anyone else.  So, you can refuse to provide services for people that do not meet whatever qualifications you have for your religion.  Think of it was club membership.  But you can not tell someone that is not in your "club" what to do.  You also should not let them be in your club as long as they pay their dues, but refuse to let them fully participate.
For those of you that are poor at metaphor--you can refuse to let to people of the same sex marry in your church, but you can not tell them they can not be married.  Marriage is a legal construct as well as a religious one, and has legal rights that come with it.  It is not alright to deny people the privilege of right of survival, inheritance, tax status, etc, unless the religion is NOT separate from the government.

 I do think that, like every single business that has to meet federal requirements to benefit from federal privileges such as tax exemption as a nonprofit; churches should also have to follow those laws.  Most churches should be paying taxes anyhow, as the are making serious profits.  But if your holy place wants to deny the rights of groups of individuals that the government says are protected as having human rights (weren't they born with them), they get to pay their taxes for their right to discriminate (churches, like corporations, are not really people, therefore are not born with human rights)

For a good portion of us, the offerings of a church or mosque or temple or other religious gathering place, is for our spiritual growth, and is aimed at improving the individuall.  When a religious group decides they want to force their beliefs on everyone for "the greater good" they are trying to eliminate that very necessary part of spiritual growth--personal choice.

I do no grow spiritually because someone told me I had to, or because someone told me the only steps that would take me where I need to go.  I can only grown, spiritually, when I make the choice to do what is right for my spirit.
  
Truly wise spiritual leaders are not control freaks.

And for all of you now in need of a wedding ceremony--be creative.  You don't have the right to make people perform a ceremony.  Make a better ceremony.  Make a better holy place.  Your rights do no include changing others anymore than their do.

I have known a lot of very creative, artistic, loving people with no desire to deny anyone else their right to a beautiful Wedding to begin their beautiful marriage.  Leave out those hateful people and make it all about love.

The Secession of Texas

If I were a prophet, I'd predict that Texas will secede.

Soon.

When it does, we need to do 5 things immediately:

• Go down and take all their nuclear weapon capability--they are a much more hawkish place than Iran.
• Agree to it--no fighting, no arguing, the only stipulation being that those individuals that are afraid to stay get to leave without harm during the first six months and those individuals that think they might just be a Texan, get to enter for the first 6 months.
• Make a law that no person with ties to Texas can run for office in the USA and that they will be watched due to their possible ties to an enemy nation. ( i like this one, even if they don't secede)
• After the initial 6 months, seal the borders.  We don't want a bunch of illegal immigrants coming up here for our jobs and bringing contraband in--like guns and bolo ties.
• Prepare another flag pole at all those 6-flags amusement parks, which will now be known as 7 flags--or will they just use one of the previous 6?  I don't know how that will work.

The world has gone nuts.  Every day, I think that--like it just happened.  But it has been going on for a while, a very long while.  Likely, my entire life.

But there are things I know.

1. Everybody, no matter what race, religion, sex, socioeconomic group, or other divisive and man-made  label you can place on another person, was born at the beginning of their life.  They start their lives as babies then children and eventually adults, if they are fortunate enough to make it that far.
2. Everyone one gets one day at a time.  Their memories may be pleasant or horrific, many or few, vivid or viewed through a veil of chemicals and/or disease.  Their future, which is never promised, only expected or hoped for or dreamed of, is always a mystery.  On this point, we are equal, although many of us don't get that.
3. We will all, each and everyone, get an opportunity to grow on each of those days.  We might balk some days, or fight change or embrace paths we have been warned against, or try to find a person to follow or a person to follow us.  We might refuse to make a single choice one day.  We might decide (another word for making a choice) to do nothing all that day that we were not warned to avoid.  We might struggle with internal demons.  We might fight actual monsters.  We might meet our own end.  In this way, we are all equal.
4. Each of our days, most of us get up, knowing that there is a sameness expected, much as we have faith the sun will rise.  We also know, that something could change.  We usually expect to have another chance tomorrow if today we fail.
5. One day, each of us will die. What happens after that is not one of the things I know.  

Today, look around.  Ask yourself if you are part of the craziness or part of the solution to the craziness.

Make a choice.
today.
(tomorrow, you get to decide again)

Teaching Critical Thinking!

I know, at my work, every improvement project comes down to improved problem solving and critical thinking.  I've heard that same thing discussed in regards to both public education of our children and from other people that are trying to manage a workforce.  I've also heard it recently in reference to 9 year old children.

We talking about teaching that skill set, but what we really want to do is learn em, durn em.
The one thing that teachers, parents, managers have in common is a desire to control other people.  We want to make them do the things they should do, stop them from doing the things they shouldn't do and have them wake up with the ability to "think their way our of a wet paperbag".

How do you teach critical thinking?

My mother would tell you that "practice makes perfect."  My father would say, "do it, just start, how are you going to make that work".  My mother was an amazingly capable control freak but my father was the problem solver.  He could fix things, and make things that had never existed before and find out what the problem was and then come up with a working solution.  It was never perfect, and seldom the first time, but he was inevitably the victor over the issue.

Amazingly, very educated people want to turn critical thinking into a class--hopefully less than 1 hour long, and make everyone critical thinkers and problem solvers that can pass a valid and reliable test after that class. Unfortunately, most of us have had our ability to hunt for new solutions, find a problem's source and come up with ideas squelched by age 8.

By eight, we have been taught what to say, how to follow very specific directions, how to answer any question by finding a line in the book that the question is from that is almost the same as the question.  Parents discourage their children from doing things that are messy or dangerous (danger:  a thing that lurks everywhere so no child shall ever run a microwave, grill a sandwich, light a match or lighter, or even have bubble solution without the "appropriate" bubble blowing equipment.  No parent would ever tell a child that has broken something, "now, how are you going to fix that" and actually expect a response and action.

TVs, computers, electronic devices, are everywhere and most 2 year olds can figure them out.  They watch tv programs that give them the problem and solution, completely, without effort, with no possibility of failure.  They play electronic games in which every problem can be solved using 1 or 2 fingers because the person who built the program included solutions for every problem. Their solutions--no other solutions are possible.  They can even get books that read themselves.  It isn't learning, it is entertainment.  Real learning needs the struggle.  If everything is easy, then no improvement in thinking ability occurs.

So what do we need to do to improve critical thinking?  Most of us need to start with ourselves.   Most of us have become very lazy in our thinking. 

We have to learn to think, to problem solve, and the way to do that is practice.  Let your kids solve their own problems.  Not the truly dangerous ones for their age, but when they tell you they can't find something, don't go find it, ask them when they had it last.  Ask them where they usually use it.  Ask them when they last saw it--play Socrates and help them learn to ask the type of questions that can be used to narrow down possibilities.  Don't teach them a set of "right" questions.  There are no right or wrong questions.  And there are no right or wrong answers.  Critical thinking will not lead to a single yes or no response.  It is an inquiry.  It may take multiple inquiries to find a way to do a thing that works at all.  It may take many more questions and searches to find the way to solve a problem that is both do-able and effective, economical and efficient.  The old --"more than one way to skin a cat", while a disturbing image to we cat-lovers is the quintessential  essence of critical thinking.

Of course, while thinking critically requires some creativity, it also requires discernment.  It is not enough to someone to brainstorm how to get to the planet Mars on a bus for an hour.  Imagination is a great, wonderful, and productively happy thing, but critical thinking also involves making choices about function, about availability, about the whole reality of a thing.  The only way getting to Mars on a bus becomes viable is if you change the name of a space craft to a bus, then there is time, speed, managing fuel needs, is it coming back or a one way trip, life support, for how many, do you need to consider more than the optimum needs or consider the possibility of some or all crew having an increase in metabolism for whatever reason.  I can imagine myself traipsing around the world on a purple unicorn, but while I can dream it,  but I can not create a living, breathing unicorn, forget getting it to then submit to purple hair coloring solution.

So what am I saying?  How do we teach critical thinking skills?

We teach them every day--or we stomp on them--everyday.  We help our children, our family, our coworkers by letting them think while assisting them in their thinking in an open, no right or wrong answer, you can succeed but maybe not the first time--way.  You model critical thinking.  And that means talking outloud as you think through a problem.  Lettimg them see your process, letting them make suggestions and then explaining in a nonderogatory, noncondescending way, why you can't use all of their suggestion.

And maybe, if you start young, and have patience, one day while you are sharing your process, they will solve your problem in a different but better way than you would.  Be ok with that.  Be proud.

You have now successfully taught someone critical thinking.

TPP and creating a global market.

It's in the news, still.
"The TPP, which will include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, as well as the US, is a critical component of President Barack Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia, a strategy to counter China’s rising economic and diplomatic influence.
The US Congress resumes sessions on June 1 after a 10-day Memorial Day holiday recess."

I want a 10 day Memorial Day holiday recess!

Seriously though, it looks like this thing that "takes NAFTA even further", the thing that made it impossible to "buy American", is being shoved through.


NAFTA (effective 1994) affected U.S. workers in four principal ways.

First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and other states where manufacturing is concentrated. (isn't that where detroit is--was---)

Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits. 

Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market.

 Fourth, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor. The U.S. governing class—in alliance with the financial elites of its trading partners—applied NAFTA’s principles to the World Trade Organization, to the policies of the World Bank and IMF, and to the deal under which employers of China’s huge supply of low-wage workers were allowed access to U.S. markets in exchange for allowing American multinational corporations the right to invest there.
Here is a table showing how things look before and after NAFTA. 
 

year	minimum wage/hour	average annual income	average cost of a car	average cost of a gallon of milk	minimum annual income	minimum to average	Average hourly income	hours of minimum to buy a gal of milk
1938	$0.25	$1,700	$700	$0.50	$520.00	31%	$0.81	>3
1940
1945	$0.40	$2,900	$1,250	$0.62	$832.00	29%	$1.39	>1
1950	$0.75	$3,800	$1,750	$0.82	$1,560.00	41%	$1.82	>2
1956	$1.00	$5,300	$2,100	$0.97	$2,080.00	39%	$2.54	>2
1960
1968	$1.60	$6,583	$2,822	$1.07	$3,328.00	63%	$2.55	<2
1970
1974	$2.00	$9,780	$3,750	$1.57	$4,160.00	50%	$4.70	>2
1979	$2.90	$14,896	$5,770	$1.62	$6,032.00	41%	$7.16	<1
1980
1990	$3.80	$28,149	$16,000	$2.78	$7,904.00	28%	$13.53	<1
1997	$5.15	$35,788	$16,900	$3.22	$10,712.00	30%	$17.20	<1
2000
2007	$5.85	$48,729	$27,950.00	$3.13	$12,168.00	25%	$23.42	<1
2008	$6.55	$48,762		$2.65	$13,624.00	28%	$23.44	<1
2009	$7.25	$48,276		$2.69	$15,080.00	31%	$23.20	<1

In 1982, we had a "recession" which is apparently a lot like a depression but with inflation.In 2007, we had not had the minimum wage earners lower since a minimum wage was started.  The 2 increases to the minimum wage occurred in response to the economic meltdown that occurred in 2007.  Thankfully, we did not have to try the austerity method Europe used, and which has still not worked.
We did not pop back to the sixties or even the 50's or 70's after NAFTA.  In fact, being at the bottom in the USA is still a lot like being at the bottom during the Great depression, and has been since the 1980's brought us Dallas on TV while we had a tent city on our river bank from homelessness. If you  are making more than the average annual income, feel lucky.   That number is elevated by including those billionaire outliers in the numbers.  If you average 1 minimum wage earner in 2007 with one Fortune 400 CEO, then the average income is about 10 billion for those 2 people.  One of those 2 is probably having a hard time with rent and getting to work without making sacrifices in the budget.  The other one doesn't really understand the whole budget concept.  Any new business arrangement that is only aimed at business success, and not at regular people success is not going to produce positive life changes for the majority of us. 
I keep hoping the TPP doesn't happen.  It offers me no personal benefit and potentially causes my descendants a lot of hardship.  I have no problem with a global economy.  I don't mind buying things from other countries.  I hate that if everything is made somewhere else, it won't take much to cause a real problem here.

Every country that has been dependent on someone else to grow their food, make their clothes, make their shoes, produce their medications is at risk of offending the nation that is doing that and suffering an embargo.

Right now, lets start with the basics, food, water, shelter, shoes and clothing, and then head on up the to the more luxurious things, books, electronics, perfumes, coffee (one of my basics), bananas, diamonds, gold, cars and see what we would actually have here if someone decided that we could not import.  Then we can look at what we would have a glut of if we could not export.
 I like the idea of the global economy, but my ideal is more fair trade and less back room politics.  I don't particularly like making rich people richer.  I thoroughly enjoy buying local--local like the flea market and farmers market and not like another branch of wallyworld.  The Walton's have so much money that if they never work again, their great great grandkids would still be rich.  Putting my money in Walmart  is the equivalent of trying to store my water in space--just gone; no hope of any personal return.

So, I would like more global trade agreements, but only if they are based on everyone, everywhere making a living wage.  I want the money I spend on an ink pen from some other country to help the person that made that ink pen buy food and clothes, educational toys, hope for the future of their children.  The thought that I am buying an ink pen that used to be made in my home town, but that the people that worked in that factory are now unemployed and the people that are now making that pen are locked in a dirty bunkhouse between shifts and not even making enough to buy one of those ink pens, that disturbs me.  The thought that the makers are small children, or are owned by the factory, or are in any way being used or abused to make the money I paid for that ink pen and that goes to someone that can't decide if they wants their 5th house to be in a tropical climate or a winter wonderland, that makes me want to write with the burnt end of a stick.

And no, its not just business--its all personal.





 

All things in their time--TPP-all things in their time.

It is all over the news.  It has created a schism between the liberal and progressive democrats.  It has the fond attention of the republicans.  It is up for vote with something called "fast-track" stuck to the middle of it.  Our president wants it and the house has passed it in a state hooked to all kinds of things that sound a little scary, like using medicare funds.

I have tried to read about it.  To get myself informed so I can make an intelligent, rational decision about this thing that is causing all the hoopla.  I have learned little.  The actual agreement is not available for review by us lowly people out there listening and deciding what we think about it all.

Lots of people are for it, some are whole-heartedly for it.  Some are against it because they want a return to "buy american". 

Then there are those like me.  I just want to know what it is.  I want to shine a flashlight into the nooks and crannies to see if there are holes or spiders or boogie men hiding in its highly secretive pages.  How can a law that will affect the country I live in and therefore the people I love and care about and work with and have obligations too NOT be my business.

If the "buy american" crowd is right, and yes they are still shopping at Walmart in their support of their cause, although those Walton kids gave up on that decades ago, then this agreement will take even more of our product making jobs to those overseas. 

If those touting that our labor is as cheap or cheaper than the labor overseas, that means we will have a harder time raising the minimum wage for fear of losing more jobs.  And while the better ranked countries (you know, better cost of living, better standard of living, better education system etc, etc,) won't steal our jobs, those places that have child labor, slave labor, no minimum wage labor, will still be cheaper to make things in.

If we want to be global, we need to help those people being trafficked to factories and those children only valued for their labor and those individuals only seen as an attractively low cost alternative to machines and robotics.  None of those terms have ever been words people that feel loved and cared for, powerful and esteemed, use to describe themselves.

See, I don't just care about our country--I want everyone's life to be a good life.  If I can't save them from themselves, I can at least try to stop them from being victimized by politics, powermongers and corporate greed.  We should all have a chance in which our only enemy is our own occasionally poor choices.

But back to the TPP.  I don't know why it is a secret.  I don't know what is being placed in it that has our President siding with the very people that have fought him for the past 6 years.  I don't know why the people that love to fight immigration, safety nets for the poor, taxes on the rich, and no restrictions on corporate lobbying or tax evasion are so whole heartedly for this.

I DON"T KNOW.

And that is why it I think it needs to set unpassed until we all know what it really says.

I'm Poor---but it doesn't make me a bad person!

From Merriam Dictionary:

poverty

noun, pov·er·ty often attributive \ˈpä-vər-tē\

: the state of being poor

: a lack of something

Full Definition of POVERTY

1

a :  the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions

b :  renunciation as a member of a religious order of the right as an individual to own property

2

:  scarcity, dearth

3

a :  debility due to malnutrition

b :  lack of fertility

Examples of POVERTY

1. He was born in poverty.
2. There is a poverty of information about the disease. 

Origin of POVERTY

Middle English poverte, from Anglo-French poverté, from Latin paupertat-, paupertas, from pauper poor — more at poor

First Known Use: 12th century

Related to POVERTY

Synonyms

beggary, destituteness, destitution, impecuniosity, impecuniousness, impoverishment, indigence, necessity, need, neediness, pauperism, penuriousness, penury, poorness, want

Antonyms

affluence, opulence, richness, wealth, wealthiness

Synonym Discussion of POVERTY

poverty, indigence, penury, want, destitution mean the state of one with insufficient resources. poverty may cover a range from extreme want of necessities to an absence of material comforts <the extreme poverty of the slum dwellers>. indigence implies seriously straitened circumstances <the indigence of her years as a graduate student>. penury suggests a cramping or oppressive lack of money <a catastrophic illness that condemned them to years of penury>. want and destitution imply extreme poverty that threatens life itself through starvation or exposure <lived in a perpetual state of want> <the widespread destitution in countries beset by famine>.

Medical Definition of POVERTY

:  debility due to malnutrition <evidence of poverty in calves>
 http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/how-we-ignore-poverty-and-blame-poor-people/

Right now, today, on any station or channel, in any workplace or church, you can hear people discussing poor people.  It is never discussed from the "I am a poor person" position.  It is always about "those poor people" and no one is saying it like it is funny or they are so cute.  Poor people do not have the same effect on us that pictures of kittens do.

We blame poor people for stuff--lots of stuff.  Poor people lower property values, make the urban areas look less attractive, clutter up their yards, rent in slums, drive clunkers, wear old and frequently stained or even dirty/smelly clothes--especially when they are coming home from work. (what? what?)  They wear cheap shoes.  If their state will let them, they use SNAP--used to be food stamps, but that is low tech, and have subsidized housing where they get help with that $1000/month rent in the place-well, I wouldn't live there, or pay that for it, but they are living in high rent places--for poor people.  All that raises my taxes because everyone knows that my taxes are all going to the poor people entitlement programs.  They cause high crime rates where ever they go because they are immoral and ungodly.  They make all kinds of money selling drugs and sex, and individual cigerettes.

Now, lets flip that pictures, because most of the above paragraph was obviously not quite right.

Poverty affects about 16% of the United States population.  It is not equal everywhere.  New Hampshire has a less than 8% rate of people living below the poverty level.  Mississippi has more than 21 % living in poverty.  The poverty level in the contiguous states is $11,770/year per single person with an additional $4160 allowed for each additional person that lives in that house.  There are programs that help with buying a house (working poor) and programs that subsidize rent (section 8) and frankly finding any information about those online is impossible.  I have talked to people that received assistance and it is a complicated and demeaning process and they have to go through it multiple times a year.  In our state, if you don't have a mental illness or a physical disability/chronic illness that prevents work, you must have a dependent child.  Homeless people, who frequently have medicare or a SSDI check are homeless due to inability to get rent and food and medications with what they qualify for.

Poverty is not genetic, but if you are raised in poverty, your chances of continuing in poverty are good, and getting better every year we blame poor people for being poor.  

To get out of poverty, and that is the first link a poor family must break, a person needs 4 things: 

• Adequate nutrition to ensure that they make it to their full genetically determined height and optimum brain development.  (currently childhood hunger and malnutrition--which can be present even in the presence of obesity--fat is not healthy--we need some of the good kind, but it is not all we need)
• Good education programs from early childhood education through higher level (graduate school) so people can fully utilize those well-nourished brains)  Currently, education in those areas with the poorest people are the lowest achieving--and no--that is neither the teachers' or the poor children's fault, it is past time to fix a system we have known didn't work for more than 20% of the population since the 1940"s.
• Role-models--this is not a slam at poor adults but a reality check.  I cook like my mother; have work ethics like my father and fashion sense like my father; my neighbors showed me what other kind of routines people had, my relatives hammered me with a sense of right and wrong, and all the choices I made before 20 were based on what I saw in my little world.   I think that is how most of us learned as children, that is how the world works until we are able to get an older and more experienced perspective..
• Last but far from least--opportunity.  The opportunity to accomplish our dreams.  The opportunity to become anything we want.  If I take my well nourished brain in its perfectly made body with its great education and a working knowledge of how a successful individual from a successful family in a successful neighborhood does things, and then find that I still can only get a job paying minimum wage because I am not "the right person", skin color, gender, religion, accent, whatever, how long am I going to keep plugging away in an upright and appropriate manner.

Humans love to say they are for the underdog, but in truth, we demonize people that are  "not like us" and we love to blame the victim.  If you have a very hard life, no breaks, no success, then unless you are saint-like, you deserve everything you get.  We all want forgiveness for our frailties, but don't want to forgive.  We are competitive, we like to be better than someone, to beat them.  We jockey for position and don't want to lose any advantage we might have.  We need poor people, and unlucky people and helpless and powerless and uneducated people so we are not the ones being looked down upon. Poor is a comparative term, not an absolute.  It is all perspective.

So, could we eliminate poverty completely?  There will always be people with less fortune than others.  but we can break the poverty cycle.  Reality is, if every single person in the USA made the same amount, we would all make about $44,000 per year.  That is a four times more than poverty level and a good sign no one needs to be there.  And that is per person, not household.  The people in this country are very productive.  But while I can not give a single example of a nation in which everyone shares equally in the national adjusted net income, I do think that we could easily stop people from being hungry, homeless, without access to good education or good healthcare and the last two, which are the hardest, require nothing more than the people with advantages, share.  Be a role model.  Look in the mirror and examine your own prejudices and fears, your own beliefs about people that are different, that look different, believe in a different version of god or in no god, that speak differently, that do not fit your version of "professional" or "educated" or "socially acceptable" are treated around you are not given the hand up, the break to a better job, the offer of more power, because they are not like the other people already in those positions. Our prisons are full of somebody's babies.  They didn't hope that for them?  And if they are there for drugs or stealing food or not being able to find a better role model than the local drug dealer, which is the successful person in a neighborhood without hope or opportunity, if they are there for prostitution or shop lifting or check kiting, well, maybe our modern jail is just a new version of "poorhouse".  Those are definitely the petty crimes of the poor and desperate--and angry.  What teen or twenty-something has never been angry when they realize that those things on TV, on the "reality" shows, on the sitcoms, in the malls will never be theirs.  First we believe the hype about "The Land of Opportunity", then we get angry because we believed.  We hoped.  We dreamed.  But those were never supposed to be our reality.

They could be.  

Our nations biggest goal should be to end poverty this generation.  Clean it up, make it fair, stop the hate, stop the greed, stop the "crab in a bucket mentality", stop the "whack a mole" mentality.

We can all have plenty.  It's not a competition.

 



http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/how-we-ignore-poverty-and-blame-poor-people/ 

Democratic Socialism---is that a oxymoron?

The United States of America is a federation of states with a republican government, a capitalist economic system and a few social programs that came about during the great depression.
Let's compare us, the US, for variables that we will discuss further down the page.

Healthy Life Expectancy (thank the WHO--no, its not a band anymore)
1. Japan
2. Australia
3. France
4. Sweden
5. Spain
6. Italy
7. Greece
8. Switzerland
9. Monaco
10. Andorra
24.  The United States of America

Health Care Systems (followed by their healthcare expenditure per capital ranking in parenthesis)
1. France  (#4)
2.Italy (11)
3. San Marina (21)
4. Andorra (23)
5. Malta (37)
6. Singapore (38)
7. Spain (29)
8. Oman (62)
9. Austria (6)
10. Japan (13)
37. USA (1)

Mother's index from the WHO
1. Norway
2. Finland
3. Iceland
4. Denmark
5. Sweden
6 Netherlands
7. Spain
8. Germany
9. Australia
10. Belgium
33. USA

Income Inequality

1. Chile
2. Mexico
3. Turkey
4 .USA
5. Israel
6. Portugal
7. United Kingdom
8. Spain
9. Greece
10. Japan

Crime rate per capita--Violent and nonviolent

1. USA
2. United  Kingdom
3. Germany
4. France
5. Russia
6. Japan
7. South Africa
8. Canada
9. Italy
10. India

Murder rate per capita

1. Honduras
2. Venezuela
3. Virgin Islands
4. Belize
5. ElSalvador
6. Guatemala
7. Jamaica
8. Lesotho
9. Swaziland
10. Saint Kitts and Nevis
108. USA

Least Murders per Capita

1. Liechtienstein
2. Monaco
3. Singapore
4. Japan
5. Iceland
6. HongKong
7. Kuwait
8. French Polynesia
9. Bahrain
10. Indonesia
108. USA (We are right in the middle)

Prisoners per capita

1. Seychelles
2. USA
3. St. Kitts and Nevis
4. Anguilla
5. Virgin Islands
6. Barbados
7. Cuba
8. Belize
9. Rwanda
10. Thailand

Highest on the Democracy Index in 2013

1.  Norway
2. Sweden
3. Iceland
4. Denmark
5. New Zealand
6. Australia
7. Switzerland
8. Canada
9. Finland
10. Netherlands

Top Social democracies

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. Netherlands
4. Canada
5. Sweden
6. Norway
7. Ireland
8. New Zealand.

The USA is on neither democracy lists---we are a republic that is currently trying to remove all social programs and  make everything a business--for profit-- schools, prisons, retirement, healthcare, all those very human community needs that will be governed by greed and how to jerk a little more money out of human suffering and human frailty.  Right now, Vietnam comes closest to a purely capitalistic nation, but we seem to be preaching for that pride of place, while building our Oligarchy of the rich.
 A republic (from Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which power resides in the Citizens  and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law.  We are currently trying to place the power in the hands of the monied through those laws.  At that time, as is true in all Republics, removing the citizenship of those that aren't "the right people" can change everything.  What if it were decided that to be a citizen, one had to possess real property, or had to have a certain amount of net worth to be a citizen?  (Feudalism and the dark ages come to mind)

We in the USA, have been taught that the governments of the world are on a continuum with
1_CAPITOLISM ___________________________
10Fascism/Communism_
                                                                                            

In truth, it would be more of a line like the one below, and balance is the answer.  Freedom to starve to death and be used to death and to suffer in inescapable poverty is not really what liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness is all about.
-10Pure Capitalism___________________________
_0 Social Democracy_________________________
-10 Pure Fascism

                                                                                 
I removed communism, because, while Karl Marx loved the term, no one has ever been able to control a revolution of the people fighting a Oligarchy well enough to stop it while the people still ruled.  They have all stopped at a fascist state where once again the people lose.  Some Ideals just are too hard to put into practice.

What is Capitalism?

Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights. Politically, it is the system of laissez-faire (freedom). Legally it is a system of objective laws (rule of law as opposed to rule of man). Economically, when such freedom is applied to the sphere of production its result is the free-market.
Capitalism is closely tied to Social Darwinism--basically the belief that the meanest,  and greediest should win because they have the best genes. (this is only true if you use money as the score card)

Aren't Public schools Social Programs?

By the 1840s, a few public schools had popped up around the country in the communities that could afford them. However, that smattering of schools wasn't good enough for education crusaders Horace Mann of Massachusetts and Henry Barnard of Connecticut. They began calling for free, compulsory school for every child in the nation.
Massachusetts passed the first compulsory school laws in 1852. New York followed the next year, and by 1918, all American children were required to attend at least elementary school.

The schools were never because the poor children were crying for a good education but rather the new factories had no one to work in them.  Machines had diagrams, labels, and instructions.  It wasn't like pulling a plow behind a mule.

Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few.

If you were raised on the knee-jerk reaction to the word "socialism" and made it through this, there is hope for our regular people.    Now educate your friends and family.

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/05/11/worlds-happiest-countries-social-democracies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
a definition and history

 http://chartsbin.com/view/6kx 
 above link is to a map and definitions of types of governments.

 http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/05/11/worlds-happiest-countries-social-democracies
 article comparing research on happiness and types of governments

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/22/10-startling-facts-about-global-wealth-inequality/
article and graphs on wealth inequality world-WIDE

/http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/
graphs and maps with rates of such things as alcoholism, cancer and heart disease

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src24
 article on global poverty with great links for more information at the bottom of the article.

joy and aspirations

Over the years, I have heard dozens of things that are the "one difference between animals and humans".  Most of them left me wondering if there was any difference.  But then I hear "the one thing humans do that other species do not is aspire". 
All my life I have heard we humans are not animals.  Since I have always loved animals and was raised by 2 parents that also loved them, I never understood why that differentiation was even necessary.  Apparently, it is needed when treating them like assets and resources.  "Don't name farm animals, it makes it hard to eat them."

I have heard farmers and hunters and mean little boys, that animals don't feel pain "like we do" and they don't get scared 'like we do".  I have also heard from those same people that it is best to not chase something right before you kill it as it makes it taste "gamey".  Translate this, its pumping out adrenaline and that copper-penny taste in your mouth when you are terrified, that goes all through the meat.  Sounds a lot like fear.

I have heard religious leaders go on and on about God giving us stewardship of the planet and use of all the planets and animals of the earth.  That only the humans have souls so using the animals is not bad.  It is what god made them for.  Those same leaders have gone through shifts in thinking and also determined that women (that didn't have souls before) have souls and people of other cultures (what would have been called "savages" in less politically correct times--read "not like us") have souls.  I'm thinking that those soul experts may not have much more idea about all that than the average 3 year old--or turkey.

I have heard scientists complain about soft-hearted animal lovers anthropomorphizing animals, giving them attributes of love, caring for their young, having friends, playing, mourning their dead, communicating and being emotionally ill--depressed, sad, happy, confused.  I have heard later studies that showed that those same attributes, while ascribed to instinct in the animal, were then considered to be present due to the change from dissection to understanding animals to observation to understand animals.  And while memories were though to be decidedly human, we have all seen dogs responding to their missing human returning after a long time, elephants recognizing a specific elephant from years before. 

So that leaves us with our human search for god, our soul, and aspirations.

I don't know why humans search for god, or seek answers to why we exist or think we have a soul.  None of those three things are knowable about animals because we can't really know anything about them with humans.  We humans speak to each other, but not to animals.  The old assumption that people that didn't speak our language therefore they were not smart, did not know god or have souls was long ago proven to be a case of poor communication.

I do know animals feel joy.  I have seen it in their faces, watched it in their movements, or maybe I'm just anthropomorphizing.  I have seen birds sitting in a ray of sunlight after it has rained for days, and they have their heads up and their eyes closed and a look of pure peace.  I have seen a dog that is not a very good dog so seldom out to run, take off running like a maniac, grinning like a fiend and tail flying while he runs fast and hard and comes back around repeatedly.  I have seen a cat that settles down after alone all day, snuggles in, purrs and rubs  and kneads whatever is close.  I have seen joy on the faces of elephants in videos and joy on the faces of big cats when the person that raised them comes to visit.  I have seen it when an animal that used to always be next door comes for a visit.  It is hard to describe but I know it when I see it---it looks like more than happiness, it looks transcendant.

But Aspirations.  A strong desire to achieve.  Not just people-pleasing.  NOT just attention-seeking, and Not just trying to become rich and famous, but the desire to actually achieve a thing that has not been achieved before--either personally and/or by mankind.  Animals can like attention and treats and pats on the head, can be competitive (prey and predators are both competitive).  But the aspiration to get humanity into space, to build a tower to heaven, to see an atom, to create world peace, to end poverty---to aspire--that is something I have not seen in other species.

Joy is good.  Joy is great.  But to aspire to something that moves us all to a better place in history.
That would give us all joy.

immigration and magnet schools

In the 1960's, the large city near my little neighborhood decided to fix their segregation problem and meet national requirements by starting a Magnet School program.  It was award winning at the time.  The reality of it was less sparkling, though

The High School they decided to turn into the magnet was an all-black school on the north side and it represented the neighborhoods of the northside, which was also segregated.  They did not stop everyone that would go there due to geography from going there, but they halved the people that went from the neighborhood, sent the half that was no longer automatically in that population to small, poor but white schools that weren't that far away or busing them across town to the all-white high schools.  They then upped the curriculum, added college classes, advanced classes, better music, art, science, and math classes and went from 3 sports to the addition of things like tennis, golf etc.  They then had the white students apply to go there based on their strengths.

Soon the school had the best band, chorus, won the academic awards, and those students that were just going there became the losers.  They eventually made all the students apply.  It was and is a better school, but by pulling the talent out of the other schools, a lot of students lost sight of students that excelled and those students that attended the school, that might have been valedictorian at their old school were now just one of the crowd.

Time passed, and the northside, southside, westside, eastside divisions became pockets of poverty and hopelessness with only the magnets and charter schools to provide hope.  The wealthy sent their children to the same prep schools that they had always sent them to.  The upper middle and determined to moved to the suburbs where the schools were best according to test scores and sports opportunities.  Now, instead of racial segregation, we were segregated by money.  The cities schools are in a constant fight to get off the failure to succeed list.  The teachers are threatened if they don't succeed, so the best move out.  The cities attempt to deal with segregation without really fixing the problem has made everything worse.

So now we  (not me personally,  no one asks for my opinion but I seem to have one about everything--read this as the USA and other countries that are experiencing growing pains and blaming it on immigration) are trying to halt the immigration of the wrong people.

We don't want more poor, uneducated, desperate refugees seeking to replace their unsafe homeland with something that won't kill them and we don't want more hopeless, unprepared but aspiring people  that seek the land of opportunity coming over and competing with our own hopeless and unprepared but aspiring children and relatives by working for less money.

What we want, is for the well educated individuals that are willing to do those jobs that we don't have anyone trained to do, those talented individuals that can help us move up in IT or Medicine or Research, to immigrate here and also to work for a little less.  It would be helpful if they looked like what we expect well-educated, intelligent, successful people to look like, but as long as they are willing to assimilate, they are welcome.

People mostly immigrate for three reasons.
1. They are refugees--something, a natural or manmade disaster (war, fire, tsunami, huge earthquake, volcano, coupe, genocide, human trafficking) has taken their home, made it unsafe for themselves or their family, and driven them out.  No one chooses to be a refugee.  No one can safely stay in the country they called home when they are a refugee.
2.  They are hopeless--The country they were born in has shown them that they will never be successful, they are the wrong color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or they have a physical or mental disability or a set of beliefs that place them at risk for starvation, beating, imprisonment, ostracism, and believe that there is another place where they can find hope.
3. Adventurers--those people that see every opportunity as an adventure.  They are risk-takers, shakers and movers, lunatics.  They are also not the most common group immigrating.  These individuals are much more likely to get a visa, or fly in on a kite, then go home when the adventure is over.  This also seems to be the only group the USA really wants to deal with.  "Come on in, spend your money, share your thoughts, leave when you have nothing else to give us."

While Columbus may have been that winning #3 candidate, adventurous and going home when he has what he wants, the rest of us got here via immigrants of the first 2 varieties.  We were trafficked, be were bond servants avoiding imprisonment, we were religious outcasts, tenth children of poor people, hopeless, ostracized, seeing our only future in a new land.  Three hundred years ago, no one was turning anyone away.  One hundred years ago, our nation was starting to squawk if the faces were too brown or the religions too diverse.  These days--we only want the cream.

Why would the cream of the crop of a nation migrate?  For a better country? A better paycheck?  Why?  We are not number one in the USA for most things that make people that already have their choice of places to go and salaries to request  make that choice.

We are attractive to people in places that have no freedoms.  We are attractive to people that see us as accessible on foot and having some chance of living--not dying.  We are attractive to people that have no idea what it is like in real life.  Our TV shows make us look like everyone has money and opportunity.  Our homeless people, our prisoners, our children and women that have been forced into prostitution or into slave labor, they aren't on the TV sitcoms.

And our hate, we do not put that hate on TV.  We do not show that the same thing that made states and cities have to come up with plans to stop segregation, exist.  Our melting pot is full of people that think their way is better, their genes are better, their religion is better, and their brains are better than those people that are not like them.  The people in power whine when the opportunities they were born with are offered to people that have never had those opportunities before.  We are so afraid of competing with people we view as inferior and being proven wrong in our assumption of superiority.  We believe there is a limited amount of resources and opportunities and sharing might mean not having either for ourselves or our loved ones.

Can we become a more secure, less hateful, fearful, acquisitive, greedy,competitive, judgemental nation?

I think I'm counting on it. 

Bernie Sanders--I'm in.

Bernie Sanders announced his run for presidency and I'm in.
I'm in, not because I have always wanted to be a socialist---which I remember when I was young hearing the actual definition and not really understanding why it was such an evil thing, but accepting that everyone else must be right. 
I'm in, not because I have a problem with a female president--I would be in if it was Elizabeth Warren also.
I'm in because the words coming out of his mouth match the votes coming out of his work in congress.
I'm in because he is still fighting for the people he represents and not wealthy, corporate donors that want one more vote to do the thing that hurts the regular people while ensuring ongoing power and money flow to those that already have plenty of both.
I'm in because I promised myself that if there was a candidate that was not the same ole-same ole politician, read--"snake oil salesman", I would do my part. 

So, I'm in.

And I'll be annoying a lot of friends and relatives with my inability to avoid religion and  POLITICS for the peace of family gatherings.  I'll be beating whatever drums I can find.  I am going to stay true to what I believe and share that---because the land of my birth and 14 generations of ancestors and all the descendants I have, is currently being threatened by greed and corruption and bigotry and hate. 

I want to be part of the solution, and the solution is not to roll over while we return to a feudal system with rich land owners and power monger and poor peasants that work  constantly to live their short, brutal lives.  I don't want to live through a French revolution or A Russian revolution or A Chinese revolution--all brought on by systems in which the rich and powerful thought it was all right to treat everyone else as if they were disposable assets whose purpose it was to make those rich folks lives easier.

I am not a bit player in my own life drama.  My life matters.  And everyone currently in prison for bad choices they made trying to deal with their own hopelessness and poverty, their lives matter, and everyone currently homeless because the system allows for that, and everyone that is ridiculed for using SNAP because minimum wage won't pay for food and a place to live and a way to get to work and school supplies and daycare, they matter.  Every person that wants to further their education but can't go to school and work fulltime, everyone that wants to get an education in a field that is so undervalued that the salary won't pay the student loans, their lives matter.  And every young man of color that has been pulled over for looking suspicious and been disrespected or pistol whipped or shot for talking back or not moving fast enough--their lives matter. 

Look around you.  If you can see anything that is not fair;  if opportunities for self-improvement are not within the grasp of someone your care about because your own family is not successful and powerful; if you are afraid for you offspring in the current climate, or for the safe retirement of your parents or for yourself,  you too know it is time to fix the problems. 

There is still time.  There is still hope.  But turning off the news is not the answer.  Ostriches don't really stick their heads in the sand, but humans that are scared definitely do.

Be Brave.  Vote for Bernie.