We Need a National Discussion on Race and Racism

We as a people have never had a conversation about race.  That is a sad fact.  Race and racism have of course been discussed by groups and between people, but we have never had a national discussion.  There has never been a national reconciliation about race and racism.  Not even after the Civil War. 

Given all the challenges we currently face stemming from confrontational polarized politics, it may seem like the wrong time to bring up this topic.  But nevertheless for the future health of our country and for the future wellbeing of the 12.7% of our population which is black, this discussion must take place.  And in order for it to take place, people need to have a clear understanding of the history of the African-American experience in this country.

Many books have been written on this topic, or at least with such a title.  Many of the books tell about all the contributions of African-Americans, whether it be in science, government, music, etc.  To me, these books seem to be trying to convince both whites and blacks that African-Americans deserve to be valued.  But this tact has not and will not change white America’s attitude because it does not address white feelings of difference, feelings of fear, or feelings of superiority.

Then there are books which very clearly and in great detail tell the facts about slavery, the civil war, emancipation, and the more recent past including of course the Civil Rights movement.  The most moving and insightful of the books that I have read was W.E.B. DuBois’ The Soul of Black Folk.  These books powerfully relate the injustice that African-Americans have as a group suffered over the centuries.

But surprisingly, none of the books that I have seen, except for books about African-American radicals like Malcolm X, provide a frank assessment of the lives of blacks, especially average blacks, in modern America.  How they are treated by white America.  

This is an essential part of waking America up and having the discussion we need to have.  For there is a general impression among many whites that African-Americans have been given so much preferential treatment and have so many rights that it is their fault if they are still living in poverty and ignorance.  According to a 2016 PEW report, 38% of whites feel that the country has made the changes needed to give blacks equal rights.

What follows is a very brief attempt to clearly outline the African-American experience in this country.

First of all, who were these people who became enslaved?  They were free people living normal lives, having various roles in their mostly rural communities, who were captured by either black or white slave traders.

In 1790, just after the adoption of the Constitution, there were 680,000 black slaves (19% of the population) and 58,000 black freemen.  By the outbreak of the Civil War, there were 1.8 million black slaves (approximately 12% of the population) and 360,000 black freemen.  The vast majority were plantation slaves and their life was toil, fear, and degradation.  They were the property of their owners and could be used, bought, sold, and killed at the whim of their owners.

After the Civil War, after emancipation, there was a brief period in the South where some blacks started coming into their own, owning land and attaining political office, but that quickly changed as the Federal government supported the white power structure, Reconstruction ended, and the era of Jim Crow laws came into being.  While no longer slaves, blacks had no de facto rights and could be summarily punished or even lynched for offending the white power structure.  They were poor and downtrodden, with nowhere to go.  Their hopes that came with emancipation dashed.

In the North, the 13th Amendment didn’t really change the lives of blacks much, except in the border states of Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky where there had been substantial numbers of slaves.  Blacks in the North were mostly, with several well-known exceptions, looked down upon before and after emancipation by the general population.  It’s true that abolitionists didn’t think anyone should be a slave; it was immoral.  But like pro-life Evangelicals, they didn’t think much about what happens to the freed slave.  The assumption was that if you are free you can take care of yourself.

The Great Migration of blacks to the North that began in 1915 changed their lives in many ways and did open more opportunities, but they were mostly segregated in slums and had few opportunities beyond manual labor or service.  Their lives were certainly materially better than living in the South, but they were still a mostly uneducated, looked-down-upon class by white America.  The “American dream” was not available to them.

During the 20th century, a black middle class and professional class did grow that was able to materially partake of the “good life.”  But this accounted for a relatively small percentage of blacks.  Most were stuck in the ghetto living under terrible conditions and with only minimal educational opportunities.  In 1966, 41.8% of African-Americans were poor.  Life was still a dead end for many.

The Civil Rights movement brought more rights for African-Americans and improved the lives of many:  23% of blacks aged 25 and older had college degrees in 2016, 50% of black households had incomes over $43,000 in 2014.

But it did not substantially change the lives of many blacks.  While the poverty rate fell, 26% of blacks were still poor in 2014.  

So where do things stand today?  Regardless of the metric … income, education … black Americans still lag substantially behind white America.  College degrees: 23% blacks v 36% whites.  Median household income:  $43,000 blacks v $72,000 whites.  Poverty rate:  26% blacks v 10% whites.   Unemployment:  10.3% blacks v 4.5% whites.  One statistic makes the stubbornness of this inequality despite improvement very clear:  median black household income today, while almost twice as high as in 1967, is just what white household income was back in 1967.

Putting aside material advancement, which is undeniable, the Rights movement did not much change the attitude of white Americans towards black Americans.  Discrimination is still pervasive although often less obvious.  Thus even if one has “made it,” blacks are still conscious of their unequal standing in the eyes of whites.  According to the 2016 PEW report noted above, only 8% of blacks think that the country has made the changes necessary to give blacks equal rights, while 43% think that the country will never back the necessary changes,

Even before the empowerment of the ALT-right movement by the Trump administration, discrimination against blacks and a feeling that blacks are not as smart or good as whites, or were “different,” was endemic in America.  Republicans even want to take away their vote whenever possible.  While surveys show that whites generally approve of the principle of racial equality today, when it comes to implementation in the workplace or schools, for example, less than 30% think the government should take action to insure equality.

Many whites, especially Republicans, and some blacks as well, place a large share of the blame of poverty and the lack of advancement on blacks themselves.  And to some extent this is true; for most people, education and advancement must be gone after, it’s not given to you.  

But after having been beaten down for generations, lower class blacks need to grow up in a culture that encourages you to have thoughts of education and advancement and provides the means to implement your thoughts.  Middle and upper class blacks go to schools and have role models that do that.  But lower class blacks live in a culture where neither their family and peers nor representatives of the government power structure they have contact with provide that encouragement or the means to implement.  For them, life experience makes it very difficult to imagine that their lives could be different.  A large new study of intergenerational effects on social  mobility makes this clear.

Now let me address the feelings of fear, of difference, of superiority that lie behind continuing racism, whether at a very low or aggressive level.  First of all, what is there to fear?   Even assuming that blacks would rise up in violent revolt, this is not the 1860s South where black slaves accounted for 38% of the population.  As to fear of individual black men, our fear is based on the knowledge that we have mistreated blacks and made many prone to violence.  If we treat blacks like human beings, then there would be no reason to fear.

It is true that African-Americans are different from WASPS and most other ethnic or racial groups in this country.  But then they are all different from each other.  At one time, that difference caused discrimination and even violence between groups.  But we’ve gotten over that for the most part.   The time has come to get over that regarding blacks as well.

And as for superiority, if a group that has the advantages that white Americans have enjoyed for centuries doesn’t score better, have more degrees, and make more money there would be something amiss.  There is no inherent intelligence difference between the various races.  That canard of race “science” has long ago been debunked.  Give blacks the same social support and opportunity that whites have enjoyed since the Civil War and in time they will reach the level of education and income of whites.  There will always be blacks who are poor and uneducated, just like there will always be whites who are poor and uneducated.  It has nothing to do with race, it has mostly to do with opportunity,

The point of this short primer is that despite emancipation, despite all the laws that protect civil rights, despite integration, and despite the undeniable improvements in the material living standards of large numbers of blacks, most African-Americans have never realized the true fruits of freedom because they have never experienced equal opportunity in anything from the government or society at large.  Starting most importantly with equal opportunity in primary and secondary education.

They are still not truly free in a very important sense of the word.  We are still far away from Martin Luther King’s dream of one day all people being able to join hands and sing, “Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Joe Biden — 3 Strikes You’re Out!

Joe Biden is a good man, intelligent, experienced, and may have a very good chance of defeating Trump in 2020.  But he should not be the Democratic candidate for President in 2020.

There are at least three reasons why Joe Biden should not be President.  First, Joe Biden was not just against busing and affirmative action in the 60s and 70s, it’s the reason why.  He saw no reason why white people today should have to pay for the suffering of black Americans over the centuries.  “I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.”  

The language he used in opposition to civil rights would have done George Wallace proud.  Yes, he has become a strong supporters of civil rights and allied himself with Barack Obama.  But in between he was also a tough on crime Democrat who said in 1990, “One of my objectives, quite frankly, is to lock Willie Horton* up in jail.”   He was a proponent of legislation that led to the mass incarceration of black men.

Perhaps he has truly reformed.  But a man who so consistently appealed to the racial fears of middle-class white America should not be a Democratic candidate for President.

Second was his handling, as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, of the confirmation hearings of Judge Thomas as Supreme Court Justice and the testimony of Anita Hill.  Just this past Tuesday, he said that he regretted that he “couldn’t” give her the kind of hearing she deserved.  How disingenuous.  He certainly could have had he wanted to.  But he didn’t.  And perhaps even worse, he made the decision not to call other women who were waiting to testify regarding Judge Thomas’ sexual harassment.  It is thanks to Joe Biden that we are stuck with Clarence Thomas sitting on the Supreme Court.

Third, while there have always been some questions about his interactions with women, a former Nevada state legislator has come forward recently with an accusation of inappropriate touching.  Not groping, mind you, but nevertheless inappropriate, intimate touching.  “He leaned into me from behind, inhaling my hair, and kissing me on the back of my head.”  This was not an innocent peck on the cheek.  And this was not 30 years ago, this was in 2014.  

In response Biden said that “he did not believe he acted inappropriately,” but admitted he had made “expressions of affection” over the years.  Whether he then believed he acted inappropriately isn’t the question.  It’s whether he now admits that he did what was claimed and that in retrospect, by today’s standards, it was inappropriate.  That’s the answer that I would have wanted from Biden, but politicians rarely admit they made a mistake, even when caught.

We have to recognize now because of the #MeToo movement how frequently women have had to submit to such unwanted behavior by men with power.  It may not have been socially or politically incorrect at the time, but Joe Biden should have known better and been in greater control of himself.

Yes, Joe Biden might be able to win back the white middle-class vote.  But this is not the man who should be leading the Democratic Party and be President of the United States … certainly not at this moment of time.

* Willie Horton was a black convicted murderer who got a weekend furlough while Michael Dukakis was Governor of Massachusetts, didn’t return, and committed several crimes including rape before being arrested.  He was used by Republicans as an example of Dukakis being soft on crime during his 1988 presidential campaign.

The Multi-Faceted Road to Freedom

With the current president in office and the dysfunctional political climate in the country, it would be easy to focus on nothing but our current problems and how to move the country back to a state of sanity and rationality.  While that is of utmost importance and so must consume much of our time and effort, we/I would be negligent if we did not also continue to reflect on the larger issues that impact our society.

Human history has been a story of the powerful and the oppressed, the haves and the have nots.  The drive for survival focuses man on gaining power, the more the better, since when you’re fighting for survival one can never be secure enough.  And since having power by definition means having power over others, that sets up the age-old dynamic of human society.

This power dynamic is evidenced at all levels of human interaction.  Even within the family, while usually not oppression, there’s often a power struggle between husband v wife, sibling v sibling, or parents v children.  In school it’s mean girls/bullies against those they consider “lesser” beings.  In the larger world, it is or has been men v women, Christians v Jews, WASPs v Catholics, whites v blacks.  Go to any country and you will find the same dynamic, even in Buddhist Myanmar.  The list is endless.

In our society we have tried to lessen the impact of this dynamic, to free people from oppression, through the establishment of rights.  The effort has not been to change the oppressor’s mindset in any direct way, but to change his or her way of interacting.  To end discrimination.  And to provide a legal recourse for those who are discriminated against.

This has been a worthy effort to make our democracy and human relations more just.  But the effort has two major shortcomings.  

First, we can pass all the legislation we want, but if we do not change people’s attitude towards the group in question, discrimination will still occur on a regular basis.  It’s true that giving people rights has had some impact on the oppressor’s mindset, but there has been little fundamental change, especially where the bias runs strong and deep or the oppressor feels threatened by the oppressed’s potential.  Yes, there will be less overt discrimination, but much will still exist and only that which is called out through a law suit will be stopped.  

The fact is that we have not even discussed the underlying mindset that creates these problems.  We as a nation have never really had a discussion about race or women.  We’ve had a bit more discussion about sexual orientation in recent years and are starting to have a discussion regarding gender identity.  Until there is a nation-wide, humanity-based, discussion about these issues, nothing fundamental will change.

Second, while the passage of rights laws has been a critical necessity, we have done little to assist the oppressed to improve their lives regardless.  It is a maxim of spiritual teaching that we each have the power to change how we experience life, regardless the circumstances.  Thus, for example, the serenity prayer, with my exposition (…), says, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change … which is the way my life is right now at this moment.  The courage to change the things I can … which is how I relate to myself and the world around me.   And the wisdom to know the difference.”

The first part of the prayer is usually met with substantial push-back from anyone who approaches it.  We don’t want to accept the way things are.  But the prayer does not mean or require that you don’t attempt to change the environment in which you live; it just means that you accept that right now at this moment it is the way it is.  It is an essential step if one wants to experience peace in the moment rather than mental stress.

The second step of the serenity prayer as it normally appears, “The courage to change the things I can,” is usually just greeted with a shrug.  Because it is interpreted as meaning changing the circumstances we live in and having the courage to do that.  That is a tall order in many if not most circumstances.  And so it leads many to feel that they are failures because they don’t have that courage or ability.

Yet this is not the real point of the second statement at all.  The universal spiritual teaching is that all we have the power to change is how we relate to ourselves and the world around us.  That is what gives us the power over whether a situation causes us stress and unhappiness or whether we are at peace regardless.

Before going further and discussing this powerful teaching, let me first talk about the word “peace” which I’ve used several times.  It’s not a word that we usually think of as possibly applying to ourselves in any practical way.

As an example, let me quote from my forthcoming book, How to Find Inner Peace:

“Peace. What a completely foreign concept this was to me. How can anyone be at peace or serene unless they’re a saint? Since I was a young child my life had been filled with inner turmoil, despite an outwardly happy home and relationships. And in looking around at my peers and family, and at the images of the larger culture, I didn’t see anyone who was at peace. … Yet I knew in my gut that peace and happiness, a life free of suffering, was a rational, reasonable goal. The question was not whether but how? 

…

“First then, what exactly is peace?  Peace is the absence of fear, anxiety, hatred, guilt, shame, doubt and confusion … or better put, it’s not the absence of these emotions but not being controlled by them. It’s also being free of an intense desire for things you don’t have or to be someone other than you are.”

So how do we as individuals and as a collective group change the way we view ourselves and the world around us so as to experience peace and happiness, rather than fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, etc.?  Books have been written by many, including me, to answer this question.  But let me try to answer it briefly by looking at some specific examples.

Feminism:  The founders of feminism understood that if the lot of women was to improve, it was not just a matter of gaining certain rights vis a vis men; women had to change their attitude about themselves, what was possible, not be controlled by the confines that men had set for them.  So even without or before gaining rights, women could improve their life experience by changing their self-image.

Blacks:  At the turn of the 20th century, well before the real push for civil rights, Booker T. Washington led a movement to improve the lives of blacks through self-help, both in education and business.  But because he did not confront the oppressive regime, his was a one-pronged approach and he fell out of favor and influence.

Later, while the push for civil rights was going on, there were others in the community that were addressing how blacks could improve their life experience by changing their self-image and stop resorting to destructive behavior both towards themselves and other blacks.  They sought to build a supportive community.  One such movement was the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH and PUSH-EXCEL.  The other movement was the Nation of Islam.  

While the central goal of Operation PUSH was to improve the economic position of Blacks through various means, in his weekly sermons Jackson preached the uplifting of his people.  Nina Simone’s song, “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” became an anthem of the movement.  And through PUSH-EXCEL he sought to improve Black and minority student performance in inner city schools and help them stay out of trouble.

A more divisive, although in many ways effective, approach was taken by the Nation of Islam.  It believed that Blacks could only improve their lives if they disassociated themselves from the surrounding White culture.  Instead, it sought to have Blacks adopt the strict morality of Islam to improve their lives and support one another.  While the Nation achieved many good things for its people, it was unfortunately built upon hatred of the white man.  And nothing good spiritually develops from hatred.

LGBTQ: For the LGBTQ movement, the spiritual emphasis, while pursuing legal rights, has been changing the self-image from one of shame to pride.  And as more and more LGBTQ people responded to that message and came out to family, friends, and colleagues, people found out that LGBGQ were a part of their everyday lives, that they were in essence no different from themselves, and so more people came to support the movement for equal rights.  Coming out created the environment for equal treatment, not changes in the law.

The point of these group examples is that regardless what the rest of the world is doing to you or how they are reacting to you … and this applies to individuals as well as groups … you have the power to change your life experience for the better.  By believing in yourself, by treating yourself well, and by having the courage to move forward with the things that makes life meaningful for you, that speak to your heart.  

In my post, “The Next Wave of Feminism,” I discuss the need for each woman to enter into an exploration of who she really is,  as opposed to who they’ve come to think they are based on their life experiences and our culture, so that she can truly decide what is best for her.  Every group must help their members free themselves from the confines that the rest of the world has placed on their narrative story.  

With women, for example, it’s not a simple matter of saying “no” to motherhood or being a housewife; that is more a statement of rebellion, not of deep inner exploration. One must be truly free of the past in order for each individual to decide what choice is best for them … for some it will be being a housewife and mother; for others it will be going into business or the professions.

There will always be lots of obstacles, with or without legal rights, but if you are true to yourself you will always be at peace.  For you will be one with your heart, and you will not allow anyone to take that feeling away from you.

What Are We Celebrating on July 4th?

July 4th ... Independence Day ... is fraught with symbolism.  It's the beginning of American exceptionalism, the beginning of America taking its place on the world’s stage, the beginning of freedom and prosperity for Americans.  

There is no question that 1776 marked the beginning of America's feeling that it was exceptional and that its moral voice coupled with its growing economic strength gave it a place on the world’s stage.  But what of freedom and prosperity?

We all know the famous lines from the Declaration of Independence, crafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson ... “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.”  

These were truly revolutionary words.  They have given America’s elite something to crow about.  And they have given the mass of Americans, especially the disadvantaged, something to hang their hopes on for more than two centuries.  This was the basis of the American dream.  But what were and are the facts on the ground?

Those that benefitted from our independence were primarily those with business interests, who were now free of the yoke of English taxes and control.   Then as now, business interests were the main “client” of government ... indeed, back then you could only vote if you owned land or had enough wealth to be taxed, so those were the constituents ... and they prospered then as they do now.

As of the first census in 1790, 18% of the US population (700,000 out of 4,000,000) were slaves.  Their status certainly did not change with American independence.  That would have to wait another 85 years for the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation.  Of the Founding Fathers who were slave holders, only George Washington freed his slaves, upon his death.  Jefferson did not even do that.

The status of women ... the wives of the founders and the mothers of their children ... did not change at all with independence.  They remained chattel with no rights for a century, slowly achieving some rights in the later 1800s, and only won the right to vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Over the last century, there can be no question that both women and, to a lesser extent, blacks have improved their status in all areas of American business and life  But there can also be no question that even today neither have reached anything approaching equality with white males and that broad discrimination persists. 

And then there are the Native Americans.  They had a status lower than slaves because they were of no use to anyone.  They were just a heathen barrier to be gotten rid of when their presence interfered with American interests.   Our genocide of the Native American (and what else can it honestly be called) is breathtakingly chilling.   Manifest Destiny had no room for equality.  

And as for general prosperity, while it is true that we all have more now than we did … more education, more modern conveniences, creature comforts … it is also true that there is greater inequality between the richest Americans (top 5%) and the rest then at any time.  If you look at broader groups ... top 20%, middle 40, and bottom 40 ... the income distribution has remained pretty static since independence.  So we really haven’t achieved much of anything on that point.

So what are we celebrating?  Some moving, aspirational words which we have still not managed ... or if truth be told, even tried very hard ... to implement.  As President Obama said, “We can do better.”

We are celebrating the birth of a nation whose unbridled capitalism was able to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the natural resources of this vast country and a bottomless pool of cheap immigrant labor to make this the richest nation in the world.  We are celebrating a rapacious America which, while being the leader of the free world, despoiled the environment and took advantage of the mass of its powerless citizens, leaving a damaged people and landscape in the wake of “progress.”

Instead of celebrating so hard and patting ourselves on the back for how great America is, we should use this opportunity to rededicate ourselves and our institutions of government to implementing those words of the Declaration of Independence: “that all men are created equal,” “that they have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and that the role of government is to “secure” those rights.  We should never forget that in reality most of our citizens have little cause to celebrate if they stopped to think about it.

The Case for Civil Disobedience

Millions of disheartened people across the country and many organizations are trying to figure out how to respond to the recent election.  The common denominator for most seems to be anger.  Some want to protest.  Some seek to prevent Democrats in Congress from working with Trump in any way, regardless the worth of the project.                                                  

I would urge a different tack in dealing with the very painful and serious situation we face.  I would make the case for civil disobedience on a massive scale in the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The United States is a representative democracy.  Once the President and representatives are elected, the democratic tradition is for all to respect the vote and abide by majority rule.  Opposition both in the legislature and among the populace continues to play an important role in the formation of policy, but that opposition is expected to be civil and the laws obeyed.

But as Thomas Paine famously wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”  In the history of our country, we have had various times that have tried men’s (and women’s) souls.  To name just a few:  the debate over slavery, the Depression, the McCarthy witch-hunts, the Vietnam War,  the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Robert Kennedy, and now the simultaneous election of Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress.

The public has reacted differently to these various crises.  The debate over slavery ultimately resulted in the Civil War, but most of these times have been met by the public with a spirit of resignation, broken only by scattered violent outbursts.

The civil rights movement and Vietnam War were however major exceptions for two basically different reasons.   The civil rights movement was a cause against such moral injustice that it ultimately became impossible for many black and white citizens to continue to react with resignation to racism and segregation.  

Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr, that upwelling of spirit demanding justice became a force of dignified civil disobedience, a la Gandhi, and not violent demonstrations or riots.  And as in the case of Gandhi, MLK’s tactics worked, not in bringing about peace and harmony, but in bringing about laws that protected civil rights and made equal opportunity a priority.

With Vietnam, I don’t believe it was so much the immorality of the war or its futileness that brought about the protests, it was the direct impact that the war had on almost the entire population because of the draft.  And because the country was clearly not under attack or direct threat, unlike WWII, people felt free to oppose and protest.

But the Vietnam protests were not dignified peaceful protests in the spirit of Gandhi.  These were typically angry, ranting, often violent, protests.  And they did not bring about an end to the war.  Instead, I believe they helped Richard Nixon in his 1968 Presidential campaign.

Now we once more face a crisis because President-Elect Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress appear hell bent on striking out at various groups in a decidedly un-American fashion.  Whether it’s Muslims, undocumented Latinos, LGBT people, or women, fundamental human rights (not always legal ones) are being threatened.  Certainly the spirit of the words of our Declaration of Independence are being violated.  

And although Trump and elected Republicans have clearly not spoken out against Jews, the white supremacy groups that have been empowered by Trump’s hate-filled campaign rhetoric are unleashing violence against Jews, as evidenced by an increase in hate crimes this year reported by the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Together with increased attacks against the groups that have been vilified by Trump, this poses a real threat to our civil order and any civilized concept of human conduct.

Given the scope of these threatened un-American and immoral acts, it is the civic responsibility of the populace to protest such actions through peaceful civil disobedience.  There is no need to wait till Trump moves forward with his plans; indeed, by then it would be too late.  The people must act now in order to show Trump and his Republican colleagues that their proposed actions and the actions of the more extremist of his supporters do not have the support of the American people … even those who voted for him out of desperation. 

A number of cities have already stated that they, and their police departments, will not cooperate with efforts by the Federal government to deport undocumented Latinos.  Many people have signed a pledge to register as Muslim, even though they are not, if Trump proceeds with a proposal to initiate a registry for all Muslims in the country.  These statements show the beginnings of a movement of civil disobedience. 

But to be effective, we need peaceful demonstrations of civil disobedience that are massive, held across the country in every state, and visibly inclusive of Americans of every faith, color, ethnicity, walk of life, gender, sexual orientation, and political party, as well as those who don’t subscribe to any party or religious faith.  Ideally they will include people who voted for Trump.  Only in this way is there a chance of convincing those in government to back off from their more extreme plans. 

This does not, however, mean total non-cooperation.  If Trump and the Republicans propose, for example, infrastructure projects that would benefit the American people, it would be irresponsible for Democrats in Congress to not support such measures.  Such support would not be incompatible with the spirit of civil disobedience.

This is a time for all 64,000,000 of us who voted for Hillary Clinton as well as the millions who voted for Trump out of economic despair and other reasons, not hatred, to come together and say to Trump, “Yes, rebuild the country’s infrastructure, create jobs, but be, as you pledged, the president of all Americans.  Respect human dignity and the equality of all.”

For this to happen will require extraordinary leadership, cooperation among organizations, and discipline.  The leadership and cooperation necessary is obvious.  The discipline is needed to keep these demonstrations from degenerating into anti-Trump, anti-Republican rants and to keep them peaceful.  The object here is to persuade, not beat up.  If it is not done properly, it should not be undertaken at all because the result will only make the people look weak and ineffective.

The choice is the people’s.   We can either sit silently by while our fellow citizens are singled out for legal attack by the government and physical attack by vigilante mobs or we can stand together with those under attack, peacefully, massively, in a show of civil disobedience against this violation of the American spirit and in support of government’s duty to respect the human dignity of all people.

Back to the Future, But Not Too Far!

We are a country that is obsessed with the future, with facilitating the next phase of our “progress.”  In the process, we have lost our collective, our societal mooring to what has made the United States a great social and political experiment.  

As I’ve noted in previous posts, our society is dysfunctional in many respects.  But there are two central problems.  One is that virtually all political power is now in the hands of major corporations and the rich; they call the shots in Washington, not the people.  The other is that these same actors, as well as many average citizens, seem to have no concern for the welfare of their fellow citizens, and in the case of corporations, their workers.

One can place a band-aid here, and another there.  But that will not change any of the basic problems that we are facing and which are pulling the United States down from its great potential.

I have therefore argued for a revolutionary change in attitude and perspective on the part of our political parties and citizens.  This revolutionary change is not to something “new,” some utopia, but rather back to ideals and standards that served this country well and made it strong during the 20th century.  

In the first 125 years of our country’s history, things were pretty much a frontier-style free-for-all.  Each person for himself.  People who needed help generally weren’t helped, and those who were on the make pretty much got away with anything they tried.

But at the turn of the 20th century, the country took a progressive turn in its politics under Republican President Theodore Roosevelt.  The government and people saw that things had gotten out of hand and that there was massive inequality in power and wealth in the country.  Because such inequality did not square with our founding ideals, there was a realization that government needed to become a more active player to insure that the average citizen wasn’t exploited, and that power was more evenly distributed.

Thus, during the first 20 years of the new century, the progressive income tax was introduced, the robber barons were regulated, massive holding companies like Standard Oil were broken up, and workers were given the right to unionize.  And women were finally given the right to vote.  

As I state in my book, We Still Hold These Truths, a social contract developed that gave practical shape to Lincoln’s famous, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”  There was an increasing emphasis on a balance between rights and obligations, between business interests and the public good, with each person contributing to support the government’s efforts to level the playing field, each according to his ability.

Following the 1929 stock market crash and the resulting Depression, government saw the need to increase its role both in providing a hand to those in need (for example, the enactment of Social Security) as well as regulating the excesses of big business (for example, the Glass-Steagal Act).  In the mid 1960s, Medicare was enacted together with a host of measures to further improve the balance and fairness of our society. 

Congress also passed major civil rights legislation in the 1960s, although it must be said that while these laws resulted in certain improvements in their lives, the basic standing of most black Americans in our society and the conditions in which they lived and were educated were left virtually unchanged.  And they were still frequently subject to various forms of both institutional and private discrimination.  (See my posts, “The Mirage of Civil Rights,” and “Our Failed Economic/Social/Political System.”)

But I don’t want to overstate my case.  Needless to say, throughout these progressive periods, there were plenty of people, both in Congress and in the populace, primarily Republicans, who were against both measures to regulate business and efforts to increase government spending or other efforts to help those in need.  Even during the Depression and its immediate aftermath, there were people, and not just the rich, who literally hated FDR!  In 1932, the height of the Depression, Roosevelt only got 58% of the popular vote when he ran against Hoover, although he swept the electoral vote.

In this regard, it should be noted that regardless of the huge changes shown in the electoral vote map, indicating landslide years, the popular vote has never been a landslide.  For example, in 1972 when Nixon got 96% of the electoral vote, he received only 61% of the popular vote.  Likewise, when FDR got 98% of the electoral vote in 1936, he got only 62% of the popular vote.  The country has historically been quite divided.  

Then along came Ronald Reagan, the same man who had campaigned vigorously against the enactment of Medicare, who as President famously said that, “Government is not the solution to the problem.  Government is the problem.”  Reagan didn’t invent a new movement.  He just gave voice and a popular face to deep feelings that have always been held by a large percentage of the voting population, legitimizing those perspective.

The fervency and bitterness of these feelings grew and deepened over the following years, culminating in the Tea Party movement and the current crop of Republican radicals (they should not be referred to as “conservatives”) in Congress.  What they, led by the billionaire Koch brothers and others who back them, want is nothing less than a return of this country to its 19th century ethos, when it was each man for himself, without any interference from or help by the government, of course with the exception of Social Security and Medicare from which most of them directly benefit.  Unfortunately, they don’t see the irony in this.

What I am calling for is a return to the 20th century ethos (Reagan excepted) of balance and social responsibility plus a changed attitude towards black Americans.  

This is not a soak the rich movement or class struggle.  It is a movement that seeks a return to the ethos where we are all part of a society, that recognizes that many people are born into situations that place huge obstacles in their attempts at pursuing the American dream of happiness and equality, and that those who have made it, who have benefited from the system, have a responsibility as citizens to help the government in its efforts to assure that all have true equal opportunity.  

In this regard it should be noted that for most of the income tax’ existence, the highest tax bracket ranged from 60 - 94%, dropping down to 50% during the Reagan years.  So the current top rate of 39.6%, and even the various suggested increases, are historically low.  It should also be noted that regardless of the tax rate, the rich have always remained rich.

Nor is this an anti-business movement.  The health of our economy and of the businesses that make it prosper are of critical importance to the well-being of all Americans.  Business interests must always have a significant place at the table.  But we have learned all too often that it is nevertheless not true that what is good for corporate America is good for all Americans.  Thus there must be a balance between the needs of business and the greater public good.  Maximizing profit cannot be the sole goal of a responsible corporation in a democracy.  

For example, the New York Times just reported that corporate lobbyists working with their friends in Congress (on both sides of the aisle) inserted a provision in the omnibus spending bill that just passed that continues a tax loophole that benefits casino and hotel owners as well as major Wall Street investors to the tune of $1 billion.  That is to say that our tax revenues will continue to be reduced by that amount from what they otherwise would be.  That is unconscionable.

Nor is this a big government movement.  I for one feel strongly that government should be as small as it can be while executing the functions that are its responsibility.  There should be no holy cows.  Every aspect of government must be justified by the purpose it serves and its effectiveness.

What I seek is simply government of the people, by the people, and for the people … all the people.  Not government of the people  (they do still elect), but by corporations, and for corporations.  Which sadly, is what our government has to a large extent become.

The citizens of this country deserve better.

The Mirage of Civil Rights

It is not uncommon for white people, especially Republicans, to ask what black people and other people of color are complaining about.  “They have all the civil rights of white people, and even had advantages vis a vis whites when affirmative action was a major component.  If they’re still living in less than desirable conditions or don’t have good jobs, it’s their fault.  They’re lazy.”

Talk about the inability to see past your own hand.  Talk about ignorance.  Any objective observer looking at the social/economic/political scene in the United States in 2015 would come to the conclusion that while there indeed are laws on the books that protect the civil rights of people with color, and many have made advances in the past 50 years because of those laws and the change in some people’s attitudes, the vast majority of people of color still suffer from daily discrimination in almost every sphere of their lives.

The fact is that civil rights, or equal opportunity, for people of color is a mirage.  Regardless what area of life one looks at … education, housing, health, employment … people of color, and especially blacks, continue to suffer from substantial discrimination and an almost total lack of meaningful equal opportunity.

In my post, “Our Failed Economic/Social/Political System,”  October 2, 2015, I discussed this lack of meaningful equal opportunity, the causes for its continuing presence, and the proper role of government in changing the status quo.  And so I will not enter into a detailed discussion here.

There is little one can do to stop de facto discrimination in the short run, because people’s attitudes are hard to change.  It is, however, the responsibility of government, civic, and religious leaders to speed up the process by raising the visibility of this issue by speaking the truth about equal opportunity and forcefully denouncing discrimination as unacceptable… not just once or twice, but on a regular basis.

But as I made clear in that post, the problem is not just discrimination “on the ground” by white people against people of color.  The problem is in large part institutionalized discrimination that is the result of unequal funding of education for people of color and a health care system that remains unequal despite the improvements of Obamacare.  

With regard to institutionalized government discrimination, I quote the closing of that post:

“If we are to reclaim government of the people, by the people, and for the people. then we must find a way to get big money if not totally then mostly out of politics.  Public financing of election is one obvious way.   There may be others, but that is not the topic for this post.

This will require an aroused electorate, because this will be the first test of the power of the people v the power of corporations.  (See my post, “How the Koch Brothers Hijacked the Middle Class Revolt and How To Take It Back.”)  Only if there is a popular movement so strong that members of Congress know that if they do not implement the will of the people they will be turned out of office does this have a chance of getting passed into law.”

People of color must join forces with poor whites and the diminished middle class to fight for this common cause … the return of government to the people by getting big money out of politics and the political process.  There is no more important immediate goal for those interested in creating a more just America.  Until that is achieved, little or no meaningful progress will be made on the various individual substantive goals.

Insecurity as the Cause of Social Conflict and International War.

In my previous post, I addressed the problems caused by widespread insecurity ... abuse and violence in personal relationships and in social interactions, as well as much unhappiness and stress even without those particular outcomes.  But insecurity also plays a major role in the larger issues of social conflict and international war.

For hundreds if not thousands of years, there has been a divide in most societies between the haves and the have-nots.  Whether we look at the English nobility, or the WASP establishment in the United States prior to 1960, Southern whites, or the caste system in India, the haves put in place a system which protected their interests and kept “others” or the masses from having the power to be a threat.  

The reader might look at these leaders of society and say that they were immensely secure; that this is not an example of insecurity causing conflict.  But I would argue that they were only secure because they had put in place these systems, which they did out of insecurity and fear.  They were at some level afraid of “others” or the masses gaining power.

The English nobility put in place a system where there was little upward mobility, and then only to a certain point.  The English class system ... which was the gate into good schools and good jobs ... was firmly in place until after WWII; many would say it still is.  Politically, even after election reforms in the 1800s which gave a political voice to men who either owned or rented property worth a certain amount, the House of Lords, which was the province of the nobility, had the power to veto what they didn’t like until 1911.  

In the United States, the WASP establishment until around 1960 had a pretty exclusive grip on all handles of power.   Whether someone was Jewish or Catholic, let alone black, all “others” were excluded from the seats of real power, for example, WASP law firms, country clubs, and private clubs.  Representative politics provided a path to elected status for many of the “others,” but real power was reserved for members of the WASP establishment until well after WWII.

In the South, whites from the highest to the lowest socio-economic groups put in place and violently supported a system in which blacks had no rights, or what rights they had were systematically denied them.  The language may have been one of superiority and security, but here more than in the other instances I discuss, the fear of losing control was always close to the surface and apparent.

Today in the United States, while we live in a very egalitarian society in many respects and there are many laws protecting the equality of people, discrimination based on fear and insecurity is still a major issue.  Much has been written, for example, about the vehemence of the Tea Party’s and Far Right’s attitude towards President Obama as being in large part based on their fear of blacks’, and other people of color, gaining more social and political power as the majority status of whites in this country begins to fade away, an opinion with which I agree.

And this is not just a Western phenomenon. For example, the caste system in India, which until relatively recently was very rigid and still causes many problems, especially for those formerly labeled “untouchables,” was an ancient system devised to keep everyone in their place and protect those with power from those below them.

As to the issue of international war, the issue of insecurity is more visible.  Virtually all alliances and wars have been an effort to make countries feel secure against the threat of enemies, real or imagined.  Even the strong have constantly been worried about attacks on their hegemony.  And understandably so.

Obviously, in the larger social context and international relationships, the problem is not directly that children, spouses, and others are not loved unconditionally.  However, the basic dynamic resulting from this which impacts interpersonal relationships ... a feeling of insecurity, of not feeling safe, of needing to project strength to counter such feelings ... directly impacts  actions in the larger social and world arenas.  If those in positions of power felt love towards and from all, then there would be no need for both the national and international systems that have ultimately caused much suffering in the world.

If everyone were raised with unconditional love, listened to deeply, and spoken to with loving kindness, then man would not grow up to be the way man is now and has been for millenia, at least in so-called “advanced” societies.  

So far I have discussed the impact of man’s insecurity vis a vis others and its impact on his relationship with other individuals or groups.  Another major aspect of man’s insecurity that has affected the course of human development has been his insecurity vis a vis nature, read broadly.  It is this insecurity that resulted in the development of religion, from the earliest to the current leading religions.  

Man formed religions to answer questions of why nature and other aspects of life are the way they are, and most importantly to provide a way for man to impact their course, whether through sacrifice in ancient times or through modern prayer.  And since religion was formed in answer to man’s insecurity, it is not surprising that it was made to serve his other insecurities, whether it was providing a respectable foundation for the continued practice of slavery or lending its authority to a country’s going to war against enemies.  Far from being the bringer of peace and understanding, religion has thus been the hand-maiden of war and untold human suffering.

And so, the book I’ve written which has just been published, Raising a Happy Child, is relevant regarding these larger issues as well.  It is available through www.ThePracticalBuddhist.com. as well as through the major online retailers and your local bookstore by special order.  While based on Buddhist principles, the lessons it contains are applicable regardless of ones religious affiliation.  For more information about the book as well as the Table of Contents and sample text, go to the website.