Well, You Know, We’d All Love to See the Plan.

-from the 1968 song Revolution by The Beatles

The winds of change have been blowing for many decades here in America. They have managed to stir up a few tornados in the business of being a citizen here but since we entered the 21st century those winds have blown mostly a torrent of anger and violence that we either can’t or won’t address to bring us to a balanced center where we can sit down at the table and negotiate for a settlement of our deep differences. You can blame the right or you can blame the left but it all boils down to people who are too selfish and spoiled to do the hard work that peace requires.

I hear many people speak about all of the things that are wrong in this country every day. Politicians say this, religious leaders say this, economists say this, legal experts say this, and the common blowhard says this at the dinner table and on social media and in the faces of anyone not fast enough to get away from their speeches. So what is the answer to a society that has gone off the deep end and is drowning in hatred and resentment, poverty and a lack of empathy? To begin, we will have to find one common ground issue that we all can agree is affecting everyone. What is that issue? There doesn’t appear to be one unless you count the congressional anger about Tik Tok. One could assume that we all want to live our lives in the best way possible but the truth is that a lot of people don’t want all of us to.  Many of our citizens do not give one damn about the survival of anyone other than themselves. To have come to this point should be terrifying to all of us but it isn’t.

The town that I live in used to be a lot nicer than it is now. In the last few years, I have seen it turn into a dirty and dried up community of haves and have nots where the affluent have migrated to the outskirts of town and left the city center to rot. A few attempts at reviving the area within the city limits have been made but they mainly focus on tearing down condemned buildings and replacing them with restaurants and areas where one can walk through the city at night carrying a cocktail in a paper cup, or not replacing them at all. One end of the Main Street looks quaint and festive and the other end looks like total crap. Everything is a half-assed job here which serves only a small portion of the population now and the rest can be damned. So where would you find a common ground in a place that never even considers what the quality of life might be like at the other end of the street? You won’t. It does not exist in the minds of those who have the power and the resources to bring us toward a common ground. This is the situation everywhere, and too many people are fine with it.

So, for everyone that I hear pointing out all of the injustices in this country I have yet to see their plan for getting us all on the same page to correct this inequality. How do you change the people’s minds when they are fine with the minds that they have?

You tell me it’s the institution.

In the 1988 film The Last Temptation Of Christ, the character Pontius Pilate, played by David Bowie, tells Jesus “It simply doesn’t matter how you want to change things. We don’t want them changed.”  Socialism, Communism, or Marxism, any “ism” that you want other than Capitalism falls upon deaf ears too much of the time. The “haves” in America put up a mental block to them many decades ago. Too often our words do not penetrate through that block. Why would they want to give up the great position that they are in? Why should they be willing to have a little less on their plates so others can have more? When you must explain the why in this to people, you are dealing with closed minds and hard hearts. To make a dent in their point of view you would almost have to put them in a time machine and take them back to infancy. As an adult, you will not see what you don’t want to see. Even if your reasoning for changing the world is sound and logical they would see no legitimate argument. Allowing pain and misery is easy if you have already sown up your argument with “it is their own fault”. They won’t debate that point with you because they don’t have a leg to stand on in reality and they know it, but capitalism is an institution that in their mind is untouchable.  In the film, it had been prophesized that Rome would fall but they were too arrogant to believe it. It did fall, though. The predictions are here for the collapse of capitalism as well. If their own actions make this prophecy real, will we have sense enough to build up again with a better system? Armed with a sense of direction for that right now, we absolutely will.

You ask me for a contribution.

Bernie Sanders wrote in his latest book, It’s Okay To Be Angry About Capitalism that the average contribution that his campaign received during his 2020 run for the Presidency was $18.50 and the vast majority of the contributors were average citizens. If he were to run again in 2024, I could probably give that much in support this time but I might have to skip dinner for a couple of nights to do it. That’s how bad things are now. It should not be, but those who worship the god capitalism are not being told not to starve us out and take away our livelihood. Bernie is certainly a person worth donating two potential dinners to but the choice should not come down to that. That it would for many of us reflects a warped set of priorities put upon us to keep a warped system going.  Bernie has always remained steadfast in his message and ideals on what needs to be done in America and he proves it every time that he speaks. Support for him is a no-brainer even when the chips are really down and the fish is too.

A great many of our representatives in Washington were born in the 1940s and 50s. They were around during the time that the song Revolution was playing on the radio, and when there were many people protesting about civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, and the Vietnam War. Many of them participated in the protests, but except for a few, these people seem to have forgotten how to care about anything except profit and their position.

But if you want money for people with minds that hate…

There is a reason why we tend to hear more in this country from angry and resentful people. It is because a ton of money is being made from the internet and nowhere near as much is made from brick-and-mortar businesses. I have heard that many Amazon Go and Whole Foods stores are going to close.  Anger and hate words trigger algorithms lightning quick and peace, love, and solutions to problems are not conducive to making money. So, if you wonder why you hear more about the rude and reckless attitudes in the mainstream, this is why. It is more profitable. Does anybody care about that? Not if they are the ones reaping the benefits. Anger and hatred get attention faster than any other topic and it gets converted into chaos and criminality every single day. The profits are enormous and it doesn’t matter if these prompts are lies. Once the money is made who cares?

You say you’ll change The Constitution.

I have my doubts about this one because you don’t have to change it to get what you want. All you have to do is reinterpret it and it has been proven that they can take away any freedom that they want. If this doesn’t frighten you not much will, but so far it has been quite acceptable to do this as long as it is someone else’s freedom that is being lost. Yes, there are many who realize how wrong this is but so far, their voices are not loud enough to make a difference.

You tell me that it’s evolution.

Yes, I would tell you that. The troubles that we now have could very well evolve out of the culture after a time. We sometimes outgrow childishness and stupidity, but if we wait for an evolutionary change, I fear that the current generation would not live to see it. I also fear that the planet won’t survive the slow winds of evolution. De-evolution is another story.  It has the pedal to the metal. There has been a sharp decline in balanced human behavior that reminds me of barbarians. At first it reminded me of the Old West where there was lawlessness and a disregard for anything that got in the way of what a disconnected man saw as an easy road to success by virtue of having two guns strapped to his hips. When the citizens grew tired of living with people like this, laws were enacted to put a stop to it. We are now beyond that. Scammers are constantly calling us and sending deceptive texts to trick us out of our money.  Guns are everywhere and few attempts have been made to stop it. So now the rule of the gun and the rule of lies is used whenever we don’t like something. That is enough to intimidate a great many of us and keep us afraid and distracted enough to stay out of the other rule which is corporate greed is good. If you doubted it before try buying an affordable car or renting a house at an affordable price. How much more are you spending per month on groceries than you were last year?

You say you’ve got a real solution.

If after reading this you still have a plan for a workable revolution, please tell the rest of us. When John Lennon wrote the song change was a real possibility. But even back then it was going to require more cooperation than many of the people in this country were willing to offer. By the time the 1960s protesters reached their 40s most of them had abandoned the causes. The children that they had couldn’t relate to the struggles that their parents knew so the old problems came back and it truly shows that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Will future generations know about the problems that we have today? Will there be textbooks that tell the stories of our struggle for fairness and equality or will they all have been pulled from the school libraries and never be spoken about? Stock your personal library now and pass it along to the next generation because it may be the only record left of how we worked for their future at a time when too many of the people lived like there was no tomorrow. Your children are going to be the keepers of what we were and what we stood for. The meek (or the weak) are on track to inherit the earth by being beaten and starved into submission by love of profit. The affluent are already looking for a new home to ravage and plunder. What would John think of us now?

Solutions Rooted In The Past

(This clip from 1933's Duck Soup pretty much sums up what happened to Boris Yeltsen when he came here holding out his own hand to America in peace and friendship in the 1990’s.)

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Every month I receive dozens of emails from politicians wanting attention, support, and money from me. I greatly resent their intrusion into my email accounts without having been solicited. How I got on their lists I cannot fathom but they never stop coming in even when it is not an election year. I never open the emails. They are always promptly deleted. These people are wealthy. If they cannot finance their campaigns and ideals themselves, they should get the hell out of politics. Loyalty and support are two-way streets. If I saw a candidate that I really could believe in to work for the betterment of all Americans there would be no question as to them receiving my unwavering support.

I wonder how these politicians would feel if they had to deal with hundreds of emails every day from American citizens who cannot afford basic living essentials, hounding them constantly for food, shelter, healthcare, employment, a means of transportation, child care, clothing, medicines, cellphones, job training, higher education, and…you know...just the things that one must have to get a keep a decent standard of living in this country? Would they resent being asked for these things every freaking day? I resent them asking me for support when they already have their needs met. Paying to promote their affluent careers strikes me as a very low priority when probably ⅔ of Americans have a standard of living that would horrify them to have to endure. We are horrified about it too but since no one is funding our campaigns for basic human necessities, which politicians are looked to for making this country a place where we can have basic human needs met, I cannot understand why they believe that the people should fund their desire for a prestigious job that they never stop failing to do. So much that is happening in our world now is the result of egotistical and vain pursuits that have backfired and plunged us in to a tragedy that we never imagined would be our fate. No one listens to us and no one cares how we feel about the decisions that they make. There is a long history of this and it isn’t just the American people who are suffering from it.

I recently watched a speech by economist Jeffrey Sachs where he spoke about working with the Polish government in the 1980’s to bring the country out of a dire financial crisis that they were experiencing. (Sachs was born on November 5th, 1954, Guy Fawkes Day - “Remember remember the 5th of November.” Fawkes and 12 others attempted to blow up the House of Lords in the British Parliament in 1605 in protest of the treatment of Catholic citizens by a Protestant government. Although Fawkes was not the leader in the attempt, he was the person charged with lighting the explosives and was caught in the attempt.  Too bad that they didn’t have a Jeffrey Sachs type among them to work out a more reasonable plan of action for making their point.). Sachs advised the Polish leaders to enlist the help of other countries and drew up a detailed plan for them to accomplish this, and it worked. Not long after that, he was asked by Mikhail Gorbachev to help the Russian government using the same strategies that had worked so well for Poland. As it turned out, no one was willing to help Russia at all. I have always thought very highly of Mr. Gorbachev. He above all others that I have ever seen seemed to want peace and a good relationship with other countries. That other countries did not want to reciprocate says a great deal about politics that so many everyday people find very difficult to understand. It reminds one of elementary school children who haven’t yet outgrown fear and jealousy.  Some people never outgrow it. When they don’t, there can be no such thing as peace.

Americans have been told all of their lives in the mainstream media how terrible Russia and its people are. One exception to that was TV talk show host, Phil Donahue, who used to have a frequent guest on his show, journalist Vladimir Pozner, who spoke about Russian and American issues. He was intelligent and reasonable and spoke about many things that I never heard anyone else talking about in balanced terms. It was always an amazing surprise to hear people speak in learned and positive ways about the US and Russian relationship with hope that change was possible.

Vladimir Pozner was born in France on April 1, 1934. He shares an Aries birthday with two other people that I have written about on this blog, actor Lon Chaney and economist Richard Wolff, who were and are great spokespeople for the cause of educating people and finding ways to break from past mistakes in judgement toward people and correcting massive errors in the thought processes that have brought us to the point of possible destruction.  Fire Sign Aries will always get things told when others won’t. They are masters at showing us the absurdity of holding on to our illusions of supremacy.

Mr. Pozner’s name is decidedly Russian sounding but he actually lived in France and the US before moving to the Soviet Union when he was 19. There was a show on CNBC after Donahue retired his talk show called Pozner and Donahue which was a valiant attempt to dispel the myths and misunderstandings about current events and Russian/American issues and policies.  As recently as 2018 Mr. Pozner gave a speech at Yale University about how the United States created Vladimir Putin. You can watch his speech here:

He very carefully and without bias explains how and why there is such monumental tension between the US and Russia, and why the situation did not and does not have to be this way.

There is a channel on YouTube called The Sheekoz Family that I watch frequently. It is made by a Russian man named Dan Sheekoz who, with his wife Suzie, has been posting videos for several years. You only have to watch their videos a few times to see that they are good and honest people who just want to live as well as they can in circumstances that are profoundly challenging now. They have thousands of viewers and subscribers from many other countries with a large proportion of them being Americans. Whatever our two countries believe or want to believe about each other, it is clear that the average people around the globe have found a way to see past the profound biases and hatred that governments press upon us to try to insure our support for their continued fear and resentment toward others. The propaganda has never stopped throughout my lifetime and one really does have to look beyond those political opinions to realize the reality that is out there. We absolutely must look outside of the box in order to get past the rhetoric and false narratives of what we are being told.

Below, you'll find a video of Bertrand Russell from 1959. He is asked what he would like to tell people in the future if he could. If we only had listened to these words and applied them in the world long ago, we might have avoided the tragedy that we now live with. We still might evolve away from it if we earnestly try to heed them now. Most of us are just people who want to spend the time that we have left on this earth in peace and with dignity and wellbeing. Practicing tolerance is a major element that must be implemented. Even at this late date it is possible.

When peace was possible in the 1990’s it was thrown away with both hands. Countless wars could have been avoided and countless lives could have been saved. The savagery of the human race has never evolved out of the culture because we refuse to make it so. While it is tolerated and allowed in the name of elitism and financial gain we cannot hope to have a future without war. A World War Three scenario awaits us before long as there are none in power who are willing to stop it. Not as long as Peter Pan and the Lost Boys are in charge and beyond reasoning with.

Where Is Responsibility Bred?

Homelessness is a multifaceted problem, as most problems of the human race are. There could be an awakening on the part of all Americans tomorrow where we realize that we can eliminate homelessness in this country by balancing the imbalance of wealth inequality here and using the surplus funds (and there would be a lot!) and building new communities, refurbishing, and repurposing existing properties and seeing to it that everyone had a proper place to live. I would love to see that happen, but I cringe when I think about what would happen down the road from that.

The town of Scituate, Massachusetts has been hit by massive and devastating storms many times over the years. I watched a news video from there after one of those storms had flooded a large portion of the town. A resident from there told of how her home had been heavily damaged and about all the repairs that would now have to be made. It was dreadful to hear, but at the end of the interview, she said how much she loved Scituate. With devastating storms being a not uncommon occurrence there, you just knew that she would never leave and she would gladly pick up the pieces and remain. I am told that the citizens of Scituate have a unified resilience and dedication to their community. Where does this kind of dedication come from? It would be easy to say that these people care because they are a wealthy community but I have seen that it is more than economics that drive people to take care of what they have.

YouTube is full of video tours of abandoned mansions that wealthy people just walked away from, seemingly unconcerned about doing so. Many times, they leave the place looking like holy hell with trash scattered about, clothing strewn everywhere, and many valuable and useful items left behind. Why should they care? They can easily buy more furniture and necessities. The videos come from America, Canada, France, and probably from all over the world. What makes people care or not care about their world? When I see videos like these, I am reminded that there are thousands of properties that may not be trashed but they are just sitting vacant because some wealthy buyer has purchased them and just left them empty to add to their proof of wealth but have no intention or inclination to allow anyone to live there. As they sit empty until the owner/corporation decides to rent them out there are thousands of people sleeping on the streets who could be sheltered there. Can caring be taught? Does Scituate, Massachusetts have an enforcement office that would throw people out of town if they didn’t take care of their properties? I doubt it.

After hurricane Katrina devastated parts of New Orleans, singer Harry Connick Jr. and others teamed up with Habitat For Humanity to build a Musician’s Village for displaced musicians from there. There is a video on YouTube that showcases their efforts. I understand that the houses are now falling apart and the residents cannot afford repairs. When wood started rotting on the homes people contacted Habitat For Humanity for help but they learned very quickly that the organization felt no obligation to help. They cited the lapse of the home warranty and the fact that the homeowners should have attended classes on how to take care of their homes. So much of the time the sponsors of a help program feel no obligation whatsoever for the residual effects of providing an initial help with a social problem and couldn’t care less that their generosity has opened up a new set of problems for the recipients. It is rather like handing a new toy to a child with no frame of reference to how things will not last if they don’t do continued maintenance to keep the toy in working condition, and then blaming the child for not knowing how to change batteries or how to repair a broken wheel. Home Economics classes used to be offered as electives to middle school and older aged children up until about the 1990’s. Since then, I know of no school here that provides these classes and I doubt that the children would even recognize a need for such a thing now when most of our world runs on computer technology and little if any thought is given to needing a knowledge of basic and down to earth life skills. So, it will not help our people for very long to offer a helping hand out of poverty when it actually takes many hands to support a sustainable situation.

A promotional video was produced back in the 1961 by First National Films to introduce the new community being built in Phoenix, Arizona called Maryvale. The video featured actor/comedian Buster Keaton who was a prospective homebuyer in it and it is great fun to watch.  It was a silent film, as was Buster’s forte when he began his film acting career. The town features some gorgeous new homes for some unbelievable prices. I don’t know how affordable these houses actually were for the people who lived in the 1960’s. I have no idea what the average income was back then but I can promise you that in today’s prices the houses would probably cost 5 - 10 times or more than what they were back then. Maryvale was built as more than a subdivision of affordable homes. It was an entire planned community.

When the video was produced in 1961 it was a beautiful place. Something happened in the late 1970’s and early 80’s that changed everything. The residents up until then had been predominately white people. Some Hispanic families started moving in later which caused a “white flight” from the community and as that happened Hispanic gangs began moving in as well. Crime went through the roof and it was so bad that the police did not want to go there. Those who did try to address the criminal complaints were met with extreme violence and intimidation. As of now, Maryvale is similar to a war zone. All its charm and beauty is gone. No amount of refurbishing could help it now.

I used to live on a street where one house on the block was a rental that the tenants decided to destroy the interior of for God knows what reason. The owner was sick when he saw the damage and it cost him a small fortune to make repairs. He actually sold the property after that and vowed to never be a landlord again.

There are so many stories like that I have heard and there is also the other side of the coin with landlords who rent shacks for a war price and never make repairs. If I owned rental properties, I would be terrified that the tenants would destroy it or not pay the rent as they should. I was a renter for many years and the last person that I rented from told me a few horror stories about some of his tenants. So, if the people of America were to provide housing to everyone here, who would be responsible for taking care of and properly maintaining the homes? If people have no experience in taking care of their homes, will we provide instruction to them? If they destroy the property or terrorize other residents, will we just allow it? Will we deny housing to people based on income or their credit score or criminal history? That is already being done now so if housing becomes mandatory for all how will we keep the neighborhoods secure and in proper living conditions? Until there is an answer for that I do not see us ever having zero homelessness here. There will be no way to drive the cost of renting up to a point where you can assume that the tenants will be responsible “better” people, ever though there is no absolute guarantee that the affluent will take any better care of the place or pay their rent or mortgage on time.

We cannot be sure that we will have tenants who will be responsible citizens so I understand why property owners try to keep out the people who stereotypically get associated with untrustworthy behavior. And even if you did have model citizens who care about keeping their home and their neighborhoods in good condition you would have tenants who would not want to live near them if they aren’t white.

Before we can provide a home for everyone, we need to provide a halfway home of sorts to get people to understand how to get along with each other and provide “home economics” classes to teach them how to take care of their new home. Typically, people are left to their own devices once the job of housing or helping them has been accomplished. Many people think that educating them consists of pushing them toward attending college and while higher education is an admirable thing, they tend to forget that many people don’t even have the basics skills of getting along with others and maintaining a livable home. To forget about those abilities that we automatically assume everyone has is to set up a situation that is doomed to failure. Being homeless should never happen in a civilized society but it does because there are so many uncivilized people in every socioeconomic sector. I wish it were not so, but the truth is that almost every example of inequality here is that too many people just do not want to get along and they do not want to share and they do not want to take care of anything, not even the planet, let alone each other. Do not assign the blame to any group or individual other than anyone who does not understand that the bottom line of everything that is wrong is an issue of don’t give a damn at every level.

Giving a damn is a much more complex task than we really want to tackle. It requires understanding where those we wish to help came from. This mentality has its roots in the distant past and it is a problem that we have half-assed it on for so long that fixing it now falls upon a highly narcissistic and elitist society that doesn’t want to bother with anything that won’t benefit the much better off individuals that prefer to amuse themselves with multi-million-dollar toys, glorifying publicity, and hoarding their wealth. We have allowed them to stay children and have demanded little responsibility from them. This is a problem that needs to be addressed before we can adequately address the fallout that is a result of breeding people who have “Affluenza” and we are oblivious and cannot be bothered to enforce the cure for it. It is a disease that has become an epidemic and is considered to be quite fashionable in too many circles.