America is Not a Conservative Nation

Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed. - Morris Raphael Cohen

I am so tired of this false meme that America is a conservative nation that occasionally flirts with liberal principles. The truth is that the majority of Americans favor those so-called liberal policies that have defined this nation. The policies that created the largest middle-class the world has ever known and allowed many people the opportunity to better their lot in life. So if this is the case then why do we hear so often that this is a conservative country?

I believe that the reason this false premise is allowed to persist is because the true conservatives are the wealthiest amongst us, it is only in their interest to keep the status quo. After all what are the tenets of conservatism? Adherence to the Constitution is one of their favorites, a document that was written by a group of all white male property owners. Imagine if we had not amended the Constitution the state we would be in. Another one they like to espouse is smaller government, which is a euphemism for lower taxes. Then of course there are family values, but those values are “their” family values. Which anyone familiar with the family histories of the rich and powerful would almost surely scoff at the idea of emulating.

If we dig beyond the rhetoric it isn’t hard to see who the main beneficiaries of the conservative platform are. It isn’t the minorities, the immigrants, or the poor it is those who are already established and wealthy. Here is the strange part; this group only comprises about 2% of our population. So how has 2% of our population been able promote and embed this notion of conservatism into the larger population? It has been done systematically and at great expense on the part of the wealthy. We see this scenario being played out today if we look at those “grassroots” groups who are promoting this agenda. If we pull back the sheet we will see that the majority of them are being manipulated by these super rich puppet masters.

Even so you say people should be able to see through this ruse. That is where the folks I like to call the middle managers come in. These middle managers who include the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and the others are paid quite handsomely to pretend that they are just regular folks speaking to other regular folks about the evils that surround them. How is it that whenever we begin to ask the wealthy among us to pay their fair share that we hear the term socialism thrown about by this crowd? What the wealthy have done is hand selected these once regular folks who have the skills of manipulation and believability and promote them as people to be listened to while paying them handsomely to dupe the people. These people do not possess any real expertise on anything but the power of persuasion. How is it that they are constantly being shown to be wrong, misinformed, and outright liars and yet they continue to find a place to disseminate their garbage?

Over the course of the last few decades we have seen an erosion of the media into this obvious propaganda machine and all have played a role. Even those stations that claim to be unbiased have played a role by legitimizing these charlatans in the interest of equal time. There is no compromise or middle ground between right and wrong and good or evil. These outlets are being controlled by conservative wealthy people who behind the scenes manipulate these same outlets into offering up these ridiculous ideas and theories as legitimate alternatives. If this were not true then whenever anyone appeared on any news show and began to speak about tax-cuts and deregulation they would be lambasted. They would be lambasted not because of a disagreement between two competing and viable alternatives but because we have history and data that shows these ideas to be dishonest. But we continue to play this game every election and each newsperson pretends that they have never heard these arguments before and that they have no independent data to quote to demonstrate the outright deceit being perpetrated on the American public.

In the end what we have seen is the inexorable shift to the right based on this constant and unending refrain that we are a conservative nation by nature and that these conservative ideas have been proven true or at the very least untested. How can anyone with a straight face claim these ideas are true or untested? But no one in the media wants to lose their status or job by calling these clowns out for who they are and so the game continues. How anyone can say that America was a conservative country by nature is beyond me. It is obviously someone who is unfamiliar with their history. If we were a conservative people we would still only have 13 states. Conservative people do not explore and homestead in the wilderness. Conservative people do not leave their safety and cross mountains, deserts, and rivers.

It is unfortunate that we have allowed our spirit to be broken by these charlatans and the wealthy. Conservatism by its very nature is a fear of the future and the unknown. It prevents us from being innovative and flexible in shaping a new destiny for all Americans. The reason there has been no innovation in America in decades beyond the entertainment industry is because of this conservative attack on our spirit, the very nature that made us America. The sad truth is that the change or breaking of these shackles won’t come from some media call, but will come from the remnant of Americans who still yearn for freedom of expression not for the gilded few, but for all Americans. Oh and by the way those aren’t the teabaggers.

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future. - Benjamin Disraeli

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Profits Before People

Pruning relatively less-efficient employees like clerks and travel agents, whose work can be done more cheaply by computers or workers abroad, makes American businesses more efficient. Year over year, productivity growth was at its highest level in over 50 years last quarter, pushing corporate profits to record highs and helping the economy grow. - NY Times

Over the last two years I have had trouble keeping the stories straight coming from corporate America. On the one hand American workers are lazier and less productive than their counterparts in other parts of the world and then on the other hand productivity in America has never been higher. It is so high in fact that many companies are doing twice as much work with half the workforce. The good news there is that it makes the companies huge profits. As every student of business knows labor is always your highest expense. The bad news is that the American worker has become so efficient they are cutting their own throats. The proof is in the last two “so-called jobless” recoveries. Companies are using the recessions as tools to cut labor while increasing the amount of work being heaped on those employees who are left.

These remaining employees have seen the amount of work they are being asked to do more than double while their wages have remained stagnant. This has been accomplished with fear of lay-offs or fear of outsourcing jobs to overseas. So I am a little confused the employees have become more productive creating millions in profits for their employers and yet their wages have not improved markedly for the last ten years. I’m no Ivy League educated economist but even I can see that this doesn’t quite add up. How is it possible for corporate America to pull this off? It is simple really and it involves a three prong approach that has been successful for generations and continues to be so.

The first prong is that they convince enough people that someday they could be wealthy too and so it is not a good idea to create problems or taxes for wealthy people because someday they could affect you. Let’s take a closer look at this concept that anyone can get rich in America. The truth is that while this country more than any other offers the opportunity for almost anyone to become wealthy, the truth is that few of us ever will. The idea that you could go from humble beginnings to great wealth is a well worn myth that continues to be propagated in our society. The truth is that less than 40 folks a year get rich by means other than inheritance, marriage, or criminal enterprises. So good luck with that!

The second prong is to convince people that having wealthy people pay their fair share is somehow evil or socialism. You would not know it but the current tax burden of Americans is the lowest since Harry Truman was president. If this is true then why are the tea-partiers and their wealthy benefactors complaining about the government’s assault on working people by over burdening them. Much of our debt could be reduced if we just went back to the tax structure we used under Bill Clinton. The problem in America is that no one wants to pay for anything. Everybody wants free stuff. I can understand middle-class folks complaining about being squeezed but we have the biggest discrepancy between wealthy and everyone else since the “Gilded Age”. Is it unfair to ask those who have received more to pay more? If it is then our democracy and our economic system is a sham.

The third and final prong is the tactic of diversion. The wealthy get the people to focus on issues that divide versus issues that unite. This is the job of their high paid mouthpieces Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Sarah Palin. Their goal is to focus people’s attention on the black and brown hordes who are stealing “our America” and our “way of life”. The one thing I have noticed at all of those Congressional hearings about the economic meltdown, the ecological disaster in the Gulf, and any other current complaint that the tea-partiers are complaining about all of the CEO’s and representatives were not black or brown. They were to a person white and male. So who is really stealing us blind?

If our system is to survive we will have to figure out a way to have reinvestment of some of those billions in profits that have been created not by the overpaid CEO’s but by the productivity of the American worker. I don’t believe that it is only the government’s responsibility to retool the American worker. Is it not also the responsibility of those who have profited from these workers to provide for their future or are they just responsible for their demise?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. - Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The Disputed Truth

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Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

What is it about politicians and rich person that makes them think they don’t have to pay taxes? Not only do they not have to pay taxes but they also do not expect that to be an impediment to continuing to work in the government. In many of their minds all it takes is a sincere public apology and a plausible deniability of culpability and its back to business as usual. While many will argue that the tax problems of some of President Obama’s appointee’s are mild compared to some other President’s recent picks, but is that really the issue? President Obama campaigned on bringing change to Washington that requires actually changing things for that to be a reality.

While I agree with many that Mr. Daschle was a unique pick to head HHS and brings a lot of intangibles that would have helped to get Universal healthcare passed against many intransigent elements but at what cost? Do we believe that he was the only person who could understand and have the experience to get it done? I don’t think so. I believe that there are others who may not be tainted by Washington who can be just as effective. The key for this administration going forward is that it’s not enough to talk change. There are many who have already begun to question how change is possible with so many Washington insiders in the administration. I understand that given the depth of the crisis’ we face as a nation and with the President promising swift action it was important to have as many experienced people as possible to get off to a quick start but the President cannot overestimate his hand. There are forces in Washington and not just Republicans that are not in a hurry to see the Washington system dismantled.

It appears to me based on interviews and the continual reports of Wall Street bonuses despite their horrific performance that what is happening today is so ingrained and systemic that many of these people do not even believe they have done anything wrong. It is amazing to me how often we here the elite class speaking of the lack of responsibility of the poor and their “sense of entitlement” and yet what is rarely reported until recently is the “sense of privilege” by the wealthy. What bothers me the most is the lack of outrage by the American public when the wealthy class and their apologists say publically that they are entitled to these outlandish perks as incentive for doing their jobs. You are telling me that a person who is already earning millions of dollars in salaries and benefits needs more millions of dollars to do their job. And that if they don’t get it they will quit and there will be some sort of brain drain in corporate America? My feeling is with the great job that they have done in tanking our economy so what if they leave whoever replaces them certainly can’t do any worse.

The problem in America is that there is such a negative connotation connected to paying taxes that very few people are angry with those who have found a way to pay little if any taxes. It seems that many believe that when they are able they too will find away to skirt their obligations. Many people who are not wealthy risk penalties, fines, and jail in an effort to not pay their fair share. It reminds me of “so-called” Christians who refuse to provide charity which is a duty of all Christians and yet pretend to be pious. We need to reform our tax codes and create a flat tax rate for everyone regardless of income or position. We remove all deductions and exemptions and everyone pays a flat percentage of income. While no one including me wants to pay taxes in a communal society it is a necessity. Instead of seeing paying taxes as a burden it should be treated as one’s patriotic duty to maintain our society and way of life.

Why do we pay taxes? We pay taxes so that our governments can provide services that we cannot provide for ourselves. The problem is that we all have things that we don’t think the government should be using our tax dollars for and I understand that. However that does not preclude us from having to pay taxes. There is a cost to be a part of a society and unfortunately taxes is a part of that cost. We cannot have the bulk of those taxes being paid by the hardest working people who don’t have tax attorneys and CPAs to hide income and create phony tax shelters. Why is it that those with the most want to pay the least? There are too many wealthy people who believe that paying taxes is optional or only for the little guy. The middle-class in America has been sold this mistaken idea that whatever is good for the wealthy is good for them. We ignore their excesses and greed. We accept their contempt for our society and their utter lack of empathy for anyone but themselves.

The time has come for all of us to step up and pay our fair share. We must no longer accept that there are those above the law and above paying taxes. We must make our tax laws fairer, simpler, and more enforceable. We must enforce our corporate taxes and not as the Republicans suggest reduce them. If we were able to collect just half of what is owed the government by corporations and the wealthy our national debt would be reduced considerably. We must make those who intentionally avoid paying their taxes pay a heavy toll, because they are after all stealing from all of us.

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You Don’t Have To Be A Millionaire

You don’t have to be a millionaire to run for office, but according to the Republicans, it doesn’t hurt. In an effort to demonstrate the level of desperation and corruption that our political landscape has become, the Republican’s are recruiting wealthy candidates for the upcoming House races. The Republicans need wealthy candidates because of their anemic fundraising the last few years, thanks in great part to their Party leader and President George W. Bush. Because this administration and its policies have been so unpopular, fundraising for the Republicans has slowed to a trickle and it is affecting all levels of the Party.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 — Confronting an enormous fund-raising gap with Democrats, Republican Party officials are aggressively recruiting wealthy candidates who can spend large sums of their own money to finance their Congressional races, party officials say.

At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those where Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most vulnerable. They say more are on the way.[1]

The Republican strategy has two major flaws; the first is that just because a candidate has a lot of money it doesn’t guarantee their election to office. In fact in most cases it is just the opposite the candidate spending the most of his own personal wealthy is usually defeated. It seems the voters can usually tell an asshole, no matter how much money he has. The second flaw is that it is immoral; by using this strategy the Republicans are skirting the campaign finance laws. Let me explain, by having these millionaires running for elected office bankrolling their own campaigns they are not subject to any limits on funding. Whereas, if these same “candidates” were just making campaign contributions, their donations would be subject to the current campaign finance laws.

This Republican and others argued that ready access to large sums of money was no substitute for a candidate with the personal qualities and political assets needed to meet the demands of a modern campaign, from an unflappable manner on the trail to an established network of allies and supporters.

In fact, past elections show that candidates who spend large sums of their own money frequently end up losing. In 2006, for example, only 2 of the 10 candidates who spent the most of their own money on their own races for House seats won the elections, according to an analysis of finance records and election results.[2]

The Republicans are well aware of the data concerning the dismal election record of candidates who spend large sums of their own money. Having that information it calls into question this whole strategy except that the goal is not to get these candidates elected. Oh sure if they happen to get elected that would be great, but that is not expected or likely. So then what is the real strategy behind this? It is simply to force the Democrats to spend money on races they normally would not have to spend money on. The goal is to try to take money away from races that are truly competitive to spend on races that are not. Because no candidate can afford to have an opponent spending unlimited amounts of cash without a similar outlay of cash on their part, the Democrats will shift money to the race where the wealthy candidate is recklessly spending away from say a closely contested race.

It is a sad day when you are so desperate that you are not even trying to win, you just want to bloody your opponents. The Republicans have resorted to the scorched earth philosophy, due to their unpopularity and their bankruptcy of new ideas. We can’t win, but we will corrupt the system by dumping enormous amounts of cash for no other reason than we can.

It is precisely this type of strategy that has caused so many Americans to lose faith in our entire political process. Our political landscape is no longer a war of ideas, it has become a war for the sake of war. These two political parties are so entrenched in the warfare mentality, that it is no longer about what is best for the country it is about winning at all costs; give no ground and take no prisoners. If we continue to proceed down this road not only will we have a government that doesn’t function, we will have a society so divided it cannot be governed. It seems that each year we are becoming more and more separate, with each group becoming more defined, isolated, and cut off from debate or diversity. We no longer present our ideas for review in the community square, instead we only present them to those who are likeminded further reinforcing the logic of our argument. If that logic is flawed it never gets to be debated and debunked, at that point it becomes fact.

Today, too many false arguments are being presented as fact on both sides. Rather than investigate and study problems, they have been reduced to sound bites and talk show analysis. Complex problems have been condensed to little more than talking point solutions. Each side fills the crowd with only people who share their worldview, we no longer have the spontaneity of hearing a candidate’s true feelings and values with the give and take of an evenly divided audience. Now we see candidates being spoon fed questions by supporters or even worse “planted questionnaires”, it has all become so choreographed who can tell who truly stands for what. In the absence of debate, we end up with George Bush.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/us/politics/26recruit.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] Ibid.

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The Hidden Rules?

Have you ever noticed how we look at each other and based on our clothes, our language, and our body language we make decisions about people. I have people do it to me all the time and it is not based entirely on my being black. I dress a certain way, I speak a certain way and people make assumptions about me. If they take the time to know me and I give them the opportunity to know me, many times they are surprised to know who I really am. People assume that I will identify with their thoughts and ideas based solely on what they perceive about me through those outward manifestations.

Did you know that we all have hidden rules that we abide by? Oh, don’t look for them because they are never written down, but everyone in our sphere of contact knows them. Those who are not in our sphere do not know them. And this is how we tell who we can share and bond with and who we can’t and it doesn’t matter what color they are because these rules are deeper than color. Poor people bond together usually no matter what color they are because they know “the rules”, just as rich people bond together regardless of color because they know “the rules”. We base many of our assumptions about people we encounter everyday based on these unwritten rules.

So just what are these rules and who created them. The thing about these rules is that because they are unwritten none really knows where they came from, but they are taught to every generation. This is why you see young white men in ghetto situations taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture. Their speech, dress, and attitudes toward relationships change. They learn “the rules” are they are ostracized or physically harmed. In, the same way those young black men that are raised in affluent situations take on the characteristics of the dominant culture. Their speech, dress, and attitudes change. Hence, the infamous, he is so articulate. Both learn and imitate the values of the group they are exposed to. We have seen cases of both in all of our daily lives and sometimes it makes us just shake our heads in wonder.

“One of the key resources for success in school and at work is an understanding of the hidden rules. Hidden rules are the unspoken clues that individuals use to indicate membership in a group. The chart on hidden rules (see p. 5) provides details, but generally, in middle class, work and achievement tend to be the driving forces in decision-making. In wealth, the driving forces are the political, social, and financial connections. In generational poverty, the driving forces are survival, entertainment, and relationships. That is why you will have a student whose Halloween costume cost $30 but the textbook bill is not paid. Relationships and entertainment are more important than achievement.”[1]

Ruby Payne is an educator and lecturer; she has done extensive work in the field of these hidden rules and how they affect our interaction with the world, our successes, and our failures. She has made a list of some of the more common hidden rules that govern us not based on race, but based on class. I have always been a firm believer that race and class clashed and became inextricably connected in America through the slavery experience. Prior to the slave trade in America slavery was never for in perpetuity, all slavery was temporary. You were a slave for awhile and then you became free when your time was up. That all changed and with it race became more important than class. Now we cannot see one for the other and it is clouding our ability to move past the one to work on the other.

Payne’s journey into class consciousness began more than 30 years ago, when she met Frank, the man who would become her husband. Ruby was raised in a middle-class Mennonite family in Ohio, while Frank grew up in extreme poverty in Goshen, Ind. As Ruby began to spend time in Frank’s impoverished neighborhood, she realized that she didn’t understand the first thing about the lives of the people who lived there — and they didn’t get her, either. Frank’s friends were appalled that Ruby didn’t know how to defend herself in a fight; Ruby was stunned that her neighbors would regularly get paid on Friday and, after a weekend of carousing, be broke by Monday.

As Payne studied her new surroundings, she came to appreciate more subtle nuances of class division. She realized that her husband’s family’s poverty was what she would later come to call “situational”: they had been middle class until Frank’s father died when Frank was 6, and only then had they slipped down to the economy’s bottom rung. Most of their neighbors, by contrast, were in “generational poverty,” meaning their families had been poor for as long as anyone could remember. Each group, she discovered, had its own distinct set of beliefs and customs.

Payne believes that teachers can’t help their poor students unless they first understand them, and that means understanding the hidden rules of poverty. The second step, Payne says, is to teach poor students explicitly about the hidden rules of the middle class. She emphasizes that the goal should not be to change students’ behavior outside of school: you don’t teach your students never to fight if fighting is an important survival skill in the housing project where they live. But you do tell them that in order to succeed at school or later on in a white-collar job, they need to master certain skills: how to speak in “formal register,” how to restrain themselves from physical retaliation, how to keep a schedule, how to exist in what Payne calls the “abstract world of paper.”[2]

Ms. Payne teaches that it is unfair to hold others to these hidden rules that they are not familiar with. We assume because we were raised with these hidden rules that everyone else has been taught them as well and we become shocked or disappointed when others do not abide by them. And in fact we all have been raised with these hidden rules, it’s just that different groups have different rules. And rarely in the majority culture is it necessary to know the rules of the other groups. These rules she uses of course are based on lots of people and are not laws, they are just rules. They are some people whom they will not apply to. But for the most part they go a long way in explaining behavior and motivations. Many whites can never understand how seemingly successful people, both black and white can sabotage themselves for what appears to be no reason. We have a saying in the “hood”, “You can take someone out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of someone.”

Truth be told, these people are still being directed by their hidden rules. Unless these rules are replaced with new rules they will continue to control an individual’s life and choices. Just because I am now successful doesn’t mean I identify with other successful people. This is why whites discriminate between “old” money and “new” money. Old money has had generations to get use to having money; new money has not become comfortable with having money. Lottery winners are a prime example of those who are not accustomed to having money.

While I found a lot of her concepts valid, I don’t think Ms. Payne recognized or gave enough emphasis to the racial component of these rules. We have cultural rules as well and sometimes those can cause misunderstandings. Overall, I think that her ideas are valuable for educators and those who interact with people in another class and to help create an atmosphere of understanding and a bridge to communication.

I think that we here in “Blogoworld” suffer from these same symptoms. We come here and share ideas and think we also share “rules” and when we realize we don’t it is sometimes difficult to accept that others may still be sympathetic but in their own way, in a way that their rules allow or expresses. Many here are shocked when expressions of color or race are depicted and it makes them uncomfortable, because in their rules we just don’t talk about those things. We are color-blind, well that is not accurate and prevents meaningful dialog. I guarantee you if you are in an urban setting and 2-3 hip hop boys come your way on a dark street you will begin to notice color very quickly. If we are to come together and overcome the myriad of issues that confront us as a nation we must take the time and effort to know one another and not assume we know each other, but actually talk, discuss, argue, debate and not be fearful of the consequences. We must each one of us search our own consciences, fears, and prejudices. I can‘t get help if I can’t admit there is a problem.

There will always be those who can never overcome the stigma of racial superior thinking and that is their loss, but for those of us who are genuinely serious about addressing race in America, we must begin the dialog and not just here in Blogoworld, but in our homes, local communities and states. We should engage each other in personal ways, spending time with one another. This is no easy task, but it is one that some of us must try. It is in our “rules” to try and keep trying.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/magazine/10payne-t.html?em&ex=1181793600&en=f7b3f9766a0e0792&ei=5087%0A

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/magazine/10payne-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&em&en=f7b3f9766a0e0792&ex=1181793600

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