Solutions

It’s a cool, dry, late Sunday morning here in New York City and if I had the emotional strength, I could be watching the major, weekly political talk shows (Meet the Press and such) that are no doubt now taking the “long view” perspective on Tuesday’s election (in 21^st century time, that’s five days later instead of five minutes later). But I have my own long view perspective, and, I’ve received several emails over the past few days offering very specific approaches to what ails us as a nation, the contents of which I want to share with you. They show that there is hope, there are things everyone can do.

My own perspective is that what will happen legislatively over the next two years is anybody’s guess, because the Republicans are not going to stop being who they are – although it appears that the less wildly crazy wing of the party seems to now be in charge. But their core allegiance to the rich and corporate, and their inbred lack of understanding and concern for everyone and everything else, remains intact.

The President, while being genuinely willing to negotiate and compromise – which he has been willing to do since Day One, while the Republicans have been busy hating him and obstructing everything he’s tried to do – is, I believe, also more intent on pushing forward with the things he actually believes in, the things he hasn’t heretofore been very aggressive about, to the consternation of his Progressive base. So what will actually happen is a crap shoot and will no doubt be interesting and aggravating to watch.

Fortunately, there are people out there, people with actual political power, who see some opportunities for Democrats (legislators and ordinary citizens alike) to get their act together and begin to articulate a cohesive message as they move through the molasses-paced 2016 campaign that has already begun, with a simple and sensible agenda.

My first email came from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which published an op-ed on the political website, The Hill, entitled “Route to Power for Democrats: Big Ideas,” which espouses the reasonable, progressive, Sen. Elizabeth Warren agenda of “taking on Wall Street, reducing student debt, and expanding Social Security benefits,” as a primary message that all practical working people can get behind.

The second message came from Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose primary message is that the influence of Big Money in politics (a privilege for the rich so smoothly sanctioned by the Supreme Court’s legitimization of the democracy-busting Citizen’s United fundraising operation) must be eradicated. He also stresses that the enormity of Income Inequality, which pits the tiny but extraordinarily wealthy Billionaire Class (several hundred families holding 95% of the nation’s wealth) against the rest of us (that famous, or infamous, 1% vs. 99% equation) must be balanced with significant tax reform, a stronger labor movement, and a federally-increased minimum wage.

To increase public involvement in and support for this agenda, one of the many things Sen. Sanders is doing is proposing that Election Day be made a Federal Holiday called Democracy Day to promote the meaning and importance of democracy and the vital role that ordinary folks play in it by voting (and making it easier to vote because as a federal holiday, people will get a paid day off from work). He has proposed a bill and created a petition that you can sign.

Last but not least came a wonderful article by one Mark Morford published in San Francisco’s SFGate entitled “The Best Worst President Ever,” which strives to explain why much of the middle and upper classes have come to embrace the Republican Big Lie that Barack Obama is the “worst President ever.” No one can deny that the President has made mistakes and is not a perfect person or a perfect President (no human is perfect!). But many people are willing to entirely dismiss his considerable accomplishments for both political – and racist – reasons. This is a good and important read. 

Indeed, if you click on all the links in this blog post you will learn a lot more about how progressive Democrats and Independents (and maybe even secretly-rational Republicans) can work from this important point forward to avoid the United States of America turning into a full-scale oligarchy disaster.

Now What?

I watched British mysteries on PBS until 11:00 last night, because I didn’t want to see election returns until there was more certainty about the results. When I finally clicked onto MSNBC, everyone was talking so fast and so much was flashing quickly on and off the screen that it took me a few minutes to understand what was going on – but it didn’t take too long. Democrats had been creamed from coast to coast. There were renewed and additional Republican Governors; more Republicans in the House with an increase in Tea Party crazies; and indeed, the Republicans had taken over the Senate.

Today, those of us who were listening heard Mitch McConnell (by political necessity) and President Obama (by leadership responsibility) talk about working together more productively on issues about which they can find some measure of common ground – chiefly immigration reform, infrastructure repair, and foreign trade (according to the President). But neither of these leopards has changed his ideological spots. McConnell is no friend of the common (wo)man or liberal ideals, and the President is still firm on general health care, the funding of the “Big 3” benefit programs (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) and environmental realities – including, of course, climate change.

I’ve also been watching political analysis throughout the day and there seems to be general agreement that there will be less gridlock and more actual governance than the Republicans have allowed over the past six years; that the Republicans successfully communicated the idea that the nation’s ills were the President’s fault and managed to avoid addressing real issues at all; and that the Democrats shot themselves in their fractured, disconnected feet by not unifying behind the President’s considerable achievements. It was also felt that those Americans who voted, as well as those who didn’t, were both expressing their anger with what has become the dysfunctional status quo.

What politicians in both parties will do from hereon in remains to be seen. But what can we, as citizens, do to influence their actions? I didn’t hear/read any discussion of this, which I find both peculiar and unfortunate. Because in the final analysis, all politicians want votes. They spend huge amounts of money to get votes and accept that money from some very questionable characters. Ironically and importantly, many, if not most, Americans are not political junkies. Many Democrats campaigned on the dangers of Big Money in politics, in particular the bedeviled influence of the Koch Brothers. Apparently most people don’t know who they are or care. And many people don’t connect the dots between their own hard times and Big Money, its key reactionary donors, and the ever-increasing wealth of the 1% (there are now twice as many billionaires as there were before the 2008 crash).

Indeed, virtually all of the pundits I heard today agreed that what most people care about is that they’re increasingly broke; unemployed or under-employed; can’t handle their debt, especially education debt; and fear for their future and their children’s future. In other words, most people are concerned with their own lives and don’t see how their own circumstances fit into the larger, total picture. I hate to imagine that most people are that stupid, that narrow in their perspective, but nothing else explains 2/3 of eligible voters not voting, and the 1/3 that did largely casting their lot with the party that the President doesn’t belong to, because they believe Daddy President should make things better for them and he hasn’t so he’s a bad Daddy President. As the radicals I hung out with in my 20s used to say, “Gimme a break, gimme a gun.” 

If I thought a well conceived and efficiently organized Liberal Revolution were possible, I’d advocate for one. Alas, I don’t think it is, so I don’t. Instead, under the heading “Now What?” I advocate the following: (1) pay closer attention to the news, get your news from more than one source, and start connecting the dots (2) write to everyone in your political world: Mayor, City Council President, State Senator & Assembly-person, U.S. Congress-person & Senators, and the President. Tell them what issues you care about, both the ones that affect you directly and the rest that you recognize affect us all as a nation and as citizens of the world, and (3) remember that democracy is a living, breathing thing made up of all of us thinking critically and participating in the political process. Use the next two years to get ready and in 2016 be fully aware of what’s what and what’s right and vote accordingly. It’s the only real shot we’ve got.

Working For Tips

There is presently a lot of heated social conversation about people who traditionally receive tips as part of their pay for work – namely those in the restaurant-bar, hotel, taxi-limousine, beauty service and travel service industries. They legally receive what’s known as a sub-minimum wage (apx. $5.00/hour) from their employers, because their tips, supposedly, bring them up to a living wage. That wasn’t true 30 or 40 years ago and it’s even worse now. That’s because more and more Americans, either out of ignorance or cheapness, are leaving smaller and fewer tips. So the question is: should the sub-minimum wage be increased? Would it surprise you to know that many Americans are saying no?

Tipping is a uniquely American custom, something Americans traveling abroad are delighted to discover and foreigners visiting here often learn to their embarrassment the first time they stiff a waiter or cab driver. There’s an irony here, since it appears that tipping began in the 1600s in England when men drinking in taverns gave money to servers “to insure promptitude” or T.I.P for short.

When the practice started to make its way into American bars and restaurants in the late 1890s, a movement against it rose up. Many Americans felt it was in opposition to the country’s ideals of class equality and would lead to the development of a “servile class” that would be rendered financially dependent on the rich. But the custom persisted – and grew – here, nonetheless.

Over time, tipping somehow went out of favor (in some instances out of legality) in Europe, and indeed created that “servile class” in America – which has never been a classless society, despite our delusions to the contrary. This explains why many Americans resent tipping and/or look down on people who work for tips and/or are ashamed to work in jobs that receive tips.

I was the daughter of a man who spent most of his working life first as a waiter and then as a skycap. He worked for tips. He worked very hard and put up with an assortment of indignities, but still never made enough to support a family, which is why my mother worked in the 1950s when most women were still housewives.

She worked until the 1980s, pouring her considerable intelligence into the bottomless, low-paying well of the pink ghetto, first as a bookkeeper, then as a comptroller, and finally as the manager of the subscription department of an elite specialty business newspaper – where she signed her letters “L. Browne,” lest the high-powered male subscribers suspect she was a woman. And meanwhile, my black father smiled as he allowed white people to rub his head for luck in the hope it would earn him a larger tip.

Since Ronald Reagan (whom I still blame for everything), America has been creating an economy and social mindset guided by millionaire Republican belief that the population is made up of Makers and Takers, an idea that middle class and working class Republicans buy into. That’s why so many people still think that teenagers are the ones working minimum-wage jobs, when the truth is, most teens can’t find jobs because the jobs they used to have are now held by adults trying to make a living and support their families. People working for tips are also doing the same thing.

In case you haven’t noticed, unless you (or you and your partner/spouse, if you have one) are bringing in a six-figure salary, nothing in America is affordable, anywhere – not housing, utilities, food, gas, a night at the movies, nothing – except clothing, house wares, and the smart electronic devices everyone loves so much, all of which are sold cheap because they’re made by indentured and child labor through the American “job creators” who are actually outsourcing those jobs to Third World countries. Welcome to the 21^st century. 

It’s time to raise the minimum wage and the sub-minimum wage, federally. And it’s time for Americans who eat in American restaurants, stay in American hotels, ride in American taxis – etc. – to ante up and leave a decent 15-20% tip.  You’re not tipping for extraordinarily wonderful service, you’re tipping because that’s what we do here. It’s the American way.

A Complicated Independence Day

I slept through much of the day – and evening – of July 4^th. I had no plans and it had been an exhausting week of shocking events (the Hobby Lobby decision, the hateful demonstration against three busloads of frightened, stranded, children)  that made me question (hardly for the first time!) what it is that we continue to celebrate every Fourth of July. During the few hours I was awake, I asked myself if I loved my country, if I even liked my country, and I couldn’t respond with a clear yes or no. That freaked me out.

My mother’s parents were both Jews who, when they were still very young, emigrated from Eastern Europe in the years before World War I (that’s 1 not 2). They didn’t come together, they met here. They became citizens and my grandfather served in the First World War. My father, and his father before him, came here from the West Indies. They too became citizens. I don’t know what my grandfather did except work for the Chunky Candy factory in Brooklyn for all of his working life in the U.S. For the record, they all came here legally.

My father worked as a Merchant Marine from the time he was a teenager and during  part of that career he served for the U.S. in WWII and barely escaped from fires on two oil tankers. Later, he was a waiter and wine steward on several trans-Atlantic ocean liners, including the S.S. America and S.S. United States. During his many years at sea he saw a great deal of the world.

When my mother insisted he get a job on land and not be away from home for great lengths of time, he became a skycap for TWA. He schlepped luggage for 25 years, but the job gave my parents cheap-sometimes-free flying for a lot of international vacation travel. So when my father told me, several times from my teens into adulthood, that despite all its problems America was the greatest country in the world, I had to at least in part believe that, because I couldn’t deny his intelligence or experience. 

Studying history was one of my father's hobbies; he knew 150 million Native Americans had been killed in the process of creating America and he didn't negate that any more than Slavery. But he also knew that history was riddled with powerful nations taking over less powerful ones and killing or enslaving the indigenous people or anyone who objected. He grew up in the British West Indies. He understood the violent, dishonorable food chain of nation-building. Yet he still loved America as it was and all it had the capacity to become. 

But my parents didn’t live to see the 21^st century. They didn’t live through the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and watch that experience make the country frightened, angry, and hostile ever since. They didn't see new communications and manufacturing technology change everything. They didn't see our environmental destruction and indifference start to come home to roost. They didn’t see the Republicans, a fraternity of stodgy businessmen, turn into a hateful Party committed to reversing civil, voting, and women’s rights.

They didn’t endure the Great Recession of 2008 that nearly tanked this country and has left us still sorely damaged. They didn’t see the national Legislature become deliberately obstructionist in response to the first Black US president, adding constant racist insult to political injury from Day One. They didn’t live through this country’s two longest, incredibly expensive, and ultimately pointless wars.

And my family of immigrants didn’t watch this nation of immigrants despise immigrants because they had sneaked in rather than wait their legal turn, the nation’s hatred even extending to those who came here as little kids or who now are escaping to here on their own as young children, because life in their countries has become too horrible and dangerous to endure.

My parents didn’t live to see us re-evaluate America’s Founding Fathers who, while undeniably brave, bold, revolutionaries, were also largely rich, slave-owning land-holders. They didn’t watch contemporary government screw over military veterans; see many politicians and a great many citizens become rabid fundamentalists and deniers of science in the name of religion; or witness Congress purposely declare War on the Poor instead of War on Poverty, not to mention being governmental leaders who don’t believe in government.

My mother, who had several serious ailments and skimped on her meds because they were so expensive, didn’t live to see something resembling universal coverage be denigrated and sabotaged by politicians who feared it more than disease.

To be honest, part of what saddened me yesterday was that I didn’t have a cookout to attend or anyone with whom I could go watch the fireworks (I love fireworks), even though I dislike and disapprove of the way we’ve turned every national holiday of social and historical importance into an occasion to party and shop.

But mostly, I was and still am preoccupied with how America has stepped back. I’m angry with the Supreme Court and Congress; I’m concerned that it took our smart, idealistic President six years to realize those shitheads in Washington are never going to work with him; and I’m very worried that this year’s elections will bring even more irresponsible nutjobs into national power and give “lame duck” terrible new meaning for the next two years. Papa, I wish you were here.

The Good Stuff

I like to search Google Images for photos, paintings, posters, cartoons, etc., that I use to illustrate this blog (FYI, if a blog is free to view and has no advertising, you can legally use copyrighted images), as well as decorate my computer desktop (or, as we say in English, screen). The painting above is currently on my desktop; I picked it up in a search for images of summer because it really spoke to me. The blue-gray, the iced tea, the fan. I’m not a summer person, but in summer I like iced tea and fans. I also like my desktop to reflect the seasons and holidays and special occasions or just my mood.

Thinking about what I like reminded me of a thread of emails I recently had with a friend I’ve known since high school. He said he reads my posts with his morning coffee and he couldn’t remember the last time I wrote something positive, that it’s all “complaints” – a choice of words I found odd for what I regard as political analysis and commentary on contemporary culture and major social issues, which is what this blog is about. “I know there’s a lot of woe out there, but there’s a lot of good stuff, too,” he said.

That got me thinking. In my reply, I told him that the difference in our lives might explain the difference in our perceptions. He’s a healthy, busy man with a wife about 15 years his junior and two young children, all of whom he adores, as well as quite a few friends, a dog he loves; and he revels in nature and pretty much ignores politics – so I can see how he perceives lots of good stuff.

But cranky, curmudgeon me, I’m broke, alone, my handful of good friends are scattered across the country, I have no affinity with children/animals/nature and I’m a political junkie. So I don’t see a lot of good stuff. I see the nation, the world and the planet going to hell in a hand basket. I told him I didn’t see any good stuff. “Sunshine and flowers don’t make up for all that,” I said.

But I’ve continued to think about the idea of good stuff, and to ask myself why I don’t see any – or, more significantly, discount the good stuff I do encounter as not being sufficient. I’m mature enough to understand that happiness isn’t a constant state of jubilation, it’s the ability to take conscious pleasure in the many little things we do enjoy, to find at least temporary contentment in the blue-gray and iced tea and fan, to not be so quick to dismiss sunshine and flowers.

Last Saturday, I went out on my mobility scooter (I love my scooter and I’m lucky to have it). It was a hot day, but I was wearing cool clothes and it was better in the shade. The air felt lovely on my face as I scooted along beneath a bright blue sky punctuated with big cotton-ball clouds. That was good stuff. I went for a much-needed haircut to the same nice hairdresser I’ve been going to for 25 years and the shampoo she gave me reminded me of when I was a little girl and my mother washed my hair and how nice that felt. Good stuff.

Later I bought fresh fruit from a sidewalk vendor because those guys have fine produce that’s much cheaper than the supermarket, then treated myself to a multi-fruit smoothie from a food truck and lastly found a windowless building wall, parked against it and smoked a couple of cigarettes as the breeze blew through my blessedly-much-shorter hair (portable ashtray in hand, of course) and that was good stuff too.

And throughout the week, I felt the comfort of good stuff. Early morning with strong iced coffee and a toasted bagel, a slice of cheese flattened down on each half; other food I like; movies I enjoyed on TV; phone calls with girlfriends; the bliss of turning on the air conditioner on humid afternoons; and watching The 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and listening to so much good music (I miss good music).

I also spent considerable quality time with my many Tarot card decks (which I haven’t done for ages), cleansing them with the sound waves of a strand of Tibetan bells I bought on Eighth Street back in the ‘60s, touching & gazing at & shuffling them and talking to them, getting reacquainted with these special old friends. I did some chores and accomplished a few things long left unattended. I looked for things I hadn’t been able to find and I found them, and found some other wonderful things I forgot I had. It was all very good stuff.

Sure, there was some bad stuff, too: lots of worldly woe and personal woe too. Still, I didn’t ignore the good stuff, I felt it and was thankful for it. That was an important thing and I’m going to remember to do that from now on. But I’ll still bemoan the misery of our politics and the horrendous state of the nation/world and the decay of contemporary culture – and write about it here. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it and I’ve appointed me. I can’t just lounge in the good stuff all the time. We are who we are.

Why?

In 1995, during my freelance writing career, I interviewed Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour when Robert MacNeil, his co-anchor of 22 years, retired, and Lehrer was preparing to staff the anchor desk alone. A seasoned newspaper reporter when the two had first teamed up to cover the 1973 Watergate hearings, Lehrer said he had still  learned a lot from MacNeil, citing as an example that the most valuable follow-up question he could ask an interview subject was “Why?” I found that wonderfully simple, sage and clearly important. I used it often in my own subsequent interviews, always with valuable results, because it took the subject off-guard and “off-script.” To this day I listen for it in on-air news interviews and am sorry to note that I rarely hear it – especially when it really needs to be asked!

Last week, Daily Kos reported on a survey of America’s oft-mentioned “one percent,” the country’s very richest and most politically powerful people. It asked if they favored  such things as: more U.S. companies operating overseas (75%); the federal government providing jobs for all who are willing to work but can’t find jobs in the private sector (8%); cutting Medicare, education, and highways [repair] to reduce the federal deficit (58%); federal spending to ensure good public schools for all (35%); federal government support to ensure college for all who want it (28%);  redistribution of wealth through heavy taxes on the rich (17%); cutting Social Security (33%); and believing it is the federal government’s responsibility to reduce income inequality (13%).

The figures are revealing and discouraging – less in comparison with the general public (who score a high, sharp opposite in this survey) but more in comparison to the famous robber barons of the early 20^th century. Generally speaking, today’s rich don’t have their sense of noblesse oblige, of a special responsibility to help society in general and the poor in particular. The survey provided the numbers, but it didn’t ask why people who have so much begrudge others anything, everything?

I have a sense of the why. In the 1970s, I spent four years working for a “society” charity and had occasion to deal with a lot of very rich people. When “in their cups,” as they usually were by the end of a long charity event, they were often childlike and perceivably sad. I had odd, intimate (not sexual, but close, personal, unguarded) experiences with a number of them when they were drunk. When they were sober and their defenses were up, many were hard, rude and haughty.

I think that rather than being oblivious to the rest of the country, they know very well that they have more than they deserve – even if they’ve worked for it, rather than inherited it; “need,” real need, doesn’t enter into the conversation. From their perspective they do need every cent they have and they do deserve it and they’re entitled to it because they’re just better people.

It’s no accident that government benefits are now called “entitlements.” That term is sarcastic and intended to make the rest of us feel worthless and nervy for asking for anything. They don’t believe that ordinary folks, let alone the poor, are entitled to anything; if we were, we would already have it! And it’s certainly not the responsibility of the rich to give it to us, either personally, or via that blood-sucking, tax-imposing albatross around their gilded necks called government.

The charity I worked for was an employment agency for the disabled. We touted the dignity of work (which is very real) and the rich who supported us loved that. When some of them came to our offices, they delighted in seeing our own disabled staff members, people who were missing limbs, or riding in wheel chairs, or trembling with cerebral palsy working to help others like themselves get jobs. The rich like charities for people whose problems “aren’t their own fault,” like the disabled and babies with cancer. But philanthropic giving is way down from what it was back in the 70s – especially for ordinary people with aspirational goals, or poor people trying to get on their feet. Money – and compassion – are hard to come by these days.

Of course there are some rich people who are kind and generous and care about their fellow humans; who are also smart enough to realize that living in a country which is increasingly poor, ignorant, and falling apart is not in their own best interest. But for the most part, the rich care about themselves and they don’t like or care about us. That’s the why. The next follow-up question is: What are we going to do about it?

Class Warfare 2

I got two emails about my first post on the need to fight back hard against the class warfare being waged by the Right. One came from a Conservative friend who is by no means a rich man but is very, very concerned about the economy and our national debt and deficit, and believes that if you push the rich too hard they’ll go away, and jobs and the very underpinnings of our economy will disappear. It seemed that all he got from that post was that I was advocating for higher taxes on the rich. The other came from a Liberal friend who said he and his wife had been politically active for decades, often to no avail and frequently suffering harsh and ridiculous response from within the ranks, which is why he’s now a burnt-out recluse and won’t do much anymore.

While I am all for increasing taxes on the rich (not the 80%-90% it was during the Eisenhower years, but a healthy 30% they can’t avoid through tax loopholes, hiding their money offshore, or special privilege), higher taxes on the rich wasn’t all I had in mind. And, I too was more politically active for decades than I am now, and learned that victories are often minimal and your “friends” can be really annoying, short-sighted, easily distracted, rigid and hostile. Trying to organize the Left is like trying to corral a bunch of smart kids suffering from ADD wandering around a large room.

So let me get to the guts of this hopefully more explanatory post by saying this: class warfare – which, ironically, the rich usually accuse the poor of initiating with their commie-inspired protests and other carrying on – is not just about money. It’s about a combination of economic fairness, social justice, how we view each other, and how we view the role and responsibility of government. We, the 97% who are struggling, for the most part see things differently than do the 3% who are very rich. Politically, the 97% isn’t united. What we have in common is that we’re all having a very hard time – a situation created by the 3%. Which is why, God help us, we have to try to get together and push back.

Now nearly every member of Congress and the Senate is a millionaire to one degree or another, and both bodies are largely white and male, all of which makes it difficult for them to understand the plights of ordinary people. Add to this the impact of the demented Tea Party, whose original concerns were economic (like my Conservative friend), but which came to include social issues over time with positions based in Christian Fundamentalism. Their strident über conservatism completed the co-opting of the Republican party that began when the sanctified Ronald Reagan said our national problems weren’t about dysfunction in government, the problem was government itself. Then Wall Street collapsed and America elected a Black president who intended to use progressive approaches to financial and social issues and all hell broke loose.

When the people who run government don’t believe in government, government doesn’t run well. When government is run by people with money, privilege and power, government will not make policy that creates/provides economic fairness and social justice. When you throw religious ideas into the mix, which have no place in government to begin with, you end up with wildly unbalanced economics, a huge lack of social justice, and very twisted views of one another and the role and responsibility of government. In other words, you end up where we are now.

The Right is telling us that the rich are job creators and the poor have brought their problems on themselves, neither of which is true. They also tell us that unrestricted free-market capitalism is the best and only way to go, which it isn’t. They say it isn’t government’s responsibility to help us, which it is. And their primary goal is to generate profit from everything and to maintain a massively expensive and totally unexamined system of military defense, which is insane. They say government should be small, when what it should be is efficient, regardless of its size.

They say government should not intrude into people’s personal lives, except when it comes to women having control over their own bodies and people having the right to love and marry who they choose, even if they’re of the same sex. They say racism no longer exists, which is a lie; that science is wrong about everything, which is religion talking; and that government can’t afford to pay for things like healthcare, social services, education, infrastructure repair, or to fight poverty and hunger – all of which is precisely what government should spend its money on.

The Left is speaking out against all this, but not very loudly and not in a unified voice. Which is why government is getting nowhere – or moving in the exactly opposite and wrong direction – when it comes to major reforms in tax policy, immigration, unemployment/job creation, the role of money in electoral politics, voter suppression, gun policy, economic gender inequities, environmental protection, the better understanding and use of new technology, creative and enlightened foreign policy, prison policy, drug policy, and all the other things mentioned in the paragraph above. These are the reasons we’re already engaged in class warfare and why we have to fight back harder and better. Nothing less than our survival – individually, as a people, and as a country – is at stake. I hope I’ve made my argument clearer.

The Right Has Started Class Warfare. It’s Time for the Left to Fight Back

Income inequality – a polite term for the rich squeezing the guts out of everyone else – is a hot-button issue that frightens the rich (who are obsessed with keeping and enlarging their wealth) and so far immobilizing the rest of us, probably because the rich are united and, uh, very well-funded, and we’re all struggling to survive and focusing on our personal pet issues.

We have income inequality that surpasses the Gilded Age of the early 20^th century “robber barons” because the [largely] well-heeled Right has been waging genuine class warfare and we haven’t been fighting back. The working class and [what’s left of] the middle class have been duped into hating the poor, as if the poor are the problem (!) and not seeing that our personal pet issues, be they unemployment, racial civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, human rights/modern slavery, animal rights, immigration, the environment, climate change/science acceptance, energy policy, education, foreign policy, the social safety net, are all connected by money and politics. And as you may have noticed, the rich are in control of money and politics and we have foolishly allowed ourselves to be fucked over by classic divide-and-conquer tactics. We have to shape up, join hands (whatever our differences may be) and fight back.

The first part of our battle must be to wrestle political power back from the Wealthy Right. We can’t afford to be politically jaded or disengaged because even if politics is corrupt bullshit, it does matter who gets elected. The Rich Right understands this. Recent, new, and more-sure-to-come voter ID laws, as well as the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, are clearly a Republican/ Conservative effort to block the voting path of the young, the old, and racial “minorities,” all of whom tend to vote for Democratic candidates. They have created the myth of voter fraud to justify these actions, but it's nothing less than a direct assault on the democratic process and a key weapon in the Right’s class war. And as the saying goes: “It isn’t true class warfare until we fight back.”

It’s also important to remember that part of this class warfare is where and how we live and how we’re treated. I live (born and raised) in New York City, once the most sophisticated city in America with a cultural heart, intellectual brain, bohemian flair and thousands of neighborhoods filled with privately-owned shops and restaurants. We had a diversified population comprised of the poor, working class, middle class, and the rich. Over the past 30 years, New York has been castrated into something resembling a mid-Western Disneyland Nowhere that has gentrified the poor out of town to God knows where (well, they’re still working on that), and combined the working and middle classes into a hostile heap hanging by its fingernails and cow towing to the rich like the little demigods they are.

As an example, you need look no further than housing in Manhattan and Brooklyn (the other three boroughs are in the midst of being similarly transformed). Besides being outrageously expensive, housing is increasingly segregated by class. The obscenely wealthy real estate developers of new rental buildings get tax credits if a portion of the property is devoted to “affordable housing.” It is – but many of these new buildings have separate entrances, lobbies, and levels of security for the “affordable” tenants and the “market rate” tenants. If there are “luxury” amenities in the building, such as gyms, spas, roof gardens, children’s play areas, even storage spaces, the “affordables” are not permitted access to them! No contact with the “trash” required.

What makes this particularly infuriating is that, according to a recent article in the New York Times, the average annual income of the “affordables” is $51,010 (we’re not talking candidates for public housing projects here) vs. $103,680 for the market-rate folks. And, on average, the “affordable” cost of a one-bedroom apartment is $1,321 a month, compared with $2,696 at the market-rate. Yes, New York is particularly expensive. But rents nationwide are high and getting higher, especially in big cities – but not exclusively. I’ve lived in my apartment for 36 years and without going into specifics, suffice it to say I’m blessed to be in a co-op building that’s part of a special pricing program that dates back to the 1960s. But this status will change in a few years and I’m likely to end up being a renter in the same apartment I currently own.

Anyone who isn’t filthy rich and sides with the Right is delusional and not thinking in his/her best interest. Economically, the Right are giants; socially they’re dinosaurs. They’re not your friends. I don’t mind that there are rich people. America needs millionaires. But multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires (and multi-multi-billionaires), especially when they make laws, conduct business and cut social services, showing no concern for anyone except others like themselves?

This we don’t need. It’s killing the rest of us, killing the country, killing democracy, killing the economy, killing opportunity. And in combating class warfare, you kill back with awareness and courage. You see the big picture, connect the dots, recognize who your enemy really is. Then you unify, organize, strategize, demonstrate, petition, fundraise, and vote. We may not win, but at least let’s go down trying.

Too Big To Fail…And Big Enough To Screw You Over In Unexpected Ways

I want to tell you a personal story that is a genuine cautionary tale to everyone, regardless of your political stars and stripes. It’s about banks – you know, those massive financial institutions that nearly pushed our country (and potentially others, especially in Europe) into bankruptcy and have ruined the lives of millions without an ounce of corporate cooperation or compassion.

I used to have a Sears credit card – just for their stores, not a Sears Mastercard or anything like that. I got it in the late 1970s when I moved into the apartment I still live in and throughout the 70s, 80s and mid 90s, I used it extensively for things I needed in this apartment. But by the 90s, I decided I wanted to have that card exclusively as a safety net for major appliances – like a new refrigerator, stove, air conditioner, because mine were getting old. So I slowly paid off my balance and was left with a card in good standing that had a zero balance due and a $7,000 credit line. It gave me great peace of mind.

Then, during the 00s, I indeed needed a new air conditioner. I found one that was right for me on the Sears website and phoned to place the order. That’s when I found out my account had been closed by the bank that “manages” Sears’ accounts. It was closed for “lack of use” and because the bank felt I had too many other accounts and they didn’t like my credit score. I had never received anything in writing from Sears or their bank advising me that my account was in jeopardy. I spoke to several people, at the store and The Bank. I told them I wanted to make a major purpose. I was told there was absolutely nothing that could possibly be done to restore my account – but I could apply for a new account. I told them that I knew and they knew that if I applied, I would be turned down. But I applied. And I was turned down. So much for my peace of mind.

This week I got a written “Advisory Notice” in the mail from Dell Computer. I had had a Dell Preferred account since 2007, when I bought a new desktop computer with all the fixings and a new all-in-one copier/scanner/fax. The latter only uses Dell ink/toner, so a couple of times a year, I order their ridiculously expensive ink, since you can’t buy it anywhere else. At the time I got the “Advisory Notice,” it had been a while since I’d ordered ink, because I had some in reserve. Now, I had a $1,700 credit line and zero balance due on this account. They said they were (1) reducing my credit line to $500 and (2) would be closing the account completely in mid-May. They were doing this because of “lack of use” and because the bank felt I had too many other accounts and they didn’t like my credit score. For the record, credit scores range from 200 (bad) to 900 (excellent). My score is in the high 600s.

With both Sears and Dell, when I finally got to speak to someone who was an allegedly senior person in the store’s corporate customer service department (and believe me, it took many calls and lots of time to get to these Wizards of Oz), I got very sketchy answers to my questions. I asked “Was this a company decision or a bank decision?” I explained in both instances that I had been a customer of longstanding. I said to Sears I was about to buy an air conditioner. I said to Dell that since my 2007 computer was elderly by computer standards, I was planning to buy one later this year. Nothing they could do. I asked them why, if they had never had a problem with me and my payment history, why were my accounts being closed. No real answer.

I told Dell that I would never buy another Dell product again (except for the ink…); that I would do everything I could to spread the word about this unwarranted customer punishment; and reminded them that they were by no means the only game in town. Nothing. I finally said, “If this action was taken by your bank on their own authority rather than it being a corporate decision, you are not running your company, your bank is running your company and this should be a matter of some concern to you.” No reply – but I heard a little gasp.

If you’re blessed with various kinds of assets, financial resources, and a great credit score, then lucky you, you probably have nothing to worry about. But if you’re low on assets and cash and your credit score is considered Fair (like mine) or just Good, beware. Because if at any time in the near future you need a new job, a new home, a school or other loan, or if you’ve been (responsibly) keeping a credit card unused, should you need something to fall back on, think twice.

And think about the fact that since the Crash of 2008, banks and other financial institutions have gotten larger, not smaller. Some have re-paid their bail-out funds and some have paid fines for poor practices. But not one single responsible person has been indicted, let alone imprisoned. And in many instances, poor (dangerous!) banking practices have only gotten worse – because nobody’s watching and any fines they might eventually have to pay cost far less than the profits they’re making.

Think about the number of houses that have been foreclosed, rather than banks working with homeowners to save their homes. Think of how many loans have been denied. Think about how much increasing power banks have in the companies with whom you do business. Think about the usury-level interest rates banks impose on consumers (26% to 30%) and the miniscule rates they pay when they borrow money from the Fed. Think about how easy it is for anyone – a prospective landlord or employer, for example – to get your credit score, and the fact that credit scores now play an unprecedented and powerful role in employment and housing.

Think about the insane power banks increasingly have in our lives and the damage they can cause if what’s “too big to fail” actually does fail.

Or, if you prefer, worry about Benghazi.

The Tyranny of Healthy Lifestyle Zealots

When I was a little girl in the late-1950s/early-60s (also known as the Olde Days) people were concerned about their own and their children’s health and well-being – but it wasn’t a national obsession supported by social judgment and nanny-state laws. Fat, especially on women, was already considered ugly (as it was ever thus) and women dieted and took prescription diet pills. But nobody under a size 10 thought they were fat and size 0 didn’t yet exist.

Children took their vitamins and got the necessary vaccines du jour, but they didn’t have to wear haz-mat suits to sit in the back of a car or ride their bikes. Most adults smoked and those who chose not to didn’t behave as if their lives were threatened if they caught a whiff of smoke. People were aware of the hazards of high blood pressure and cholesterol, and some amended their diets accordingly, but they didn’t fret over every piece of food they put in their mouths. Getting exercise wasn’t an issue, because it was a part of daily life: people walked, mowed their own lawns, cleaned their own houses (along with their children, who had chores), and kids played outdoors without the schedule of a business executive.

But in today’s high-tech, must-live right, helicopter-parent America, our personal behavior is increasingly governed by law as well as a condemning social attitude, particularly about smokers and fat people that says “I’ve chosen a healthy lifestyle and because you haven’t, you’re increasing the cost of my health care with your bad habits and I resent it.” Yes, there’s a lot of resentment – and outright hate in our social climate because everybody thinks everyone else should live by their standards of good and bad, right and wrong.

This is a social notion that transcends political ideologies. The Left and Right may differ in their beliefs about what’s good, bad, right and wrong, but everyone seems agreed on the idea that their values should reign supreme and be adopted by everyone else. As a result, our social climate is actually un-American, but most folks don’t see it that way – nor do they care.

I can only regard this as Health Fascism based on selfishness, ignorance, and a complete lack of understanding that in a diverse, free society, people have different needs, wants and behaviors, and everyone can be accommodated if we accept that those who differ from us have as much of a right to be who they are as we have to be who we are.

First, a few facts. Fat people and smokers are not the culprits in high health care costs. Overly expensive health care is caused, in considerable part, by treatment and life-maintenance for the über-elderly, severely disabled, and those with serious chronic illnesses. Waste and fraud in health care management, and the simple fact that health care, health insurance and pharmaceuticals are profit-making industries, are what truly make health care, insurance premiums and medications expensive. Never forget: the profit is in treatment, not in cures. Follow the money and examine the greed.

So, when healthy lifestyle zealots support ever-increasing nanny-state laws that make smokers social pariahs and view fat people as lesser humans with no self-control, they are acting out of haughty judgment they have no right to make – and they don’t know the facts.

For example, the dangers of second-hand smoke are a myth [each of the four underscores cites a different source; check them out if you think I’m bullshitting you]. And obesity is not just a matter of overeating and calories in vs. calories out.  “…Genetics, endocrine function, lifestyle, medications and metabolism all play a role in determining a person’s weight.”  The tyranny of the healthy lifestyle zealots is not only prejudice and a misdirection of blame, it has resulted in smokers and fat people being extremely discriminated against in employment and, for smokers, in housing.

I don’t have children; I don’t even like children. But I don’t begrudge them the health care (or nutrition, education, and protection from abuse and neglect) they require. Nor do I resent whatever the elderly, disabled, or chronically ill require. I don’t engage in dangerous sports. But when those who do have accidents and need medical treatment and physical therapy, I have no gripe with that. I believe in the concepts of “each according to his needs” and “live and let live.”

To those who think they’re superior beings and more righteous citizens because they live a healthy lifestyle, I leave you with a quote from the late, great Redd Foxx: “All those health nuts are gonna feel pretty stupid laying up in the hospital dying of nothing.”

History, Language, and the Movies

Two important films connected to Black History were released in 2013: 12 Years A Slave, directed by Steve McQueen (not the dead one, another one) and Lee Daniels’ The Butler, directed, obviously, by Lee Daniels – who was not trying to be an egomaniac by inserting his name in the title, but was forced to by Warner Brothers, which holds the rights to a 1916 silent film entitled The Butler and wouldn’t let him use it without that name distinction.

I haven’t yet seen 12 Years A Slave, which has been highly praised and got nine Oscar nominations.  I look forward to seeing it, especially after watching an interview with screenwriter John Ridley, who greatly impressed me.  I have seen Lee Daniels’ The Butler, which I loved and feel deserved an Academy nod to Forest Whitaker for Best Actor, if nothing else.  This film is good (if not great) and it reveals the noble history of Black servants in the White House who hold a special place in Black History of long-term, impeccable, discreet service, despite the horrors of Slavery, post-Reconstruction Jim Crow laws, and the long hard road to Civil Rights.

I don’t think …Butler received the same kind of audience enthusiasm because (if online comments on reviews and other articles are anything to go by) the increasingly language-ignorant public didn’t understand the difference between “inspired by” and “based on” and therefore felt …Butler was somehow illegitimate.

…Slave was based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a real-life free Black man who lived in New York in the 1830s, and was kidnapped in Washington DC in 1841.  He was forced to live and work as a Slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation until he was rescued in 1853.  He subsequently wrote his autobiography, which was published in 1853, and it was this true story that captured the interest of McQueen and Ridley.

It is worth noting that in the Ridley interview, he said his one fear is audiences will leave the theater with a sense of relief that the terrible days of Slavery are over.  They are not.  As he explained, the level of Slavery worldwide – including in the U.S. – is three times larger than the enslavement of Africans that brought them to America, the Caribbean, South and Central America and parts of Europe.  Today, tens of thousands of women and men and girls and boys are roped into Slavery, Sex Trafficking, and Indentured Servitude, which have yet to be adequately addressed by individual countries (including ours) and the United Nations.  If …Slave doesn’t inspire widespread indignation and calls for international intervention into contemporary Slavery, this fine film will only stand as a well-crafted bio-pic about the past.

…Butler was inspired by a Washington Post article about retired White House butler Eugene Allen, who served at the White House from the Truman through Reagan administrations.  Forest Whitaker’s character, Cecil Gaines, is not and was never intended to be Eugene Allen, nor was the film meant to be Gaines’ story.  Certain events in Gaines’ life are used in the film, because they’re typical of the privileges and indignities experienced by all Black White House servants, especially the butlers.

But this story tells the truth about the many Black men and women who had and still have unrivaled access to America’s presidents’ public policies and personal feelings – and who consistently protect the privacy of America’s chief executives and their families while providing top-notch service for which they are highly trained.  Most serve in these positions for decades and can sometimes hand them down to their children.

While some of those who saw …Butler were outraged by insignificant differences between Allen and Gaines – such as where they were born and worked prior to their White House careers, what their wives and children were like, etc., – they missed the important messages of the film.  One of Gaines’ two sons, Louis, is a Civil Rights maverick who sees his father as an Uncle Tom.  And much like Forest Gump, Louis finds himself plunked into the major events of his time: marching in Selma, being with Martin Luther King Jr. in jail and in King’s Memphis hotel room before he’s killed, joining the Black Panthers et al. 

When Louis tells Dr. King, clearly with a sense of shame, that his father is a butler, King says the following: “Young brother, the black domestic defies racial stereotypes by being hardworking and trustworthy.  He slowly breaks down racial hatred with the example of his strong work ethic and dignified character.  Now while we perceive the butler or the maid as being subservient, in many ways they are subversive without even knowing it.”  I don’t know if King ever really said this, but it doesn’t matter.  That’s language to pay attention to.

Welcome Back to Black History Month

It’s February in America – which means it’s Black History Month, a tradition that began in 1926 with “Negro History Week,” initiated by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.  It became Black History Month in 1976 in conjunction with the celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial and the urging of then-President Gerald Ford.  It may surprise you to know that this occasion is also celebrated in the U.K. (starting in 1987) and Canada (as of 1995), because there are a lot of Black people in those countries, too, primarily (originally) from Africa and the West Indies.

In recent years, some Black Americans have taken to calling it African-American History Month.  This irritates me, because I have never liked the term, since most Black Americans know very little about the 54 countries on the planet’s second-largest and second-most-populous continent.  In addition, many Africans feel no sense of connection to American Blacks or even consider them to be Black, due to more than 200 years of interracial hanky-panky (both lovingly consensual and viciously imposed).

Other Black Americans have started to resist, even outright object to, Black History Month, because they see in what is meant to be a positive acknowledgment of long-ignored history, an unpleasant continuation of the separation of Blacks and Whites in the full picture of American history.  I myself fall into this category – sort of.  For one thing, so many people, events and milestone accomplishments are routinely left out of the telling of Black history – during this designated month and in general education.

 For another, if the widespread disrespect shown to America’s first Black President by both houses of Congress – indeed, the idea that he is not a legitimate President – is anything to go by, a new, more sophisticated racism is still very much with us and Black History Month does absolutely nothing to diminish that.  (I’m sure there are people who dislike Barack Obama because of what they perceive as his bad policies and ideas and nothing more.  But the ballyhoo about his birthplace, his college records and his religion demonstrates that there are a great many legislators and citizens who simply can’t abide the idea of a Black man in the White House.)

Last but not least, nearly 40 years of Black History Month has done very little to educate American Blacks about the fulsomeness of their own heritage – and virtually nothing to demonstrate to White Americans that Black history is an integral part of American history overall.  The young generations of Americans, Black and White, may be more accepting of each other than their elders – but they are still greatly uninformed about their country’s history, period.

So, what is the “appropriate” way to handle Black History Month: ignore it; celebrate it joyously no matter who does or doesn’t participate; or use it as an opportunity to expand the boundaries of American history at every level of education?  I don’t know what the answer is.  All I know is that we’re still a long way from having a complete and unified understanding of who and what we were and what we are as a nation, and that is a very dangerous and unhealthy state of affairs.

So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya

PETE SEEGER died yesterday.  I feel as if I've lost a beloved friend, a favorite relative; certainly a guiding light.  The following is a comment I left on The New York Times among the hundreds of others that follow their excellent obituary.  (It's also a Times Pick, should you want to find it in the paper.)

I really don't have much else to say right now...

Pete Seeger was and will always be one of [the few] great heroes of my life. His music was an inspiration, particularly because his life was an ongoing testament to principle, commitment, and an unwavering belief that personal action, especially in concert with others of like mind, can effect enormous positive social change.

He was a unique tower and shimmering beacon of progressive light.  But he was also a man with a private heart. When his wife Toshi died last year, I knew Pete wouldn't be far behind.

One of the proudest moments of my life came in 1994 when Mr. Seeger was among those receiving The Kennedy Center Honor and I was on the outside public relations team promoting the event. It gave me the opportunity to interview him by phone and not only did he speak freely and candidly, he spoke to me as if I were an old friend and even sang two songs to me. We were on the phone for half an hour!

May the great yet humble Pete Seeger rest in peace and live on in spirit. And may his death motivate the rest of us to re-examine our values and re-kindle our activism.