It has become not only the fashion but the dominant paradigm in the United States to value only the fungible, which has led to wealthy and wealth-focused know-nothings running the country and the major institutions. That the nation has become focused on the short run has made things worse.
They neglect the fundamental national assets of human beings (with our knowledge and skills and knacks and thinking powers and strengths), of the air and water and soil, of tangible and intangible networks of interconnection among humans and among our fellow creatures and between us humans and our environment.
Awakening means taking off these extremely limiting blinkers and throwing the bums out.
Exactly right. The United States optimized for the fungible and lost everything that actually matters.
Wealth became the only measure of value, so wealth-obsessed know-nothings run everything.
I’ve written about this repeatedly: America optimized for Amazon packages over actual quality of life, external rewards over internal strength, short-term extraction over long-term sustainability. The system selected for people who know how to accumulate but not how to build, preserve, or govern.
What you’re calling “fundamental national assets” (human capital, natural resources, social networks, ecological systems) can’t be easily monetized, so they got treated as externalities to exploit rather than foundations to protect.
None of this was accidental. That’s the incentive structure working exactly as designed.
The blinkers you’re describing aren’t just cultural. They’re structural. When your political system runs on money, your economy rewards extraction, and your media profits from outrage, you get leaders who excel at exactly those things and nothing else.
Throwing the bums out matters. But until the incentive structure changes, you just get new bums optimized for the same broken system.
Awakening requires not just removing individuals but redesigning what we’re selecting for in the first place.
America chose fungibility over everything else. Now it’s reaping what it optimized for.
Redesigning the American system described as it is here, basically all-in capitalism of the sort we've seen in movie satires ("Show me the money" or "Greed is good") has got us to the point where all action is transaction, government work demeaned ("I'm from the government and I'm here to help") and key workers terminated without cause, will not be possible without: a. a leader of unusual drive, wisdom and leadership; and b. a Constitutional Convention that actually allows us to change what needs changing to govern properly 250 years after our system of governance was initiated. Chances of either or both are looking slim right now.
I must disagree since I believe that careful examination of the Biden/Harris-led rebound after the first ouster of trump-the-terrible, although not perfect - of course - showed that a great deal of progress is possible. The idea, to me, of somehow reaching agreement on a drastically different structure for American democracy in order to return to more progressive, practical evolution seems to be an unrealistic fantasy - in my humble opinion...
The sexually-insecure white men, and the existentially-insecure evangelical Christians will not be reformed, and the institutions they dominate won't be democratized by a surge of progressive political reforms. The best we can hope for is modest, community-based social structures that respect and enhance the lives of individuals.
Greg; Christianity arose out of the common people as their champion & one opposed to the Divine Right of Kings. It was initially enthusiastically taken up by the common people to the point where it became the very first popularly ELECTED Government in all history. Existing establishments wanted nothing to do with it; yet they had to make terms with it if they wanted to remain in power at all.
Admittedly that was a long time ago & much water has passed under the bridge since then. Yet with the rise of Despotism in Trump; do not be surprised if this event REPEATS ITSELF. Although it is unlikely to do so under the auspices of the largely fascist Churches that actively support Trump now. What is first required is the restoration of TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY rather than the GREED IS GOOD new age American Churches.
Thanks, Greg, for sharing your thoughts on this. I am hesitant, however, to proclaim that any group of people will never change or that "they" will always remain just as I conceive "them" to be. I do believe the truth of this adage: "The only thing that never changes in this world is the fact that everything is always changing." (There is not a single atom in my body which is an atom that was part of "me" at my birth - and likewise for you and all others). My perception and evaluation of what motivates anyone is necessarily based on insufficient evidence since none of us has the ability to know what others are thinking and feeling; it's difficult enough to thoroughly know one's own self and to be true to the best version of one's own self without any sort of self-deception being present, etc. And to pretend to know that information about a large group of individuals that the vast majority of whom I have no personal knowledge is indeed absurd. Wouldn't you agree?
Since slavery, America has suffered with the problems of wealth inequality, justice, and attacks on democracy enabled by suppression of truth and learning in a weak legal system. Presidential leadership creating innovation for change was enabled by progressive political support and has provided partial solutions to the problems. President Lincoln’s leadership helped win the Civil War and create new Constitutional Amendments. President FDR’s leadership helped create the progressive New Deal which enabled recovery from the Great Depression and winning WW2 to block the spread of cruel fascism.
But the 1971 Powell memo in America launched a massively organized and funded campaign by the wealthy to manipulate capitalism, overturn the accomplishments and policies of Lincoln and FDR, and define a plan for rebellion and insurrection by Republicans, corporations, and white Christian Nationalists to implement privileged wealth inequality, expanded injustice and expanded attacks on democracy. The campaign directly led to the Heritage Foundation’s PROJECT 2025 which planned the current ongoing insurrection led by Trump implementing a fascist lawless autocracy that is supported by Republicans in Congress and six justices on the Supreme Court. The insurrection that began on January 6, 2021, and continued into 2025 was enabled and supported by a weak legal system which failed to enforce the federal law against insurrection and abused free speech law to permit constant lying by Trump, members of his administration, and his Republican supporters. The news media are complicit in supporting the lying.
Trump, Republicans, and billionaires vigorously support wealth inequality, injustice, and attacks on democracy enabled by rules in a privileged version of capitalism. The rules (supported by Wall Street) unfairly pay working class people for their labor and don’t properly compensate and pay working class people for their knowledge created with education and experience. The rules in privileged capitalism focus on generously compensating and paying nonworking people for their wealthy investments created with their money.
The problem of wealth inequality is largely the result of unjust rules in privileged capitalism that are controlled by financial accounting, government policy, and laws. The rules generously pay people for the ownership and use of their capital investments created with their money supplemented with reduced taxes for the wealthy falsely justified in trickle-down economics. The rules in privileged capitalism reject and block paying people for the ownership and use of their knowledge created with investment in education and learning through experience. Privileged capitalism operates with unjust rules that unfairly discriminate against labor with knowledge as having little value but privileges capital with tools such as AI by granting unrestricted rights to replace labor without any legal regulation. That’s injustice and a threat to creating and preserving a society which should share wealth in an economy with growth enabled by knowledge and capital investment.
The rules in capitalism need to be changed. Democrats need new thinking and policy to better identify and understand the problems that voters want to be solved including the problems with jobs and wages as (1) wealth inequality, and (2) the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) to stupidly eliminate many white-collar jobs for people with the knowledge required for economic growth enabled only by creative innovation driven by knowledge. Democrats need to recognize and understand the damage caused by obsolete, stupid and unjust financial accounting rules in privileged capitalism.
Financial accounting currently measures the value of capital as amounts of money and compensates the people who own and invest the money but doesn’t adequately measure knowledge in individual people and properly compensate them for the value created by applying their knowledge. Financial accounting is authorized by unjust rules that ignore the Constitution which assigned exclusive ownership of patents to the inventors who used their knowledge to enable the creativity used to create the inventions. Financial accounting can and should be improved. Improvement of financial accounting is being attempted as Integrated Reporting which is designed to improve calculation of businesses value to guide investments by modeling business operation and measuring the use of six types of capital – financial, natural, manufactured, intellectual, knowledge as human capital, and social & relationship capital.
In summary, Democrats need better thinking that solves voter problems to get elected with methods to better understand and solve the problems previously mentioned such as the damage to democracy created with wealth inequality.
Hello Lori Morsman, and thanks for giving us your thoughts. Your reply appears to be in response to what I said to Roberto K. about the progress that the Biden/Harris administration made towards countering the disastrous trumpian first regime. If so, let me be clear that I was meaning to indicate that, although we definitely need a great deal more adjustments to our system of democracy, we do not need to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" - so to speak. That is to say, we intelligent, civilized, ethical Democrats can take control of both houses of Congress next year and pass laws to bring the Supreme Court into compliance with ethical norms and impose term limits on them - for starters - and eliminate the outdated electoral college which has been "Distorting Democracy" (see the book with this title written by history professor C.R. Dupont) - and eliminate the "dark money" in elections that was initiated by a flawed Supreme Court Decision just a few years ago - etc. etc. I said this in reply to Roberto K.'s comment stating that he thinks 2 things need to change and the chances look slim to him that either of those will happen. The 2 things he indicated as being required are (a.) A leader who has an unusual amount of "drive" - "wisdom" - and "leadership" - and Roberto said he thinks we need a new "Constitutional Convention". I think there is an abundance of leaders now (including: Robert Reich, Kamala Harris, Mark Kelly, Elizabeth Warren, Josh Shapiro, et al) who are wise Democrats with sufficient leadership skills to help us drive our current bus forward with the types of repairs that I have outlined here. As to what was considered to be a "fantasy" in 1776 and is what some people in 2026 are calling a "pipedream" - that seems to be just more of the normal sort of rhetoric one has always heard in political debates. I believe it's more possible to make the repairs to our current Constitutional Bus than to try to find agreement on the design of and then the manufacture of a new bus (after having found agreement on the type of new "Constitutional Convention" and peacefully and successfully bringing that into the realm of reality). I welcome comments from you and others on which of these is actually possible. Politics (public policy) is, after all, still "the art of the possible" - wouldn't you agree?
Robert - you’re spot on! This is what I’ve been shouting - the whole system is flawed and it starts with our government! I’ve called that out in pieces becuase government is the “true ruling class of our society” — funded by corporations: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-ruling-class-of-the-united-states
No, I was with the government, and I did want to help and I did help. Government is not the issue. Government gave us Medicare and Medicaid and food programs, etc. Bad and corrupt government should be outlawed but democracy is not flawed; it just needs to be led in an appropriate direction.
roberto k, the Trump regime is already changing the Constitution to conform to the goals enunciated in Project 2025. If Republicans retain majorities in most states a constitutional convention would finalize the work Trump is doing now.
I believe the US Constitution really defined Democratic Socialism. Government of the people and for the people is Democratic Socialism. Putting people before profit.
WE DO NOT NEED A NEW STRUCTURE, WE NEED TO ENFORCE WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ITS STRUCTURE. PRIVATE ENTERPRISE WITH THE PROFIT MOTIVE WAS NECESSARY TO ASSURE RESOURCES WERE NOT WASTED OR USED INEFFICIENTLY. THE COMPLAINTS ABOUT FUNGIBILITY ARE THE RESULT OF OUR FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL TENENT OF CAPITALISM, THAT THE GREED WILL AND MUST BE BE CONTAINED BY COMPETITION. OUR FAILURE WAS IN NOT ENFORCING AGGRESSIVE ANTI-TRUST AND NOT ARRESTING AND PROSECUTING ALL CRIMINAL COMMERCE WHICH HAS CAPTURED ITS REGULATORY INSTITUTIONS. EVERY REGULATORY INSTITUTION (EXAMPLES: THE ICC, FDA, STATE UTILITY COMMISSIONS, EPA, DEPT OF AG. ETC. AD NAUSEAM) HAS BEEN CAPTURED ILLEGALLY BY COMMERCE. AND THE SUPREME COURT WAS SUPREMELY WRONG IN ALLOWING COMMERCE TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY WAY IN ELECTIONS (Citizens United v. Federal Election commission)
Roberto; your comment seems to ignore the reality that much of Trumps support is a response to the sins of Socialism. Whilst I agree that left wing socialism has many problems; I hold the right-wing response of Trump to be even worse. i yet further hold that two wrongs in a row do not make a right
America needs to abandon its fascination with this endless gunfight between right & left. (for a society raised in a culture of gunfights like Wyatt Earp vs whomever. Where he who draws fastest & shoots straightest WINS regardless of the MORAL QUALITIES of either combatant; this might be quite hard to do.)
It instead needs to look to the MORAL MAJORITY that live in the social political center. Get them to STAND UP & form their own political party if necessary; then announce `~we are no longer amused by this endless gunfight between Left & Right; matters are becoming serious; from here on WE ARE IN CHARGE.
No society can be saved by its political extremes; it requires the CENTRIST moral majority to do so,
If we are going to jettison this system , we must have a better one to follow or it won't work .
Our Founding documents contain that better way and must be continually practiced to help build a more perfect union for our country. To me, the democratic republic idea of governance is the gold standard here and must be cherished and practiced as has been the attempt by our country for the past 250 years, with much resistance form without and from within to this day.
It's a struggle but one worth fighting for to make it work.
Elegantly stated but not quite true, Johan. America chose fungibility over everything else, but did not forget the "else." This is why the upcoming elections matter. Xi and Putin would like us to believe that we are doomed, and that our republic is nothing more than a sham. In November we can prove them wrong. It is up to us. The argument that nothing will really change unless we change the "system" is an argument for either surrendering by default or resorting to violence. Incremental changes can eventually change the system itself, and that is what scares the plutocrats running our government right now.
You’re right to push back on fatalism, I agree with you. But let me be precise about what I’m saying: incremental change through elections matters domestically. I’m not arguing for surrender. I’m arguing that the international system isn’t waiting for those incremental changes to work.
November elections matter for Americans deciding their future. Absolutely. Proving Xi and Putin wrong about American democracy collapsing matters.
But here’s what I’m tracking: While Americans work toward November hoping to prove the republic isn’t a sham, allies are building defense independence, activating economic countermeasures, and decoupling from American reliability. Not because they want American democracy to fail. Because they can’t make their security contingent on whether it succeeds.
You’re correct that incremental change can eventually transform systems. That scares plutocrats. It also takes time. And time is what allies don’t have. When your supposed partner threatens to annex your territory, you don’t wait for their next election to see if nicer people win. You build alternatives.
Both things are true simultaneously: Americans can and should fight through elections to reclaim their democracy. And the world is moving on because it has to. Success in November helps domestically. It doesn’t reverse the international realignment already underway.
I’m not counseling despair about American elections. I’m observing that the global order is fracturing regardless of their outcome. Win in November. Please. But understand that even victory doesn’t restore the trust that’s already gone.
My post that just dropped discusses what we, as Americans, are and could do—-whether at home or abroad, to strengthen values and institutions.
The Founding design is government by, for and of : We, The People , not Corporations (although the law has made corporations to be, as people, in matters of litigation.)
corporations are a legal scam designed to keep perpetrators of harm to others insulated from prosecution. corporations fulfill this purpose quite remarkabley well.
Paul, you forgot Section 2 of the 13th Amendment. We have elections in November, and the courts still function, albeit imperfectly. You still have the right to vote. Use it!
In fungible I assume you mean ~money is GOD~ Yes this does appear to be behind the fall of America. Tio succeed at what Trump is attempting requires 3 things.
1 the expediency & nastiness required to achieve short term Tactical victories. This Trump has in spades.
2 A soundly crafted Strategic plan ensuring supply & support over the long term. As I discern it Trump does have such a plan; yet it is ill-considered & has multiple weaknesses. I hold it to be strategic GARBAGE.
3 A very sound understanding of SOCIAL ENGINEERING. That Trump believes that his unsound campaign can win a war of attrition over time; with A SIGNIFICANT social majority attests he is UTTERLY INCOMPETENT in this field.
The next issue is can a one-legged man win a race with groups of whole healthy humans over time? HARDLY!
Could not be better stated! Money, once a human-created tool - a servant - to facilitate commerce, has literally become the master of all. Nothing happens without the permission and blessing of money.
Simple solution (that probably can never happen without a prior major collapse) -- delegitimize the profit motive.
I’ve been doing an analysis of just how did we get here and this “value only the fungible” developed within the 70s.
In fact, in the 70s we see America go from this ideal of recognizing the human potential to extracting from that potential. What we’re experiencing now has been laid for decades in advance.
You may like the following pieces on it - one on the 70s and then others exploring inflation and how that robs us but gives to the wealthy:
I’m pleased by signs of new growth amidst the devastation but it grieves me that I helped to cause this. I had the opportunity to re-elect Jimmy Carter, with his unpopular message of lowered thermostats and self-sacrifice. Instead, I was seduced by Reagan’s trickle-down prosperity theology. Now we’re here. It will take effort, imho, to resist the pressure to revert to the fungible-favoring status quo, just like my son’s straight teeth went back to misaligned when he didn’t wear his retainer.
ISOequanimity, like you, I didn't vote for President Carter the second time and I should have. I kick myself thinking how I honestly felt that whole 'trickle-down' economy would benefit the working middle and lower classes. Boy, was I wrong! My sister is always saying to me "woulda, coulda, shoulda" which is her way of telling me to quit moaning and groaning about what I have done and focus on what I will do! She's right and so are you. It will take a lot of effort to resist that pressure and not revert back to the fungible-favored status quo!
I too should have voted for Carter but because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Reagan, I voted for the 3rd party guy whose name I’ve now forgotten. But I have to laugh. My ex, who thought of himself as a Democrat, complained when I said he always voted for losers. “What do you mean? I voted for Nixon and Reagan!” I said, “Exactly.” 🤪
I did. Both times. And I do appreciate both your apologies because I have been thoroughly disappointed in you all these years. Still, we are here to do what we can with what we have where we are.
ISOequanimity, this is the crucial question! Whatever secret sauce was used to capture your vote for Reagan has been perfected and packaged to where it now dominates the marketplace. To stick with this analogy, I think to reverse the malign outcome we need to read the ingredient list of fear, greed, exploitation etc., and publicize it far and wide, so people learn exactly what they're voting for. If we're successful maybe less people will be shot in the face by federal agents.
Victor.......there have been many injured, tear gas, rubber bullets, breaking into peoples homes, etc. It is ICE that is out of control, the protesters are mostly peaceful.
Franklin, I commend you for looking backward for answers. Perhaps, you have not traveled far enough back in time.
It seems that the job has fallen to me to remind my neighbors that the "pursuit of the fungible," as described above, is actually built into our national DNA.
Those revered, white European "Founding Fathers" claiming "Manifest Destiny" built their wealth on land stolen from the Indigenous peoples who held the land in trust for millennia. These white invaders then sought to protect their wealth and promote their advantage to create more wealth for themselves by designing a unique government built around capitalism, augmented by white supremacy and patriarchy. While every culture in world history included commerce, few if any societies, other than U.S. culture have been built around the fungible.
The U.S. Government's three branches that supposedly provide "a system of checks and balances" only check and balance EACH OTHER. It was a good pitch offered by the colonial gentry to mollify the masses, but the system did – and does – nothing to constrain abuses by the "haves" against the "have-nots." This check-and-balance ruse was the ancestral foundation for "trickle-down economics."
Over the decades, some of our elected representatives have made small inroads into the white oligarchy. But just when we think we've made progress in racial, gender and economic equality, the white oligarchs claw back what they believe to be rightfully theirs.
What we are seeing today should come as no surprise to anyone who has looked at U.S. history without bias. We are eating the fruit of a poisoned tree.
Too many people have bought into the myth. Too few understand what you have written because they were not taught the true history of the USA and of the British Empire that spawned it.
Private Capitalism has become the predominant religion of the USA, and is the envy of tyrants elsewhere.
All systems contain bad actors within them , The key is to make it right for everyone or it will never be right until that happens. It would behoove all of us to recognize what is correct and what isn't in any system and continually perfecting it to be good for everyone.
Joseph, you didn't reply to me, but I see your comment in a conversation that follows my comment.
First of all, I exclude "evil" from my opinions because the concept of evil is a religious one, which introduces a whole level of obfuscation and superstition that is not needed or helpful.
With that stipulated, I'll assert that naked capitalism is inevitably harmful unless and until it is tempered by conscience. On this principle, I think we agree.
What separates harmful, naked capitalism from capitalism with conscience is the motivation for participation in commerce. Or asked simply, "What do you want with money?"
The starting point for the capitalist-with-conscience is, "I want to make things better for the community and my family. I need money to invest in those improvements."
The naked capitalist starts with, "I want more stuff for myself and my family. To buy it, I need money."
You may feel differently, but in my opinion, the Founding Fathers started from the naked capitalist's point of view. As a nation, we've never gotten past that.
As an example, the contrast of U.S. culture vs. that of Scandinavia is stark. In the U.S., wealth is the goal for everyone, from the impoverished to the affluent. In the Scandinavian countries, a happy life is the goal, and money is the means to that end. And survey after survey demonstrates which group is more successful at achieving their goal.
That’s easier said than done when the Capitalists own the mass media, the public education system, the courts and a majority of the members of Congress.
A fundamental flaw of Capitalism is the quest for ever-increasing profits in a world of limited resources, regardless of the associated costs.
The problem with Capitalism is not “bad actors”, although many Capitalists may be bad actors. Capitalism doesn’t require “good actors” to restrain themselves, to be charitable, or to perform “good deeds” or to pay for the externalities that support them.
Dale - Couldnt agree more! We are eating from a poisoned tree - spot on indeed! These conversations help bring awareness to how bad things are — and how, at the very least, we can correct course. Thank you for this insightful comment !
To me, the goal is to make everything fair for everyone and realize that there will always be those who will game the system to their benefit and to check them on it through trust and verify methods constantly.
A worthy aspiration, Joseph. The challenge is finding the allies who have the power and the will to break up the oligarchal network the enables the system gamers to operate with impunity.
Peggy, Please forgive me for sending you on a wild goose chase. There's no such word in the English language, although it has been used. Thom Hartmann coined it and wrote about it in a piece titled "The Borkification of America" if my memory serves me right. It had to do with Robert Bork's idea that the primary consideration in economic policy was the satisfaction of the consumer, and to Bork's way of thinking, consumer satisfaction could simply be reduced to lower prices. That Trojan horse of an idea was a basis for the offshoring of millions of American jobs and the decimation of Main Streets and Mom and Pop businesses all across America. All for the sake of "Low Prices Guaranteed". Hartmann fleshed out the skeleton I describe, and he may have also coined the term "Wal-Martification" in the same article. I asked about "Borkification" because there was a comment about oligarchy that brought it to mind. I was curious as to whether anyone remembered Robert Bork, and his contribution to the concentration of capital and the wealth gap, the corporatocracy, and the oligarchy we're all living through now.
1971 -- Freedom River (7 mins) An animation narrated by the late Orson Welles. Demonstrating how little has changed. It might shock some. (I watched this many times on my Navy ship, a couple of years before the bicentennial -- and our involvement in Vietnam was drawing to a close.)
It's up to We, The People to steer the ship of state in the right direction and keep it on course. No more misinformation. No more deception. We must plot a new course toward the tried and true ways and means that work for ALL people regardless of race, color or creed.
Our Founding Fathers have said it and we must continue doing what is right for everyone.
Yes, this resonates strongly, especially the critique of valuing only what is fungible and short-term. Framing human knowledge, ecological systems, and networks of relationship as national assets is powerful and highlights how narrow economic metrics have shaped institutional failure. I read “awakening” here less as simply replacing people and more as dismantling a value system that treats what sustains us as expendable. The deeper challenge is rebuilding institutions and incentives that can steward what isn’t easily priced: human capacity, living systems, and long-term resilience.
A modern state is a fragile equilibrium of individual interests. It holds together as long as it delivers predictable benefits; it loses legitimacy when it fails to do so.
Economic crises break the anesthesia of prosperity and reveal what usually remains hidden: under scarcity, survival displaces abstraction, fear replaces trust, and rational individual actions push the system toward collective failure.
This is not an accident, but a structural outcome.
Read the full post to understand how states corrode, adapt, and transform.
Plain language in terms that everyone can understand is what is called for to speak truth to power and to the rest of us . Not many people understand academia speak.
YES! May all institutions of "higher education" and their boring boards awaken to the reality that ignorance causes a lot of problems in society now, as it always has. The only antidote for ignorance is information that is really true! To realistically seek truth, know truth, and effectively communicate truth requires freedom to investigate, experiment, and then to freely express truth. That is educational enlightenment - awakening. Join the 21st century now before trump-the-terrible and trumpian lackeys destroy democracy and this planet and all of humanity -PLEASE!
I might add, giving information that is easily understood by as many people as possible, regardless of their individual levels of intelligence.
I think that one of the reasons why so many people don't vote may be because they do not understand what they are voting for and then again, many vote because they believe a lie , thinking it is the truth, as I believe that many MAGA voters have done .
Exactly! ‘Murica is a KAKISTOCRACY, where possibly THE dumbest rapist pedophile on EARTH is the pretend figurehead, where a NAZI, Steven Miller, is almost certainly in charge.
There is an ice storm developing across this country that has the ability to devastate life as we know it for the foreseeable future. This event or ones similar to it descend upon us almost every Winter. However, this year we are being warned that the approaching storm will be catastrophic in nature. Our Southern tier states are bracing themselves for the worst. While another ICE storm of equal concern is already devastating cities in our North, like Minneapolis. The Republican Party has developed a distaste for immigrants who crossed our Southern border on foot. I find it odd they show no concern for the some 80 million immigrants who have entered this country over the past 75 years VIA either one of our two coasts. I have no problem with immigration officials removing individuals who have committed crimes of a felonious nature. ICE agents "MUST" present local officials with a list of their targets along with proof of the crime or crimes they have committed. For ICE to randomly extract law bidding people from our midst strictly because of their appearance is asinine. It's a proven statistic that immigrants commit fewer crimes than our own citizens. We live in a country built upon the dreams of immigrants, why does the party of our President view our new arrivals in a negative light? Weed out the criminals but leave the people of quality be. The debacle in Minnesota that's being prosecuted by morons like Noem, Vance, and Trump are a disgrace to this country and the freedoms we give to all who live within our borders. The effects of the storm to our South will subside as the ice melts. Perhaps we should apply a little political heat to the ICE in our North and see what happens. Leave the people be!
Unfortunately, the United States today appears locked in a phase of deep institutional evolution. Political cycles are short, narratives are binary, and legitimacy is contested in real time. Democratic mechanisms still function, but they suffer, under constant stress. Institutions are asked not only to govern, but to arbitrate identity, morality, and social conflict simultaneously. Minneapolis is not the cause of this condition. It is a manifestation of it.
“I have no problem with immigration officials removing individuals who have committed crimes of a felonious nature. “
I hope you have a huge problem (but I bet you don’t) with demsurrectionist state and municipal officials (right up to Governor Tampon and Mayor Freyheyt und Brot, Virginia may be added to the list of neo-Confederate states) going beyond mere refusal to cooperate with federal officials in an area of federal jurisdiction and inciting armies of frustrated Klares to attack federal officials up to kamikaze levels, in attempts to protect those individuals.
DH - "I have no problem with immigration officials removing individuals who have committed crimes of a felonious nature." Thank you for this belated admission (now that it is of little consequence). A serious problem is that the Biden/Harris/Mayorkas team chose to allow 10 - 20 million illegal immigrants to flood into our country with taxpayer NGO support, cell phones, notices to appear, free dispersal to sanctuary islands in our large country, and financial support. This was done knowing it would overwhelm our court system and make it near impossible to identify and locate criminals among them. Then the same members of the Democratic Party demand due process for each individual. Which law do you support, immigration law or due process. The answer is obvious; you ignored immigration law on purpose creating the mess we now have in place. The intent over time is to secure more votes and more power for Democrats.
I'd rather suggest that they were let in to better themselves and make a contribution to our society while paying taxes and building a stronger democracy for all of us to benefit by, for after all, we are a nation of immigrants to start with.
I view the Biden action as being done purposely, no stretching required. We have legal means for immigration and asylum. Biden et al chose to disobey these laws (suggesting we can do the same with respect to laws we don't like). Congress failed to change the law. You complain when ICE enforces existing law.
Your empathy suggestion implies that we are a territory, not a nation with borders, a Constitution, and the rule of law. I am a 10th generation immigrant on my mother's side, about 8th on my father's side, and my wife is a 2nd generation immigrant on both sides of her family. So what? Illegal immigrants should not be allowed to vote, ever. They can be counted by the Census but only as residents, not citizens. Counting them leads to incorrect representation in the House of Representatives. There is no legal basis for your position in the United States of America. Your position leads to mobocracy and vigilantism, i.e. violence.
My alma mater and subsequently the U that my daughter graduated from were excellent schools that went bankrupt, and in both cases it appeared to me it had a lot to do with the preponderance of members of the board who knew the ways of commerce, but not education, making all the wrong moves.
Yes, this has been destroying universities in the UK as well. They want rich board members with links that they fondly assume will deliver big donations, and now expect the same of Chancellors and even Vice-Chancellors. A particularly egregious example was appointing as head of Cranfield a disgraced board member of Rolls Royce, which had been found guilty of being involved in bribing foreign governments. Note, he was appointed afterward losing his position at RR! And predictably under his aegis teaching and research were stripped back, as being “unproductive”. But that is actually what a university is meant to DO.
All across the unis we’ve seen exactly the same pattern. These “leaders”, whose main qualifications appear to be narcissism and personal ambition, first decided the reason for research was to patent technology. But, surprise surprise, to develop knowledge you require cooperation, not secrecy. The crazy IP contracts the uni lawyers came up for working with the university were unsignable for all outside bodies (including those who were trying to pay for some research!). So that didn’t work. Their next attempt to extract rent was to see the foreign students as cash cows. Many came from fairly rich families in their own countries, so these jokers rubbed their hands and decided the key business of their universities should be property developers. Suddenly no money was available for research, and increasingly no physical space either. Instead all the funds and property holdings were lavished on building luxury student accommodation. Yet another case of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs… if there is no research and no teaching, why would the foreign students want to come?
What REALLY annoys me is that these neocons actually have NO idea how to actually run a real business. For various reasons their experience has always been starting at the top, and taking the credit of the work of others further down when it’s going well, and then never taking the responsibility when it all goes horribly wrong. At that point they take the golden handshake and go on to butcher somewhere else.
It’s all nonsense, and I hope every normal person is now realising they are not alone in thinking it crazy. Let’s get back to respecting and rewarding real work, and reveal the rent extractors for the freeloaders they really are.
My Alma Mater also closed after lack of funds. It was a small, excellent college in upstate NY. I was floored. How could this happen? Obviously, someone who should have had the fiscal responsibility, failed. There's absolutely no valid reason for its closure except irresponsibility.
Rapid economic change always produces a crop of lucky individuals who are very good at only one thing. Limiting their power is difficult is you need their money.
Following Jack Smith’s Deposition: Here’s what Stephen Miller posted: “Everyone serious understands that the justice system is rigged. Far-left prosecutors, magistrates, judges and juries unhesitatingly shield their violent activists and gleefully imprison their political opponents. Unrigging the system is necessary for the survival of the Republic.”
Board members are chosen primarily for their wealth and willingness to give and raise money. In the case of public universities, appointments to the boards are political as well. Board members do not live among the people they govern. Many never set foot on the campus except to attend board meetings. Many do not know any students, faculty, professional staff or ordinary employees who maintain the university. It could be argued that King George had less power over the colonists than board members have over the people whose lives they govern.
Higher education in the United States is run by a tiny sliver of the population who in no way represent this country. This must change. It is wildly undemocratic.
In 1776 colonists rejected governance by people who did not live among them, who did not share their lives. If we are to value democracy and teach it to students, universities must model it. The people who get up every morning and recreate a university, who study and teach and research and clean and mow lawns, and cook and advise and coach, need to live as citizens, not as subjects with no power. Authoritarianism is unacceptable, not only in or federal government but also in the governance of American higher education.
Through the eyes of college students we see lives to be lived out mostly in a post-Trump world. Their minds are looking at the recovery and rebuilding process and how they will best apply themselves in #RebuildingHonorableDemocracy.
Lessons will be learned. Firm guardrails will be set. And America will never again take for granted that integrity is important to the occupant of the Oval.
Trump's attempt to muzzle universities is FUTILE. We like to think that we train independent thinkers in Universities. It's like trying to hold back a surge in a flood. Eventually SOMETHING gives way, and the whole lot is washed downstream. It is only a matter of time, and I, for one, look forward to that day!
Critical thinking is vital for a society to flourish. The current administration is doing everything possible to suppress the education system, from kindergarten to universities. Curiosity is stifled, rote "knowledge” is
controlled by the government, and the arts-music, drama, dance,etc.- have been eliminated in curriculums. To ensure that an oligarchy can endure, future generations must be "prepared”. A poor, unhealthy, uneducated, population is the result. The Columbia faculty is taking steps to prevent this. Well done. But unfortunately, the shear geographical size of our nation and its population, make change formidable.
It is imperative for us to understand why Reagan served two terms and still remains enormously popular among voters. He made many Americans feel good about their country again. We must reach out to these voters and show them that Trump is not the second coming of Reagan.
an optimistic persona can cover up a multitude of defects,susan-in the short term-and a note on st. ronnie-his 11th commandment,'thou shall not speak iIl of a fellow republican'-perhaps formulated after he won,but definitely not observed in '76,when he criticized the hell out of Gerald Ford,paving the way for carter's victory
I think it is absolutely essential to expose young people to how conservatism naturally regressed into the complete depravity of MAGA. This has been decades in the making.
I recall when, in the interest of returning "virtue and character" to the White House, conservatives focused the nation's attention on Bill Clinton's crotch for the better part of two years. And then come to find out their Speaker (Hastert) was paying hush money to a young man he'd abused years before.
This is not isolated. In recent years, the mainly white, conservative, Christian, patriotic organization -- Boy Scouts of America -- had to declare bankruptcy under the weight of a class action lawsuit with over 80,000 -- eighty THOUSAND -- victims. Abused and molested by white, straight, conservative, Christian men. They were "exposed" alright.
But thank you for playing.
Oh, last point ... a kind of rule of thumb -- "If you will molest the Truth, you will molest anything, even a child." Bring it on.
And harder to put a stop to what seems like an endless trickle down effect from the current fascist administration, we must start at the route and move upward: that's education. Begin with inserting the right people on school boards whether they be public school, high school or university level. Elect your Democratic representatives immediately, it could be a slow process, but it's a start. Speak out from the roots and keep watering those seeds and bulbs regularly.
Some of our worst mistakes begin with "good intentions."
It was during the 60's Civil Rights Movement that, under Democratic Party majority control, the Dept. of Education decided that the teaching profession was to include "cultural change agents" in addition to educators.
I was then and am now, a thoroughly committed proponent of egalitarian Civil Rights, but I was opposed to many of the policies initially used under the Democratic Party's majority rule to implement that ideal.
"Busing" destroyed our neighborhood schools and direct citizen involvement through the PTAs with their children's school experience. Teachers often implied that parents were "backward" and "wrong" on the current political policies, while they (their teachers) were enlightened and "right" which was a challenge to parental authority in general.
I know of one incidence where a white high school student in Montgomery Co., MD was raped by a black student bused from a Washington, DC getto. The student was not expelled because his behavior was the result of his ghetto cultural condition and the girl's parents were advised by her psychologist that participating in a trial would be psychologically devastating, so there were no criminal legal consequences, either.
The girl could not return to her public high school with the possibility of encountering her rapist, so her parents used the money saved for her college tuition to send her to a private high school.
The busing was not only illegal because it bused between school districts; even worse, it bused across state lines. The Maryland Counties that surrounded the District of Columbia were the social lab for many pro-Civil Rights politicians, whose children went to private, not public, schools.
Same shit, different Political Party! Power corrupts regardless of Party loyalty and good intentions
This post may result in a negative response from some participants on this blog, assuming it even gets posted, but I cannot in good conscience keep my experience of over 50 years ago to myself.
I get disrespected for my progressive theological/spiritual opinions in both Conservative and Liberal churches, as well as from both sides of the political divide. I guess people in our contemporary culture don't realize that, while disagreements can be healthy and consciousness expanding, disrespect is psychological abuse.
Carol, you don't have to answer my question above as I do respect your opinion and openness in voicing your doubts about some of the busing issues that came about during the desegregation efforts back in the day.
Helping a historically suppressed people like the Blacks in our countries history has been long over due and necessary to demonstrate what we believe is the fair and right way to treat our fellow Americans now and in the future. The whole idea of White Supremacy is so totally wrong that I wonder how it can still be so strongly believed even now , but, it is a reality that we are facing as we speak with the Trump regime .
When we get into the nuts and bolts of implementing anything through a government program it can be confusing and messy at times, but that does not mean that something is wrong with the concept. What I love about public education is that it is about helping every student regardless of race, color, creed or income level , to level the playing field and making it fair for them to pursue their own paths to a happy life on earth .
So, our battle is with those who do not believe in equal opportunity for all and I for one, cannot sit idly by and watch this country slide into a fascist defeatism , but, will continue to fight for the founding principles of our Democracy to my dying days and I would consider it a privilege to have you join me in that fight as well.
The loss of the Civil War not only freed the slaves from chattel slavery only to plunge many of them into "wage slavery" like the white "indentured servants" in the early colonial period, it also plunged the South's white middle class slave managers into poverty. The wealthy plantation owners did not oversee their human chattel themselves. I suppose many so-called "red-necks" may be descendants of this economic class who have never quite "worked themselves back up" to middle-class status. The only advantage they had, and often still have especially in the South, is their white skin.
Prejudices are often rooted in a reluctance to give up unjust advantages that make us more competitive in our "survival of the fittest,"meaning "most productive" in the labor market.
I doubt that the white middle class ever realized how advantaged we really were. Now everyone is a "human resource." There may be a legal difference between "wage slavery" and "chattel slavery," but, psychologically, they both feel the same!
Thank you for sharing your views and experience, Carol. What happened 50 years ago still resonates today. The past is not even past if we don't learn from it.
"It was during the 60's Civil Rights Movement that, under Democratic Party majority control, the Dept. of Education decided that the teaching profession was to include "cultural change agents" in addition to educators."
The Department of Education became a Cabinet-agency in 1979.
I supported the policies to eliminate racial, or any other form, of discrimination in housing or the workplace; but I will always believe that trying to solve our racial discrimination problem on the backs of young school children was a serious error in judgement.
Of course, you are entitled to disagree with that. I'm sorry that you feel that I deserve disrespect as a reaction to my opinion; but you are entitled to hold that opinion as well.
It has become not only the fashion but the dominant paradigm in the United States to value only the fungible, which has led to wealthy and wealth-focused know-nothings running the country and the major institutions. That the nation has become focused on the short run has made things worse.
They neglect the fundamental national assets of human beings (with our knowledge and skills and knacks and thinking powers and strengths), of the air and water and soil, of tangible and intangible networks of interconnection among humans and among our fellow creatures and between us humans and our environment.
Awakening means taking off these extremely limiting blinkers and throwing the bums out.
Exactly right. The United States optimized for the fungible and lost everything that actually matters.
Wealth became the only measure of value, so wealth-obsessed know-nothings run everything.
I’ve written about this repeatedly: America optimized for Amazon packages over actual quality of life, external rewards over internal strength, short-term extraction over long-term sustainability. The system selected for people who know how to accumulate but not how to build, preserve, or govern.
What you’re calling “fundamental national assets” (human capital, natural resources, social networks, ecological systems) can’t be easily monetized, so they got treated as externalities to exploit rather than foundations to protect.
None of this was accidental. That’s the incentive structure working exactly as designed.
The blinkers you’re describing aren’t just cultural. They’re structural. When your political system runs on money, your economy rewards extraction, and your media profits from outrage, you get leaders who excel at exactly those things and nothing else.
Throwing the bums out matters. But until the incentive structure changes, you just get new bums optimized for the same broken system.
Awakening requires not just removing individuals but redesigning what we’re selecting for in the first place.
America chose fungibility over everything else. Now it’s reaping what it optimized for.
— Johan
Redesigning the American system described as it is here, basically all-in capitalism of the sort we've seen in movie satires ("Show me the money" or "Greed is good") has got us to the point where all action is transaction, government work demeaned ("I'm from the government and I'm here to help") and key workers terminated without cause, will not be possible without: a. a leader of unusual drive, wisdom and leadership; and b. a Constitutional Convention that actually allows us to change what needs changing to govern properly 250 years after our system of governance was initiated. Chances of either or both are looking slim right now.
I must disagree since I believe that careful examination of the Biden/Harris-led rebound after the first ouster of trump-the-terrible, although not perfect - of course - showed that a great deal of progress is possible. The idea, to me, of somehow reaching agreement on a drastically different structure for American democracy in order to return to more progressive, practical evolution seems to be an unrealistic fantasy - in my humble opinion...
The sexually-insecure white men, and the existentially-insecure evangelical Christians will not be reformed, and the institutions they dominate won't be democratized by a surge of progressive political reforms. The best we can hope for is modest, community-based social structures that respect and enhance the lives of individuals.
Greg; Christianity arose out of the common people as their champion & one opposed to the Divine Right of Kings. It was initially enthusiastically taken up by the common people to the point where it became the very first popularly ELECTED Government in all history. Existing establishments wanted nothing to do with it; yet they had to make terms with it if they wanted to remain in power at all.
Admittedly that was a long time ago & much water has passed under the bridge since then. Yet with the rise of Despotism in Trump; do not be surprised if this event REPEATS ITSELF. Although it is unlikely to do so under the auspices of the largely fascist Churches that actively support Trump now. What is first required is the restoration of TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY rather than the GREED IS GOOD new age American Churches.
ken.maynard7@gmail.com
Ugh. More apologist, reimagined Christian history.
Thanks, Greg, for sharing your thoughts on this. I am hesitant, however, to proclaim that any group of people will never change or that "they" will always remain just as I conceive "them" to be. I do believe the truth of this adage: "The only thing that never changes in this world is the fact that everything is always changing." (There is not a single atom in my body which is an atom that was part of "me" at my birth - and likewise for you and all others). My perception and evaluation of what motivates anyone is necessarily based on insufficient evidence since none of us has the ability to know what others are thinking and feeling; it's difficult enough to thoroughly know one's own self and to be true to the best version of one's own self without any sort of self-deception being present, etc. And to pretend to know that information about a large group of individuals that the vast majority of whom I have no personal knowledge is indeed absurd. Wouldn't you agree?
Frank Talk, Jr.
Since slavery, America has suffered with the problems of wealth inequality, justice, and attacks on democracy enabled by suppression of truth and learning in a weak legal system. Presidential leadership creating innovation for change was enabled by progressive political support and has provided partial solutions to the problems. President Lincoln’s leadership helped win the Civil War and create new Constitutional Amendments. President FDR’s leadership helped create the progressive New Deal which enabled recovery from the Great Depression and winning WW2 to block the spread of cruel fascism.
But the 1971 Powell memo in America launched a massively organized and funded campaign by the wealthy to manipulate capitalism, overturn the accomplishments and policies of Lincoln and FDR, and define a plan for rebellion and insurrection by Republicans, corporations, and white Christian Nationalists to implement privileged wealth inequality, expanded injustice and expanded attacks on democracy. The campaign directly led to the Heritage Foundation’s PROJECT 2025 which planned the current ongoing insurrection led by Trump implementing a fascist lawless autocracy that is supported by Republicans in Congress and six justices on the Supreme Court. The insurrection that began on January 6, 2021, and continued into 2025 was enabled and supported by a weak legal system which failed to enforce the federal law against insurrection and abused free speech law to permit constant lying by Trump, members of his administration, and his Republican supporters. The news media are complicit in supporting the lying.
Trump, Republicans, and billionaires vigorously support wealth inequality, injustice, and attacks on democracy enabled by rules in a privileged version of capitalism. The rules (supported by Wall Street) unfairly pay working class people for their labor and don’t properly compensate and pay working class people for their knowledge created with education and experience. The rules in privileged capitalism focus on generously compensating and paying nonworking people for their wealthy investments created with their money.
The problem of wealth inequality is largely the result of unjust rules in privileged capitalism that are controlled by financial accounting, government policy, and laws. The rules generously pay people for the ownership and use of their capital investments created with their money supplemented with reduced taxes for the wealthy falsely justified in trickle-down economics. The rules in privileged capitalism reject and block paying people for the ownership and use of their knowledge created with investment in education and learning through experience. Privileged capitalism operates with unjust rules that unfairly discriminate against labor with knowledge as having little value but privileges capital with tools such as AI by granting unrestricted rights to replace labor without any legal regulation. That’s injustice and a threat to creating and preserving a society which should share wealth in an economy with growth enabled by knowledge and capital investment.
The rules in capitalism need to be changed. Democrats need new thinking and policy to better identify and understand the problems that voters want to be solved including the problems with jobs and wages as (1) wealth inequality, and (2) the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) to stupidly eliminate many white-collar jobs for people with the knowledge required for economic growth enabled only by creative innovation driven by knowledge. Democrats need to recognize and understand the damage caused by obsolete, stupid and unjust financial accounting rules in privileged capitalism.
Financial accounting currently measures the value of capital as amounts of money and compensates the people who own and invest the money but doesn’t adequately measure knowledge in individual people and properly compensate them for the value created by applying their knowledge. Financial accounting is authorized by unjust rules that ignore the Constitution which assigned exclusive ownership of patents to the inventors who used their knowledge to enable the creativity used to create the inventions. Financial accounting can and should be improved. Improvement of financial accounting is being attempted as Integrated Reporting which is designed to improve calculation of businesses value to guide investments by modeling business operation and measuring the use of six types of capital – financial, natural, manufactured, intellectual, knowledge as human capital, and social & relationship capital.
In summary, Democrats need better thinking that solves voter problems to get elected with methods to better understand and solve the problems previously mentioned such as the damage to democracy created with wealth inequality.
I think that's what some folks said 250 years ago...unrealistic...fantastical pipedreams.
Hello Lori Morsman, and thanks for giving us your thoughts. Your reply appears to be in response to what I said to Roberto K. about the progress that the Biden/Harris administration made towards countering the disastrous trumpian first regime. If so, let me be clear that I was meaning to indicate that, although we definitely need a great deal more adjustments to our system of democracy, we do not need to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" - so to speak. That is to say, we intelligent, civilized, ethical Democrats can take control of both houses of Congress next year and pass laws to bring the Supreme Court into compliance with ethical norms and impose term limits on them - for starters - and eliminate the outdated electoral college which has been "Distorting Democracy" (see the book with this title written by history professor C.R. Dupont) - and eliminate the "dark money" in elections that was initiated by a flawed Supreme Court Decision just a few years ago - etc. etc. I said this in reply to Roberto K.'s comment stating that he thinks 2 things need to change and the chances look slim to him that either of those will happen. The 2 things he indicated as being required are (a.) A leader who has an unusual amount of "drive" - "wisdom" - and "leadership" - and Roberto said he thinks we need a new "Constitutional Convention". I think there is an abundance of leaders now (including: Robert Reich, Kamala Harris, Mark Kelly, Elizabeth Warren, Josh Shapiro, et al) who are wise Democrats with sufficient leadership skills to help us drive our current bus forward with the types of repairs that I have outlined here. As to what was considered to be a "fantasy" in 1776 and is what some people in 2026 are calling a "pipedream" - that seems to be just more of the normal sort of rhetoric one has always heard in political debates. I believe it's more possible to make the repairs to our current Constitutional Bus than to try to find agreement on the design of and then the manufacture of a new bus (after having found agreement on the type of new "Constitutional Convention" and peacefully and successfully bringing that into the realm of reality). I welcome comments from you and others on which of these is actually possible. Politics (public policy) is, after all, still "the art of the possible" - wouldn't you agree?
It sounds to me that you're equating Biden, and I would add Obama, to a paradigm of Globalism as opposed to Trump's paradigm of American Exclusionism.
Robert - you’re spot on! This is what I’ve been shouting - the whole system is flawed and it starts with our government! I’ve called that out in pieces becuase government is the “true ruling class of our society” — funded by corporations: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-ruling-class-of-the-united-states
No, I was with the government, and I did want to help and I did help. Government is not the issue. Government gave us Medicare and Medicaid and food programs, etc. Bad and corrupt government should be outlawed but democracy is not flawed; it just needs to be led in an appropriate direction.
roberto k, the Trump regime is already changing the Constitution to conform to the goals enunciated in Project 2025. If Republicans retain majorities in most states a constitutional convention would finalize the work Trump is doing now.
All the more reason for us to persist.
I believe the US Constitution really defined Democratic Socialism. Government of the people and for the people is Democratic Socialism. Putting people before profit.
WE DO NOT NEED A NEW STRUCTURE, WE NEED TO ENFORCE WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ITS STRUCTURE. PRIVATE ENTERPRISE WITH THE PROFIT MOTIVE WAS NECESSARY TO ASSURE RESOURCES WERE NOT WASTED OR USED INEFFICIENTLY. THE COMPLAINTS ABOUT FUNGIBILITY ARE THE RESULT OF OUR FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL TENENT OF CAPITALISM, THAT THE GREED WILL AND MUST BE BE CONTAINED BY COMPETITION. OUR FAILURE WAS IN NOT ENFORCING AGGRESSIVE ANTI-TRUST AND NOT ARRESTING AND PROSECUTING ALL CRIMINAL COMMERCE WHICH HAS CAPTURED ITS REGULATORY INSTITUTIONS. EVERY REGULATORY INSTITUTION (EXAMPLES: THE ICC, FDA, STATE UTILITY COMMISSIONS, EPA, DEPT OF AG. ETC. AD NAUSEAM) HAS BEEN CAPTURED ILLEGALLY BY COMMERCE. AND THE SUPREME COURT WAS SUPREMELY WRONG IN ALLOWING COMMERCE TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY WAY IN ELECTIONS (Citizens United v. Federal Election commission)
Roberto; your comment seems to ignore the reality that much of Trumps support is a response to the sins of Socialism. Whilst I agree that left wing socialism has many problems; I hold the right-wing response of Trump to be even worse. i yet further hold that two wrongs in a row do not make a right
America needs to abandon its fascination with this endless gunfight between right & left. (for a society raised in a culture of gunfights like Wyatt Earp vs whomever. Where he who draws fastest & shoots straightest WINS regardless of the MORAL QUALITIES of either combatant; this might be quite hard to do.)
It instead needs to look to the MORAL MAJORITY that live in the social political center. Get them to STAND UP & form their own political party if necessary; then announce `~we are no longer amused by this endless gunfight between Left & Right; matters are becoming serious; from here on WE ARE IN CHARGE.
No society can be saved by its political extremes; it requires the CENTRIST moral majority to do so,
ken.maynard@gmail.com
Yes.
If we are going to jettison this system , we must have a better one to follow or it won't work .
Our Founding documents contain that better way and must be continually practiced to help build a more perfect union for our country. To me, the democratic republic idea of governance is the gold standard here and must be cherished and practiced as has been the attempt by our country for the past 250 years, with much resistance form without and from within to this day.
It's a struggle but one worth fighting for to make it work.
Elegantly stated but not quite true, Johan. America chose fungibility over everything else, but did not forget the "else." This is why the upcoming elections matter. Xi and Putin would like us to believe that we are doomed, and that our republic is nothing more than a sham. In November we can prove them wrong. It is up to us. The argument that nothing will really change unless we change the "system" is an argument for either surrendering by default or resorting to violence. Incremental changes can eventually change the system itself, and that is what scares the plutocrats running our government right now.
You’re right to push back on fatalism, I agree with you. But let me be precise about what I’m saying: incremental change through elections matters domestically. I’m not arguing for surrender. I’m arguing that the international system isn’t waiting for those incremental changes to work.
November elections matter for Americans deciding their future. Absolutely. Proving Xi and Putin wrong about American democracy collapsing matters.
But here’s what I’m tracking: While Americans work toward November hoping to prove the republic isn’t a sham, allies are building defense independence, activating economic countermeasures, and decoupling from American reliability. Not because they want American democracy to fail. Because they can’t make their security contingent on whether it succeeds.
You’re correct that incremental change can eventually transform systems. That scares plutocrats. It also takes time. And time is what allies don’t have. When your supposed partner threatens to annex your territory, you don’t wait for their next election to see if nicer people win. You build alternatives.
Both things are true simultaneously: Americans can and should fight through elections to reclaim their democracy. And the world is moving on because it has to. Success in November helps domestically. It doesn’t reverse the international realignment already underway.
I’m not counseling despair about American elections. I’m observing that the global order is fracturing regardless of their outcome. Win in November. Please. But understand that even victory doesn’t restore the trust that’s already gone.
My post that just dropped discusses what we, as Americans, are and could do—-whether at home or abroad, to strengthen values and institutions.
— Johan
But wait! human resources can be monetized if we're all prisoners of the state. the 13th amendment says so. 😁
The Founding design is government by, for and of : We, The People , not Corporations (although the law has made corporations to be, as people, in matters of litigation.)
corporations are a legal scam designed to keep perpetrators of harm to others insulated from prosecution. corporations fulfill this purpose quite remarkabley well.
I would say that some of them do for sure because of the bad actors who reside in them.
Paul, you forgot Section 2 of the 13th Amendment. We have elections in November, and the courts still function, albeit imperfectly. You still have the right to vote. Use it!
no, you've got the wrong amendment. 13th abolishes slavery except if you're in prison. it's very exlicit
In fungible I assume you mean ~money is GOD~ Yes this does appear to be behind the fall of America. Tio succeed at what Trump is attempting requires 3 things.
1 the expediency & nastiness required to achieve short term Tactical victories. This Trump has in spades.
2 A soundly crafted Strategic plan ensuring supply & support over the long term. As I discern it Trump does have such a plan; yet it is ill-considered & has multiple weaknesses. I hold it to be strategic GARBAGE.
3 A very sound understanding of SOCIAL ENGINEERING. That Trump believes that his unsound campaign can win a war of attrition over time; with A SIGNIFICANT social majority attests he is UTTERLY INCOMPETENT in this field.
The next issue is can a one-legged man win a race with groups of whole healthy humans over time? HARDLY!
ken.maynard7@gmail.com
Well, Manifest Destiny was always built on the fungible. BUT we can and should do better!
Could not be better stated! Money, once a human-created tool - a servant - to facilitate commerce, has literally become the master of all. Nothing happens without the permission and blessing of money.
Simple solution (that probably can never happen without a prior major collapse) -- delegitimize the profit motive.
I’ve been doing an analysis of just how did we get here and this “value only the fungible” developed within the 70s.
In fact, in the 70s we see America go from this ideal of recognizing the human potential to extracting from that potential. What we’re experiencing now has been laid for decades in advance.
You may like the following pieces on it - one on the 70s and then others exploring inflation and how that robs us but gives to the wealthy:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/how-the-american-dream-died-in-1973
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/this-is-not-inflation-this-is-robbery
I’m pleased by signs of new growth amidst the devastation but it grieves me that I helped to cause this. I had the opportunity to re-elect Jimmy Carter, with his unpopular message of lowered thermostats and self-sacrifice. Instead, I was seduced by Reagan’s trickle-down prosperity theology. Now we’re here. It will take effort, imho, to resist the pressure to revert to the fungible-favoring status quo, just like my son’s straight teeth went back to misaligned when he didn’t wear his retainer.
ISOequanimity, like you, I didn't vote for President Carter the second time and I should have. I kick myself thinking how I honestly felt that whole 'trickle-down' economy would benefit the working middle and lower classes. Boy, was I wrong! My sister is always saying to me "woulda, coulda, shoulda" which is her way of telling me to quit moaning and groaning about what I have done and focus on what I will do! She's right and so are you. It will take a lot of effort to resist that pressure and not revert back to the fungible-favored status quo!
I too should have voted for Carter but because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Reagan, I voted for the 3rd party guy whose name I’ve now forgotten. But I have to laugh. My ex, who thought of himself as a Democrat, complained when I said he always voted for losers. “What do you mean? I voted for Nixon and Reagan!” I said, “Exactly.” 🤪
Hahahahahaha! Good one, Barbara!
To err is human. This is how we learn.
Peggy..... I loved Carter! He was the first President I watched the State of the Union. I did not like Reagan and could never vote for him.💙💙💙🇺🇸
I loved him, too, Pamela, and I hate that I fell for Reagan's stupid 'trickle down' economics!
I did. Both times. And I do appreciate both your apologies because I have been thoroughly disappointed in you all these years. Still, we are here to do what we can with what we have where we are.
ISOequanimity, this is the crucial question! Whatever secret sauce was used to capture your vote for Reagan has been perfected and packaged to where it now dominates the marketplace. To stick with this analogy, I think to reverse the malign outcome we need to read the ingredient list of fear, greed, exploitation etc., and publicize it far and wide, so people learn exactly what they're voting for. If we're successful maybe less people will be shot in the face by federal agents.
And just like our wheat, these ingredients would likely be banned in EU. They’re not perfect but they’re more enlightened.
To protest is very dangerous these days.
Thousands have protested, and only one person was killed in a very unusual incident. So why are you saying that protests are very dangerous?
Victor. It was one death too many in my books.
Victor.......there have been many injured, tear gas, rubber bullets, breaking into peoples homes, etc. It is ICE that is out of control, the protesters are mostly peaceful.
The hallmark of a repressive dictatorship.
I voted for Reagon, also, much to my chagrin. I followed my parents lead , as they , too, were bamboozled by his silver tongue.
Franklin, I commend you for looking backward for answers. Perhaps, you have not traveled far enough back in time.
It seems that the job has fallen to me to remind my neighbors that the "pursuit of the fungible," as described above, is actually built into our national DNA.
Those revered, white European "Founding Fathers" claiming "Manifest Destiny" built their wealth on land stolen from the Indigenous peoples who held the land in trust for millennia. These white invaders then sought to protect their wealth and promote their advantage to create more wealth for themselves by designing a unique government built around capitalism, augmented by white supremacy and patriarchy. While every culture in world history included commerce, few if any societies, other than U.S. culture have been built around the fungible.
The U.S. Government's three branches that supposedly provide "a system of checks and balances" only check and balance EACH OTHER. It was a good pitch offered by the colonial gentry to mollify the masses, but the system did – and does – nothing to constrain abuses by the "haves" against the "have-nots." This check-and-balance ruse was the ancestral foundation for "trickle-down economics."
Over the decades, some of our elected representatives have made small inroads into the white oligarchy. But just when we think we've made progress in racial, gender and economic equality, the white oligarchs claw back what they believe to be rightfully theirs.
What we are seeing today should come as no surprise to anyone who has looked at U.S. history without bias. We are eating the fruit of a poisoned tree.
Too many people have bought into the myth. Too few understand what you have written because they were not taught the true history of the USA and of the British Empire that spawned it.
Private Capitalism has become the predominant religion of the USA, and is the envy of tyrants elsewhere.
Capitalism is not evil when done right .
All systems contain bad actors within them , The key is to make it right for everyone or it will never be right until that happens. It would behoove all of us to recognize what is correct and what isn't in any system and continually perfecting it to be good for everyone.
Joseph, you didn't reply to me, but I see your comment in a conversation that follows my comment.
First of all, I exclude "evil" from my opinions because the concept of evil is a religious one, which introduces a whole level of obfuscation and superstition that is not needed or helpful.
With that stipulated, I'll assert that naked capitalism is inevitably harmful unless and until it is tempered by conscience. On this principle, I think we agree.
What separates harmful, naked capitalism from capitalism with conscience is the motivation for participation in commerce. Or asked simply, "What do you want with money?"
The starting point for the capitalist-with-conscience is, "I want to make things better for the community and my family. I need money to invest in those improvements."
The naked capitalist starts with, "I want more stuff for myself and my family. To buy it, I need money."
You may feel differently, but in my opinion, the Founding Fathers started from the naked capitalist's point of view. As a nation, we've never gotten past that.
As an example, the contrast of U.S. culture vs. that of Scandinavia is stark. In the U.S., wealth is the goal for everyone, from the impoverished to the affluent. In the Scandinavian countries, a happy life is the goal, and money is the means to that end. And survey after survey demonstrates which group is more successful at achieving their goal.
Nicely said, Dale.
We must seek the better way to do things , in general, for the betterment of our fellow Americans .
That’s easier said than done when the Capitalists own the mass media, the public education system, the courts and a majority of the members of Congress.
A fundamental flaw of Capitalism is the quest for ever-increasing profits in a world of limited resources, regardless of the associated costs.
The problem with Capitalism is not “bad actors”, although many Capitalists may be bad actors. Capitalism doesn’t require “good actors” to restrain themselves, to be charitable, or to perform “good deeds” or to pay for the externalities that support them.
Dale - Couldnt agree more! We are eating from a poisoned tree - spot on indeed! These conversations help bring awareness to how bad things are — and how, at the very least, we can correct course. Thank you for this insightful comment !
To me, the goal is to make everything fair for everyone and realize that there will always be those who will game the system to their benefit and to check them on it through trust and verify methods constantly.
A worthy aspiration, Joseph. The challenge is finding the allies who have the power and the will to break up the oligarchal network the enables the system gamers to operate with impunity.
That sounds like socialism.
Is "Borkification" a word?
Ian, I tried to find borkification and I couldn't. I did find bonification which means betterment of housing conditions and farming practices.
Peggy, Please forgive me for sending you on a wild goose chase. There's no such word in the English language, although it has been used. Thom Hartmann coined it and wrote about it in a piece titled "The Borkification of America" if my memory serves me right. It had to do with Robert Bork's idea that the primary consideration in economic policy was the satisfaction of the consumer, and to Bork's way of thinking, consumer satisfaction could simply be reduced to lower prices. That Trojan horse of an idea was a basis for the offshoring of millions of American jobs and the decimation of Main Streets and Mom and Pop businesses all across America. All for the sake of "Low Prices Guaranteed". Hartmann fleshed out the skeleton I describe, and he may have also coined the term "Wal-Martification" in the same article. I asked about "Borkification" because there was a comment about oligarchy that brought it to mind. I was curious as to whether anyone remembered Robert Bork, and his contribution to the concentration of capital and the wealth gap, the corporatocracy, and the oligarchy we're all living through now.
1971 -- Freedom River (7 mins) An animation narrated by the late Orson Welles. Demonstrating how little has changed. It might shock some. (I watched this many times on my Navy ship, a couple of years before the bicentennial -- and our involvement in Vietnam was drawing to a close.)
https://youtu.be/n5q2gPVbTTY?si=OR0GI4YWv7hxnHMo
So true, Thomas. Thanks for sharing that.
It's up to We, The People to steer the ship of state in the right direction and keep it on course. No more misinformation. No more deception. We must plot a new course toward the tried and true ways and means that work for ALL people regardless of race, color or creed.
Our Founding Fathers have said it and we must continue doing what is right for everyone.
Yes, this resonates strongly, especially the critique of valuing only what is fungible and short-term. Framing human knowledge, ecological systems, and networks of relationship as national assets is powerful and highlights how narrow economic metrics have shaped institutional failure. I read “awakening” here less as simply replacing people and more as dismantling a value system that treats what sustains us as expendable. The deeper challenge is rebuilding institutions and incentives that can steward what isn’t easily priced: human capacity, living systems, and long-term resilience.
That is why AI can be so destructive if it is not channeled in the direction of employing human beings , instead of replacing them .
Oligarchs want to use AI to minimize costs and maximize profits by increasing efficiency through robots and not error prone human beings.
A modern state is a fragile equilibrium of individual interests. It holds together as long as it delivers predictable benefits; it loses legitimacy when it fails to do so.
Economic crises break the anesthesia of prosperity and reveal what usually remains hidden: under scarcity, survival displaces abstraction, fear replaces trust, and rational individual actions push the system toward collective failure.
This is not an accident, but a structural outcome.
Read the full post to understand how states corrode, adapt, and transform.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/animal-spirits?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
You seem to be at least part mechanical parrot.
Incisive.
Plain language in terms that everyone can understand is what is called for to speak truth to power and to the rest of us . Not many people understand academia speak.
YES! May all institutions of "higher education" and their boring boards awaken to the reality that ignorance causes a lot of problems in society now, as it always has. The only antidote for ignorance is information that is really true! To realistically seek truth, know truth, and effectively communicate truth requires freedom to investigate, experiment, and then to freely express truth. That is educational enlightenment - awakening. Join the 21st century now before trump-the-terrible and trumpian lackeys destroy democracy and this planet and all of humanity -PLEASE!
I might add, giving information that is easily understood by as many people as possible, regardless of their individual levels of intelligence.
I think that one of the reasons why so many people don't vote may be because they do not understand what they are voting for and then again, many vote because they believe a lie , thinking it is the truth, as I believe that many MAGA voters have done .
Exactly! ‘Murica is a KAKISTOCRACY, where possibly THE dumbest rapist pedophile on EARTH is the pretend figurehead, where a NAZI, Steven Miller, is almost certainly in charge.
I agree. Good point, Mary Ann.
Exactly right and beautifully said.
Prognosticators are predicting a weather event that could cripple this country.
Donald Hodgins <silencenotbad@gmail.com>
3:52 AM (
There is an ice storm developing across this country that has the ability to devastate life as we know it for the foreseeable future. This event or ones similar to it descend upon us almost every Winter. However, this year we are being warned that the approaching storm will be catastrophic in nature. Our Southern tier states are bracing themselves for the worst. While another ICE storm of equal concern is already devastating cities in our North, like Minneapolis. The Republican Party has developed a distaste for immigrants who crossed our Southern border on foot. I find it odd they show no concern for the some 80 million immigrants who have entered this country over the past 75 years VIA either one of our two coasts. I have no problem with immigration officials removing individuals who have committed crimes of a felonious nature. ICE agents "MUST" present local officials with a list of their targets along with proof of the crime or crimes they have committed. For ICE to randomly extract law bidding people from our midst strictly because of their appearance is asinine. It's a proven statistic that immigrants commit fewer crimes than our own citizens. We live in a country built upon the dreams of immigrants, why does the party of our President view our new arrivals in a negative light? Weed out the criminals but leave the people of quality be. The debacle in Minnesota that's being prosecuted by morons like Noem, Vance, and Trump are a disgrace to this country and the freedoms we give to all who live within our borders. The effects of the storm to our South will subside as the ice melts. Perhaps we should apply a little political heat to the ICE in our North and see what happens. Leave the people be!
And Ted Cruz flees to Cancun again. I hope he didn’t leave his dog alone this time, for if he did, best not alert Kristi Noem of the situation.
Sometimes planes crash and burn.
We can hope!!!
Dad-bod fat, super-weird Ted Cruz? Aren't his KIDS grown up by now???
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." -- Ronald McDonald
Ronnie spoke waaaay too soon, but today even he would have to acknowledge that:
"TRUMP is not the solution to our problems -- TRUMP IS THE PROBLEM!"
Yes and remember he spoke of jack booted thugs. He nailed it, though of course he led to it. He and Gingrich started this ball rolling downhill…
And now it’s up to us to stop its roll.
Yes!
"Maybe what this country needs is a dictator." -- The Hamburglar
Well, we sure got one now!
And I'm wondering where TF is my Social Security check... sitting in Elon Muck's database?
Our government is by, for and of the people, so, We, the People must correct it through the vote.
Unfortunately, the United States today appears locked in a phase of deep institutional evolution. Political cycles are short, narratives are binary, and legitimacy is contested in real time. Democratic mechanisms still function, but they suffer, under constant stress. Institutions are asked not only to govern, but to arbitrate identity, morality, and social conflict simultaneously. Minneapolis is not the cause of this condition. It is a manifestation of it.
Markets Zoon, you have described the fascist revolution in action.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/hindsight-is-2020?r=58uzcq&utm_medium=ios
“I have no problem with immigration officials removing individuals who have committed crimes of a felonious nature. “
I hope you have a huge problem (but I bet you don’t) with demsurrectionist state and municipal officials (right up to Governor Tampon and Mayor Freyheyt und Brot, Virginia may be added to the list of neo-Confederate states) going beyond mere refusal to cooperate with federal officials in an area of federal jurisdiction and inciting armies of frustrated Klares to attack federal officials up to kamikaze levels, in attempts to protect those individuals.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/arizonas-democratic-ag-suggests-residents-can-shoot-masked-ice-agents-what-am-i-supposed-to-do?utm_source=theblaze-breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Breaking%20-%20ARizona&utm_term=ACTIVE%20LIST%20-%20TheBlaze%20Breaking%20News&tpcc=email-breaking
Arizona too …
Just to add a few words to the conversation:
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/hindsight-is-2020?r=58uzcq&utm_medium=ios
And the pendulum starts moving back.
DH - "I have no problem with immigration officials removing individuals who have committed crimes of a felonious nature." Thank you for this belated admission (now that it is of little consequence). A serious problem is that the Biden/Harris/Mayorkas team chose to allow 10 - 20 million illegal immigrants to flood into our country with taxpayer NGO support, cell phones, notices to appear, free dispersal to sanctuary islands in our large country, and financial support. This was done knowing it would overwhelm our court system and make it near impossible to identify and locate criminals among them. Then the same members of the Democratic Party demand due process for each individual. Which law do you support, immigration law or due process. The answer is obvious; you ignored immigration law on purpose creating the mess we now have in place. The intent over time is to secure more votes and more power for Democrats.
That's a stretch.
I'd rather suggest that they were let in to better themselves and make a contribution to our society while paying taxes and building a stronger democracy for all of us to benefit by, for after all, we are a nation of immigrants to start with.
I view the Biden action as being done purposely, no stretching required. We have legal means for immigration and asylum. Biden et al chose to disobey these laws (suggesting we can do the same with respect to laws we don't like). Congress failed to change the law. You complain when ICE enforces existing law.
Your empathy suggestion implies that we are a territory, not a nation with borders, a Constitution, and the rule of law. I am a 10th generation immigrant on my mother's side, about 8th on my father's side, and my wife is a 2nd generation immigrant on both sides of her family. So what? Illegal immigrants should not be allowed to vote, ever. They can be counted by the Census but only as residents, not citizens. Counting them leads to incorrect representation in the House of Representatives. There is no legal basis for your position in the United States of America. Your position leads to mobocracy and vigilantism, i.e. violence.
My alma mater and subsequently the U that my daughter graduated from were excellent schools that went bankrupt, and in both cases it appeared to me it had a lot to do with the preponderance of members of the board who knew the ways of commerce, but not education, making all the wrong moves.
Yes, this has been destroying universities in the UK as well. They want rich board members with links that they fondly assume will deliver big donations, and now expect the same of Chancellors and even Vice-Chancellors. A particularly egregious example was appointing as head of Cranfield a disgraced board member of Rolls Royce, which had been found guilty of being involved in bribing foreign governments. Note, he was appointed afterward losing his position at RR! And predictably under his aegis teaching and research were stripped back, as being “unproductive”. But that is actually what a university is meant to DO.
All across the unis we’ve seen exactly the same pattern. These “leaders”, whose main qualifications appear to be narcissism and personal ambition, first decided the reason for research was to patent technology. But, surprise surprise, to develop knowledge you require cooperation, not secrecy. The crazy IP contracts the uni lawyers came up for working with the university were unsignable for all outside bodies (including those who were trying to pay for some research!). So that didn’t work. Their next attempt to extract rent was to see the foreign students as cash cows. Many came from fairly rich families in their own countries, so these jokers rubbed their hands and decided the key business of their universities should be property developers. Suddenly no money was available for research, and increasingly no physical space either. Instead all the funds and property holdings were lavished on building luxury student accommodation. Yet another case of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs… if there is no research and no teaching, why would the foreign students want to come?
What REALLY annoys me is that these neocons actually have NO idea how to actually run a real business. For various reasons their experience has always been starting at the top, and taking the credit of the work of others further down when it’s going well, and then never taking the responsibility when it all goes horribly wrong. At that point they take the golden handshake and go on to butcher somewhere else.
It’s all nonsense, and I hope every normal person is now realising they are not alone in thinking it crazy. Let’s get back to respecting and rewarding real work, and reveal the rent extractors for the freeloaders they really are.
Very interesting points, Robyn.
Sorry to hear your Alma mater went bankrupt
My Alma Mater also closed after lack of funds. It was a small, excellent college in upstate NY. I was floored. How could this happen? Obviously, someone who should have had the fiscal responsibility, failed. There's absolutely no valid reason for its closure except irresponsibility.
Rapid economic change always produces a crop of lucky individuals who are very good at only one thing. Limiting their power is difficult is you need their money.
Well done, Columbia's faculty. Thank you for giving such a clear picture.
Following Jack Smith’s Deposition: Here’s what Stephen Miller posted: “Everyone serious understands that the justice system is rigged. Far-left prosecutors, magistrates, judges and juries unhesitatingly shield their violent activists and gleefully imprison their political opponents. Unrigging the system is necessary for the survival of the Republic.”
Elon Musk chimed in: “Absolutely.”
Every accusation an admission!
Robyn, Yup -- EVERYTHING TRUMP ACCUSES OTHERS OF HE IS GUILTY OF HIMSELF!!!
For more charges come from Demsurrectionists these days.
Miller is absolutely right. Your “justice” system is a fotal tucking disgrace.
Termites licking the queen's anus.
Board members are chosen primarily for their wealth and willingness to give and raise money. In the case of public universities, appointments to the boards are political as well. Board members do not live among the people they govern. Many never set foot on the campus except to attend board meetings. Many do not know any students, faculty, professional staff or ordinary employees who maintain the university. It could be argued that King George had less power over the colonists than board members have over the people whose lives they govern.
Higher education in the United States is run by a tiny sliver of the population who in no way represent this country. This must change. It is wildly undemocratic.
In 1776 colonists rejected governance by people who did not live among them, who did not share their lives. If we are to value democracy and teach it to students, universities must model it. The people who get up every morning and recreate a university, who study and teach and research and clean and mow lawns, and cook and advise and coach, need to live as citizens, not as subjects with no power. Authoritarianism is unacceptable, not only in or federal government but also in the governance of American higher education.
Through the eyes of college students we see lives to be lived out mostly in a post-Trump world. Their minds are looking at the recovery and rebuilding process and how they will best apply themselves in #RebuildingHonorableDemocracy.
Lessons will be learned. Firm guardrails will be set. And America will never again take for granted that integrity is important to the occupant of the Oval.
Professor Reich: WOW! that is incredible. i am looking forward to learning more about the improvements they enact.
Trump's attempt to muzzle universities is FUTILE. We like to think that we train independent thinkers in Universities. It's like trying to hold back a surge in a flood. Eventually SOMETHING gives way, and the whole lot is washed downstream. It is only a matter of time, and I, for one, look forward to that day!
Critical thinking is vital for a society to flourish. The current administration is doing everything possible to suppress the education system, from kindergarten to universities. Curiosity is stifled, rote "knowledge” is
controlled by the government, and the arts-music, drama, dance,etc.- have been eliminated in curriculums. To ensure that an oligarchy can endure, future generations must be "prepared”. A poor, unhealthy, uneducated, population is the result. The Columbia faculty is taking steps to prevent this. Well done. But unfortunately, the shear geographical size of our nation and its population, make change formidable.
Will AI replace universities?
My concern as well, Victor .
I never lost faith in Carter and always loathed Reagan. Don’t know how he bamboozled so many smart people (including my husband).
It is imperative for us to understand why Reagan served two terms and still remains enormously popular among voters. He made many Americans feel good about their country again. We must reach out to these voters and show them that Trump is not the second coming of Reagan.
an optimistic persona can cover up a multitude of defects,susan-in the short term-and a note on st. ronnie-his 11th commandment,'thou shall not speak iIl of a fellow republican'-perhaps formulated after he won,but definitely not observed in '76,when he criticized the hell out of Gerald Ford,paving the way for carter's victory
Kristi wants to put 'em down, just because they're black and brown
The things they do look awful cold -- I hope she dies before I get old
ICE d'Generation
Despising all conservatives and failure to expose students to any conservative principles in a positive light hardly sounds like “mini- democracy “.
I think it is absolutely essential to expose young people to how conservatism naturally regressed into the complete depravity of MAGA. This has been decades in the making.
I recall when, in the interest of returning "virtue and character" to the White House, conservatives focused the nation's attention on Bill Clinton's crotch for the better part of two years. And then come to find out their Speaker (Hastert) was paying hush money to a young man he'd abused years before.
This is not isolated. In recent years, the mainly white, conservative, Christian, patriotic organization -- Boy Scouts of America -- had to declare bankruptcy under the weight of a class action lawsuit with over 80,000 -- eighty THOUSAND -- victims. Abused and molested by white, straight, conservative, Christian men. They were "exposed" alright.
But thank you for playing.
Oh, last point ... a kind of rule of thumb -- "If you will molest the Truth, you will molest anything, even a child." Bring it on.
Okay. As a graduate of Columbia (Ph.D. 1971), I’ve volunteered to get more involved. But if they only ask for money, I’m not interested.
And harder to put a stop to what seems like an endless trickle down effect from the current fascist administration, we must start at the route and move upward: that's education. Begin with inserting the right people on school boards whether they be public school, high school or university level. Elect your Democratic representatives immediately, it could be a slow process, but it's a start. Speak out from the roots and keep watering those seeds and bulbs regularly.
Some of our worst mistakes begin with "good intentions."
It was during the 60's Civil Rights Movement that, under Democratic Party majority control, the Dept. of Education decided that the teaching profession was to include "cultural change agents" in addition to educators.
I was then and am now, a thoroughly committed proponent of egalitarian Civil Rights, but I was opposed to many of the policies initially used under the Democratic Party's majority rule to implement that ideal.
"Busing" destroyed our neighborhood schools and direct citizen involvement through the PTAs with their children's school experience. Teachers often implied that parents were "backward" and "wrong" on the current political policies, while they (their teachers) were enlightened and "right" which was a challenge to parental authority in general.
I know of one incidence where a white high school student in Montgomery Co., MD was raped by a black student bused from a Washington, DC getto. The student was not expelled because his behavior was the result of his ghetto cultural condition and the girl's parents were advised by her psychologist that participating in a trial would be psychologically devastating, so there were no criminal legal consequences, either.
The girl could not return to her public high school with the possibility of encountering her rapist, so her parents used the money saved for her college tuition to send her to a private high school.
The busing was not only illegal because it bused between school districts; even worse, it bused across state lines. The Maryland Counties that surrounded the District of Columbia were the social lab for many pro-Civil Rights politicians, whose children went to private, not public, schools.
Same shit, different Political Party! Power corrupts regardless of Party loyalty and good intentions
This post may result in a negative response from some participants on this blog, assuming it even gets posted, but I cannot in good conscience keep my experience of over 50 years ago to myself.
I get disrespected for my progressive theological/spiritual opinions in both Conservative and Liberal churches, as well as from both sides of the political divide. I guess people in our contemporary culture don't realize that, while disagreements can be healthy and consciousness expanding, disrespect is psychological abuse.
So you are saying that we must respectfully agree to disagree sans psychological abuse, right?
You got it!
Carol, you don't have to answer my question above as I do respect your opinion and openness in voicing your doubts about some of the busing issues that came about during the desegregation efforts back in the day.
Helping a historically suppressed people like the Blacks in our countries history has been long over due and necessary to demonstrate what we believe is the fair and right way to treat our fellow Americans now and in the future. The whole idea of White Supremacy is so totally wrong that I wonder how it can still be so strongly believed even now , but, it is a reality that we are facing as we speak with the Trump regime .
When we get into the nuts and bolts of implementing anything through a government program it can be confusing and messy at times, but that does not mean that something is wrong with the concept. What I love about public education is that it is about helping every student regardless of race, color, creed or income level , to level the playing field and making it fair for them to pursue their own paths to a happy life on earth .
So, our battle is with those who do not believe in equal opportunity for all and I for one, cannot sit idly by and watch this country slide into a fascist defeatism , but, will continue to fight for the founding principles of our Democracy to my dying days and I would consider it a privilege to have you join me in that fight as well.
The loss of the Civil War not only freed the slaves from chattel slavery only to plunge many of them into "wage slavery" like the white "indentured servants" in the early colonial period, it also plunged the South's white middle class slave managers into poverty. The wealthy plantation owners did not oversee their human chattel themselves. I suppose many so-called "red-necks" may be descendants of this economic class who have never quite "worked themselves back up" to middle-class status. The only advantage they had, and often still have especially in the South, is their white skin.
Prejudices are often rooted in a reluctance to give up unjust advantages that make us more competitive in our "survival of the fittest,"meaning "most productive" in the labor market.
I doubt that the white middle class ever realized how advantaged we really were. Now everyone is a "human resource." There may be a legal difference between "wage slavery" and "chattel slavery," but, psychologically, they both feel the same!
Nicely said.
"Human Resouce" ?
How about "Profit Unit?"
Thank you for sharing your views and experience, Carol. What happened 50 years ago still resonates today. The past is not even past if we don't learn from it.
"It was during the 60's Civil Rights Movement that, under Democratic Party majority control, the Dept. of Education decided that the teaching profession was to include "cultural change agents" in addition to educators."
The Department of Education became a Cabinet-agency in 1979.
"I get disrespected..."
You should.
I supported the policies to eliminate racial, or any other form, of discrimination in housing or the workplace; but I will always believe that trying to solve our racial discrimination problem on the backs of young school children was a serious error in judgement.
Of course, you are entitled to disagree with that. I'm sorry that you feel that I deserve disrespect as a reaction to my opinion; but you are entitled to hold that opinion as well.