"Thank you for your service" - 3rd installment

A gloomy, cold, rainy dawn on Veteran's Day in Jokelahoma. I've already written two blogs on "thank you for your service" and have no wish to post another. I think about my service often, and on this day, which began as a reminder of the date of the cessation of hostilities at the 11th hour of the 11th day of November in 1918 (WW1), I'm especially inclined to look retrospectively on that service. Meanwhile, a day of remembrance of the slaughter during WW1 has evolved into something else.

As noted in my blogs, I have very mixed feelings about my personal service. No gratitude for my Vietnam service was offered to me when I arrived back in the USA in late December of 1970. No one greeted me upon my arrival, but no one hassled me even though I was traveling in my class A dress green uniform. Since then, there has been growing recognition that we can hate the war but that doesn't mean we have to hate the warriors. What I consider to be the elephant in the room is our national neglect of our veterans, especially those who served and suffered from being in combat. Our PotUS clearly doesn't give a damn about the problems of military service veterans.

I can forgo your thanks for my personal service without rancor. Those wishing to thank me for my service should be opposed to unjustified, unnecessary invasions in foreign nations by our military, and be generous contributors to organizations providing support to our veterans. Let us work together to help those veterans in desperate need of our support. To have a national celebration of Veteran's day while many veterans suffer is disgraceful, in my eyes.

I saw something on TV last night ... some sidebar offered this sentiment: "Have a happy Veteran's Day". I consider that to be an obscene lack of respect for veterans and their sacrifices. For many of them, Veteran's Day is not some happy occasion, but rather is a painful reminder of how those who have never served (right now only 1% of Americans have military service) simply can't muster much empathy for people living in cardboard boxes, haunted by PTSD, with broken homes, drug and alcohol addiction, and struggles to overcome what combat has done to them.

 

 Damn! This turned into a "blog" anyway. Sorry, but these are my thoughts on this day. The photo was shot in Dec 1970 outside my home after I arrived back from Vietnam.

"Thank you for your service" - revisited

After some discussions with two of my close friends, I feel the need to expound a bit more on the touchy topic of people thanking me for my service.  As I have said elsewhere, I have very mixed feelings about my service.  I wasn't ever involved in combat in Vietnam, but my service was in a logistical supply unit that kept our troops supplied in I Corps (the northernmost region of South Vietnam).  We didn't shoot people - we provided the means by which combat troops could shoot people.  Our "service" was a critical component of sustaining that war.

As most Vietnam veterans know, we were victorious in most of the battles in that war, including the Tet Offensive in 1968.  That victory, in particular, was the root cause of my tour in Vietnam being so free of combat.  The Viet Cong were crushed in that offensive and the NVA was seriously set back.  The combat troops who fought in that battle made my "easy" tour possible.

Some veterans feel that if you didn't serve in combat, you weren't really in the war.  And there are those who say if you weren't actually on the ground in Vietnam, you shouldn't be allowed to call yourself a "Vietnam Era Veteran".  I call bullshit on both these notions. 

Our combat troops served our nation's military objectives - in a war we should never have begun and had no clear path to some sort of conclusion.  That war ended, not with a massive strategic victory comparable to Dien Bien Phu, but with us essentially abandoning South Vietnam to its fate.  The ability of our troops to fight those battles required massive logistical support and my outfit was neck deep in that support.

The web of support for those combat troops spread much wider than the nation of South Vietnam.  Those who served during that time, but who never made it to South Vietnam, were embedded in a complex system that indirectly enabled that war to go on.  The USA has a military presence in many places around the world.  We can argue about the need for all those expensive installations, but by serving in the military without ever setting foot in Vietnam, our military had to draw from existing units, including the National Guard and the Reserves.  The draft was the only way the military could have enough warm bodies to support our Vietnam campaign.  I was swept up by the draft, of course.  In today's world, it is political suicide to even think about re-instituting a draft, and so our military has been stretched thin, and multiple deployments by infantry divisions are the rule, not an exception.

TV documentaries often refer to the comradeship within military units being the primary motivating factor for troops fighting in actual battles.  I can say nothing about that since I wasn't ever in combat, but what I can say is this:  for us REMFs in Vietnam, we lived in a world many of us deemed to be infected with a form of insanity.  Even non-combat troops clung to each other for support, for fear of becoming as insane as Vietnam seemed to us.  The movie "Apocalypse Now" is not a very realistic depiction of the Vietnam war, but it does capture a semblance of the feeling that I had landed in a place where many people were simply crazy.**

What this all means (to me) is that my service made possible some awful things in a war that I didn't believe was one in which we as a nation should have been involved.  After we bailed out, Vietnam fell to Communism, but it didn't become the start of a massive shift to communism around the world, as the "Domino Theory" held.  What it left our nation with was a smoldering cultural division that has lingered to this very day, long after the end of the Vietnam War.  Hence, I'm not very proud of having made my contributions in support of that war.

Nevertheless, with the passage of time since I was in the military, I'm increasingly proud of having answered my country's call.  Now, when people thank me for my service, I've been holding back my negative reactions for the simple reason that such wishes are made with the best of intentions:  to honor soldiers who were not honored after their return in any way, myself included.  What I really want to say is: "I appreciate the spirit of your gratitude for my service, but that was an evil war that left many veterans of that war with lasting pain and even death.  In addition to thanking me - a person who escaped the worst that Vietnam War offered - the best way to honor my service is to support in a concrete way those veterans who suffer from PTSD, cancer likely induced by Agent Orange, and homelessness.  Thousands of our veterans were killed in Vietnam, but have died here in the USA from disease, drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide.  Help them in some material way - skip the "thoughts and prayers" garbage - that helps precisely no one.  Do that and your thanks will be truly honoring my service."

And we as a nation should not send our youth to foreign lands to fight in seemingly endless wars that, like Vietnam, offer no plausible end game, short of killing everyone who serves to oppose our incursions.  We do ourselves a great disservice by such wars, consuming our resources with no meaningful return on such investments for anyone other than the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned about.  I especially despise "chicken hawk" politicians who lead us into war with no intention of serving in combat - either for them or anyone they choose to shelter from the obligation to fight in our nation's wars.
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[** Footnote - no movie can ever depict any war with absolute accuracy, but some get it more right than others.  I favor "Full Metal Jacket" and "Platoon", to name a couple that include some realism in depicting situations that I witnessed or knew about during in my service.]

Thoughts on American Patriotism

A friend and colleague has challenged me to write up something about patriotism.  My usual starting point for this sort of musing is the definition of the key word - patriotism - "Patriotism or national pride is the feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to a homeland and alliance with other citizens who share the same sentiment."  I make no claims to deep or exceptional insight.  These are just my thoughts at the moment.

Let there be no doubt or confusion - I love my native land.  It's a nation with much natural beauty, dramatic weather, large amounts of natural resources, and (perhaps most important) a set of principles that are inspirational and form the basis for the Constitution.  This lays down the rules for a government that's intended to reward individual initiative so that, by hard work and creative insight, anyone can achieve their dreams here.  Pecuniary rewards and a successful career are not guaranteed to anyone.  Equal opportunity for all, but the outcomes of any efforts are not determined in advance.

The principles of equal treatment under the law, and freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, and gender have not consistently been followed by our elected officials, right from the very beginning, including those considered to be founders of our nation.  That even the founders have not lived up to the noble words in our national documents (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) says that we as a nation still suffer from injustice and discrimination that are direct violations of those principles.  We have a long history of genocidal tactics against the indigenous people who, after all, were the very first Americans.  We have created "legal" exemptions from some of the laws that forbid unequal treatment of minorities and the world observes our hypocrisy as we fail to live up to our noble principles, despite the claims of "American Exceptionalism" by some Americans.

When the USA was founded, it was recognized that the founders were conducting an experiment, in which the Constitution lays out government procedures among the three branches of government envisioned by the founders and promises the existence of many important freedoms.  It is often referred to as "a grand experiment" which no major nation before us had ever tried.  Freedom and equality are important first principles.  I have long been pleased, and a bit proud, to have been born within this experiment and its continuance is important to me.  

The fact that we're not perfect at following the very concepts we claim to hold dear means that any objective review of our behavior must include a recognition that our national, state, and local governments have failed to observe the rules as documented in the Constitution.  We need to "own" our misdeeds as a nation and seek to learn from our mistakes and seek to prevent further violations of our national principles.  I subscribe totally to the notion that while I love my native land, I often disagree (sometimes  strongly) with the behavior of our government.  Even Abraham Lincoln used the excuse of the Civil War to suspend use of the writ of Habeas Corpus - a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person's release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt sanctioned the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.

As we saw in the Nixon era, our government can run off the rails for Constitutional democracy into corruption and evil.  Many in our nation are actually opposed to freedom and liberty for all Americans - they are bigots who consider those who are different from them to be somehow unworthy of the support offered by our governments.  Such attitudes often come wrapped in the Bible and the flag, where the adherents to injustice see themselves as patriots as they seek to abrogate the very principles that have made our nation so successful,

While I was in graduate school, I was drafted to serve in the Army.  I had already been reading of the history of Vietnam and I learned they had a long history of stubborn resistance to those who would occupy their lands.  Evidently, the government of America during the Presidencies of JFK, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon felt we could just brush aside any interference from the Communists leading the revolt against the puppet government of South Vietnam.  Apparently, our government felt they could succeed where previous invaders of Vietnam (including the French) failed.  I had a dilemma:  I was being ordered to become part of a war effort that I opposed.  My choices were: 

1. refuse being drafted and go to jail,
2. escape to Canada, or
3. accept the order and go serve. 

As I saw it at the time,  the first two options would mean I would probably never have the career I desperately wanted.  I had to go serve, on that basis, and that's what I did.  I continue to have mixed feelings about my service - during my 11 months in Phu Bai, South Vietnam I never was in any combat, so my good assignment left me free of nightmares, PTSD, and all the ravages of being in combat.  However little I contributed to the war effort, I never made a public stand against the war.  I just wanted to survive it and get back to the USA in one piece.  I'm not necessary proud of my service, but when my nation called, I went and served despite my misgivings and doubts.

The Vietnam war became an albatross around Nixon's neck and was an issue that led to deep divisions in American society.  Nixon was forced to bring the war to an end and perhaps he was the only person who actually believed we left Vietnam in an "honorable" fashion.  The fact is, our asses were kicked by a third-rate power that had the advantage of seeking to remove unwanted invaders and was willing to take many casualties for so long as it took to get the USA to turn tail.  We "won" most of the battles, but we lost the war.

A favorite saying among the conservatives (the so-called "silent majority") who at the time supported the war was "America - love it or leave it."  Well, my view is that that saying is bullshit!  If I disagree with something the government has done, I'm supposed to pack up and leave my native land so that all the rednecks who supported the war wouldn't be challenged to examine the behavior of their government?  No way, dude!  There's no point to all the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution if someone who disapproves of some government behavior isn't afforded those rights.  If we lived in a perfect world, perhaps there would be no disagreements and no clash of principles.  But that's not our world and it's not the way my nation operates.

I've come to the conclusion that public protests (like that of Colin Kaepernick) are the most important element of our national freedoms.  Great love for the nation is exhibited by those who want to work within the system of laws to try to turn something wrong into a positive.  We can't learn from our mistakes if (a) we believe our government never makes mistakes, and/or (b) we ignore or even cover up those mistakes.  A patriot doesn't see America as perfect but works to overcome our errors and misjudgments via the rules and norms of our democracy, and may advocate changing rules and norms to prevent injustice and discrimination.

Right now, we're experiencing a critical juncture of our national history.  Trump and his GOP enablers are seemingly working toward the abolition of the Constitution and the creation of an authoritarian dictatorship.  They're providing encouragement to bigots in our nation, committing a crime against humanity against the migrants seeking asylum and a new opportunity for their families.  My government is being transformed from a Constitutional democracy into a cruel dictatorship.  How can I support the Trump regime?  As I see it, I would rather die than live under a Trumpian version of totalitarianism.  Despite my deep and abiding love for my nation, if its government is recast in the image of Trump and his enablers, I will exhibit my patriotism by being an advocate for the cessation of the Trumpian dictatorship!

Boomer Sooner?

I've spent more of my life in Oklahoma than anywhere else.  I like the weather here, given my passion for severe thunderstorms.  I like the physical geography of the state, with its large contrasts from east to west.  I was rather satisfied with the education I received here at the University of Oklahoma (OU) and had some great mentors who were OU faculty and staff.  However, recent postings on social media have raised a point of concern with regard to the University's "mascot" - the Sooners.  The school's fight song is "Boomer Sooner", composed by Fred Waring (!). 

 Many people are unaware of the origin of the term Sooners - it's tied to the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889.  The "Boomers" were settlers who tried to grab parcels of land blatantly in the so-called "unassigned lands" (that was home to Native Americans) before the official starting date of 22 April 1989.  The US Army removed as many of them as they could.  The "Sooners" were people who sneaked into the unassigned lands early but kept a low profile, hoping to make a legal claim after the official starting date.  Both Boomers and Sooners were, effectively, cheaters seeking to grab the land of the Native Americans before they were allowed to do so.  These are not exactly the sort of folks that one would choose as a role model and certainly should be somewhat embarrassing to the University.  But I have my doubts many associated with OU ever give it any thought.

We already have seen a growing chorus of discontent by indigenous people with using Native American-associated terms for sporting team and Universities.  Recently, the 'mascot' of the University of North Dakota was changed from "The Fighting Sioux" to "The Fighting Hawks" in response to many protests by the Sioux tribe.  The controversy there was long and bitter.  There also has been concern about the Kansas City Chiefs, the Florida State Seminoles, the Washington Redskins (!), the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago Blackhawks, and many others.  Not surprisingly, there's been considerable pushback from those who rationalize such uses of these nicknames and logos.  I'm not about to enter the morass of that debate, but I do generally believe that our use of such cultural icons for our own purposes is disrespectful to Native Americans and their cultures.  Obviously, there are those who disagree.

Here at OU, the mascot is even worse than the preceding examples, because it honors those who participated in the plundering of Native American lands by white settlers.  The Boomers and Sooners grabbed their parcels of land by illegal means.  The Native Americans were the ultimate losers, sadly.  The whole of the lower 48 states represents the home of Native Americans who were here long before any white European settlers arrived to claim all those lands (except for reservations of generally worthless land assigned to those Native Americans who were not killed).  The indigenous people of the Americas were subjected to various forms of genocide and destruction of the original environment on which they depended.

Our treatment of indigenous people is shameful and it continues right up to this very day!  Anyone with a conscience should be deeply ashamed of this aspect of our national history.  As usual, the rationale for this history has been based on viewing them as primitive savages who were not even qualified as human beings with unalienable rights.  I have little expectation that OU will be changing their mascot any time soon.  White privilege is alive and thriving here in Oklahoma, and that isn't likely to change in the foreseeable future.  But I don't have to like that situation, and I don't have to support robbing Native Americans of their cultural heritage.

"Thank you for your service"

On this Veterans Day, I once again have to confront the gulf between combat zone military veterans and those who have never served in a combat zone. Being in the military means that you've accepted the status of being willing to sacrifice anything and everything, including your physical and mental health, right up to and including losing your life. You've given your nation a signed blank check and they can write in the amount.  For those veterans serving in combat zones, and especially those who actually participated in combat, it's difficult to try to communicate their experiences to those who haven't so served. I've described my experiences here.

On one day per year, we see lots of messages of gratitude to our veterans, and that's nice, but what about the other 364 days? What are we doing to provide help to veterans who have returned from combat and been struggling to cope with their endless nightmares? No one who participated in combat ever returns to become the same person they were before. I was extremely fortunate - it only took me a year or so to return to something close to my former self after leaving the military, but even then, I was forever changed by my military experiences.  Some of those changes in my life were positive, and some were negative.  I was blessed with good fortune, for no obvious reason.  It could have turned out very differently.

I really do value the sentiments expressed by those who offer gratitude for my time in service, but I'm concerned for those veterans who need so much more than words from their nation. Our nation should show their gratitude in their actions as well as mere words, when it comes to our combat veterans. Some of our veterans reach a time when they just can't deal with their devils created by the horrible things they've experienced - too many suicides, broken families, homeless vets, drug addictions, etc. I feel unworthy of gratitude for my time in the military, when I think about those who have suffered so much and been unable to find any peace in their minds.  And this says nothing about those who have had life-changing physical injuries to try to overcome.

We ask young people to serve and protect our freedoms, but we sometimes send them to fight in unwinnable wars on foreign soil for no good reason. Vietnam was such a war, and our so-called "war on terrorism" is another example.  How do you win a war against a tactic?  How do you define what is a "win" in such a war?  We had a similar problem in Vietnam - it was a war against an economic and political ideology in a far away land.  We never found a meaningful exit strategy in Vietnam, so we just left and all that followed showed that our involvement in Vietnam was pointless.  Millions died for nothing.  The young men and women serving in combat have to make hard choices about what to do in hostile circumstance and, if they choose incorrectly, we punish them harshly. We're getting better about trying to help veterans with PTSD and such, but we still have a long way to go.

Don't ever thank veterans for their service but then turn around and ask someone else to risk everything without a damned good reason!  Don't be so eager to support military actions to back up political positions.  Don't send our young men and women into combat and then oppose aid for those who manage to survive.  I saw somewhere that about 9,000 Vietnam veterans have committed suicide since they returned - they actually died in Vietnam.  I think their names should be added to the wall at the National Vietnam Memorial as combat fatalities.  They're not on that wall only because their injuries required more time to take their lives.  That raises the Vietnam toll of American combat deaths from 58,000 to 67,000.

Trump is just a symptom of a greater malaise in America

There's an insidious illness that has infected the USA, causing our culture to evolve in ways that will eventually end badly for us.  It has become widespread and malignant - like a cancer, it comes from within rather than a foreign invasion.  The election of the incompetent, ignorant, narcissistic, racist, misogynist, corrupt clown that only a minority of Americans voted for in last year's November election is but a symptom of the problem.

The founders of this nation, as imperfect as they were, began what is often called "The Great American Experiment in Democracy".  The experimental aspect of how our nation was created by those founders, was expressed eloquently by President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

The Civil War was a rigorous test of those principles, and the nation managed to stay together, sort of.  Given that the Confederate battle flag known as the "Stars and Bars" has become symbolic of, not just the Confederacy, but more so of the racism that caused the Civil War in the first place.  That racism (not limited to the Southern states), like the HIV virus, clearly lives on to this day within our nation.  It has gained widespread support and its persistence is a poison to the principle of equality for all humans in our nation.

Many of these issues surfaced again during the turbulent era of US involvement in Vietnam.  Similar divisions were present in the 1960s that had been around during the Civil War.  And those same divisions in our society plague us today, without the benefit of the spirit of compromise upon which our nation was founded.  Political parties have become a corrupting influence on us, where party loyalty is more valued than service to the American people.

The founders of our nation fell quite a ways short of living up to their own principles, of course.  That shortfall is still obvious today in many Americans.  Equality for all people actually never has been achieved in America, and we have made at best only slow and erratic progress at making equality a reality for everyone.  Women have been given the vote, but they're still being discriminated against in the workplace (and elsewhere) and subjected to sexual harassment and assault (including rape).  Justice for the perpetrators of harassment and assault against women remains elusive - power and money buy such criminals a free pass, despite our ideals.  Women actually are blamed for these crimes, rather than those committing them.  In the face of such inequality, most of the discrimination and the crimes against women are never reported, and in the rare instances where they are reported, that often backfires on the women, not the perps.

After slavery was abolished, racial inequality remains a fact of life experienced on a daily basis for most non-white Americans.  The police are charged with enforcing the laws of the land, but some of the police are simply brutal thugs, free to attack and even kill without being held accountable.  And the police commit such crimes disproportionately on non-white Americans.  Every black family must have "that conversation" with their children to make them aware that justice isn't equal in America.  The default assumption among many whites is that non-whites match the stereotypes projected on them by white Americans (who live in an invisible "bubble" of white privilege), and so many whites are completely unaware of the reality of discrimination against non-whites.

Non-christians in America are widely despised by the "religious right", especially Muslims and atheists, these days.  Christian notions of morality are being forced on all Americans on a daily basis.  I'm not going to go off on a rant against all religion, but here in America, creeping theocracy is generally associated with conservatives, who yearn to impose a mythical vision of America as they imagine it "used to be" when religious discrimination was not being opposed by those who believe in real freedom, not only of, but also from religion.  The "Establishment Clause" of the 1st Constitutional Amendment is constantly under attack by the religious right.  When people believe their god is on their side, they think that means they can fight for a theocratic USA by any means necessary.

Science and the tools of science - education, logic, evidence - are now widely mistrusted by many Americans.  There is a deep thread of anti-science and anti-intellectual thought that has always existed in America, but it seems to be growing more popular.  Public education is being threatened by siphoning even the diminishing taxpayer support for education into religious schools via the so-called "vouchers".  Too many Americans are monumentally ignorant about science, history, geography, mathematics, civics, and more.  Democracy depends on being supported by educated voters, so the attacks on public education are actually attacks on our democratic principles.  To make voting decisions in the modern world dominated by technology requires people who understand how things in our society work.  Otherwise, they are too easily led astray by would-be dictators.

Many politicians are being corrupted by large corporations pouring vast amounts of money to buy special favors for such companies, at taxpayer expense.  The "Trust Busting" era when Teddy Roosevelt broke the power of the corporations, is little more than a distant memory.  The Republican party has been taken over by the far right wing of their party and now supports tax breaks for big corporations while taking resources away that have been providing support for indigent people who need external help just to survive.  The indigent suffer even as the rich get richer.  Income inequality is a capitalist form of slavery and could eventually result in a violent revolution, with the indigent protests likely to be slaughtered by the very police who have pledged to serve and protect them.  Look at recent events for small-scale examples, such as the protests by the Standing Rock Sioux.

The trainwreck that is the crypto-fascist regime under Trump and his GOP supporters is simply a reflection of the decay from within that is infecting our nation.  Most Americans don't exercise their right to vote, and that tendency is at least part of the reason we have been saddled with this regime.  By not voting, Americans are giving up on the American Experiment and our democracy is being threatened by the drift toward fascism.  The right-wing extremists seem more interested in voting than the moderate center.  What is considered "left-wing extremism" is what used to be considered "liberal" while the true extreme left-wing is left out of the political picture altogether and so is reduced to protests and occasional violence.  No one in America wants it to become Communist, and the Communist threat pretty much disintegrated in 1989.  Disenfranchising Americans (limited predominantly to those who would cast a "liberal" vote) is also a terrible stain on the democratic experiment here, and the GOP has mastered the tactic.

Our current regime has dedicated itself to erasing any remnant of their sworn enemy - Barack Obama - as if all of the vitriol poured on him during his time as our President were actually true.  This is causing the US to lose its role as the world leader.  We are alienating our allies and encouraging our enemies.  And we have a childish psychopath with his finger on the thermonuclear trigger!

We seem to be tending toward going down a road to total collapse of liberal democracy, unlikely to be identical to, but also not unlike, the experiences of the moderate provisional government in Russia before the revolt by the Bolsheviks that put them in power, and that of the moderate Weimar Republic in Germany before the triumphs of the Nazis.  The different ideologies mask the many similarities between the Bolshevk and Nazi dictatorships.  History shows us that extremists can win, even when they only represent a small minority of the people in a nation - and we are not immune from having something like that happen!  The signs of our willingness to slide toward fascism have been apparent from the start of the 2016 election.  Extremists have a clear picture of what they want and are willing to do whatever it takes to "win", no matter how much suffering they create in achieving their cause.  Moderates often are paralyzed with indecision about what to do and how to do it - they talk, while extremists act.  Are we seeing the last days of the Great American Experiment?  American "exceptionalism" is a nationalist myth.  There is nothing inherent in American Democracy that will enable it to survive - the testing of its ability to endure has been ongoing since before the Civil War!!

Now we are engaged in a struggle about whether our nation, so conceived and dedicated to the principle of equality for all its people, can endure as a beacon of democracy and freedom.  It is altogether fitting and proper we should do this.  On this struggle hangs the outcome - whether or not this nation shall have a new birth of freedom so that our government of all its people, by all its people, and for all its people, shall not vanish from this Earth.

Turning our back on the Paris Accord

The withdrawal of the USA from the Paris Accord has drawn both criticism and support - from different segments of our society.  Many of us felt it was an important first step for the world to join together to do something about anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC).  What we American do or don't do affects everyone around the world.  What goes on in the rest of the world inevitably has impacts in the USA.  We're no longer isolated bands of hunter-gatherers, and so our species has become deeply interconnected and interdependent.  Agriculture set us on the road to this interconnectedness, and industrialization moved us more rapidly in that direction.  Electronic technology is now accelerating the pace of interdependence.  Our withdrawal from the Paris accord is a profoundly disturbing step backward at a time when moving ahead to mitigate AGCC is critical for the future of our nation.

Apologists for this move are saying it was a "bad deal" for the USA.  If global climate change is worrisome to the military in this nation, is it plausible to suggest it's a myth?  If many business leaders supported our being part of the Paris Accord, is it plausible to suggest it was going to hurt the USA economy?  The US military is not exactly a bastion of left-leaning tree-hugger libtards.  Business leaders don't advocate things that will be bad for their business.  There are abundant examples now showing that reducing our dependence on fossil fuels will not bankrupt our economies, but rather will energize them.  As new technology is developed to replace the old, new jobs will be created and the economy should prosper.  In various places around the world, including American states, this is already happening.  The hard part is the transition period as we wean ourselves from fossil fuels.  To step backward away from the leadership of a movement to mitigate AGCC, will cost our nation in many ways, and is not the path to American "greatness".  It delays the inevitable transition, making the pain of transition last longer.

I'm not a climate scientist, so I have no evidence of my own to support or refute the reality of AGCC.  I defer to the consensus of my scientific colleagues who are doing global climate research.  Would you entrust your health care to someone not a medical doctor?  Would you entrust your safety to a person who has no pilot training or experience?  Why do you lend credibility to non-specialists in issues of science?  Why do you think you know as much or more about the global climate as the consensus of climate scientists?  On what basis can there be such intense political opposition to the climate science consensus about AGCC?  Insofar as I can tell, only a tiny fraction of global climate scientists are arguing the consensus is wrong.  The rest of the chorus of voices opposing efforts to do something about AGCC are not global climate scientists, but are mostly basing their position on propaganda, lies, distortions of the facts, and political machinations.  Opposition to the Paris accord is just another rearguard action against a future technology shift toward renewable energy sources that is already well underway, even here in the USA.  Opposition to progress appeals to those who feel threatened by global unity in the face of global challenges.

The current political situation in the USA is going to result in damage that will take decades to repair.  The regime in power is anti-science, anti-intellectual, supportive of creeping theocracy, contributing to the massive expansion of the income inequality gap, alienating our international allies, devastating our public education systems, encouraging xenophobia and bigotry, and on ... and on ... and on.  Each day, more damage to America is happening, so withdrawing from the Paris Accord is another step down a very destructive path for America. 

Some have said that politics is intruding into science and that isn't good for the science.  AGCC didn't become politicized by some sort of conspiracy among climate scientists.  It became politicized when it became clear that something needed to be done about the threats posed by AGCC.  There would be a price tag attached to any efforts at mitigation of AGCC, and where money is involved, there go some politicians and their corporate sponsors.  And many political conservatives wax eloquent talking of the doom associated with progress.  It's what they do - oppose progress.

Earth Day and the March for Science

We didn't participate in the OKC March for Science - mostly because we're still recovering from our recent respiratory problems.  I'm pleased to know it was reasonably well-attended and our absence only subtracted a negligible portion. 

The widespread disrespect for science within the Trump regime and inside the halls of Congress is a component of a national malaise that didn't begin with Trump.  This trend could bring our secular democracy down.  If we lose interest in the facts, preferring lies, myths, slogans, and propaganda to a fact-based, logical understanding of the world in which we live, then our destiny is to become a second-rate nation, perhaps sliding farther toward third-rate, or worse.  A societal ambience that devalues education, science, and civil discourse is likely to fall prey to authoritarianism.  Facts will be ignored or distorted, as myths and superstitions will hold sway.

Contrary to what many people say, science is not a belief system, in the sense that science does not depend on a particular set of beliefs that are untestable and beyond question.  Scientific facts don't depend on anyone's beliefs;  whether you "believe in them" or not doesn't change the truth of their being facts!  Science uses logic and evidence to propose explanations for why the natural world is observed to be the way it is.  Experience has demonstrated repeatedly that logic and evidence work to achieve increased understanding.  Scientific explanations are always provisional, never final or "settled" in some way.  You don't have to accept them as a belief system, because they work!

Explanations based on evidence always are subject to re-evaluation and possible revision in the face of new evidence or when another explanation is proposed that does an improved job of explaining the facts as we know them at any given moment.  You certainly can choose to believe or not believe the explanations that science offers, but you can't choose to believe or not believe in the facts that were used to support an explanation.  If you disbelieve in a scientific explanation, what's your alternative explanation?  The more rigorously an explanation has been tested (often by collecting new evidence), the more likely it is to be an acceptable hypothesis.  Some ideas have been tested so many times and so thoroughly, the consensus among subject matter experts is that they go beyond a mere hypothesis to the level of a scientific "law" or "theory".  Note that the use of the word "theory" is not like some barroom conversation where someone says "I've got a theory about that!"  A scientific theory (e.g., Einstein's Theory of General Relativity or Darwin's Theory of Evolution) is a thoroughly vetted explanation.

Given those explanations of how things work, science permits the exploration of further ideas based on those explanations; if we accept an explanation, what other things can be implied using that explanation?  Validated explanations are the foundation upon which technology is built.  The fact that our technology works the way we have come to expect it to work is mute testimony to the solidity of that scientific foundation.  Our society has come, for better or for worse, to be based heavily on technology.  Those who deny the validity of science are, at their core, either (a) uncaring about the negative impacts of undermining support for science and more concerned about power or profit, or (b) they're so profoundly ignorant, they fail to grasp the significant parts of what science has given to us.  Possibly both may apply.

The evidence has shown that investment in support of scientific research is repaid many times over by the value created as a result of that research.  Yes, there are some scientific projects that seem awfully far removed from any practical application.  And no, not all scientific projects are destined to become important.  But overall, our position as a prosperous world superpower has been made possible in part by the large investments we've made over time in support of science.  Skeptics should review the book "Science - the Endless Frontier" written by Vannevar Bush after the end of WWII.  Sometimes, the most seemingly useless and impractical hypotheses can turn out to have some purely unexpected value that no one anticipated when the original research was done.  In some cases, it might be many years before some piece of research comes to practical fruition.  To limit science only to those topics that can be of immediate value is to cripple the science in the long run.  We as a nation have become obsessed with the short-term "profit and loss" analysis, and many topics that might prove valuable in the future are not being pursued for lack of funding.

Unfortunately, science is becoming a casualty in the political wars being fought over whose ideology is going to run this nation.  Topics like global climate change have become tainted with the miasma of politics, to the point where scientific facts are being denied or grotesquely misused to serve this or that political view.  This has put our nation's leading position in science at great risk.  If we fall victim to that apparent tendency, then we're doomed to fall from our world leadership position and slide down the slope toward scientific mediocrity and dependence on others to do our science for us.

This year's Earth Day March on Science around the nation is a reflection of the concerns within the scientific community for what we see happening to devalue science in our society.  Sure, it has some roots in concern for our jobs.  But of all the careers someone might pursue, I know of no scientist who chose to become a scientist purely for the profit motive, and most of use are not counted among the rich.  What we possess in abundance is a concern for the importance of truth and evidence-based critical thinking in the USA.  That's worth marching for and not based solely on our self-interest!

Democracy being legislated out of existence?

Recently, GOP lawmakers around the nation are introducing legislation to make many sorts of protest illegal. I have news for these lawmakers: making some action illegal changes nothing. If someone's concerns about the loss of our rights as American citizens leave them willing to be arrested for defying an unjust or unconstitutional law, this legislation has no impact. If someone is willing to let our rights be eliminated one at a time via legislation, then they'll have to bear a large share of the responsibility for the destruction of American democracy.

Protest is a time-honored tradition of the USA.  The Constitution's Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, due process, restrictions on search and seizure, etc.) became the law of our land because the framers of the Constitution were concerned about the tyranny of the majority.   If a sheep and two wolves vote, the majority will be eating mutton for dinner!  The real key to democracy is not majority rule - it's protection of the rights of minorities!  Peaceful protesters in our history have been attacked by police and police dogs, shot by soldiers, shot with water cannons, tear gassed, arrested, and sent to jail for their efforts.  As MLK has shown us, an unjust or evil law can and should be broken, to draw attention to the injustice being perpetrated.  This also reveals the evil that results in the injustice. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s eventually created enough national revulsion over the states with Jim Crow laws and legal segregation, the people of our nation seemingly repudiated that injustice.  Now, it seems, the Trump regime has "normalized" bigotry of all sorts:  misogyny, racism, LGBTQ persecution, discrimination against religions other than xtianity, discrimination against atheists, and so on.  The bigotry never went away - it was simply not accepted in public discourse for a while.  The very notion of a progressive, a liberal, has been demonized and vilified.  It seems that our painful progress in seeking equal justice for all of us in our nation is vulnerable to it being cancelled by hostile lawmakers.  Legislation embodying such discrimination is being proposed at federal and state levels.

There's no need to do anything more in terms of the law than enforce trespassing laws in many cases of protest if you just want to silence dissent.  There's this false notion that a peaceful protest should never include breaking any law.  That's actually contrary to the long tradition of non-violent protest in our democracy.  Yes, trespassing is a crime, but the bigger issue is the injustice against which protests are organized.  Remember that in our nation's history, slavery was perfectly legal at one time.  Aiding slaves in their attempts to escape was, in fact, illegal.  Antisemitism was the law in Germany during the Hitler regime.  Dissent in autocratic regimes like Soviet Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, South African apartheid, etc. is often declared to be illegal.  Does this mean that protest about unjust laws is somehow tainted when laws are broken in a non-violent way?

A disturbing issue is the implication that some protests are being infiltrated by agents provocateur - people who either commit violent acts or try to induce others to do so.  This then is used to justify violent suppression of the protesters.  I don't know the extent to which this may be occurring, but it's an indication of profound evil whenever and wherever it occurs.  I also know that some people who join protests are not willing to play by the non-violent rules.  They may not be police agents but they are people whose agenda is not what the protests are all about.  Their actions also induce a violent response in some cases.

The Trump regime (including federal and state GOP legislators) has shown us strong evidence in its first month in office just what he and his cronies represent.  They're quite willing to trample on the principles and traditions of our democratic republic, inflicting harm on disadvantaged peoples, enabling the destruction of the environment we all must share, creating more and more income equality favoring the tiny, but wealthy minority.  This is an administration and Congress that may eclipse anything in our nation's history in terms of both incompetence and corruption.  They see the judiciary as their enemy, in blatant disregard for the checks and balances incorporated in the Constitution.  They see a free press as their enemy, ignoring its traditional important role in bringing attention to misdeeds by the government.  Dissent is deemed to be unpatriotic when in reality, dissent is one of the most patriotic things one can do in a democratic republic.

That so many Americans feel the need to protest this turn of events seems both natural and a positive good, even as the crypto-fascist oligarchy clearly pushes their personal greed out as their top priority and to hell with the needs of the rest of us.  How many protesters already have been arrested and detained in prisons?  What will happen if the chorus of dissent becomes louder and more vigorous?  Are internment camps and gulags and, yes, gas chambers in our future?  The current regime offers me no indication that they could not easily follow down a path that history has shown leads to cult-of-personality dictatorships, autocracy, oligarchy, and massive loss of rights by ordinary people.

My perspective about the poltical situation - 30 Jan 2017

A friend has asked me to compare what we're going through now to other political crises you've experienced in the US.  An interesting suggestion.  So here goes ...

I was born at the end of 1945, so my adult family members went through WWII and are widely considered to be members of the 'greatest generation'.  As in all wars, the crisis of WWII led to the nation running roughshod over the Constitutional rights of some Americans, notably the Japanese-Americans.  Since I have no direct experience with WWII, I can't say much about that crisis, except to note that the suspension of at least some Constitutional rights has happened several times in the history of the US wars.  I've read a lot about the Civil War, WWI, and WWII and the associated politics, but that doesn't make me a proper historian.

I was barely old enough to have much grasp of the Korean War, especially early on.  This was the opening conflict of the Cold War.  I remember seeing news from the 1953 peace talks at P’anmunjŏm and how happy everyone was that the war had ended - with an armistice (not a peace treaty).  Technically, the Korean War never ended; North and South Korea are still at war.  This war was the time of Joe McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee - he was characterized by a sort of crypto-fascist extreme nationalism.  McCarthy overreached his mandate and was repudiated for his extremist views.

When I was in junior high, I had a Social Studies teacher who was a rabid anti-communist.  He harangued us with frequent fear-mongering rants about the dangers of soviet and Chinese communism. This fear caused me to do some investigating on my own, so I literally read dozens of books about soviet communism.  I wanted to understand why the soviets hated us so much, even as we were being taught to hate them.  The Cold War went on for many more years, and I remember being drilled about "duck and cover" in school in the event of a nuclear war.  I was raised at a time of intense suspicion, fear, and paranoia based on what I was told about the soviet threat.  You lived every day of the Cold War under a constant threat of nuclear annihilation.  My readings convinced me of two things: 1. the Russian people didn't really hate us, and 2. most Americans were ignorant about Russian history.  Like many wars, the Cold War was a clash of ideologies, not between ordinary people.  All of us were in constant danger of being killed in a nuclear war - for something as foolish as a clash over ideology.

The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 occurred when I was in high school.  It was to take the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust, and that fear was quite real for many days.  JFK and Nikita Khrushchev finally negotiated a settlement that ended that terrifying threat.  To us, it seemed the evil soviets had been forced to back down. The real negotiations were not at all consistent with that perspective, but both populations were fed a bogus narrative that was politically expedient for the politicians who had threatened our very existence.

The Cold War became hot again when we engaged in the Vietnam War - a tragic error in judgment by the US (including choices made by JFK and then LBJ).  Like the Korean War, the Vietnam War was not declared formally - in the jargon of the age, it was described as a "police action" fought not by police but by the military forces of the US.  Ostensibly, it was a matter of "containment" of communism - the so-called "domino hypothesis" that if Vietnam fell to communism, that evil ideology would spread across all of southeast Asia and on to the rest of the world.  By the time when the US was defeated in that war (after winning most of the battles decisively), it had divided the nation.  Conservatives felt we should have "won" the war by any means possible (even though there was no clear way to define what "winning" such a war would mean), but toward the end of our Vietnam troop presence, so many Americans were so opposed to the war that LBJ chose not to run for re-election.  The anti-war riots during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago happened under eyes of the media - as the chant went "The whole world is watching!"  I watched the TV coverage of that event.  Nixon (before he was forced to resign as a result of the Watergate political scandal and subsequent cover-up) tried to cast our departure from Vietnam as "peace with honor" ... but it was a defeat, pure and simple.

I will have only a little to say about the civil rights movement as it had developed around the time of the early beginnings of the Vietnam War.  It's evidence of another source of division in America. White privilege made much of that divisive clash invisible to me:  I was raised in a lily-white bubble, so I had virtually no understanding of what was happening at the time.  One couldn't help but feel ashamed of what was happening to black people in this nation, as shown nearly nightly on TV.  My time in the Army (including in Vietnam) began a process of clearing away the white foam that so limited my comprehension.  For the very first time, in that war, I actually talked with and worked with and played with black Americans  That clearing process continues to this very day, as racism has not ended in America - not by a longshot!

My nation has a long history of cyclic swings of the political center - sometimes left, sometimes right.  My perspective is that the conservative v. liberal struggle has changed from having a spirit of mutual respect and compromise for mutual benefit, to become so divisive and downright dirty that many people have grown deeply disillusioned with our government.  The government is paralyzed by uncompromising political ideology conflict.  It's become acceptable to propose unconstitutional policies in the political arena to gain political ascendancy.  Gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement have solidified the dominance of the conservatives (GOP) in Congress.  Many people have lost faith in the principles laid down by our nation's founders.  Many are willing to be racists, to be chickenhawks (willing to send our troops into battle but unwilling to fight in those battles), to murder those who violate their personal sense of what is moral.

We've gone to war several times on the basis of an exaggerated fear for the threat posed by terrorism - which concedes victory to the terrorists.  Fear is their goal, and when we give in to that fear, they celebrate.  The reality of our continuing wars is what former President Eisenhower warned about:  those in the military and those engaged in war industries coming to dominate policy decisions regarding going to war to maximize profits.  In no war in my lifetime has there been a credible threat to freedoms in the USA against which to defend on foreign soil.  The biggest threat to American freedoms is neither foreign nations nor terrorist groups.  Rather, the threat to our freedoms comes mostly from the willingness of people to give up their freedoms for the illusion of security.  We seem to be able to tolerate NSA monitoring of email, social media, phone conversations without any warrant or probable cause.  The politicians passed the Patriot Act, ostensibly to combat terrorism.  We operate a prison in Guantanamo that is manifestly illegal, and contrary to American law as it is supposed to be practiced.  We have employed the discredited and widely disavowed practice of torture to obtain information from prisoners of our wars.

 My readings of history have shown me that many Americans are inclined to believe that we somehow are immune to becoming a fascist police state, an oligarchical kleptocracy, or even a theocracy.  I see no evidence to support that delusional belief in American Exceptionalism.  Quite the contrary, in fact.  I see evidence we're quite vulnerable to dictatorial fascism.  The belief that "it can't happen here" is pervasive - it opens a wedge in which a demagogue can enter at a critical time and win a power battle that results in a fascist cult of personality. The rest will follow ...

This brings me finally to the Trump regime.  Despite what my stubborn conservative friends believe, it can happen here.  We're facing a threat I see as quite comparable to that of Wiemar Germany in the years leading up to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor by Hindenburg in 1933.  Within a short time, Hitler pushed through legislation that gave him absolute power, and the rest of the tragic story of WWII follows from that.  Note that Hitler never actually won a democratic election - whereas we Americans actually have elected a pathological liar and narcissist who's already attacking the foundations of our secular, Constitutional democracy.  From where I sit, the threat is more frightening to me than anything I've ever experienced personally.  No, Trump has yet to suppress dissent with violence and he has not yet been granted dictatorial powers.  There are as yet no concentration camps.  If Trump's policies are fully implemented, it seems all too likely that where he and his GOP cronies are taking us is into a fascist cult of personality.  I hope the American people will come to their senses and repudiate this Trump regime.  Destroying our Constitutionally-based rule of law is not a sensible path toward improved governance by our elected officials.  As I see it, the Trump regime poses the greatest threat to American democracy short of a full nuclear exchange.

Student loans, universities, and big business

Some recent FB posts have stimulated this blog.  From where I sit, student loan programs have evolved from marginally affordable low-interest loans into predatory loans.  After only four years of college, student loans now saddle graduates with massive debt in exchange for what amounts to declining potential for that satisfying job with good pay and benefits. It takes many years to pay off those loans, and in some cases, it's become well nigh impossible ever to be free of that student loan debt.  A college degree never was a guarantee of satisfactory employment. The only thing guaranteed is that if you don't have that diploma, you won't even be permitted to apply for many good jobs.

Thus, of late, the universities are running a loan sharking system that forces many students into deep debt and yet can promise them absolutely nothing in return, even if they graduate with distinction. Many large state universities have become businesses, not centers of learning.  Such universities now actively  discourage faculty from failing students because that can terminate the gravy train prematurely.  These corporations masquerading as institutions of learning now siphon massive wealth from the middle and lower classes into the universities, and badger their alumni into supporting the university. Their governing bodies are now often dominated by wealthy local business leaders, not people committed to and experienced in education.  The inherently progressive notion of helping students become contributing members of society for the benefit of all has been replaced with something resembling the dark vision of education embodied in Pink Floyd's The Wall, with students on a treadmill ending in a sausage grinder.

When I was in college and grad school, I didn't need any loans, so I entered the workforce basically debt-free.  My parents (middle class) were able to afford supporting my undergraduate education and I contributed some by working in the summers.  When I entered graduate school, my research assistantships paid me enough to be able to avoid student loans.  I was also the beneficiary, after my military "sabbatical," of G.I. Bill benefits.  Well-paid, satisfying employment wasn't guaranteed but those good jobs were available.  I entered the workforce in 1976 with my doctorate, and have enjoyed 40 years of very satisfying work as a severe storms meteorologist. Sadly, the opportunities I had are more or less no longer available.

 

Times have changed since those halcyon days, and definitely not for the better.  University tuition and in-residence education are decreasingly affordable.  Many scientific research institutions are now being run on what amounts to a business model and permanent secure employment is disappearing.  The way much research is done now demands short-term projects (3 years or less) with a list of deliverables, mostly "low hanging fruit" rather than risky long-term efforts with high potential value but without the luxury of guaranteed results. Increasingly, employees must find soft money for themselves even to have a job at all.  Workers hired to soft-money projects can be out of a job by the end of the funded project; last hired = first fired. Predatory capitalism is running literally out of control in our big-time universities and even in our research institutions,  forcing everyone - students , faculty, and scientists - into the business line.

 

Given the way things are going now in this nation, anti-intellectualism and anti-science attitudes are on the rise within the swelling ranks of the educationally-deprived.  This is not an environment that portends a growth of support for scientists and other intellectuals.  In fact, as it stands, they're labeled "elitists" and their findings called into question by the scientifically ignorant.  People seem to have forgotten the important role science and technology have played in the superpower status of the USA.  Investing in, and encouraging educational growth in science and technology is the "capital" that has made the nation strong and a world power.  Business people are too tightly focused on P&L sheets to appreciate the notion of investing in our youth for the long-term health of our nation.  They see only the profits from their predation and have no reason to curb their greed based on income from the middle and lower classes.  They're contributing little or nothing to our long-term stability and success.  They have no concern for the future.

The will of the majority

A discussion on Facebook has stimulated this blog - the discussion ensued after I posted this old George Carlin video.  It seems pretty prescient concerning the current election situation, as the Trump "campaign" is encountering more and more manifestations of Trump's sleazy behavior, massive mendacity, and bizzare public claims.  It's difficult to know just what he does believe and what is just empty rhetoric.  Carlin's premise is that the public (or at least the majority of voters - that caveat will be unspoken but implicit in subsequent references to "the public") is responsible for the politicians.  If we don't like the politicians, it seems the public is responsible for the politicians we have.  Ergo, we have the voting members of the GOP to thank/blame for Trump.

The founders of our nation were very much aware of the potential tyranny of the majority.  If most of the people wanted to persecute a minority (say, Muslims), or establish a state religion (say, Christianity), they are prevented from doing so through the safeguards of the Bill of Rights.  Other aspects of the USA's Constitution limit the potential for abuses of the majority, including the electoral college and the balance of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.  Although supportive of representative democracy, the founders feared what the USA could become if the majority will was completely unfettered.  What has been happening since the Constitution was adopted is a gradual drift toward frustration with those safeguards.  People want their government to grant them what they want, even though what they seek may be bad for the nation, or will inflict harm on minorities.  This is an inevitable conflict in representative democracies.  The best path, it seems, is to remain in a state of approximate balance between the public's will and a government that declines to follow the will of the majority at all.  The secret to a successful democracy is not majority rule, but rather the protection of minority rights and doing what works best for nation as a whole (not pandering to special interests!).  As time has passed, the majority of our voters seem unable to bring themselves to vote against the very people who are ravaging the public, slowly undermining the bill of rights, pushing religion into government, and creating massive income inequality through welfare for the rich.

In other words, the majority seems determined to vote against their own best interests. This is where the people's will has taken us since the late 18th century, with anti-politics joining with a growing mood of anti-science/anti-intellectualism and a commitment to willful ignorance. This is what has become "representative" and has given rise to Trump as the human embodiment of a form of populism that involves narcissistic bigotry and a drift toward fascism in the USA. Trump has ridden the vote of the majority of GOP members to the nomination despite the GOP leadership's opposition, and is now at the very brink of the Presidency.  The rise of Trump to the GOP nomination has been an amazing journey for America.  His popularity is widely attributed to the fact that he "speaks his mind" (including a large number of outright lies and many completely bizarre bigoted statements) and is not a career politician.  His supporters seem not to care at all about his actual words.  Instead, he's mostly just a symbol for their frustration with a system that seems unresponsive to their perceived needs.  They're unswayed by his gaffes and outrageous claims.

The current election has given us candidates from the two major parties that are widely despised by majorities within their counterpart segments of the population.  Of course, the choice between them presumably will be made by the American voting public.  Anyone choosing not to vote will avoid any responsibility for the election of either candidate, but will have chosen not to exercise a responsibility to the nation to have a role in its governance.  Some will vote for alternative party candidates that, at the present time in our history, have little chance of winning any national elections.  Such votes are not "wasted" - the value of voting is not determined by the outcome of the election - they can affect the outcome, as history has shown us.  Nevertheless, the majority of the public has adopted the 2-party system and evidently isn't inclined to depart from that choice in significant numbers, no matter how bad the candidates might be.

Hatred for politicians by the public is intense, which ironically is a sort of self-hate (a concept George Carlin was using in his comedy piece), because it's by the will of the voting public that those politicians remain in office!  Politician approval ratings are at rock bottom, but we keep electing the same people to office over and over.  The rise of Trump can be seen as a sort of "populism" - Vocabulary.com defines populism this way:  "populism is a belief in the power of regular people, and in their right to have control over their government rather than a small group of political insiders or a wealthy elite."  [The nation's founders were not all populists!]  Another populist candidate was Bernie Sanders, but he and Trump are very far apart on the political spectrum.  Bernie has since endorsed Hillary Clinton, whereas most mainline GOP politicians are now scurrying to disavow Trump.  Trump is what he's always been, but he created massive angst for the GOP faithful prior to the Republican National Convention and they're now regretting their attempts to close ranks behind him after he won the nomination.  I guess they hoped they could "control" him and winning the election was the crucial thing - history suggests that demagogues are not easy to control.  That nomination was decided against the wishes of the GOP insiders, for the simple reason that in Republican primaries, the will of the majority was to support Trump.  Well, the GOP majority got what they wanted.  Time will tell what they decide about the wisdom of their support for Trump.
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Thoughts on "reverse racism"

NOTE  These comments are from two postings I made on Facebook.  I'm combining them here as a single blog, with a few minor modifications.

Interesting ... I just had an extended Facebook argument about the existence of "reverse racism". I assert that racism is NOT limited to prejudice against black people. Thus, I think so-called "reverse racism" [prejudice against whites] surely exists. My definition of racism is prejudging people on the basis of race (race is a fictional concept not recognized by modern science - see here).  A strict reading of my definition precludes any meaning for the phrase reverse racism - there is only racism, regardless of the races involved.

Whites have been in the majority in the USA for a long time, and that has allowed the development of an "institutionalized" prejudice against blacks now called "white privilege". White privilege is rooted in racism, therefore, which is in turn rooted in instinctual tribalism. I can understand the reasons that might lead to some blacks becoming deeply prejudiced against whites. Unfortunately, that is basically sanctioning what I call racism. What we need to eliminate ultimately is prejudice based on human instincts embedded in our genes - it will not be easy. But it does no good to NOT have conversations with others who may have different viewpoints. Understanding someone requires an effort to see things from their perspective. Not making that effort only perpetuates prejudice.

This single phrase "reverse racism" can have multiple definitions. Your opinions about the phrase depend heavily on what meaning you assign to it. There may be others, in addition to the three I've offered below.

1. a negative pre-judgment by blacks against all whites - black against white prejudice being the "reverse" of white against black prejudice

There clearly are those who fall under #1. It can't be denied that such people exist and there may or may not be valid reasons for it.  Returning tit for tat is quite understandable if you've experienced race-based injustice.  However, this clearly simple racism, if you define it as I've done.

2. institutionalized favoritism for blacks

This might include such things as so-called "affirmative action" programs, which seem to anger many whites, especially conservatives. At the superficial level, this sort of thing can be characterized as reverse racism. However, the motivation for it is to be to address a long, continuing period of discrimination against blacks as a result of white privilege. It's not really so much of an attack on whites as it is an attack on white privilege. Black people deserve the opportunity to prove themselves to be competent, and if they're given some benefit of the doubt, then perhaps this is the start down a path to eventual elimination of white privilege, whereby all are always given strictly equal opportunity. It's a small price to pay for centuries of discrimination against blacks and serves many positive ends. The whole "competency" argument often thrown up against affirmative action falls apart when you realize that many white people who have been given the benefit of white privilege have proven to be incompetent! Whiteness doesn't equate with competence, just as blackness doesn't equate to incompetence. The examples (counterexamples to racial stereotypes) are all around us!!

3. opposition to institutionalized white privilege

The idea that someone opposed to white privilege is automatically exhibiting "reverse racism" is obviously fallacious. Yes, blacks prejudiced against all whites (i.e., black against white racists) certainly would be likely supporters of doing away with white privilege. Nevertheless, that doesn't apply equally to all those fighting this battle for equal justice and opportunity. Many of those seeking an end to white privilege are not at all black. Frankly, it's a position I think should be the choice of all rational people.  I came to understand that the racism I encountered as a boy was not consistent with my experiences as an adult - racial stereotypes were demonstrably false - you can't claim to know anything about a particular human being solely on the basis of race.  If you must judge people, do so on the basis of what they say and, more importantly, on what they do!

I observe that racism is a form of tribalism.  We evolved as creatures who depend on social interactions for our survival.  Those in our "tribe" were much more important to us than those from other tribes.  Other tribes represented competition for resources and survival.  Other tribes had different cultures, different ideas, different religions, and in some cases, had a different physical appearance. Tribalism is deeply embedded in our genetic heritage - it was an important survival trait.  To be different is to be a threat.

Any social or cultural grouping can be considered a tribe, so there can be tribes within tribes (hunters, gatherers, scientists, clergy, carpenters, plumbers, etc.).  Minor differences in skin coloration, eye and nose shapes, etc. have stimulated tribalistic reactions whereby those who look slightly different are seen as an "inferior race".  Culturally assigned roles may have no valid basis in abilities.  This sort of thinking is in opposition to the facts as we know them from science.  Science tells us that all humans evolved from our beginnings in Africa - we all contain some of that original DNA and so all of us are "black" in that sense.  Race has become the cultural equivalent of the appendix - it no longer has any functionality and at times can be very harmful to us.  We need to discard the refuse of tribalism/racism and strive to work together for the common good.  Races are mythical - there is only one race:  the human race!  It will not be easy to overcome our tendency for tribalism/racism, but we need to do so as soon as possible.

Thoughts on prejudice, tribalism, and racism

Looking back at the experiences of my 70+ years, one theme seems to come up again and again:  the people I have known stubbornly resist conforming to my stereotypes.  A stereotype can be defined as a preconceived notion, especially about a group of people.  Like everyone else, I'm associated with many different groupings of people and my life has shown me repeatedly that if I see a person who can be grouped within a particular association, membership in that association actually says very little about what sort of person any individual member of that group is.  One group to which I belong is the "tribe" of white male heterosexuals.  These are essentially accidents of birth - not choices I made.  I am also a meteorologist, a military veteran, a person who has used marijuana, an atheist, a citizen of the USA, a fan of drag racing, an artist, overweight, tall, bald, and so on and on. These other associations include both more accidents of birth and many specific choices I've made over the course of my life.

If you only know me as a member of the "white people" association, for example, what stereotypes of that particular grouping do you think apply to me?  All of them?  If not, which ones?  What does it say about you if you automatically believe those stereotypes of my "white people" tribe apply to me?  When I was a boy in the Chicago suburbs of Dupage County, most of the people I knew were WASPs - White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and I learned about a widely-held but rarely vocally expressed view of racial and cultural superiority associated with my "tribe" of WASPs.  Other tribes were looked down upon by many members of my WASP tribal association.  I knew a few Catholics, even fewer Jews, and essentially no African- or Mexican-Americans.  Interestingly, my best friend in high school was a Catholic and yet somehow that friendship apparently was tolerated by the members of my WASP tribe.  I was not vilified for being friends with a white male Catholic, and if anyone felt I was betraying my Protestant tribe, they never said it to my face.  Later, of course, I became an atheist - a group that many Americans despise and which is subject to discrimination.

As time went by, I became aware of the discrimination that existed in my town against non-white Americans.  At some point, I heard that an African-American had tried to buy a house in my neighborhood and the neighbors (not including my parents) had banded together to threaten to buy the home rather than let a black family move into our tribe's territory!  I was not raised to be a racist, even though racism was rampant around me, so this discovery came as something shocking.  I was ashamed of my tribe's racism.  It seemed that my tribe was prejudiced against other tribes and would go to extreme lengths to avoid having to associate with those belonging to a different racial tribe.  If I chose to be close friends with an African-American (remember, there were none about!), how would my WASP tribe have reacted?  What if I chose to date a black woman?  I'll never know, but I think I know a likely response to such behavior.  I've learned that some members of my own family were/are notably prejudiced against other racial tribes, so I think I know what their response would have been had I been dating a black or Latino woman.

Having been drafted into the Army - an organization that one typically does not consider to be socially advanced - I was thrown into the company of a widely diverse group of people, including blacks, Latinos, farm boys, southern "rednecks", etc.  One of my lasting memories is meeting an 18 year-old African-American man serving with me in Vietnam who seemed very innocent and naive to me.  But it turned out he had some amazing strength of character.  He resisted what I felt was good-natured badgering from me and some of my friends about his innocence.  For instance, he would pray before eating in the mess hall.  He didn't curse, or drink, or smoke pot.  Some of the blacks in our company called him an "Uncle Tom" because he declined to be called "brother" by people to whom he was not related.  This was not the stereotype of an angry, "militant" young black male - he was comfortable with whom he felt himself to be and literally didn't care what anyone else thought.  I often wonder what has happened to him - I regret not taking more time to get to know him.  I was still learning back then, I suppose.

After my time in the Army, I returned to the mostly white world of my professional life, but in the course of that career, I became acquainted with a group of Mexican-American meteorologists who included some of the smartest people I've ever had the good fortune to meet.  Bam!  There went another stereotype.  I also met some amazing women who had become scientists, and some of them were at the very top of my profession.  Thud!  Another stereotype falls.  I have met and known outstanding African-American meteorologists.  Crash!  So much for that stereotype.  Despite all the barriers put in their way, these professionals have achieved much and have earned their professional standing, so don't tell me it can't be done!!  I was discovering that stereotypes and default assumptions based on tribal associations were phantoms that had no basis in reality.  I was going to have to abandon my notions of who people are based in the heuristic approach I had been using:  belong to group X, you're a good person, whereas if you belong to group Y, you're not a good person.  That simply didn't give reliable results and as a science professional, that meant it had to be rejected.

If you take some time to get to know someone, rather than assuming that their membership in some tribe tells you who they are and what to expect from them, you'll find inevitably they're simply human beings whose attitudes and behavior may or may not fit your expectations.   Perhaps some of them will be a good match for a specific stereotype you have, but not some others.  You just can't know that until you know them personally!

The evidence is around you if you take the time to abandon your default assumptions about other humans and learn about them as individuals, not members of some association.  Make the effort rather than pre-judging someone without any real evidence.  Learning how things look to other people is an excellent path to a deeper understanding of your own beliefs and behaviors.  Savor the rich diversity of humanity instead of seeing other tribes as lesser human beings.

Free speech and political correctness

Given the nature of the statements coming from Donald Trump and his myrmidons of late, the whole issue of "political correctness" has been a hot topic in social media.  Thus, this blog will be my take on the topic.

First of all, in the USA, freedom of speech is an important right of all Americans, protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I've discussed freedom of speech in my blog several times (here, or here for instance), with the most important aspect of free speech (in my opinion) being that if the protection of free speech does not apply to speech that we find offensive by virtue of being distasteful, rude, unpatriotic, disgusting, blasphemous, or offensive for whatever other reason, then the notion of free speech has no meaningful value.  There's no Constitutional guarantee that you won't be offended by what others might say.  In other blog posts, I've mentioned examples, so I won't bother with that here.

By the same token, based on what I'm hearing from Trump and his sycophants, there seems to be a desire on their part to experience no negative feedback in response to their exercising their Constitutionally-guaranteed right right to free speech.  In a nation dominated by white male heterosexual privilege (hereafter, WMHP) from its very inception, condescending epithets long have been used openly in American society to describe subjects of white male heterosexual contempt.  The subjects of that contempt further have been discriminated against in virtually every aspect of life, without any meaningful recourse to mitigate that discrimination.  The halls of power long have been the nearly exclusive domain of WMHP.

Recently, in the past few decades, there's been a growing sense of rejection of that contempt and discrimination.  Stereotypes have fallen over and over in the face of the reality (backed up by scientific evidence) that there is no rational basis for such bigotry.  Public opinion, backed by scientific research, is increasingly recognizing that we are one people and should all be treated equally under the law and in the course of our lives. 

Religion has been used by some to support their continuing belief in the foundations for WMHP.  But the rising tide of American society of late includes a rejection of the mythology of WMHP.  Many Americans have come to realize that various groups victimized by it should be afforded equal treatment under the law and not be subjected to discrimination.  Although the poisonous miasma of WMHP is not yet completely removed from American society as a whole, there has been growing acceptance for those segments of our culture who have been denied equal treatment and subjected to disdain (and irrational fear) in the past.

Thus, when the increasingly isolated and troglodytic segment of American society that continues to support WMHP voices its contempt for people not accepted by white male heterosexuals as equals, there's an increasingly vigorous response opposing that contemptuous speech.  In many cases now, blatant public use of bigoted epithets can result in someone being fired or losing some segment of their customer base.  This response to disrespectful speech is not a free speech issue - no government agency is putting people in prison for their vitriolic speech.  Private citizens simply are exercising their free choice to not be associated with bigots and bigotry.  Yet many who cling to the protective bubble of WMHP have the idea that being "politically incorrect" should be free from any non-governmental blowback for their use of insulting speech.  They want to suffer no consequences arising from being rude and scornful of others.  They pine for the "good old days" when they could express their bigotry openly and without anyone caring.  Trump has given voice to these bigots, bringing their poison out of the festering darkness of their hearts and into the open again.

Anyone can say (more or less) whatever they want (within some limits), but they also must accept that free speech can have consequences.   Most Americans have no wish to return to an earlier time when flagrant bigotry was the order of the day and WMHP prevailed over all.  Those bigots whining about the overemphasis on political correctness today are simply complaining about the consequences they experience for offending people when being rude and insulting.  Too bad.  I can't say I feel sorry for them.

Thoughts after Orlando

I'm going to weigh in on this one, although the facts are not yet all in.  I'm willing to do this because I'm not actually drawing any conclusions (unlike some) about that tragic event, at least not yet.  What is factual is that this murderous act was evidently set off when the shooter witnessed men kissing.  So he targeted a gay bar in Orlando (which he apparently frequented!), and gay bars are where many gay people go to be able to be openly gay without fear.  Except the shooter was about to change that forever.  After this despicable crime, is there anywhere for gay people to go to feel safe about simply being themselves?  Certainly there's little sanctuary in churches, most of which continue to preach that homosexuality is a sin (and some even go so far as to say it's a sin worthy of death), and in society at large.  Overt homosexuality is still considered disturbing or repulsive.

Growing up in the ultra-conservative suburbs of Chicago, everyone I knew considered it to be a serious insult when you called someone a "queer/faggot".  I was brought up in that culture, and simply went along with it because everyone was in agreement:  fags were detestable and homosexuality was a vile act.  I was taught to hate. This has been the American perspective for generations, nurtured by fundamentalist christians who quote various biblical passages condemning the sin.  With this sort of sanctioned contempt, violence against gays has been a constant drumbeat in our "christian" culture.  Never mind that many of the most strident of those condemning homosexuality have been shown repeatedly to harbor homosexual tendencies themselves - a sort of self-hatred manufactured by the revulsion of the heterosexually-dominated culture.

We even have "conversion centers" aimed at "curing" the "sickness" that many see homosexuality to be.  Bashing gays is a full-time occupation for such intellectual giants as populate the Westboro Baptist Church.  Our culture is rife with those who demonize others for "choosing" the "homosexual life style".  Why would anyone choose to be a homosexual?  It makes absolutely no sense at all to do so, given our cultural history where homosexuality is condemned so vigorously.  Homosexuals who 'come out of the closet' to their friends and family often find themselves repudiated and reviled by the very people who should love them the most.  Does it make sense that someone would choose to do that to themselves?  C'mon, get real! Homosexuality is NOT a choice!

Having grown up with all of that cultural conditioning, I was OK with all of that revulsion for a long time.  I wasn't gay and didn't understand how someone could actually prefer to be so.  I didn't want some gay guy coming on to me to participate in his perversions, after all.  "Fag" as an insult?  Sure, I could see that.  Stay the hell away from me!

However, I began to find people I respected in my profession who clearly were homosexuals.  These were good people, great friends, and never once did they ever make even the slightest attempt at having sex with me.  [Am I that unattractive?  (joke)]  In my youth, I was raped by an older "friend" as a boy but this was clearly not a sexual act.  It was one of violence.  He was not a gay man, he was a pedophile.  To equate gays with pedophilia is simply an absurd myth, believed mostly by ignorant gay-bashers.  None of the gay people of my professional acquaintance ever made any sexual advances to me.  Ever.  None of them have ever even been accused, let alone convicted, of being pedophiles.

In my life, there came a time when I was presented with an unexpected "situation".  A gay friend was 'outed' accidentally and the circumstances literally forced me to decide just how I was going to deal with it in public.  Certain of my homophobic acquaintances urged me to repudiate my long-time friend, who was now publicly known to be gay.  Was I going to have to turn my back on my friend because he was now revealed openly to be a homosexual?  That was an easy choice - not just "NO!" but "HELL, NO!!"  My respect for those people upset by my choice has been declining ever since.  I will not turn my back to my friends because of their sexual orientation.  Period.  It's none of my business and never has been.  They are who they are, irrespective of their sexual preferences, and I have no reason to distance myself from them on that basis.

So where does this personal history leave me with respect to the Orlando tragedy?  Whatever might have been the complex motivation for the shooter, the deed almost certainly was driven by homophobic hate encouraged by many cultures, including ours in the USA.  Otherwise, why target a gay nightclub?  Like many of us in the last few years, I've learned to overcome the hatreds I was taught and we've seen a dramatic change in favor of equal rights for the LGBTs, who can now begin to imagine a day when sexual preferences go back to being purely personal and not something to be used to insult and condemn.  Religion has a long history of using guilt about sexual behavior as a means of control, and until all the major religions abandon their tradition of condemnation regarding sexual preferences, we'll continue to see suffering as a consequence of that self-imposed guilt. Religion (muslim and christian) long has been an enabler when it comes to violence against non-heterosexual people. Let us turn our backs on that!

I'm pleased to see the widespread agreement over renouncing the homophobia that underpins the Orlando shootings.  I'm encouraged by the growth of tolerance for LGBTs.  Perhaps we can eventually emerge from the darkness and into the light of real tolerance.