Your Identity Matters

Express Yourself

Who you are is an asset, not a liability. Inclusiveness is a strength in a productive working environment and for society.

To anybody who has ever questioned your identity ever, ever, ever, or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this: There is indeed a place for us.- Ariana DeBose

According to the CDC, discrimination comes in many forms. They list:

• Age Discrimination
• Disability Discrimination
• Sexual Orientation
• Status as a Parent
• Religious Discrimination
• National Origin
• Pregnancy
• Sexual Harassment
• Race, Color, and Sex
• Reprisal / Retaliation

What's The Problem?

Discrimination can influence individuals' health indirectly, even when they are unaware that it has happened. Discrimination due to race, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation determine access to health care and the social determinants of health, including contact with the criminal justice system. (-healthaffiars.org Feb 2020) Discrimination is corrosive, eating away at self worth and self esteem. Discrimination leads  to resentment and hate. The result for our society is a lot of wasted potential.

There's an economic cost for this country because of discrimination. Broad groups of people are categorized and marginalized by discrimination. We lose trillions of dollars by not allowing certain groups full participation in the economy. Those trillions would be put back into the economy in jobs, and increased spending power. For example, Gender inequality costs the US economy over 6 billion dollars a year. Racial disparities and discrimination has resulted in $16 trillion in lost potential over the past 20 years. -Citigroup Sep/2020

Instead of dividing us to gain political power and wealth, as some leaders do, we should be embracing the talents of those they would marginalize.

To change this we have two choices. We can wait for somebody to take charge, to become the leader of a just cause, or we can, as a group, speak out. Activism creates leaders and leadership. We need to be raising our voices, rejoicing in our diversity to help our society reach something closer to its full potential. 

But How?

I borrow from a positioning statement the Methodists once used, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”  If our hearts and minds are truly open, it must mean we're listening. Then, the doors will open wide. 

Discrimination is a learned behavior. Because of that, there is still the hope we can get it right.

 

Holding onto Power

 

Same Old Same Old

After listening to certain Senators this week try to eviscerate Judge Jackson with irrelevant questions, I found myself wondering where's the rebuttal from the media. The problem was, I found the lies made from whole cloth so disturbing, I just stopped listening to the Senate hearing. It turns out, the hearing is not a venue for truth. 

The questions by Hawley, Cruz and Graham were deliberately misleading. They tried to portray Judge Jackson as the embodiment of racist fears about woke education, conspiracy theories labeling democrats as child molesters, anti-American views, anti-law enforcement, and as a proponent of Critical Race Theory. None of that is true. 

I stumbled upon the quote below from Emma Gonzalez. Then the line from Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground came to mind. Then, the realization that nothing much has changed since the 60's and 70's, and that's the way those Senators want it.

 

We are grieving, we are furious, and we are using our words fiercely and desperately because that’s the only thing standing between us and this happening again.

- Emma González

Powers keep on lying

While your people keep on dying

World keep on turning

'Cause it won't be too long.

- Stevie Wonder

Politicians Do This All The Time

A comprehensive study about the causes of the riots in many of America's largest cities in the 1960's is another example. The Johnson Administration sought answers after the riots of the 60's. They wanted to know what were the causes of the riots that swept major cities in America. The answers were all there in the report put together by the Kerner Commission. The book, 426 pages long, became a best seller.

The Kerner Commission found there are two Americas. “Our Nation Is Moving Toward Two Societies, One Black, One White—Separate and Unequal” The report was released in 1968, after seven months of investigation. It attributed the riots to lack of economic opportunity for African Americans and Latinos, failed social service programs, police brutality, racism, and the orientation of national media to white perspectives.

The Smithsonian offers their article, The 1968 Kerner Commission Got It Right, But Nobody Listened

Bad policing practices, a flawed justice system, unscrupulous consumer credit practices, poor or inadequate housing, high unemployment, voter suppression, and other culturally embedded forms of racial discrimination all converged to propel violent upheaval on the streets of African-American neighborhoods in American cities, north and south, east and west. And as black unrest arose, inadequately trained police officers and National Guard troops entered affected neighborhoods, often worsening the violence. 

The report was controversial. In conservative circles it was considered flawed. Ultimately it was ignored. The mistakes made then are happening all over again. 

The article in Smithsonian points out, "Backlash was immediate. Polls showed that 53 percent of white Americans condemned the claim that racism had caused the riots, while 58 percent of black Americans agreed with the findings. Even before the report, white support for civil rights was waning. In 1964, most Northern whites had backed Johnson’s civil rights initiatives, but just two years later, polls showed that most Northern whites believed Johnson was pushing too aggressively."

Johnson, ever the politician, refused to endorse the report and failed to acknowledge investigative reporting from Newsweek that in many ways supported the Kerner Commission report.

White response to the Kerner Commission helped to lay the foundation for the law-and-order campaign that elected Richard Nixon to the presidency later that year. Instead of considering the full weight of white prejudice, Americans endorsed rhetoric that called for arming police officers like soldiers and cracking down on crime in inner cities.

Both the Kerner Commission Report and the Newsweek package called for massive government spending.

Kerner Recommendations  belonging.berkley.edu

I. EMPLOYMENT

1) Consolidating and concentrating employment efforts.

2) Open the existing job structure

3) Creating 1 million new jobs in the public sector in 3 years.

4) Creating 1 million new jobs in the private sector in 3 years. 

5) Developing urban and rural poverty areas.

6) Encouraging Business Ownership in the Ghetto

II. EDUCATION

1) Increasing Efforts to eliminate de facto segregation: Substantially increase aid to school systems seeking to eliminate de facto segregation either within the system or in cooperation with neighboring school systems.  

2) Provide Quality Education in Ghetto Schools

3) Improving Community-School Relations

4) Expanding Opportunities for Higher Education

5) Expanding Opportunities for Vocational Education

III. THE WELFARE SYSTEM
1) Provide more adequate levels of assistance based upon uniform national standards
2) Extension of AFDC-UP
3) Reduce the burden on state and local government by financing the cost of assistance almost entirely with federal funds.
4) Work Incentives and training –
5) Removal of Freeze on Recipients [a temporary budget decision]
6) Remove Restrictions on Eligibility
7) Develop a national system of income supplementation to provide a basic floor of economic and social security for all Americans.

IV. HOUSING
1) The Supply of housing suitable for low-income families should be expanded on a massive basis
2) Areas Outside of ghetto neighborhoods should be opened up to occupancy by racial minorities

V. POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY
1) The Need for change in police operations in the ghetto to ensure proper conduct by individual officers and to eliminate abrasive practices.
2) The need for more adequate police protection of ghetto residents, to eliminate the high sense of insecurity to person and property.
3) The need for effective mechanisms for resolving citizens’ grievances against the police.
4) The need for policy guidelines to assist police in areas where police conduct can create tension.

The consequences of inaction are all around us in urban and rural communities. As the wealth gap increases, the American Dream becomes more elusive. As the frustrations grow, the more divided we become, and the more likely our democracy will decay into autocracy.

Good Works

Much More Is Expected

I've often heard comments from the faithful declaring our place is not in this world, or I'm thankful that Jesus is my Lord and personal savior.

My question, is that all there is? Saying, "I believe, " and leaving it at that doesn't seem come close. Isn't there something more to be concerned about? Isn't there a lot more we're being asked to do? Our faith should be about love, not exclusion. 

 If we're worried about somebody's sexuality, somebody's ethnic heritage, somebody's social status, somebody's purity, I propose we're focused on the wrong things.

I did a quick check and found 100 passages in the Bible about sharing wealth. I think there's many more passages. Somebody once told me there are over 400.

James put it this way. (Found in Sojourners)
For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
- James 2:26

Harper Lee offered this,
There are just some kind of men who — who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

Twitter Lurkers

Yeah, it's a thing.

No, They're not the Peeping Toms of the Twitterverse. They're not their to get noticed. They're not there to garner followers. They're...just curious.

Pew has posted some research on this. It should be no surprise that a small minority does a large majority of the posting on the platform. For example,  just 6% of all U.S. adults with public accounts on the site, but they account for 73% of tweets from American adults that mention national politics.

In Pew's analysis, the terms “lurkers” and “infrequent tweeters” are used interchangeably to refer to U.S. adults who have posted an average of fewer than five tweets per month since they first opened their account, whether those tweets were original messages, retweets, quote tweets or replies. To refer to U.S. adult Twitter users who are not “lurkers,” we use the terms “active tweeters” or “frequent tweeters” interchangeably.

Here are five facts about Lurkers according to Pew:

1. Half of US adults, who use Twitter, post about five times a month.
2. 41%  of the Lurkers say they visit only a few times a month or less often.
3. Twitter Lurkers are more likely than other users to get a variety of views.
4. Lurkers don't do a lot of following and they do not have many followers.
5. Replies to other users are the most common type of tweet by infrequent tweeters. They account for roughly half (51%) of lurkers’ tweets, compared with 30% of those from more frequent tweeters.

The challenge for Twitter will be converting Lurkers into more frequent users. The other challenge may be getting Lurkers to post. They're not going to drive eyeballs to the platform.

Awful Truth

A Dark Heart

 We are witnessing a horrible truth. We arm ourselves with our beliefs, our words, and our actions to the point of mutual destruction. The barbaric measures being employed by Putin and his troops are the result of insular thinking. Thinking that only I know the way. Only I have the the answers, and anybody who would dare disagree is vermin, scum and traitors, impure, and deserve to be destroyed. His threats of using supersonic missiles and bombs, capable of knocking out underground shelters have already become a reality. His plan seems to be to flatten Ukrainian cities. The death of civilians is incidental, because they are subhuman (see the names). He rarely calls his enemies by name. 

Mutual Destruction

So far, the western allies have refrained from direct armed response, but how much longer will that restraint hold. During the Cold War there was mutual restraint. It was called mutually assured destruction. It kept the US and Soviet Union from from stumbling into a hot war. Historians refer to the nuclear arms race of the Cold War as an example of Mutual Assured Destruction since it was clear to both the United States and the Soviet Union that if either attacked the other, then it would ultimately lead to total destruction for both. historycrunch.com. 

Putin has already used chemical and biological warfare in previous confrontations, he has made clear he will use supersonic weapons, and now threatens the use of nuclear weapons. He blows up civilian targets, hospitals schools and cultural sights. Putin justifies it all because he sees himself as on a mission from God to save democracy from the hedonist western alliance. 

Brut force is a means to an end.

Quick Guide to Autocracy

 

What is an example of an autocracy?

Nazi Germany is an example of an autocracy run primarily by a single leader and his party. Indonesia under the Suharto's New Order (1966-1998). Greece under the military junta of Georgios Papadopoulos (1967–1974). wikipedia.org
What type of government is autocracy?


An autocracy is a form of government in which one ruler has absolute control and decision-making power. Autocracies have existed since ancient times, when kings and emperors ruled over great countries and tribal lands, and they exist today in the form of absolute monarchies and dictatorships. Jan 28, 2022 National Geographic

Does Russia have an autocracy?

Features. The tsar himself, the embodiment of sovereign authority, stood at the center of the tsarist autocracy, with full power over the state and its people. The autocrat delegated power to persons and institutions acting on his orders, and within the limits of his laws, for the common good of all Russia. Wikipedia Communist Russia and the Soviet Union under Stalin was autocratic.

Is Vladimir Putin an Autocrat?

Yes, according to the Atlantic, The BBC, The Journal of Democracy, CNN, The Brooking Institute, The Economist, Politico, Forbes and many more. Other autocratic countries includeChina, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, North Korea, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan...

Is Trump an autocrat?

Autocracy is certainly his leadership style, and the leaders he admires most are autocrats. Shawn M. Burn Ph.D. thinks so. In her article for Psychology Today she writes of The Perils of Trump's Autocratic Leadership Style. Her points:

• Autocratic (authoritarian) leaders use, and often abuse, their coercive power to get people to do their bidding.

• Another problem is that using threats or intimidation to foster loyalty often backfires. Superficially, you may have the loyalty and respect of your subordinates, but it is not the real thing, driven as it is by fear rather than true respect.

• Another problem with autocratic leadership is that it lends itself to poor decision-making. Trump’s insistence on the unquestioning loyalty of those in his administration is also a set-up for groupthink and consequent poor decision-making.

Democracy in Retreat

Democracy has been in decline for the past 15 years and Putin has been behind the decline. And yet, Putin sees himself as the champion of democracy.


"Putin has spent more than two decades consolidating power, rebuilding Russia’s military and weakening his enemies. He has repeatedly undermined democratic movements and popular uprisings, including those in Syria and Belarus. He has meddled in Western elections. And he has deployed Russian troops to enforce his will, including in Georgia and Crimea.

The invasion of Ukraine — the largest war in Europe since World War II — is a significant escalation of this behavior. The country’s fall would mark a violent end to one of the world’s democracies." German Lopez, NYTimes

Fake Fact Checks

 

Creating a world where facts and truth are always questioned.

The idea to keep us in a state of confusion about power and politics. That way, powerful forces control the messages and their outcome. ProPublica reports that Russia is using fake factchecks to misinform the Russian population. what the Russian controlled media is doing is creating false narratives and then disproving those false stories with fake fact checks. According to the article, here's how it work:

"On March 3, Daniil Bezsonov, an official with the pro-Russian separatist region of Ukraine that styles itself as the Donetsk People’s Republic, tweeted a video that he said revealed “How Ukrainian fakes are made.”

"The clip showed two juxtaposed videos of a huge explosion in an urban area. Russian-language captions claimed that one video had been circulated by Ukrainian propagandists who said it showed a Russian missile strike in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city."

"But, as captions in the second video explained, the footage actually showed a deadly arms depot explosion in the same area back in 2017. The message was clear: Don’t trust footage of supposed Russian missile strikes. Ukrainians are spreading lies about what’s really going on, and pro-Russian groups are debunking them. (Bezsonov did not respond to questions from ProPublica.)"

"The goal of the videos is to inject a sense of doubt among Russian-language audiences as they encounter real images of wrecked Russian military vehicles and the destruction caused by missile and artillery strikes in Ukraine, according to Patrick Warren, an associate professor at Clemson who co-leads the Media Forensics Hub."

“The reason that it’s so effective is because you don’t actually have to convince someone that it’s true. It’s sufficient to make people uncertain as to what they should trust,” said Warren, who has conducted extensive research into Russian internet trolling and disinformation campaigns. “In a sense they are convincing the viewer that it would be possible for a Ukrainian propaganda bureau to do this sort of thing.”

The use of social media makes this so much easier that 25 years ago. The firehose stream of information has limited filters. The attacks on the media by Trump and his administration were a deliberate attempt to confuse the issues. There is no shared truth, only opinions vetted by those who would shape the narrative. Trump influenced conservatives are attacking science, intellectuals, journalism, an independent judiciary, and democracy...even organized, mainline, religions. Why? Divided, we are more vulnerable.

Pew published a series of reports to gain insights about the potential future effects of people’s use of technology on democracy. "The digital disruption of democracy has been a leading concern over the past four years – a time of the Brexit decision in the United Kingdom, the American presidential election and a variety of other elections. Pew shared a series of quoted from people who are studying these issues in a hunt for remedies." The report came out in 2020. Their worst fears are being realized in Trump's "Big Lie" and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The river of falsehoods and lies has become a torrent. 

Some of those quotes from the Pew article are below.

Is This The End? 

Many Tech Experts Say Digital Disruption Will Hurt Democracy 

About half predict that humans’ use of technology will weaken democracy between now and 2030 due to the speed and scope of reality distortion, the decline of journalism and the impact of surveillance capitalism. A third expect technology to strengthen democracy as reformers find ways to fight back against info-warriors and chaos.  (Pew Research Feb 2020)