A Blade of Grass

Kayla.

Chapter One

Our Country and Our World

I love this country.  I love it because of the freedoms that I have here.  I have no illusions that I would have these freedoms anywhere else on our planet.  Even in other western democracies, and making the assumption that they offer the same freedoms, in the U.S. I have the freedom to travel through large expanses and experience a variety of landscapes that I would not have access to as a citizen of another country (except maybe Canada, New Zealand and Australia).  I also would note that humans are tribal, by nature and I am no exception. Therefore I love America, because it is the tribe that io was born ito and raised up in.

There are other tribal divisions besides countries of origin.  There are racial tribal identities (black & white), income level tribal divisions (rich & poor), gender tribal differences (Men are from Mars & Women from venus),  and many other ways we divide ourselves up (gay or straight, the companies we work for, young & old"). Certainly, one way that Americans use as a tribal divider is those that are college educated versus (and you may not the word versus is intentional) those that are not.  This is evident in many ways including a fairly wide income gap between the two groups.

In short, there is a schism in our country.  

I have often thought that these perceived differences that we all hold may ultimately be a stumbling block for humans.  For decades I have laid out the following scenario. Most that I have related this vision to think I’m a little off, whacky, and so I present it as tongue in cheek so the listener doesn’t feel completely uncomfortable.  I goes like this:

I doubt very highly that we humans are the most intelligent form of life in this universe.  It is the ultimate practice of chauvinism to believe that we are. We have been signalling our existence for only a short time, past our earthly confines, by way of radio waves and then video signals.  You can see where this is going already, right. Now, if (mind you IF) some extra terrestrial culture that maybe has the same violent tendencies that we do decided to come to Earth and subjugate us, for whatever reason, we would most like be toast, dead meat, screwed.  But, believe me when i tell you, if we were not to act as one planet, as opposed to many disparate groups, wew would stand zero chance of surviving such an attack. We most likely wouldn’t survive such an attack anyway, but maybe, maybe we could if we acted as one planet, in concert.  Crazy, huh?

Well here’s some more craziness.  Now, let’s point a telescope at our Mars.  If there were life on Mars, what would we ( and in fact have) label life on Mars? ……. Martians.  So, let’s take the telescope to Mars and point it back at Earth. What would we call us? Following the same logic …… Earthlings.  We would not see all of the different divisions that we have placed as obstacles to a peaceful co-existence, but I understand, it is integral to our biological evolution and the primitive structures in our brains.

It is no surprise that we Americans, as with other humans, have a class structure.  The haves and the have nots. donald trump’s campaign and election was in no way the beginning of the schism in America.  In my first post, I presented the thought that this schism started with Darwin, but have since read books that challenged me to think the issue through further.  It predates the formation of our country, back to colonial times. But, I submit that trump has enabled the boil to surface and now it has to be dealt with. It needs to be lanced.  We will not resolve our differences anytime soon, but this is the starting point. It has been close to the surface for a few decades and slowly rising to the surface during that time, but it’s completely present now and wow with us if we let it submerge into the body of our culture rather than taking hold of this opportunity to squeeze this abscess and release the infection.

Another human foible that has come clear to me over my lifetime, is our amazing ability to not take a complete inventory of our view of the word.  Again, I am certainly not immune to this weakness. And so, I have noticed our myopic vision and made note of it in some of these blog posts.

With that said, let’s begin with a views, snap shots, of our country,

Friday, November 11, 2016

The Schism

So many emotions & thoughts passing through my heart & mind since about 2:00 am on Wednesday, 11/9.    Certainly, I will not list them all now. My purpose is to use the blog platform to share my thoughts about the state of our country, and to listen to those that wish to share.

With that being said, the first thought that I want to explore is the schism, the divide in our culture, in our society.  I am not presenting myself as a SME (subject matter expert). I am only able to write about what I see. It may be possible that we over-analyze social dynamics instead of going with our guts.  I understand that analysis presents a picture based on a large sampling and gives us the ability to view societal issues with more accuracy then can be had w/anecdotal evidence. I respect that, but still I choose to start this discussion with my gut.

There are a few divides that I see in our culture; in humans.  First is the intelligence divide. From my perspective I see one group as being thoughtful and concerned with human growth and embracing progress  in a forward thinking manner. I see the other group as being short sighted, fearful, unwilling to explore, unwilling to grow. The differences between these two ways of viewing the world is not new.  I believe the schism started when Darwin put forward his findings re: evolution. You might even go so far as saying it has been a culture war, that started with Darwin’s writings, had a pause during WW II, and started again in the 1950s, with a continued building towards a crescendo that I do not believe has yet been reached.  Yes, even this election cycle is not the final resolution of this culture war.

Maybe, a large portion of humans in our country and world wide, are not yet capable of moving forward.  Maybe progress puts these people under too much stress, and they do not have the ability or tools to experience that stress and move through it.  Maybe, people do not see the social good in a woman terminating a pregnancy, because she knows she will not love the child and sees the negative social consequences of bringing a child into the world that would not be supported as a child needs to be.  Maybe, people do not see the human decency in using the best possible medical research options to develop cures for diseases that would enable those that have them to have a better quality of life. Maybe, people, while embracing technological advances, don’t know how to use them responsibly and maybe this causes them stress.  Maybe, it is time for a pause. If so, then the American electoral system has provided that pause.

Donald Trump, besides being a complete asshole, with a complete lack of morals, is simply a reflection of the large number of Americans that are incapable of embracing progress.  Four years from now, America will see that Donald Trump was a mistake, but I doubt highly that Americans will have the fortitude to look at themselves, as individuals, and see that the mistake was theirs.

Instead of thinking for themselves, Americans have been led around by the nose and have been told what to think.  This has been done by political parties, churches and those with enough money to literally purchase the ability to influence.  The media is not without responsibility, in that they are driven by the profit motive.

We have much to explore, much inward focus that needs to be worked through, much to discuss and much to understand.  My hope is that in some small way, this blog becomes part of that process.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

America’s workers & consumers and their desires

What follows is something that I have given a great deal of thought to over many years.  I believe these are basic, basic issues that our society simply does not want to come to grips with.

I’ll start by saying that I see the issues as circular in nature and it is difficult to see how the circle can be broken.

- Americans cry out ‹buy American products only›.  Of course we all want to «support» American products because that employees Americans.

- We all cry out that we want «raises» in pay, that we want more money.  We all keep striving to make more money. Again, all well and good.

- Increases in wages, of course, means that in order for businesses to continue to be profitable; businesses have to increase the cost of their goods and/or services.

Therefore in order for workers to continue to increase their wages, the cost of purchasing goods & services continually rises.  Now let’s look at the next part of the circle:

- Americans go shopping and cry out ‹everything costs too much›. So.....what do they do?

- They go to WalMart.  WalMart does two basic things to keep their prices low.  They use their size as leverage to buy at the lowest possible cost to them and they buy a large amount of their products from China.  Woooooooooooo. China has the worlds 2nd largest economy (the U.S. economy is still # 1........USA, USA, USA). I do not believe that anyone will disagree that the very people who want jobs, money and American goods to be purchased are all going to WalMart....... a lot!

So, let’s review.  Americans want high wages and jobs.  Americans want low prices. How’s that working out?  This is where it is difficult to find a place to break the circle.  I will tell you this, this is not an issue that will be solved by our government, tariffs or economists.  This is an issue that will only be resolved by Americans backing off of there sense of entitlement. This does not mean giving up all of our fun stuff.  It does mean making choices because we can’t have everything all the time.

I am not here to preach or place myself on a pedestal.  Having said that, I do want to share my life style. I do not have a dishwasher.  I do not have central air conditioning, In the summer, we barely use our window AC units, we use fans (we are north of Philadelphia.....it gets hot & humid).  We keep lights off, except when needed. We only use the clothes dryer for about two to three months during the year, otherwise we hang our laundry outside on a clothes line to dry.  I wash plastic bags & re-use them until they get a hole. I shovel snow with a shovel. We buy 95% of our clothes at the Salvation Army. We do have lap top computers, smart phones, cable TV, one television and used cars.  We live in a twin with a postage stamp back yard. We have a hodge podge of old furniture, but the house is clean. I make approx $40k per year, but with OT it’s about 50k (if some of my co-workers are reading this, I’m sorry, but the picture is important to the story).  My life is comfortable and i do not want.

Lastly, I am not ignorant to the fact that consumerism drives the economy and what I am suggesting will cause the economy to shrink, to go into recession.  There is no perfect solution.

Stay tuned.  Tomorrow’s subject, taxes.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Taxes

OK........here’s a big one, TAXES.  Small word, big impact (psychologically).  At its core, this is really a simple subject.  Before I express my thoughts on the broad picture of taxes, I do want to note that I believe that the tax code does need simplification.

Taxes, why?  Why, because WE the people need to pay for the stuff we want & need.  WE need to pay for the ways in which WE fund what the Constitution mandates.  The streets, the bridges, the sewer systems, the parks, the military, the police, the federal, state and local workers that make it all happen, the schools, etc.

Well let’s start with the size of government. You might say, it’s too large, it needs to be paired down.  Be assured that in a country as large as ours, WE need a large government to steer the ship. Also, think about the level of unemployment that would occur if WE were to eliminate government jobs.  ‘No’, you say, those same employees will be picked up by private industry which will be contracted by US, the government, to do what the government did, inefficiently. The government, WE, will still need money to pay the contractors and there are examples of private contractors being efficient by skirting regulations; e.g.’s Black Water, during the Iraq war and the recent federal prison system issues when run by contractors.  Therefore, in order to make sure that these functions are administered properly by contractors, the government, WE, would need to hire a large number of employees to monitor & enforce regulations. Who needs regulations, you say. WE do, to protect ourselves from basic human nature......GREED.

Next, I want to reinforce the fact that  government is necessary to give US a cohesive country, rather than a large number of individual fiefdoms.  Let’s suppose that the government, WE, did not provide funding for roads and bridges and uniform specifications and regulations for these pieces of infrastructure.  Well WE still want this ‘stuff’, so where is it coming from? The states? WE’LL still need to pay taxes to the state WE live in to get it done. When WE drive from one state to another, there may not be consistency in the roads, the signage, the quality of materials & construction.  There are others that say they want to only use what they pay for and only pay for what they use. In this scenario the possibility exists for individuals to build roads and bridges & charge tolls for any vehicle that wants to use them. Not a great picture, is it?

Taxes are not some punitive function of some over arching government.  WE are the government. WE govern ourselves through our elected officials and the human resources that our elected officials fund and administer.  Any person in OUR country who does not want to pay for what they already use; the roads, the police and armed forces that provide us with protection, the public schools and so much more, needs to stop using these resources.  Of course these people won’t stop using all of these ‘things’ that WE pay for, they’ll just continue to complain that they are being sorely used by having to pay taxes.

Now......who’s paying & who’s not paying taxes is another discussion!

Friday, November 18, 2016

Deportation

Deportation. There are approximately eleven million undocumented people in the U.S.  Undocumented; that sounds like a dehumanizing description of a person. Almost like they don’t exist.  trump, if he can be believed, plans on deporting five million of these people in his first year or two in office.  So.....I want to look at the logistics needed to perform this feat, the cost and I want to discuss the value these people have for the U.S.

Let’s give trump the longer time frame of two years.  That means 730 days if deportations take place on every day.  We can remove the six basic holidays and another 104 days, which represent 52 Sundays per year.  he now has 620 days to get this despicable task done.

- Five million divided by 620 equals 8,196.75 people every day.

- Just by way of example, a Boeing 737 at maximum capacity holds 215 passengers, therefore 38 flights per day, therefore one flight every  37.8 minutes over the course of a 24 hour day

- A typical school bus holds 72 passengers therefore 114 school buses per day.

To perform this operation, a minimal level of humane treatment would be necessary.  Where would the planes land. What foreign government is going to permit the disruption of air travel at their airports.  What foreign government is going to accept this constant stream of people with nowhere to go. If school buses are used, where are these people going to be dropped off.  In either case what country is going to accept these people, using either one of these forms of transport, without passports. trump obviously thinks a great deal of himself, but he will quickly learn that other countries will not be bullied by him.  Certainly, he will attempt to use something as leverage, for example trade, but I do not see that working. WalMart has too many products that are made in, for instance Mexico, that the very same people that elected him, want.

What we have here is rhetoric, campaign rhetoric.  I sat down to write this posting with no idea what the numbers were, and figured them out in 5 minutes.  I then took another 5 minutes to explore how those numbers would play out in the real world. As we say at my place of employee, I call shenanigans!

The cost?  Let’s throw some real basic concepts out there and then assign resources & a low ball theoretical dollar value.  trump will need a much larger work force in the Immigration Department. he will also employ local law enforcement departments who will not be assigning resources to this task out of the goodness of their hearts.  he will clog up the court system. he will need to impound these people until they can be transported out of the U.S. Vehicles, fuel,. I am sure there are more items I’m not thinking about. I’m going to assign a dollar value of $20,000 per undocumented person and multiply this by five million people equals $100,000,000,000.  That’s 100 billion dollars. I believe that $20,000 per person is a low number and that we are really talking about a cost in the trillions.

The value of these people that trump claims he will deport?  Believe it or not, these people pay taxes. The Immigration Department will get the locality of many of these people from the IRS.  Their employers paid their taxes and they filed returns to recoup some or all of that money. They helped fund the U.S with their hard work.  They do jobs that Americans do not want and at wages Americans will not tolerate. The only way these same jobs will get done, if Americans are willing to do them, is by Americans at higher wages thereby increasing the cost of goods.  The cost in human suffering will be unimaginable. As I type this, I am reminded of the River of Tears, in the early 1800s. Native Americans were forced from their ‘homes’ and militarily forced to move west so that room was made for ‘whitey’.  History repeats itself and humans do not learn.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Layers of euphemisms, call a spade a spade!

I live in a small town in Pennsylvania.  It is the quintessential picture of small town America.  Tonight is our town’s Christmas tree lighting celebration in the middle of the borough.  It is the oldest continuous tree lighting in the country, 104 years. Right next to the tree is ‘Santa’s’ house, where at scheduled times up until Christmas kids come to visit Santa.  The borough is a compact cozy, well kept town, and everything I need is within a few blocks. For the most part it is as ideal a place to live as anyone could wish for.

It is also representative of many non-urban and non-suburban towns in Pennsylvania.  The population is mostly white. In this neck of the woods folks are predominantly of German descent.  This is not to say that there is something wrong with these facts, they are simply that, facts. Just like anywhere else, there are good people and bad people.  Caring people and bigots. Informed people and misinformed or uninformed people.

This morning, I was at the deli I always go to, a couple  of blocks away. I walk my black lab there and then hang out to talk with neighbors and other members of the community that I see there frequently.  This morning, there was a woman at the deli with her terrier. I see her often, but had never met her husband in the eight years I have known her. I asked her if she was ok with nazis, she said no.  I asked her if she was ok with the kkk, she said no. I asked her if she’d heard of steve bannon. She replied she’d heard the name before, but didn’t really know who he was. I explained that he will be trump’s chief white house strategist and that he was strongly and vocally endorsed by the kkk and the american nazi party.  This alarmed her (as it should).

She then asked her husband if he knew who steve bannon was, to which he said yes.  I asked him if he was aware of his being strongly endorsed by the kkk and the american nazi party.  He immediately pointed out, and truthfully so, that bannon is member of neither organization. I agreed with him, and pointed out that if he has received those endorsements he must be philosophically in synch with those organizations.  He noted that bannon is nothing more than a spoiled white kid (bannon is in his late fifties, maybe sixty).

The problem with these answers is that if most Americans either don’t  know who he is or dismiss his philosophical underpinnings, then bannon will be given the power, by default, to do as he pleases.  It starts when he is labeled as ‘alt-right’. I’m willing to bet that a large number of Americans do not know that ‘alt-right’ means ‘alternate right’.  Well that’s not so bad, right wing and left wing are the two accepted ends of our political spectrum. ‘Alt-right’ is strongly associated with ‘white nationalism’.  Now this is starting to sound a little bit racist, but after all, it is nationalism. We all love our country, right? There must be a problem with you, with anyone who is not nationalistic; that means you don’t love our country.  ‘White nationalism is obviously a thinly veiled way of saying ‘white supremacist’, which is now pretty bad stuff. Lastly, let’s call a spade a spade; a white supremacist whether they belong to these organizations or not, strongly supports the kkk and the american nazi party.

This is a common tactic for people with philosophies that they know are not ok.  In there gut, they know it is not acceptable. Maybe it’s acceptable to them, but they know in their hearts that it is not ok with the majority of our society, including white folks.  So, what do the do, they try to dress it up, they use many layers of euphemisms to attempt to make their philosophies palatable, ok. This distraction, this misdirection cannot be allowed to move forward.  Based on what I just noted above, the simple equation is that the alt-right equals bigotry in its worst forms, the kkk and the american nazi party. Anyone who considers themselves to be ‘alt-right’ and does not like the characterization I just painted, should strongly consider not aligning themselves with the alt-right.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

America is Already Great

This past election cycle saw the slogan make America great again, as though our country wasn’t great.  I take offense at that. America is great in so many ways, it’s almost hard to count all the ways.

First and foremost in my mind is that America is the beacon of hope and opportunity on our planet.  When I speak of opportunity, I am not only referring to financial possibilities. I’m also referring to the ability to speak freely, to self actualize, to protest, to become educated, to travel freely, to practice religion as you please or to not practice religion if that is your choice.  You, the reader can add your thoughts. Freedom is the key component for hope and opportunity, and freedom is what we have and must preserve in order for America to remain great.

I have been fortunate enough to travel to other counties during my life.  I have been to Dublin, Toronto, Tokyo and Taiwan. I have also traveled across our country a few times, by car, giving me the pleasure of being in many cities and towns.  From this writers perspective, I found the general standard of living in other countries to be just a few notches below ours. It’s hard to explain. It’s subjective. Little things like elevators, signage on highways, lavatories (in 1976 I was at a television station in Tokyo, and in the men’s room had to squat over a hole in the floor, lol).    

America is the world’s great financial and industrial engine.

America is a diverse country that has, throughout its history, made room for new comers.  It hasn’t always been pretty when waves of new people have come from foreign countries, but the final result has always been positive and even today is moving in a positive direction.  It may not seem that way, but we humans tend to have a short sited view of time and we are only seeing the tumult around the current wave of new comers.

We, as Americans, often do not recognize the beauty of our country, our government, our Constitution, our society, our culture, each other.  My niece lived in China for a couple of years. When she cam home, she had a renewed appreciation for our country. As the old saying goes, you don’t miss your water, ‘til your well runs dry.

I could certainly continue to list ways that America is great.  This is not to say that growth and improvement cannot continue. We’re humans and therefore not perfect.  Not being perfect means there is always ‘room for improvement’. But we do not need to play the victim, by thinking that we are no longer great and need to be great again

Now, yesterday, I was listening to a series on the BBC show World Update and an interview  about the 25th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR. The person being interviewed was a Russionn journalist.  Dan Damon, the host of the show, asked why Russia had become involved in Syria. The journalist noted two reasons. The first was because Putin wanted to thumb his nose at the west. but the other reason really caught my attention.  The Russian journalist noted that for domestic consumption, Russia became involved in Syria to prove the popular saying currently used in Russia; Russia is great again. Sound familiar?

This gave me pause to think.  I’m not a purveyor of conspiracy theories, but I’m starting to notice a pattern.  I’m serious. trump’s loans with Russian banks, trump’s mutual admiration club with putin.  The CIA’s determination that Russia manipulated hacked email information with the goal of getting trump elected.  rex tillerson, Exxon CEO and Secretary of State nominee, has close ties with putin (word is, they’re ‘buddies’). And now the same rhetoric that was used by trump is exposed as a popular phrase in Russia.  Russia, Russia, Russia. Russia keeps coming up in relation to trump.

Here’s the ‘deal’.  Russians may feel the need to ‘prove’ that Russia is great again, but America is great.  America does not need to be great again.  We never stopped being great. Anyone who has a different view of our country, no matter what their circumstances, is not viewing the world and our standing in it, clearly.

Friday, December 23, 2016

At the Car Wash

The first thing I want to note is, I’m sorry for being so late with today’s post.  It is 9:35 pm as I sit down to write today. This is not the norm, but I had family obligations I needed to take care of today, i.e. getting ready for Christmas.

A second piece of housekeeping, there will be no post on Sunday, Christmas day.

Today, while driving north on PA route 309, into Quakertown, PA, I was stopped in a line of traffic right next to a car wash.  It was busy, what with it being a nice day and people wanting to get their cars spruced up for Christmas day. There were all sorts of nice looking vehicles, all shined up, with chrome wheels.  All where expensive cars & pick up trucks. You know, $35,000 being the least expensive. The pick up trucks were obviously not really working trucks, they were too pretty. I bet you know what I’m leading up to, don’t ya.  All of the employees were Hispanic. I’m not profiling, It was clearly the case. Now don’t worry, I’m not going nazi on you. In an earlier post I noted that many immigrants take on jobs that that we want done, but we Americans are simply not going to do them.  Oh, I guess it’s OK to have Hispanics in our country at that moment, when ‘you’ want your car washed, or when you want your lawn mowed, or when you want your garden tended, or when you want your crops picked, or when you the restaurant owner needs a dishwasher, or when you need your house cleaned, or when you the hotel owner needs maids to clean the rooms.  Sorry, just a little morality rant.

I work as a help desk technician to help customers resolve issues with their computers used for sales in fast food restaurants.  A large portion of the customers that I help are Spanish speakers, all around the country. It seems to me, though, that the highest concentration is in the southern states of our country.  Funny, these are the states where people opposed to immigration are the loudest about the subject. So, why do you