On Hypocrisy and Refugees

This is a rant about hypocrisy and refugees. And the fact that Trump cannot divide us if we refuse to let him.

Proceed if you want to. I wrote it for me.

To those who say liberals are hypocrites because we are defending Muslims and refugees, but we won't embrace Trump supporter perspectives, I can see your point.

If you've been told that all Muslims are dangerous terrorists, and while we are at it, that all immigrants from South of our Border are rapists and criminals then yes, I understand your outrage. How could we liberals be falling all over ourselves to help out these people? Can't we see we are being tricked? And if we are so committed to diversity, why won't we accept you too when you tell us the truth? Why are we so defensive? And in order to see the world this way you'd have to have blind faith that a religion, skin color, gender or a nation makes a person bad by default. Maybe you do. So why don't I?

Let's start with this: Isn't fear exhausting? Attempt for a moment now to consider that what you shared is an opinion not a truth. Perhaps you've met someone in your family, your race, your religion who are not nice or kind- or rather - who are evil, who are not like you, because you are good. Aren't we supposed to separate you from them? Do you want to forever be associated with the uni-bomber? Dylann Roof? Charles Manson? After all, you are a person with a head, and a heart and dreams with no ill will towards your fellow man. Imagine now that you are you, but now you're in one of these groups being attacked. You're doing a quantum leap. And the president has issued a decree declaring you the enemy because you were born into a religion or non-white skin color. Or you're a woman. Does the discrimination make sense? So when we defend our fellow citizens and refugees and immigrants, it's because we see them as humans with heads, and hearts and dreams and bravery for daring to move their families out of harm's way with no ill will towards our fellow men. We could be them. We would love it if you could just imagine a world where this is what we see. We aren't welcoming terrorists. We are helping our fellow humans. But you are equally right that we shouldn't throw you away either because you don't think as we do. For that we do need to do better. We are all from similar places, humble cities and towns. We share the same struggles. It came out the other day that only 8 men have most of the world's wealth. We are all poor or struggling to stay in the middle class. We are all Americans, or attempting to legally become Americans, all of us, equal, unique and committed to our dreams. My success will not stamp out your success. There's no way it could. We each play a role and the pie is big enough for everyone. It doesn't shrink with more voices. How can I be sure? I've read the texts and I've met many people from different backgrounds... Islam is a religion of love. Christianity is a religion of love. Judiasm is a religion of love. Buddhism is a religion of love. Zoroastrianism is a religion of love. Hinduism is a religion of love. Baha'i is a religion of love. Rohingas love. Tibetans love. Syrians love. Iraqis love. Iranians love. Somalians love. Ukrainians love. These people have been taught that Americans love and are kind. And we are...Except today one very orange insecure bully decided that we are not. He decided that we are selfish and hateful. That we sent millions to fight and die for a freedom that no longer exists. And our hearts and their hearts were broken. Did yours break too? Or did you cheer on the shatter?

Love leads to joy and is stronger than hate. I'm not naive. I know that people are capable of good and bad. Right now, I choose listening and I promise to work with you to understand your hopes and fears.

Will you work to understand mine? If so, we can start to have a real conversation about your pain and your struggles and workers rights and what we want our future to be... Do we want to have a leisure class? Do we want artificial intelligence to replace our jobs? Are any jobs irreplaceable? Should they be? How will we build a sustainable future together? How can we improve quality of life without trampling on each other? And on and on...As you can see we have real questions to answer. I hope we can plan for it together.

11 observations about how the world, as I know it, works, and some opinions too

1) Most of our economy is propped up by consumerism (over 70%), and Americans like to buy stuff; stuff that costs next to nothing. We borrow instead of save. We live in the "I must have it now" era, not the "I must consider the future" era.

2) We don't currently pay for the environmental or social/labor damages. We internalize those costs elsewhere in the form of pollution. As for goods we purchase, we pass those costs to those developing nations. Their water is polluted. Their air is polluted. Their factories fall and catch on fire, and some people die. They can't unionize. They pay bribes. They risk their lives for talking about the things we as Americans take for granted. Americans are not entirely to blame, consumerism is everywhere, but we are not to be excused fully either. We order and demand these products at an exponential scale.

3) Unions are why you have the weekend. Trump has already announced his intention to break the Federal Union protecting Government workers. It's politically popular and is being positioned as term-limits on government workers. Not the worst idea to get fresh-blood in; but unions play a vital role in places where rights are limited... and up until recently, America didn't quite have to worry about this right being protected.

4) The movement to bring American jobs "back" should be an investment in new industries NOT old ones. But, it seems like people are advocating for old ones that have been off-shored. We've gotten used to paying less or very little for many products as a result of the very trade deals that many are currently attacking, i.e. clothes, shoes, electronics, cars, fruit, etc. The price for these products will go up. In some ways, I can totally can get on board with this idea; I love the concept of paying real wages for hard work, and acknowledging the full lifecycle costs associated with developing those products. Having worked on social justice issues, and sustainability for a long time, I think that I may be prepared mentally to pay more for these things, wherever they come as long as they are helping people live better lives. But, what will happen is we'll start paying more because we start a trade war that discriminates against us, and bonus, Trump's team isn't interested in labor rights, as far as anyone can tell, so we'll be footing a higher bill, but it won't help resolve the issues overseas or at home, pushing resentment higher.

5) Moving product manufacturing back to the US can be a great idea. It also means paying more for these products, and livable, American wages. It also means a lot of people won't be able to afford these products. We will slip into a recession for a while. If we can diversify our economy again, eventually, we may be able to stabilize, but we won't be out of it for a LONG time. Again, maybe this is what we need and deserve. We need something to prod us in the butt to learn new skills; but is this what the people who voted for Trump really wanted? If so, then I genuinely applaud them for being willing to take it on the chin like this. It's going to hurt for many; but there will be immense opportunity for others under the new market conditions.

6) The world is and has changed. 7 out of 10 people (Rs and Ds) support action on climate. No better opportunity exists to get people back to work than the renewable energy economy. Trump's current anti-environmental rhetoric would assume he and his team would try to tank this economy, when we've subsidized the oil and gas industry for well over 80 years beyond when they have required subsidies, to pollute our water and our air. By the way, the price of solar and wind has dropped exponentially due to investments by the Obama administration (smart use of our tax dollars) and natural gas is the real reason that jobs won't be coming back to coal country; the market for coal is on the decline. Trump can't stop that. But coal miners can do many other things.

7) The US produces services and ideas now. Innovations are mostly driven through software and the connection of devices. These products are currently subsidized through resources that we can only get at scale through relationships with China and Asia. A trade war with China is not going to be good for producing new ideas.

8) People come to the US to pursue their best lives and to start new businesses and contribute to the economy. Trump's current and only rhetoric of retreating from the world under a mess of nasty misogynistic, racist, hate speech will not allow creativity to thrive. It is the greatest signal to business that innovation is no longer wanted in America. Demographics are shifting, and building products that only serve the old way of doing things will NOT get us out of where we are today.

9) the US is a counterweight in many societies. We may be negotiating trade deals with other nations, but in those trade deals are small nods to environmental agreements, and human rights agreements that products will be made more responsibly and humanly. It's doubtful that under a Trump administration the US would advocate for these measures at all, since he seems to have no interest in taking care of the planet or the non-white people on it.

10) The TPP does not include China. It was a defensive attempt to acknowledge the shift in trade patterns between the rest of Southeast Asia, Australia, South America and Japan, to get those countries on "our side" from a trade perspective before China has a chance to impose its trade deals on others. It's been in negotiation for years. If the US decides to bow out, it may survive without us, or it may crumble and force a turn to China. Another reason it would be poor timing to attack it.

11) Trump is right about one thing, we must invest in infrastructure. At this point I don't care if it's privatized, which is Trump's plan. I care about whether or not he finds a way to get contracts awarded to his companies or to his lackeys. Current indications show that he's not interested in anything but making money for himself. He hasn't released his tax returns. His ethics are incredibly questionable. I wouldn't be surprised if those jobs that are supposed to go to hard working Americans end up not materializing for anyone but Trump himself, he asks the workers to build him roads and bridges, and when the time comes to pay, he claims the work is shoddy and refuses, like he has done countless times before.

This all goes to say that we elected an untrustworthy and unstable person with a tendency towards bigotry, racism, misogyny, narcissism, and cronyism. He sells snake oil for a living. He will not fix our problems. He is however becoming quite the champion for the "left out" voices of the white supremacy movement, and will be lining his pockets deeply before he leaves office. Now, where is my handbasket?

tl;dr: Our consumer based economy won't survive Trump's economic plans. He ran on a platform of bringing jobs back to America, but his only solution was to espouse hate and fear of non-white people. This is a critical business mistake.

 

The Four Americas

Reposted from Facebook (Nov 9, 2016)

There are at least four Americas. My America believed in the power of diverse voices making us stronger and better. We see women as equals and care about our planet and the global repercussions of filling the vast and important role we play as the USA. We are centrists with left leanings. We are practical and witnessed what she was able to do despite the odds against her her whole life. We were ready for Hillary. And still are. A vote for Donald which is what I will be calling him from here on out, means we supported a puppet snake oil salesmen and gave him permission to end our country as we know it.

My Bernie brethren are living in another scenario here "they knew it all along" but to be honest, it's not clear he could have stopped Trump either. They were more in touch with middle class issues though, and even though they had a lot of great points, the rest of us in HRC Land didn't think those issues were broad enough to appeal in a general election. And I guess we were wrong.

And the third America.....is in pain. They are the reason we are in the place we are in. They already believed that they were living in a nightmare, and we ignored them because "we know how the system works," and didn't listen as their numbers grew and then we told them to vote and we underestimated how many of them there were. They saw this as a referendum on job opportunities, which ironically are improving, but apparently not fast enough. And their issues were not climate change or more equality, because they haven't gotten a fair shake in a while and they aren't necessarily used to getting treated better for their white privilege because they are watching opportunities move away. So they bought a dream from a man who claims to be self made.

And the forth America... Third America, these are the ones we fear. As far as I can tell they were driven by hate and an opportunity that "their time" was finally here to seize power. These are the people in America who are supposed to be on the fringe... They will still need to be checked. They are what makes us so nervous about the future. And I pray that we can survive them. Fascism spreads very quickly, third America. And it doesn't lead to victory for you either. #goodlucktousall