Author: reillymgray

President Harry S. Truman said, “The experience of WWII, where Americans fought with valor from Iwo Jima to Normandy, taught us that recognition of our dependence upon one another is essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of all mankind.”

Greed and addiction to power and wealth has over taken our government leaving behind average Americans who, as a result of their diminishing opportunities, are subjected to divisive lies as they search for answers to what happened to their part of the American dream.  This American dream is not one of McMansions, european cars and designer clothes, but simply of a “chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.”  As the addicts shamelessly grasp for all they can grab to feed their addiction with little regard for anyone else, they accumulate un-fulfilling things that have no meaning in what is really important in life which is sharing experiences and loving others.

I think it is difficult for average Americans to really criticize greed because many of us would love to be wealthy and powerful.  But, we need to remember that greed has great cost to our souls, the essence of who we are, the part of us that deeply knows that a hungry child of the working poor is more important that the possession of a pair of designer shoes.  This great divide between the wealthy and the average American is putting our democracy at great risk making authoritarian governments of the world very happy as the disenfranchised average Americans are vulnerable to lies spread on social media.

This week 12 Russian military officers were indicted by the United States for meddling in our 2016 election including stealing the personal information of 500,000 American voters.  This on top of the 13 Russian trolls who were indicted in February for spreading propaganda on social media.  The United States of America is under Russian attack.  Our defense is to not fall victim to their lies that divides us and put our democracy at risk from within.

In Messing with the Enemy:  Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians and Fake News by Clint Watts, social bots are described as “…programs, defined by a computer algorithm, that produce personas and content on social media applications that replicate a real human.”  These are used to spread destructive propaganda that create the allusion that many people believe the same lies as truth.  The massive amount and the wide distribution of these lies makes it nearly impossibly to fact check and find the truth.  One way to fight this is to not share posts that you did not create yourself.  It is safer to post a cute picture of your grandchildren than a Russian lie.

In an authoritarian government individual freedom is totally subordinate to the authority of the state which can be one person or a small group that is not constitutionally accountable to the people.  Democracy challenges the power and control of the authoritarian.  Defeating or undermining democracies increases the power of the authoritarian at the expense of individual freedom.  Our personal freedom is at risk along with our democracy.  Our democracy is under attack through social media.  We need to strengthen our democracy by really knowing our news sources and their motivations and by participating in our democracy by voting and activism.

Sadly, the President is not protecting our democracy because he is attracted to the power of authoritarianism and is only interested in increasing his own power.  It is up to us!

How desperate must someone be to choose to end a pregnancy?  I don’t know because I have never been in that situation.  But before Roe vs. Wade, a thousand woman a year died from unsafe abortions and millions per year suffered abortion related injuries.  There are many reasons for a woman to seek an abortion including but not limited to rape, incest, health risks, failed birth control, abusive partner, and not being able to financially provide adequate care.  No matter the reason, women before Roe vs. Wade were so desperate they were willing to risk their lives and health.  Even though abortion is now legal, it has been on a steady decline since 1990.  This could be due to better education and more effective birth control provided by organizations such as Planned Parenthood.  Woman should have the right to choose and to have access to safe procedures, even though I wish that it didn’t have to happen.

I think, we as a nation, should focus on caring for our children who are already here.  16.2 million American children are food insecure.  400,000 American children are in foster care and 100,000 are waiting to be adopted.  We need to provide educational and economic opportunity for parents and prospective adoptive parents to be able to care for these children.  Training and good paying jobs is the answer, along with supporting children whose parents are disabled.  The richest country in the world should not have food insecure children!  Shame on us!

Why do we celebrate the mean, the self-centered, the selfish, the win-at-all-costs, those who lack empathy , compassion and concern of others?  Is it the false power?  Is it the lack of self-esteem?  Is their self-esteem dependent on self-centeredness and on being or on the appearance of being wealthy and powerful?  This article does not answer these questions directly.  It just puts forth thoughts that may shed light on why we admire and allow destructive greed in our country.

True strength is stepping outside yourself and recognizing the struggle of others.  Guess what?  It is much tougher to help others than to blindly help yourself all the time.  You are missing out on what is really important.  It is important, as a country, to provide opportunity for all based on their ability.

From my perspective, I don’t see the need for a bigger house or a fancier car, or a fancier address or fancy clothes and fancy things.  I am very content with my 1000 square foot 1950s rancher located in a proud working class neighborhood and the sub-compact Chevy sitting in the driveway.  My self-esteem is not attached to conspicuous consumption.

All things get old and decrease in value.  The only thing that remains or grows is love.  Love even transcends death.  The love I’ve experienced by those who have gone before me sustains me and fills me.  This love cannot be bought or acquired by force.  It becomes manifest through sharing life together.  Legislation that takes the country’s wealth and gives most to the top portion of the population lacks in love.

When someone makes hundred’s of millions of dollars, they may feel that it’s unfair that they have to pay millions of dollars in taxes.  They forget that average Americans are part of the infrastructure that provides the opportunity for someone to make that much money.  We are in this together and each must pay their share.  As an average American, the amount of money I pay in federal income taxes, if I were able to keep it, would enable me to buy a house two to three times bigger than I have now and to buy an expensive luxury car, but I am proud to pay my share based on a percentage of my income.  I would consider doing otherwise as highly selfish.

I imagine that it must be really hard for those American’s who strive to be super wealthy to see oligarchs in authoritarian countries walking away with their country,s wealth while their average citizens suffer.  This should not occur in a democracy… greed steals from all.  Greedy people like to believe that they have worked harder than everyone else and are deserving.  They fail to acknowledge their blessings and how their greed hurts others.  In the long run super wealth is not worth it.  When you’re willing to sell your country down the road so you can be like heartless Russian oligarchs you are engaging in selfish, un-American behavior.  It is shameful that our President is one of these “wannabe’s” and he’s willing to lie, cheat and steal our democracy to achieve it.  It is sad that some people’s sense of self-worth is seemingly based on how much they can acquire rather than how much they can help and love others.

One would think that the older a person got, they would realize how little value excess money has in life compared to the love of fellow human beings.

Yea, you bet.  I’ve read that some support Trump because of his machismo, but unbridled machismo is destructive.  Machismo is exaggerated masculinity and power often associated with disregard for consequences and responsibility.  To be truly effective, machismo must be balanced with the feminine.  Everyone, regardless of biological gender, has a feminine and a masculine side.

Masculine attributes include courage, independence, violence and assertiveness.  Feminine attributes include empathy, caring, compassion, tolerance and nurturing.  When examined, it is clear that these attributes are not mutually exclusive.  What good is  courage when it is not used for a good purpose?  And what good is caring without the expectation of self-responsibility?  As you can see, balance between the feminine and masculine is necessary for positive outcomes.

Most boys in our culture are subjected to “the boy code” which rejects all signs of feminine qualities.  They are expected to keep their emotions in check.  They innately know that violence is an acceptable response to emotional upsets and that self-esteem relies on power.  Boys are expected to keep a stiff upper lip, to not show feelings, to act real tough, to not act too nice and to be cool.  They are discouraged from expressing feelings, dependence, warmth and empathy.  Sadly, blind adherence to the boy code can prevent men from having emotionally rich relationships. (Source:  “Real Boys:  Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood”, by Dr. William Pollock)

This blog entry was inspired by the utterly dispassionate separation of young children from their mothers and fathers by the United States Government as these families sought asylum from pervasive gang and drug cartel violence in their communities.  These parents feared for their lives and the lives of their children.  They feared their boys would be forced into gangs and that their daughters would have been raped or sold into sex-trafficking rings.  I agree that immigration needs to be regulated, but there are tough, yet compassionate ways to enforce it.

This travesty of separating young children, including toddlers, babies and nursing infants, went on for more than six weeks before the feminine spirit of our nation spoke up through the words of the First Lady, Melanie Trump and First Daughter, Ivanka.  Sadly, the feminine counter balance was not provided earlier by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, U.S. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley or Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders who all supported this unthinkable violence to the emotional health of these families.

Our democratic country needs balance between the feminine and  masculine.  We need compassionate law.  The most important thing in life is not wealth, power and prestige.  It is love… love for fellow human beings.  Love is learned through family and community.  If the family of origin fails, the human family must step in.  We are all part of the human family.

I don’t see Trump as a tough, machismo, smart leader.  I see the false machismo of a sad, juvenile, insecure, school-yard bully who is uninformed, impulsive and self-involved.  He needs to be balanced with the strong feminine that will bring empathy, caring, compassion, tolerance and nurturing back to the greatest democracy that ever existed.

Quoting Romans 13, Jeff Sessions inferred that our democratic government is made up of elected officials that are ordained by God and that justifies following man-made laws that hurt children.  As a Christian, a member of a democracy and as a human being, this makes me sick.  Using the Bible as permission to engage in abhorrent acts is an affront to, not just all Christians, but to all of humanity.

If Sessions can use the Bible to separate parents and children seeking asylum, why don’t we separate children from parents who engage in tax evasion by using offshore accounts because Romans 13 also says you should pay your taxes.

Paul wrote Romans 13 when Christians were powerless against the ruthless Roman Empire.  Following Roman Law was necessary for simple survival.  But we live in a democracy of government by the people for the people.  We have the power to change unjust, inhumane laws.  Using the Bible as an excuse is disgusting and immoral.

More importantly, Romans 13 says “Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is fulfilling of the law.”

Love does not separate children from their parents.

Addiction cost everyone.  Addicts lie, mislead, manipulate, shift the blame, are self-centered, selfish and lack empathy, and can become abusive and engage in criminal activities to feed their addictions.  In my opinion, the most dangerous and costly addiction in America today is the addiction to wealth.  Those who are addicted to wealth steal from all Americans.

In the New York Times (1/18/14) op-ed article titled ‘For The Love of Money,’ Sam Polk writes that “Wealth addicts are, more than anybody, specifically responsible for the ever-widening rift that is tearing apart our once great country.  Wealth addicts are responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor and the annihilation of the middle class.”

In Psychology Today (2/8/14) in an article titled ‘Addicted to Wealth – A National Trait?’, Stanton Peele, Ph.D. suggests that we have become a society that sacrifices values, community and a meaningful life for money, wealth and possessions.  He writes that “…wealth addiction describes a society where all meaning and social status are derived from the accumulation of wealth.”

In Wealth Addiction by Philip Slator (1980), the author believes that not only are the rich addicted to wealth but that “closet addicts” secretly desire “…to have all the money, possessions, and perks of the wealthy.”  He continues that “…the Republican Party constantly harkens back…” to the “…hope all Americans harbour that they can strike it rich.”  As these not-quite rich individuals strive for wealth, they also become single-focused addicts who lack concern for others joining their wealthy wealth addicts.

Wealth addicts see the needy only as an obstacle to their pursuit of unlimited wealth and the working and middle class as a source of wealth by cutting wages and benefits, raiding pension funds and eliminating collective bargaining.  Their single focus is the accumulation of wealth just as the drug addict is focused on their next fix with no concern for the common good.

Both drug and wealth addicts give up their self-respect, integrity and human compassion to feed their addictions. They are so focused on grasping that they forget to live.  They lay waste to the working and middle class communities to increase their personal treasury.

People are accumulating wealth they do not even need at the expense of others by stealing their opportunity.  Then when these “others” struggle to make ends meet or fail to make ends meet, the wealthy or the wealthy want-to-be’s blame the victims of their heartless greed.

Sadly, we admire the super rich and denigrate the drug addict even though both may engage in illegal behavior to achieve their goals and the former is doing far more damage to our democracy than the latter.  What is the difference between being addicted to opioids or to wealth?  When you’ll do anything to feed your addiction, you’ll manipulate or skirt the law, engage in illegal behavior and hoard your drug whether its opioids or money.

Currently and sadly, our country is being led by a shameless wealth addict who hires other shameless wealth addicts like Scott Pruitt and Paul Manafort.  This is despicable and very dangerous for all.  Ordinary, American people only want opportunity for success through hard work.

Wealth addiction has been with our country for a long time.  Even in the 1800s, Gustave de Beaumont wrote that Americans are “…devoured by hunger for wealth that brings many far from honorable passions along with it, such as greed, fraud and bad faith.”  Even though it has been with us for a long time, we live in a democracy in which ordinary people have a say in how we live.  Support legislation and regulation that stops greed.  Our country cannot survive a system where only a few control the wealth of the nation.

I don’t understand what is happening to our collective values; our concern for our fellow human beings and our planet, and our pursuit for truth.  It seems that our values are being replaced with a distasteful self-interest with complete disregard for anyone who is different and a lack of interest in any real truth that might require complex thought.

Right-wing Republicans seem to have a single focus which is to hate anything that liberals love such as social justice, ethnic and gender equality, economic fairness, environmental protection and protection of federal lands, even if this stand is harmful to themselves.

Only a minority of Americans hold these views.  The majority of Americans do not hold these views, but many of these people do not vote or do not vote regularly.

The minority of Americans who are active right-wing Republicans tend to be young white men who while finding their way are swayed by white supremacy, middle-America older white men who have lost their livelihood to technology and globalization that tend to blame minorities and women for their job loss and Evangelical Christians.  However, I am perplexed by the established suburbanites with good jobs or comfortable pensions who buy into this simplistic hate of anything liberal.

Our country has been multi-cultural from the very beginning.  Native Americans, Spaniards, Africans and Anglo Saxons to name a few were here hundreds and even thousands of years before 1776.  And over the last nearly 250 years, people from many cultures have become Americans.  We live in a well-established multi-cultural nation.  That is a fact.  Additionally, gender differences are innate and not choices.  Climate change is real.  Not being open to reason and limiting your source of news will not make America great again.  Our democracy depends on a well-informed electorate!

Trying to understand the term “culture war politics” has helped me understand what is happening to our values.  Personally, I will continue to support social justice, ethnic and gender equality, economic fairness, environmental protection and protection of federal lands.  I will continue to make every effort to be a well-informed American citizen.

Americans is not the label of a race, ethnicity or a singular culture.  America is an ideal where all are created equal.  It is characterized by the equality of rights and privileges.  As Abraham Lincoln said American democracy is “…government of the people, by the people, for the people.”  Government not by the few, but by all.  According to Japheth J. Omojuiwa of the World Economic Forum (8/19/2016), “Democracy was built on the power and needs of the people.”  But the excessive and rapacious desire for wealth and possessions by the few has shifted power from the many whose needs are not being met. Omojuiwa further states that democracy has been “…sold out to money,” and “…is the biggest threat to it [democracy] today.  Democracy sold out to corruption and greed.  …the dreams of the collective prosperity promised by democracy are being turned into nightmares for the majority and monumental wealth for the privileged….”

Fortunately, Omojuiwa claims that it is not too late, “…transparency and accountability must be the focus in a legitimate democracy.”  We need campaign finance reform limiting the amount of money that can be donated by individuals, corporations and PACs.  We need to regulate or eliminate lobbying.  We need to ensure that all Americans are represented in our government.  The normalization of greed must be unmasked.  Excessively rewarding the manipulation of markets and monies, activities that do not create or innovate, should be halted.  Stakeholders (those who give their time and lives) need to be rewarded at the same level as stockholders (those who only risk their excess money).  The best way to achieve transparency and accountability is to VOTE!  Don’t vote for candidates that run negative ads, vote for those who uphold what is good for democracy.  Denounce greed.  Celebrate honest hard work!

In The Soul of America, Jon Meacham quotes Theodore Roosevelt saying “But we must keep steadily in mind that no people were ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue.”

The first thing I noticed about candidate Trump was his use of overly simple language.  His limited vocabulary was highly unusual for a presidential candidate in my opinion and experience.  He also lacked the decorum that I was accustomed to for such a person. Even though, I was perplexed by such behavior, I assumed it was part of his campaign tactics.  However, now that I have experienced over a year of his presidency, I have come to learn that President Trump is no different than candidate Trump in matters of language and decorum.

It has become apparent that the President is not a student of history, democracy, the Constitution or the rule of law.  As a result of this lack of knowledge, he seems to have a simplistic world view in which his gut instinct allows him to dismiss the inherent complexity of decisions and situations.  He likes to be the smartest person in the room and he achieves this by dismissing all the experts and surrounding himself with sycophants.  For me, it is very stressful to have the leader of the free world using his “gut instinct” with complete disregard for knowledge while making decisions that affect me and the entire world.  However, others like this hip-shooting swashbuckler that ignores norms.

I am going to call this the “Harrison Ford Effect.”  Most everyone loves the scene from the Indiana Jones franchise where Indy is frantically running from bad guys through the crowded market when the crowed splits to reveal the big man with the really fancy sword moves.  Indy, at the sight of this unbeatable foe freezes for just a moment and then pulls his revolver and shoots him.  Everyone cheers as this highly accomplished swordsman is taken out by a simple bullet.  Again, most everyone loves when Han Solo (Star Wars franchise) blasts the intercom in the deathstar when he fumbles for words as he is trying to feign being a stormtrooper.  After he blasts the intercom, he says something like “…boring conversation anyway,” and then shouts “…we’re going to have company!”  These two scenes demonstrate our admiration for heroes who survive by using their gut instincts.  But this is the movies and it is not concerned with the unintended consequences of thoughtless decision-making.  In the real world, innocent people are hurt by rash decisions.

The Wall, the Muslim travel ban, the ban on transgendered service people, moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the tax cut that creates trillions of dollars of debt for our children, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and the Iran Nuclear Deal, changes in tariffs and trade, DACA delays and the North Korea talks can affect and have adversely affected many people of the world including Americans, yet were seemingly implemented with little thought.  The greater consequences of these actions are yet to be seen.  The complexity underlying all these changes was seemingly ignored.  These decision were not meant to be made by one person, but by a collection of the best and brightest the United States has to offer.

The President’s narcissism prevents him from conferring with experts and his reported diminished cognitive ability that is apparent in his decreasing use of higher-level language over the last few decades hinders his ability to make critically important decisions requiring complex thought.  These rash decisions in the North Korea denuclearization talks resulted in the characterization of the President as a possible Nobel Prize winner one week to being Charlie Brown when Lucy is holding the football the next week.  We all know what happens!

The President wants to implement the promises that he made to his base, but is unable to consider the negative consequences of such changes.  He needs to know that IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE!  He must surround himself with people who do know and make considered decisions.

American immigrants are vital to the growth and success of our economy, even though many who are unemployed or economically insecure mistakenly believe that immigrants have taken their jobs.  Donald Trump used and is using this unsubstantiated belief to win the last election and to try to win the  next election .  For example, the reports of the “menacing caravan” from central American in the news lately resulted in about only 200 women and children arriving at our border seeking asylum of which about 1/4 (50 people) will be accepted (from Why Trump Manufactured an Immigration Crisis by Washington Post Columnist Fareed Zakaria printed in Burlington County Times May 9, 2018).

In fact, U.S. immigration is at an all time low. The Pew Research Center Study reports that illegal cross-border migration was at its lowest level on record.  This decline has been a two decade long trend.  For example, from 2009 to 2014 one million Mexican families went back home while only 870,00 arrived.   Furthermore, according to Brookings Senior Fellow William Frey “…census statistics show that current immigration levels (of high-skilled immigrants) are increasingly vital to the growth of much of America, and recent arrivals are more highly skilled than ever before.  Gains through immigration are needed as our nation’s population gets older as birth rate levels remain low.”  Let’s look at some of the positive results of U.S. immigration.

• Immigrants often fill the jobs Americans don’t want.
• Refugees to the U.S. brought in $63 billion more in government revenues than they cost the government.
• Immigration is a major source of population growth and beneficial to the American economy.
• Immigration has no negative impact on crime, it actually reduces crime.
• Immigration may adversely affect some low-skilled natives, but diversity has a net positive effect on productivity and economic prosperity.
• Over the long-term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants (both legal and unauthorized) exceed the cost of the services they use.
• Immigrants contribute as much as $10 billion to the U.S. economy each year.
• Undocumented immigrants have positive effects on the native population and the public coffers.
• Increasing deportation rates and tightening border control weakens low-skilled labor markets, increasing unemployment of native low-skilled workers.
• Legalization decreases the unemployment rate of low-skilled natives and increases income per native.
• Legalization of undocumented immigrants boost the U.S. economy.

There is a positive link between immigration and economic growth.  According to Brookings Senior Fellow, Danny Bahar “…while immigration represents about 15% of the general workforce, they account for around 1/4 of entrepreneurs and 1/4 of investors in the U.S. and that over 1/3 of new firms have at least one immigrant entrepreneur in its initial leadership team.  The [negative] impact of immigration on the wages of native-born workers is very small.  It mostly negatively impacts the wages of prior immigrants with a similar skill set.  By cutting on immigration, the country will miss an opportunity for new inventions and ventures that could generate the jobs that the President is so committed to bring back.  If the current administration wants to create jobs and ‘Make America Great Again’ it should consider enlisting more migrants.”

Unfortunately, high unemployment areas have greater anti-immigrant sentiment.  And, the less contact a native-born American has with immigrants, the more likely they are to have a negative view of immigrants.  Skill development of the native-born population, not deportation is the answer.  According to Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Fixing immigration is not about mass deportations of people but creating a legal visa system for jobs Americas do not want.  And it is about providing better education opportunities, skills development and retooling, and safety nets for American workers.”  Investing in infrastructure, education and healthcare is an investment in American workers and American families, and immigrants are essential to our collective success.