Go forth and propagate

All last year whenever anyone asked what I was writing I said it was a propaganda piece. Lately I’ve been trying to begin a first novel and it’s not quite coming together, but if you ask me what I’m writing, I’d still have to say it’s a propaganda piece.

I don’t seem to be making it as a writer, despite all the classes I took and loans I took out. But I keep writing instead of looking to upgrade my skills to something more lucretive. I’ve been trying to figure out why, and I guess George Orwell said it best. He said that “... every novelist, has a ‘message’, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda. Neither Dickens himself nor the majority of Victorian novelists would have thought of denying this.” So I guess my job is to go forth and propagate. Funny, I never thought of myself as a propagandist. 

Democracy repair kit

In the game Monopoly the winner is the one with the most money. The other players are broke, or nearly so. In real life, the share of America’s wealthiest has grown, while 80 percent of its citizens increasingly struggle with economic uncertainty. Among developed nations, American income inequality ranks close to the top. Extreme inequality threatens Americans’ welfare, their environment and even their democracy.

The American dream of opportunities for all has been hijacked by, “large corporations, Wall Street, and very wealthy individuals,” claims Robert Reich. Additionally, such conditions are, “no more in their interest than in the interests of the rest of the population, because under such conditions an economy and a society cannot survive.”

Our country is ailing, but we can fix it. This quick-reading, yet enlightening, book tells how our democracy broke, explains our current peril, and shows how we can restore American democracy to our people.

Click to fix it

Maybe this time we can fix it

Because, it’s different this time. This time the victims are fighting back. Hearts and prayers are no longer a sufficient response. Less than six weeks after Nikolas Cruz unleashed a Valentine’s Day massacre in Parkland, Florida, the state’s gun laws have already changed.

It’s sad that so many students died before one group of survivors channeled their grief into political action. But it’s glorious that American young are stepping up to insist upon what their elders have failed to achieve. And it couldn’t come at a better time.

Washington is a circus now, a dark and dangerous one. While most Americans are either brainwashed or paralyzed with fear, toadying sycophants delude themselves thinking they can restrain the dangers they’ve unleashed. This does not bode well for democracy. There are problems, grave problems, that the circus isn’t addressing.

Assuming all else goes well, that the government doesn’t implode or the world doesn’t explode, by the time the youngest millennial graduates college, many of the two-thirds of his peers who didn’t attend college will be losing their jobs to robots. Vital economic issues are either not being addressed, or addressed only with voodoo economics and naivete.

Our government responds to the desires of moneyed interests while ignoring the needs of the four fifths of the people who share only ten percent of the nation’s wealth. The baby boom generation coined the phrase, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” They proved the adage by failing to nourish democracy. America badly needs a wake-up and a shake-up. If American youth refuses to become victims, they must fight—and fight hard. God bless them. With their help we can see this job through. I know this—if we work together we can fix and reclaim our democracy.

Get your copy. We Can Fix It! Reclaiming the American dream 

The back story

Now that I've launched the eBook, I've begun thinking about the summer release on Amazon and in paperback. I've been working on the back cover. Originally I wanted to do something with the Norman Rockwell version of Rosie the Riveter. But, when you work with 3D models you've got to use what you've got. The real Rosie has a rivet gun across her lap. The fake Rosie has a blowout in her clothing. I posed the retro ray gun to conceal the blowout. However people said it looked rude. So, Rosie stepped out and Ms. Liberty stepped in.

Get it here

Sunday morning chat

This morning, the parents took the twins to Sunday School. I stayed home on religious grounds. I claimed I was a Buddhist. I wasn't, but Junjie was. It didn't matter. They took advantage of me. You grasp hold of whatever advantages you can. Junjie taught me that.

Malik was good with the kids anyway. So it didn't matter too much if I wasn't there. Not that the parents weren't capable of dealing with them. They just didn't like the bother.

I had a feeling Brook would be done about now so I walked over to the Holder estate. I saw him through the solarium window as I approached. He was just getting out of his chair. I stayed out of sight. I don't think he cared for me. I waited until he'd left before I approached the solarium. Brooke signaled me to enter as she unlatched the solarium door before carrying the breakfast tray to the kitchen. She smiled as she served me coffee. But then I began to notice she had the wrinkle in her eyebrow and that frown she gets at the corners of her mouth. “Did he do it again?” I asked.

“Last night, she said. And then he threatened to fire me.”

“He threatens you lot doesn’t he?”

“Almost constantly. I guess it's part of the job. How are you doing?”

“Oh, I started writing something new."

“Another novel?”

“No. This is something new. It’s about economics and neuropsychology, I guess.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, my muse says she’ll explain it as we go.”

“Your muse?”

“That’s what she calls herself.”

“Weird.”

“Even weirder, I saw her in broad daylight the other day. And for once, I wasn't half asleep."

Horrors

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

I think H. P. Lovecraft got it wrong. The mind has a wonderful ability to build maps of the world. We can expand those maps, building models of what we cannot see. We can bend our thoughts in all sorts of useful directions while drawing from a variety of inner resources. What we cannot do is see the world as it is, for the world doesn't exist until our eyes see it and our brain models it. But it's a mistake to believe that only one's own world is real or that what you do in the real world has no consequences.

It's your choice

Are you a racist? I know I am. Behavior scientists have discovered that people have implicit bias that colors their reactions below the level of conscious awareness. This is what makes me clutch my purse more tightly when I pass an other-race stranger on the sidewalk at night. I shouldn’t—my good friend Malik is of another race. But I react this way anyway. Of course, Malik is a friend, not a stranger, but just the same …

It’s like a reflex how we initially react to strangers who don’t look like ourselves. Just as I’d move my finger away from a candle flame, I clutch my purse more tightly near an other-race stranger. It may not be me, but it’s what I do. It’s the way my brain was designed. I like to think of myself as being in charge but the reality is there are many viewpoints in my brain and they are constantly competing to express themselves, and occasionally a viewpoint wins the argument and acts without my even being aware of it.

Why? According to William Wan and Sarah Kaplan writing in the Washington Post, “’An us-them mentality is unfortunately a really basic part of our biology,’ said Eric Knowles, a psychology professor at New York University who studies prejudice and politics. ’There’s a lot of evidence that people have an ingrained even evolved tendency toward people who are in our so-called 'in group.’

But how we define those groups, and the tendency to draw divisions along racial lines, is social, not biological, he added. ’We can draw those lines in a number of ways that society tells us,’ he said.”

I learned in church to, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” That’s John 7:24. I’d like to think my judgement was righteous, but I know it isn’t always. But that’s not my fault. It’s the way I was wired.

But there’s still hope for me. I may always clutch my purse more tightly when I see an other-race stranger, but I can behave differently in situations where I know I’m safe. So it’s really not so much about my being a racist—we all are—it’s about how I choose to act despite my racism. Spiritually I’m made in God’s image, but physically I have an animal nature. I can use the free-will God gave me to challenge myself to be a better person instead of acting on the emotional animal impulses and viewpoints that compete for control of my behavior. That side is always there trying to convince me to hate and fear those who don’t look the same, even though both God and science teach that there’s no difference between people. Sometimes it’s a struggle, but I want to do what’s right. Sometimes the racist arguments are convincing, but they always fall apart when I look more closely.

I know who I want to be. Now let me ask you, what kind of racist do you want to be—the kind who fights implicit bias, or the kind who indulges it? 

Entitlements

I hate the first day of winter. That was the day my older sister could no longer stay at home and had to go back to the hospital. She had done so much for me—helped me get through school. I had debt to be sure, plenty of it, but without her help I couldn't have made it at all.

Really she was the smarter of the two of us, but she chose not to go to college because she knew how bad I wanted to go. She'd always treated me that way. God, how how I miss her. I miss her so bad when winter arrives.

She was never one to get sidetracked—always knew her goals and wouldn't let anything stop her. Until she got ill. She insisted on working up until the very end. And she sent me school money even though I begged her not to because I knew she didn't have it. But finally it was too much for her and she couldn't work anymore.

If she'd seen a doctor earlier she'd be alive today. But she held off for so long because she couldn't afford insurance that now it was too late to save her. She didn't like the idea of begging, but I insisted that she get Medicaid. I even helped her apply for it. I'm glad I did. It was one less thing for her to worry about in those final days. She was glad she didn't have to burden her husband with debt as well as a child to raise by himself.

They call them entitlements. But I consider them small mercies. But if people like my sister were paid better, and could afford insurance, these small mercies wouldn't be as necessary. Or, I guess if we had universal healthcare, then low pay would be more tolerable. But they say that's socialism, even though a lot of developed countries have it. I recently heard a politician say that people should save more for emergencies like health crises. Really I don't see how.