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Thank you President Biden for getting us out of that hellhole of Afghanistan.  The cost was way too much. Over 2 thousand Americans dead and 20,000 wounded, 2 trillion dollars spent and 20 years of time. For what exactly?

 I understood the war when it started – we were punishing the Taliban for supporting Osama bin Laden who had attacked New York and Washington.  I supported that but once we accomplished that – sometime around 2003– what else could we do? Oh, yes, bring democracy to a country with little history of democratic institutions, shockingly high illiteracy rates and a widespread adherence to an extremely fundamental version of Islam. It will be a challenge but we might as well give it a go, right?    

Of course, everybody knew the Americans would fail. We have terrible intelligence. We don’t understand the issues on the ground. We always screw these things up.  I find this “I told you so but you didn’t listen to me” stance particularly irksome. If everyone knew this was going to happen, why do we now find ourselves in the position of evacuating all those trapped people at the Kabul Airport?  I don’t know about you but if I knew that the Taliban was going to rollover the Afghan forces in a little over a week, if it was truly that obvious, I would have gotten my ass out of Afghanistan. Well, everybody why did you stay?

But there are Americans caught in a war zone. Everything should be done to get them out. On the other hand, these aren’t thousands of tourists who got caught up in an unexpected civil war.  We are talking about government workers, contract soldiers, and aid workers who knowingly went into a war zone.  Even when American troops were present, their safety was at risk.  And, after all, wasn’t the Taliban victory inevitable. Everybody knew it, and still these people took the risk.

Well, then, everybody says we have to bail out those Afghans that worked for us. They are facing death. Again, I am all for trying, but this is not our war and it isn’t our country. The Americans were trying to help Afghans bring democracy to their country. The mission was theirs not ours. If Afghanistan was in any way salvageable as a democracy would all of these people be trying to escape instead of heading for the hills of Afghanistan to fight another day. It speaks volumes about what they think is going to happen.  They think the Taliban is going to stay in power.  But, of course, everybody knew that beforehand.

Still, everybody says these people risked their lives to help us, we owe it to them. The Afghans helping us were also the ones supplying us with information about how the project was going. Did they ever tell us that it was hopeless and the Taliban was going to take over when we left? It appears the everybody else knew, why didn’t our Afghan allies tell American intelligence?  Now I am just guessing here but maybe our Afghan allies weren’t giving us accurate information because they wanted us to stay. They were stuck in wishful thinking that the Americans would never leave and they would be protected forever. Or they were just plain corrupt – taking the money as long as the Americans were giving it out. Whatever they were doing, they weren’t telling us this was a hopeless cause.  Do we really owe evacuation to people who fed us 20 years of bad intelligence? Can anybody tell me why?

 It is a horrible situation, but there are millions of horrible situations on this earth – why do we have to spend any more blood, treasure and time on this one. The Afghan people supported the Taliban instead of our Afghan allies.  If we empty the country of all of the Taliban’s political opponents, we really are giving up on Afghanistan democracy. Is that what we want? Wouldn’t it be better for the Afghan opposition to stay and fight?  Again, that they want to leave instead of stay, gives you the ugly truth – it, at least for the foreseeable future, is hopeless.  And, again, why were we there?

Well, then, everybody is saying that the Americans triggered the pullout, the Taliban leaped at a chance to take over and when we decided to leave, and the Afghan government was left in the lurch. The Afghans armed services had about 300,000 people with the best equipment and technology in the world facing a smaller force of 80,000 Taliban fighters with older weapons much of which has been captured during the course of the war. The Afghans troops didn’t get run over by a superior force, our Afghan allies left the fight before it happened. So even though everybody knew our departure date, and everybody knew the Taliban was on the march, and the Afghan army had ample time to prepare for the fight – it appears that our Afghan allies decided to head for Kabul airport instead.  

Everybody says we should have started the evacuation earlier so it could be more orderly withdrawal.  This is the most galling criticism of all.  How exactly was that supposed to work?  On one hand, we announce that the American troops are withdrawing but we are leaving you in the good hands of the Afghan army. Then, on the other hand, with a sly wink wink we say you better get out of Afghanistan because these guys couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. Don’t worry though we support the Afghan government 100 percent and we think they are going to do a swell job. We couldn’t evacuate anybody until the Afghan army got routed because to do so would have brought screams about how our evacuations were undermining confidence in our allies. And they would be right. Everybody would have had a fit if we had done that.

All those American lives, don’t we owe it to those soldiers to win this battle.  If we give up the battle, those lives were lost in vain. How long do you want to sacrifice soldiers’ lives to a losing cause?  Do we give it another 20 years? We already have 2,248 dead Americans. If we can’t win, why do we want to lose another 2,000 people? Can anyone say that additional soldiers lives would change the present outcome?  At one point do you give up on, what everybody admits to being, a hopeless cause?

And the money.  I can’t even wrap my head around two trillion dollars.  I had to write it down on a piece of paper and actually see it  — $2,000,000,000,000. If we were going to spend  2 trillion on Afghanistan, it would have been better spent giving every Afghan $50,000. Instead of fighting a vicious 20-year civil war, the Afghan people could have been sunning themselves on the French Riviera. Everyone would have been happier too.  More importantly, we wouldn’t have to worry about evacuating them now, they would already be gone.

It really takes a lot courage for President Biden to end a failing project. It’s not pretty and it is painful. I also appreciate that President Trump, a person who I rarely have a good word for, took the initial steps to leave Afghanistan. President Biden deserves kudos for keeping to the schedule despite intense pressure from the power elite to change his mind.  But, honestly, can anyone tell me what more can we do? And, if all you got is keeping American forces in Afghanistan indefinitely then you are admitting you don’t have an answer.  There is no way this enterprise would ever be successful. 

As a side note: this citizen is done with nation building. Everybody says we are bad at it and, for all I care, everybody else is free to take on any future endeavors of this sort since they know so much more about the subject.

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I was watching a documentary on UFO’s  where there was a discussion of when the US government was going to tell the truth about UFO’s – which, at the bare minimum, would be to admission that there have been credible UFO sightings. One commentator speculated that it would be difficult for the government to admit the truth because they would also have to admit to lying for the past 70 or so years. The irony made me laugh.  What a quandary. 

I can’t tell the truth now because then you will know I lied to you in the past. How can a battered institution with low public confidence come clean when, by doing so, it confirms all of the public’s worst suspicions and fears that they already have about the institution. It really is an impossible situation and reveals the problem with lying in the first place.

In the late 1940’s when there were few UFO sightings, a world recovering from the most horrific war of all time and very little information on what exactly a UFO meant, there may have been some justification for the government lying.  But now, there are many independent accounts of UFO’s. There are reputable scientists who think there is enough evidence that this information should be put into the public domain. Unfortunately, the US government has a tiny problem with giving people access to the information they have gathered. They would have to first admit they were lying and they don’t want to undermine the public’s confidence in their information. This lack of trust could cause problems in a genuine crisis.  Like, say, for example, if the government was encouraging people to take an effective vaccine during a global pandemic.

The  government is so desperate to look honest, they end up preferring to look incompetent instead. Almost as if incompetent is a more preferable look to dishonest. Both the Viet Nam war and Afghan War were a good examples of this thinking.  The US government realized long before the collapse of these ally governments that these were hopeless situations.  Instead of coming clean with their findings, they doubled down on the lie.  Pouring good soldiers and a lot of money into causes that they already believed to be hopeless.

But they were in a bind. If the government did nothing, the public would get suspicious. Why aren’t we fighting back? Why are we abandoning our ally? To keep the whole mess from seeing the light of day, the government, instead, sent troops, equipment and money to a doomed enterprise. All to keep the truth from the American public.  They would rather lose American soldiers, leave billions of dollars of equipment in the hands of enemy combatants and put billions more into the hands of locals who want the money but don’t necessarily believe in the wars to beat the enemy. And, for these efforts, they get to look incompetent.

Instead of cutting our loses, telling people we gave it our best efforts, we gave our allies a chance to show they could put a viable government together and they failed, we relentlessly do the same thing over and over again – just to avoid telling the truth after lying. The problem is, particularly in these inevitable situations, the truth eventually does come out.  The government only delayed the day of reckoning.

When that day comes, instead of saying yeah we knew this was a stretch but we felt like we had to give it a chance, we say we weren’t expecting that, we can’t explain what happened, complete surprise.  So the public sees incompetence and, unfortunately for the government, it has the same effect as lying. What is also troubling, particularly in the case of UFO investigations, is that a lot of money goes into programs whose only purpose is to quash independent people from investigating UFO occurrences. Yes, you read that correctly. The government is spending billions ruining the reputations of whistle blowers and witnesses to UFO’s instead of enlisting these interested parties in finding out more about the phenomena. Why? What purpose can this serve?  According to a Gallup poll taken in May of 2021,  about one third of the American people believe that UFO’s are a possibility. Are these people running amok in the streets shouting about little green men? There doesn’t seem to be a panic to worry about so let them investigate. I don’t know what to do about this. Apparently, the best and brightest in government don’t either because they continue to double down on keeping the lies hidden and the truth seekers under heel. But when people stop believing the lie, you might as well stop lying and tell the truth. The mixed reception that the COVID vaccine received should give us all pause. COVID is, at least so far, a minor world crisis.  Government was tested and we can see some problems that need to be addressed if we are to succeed in a bigger crisis (say a UFO invasion of earth). Some of the responsibility for these problems lay outside of government, but this is a fact of life – there were assholes thousands of years ago and there are assholes now.  Assholes always have to be factored into any crisis. The truth isn’t always popular or pleasant and it is sometimes quite ugly. It is also the best place to start when faced with difficult problems. But until the government addresses the well-founded belief our government lies and directs us to take actions against our own best interests, we won’t have the tools a democratic nation needs to resolve these problems.

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The bad actors in this affair are easy to find and condemn – The Conspirators to Murder, the Sex Traffickers, the Corrupt Bureaucrats. There is, or I hope there is, no argument that these people have committed a crime and should be punished.  I have a bit more difficulty regarding the increasingly annoying excuses coming from the innocent bystanders however.  I didn’t know anything about what Epstein was doing. Which OK maybe you can say that if you never visited the island but anyone who had, give me a break. It was known by some people as Pedophile Island. When you are attending a party on said island, and you see a lot of teen girls running about, you might put 2 and 2 together. Apparently, though, I am wrong.  A lot of the best and brightest minds were simply unable to make this connection.

If nothing else, these bright minds showed incredibly poor judgement. The men who run our country were thrown for a loop when a bunch of sexually available teen aged girls attend a party. Some of these bright bulbs succumbed to this temptation which speaks volumes about them. What are you supposed to do when a nubile girl appears at your bedroom door? You wouldn’t want to insult your host by leaving her out in the cold, now would you?  

But the people who just ignored what was going on and just enjoyed the party without taking advantage of the human party favors, what about them?  I didn’t know what Epstein was doing isn’t a particularly reassuring stand to take when you turned your head to avoid witnessing a crime in progress. Did they really think that these girls were capable of making an adult decision about prostituting themselves? Did none of these people have teenage daughters? And these people were just regular Joes and Janes off the street.  These were powerful people. People who make a difference.  People who could have made Epstein’s life difficult if they wanted to act.  Yet, they decided to let the party go on, indifferent to the girls and not wanting to offend their host.

But the cowards are better than the people who still cling to the notion that they didn’t see anything at all. If you really and truly believe this, I have to say you are unfit for any public office much less the highest levels of government.  If you couldn’t figure out what Epstein was so obviously doing then I would say your cognitive facilities are pretty useless.  I tremble at the thought of you working with a person like Putin or the Chinese government or the Taliban. And as a lie, it simply makes you look stupid. It is so blatantly a lie that you look worse for repeating it than just refusing to talk about it. At least if you refuse to talk about there is that air of ambiguity about it.  People might suspect you of being a little fast and loose with the truth but you still have their faith that you are a sentient human being.

Which brings me to Bill Clinton.  I used to like Bill Clinton.  I voted for him twice and, if it were possible for the Democrats to nominate him, I would do so again. Nonetheless his behavior with Epstein is beyond disappointing. What exactly did he think about the girls? His wife wasn’t with him. The island has a reputation. You think that he might have been just a wee bit suspicious. Clinton is known to be smart. People actually talk about him being smart. Yet he happily RSVP’d for Epstein’s party on Pedophile Island. Did he not question why a billionaire might be inviting him to an island with the reputation for orgies with teen girls? Did he check the room for cameras? Did he have any suspicious that Epstein might be putting him in a compromising position? Clinton has two eyes. He isn’t naïve. And he, in fact, was the father of a teen-aged girl. Which means that he turned a blind eye to it. He apparently didn’t feel he had the power to take on someone like Jeffrey Epstein or Epstein had something on him or he felt he was above it all and rich men have the right to sexually abuse teen-aged girls. None of these speak highly of his character.

I didn’t know what was going on Epstein’s island. That is the story they are telling and, so far, they are getting away with it. Rich and powerful people would rather go to Epstein’s parties than cause a scene which might save some teen-aged girls from prostitution.  Which is sad.  I feel trapped in a very bad marriage. I cannot vote Republican because they are bat shit crazy. I want to keep power out of their hands. Which leaves me with morally bankrupt people like Bill Clinton. I can’t, in good conscience, ever vote Republican, so what is a responsible citizen to do? On the bright side,  I am going into with open eyes and very low expectations. There is something to be said for that.

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If nothing else, Jeffrey Epstein’s death has uncovered the pervasive rot in American society. Unfortunately for him, he was a person so loathsome that nobody really cares if he committed suicide or was murdered.  He deserved to die.  Most people are happy to have him dead, buried and forgotten.

The problem is that the man had evidence which could implicate leaders of the Democratic Party, the leaders of the Republican Party, the British Royal Family and Captains of Industry. Very important people were in the crosshairs of the cops and the American government failed to protect their prime witness in a high security prison no less.  Every fail-safe procedure available in such circumstances failed. A man on a suicide watch commits suicide. The technology failed. The staff failed. And Jeffery Epstein decides on this day when all the fail-safes were failing to commit suicide. A remarkable coincidence, don’t you think?

Any half way sentient being would find this a little difficult to believe. Yet, this is what we were told and this is the answer we are letting the powers that be get away with. I was really offended that a better explanation wasn’t provided. I mean come on. Really. This is your explanation. Nobody believes it. And I mean nobody. It is an insult to the American Public that it is being offered as the definite result of an extensive investigation.  

Then it slowly dawned on me that this wasn’t about giving a somewhat believable explanation about what happened, they don’t care if anyone believes their story. The powers that be saw a bigger problem.  They wanted to warn people away from investigating Epstein’s death. If you want to find out what happened to Epstein, you are putting your life into danger. We killed once and do you really want to take a chance that we won’t kill again?  You have been warned. I don’t know about anyone else but message received.

You can tell it was important to the powers that be because it took staggering levels of corruption to pull this hit off. A billionaire just doesn’t die in prison without a lot of buy in from powerful people. I imagine a group of men in a gentlemen’s club, smoking cigars and drinking fine whiskey,  passing the hat around to get enough money to deal with the Epstein problem.  Nice guy, great parties but we can’t take a chance with the old scoundrel, every one pony up $100,000 and we can give the old boy the send-off he deserves.

Two low level prison employees have taken the fall although it beggars belief that these two were the only ones involved. The right person had to get into the prison. The right people had to be guarding. The right tech people had to turn off the right equipment.  Money men and lawyers had to move money to the right people so that the right strings were pulled. A lot of people, up and down the food chain, were involved in ensuring Epstein met his fate. But since it didn’t really matter that anyone believed what happened or, God forbid, take responsibility for what happened, the two prison guards supplied enough rolling heads to finish off the story.

After seeing this crime spree from our social betters, I find it particularly irksome that Americans still cling to the notion that the rich are good stewards of money. They are, quite obviously, not. Think about the cash it took for Epstein to create his pedophile island, find underage women to fly over to his island, fly over his guests so they could partake in the amusements pedophile island had to offer.  Think of the money spent by Epstein to defend his crimes in court.  Think of the money spent by Epstein’s friends to silence him. As far as I am concerned, we would all be better off if the government taxed Epstein and his ilk and the money received was spent giving every skid row bum in the USA a six pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes. Perhaps some girls would have been saved from the indignity of becoming prostitutes for the world’s power elite.

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Why are people refusing to get COVID 19 vaccinations?  I used to say I was baffled about this but, after some thought on the matter, I actually understand.  I don’t agree but I understand because I know seemingly intelligent college educated non-Republican people who refuse to take the vaccine. They distrust what they are being told. I get it.

Distrusting people in authority is a rite of passage that most adults go through eventually. There are only so many lies, half-truths, and obfuscations you can listen to before you realize they are giving a version of the truth, a truth that will probably go on public record and be remembered.  But probably not the complete truth. I expect it.  I listen to the person’s spiel and then read in between the lines for the real meaning. In the end, I only have best guesses.

Even people who I vote for and generally support are suspect. Again I expect it. People will say one thing but I know what they really mean but they have to say it this way because if they were completely truthful they would go down to defeat in the next election. A good example of this is the position most Democratic politicians took on gay marriage 30 years ago. They all, quite sensibly, opposed it.  As a gay man, I accepted that position because I realized that any Democrat would be committing political suicide if they supported gay marriage.  Despite this craven surrender to political expediency, which should make their positions at least a little suspect, I believed that these Democrats would do very little to stop gay marriage. It turns out I was right. It also confirms, how can I say this in the kindest possible way, that they are less than truthful. And these are the people I am voting for.  They may be a liars but they are our liars.

Richard Branson, the billionaire astronaut, recently got caught in a lie that had absolutely no effect on his reputation.  When he flew into space, he made this big deal about riding up to the space station on his bicycle.  The problem is that he actually didn’t.  The bicycle ride was filmed on a different day than the flight into space.  He flagrantly lied about his arrival while also being caught pretty brazenly manipulating his public image so that we can have a better version of him, something that would capture his playful billionaire self, something, however, that wasn’t exactly true. A big falderal occurred when the lie was caught.  But now, a few weeks out, does anyone remember his little slip of the tongue? No. They do, however, remember Branson went into space and seems like a regular fellow. It’s the image he wants to convey and we are basically all right with his public relations manipulation.

But shouldn’t Public Health officials be exempt.  Maybe but then why? I believe, for the most part, they are telling me the truth.  I believe that their recommendations are sound and I will follow them. However, I have to admit that I don’t believe everything they tell me. When they say that people who have had COVID19 should get vaccinated, I am a little doubtful about it.  I thought that was the whole point of the vaccine – to trick my body into believing it has already had COVID. I would think the actual disease would be as effective if not more effective in doing this.  Health officials reply with some type of blah blah about variants and antibody durability.  OK, but wouldn’t the vaccine have exactly the same problem? It is painful to listen to health officials justify vaccinating recovered COVID patients. They look uncomfortable and give me the perception that they are lying. I would be much happier if they said the only way we can be sure that everybody is safe from COVID is to get 300 million plus people COVID antibodies.  The best way to do that is through vaccination. There is very minimal risk to getting the vaccine and if you get one we know you are safe.  Your name can be checked off the list, so be a pal here and get your vaccine. But instead they awkwardly respond with unconvincing scientific blah blah that leaves me doubtful about what they are saying.

There is this conundrum about our present situation.  We like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers. I won’t just let someone tell me what to do. I will ask questions, make sure I get the facts straight. I won’t blindly listen to some authority figure I barely trust.  I would like to say that I did a thorough investigation of the COVID vaccine, but the only investigation I did was half listening to the nightly news and finding out the address of where I could get my shot.  I did what I was told to do. You might say this is a public health emergency. We need to act quickly in order to prevent deaths, just get the damn vaccine and stop making our lives difficult.  Yes, this is true but it is true in any emergency. Which means all a politician has to do is declare an emergency. Who decides what is an emergency?

This is where it gets scary. Don’t worry though I certainly will be there to ask the challenging questions.

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I don’t think the phrase white privilege really captures the white experience with race. Class is an important element that has an effect on low-income whites. Privilege isn’t the word that these people would use to describe their life, so they resist this idea. In this polarized political atmosphere,  I’m not sure there is any way or words to change their minds. I would like to try though because there is an advantage to life in USA if you are white. Some whites get more benefits for their race than other whites. But the advantage does exist. I can best illustrate this advantage through my personal experiences with the police when I was between the ages of 13 and 18.  

During my adolescence, I had at least five contacts with the police departments located in the suburban Kansas City neighborhood where I grew up. I would say that there were no real crimes involved, more of a rambunctious teenager getting into trouble but in each and every case I possessed marijuana and in some cases I was as high as a kite. The police in a city like New York could have used the stop and frisk policy to send me to juvenile detention. They didn’t though.

My first experience with the cops was when a friend of mine and I found an old street sign in an alley. It looked like it had recently been removed and a new sign was posted. The sign was attached to the post with a large block of cement at the end.  My friend wanted the street sign but we didn’t have any tools to remove the sign from the pole. My friend feared that someone else would find this treasure, so we decided to lug sign, pole and cement block to his house where we could remove it. As we carried the post across the busiest street in our little town, the local cops stopped us and let us know that we couldn’t have the sign. We actually argued with them because we said it was just lying in the alley. The cops disagreed with our logic. They called my Dad who instructed me to do whatever the cops said and to get home. My Dad didn’t even have to come and collect me.  The cop made sure we returned the sign to where we found it and that was that.  

The next time, one of my passengers in my car dinged the door of the brand-new truck parked next to us. The truck owner, needless to say, was angry because his once perfect truck was now imperfect.  He called the cops.  The truck owner got even angrier because he realized we were high on grass and happily pointed this out to the cops. My Dad was called to collect us. The man calmed down after he had trouble locating the damage to his truck. The cop kept asking do you really want to report this. The man, much calmer at this point, decided not to. So, by the time Dad arrived the problem was sorted. Neither the Truck driver nor the cop mentioned the pot smoking to my Dad.  No crime was reported despite me reeking of marijuana.

Then I was at a high school’s dance, my date and I ducked out of the dance to my car for a joint. As we returned to the dance, a policeman stopped us as he noticed us in the car. He made us return to the car and shined his flashlight into the car. I’m not sure what he was looking for but all he found was a six pack of beer. Neither me nor my date were of age, so he made us dump the six pack. Again, no crime was reported despite me reeking of marijuana.

My most serious altercation with the cops came when the police stopped me because he saw a passenger in my car passing a joint. I was caught red handed with pot. My friends and I were hauled down to the local police station where our parents were called.  The police weaved a terrible future for us, going to court, possibly juvenile detention.  Not only was I in trouble with the law but my parents would definitely find out that I was smoking pot. Plus, I also demonstrably lied to my mother about where I was going. I told her I was going to the library and I was miles away from the library and in completely the wrong direction from the library to our house.  Because the cops found the pot illegally and admitted as much to all the parents who, I might add, weren’t in the least big angry about this illegal search and seizure. Now, I believed the cops just wanted to scare a bunch of teenagers and had no intention of arresting us.  They let my Dad take care of the punishment which he did. I got off scot free for possession charges and the only crime noted was me driving with an open can of beer in the car.

The next incident, my friends and I were driving by a road construction site and one of my passengers decided he wanted one of the orange pylons on the side of the road. I drove him close enough to one so he grabbed it and I fled the scene with our take. Because I was driving, and the construction crew had my license number, several days later the police came to my house to retrieve the pylon.  As my parents were out of town at the time I took this opportunity to spend the day getting high. I was barely coherent when the policeman arrived. He was kind enough to ignore my condition and just asked for me to return the pylon. No crime was recorded for the pylon or the pot.  

My last run in with the cops was when a friend of mine was having an informal party because his parents were out of town.  People just showed up at his front lawn.  By the time I arrived, there was only room on the public sidewalk. Soon after the cops arrived. For some reason the host thought the cop looked like Barney Fife, the hapless cop from the Andy Griffith show, so he began to taunt the cop with Barney Fife remarks from the safety of his front porch.  The host absolutely forbid Barney Fife from entering his yard without a warrant. He could remove the people from the sidewalk however.  I was, unfortunately, on the sidewalk. As I was underage and had a beer in my hand. I also had a bag of weed in my front pocket. Other than losing one more beer to the sidewalk, the cops left without further incident.

I believe this is what should happen when cops and teenagers come into contact with each other. In each case, the cops, even when they dealt with argumentative teenagers, handled the problem without incident.  Or, if it was a more serious situation, they informed my parents that there was a problem and got them to deal with it. Remarkably soon after I turned 18, I became somewhat more responsible as I don’t recall any further incidents where I was carrying pot when stopped by a cop.  I grew up. I made better decisions.

Would I have had the same experience if I had been black?  I don’t know but I seriously doubt it. The difference is when white cops stopped me, they, maybe saw their own kids and knew that one day soon this kid will be all right. Does the cop make the same connection when he sees a black kid? Or does he see a future criminal who needs to be dealt with now in order to stop future crime? This perception makes a world of difference in how a person is treated.

It also skews crime statistics.  If the police wanted to pursue me, I would have been found guilty five times for marijuana possession. The cops decided to handle things differently. If I had been searched legally, which the cops could have easily managed, I would have had five charges of possession of marijuana. So, when commentators talk about the difference between white crime and black crime, keep in mind that a black teenager who had his marijuana possessions recorded would look like bigger trouble than me even though the police could have charged me with possession numerous times.

Police have a bit of grace in how they enforce the law. It’s subtle, unmeasurable so difficult to see. It does, however, exists. I know because I have experienced it. If I had been black these five experiences with the cops may have had different outcomes. But lucky for me, I was white and middle class and my youthful indiscretions have had little impact on my present life.

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I always thought that the study of history was a depressing exercise. History mostly chronicles conflict and change.  Wars, famines, and economic catastrophes are all pretty sad reads. Still I understand that the study of history was important because we want to avoid making the same mistakes again. History is a guidepost on how to have a better future. 

Governor DeSantis of Florida thinks otherwise. He thinks history should make students feel good about themselves and their country. Anything that challenges this sunny outlook should be axed from the curriculum so that nothing deters students from turning into patriots that love their country. But, is feel-good history actually helpful in understanding the past or, even more important, truthful. 

How does feel-good history work?  And, if balance is important, how do we discuss controversial topics without making some people feeling angry or upset.  How does one discuss slavery without also talking about America’s racist past? Or Jim Crow laws? Or the Tulsa Race Riots, or the European settler’s treatment of indigenous people. These topics require some basic understanding of racism make any sense. And, if racism is discussed, how can you prevent some students from feeling bad about what their ancestors did? 

If in Governor DeSantis’ efforts for balance, educators reduces events like the Civil War to a conflict between two groups of good citizens who disagreed about State’s Rights then his balanced approach will leave students with a warped view of what happened.  The Civil War was about slavery no matter what Confederate Apologist say today.  I know my position is correct from a cursory review of what Southern newspapers at the time were writing about and what Southern politicians at the time were saying. They weren’t talking about State’s Rights, they were talking about Slavery. Again, how would white students feel about learning this? I think some white students might feel badly about it.  And, if you didn’t talk about racism, wouldn’t students of color feel badly because that their history isn’t represented truthfully? Then, would Governor DeSantis skip talking about the Civil War altogether in order to avoid any hurt feelings? Really, if he wants to stop hurt feelings he would ban the teaching of long division which has caused more misery for students than any other subject I have encountered. 

Governor DeSantis wants history taught with heroes and villains. King George was a villain and George Washington was a hero.  History is a lot more complicated than that and incredibly messy. Because of that, it might make some students feel uncomfortable. What happens if we take away all the heroes in history?  Who will students admire? May be students will have a better understanding of history.  Maybe they will realize that people in history are indeed people.  People who make mistakes, believe things that are wrong, and behave badly sometimes. Maybe they will learn that heroes are not perfect. If the purpose of education is preparing people for the future, then I would prefer students who see the humanity in heroes over students who mindlessly worship people as heroes. 

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Whenever anyone talks about the dangers of Critical Race Theory (CRT), I think of my 12 years of Catholic education. The purpose of Catholic education, or so my parents thought, was to deliver good Catholic adults. It failed miserably with me and my brothers and my sisters. Not a good Catholic among 5 children. If after thousands of years of practice, the Catholic Church can’t deliver even one child out of 5, I really don’t worry much about CRT indoctrination. If the hidden agenda of CRT is making bomb throwing America hating Bolsheviks, I am confident that the marketing departments of America’s commercial enterprises will triumph over the theoretical dogma of CRT. 

People are pretty practical about grand theories. If you ask the average Catholic about the Church, they could care less about why the Church encourages Infant Baptism, or did Jesus’ body Ascend into Heaven, or was Mother Mary a virgin. They are drawn to the church for the big picture messages – love they neighbor and your sins will be forgiven by a loving God. They pick and choose what they believe. Birth control is a good example of individual Catholics taking what they believe to be most important and ignoring the rest.   For example, most Catholics today have much smaller families than previous generations.  If I had to choose why, I would say they are using birth control. The Church stand on birth control is quite different.

Which brings me back to CRT.  First, and most importantly, public schools are not teaching CRT. It is an academic theory so laden with technical jargon to make it incomprehensible to the average adult much less a child. I am completely fine with people not teaching any of the theory unless it was before nap time. Now, on the other hand, where CRT might prove helpful is when educators are putting together a history curriculum. An understanding of CRT might encourage these educators to include sessions about how race affects people of color and can help us understand the history of our country.  If they don’t want to talk about race, how are they going to explain what happened to the indigenous people when they encountered the European settlers? Or why Africans were forced into slavery.   If it wasn’t racism, explain the terrible treatment these groups received from the European settlers?  These discussions would certainly benefit from an understanding of race.

Critics of CRT are pretty coy about what they want instead. By conflating teaching about race and racism with CRT, they are campaigning to remove race completely from the curriculum. Which means what? The Civil War was about two groups of good citizens fighting about state’s rights. The indigenous peoples happily relocated to reservations to make room for the European settlers.   Will they talk about lynchings? The Tulsa Race Riot? Discrimination?

It annoys me that Liberals are put on the defense over something like CRT. Critics are going after some of the most strident parts of the theory and saying this is wrong and because this particular point is wrong, it makes the whole theory wrong.  I have never believed in any doctrine 100 percent and I don’t think anyone ever has. The important takeaway from any theory is the big picture and, from where I stand, the big picture message from CRT is that to understand America, race and racism has to be talked about. I believe that to be true. So, until something better comes along, I am comfortable with big picture CRT and will leave theoretical CRT to the academics. 

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Boney Fingers

Work your fingers to the bone – whadda ya get?
Whoo-whoo. Boney Fingers – Boney Fing-gers.

                                                            Hoyt Axton

Hoyt Axton’s great country western song rumbles around in my brain a lot these days. There is this strongly held notion that hard work eventually pays off. We continue to pass this notion down generation after generation to ensure children know that hard work, at some point, may be necessary for success. 

I grew up thinking that hard work mattered – anyone who put in a full days’ work would receive the fruits for their labor. Nothing luxurious – a roof over your head, enough food for your family, affordable transportation and decent education for your children.  The perfect middle class idea was a man putting in an eight-hour day at a job while the woman staying at home to raise the children. For a short time, it was the expectation in post-World War II America and, to a large extent, the whole western world. The prosperity was so prevalent that we were lulled into to believing that all a person had to for the good life is work hard.

Yet there is more than enough evidence that this notion is false even when prosperity was the norm.  Everybody knew people who have worked hard all of their life and received little. This notion of hard work fails to consider other factors like Intelligence and luck. And even people who have all three elements going in their favor, often failed. Hard work is just not enough.

Yet, we continue to sing the praises of hard work.  Why? There are people working three jobs to keep afloat with so much debt that there is little expectation that in this life time, these debts will be paid. Don’t worry the hard work mythers have an answer for that.  There are stories about people who were in exactly the same situation who worked their way out of their problems, continued to work hard and now are billionaires. It is possible only if you keep trying.

These success stories are singular experiences not the norm. These stories, in fact, are rare. How many billionaires do you know? Most people do not achieve that kind of success from hard work.  These myths rarely highlight the luck or smarts involved for these people to succeed.  All that is needed is that nose to the grindstone.  This is the lesson we pass on to children so that they continue to work hard.  Wouldn’t want them to stop working hard now would we?

To me, the notion of hard work is pernicious. Everybody talks about hard work as the answer to our problems and people are working themselves to death for what? Western society is rife with addictive behavior – we drink too much, drug too much, gamble too much, buy too much, watch TV too much – the list is endless. The answer is work.  Work on your addictions, work on your relationships, work, work, work.  The problem is always the individual not working hard enough to succeed. This, of course, is a distraction. If you view yourself as the problem, you will always be addressing how you don’t quite measure up to the system. It is a distraction from the real problem – the system. All most people will get from hard work is boney fingers.

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The US government has been a little cagey lately about the existence of UFO’s which leads me to believe that there may be some evidence to suggest that they exist and we share the universe with other intelligent life.

Do we know what we are going to do if we find it? 

If we discover intelligent life that is less technologically advance than us, how do we proceed? Given our history, my fear is that we would use this technology to conquer the planet, strip the planet of their mineral resources and bring back the intelligent life in chains to display in zoos.  Is that what we want to do? 

Once we arrive on a planet, we change it. Should we be travelling the universe, reordering the worlds of other intelligent life just so we can have more iron ore?  Wouldn’t the temptation to bring back this intelligent life be too great for any explorer to ignore? Do we give the life a choice to return with us to earth or do we bring them back in chains? We discover that their meat is tasty, do we use them as a new source of protein – herding them into pens for their eventual slaughter? Do we leave them alone and let them evolve in their own time? Do we keep contact with them, trading our technology for their resources? Letting them evolve on their own time would seem like the most neutral answer to the questions but we are altering the environment of this planet without intending to do so.

I fear if the intelligent life doesn’t have a human like look that they would be doomed to subjugation and life in a zoo.

Or what happens if intelligent life finds us? These beings bring a more advance technology that could wipe us out quickly if we don’t co-operate with them? Do we fight? Or do we live to fight another day? What if this intelligent life wants to drag a million or so bodies to perform some manual labor.  Could we stop them?  Do we give them people in order to save the rest of the world?  How do we decide which humans to give them?

Intergalactic travel is all good and well but actually finding the life is probably a bad idea for both the human race and the intelligent life we find.