He says, “It’s my right to order a wedding cake with two grooms on the top, a symbol of our gay wedding.”

The proprietor says, “It’s my right to choose the people to whom we want to sell cakes, as well as those to whom we do not want to sell cakes.”

This conflict involving a gay couple from Indiana and a local bakery has become a classic scenario of conflicting rights in America. Perhaps more important than this particular conflict is how it defines the major political divide that separates America into two distinct and fiercely opposed tribes of people.

If there is a key word that draws the ire of Americans and separates them into distinct groups, it is ‘mandate.’ According to Webster’s, the definition of mandate is ‘a formal order from a superior court or official to an inferior one.’ Most Americans, in fact most of humanity, like mandates when they establish rules to our individual or personal liking. The reverse holds true as well; if we don’t like it, it’s a bad mandate.

In earlier human history, the world was largely bifurcated between those who issued mandates and those who followed them. Life in America now is very different as the two sides of our political polarity (right wing and left wing) have times when they hold more power than the other, and consequently when they can be the issuer of mandates.

Mandates are not all the same. It is helpful to divide them into two categories. The distinction between the two largely defines the differences between the Republicans / Trumpsters and Democrats / Progressives.

1. Those mandates that protect the liberties of individuals.
2. Those mandates that protect the common good for society as a whole.

It is the Republicans who seek mandates to protect their own personal interests. They want to have the right to refuse to bake or sell that wedding cake to a gay couple. They want to ensure that they can purchase and own powerful guns and do so with a minimal paper trail. They want to own cars that are fast and cheap and that include minimal required safety features.

Progressives largely want mandates that make our society healthier and safer. They want protection against fraudulent behavior by institutions and individuals. They want vaccinations to be mandated so that diseases such as COViD-19 or smallpox can be eliminated. During a pandemic, they want everyone to wear masks to minimize the spread of the virus. They want infrastructure to be built with full safety measures embedded in the construction.

At times, the populace is split close to 50-50. Recently, a poll on vaccines requirements conducted by CNN / SSRS showed the following results about mandated vaccinations:

1. Acceptable Way to Increase Vaccination Rate …….. 51%
2. Unacceptable Infringement on Personal Rights ……49%

This survey also reflects how dramatically the nation has moved since the time when the polio vaccines or measles immunizations were mandated for children before they could enroll in public schools.

There are times when the positions of conservatives and progressives flip-flop. The most obvious case is abortion. To progressives, it is clearly a personal right; one in which the woman should be empowered to make the decision in consultation with a physician and anyone else whom she thinks can lend helpful advice.

To conservatives, abortion becomes a religious issue in which “God’s will” says that abortion should be illegal. Progressives view the conservative reasoning with a little more skepticism. They believe that in many ways conservatives oppose allowing women to have control of their reproductive rights, because they feel that the male-dominated government institutions should have control over the rights of women.

Additionally, one could argue that progressives’ support of abortion rights is consistent with their view that it is most important to protect the common good of the society. Abortion rights is one means by which we can minimize the number of unwanted children born into our society.

Neither conservatives nor progressives have an exclusive handle on the word mandate. They each use it to their own advantage; to further their views on a variety of issues.

We all try to use words to our advantage; often to give ourselves, and others like us, a presumed moral high ground. Mandate is one of the key words utilized by all sides of the political spectrum to try to advance their interests. It is another reason why we need to be especially careful about the language that we use in politics.

The post Why the Word ‘Mandate” Is so Tricky in our Political System appeared first on Occasional Planet.

President Biden has nominated Neera Tanden, the President of the John Podesta-founded center-left think tank Center for American Progress (or CAP) to be his Director of the Office of Management and Budget. That nomination requires Senate confirmation and at the moment it appears that Tanden will be the first and perhaps only Biden nominee to be rejected by the US Senate. Her nomination is being opposed so far by Joe Manchin and every Republican willing to take a position. Why? They say it’s due to her toxic behavior online, claiming it’s a sign of larger character issues that would prevent her from working in a bipartisan way. Several Democratic politicians and voters are calling bullshit, but they’re wrong.

Neera Tanden’s nomination should be defeated and we can find a better nominee. Let me break down the arguments.

Senator Elizabeth Warren said, “The idea that the Republicans are going to complain over someone who has sharp elbows on Twitter is pretty outrageous”. She’s right on the merits there, Republicans not only ignored but often defended the unhinged tweeting of former President Donald Trump. Even though these tweets provoked international incidents as well as an insurrection this past January. Those tweets were clearly more prominent and harmful than anything Tanden could have tweeted because she was not President.

However, Warren’s criticism is probably the most blatantly hypocritical of any that we’ll discuss. Warren notably spent the final months of her imploding Presidential campaign complaining about critical tweets from alleged supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Warren made the case on the debate stage, on the campaign trail, and famously on Rachel Maddow. Warren used “online bullying” being “a particular problem with Sanders supporters” as justification for winning an abysmal third place in her home state of Massachusetts. The tweets would be the reason why she didn’t endorse the only candidate who was remotely close to her ideological worldview in a two-candidate race. These were tweets from self-proclaimed supporters, not even Bernie Sanders himself. Yet Warren believed these tweets were sufficient to disqualify Bernie Sanders from the Presidency. Therefore, it would stand to reason that tweets actually sent by an individual would be more damaging and surely would disqualify them from the cabinet of a President.

There are some who would argue that the true barrier to Tanden’s confirmation is that she is a woman and of Asian descent, implying her roadblock is an issue of prejudice. This ignores that Janet Yellen, Jennifer Granholm, and Avril Haines were nominated and confirmed for Biden’s cabinet without issue despite being women. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who is black and a woman, received a bipartisan super majority vote. It is not as if racial prejudice or misogyny are strangers to the Senate, but clearly they are not deciding factors in the nominations we’ve seen in this Congress so far. Tanden is failing not because of what she looks like, but because of who she is.

Some have questioned how Manchin could support Kavanaugh and Fmr. Attorney General Barr but not Tanden. In a world where Democrats are held accountable for bad votes, I’d be sensitive to this argument. However, where was the outrage when 90+ progressives in the House opposed funding Trump’s border camps, while Democrats like Sharice Davids and Emmanuel Cleaver voted for it, giving necessary votes for passage? Where was the outrage at any Democrat who approved Trump’s bloated defense budget? It was non-existent because we’ve become just as partisan as the Republicans and we’re more reticent than ever to hold our politicians accountable…unless they betray the home team.

I’d like for a moment to gather some of the twitter discourse that has made many, including myself uncomfortable. Tanden chooses to regularly associate herself with people who are on record saying racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, and otherwise depraved things.

Tanden said “Happy Birthday my friend” to “Dane Weeks” who on twitter has said “Bernie Sanders is a fake fucking Jew” and “Bernie Sanders heart needs to stop right about now”.

Tanden very regularly interacts with “@electricbrotha” saying to him “I’m definitely thankful for your cold fury. And all you’ve done for the Resistance”. On Twitter this person has said, and I apologize for the vulgarities, “go fuck yourself with crusty the clown Senator from Vermont’s dick” as well as similar attacks targeted towards female journalists he viewed as sympathetic to Sanders.

Then there are of course Tanden’s own tweets, of which she has deleted over a thousand that range from 3am fights with 18 year olds to criticisms of left wing politics to implying the continued existence of Clinton’s “vast right wing conspiracy”. There’s also an assortment of personal insults for many politicians and journalists, admittedly some funny but most fairly immature.

Matt Bruenig formerly of the New York Times and Washington Post said it best, ironically enough on twitter.

Bruenig writes “When people say Republican senators are acting in bad faith about the tweets, what are they saying their real position on tweets is? Are liberals who were mad at Trump’s tweets but not Neera’s also doing bad faith? And what is their non-bad-faith position on tweets? Is Neera herself operating in bad faith by saying tweets should not disqualify her even though she has previously acted in a contrary way? Does she have any views on tweeting per se? Neera’s partisans sent tons of abuse to a WaPo reporter who asked Murkowski about a Neera tweet. Lots of people, including Biden himself, have argued that similar events somehow reflected on Bernie. Does it also reflect on Neera? Was it bad faith before or now? If every story should mention the Republican flip-flop on tweeting when it comes to Neera, shouldn’t it also mention these Neera and Biden flip-flops? Or maybe we just realize it’s all bullshit all the way down?”

What should matter most ultimately is Tanden’s policy record, however. She is a vocal opponent of single payer healthcare. She advocated for cutting “entitlements” like social security in the pursuit of austerity politics. She punched a journalist in the chest because he disagreed with her take on Libya. What was her take on Libya? Well it was that Libyans were indebted to us for massively destabilizing their country and they should repay us with their oil if we’re ever going to convince Americans to support another conflict, yes literally. When it came to sexual misconduct, Tanden outed an employee who had survived an incident during an all staff meeting. When it came to ethical relationships, Tanden chose Netanyahu in his dust up with President Obama and solicited donations from human rights abusers like the UAE.

Neera has been more wrong more often than perhaps anyone else in Democratic politics. We shouldn’t reward her for that. Although she will of course be rewarded, if not with OMB then with undue influence somewhere else. However, if we’re lucky and any cosmic justice exists, we will not have to bear the burden of having Tanden in public life after this fiasco.

The post Neera Tanden’s Behavior Actually is That Bad appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As police move in to destroy the Capitol Hill Occupation Protest, it’s worth reflecting on what conservatism is.

British conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott likened his creed to a voyage at sea, in which the ship of state has “neither starting-place nor appointed destination…the enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel,” he wrote in Rationalism in Politics. It’s an idea not without merit or appeal: The point of politics, it holds, is to keep things functional and well-governed, not to leap desperately towards a utopian society.

Unfortunately, Oakeshott’s metaphor is not what conservatism is.

In 2017’s inaugural address, President Trump said that “Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.” Trump promised to reverse these trends, and bring the jobs back. The Republican Party, he promised, was now the party of the American worker.

That’s not what conservatism is, either. So, it’s no surprise that Trump’s administration acts like the Bush II clique on methamphetamine.

On May 25th, 2020, Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis policeman, killed African-American local George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for close to nine minutes. Floyd’s crime had been to potentially use a counterfeit $20 bill. There are accusations that Floyd might have been drunk or high. None of this matters, of course; he’s dead.

That’s what conservatism is. The defense of the social order at all costs.

Interestingly, unlike past police killings, the president ostensibly disapproved of Floyd’s murder. He’s a “New Republican”, remember. But in practice, this meant nothing. When protests started, he immediately blamed the protestors for things getting out of hand, despite the violence being largely perpetrated by police. He even threatened to send in the US Army, a move that would blatantly violate posse comitatus.

In the early 2000s, conservatism–excuse me, neoconservatism–was mainly focused on implementing austerity and fostering the War on Terror abroad. After the election of Barack Obama, we saw right-wing discourse shift in a libertarian direction. Sales of Ayn Rand’s novels skyrocketed. One would think this would change policy; it did not. When Trump came to power, all pretense of small government was dropped by the man who said he would “bomb the s— out of ISIS.”

One can be forgiven for thinking that things haven’t changed much.

In the 1920s and 30s, when the ruling classes of Europe–the bourgeoisie, the militaries, the clergy–realized they couldn’t beat the Left at the ballot box, they installed fascists, the “New Right”, rather than lose a fraction of their power. In Italy, the king chose to give Mussolini the job after his March on Rome; in Germany, conservative president Paul Von Hindenburg decided to make Hitler chancellor after the Nazis won a plurality of the votes. In Spain, the military, disgusted at the reforms of the left-leaning Second Republic, decided to overthrow the government rather than participate in democratic politics. “LAW & ORDER”, as the president puts it, was more important to conservatives, and some right-wing liberals, than democracy.

This social order in America is of course tied to race. Black people must periodically be reminded of their lack of worth via state violence. These killings make a lot more sense if one views it that way.

This suppression must of course be accompanied by whitewashing in the press if the suppression is to be effective. American freedom of the press’s dark side is the egregious lies the capitalists have told via that same press: William Randolph Hearst’s lie about the USS Maine led directly to the Spanish-American War. During the Russian Revolution, American papers claimed that Bolsheviks were “nationalizing women” to be collectively raped by Red soldiers; it was a fabrication. When socialist novelist Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California in the 1930s, Hollywood studios, afraid of losing an iota of profit, hired actors to play Russian caricatures and filmed them saying they’d vote for Sinclair. They filmed hobos and claimed thousands of miscreants were swarming across the California border to get Sinclair’s nonexistent handouts.

The Right’s media infrastructure hasn’t changed, and in 2020 it can still be found lying about the threats to the system. Take the CHOP in Seattle, formerly known as CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone). Fox News reported a Monty Python reference joke as fact, claiming that a local leader of the protest had become a “Warlord”. In another instance, they posted edited images to portray CHOP as a chaotic hellscape. Actual first-hand reports describe CHOP as a refuge with water, masks, produce, and other necessities freely available for all. The streets and walls are decorated with gigantic, collective works of art, not the entrails of shopkeepers.

In the case of black America, our press is just as likely to fail in what it doesn’t report. Activists have pointed out during this latest round of anti-brutality protests that we only know of the police brutality we see, that we capture on phones. Consider Rahm Emmanuel’s cover-up of a police shooting. Consider the existence of secret police torture chambers in that same mayor’s city. Consider that a black man was found hanging from a tree in Los Angeles and the police declared it a suicide. There have been half a dozen of these hangings over the last few weeks.

Some viewers who saw HBO’s excellent Watchmen show thought that its depiction of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riots was part of the comic book franchise’s alternate history. That’s because the horrific event–in which hundreds of black Tulsans were killed by white irregulars, some even flying planes–was suppressed in textbooks for decades. The event was a suppression of a threat to the status quo — the so-called “Black Wall Street” — and the knowledge of such a brutal suppression had to be hidden.

These brutalities — war, racism, beatings, killings, secret police, and the subsequent cover-ups, lying, and suppression of history — are what it takes to keep Michael Oakeshott’s ship of state at an “even keel”. Therefore, draw no distinction between Trump, racist cops, and “honorable” conservatives like George W. Bush, recently rehabilitated by the liberal media. For their mission is to keep the empire and its institutions from changing, and that mission is the true nature of conservatism.

The post George Floyd’s Death Proves There is No “New Right” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Here’s a riddle. How many economists does it take to sound the alarm on the need for immediate action to address global climate change?  If you guessed 3,558, you’d be on the money. That’s the total number of American economists, plus four former chairs of the Federal Reserve, plus twenty-seven Nobel Laureates, plus fifteen former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, plus two former treasury secretaries—all of whom signed onto a statement explaining the rock-solid case for passing legislation to establish a carbon tax and dividends. Some of the most recognizable among the group include Alan Greenspan, George Schultz, Ben Bernanke, Lawrence Summers, Paul Volcker, and, my personal favorite, Janet Yellen. [Read the complete roster here.] Their declaration was published just over a year ago in The Wall Street Journal. Of course, America still isn’t listening. Acknowledging the importance of this overwhelming consensus on the part of the most accomplished American minds in the field of economics, the Climate Leadership Council called this urgent message “the largest public statement of economists in history.”

What Is a Carbon Tax?

Basically, a carbon tax is a fee on the burning of carbon-based fuels—or greenhouse gases—like oil, gas, and coal. A carbon tax represents a method by which the users of carbon fuels pay for the damage caused to the climate by the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A carbon tax, according to economists and scientists, is probably the single most effective tool in the toolbox to eliminate the use of carbon-based fuels. How the tax works is simple. The tax creates a strong monetary disincentive to the continued use of carbon-based fuels as a result of higher costs. These higher costs motivate a switch to clean energy by making non-carbon fuels and energy efficiency more cost competitive.

Has Any Community in the U.S. Passed a Carbon Tax?

Boulder, Colorado, became the first city to pass a voter-approved carbon tax in 2007. Boulder’s carbon tax is based on the number of kilowatt-hours used in the generation of electricity.  According to Boulder officials, the carbon tax has reduced emissions by more than 100,000 tons a year and generated up to $1.8 million in revenue per year at a modest cost to residential and commercial users. The funds are funneled through the city’s Office of Environmental Affairs and pay for implementation of the Boulder Climate Action, which includes rebates on energy-efficient equipment, expansion of bike lanes, and funding for community-based solutions to reduce energy consumption.

Is There Any Action on a Carbon Tax from the Federal Government?

The answer, unfortunately, is not much, even though public calls for federal climate action—including a price on carbon—from private citizens and environmental groups, as well as businesses in the energy, food, and transport sectors, have grown louder. Over the past few years, discussions in Congress about a federal carbon-tax proposal have repeatedly been floated only to fade away. The political will simply isn’t there.

With a Republican president in the White House and a Republican majority in the Senate, discussion of any new tax isn’t going to see the light of day. However, even though the most vociferous climate-change deniers occupy the Republican side of the two chambers of Congress, in 2019 carbon-tax bills have been introduced by both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate. Carbon-tax bills introduced by Senator Christopher Coons (D-DE), Representative Dan Lipinski (D-IL), and Representative Francis Rooney (R-FL) have proposed using the tax-generated revenue for measures as varied as payroll tax cuts, investments in innovation and infrastructure, and carbon dividends (or equal lump-sum rebates to all U.S. citizens, as proposed by the economists’ statement).

No riddle here. From a climate as well as a social-justice and economic perspective, those benefits sound like a win-win if ever there was one.

Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends

Global climate change is a serious problem calling for immediate national action. Guided by sound economic principles, we are united in the following policy recommendations.

1. A carbon tax offers the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary. By correcting a well-known market failure, a carbon tax will send a powerful price signal that harnesses the invisible hand of the marketplace to steer economic actors towards a low-carbon future.
2. A carbon tax should increase every year until emissions reductions goals are met and be revenue neutral to avoid debates over the size of government. A consistently rising carbon price will encourage technological innovation and large-scale infrastructure development. It will also accelerate the diffusion of carbon-efficient goods and services.

III.        A sufficiently robust and gradually rising carbon tax will replace the need for various carbon regulations that are less efficient. Substituting a price signal for cumbersome regulations will promote economic growth and provide the regulatory certainty companies need for long- term investment in clean-energy alternatives.

1. To prevent carbon leakage and to protect U.S. competitiveness, a border carbon adjustment system should be established. This system would enhance the competitiveness of American firms that are more energy-efficient than their global competitors. It would also create an incentive for other nations to adopt similar carbon pricing.
2. To maximize the fairness and political viability of a rising carbon tax, all the revenue should be returned directly to U.S. citizens through equal lump-sum rebates. The majority of American families, including the most vulnerable, will benefit financially by receiving more in “carbon dividends” than they pay in increased energy prices.

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Something I’m calling “identity journalism” has taken over the Democratic primary debates in 2019. Watching the third in a series of who-knows-how-many “debates” among the many contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, I became aware of something disturbing: The debate moderators—on-air anchors and reporters from ABC News—sorted themselves out into ethnicities and based many of their questions on those identities. Here’s how it played out:

The four moderators were ABC​ News’​ George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, Linsey Davis and Univision’s Jorge Ramos. As the debate [and I use that term very loosely] progressed, Linsey Davis—the African-American moderator—asked the “black questions” about racial inequality, the rise of white supremacy, and institutional racism in America. Jorge Ramos, the Latino moderator, asked the “Hispanic” questions about the candidates’ views on immigration and on Trump’s actions at the U.S.-Mexico border. Stephanopoulous and Muir asked questions that were more “universal,”—the subtext of which is that white is the default, the standard, the non-ethnic.

I don’t know if they talked this strategy over when planning the debate, but it makes me uncomfortable to realize that, apparently, only the black moderator can ask the racial questions, only the Latino moderator can ask the immigration questions, and only the white moderators can ask the “non-ethnic” questions. It’s journalistic stereotyping, and it makes me queasy to watch it.

There’s a similar stratification among candidates and the questions they’re expected to address. Kamala Harris and Corey Booker, almost inevitably through the debates so far, get the racial inequality questions first. They’re people of color so, of course, in the minds of the moderators, they’re the experts on these issues. I’d venture to say that Elizabeth Warren has not been asked very many questions about racial relations, but I’d have to review all of the transcripts to confirm that assertion.

Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro get the immigration questions. Pete Buttigieg gets the “LGBTQ” questions—and gets a special dispensation to answer “racial” questions because of unrest in South Bend, Indiana, where he is mayor. Sanders, Warren, Biden and Klobuchar get the “white people” questions about healthcare, foreign affairs and taxes, and are left on the sidelines of the “ethnic” issues. I’d like to hear more from them about their views on immigration, gun violence and racial issues, and I’d like to hear more from the others about their views on the more “generic” issues. That may happen, but only, I’m afraid when the field has narrowed considerably.

I want to note, also, that the candidates themselves have aided and abetted this stereotyping by staking out territories that distinguish them from the unwieldy pack of nearly two dozen people who initially sought the Democratic nomination. Kirsten Gillibrand billed herself as the feminist candidate. Tulsi Gabbard was the more conservative military veteran candidate. Tim Ryan identified himself as the working person’s champion. Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper and Steve Bullock positioned themselves as the get-it-done governors.

But as the field has begun to shrink, not only are candidates disappearing, so is attention to their self-proclaimed territories fading. With no governor on the debate stage, moderators don’t ask questions about the nuts-and-bolts of governing. In the absence of Kirsten Gillibrand, moderators at the third debate didn’t ask a single question about reproductive rights or Me-Too issues. Unions? Workers? The middle class? No Tim Ryan, so no working-guy questions. And if you’d like to hear candidates’ views on what to do about poverty in America’s “booming economy,” fuhgettaboutit: There’s not a “poor person’s candidate” in sight, so who’s going to bother to ask about that?

We are in desperate times. We need real political debate—not the made-for-tv, 60-second answer, try-to-spark-a-feud, issue-stereotyped game show that we are currently seeing.

The post Identity journalism pollutes the Democratic debate stage appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What are we living? Drama, comedy, soap opera, reality show, tragedy, nightmare?

With hindsight, history will tell us clearly. History will frame this decade as the moment when the United States embraced bigotry and division, or the moment when we as Americans were able to withstand and overcome a direct attack on our basic democratic values. History will record whether a wall at our southern border was ever built or not. History will tell us whether Trump was a temporary blip on our collective democratic tradition of beckoning to immigrants and the displaced (Trump’s antecedents included), or whether we were returning to the police state politics of government that defined the McCarthy era in our not-so recent history.

We, however, don’t have any such perspective. We are patching it together as we go, as best we can on the fly from various news sites, social media contacts, friends, trusted network and print reporters and journalists and whatever we can cull together from wherever we are, on our phones, computers, tablets or TV’s.

How are we doing? What are we to make of our lives since the Tweeter-in-Chief became President?

We’re trying to figure it out tweet by tweet, Supreme Court Justice nomination by Supreme Court Justice nomination, each child separated from her parents by each child separated from her parents at the border of the United States of America, each divisive racist comment by the President of the country by each divisive racist comment by the President of the country, each new week by each new week, each moment by moment.

Our self-questioning is boundless, continuous and relentless. And our questioning of the state of our present governance is daily subject to reevaluation.

So yeah there’s drama. There is drama daily. Will Trump finish his term? Will he be impeached? Will there be a second-term to the Trump presidency?

We can’t speed history up. We can’t know the answers to these questions in real time.

We can only get out there and make our vision for a better America known, support our candidates who embrace inclusion and diversity, and deny the Tweeter-in-Chief the imposition of his view of America.

The post What do we do about the tweeter-in-chief? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The 2020 Democratic pre-primary debates are about to begin, and I think they are a terrible idea. Democrats have an amazing, deep bench of highly qualified, intelligent candidates for President. We should celebrate them—all of them, and their ideas—not turn them against one another in a prime-time circular firing squad.

Debates are designed to be confrontational. There’s score keeping. There’s grandstanding. There are winners and losers. With a field this qualified—this early in the game—that’s not a smart approach. Rather than rushing to winnow down the crowd, the Democratic party should be showcasing the range of smart, progressive, practical, and beneficial policies and programs that these candidates stand behind.

So, here’s an idea. Instead of a dozen or more candidates standing stiffly behind podiums, trying to think up snappy comebacks or memorable bumper-sticker lines in the 30-seconds they have to speak, let’s do something completely different. Let’s ditch the network correspondents and their gotcha questions, the timers, the flashing lights, the podiums, the audience woo-woo, and the win/lose format. Instead, sit them down at a roundtable and let them brainstorm—collaboratively—the big issues facing this country. Give everyone at the table a chance to offer constructive input. Show the country that discussion—rather than debate—and mutual respect—rather than competition—can create the solutions that we desperately need. Maybe offer a series of these roundtable brainstorming sessions, each focused on one or two issues. I’d like to hear what each of these candidates would say, especially if the idea is to be collaborative, not self-promoting.  What a way to underscore the differences between the Republican Party’s obstructive, confrontational and downright nasty way of “governing,” and a Democratic [capital and small d], cooperative, good-of-the-country attitude. Publicly brainstorming the big issues could show the country–dare I say inspire us?–to see what could be done when people think big, think smart and think together.

We are at a dangerous moment in the run-up to the 2020 Presidential election. We’ve hardly even met some of the Democratic contenders, and the party “leadership” is already trying to narrow the field to a few favorites. Sure, culling the field could focus the almighty fundraising efforts and possibly create the non-diluted groundswell for a single candidate that would make things go more smoothly for the Democratic party apparatus. But in my opinion, that’s a mistake.

We know who the conventional “front runners” are (based on the destructive fundraising race and on far-too-early-to-be-credible polling). But things can change, and the lesser-known candidates have barely had a chance to introduce themselves. Let’s slow this thing down, and think beyond the way it’s always been done. The person currently occupying the White House has built his presidency on breaking all the rules. Maybe the Democrats could think about shaking things up a bit, too. But in a good way.

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What do Jesus, Walt Disney, and Anne Frank have in common?  Perhaps this seems like a question that reeks of such absurdity that it’s hardly worth expending even a single gray cell to try to answer it. Believe it or not, this was the unexpected question I was forced to ponder when my spouse and I stopped into a Whole Foods market in Albany, New York, to purchase a few loaves of bread.

I never could have predicted the cognitive challenge that awaited me that day at the most unlikely of places—the checkout counter.

For the average shopper like myself—standing in line to pay for bread or for perfect, unblemished fruits, or perhaps to slap down the big bucks for containers of over-priced ready-mades—the last thing one might have expected to find were the faces of Jesus, Walt, and Anne on the covers of three glossy periodicals in a food store. But there they were, lined up as if they were your run-of-the-mill trio of celebrities sharing a moment of camaraderie. Why those three? Here was an unexpected mystery waiting to be solved.

The question of the meaning behind why such odd bedfellows were placed in juxtaposition has bothered me since that day. Jesus, Walt Disney, and Anne Frank. Just saying their names together inspires a fog of confusion and discomfort.  Had the publishers or distributors of these glossies sat around a polished conference table one afternoon sipping lattes, while hatching a conspiracy to intentionally disrupt the relaxing experience of a few minutes of guilt-free food voyeurism?  Did they hope to disorient, confuse, and challenge shoppers so thoroughly that they would return to the food palace sooner than expected to try to puzzle out the mystery? Instead of encouraging last-minute impulse buying, had they plotted to encourage an existential crisis?

And why would the marketers bother with disruption when their job was to encourage one final impulse buy at the checkout counter at the end of a shopping experience defined by an endless stream of impulse buys?

I had so many questions and so few answers.

I wondered: Were we now supposed to understand Jesus, Walt, and Anne as celebrity influencers, like the Kardashians?  Without being disrespectful, one certainly could make the case for Jesus and Walt Disney. After all, the number of Jesus’s followers grew exponentially as the centuries wore on. By the middle of the twentieth century, there were more than two billion Christians worldwide. That’s a heck of a lot of influence. If you wanted to give an award to one of the greatest influencers of all time, you’d have no choice but to hand the golden chalice to Jesus. Jesus, after all, far outstrips in numbers of followers the most followed Twitter accounts of the number one, two, and three champion influencers today: Katy Perry (106.94 million), Justin Bieber (105.04 million), and Barack Obama (104.36 million).

And what about Walt? Disney arguably was one of the most successful influencers of the modern era. Just consider that Walt, the company he founded, and his heirs have constructed numerous pleasure playgrounds across the globe, and that every year more than 40 million visitors worldwide flock to the sugar-coated fantasy that is the Disney experience.

But then there was Anne. Anne Frank as influencer? I just couldn’t see it.

Next, I wondered whether the life spans of these three icons could have explained their odd cohabitation on the magazine rack. Unfortunately, the mystery wouldn’t be solved with such a simple explanation: Anne lived until the age of 15. Walt lived to the age of 65, and Jesus lived, according to the calculations of Christian scholars, to about the age of 33.

Could the message be that Whole Foods sought a visual signal to crow about their diversity creds? If that were the case, then Anne and Jesus’s Semitic features cohabiting with Walt and Mickey filled in the diversity requirement in a decidedly weird and ironic way. That seemed to be an interesting line of thought, but, unfortunately, one that didn’t seem to adequately solve the mystery.

Descending farther into the black hole of Jesus, Walt, and Anne, I allowed myself to consider whether there might be a hint in all of this about personal tragedy and the cruelty of destiny. Was suffering the thread that united these three? No need to recount the unimaginable cruelties visited on Jesus and Anne, but Walt? Where did Walt fit in?

Confronting this philosophical impasse in such an unlikely place like Whole Foods was leading me to a dark place—as one conundrum piled on top of another conundrum. I had to ask myself: Was this the positive consumer experience Whole Foods was after? The mystery deepened. Why would the expert marketers and purveyors of the pleasures of the palate encourage thoughts about tragedy and destiny?

Finally, in a state of self-imposed obsession, I considered whether this weird juxtaposition might signal something about the trio’s visionary intelligence and rebelliousness. Perhaps these characteristics were those that would solve what seemed to be the unsolvable. As I ticked off what I thought I knew about the lives of the three icons, I began to suspect that I’d finally hit on the key that would unlock the mystery. All three had proved themselves to be out-of-the-box thinkers. Jesus and Walt certainly were visionaries, and Anne, in the words she left us in her diary, proved to be one as well. Each, in their own way, was a true rebel.

A few days ago, my spouse and I returned to Whole Foods to purchase a few more loaves of bread. I walked over to the checkout counter to see if Jesus, Walt, and Anne were still there. They were. But this time they and I seemed more comfortable with their presence together in that unlikely place. The mystery, perhaps, was solved.

The post Walt, Anne and Jesus: Mystery on the Magazine Rack appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The “Better Together” plan for the re-consolidation of St. Louis City and St. Louis County is being released, and the initiative drive is about to begin. These are my thoughts about it. (There are ten points, but they are not inscribed on two tablets.)

1.  I definitely support some kind of merger or consolidation of St. Louis City and County. I don’t need to be convinced that something must be done. I understand that many people like their local governments and are worried about losing that connection, but at the minimum, the city and county must somehow be brought together.
2.  I am open to ideas on the best way to do this— form of government(s), taxation and financing, timetable, etc.— I will consider all options. I don’t have any preconceived notions.
3.  I am determined to ignore County residents saying they don’t want any part of the city and its crime, bad schools, etc. I will also look beyond City residents worried that this is all just a power grab. And I am happy to pay no attention to government officials who are just protecting their own fiefdoms. (I do understand that many in the black community are concerned that any kind of consolidation will weaken their political clout, but I don’t think that is automatically true.
4. I am not going to be swayed by “We’re stuck in 1904 (or 1876) and we must move forward” kind of slick PR slogans. I know we must do something. What is the best way to do it?
5.   I am not going to be swayed by arguments along the lines of “we have to do something now and this is the proposal that’s out there so it is this or nothing.” We are talking about taking steps that will have a huge impact on the region for the next century or two. As frustrating as the current situation is, I’m not going to vote for a bad plan just for the sake of doing something. I’d rather wait and do it right.
6.  I will not support anything that opens the door to privatization of government services.
7.  I will not support any plans, proposals, or campaigns that in any way limit full public disclosure of discussions, information, decisions, etc.
8.  I am not convinced that this is something the whole state must vote on—at least not before city and county residents come to an agreement.
9.   Nothing against the five people who developed the plan, but there is already one strike against this because there was no public discussion of the plan before it was released and presented to the public. (I know they had hearings and public sessions, but the plan was developed behind closed doors.) The Better Together campaign has gotten off on the wrong foot.
10.   The fact that Rex Sinquefield is investing massive amounts of money in this means the proposal already has two strikes. Sin-Q has proven that he does not care about the well-being of our region’s residents. He only cares about protecting his own wealth and forcing his libertarian philosophy on everyone. It is very tempting to oppose the plan on this basis alone. His involvement puts a very negative cover over this whole thing.

So— the Better Together plan has two strikes against it. It has a lot of work to do to not strike out. And in the mean time, I am open to competing ideas.

What do you think?

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