Privilege, Hatred and Division

Dear Friends,

I have been overwhelmed by the graphic videos of the killings in Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights and Dallas and am writing this blog in an attempt to clarify my thoughts.

I was born and have lived a life of extreme privilege.  I am a white, male, financially well off, well educated, straight, raised Christian person.  In this country it does not get any better than that.  I was raised in an environment where there were no people of color.  It was not until I got to college that I had any classmates who were persons of color and then they inhabited a world different from mine.  It was ok to have Jewish friends, but Jewish doctors needed to start their own hospital because they could not get privileges at the "Christian" ones.  In fifth grade while writing a paper, I spoke with my father about hiring black people.  He said that he would be worried about hiring a black lawyer at his firm because many clients would object.  There was, of course, no talk of being gay, and I never saw the ghettos of North Minneapolis.

Overt racism, anti-sematism, homophobia, etc. has been eliminated from visibility in polite society, and our society has made progress at eliminating legal discrimination; but our society continues to be rife with racism and fear of "others".  Those of us with privilege and hence power in our society must be held accountable for permitting the continuation of this institutional fear of others.  The question is what can I do.

I do not know and cannot really imagine what it is like to be black (or gay or female or of some other persecuted class of people).  How can I learn to see the world as I would if I had been born a black male in a poor family in north Minneapolis without the privilege and opportunities that I have had?  I know I would not be where I am today.  While the video by Diamond Reynolds of the aftermath of the killing of Philando Castile is sickening and heartbreaking, it has done more to help me understand what it might be like to be black than any other thing I have seen or read.  But there must be a better way for me to understand.

I, and the rest of the society, must see, feel, believe and truly know that we are all human beings of equal worth who deserve respect, compassion, love and empathy.  It is possible that over time we can achieve that result as we all know and love people who are "other".  Unfortunately we do not have time.  We have squandered so many decades and so many opportunities to become one.  In recent years, we have become less of a community not more of one.  We think too much of ourselves and too little about each other.

I believe that the vast majority of people in our society want peace, justice, equal opportunity, love and happiness for all people.  Unfortunately, we in that group are failing to hold others accountable for their actions that fracture and divide our society.

For years the fringes of the Republican party have used racial dog whistles and other fear of "other" tactics to gain and maintain control.  The vast majority of the Republican Party who want an inclusive society have not held the fringe accountable and now they have Donald Trump and many of the Republican leaders are endorsing him.  The "good" Republicans must reclaim their party and put the fringe back on the fringe.

The vast majority of the people on the police forces are people who want an inclusive society and are members of the police force because they want to serve and protect the entire community.  Unfortunately, they have failed to hold the small minority of police officers who thrive on power, hatred, fear and division accountable for their actions.  The "good" police must reclaim the police forces everywhere and hold each other accountable.

The privileged white liberals (I include myself in this group) in general believe in an inclusive society free from hatred and fear of "other", but have failed to confront the issue with the full force of their privilege and power.  It is not enough for us to say and believe that we are all human beings and deserve respect, equal opportunity, etc.  We must use our privilege and power to rid our society of institutional racism and fear and hatred of "other".  We let the Democratic Party move to the right, to be controlled by monied interests.  We have failed to hold ourselves accountable for a government and a society that continues to be run and controlled by division, fear and hatred.

Governor Mark Dayton made history when he said of the killing of Philando Castile

Would this have happened if those passengers or driver were white? I don’t think it would have. 

Why is it that by saying what everybody already knew was true, Governor Dayton is making news?  I am afraid the answer is that we liberals have for some reason not been willing to fully acknowledge that driving while black can get you killed by the police because our society continues to be racist.  While I will never know what it is like to be black, I can stand up with all my whiteness and privilege and speak truth to power, and I can truly and intentionally listen to my fellow human beings who do not have the privilege that I do and join with them in their struggle because it is my struggle as well.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton and the Establishment don't get it

Dear Friends,

The Establishment (Republican, Democratic, business and media) all knew that Jeb Bush would be the Republican Presidential nominee and that Donald Trump was a joke and going nowhere.  The Establishment knew that Bernie Sanders was a fringe candidate whose campaign would go nowhere.  The financial markets knew that Great Britain would stay in the European Union and showed it when the Dow Jones Average rose to18,008 before Great Britain voted to exit the EU and the Dow dropped to 17,401.

The Establishment is completely out of touch with the reality of average people.  These people are frustrated with income and wealth inequality, with the fact that they are unemployed, underemployed and/or working harder and making less than a decade ago, with the fact that the political and economic systems are controlled by big business and the ultra wealthy, with the fact that they are powerless over their destinies and with the status quo in general.

Hillary Clinton is well entrenched in the Establishment and is just as clueless about the frustration of the people as the rest of the Establishment.  She is clearly not taking the advice I offered her in my blog (here).  She continues to campaign on the basis that she is better than Donald Trump, that she has experience and that she is practical.  She is essentially saying that she will continue to work the way that President Obama has, trying to convince the Republicans to take baby steps to solve our problems, but she will be better at it than he is.

On Tuesday, June 22, Secretary Clinton gave her much touted economic speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.  It was the perfect opportunity for her to announce some bold initiatives, but she simply reiterated her five point plan.  It was a rehash without any details of her plan as put forth during the primary campaign. She lacked passion and credibility.  The following sentence typifies her speech:

We'll say no to bad trade deals and unfair trade practices, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which does not meet my high bar for creating good-paying jobs.

She has never made any attempt to explain why she was a strong advocate of NAFTA and called the Trans-Pacific Partnership the gold standard of trade agreements, before Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others forced her to the left.  Until she acknowledges and explains away her past, she will continue to lack credibility and be unable to generate excitement.

She made this economic speech two days before the Brexit vote as the financial geniuses were pushing the Dow back to 18,000 because, of course, Britain would vote to stay in the EU.  She was living in the Establishment bubble.  After the Brexit vote, instead of changing her approach, she doubled down.  In her official statement, she said

This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House...

The Establishment believes that Donald Trump does not stand a chance to win the Presidency.  So far this year the Establishment has been wrong every time.  The Real Clear Politics Electoral Map (here) has Hillary Clinton with 211 electoral votes, Donald Trump with 164 electoral votes and 163 electoral votes undecided.  The undecided states are pretty much the ones that always fall into that category, and the recent polls in those states are within the margin of error.  There is no question that this election will be decided by which party is better at getting people to vote.  While there will be people who will show up to vote to vote against Donald Trump, to ensure that Hillary Clinton wins, she needs to start to generate enthusiasm and excitement among the people who were energized by Bernie Sanders.  So far she does not even appear to be trying to accomplish that result.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Advice for Hillary Clinton, her supporters and pro-Hillary media

Dear Friends,

Last night Bernie Sanders made a great speech to his supporters.  It was done over the internet (here) and as far as I can tell was not broadcast by anybody else.  In the speech he made two very clear points.  First, he said that the most important thing in the next five months was to defeat Donald Trump and that he would soon be devoting his time to obtain that result.  Second, he said that the political revolution must continue so that we can transform the Democratic Party and our country.  He did not endorse Hillary Clinton nor did he drop out of the race but neither did he mention his own candidacy for President or a third party.  He focused on transforming the Democratic Party and our country from within the Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton has continually said during this campaign that she is working hard to earn everybody's vote.  The clear implication from Bernie Sanders' speech was that the ball is in her court to earn the votes and perhaps even the enthusiastic support of his supporters.  Unfortunately, so far Secretary Clinton has failed to make any attempt to earn the votes of the Sanders's supporters.  I can find no statement by her about the speech, not even an acknowledgement that it happened.  Ignoring Bernie Sanders will not help her earn the votes of his supporters.

Secretary Clinton was not the only one to ignore him, the media ignored him as well.  Rachel Maddow, who has been unable to hide her support for Hillary Clinton, gave his speech just a few minutes of coverage and in that time she ridiculed him and misconstrued what he had said.  In the part of the speech where Senator Sanders encouraged his supporters to get involved at all levels of politics to elect progressive candidates, he encouraged them to run for office.  What he was proposing was that the Democratic Party work to elect city council members, school board members, state legislators and governors in all 50 states.  Rachel Maddow's voice was full of ridicule as she reported that he encouraged his supporters to run for office.  This strategy has been incredibly successful for the Republicans.  Unfortunately, the Democratic Party establishment only embraces populist efforts to reach out to all people in Presidential elections.  Ridiculing what has been demonstrated to be a very effective strategy is not the way to earn the votes of Sanders' supporters.

My advice to Hillary Clinton (and her supporters) if she wants to earn the votes of Sanders' supporters is that she should:

• Truly, passionately and vocally embrace the new positions that she has taken on things like the TPP, Keystone Pipeline and drilling in the Arctic.
• Take the final step to eliminate small policy differences with Bernie Sanders on issues such as (1) fracking (If she is going to regulate it out of existence, why not just ban it?); (2) breaking up the big banks (She says she will consider it.  She has had plenty of time to consider it, and she has never made a cogent argument against it, so break up the big banks.); and (3) $15 an hour minimum wage (she says she supports the $15 an hour movement but refuses to endorse it stopping at $12 which while a big improvement falls short of lifting people out of poverty, so endorse a $15 an hour federal minimum wage.)
• Passionately embrace bold plans to transform our country including, significant tax increases on the very wealthy (Her very minimal increases are not sufficient to address our needs for funds or to reduce with the wealth and income inequality.) and meaningful infrastructure spending (Her proposal for $275 billion is without detail and completely insufficient to meet our needs and stimulate our economy.  Consider a plan more like Senator Sanders' detailed plan for $1 trillion.)
• Embrace healthcare as a right and lay out a clear plan for how her changes in Obamacare will lead to healthcare for all.
• On issues where she cannot in good faith move toward Senator Sanders' positions, engage in an open dialogue about those issues in which she truly listens and engages even if she does not ultimately change her position.  
• Demonstrate her commitment to getting big money out of politics.  Even though she takes big money, lay out a clear plan for how she will move from our money tainted and broken system today to a political and economic system not dominated by big money in the future.
• Enthusiastically embrace the reformation of the Democratic Party's primary process: eliminate caucuses; eliminate super delegates; hold open, same day registration primaries; and ban big money contributions to the DNC as President Obama did.
• Do not rely on the "I'm better than Donald Trump" approach.  Demonstrate that she is progressive and wants the Democratic Party and the country to transform itself.
• Appoint a true progressive, not an incrementalist, as her vice president.

There are, of course, many other things that Secretary Clinton could, and I hope, will do but these might give the Sanders' supporters the confidence in her that they need in order to vote for her and perhaps even work hard for her election not just against the election of Donald Trump.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal