Some Crazy Proposals for April Fools
The most frequent phrase I hear from my friends and neighbors these days is "The world's gone crazy." I can't argue with them.
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The most frequent phrase I hear from my friends and neighbors these days is "The world's gone crazy." I can't argue with them.
The most frequent phrase I hear from my friends and neighbors these days is "The world's gone crazy." I can't argue with them.
Internationally, with a Japanese nuclear power plant near meltdown, we are debating ways to clean it up and make nuclear power safer. The U.S. has provided high-tech weapons to any nations or tyrants with money, oil or scarce metals, and is presently saving civilian lives in Libya with Tomahawk missiles, while killing Afghan children with unmanned drones. Israel is planning an artificial island for tourism and trade off the coast of Gaza while killing Palestinians and confiscating their land. Here in the U.S. Rep. Peter King held hearings on how Muslims threaten our safety and freedoms, and the House Judiciary Committee prepared a bill to put the words "In God We Trust" on all federal buildings. Congress and the President are playing "Streets and Alleys" with budget cuts and government shutdowns. Obama wants to let multinational corporations pump up our oil, sell it on world markets and keep the profits.
Nationwide, governors are using revenue shortfalls - caused by tax cuts for the rich - as a weapon to kill collective bargaining rights for public employees. (Rationale: if they're not at the table, they can be on the menu.) The governor of Maine has taken down and hidden a mural depicting the history of labor in Maine.
State legislatures, egged on by tea partiers who want to drown all government in bathtubs, are introducing assorted crazy bills: authorizing the use of helicopter gunships to shoot wild pigs (KS), to require all adults to own guns (SD), to allow businesses to refuse service to married gays (IA), to make killing abortion-providers justifiable homicide (SD), to ban sharia -based law in a state with 200 Muslims (OK) and to require payment of all state debts in pre-1965 gold or silver coins (GA)
So, as a crazy citizen on this day dedicated to fools and folly, I'd like to make a few equally crazy proposals. In no particular order:
.... readers may make up more crazy ideas.
Meanwhile, we blame each other, scoff at others, flagellate ourselves with mea culpas, propose unstudied and untested remedies, judge our neighbors to be lazy, stupid, greedy or criminal; we tolerate or demand cruelty, torture, or assassinations of selected bad guys. We address problems we don't want to pay for by passing the costs off to those with less money and less power; what we can't solve with money we fix with military hardware. We're running on remedies cobbled together by wealthy individuals or corporations with private agendas and investments.
Our nation is not broke financially - there is plenty of money. But it's broke through structural and systemic failures of society and how we do democracy.
Our society is broke when we are not outraged by Newt's infidelities or scornful of Donald Trump's arrogance but thoroughly enjoy them, and reward them generously. It's broke when we tolerate Gitmo and the torture of an accused but untried soldier, or cheat our teachers and safety officers of their rights.
Our democracy is broke when only half of us vote. It's broke when we are willing to send workers away from the bargaining table in order to give tax-breaks to the rich. It's broke when people believe that cutting taxes creates jobs, despite no evidence that it does and ample evidence that it doesn't.
I don't know what to do about it. I am perennially suspicious of Grand Plans - like "trickle down" - which don't work and have serious unintended consequences. And yet, I don't see how we can manage the world without some overarching common moral values, some universal common goals, and some worldwide consensus that we humans are all in this together, and that it is possible to live together without killing one another.
How crazy is that?
This column will appear in the Kent Ravenna (Ohio) Record-Courier on Sunday April 3, 2011
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The most frequent phrase I hear from my friends and neighbors these days is "The world's gone crazy." I can't argue with them.
Internationally, with a Japanese nuclear power plant near meltdown, we are debating ways to clean it up and make nuclear power safer. The U.S. has provided high-tech weapons to any nations or tyrants with money, oil or scarce metals, and is presently saving civilian lives in Libya with Tomahawk missiles, while killing Afghan children with unmanned drones. Israel is planning an artificial island for tourism and trade off the coast of Gaza while killing Palestinians and confiscating their land. Here in the U.S. Rep. Peter King held hearings on how Muslims threaten our safety and freedoms, and the House Judiciary Committee prepared a bill to put the words "In God We Trust" on all federal buildings. Congress and the President are playing "Streets and Alleys" with budget cuts and government shutdowns. Obama wants to let multinational corporations pump up our oil, sell it on world markets and keep the profits.
Nationwide, governors are using revenue shortfalls - caused by tax cuts for the rich - as a weapon to kill collective bargaining rights for public employees. (Rationale: if they're not at the table, they can be on the menu.) The governor of Maine has taken down and hidden a mural depicting the history of labor in Maine.
State legislatures, egged on by tea partiers who want to drown all government in bathtubs, are introducing assorted crazy bills: authorizing the use of helicopter gunships to shoot wild pigs (KS), to require all adults to own guns (SD), to allow businesses to refuse service to married gays (IA), to make killing abortion-providers justifiable homicide (SD), to ban sharia -based law in a state with 200 Muslims (OK) and to require payment of all state debts in pre-1965 gold or silver coins (GA)
So, as a crazy citizen on this day dedicated to fools and folly, I'd like to make a few equally crazy proposals. In no particular order:
.... readers may make up more crazy ideas.
Meanwhile, we blame each other, scoff at others, flagellate ourselves with mea culpas, propose unstudied and untested remedies, judge our neighbors to be lazy, stupid, greedy or criminal; we tolerate or demand cruelty, torture, or assassinations of selected bad guys. We address problems we don't want to pay for by passing the costs off to those with less money and less power; what we can't solve with money we fix with military hardware. We're running on remedies cobbled together by wealthy individuals or corporations with private agendas and investments.
Our nation is not broke financially - there is plenty of money. But it's broke through structural and systemic failures of society and how we do democracy.
Our society is broke when we are not outraged by Newt's infidelities or scornful of Donald Trump's arrogance but thoroughly enjoy them, and reward them generously. It's broke when we tolerate Gitmo and the torture of an accused but untried soldier, or cheat our teachers and safety officers of their rights.
Our democracy is broke when only half of us vote. It's broke when we are willing to send workers away from the bargaining table in order to give tax-breaks to the rich. It's broke when people believe that cutting taxes creates jobs, despite no evidence that it does and ample evidence that it doesn't.
I don't know what to do about it. I am perennially suspicious of Grand Plans - like "trickle down" - which don't work and have serious unintended consequences. And yet, I don't see how we can manage the world without some overarching common moral values, some universal common goals, and some worldwide consensus that we humans are all in this together, and that it is possible to live together without killing one another.
How crazy is that?
This column will appear in the Kent Ravenna (Ohio) Record-Courier on Sunday April 3, 2011
The most frequent phrase I hear from my friends and neighbors these days is "The world's gone crazy." I can't argue with them.
Internationally, with a Japanese nuclear power plant near meltdown, we are debating ways to clean it up and make nuclear power safer. The U.S. has provided high-tech weapons to any nations or tyrants with money, oil or scarce metals, and is presently saving civilian lives in Libya with Tomahawk missiles, while killing Afghan children with unmanned drones. Israel is planning an artificial island for tourism and trade off the coast of Gaza while killing Palestinians and confiscating their land. Here in the U.S. Rep. Peter King held hearings on how Muslims threaten our safety and freedoms, and the House Judiciary Committee prepared a bill to put the words "In God We Trust" on all federal buildings. Congress and the President are playing "Streets and Alleys" with budget cuts and government shutdowns. Obama wants to let multinational corporations pump up our oil, sell it on world markets and keep the profits.
Nationwide, governors are using revenue shortfalls - caused by tax cuts for the rich - as a weapon to kill collective bargaining rights for public employees. (Rationale: if they're not at the table, they can be on the menu.) The governor of Maine has taken down and hidden a mural depicting the history of labor in Maine.
State legislatures, egged on by tea partiers who want to drown all government in bathtubs, are introducing assorted crazy bills: authorizing the use of helicopter gunships to shoot wild pigs (KS), to require all adults to own guns (SD), to allow businesses to refuse service to married gays (IA), to make killing abortion-providers justifiable homicide (SD), to ban sharia -based law in a state with 200 Muslims (OK) and to require payment of all state debts in pre-1965 gold or silver coins (GA)
So, as a crazy citizen on this day dedicated to fools and folly, I'd like to make a few equally crazy proposals. In no particular order:
.... readers may make up more crazy ideas.
Meanwhile, we blame each other, scoff at others, flagellate ourselves with mea culpas, propose unstudied and untested remedies, judge our neighbors to be lazy, stupid, greedy or criminal; we tolerate or demand cruelty, torture, or assassinations of selected bad guys. We address problems we don't want to pay for by passing the costs off to those with less money and less power; what we can't solve with money we fix with military hardware. We're running on remedies cobbled together by wealthy individuals or corporations with private agendas and investments.
Our nation is not broke financially - there is plenty of money. But it's broke through structural and systemic failures of society and how we do democracy.
Our society is broke when we are not outraged by Newt's infidelities or scornful of Donald Trump's arrogance but thoroughly enjoy them, and reward them generously. It's broke when we tolerate Gitmo and the torture of an accused but untried soldier, or cheat our teachers and safety officers of their rights.
Our democracy is broke when only half of us vote. It's broke when we are willing to send workers away from the bargaining table in order to give tax-breaks to the rich. It's broke when people believe that cutting taxes creates jobs, despite no evidence that it does and ample evidence that it doesn't.
I don't know what to do about it. I am perennially suspicious of Grand Plans - like "trickle down" - which don't work and have serious unintended consequences. And yet, I don't see how we can manage the world without some overarching common moral values, some universal common goals, and some worldwide consensus that we humans are all in this together, and that it is possible to live together without killing one another.
How crazy is that?
This column will appear in the Kent Ravenna (Ohio) Record-Courier on Sunday April 3, 2011