THE PLAN

by Ruth A. Sheets

Today my students and I viewed a documentary by some film students from a small liberal arts college.  The film students had heard of the plight of my school district because one of our teachers had been invited to sit with Ms. Obama for the State of the Union Address and then was a guest on “the Ellen Show.”

The issue, our impoverished school district had run out of money, but teachers had agreed to work even without a salary as long as we could manage it. 

The college students came to town to interview our city’s teachers, students, support staff, and community residents.  They filmed around the city and in the schools.  To begin their documentary, they prepared a montage of images of places around town, mostly blighted spots. 

Their first montage was turned down by their instructor because there were some smiling people in the pictures.  The documentary makers were informed that smiling people won’t get their message across.  People should look downtrodden, miserable if possible. 

Of course people don’t smile in the face of adversity.  Think about the advertisements for organizations helping poor and struggling people around the world.  How many smiling faces have you seen?   If one is truly poor and in need of assistance, how can one possibly be smiling?  If one shows any signs of pleasure, it must mean that the situation in which one lives can’t be too bad.

So, I have figured it out.  The one percent can defend their place in society by showing scenes of poverty, but with smiling people, particularly children.  See it’s really not so bad!  Don’t forget the upbeat music. 

Then, they can show their mansions with the rich folks looking sad and put-upon with a slow, depressing musical background.  They will garner the sympathy they need to continue business as usual.  What a plan!

The New Breed of Politician

by Ruth A. Sheets

These days, we are electing people to public office who DON’T WANT TO work for the common good.  More often than not, it seems their crusade is an individualized one that furthers their own personal agenda no matter its effect on the larger population.  They breed fear and distrust of their fellow citizens.

Some among the new breed are mediocre in skill and intellect and just go along.  That is to be expected in a representative democracy.  It is the ones who are extremely skilled and intelligent that can pose the greatest threat. 

The skill I am talking about is not in foreign affairs, economy, environment, science, Constitutional law, health care, knowledge we desperately need.  Their skill is in manipulating people, ideas, and language.  These office-holders have devised a whole range of ways to mask their racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, xenophobia, ageism, etc. as “moral,” even obligatory.

The Secretary of State of Arizona is threatening to keep President Obama’s name off the state’s ballot if he does not receive proof of Obama’s birth in the US.  He claims this somehow protects Americans.  His challenge is purely racist!  Mitt Romney’s father ran for president years ago and no one claimed he wasn’t a citizen even though he was born in Mexico.

The governor of Arizona did not stand up and call the whole thing nonsense.  That’s because she has her own racism and xenophobia in her dealings with Hispanic people living in her state.  For her, it is OK to stop people suspected of being undocumented to demand to see their papers.  But, who gets stopped?  People who “look” Hispanic.  Gov. Brewer believes she is saving America for Americans.  Really?

The Roman Catholic bishops and their politician supporters are obsessed with issues of contraception and that it might be made available free of charge to all women.  What is their beef with contraception?  They say that God doesn’t want women using it.  Why?  They would say contraception doesn’t follow God’s plan for humanity.  In reality, it gives women too much freedom over their own bodies and their own choices.  Using contraception would mean that the awful decision of whether or not to carry a child to term won’t have to be made as often. 

The politicians who support the bishops are worried about women and their potential power.  So, in state legislatures they pass laws that require doctors to lie to women to prevent abortions, force women to have invasive ultrasounds, and criminalize women who choose to have “late-term” abortions no matter the reason.  In my book, that is sexism no matter what they call it.

Marriage is one man and one woman.  Really?  Why?  What is the purpose of marriage?  That has changed over the centuries.  Is it for procreation?  What if someone does not want to have kids?  Is their marriage wrong?  Is it for economics?  If the marriage brings a couple to the brink of poverty, is that marriage wrong?  Denying marriage to same sex couples is legislated homophobia no matter what the politicians who take this position call it, because the meaning of marriage has always been a bit fluid.

Many legislatures, including the Federal Government, are cutting or planning to cut programs that serve the poor among us.  Proponents of the bills say this will save money and cut the deficit.  It is actually classism.  The haves believe the have nots deserve to be where they are because they have made bad life choices. 

If that is the case, why was Wall Street and its bad choices bailed out and why are we subsidizing wealthy oil companies and other high-profit industries?  If we were really intent on lowering the deficit and debt, we would be taking the services and support from the haves who don’t need the help.

The scariest part of all this is that the new breed of politicians uses just the right words and tone to convince us, even though our gut tells us they're wrong.  They even find tokens from each group they are discriminating against to run for office and say things like “If they were really discriminating against my group, I would not be able to run.”   What nonsense.  If Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman were not attractive, would anyone have given either of them a second look?  If Herman Cain hadn’t been the sunny “fool” would he have received much support? 

What we need to do in the face of this new breed is  to think, really listen to what these politicians are saying, and figure out who is benefiting from their discriminatory positions on issues.  Stop allowing them to use fear and hatred to distract and divide us.  We deserve better people than many elected recently.  We need to demand quality leaders by voting in people who want to work for the common good.

A COMMON SPIRIT?

By Ruth A. Sheets

Was there ever a time when all people in America valued sharing and giving to the next generation?  Probably not, but I believe there was a time when many people felt that we had some responsibility to those who have less than we do and also to those who are yet to be born.

Through the 1970’s, even early 1980’s few Americans would have thought it was a good idea to undermine public education.  Few would have considered it  "good for business" to deceive people about their ability to buy a home. Only a small minority of Americans would have acknowledged the belief that folks in poverty were there because they deserved to be.

In those days, people believed in the American Capitalist system, but understood that if you had made it, you shared at least part of your success with others for the general good.  If fellow citizens received a good education, everyone benefited because it could lead to more innovation, more jobs, more progress for everyone.

Somehow, we have lost a common spirit.  Instead of lifting others, as we lift ourselves, it is now "I’ll get everything I can and everyone else can get what they can.  But, I will do everything I can to be sure they don’t get even the smallest part of what I have."

We want to fight a war, no problem, let someone else fight and pay for it.  We’ll just make money from it.

We need roads and bridges?  Let the states and locals pay for them, they’re not really "National", you know. 

"I got an education and I worked hard at it," they say.  "If someone wants an education, they can get one and we’ll make money from it, and I don’t mean the teachers, who aren’t worth what they are paid anyway."

"Health care?  I’m healthy, I don’t need to worry about that.  Besides, insurance companies should have the right to decide who they will cover and for how much.  That’s how the free market works."

If those people took out a mortgage they should have known they couldn’t pay for it.  I’m not responsible for their stupidity.  

When one percent of the population has the bulk of the resources, and they can’t relate to the 99%, it is hard to see our society successfully coming out of the current recession or dealing with the other challenges that face us:  military spending, public education, collapse of the housing industry, infrastructure, health care, our children’s future.

After all, the 1% can go to another country if this one falls apart.  Money is money and they keep theirs all over the world.  We’re just tools for their use.

We have somehow decided that’s OK.  When did we do that?

What Liberals Want

Modern manufacturing. Not your grandpa's sweatshop.

by Ruth Sheets

I am always amazed, perhaps shocked, when I read something by Conservatives and Republicans these days.  I think it’s the audacity of their outrageous claims.  This time, it was an article called “Liberal Nostalgics Don’t Understand Jobs of the Future” by Michael Barone.  It appeared in the townhall.com blog on April 23, 2012.

Barone claims that the current administration’s desire to increase manufacturing jobs means that “liberals” want to bring back the old assembly line jobs of the post World War II era.  Because the “liberals” are nostalgic for these jobs they have no idea what the jobs of the future are going to demand.

What a bunch of bull!  Can anyone really believe that “liberals” or anyone else wants to bring back the mind numbing, brain frying repetition of those jobs?  What “liberals” really want are jobs that pay a living wage.  They want jobs working for companies that respect their workers.  They don’t want workers to be driven to put in mega hours under a threat of loss of their livelihood.  They want work that is meaningful.  They would prefer not to be pawns of employers who are addicted to money and power   

In his piece, Barone finds a way to blame past assembly line workers for the near destruction of Chrysler and General Motors.  Admittedly, the unions did make some unreasonable demands, but they were not the cause of the industry’s downfall.  That came as a result of short-sightedness on the part of the guys at the top of the auto companies.  They refused to believe that cheap, easy oil was coming to an end and that what was left would be controlled by countries/cultures that do not like us and our way of life very much.  

Detroit built gas-guzzlers when they should have been working to develop cool small cars that were safe, comfortable, and efficient.  The creative talent working in the auto industry could have managed that and more.  They also had the power of Madison Avenue on their team.  If handled well,  Americans could have been talked into buying almost anything if it was good enough.

Mr. Barone describes the jobs of the future as ones that people will create themselves, I suppose on the model of Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerbburg.  It is not the “liberals” who don’t get this, it is the Conservatives who put roadblocks in the way of nearly every attempt to make this a reality.  It was not the “liberals who made irrelevant testing the main indicator of student success in school.  It is not the “liberals” who cut research and development setting back efforts to find new directions for producing the jobs of the future.

The “liberals” didn’t cut assistance to help creative people get businesses started.  It’s not the “liberals” who think college is elitist and a waste of time.  It’s the Conservatives who want to take America back to some imagined golden time, (except for the tax rates which they would like to see as close to zero as possible, of course).

I worry that an argument like Mr. Barone’s is so simple that a lot of people will accept it without thinking critically about whether it is true.   

Oh wait, we don’t get to teach that critical thinking stuff or creativity in schools since it’s not on the test.  We “liberals” had better get busy.