FOR THE WIN

by Ruth A. Sheets

WE Americans are very competitive.  We love to win.  For some, winning is everything, or as one coach used to say, "winning is the only thing." 

So, what will we do to win?  We know that some athletes will deliberately injure opponents.  They will dope and do a variety of other illegal and semi-legal things to increase their chances of winning as individuals or as teams. 

Of course, this is not restricted to athletes.  Parents sign their kids up for all kinds of programs to help their child get ahead, be the first, best, to go to the most prestigious schools.  Cheating is not off the table.  Teachers will sometimes change test answers to make their class seem more advanced, so they can win a bonus for their students' achievement.  Businesses claim artificially high profits so they will seem like winners in their field.  Students and others will plagiarize to produce "the winning paper."

People do win based on their own hard work and talent too, but if that doesn't work, some will break rules, laws, and Commandments to win.

You may have noticed I haven't mentioned politicians yet.  Politics is an entire field based on winning, just as athletics is.  Men and women who pursue a political career know this from the outset and often hone their skills in small election contests so they can build up to bigger things.  Along with their personal gifts, they tap into money, manpower, and advice from outside themselves.  Their basic tool is personal persuasion, but over time other things may be added to the toolbox.  Some of those tools can be immoral, sometimes, even illegal.  These tools have become nearly ubiquitous.  They are probably not used more today than in the past, but they now are enhanced by social media, 24/7 news cycles, the internet and instant communication, and other modern technologies.  These technologies in themselves are not the problem.  It is how they are used.  When winning is the only thing, lies, fake news, insults, disparaging slogans can spread at light speed to those the candidate or office-holder needs to win.

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election brought to a head the question "What are you willing to do to win?"  The Democrats are seen as pathetic, weak because they did not win Congress or the Presidency.  What they also did not do (as far as anyone can tell) is check in with the Russians to see how they could smear or undermine their opponent.  They did not regularly insult, degrade, and dismiss women, people of color, Gold Star families, disabled persons, journalists, poor people, and others.  The party that won did all of these things and more.  They won.  What does that tell us? 

Perhaps there is some part of us that finds bullying compelling, despite what we tell our children.  Maybe racism and sexism are deeper and stronger than anything else in our culture including fairness, our religious beliefs, and morals.

Now, the "winners" need to keep winning.  What will they do to get a win, any win?  They will work hard to take away the ability to get health care for people who just found hope in the Affordable Care Act.  They will eliminate transgender people from bathrooms and the military for no other reason than that they can.  They will continue to further limit the rights of women to make their own reproductive decisions, They will hurt farmers so they can waste time, money, and manpower on a useless even ridiculous wall on our border with Mexico.  "I promised to do these things in my campaign and I have a mandate to do it." says their leader, no matter what works for anyone else or that he really has no mandate. 

Well, we are in for a difficult future since lying, cheating, colluding with foreign powers, hacking emails/records, disenfranchising voters, and eliminating civil rights for large groups of Americans are the predominant items in the political toolbox.  Now it is mostly Republicans and Conservatives who employ them, but, who knows, it could spread to everyone else if we don't demand higher standards for political behavior and future elections.  

GOOD BUSINESSMAN?

by Ruth A. Sheets

Mr. Potter was a "good businessman" in A Wonderful Life

Lately, it seems that we are bombarded with the idea that Mitt Romney is such a great businessman that, of course, we need him as president.  I can’t help but wonder what his definition of a “Good Businessman” is.

If one examines the kinds of POLICIES Romney and his supporters are in favor of, it MIGHT NOT seem anything like good business practice. 

Is it good business to. . .  

- give the banking industry self-regulation even though they have proven unable to effectively regulate themselves, nearly bringing down the world economy?

- cut your workforce, then blame the lack of high profits on a tax rate that is too high, not on the fact that people don’t have enough money to pay for your product or service.

- use the “drill baby drill” mantra before the real safety hazards are understood.

- use up natural resources with no solid plans for what will happen when the resource runs out – have they forgotten what is happening to the fishing industry?

- destroy whole sections of THE ENVIRONMENT so that no one else can use or enjoy it in order to acquire coal, timber, and minerals as cheaply as possible. 

   

- outsource jobs and continue to be subsidized by taxpayers for the cost of moving abroad, or moving to other states where they don’t have to deal with unions or environmentalists.

- pay their CEO’s, CFO’s and other high-level folks huge salaries while they lay off thousands of workers, trained people, potential customers?

Mitt Romney and his supporters see no problem with companies like the investment firm where he worked making huge profits from the misfortune of other companies.  Romney claims it is deserved because they take such high risks.  The reality is that there is almost no risk, just a loan shark way of doing business that brings high profits to investment firms.

This model seems amoral.  If these are good business practices, we are in trouble.  State and local governments all over the country are in the process of privatizing many jobs that have been public and have been working well for a long time.  The worst part is that the business practices described above, the lack of morals, and the role of greed do not bode well for anyone.  Officials will exchange good living wage jobs for a quick buck. 

So, when Mitt cries that he is a “good businessman” that may not be a compliment.  He is telling us that he and his supporters plan to dig us in deeper than we already find ourselves.  But, he and his will come out just fine. 

We, the 99% need to be vigilant, although I am not sure that will make much difference these days.  The money these “good businessmen” can spend can buy us and shape our reality and we won’t know it until it is too late.

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.