A DICTATOR DICTATES - WE DO NOT HAVE TO COMPLY!

by Ruth A. Sheets

Yesterday was World AIDS Day.  You probably didn’t know that and were not reminded because Donald Trump decided the United States was not going to commemorate it, as though it doesn’t exist.  I was surprised Trump even knew there was such a thing as World AIDS Day (he probably didn’t).  The cadre of hateful folks around him, Trump’s Toddler Pool spends their time finding ways to get their “boss” to demonstrate their hatreds and his.  Folks like Steve Miller, Russell Vought, JD Vance, mostly rich white men want us to think of AIDS as the gay disease that was around in the 1980s and nothing more. 

Donald Trump and the Pool also want to rewrite American history, science, and medicine to place white men at the center of everything, to dismiss everyone else as just burdens white men have to bear.  They decide which laws they will follow and ignore the rest.  They threaten to “hang” Democrats who remind our military and intelligence communities they are required not to follow illegal orders.  They blast small boats out of the water in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific supposedly because they are transporting drugs (with no proof), even killing survivors, all of which are against American and international law.  The Pool and its “leader” desperately want to be seen as powerful enough to dictate everything to the people of this nation, even what is truth.

Their super rich “friends” like Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and a few others have bought up our media, online, in print, and on air and have been working hard to shape it to whatever story Trump and the Pool want told and with the language they will approve.  Clearly these media owners are getting something for sacrificing their integrity (if they ever had any).  I think it is being “in the room where it happens,” or rather making sure they have a hand in what happens in that room.  For that “presence, they will cover only what Trump (and the Pool want covered, a win-win for them and a lose-lose for the rest of the American people. 

They have dictated that climate change (global warming) is a hoax and threatened Republican members of Congress that they must vote for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” even though there is nothing positive in it for their constituents.  They told Republicans in Congress to cut funding for public broadcasting, libraries, museums, infrastructure programs, mitigation of climate change, and more, whose funding congress had already approved.  In short, I can’t think of a single thing Trump and the Toddler Pool have done since gaining office nearly a year ago.

We the People are not helpless.  We can communicate our opposition to our representatives at all levels and vote for those who have our interests in mind.  We have participated in significant protests, the most recent “No Kings” event brought 7 million people out to say “no” to the dictator would-be-king.  Conservative school boards around the country have been replaced with boards that do not want their curricula and practices dictated by people who are ignorant of nearly everything.  The uninvolved have stepped up to protest cuts in SNAP, Medicaid, unaffordable healthcare, issues which have touched them personally. 

People in our cities have been standing in the way of ICE as the illegal law-enforcement troop drags people from their homes, cars, and off the street  and disappears them into appalling prisons and concentration camps.  People are standing with and for neighbors they didn’t know before.

Workers are demanding unions and not accepting the treatment that current bosses are dishing out.  Young people are demanding better on the job and off.

People of many faiths, ages,  and backgrounds voted for a young mayor, Mamdani,  for NYC, and plan to work for the issues he stands on.  The idea that there could be housing, child care, and public transportation for everyone is spreading.

We must find ways to reach out to people who see the world differently from us and hear about their needs, their dreams, and what keeps them supporting a group of folks who care nothing for them and prove it on a daily basis.  We can’t impact the world view of people if we don’t  understand them, and with understanding, we can encourage them to fight with us for things we have in common, our nation for example!

DEFAULT SETTINGS

by Ruth A. Sheets

My computer and I are at a near constant tug of war to see who or what will become master.  Sometimes I win and can get my computer to cooperate to do the many tasks I need it to do.  I use a screen reader which adds an additional layer to the challenges and the sense of victory I feel when I complete an article, a lesson plan, or an activity for use with my students.

Sometimes the computer “wins.”  Its little victories come daily when my screen reader just stops talking to me, requiring some extra keystrokes to get things going again.  The big victory happened last November when my hard drive crashed.  I was truly lucky because I had backed up most of the material and the folks at Geek Squad were able to retrieve the rest after about 10 days of computer vacation. 

When I got my computer back home, I discovered it had been returned to its default settings. These settings reflect the actions the manufacturer assumes most users would want as automatic.  I had changed most of the problem actions on my pre-crash computer, but now had very annoying settings adding to the usual challenges.  I had forgotten that numbering can be automatic even if I don’t want it.  Autocorrect has its own time-consuming moments.  I had to relearn the arrangement of the toolbars and still can’t find some of the things I need. 

I suppose default settings are necessary for computers, but I am noticing that there are default settings in other places in our lives. These settings generally aren’t noticed until they affect us in some way or are brought to our attention. 

Lately, I have been thinking about the kinds of questions reporters and pollsters ask interviewees.  “How does it feel to be an immigrant in America?  What kinds of challenges have you encountered as a woman in engineering (or physics, or aeronautics)?”  There are numerous books and articles about what it’s like to be Black or Hispanic, or Asian in America.  

We have been exposed to these perspectives for so long that we rarely, if ever, hear anyone asking “What is it like to be male or White or rich in America or in any specific type of business."  If we stop to consider why this is, it becomes clear that the default setting for America is White in general and male in particular and their goal is to be rich. 

It is possible to change the computer default settings if you know the menus that cover each one, but changing the American default setting will be much more difficult.

On the computer it is assumed that people might not like or be able to use the factory settings, so changing them is not too hard.  In America, many forces are in play to make sure that the default remains as it is.  Efforts to limit everyone else’s power and influence work behind the scenes all day and pop into the spotlight often enough to be sure we all know How things are supposed to be. 

Our various government entities have worked hard over time to ensure that African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have few opportunities to succeed and are regularly blamed for the high levels of poverty they face. Educational opportunities for them in no way come close to matching what white males receive.  Women are regularly undermined and victimized, the result being low self-worth and frequent denigration of women by other women as well as by men.    

Immigrants are maligned as criminals, rapists, invaders even though fewer are coming here than in the past and have a much lower crime rate than non-immigrants.  They contribute extensively to our society as well.

It is hard to change this default setting when an entire political party, Republicans, depends on it for their existence.  Republicans point out the token women and people of color they include, but revel in their whiteness and maleness.  Their leaders find often ingenious ways of blaming our nation’s problems on “the other.”  They state directly that when racists go for a “reset” to default, and people protest, there are “fine people on both sides.”  Those White men who are afraid people will move from “factory settings” to something else will do whatever they can to keep that from happening.  Fear is one of their most effective weapons and they have had generations to learn just how to wield it with the greatest impact. And, there is a lot of money and power spreading fear far and wide. 
We don’t need to breathe in the fear.  We can become more vigilant and pay more attention to how we are being treated, what we are being called.  Who is speaking?  Who is listening?  Who is taking us seriously?  

So, perhaps just as I had to change settings to make my computer usable, we who believe in diversity and the value of immigration must enter the settings of inclusion we want for our nation.  It will be hard.  We may face a crash of our hard drive (our democracy) and experience new efforts to reinstall White male settings (white supremacy, repression of women,  etc.).  We will have to work together to find the right “menus” that  help us get to equality and appreciation of all persons.  We must  make our society work for all, not just the default.  

OVERWHELMED AGAIN

by Ruth A. Sheets

Over four and a half years ago I wrote a blog about how overwhelmed I was at Republican vitriol after Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012.  One would have thought he had a mandate to get his agenda passed.  That, of course, is not what happened.  State legislatures had gerrymandered districts so thoroughly that the House of Representatives was heavily weighted toward Republicans, and those Republicans could not bring themselves to support anything President Obama favored, and  racism raised its ugly head. 

Since then, the attacks on the American system have exploded.  A sexist, racist bully has been elected president by the Electoral College, an outdated structure designed originally to protect Southern states and their desire to maintain slavery.  He lost the popular vote, you know the vote by individual Americans by nearly 3 million votes, yet he believes he has a mandate to totally rework the American government.  Gerrymandering has increased significantly, so it will be harder for Democrats or Independents to stop any of the "mandated" legislation, no matter how much it hurts the people.

The majority of the American people don't want any of Trump's proposals for government change, yet we may get it anyway, perhaps all of it.  We daily face the blows to our democracy, like the ones below.

- Encourage or at least allow members of the Trump campaign to meet with Russians whose goal was to disrupt the election on behalf of Mr. Trump.
- Approve as a partisan Senate totally inappropriate secretaries to head all the governmental departments that serve the American people.  They are either incompetent (Ben Carson at Housing and Urban Development - I guess that growing up in public housing makes you an expert in it) or totally opposed to the department they are heading, to the point of trying to bring the department down, (most of the rest of them).
- Install relatives and other cronies who have minimal experience with anything related to governing.
- Start A shouting contest with a foreign entity that has access to nuclear weapons and a leader as unstable as ours, as though nuclear war is a positive.
- Ban Muslims from coming into our country even to visit.
- Stop the flow of refugees who are desperate, have been heavily vetted, and have nowhere else to go.
- surround the president with people whom he expects to lie for him to support his own lies.
- Cut funds that support family planning around the world which help  countries that are already in distress due to climate change and overpopulation.
- Oh, then, there's Climate Change, alright, it's really GLOBAL WARMING!  deny that anything is happening to the climate.  Not by choice of the American people, but by executive order, pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
- Allow coal, oil, and gas companies to continue to pollute at high levels because it costs too much to lower the emissions, even though deaths from the pollution are mounting.  Oh, by the way, it's OK for coal companies to dump their waste in streams and rivers.  Too bad folks downstream!
- Treat the citizens, American citizens of Puerto Rico with such disrespect that more than a month after the most devastating hurricane they have experienced in a century, most of the people still do not have access to power or clean water.
- "Order" the NFL to fire anyone who protests the way African-Americans are being treated in our justice system by "taking a knee" during the National Anthem.
- Insult the families of military personnel who have died, and when it is reported, claim it didn't happen and insult a respected Congresswoman.  Have your staff continue the insults too.
- Claim white supremacists are fine people and equate them with people who are peacefully protesting the group's racist actions.
- Nominate justices to the Federal courts who are mostly male, very young, hold extremely conservative positions on nearly every issue, and who are often not even qualified by modern standards to sit on any bench.
- Propose a tax bill that claims to give BIG breaks to middle class people, but actually gives BIGGER cuts to the wealthiest, who can now incorporate and get a 50% tax cut or just take their operations off shore.  In the process, cut all programs that serve poor disadvantaged citizens and communities, protect the environment, and improve our infrastructure.
- Begin a process to open public lands to drilling and mining, propose to close some National Parks, and double or triple park admissions.
- Call any news coverage you don't  like "fake news" and undermine journalists and limit access.
- Sabotage the Affordable Care Act by cutting the amount of time people have to sign up, cutting nearly all the money for advertising, and severely limiting the number of people who can  help citizens navigate the sign-up process, all leading to higher premiums and other problems.
- Appoint a "Voter Fraud" Commission manned by people who want desperately to limit voting, especially voting by people of color, young people, and a lot of other folks (who just might be Democrats).

Overwhelmed!  The majority of Americans want none of this, but Republicans are plowing head with all of it and more.  The list above could be twice as long.  How can we stand for the American people in the face of this onslaught?  That is the question I ask myself often before I think I might give up.

Well, this is my country as much as it is Mr. Trump's and I know Mr. Trump can only see dollar signs when he looks at every issue.  He allows only people around him who see the same dollar signs and will work to destroy any American institutions that might hinder his free-wheeling acquisition of money and power.

What do we do.  We read the list, We vote for people who will stand against these actions.  we pick a few things we can stand against, then we fight as hard as we can on those issues.  We find others who can stand with us.  There are great organizations working to stop the insanity.  We are not victims if we stand up to the bullying, lying, cheating, and hate.  We are patriotic Americans.

Voting A.B.B.

by Ruth A. Sheets

The latest of many many polls has the upcoming presidential election essentially tied.  I find that incredible. Generally, an incumbent is reelected when he does a good job, that is, improves the economy from the time he took office, ends an established war, passes legislation to support the middle class, and takes care of the poor to some extent.

President Obama’s reelection should not even be in question this year since he presided over a country whose stock market rose more than 5,000 points, pushed a health care program which, although not perfect, does increase significantly the number of people who will be covered, and designed a stimulus program that employed a lot of folks to improve our infrastructure.  He also has championed a tax reform that would increase the share the haves will contribute and gives extra money to the middle class who will spend it to help the economy.  He is continuing the war in Afghanistan, but has ended involvement in Iraq.  His support of veterans far exceeds anything by previous presidents.  He wants to get us to the top of the world in energy and innovation.

So how can he be tied with someone who has no clue about the life that more than 99% of the population lives, who is a war hawk with no experience of what such hawkishness will cost, who has no concrete idea of what would build the economy?  Mitt Romney is not even in the same league as President Obama in his ability to empathize with Americans.  He believes that he got where he is only through hard work and his own brilliance (which, of course, he didn’t; it was his family’s wealth that gave him the leg up).

Why would poor folks even consider Mitt Romney? He thinks that the programs in place are sufficient to help the poor, and are even harmful since they promote laziness and a bad work ethic?  Why would women support someone who is in favor of restricting all kinds of rights for women?  Why would small business people support someone who has no sense of how valuable government support of company start-ups is?  Why would any public worker like police, fire fighters, teachers, etc. support someone who, along with his party, blames these workers for being the vampires who are sucking the life out of the economy?

What is it that Romney supporters see in him, a mediocre politician, businessman, and governor? 

I believe it is not so much what they see, but what they do not see.  The antipathy of many Americans toward President Obama is directly related to his racial mixture.  He is self-identified as African-American. 

Some of the Romney supporters tried him four years ago and were expecting miracles.  If one looks at his record, it does not include miracles, but some significant achievements.  President Obama got one chance.  He did not give every American exactly what they wanted, so he is branded a failure.  A minority person gets only one chance and the results must be amazing or, kick him out.

On a smaller playing field, I have experienced this phenomenon.  As a seriously visually-impaired person, I have known since childhood that to be seen as equal with non-disabled persons, I have to be very much better at whatever I am doing.  When I make a mistake, it is not like a non-disabled person’s mistake.  I must fear for my job, position, or reputation.  Asking for help is seen as a significant, sometimes crippling weakness.   Then the double whammy hits.   When I am better at something, the resentment of people around me can be isolating and painful.

Being the first of anything is hard, but in this culture, being black and first is nearly impossible, even for someone as talented as Barack Obama.  If he can’t be painted as incompetent, a fool, or some other stereotype of African-Americans, he is called an elitist.  He gets the double whammy too. 

So, why do so many people support Mitt Romney? People who have no economic or political reason to?  The answer, no matter how inept Romney is, he isn’t black and there are a lot of people who vote A.B.B, Anything But Black.