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When you have been as richly blessed in life as I have, being thankful should be easy and should come naturally, for me that is not always the case. I have spent more than half of my life working very hard to protect and provide for the greatest treasures on earth that I have been entrusted with. But today on a day of thanksgiving I would like to take the time to shout from the mountain tops my thankfulness and praise.
I am thankful for my wife of twenty-three years Phoebe. Even after all of these years she is still my best friend, my lover, my bride and my girlfriend. She is passionate and beautiful, creative and loving. She sees something in me that I cannot see for myself, she believes in me when even when I swim in a sea of doubts. She has been by my side through my darkest years and never gave up on me.
I am thankful for my daughter Courtney who arrived in this world twenty-one years ago today at 4:42 AM, after a long and difficult labor. Happy Birthday Baby Girl! She came into the world premature, with a cleft pallet, and some other health issues. She is a fighter though, spirited and as passionate as her mother. It was a long road through surgeries, oxygen tanks, and apnea monitors. It crushed me to drive them to Scottish Rite Childrens hospital in Atlanta, leave them there and go home to work. That pain is as fresh today as it was 21 years ago but I never doubted that it was the right thing to do, I learned that year what being a father truly means, I have struggled at it the entire time but I pray that I have gotten it right more times than I failed. Even as she continues to struggle with her health I know that she will be okay, I know what she is capable of even when she may not realize her own strength.
I am thankful for my son Trevor who turned eighteen this year. Trevor was also born premature and is my NICU warrior, my little man, even if he isn’t so little anymore. He is also a fighter and where Courtney faced the hardest struggles early on Trevor’s began in middle school we he started being plagued by migraines. Migraines that lasted a few days turned into ones that lasted weeks, then months. The last migraine lasted over 1000 days, a thousand just incase anyone thinks i accidentally hit an extra zero. These were full blown, stay in the dark, no noise or light, nauseating, debilitating migraines 24/7. So many different diets, no medicines worked, finally got a few periods this year where botox injections took the edge off for a few weeks, enough that he was able to get back into school to finish his senior year. Now for the last 7 days he has been almost entirely migraine free thanks to Judy Goodman, an extraordinary woman who has graciously helped Trevor, I will forever be in her debt.
I am thankful for my other son Matthew, I take pride in knowing that one day he will be my son-in-law but even then he will still just be my son, one of my own children. No father could ask for a better man to be their daughters best friend and true love. I see in him a determination to succeed and overcome adversity that needs to be nourished through encouragement and unconditional love. I will always be here to offer both.
These are the treasures I have been entrusted with and I thank God for them everyday. No more treasures does a man need than a family to love, I am truly rich and blessed indeed.

For many years conservatives in the US have made it their mission to paint the mainstream media as liberally biased, elite, corrupt and not to be trusted. At the same time mainstream conservative media is more opinion than facts with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Shawn Hannity to name a few, dishing up the conservative take on the world in true propagandist style. So you have a large group of people who will not believe anything unless it comes from these “trusted sources” of professional bullshit artists.
During this same time conservatives have waged a war against certain professionals, specifically educators. They have demonized them at every turn and tried to lay all of the blame at their feet for the problems we face through out the nation. These attacks have further fueled the animosity that the white working class already feels towards educators and professionals, an animosity that seems rooted in a fear of success or progress. At the same time the conservatives have demonized teachers they have actively worked to strip education systems of the necessary financial resources to be successful. This is a tactic they have used against many government agencies including the Veterans Administration where the employees are demonized, many of whom are veterans themselves, then the agency has never been fully funded or staffed to ensure that conservatives can hold it up and show how bad government is and push for privatization.
Then there is the divisiveness that conservatives have pushed with their talk of “real americans” in the heartland, which are always white, rural, christian communities. They insinuate that only liberals use identity politics while they hide behind coded language that reasonable, educated people understand for what it is. There is also a difference between trying to identify needs of different ethnic/racial groups in order to be inclusive and ignoring them or painting them as the “other”.
So now we have arrived at what is potentially the conservative wet-dream of all wet-dreams. Their supporters will not believe anything that journalists report about Trump, so anything regarding his conflicts of interest or using his position as president to influence foreign governments and increase his own wealth will be ignored or treated as lies. They are gearing up to deregulate business, kill the EPA, probably get rid of Federal minimum wage rules, kill the unions in as many states as possible while also killing or gutting the National labor Relations Board. Privatization of as much as they can; VA health, Social Security, Public schools. Drastic cuts to everything outside of defense spending. Any manufacturing or mining jobs that return will be lower paying with less benefits and non union. The negative impact will last for decades.

How do you move out of the way? What about when your are stumbling in the dark?
I often wonder how can it ever be possible to change things when I live with a tilt-a-whirl for a brain. I just cannot stand when i feel disconnected within myself, when a part of me is in one state of mind and the rest of me has gone over to do something else.

Truth is over rated.
Maybe it is unreasonable to actually have an expectation that what people say, is what they really believe. Or that when the future leader of the United States speaks, he can be taken at his word.
And maybe equality, civil rights, freedom of speech, assembly and religion; maybe they are just dreams of progressives that can never fully be realized.
Maybe it is just pessimism to think that after everything Donald Trump has said, his appointment of white supremacist Steve Bannon as an advisor, Jeff Sessions for Attorney General who’s racism cost him an appointment to Federal Judgeship, Michael Flynn who’s cozy with russia and fears muslims, Mike Pompeo to the CIA who also fears muslims; I mean what could possibly go wrong.
Just not seeing a bright side in all of this, keep waiting for the next shoe to drop.

These Atrocities: Your Fault! A popular slogan on propaganda posters in post WWII Germany during the allied occupation. A slogan that should not be uttered by Americans in this century. I have heard the arguments that President-Elect Trump did not mean the things he said on the campaign trail, give him a chance, he deserves our support. Well chance given and he makes an anti-Semetic, white supremacist his chief advisor, chance squandered and tossed aside.
How far do people expect the support to extend. If the republican leadership sits silently by on this appointment what will it take for them to object? How far are they willing to follow down that path. Despite this belief that we have laws that prevent him from doing certain things, it was not so long ago that we repackaged torture as enhanced interrogation. How long will decent people be silent?

John 14
14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

The kingdom of God is not yet on this earth. We are a people still out in the wilderness, given a great commission to fulfill but determined to go our own way. We are in the land of Babylon, we have grown impatient with the Lord and claimed this land as Zion, believing it can be something it is not.
We look to an old rugged cross but forget we’re the cross is and what we should be doing with it. In Luke 9:23
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
We must return our minds to the journey we are on. We must fix our hearts and eyes on Zion and keep walking. Earthly kingdoms rise and fall. Their leaders can be wicked and cruel. Even the elect can become twisted and lose their way. We must pray unceasing.
We must keep ourselves right with God, ever vigilant against ourselves. Even Jesus had moments of anger, but anger as with faith is a seed that we plant and water. If we tend to the seed of anger it will grow into malice and hate, soon we will look into the mirror and see the enemy. Sow seeds of faith and love, tend to the garden through compassion, forgiveness and prayer. Clean the path of stones and weeds so that others can see the way.

I pray today that God will forgive me and that I will forgive others.
Fill my heart with love Oh God, especially for my enemies as I know how to love my friends. Teach me how to pray for those who hate.
Lead me oh Lord in your path of so that I might be your disciple. Lead me home to Zion.

We are defined by our words and our actions.
We are also defined by the words we are unwilling to say and the actions we are unwilling to take.
We are defined by the company we keep and the alliances we make.
Maybe that is not fair.

People ask us to distinguish who they are from the politician they support. People do not want others to think so horribly of them, their not racist they protest; it was all about jobs or abortion or change. They want this concession when at the same time they have been the accuser; on abortion, taxes. Many have talked about taking their country back, refer to themselves as the real Americans. Those who do not look like them or think like them are the others, usurpers we have been called. Our patriotism has constantly been in question.

We are also being asked to sweep it under the rug. Reassurances that he can never do the things he said he would do, or that isn’t what he meant. So wait a minute, you expect everyone to indulge in your fantasy that it was all an act. I am not sure which aspect of that is worse.

Then there are the protesters, exercising their rights to assembly and free speech. Crybabies they are called because they are exercising those rights. I mean it isn’t as if there was a large scale movement of Republicans after President Obama’s election that staged protests and marches, oh wait it had a catchy name the Tea Party. Lets also not forget the large scale growth of armed militia groups over the last 8 years.

It is a conundrum indeed.
 

Donald Trump won electoral college and Hillary Clinton took the popular vote. He will be president and we shall move on from here.

At this point only time will tell what this means for the nation. There is an angry half of the country celebrating their victory, they refer to themselves as the silent majority, however the actual vote count tells a different story and people need to remember that most of all. As a nation we are fairly evenly divided time will show how policies will play out.

I have heard and read today that those who opposed Trump should now respect the decision and give him a chance, I am on the fence with that position. Yes I know there is the argument of being the better person but after the last 8 years of bruising opposition, questioning the legitimacy of President Obama, why should President-elect Trump be given a break?

What happens if he really does try to engage in a political witch hunt led by Giuliani at the justice department? How about if he authorizes the use of torture? What about religious litmus tests to enter the country? How far down that path will we as a nation let him go?

There is a lot to take in but I for one have no intention of just laying down and rolling over.

I listened to this discussion on NPR this morning on the way to work between two economists, a Trump supporter and a Clinton supporter on the economy. The Trump supporter kept using the analogy if you keep giving people fish instead of teaching them to fish the displaced workers will continue to be displaced. He also talked about cutting taxes as a means to fuel growth, removing regulations and forcing manufacturing to come back through changes in trade agreements. In listening to his arguments I was struck by the tone with which he conveyed his arguments and it reminded me of the tone many Christians over the years have taken with me as they worked to save my soul; I mention this not to disparage anyone but as I listened to his arguments something clicked for me as to why it sounded the same.

The language sounded the same to me because i believe the line has blurred through which Christian Conservatives perceive all things; independence, economics, business and wealth, through a lens of their faith. Because they so strongly believe that the United States is a Christian nation first and foremost, that naturally businesses will do the right thing, cutting taxes on the wealthy will lead them to use that freed up capital to reinvest their wealth downward. This is the “reality” through which they perceive the world. Then there is a certain aspect of individual salvation, that despite the “church as a collective body” , lends itself to a view of life in-tune with the American ideal of “rugged individualism”.

I believe that the juxtaposition of these two positions: that Christians will always be helpful and we are all rugged individuals, responsible for ourselves, tugging on our boot straps; in reality tend to cancel each other out. If we look at certain changes across the economy since the 1970s until today (these are low estimates based on various numbers found); executive compensation increased +950%, stock markets increased +500%, income tax rates decreased -50%, capital gains taxes decreased -38%, worker wages increased +10%. So as the wealth grew for a percentage of the country and their tax rates decreased wages for the middle and lower classes grew fractionally. If one does some research on inflation adjusted household income growth since the 70’s; top 5% of earners saw over +100% increase, middle and lower incomes +25% increases. Throw into the mix that dual income families have increased at least +140% over that time period and that 25% increase in middle and lower income families looks even bleaker. Nothing in the numbers speaks to equity from the top.

I look at the numbers and I see a reality in which people are not altruistic of their own accord. As much as we want to believe that people will do the right thing or market forces will make businesses do the right, history does not show that to be true. Look at all of the “burdensome” business regulations, they didn’t just spring out of thin air but were created to stop something from happening again that already occurred. Sometimes the reason we have so many of these regulations is that to stop one problem a loophole is created, then someone exploits the loophole so we create another regulation.

What does it all mean though? I think it means that there are no simple solutions. Sooner or later we need to understand we are all in the boat together, eventually if enough money and resources are strangled out of the economy it will implode. If we continue on our current path we will eventually reach another 1929. This past recession was just a foretelling of what is on the horizon if we do not suck it up and fix the problems.

The rise and fall of the Wal-Mart society.

All of this talk during the election about jobs and shallow promises of bringing back manufacturing jobs from both candidates fails to address the real reason why we are in this shit show in in the first place. People like to blame business taxes, regulations and free trade agreements as to why those businesses left and moved out of the country. What nobody wants to talk about though is choice. The choice a owner or ceo made to move those jobs. Intentional decisions made as executive compensation and profits increased.

Suppressed wage growth across the country, disappearance of manufacturing jobs, cheap goods flooding the market, local small businesses driven to closure by big box stores has given rise to the Wal-Mart society. The problem is the Wal-Mart society is based on people only being able to afford to shop at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately because it is an unsustainable society, despite Wal-Mart being the second largest employer in the United States, it is predominately composed of part time employees. I believe we are headed towards the dollar store society unless we make major changes.

So how do we fix this mess that we are in? I wonder if we can. We as a society currently are faced with a deluge of problems that goes so far beyond just jobs. Broken tax code, rising costs of so many things. You know it is almost as if wages should have kept pace with the stock market or executive pay.

Would’a, Could’a, Should’a.

I really do not see any real solutions, there is not traction within the state or federal legislative branches to make the hard changes that need to occur. We need people at the local level to stand up new businesses to push back against the status quo. The only way manufacturing is coming back is if new companies spring up. There is also the possibility of devolving into a post apocalyptic world a-la Mad Max.