Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action has been in the news a lot lately. Some states are continuing the practice, some are not.  I understood the historical need for giving negros some extra help considering how much they were abused.  Perhaps only native Americans have more abuse in their history to embrace.

But, doesn't basing Affirmative Action on race at all, miss the point completely.  The point of the assistance should be to help those that are capable but do not have the means to go to college or get a job without some help.  For example,  providing child care to a single mom to enable her to get an education or job training would be a type of affirmative action.  Does the mom's race even matter? Yes, I know that we define affirmative action more narrowly than this example, but I don't know why.

Considering the growing wealth inequality in this country and the growing student debt of a trillion dollars pulling down our economy, not to mention the students, perhaps a hundred million Americans could use affirmative action. Affirmative action is like a family arguing on who gets the last coke in the refrigerator when their house is burning down. And guess what, the only reason there is a coke in the refrigerator is because we borrowed it from our Chinese neighbors.

Our form of Capitalism is no longer working for 9 out of 10 Americans. One third are unemployed or under employed,  the next generation is broken before they get out of school to find few jobs that justify the debt,  while American corporation profits are at a thirty year high and worker income is at a twenty year low. Our democracy works for the Oligarchs while the will of the people is incresingly irrelevant and even consider irreverent.  Our news casts are filled with illusions that are effective in brainwashing the 40% of Americans that either can't or don't read much any more.  The balance are either too stressed out to notice the ship is sinking or in prison and going down with the ship.  Yes, its an exaggeration,  but painfully close to reality. 

Who is helped most by affirmative action: white women.  Who are hurt the most, Asian and Asian Males.  Asians typically enroll in college at much higher percentages than their percentage in the population.  One third of Latinos don't graduate high school so the war is lost before college is ever an issue.   What ever happened to the idea of public college education, that anyone who was capable of getting a college education should have a chance to go?  If we have given up on that dream, what else is worth fighting for?  Isn't public education an essential part of the American Dream?  Who the xxxx cares about affirmative action, let's remember the American Dream before it is too late. 

So, who wants to argue about who gets the last coke?

My Country: Punish the Poor Immigrant, Welcome the Rich Immigrant.

Have you ever been in the situation of driving a very sick or injured friend or family member to a hospital with a life threatening injury or illness?  I'm guessing speed limits and stop signs suddenly had a lower priority.  Not that you wanted to drive so carelessly that you hurt yourself, others or even the person being rescued, but if you could just slow down and safely get through an intersection with a stop sign, that was good enough.  Screw the rules when something more important is at stake.

That's how I see immigration policy.  First, its just chance which side of the Rio Grande you were born on.  I am no better a person than someone born on the other side either.  I do not deserve a better life, I am not smarter, better, or more entitled than someone born on the other side.  Second, if they wake up everyday and look at their hungry and perhaps shoeless children and feel no hope for changing their plight, I identify with their urge to look for hope -- even if they run a few stop signs or cross a river to take the best chance they have in changing their world and the world their children live in.

Its sad, but many Mexicans have decided that getting $2 or $3 an hour in America working 14 hours a day in the back of Pat's Pizza washing dishes or making pizzas is the best shot they have in beating the cards stacked against them.  I grew up in El Paso and I have known many of the 11 million Mexicans that now live in this country, half of them illegal.  As a group, I found them hard working, family oriented and fighting hard to enjoy the American Dream.   Yea, they are not perfect, they are just people, just like you and me running a few stop signs now and then.

Since Obama has been in office, we have deported 2 million illegals back home.  There was supposed to be an effort to deport only those that committed a serious crime.  Of course, being deported before was considered a serious crime.  Oops.  Lots of Mexicans have tried multiple times to enter this country to find the American Dream, hence committing a serious crime by this directive.  Yep, they ran through multiple stop signs on the way to American Dream.

Have you heard of EB-1 Visas.  They are issued to immigrants with special skills, like super programmer guys or similar.  Google et al would like to hire more of the million or so foreigners that are educated in our colleges each year.  But, nope Congress is not going to let that happen.  We don't want to have all those smart kids making America a better place.  Makes you wonder what the average IQ is of a congressman.

Have you heard of EB-5 Visas.  It's for rich people.  Anyone that invests $0.5 million in an American business that creates 10 jobs for two years can come to America.  Then you can become a citizen. That's right, you can buy citizenship.  Guess who takes advantage of EB-5's.  The rich upper class from China.  The business doesn't have to be profitable or sustainable, in short, it doesn't have to be a real business.  This Visa gives the rich class in China the ability to hedge their bets, if things go poorly in China, if China becomes a Mexico with its drug wars or similar, the rich who are creating a country that has wealth inequality equal with the U.S., can leave.

So, let's judge our country's morals by our actions.  A poor man seeking a better life in America is deported and will be punished by most of the immigration reforms proposed by Republicans, but rich Chinese that are profiting from being part of the elite in a very corrupt system are welcomed.   We point to the stop signs the poor man has run through in trying to help his family and ignore the way the rich man got his wealth. What does that say about our country?  $$$$ = Right.

Parenting 1958

Parenting 1958—Robert OdleDocs.com

We are sending aid to Russia. REALLY?

Okay, we are going to give Ukraine a billion dollars of support, loans I suspect.  But, its like loaning my brother some money - we are never going to see that money again.  Of course, Russia raised the price of natural gas to Ukraine by 80%. And Ukraine already owes Russia a couple of billion.  Of course, others are putting together aid packages.  Germany offered to send them natural gas, but not too much since a third of their supply comes from Russia.

So in effect, we are sending our money to Russia via Ukraine.  So, how is that supposed to punish Russia?  It's very unclear how we can do anything.  How disturbing is that to our national psychic?  We are the country that put a man on the moon, won World War II (almost buy ourselves if you ignore Russia's victory over Germany inside of Russia), won in Korea, backed off Russia in Cuba, didn't lose in Vietnam, wasted time and resources in three wars in the Middle East, etc.  For a few more years we still have the biggest economy in the world that at least keeps 65% of its work force employed and we are used to being top dog.  Of course, are we a top dog with a fatal weakness.

Of course, we still have the most powerful military in the world.  But, everyone has learned that our fatal flaw is that we do not take territory and we have a short attention span.  A group like the Taliban can defeat us by simply retreating before our superior force, fighting just enough to recruit the disenfranchised and religious zealots in the world to fight against the evil hedons from America, and then just wait until we leave.  We have no answer against them, time is simply on their side.  We are unable or unwilling to go after them where they live, which at the moment is Pakistan.  Like the Koreans and Vietnamese, they have learned that they just have to retreat across a safe-line in the sand.
When they need to lick their wounds, they retreat across the line.  When they want to fight, they come across it.  It is an untenable position that we take as Americans, but luckily, we have no memory of history and refuse to recognize our fatal flaw.

So, when will the reality sink in.  We can do nothing for Ukraine unless we are willing to have a major conflict with Russia ... where we hope neither side pulls out their nuclear weapons.  As a country, we are not willing to loss large numbers of people in a war.  Casualties in recent wars total in a year the number of soldiers we used to lose in a week in Vietnam, a day in the civil war.  We simply have no stomach for it.

We have fatal flaws.  We can not win against an opponent like the Taliban given our restraints on ourselves and our lack of a stomach for our own deaths.  And yet, we continue to pound our chests and act indignant to Russia.  We ignore the fact that our impact disappears before our last soldier leaves the shore.  It is lucky we have a short memory as we squander our resources on our latest venture.  And even luckier for us, we are so impotent in the current crisis that we are unlikely to find a way to spend large sums of money like we did in the Middle East wars (trillions).

Who Do You Trust More? Our Government? The Rich?

We have loads of challenges in this country including:

• Unemployment / low utilization of our work force
• Declining performance of our students, especially in math and science,
• An ancient immigration policy,
• Super pacs and lobbyists running our government,
• Government spending out of hand, see immediately above,
• A idiotic War on Drugs program,
• Discrimination against those that are different (not the majority)
• Wealth Inequality 

It is hard to find the silver lining in any of these challenges.  But, let's look at the last issue, "Wealth Inequality".   All bad.  Not really.  Look at this Ted Talk on the Gates Foundation. 

The two big contributors are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, two of the richest people in the world.  It is Bill and Melinda Gates goal to give away 95% of their wealth.  Warren Buffet has already given away 80% of his wealth to the Gates Foundation and with intentions of giving away more.  Warren said he trusts Bill and Melinda to manage the money as good or better than he could manage it.

The Gates Foundation is attacking world health and poverty, polio, education, and dozens of other problems.  Its spending on world health is the same order of magnitude as the United Nations.  It attacks issues like contraception (despite Melinda being a Catholic) that governments can not seem to act on because of religious politics. They try innovative education approaches since they are not bound by the assembly line approach to education that is the status quo in America.  

Do you know what Project Loon is?

Larry Page the owner of Google  has incredible aspirations to help the world.  Their goal is to make information available to everyone in the world.  Simple things like helping the farmer in arid Africa to predict the weather and know when to plant his crop each year or how to deal with an infestation of bugs.  Information that we take for granted.  Information that is reshaping the world.   He wants to bring the Internet to the entire world, see the incredible Lune Project.  He wants to put balloons in lower space orbiting the planet to beam down the internet to the entire world.  Yep, billions of dollars out of  Google's pockets; and yes he is serious.

And, look at Harry Stein, looking to double the output of corn per acre to help feed the world and reduce world hunger (plus make himself some money).  Look at George Mitchell philanthropist and the inventor of fracking.  Fracking will have more impact on job creation in America than all the government programs across this national put together.  How? Low cost natural gas is making America the place to start new industrial plants with good jobs and salaries requiring lots of supporting economic activity (separate blog coming soon).  Compare that to Europe that doesn't allow fracking for the most part and see how that has lead to economic bondage to Russia. 

And, of course, we need to mention Moore's Law, Apple, Google and the techies that are revolutionizing communications with the cell phone, tablets, and devices yet to be imagined.

The list goes on and on. So who got the ball moving.  Quoting from Gates Foundation:

  Gates is famous for asking other billionaires to commit to giving away half their fortunes, reportedly inspired by Melinda’s reading The Power of Half by Kevin Salwen and his 14-year old daughter Hannah in 2010, about selling their home, giving half the proceeds to charity, and buying one half the size for their family.  Bill and Melinda have committed to giving 95% of their fortune to charity over time; that is an astounding measure of generosity.

Now lets look at Lawrence Lessig pushing for Campaign Finance Reform via walks across America.    I don't know if he can pull it off, but Congress alone is not going to tackle this problem, they are too caught up with their number one job, raising money to get elected. 

It is not our inherently corrupt government that is effectively addressing our problems as a nation. Surprisingly, a lot of the problems are being attacked by the richest among us ... those that are the benefactors of the wealth inequality that exists in this country.  The Gates hope to persuade many rich people to give half of their wealth back to society to make a difference.  Warren Buffett was the first convert.  Hopefully more will follow, all starting from the example of Kevin Salwen and his 14 year-old daughter Hannah.

So, could historians look back and say this was the decade the U.S. government became completely ineffective and the rich people took over, mostly for good?