Tag: democracy

Speak Up, My Silent Generation!

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Sandwiched between the Greatest Generation (born 1902-1927) that saw us through the Depression and World War II and the Baby Boomers/Me Generation (born 1946-1964) is my generation, (1928-1045)  known as the Silent Generation.  Silent, perhaps, because there were fewer of us and we lived in fairly pleasant times. Life was pretty good for most of us. 

We weren’t entirely silent.  We cheered the election of John Kennedy and supported Lyndon Johnson’s commitment to civil rights and the war on poverty while opposing Vietnam. In college and after, I remember protesting everything from letting women wear Bermuda shorts on campus and making them observe curfew in dorms to Vietnam We had lots of babies (I contributed three) and women explored new careers after ignoring their mothers’ recommendation of teacher, nurse, secretary. We had TV and Rock/n’ Roll, the pill and polio vaccine.  It was an era of, as they say in  New Orleans, to “laissez les bons temps router.”  (Let the good times roll.) It was the best of times, just as the millennials —our grandchildren–are coming of age in the worst of times.

As we did in the 1960s of fond memory, it is time for our small but powerful generation to stand up and speak out.  Now in our 70s to 90s, many of us are financially secure and not vulnerable to threats from the emerging police state. I recently listened to a retired general on TV who would like to continue working part time as a consultant but can’t be hired because he spoke out against the Trump administration and lost his security clearance. But he has another kind of security, financial security, and as a retired military person a strong sense of patriotic duty, he is using his time to fight Trump instead.

We have resources that can be put to work to retrieve our democracy.  We have money. We have time. We have experience and skills.  We can shelter immigrants, boycott businesses (Washington Post, CBS, Fox News)) that kowtow to Trump. WE can volunteer for community groups to provide mutual support while also engaging those who live in the other world of Trump and Fox News. We can vocalize our opinions, contribute to ACLU  and PBS and private foreign aid, attend protests, annoy our representatives in state legislatures and Congress, support candidates or run for office, and file lawsuits (I am a party to one against our Trump-like City Council). What we cannot do is sit at home and say “Woe is me” Withdrawal is not an option, it is amoral obligation for those of us for whom the danger is smallest.

Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran minister in Nazi Germany, left us these immortal words: \

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

When your great0grandchildren want to know what you did in the face of this challenge to our democracy, what will you tell them?

Trust but Verify

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Or in an Arabic saying, Trust Allah but tie up your camel.  In a world of hackers, scammers, shooters, liars, and broken promises, in whom can we trust? Our national motto is “IN God we trust, but some of us need to have an actual person in whom to trust as well as institutions that we can trust.

The word used for faith in Saint Paul’s dictum “Faith, hope, love, these abound; but the greatest of these is love.”  If faith is a matter of factual belief, then it is most helpful to me. I do believe the earth revolves around the sun and smoking can cause cancer, but I do not believe that the myths of any of the major religions are true in the same literal sense. I trust science because that approach to knowledge has created major safeguards to avoid any false propositions to be confirmed.  Science doesn’t give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it does pretty well at offering truth and nothing but. I more or less trust science. 

The opposite of faith in either meaning, belief or trust, is doubt. When we no longer trust the systems and institutions that have served us well in the past, we tend to retreat to what theologian Paul Tillich described as a limited defensible fortress. His fortress was one of ideas, but it can also include people and institutions.

I used to trust the rule of law and the legal system, but recent events have raised serious doubts about the ability and willingness of elected officials to enforce courts decisions. I used to trust financial systems, but they are no longer as well safeguarded as they once were. Right now, I trust the accuracy of election results, but I’m not sure that the elaborate safeguards that protect the election process can be trusted in the future. I have serious doubts about crypto and artificial intelligence and ensuring peace by always being over-prepared for war. I used to trust the full faith and credit of the United States Government, but that was before our national debt grew to be as big as our GDP and growing faster. I used to trust the evening news, but now I have to seek confirmation.

Trust breeds hope, even optimism.  Doubt creates fear, and pessimism.  What can we as individuals do to reverse the direction of living under a cloud of doubt, at sea without rudder or compass, and no land in sight?

My answer, at least a partial answer, comes from three great minds.  One is Ben Franklin, who at the signing of the Declaration of Independence said, “We must all hang together or we will all hang separately.”  The second is theologian Joanna Macy, who argues that neither optimism nor pessimism is the foundation of any strategy—optimists believe that everything will be all right, and pessimism believe we are doomed and powerless to stop it.  She calls us to active hope, to fight the good fight, knowing that what we seek to accomplish may not be accomplished in our lifetimes. (Especially mine. I am 84!) We a called to active hope, to pick out parts of the perceived doomsday machine and throw a monkey wrench into the works.  The third piece of wisdom comes from Margaret Mead, who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. “

Together the sages Franklin, Macy and Mead call us into community, to find people we can trust and work with them to reclaim our democracy, our rule of law, and our country. And to do it is peaceably lest we become like those who lost or stole our trust (civil disobedience is fine,). Friends. Religious communities. Nonpartisan organizations. Women’s suffrage took 72 years. Civil rights came slowly and are being rapidly demolished  in many ways.

Finally, there is a matter of picking your fights—what issues and what tools.  Ask yourself what gifts you have and what issues you are passionate about. Those two questions may steer you in the direction of people, information sources, and communities that can get you out of the fug and on the path

My gifts are writing, speaking, and organizational leadership. My issues are protecting democracy. economic justice, and reproductive rights. I am careful about whom I trust, and I depend on several organized communities that share those goals and can offer me support and companionship. 

What are your gifts and issues? Do you have such communities? How can they help you use your gifts and passions to practice active hope?

Woman Without a Party

~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment


One of the big binary polarities in the United States is the two-party system. You might think it was in the Constitution, but it isn’t. The political system evolved early into the Federalist (strong central government) and the Democrat-Republican (small and decentralized government) parties. Others have arisen, but unlike most other democracies, we seldom see any sign of an effective third party. Their official names are Republican and Democratic, but their identity labels are conservative and liberal. I freely acknowledge that I vote Democratic most of the time, but it is far from fully reflecting my values and priorities.
I am a civil libertarian, wanting to protect the rights we have under the Constitution, like free speech and due process and the right to bear muskets. And especially the right of women to control their own bodies. Neither embryos nor corporations embody the defining characteristic of a human being, which comes from being born of a woman. I do send money to the ACLU, but it isn’t a political party.
I am a fiscal conservative. I believe that we should decide what we want the government to provide and raise enough revenue (on average, allowing for recessions and expansions) to pay for it. Neither of the two major parties qualifies as a hospitable environment for a fiscal conservative. Democrats create too many entitlements with built in growth when they are in charge, and Republicans never met a tax they couldn’t cut, especially if it falls more on the wealthy.
I am a social progressive, believing in diversity and inclusion and respect, which come from my faith tradition but are essential ways to live together in peace in a nation of immigrants. Democrats do get some points there. Protecting voting rights and money in politics are two of my big issues as a social progressive. I may not vote the same way you do but I will go to the wall to protect your rights.
I am an economic populist, believing in strong unions as a counterweight to corporations, a more equitable distribution of income and wealth, and adequate basic public services like health care, education and transportation to give more people access and opportunity. Both parties claim to be “for the working people,” but when the chips are down, they depend on big corporate donors to finance their campaigns. I also believe in protective regulation to save us from the destructive behavior of large corporations who subscribe the belief that, as Vince Lombardi might say, “Profits are is not just the best thing. They are the only thing.”
Finally, I am an environmentalist. This is the only earth we have, and we have trashed it long enough. Let’s show Mother Earth some respect I love the Green Party but their platform is very focused.
If I can’t find between these two parties one that honors all those dimensions of my politics, what would be the next best thing? The two-party system is not embedded in law or constitution. Third parties could capture enough votes to be represented in the electoral college. The obstacle is the custom (nowhere embedded in law) that the winner of the plurality (not majority) of votes in a state gets all that state’s electoral votes. (It was Thomas Jefferson’s idea because he wanted all the votes from Virginia to become our Third President. Shame on you, Tom.) The chance to have some electoral votes to bargain within the Electoral College and create a coalition government would certainly make organizing a third party an attractive option.
I need more than two choices. I’m tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. Can we “debinarize” our democracy and become a little more normal like other democrztic countries?

The Taxman Is After You

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Many of my rr readers are South Carolinians. Even if you are not, a similar tax “reform” proposal may be coming to your state, as it has elsewhere. . So here’s the South Carolina version of the latest Republican plan to tax the middle class, and cut fores for the rich proposal.. South Carolina’s new proposal for a flat income tax, H. 4216, seems to be on the fast track for what is billed as a tax cut. Maybe. But not for most of us.

The federal standard deduction, expanded in the first Trump administration, would be cut for state tax purposes from $15,000 ($30,000 for a married couple) to a miserly $,6000 and $12,000, respectively. Then it is phased out until it disappears at an adjusted gross income of $40,000.

But wait, there’s good news. The tax rates would be changed from a two-step schedule of 3% and 6.3% to a single flat rate of 3.99% (just so we can claim to be lower than our neighbors). That’s a tax cut, isn’t it?
Yes and no. The General Assembly giveth and the General Assembly taketh away. The federal standard deduction, which was also followed in South Carolina’s state income tax, gives people at the bottom a little relief and makes the income tax just a little bit progressive.
That’s “economist-ese” for taking a smaller percentage of income in taxes for poor people than rich people. Our other state and local taxes on sales and property, and our fees and charges for government services, are regressive. They take a larger share of income from the poor than from the rich. So, the income tax has provided a partial equalization of the total tax liability across households at different income levels.
According to estimates by the S.C. Department of Revenue and Fiscal Affairs, if your family is in the median income range of $50,000 to $75,000, more than 80% of you will discover that your income taxes will go up, not down. Less than 10% of households in the income range of $300,000 to $500,000 will have that same sticker shock, but most will see a steep reduction.
Revenue from the individual income tax is expected to decline by about $216 million in the first full year. Bottom line: This is a tax cut for the wealthy, plain and simple. And unlike the usual justification – attracting business – the personal tax rate will now be lower than the business tax rate.
That’s not the only problem with this bill. With no chance to itemize, citizens with heavy medical expenses and/or generous charitable contributions or lots of interest on their home mortgage and/or student loans will have to rethink their priorities. Medical expense deductions are important for many disabled or elderly citizens, especially if there is a family member in a nursing home. Medicare is not much help there—and the future of Medicare is uncertain.
South Carolina is riding a wave of revenue growth that is overdue for correction. The stock market is flailing, consumer confidence has dropped, tourism prospects (important to our state) are dismal as people from other nations are reluctant to come here, and tariffs are likely to revive inflation that has just returned to more normal levels (not counting eggs).
The state’s definition of income for tax purposes will still be tied to the federal definition of adjusted gross income but that may change if Congress, worried about ballooning deficits, fails to extend the tax cuts from the first Trump administration. The legislature has made a number of commitments, such as higher teacher pay and a larger state contribution each year to protect the soundness of the retirement fund. Legislators may not be able to fund these priorities if revenue from the income tax falters, as it does with either tax cuts or recessions.
This bill needs to go in the circular file and start again.

To Endorse, or not to Endorse

~ purplesage41 ~ 2 Comments

Both the Washington Post and the LA Times refused to endorse a candidate in the current presidential election.  I don’t know much about the Times, but I have been a faithful subscriber to the Washington Post ever since it became available online. I like their games, their news coverage, their columnist. Their owner’s cowardice, not so much.

Jeff Bezos is a bottom-line kind of guy.  He knows that Harris is the only person fit to serve in this office. If he doesn’t know that, he’s too dumb to own a major newspaper, and I don’t think that’s the case. It’s a matter of pure self-interest.  If Harris is elected, she will not take it out on him because—unlike Trump—she is a fully functioning adult. She doesn’t suffer from toxic masculinity. If Trump is elected, he will make sure that Bezos pays for his failure to make the Nazi salute.

Unbridled capitalism is a recipe for societal disaster.

Voting Matters

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There is a meanness in our world

Driven by lust for power, greed for wealth,

Is life a zero sum game

Which we can only win when others lose?

Collaboration, once an honored act

Now seen as sleeping with the enemy.

This pettiness is armed

With powers of destruction and confusion

Never known before.

Technology weaponized in the media

Can destroy social networks

A nuclear blast to the web of community.

Where is the yellow brick road

To lead us through the evil wood

into a world of peace and harmony?

Elections matter.

Head or Heart?

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For most of this seemingly endless election year, Republicans have been speaking to the emotions while Democrats were speaking to the reasoning mind. President Biden was calmly reciting the many accomplishments of his administration while Republicans painted government as an overweening threat to our personal freedom and our cherished values. Their affirming audience resonating with that campaign style included (among others) evangelical Christians of a certain focus (abortion), white men who resented upstart women and minorities, and gun lovers (as in “they want to take away our guns!”). The language of fear, anger, and despair were the vehicles to convey empathy for those who felt ignored or even persecuted by a government that catered to women, immigrants, and poor people, and was prone to making rules that everyone had to obey.

Suddenly and with little warning, everything changed in July.  Biden out, Harris in.  Remarkably, a prosecutor turned attorney general turned senator turned Vice-President, and a woman o color to boot, was a powerful instrument in turning the flailing Democrats into the party of hope, joy, and unity, with the able assistance of a folksy high school teacher and coach turned Congressman turned governor. Republicans, who in the Trump era have been avoiding most serious policy discussions that appeal to the reasoning mind, preferred a message of fear and anger, but were stuck with trying to disown or explain away Project 2025,. This very wordy 900 page document appealed to the left bbrain with a detailed blueprint for a totalitarian Republican administration.

Nods of assent to proposed policies have always taken a back seat to the gut sense of connecting through the emotions when it comes to choosing a president.. Yes, policy matters, but voters know that the problems the next president has to address may be very different from what is going on right now or in the immediate past. So they are looking for clues about he or she thinks and feels and makes decisions. Those clues are found in the message it conveys about whose concerns are going to get the most attention in the next administration.  In general, polls always ask about issues, but  people vote as much or not more with their gut rather than their brain. Those poll responses about what issues matter most to them are probably the product of rationalizing their feelings than analyzing the costs and benefits of child tax care credits or the price of insulin.

If emotions are the key to successful campaigning (just like advertising), the important question in the 2024 Presidential election is, which emotions does the candidate want to evoke? Does love cast out fear? Does hope triumph over anger or despair?  After eight years of an endless campaign by Donald Trump in and out of office that focused on negative emotions, is It possible to turn the tables by making the election about hope, joy and connectedness with one another?

As an economist, we sometimes came across what were called natural experiments, since no one would give us an actual economy to play with. In this country, we learned a lot from states that adopted certain policies while others did not—a higher minimum wage, for example.  This election pits two emotion-based campaigns against each other.  I do have a preference about candidates, and also about issues, but the idea of two parties offering competing visions of American cast in terms of hope for the future is a lot more appealing to me as a voter than anger or despair.

Results from this more or less natural experiment coming in seven weeks to a polling place near you.

Ready for the Counter-Revolution?

~ purplesage41 ~ 4 Comments


Today is  the end of a month with three famous revolutions—American, Cuban, and French.  Did they make things better? Sometimes, for some people, at a very high cost. We are the heirs and progenitors of many revolutions.  The digital revolution. The industrial revolution. The printing press, which revolutionized 16th century Europe. The Green revolution, which was at the time believed the answer to world hunger but wasn’t. The Protestant Reformation, at least the left wing of it, which threw out lots of bathwater and several babies in the process.

 Actual armed battles were the chosen format for many of these revolts. One of my heroines is Boudica, Queen of the Iceni in Britain, The Iceni and their allies, led by Boudica, revolted against Rome in 60 AD and even won some major battles before finally being defeated by a more disciplined Roman army.  The Iceni and their Celtic relatives practiced democracy, unlike the Romans, which is good for peacetime but not so much in the military,

England’s Civil War began by beheading King Charles I and led 12 years later to restoring the monarchy. Twenty-eight years later, the Glorious Revolution ousted The Old Pretender, ran off the Young Pretender. and created animosity between Scotland (homeland of England’s Stuart kings) and England that persists to this day.   The bloody and endless French Revolution. The American revolution. The US Civil War (civil wars are also revolutions). The Spanish Civil War. The many revolutions against colonial domination in Asia, Africa, and South America.

In the 18th century, Americans tried to create a workable government to manage the public affairs of 13 very diverse colonies once they were free from the oppression of British rule.  That utopian vision is always the delusion of revolutionaries, the faith that keeps them going through Valley Forge and other calamities.  But no one ever anticipates a counter-revolution.

 The Roman Catholic Church officially launched a counter Reformation. The American Civil War was definitely a counterrevolution to protect the privileges of the while male hierarchy of the Southern slave states. France had so many counter-revolutions I can never keep track.

We citizens of the United States are in the throes of an attempted counter-revolution, long in the planning, detailed in its vision for post-democracy in America, and banking on this year’s election to bring it about, whether peacefully or with violence. It is a vision of what its proponents thought life used to be like when men (white ones) were men and women know their place and so did the lower classes, especially African Americans and native Americans. These counter-revolutionaries believe that an earlier America was a society in which we were only responsible for ourselves (we=men), women lived lives a modified version of he Handmaid’s Tale, teaching a dubious version of Christianity was mandatory in public schools, equality of opportunity and respect were lacking, and violence was the answer to everything. Rule by a privileged minority at the expense of a resentful majority.

And yet…there are increasing signs that democracy, like the phoenix, can rise from the ashes—maybe even put out the flames! We are all called neither to unwarranted optimism or to deep despair, but to active, engaged hope to keep our fragile democracy alive for the generations yet to come. Like the Minutemen of the original American Revolution, you are not called to violence but to support, act, and vote for democracy to survive.  As my fellow economist Eugene Steuerle says, “We get the government we deserve.”

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Autocracy, Democracy,–Geriatocracy?

~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

Beneath the heated debate over whether Joe Biden is too old for another term as president is a more fundamental question.  Why do we let all these old people hang on to their jobs and make decisions about a future that they will not experience, while those with the most to lose are underrepresented. (Full disclosure: I am a certifiable “too old to govern person at age 83.”)   A younger president and a younger Congress would be less moored in the past and present and more attuned to the big challenges of the future—climate change, clean energy, artificial intelligence, depletion of fossil fuels, species extinction, water shortages, pollution, income inequality, political polarization, etc. What I propose is a modified form of term limits that is well worth considering.

What would it take? First, it would require a Constitutional amendment that adds the words “and not or over 75 at the time of election” to the minimum age qualifications for president and vice-President.  AND to members of Congress.  It’s a much better, fairer way to get some needed turnover and fresh air in both branches of government. It would mean that we never again have senator over the age of 81, or a present over the age of 79. No more 100-year-old senators like the late Strom Thurmond!

 Having imposed it on themselves, these two branches could then extend a similar requirement for all federal leaders whose appointments must be confirmed by one of both branches of Congress. That legislative age ceiling should apply to all current as well as future appointments in the executive branch and the federal judiciary and should require departure when one turns 75. It is not unprecedented at the state level.  My home state of South Carolina already requires state Supreme Court judges to step down at age 72, and I know there are other states with similar restrictions.

It’s long past time to empower younger people to have a greater say in their future.

Winner Take All

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Winner takes all is endemic to American society.  Just ask Vince Lombardi (Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.) Fierce competition for “success” has polarized and stratified our society between the haves and the have-nots. There is only one Oscar winner in each category, only one national champion in any sport, one successful candidate for every office on the ballot.

I learned a useful lesson in my congregation this past week.  We have been discussing proposed changes in Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association bylaws, the section that sets forth our version of theology.  There is sharp disagreement over what changes are being made, a libertarian/humanist vocal minority on one side, the mainstream on the other.  My congregation has five delegates, and the board, in its surprising wisdom, will call for a vote and assign delegates to vote on each question in proportion to the intensity of the congregation’s vote.

How might we apply this elsewhere in our common life?  Well, there is ranked choice voting in place of poorly attended runoffs.  It is a little bit more complicated but a fairer representative of preferences.  There is the jungle primary in which all candidates for an elective office run and the top two candidates, regardless of party, advance to the November election. There are just two outlier states who allocate electors based on Congressional district.  There is the challenge of designated seats versus electing the top 2, 3,4 or 5 members of a city or county council –each option says something different about representation of minorities. There is redistricting, largely nullified these days by the Trump Court (they just couldn’t’ get around to South Carolina’s first district in time for this year’s election), but still a useful tool.

The Quakers gave us an alternative, also practiced by the early New England Congregationalists, of consensus—the sense of the meeting trying to come up with an answer that all could, if not endorse, at least live with—after everyone has a chance to be heard.  Works well in small groups.  My local League of Women Voters went through a consensus process this past week and emerged satisfied with both the experience and the outcome.

In the Olympics we honor the top three with gold, silver, and bronze.  Getting a bronze medal is still considered a great achievement. Perhaps we can find other ways of win-win outcomes in our personal and public life.