SOCIAL DOMINANCE THEORY

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SOCIAL DOMINANCE THEORY. IT IS ALL ABOUT RANKISM.

J.D. Phillips MSW LCSW

Recent interdisciplinary research lines up well with one of my lifelong suspicions. This research asserts that there is a subconscious fundamental philosophical divide that grounds most policy debates. People who value equality over all else come into conflict with people who hold that social status hierarchies and inequality are functionally justified. (Talcott Parsons anyone? In sociology we call it Functionalism vs. Power Conflict Theory)
When we approve of a social policy proposal, we like it because it seems to confirm our personal bias about social stratification; pecking orders. We evaluate policy proposals against how they strengthen or weaken our system of rank. The left favors national health care because it attenuates inequality. The right opposes it for the same reason. They fear that equality is dysfunctional because it might curb productivity by reducing rewards for achievement. Rankism is THE classic political divide.
Social Dominance Theory feels like common knowledge, but it’s more precise than that. Mountains of experiments confirm the hypothesis. How the individual voter values equality is the fundamental political divide. We subconsciously evaluate almost every political issue against our side of this controversy.
We think that we are arguing about taxes or the culture war, but we are either supporting or opposing our present system of social stratification. Some of us want more equality, and some of us want less. This political evaluation happens on a subconscious level. No Republican voter is going to tell you that they oppose equality. They don’t even know that they do. We all do, to some extent. Once they realize what Social Dominance Theory is showing us, they might be more immune to propaganda.
My motivation for this blog is to propose that high school and college educators should cover Social Dominance Theory as an efficient way to make progress on political literacy.
Social Dominance Theory draws from several social sciences, and (gulp), biology. Biology is the third rail for the left. There is no quicker way to lose a reader than to sound like the social Darwinists of the past. I’m on the left. I cursed biological evolutionary psychology in college, just like everyone else. It is only now that I have been able to integrate recent anthropological advances and modern evolutionary psychology into my world view. Since I know why I opposed evolutionary psychology in the past, I feel qualified to help others understand where we all got hung up on this very touchy subject.
Two things cause trouble for evolutionary psychologists: The Naturalistic Fallacy and the difference between using biological information to argue about humans as a species vs. using biological knowledge to theorize about differences between individual humans. Those are the two big mistakes that caused early and some modern evolutionary psychologists to get into hot water by saying things like black people are less intelligent. Saying that it’s natural and functional for men to dominate women was not a big hit either.
Arguments about human nature have always been oversimplified. Are humans brutes or not? The archaeological evidence has arrived. Both sides are right. Early humans were brutes, but we are evolving from a brutal species to an egalitarian species. A feminist should not be upset by this. There are biological causes of the domination of women but cue the naturalistic fallacy here. Just because something is “natural,” that doesn’t mean we have to support it. And evolution is about change. Change is natural too.
Evolution is not just about physical characteristics. Cultural values evolve too. Humans are rapidly moving away from a core philosophy that values competition to a core philosophy that values cooperation. The competitive philosophy that once served us well is now obsolete. The old core philosophy that drastic inequality is necessary for survival is no longer convincing if it ever was, but cultural evolution without a conscious intervention is slow.
We are in a period of surplus now. There is no need to scratch and claw each other over bread, but cultural evolution is slow when left to what we used to call natural selection. We can use social science to predict where we are going and skip the long waiting period for natural selection to get there. We know that we are becoming more cooperative. One in four hunter-gatherer humans was killed in a violent confrontation. Here is a graph of war casualties over time. Here comes my argument for progress.




The two world wars created a temporary philosophical pessimism that is only now beginning to pass. Progressives went underground in the 80s. It is necessary to zoom out on the timeline of history to see the tremendous progress that we have achieved in the last two hundred years. Two hundred years is nothing compared to how long modern humans have been alive. It was common before WWI for people to believe that war was morally positive.
Progress is about more than using the physical sciences to discover ways to make consumer goods cheaper. Moral development is even more valuable. Social science is gold, and we value the physical sciences for better reasons now. We value the physical sciences for what they can do to accelerate social progress with advancements in medicine, public health, and clean energy. We no longer favor concentrating the physical sciences on competitive motives like war and empire-building. We are evolving morally.
Women in the U.S. could not vote until 1920. U.S. Senators were not elected by the popular vote until the seventeenth amendment passed in 1913. Until then, state governors appointed them. Senate seats were openly bought and sold by wealthy oligarchs. Unlike now, popular opinion considered selling congressional offices to be reasonable and morally acceptable. Slavery was legal and thought morally acceptable less than two hundred years ago. I could go on and on with examples of real progress that we take for granted. Here is a partial list from one of our political parties: These are not in chronological order.

Democrats Fought for Social Security (F.D.R.)
2) Democrats Fought for Medicare (L.B.J.)
3) Democrats Fought for Medicaid (L.B.J.)
4) Democrats Fought for Welfare Benefits (F.D.R.)
5) Democrats Fought for Civil Rights (L.B.J.)
6) Democrats Fought for Unemployment Insurance (F.D.R.)
7) Democrats Fought for National Labor Relations Board (F.D.R.)
8) Democrats Fought for 8 Hour Work Day-5 Day Work Week- Work Place Breaks & Overtime Pay (F.D.R.)
9) Democrats Fought for Workers Compensation (Woodrow Wilson)
10) Democrats Fought for Americans with Disability Act (101st Democratic Congress – over G.H.W. Bush veto)
11) Democrats Fought for Holiday Pay(F.D.R.)
12) Democrats Fought for Medical Leave Act (Bill Clinton)
13) Democrats Fought for Prevention of Child Labor (F.D.R.)
14) Democrats Fought for Minimum Wage Act (F.D.R.)
15) Democrats Fought for Work Place Safety (OSHA) *** (Nixon)
16) Democrats Fought for Affirmative Action as it relates to Racial Discrimination (J.F.K.)
17) Democrats Fought for Women’s Rights (L.B.J.)
18) Democrats Fought for Tax Fairness (Platform Issue)
19) Democrats Fought for Veterans Pay & Benefits (F.D.R.)
20) Democrats Fought for Consumer Protection / Consumer Bill of Rights (J.F.K.)
21) Democrats Fought for Gun Law’s / Background Checks to prevent felons from getting Weapons (L.B.J.) (B.Clinton)
22) Democrats Fought for Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights (Barack Obama)
23) Democrats Fought for Funding Our Schools (L.B.J.)
24) Democrats Fought for Grants for low-income people to attend college (L.B.J.)
25) Democrats Fought for Environmental Regulations – Clean Water Act / Clean Air Act (Dems Override Nixon Veto)
26) Democrats Fought for Financial Regulations keeping Wall Street Wizards Accountable (Dodd/Frank – Obama)
27) Democrats Fought for Affordable Health Care for Everyone (Obama Care)
28) Democrats Fought for Hate Crime Legislation (Matthew Shepard) (Barack Obama)
29) Democrats Fought for Children’s Health Legislation for 11 Million Children without Health Care (Barack Obama)
30) Democrats Fought for Voting Rights Act (L.B.J.)
31) Democrats Fought for National Voter Registration (Bill Clinton)
32) Democrats Fought for Largest Deficit Cutting Plan in History (Bill Clinton)
33) Democrats Fought for Clayton Anti-Trust Act (Woodrow Wilson)
34) Democrats Fought for Securities & Exchange Act (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
35) Democrats Fought for National School Lunch Program (Harry Truman)

Social progress is real. The physical sciences advanced faster than the social sciences because the physical sciences are more straightforward than the social sciences. (Cue the philosophy of science of Thomas Kuhn) Math never changes. A sociological theory is harder to test than the theory of relativity.
The social sciences are also held back by a dominant, wealthy class of oligarchs who fear social sciences progress. They can slow it down but not reverse it. The needs of the many will win out in the long run.
Back to the central thesis: When people argue about contemporary social policy issues, they are subconsciously serving and confirming their beliefs about social stratification. If a voter believes that a society stratified by a stable pecking order and not a lot of upward mobility is a good thing, that will drive all of their votes on all of the other issues. If you believe that too much equality will weaken a nation, then you will vote against affirmative action and find another rationalization as an excuse. If you think that a highly stratified society is dysfunctional, you will vote for affirmative action and use some other rationalization besides rankism to justify your vote because the process is subconscious.
Social Dominance Theory describes the problem. The solution is political education that includes Social Dominance Theory and political psychology to expose the core philosophical dispute and address it directly. Once a politically literate voter knows that it’s all about rankism, political arguments can focus on the fundamental philosophical divide instead of dancing around wedge issues with blunt rhetorical force and political spin that involves deception.
When confronting a voter about an issue, ask them to think about what they believe about social rank. When the contradictions emerge, you know what to do. Plant that little seed that will grow in the future after they have processed the cognitive dissonance. They will never agree with you on the spot, but the seed will germinate. It takes time.
Where does rankism originate? Social scientists disagree, but they all agree that it is a powerful force. Most agree that it is evolving away. Most social scientists are egalitarian. The others commit the naturalistic fallacy of believing that just because something is “natural,`” it must be good. Rankism is natural, but it is evolving away. Rankism is primitive, just like slavery.
“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on this earth to rise above.” That is a quote from “The African Queen” and my favorite image of the naturalistic fallacy. Hepburn told Bogart to stop drinking whiskey. Bogart said drinking is natural. You can’t mess with Katharine Hepburn.
My opinion is that the drive for social stratification used to be hard-wired and is now soft-wired. It comes solely from the drive to reproduce and throw our genes into the future at the expense of other people’s genes. Natural selection. Genetic competition on a subconscious level. Being natural does not make that right or even a good idea. Even the things that used to be necessary for the health of the species have changed.
We still select mates for physical characteristics that make good hunter/gatherers. We will soon pick compassionate mates, not ruthless money chasing sociopathic males and cold women with large breasts. We will not be attracted to people who hoard wealth that they will never need because we will understand that such primitive behavior comes from insecurity. A modern society with a strong safety net reduces fear and uncertainty. Hoarding no longer feels necessary. After Capitalism, excessive competitive behavior and hoarding will result in a referral to a psychiatrist.
We have a long way to go. An excellent strategy is to teach political literacy and include Social Dominance Theory. You can graduate from H.S. without social science proficiency, but you can’t graduate without a lot of other mandatory stuff that is less important. More social science is needed. Physical science does not have to suffer.
J.D. Phillips MSW LCSW 2020

For more information on S.D.T., read “Social Dominance Theory,” by Jim Sidanius.

The argument that the Republican Party of today is anything but conservative. Click to read the short paper.

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WANT PROOF THAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS THE OPPOSITE OF CONSERVATIVE? Joe Phillips LCSW

Conservative philosophy is supposed to be about doing the safe thing. Don’t take unnecessary chances. Build your house on the rock, not on the sand. Most rural people are of good character. Conservative means frugal to them, fiscally conservative. Not hell-bent for leather, high risk for high profit, etc. Look at the way the Republican leadership acted in the virus. Democrats chose a conservative strategy. Play it safe. Republicans threw caution to the wind to maximize corporate profits. The Republican Party is the opposite of conservative.

Examples: Republicans appeal to emotion over rational thinking. That is the opposite of conservative. Look at Republican campaign spin. They appeal to the primitive side of human nature. “The other tribes are coming to kill us.” “Build a wall,” etc.

Republicans act impulsively. That is not conservative. A conservative strategy to solve a problem would be cautious. Hold back until we have all the facts and implement a measured response.

Republicans double down after a loss. That is not conservative. Doubling down feels good emotionally, but only fools do it impulsively. Doubling down is not a good business strategy. “We lost a fortune on widgets this month. Buy twice as many widgets next time so we can make it up.”

Let’s use hypothetical situations. You are late to work, and a train is coming to the intersection up ahead. Would a conservative risk beating the train? Your gut says go. Your head says it’s not worth it. The last part, the most advanced part of the human brain to evolve, is the frontal cortex behind the forehead. That is where the brakes are. We have solid experimental results showing Republican college students scoring lower on IQ tasks that utilize the brakes.

You make $50,000 a year. The bank will loan you $200,000 for a mortgage. Do you buy a $200,000 or a $100,000 house? Conservatives don’t stretch budgets. Conservatives hate debt. A conservative would buy a $75,000 home, make double payments, and pay it off in 7 years instead of 30. He/she would then have a $75,000 equity to put down on a better home if they want to. Conservatives can count money. Conservatives understand opportunity cost.

There is a math test on Monday. You planned to study all weekend. Your buddies want to drink. The conservative argument is that it’s not worth it. It’s conservative to delay gratification. Being able to delay gratification is possible when your brain has evolved up to a higher developmental level.

Susie is super hot but unstable. Do you marry her? Do you let her be the mother of your children? What would be the conservative thing to do?

Smoking makes no sense to conservatives. Republicans have always sided with big tobacco.

Conservatives would never go without car insurance or medical insurance. Republicans opposed mandatory car insurance and medical insurance. Conservatives would never rationalize playing it fast and loose with medical risk by saying, “I’m young, and I won’t get sick.” The Republican Party still opposes public sector universal health care, the most cost-efficient and risk-averse form of coverage. Republicans still oppose helmet laws for motorcycle riders. That is not conservative.

Would a conservative eat at a fast-food stand in a country that did not provide universal health care and paid sick days for food handlers?

Would a conservative support a healthy federal unemployment program or just hope that they never get fired from a job, even though most people live very close to one or two paydays from bankruptcy?

Would a conservative favor a risky private-sector IRA stock market retirement system or a no-risk public-guaranteed social security system backed by the federal government?

Would a conservative start a war to secure oil for the US, or would he/she favor developing renewable energy sources that don’t fry the earth?

You are a conservative parent of a 16-year-old daughter. You know that the odds of sex happening are high. Do you give her birth control or risk a pregnancy? What is a safe strategy? Bending to not break is conservative. Think. She will be 18 in 24 months. You will have no control then. The risk is not worth 24 months of control. Conservatives can count. They understand trade-offs and opportunity costs. Conservatives play chess, not poker.

Conservatives judge you by what you do, not by what you say. Trump played it fast and loose. He went bankrupt four times. Is he a conservative? Would you loan him money? His business plan is to borrow as much money as possible, run up massive bills, refuse to pay the bills, and write off the debt in bankruptcy. Not conservative. That is not building your business on a rock. That is building your business on the sand.

Wall Street is the opposite of conservative. Realistic mortgages on single-family homes by local bankers who know the lender are conservative. Bundled up junk mortgages, derivatives, leveraged debt scams, credit default swaps, and other “creative” financial products are the opposite of conservative. Casino capitalism is not conservative. That’s why the banks keep crashing. That’s why they crashed in 1929. Too much leveraging. In 1929, you could buy stocks for 10% down and borrow 90%. Think. Which is frugal? Which is risk-averse? Which is the most conservative philosophy, Capitalism or Democratic Socialism? A universal safety net is good for Wall Street.

BTW, those new “innovative” financial products are not too complex to understand. That’s what the brokers want you to think. They are just ways to gamble. Derivatives are simply a bet on something that you expect to go up or down. It doesn’t even have to be a bet on something related to the product or the market involved. You might as well bet on how many runs the Cardinals score in a month. Wall Street bookies can calculate the odds with a computer and take a slice if you win or lose. Wall Street hires mathematicians for a reason.

So this isn’t anything like conservative Capitalism. What would conservative Capitalism resemble? Can we still go to the casino? Yes, but not until we pay the rent. What would be a short term reform strategy short of full-on Socialism?

Here comes my pitch. Firewall Economics is a soft landing for hardcore Capitalism. Conservative Capitalism can live with FE. If Capitalism and Socialism went to arbitration, FE would be the compromise that both sides could feel comfortable signing on to. FE, in a nutshell, sounds like Socialism for necessities and Capitalism for everything else. The Public Sector protects markets for necessities, but the Public Sector leaves all of the other markets alone. Public Sector protections would gradually expand over time, but only necessities receive protection in the short term.

FE is all about the deprivatization of markets for necessities. It removes the profit motive from markets for necessities. There can be no profit on medical care, but obscene profits on second homes and speed boats are allowed. The incremental implementation of public sector market protections makes it easy for investors to move investment capital from necessities to other markets. There are plenty of profitable markets that don’t involve the exploitation of necessities.

How do we define a Desperate Human Necessity? Rule of thumb: If you can not refuse to buy whatever it is, no matter what, it’s probably a necessity. If the seller has you over a barrel, it’s probably a necessity. If the seller quotes you a high price and you can’t walk away, it’s probably a necessity. Here is the formal definition for a Desperate Human Necessity in FE.

“A Desperate Human Necessity is any good or service that a consumer can not refuse to buy, at an exorbitant price, without borrowing money that they can’t afford to repay.”

The going into debt part is especially relevant to the payday loan industry. Predatory lending disables the economic law of supply and demand. Classical economic theory did not anticipate predatory lending. Once a seller begins to charge more than consumers can afford to pay, the seller should be forced to reduce the price or go out of business. Classical economic theorists did not imagine that lenders would loan money to borrowers that the borrowers clearly could not afford to repay. Modern Capitalists invented debt traps. Banks lend money to consumers who can not afford to repay the debt. That allows sellers to extort exorbitant prices from low-income consumers in markets for desperate necessities.

A single mother in a rural trailer court works at Walmart. Her heating oil seller triples the price of heating oil. He has a monopoly in the area. She can’t afford it. She borrows money from a payday lender and becomes entangled in a debt trap run by corporate loan sharks. The seller makes three times the fair profit. The payday lender thrives by loaning her loan after loan to cover the first loan. The business plan of the predatory lender is not to get paid back. The business plan is to be owed as much money as possible. Predatory lenders can bundle that bad debt and sell it to investors because investors know that once the debt bubble pops, the US government will bail them out. Too big to fail etc. FE protects markets for desperate necessities from scams like that.

You have been reading a little primer on Firewall Economics. I started by arguing that the Republican Party of today is the opposite of what most Main Street Republicans think of when they identify with a conservative philosophy. I then made the argument that FE is actually closer to the values of rank and file conservative Republicans than the hell-bent for leather capitalism of today.

FE has a free website where I explain the economic model in more detail, but it’s written for the general public. It’s not heavy and thick—no fuzzy math. My university professors warned me never to use the term common sense, but FE feels like common sense. Wall Street can make money in so many markets for goods and services that don’t put people over a barrel. Leave desperate necessities alone. Make money somewhere else.

firewalleconomics.com

The Achilles Heel of the GOP

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The Origins of the Build a Wall Trick.

All political education should start with the hard fact that there is an adversarial relationship between labor and capital. It’s so easy to prove. You can do it with history or statistics, but you can also do it with a simple Socratic question. Ask any worker is they believe that corporate profits and employee wages go up at the same time? Workers know that higher salaries cut into profits. That’s an adversarial relationship. Point out how management behaves. If management believed that workers and owners were in the same boat, they would raise wages as high as possible and expect soaring profits. People know that the relationship is adversarial. They have been smothered with so much propaganda about a rising tide lifting all boats that they ignore what they already know. We don’t go into a salary negotiation expecting the employer to persuade us to accept more money. We know the truth.
When republicans play the fear of immigrant labor card, Democrats need to have the guts to say that the adversarial relationship exists. After that is established, it’s easy to channel the anger away from globalized labor and onto globalized capital, where it belongs. Republican spin doctors have convinced the Democratic leadership that the adversarial relationship is the third rail of progressive politics. Until the Democratic leadership has the guts to say that recognizing the adversarial relationship does not make you a communist, the Republican spin machine will continue to laugh and push us to the extreme right.
The blind spot around the adversarial relationship was how Republican leaders were able to outflank Hillary Clinton on the left. Working-class voters heard populist talk from Trump and went for it. Trump could not have done that if working-class Democrats knew that there is an adversarial relationship between Wall Street and Main Street. To understand the history, the opposition of Republican vs. Democratic platforms, a voter has to understand the adversarial relationship. All Republican tactics fail after that.
Why do you think Republican strategists deny the adversarial relationship so vigorously? All they have to do is say, “Marx said that” and Democratic strategists run for cover. Point out that corporate executives believe that Marx was right about the adversarial relationship. Look at what they do, not what they say. Companies pay the lowest wages that they can, not the highest. They don’t invest in their employees. They squeeze every bit of labor out of them for the smallest possible wage and benefit package.
Democratic strategists get fooled into haggling over single issues when they should be going after the Achilles Heel of the Republican Party: The adversarial relationship. Republican strategists are evil geniuses. They make up controversial issues that they have no interest in at all as a trick to deplete Democratic resources with diversionary tactics. People read the morning news, see something ridiculous, and say, “OMG! They can’t do that.” Then they spend valuable organizational resources chasing after a wedge issue like a dog chasing a tennis ball. There are only so many hours in a week. We can’t put all of these fires out while neglecting the primary source of the fire, the adversarial relationship between labor and capital. Please DNC, stop listing to “professional strategists” and lobbyists who have no real interest in exposing the source of the problem.
https://firewalleconomics.com/my-book-firewall-economics-political-literacy-for-democrats/

The real reason that college graduates vote with the Democrats.

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The real reason that far more college graduates become Democrats.

As more and more people go to college, they become politically literate. They vote with the Democrats because the Democrats historically defend the moral high ground. That is a good thing. We want our new graduates to hold the door open for more upwardly mobile people who will come after them. Democrats vote for laws that help working-class people get an education. Republicans do the opposite.
The more education that the voter has, the more likely the voter is to vote with the Democrats. That is true. Republican spin doctors have used this statistic to paint the Democrats as the party of the elite. It works. What Republicans do not do is distinguish between educational achievement and economic achievement. There are many measures of upward mobility.
Point number two: Teaching real political literacy in HS is taboo, but not in college. College is about making decisions rationally, not emotionally. Weak Republican spin does not work on people who can do that. Educated people read history. They know that the Republican Party has never been the party of working people. Educated people don’t fall for trickle-down economics. They don’t fall for appeals to racism and fear of immigrants. They know that Republicans use wedge issues and identity politics to get working-class voters to vote against their own political and economic self-interest. They understand that a universal public safety net helps everyone, workers, and owners.
You don’t have to go to college to become politically literate. Libraries are free. Here is my free book on political literacy. It has 100,000 hits. Change is here. We can do this.

Blue Collar Firewall Economics-Political Literacy for Democrats-Click the link.

The real reason that college graduates choose the Democratic Party.

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The real reason that far more college graduates become Democrats.

As more and more people go to college, they become politically literate. They vote with the Democrats because the Democrats historically defend the moral high ground. That is a good thing. We want our new graduates to hold the door open for more upwardly mobile people who will come after them. Democrats vote for laws that help working-class people get an education. Republicans do the opposite.
The more education that the voter has, the more likely the voter is to vote with the Democrats. That is true. Republican spin doctors have used this statistic to paint the Democrats as the party of the elite. It works. What Republicans do not do is distinguish between educational achievement and economic achievement. There are many measures of upward mobility.
Point number two: Teaching real political literacy in HS is taboo, but not in college. College is about making decisions rationally, not emotionally. Weak Republican spin does not work on people who can do that. Educated people read history. They know that the Republican Party has never been the party of working people. Educated people don’t fall for trickle-down economics. They don’t fall for appeals to racism and fear of immigrants. They know that Republicans use wedge issues and identity politics to get working-class voters to vote against their own political and economic self-interest. They understand that a universal public safety net helps everyone, workers, and owners.
You don’t have to go to college to become politically literate. Libraries are free. Here is my free book on political literacy. It has 100,000 hits. Change is here. We can do this.

Blue Collar Firewall Economics-Political Literacy for Democrats-Click the link.

If we are free then how can they force us back to work at jobs that will kill us?

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We are slaves. That is the big secret. The oligarchs live in fear that we will discover that fact. Capitalism runs on a form of slavery. The primitive dark side of human nature encourages alpha males to enslave others to maintain social stratification.
Slavery is evolving away. As humans become more intelligent, they resent enslavement, and they revolt. As humans progress, the form of slavery changes from overt brutal domination to more subtle arrangements. Debt traps and wage slavery have replaced metal chains and shackles.
Oligarchs fear that workers will discover that they are not free. That is why neoliberal propaganda is all about “freedom.” The Republican Party is all about the myth of freedom. The right spins and frames the left as a threat to freedom when the opposite is true.
People sense their oppression, but it confuses them. They resent being tied to a factory or an office. Workers feel restrained when they cannot be where they want to be and do what they want to do. We have to ask permission to be away from work for a day. We are not free to express our opinions when working. Employers tell us what to wear and when to eat. Some of us still need permission to go to the bathroom. We are no more free to run away than a slave in the 1800s.
We cannot quit our jobs until we find another one. We can leave the plantation only after we take up another yoke from a different master. Employers keep us on a tight rope as we cope with debts, bills, and uninterrupted expensive private medical insurance.
We are slaves to debt. Oligarchs raise prices for desperate human necessities to the point that they are not affordable, forcing the consumer into a classic debt trap. We must borrow money that we cannot afford to repay to buy things that we cannot refuse to buy. We become slaves to the bank. Debtors and wage slaves cannot revolt. You can’t strike the plantation when the plantation controls your food and access to medical treatment. You can’t strike the plantation when you owe the plantation more money than you can ever repay.
Capitalism dies without some form of slavery. Capitalism runs on slavery. The oligarchs know that working people are still under a form of slavery. They fear that voters will wake up and redistribute political power. That is why the oligarchs desperately block democracy by whatever means necessary. They know that they cannot stop democratic progress, only delay it. Democracy breaks through one layer of oppression at a time. There are more of us then there are of them. A handful of old white men control half of all of the wealth in the US. The dam is breaking now. I can hear the cracking sound.

Identity Politics vs. Economic Priorities. The argument for a concentrated offensive. Avoid single-issue stealth candidates. JD Phillips, LCSW.

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Progressives that see economic reform as priority one hate identity politics. They agree with all of the movements to reform racism, sexism, homophobia, environmentalism, etc., but they know that the Republican strategy is to divide and conquer. Here is my slogan for the economics first argument.

Wedge issues are the meat that Fascists throw to the angry dogs that are catching up to them. Don’t vote for a Corporate Democrat who will put economic reform on the back burner to promote a single issue that Wall Street can afford to lose and stay in power.

Republicans use wedge issues to divide the left. The only counter-argument to the economic priority argument is that the left can walk and chew gum at the same time. Can we? Is that the best strategy?

The counter-argument to walk and chew gum is that revolutionary energy is finite. If progressives volunteer time and money to separate movements that put economic reform on the back burner, there is less energy available to reform Capitalism and fight poverty.

Wedge issue campaigns attract people who are not progressive, and that weakens the movement for economic reform. You do not have to be progressive to be against racism, sexism, homophobia, environmental degradation, etc.

Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Basic needs should come first. We need to fix the weakest link before we move on. That is the most efficient use of finite revolutionary energy. Wedge issues jump right over basic fundamental needs. Every diverse group should have equal respect, both interpersonal and institutional, but it is even more important to feed everyone first.

For example. A strategy for 2020. CONCENTRATE reform energy and resources on universal health care. After we get it, we can concentrate all of our resources on the next most fundamental battle. Maybe fixing the tax code or getting rid of the electoral college. The left should attack one target at a time. We have more resources than the right only if we concentrate them.

Notice that Wall Street loves to fund wedge issue stealth candidates in the Democratic primary race to peel votes away from Progressives like Bernie. You get a woman who is a corporate Democrat, a gay person who is a corporate Democrat, a person of color who is a corporate Democrat, an environmentalist who is a Corporate Democrat, etc. Each stealth candidate peels 5% away from the Progressive base, even though they are not progressive.

The issue of economic justice is the Achilles heel of radical Capitalism. Radical Capitalism can survive the loss of all of these wedge issues, but it can not survive fundamental economic reform.

Conclusion. Please vote as you always do for all of these important issues, but don’t vote for a corporate Democrat just because of their sex, gender, stand on abortion, gun policy, or any other single issue that puts economic justice on the back burner. Unregulated Capitalism is the cause of all these other problems. Single issue campaigns only treat the symptoms. That’s why Republican strategists love them. Economic reform attacks the core problem. Firewall Economics is a good start. firewalleconomics.com


Here comes another epidemic. Universal health care anyone?

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An epidemic is a slam dunk argument for Medicare for All and every other progressive policy.

Even a billionaire can die if the sick kid that makes his burger can’t see a doctor. Not only that, if the kid can’t get a paid sick day, he will go to work sick. If a single mom with a minimum wage job can’t afford daycare, she will send her sick kids to school. Listen, people. We are a social species. What affects one person affects all of us. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who gets it. He wants to give us Medicare for all. The rest will cave. Vote in the primary. firewalleconomics.com

TAX POLITICAL ADS TO PAY FOR PUBLIC CAMPAIGN FINANCING

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That would be a big step toward getting the money out of politics. Candidates will spend $10,000,000,000, Ten Billion Dollars on TV spots in this election. Except for Bernie, the money comes from rich donors before being recycled into the pockets of Republican owned media companies. The media companies cycle it back to the rich. Put a 25% tax on the ads and use the money to pay for the public funding of campaigns. firewalleconomics.com

Republican Senators Please

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Virtue is better and cheaper than wine, but virtue is not free.

Whenever you find yourself confused by a mass of conflicting Machiavellian political trade-offs, the best strategy is to stop reasoning by cold calculation and rise above it. Lock your mind in a guilt-free political vacuum, do the right thing, and pray. How would you vote if this was your last day on earth? Your body will pass, but your vote will live forever.

Chess is combat by competitive cold calculation. Morality is cooperative. You can’t get to morality by cold calculation. Never play poker with a chess player, and never play chess with God.

Trump must have dirt on all of the Republicans.

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That’s how organized crime operates. The boss won’t let any underling have power without first making them do something illegal and/or doing something to them that can be used to keep them quiet. You can’t flip on the boss if you did a dirty deed for him. Trump probably gave dirty Russian money to all of the Republican legislators. It’s the end for the current group of Republican incumbents, but the rich oligarchs that control the party will just replace them with new candidates that will be more than ready to take the dirty money. Citizens United opened the door to organized crime.

How can MSNBC be impartial in this election? They live on advertisements from Drug Companies.

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Every other commercial on MSNBC is for an overpriced prescription drug. That must be half of their revenue. You won’t see much of Bernie Sanders on MSNBC because he will stop the private drug company scam on prescription drug prices. Election coverage should not be controlled by the Private Sector. Election information should be provided by the Public Sector. The US is so far to the right that we don’t even have Public Sector media. firewalleconomics.com

Parnas just implicated the whole Trump gang live on the air.

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Lev Parnas just confessed to Rachel Maddow on the air. He implicated Trump, Pence, Barr, and Rudy.

Now that we know that the corruption goes way deeper than Trump, we call on the Democrats to declare right now that the investigations will not stop after the November election. Even Obama refused to do that. We don’t want another “let’s just move on” after the Democrats regain power. Pence is guilty. Rudy is guilty. Barr is guilty. Keeping the investigations going after the election will punish the Republicans who refuse to impeach Trump is the face of all this evidence. The entire GOP probably got Russian money laundered through the NRA, and most of them think they go free after the election. If the Democrats close the investigations after the election that will prove that some of the corporate Democrats got some of that money too. My guess is that only Bernie is clean.

Trump just provoked Iran. Learn the real history of the conflict between the US and Iran.

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US oil companies and Republican politicians attack Iran. When Iran can sell oil, it lowers profits for US and Saudi oil. Iran drives oil prices down by increasing supply. Iran will not sell oil in dollars. That angers the US. Republican oil wars purposely drive up gas prices. Read history. US oil companies toppled the Iranian government over the oil.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-us-timeline.html

The Affordable Care Act is Not Public Healthcare. We Need a National Health Service.

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All wealth comes from the government. There are no self-made billionaires. Fortunes are made by coercing the government to help private businesses. It’s the power of the government that creates wealth. Many times that simply involves suspending the law or interpreting it in a way that favors one business over another.

All of the original US wealth came from the government bending the law to help a private business enterprise. The government looked the other way when the Astor family committed genocide and took furs from Indian land. The fur trade produced half of the original US wealth. The other half came from cotton profits by slavery. The source of wealth for the cotton plantations came from government inaction. It came from political corruption, not the thrift and innovation of plantation owners.

All wealth is still redistributed and maintained by political corruption, not by honest work or innovation. Wealthy individuals and corporations bribe legislators to bend the law. Government is the source of all political power, especially in a fiat economy. Wealth is simply a measure of political power, not some sort of physical asset. Contrary to Republican spin, wealthy oligarchs do not favor small government. They want the government to enforce laws that favor their economic interests and suspend laws that restrict their exploitation of the markets. The oligarchs know that small government is incompatible with Capitalism. Capitalism can not exist without a strong legal infrastructure. Contracts must be enforced or fiat wealth evaporates. Government is the source of all law. The Oligarchs preach anarchy over laws that restrict them while preaching law and order over laws that favor them.

The Private Sector is not more efficient than the Public Sector. The cost of a Public Sector project is simply the cost of providing the good or service. The cost of a Private Sector project is the cost of providing the good or service PLUS the cost of providing a profit to a Private corporate entity. What the Private Sector is implying is that government projects are less efficient because they contain an added cost for corruption. All corruption originates from the Private Sector. When the Private Sector leaves the Public Sector alone, the Public Sector is more efficient.

Social Security has a tiny overhead margin. 98% of all Social Security tax revenue is paid out in benefits. Private health care corporations have an administrative overhead and profit slice of about 25%. They make this “Profit” by bribing Congress to restrain the regulatory power of the law. All wealth comes from the government. The only thing to be decided is who the government helps, the Private Sector or the working class consumer. There IS an Adversarial relationship between Owners and Workers.

What can we do? The great compromise is Firewall Economics. We should offer FE to the Oligarchs. If they agree, the collapse of Capitalism gets a soft landing. If they don’t agree, they get the hard landing that is certainly predictable from a brutal and unsustainable economic system.

The Democratic Party Leadership is not elected. They can block Progressive Democrats. What should Progressives do? The Firewall Economics Blog.

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Elect the DNC
Silenced by the DNC

Click the blue link at the bottom for the full-text PDF file or just read it here. Leave a comment below.

How can we call our party the Democratic Party when we can’t elect the party leadership? Hang on. This one is tricky.

The party leadership has enormous power, and we can’t remove them when they promote Corporate Democrats. The potential for corruption is frightening. It’s probably not even illegal for Republicans to throw money at the DNC. Both political parties are private organizations, and party insiders can help or hinder individual candidates. Party leaders are gatekeepers who are not elected. They can’t make a president all by themselves, but they can stop a popular candidate from getting the Democratic nomination.
The DNC locked out Bernie Sanders in the last election. Who has the authority to investigate ballot stuffing and dirty tricks in primary elections? The DNC is a private club. I remember waiting all night on the results from a state primary race where Bernie and Hillary were just a few votes apart. At 3AM, Hillary suddenly got a few thousand votes and “won.” There was a lot of trickery in that primary.
The DNC runs the primary debates. They just announced that Elizabeth Warren doesn’t get to go head to head with the other front-runners in the first debate of 2019. Think of the power of that authority. The DNC is appointed by insiders. They can set the agenda. They can make sure that Democratic candidates don’t argue about Wall Street. They can focus on wedge issues like the Republicans do when they want to divert attention away from economic policy.
Over half of the Democrats in Congress are Corporate Democrats. All of the Republicans and half of the Democrats take dark corporate money. The Democratic Party can’t cleanse itself until the corporate wing is removed from the Democratic leadership. Public opinion has moved to the left of the Republican Party AND the Corporate Democrats. 75% of the voting public is locked out. The Republican Party is imploding into Fascism, but we can’t get real Democrats elected. The DNC is still blocking FDR Progressives like it’s 1980 when anything to the left of Reagan felt risky.
This is all just a rusty truckload of more proof that real Democracy has yet to evolve. It’s coming, but there are lots of important political decisions that are still shielded from public opinion by representative Democracy.
You can’t really vote against going to war. You can’t vote directly on who runs the Federal Reserve. You can’t vote directly against the appointment of a supreme court judge. If your wrong voting senator has 6 more years left before his/her next election, all will be forgotten by then. You can’t vote on who gets to run for president in a primary. That’s decided in back rooms by political professionals.
Even in a primary election, we can only vote for pre-selected candidates. We have to choose from the menu presented to us. 23 Democrats are running right now. Many of them are unknown. The DNC has the power to manipulate the situation to help Corporate Democrats, and we can’t change the leadership of the DNC, no matter what they do.
Many of those 23 Democratic candidates are probably secretly funded by Wall Street. That’s what I would do if I were a corporate billionaire. With no more enforceable limits on campaign contributions, the Koch Brothers can slip millions under the table to dozens of phony candidates. That chips away at the base of a legitimate front-runner.
If a Progressive like Bernie Sanders is running a close race with a Corporate Democrat like Joe Biden, 6 long shot candidates with 2% of the vote can sink the legitimate Progressive candidate in a hurry when the phony Progressives sound authentic. 6 x 2%=12%. Unknown candidates can talk the Progressive talk, strip votes away from a real Progressive, lose, and melt away. We would never know if they were Progressive or not.
Only proven known candidates with a progressive voting record deserve our trust. It’s easy for an unknown candidate to declare themselves “The global warming candidate.” A slick unknown candidate could strip away a fraction of the Progressive base, lose, and retire with a big bag of cash from Republican donors. I think several obscure Democratic candidates are trying to do that right now.
The only way that the Democratic Party can defend against this big money strategy is to allow the Democratic leadership to be elected by individual party members, not by insider appointments. Don’t even get me started on superdelegates.
I anticipate the criticism that open elections would allow Republicans to register as Democrats and vote Corporate Democrats into the DNC. That’s a problem for sure, and if we don’t find a way to stop that, we’re doomed to slow incremental progress.
First of all, we already have Corporate Democrats running the DNC. To do nothing locks that in. Second, we could hold off until Republican leaders allow Republican voters to elect the Republican Party Leadership directly. The crossover would go both ways after that, but don’t hold your breath on the Republican Party embracing Democracy.
Although the Republicans did dump their superdelegates before the Democrats and that helped Trump. The Democrats still have superdelegates with limited power, but failing to block Trump with superdelegates is not an argument for keeping superdelegates in the DNC. We are the Democratic Party. Democracy is good.
So what can we do right now to get the Democratic Party leadership to stop selling out to dark corporate money and let the real Democratic base, the center-left, compete on a fair and even playing field in the Democratic primary?
I’m not a fan of third party campaigns. This is a two party system, and voting for a third party candidate throws your vote away. But we need to show the DNC that we refuse to be taken for granted while they pander to Republican voters. The ideal strategy is to bang the drums for a Progressive candidate until the last primary vote is counted. If a Corporate Democrat wins, then we hold our nose and vote against the Republican in the general election. That takes discipline that many voters don’t have. Lots of Bernie Sanders voters were so angry with the DNC for obstructing their candidate that they couldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton.
But even if every center-left Democrat has the discipline to do the “hold your nose and switch after the primary” strategy, the DNC can still see that coming. If they know the votes will be there anyway, they don’t need to make concessions.
The third party people make a good argument here. Maybe we need to see further ahead than one election at a time. I had to gulp to say that. We’re so predictable. It feels like we’re on The Price is Right. We bid $3.50 and the next guy bids $3.51. Maybe we need to dig in a shock the DNC by refusing to hold our noses for several hard elections. Republicans would win and do more damage, but the Progressive political philosophy would grow faster that way, just as it did under Trump.
I’m so frustrated. We have the popular vote to get real Democrats elected right now. Part of me wants to stay the course and wait for the DNC to move to the left gradually. The other part of me wants to shock the DNC into action by refusing to vote for Corporate Democrats entirely. For me, for now, it’s all about convincing the DNC to stop begging Republicans for votes.
The DNC can solve the problem all by themselves. How could a Progressive administration hurt them? A solid Progressive FDR style Democratic Party would be so strong. How could the current DNC leadership not want to be a part of that?
Many Corporate Democrats don’t even want to take dark money. They’re defensive. They only play the game because their Republican opponent does. With Progressives in power, Democrats would no longer need to match billionaire Republican donors. A Progressive Democratic Party would legislate dark money out of the system and implement publicly funded elections.
Write to Congress. The country is ready for what real Democrats have always wanted, an FDR style Democratic Party. We have the popular vote. Tell the DNC that all they have to do is declare victory and come home.

https://firewalleconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Elect-the-DNC-Blog-6-14-19-1.pdf

More Trump War Drums

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June 13, 2019

There’s another war scare in the news today. Trump really needs a war. They’re showing video of a small ship in the Persian Gulf with smoke rolling off the deck. We see two ships. They call them oil tankers, but they look small. If you read the actual text in the newspaper story, you know that they were carrying naphtha and ethanol, not oil, but people only read the headlines. They just look at the pictures and listen to the spin doctors.
Iran is not going to start a war that they can’t win. If one happens now, no matter what it looks like, it’s Trump. The problem is, even if you know it’s a setup, Trump and the Republicans don’t need your permission. They only need an excuse that Republican voters will want to believe. They need a lie that will stand only long enough for them to escape into criminal history. Reagan, Nixon, Bush I, Bush II, they all got away with it. Only the small fish got busted.
There was another incident recently in the same area when two ships collided or something. The story looked weak. It didn’t have legs. Two days ago, the entire TV screen looked like 9/11 at the exact same time that Congress ran live testimony with John Dean about the Trump scandals. A helicopter hard landed on top of a skyscraper a few blocks from Trump Tower. What timing. That blocked out all of the live TV coverage of John Dean testifying about Republican presidents doing criminal cover-ups. This morning we have another incident with fire and smoke. The Republican Party is distracting us from prosecuting them, and they intend to use a phony war to tip the election. I’m 64. I read history, and I know the Republican playbook.
Let me say something about what’s really going on with these oil wars. Oil wars make profits for defense contractors, but it’s more than that. Most people assume that oil wars are to keep the price of oil DOWN. Oil wars are to keep the price of oil UP, and they’re about making other oil producing nations sell oil in US dollars, not euros or any other currency.
Oil companies like it when oil wars become quagmires, not when they end. Oil wars reduce the supply of oil on the world market. That makes oil prices go up. If Iran can’t sell oil because of trade sanctions or an ongoing war, the supply restriction makes Saudi crude more expensive and profitable. Saudi Arabia and Iran are enemies. The US sides with the Saudis. We fight oil wars for the same Saudi Arabia that bombed us on 9/11. Republicans protect the Saudis because the Saudis sell oil in US dollars. Republicans only care about profits, not our national security.
The day after oil man Bush bombed Iraq, prices at the pump by my house tripled. Think about that. Oil prices jumped today when the media released today’s picture of a fire on a ship in the gulf. Trump is day-trading too. He knows he can move the markets with a crazy tweet. Trump can tip his inner circle ahead of the tweet, and they can buy or sell shares that will be affected. He can tip them off again before reversing himself so that they can jump off the pump and dump etc. They can make money on the way up and on the way down too.
Trading oil in US dollars never makes the news. It drives the world. Iran is one of the few remaining oil producers who refuse to sell oil in US dollars. Forcing oil-producing nations to sell oil in dollars makes the US dollar stronger. The US uses its military power to force oil-producing countries to trade oil in dollars. US foreign policy is not about promoting Democracy, it’s about US gunboat diplomacy. Republican administrations are all wrapped up in big oil. They’ll sleep with the devil and or Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices and profits high. They’ll use economic sanctions to keep Venezuela from selling oil so they can trick starving people into a Fascist takeover of the democratically elected Socialist government.
There are many reasons that Trump and the Republicans are trying to maneuver us into a war. The election, oil prices, fighting Iran for Saudi Arabia, Trump day-trading his manufactured crisis, etc. The Republican Party would love to force a vote in Congress over going to war in Iran or somewhere else so they can paint Progressive Democrats as “weak.” These are dangerous times. Bush I was very unpopular right after he got elected. He tricked Iraq into invading Kuwait, and his popularity went up. Bush II stole his first election and lied us back into the same war. He actually said that his father ended it too quickly and that he should have extended it to his next election. That’s how Republicans roll, and Trump is going to do it again. He doesn’t need permission. All he needs is an excuse that his base wants to believe. The lie only has to last a few years. After that, when the lie is exposed, all of the Republicans and half of the Democrats will say we just need to move on.
George Carlin said that the US is an oil company with an army. Firewall Economics would stop that. National Defense should be Nationalized. See how silly that sounds? Private corporations shouldn’t be able to start wars. That’s not a radical idea. Republican President Eisenhower said that, but that was before the Republican Party went so far to the right that it’s no longer a stretch to accuse them of going Fascist.
This Republican Fear Strategy needs to stop before we see a mistake or an accident. There is no existential threat to the US. The US can vaporize the planet with the push of a button. We constructed our massive military deterrent to enable us to relax and enjoy a long peaceful existence. Republicans attack our peace of mind so that Republican politicians and corporate billionaires can implement their evil scheme to advance a Neo-fascist political and economic agenda. I call that treason. America could have done a lot for the world after WWII, but we blew it. Worshiping unregulated Capitalism was our biggest mistake. Future nations will avoid that dead end.

The Republican strategy is desperate and short game now. This is proof that the Reagan revolution is over.

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In 1980 the Republican party constructed “conservative” think tanks to promote the Reagan Trickle Down Revolution. They were successful because they played the long game. They turned up the heat slowly on the boiling frog. We suffered through “conservative” rule across four decades. But now, their every move is desperate and double down. They know it’s over. We are in a position now to make fantastic gains against the right. We will finally win a modern social infrastructure. Republican power brokers know that. They are just trying to stall as long as possible. Their plan is to get corporate Democrats elected over Progressive Democrats. That strategy will only work on older voters. The bad news is that my social work profession was pinned down through my entire career.

Know the Republican Media Strategy- Click Here

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REPUBLICAN MEDIA SPIN. WEDGE ISSUES.

Republican spin doctors use WEDGE ISSUES to divide Democratic voters and divert attention away from what the election should really be about: Wall Street Oligarchs blocking Democracy. Here are some wedge headlines from today’s paper. You won’t see many stories about bank fraud.

Now understand: It doesn’t matter what side the story takes. The idea is to simply remind both sides that they are divided on that issue. Get them talking about XYZ, not things that are actually a danger to the 1%. (Money, fair taxes, spending on the social infrastructure etc.) The Republican owned media sets the agenda for debate. Today’s headlines below. (Most people only read the headlines, not the text. The headline image is everything)

-“How the white male presidential candidates are trying to prove their racial bona fides” (Designed to pit Men against Women and Black/Minorities against White)

-“Several of Biden’s 2020 rivals are quick to highlight his reversal on federal funding for abortions. (Catholic vs Protestant, Men vs Women, Pro Choice vs anti-Abortion)

-“Democrats on the defensive as abortion foes ask if party tolerates their views.” (Defensive word implies that democrats are wrong about something. Divides Catholic vs Protestant, Men vs Women, Pro Choice vs anti-Abortion)

-”Border apprehensions are up more than 1,000 percent since April 2017.” (Fear mongering. Designed to divide Democrats on Immigration. Racism here too. But this one rubs Catholic voters the wrong way too. Not a good move.)

-”A Sikh airman petitioned the Air Force to let him wear a turban and a beard. He just won.” (Racism Racism Racism. Immigration etc. See how it’s worded to incite?)

-”Wrong, plain and simple’: 50 years after Stonewall raid, New York City’s police commissioner apologizes.” (Gay vs Straight. Remember, it doesn’t matter what side the story takes, the idea is to keep the debate around issues that are supposed to divide us.)

-”It’s LGBT pride month, but three guys in Boston want a permit for a ‘Straight Pride’ parade.” (Blatant provocation. Gay vs, Straight.)

Learn about wedge issues and ignore them when you vote. And beware of single-issue candidates. https://firewalleconomics.com/my-book-firewall-economics-political-literacy-for-democrats/

The Face Of Fascism in Brazil

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Here is a list of nations that got infected with Fascism. WWII did not stop it. We need to educate our youth and show them what to watch for and what to do.

Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Japan, Thailand, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, South Africa.

CUBAN NATIONAL CIRCUS

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Here is a link to a story about the Cuban National Circus. http:// https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/lifestyle/magazine/amp-stories/cuban-national-circus/

The Public Sector has a long history of bringing art to the public. Without the profit motive, the quality of art improves. In this digital age where art and intellectual “property” can be copied and shared, the question arises: How do artists get paid. Musicians can’t sell CDs anymore. I write books. I put them online and give them away. I don’t need to be paid but other writers and musicians and artists do. The answer is for the Public Sector to pay artists a stipend in exchange for making the product free to the public. Give artists and creators financial security so that art and all information can be free.