My students' inspring engineering projects on Tolerance

Hi everyone,

  I have been wanting to write so may blogs lately to address all sorts of issues that have been on my mind.  I also have wanted to stick to inspiring and hopeful subjects.  I have wanted to write a blog which I will call "Hope and Patriotism in the time of Trump" but last school year I was too busy, over the summer I was too busy, and now a new school year has begun.

  Our first day back at work we watched a video of one of our students - a second grade girl - who likes to memorize speeches.  She recited MLK's "I have a dream" speech with adorable passion.  I broke down crying watching it because that morning, after a blissful week of camping with my family, I had driven to school listening to the news about Charlottesville.  Here we were, 50 years after MLK gave that speech (and his life) and we have exhibitions of hate like this.  It hit me harder than I expected.

  Well the incredible kids I get to teach do give me hope and I am proud to have a job where I get to help guide them on their path to becoming positive change makers.  So I thought this would be an appropriate time to share the project they did last spring in my class.

  They had a semester 'expedition' called Being Human in which they studied in Science things like human evolution, genetics, and neurology.  In Humanities they studied world religions, philosophy, the Holocaust, and tolerance.  For their final product they were tasked with creating  creating an interactive kinetic sculpture which played on the theme of Tolerance.  Throughout the process students really grappled with engineering challenges and often had to redesign and work through failures and road blocks.  The learning was rich and the end products were incredible.  The diversity of ideas and depth of thought that went into these pieces were inspiring.

  I have never worked harder as a teacher nor had as much fun.  Guiding 20 students through different engineering challenges - learning as we went - was intense.  It was also a blast to be able to use a skill saw in class everyday and to have students going at it with hammers and saws.  The most rewarding part was the process of working through the failures and coming out triumphant.

 I think looking at the photos and reading the artists statements is worth a look, especially today as we see so much hate.  Knowing that 7th grade students are thinking about xenophobia and fighting for LGBTQ rights (these kids do make their parents take them to protests on the weekends) is inspiring.  These are the leaders of tomorrow.

I have not shared a Google Folder before, I hope everyone can see these photos.  If not, let me know and I will post them on my blog,  I am hoping I can skip that step and save some time.

Towards Tolerance...

Danny

Here is the link to the folder...
Engineering Tolerance Project

Thoughts on Trump's first month

My reaction to Trump’s first month in office

 [In the past I have been criticized by friends and family for not providing my sources for all the statements I make in my blog.  What I have written here should be considered more of a brain dump than a research paper and I don’t have time to go through and hyperlink to sources.  If anyone is curious where I get my crazy ideas, I am happy to provide sources and back up my claims with facts upon request.]

Also, there is this discussion about whether or not we should give “Trump a chance” now that he is President.  Of course, he has a chance, he is in the White House, but that does not mean we should not speak out when we disagree with what he does.  I was in the street protesting against actions taken by both our previous presidents and expect I will be with this president as well. 

People also say the press is not being fair to him.  The job of the press should be to challenge the government.  That is what keeps them honest.  The Iraq war was an example when the press failed in their job in this regard.  So Trump should not complain.  It is ironic he says it is all fake news (CNN, BBS, NBC, New York Times, etc) while he embraces Fox News and Breitbart.  The other day Trump got into trouble for making claims about crime in Sweden caused by immigrants, as his source he sighted a sensationalistic story he watched on Fox News.  We know the media gets stories wrong, we know media is biased on both sides, but Trumps obsession with the news all being “fake” if it makes him look bad is just ridiculous.  He needs to grow up.

During the campaign I disagreed with nearly everything Trump promised to do so naturally I find myself in disagreement with what he is doing, since, to his credit, he is doing what he promised. However, it is not just what he is doing, but how he is going about doing it.  His lack of diplomacy is disturbing, his disregard for advice from professionals is worrying, and his lack of concern for what is factual is frightening. 

I was very upset with the Republicans in congress who made it their stated goal to block everything Obama tried to do when he was elected.  Hundreds of appointments never got confirmed, every piece of legislation was filibustered requiring a super majority to pass anything, they even shut the government down.  The talking points were that Obama was pushing a radical socialist agenda.  The truth is, Obama was a very moderate President.  He was far from liberal – he deported more people than any president, he presided over the biggest increase in domestic oil production in US history, he took single payer health care off the table before beginning to compromise with the Republicans, he authorized more drone strikes than any US president, he promoted free trade agreements, etc.   

Now the Democrats are in a tough place.  If they obstruct Trump, they will look like hypocrites, after complaining about Republican obstructionism.  But what Trump wants to do is so far to the right of the political mainstream that the energized liberal leaning base of the Democratic party is demanding the Democrats do just that – obstruct!  This is a major flaw in the way the two party system is working out in our country.  Especially with gerrymandering, which is allowing congress to get increasingly polarized.  A Mitt Romney or Lindsey Graham administration would be far less worrying and probably would have less Democratic opposition.

Of course as we can see, politicians leading from the center have failed to do enough to reign in corporate power and to help the working class.  A moderate Republican or Clinton presidency would have likely continued the status quo.  It is difficult to see a way out of our political dilemma.  Of course my hope is that reaction to Trump will pull the political pendulum back to the left. 

 I wrote most of this a couple weeks ago and of course everyday there is more to comment on.  I would like to be solution oriented, rather than just complaining, but it is important to be aware of what our government is doing and to analyze the effects of their actions so we can be informed voters.  As far as solutions, I think we need to organize, this could be one of the great outcomes of this election.  It was people in the street that helped force civil rights laws to be passed, to force the end of the Vietnam war, etc.  Also we need to take positive actions in our local communities.  If you want to help create jobs, buy local, and if you don’t care where you create jobs, at least buy fair trade.  Vote with your dollar.  Work towards making your community welcoming to immigrants, use less fossil fuels if you are worried about climate change, etc, etc.  It is time for the grassroots to grow what we want from the ground up because positive change is not likely to trickle down to us from the top any time soon. 

So thoughts on a few specific actions of Trump in these first few weeks:

Oil Pipelines/Fossil fool production:  Well, what can I say.  This is the issue I will take to the streets for.  (I marched on the White House to protest the Keystone XL pipeline while Obama was Pres.) Ramping up oil infrastructure when scientists warn us we must keep 80% of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate disruption is a crime against humanity and a crime against nature.  Plus, renewables are at the point of being cost competitive, are better for job creation, can decentralize and democratize energy production, and are cleaner throughout their life cycle than fossil fuels.  The argument we must ramp up coal mining to give coal miners jobs is just short sighted.  Teach coal miners to do other things.  There is a couple from Silicon Valley who have moved to coal country and using their own money have trained coal miners to code and create websites.  These ex-miners are landing tons of jobs with companies starved for tech help.  Just one example that could be replicated, if only our leader was inspired to do so.  When Trump signed an executive order to allow the Keystone XL pipeline he claimed it would create 28,000 construction jobs.  The State Department actually says it will only create 3,900 jobs for one year and only 35 permanent jobs

Lack of diplomacy:  Trump’s tweets about how Obama was too nice to Iran but Trump will not be.  This type of talk is exactly what can help hardliners in countries like Iran get elected.  Ayatollah Khomeini was just telling Iran that Donald is now showing Iran the true face of America.  By being a bully he is opening the door to leaders who will talk tough and stand up to America the Bully. This makes the world more dangerous.  While Trump says he is going to rid the world of terrorism and make us all safer, his style, his mouth, his tweets, his policies are all much more likely to make us less safe.  I can’t understand how anyone thinks otherwise, although I know some do. 

Heath Care:  Well this is one of the most classic Trump moments.  This weekend Trump was speaking to the nation’s governors.  He actually said:

"Now, I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated."

This is so classic.  Yes, Trump, we all knew it was so complicated, why do you think it took so long to get this passed by the Democrats. Trump has been promising a ‘better plan that will cover everyone and be less expensive’.  We can spend pages dissecting the reasons this cannot happen with any of Trumps ideas.  Basically the only way to do this is a single payer system, which in this country will even struggle to keep health care costs down because hospitals charge so much, drug companies charge so much, doctors get paid so much, etc.  Trump’s plan has been compared to all three current Republican plans in congress and his actually does worst than all three at reducing cost and expanding care. 

Job creation:

This is really what people elected him for.  I am not sure how serious he is about this.  I am sure he would like to create jobs and he boasts about the thousands here and the thousands there that he says he saved from moving to Mexico.  But job creation needs to happen in the millions.  If he is serious about creating jobs why not invest in renewable energy?  If he is serious about creating jobs why increase military spending while slashing the budget elsewhere.  Dollar for dollar, military spending is the worst possible place to spend the government’s money as far as job creation is concerned.  His attack on NAFTA and other trade deals will have winners and losers.  Many jobs could be lost.  For instance Mexico is the biggest foreign purchaser of US dairy products and without NAFTA it could be that dairy from places like New Zealand would be cheaper for Mexico to buy, costing US dairy farms billions of dollars.  I was against NAFTA but repealing it now is not necessarily beneficial to our economy.  And our country has been adding jobs under Obama (and decreasing illegal immigration) so he does not really need to do much to claim job growth.  But what kinds of jobs are we talking about.  The struggle of the working class comes more from low wages and underemployment (part time work) than unemployment.  By the people Trump has chosen to lead the economy and department of labor I have little hope he is going to create living wage jobs for people. 

His nominees: 

Trump has complained that he can’t get his cabinet confirmed.  He is the one who chose controversial people for every cabinet post, of course the confirmation for these people will not be smooth.  Also many of them had not filled out their conflict of interest documents and other items needed for vetting on time.  And some are pulling out due to conflicts of interest, others have turned down the position. 

  I have blogged about them before.  Putting an enemy of public education in charge of the Department of Education, a Wall Street banker who enriched himself while earning the nickname the ‘Foreclosure King” as Treasury Secretary, a fast food CEO charged with labor and safety violations in charge of the Department of Labor, someone with a history of suing the EPA in charge of the EPA, someone who once said he would get rid of the Department of Energy in charge of the Department of Energy, and someone who has fought against civil rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, gay rights, in charge of the Department of Justice – well I suppose this is Trump’s prerogative and elections have consequences.  Not much we can do but speak out against them, hope they surprise us, and if they don’t, say I told you so, and hope people are paying attention and vote differently next time! 

Sure seems like Trump’s goal is to dismantle the very parts of the government that are meant to protect the people from the corporate quest for making as much money as possible.  If I give Trump the benefit of the doubt I would think that perhaps these people who seem critical of the very departments they are in charge of, will be the right people to find ways to scale back the bureaucracies that have built up over time.  Of course I would trust them to do this more if I believed they believe in the mission of their departments. 

“Immigration Ban” – I watched a conservative blogger talk about how great this was and how Trump executed it perfectly and how it was such a common sense thing and how Obama made the list of countries so why are liberals all whining about it and the liberals are just still upset they lost the election and that is the only reason they are in the street protesting.   This demonstrates how we can live in two different realities, because I see it all just the opposite.  Obama made the list and probably increased the vetting process for these countries.  Nothing wrong with that and that is not what Trump did.  If Trump had said he is halting issuing NEW visas until his admin can review the vetting process I would not complain.  But the way he did this, overnight stopping anyone from coming who is not a citizen, was just stupid.  Green card holders could not return home after visiting family or going on a business trip.  People who had visas issued after years of vetting, could not be reunited with their families.  Something like 100,000 visas were revoked.  And all this in the name of making us safer.  Ironically it was more likely to make us less safe.  The bad publicity this gave us was the perfect recruiting tool for ISIS.  It also showed a total lack of understanding of the terrorist threat.  The vast majority of terrorist attacks here at home have been from US citizens who have been radicalized via the internet – not affected by this ban.  Look at the backlash from US corporations who have said this will hurt the economy and make it less likely for tech companies to start businesses here in the US or US diplomats, past bipartisan cabinet officials, and State Department officials who have said this makes us less safe.  This was amateur time in the White House.  And to justify it Trump and his team continue to make up lies.  (ie: Bowling Green Massacre)  And Trump says the media is covering up and failing to report terrorist attacks to downplay the threat!  What?  His list of underreported events included attacks overseas that did not even kill anyone to San Bernardino, which was clearly heavily reported on.  Alternate reality.  His list was also exclusively attacks by Muslims on non-Muslims.  Clearly a list created to stoke fear of a particular group of people. 

Supreme Court:  again, this is one of those consequences from the election.  Trump made public a list of conservative judges vetted by the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society – and he was elected and now chose someone from that list.  Gorsuch, while not the worst on the list, is certainly (if he sticks to his past record) going to swing the court in favor of corporate rights over human rights.  We are just gonna have to suck this up.  I strongly believe we would be better off if Presidents would nominate Judges from the center of the ideological spectrum, rather than the fringes.  Obama tried to do this a year ago by nominating Garland and the Republicans played politics with that appointment and won.  This is a consequence of the election that will last decades.  Shame on the Democrats for not making it a bigger issue during the campaign. 

Voter Fraud:  More alternative facts from the team Trump on this one.  3 – 5 million illegal voters in the last election with no proof of a single one.  Trump came up with a list of voter rolls that have people who should not be registered, like people registered in two states. (turns out half his family were registered twice – classic).  Again – if he had said he wants to improve the voter rolls, great, claiming that there is widespread voter fraud – not true.  Just this weekend a Trump surrogate was repeating the false claim that voters were bussed across state lines to vote twice.  Of course widespread voter fraud has been a claim made by republicans for ages and has been used to pass stricter voting laws like voter ID laws.   So I would expect that when Trump comes out with his report on the topic that he will recommend making it more difficult for people to vote, because we know this affects poor voters more than wealthy voters.  Everyone from Federal Judges to Republican politicians have called these voter ID laws out for what they are – clearly intended to suppress the vote with no evidence of a problem they are trying to solve.  In fact in Texas the voter ID laws were ruled unconstitutional by federal judges.  Texas appealed and not Jeff Sessions is dropping the fed’s case so even though they won, looks like the law may be allowed to stand, no surprise considering Sessions’ record on the issue. 

Deregulation:    Trump says he will get rid of 80% of regulations because ‘none of them do any good’.  That is just crazy talk.  I am sure there are lots that are poorly written or obsolete.  I could get behind an honest look at reducing regulation.  Maybe start by cutting them by 20%.  Trump wants to allow corporations, which by definition have no moral compass because they are mandated to maximize profit, to be able to make as much money as possible.  That is Trump’s world view.   This increases income inequality and is exactly the system people thought they were voting against.   

   The regulations he is attacking first – regulations on the fossil fuel industry (because they have such a hard time making a profit) and the banking industry.  He plans to repeal Dodd Frank, which was meant to prevent the risky behavior banks take that caused the Great Recession of 2008 and the Great Depression.  When banks take risks, they maximize profit for their CEOs and then when the banks fail, the taxpayers bail them out while the working class gets screwed.  While Dodd Frank could be tweaked to help smaller banks it is a common sense and important regulation.  Repealing it clearly increases the risk our economy could fail again. 

   I cannot see how anyone thinks the far right end of the spectrum has anything to offer the working class.  They govern for the corporate class, the 1%.  Deregulation is the goal so corporations and the people running them, can make as much profit as possible while not having to suffer under ‘burdensome’ rules intended to protect the environment or workers.

  Funny thing is, many of these regulations actually create more jobs.  Let’s say you require coal plants to install new air scrubbers or to take extra precautions with their coal ash disposal.  These steps cost the company more money because they need to hire more people to do the extra work.  That could mean less profit for the corporation or higher electricity prices, but we should pay more for dirty energy and if we really want to create jobs we need more money being spent and less going into the Swiss bank accounts of the CEOs.

Danny's post-election thoughts: from despair to dedication

 

  Knowing me you should not be surprised that I feel compelled to write about what I am thinking and feeling after this election.  My initial reaction included sadness, fear, curiosity, and despair. After much soul searching and thought these feelings were joined (not replaced) by dedication, hope, and even excitement.  Here is an explanation of how I found my way along the path from despair to hope.

  Before I tell my story, it is important to acknowledge how divided we are in this country and how differently events look from our different perspectives.  In the days following the election I had lengthy debates with friends who supported Trump.  One of these was instigated by a Facebook post in which I suggested Trump used racism, bigotry, and misogyny during his campaign.  My friend thought I was being illogical and hurtful to the country to suggest such things and very strongly believes that Trump never said anything racist or mean hearted, that it was the media who took his words out of context and created this false belief.  This is just one illustration of how differently we can see this election, because to me it seems so obvious that Trump used racist and sexist language and that he brilliantly played on people’s economic and security fears for the future by identifying groups of people to blame that he could protects us from by building a wall, ending refugee programs, etc.  A very clever, very effective, and not at all original, political strategy.  Another illustration of how differently we see things: I heard a man interviewed who said he could never trust Obama’s intentions but he knows he can trust Trump because he is an honest man of integrity.  Suffice it to say I don’t quite see it that way.  While I don’t agree with Obama on all issues, I believe he is a man of integrity.  As a businessman, Trump did not exemplify integrity.  For a model of integrity as a businessman I would look towards someone like Ray Anderson.  Trump’s business model was that if it was even barely legal, it was good business.  (and of course much of what he did with his non-profit, etc. were not even legal) This, to me, makes the case for government regulations, which Trump wants to cut back.  But let’s save that for later. 

   In the days after the election I definitely felt like the joy had been sucked out of my soul.  One challenge for me was that I had children to worry about.  The way I felt was no way for a child to feel. So I had to address the question(s): how do we acknowledge what is happening and what might happen in the future, and at the same time keep hope and joy alive?  In order to do this I had to temper what I was afraid might happen as a result of this election with the reality that we can’t foresee the future, there may be a silver lining to all this, that we are really most greatly impacted by the things in our immediate community and we have significant control over those regardless who is in the Whitehouse, and with the fact that throughout our nation’s history, the pendulum of power has swung from the left to the right and back again and this is likely just one more swing of many more to come. 

    My own children certainly paid attention to the election and were bummed at the results, but they are not especially political and reassuring them that everything will be all right was not too difficult.  This task of rationalizing the results was especially difficult when it came to my students.  I teach middle school at a school for gifted kids.  There is no lack of understanding for any of these students who are interested in politics, which is most of them.  They read books like “The New Jim Crow” for fun and know more about gerrymandering than most adults.  They are also very deeply invested in the issue of climate change.  They studied the subject, looked into Gene Sharp’s 198 methods of non-violent action and the Albert Einstein institute, helped organize a summit of climate change organizations to discuss a national grand strategy of non-violence to force government action on climate change, presented their project on non-violent climate action at this year’s Bioneer’s Conference, where they met their heros like native American activists Kandi Mosset and Tom Goldtooth, and youth climate activist Xiuhtezcatl, and they plan to meet with senators during their trip to DC in December to deliver a Climate Victory Plan modeled after the Victory Plan of WWII.  In addition, written into the platform of the Democratic party this year was a promise that within the first 100 days of office they would convene a conference to look at the possibility of mobilizing the nations resrouces on a scale not seen since WWI to address the problem of to climate change. Of course my students understood that having a climate denier elected President of the US was a major setback to this issue they have been working on and care so much about.

After the election my students sent me graphs showing projected global CO2 levels if Trump won the election vs Clinton winning the election.  When reading Trump’s 100 day plan, those who care about climate action can find little to be hopeful about.  He plans to ramp up fossil fuel production – coal, tar sands, oil – this at a time when most scientists believe we are at a crucial tipping point.  A time when we are being urged to rapidly stop using fossil fuels.  To me this is the most concerning policy of Trump and in my opinion should be considered a crime against humanity and nature and is arguably the biggest threat life on Earth has ever faced (not that Trump is responsible for climate change, but in the face of the evidence, to shift the direction of global action in the wrong direction at such a crucial time…and while we don’t know why he thinks this way, we do know that he will profit from his dangerous policies.  He wants to OK the Keystone XL pipeline – because it will provide jobs? Or because he has personal investments in it?  A lot of his business is tied up in fossil fuel infrastructure so it makes sense he wants to ramp up production. 

So my initial job was to keep hope alive, for myself, but especially for these young people.  Of course it was important to acknowledge our feelings and hear everyone share how they were feeling.  Throughout the election I was also trying to hold space for the fact that many people support Trump and we need to respect diverse opinions.  My teaching partner, who is a historian, gave the ‘long view’ speech.  To kids who are only 12 years old, this is the first political pendulum swing they have really been aware of.  It must be difficult to imagine that the political pendulum swings right to left in this country (and countries around the world) and will continue to do so.  I remember feeling the same emotions after the 2004 election and then we swung back and almost had Bernie Sanders for president 12 years later. 

When my students asked me what are they to do now, regarding their activism around climate change and other issues, my simple response was ‘work harder’.  We all need to keep working towards the future we want to live in.  I discussed with my students the fact that there are different paths to change.  There is top down driven change and change that is driven by the grass roots.  Most change in this country, and the world, has happened because the people in the streets demanded it.  Even if Hilary was elected, she was unlikely to take radical steps to help the working class or fight climate change without huge amounts of pressure from the American people.  We know our politicians already are under lots of pressure from corporate interests, interests within the military industrial complex, etc.  The people need to speak loudly to be heard over those lobbyists.  Our students had read Bill McKibben’s article saying we need a WWII level mobilization to fight climate change.  One idea was that to start this we needed a Pearl Harbor like event.  This was the idea behind planning a grand strategy of non-violence around the country once Hilary was elected.  As it turns out, Trump’s election might be that Pearl Harbor like rallying event.  Hopefully this is the spark of a grassroots movement towards a more inclusive and sustainable society!  We will see people organizing against fossil fuels most certainly.  It has already begun of course but we need it to be taken to the next level.  The original Americans are being tear gasses as we ‘speak’ at Standing Rock as they try to protect the water and land from another oil pipeline.  2,000 US veterans are on their way to act as human shields between the police and protestors. We will likely see states like California and even cities around the country stepping up their goals for renewable energy and demonstrating what can and should be done.  In fact, I suspect, we will see states lead on many other issues such as single payer health care.  So there are paths for solutions to find their way to reality, even if they are not being supported by those at the very top.  

I think this is one of the reasons to be most hopeful and even excited.  The Republicans now control Congress and the Whitehouse. They will get to do what they want (or at least what they can – it will be interesting to see how much they can do) and we should see clearly what their vision for the country is (more on this later).  The Democrats lost because they have moved further and further to the right in their political policies.  They have cozied up to Wall Street, passed free trade like NAFTA, supported deregulation, etc.  Obama was elected on the notion of CHANGE!  Did the Democrats deliver change?  Not really.  Drone strikes increased, healthcare costs increased, fossil fuel production increased, wages decreased, income inequality increased.  Now we have this perfect storm where the American people on both sides said they are tired of this.  Working class Americans want a government that works for them, not the top 1%.  This we saw in Bernie Sanders and Trump’s popularity.  Ironically Trump and the Republicans won the election.  I say ironic because Trump is the 1% and the Republican policies are the ones I believe have made our problems with wealth inequality in this country what they are today.  Now the Republicans can show us what they will do to solve this problem.  What is exciting is the fact that Bernie Sanders, who has always been on the side of the working class, now will have a major voice in reshaping the Democratic party.  Perhaps this loss is what the Democrats needed.  Hopefully the next time the political pendulum swings back to the left, there is actually a Democratic party that is ready to fight for the working class and the environment.  This is an exciting opportunity for the Democrats.  In fact, if you look at the issues, most Americans are to the left of both parties, so it can only serve the Democrats well to move back to the left. 

Now I do blame the Democrats for their loss, because trying to play both sides – acting like you care about the working class while at the same time trying to keep the Wall Street donors happy, obviously has not worked.  But to be fair, we don’t know what the Democrats would have done if they had some cooperation from the Republicans.  Let’s remember that the stated goal of the Republicans in congress as soon as Obama was elected, was to block everything Obama tried to do.  They filibustered everything, (maybe not everything but as of 2014 they blocked 500 bills) blocked Obama’s appointments to departments and courts, etc.  They often blocked things/people they said they agreed with just because they did not want Obama succeeding.  One example of this was Obama’s stimulous.  Obama came into office during our worst economic collapse (thanks in part to deregulation Bill Clinton signed into law) and he wanted to pass huge infrastructure bill to stimulate the economy.  The Republicans fought him and the compromise was such a small amount that economists said it was have a very minimal effect.  Obama has wanted to pass more such spending bills and been denied by Congress.  Now Trump says he wants to pass an infrastructure spending bill to stimulate the economy.  This is one thing I agree with Trump on, let’s see if he can get the Republicans on board, since they will have to ignore the same arguments they used to oppose Obama’s stimulus. Trump wants to spend more and lower taxes.  It will be interesting to see if the Republicans stop worrying about the deficit now that they are in charge.  I did hear economists saying that they don’t believe Trump’s stimulus package is targeting the correct things to really help the economy so as always, the devil will be in the details.

Healthcare is an interesting example as well.  The left was asking for a single payer system like the ones most countries in the world have.  The right believes in the open market – let insurance companies compete in a ‘free market’ and all will be good.  Obama wanted to do something about health care but he took single payer off the table before he even began negotiating with the Republicans. 

Obamacare ended up being a disaster for many reasons, but I believe the main reason is that, despite its name, it did nothing to address the underlying problem, and that is the astronomical cost of health care in this country.  The for-profit model is not working. For a personal example: our two boys had the same surgery – one in Germany without any healthcare and one in the US with full coverage.  In Germany we paid 100% out of pocket – which was $800.  In the US we had to pay 20% of the cost even with insurance and the cost was $25,000!!!  For the same surgery.  Obamacare did nothing to address this.  Just yesterday I spoke with a woman who is a nurse at Stanford but is originally from Belarus.  She said after living here for 15 years she realizes not everything is perfect in the US – especially health care.  She said she sees people who are retired and did everything right their entire life only to have to sell their house and go bankrupt due to medical costs their health insurance companies don’t cover.  Obamacare did do good things and it will be so interesting to see how Trump goes about following up on his promise.  The Republicans have wanted to repeal Obamacare for so long.  Now they can. Trump says he wants to keep popular parts like the fact insurance companies cannot deny people with preexisting conditions while at the same time he wants to get rid of the individual mandate.  The problem is, in order to keep the insurance costs down, you need to have both of those things.  You can’t have one without the other without health costs increasing even more.  I don’t believe the Republicans can fix our health care system with their pro-corporate agenda. 

This is true for all their policies.  We are going to see the most right wing government the US has ever had.  While Trump said he would drain the swamp, he is filling his cabinet with swamp natives.  So far he has chosen people from the far right of the Republican party, billionaires, and people with a history of association with the Alt Right and white supremacists. It will be an interesting combination with people like Stephen Bannon from the Alt-Right website Breitbart News who has stated his goal as taking down the government as Trump’s Chief Strategist to Jeff Sessions from the right wing fringe of the Republican party who was rejected for a spot on the Federal Bench due to racial bias, has called civil rights groups ‘un-American’, and is Trump’s pick to be Attorney General.   To be in charge of the Department of Education he nominated Betsy Devos, a billionaire product of private schools who wants to privatize education, for Secretary of Health and Human services Tom Price who is a staunch opponent of abortion, Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, and supports privatizing Medicare; and K.T. McFarland as national security advisor, who joins the ranks of climate deniers on Trump’s team and who claimed Obama encouraged the terrorists by attending the Paris Climate talks.  Trump’s security team will be at odds with the Defense Department on the issue of Climate Change being a major security risk.  And to top it all off, after railing against Hilary Clinton for giving paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, Trump has appointed the poster child of ‘swamp dwelling’ wall street banker, Steven Mnuchin, to be Treasury Secretary.  Mnuchin was a partner at Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund manager who not only helped cause the financial crash of 2008, he moved in and bought one of the failed banks which was infamous for bad loans and personally profited millions of dollars while the working people lost their homes.  This guy is the definition of what is wrong with our economy.   And most recently, Ben Carson has been nominated to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  This is a guy who admitted he was not qualified for the job and has said people are poop because they don’t work hard enough and has said anti-discrimination housing laws are communist. 

   Naomi Klein’s book: The Shock Doctrine is especially relevant here.  Her idea is that after major shocks such as a natural disaster, war, or political coup; global players take advantage of the lack of leadership and confusion to push through their own legislative agenda, things that would not be accepted by the people under ordinary circumstances.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Patriot act after 911 are examples in this country.  Her theory focuses mainly on economic issues, such as privatizing the water in a country like Bolivia or selling off coastal property to corporations after a Tsunami.  This election certainly has been a shock and the people with conservative agendas are lined up to push through what they can.  We will see a push for an increased surveillance state, for privatization of everything possible from schools to social security, the NRA will be pushing for a national concealed carry law that can trump gun controls laws of States, of course the oil industry will try to push through all the fossil fuel infrastructure they can, legal abortion will be on the chopping block, of course things like Planned Parenthood are likely to be defunded, the EPA and environmental regulations will certainly be under assault, and the list goes on.  It is true that there will be serious repercussions from this election. 

Two days after the election I heard Caroline Casey talk about the despair people were feeling post election.  She said that the antidote to despair is dedication.  She said that we need to compost our despair and use it to cultivate our dedication towards the future we want.  I liked this very much, even from a neurological perspective it makes sense because focusing on tasks has been shown to reduce depression.  And dedicating ourselves to improving the world around us and working towards a better world can give us hope and even make us excited for the future we are creating.  We can see all sorts of examples of people turning their post election despair into dedication.  Much of this has had to do with counteracting the message of hate that found a platform in the campaign of the President Elect.  People dedicated themselves to reaching out and being vocal about creating inclusive communities where everyone is valued regardless of race, sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc.

   I am excited to see how the future unfolds.  I am excited to see how Bernie Sanders helps to recreate the Democratic Party.  I am excited to see 2,000 veterans act as human shields between the police and the Native American protestors at Standing Rock, I am excited to see people organize to keep fossil fuels in the ground, I am excited to see communities organize to support immigrants and inclusivity, I am excited to see how states and cities step up to lead towards progressive policies, and if not excited I am certainly interested in seeing how the Republican plans for medical care, international affairs, the economy, etc all pan out and what the reaction to these changes are among the American people.  I can’t imagine Trump’s agenda is going to improve the economic situation for the majority of the working class and it is going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. 

Danny’s thoughts on 2016 election: Why I am not voting for Hilary but you should.

Well for months I have resisted the urge to blog about the elections even though there has been so much to discuss.  Or, more accurately so much to disgust.  And I guess this is one reason I have not used my scarce and valuable time writing about it, because it has been pretty awful and everyone knows it, so my two cents may not add anything new to the conversation.

Of course, in truth, there has been A LOT missing from the conversation – namely the most important issue facing the world today, global climate destabilization.  And this in itself is reason enough to enthusiastically vote for Hilary Clinton.  Thanks to the folks Bernie Sanders appointed to the Democratic national platform committee, taking dramatic and immediate action to fight climate change is now part of the Democratic platform.  This of course does not mean they will do it, especially with an opposing party that promises to block everything Clinton will try to do, but at least there is chance that if pushed hard enough they might follow through on this plank of their platform.  The alternative – a Trump presidency – would clearly be much less likely to take any action on this issue.  In fact Trump has promised to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, which, while it does not go far enough, is the best global agreement on climate change the world has produced so far.  We are currently at or just passed the limits of atmospheric CO2 (400ppm) and temperature increase (1.5degrees Celsius) that scientists have warned us to stay below. 

Imagine a future where our leaders come together to lead the world in getting off fossil fuels, reigniting our economy through the mass production of windmills and solar panels, creating new jobs in entirely new energy sectors.  A future where we restore the health of our farms and soils to allow them to capture and hold the carbon which they are meant to contain.  “Carbon farming” is one of those win-win solutions that can actually help take CO2 out of the atmosphere that is already there.

Imagine a climate victory plan that details the steps the US government needs to take to fight climate change on a scale we have not seen since the Victory Plan used to fight WWII.  My students, along with its author, will be delivering such a plan to congress when they visit DC in December, but that is another story.  This plan has much more hope of becoming reality of Hilary if president.

Beyond the issue of climate change…  While I prefer the policies of Democrats to those of Republicans, I was not as worried about a President Romney as I am a President Trump.  He is such a mean, vengeful, and disgusting person.  He is utterly un-presidential.  I know that may be one thing people like about him, people who are tired of the two faced politicians that have not served the average American with their pro-corporate, pro-wealthy elite, pro-war policies.  But he is a two faced business man, even worse.  And I get it that Hilary is the poster child for this type of politician.  I do not agree with many of Hilary’s stances on issues.  Since I live in California, which is guaranteed to go to Hilary, I am voting for Jill Stein who much more closely reflects my values.  However, in swing states, I believe it is so important to chose Hilary, who could turn out to be a great President, over Trump, who would much more likely screw things up.  He is simply dangerous, and the things he says he will do are terrible ideas – biggest tax breaks to the rich in recent history, pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, building a wall, etc.  Imagine the things he just decides to do on the fly when he gets upset.  And his style of leadership is to make decisions based on gut instinct without much input from others.  President of the United States is way too big a job for this type of leader.  I could go on and on but this is where I am not adding anything new to the conversation. 

The truth is, Hilary is the most qualified person to run for office in decades if not generations.  Many people criticized Obama, Bush, even Bill Clinton for their lack of effectiveness due to their lack of familiarity with how Washington works.  Hilary is very familiar.  She also has relationships around the world.  Imagine Trump’s international relations.  We have two people to choose from and I can’t imagine anyone choosing Trump.  This shows my lack of imagination since nearly half of potential voters seemed ready to vote for him. 

And of course there is the Supreme Court.  Oh, and we could have our first woman President - long overdue!!  

Of course, after Hilary becomes President, the work begins, for it will be true of her just as it is of any leader, they aren’t going to take action unless they feel pressure to do so.  We know they get pressure from their rich donors and the corporate lobbyists.  This means we the people need to put pressure on her to carry through on her campaign promises and to take action on the issues outlined in the official Democratic platform.  This is where non-violent protest comes in, something else my students have been studying, but that is also another story. 

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Wow, tomorrow is the day we have been leading up to for this 600 day long campaign season – insane!  And stupid! And so American.