The Problem Is Not The Problem

The problem is not the problem. The problem is the process.

We have no process for solving problems. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the process for solving problems primarily works for those who have the lobbying power to get their needs met.

Generally speaking, the ones who get their needs met are the large corporations. Their lobbyists are problem solving geniuses, manipulative geniuses. They give money to politicians. Politicians listen to them.

Democracy is not actually working. Obvious things like lowering the interest rates for student loans are not being passed. (If we want to get back to making America great try working our way back to free college education, for one thing.) There is a list a mile long of obvious things that need to be done and are not being done.

There are too many money based interests blocking things. And they work together. Politicians trade support for their special interests. You support mine and I'll support yours.

The problem is not the problem. The process has been totally corrupted by special interests. Ralph Nader, who drove congress to mandate seat belts thereby saving, by now, millions of lives said that in the modern era he could not have accomplished the seat belt legislation. Back in 1965 he wrote a book, Unsafe At Any Speed, in which he demonstrated that seat belts would save lives. It was well researched and showed that the automobile industry was not taking the steps needed to make driving as safe as it could be. The evidence was absolutely convincing and he was able to convince congress that something needed to be done. Hence, seat belts and air bags.

Nader has said that in the modern era the special interests would have easily defeated his research. The corporate strategy against legislation of that kind has evolved to the point that virtually nothing they don't want gets done.

Now I know there are exceptions to this rule, but the overwhelming majority of obvious things are not getting done because The Problem is Not The Problem. The problem is congress, lobbyists, money in politics.

Psychology of Scarcity

Years ago I was talking with my very wise mother about the problems in the world. She looked at me and said, "Well, what do you expect on a planet where we evolved by eating each other?"

We are a predatory world. Survival of the fittest has been our mantra. It's an undeniable fact, except for those who think the world was literally made in seven days.

Our evolution has been based on a psychology of scarcity. We have fought tooth and nail to survive in a world of mammoths and tigers. No dinosaurs, thank you.

In the modern era we have entered into a world of technological abundance but have been saddled with a psychology of scarcity. That psychology of scarcity has dominated our thinking, created an adversary system of virtually everything. We think we have to fight. The sports we, and I, love so dearly are based on one person or team winning and the other losing, often not just losing but getting the crap knocked out of them.

We have an economy of scarcity. When something is scarce the price goes up. In fact, abundance is seen as the enemy of prosperity. There's an insane paradox for you. Too much gas and it drives the price down, lowering the profit, affecting investments, gas production, lowering incentives for healing the ecosystem with green energy. It gets complicated fast. And it's all engineered by a psychology of scarcity that only sees abundance at the expense of someone else. It's engineered to protect profits

So a premise of this blog is that we need a psychology of abundance. It turns out that the implications of unfettered abundance are positive and beautiful beyond our current comprehension. If we wanted to we could feed and clothe the world. But our psychology of scarcity,  fear, drives us to weapons and wars that stop our prosperity in it's tracks producing not only waste, death, and destruction, but creating a self perpetuating mind set of fear and hostility.

The future is coming (oxymoron alert) and we need to develop our psychology of abundance. It's a psychological, spiritual, physical, economic, and political healing.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

So, what does it mean to make sense of the truth? Doesn't truth speak for itself? I mean isn't that why they call it the truth?

The truth needs a context, a story behind it that makes it meaningful. Like Trump's hair is orange, or whatever color or series of colors you and I have been watching for, oh, so long. That's a fact, a truth. But does it mean anything? I have an opinion, of course. But nothing that I could claim as a meaningful piece of information. No proof of anything.

But when he says that 81% of all whites who are murdered are killed by blacks, there you have a story to tell, a truly amazing story. He said this in a tweet on November 22, 2015.

According to FBI statistics only 15% of all whites who were murdered were murdered by blacks.

We can now officially say, "Donald, you are a liar." In fact if we are reporters, we should be required to say it or something to that effect.

This is not a gaffe. This is an outright lie.

So, making sense of the truth. We need to do it, and do it clearly and unmistakably. We can't ask someone to make sense of it or defend it. We can't get "the other side" to comment on it. It stands alone, speaks for itself.

What is the context? Trump got erroneous information from a nonexistent research group, used the misinformation for his own political purposes. He chose to tweet it. He liked the flavor of the lie and used it.

So we are forced, if we are to be at all logical to say: he told a lie therefore he is a liar.

And we have a responsibility to broadcast that this man is a liar. Hey, if we don't he could be nominated for president.

Oh? He already has been?

How did that happen?

We didn't all rise up and say, "This man is a liar and has no business even thinking about being president of the United States of America!"

So It Begins, the making of sense.

Here's the problem: the news media is not giving us valid information on a reliable basis. Now there are several interpretations of this. The right wing regards the misinformation as a leftist conspiracy. Unfortunately what they seem to consider factual bears little or no resemblance to the facts.

That is an opinion I have expressed. I have not given you any facts to back that up. That is what I call not making sense. It is an abstract attack having no validity whatsoever as a legitimate argument. In order to be making sense I would need to give you the reasons why I said that.

If you agree with me you would say, "He's telling the truth!" If you are one of those right wingers I can't even begin to imagine what you would say or what you might call me. But it wouldn't be good.

This is what I am going to be blogging about: the vast body of unproven opinions that dominate our political dialogue. In fact the very expression, "political dialogue" has come to be what we would call a body of bullshit.

I am going to try to give specific examples of the illogic that pervades the media. Donald Trump will certainly be one of the stars as he manipulates the inability of reporters to see through the rhetoric into the essential truth.

One quick example: Trump stated that he was going to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. He said that literally hundreds of times. Now he has backed away from that absolute statement. The media is asking what they seem to think are intelligent questions about what this means. They listen to a run around as Trump and his spokespeople explain that he has not actually changed, that he is clarifying. Reporters need to clearly and unequivocally call, "Bullshit", on the twisted logic of saying that he's evolving deeper levels of the same idea. Not deporting 11 million people is a blatant contradiction of deporting 11 million people. It's not a clarification of a concept. It's not an evolution of an idea. It's simply a complete change and the media need to call him on that.

Well, all for now. Talk to you again soon.