Killer's Regret

by Dennis Green

I watch a dramatization of a story I feel as if I have heard before. An old man’s voice recounts the events of several days during the Battle of the Bulge. As an American soldier, this man shot and killed a young German soldier, not well but badly, and the other man took two days to die. There in the snow, under bombardment, the old man says, they were stranded only a few feet apart in separate cavities in the ground.

“I saw him when I shot him, a young man, fair, with blonde hair and calm blue eyes. I could hear him lying there dying. All night long. The next day, he was still muttering and coughing, and then, finally, he fell silent. I haven’t been able to forget him. All my life, ever since then, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of him. I can’t get him out of my mind…”

The man who speaks these words, we are told, died at the age of 90 a few years ago, a short time after this recording was made. The visuals are uncertain, showing snow, and a snow bank, and a dark night sky. But we believe him.

And I wonder to myself, Did that German soldier who shot and killed my cousin Stanley in that same protracted battle survive the night? The war? Did he have such nightmares? Could he never get the image of Cousin Stanley out of his head? Did Stanley’s killer feel any regret?

For that’s what they are, all of them. Killers. Many of them are decorated with ribbons and precious metal. But they are still killers. They defy the Sixth Commandment, contorting logic and reason to justify what they do. Warriors like me know exactly what they do. They kill. They damn themselves to eternal fires, just from that one moment. Fire first.

I know that our species is conflicted. We hail the Ten Commandments until they get in the way of our natural instincts, to fuck, to cheat, to kill, to steal, to covet our neighbor’s ass, especially if she’s gorgeous. We are every bit as hypocritical as Muslims who kill Muslims in defiance of the Qu’ran.

The Commandment in the Old Testament is either serious, or it’s not. There is nothing in the Bible to justify the excuses and the ducking of its meaning…”Well, we didn’t really mean warfare or capital punishment or cops shooting a suspect who reaches for his waistband…” The shooting, in the back, of an unarmed man on a BART platform on New Year’s Eve last year has prompted outcries of injustice only from the Black Community of Oakland. How many white ministers joined those protests? Is religion color-blind, or not?

And now, the latest Pentagon documents released by Wikileaks details the 150,000 civilian deaths in Iraq caused by the U.S. invasion, occupation and war. Only a fraction of those are attributed to our enemy. And in those same documents, the callous and deliberate torture of prisoners is also described in cold-hearted, chilling detail.

The U.S. and its leaders are obviously guilty of war crimes, and if we ever lose our military power to wage war, some of the guilty may one day be brought to justice. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has given us, yet again, a reputation as bullies and killers all around the world.

So when I heard that old soldier’s lifelong regret for, as a young man, shooting and killing another young man, who lay moaning and dying, weeping and calling out to his mother, and how those sounds and images stayed with him the rest of his life, I can’t help but wonder how many thousands of our own boys come home with similar nightmarish memories. And on this Sunday morning, I pray for their eternal souls.

©2010 Dennis Green

Neanderthals

by Dennis Green

Matt Taibi, one of the finest political analysts at work in America today, has a new article in Rolling Stone about the Tea Party which is hilarious and insightful: “The Truth About the Tea Party.” Early on, he sums up his findings after spending many weeks among them: “They are full of shit.” I love the candidness of Journalism 2.0.

Taibi focuses on Rand Paul, M.D., the son of Libertarian Party candidate for President in 2008, Ron Paul, a very sincere, if whacko, Texas politico. Rand was rigorously opposed to big government and all government spending until a bill came up to limit funding to physicians by Medicare. Suddenly, this M.D. turned politician was all in favor of government spending. And that was just his first change of mind.

Tea Party candidates who have made it past the primaries are demonstrating their stunning lack of knowledge about even the things they swear are dear to them. Delaware U.S. Senate candidate Christine “I Am NOT A Witch” O’Donnell recently asked, “You mean the separation of church and state is really in the Constitution?” Duh. When asked, after saying she opposed Supreme Court activist decisions, which decisions she opposed, she couldn’t think of any. Three days later, she pleaded, “Well, I’m in complete agreement with this Court, because it’s so conservative.” Right, Christine.

Other Neanderthals endorsed by the Tea Party believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old, in keeping with Creationist theory. If America is behind the advanced world in science and math, these folks are not going to help us catch up!

The Colorado Neanderthal has claimed that “Being gay is a choice,” (as if there’s anything wrong with being gay…), and that people who choose to be gay will recruit others they come into contact with, (the “Gay Agenda”), and that therefore they should not be allowed to marry, adopt, teach or even run for office, as they might turn the entire Congress gay. (As if they’re not pretty happy already!)

In the many Tea Party rallies Taibi attended, he saw no black people at all, and almost no one under 50. Most of the people attending these rallies, in fact, were past retirement age, and when he asked them, most admitted they were collecting Social Security and on Medicare. Yet they railed against government spending and government programs of any kind.

A surprising number, Taibi writes, were in those little motorized wheelchairs, and all of them admitted they got Medicare to pay for them by gaming the system.

Personally, I was intrigued for awhile by the Libertarian philosophy, especially Ron Paul’s. He is opposed to war, to the criminalization of drugs, to any government interference in our lives. Including sexual orientations, and any ban on gay marriage. He still is. But I soon discovered just how contrary and contradictory his son and the other Tea Party Neanderthals really are.

Once he won the nomination of the Republican Party, Taibi writes, Rand soon abandoned most of his Libertarian views and positions, just as he did his opposition to government spending except when it comes to cashing those Medicare checks. I only hope the college graduates of America feel the same way I do, and get to the polls this year in larger numbers than ever.

America is at a crossroads. We can descend into the conservative abyss Great Britain did in the 1980s when its empire finally collapsed, or we can renew ourselves as other great powers exhausted by warfare have finally done. China’s renewal can be an inspiration, not just a threat. But if we let the Neanderthals take over, we will never know greatness again.

©2010 Dennis Green

Meg's Illegal Nanny

by Dennis Green

It's a paradigm familiar to anyone who lives in California -- the wealthy matron who hires an illegal alien from Mexico to rear her children. Much more common than the tomato farm field hand toiling in the hot sun just outside Bakersfield, all over Southern California, tucked away in little make-shift apartments over the garage are these live-in nannies available 24/7 who work for little more than room and board, exploited by their employers.

When I was married to the Blonde Bombshell from Orange County, I had a sister and brother-in-law who lived on Balboa Island in Newport Beach, two blocks from John Wayne, who fit the stereotype completely. They had two little girls, belonged to the John Birch Society, and paid a live-in Mexican nanny a pittance to live in that one-room apartment over their garage and be constantly on-duty.

"Green Card? I don't need no stinking Green Card!" And they never bothered to verify, or even do the most cursory background check to be sure they were not breaking the law. In her first debate with Jerry Brown this week, Meg Whitman said, in response to the subject of illegal immigration, "All employers have a strict responsibility to verify the Green Card status of people they hire to work for them."

A good, sensible, conservative answer, right?

But now Meg's nanny of 9 years is suing Whitman for lost wages, and the story of her firing is perhaps typical of Compassionate Conservatism. "She called me in and told me I was fired, and that 'From this moment on, I don't know you and you don't know me!'" No sverance pay, or even back wages. Unfortunately, Meg had not, in the words of Ronald Reagan, done due diligence to "Trust and verify!"

How embarasking, as Olive Oil might say. More importantly, Supreme Court nominees have been disqualified for less.

Whitman's first excuse? "I didn't know. She used her sister's immigration papers. How could I know?"

Her second excuse? "Well, her attorney is Gloria Allred, a notorious lawyer for pushing women's rights and defending immigration scofflaws. She's also supported Jerry Brown, contributed money to his campaign, and is hardly objective." Look who's talking.

But in my opinion, Meg is a goner. Her high-priced political consultants must know that. SHE must know that. For she has suddenly been identified to the voters as "One of THEM!" the ugly, dreaded Super Rich who are above the law, who needn't abide by the rules of polite society that the rest of us respect. All along, we've had our suspicions, and now they are confirmed.

We might vote for a sassy, successful female, even a centrist conservative like Meg. Until she takes on that awful shroud -- Privilege! Once she identifies with the very rich, the very privileged, we all know how the rich get richer. They cheat on their taxes. President Bush cuts their taxes way below the rates they paid under Reagan. On Wall Street, they cheat on their investments, and when they get in trouble, Bush bails them out.

And they hire illegal aliens at wages far below,, minimum -- the Growers to pick their crops, the people who live in McMansions the gardeners to trim their McLawns, the big contractors hiring men off street corners to repair their leaking roofs, and the Fifth Avenue matrons hiring the housekeepers and nannies to clean their homes and tend to their McKids. It isn't that we envy them the ability to skirt the law, to get all this cheap labor. No, we resent the fact that they turn right around and bemoan, as Meg has, the porous U.S. Southern border.

If you hire them, they will come. Most of us can't afford to have a live-in nanny, or an obedient housekeeper, a gardener, or a field hand. We may even have sympathized with Cesar Chavez and Huelga! And even if we didn't, we recognize rank hypocrisy when we see it, and the terrible unfairness of people who take advantage of the system, and then tell the rest of us to complain, and to look down upon those "Lawbreakers." Those other lawbreakers.

No, I never liked Meg Whitman, caught the sickly stench of her hypocrisy from afar. But now I have a good reason to get out that Voodoo Doll.

Remediation Is Not Education

by Dennis Green

The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates that California spends about $135 million annually to teach college students what they should have learned in high school. Among the many other courses I taught at UC Santa Barbara and Westmont College — including Shakespeare and Bible Lit — I also taught remedial English composition classes for many years, so I saw the problem up close.

UC campuses enroll the top 12.5% of California high school graduates, and yet 65% of those incoming freshmen flunk the English Composition entrance exam. Many of them receive “A’s” and “B’s” in high school English, but are semi-literate at best.

The National Assessment Governing Board administers a test of core subjects, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, (NAEP), which found recently that in English and math, 4^th and 8^th graders in California rank near the bottom among all states. That is unacceptable.

Even more discouraging, a 2005 survey by Achieve, Inc. found employers estimated nearly 40 percent of recent California high school graduates were not prepared for entry-level jobs. Even in the workplace, they need remediation, further training in the basics.

In public schools, on average, only 65% of those entering high school ever graduate. In 2006, just one quarter of the 520,000 California students who had begun high school four years earlier completed the courses necessary to enroll in a four-year public university. Obviously, our schools are failing us.

While we are constantly reminded of the benefits of great schools, we are rarely or never told the social and criminal costs of those drop-outs. If public schools can take all the credit for those benefits, they should also take the blame for the costs of failure.

And no, I’m not going to blame the teachers, or their unions, for this malaise. In Sacramento, education funding has been hijacked by redevelopment agencies and budget-balancing tricks foisted off on we the people by our elected representatives. Their pet projects do not, in many instances, include the schools. Much of the effort by PTA’s and teachers’ groups now directed at raising new and much larger parcel taxes should instead be directed at Sacramento.

By the same token, if the students are failing too often, and in too many schools, let’s take the administrators by the throats and give them a good shaking. Never vote to re-elect a school board Trustee, for example, whose district is mediocre in its proficiency scores, or who has so poorly managed the district budget that it faces multi-million dollar deficits. They have been spending money they knew they didn’t have, and future monies they knew they wouldn’t have in years to come.

Shake up the School Superintendent and all his or her minions — by tying their salaries to the success and well-being, fiscally and otherwise, of the district and the individual schools they manage. Start with a ten percent cut. Their rate of failure in managing finances, physical plant and personnel would not be tolerated in the private sector. No Superintendent should be earning in a district as mediocre as Alameda, for example, nearly $200,000 per year, as Kirsten Vital does.

Finally, since Alameda teachers average $87,000 in salary and benefits per year, give them something more to do to earn their keep. Lengthen the school day past 3:00 p.m. Shorten that long summer vacation, and cut Xmas and Easter breaks in half. WITHOUT increasing that $87K.

We can’t fix our schools without major reform in the way teachers and their students interact. More use must be made of technology, and the way youngsters eagerly learn computer games. Finally, discipline must be maintained, and students must be kept busy working, learning new skills every day. Curriculum must be strengthened, even in job training programs leading to entry-level jobs upon graduation.

Until such reforms begin — from Sacramento to the teachers’ lounge — don’t give them another dime.

©2010 Dennis Green

Credo

by Dennis Green

I believe. And like all believers, I am a sum total of all that I have met, all the things I have believed in over the decades, including beliefs I held as a child and thought I had abandoned many years ago. That’s the richness of my personal mysticism after three score and ten.

There are times in all our lives when we feel it is important that we reject or deny something we once held to be true, in order to make room for something new, or simply to grow beyond where we were. But by that time, we have usually incorporated those old, previous beliefs into our very bones. That’s how it is with me.

I was raised Roman (French) Catholic, grew up in the midst of all that glory, the arched ceilings, the stained glass windows, the mourning, grieving, suffering alabaster statuary…the Mass in Latin, the rituals of standing, sitting, kneeling, genuflecting…the incense and the candles…the miters and the ceremonial processions…a worldly depiction of Heaven on Earth.

So there’s still a part of me that resonates to ritual, to ceremony and glorification. And I would not be true to myself if I denied that resonance, that connection to my own past. Taking it into account makes me a larger personality and persona than I was, say, as a sophomoric agnostic in the dorms.

And the agnostic is still there too, the denier. A very rational part of me knows that religion is corrupted by all sorts of worldly influences, that politics in church are as vicious as politics in academia, or anywhere. And so, I don’t go to church anymore, but that doesn’t mean my life is spiritually bereft.

And like Thoreau, I feel no obligation to be consistent, even with myself. Some days I scorn the concept of a personal God, at other times, I implore Him. Why should I narrow myself according to someone else’s theology or doctrine? Sometimes, I think Saul of Tarsus is still a Pharisee, and other days he strikes me as a Saint. “Do I contradict myself? Very well then…”

Some days I believe we were created in the image of God, and others that we created God in our image.

So it’s safe to say that I believe many things. Like Dylan, I believe in every breath I take. And like Dylan, I believe in Jesus and in Yahweh, in darkness and in the Light. But I don’t believe everything, or nothing. I am not a nihilist, or an atheist or a hard-headed pragmatist. No, I’m still rather dreamy-eyed, and optimistic in spite of myself.

I believe in natural selection, and that mutations happen all the time, that most of us contain at least an element or two of a mutated humanity, traits that will serve us very well someday. A very large comfort zone with computers, the internet and electronic gear may be a mutation serving us already, making some of us more successful, and more connected, than others are.

Some days I believe that “Faith” is just another word for “Ignorance” and other days I believe in the future of art, without any evidence or proof, along with the existence of my Muse.

Our DNA, after all, changes. Every one of us is a combination of the DNA from our father and the DNA from our mother. So besides those mutations and variants within an individual, each generation contains new combinations and variants. Even as an embryo, I was a platform for diversity.

I see no need to narrow my vision. Yes, I can be cynical about religion, and yes, I can still believe in the Holy Spirit. My whole life has been an encyclopedia of learning and belief. I believe in Evolution, and Plane Geometry, in politics and love. I don’t believe in politicians or ex-wives, however, or city council members scorned.

Credo. I believe. Do you?

©2010 Dennis Green

Perspective

A Young Man’s Game

by Dennis Green

There are many advantages to being an Elder of the Tribe, not the least of which is being exempt from “The Game.” The Game is also known as The Rat Race, and while I played rodentia racecara very well, I’m glad to be out of it, sitting not so much on the sidelines as in a reserved box seat, watching the action impassively.

Vying for the attention of the sweet young ladies is part of The Game, and that is much better played by young men, especially the feckless, those who are not attached to outcomes. For regardless of the outcome, even the young man knows that when he wakes up in the morning, he’ll still be all alone, and will love it that way!

But it isn’t love nor money I’m so thankful to be free of now. It’s politics. I still dabble from the sidelines in this game, which is not, as has been noted, Softball, but I don’t take any of it very seriously anymore. I know that regardless of who wins, just another rascal will be taking office in January.

For all of us, the entire species, is made up of Little Rascals — some in finance, some in education, some in marketing, but more in politics than anywhere else feel free to flaunt the Jolly Roger. And flaunt it they do. Only the politically naïve continue to believe it makes any difference which party, or even which individual, is in power.

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Bring in those checks and balances! With any luck at all, we’ll get gridlock.

And I had a fascinating meeting with a younger man, Jeff Cambra, who is attempting to act as a mediator between the Alameda business community and the school district, gathering people together from business and asking them what sort of new tax proposal would be, in our eyes, fair.

“I don’t even use the word ‘Fair’ anymore,” Jeff says. “I call it ‘Equitable.’” And he smiles, even though I don’t appreciate his distinction.

I’m not exactly hostile to his views, but they confirm for me a deeper understanding of what I already know about politics. A) It’s a swirling, massive cloud of forces, some of them appealing to our rationality, some to our baser instincts and emotions, and everything in-between. B) A very few people can wag the dog, and usually do. NOT consensus, not GroupThink, but the inspired brilliance of a Mad Man or two!

And now that I’m too old and lame to walk the precincts, I think I know my place, sitting by the campfire, pushing twigs into the flames all night, letting my thoughts go where they will, but eventually to the Council of Elders — those players significant enough to understand and appreciate them. That’s why I’m NOT a Jacksonian Democrat! Or a Reagan “New Morning in America” Republican either!

Nope, I’m an Elder of the Tribe, hopelessly Independent and unfettered by sexual desire, ambition or partisanship. When they pass the Peace Pipe, my lips touch it first. And when they don the War Bonnet, mine is more colorful than all the rest!

I wish Jeff Cambra well, but I also know that he’s wasting his time. At least I didn’t let him waste mine. That’s a young man’s game, and I haven’t got time for the pain, haven’t got time for the waste bin, and haven’t got time for the illusions! And from that brief meeting, another epiphany!

©2010 Dennis Green

The Sunshine Boys

by Dennis Green

There is much talk throughout California, and in my beloved hometown of Alameda, about “transparency in government.” Many references to “Sunshine Laws” are made, and here, a “Sunshine Task Force” has emerged to discuss and establish a Sunshine Ordinance to strengthen existing transparency rules. Not every little dark corner of public service, however, is being shone upon.

One local news blog site, for example, ACTION ALAMEDA News, has revealed that an Alameda School Board Trustee, Mike McMahon, has three relatives on the board payroll, including his wife and daughter. And also that the school board, in violation of state and federal law, is accepting Special Education funding without being able to demonstrate a consistent program for finding and recruiting students needing such services, and then providing them. Yet there is no outcry from the Sunshine Boys.

Gadfly Jon Spangler, City Council candidate Jeff Mitchell, and the League of Women Voters all call for more light, so long as it doesn’t shine on them, or any of their pet projects.

Meanwhile, serious charges have been raised against one City Council member, Lena Tam, who is accused of leaking confidential city documents to real estate developer SunCal. Tam’s activities are documented in several hundred pages of emails and inter-office memos CC-ed to the developer and to several local partisans, including a member of the Sunshine Task Force, John Knox-White, and a local blogster, Lauren Do. Again, not only is no concern voiced by the Sunshine Boys, but instead they make excuses for Tam and the others.

At the same time, these Shiny Day People accuse the Interim City Manager and City Attorney of various crimes and misdemeanors, without specifying any codes violated except their own sense of honor. This orb of sunlight appears to be very arbitrary about where it will shine and where it will not.

Some of the public denials of wrongdoing in the Tam case provided much local entertainment, especially the claim that John Knox-White “… did not have text with that woman!” So reminiscent of Bill Clinton, except for the missing sax. And none of these people call for an investigation of the vast SunCal conspiracy to rob the taxpayers.

New Politics in Alameda, and throughout the nation really, are beginning to shape up as the unkindest cuts of all — bitter personal attacks, snarky and smarmy blog commentaries, Tea Party and Town Hall Meeting blockheads, and viral partisanship that brooks no compromise. We can only pray that most of these newbies bought too late and too expensive, that their mortgages are underwater or in default or foreclosure, and that they will soon be packing their bags back to Fresno.

For the Sunshine Boys want to hide away their own pet projects and misdemeanors where the sun don’t shine. Their idea of transparency is a means to embarrass their opponents, not to require full disclosure of the shenanigans of public employees. Not a word from them about unfunded fire fighters union pension perks, let alone exorbitant city executive payrolls.

If they really cared about corruption, equally, on all sides, in the bowels of the school district as much as city management, I’d be impressed. But as it is, all I can see from them is just another partisan smokescreen disguised as something impartial, noble and selfless.

This isn’t, of course, the first time we’ve seen such a song and dance routine in politics. Transparency in government was the claim of Ronald Reagan’s gang, until the Iran-Contra Deal was uncovered. It was also the claim of President Richard Nixon, until those 18 minutes on his office tapes went missing. We know by now that anyone who says he has an exclusive corner on sunlight is coming from the Dark Side.

©2010 Dennis Green

The Laying On Of Hands

by Dennis Green

The American Council of Catholic Bishops has ruled that Reiki, a version of therapeutic touch, or healing massage, is forbidden. No Catholics may practice this healing art, and the priests and nuns who engage in it are hereby ordered to stop. A number of them say they will ignore the Bishops, as do I.

The laying on of hands is a customary method of healing in many cultures and religions. It was practiced by Jesus of Nazareth, who told his disciples to do the same. Until now, Reiki and other similar techniques were practiced everywhere, even in Catholic Hospitals. What now?

Well, for believing Catholics in America, the choices are the same as always. They can pick and choose from a “Menu” of beliefs, ignoring the Church of Rome on Reiki as they do on such issues as birth control and women’s rights. Or else, they can be loyal and true to a hierarchy that seems, with the ascension of former Cardinal “Ratsig,” head of the Catholic Inquisition, increasingly intolerant and narrow-minded.

I’m lapsed, and have no real opinions that matter either way. But I can still criticize the Roman hierarchy, even as I feel the right, even the responsibility, as a lapsed Jew, to criticize Israeli politics. You don’t have to have a dog in that fight anymore to oppose it. And if you lived on the inside for 12 — 16 years, you know more than most laymen.

But this is not about opposition, rather the wonder and the miracle of the laying on of hands. Why is it that the human touch itself should have such miraculous healing powers? What is it in our human and social evolution that sticks with us? Does the grooming of one another, common among all the Five Great Apes, have anything to do with this continued phenomenon? Perhaps.

Chimpanzees are most like the Catholic Bishops, aggressive, domineering, spending most of their time defending their territorial outposts. But they also engage in grooming, stroking and relieving their brothers and sisters of infestations, and simply encouraging each other by physical contact. So do Gorillas. And Orangutans.

But Bonobos, smaller cousins of the Chimps, who live on the other side of the Congo River, are very different. They not only engage in grooming, but spend most of their spare time in sexual interaction rather than in combat. They never quite came down — as we, the Chimps and the others did – out of the trees or depended on an upright posture for their identity. They lay their hands, in a plethora of ways, on each other, calming, comforting, healing each other, more than any of the other Five Great Apes ever do.

We evolve, or suppose we do, from those primate ancestors. We keep a few of the traits and habits that serve our survival well. Perhaps the laying on of hands is one of those practices that sustain us. And why should our religious leaders oppose such a thing?

“It’s only from a direct connection with Jesus that we can trust any healing,” they say. “In this Reiki practice, there appears to be an intermediary, and we can’t know whether that force is divine, or evil.” I would submit that all too often, we cannot tell whether those priestly intermediaries are the real thing, or not…

In the Santa Rosa Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, which includes the churches in Eureka, where I grew up, more than ten priests are suspected of child molestation, including one of my classmates, Gary Timmons, who died in prison. So much for the laying on of hands.

©2010 Dennis Green

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

by Dennis Green

They ain’t comin’ back. America is in for a decade-long economic slump, similar to the one Japan went through, and for many of the same reasons. Balloon! Balloon! Balloon! One after another, from the internet to housing to investments with Bernie Madoff.

Many of those jobs are in obsolete industries, manufacturing jobs that have gone overseas, jobs in retail industries that have peaked, (such as apparel), jobs in newspaper staffs as advertising moves online. Book publishing and the pulp and paper industries are next, as e-readers gain in popularity.

It is often said that Americans are socially conservative at heart, that our morals change slowly, or not at all. (“Same-sex marriage? Gasp!”). But that viscosity also applies to our workforce, to our education system, to our factory-line mentality, which remain stuck firmly in the past.

No high-speed rail, no new pellet-based nuclear power plants, very little modern architecture. We even stopped making electric cars and destroyed the ones we had.

But only the media, and the Republicans are saying that “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” will be a major issue in the Fall elections. I seriously doubt it. Even if you’re out of work, are you going to blame the President? If you’re an unemployed lifelong Democrat, are you going to vote Republican…to do…what? Get even? Not if you lost your job or your house in 2008.

As usual, the logic is befuddled. Most of those jobs are not coming back, because the American spending binge is over. People who topped out their credit cards are going to be paying them off for the next 10-20 years. They ain’t gonna have any discretionary spending. If Macy’s laid off half their employees, they aren’t going to hire them back. Not ever.

And it will take us at least ten years to develop those new industries that are needed, such as the “Green Revolution” in housing, autos and electric power generation. There is already massive resistance to the kinds of large power lines needed to get electricity from the wind or solar farms onto the grid. And very few bloggers earn more than $500 a year.

Moreover, if the rising federal deficit forces cutbacks in spending, in pushing up the age for collecting social security, cutting back in defense, closing loopholes in Medicare, some people will stay in the workforce longer, and many people in the military and in healthcare will go unemployed. Public employee unions will resist, but there will be layoffs of teachers, city workers and state bureaucrats.

The real estate industry will not recover soon either, with millions of mortgages still underwater, homes in foreclosure or short sale still kept off the market by local banks. They are already suffering badly from the collapse of the commercial real estate market, office buildings sitting empty and vacant lots where only a few years ago massive projects were planned. The million dollar penthouse condo may be a thing of the past.

Along with conspicuous consumption, irrational exuberance and madcap breakfasts at Tiffany’s.

All through the ‘90s and the ‘00s, our economy was grossly inflated, primarily by a willingness of businesses and individuals to go deeply into debt. The big banks and financial institutions are now awash in cash, but not lending, primarily because no one wants to borrow. Even mergers and acquisitions are way down from five years ago.

Japan went through a similar period of inflation during the ‘90s, greatly expanding the public payroll and social welfare benefits, especially for the retired worker. Their deep and serious recession lasted more than ten years. Many Japanese premiers during that period resigned, some in disgrace.

Whether the U.S. government can avoid a similar lasting recession remains to be seen. A recent multi-billion jobs package went primarily to the teachers’ unions, not private sector employment. Teach! Teach! Teach!

©2010 Dennis Green

Prop. (h) 8

by Dennis Green

“My two moms can beat up your ten wives!” So read a sign held by one demonstrator in the face of another, and that’s how heated this debate has been. Yesterday’s ruling will no doubt be appealed, all the way up to the Supreme Court, where a majority of the justices are Catholic. Is this a civil rights issue, or not?

Yesterday, I wore my Prop. (h) 8 T-shirt to our monthly dialysis meeting, and our final one with Nurse Sandy, who has complete our training, and will now be passing us off to Nurse Kate. My T-shirt, turquoise, was from Fifty Seven Thirty Three, a wonderful silk-screening artisnal shop long located next door to Tania & James’ art studio, and now open as a retail shop on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland.

The T-shirt features two lesbians embracing, passionately making out, and reads, “Love is not the problem.” I wore it specifically for good luck in the outcome of yesterday’s ruling, which found the ban on same-sex marriage in California in violation of equal protection and the 14^th Amendment. “Proponents of this ban have offered no rational argument why it should be in force,” read a portion of the ruling.

The exam itself did not go all that well, revealing that I have been retaining fluid from the peritoneal dialysis exchanges. This results in weight gain, high blood pressure, swollen ankles and, most threatening, fluid in the lungs and congestive heart failure. So my nephrologist, on call, promptly ordered some fine tuning in our procedure.

Instead of exchanges at 6 pm, midnight and 6 am, he ordered three overnight, at 6, 9, and 3 am, plus a drain at 6 am, leaving my cavity empty all day. He also told us to use the 2.5 solution, and prescribed large doses of a diuretic. We just had our first such night, and it is almost as disruptive as being on the machine all night long. Very little deep REM sleep and genuine rest. But already I’m losing weight and fluid.

At the end of our session yesterday, after collecting my 24-hour urine draw and samples from all the previous day’s drains, after the Hepetitus B vaccine shot, the thorough exam, change of dressings, blood draw, and scheduling of future appointments — as I was putting my shirts back on, I peeled off the Prop. (h) 8 Tee, folded it gently, and gave it to Nurse Sandy.

“I may be a toughie, and a warrior,” I said to her, “but I’ve been wearing a T-shirt with two nude lesbians on it, and I think you can make even better use of it!” She blushed at the gift, but knows where our sentiments are.

I fought mightily against Prop. (h) 8 myself, a totally unfair and irrational imposition of religious values on a secular citizenry. The Catholic and Mormon Churches spent millions to get it passed — two organizations with a troubled past in the issues of marriage and child molestation and hardly qualified to sit in moral judgment — and then complained when donor lists were made public and donor businesses were boycotted by opponents.

We’ve had our own little dust-up over gay rights here in Alameda, where the schools adopted a curriculum of lesson plans teaching students not to bully gay classmates, or those parented by same sex couples. There was even an attempted recall of school board Trustees, which petered out from lack of support.

I’m confident that the Supreme Court, with its majority of conservatives, will rule against such bans on marriage between consenting same sex adults. Anything else would be judicial activism, and we know how much conservatives hate that stuff.

©2010 Dennis Green

Is America Really a Democracy?

by Dennis Green

The Freedom House, a group that lists countries worldwide by their degree of freedom and democracy, says that among its highest standard are “Transparency and Accountability” of said governments to international standard tests. In many ways, unfortunately, our own American government cannot be given high marks.

Freedom of expression and freedom of association are especially high on the list of Freedom House’s assessments of nations, their laws and their cultures, around the world. In the new democracies, these scores are low, but also in America,. With a media and government increasingly dominated by corporate interests, the news is not good.

“Struggle against Unfair Taxes” is another criteria Freedom House uses. Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine are considered wanting on this list, where peaceful, non-violent pushback against regimes are resisted. But in the U.S., such movements are also resisted and discredited, tax strikers persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“Human Rights” are also high on most lists advanced by the United Nations, and also Freedom House. Yet in America, there are now a million black men in prison, all out of proportion to their percentage of the total population. We are hearing more and more immigrant bashing all the time, a thinly-disguised resentment of “those” people who don’t speak English as a first language, who may have darker skin, and whose only European blood comes from Conquistadors.

“Legality” is always given as the excuse, but where was the outrage about Vietnamese undocumented aliens, Afghani war refugees, South Koreans, Filipinos and the like? Many Jewish refugees of Soviet Pogroms also came here without the proper papers in order, but there was no outcry then either. Our border to the North is just as porous as our Southern one, and longer, but we don’t seem to worry about those illegal Canucks!

The most obvious forms of discrimination in America are in our drug laws, which prosecuted and imprison the drug crack cocaine, usually a black inner city ghetto drug, 100 times more harshly than the powdered form, more commonly used by white executive types. Despite recent reforms, the penalties for crack cocaine are still EIGHTEEN times more severe than for powdered Blow.

Many believe that the current drug prohibitions were designed in the first place, especially the marijuana laws, to discriminate against ethnic minorities, particularly blacks and Hispanics, who were the primary users in the 1930s. Those laws continue to result in far higher imprisonment rates among minorities, and are not only Draconian, but about as effective as the Prohibition Against Alcohol. When will we ever learn?

There’s an old saying that the smaller the venue the more corrupt the government. Too often, public representatives are in collusion with businesses — in California especially with real estate development firms — or with public employee unions. In California, $400 billion is spent on public education, and the opportunities for incompetence and corruption abound. A lack of transparency at the local level makes it almost impossible to uncover waste and fraud.

So it’s not simply a question of whether America is a “perfect” democracy, but how far we need to stray from our democratic ideals of freedom and equality before the term cannot even be applied. If the War in Afghanistan were put to the American people in a democratic referendum, for example, would we still be there? I very seriously doubt it.

But the war makers — from the Pentagon to military manufacturers like Boeing — are in collusion with a media which doesn’t conduct a serious investigation or debate. It takes a blogger like WikiLeak to stimulate any debate at all. So a few Afghani collaborators may be killed? So what? We killed 30 innocent civilians last week alone with our drones. When we pull out, all of the collaborators will be killed, just as they were in France in 1945.

©2010 Dennis Green

Trickle Down Sex

by Dennis Green

What is that white, creamy stuff tricklimg down your leg? No cheating, now! No peeking.

Ah, the sex life! It keeps us goin’ and sometimes drives us crazy. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ve had way more than my share and didn’t start enjoying the opposite sex any sooner than my contemporaries. Can you say “Hound Dawg”? Contrary to Catholic doctrine, I didn’t always do so for the purposes of procreation, or with the Pope’s blessing. I even, more often than not, used birth control or respected my partner for doing so.

We’ve gone through a number of sexual revolutions since I grew up in the Fifties, when making out, petting and “dry humping” were as often as not the order of the day….ur…rather, the evening or very early hours of the morning, usually in an automobile, sometimes the back seat, sometimes the front, especially if you had a bench seat and no four-on-the-floor.

And I was almost 40 when I finally learned how to do it right. A wonderful lover hinted that the best sex she’d ever had was with a man who went REALLY SLOW, and, as she put it, “It was marvelous!” So, that first Saturday we spent in bed together, I became Slow Hand Luke and stayed in first gear for the rest of the festivities. Ten times.

And yes, I know some women like it fast and hard and faster and harder! I’m adaptable.

And sometimes, it’s all the better the more illicit it is. Place can be a factor, time of day, marital status, even religion. I remember one noontime, in the Berkeley Hills, in full view of the road, with a married woman who was a devout Baptist and a former student…well, you get the idea. Joy to the World!

As for gay sex, I’ve never been there, but the funniest comment I ever heard came from the comedienne Sarah Silverman, who, while watching her little dog licking his own penis, remarked, “Let’s face it — gay sex, straight sex — it’s all pretty GROSS when you think about it!”

Gross or not, most of us really dig it, and don’t mind the trickle down part. Isn’t that what Kleenex is for? And sometimes that stuff perpetuates the human species, and I suppose that’s what all the evolutionary, genetic programming is about, but clearly, there’s an opt-out gene, or even several. Some folks are just asexual, and others aren’t into cross-gender sex. All these wonders in our DNA!

Once I learned the techniques, some of my favorite memories are the hours I spent just giving pleasure. I knew, intuitively, that if I gave pleasure, I didn’t have to worry about getting my own in return. In all those years, I had only one partner with whom I was so incompatible that it didn’t work, in either direction. And sadly to say, I married her! Before I discovered the horrible truth, on our wedding night, after an elaborate church wedding. Yikes!

My boyz are in their late twenties now, and I don’t give them any advice, let alone hints about sex. Oh, we watched enough movies together, less than XXX-rated, that they had a pretty good idea what it’s all about, and never asked any questions. And both of them are single. I think I talked enough about the importance of birth control while they were growing up that they won’t be caught in a parent trap of their own.

We live now in very strange times. I visit places where the sexes intermingle and sometimes go home together, or are an item, or a settled couple, even married. The younger women seem curiously indifferent, more into “Way!” and “Like…” than “I Love You.” I suspect the latest sexual revolution is one where the act itself just isn’t such a big deal. Too bad!

©2010 Dennis Green

Snark City

by Dennis Green

So, just for the hell of it, I visited two of the marginal blogs focused on Alameda, Michele Ellson's "The Island," and Lauren Do's "Blogging Bayport Alameda." Both profess to be legitimate, journalistic news sites, not just the usual sloppy blogs we all know and sometimes love.

What I found there was a profound lack of civility, by the blogsters toward their subject matter, making bitter and personal attacks on people they don't like, such as the Interim City Manager, Anne Marie Gallant, and City Attorney Teresa Highsmith. Their snarky tone and attitude is shared by most of the posters on their discussion threads. Boy, was I a hit! I haven’t seen bullies like this since the third grade.

I also discovered what a tiny, out of touch and thoughtless minority they are, still crying in favor of Measure B, SunCal's proposal to develop Alameda Point, the former Naval Air Station, which was defeated at the polls in March, 85/15 percent of those voting. That would be about 3,000 yea voters in a town of almost 80,000 people, or about .075 percent.

I figure that those who voted for B were mostly Newbies, people who bought houses here in the last 5-10 years, and maybe they’re so angry because they paid too much. But I wasn't prepared for how insular and out of touch they really are. They are talking to themselves, and are as inarticulate as my students in Bonehead English were. They all have opinions and wild speculations, but no facts, and we all know that old saying… ”Everyone has an opinion, and opinions are like ‘armpits’ and smell just about as bad.” (Censorship mine.)

They are also uniquely unfair, most of them backing the other recently defeated initiative, the new and horrendous school parcel tax, Measure E. It would have shifted the burden away from the Gold Coast, in a regressive tax costing those McMansions no more than a poor little cottage on the West End, and the big mall little more than some local small retail businesses.

This is not the Alameda I know and love. That Alameda is good-natured, civil in it's debates and user-friendly.

The only news site that makes any sense is Alameda Action News, and the few Snarks who appear there, who persists in their arrogance and ignorance so well that no one takes them seriously, invite the good advice I once received: "Don't take the bait!"

Posters on those minority blogs don't get that, and especially the ones with pseudonyms. But that's okay. I won't miss all those Snarks, and if they show up on a site I'm still reading, I will just hope they remember that good old cop advice, "You have the right to remain silent." Otherwise, they'll just incriminate themselves!

I'm reminded of an experience I had about five years ago with writers groups. Julia Park, then editor and founding partner of the Alameda Sun where my column, Geezerville: A Wry Take On Aging, was being published every week or two, had been teaching night school, a writing class. Some of her students organized a writers group, and I was invited to join.

We were about 12 -- 15 strong, and met one Saturday morning a month. We rotated hosting and refreshment duties, and spent the morning listening to various members read a piece of work. Sometimes poetry, sometimes a short story, sometimes a chapter from a novel, a work in progress. Very bright, cordial, civil folks. I enjoyed our sessions and always had something to read.

One member lived on a houseboat, and meeting on his water craft/domicile was quite an adventure. One young woman lived in a house on the lagoon off Otis Drive, and that was fun too. We were quite a varied group, a few more women than men, one gay man, one fellow who taught at St. Mary's College, a minister, and so on.

And then I made the mistake of a lifetime. I had met a man, who seemed like a decent enough person, lively, talkative, outgoing. And I invited him to join the group. As it turned out, he was rude, argumentative, disruptive and had very little to contribute but venom. I never understood why that fellow was so angry, but within a few months, the cordial atmosphere of the writers group had been destroyed, and gradually, we disbanded.

My recent experience on the blog discussion threads reminded me of that sad time with the writers group. And how important civility is to any communal enterprise. Oddly enough, the guy who ruined the writers’ group is a regular on both those sites.

© 2010 Dennis Green

How Do You Ask The Last Man To Die?

by Dennis Green

John Kerry, in his testimony before the Fulbright Committee, in 1972, as a returned Vietnam Vet, said, “There are men dying there now, so that we don’t have to admit what the rest of the world knows, that it is a mistake. How do we ask men to die so that President Nixon, as he said in his own words, doesn’t have to be, ‘The first American President to lose a war.’? How do you ask the last man to die in Vietnam?”

I watched an old news clip of that testimony the other day, and it drove me to tears, remembering in a rush my fight to help end that war, seeing my own students drafted to fight and die there, seeing the returning vets, coming to UCSB on the G.I. Bill, and the tortured looks on their faces, seeing them today, in their sixties, still suffering the trauma and illnesses from that war.

I am also doing research for a story about President William McKinley, who opposed our entry into the Spanish-American War because he had served at Antietam in the Civil War, and seen, “Stacks of the war dead bodies.” And time after time we have gone into these unnecessary wars, squandering treasure and lives, in a seemingly childish lust for adventure.

In every instance, there was some bogus incident pushing the U.S. into war. “Remember the Maine!” was the cry of William Randolph Hearst to Teddy Roosevelt. But the Maine, it has been proven, was not blown up by a Spanish torpedo, but by its own boiler and ammunition stores. The Gulf of Tonkin incident got Vietnam efforts into a Surge. WMDs got us into Iraq. And now what is it, precisely, that keeps us in Afghanistan?

The Fulbright hearings into the Vietnam conflict didn’t even BEGIN until 1971. And we were not out of there until 1975. Today, Senator John Kerry is Chairman of the Senate Defense Committee, and recently ordered the release of 1,000 pages of testimony and investigative evidence about Vietnam. He appears poised to call for hearings into our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if such hearings begin, we are likely to hear some very startling things.

The hearings into BlackWater mercenary contractors were very disturbing, enough so that the company changed its name, if not its ways. The murder of innocent civilians in Iraq was only the worst of the charges against them. A number of U.S. soldiers have been charged with similar crimes in Afghanistan.

We will hear more about the use of drones in Pakistan, probably more than the Generals would want us to know. We’ll even get some intelligent news analysis on PBS from Need to Know, the Charlie Rose Show and on CNN from Farid Zakharia. And we will be reminded that when the media turned against the war in Vietnam, when Walter Cronkite told us it was unwinnable, LBJ decided to retire.

President Obama has left himself an exit strategy from Afghanistan, but will he use it? If he does not, his presidency, whether it ends in 2012 or 2016, will end in disgrace. He will be even more discredited than the man who got us into all this mess — President George W. Bush.

And the only thing that might stop John Kerry is a Republican takeover of the Senate. Don’t let that happen. My Libertarian leanings and he deaths of relatives and friends in combat have made me fiercely anti-War!

©2010 Dennis Green