The Problems:

Money in many forms.

The U.S. Election is funded by rich people and corporations.  That is why Sanders enjoys pointing out his percentage of individual donors.  There are laws that limit how much any one person can give a candidate directly. These laws were supposed to avoid this issue.  But the candidates developed Political Action Committees.  PACs are just huge bank accounts where anyone can give any amount of money and that money can be spent any damn way.   If they don’t even have to spend it all on the election, they can use it to go to Barbados.  It’s not a problem.

The money problem is not just centered with the candidates and their donors.  That money buys Advertising.  During an Election Season Advertising in Media costs THREE TIMES MORE.  Yup.  So as you can imagine, the media conglomerates are NOT super excited to clean up that nasty PAC problem.

The platforms:

Over the last couple of decades the elections have increasingly become a 24 hour reality show.  The election has always been big for TV and Newspapers.  And since those TV and Newspapers needed to get people’s attention, they preferred colorful short stories.   Candidates learned to use “soundbite” phrases that would resonate well in small clips on TV.  Complex ideas and discourse were ignored.

However when 24 hour news channels arrived, things started to drift south at an alarming rate.  And it soon became clear that the things that got attention were NOT the tax plan or the budget or foreign policy.  It was concepts that packed emotional impact. That people could square off on in a talk show.   So those things became an increasing part of the simplistic speeches.  And if a policy didn’t have any emotional impact it was linked to something that did.  Or ignored.

Actual detailed policy and platforms are sometimes ignored to the extent that they aren’t even published.    And even if they are published there is no need for them to be viable.  Because for the most part the candidates don’t have to defend or explain the details.  They can hit the highlight reel and ignore the hollow center of their plan.

VOTING:

Not enough people vote.  Not enough are even registered to vote.  This creates an unrepresentative election.  The candidates have a vested interested in this and go to some lengths to continue this trend.

Electoral College:

Right now we have an electoral college.  This means it’s possible to win the election by winning only 22% of the actual votes.  YUP.  And that’s in a 2 party system folks.   Everyone’s votes in this system are not equal.  My vote is less powerful as a Ohio voter than someone’s vote in North Dakota.  There is a conscious reason for this, but it is also deeply unfair.  The electoral college was created to more evenly weigh the less populated states with the heavily populated states. But we have elected presidents who have not won the popular vote.  In other words the guy who lost became President.  That’s not actually very democratic.

Debates:

Debates only retained the name, but not the actual intention or form of a debate.  It is essentially an opportunity for the candidate to say the things they want to say without much of a challenge to their position.  They are not forced to even answer the question that is asked most of the time.  They nominally start to answer the question and the pivot the answer into their standard rhetoric on some topic where they know most people agree.

Follow up Questions are often not even part of the agenda and most of the conversation happens between the moderator and the candidate and not between the candidates.

The solution:

Money:

We need to get rid of the PACs.  We need to stop corporations from giving more to a political campaign either directly or indirectly than any one individual can.  Basically we need to isolate this election to the money that is given directly to the candidate.  Also the party or a some lobbying group or the boy scouts cannot directly advertise for candidates.

I would not go so far as to eliminate allowing a group to advocate for a particular policy as long as they did not link that ad directly or indirectly to the candidate or party.  So if a group is all excited about wall building, that is the only thing they can say.  “let’s build a wall.”  They cannot say Trump, Republican or have any logo, image or symbol that would link that issue to the candidate.

There should also be a cap on the total dollars spent on a campaign.  And it should not be anywhere close to $1 billion dollars.  I would cap it $50 million.

Voting:

4 candidates should be running.  See my primary thoughts on how to accomplish that.  Then we use the Alternative Voting System.  This allows a person to vote for a candidate they truly believe in without feeling that they are throwing away their vote.

EVERYONE must vote.  You can show up and mark Abstain, but you have to show up.

Electoral College:

Let’s ditch it like dirty dishwater.  Its NOT working.  The idea that certain areas will be ignored without the electoral college  is unlikely.  If it were true, since candidates could conceivably win an election by winning all of the small states, that would be where the candidates would be spending a good deal of their time.

BUT NO.  Candidates disregard those states and focus on about 12 of the 50 states.  This system doesn’t give those small states any more attention from the candidates BEFORE the election so you KNOW it’s not causing any attention after election.

Popular vote is a fairer way.  Period.  I know this Republic is based on States and what not, but that is what our Congress is there for.

The Platform:

Candidates are required to publish and discuss all of their proposed policies on a pre-set list of issues.

In depth. You want to build a wall around the US, you need to submit a plan that shows how much it will cost, how it will be funded, details on how it will be accomplished, and analysis on expected outcomes WITH EVIDENCE.  Your proposal must include at least 2 legitimate objections to your plan and your counter position to those objections.  “We’ll see” doesn’t count as a counter argument.

You need to provide this upon declaring your candidacy.  If you change it – you must note your changes.

DEBATES:

Debates must include challenges by opponents and moderators.  False information must be shown that way as soon as humanly possible.  In fact I would make all follow up shows be about the accuracy of the information presented.  And if it is possible for a moderator to know in real time and challenge the information, that must be done.  Indeed when you think of it, I imagine the public will find that more entertaining.  A sort of quiz show mentality.

 

 

 

 

 

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Have you ever wondered how the population of a country can be blind to the horrors it is perpetrating.  How did Germans not see?  How did the Japanese not see?  How did the Americans not see?

WHAT?!  Many an American is bristling right now.  “WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS, SARA.  You take that back!” is being shouted at the computer screen.

But yeah.  NOPE.  Not taking it back.  Because we aren’t the good guys.  But the general patriotic rhetoric and feeling about the U.S. by Americans is “We are the heros, the good guys, the knights in shining armor.”

I was 40 before it occurred to me that We Aren’t the Good Guys.  And I knew all the bad things before that.  But still, it was the unconsidered simplified assumption I had about America so I just reinterpreted the bad stuff, as bad but not really changing the basics – America: Good Guy.

I never challenged Good Guy America because that assumption is fed by lots and lots of rhetoric to make me feel that way.  Heck it’s part of the school curriculum.  America, we are willing to blow innocent people up with Atomic Weapons but only because WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS.  That is the gist of how Hiroshima and Nagasaki were taught to me in school.  In fact, right now, someone is thinking about writing a comment about how many lives America saved by doing it.  AMERICA, GOOD GUY!

This country has an ugly internal history of violent and horrific bigotry.  Consider Slavery, the entire Native American Population, (Trail of Tears is just a high point), Segregation, Immigrant Treatment, and Suffrage.  Just to name the big ones.  A full 25 volume encyclopedia would be necessary to summarize the various points of injustices done inside this country by its government to the people and the land and the wildlife.  But we still internalize the fact that we are a good nation.

The U.S. has spent most of it’s young life being  self satisfied at how marvelous we are.  Or if we are having a bad hair day we relish how marvelous we WERE and imagine how we can recreate this fantasy land of greatness which we once were.

The human brain is fully capable of seeing a fact and reorganizing it inside the brain to be a good thing.  To prop it up against beautiful ideas and honestly believe that despite evidence this viewpoint is reality.  It’s the same way people use religion.

If you take a clean objective look at the bible, for example, it’s hard to find a Good Guy God.  But you won’t catch Christian Religions calling God anything but Love.  Because they believe God is Love, they just re-work all the stories inside their brain to be stories about how much God Loves Us.  Our brains work really well at switching that.

Our monkey brains are not clever.  They can be easily manipulated to remember things that never happened, to see things that aren’t there, to re-interpret the view to one that fits our current worldview.

We are complacent in our belief that our brains will not be wrong, when in fact they are wrong regularly.  And we just ignore it.  Like a glitch in the matrix.

Right now Republicans are reworking Trump in their brain.  He’s the Republican so he must be worthy is how it’s going to come out for most of them.  Because they have the unconsidered assumption that Republicans are Good.  Therefore the brain switches to Trump is Good.

We fail when we don’t look carefully at our assumptions.  So very many are hidden from us, but they are worthy of a good stare.  Because our monkey brains don’t just make assumptions, they make SIMPLIFIED assumptions.   So something like being a Republican, which obviously is a complex mess of ideas and concepts, is drilled down to REPUBLICAN.  This removes all the nuance and lets our brain make those unwarranted brain switches on someone like Trump.

 

 

 

Yesterday I got a new chair at work.  This new chair has been something of a journey. I was sitting in an old comfy AND broken chair.  It listed a bit to the left. When offered a new chair, I only specified that it not have arms that poked into my fundament.  I hate that. And my current chair, besides being broken, has arms that were put on backward and allow my fundament to spill over without check.

So I got the new chair (same kind as old chair) and it was defective.  The wheels wouldn’t turn to roll in a new direction and I was constantly feeling snagged.  Attempts were made to fix that.  No Avail.  So I went back to old and broken chair a new chair was ordered.

This time, they went big.  As in Big and Tall.  They got me a GIANT chair for large people.  And I love it.  It’s a fat person chair.  There was a time when this would have been a humiliation for me.  Instead, it wasn’t until I was falling asleep last night that I realized I’m fat.  That I’m the fattest person in the office.  That they bought me a fat person chair not just because I made jokes about liking plenty of room for my fundament but because I’m fat.

I’ve had an unconscious self identity of being normal weight.  Despite the conscious awareness that I wasn’t.  So this is why it felt like a surprise.

I wasn’t this fat when I started there 3 years ago.  I was a normal weight 7 years ago.  But in those years I have gained 100lbs.  100 pounds. That’s A WHOLE LOT.

I am aware of it, but I don’t have the obsession with it that plagued me when I was young.  My only desire to lose weight is connected to the awareness that my joints hurt when I walk.  And pain is problematic.

You have to understand the ABSOLUTE OBSESSION that filled my life until I was 33 and got a gastric bypass.  I was very fat, much fatter than I am now,  and my entire focus was on how to lose weight, how awful being fat was and feeling terrible about what I ate when it was bad.  I have NONE of that.  I have only a clinical awareness that my pain is due to my weight.

I have none of the humiliation that would have filled my 20 something soul at getting a fat person chair. I’m fat. OK.  My co-workers think I’m fat.  Its OK.

This change is due to the plunge my life has taken in the last 7 years.  I’ve been living my life in a place of desolation.  A place of horrors.  This is a maximum security desolation where minor side issues like being fat are just lint in the air around me.

So now, my brain has a new perspective. And on the one hand, it’s nice to not have that constant whip that is an obsession with body weight and weight loss.  On the other, I’m not healthy and it’s due to what I eat and the weight I’m carrying, so it would be better if I got a little big more focused on this issue.  Not caring at all isn’t particularly helpful.

Figuring out a plan for this seems annoying and huge and a change.  Mostly I think its the change that the depression is bucking so hard.  My brain is NOT a fan of change or New.

So first small step. This weekend I will figure out how I want to develop a new way of handling this.  I think a daily walk and food changes.  Which is where we come into problems.  Because I’m not well enough to prepare elaborate things, so it has be easy and healthy.  Not two things that go together in my mind.

Sigh.  This is going to be a lot of work.

 

I woke up with a BRILLIANT idea for a blog post.

This morning I have NO idea what that was.  I do clearly remember being impressed with my idea though.

So.

 

You should participate.

Its on Twitter, that’s how you know it really matters.

Also, it’s about Labels.  These are important questions at important times in my life.

Also, I may need to buy labels in order to continue organizing my closets.

Also, for full disclosure purposes I must tell you, I may be using polls and blog posts as a way to defer ACTUALLY doing the reorg of the closet.  It’s possible.  Hard data on that point has not been fully tabulated.