Politics Plus

My apologies for not adding a Sound Off! for a while, but I have had more important cakes to bake.

The recent submersible tragedy has pointed out not so much the dangers of deep-sea exploration as it has the hypocrisy of the popular media. Millions closely followed the search for the Titan and hoped for the best. Meanwhile, hundreds of refugees perished when the boats they were jammed on capsized. So why have the media ignored the deaths of hundreds and focused on the deaths of five?

As a society we adore the ultra-rich, we all but worship them. We delight in the latest gossip about celebrity relationships. We fantasize about our own champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Never mind that many of the ultra-rich got that way by unethical means – keeping wages low, moving manufacturing overseas where labor laws are weak if not nonexistent, renting convicts from for-profit prisons and paying them pittances, and getting U.S. Congress to slash their taxes and even provide their corporations with subsidies. The less Mr. Moneybags pays, the more of a burden is imposed on the working class. And, of course, the first programs to get the axe are the ones that scarcely make a dent on the national budget.

The goal of the submersible Titan’s final dive was to explore the wreck of the Titanic, or so it was said. However, when the majority of those on board were civilian billionaires, it sounds more like an adventure for pure fun and bragging rights than a research dive. The rich use their vast wealth to purchase multiple homes, fancy private jets, huge yachts, costly jewelry, designer clothing and gourmet dinners, as well as ridiculous adventures. Let the peasants they disdain freeze and starve, just as long as their bank accounts can continue to grow far past the obscenely bloated level. However, hubris has a habit of catching up with people from time to time.

Yes, it is sad that those five people perished. Yes, it is a relief that their deaths were quick and almost certainly painless, though there is evidence that the passengers knew something was wrong. However, the media definitely need to rethink their priorities.

“Wherever they burn books, they will ultimately burn people too.” This quote by journalist and romantic poet Heinrich Heine is originally in German, so there are many variations of it in English. However, the sentiment is always the same: Burning books eventually leads to killing people.

We should be concerned, be very concerned, about Governor DeSantis’ book bans. He is doing the people of Florida, and especially the state’s children, an enormous disfavor. Outlawing the teaching of Black studies, forbidding school children from discussing non-binary sexual orientation or even the monthly visits from Aunt Flo narrows their minds and engenders ignorance as well as bigotry and hatred.

A while back I wrote about the stink that arose when Maus was banned. The result? Everybody wanted to read it. Sales of the award-winning graphic novel spiked. In other words, you really want kids to read a book, outlaw it. Controversy sells. Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses became a best-seller because Muslims made such a big deal about its alleged blasphemy.

The U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect our freedom to read what we like. OK, I can get keeping kindergarteners away from 50 Shades of Grey, but keeping them away from And Tango Makes Three is absurd. Right-wingers see “bad” stuff in so many books because they look for it. One of the characters is gay? Ban it! Girls talk about menstruation? Ban it! The author supports reproductive rights? Ban it! Stamp, stamp, stamp, the “Banned” label goes on just about any book for just about any reason. But it’s OK to expose children to the Bible, even though it includes incest, rape, genocide, violence, magic, talking animals and – wait for it – menstruation.

Conservatives give exceedingly strong indications that they want to dumb down the education system in the US. They claim that public schools are “indoctrinating” and “grooming” children. Yet right-wingers are the real groomers, fomenting hate and paranoia, encouraging children to all but worship guns, pounding pseudo-science and outright lies into their heads. Better-educated people tend to be liberal, which could be the main reason why the right-wing disparages education, especially universal and affordable education. Ignorant masses are easier to control – and bamboozle.

Children need to be exposed to people who are not like them so they appreciate diversity and do not become bigots. Kids often know from an early age that they are nonbinary, so they need to know it’s OK to be that way. Also, they need to know about history. They need to know why people are different colors. They need to learn about different cultures. They need to study history in order to know why things are the way they are – why Blacks still struggle to achieve equality, and why women are under-represented in many fields.

What is wrong with letting drag queens read to children? How many people have been killed by books? Yet certain governments within the US feel it is more important to regulate and control books than to regulate and control guns. I have yet to hear about somebody dying as a result of reading Heather Has Two Mommies.

Poverty in the USA sucks. It really does. But I shouldn’t have to tell you that.

Our current economic system is geared against the 99%. The Federal minimum wage has not risen in almost 15 years, even though the cost of everything has. People have been fighting tooth and nail for years to get it increased to at least a living wage. Some cities and states have raised it locally, but the national minimum is still an absurdly low $7.25 an hour. For tipped workers the minimum is $2.15 an hour, so they depend on tips to eat – literally.

And what happens when people scream at their elected officials, demanding an increase? The stooges of the 1% spew propaganda about robotized cafés, lost jobs and $20 hamburgers. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! Towns and cities that increased their local minimum wage have experience none of the above.

Poor people have a hard time keeping up with bills. Thus, they frequently get charged late fees that they really can’t afford. Some power companies allow customers to donate in order to help those having a hard time keeping up, but I doubt enough people do this. If a utility shuts you off for nonpayment, you have to pay another fat fee to have your water, electricity or gas turned back on.

Poverty hits children hard. Undernourished kids have lower IQs, receive scanty health care, learn fewer valuable skills, and are more likely to be swallowed up by the insatiable Prison-Industrial Complex. Some estimates place the cost of childhood poverty in the United States at over $1 trillion a year.  That’s even more than the Pentagon’s bloated budget!

Unless you have a bank account, you must go to check cashers to get moolah – and they charge fees. If you’re late on your rent, your landlord can slap a penalty on you. If you get a traffic ticket, not paying on time leads to penalties. And if a collection agency gets its paws on your debt, fees can pile on fees for the most arbitrary reasons until a couple hundred dollars in debt balloons into thousands.

A few times I have read about workers who need heavy boots, but can afford only cheap ones. Quality boots last a long time, but they are quite spendy and thus out of the reach of the struggling. They buy cheap boots, which fall apart so they have to buy cheap boots again. In the long run, the expensive boots are cheaper because they last much longer; but the poor cannot afford them, so they end up spending more on footwear. I could go on and on and on and on with more examples of how the impoverished get screwed.

You may have heard the story about the man who suffered an ankle injury, and despite having health insurance he can’t get the surgery to fix it done. Why? His insurance has too high a deductible, which he can’t reach. With a bad ankle he can’t work and provide for his family. I like to think that his friends, coworkers and neighbors scraped together enough money to help him.

Do NOT get me started on education loans. Those companies have been given free rein to charge as much interest as they like, crushing graduates under boulders of debt that they are very unlikely to escape without a miracle.

All too often the poor get snark about pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. The old meaning of that phrase refers to something that is impossible to do. Poverty is very difficult to escape in the USA, and getting harder and harder as wages remain stagnant while prices increase. Millions are working multiple jobs but still barely keeping their noses above water.

The money to provide living wages, affordable housing, affordable healthcare, and affordable – If not free – education is out there. This country spends obscene amounts on “defense” and maintains hundreds of unnecessary military bases overseas, while giving away billions upon billions upon even more billions in tax breaks for the super-wealthy and highly profitable mega-corporations. But when budget trimming time comes, those are the last items to be considered. If Washington had failed to raise the debt ceiling, you know that necessary programs like Social Security and SNAP would have felt the budget axe first, even though they account for only a sliver of the Federal budget.

The recent building collapse in Davenport, IA illustrates our society’s contempt for the poor. The building collapsed during the evening of Sunday, March 28th, and rescue operations ended on Monday the 29th. As of this past Thursday, June 1, three residents are still unaccounted for. How long did search and rescue operations go on after the collapse of the original World Trade Center in New York City?

We as a society view poverty in entirely the wrong way. We keep the poor out of the mainstream, ignoring the fact that just about anybody could wind up impoverished. 75% of all US residents will experience at least one year of living in or near poverty between the ages of 20 and 75. Also, poverty is not restricted to people of color – two-thirds of those regarded as poor are white.

Republicans – and false Democrats – serve the fat cats and mega-corporations. They don’t want the poor to have a voice, hence voter suppression in the forms of closing polling places, reducing early voting hours, halting vote by mail, and gerrymandering. We The People need to remind politicians that Mr. Moneybags may have a poop-ton of cash to donate to candidates’ coffers, but he has only one vote. The peons struggling to make ends meet have many – and they will use those votes, if they can. Angry people are much more motivated to vote than complacent ones.

Other countries provide for their citizens by paying living wages, providing affordable education and health care, getting the homeless into simple housing, mandating family leave, et cetera. Why can’t the United States?

Recently I learned of a concept that has been around longer than I have, but only lately has started to gain widespread attention: Copaganda. As you probably suspect, it’s a portmanteau of “cop” and “propaganda.” It’s all about using media and culture to give police a positive image. There’s nothing wrong with depicting police officers as the good guys; after all, they are supposed to Protect & Serve, and fight crime. Unfortunately, as news stories from not just the past few years but going back decades have shown, the police do not always behave as they should. Our country’s militarization of police departments has put a lot of cops in a warrior state of mind. Instead of the stereotypical Officer Friendly, we have a heavily armed and armored brute who has a lot in common with Judge Dredd.

Copaganda goes all the way back to Dragnet. It continues through shows such as Adam-12, Hill Street Blues, Cops, Law & Order, NCIS, Blue Bloods and Paw Patrol. The final example shows how the media want to get us trusting the cops early. Children’s books and comic books always present law enforcement in a good light. We grow up trusting police officers because our earliest view of them is often the stereotypical Nice Cop, the fearless paladin defending the public.

In nearly every movie that features police, they are the fearless heroes protecting the citizenry. Even if they are not perfectly saintly, they are shown in a positive light – and if a cop does rough up a suspect, hey, the @s$hole asked for it. Seldom are cops depicted as being corrupt or needlessly violent. When cops do behave badly, it is for the common good and thus justifiable. Remember in RoboCop when the titular character blew away a bunch of hoodlums in a drug factory, with complete impunity? Paul Verhoeven actually intended his movie about a cybernetic supercop to be a satire on police brutality and excessive force.

Police shows and movies depict police departments as being more diverse than they actually are. In the U.S., only about 15% of police officers are Black, though one would hardly know that from US movies and TV. Also, in police shows the majority of criminals are people of color, often Black. Never mind that whites commit more crimes than Blacks, since they are the most populous race – for example, whites are responsible for the majority of mass shootings since 1982.

In D&D terms, police officers are supposed to be lawful good. They are certainly lawful (for the most part), but sadly in the USA they are becoming more lawful neutral or even lawful evil. Increased militarization of police departments is making them less like your friendly neighborhood constables, and more like the Imperial Stormtroopers of the Star Wars universe.

Many police departments around the country are turning to social media posts to help counter negative narratives and boost images, showing white police officers posing with Black children holding “Black Lives Matter” signs. Videos of police officers kneeling, hugging protesters, or offering snacks to little Black girls and boys get boosts from police allies and activists, as well as the general public. The focus of these videos is supposed to be on the kind nature of individual police officers, but it’s important to remember that these friendly officers have guns on their hips and hold qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that effectively shields cops from accountability for misconduct, such as when they use excessive force.

The news media are not helping. During the protests against police brutality that began with the tragic death of George Floyd, local and national news outlets focused on the occasional violence, ignoring the fact that 97% of all Black Lives Matter protests were non-violent. Corporate media gleefully licks the boots of police officers, downplaying their misconduct while exaggerating the violence and mayhem of protesters.

As I pointed out in my previous essay about “Defund the Police,” we need to rethink law enforcement in this country – profoundly. Cops are necessary, but they don’t have to be a necessary evil. They should be thoroughly on the side of Good. They should adhere to the slogan Protect and Serve.