Category: Psychology

By Posted on Posted in Consumer Issues, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Ethics: General, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , , , ,

Yes, it’s true. Thursday’s “debate” was a debacle, an atrocity. And yes, Democrats have a right to indulge in some panic. But a more helpful response is to demand that the mainstream media start covering the real issue in this campaign: That American democracy is under threat by Donald Trump, who was the worst president in history according to experts and who has devolved into a raving lunatic who has openly talked about the totalitarian regime he would impose this time.

For months, much of the mainstream media has consistently painted Biden in a poor light while for the most part refusing to set the same standard in evaluating Trump. A particularly horrific example was the time one of the Washington Post’s newsletters made a chart that compared how old Biden would be at the END of a second term with how old Trump would be at the BEGINNING of a second term. They are only 3-1/2 years apart.

Yet, while the New York Times and Washington Post were going on about the need for Biden to step aside, the Philadelphia Inquirer was one of the few voices in the mainstream press saying that Trump, not Biden, is the one who should leave the race. Their reasons are not just the 30+ lies he confidently uttered during the event (you can’t really call it a debate). It’s everything he’s done in the last several years. The man is a felon, a self-admitted sexual predator, an inciter of a treasonous riot, an open bigot, a thuggish bully, and a narcissistic example of Id running amok with no Superego to rein it in. Trump is known for confidently putting out total bullshit—kind of like some AI tools that tell us to eat a rock every day. Trump wanted us to drink chlorine bleach during the pandemic, after all.

While under both the insurrection and incompetence clauses of the Constitution Trump shouldn’t have even been allowed on the ballot, he’s there. And if he leaves, we may not like the results. If, say, Nikki Haley were to replace him as the Republican candidate, she could actually win on the basis that she wouldn’t be as bad as Trump. And she wouldn’t–but she might very likely be as bad as or worse than the second-worst president, George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, as Lawrence O’Donnell points out, the Dems have no viable candidate in reserve. When LBJ left the race much earlier in the cycle, in March, 1968, Humphrey didn’t have enough time to gather accolades or dollars. He also notes that there was pressure on Bill Clinton to withdraw in 1992 and on Trump to do so in 2016, yet both men won. AND he faults the debate moderators for failing to ask important questions like what the heck Trump was doing during those three hours of silence on January 6, 2021, or to probe deeper on Trump’s nonsensical answers and outright lies, including his obvious lack of understanding of what a tariff is.

Seth Abramson says that getting Biden to exit would grant Trump’s deepest wish and wonders why nobody’s asking if this is a good idea, considering how much Trump and his henchmen are talking it up—and he doesn’t see any path to a victory by any other Democrat.

The Dems would start by attacking each other in a “circular firing squad” that only helps the Republicans. Any convention result will leave a wide swath of disaffected voters.  It just doesn’t make sense.

Mind, I’m no fan of Biden. There’s a long list of betrayals of progressives that I’m not at all happy with. But I believe that this race is much less about who we want to be president than whether we want democracy or fascism, and what the Supreme Court will look like. It’s also about who progressives would rather be pressuring, and there’s no question that we’d secure more wins under Biden than Trump.

And Heather Cox Richardson says Trump steamrolled Biden with a technique called the “Gish Gallop”:

It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.

It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has. It is similar to what Trump did to Biden during a debate in 2020. In that case, though, the lack of muting on the mics left Biden simply saying: “Will you shut up, man?” a comment that resonated with the audience. Giving Biden the enforced space to answer by killing the mic of the person not speaking tonight actually made the technique more effective.

So instead of trying to dump Biden, let’s demand that the media:

  1. Point out every lie either candidate utters
  2. Give some space to Trump’s crazy “word salad” campaign speeches that make absolutely no sense
  3. Examine the consequences of each of his fascist-inspired policy proposals
  4. Fact-check the next debate in REAL TIME.

And let’s remind everyone we know that this election is not about choosing a saint but choosing the better opponent who will enable the most positive change.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Diversity, Ethics: General, Gratitude, language, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , ,

The other day, I attended a memorial service for a neighbor. I’m not someone who typically gets offended at memorial services—but one speaker—a son of the deceased—made me feel I was standing underneath an avalanche. He said almost nothing about his mother, but went on and on about the need to accept Jesus and become this man’s kind of “Christian” in order to be spared a literal eternity in actual Hell.

Listening, I grew increasingly upset and furious. He effectively created a second-class citizenship, or worse, for everyone who doesn’t follow his particular brand of religion

I am not a Christian, but I’ve read the Four Gospels. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? Samaritans were a despised ethnic group among Jews in Roman Palestine 2000 years ago. Jesus’ message was all about acceptance of the good in people, acceptance of diversity, and taking responsibility for your OWN behavior—attributes that seem to be in short supply amongst this man’s self-righteous and vindictive style of religious fundamentalism. I don’t even now how they can even call themselves Christians when their key message mocks and marginalizes Christ’s own virtues. And I was appalled by this man, so smug that he actually said that he would see his parents in Heaven IF they were admitted there; he had no worries about his own fitness to enter the kingdom of love. Jesus would have been just as appalled. He was far more concerned with healing the sick, with undoing the misery of the poor and bereft, than with following religious rituals without following the moral codes underlying them:codes that recognize the worth of every human being.

After the service, I was simmering with rage and felt a need to process with someone who’d been there. I called another neighbor, a friend who welcomed us to the neighborhood 25 years ago. Before I could even say more than “I need to vent about the memorial service,” she named the offensive speaker and told me that she and her husband were equally appalled, and that this man with his ugly prejudices was an outlier in his own family. I felt some closure after our call.

The next day, I mentioned in my daily public Gratitude Journal on Facebook that I was grateful for her support “helping me debrief a very uncomfortable moment in the memorial we both attended yesterday.” I didn’t give any more details than that.

And then the magic happened. I got a Facebook private message from another neighbor, a relative of the deceased. This person is my Facebook friend, but in real life, we barely know each other. Most of our contact has been a quick hello at the annual neighborhood holiday party. She sent me a deeply personal and very welcoming note of apology for the conduct of her relative, appreciation that I had attended, and gratitude for the many cultures and religions who had come together to support her family in this time of grief. We sent a stream of messages back and forth for the next half-hour, and I came away feeling like I had a new friend, even after 25 years of those superficial encounters.

And that was the silver lining—another gateway to abundance—in this cloud of ugly bigotry.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Ethics: General, General Commentary, language, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, Politics, privacy, Psychology, Sexuality and Gender, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , ,

Trigger Warning: This post discusses my history as a survivor of separate instances of rape and sexual coercion.

 

Did Trump cheat on his wife with Stormy Daniels? Yes. Was it an affair? No. Does this matter? Absolutely, and I’ll explain why.

My venerable paper copy of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged defines affair in this context as “an intense amorous relationship, usually of short duration.” Dictionary.com copies all the Random House definitions verbatim (it’s definition #6). Microsoft Word’s dictionary calls it “a sexual relationship between two people, one or both of whom are married to or in a long-term relationship with someone else.” The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “a sexual relationship, especially a secret one.”

Note that all three definitions include “relationship” and the first says it has to be “intense” and “amorous.”

Daniels’ evening with Trump was not a relationship, and the amorousness went in only one direction. They had met casually and he’d asked her to have dinner with him. She says she accepted because her PR agent said it might be career-building and she did not have sex on her mind. Neither did he appear to at first, until she came back from the bathroom and found him on the bed, down to his undies. At best, it was a first date. At worst, it could be considered sexually harassing behavior.

It was not rape. Unlike the myriad of his other accusers, she never claimed that she didn’t consent. She consistently says that she was reluctant, was not enthusiastic, and felt so ashamed afterward that she was shaking as she got dressed again.

I would consider this interaction a coercive sexual encounter, if for no other reason than because of the power dynamics. One party is a rich and famous man in his late 50s, of towering (and intimidating) physical stature, with a bodyguard on the other side of the door. The other, a woman in her 20s and not overly familiar with the centers of power, is known only in a socially marginalized (though extremely popular) industry that has low credibility with mainstream media and mainstream morality.

He has all the power. And if she still has any illusions that he might help her career, she’s going to get on that bed even if she doesn’t really want to. For her, it was transactional; for him, it may have been notching a conquest or some kind of boost to his fragile ego. I can only speculate on his reasons, because despite the massive evidence, he denies the incident ever took place. 

I survived a rape, grabbed off the street by a stranger and dragged to a stairwell at age 10 or 11 (yes, it happens to boys—more of us than you probably think). I also survived a coercive sexual encounter at age 18 with a creepy 53-year-old man who’d made no secret of his desire to get into my pants. Like Stormy’s encounter with Trump, it was not rape because I was not in a position to withhold consent. And like that notorious encounter, it made me feel like total crap.

I had also, at that point, had a months-long actual affair with a man ten years older than me and several consensual one-nighters.

It’s not hard to tell the difference among these four types of encounters. The affair was mutual. It was delightful. It was a relationship. The consensual one-nighters were fun but did not lead to an ongoing relationship. For some of them, I wished it had continued—but that wasn’t the other person’s agenda.

The coerced encounter was not fun. It was unpleasant but in that moment I saw it as unavoidable. I have far more resources and communication skills these days and would handle it differently now, almost forty years later. While it was disgusting, it didn’t create long-term trauma. But the rape was traumatic, with consequences that lasted many decades and are not completely done yet. I couldn’t even bring myself to tell anyone for several years, and I never told my parents. It remains, after more than 50 years, the worst day of my life.

Neither being raped nor being coerced into sex is anything I would ever characterize as an affair. There is no relationship. There is not even any mutuality.

With this lens, with this history, you can understand why it has upset me since Daniels first went public that so many people who should know better, including many journalists, use the wrong term. Just the first results page from an Ecosia.org (tree-planting search engine) search for “stormy daniels affair” brought hits from the New York Times, BBC, NPR, NBC’s Chicago affiliate, and CNN. Now, with the trial verdict, it’s back in the news and I’m finally ready to call out these journalists. They are making it sound like love was involved, that these were two people who cared about it each other. But they didn’t.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Diversity, Entrepreneurship, General Commentary, language, Mindset, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , ,

Bob Burg devoted his Daily Impact newsletter this morning to endorsing a concept he found in Robert Greene’s book, The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature: “Always stick to what makes you weird, odd, strange, different. That’s your source of power.”

I love the idea of embracing your weirdness—and I’ve basically lived it since my teen years. But I want to add three corollaries:

  1. Present your weirdness in ways that foster, rather than cut off, communication. So, in my case, living in a socially conservative farm community, I’ve chosen not to wear skirts even though I find them very comfortable—because I want my neighbors to understand that while I’m different from them in many ways, we still inhabit the same neighborhood and have more in common than they might think. I made different, more outrageous, choices in other places I lived in. Marrying and having kids, recognizing that my decisions impact other people, was another encouragement to dial it back. But I still publicly label myself as a “marketing heretic,” still post unpopular views in public places, still invite people of all viewpoints to engage with me (as long as they do so civilly). And I can proudly point to many examples where my activism has made the world a better place, both within the business community and in the wider world.
  2. Listen and engage when your weirdness starts to set up barriers. Let people express their discomfort. Strive to uncover their deeper feelings. Find points of agreement and build the discussion out from there.
  3. Bring your weirdness to the table but BE at the table! Participate actively in your community. I spent 9 years on my town’s Long-Range Plan Implementation Committee and have attended almost every Town Meeting for more than 25 years. In the 17 years before that, I was actively involved in the government and social infrastructure of the small city where I was living, both through board service and community organizing and through electoral work. I believe that service de-demonized the way several members of our town Planning Board perceived me. I went from newcomer/troublemaker who had organized the movement that blocked a big, totally inappropriate mountainside housing development to a person whose input was valued and seen as vested in keeping the character of the town.

How do you bring your nonconformity into your work, how do you make it a strength, and how do you engage with people who might feel threatened by it?

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Environment, Ethics in Government, language, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , ,
  • If you have a socially or environmentally conscious business…
  • If you are an activist on any issue…
  • If you work in any way to better the lives of disempowered people—whether the disempowerment is social, cultural, medical, geographical, or any other cause…

Please read this next paragraph VERY carefully. It’s from today’s Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson (emphasis added):

How religion and authoritarianism have come together in modern America was on display Thursday, when right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened this weekend’s conference of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., with the words: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”

This is a major Washington conference of influencers. Take it seriously! That is one of many ways fascism rears its ugly and dangerous head. Trump actually quoting Hitler, repeatedly, without attributing him is another. A series of Supreme Court decisions and new repressive state laws add more heads to this horrible Hydra.

The good news is they can’t do this without our help. Staying home on Election Day helps the wannabe fascists. And since most parts of the US don’t have ranked-choice voting yet, so does voting for a third-party candidate in the general election. Oh, and showing up helps our cause and hurts theirs. Show up to lobby your Members of Congress and your state and local elected officials. Show up in the streets to participate in protests against harmful policies or support demonstrations for those you favor. And show up to vote!

If, as I do, you disagree enough with Biden’s policies that you have a hard time voting for him, show that in the primary. Show up to vote and don’t vote for him. Either leave the president line blank or vote for an alternate candidate. My Primary is March 4 and I will either vote for Dean Phillips, who is slightly left of Biden, or write in Green Party candidate Cornell West.

But I recognize that Biden, barring some major development like a major health crisis, will be the nominee. And even though I live in a reliably Blue state, I recognize that his likely opponent will contest the results if they are anything less than an overwhelming victory for Biden.

And let’s not forget that Trump has promised to be even worse on immigration—and on many issues—than he was during his time as President.

I want that margin to be as big as possible, so come November, I will cast my vote for democracy and against fascism, despite Biden’s betrayal of his campaign promises on issues that include unnecessarily harsh positions on immigration and his relentless support of the brutal regime in Israel and its devastation of Gaza, despite his energy policy that doesn’t do nearly enough to curb fossil fuel and embraces the false narrative that nuclear power is part of the climate solution (I’ve written a book on this; nuclear is a problem, not a solution), and despite many other reservations.

Remember the prophetic words of anti-Nazi Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

And speak out! Speak out for the socialists, the trade unionists, and the Jews. Speak out for Arabs and Muslims, for immigrants from anywhere, for people in the LGBTQ community, for those with disabilities, for those who Trump has threatened with retribution that includes rounding up and detaining opponents.

Speak out. For democracy. For decency. Speak out, ultimately, for yourself.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I finally got around to watching Jon Stewart’s return monologue. Yuck! I was a fan of Jon Stewart but this is ageist crap! Yes, Biden is old. So is Trump, as Stewart admits. While I have plenty of bones to pick with Biden (and I’ve been in the streets protesting some of his policies, especially around immigration and the Gaza war), we don’t have ranked choice voting in US presidential elections. And that means that absent some deep and unpredicted shift in the political landscape, either Biden or Trump will be elected in November.

There are many reasons to vote for Biden over Trump. While flawed (as we all are), he’s a basically decent person who has mostly used his time in office to better the lives of ordinary USArians and to improve the condition of the world. And despite a completely dysfunctional Congress, he has still managed to:

Now, about his opponent:

 

Bias Against Biden

Biden is not an existential threat to democracy. Biden was handed a government in complete chaos that had burned bridges with many of its allies and built back a functional government that honors its promises. Biden is about the good of the country, while Trump appears to be mostly concerned with leveraging his position for profit and inflating his already overweight ego. And Biden’s record of accomplishment after three years in office far outstrips Trump’s four years. 

So please tell me why the media is constantly dissing Biden because of his age and a perceived lack of mental acuity that by any reasonable standard is in better shape than Trump’s. How is it, for example, that the Washington Post (a liberal newspaper that prides itself on good journalism) actually ran a chart comparing how old Biden would be at the END of a second term with Trump’s age at the BEGINNING of a second term. 

I have that chart in an email dated February 9, 2024 entitled “The 5-Minute Fix: How should Democrats address Biden’s unpopularity?”; I can’t find it on washingtonpost.com and therefore can’t link to it. Because it’s copyrighted material, I can’t reproduce it here, but I’d be glad to forward that newsletter to anyone who requests it through the contact form. I can also link to the February 10th Today’s Edition Substack  newsletter by Robert Hubbell that mentions this chart along with five front-page New York Times stories about Biden’s age. And these are the liberals! WTF?

 

Proof that Age Doesn’t Matter

Finally, let’s look at five among thousands of models for aging with power:

  • Grandma Moses had a 25-year career as a painter, BEGINNING AT AGE 76
  • Pete Seeger was still writing and recording songs well into his 90s
  • Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa at age 76
  • My friends Frances Crowe and Arky Markham were both still activists on their 100th birthdays
  • Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn and sexologist Dr. Ruth Westheimer were working on the sexuality of old people into their 80s (disclosure: I was a VISTA organizer for the Gray Panthers in 1979-80 and met Maggie once when she was 75)

You are never too old—or too young—to make a difference. Jon Stewart should know better, and so should we. Work to get ranked-choice voting and other reforms such as those outlined at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/its-time-to-talk-about-electoral-reform/ (scroll down to the section entitled “A range of possible electoral reforms”).

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Entrepreneurship, General Commentary, Innovation, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Psychology, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , ,

Guest post from Bob Burg—may it inspire your success in 2024. I first discovered Bob through a newsletter he used to do called Winning Without Intimidation, some time in the 1990s–which was all about getting your desired outcome through kindness, compassion, and empathy. I still use many of those teachings.

Bob Burg, speaker and author on success through kindness and compassion
Bob Burg, speaker and author on success through kindness and compassion

He published this in his current newsletter, Daily Impact, on December 29. I just love the frame that only one partner has to think of an interaction as a collaboration to achieve dramatic success, even if the other party sees an adversary. What a wonderful abundance frame—and so applicable to entrepreneurs! You can subscribe at Burg.com (scroll down to just above the footer). Used with Bob’s permission.

—Shel

 

Use This Concept, Which Is So Much More Productive Than Competition…

By Bob Burg

It ranks right up there with my all-time favorite quotes:

“I never saw the opposing pitcher as my adversary, but rather as my ‘partner’ in hitting home runs.” ~Sadaharu Oh (868 Home Runs)

This statement is perhaps the ultimate in collaboration.

And the Japanese professional baseball legend knows what he’s talking about. He remains the all-time leading home run hitter in the world…ever!

“But,” you might ask, “certainly the pitcher isn’t wanting to collaborate on this. The pitcher wants to strike the batter out, right?”

Indeed! Which leads to a very important truth…

Key Point: There are times when both parties don’t even need to be in on the collaboration in order for it to occur.

As long as at least one of the parties involved — whether we’re talking about an interpersonal conflict, a business negotiation, or a home run — has the proper attitude, they will approach the situation from a frame of collaboration, which is really nothing less than a frame of love.

And love conquers all.

You could even say that…it’s the ultimate home run.

Today’s Exercise: Recall a time when you witnessed collaboration, even though only one person *at first* seemed to be “in on it.” Based on the attitude of the first person, did the second person seem to naturally become more involved?

Now think about how *you* can set a frame of collaboration, even when the other person isn’t quite in on it…yet.

Best regards,

BobFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Diversity, Environment, language, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Science, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I often find myself disagreeing with, disappointed in, and even demonstrating against President Biden’s policies.

And yet, assuming he’s the candidate in November, he will get my vote. I admit he might not if the US had adopted ranked-choice voting. But until it does, a vote for any third-party candidate is a vote for the main opponent of your preferred candidate. More importantly, I believe that the bad things Biden has done have been part of his own effort—sometimes accurate and sometimes off-base—to leave the world  better than he found it. He is, fundamentally, a good person, And despite never having a majority in both houses of Congress, he’s done quite a bit of good as president:

  • Shepherding a phenomenal economic turnaround, the best post-COVID economy in the world, and creating or recovering hundreds of thousands more jobs
  • Replacing skepticism with science on topics ranging from global climate change to the safety of COVID vaccines
  • Restoring US leadership on the world stage after it was torn to shreds by his predecessor
  • Supporting labor, the middle class, the poor, and the disenfranchised—and doing his best to hold big corporations and the super-rich accountable for dong their part
  • Championing the right to vote—and the right to have that vote properly counted

As I write this BEFORE the first primaries and caucuses, that opponent is likely to be the orange-haired former president. Yeah, the guy who is facing more than 90 felony counts, who has bragged about a history of sexual abuse (and been accused of many others and found liable in one he didn’t admit to). The serial liar who was caught in 30,000 false statements just during his four-year presidency. The narcissist who thinks rules and laws don’t apply to him. The person who stacked the Supreme Court with people who have undermined the values shared by most US citizens, overturned longstanding legal precedents, and for the first time in modern history, stripped away the rights of whole classes of people.

And, let’s not forget, the man who has promised that if he is elected, he will focus not on governance, not on the economy, not on human rights—but on revenge against his perceived enemies, active harassment of people who might be a different color, ethnicity, political philosophy or religion, and who repeatedly uses language straight out of Hitler.

Yesterday, Christmas 2023, both men issued Christmas messages. Robert Hubbell devoted his daily newsletter to these messages—and their contrasts couldn’t be more stark. Biden spoke of unity, teamwork, kindness, and hope. But DT used his bully pulpit to wish that those he perceives as “EVIL and SICK…THUGS” (which includes the military and those who favor electric cars) “ROT IN HELL” (capitalization is his).

Please make sure you’re registered to vote. That your friends know why you will vote for Biden. And that the records of these two men while in office leave no choice.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Advertising, Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Customer Service as Marketing, General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Mindset, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , ,

Heather Cox Richardson reported in her newsletter this morning about a government crackdown on hidden charges such as airline baggage fees:

An airline lobbyist testified at a federal hearing in March that changing the policy would create “confusion and frustration” and that there have been “very few complaints” about the extra costs for bags. The same lobbying group told the Department of Transportation that the government had no data to “demonstrate substantial harm” to passengers.

To put this quote in context, click the link above and scroll to the paragraph beginning “Falling prices for travel and for the foods usually on a Thanksgiving table are news the White House is celebrating.” Continue reading through “The authors say that the new organization will provide a conservative voice for democracy and that they hope to work with much more deeply established progressive voices.”

I can draw two opposing conclusions from this quote. Either…

  1. This clueless lobbyist is completely oblivious to public opinion and has never been introduced to the concept of evidence-based research,
    or
  2. This is a highly skilled strategic lobbyist attempting to deflect public anger and potential government regulation by pretending this massive problem doesn’t exist.

I have a clear sense of which I believe is true—but I’m not committing to it publicly because it might get me sued. You can draw your own inferences.

As it happened, I flew early Saturday morning from Boston to Minneapolis. And I observed that the airline officials were a bit panicky about getting all the carry-ons into the overhead bins. So much so that not only did we get offered a free upgrade to checked bag as we printed our boarding passes, they were making repeated announcements in the gate lobby and actually asking people as they boarded if they wanted one more chance to check their carry-on at no charge. And we were quite willing to take them up on it, sacrificing 15 minutes after the flight to avoid wheeling our bags all through the airport and lifting them above our heads to get them in and out of the overhead compartments.

I have seen this offer made repeatedly when I fly airlines that charge for stored baggage. What I draw from this is that plenty of people are angry about hidden charges and unwilling to pay the fees, so there are far more carry-on bags competing for space than in the days before baggage fees (especially since experienced travelers know that there will often be a free upgrade if the plane is crowded—and if it’s not crowded, there’s no problem using the overhead bin). Rather than expressing anger by not flying, customers simply boycott paid checked baggage—or, if their itinerary matches the traveler’s need, choose to fly airlines like Southwest and JetBlue that don’t charge for a checked bag or two. Millions of travelers are voting with their feet (or maybe their shoulder muscles).

My personal preference is to fly those carriers, but my higher priority is nonstop flights at reasonable times, so I sometimes fly the carriers that charge—and simply pack everything into my carry-on and leave home any items on the banned list. I once flew a no-frills airline that charged for everything they could to sit in its rock-hard, uncomfortable seats. As far as I’m concerned, a plane ticket should include such basics as getting a pre-assigned seat (except if nobody has one, as on Southwest). Flying that no-frills carrier felt like renting a car with no seat cushion and being charged extra for the steering wheel. I never flew them or any similar carrier again.

And years ago, in my own consulting and writing business, I switched from breaking out certain pieces that almost everyone wanted to including them. 

As an example, I used to charge for keeping an electronic copy of certain client projects on my hard drive. Now, I email their documents to them AND maintain a copy on my system. And if a client loses the file, I don’t charge to resend it.

How do YOU feel about hidden charges? Please leave a note in the comments about whether you prefer to know the full price for what you need or whether you prefer different pieces added on separately.

PS: The O in the headline is not a typo. It’s a different word than “Oh” and is often used in formal or ancient texts (including the Bible and the Qu’ran) to draw the attention of the person being addressed.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Mindset, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Today, I spent two hours with my heartstrings tugged at a concert of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus—where Palestinian teens and 20-somethings from East Jerusalem sing—and compose—together with their Israeli Jewish counterparts from West Jerusalem. In June 2014 (a time of relative peace), I attended an equally moving concert in the Galilee (northern Israel) by Diwan Saz, a modern combo whose performers that night included a 10-year-old Bedouin boy (with a gorgeous voice) and a Chassidic rabbi, among others.
Those hopeful events seem far away an out of reach as we mourn the tragic and avoidable loss of over 4000 lives on both sides this month.
We have to somehow prevent even greater losses of life—and to reset!

Ultraorthodox Jews protest in London for Palestinian rights. Photo by Alisdare Hickson from Woolwich, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ultraorthodox Jews protest in London for Palestinian rights. Photo by Alisdare Hickson from Woolwich, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s start with some points I hope everyone can agree on:
  1. Innocent people have been killed and hurt for decades, and nothing will bring them back
  2. The violence has not worked, no matter who commits it
  3. Both Arabs and Jews have claims on the land going back thousands of years
  4. They also claim common ancestry with both honoring a heritage that started with Abraham. They eat very similar foods, speak languages with many cognates, and have both had to adapt to the harsh desert that surrounds them.
  5. It is long past time to find a workable solution
From that very rudimentary framework, could we perhaps evolve to:
  1. We all are carrying deep hurts. An eye for an eye doesn’t just leave everyone blind, because it will eventually leap from eyes to other things. So an eye for an eye, ultimately, leaves no one standing. Can we accept not only that the past is filled with violence, cruelty, and the spewing of hatred/dehumanization—but that all sides would benefit from moving past this?
  2. Can we look to the world for other examples of long-standing hostility and violence transforming into something better—such as the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa and Sierra Leone and the peace process in Northern Ireland?
  3. Can we finally break the cycles of fear, hatred, and grief that seem to lock everyone into ever-deeper and more destructive cycles of violence?
  4. Can the barriers—both physical and psychological—between the two cultures be removed so that Israelis and Palestinians who are kept apart by laws and physical barricades learn to work, play, and live together; there already are several small projects that are a great start, such as:
  • Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salam, a cooperative multicultural village;
  • Numerous other musical collaborations, including  Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and many lesser-known ensembles;
  • Combatants for Peace, which presents touring programs featuring one person who fought in the Israeli army and another who was involved in the Palestinian resistance, now working together for peace despite some of them experiencing injuries, imprisonment, and all of them mourning the loss of friends and family members in the conflict

It takes great courage to organize for peace when the leaders of both communities feed their population an unending diet of hatred for the other side. In the Middle East and around the world, many people have been killed for trying to make peace.

I have visited Israel and Palestine twice and have family and friends (both Palestinian and Israeli) in both  Israel and Palestine (in the West Bank). I’ve stayed in the homes and hotels of Palestinians, with a Chassidic family, in a Druze village, a Transcendental Meditation village, a kibbutz, and an Israeli settler community on the West Bank. I’ve met with a blogger in Ramallah and with leaders of several Israeli peace organizations. I’ve also participated in Middle East peace groups in the US going back to the early 1980s. The vast majority I’ve talked to over the years, no matter what their ethnic or religious heritage, just want peace. The governments are not giving it to them. Surely there are better ways to solve things than yet another war in a long and brutal series of wars!
Perhaps we can take our cue from songwriter Nerissa Nields, who answers the old labor union song “Which Side Are You On? with “The world says ‘you can figure it out. Haven’t you noticed I’m round?‘”

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