Inheriting False Self-Madeism

 It is truly amazing the number of rich, white, inheritance babies who think and pretend to have garnered all of their wealth and status through hard work.  From the former President, to people like we see running for office or in office, so many of whom are Republican.  Why is that?  I even have known people for decades who came from money, and yet seem to feel they have worked so hard to get where they are.

The examples I will use are those whom I know the most about, primarily because they're from my home state.  Let's start with Donald J. Trump.  This clown was handed so much wealth, that had he invested in just savings bonds, he would be far richer than he is today.  But, because he was handed millions of dollars from his Dad who built everything, he was able to piss it all away, and never was called out for being anything but a self-made man.

Paul Ryan.  Here's another shining example of a rich kid who was handed it all.  His Dad built a business, and he rode the coattails pretending like he was a self-made man who did everything on his own.  A man who, because his Daddy died while he was still a kid, was allowed a free ride through college thanks to the Social Security system.  Imagine that, someone who benefitted from such a great system, wanting to destroy it so others couldn't get what he felt he so rightly deserved.

Next up?  Good old Ron Johnson.  Now this one is especially mind boggling to see first how he was ever able to get elected in to office.  He had no platform, other than his mangled speech about how bad Feingold was.  This guy was handed a business where the main customer was his own Father-in-law, and who was more than 70% of their business.  He used prison labor at the cost of $2 per hour, with no benefits.  Seriously, how could a business like that fail?  And yet somehow Ron Johnson tries to feign being some great business man.  If it wasn't for his Father-in-law making sure that his daughter had a decent life, Ron Johnson would still be bussing tables.

Let's talk about Tim Michels next.  Here's a guy who is running for Governor of Wisconsin, and tries to think of himself as a self-made man, not credited Mommy and Daddy for building a business so large, that it allows Mr. Michels to have houses in numerous states across the country.  And here is a guy who is quite the idiot savant, trying to pretend he is some great sort of businessman who created all of this on his own.  

Now take any of these people mentioned above, and remove all of their wealth and connections, and have them start at the age of 18 and see just how far they would get.  I'll guarantee you, not one of them would've been anything more than an average person of average means and wealth.  It's time to get rid of the inherited wealth that so many of these people walk in to.  If they are so great at what they do, they would agree, and truly believe in the "American Dream" of getting rich on their own backs, instead of the sweat and blood for their parents.

Christian Nationalism Is On It's Way

 Although it's always been quietly gathering steam for the past 7 decades, it has really intensified since the 80's.  Ronald Reagan with his holier than thou persona, along with all the other white christian nationalists who paraded around their religiosity, like 2 time wife cheater Gingrich, and Pat Robertson, and all the TV Evangelists.

These people feel the need to have others follow their idea of morality, and adhere to what they read or are told to follow.  The hypocrisy of it all is quite sickening, and is in large part why I left religion altogether.  I don't need a group of people telling me how to behave or that I have to practice religion or pray or go to church.  Talk to people who lived in Afghanistan during the first reign of the Taliban, and you'll know the direction this country is heading.

Many will laugh, or pooh-pooh the notion of this country becoming a religious reich of epic proportion.  For centuries, rich white men have figured out how to keep the masses under control, and for much of that, religion has been the key.  Knowing that the number of believers keeps dropping year after year, and that non-white population in the US is on the rise, they know the clock is ticking.  They need to bring to the forefront their christian nationalism sooner rather than later, or face severe backlash from the middle and lower class.

Just like in Afghanistan, the first people to be admonished and attacked were the women.  Especially single women, and poor women.  The same is happening in the US.  The ending of Roe v. Wade is just one example, with more to follow.  Child education was the next to be attacked.  The Taliban figured if you only teach from the Quran, that will only ever be all you know.  Similarly in the US, we are seeing signs of the same.  We are seeing book banning, and changes in curriculum to stop teaching the realities of US imperialism.  Attacks on science and social studies as well.  If you eliminate the sorts of studies that enrich young peoples lives, and frees their minds, it is far easier to indoctrinate them with religious ideology.

Be prepared.  The next few years will determine what you do on a Sunday.  Will it but what you enjoy now, or will you be forced to worship and pray all day?  I think we're closer to the latter than you think.

Opening The Constitution Would Be Dangerous

 It seems apparent that the religious reich is hell bent on opening up the constitution to rewrite it.  Many seem to scoff at this, and play it off as a pipe dream of the right.  Let's not forget, we scoffed at the thought of Trump getting in the White House as well.  We need to be aware that with all the pieces in place now, from gerrymandered states, to the Federalist cult members on the Supreme Court, they will stop at nothing to turn this country in to the "Christian Nation" they all profess us to be.

Imagine being told that you can no longer do what you want on a Sunday, and that you must attend church...their church.  If you think I'm blowing smoke, consider this.  My friend who grew up on Afghanistan during the first insurgence of the Taliban sees so many striking similarities to what we are witnessing in this country today.  From trying push prayer in schools, to the misogyny, to the nationalist movement.  The curbing of free speech that we've seen so far, is but a small piece of what's to come should they succeed at rewriting the constitution.

Call me an alarmist if you must, but when you see the number of states calling for a constitutional convention continue to rise, the gerrymandering of states that gives the minority party control, and they push to shift laws and responsibilities for enforcing those laws to the states.  I don't think it's being an alarmist.  It's being real.  If we don't stop this slow creep towards fascism and authoritarianism, the momentum will be hard to stop, let alone turn back.

Women have lost more rights in the past decade than they gained in the first 225 years of this nation.  People of color are losing rights that took over 200 years to gain, and now we're are seeing Christianity being pushed to eventually be forced upon us.  Todays Police State is nothing like what we could see in a decade.  Police are becoming more and more the army of the rich and powerful, and less of those who are here to "Protect and Serve".  History shows us, this is how other democracies have fallen, and if we don't wake up to what is taking place, we will all find ourselves in the same boat with no way to undo what will be brought upon us.

Control Freaks

 Yesterday at work, I stumbled upon some more of the fallout from controlling people.  In the almost 30 years in the field of IT, I have seen varying levels of control, and how it's affected the businesses I've worked at.  I have some theories as to why so many people are so controlling, so follow along and see if you agree, disagree, or just don't have an opinion.

So, early on I wasn't that aware of control freaks in IT, partly because I came from a manufacturing background where I worked on the factory floor, and just assumed some of what I was seeing was just that I wasn't quite knowledgeable yet, and my ideas were probably just that.  Ideas.  I assumed that my lack of experience might have been the reason for others not entertaining some of my ideas.

What I've seen over the years is that many say no to new ideas because they either don't understand the new technology, or they are afraid of losing that control over things, and will no longer be the "go to" person for problems of new ideas.  The second job in IT that I had, my Team Lead was a really nice guy, but he had built his own little fiefdom.  He was an expert in the limited area he oversaw, and everyone was pretty happy with his work.  There were a lot of things that could've been less manually laborious, but he would always tell the end users that he was just too busy to do much about it.  Understand that this was green screen era, and nobody was willing to learn or utilize new technology there.  

Instantly I saw some ways to help improve things.  I made it a point to sit with each of the end users for a few hours out of the day to observe their daily routines.  Nobody had heard of that before, and they wondered what my purpose was in doing so.  From watching one person grab her daily report with over 150 pages, and she just took out 5 sheets and threw the rest in recycling, to the other who would manually enter accounts payable information in to a spreadsheet from a report, to assist with reconciliation.  What I did was started to put together notes, and found a way to get that report down to those 5 pages that the end user needed, saving over 100 sheets of paper per day just on that report alone.  What it ended up doing was also shortening our nightly batch window by over 1 hour, and shortened up our report printing window by 15 minutes.  The person who was doing the manual entry of AP info into a spreadsheet, I wrote an application that would parse the report output that was sent to a file, and then pushed that data in to a spreadsheet.  That save the end user about 12 hours per month of manually entering data, and removed the human error piece of it all.  Interestingly, my Team Lead questioned it all as to whether or not things were accurate, and tried to find reasons it couldn't be a permanent solution.  8 years later, these 2 things were still being utilized before they changed their purchasing and accounting software.

There were so many more examples like this, but what I found interesting, was the lengths the Team Lead would go trying to quash my ideas.  Later on I realized, it was because they were afraid that all of what I was doing would make them more vulnerable in the event of cost cutting/downsizing.  And I've notice this same trend happen at the jobs I've had since then.  Each place, there were individuals who would try to impede progress, and keep things status quo.  I'm just glad that now I don't let it eat my lunch like I used to.  I do what I can, and if I run up against the wall of controlism (my phrase), I just don't push it anymore.  I realized that the stress of battling those trying to hold on to control was just no longer worth it, and that if I can't change them, then I'll just implement these new ideas and technologies where I can.

Time To Fire This Up Again

 I've taken a 10 year hiatus, and I think I'm ready to get back to this now.  So much took place over the past 10 years, between family, work, and the political arena that I just found it hard to put my thoughts down in a routinely manner.  My hope is to post at least weekly, about topics ranging from aging to zealotry, and everything in between.  I also plan to allow for comments to try and bond with others who are like minded.

Some of these posts may be funny, some might be bitter, but all will be my opinion or my experience of what is going on.  If you don't agree with my blog, then let's have a discussion about that.  If I am attacked, then I may have to limited commenting to avoid me walking away from this.  So, if you do read this, then I thank you.  If you do subscribe, I thank you as well.  If you get anything out of it, then I am glad.

So, what has happened since I last blogged?  Well, I was let go from my previous job for speaking truth to power, and that set me on my current path.  As scary as that was, it was a 7 week hiatus that allowed me to read, and reflect a bit on my life and career.  I was fortunate enough to find a good paying job in my community, that has allowed for my wife and I to purchase a piece of land on a lake, and pursue our dream of living on a lake.  Kids are both done with college, and we just recently sold our house of 23 years.  It was bittersweet walking away from that house, and the city we moved to in 1997.  We made some good friends, and created thousands of great memories.  But now, with less than a year until retirement, we are ready to start another chapter.

Stay tuned.  I'm hoping to let you get to know me better, and to possibly find some like minded people as well.  Oh, and by the way, part of this is due to the fact that I was permanently banned from Twitter a while back, and I need a way to get my thoughts out to the world.

It's Pretty Clear

I grew up in a lower middle-class family.  My Mom was a homemaker, and my Dad worked in a factory.  When, at the age of 28 I decided to go to college, I did so while working 40+ hours a week.  Mom and Dad didn’t hand me a loan, and I didn’t have stock investments to sell to live off of, nor SSI to pay my tuition.  That folks, is earning one’s way.

What we have with the Romney\Ryan ticket are two people who have no idea what a struggle is.  They cannot relate to trying to make ends meet on a lower middle-class income.  Both men came from wealth, and both have made money off of investments, not from hard work.  Regardless of what they claim, they have never known, and probably will never know what it’s like to have to tell their kids they can’t go to a birthday party because you can’t even afford to buy a card, or to tell their kids they can’t participate in other youth activities because they don’t have the money.

The candidates from the Obama\Biden ticket know more about what struggles are, although they are as far removed from those struggles as I am, they too have gone through them personally and know how important a support system can be.  Joe Biden knows more about what it’s like for a bread winner to lose his/her job, than Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney do.  Therefore, the Obama\Biden ticket can relate more to the struggles of the middle-class.

I have seen people lose everything because of healthcare bills.  I have seen people lose jobs due to outsourcing.  One ticket only knows how to mouth the word “middle-class” and the other came from the middle-class.  I will vote for the latter.

Of Labor And Leisure

Today is Labor Day.  A holiday that less and less people realize what it really is all about.  If you took the time to ask, you'd find very few who could tell you the history of Labor Day, and what it represents.  Today, more than ever, people should be aware of what Labor Day's roots are.

In the current political foray, where we've got one party trying to tell us that business are solely responsible for their success, holding their convention in a 90% union city.  And we've got another party that decided to hold it's convention in a Right to Work state, in a stadium named after one of banking industry leaders partly responsible for the financial mess we found ourselves in.  What is most baffling is that the party that loathes unions is the one that held their convention in a major union city.  What does this all mean?

What is causing this disdain for labor, especially organized labor?  Why are those workers within the public sector treated as leeches who are draining our countries fiscal resources?  Where does this emanate from?  Did millions of people wake up one day and say to themselves "gee, those damn teachers and city workers have brought this country to it's knees"?  No, they didn't.  They've been spoon fed this garbage from a corrupt media who's only loyalties are with their advertisers, and we all know it's not labor that does all the advertising.

What might be causing this disdain for public sector workers?  Well, I've got a few ideas that have come from observing the shift as it has taken place.  There was a time in the country, when people cheered for their neighbors who seemed to be "lifting themselves up by the boot straps" by working hard and negotiating for good benefits and decent wages.  There was a time when a group of people working for company A, would look at the wages and benefits of those workers at company B and would say "gee, we should negotiate for those same types of benefits and wages instead of working so hard for less".  But now what we have is jealousy.  Neighbors are jealous of neighbors because their company started to take away their benefits and freezing their wages because laws favoring labor were changed to the point that they no longer favor labor, and favor those companies who are doing all they can to eek every last penny out of their corporation to hand over to their stock holders.

I have made it a point to help out labor as much as I can today, and to patronize those businesses who treat their workers with respect and dignity.  For example, in our small town, we have 3 grocery stores.  They are Wal Mart, Pick N Save, and Festival Foods.  Festival is the one that has union workers, and so we patronize that store more often than the other two.  When it comes to hardware items, I refuse to shop at Menards, and give the local hardware store my first shot at business, and then look to other sources.

Take a look at the history of labor force, and seeing how as the number of organized workers diminished, and the laws favoring labor have dwindled, so too has the wages and benefits of all workers.  Corporate CEO's and other top level executives are reaping the benefits of a harder working workforce, all the while those who toil on a daily basis to help make that company strive,  are being handed a hand-to-mouth existence with little to no expectation of things getting any better.

If you're not better off today than you were 10 years ago, ask yourself why.  Is it because of higher costs of public employees, or does it really have to do with dwindling benefits from greedy corporations who treat their labor force as nothing more than another liability on their spreadsheets?

You can choose to sit back and whine and cry about what others have that you don't have, or you can get off your ass and demand a living wage and decent benefits like those others have managed to wrangle for themselves.  Quit buying the rhetoric that corporations can't continue to pay it's workers and that taxes are too high because of all the benefits that public sector employees receive.  Start to question why, when corporations are cutting the wages and benefits of it's labor force, the exec's at the top continue to walk away with huge raises and greater benefits than have ever been realized by executive management in the history of this nation.

It is time for a renewed and refocused labor movement, to bring back the type of livelihood those in the 50's and 60's were able to realize.  It seems one party wants us to move back to the 50's and 60's, but only in regards to the rights of minorities and women.  Remember, the only way this was all built was due to a less divided nation that realized that labor was as important to a corporation as the exec's at the top, working together to make a company better.  If we don't turn this current trend around, we will be nothing more than workers there to satisfy the whims and needs of the rich and the elites.