Links I Like

The Ethical Spectacle
NRA
ACLU
Fascinating Video Lecture
International Journal
    of Occupational and
    Environmental Health
Students for Concealed
     Carry on Campus

Book Review:
“The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor — The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi” This is a fascinating book about a labor leader who has had tremendous influence on our lives, but whose name is not even known by millions of Americans. Please read my review.

I’ve been waiting for years for someone more qualified than I am, someone who is a better writer than I am, someone more well-known and more theoretical than I am, and more authoritative than I am to write about what has happened to the United States. Unfortunately, no one has stepped forward who has what I consider a good explanation, so I’ll give it a try myself. I’ve thought about it for a couple of decades now and I have a lot of ideas and explanations.

Who am I to try such a profound task? I’m nobody special, just a participant who has actively considered the situation for a long time. All in all, I think I am as qualified as anyone else is, perhaps more qualified than most because, in my opinion, I’ve thought about it more deeply than most, been more open-minded all along than most people I’ve met, and done a greater variety of things than most have. Having a natural distaste for most aspects of modern popular culture, and its fads, icons and language, also helps in avoiding traps and pitfalls.

A silly, jargon expression around today is “thinking outside the box.” When I first heard this, I thought: What box? I’ve never been in any box. (We don’t need no stinking boxes!) But I know that’s in no way universally true, and it is the principal reason for why we remain stuck in the same mire. Ever since I discovered, at age 37, that I am dyslexic, I’ve realized why there are no boxes. My internal wiring is different. It might be a bug, but it’s also a feature, and I’ve tried to take full advantage of it ever since.

I don’t claim to have all of the answers. My approach is more to suggest different ways of looking at situations and problems. Making connections between events or ideas or philosophies is one way of doing that. Pointing out false connections that have been accepted in the past (or present) is another. In the jargon of the day, people speak of “connecting the dots.” Unfortunately, this usually means that they will set to connecting some dots that someone else has chosen for them. I pick my own dots. That’s probably why I’ve never gotten rich or been someone’s “fair-haired boy,” to be nurtured on to glory and success.

There are a few principles that guide me:

• Be honest. I might not always get everything right, but I am trying to do things for the right reason, and not just because it benefits me.

• Don’t try to force others to live their lives to please me. If they want to have abortions or guns or strange religions or wear fur or drive suvs, that's their business, not mine. I’m no bigot.

• Don’t be arrogant. There is no perfect political program or philosophy. Learning comes more from listening than from talking.

• Apply common sense. This is harder than it sounds. First one must purge all of the propaganda that has been absorbed over a lifetime. Otherwise, one will be thinking inside someone else’s box and connecting someone else’s dots.

If you agree that I might have some useful contribution to make, please read on. One warning: this won’t be scholarly writing, nor particularly theoretical. I’ll try to take things in small bites and try not to be ponderous or long-winded. It will be personal. It will be different and varied. I’ve evolved, and that’s what I know, so I’ll illustrate where necessary with my own experiences. Sometimes I may approach some things as a journey, the one I took when I reevaluated my political views a few years ago. I don’t do this because I think I’m someone special or because I think anyone is particularly interested in me, but because I think it’s the best way to get certain points across to people who might thinking of taking such a trip themselves.

Everyone who wants to make a better country and world needs a new strategy; the ones out there now are pretty banged up and worn out. I hope that this helps us develop one.

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Last Updated — March 23, 2008