TV: “How to REALLY Make America Great”

Watch a 1-hour interview that counters Trump’s “make America great” sloganeering with more realistic, humane and effective ways to REALLY improve our nation.  This was Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s April 2017 TV program.

The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s April 2017 TV program proposes how to move from the status quo to a better future. Simplistic political propaganda has created a mess, but our five guests propose meaningful solutions for our nation’s problems.

Trump campaigned to “make America great again.” What does he mean by the word “again”?
• When white men had exclusive power to dominate women and people of color?
• When big business was free to pollute and nobody objected?

And what does he mean by “great”?
• Although the U.S. used to lead other nations in terms of economic well-being, health, education, and so forth, now the U.S. is far down the list in these rankings. But he is not promoting ways to really improve public health, education or quality of life.
• For the past 40 years – under both political parties – economic inequality has gotten worse. A truly great nation would have a more just and fair economic system, but the policies being proposed will only widen the inequality gap even further.
• For the quarter of a century since the Cold War the U.S. has been the world’s only superpower, with the biggest, most violent military. But this extreme militarism cannot win wars anymore, so we need to thoughtfully analyze reality, not simply increase the bloated military budget by another 10%, as he proposes.
• A truly great nation would protect everyone’s right to vote, instead of finding ways to suppress voting by people likely to vote for the other party.

For more than 100 years the Fellowship of Reconciliation (www.forusa.org) has opposed all wars and worked for peace. The FOR has opposed animosity and divisiveness of all kinds – national, racial, religious – and worked for the inclusiveness of one human family.

Now in 2017 the U.S. is suffering from a government that is more divisive than ever before. The new national administration and Congress are pitting people with power – rich, white, male, right-wing – against people who lack those kinds of power and privilege.

Although the new person in the White House campaigned to “make America great,” he and the majority in Congress are actually undermining America’s best values and hurting our nation in many ways.

In order to make America truly great, we must reverse the harmful aspects of our nation’s culture and organize for positive changes in public policy.
Nowadays people are inundated with problems. What people need are solutions! Merely lamenting, “Ain’t it awful,” only depresses and disempowers people. Instead, we need positive solutions and grassroots empowerment. That’s what we’ll focus on during this hour.

Five guests will share their values – and their visions and their proposals – for how to REALLY make America great. To address all of the problems and solutions, we’d need fifty guests instead of five. But this is a good start. These five guests will propose a variety of ways to REALLY make America great:
Karen Fraser is one of the most respected people in our region. She holds humane values and acts upon them. She is very savvy about many public policy issues. That’s why – for decades – voters have been electing her to the Lacey City Council, Thurston County Commission, and the Washington State Legislature.
Paul Pickett is an environmental engineer with expertise in several scientific fields. He has worked for the State government, taught at the college level, served as an elected commissioner of our local Public Utility District, and volunteered for many environmental and climate-related non-profit organizations. I always enjoy connecting with Paul when working on issues.
Tamborine Borrelli is someone I did not know until we arranged for her to be a guest on this TV program. In the past few days when I’ve been telling my friends who the guests would be, sever-al of my friends were enthusiastic about Tamborine’s participation in this interview. She has solid in-formation and experience in our electoral system’s problems and solutions, and several important is-sues. She recently ran for the State Senate from the 2nd Legislative District. She is a director at Elec-tion Justice USA (www.election-justice-usa.org), working for election integrity.
Kim Dobson is well informed about a wide variety of issues – really the full range of issues that we might talk about during this interview, and many more. I enjoy listening to his thoughtful multi-issue radio program “Parallel University” on KAOS radio, 89.3 FM every Thursday from 12 noon to 1 pm. His academic background is in organic, sustainable agriculture. He is a professional auto me-chanic and does other hands-on work.
Cindy Corrie has become internationally prominent in working for peace worldwide, especially peace between Israel and Palestine to provide fairness for Palestinian people, who are especially at risk. She is a leader in the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice (www.rachelcorriefoundation.org), and she is well respected for acting upon her humane and com-passionate values, which her late daughter Rachel also had worked for.

To watch the program, click HERE

Here is a summary of what we said during the interview: Program Summary — April 2017

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org