Month: May 2018

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Death Penalty = Archaic, creepy ritualized killing to serve symbolic rather than practical purposes

May 23, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Many people assume that the death penalty serves some useful purpose, such as protecting public safety.  Actually, as other items I’ve posted on this blog explain, the death penalty does NOT deliver what it promises, and it causes other problems instead.  See http://parallaxperspectives.org/testimony-for-legislation-to-abolish-washington-states-death-penalty Beyond the death penalty’s ineffectiveness, we should also recognize it for what it is:  an archaic, creepy example of conducting ritualized killings that serve only symbolic rather than practical purposes. In some primitive societies, people were aware of “evil” and created ritualized exercises to periodically purge the “evil” from their societies.  They did this in different ways. One […]

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“A Creative, Practical Way to Fund Jobs, Infrastructure, Climate Cures”

May 20, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

The June 2018 episode of “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives” presents an exciting way for the federal government to fund the creation of jobs and solutions to many nationwide problems (housing, climate, etc.).  You can watch Glen Anderson interview Randy Mandell (an expert on Modern Monetary Theory — MMT) at the first link below, and/or read a thorough summary of what we said at the second link.  Near the end of the thorough summary you can see links to many excellent sources of information. To watch the interview, click this link:  WATCH THE INTERVIEW HERE. To read the thorough summary and see […]

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Profound Nonviolence for a Truly Just Society

May 15, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

In slightly more than three pages, the article at this link provides wisdom, compassion, insights, and encouragement to fix our society’s problems. I believe you will find that reading this is a good use of your time. Here is the link: Profound Nonviolence for a Truly Just Society

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Here is a way to understand Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election

May 15, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

You don’t need to be a Hillary Clinton supporter (and I certainly am not) to recognize the strong evidence that elements from Russia flooded American social media with racially polarizing social media during the 2016 election campaign. Why did it occur? How about considering the following context? Traditionally socialism has envisioned a joining together of the entire working class, across nations and across races. When the USSR existed and the Communist Party USA was active, especially from the 1930s and subsequent decades, the CPUSA really worked vigorously for racial integration and equality as part of this larger struggle. Instead of […]

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We urgently, desperately need HONEST SCIENCE so we can solve problems

May 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Do you remember the decades-old saying, “Garbage in — Garbage out”?  It referred to the problems with computer systems that receive inputs that are not accurate and — as a result — produce inaccurate outputs. The remedy, of course, is to make sure we have valid, accurate inputs in order to produce good results. Nowadays, the Trump/Republican federal government and many state governments are stuffed with climate deniers, dogmatic religious extremists, and other people who are subservient to special interests.  Instead of open-mindedly and honestly trying to solve problems, they exploit governments in order to distort public policies for corrupt […]

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The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty + other orgs do very good work.

May 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

For several decades the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP, www.ncadp.org ) has been doing very good work, including working with state-level organizations working to abolish the death penalty.  They recently moved to new office space shared with other organizations at “WeWorks,” so they  have a new mailing address and a new address for receiving donation checks. Mail correspondence to: NCADP c/o WeWorks 80 M Street S.E. Washington, DC 20003. Mail donation checks to a different new address: NCADP P.O. Box 829846 Philadelphia, PA 19182-9846. Other great organizations include the ACLU (at nationwide and state levels), the Death […]

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Arming “good guys” with guns is no remedy. Two examples show it is dangerous!

May 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

A mother with a concealed carry permit dropped her gun and accidentally killed her 2-year-old daughter.  Read article at this link:  https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/24/1759600/-Mother-with-concealed-carry-permit-drops-gun-and-accidentally-kills-2-year-old-daughter?detail=emaildkre   A gun-trained Stoneman Douglas teacher is facing charges after leaving his gun in a public bathroom at a beach.  Read article at this link: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/12/1756464/-Gun-trained-Stoneman-Douglas-teacher-facing-charges-after-leaving-his-gun-in-a-public-bathroom?detail=emaildkre    

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U.S.’s long history of anti-intellectualism is bearing rotten fruit now

May 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

In 1962 the great historian Richard Hofstadter published his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.  I bought it in about 1970 and always wanted to read it.  Now I am starting to read it because its message is so horribly relevant now. A long stream of anti-intellectualism has hurt the U.S. in various ways throughout our history.  It seems to be worsening now, as the federal government has made the U.S. a “rogue nation” that denies science in many aspects of public policy (environment, climate, health issues, etc.) and deletes honest, accurate scientific information from the federal government’s websites.  Under Trump […]

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This powerfully insightful article helps us understand progressives’ infighting over race, gender, etc.

May 5, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

The article at this link — https://www.alternet.org/activism/progressive-infighting — offers many very fresh insights that can help us move forward. I urge people to read the entire article. I’m summarizing a few key points below (and identifying which additional comments are my own). The entire article fleshes these out and adds more insights. I highly recommend reading the article at the link in this paragraph. The article’s title – “Here’s Why Some Progressives Are Tearing Each Other Apart” – is bold, accurate, and highly relevant to the organizing crises many of us have been experiencing in the past few years. The […]

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The U.S. Empire is BI-PARTISAN.

May 2, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

It’s easy to criticize the hawkish foreign policy that Trump and the Republicans are promoting.  Their gross cruelty causes some people to overlook the fact that Obama, Bill Clinton, and the Democrats have done similar things when they were in the White House and Congress. A year ago Courage to Resist (www.couragetoresist.org) published in its May 2017 newsletter an article (“Empire War Status” written on April 6, 2017, by Bob Meola, a member of Courage to Resist.  The information below includes some of his ideas and some of my own. He wrote: “A lot of people miss Barack Obama because […]

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Gain insights and solve problems by seeing entire systems, not immediate assumptions.

May 2, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

People tend to make the assumptions that are easy.  But we gain fresher insights and solve problems better when we see the entire SYSTEMS, not only the immediately observable facts. Here is an example that I learned decades ago and still think of often.  It illustrates how to improve functioning by seeing the whole SYSTEM, not simply making the easiest assumption. Decades ago some offices employed Data Entry Operators to type data (names, addresses, other words, dollar amounts, code numbers, etc.) from paper forms into computer systems.  These were high-speed operations that needed fast, accurate typing. It was crucial that […]