Primary SEE-lections NOT E-lections

That there remains a discussion about there being a debate in the presidential primary between the unsettled candidates -- some might say unstable, male candidates -- is about as evolutionarily relevant as wanting to watch an actual donkey mate with a living elephant. The experience would serve no earthly purpose and would be a slap in the face of the very nature and evolutionary process of intelligently choosing a leader.

To put it simply so even Trump, his DuckDynasty, and the other unwashed masses can understand … primaries ARE NOT … get this, it is important … primaries ARE NOT elections. We do not E L E C T a person. They are SEE-lections. Yes, “S E E.” which just happens to have the “lections” part to add worry to those who cannot comprehend even simple differences.

The recognized representative entities of differing philosophies (currently Democrats and Republicans) go through this process -- yes, a process -- to enable them each to say SEE -- SEE voters, this is who we put forward to be in the duly authorized democratic step of identifying who gets the reigns of power. Once ready, the Constitution kicks in and all kinds of fun gets started.

As uncomfortable as that may be, it remains important to get the details. The primary process SEE LECTS contenders. Only once that is done, following agreed upon rules that reflect the diversity of the states we are trying to unite, the collect populous votes -- transforming a different experience into a duly managed and operationalized ELECTION.

Failing to go along with these steps, especially without offering a reasonable, intellectually justified reason makes a mockery of the very office being sought -- not to mention of the underlying rules of the republic. Trump and Sanders say they want a debate as non-recognized participants just to make fun of the process, to cash-in on media attention, and to cause those playing fairly -- and winning, BTW -- to follow unauthorized and unexpected steps.  

Both men deserve to be chastised. YES ... M .. E .. N! But frankly, just watching these embarrassing screaming maniacs act out in a forum where there is no rationale for the event and which ensures that there can be no other person, and especially no reasonable woman, to cover their noise ... well, that tells you what you really need to know. Neither of these creatures is anything but a misfit, and hardly the love child of any revolutionary that deserves to be heard. 

This Unbearable Whiteness of Being

Yep, I confess. I also ask for forgiveness: I’m white. To the core. Born that way. Reared in an unwashable region of the country’s blanco blandness.

I was painted, as a person, upon a white undercoat that revels in the whiteness of a canvass that badly needs a picture painted on it. I’ve come to accept that in too many cases, too much emphasis is placed on the whiteness and less on what it means to use that beginning to add colors, shades, layers, depths of colors to see how these blendings add so much more to the emptiness that begins the artistic adventure.

The world expects that any painting that seeks to depict its promises needs to incorporate the spectrum of colors and shades that make up the people, places, even locations of its grand wholeness. Which is pretty smart. The same works for us as private subjects. Our spaces, even the walls within which we live, are made all the better when we realize that from time to time others will look in and judge the condition of the shape and design of our decor -- down to the color on our walls.

Which is why we have to realize that, from time to time, the cover colors fade, the shine grows dull, scuffs and dings stand out -- and the time is right for a new, refreshing refurbishing. And it is at these times that it becomes clear that those who favor white bear much responsibility for recognizing that it is the whiteness that makes the need for enhancements all the more obvious.

Which is why we must accept that America needs a paint job. Just as importantly, it is clear that the responsibility of accepting this and in taking part in the refurbishing comes with being one who revels in the fact that our foundation is awfully white. Such is the burden that comes with the unbearable wonderfulness of the whiteness of our very being -- we can see when repairs and new painting adventures are necessary.

White is the blank slate of the world. Stepping up with ideas and suggestions for going to greatness from there opens an awareness as well of the diversity of techniques we have to grow bigger, to seek to paint a better masterpiece. The major whiteness of the canvas showcases what can happen if we decide to lay colors and textures colors and textures side by side, and dream of the blending of shades into combinations that results in a stark awareness of a rainbow of selections. 

America needs a new paint job but it also needs a broadening artistic readiness. The whiteness remains but we ought not fear the nesting of unusual combinations or pigmentations of shade, nor worry about bumping unusual tones and hues against each other. With the need to paint comes the possibility of an explosion of colors, perhaps even a strange comfort that comes with showing the world that we can live with the graffiti of the world on the walls that display our core whiteness.

Trans Gendering the American Presidency

Bernie’s primary problem -- being exactly opposite the sexual benefits that ride along with Hillary as a competitor -- is that he is so “man-y,” so “male-ish,” so “man” about what he wants. He has no issue wth yelling about when he wants it, nor about how he expects everyone else to fall in line with his expectations. His is a campaign based on issuing orders and directives, which is the manly thing leaders are supposed to do.

Ironically, Hillary’s approach and her proven tactics, like them or not, are dressed in variations on the bling of the same gender-based emphasis. She has effectively usurped the men’s ship of state and assumed the position as the captain of her voyage. Her passion is to be the “man” who gets her and us there, not matter whether such a destination center on her building a legacy, the confidence with which she knocks about the enemies to her power, or via the smooth ride she navigates through the waves to the shores of change.

Which is frankly the problem -- not that we don’t appreciate what she does in her time off, sorry Brooks of the NYT. Real men don’t take time off from their captaincies; they polish, oil, shine, and reload their guns for forthcoming excursions. In doing this as a woman in the dress of a man, she is simply confusing those who wish for a more girly transition to kinder, gentler destinations.

Weirdly and bluntly, as can be seen by watching the twists and turns of the MSM these days, the world is ready to go through an unabashed gender change for the American presidency. They just want and expect the surgery to go easily, to be most “lady-like,” no matter the look of the pretty one in the mirror. Unfortunately, Hillary prefers to rub their faces the purposeful, stubborn, even intentional stain of a more confused gender transition that brings her out on top -- and there is a lot to be said by men and women for having such cajones.

Man up world; women often play their own games, define their own roles, dress the parts they value. Sometimes that means by following the expected ways and means; other times it requires shifting the transformative to different courses. Hillary clearly appreciates commanding that the Don't-Ask, Don't-Tell crew walk the plank, never minding that they have already accepted what is about the bight ahead.  

The smart money's on accepting a new order of the core nature of leadership. The Black Man in the White House is packing and ready to clean up the dressing room for a Madam presidency -- something even an imperialistic jester would have to accept. That Hillary refuses to dress the part of the change and even enjoys dragging out the process ... well ... that is more difficult for some to accept. A full-fledged gender reassignment in American authority is underway, and no matter who is screaming, the end result will trump those who think they are comfortable in their old, tired, and wrongly decorated skin.

All of which bodes well for the prospect that no matter who paid the entrance fee, a great and gloriously fabulous show is in the making. 

America's Identity CONfidence Game

Trump is America’s payback for the deceptions and distractions we use and enjoy. Each of us takes, as individuals in an individualistic society, some degree of pride in pulling con jobs on others. Sometimes we do so for fun, sometimes reflecting a sense of therapeutic realignment (as we get a grasp on who we are as individuals in a social collective). For a less honest few, such times are filled with nefarious intentions where we use our greed to take from those who we believe are getting more than they deserve. 

The same combination of choices happens for the cultures we live in. It has parts that are designed to be a bit of a confidence job all in all. When this happens to excess or when we allow parts of the whole to be wrongly in favor of the less honest ways and means ... then we begin the process of making a larger society that rests way to easily on the CONfidence of such deceptions.

Most of the time, the social media platforms we are building to reflect our cultural parameters ignores these considerations. For some of us, this means responding to representations of such by pokes and jabs of snarkitry. Which is too bad, in that such playfulness is not better understood and recognized. It can be an artform and ought to be seen as that, particularly when it points out where the confidential deceptions are afoot. That we haven't figured out how to teach this means that we are doing a disservice to those who are learning to play the connectivity games. A lot of players miss out on the fun and others mistake the lack of attention as approval that there are no boundaries ... that the criminal and destructive deviance behind many cultural CON jobs are acceptable, even credible parts of the fun. This is wrong and needs to be corrected.

Examples of what I mean by this willful equalizing of all misdirection as being acceptable abound. It will take a book to explain all that I mean. But I think the error of these ways can best be noted in how they are reflected by giving too much credence to conservative (or "conservatarian") ideas. Great amounts of the passionate and often poignant and targeted commentary on contemporary issues happens because of the desire of some to try to express old and often staid beliefs about core social, political, economic, and other perspectives. But, sadly, these viewpoints have not panned out as being worth all that elements of our culture want to dream about. Science and technology show in their own ways, over and over again actually, that so-called "balanced" (or bi-partisan in political terms) conceptions of core cultural preferences are no longer applicable. They continue to exist and are propagated because they offer a form of undeserved comfort -- and are thus the protection to hides the much deeper level of deceptions behind their usage. 

Failing to accept that we have the manner and means to find and use effective solutions is the heart of the biggest remaining part of America's self-imposed cultural CONfidence job. And there is no way around the fact that conservative and libertarian efforts are pushing this misdirection forward. 

Backwards looking philosophies and expectations -- often grounded in religious moralism -- have not panned out. They offer no good, honest way forward in dealing with the circumstances of need and the ideals of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. In actually, they mask the forces of misdirection and thus make us believe that the institutions we should count on are themselves coming up short -- a deeper manifestation once again of America's great self-imposed CON job. 

We have to begin accepting two realities: that people and cultures play games. It is part of the process of maneuvering for some degree of self-advantage. But too much of this puts us in the place where we accept wrong and deceptive realities as if they were true. The Trumps and other conservative icons glorify this exact greedy excess and are the men behind the masks, the bad masks that do a great deal of damage to the confidence we as a society deserve.

PROparations vs Drs. of Doom

I made a proposal the other day to a project seeking writers who want to Frankenstein a different monster of economic understanding, thereby using the bits and bytes of science fictional fantasizing as a model for a true and doable tomorrow. I jumped in rather blindly, not actually being such a fan of the genre of the strangely possible. I was actually surprised to find out that the entire notion is an actual thing, this Science Fiction Economics ....

Suffice it to say, the nature of the living, breathing domain of online writing causes me to stay away from sharing the details of the plot of my proposal. The spiders that hang in the web have a way of encasing even the tiniest morsel of an amuse bouche, seeking to gobble it down before a secret formula gets sniffed out by the masses -- with the result being that if I tell you too much, this posting space becomes just another graveyard where good ideas lie, unread, for eternity. And who wants that? My goal too is to cash-in on your interest in hopes of unleashing the Wisdom of Crowds while supplying stakes of interest in the hands of the mob that wants to foment Blessed Unrest!

But I digress into book smarts. So let me get to the point. The real monster of economic understanding that will be needed to quell the anger of masses will have to be hobbled together in a way that can satisfy two base urges: the cry for revenge and expectations of reparations as well as the desire for the replacement of the past ugliness with a beast that promises it will no longer indiscriminately scatter inequity or injustice. And such will take a magnificent feat of scientific performance.

In some later pieces, I hope to explore what I mean by this through articles that will try to encourage a collective framing of the definition of what I have tentatively called EPOWERology -- but that too has to be an idea that remains at rest. For this somewhat delayed point here, I turn instead to how the US economy deals with the two seemingly opposing market and philosophical demands for clawback punishments and a rebalancing of access going forward. 

My suggestion is to blend the values of realpolitik by testing the feasibility of various combinations of initiatives that in the end are PROparational in scope. We can achieve some degree of open and honest repayment for past mistakes without simply confessing that we owe all to everyone. Even the most misguided of processes can and have gone wrong. But accepting that doesn't mean monetary or huge compensation to all those hurt -- failure is the cost of democracy and the search for effective participation. 

At the same time that this compensation is settled upon, other PROactive, even PROphylactic elements have to be conceived of and operationalized. In so doing, these forward-looking reformulations minimize backwards reaching clawback desires ... thus laying the foundation for overall interventions that are truly PROparational to what our society, our culture, expects.

Put simply, there needs to be a concerted and unavoidably clear commitment to installing exactly this type of new programming if the crowds are going to be called upon to upload the apps that serve as portals to change. This is one of the powerfully notable costs that must be incurred: societies have to be willing to reshape their emotional drives away from retributive to restorative economic justice models.

We don't yet have good working plans for this. That this hasn't been figured out and the process of innovation set in place by our presidential leadership candidates ... well, that's what worries me. The hue and cries are loud, demanding better. We have the technology that Dr. Frankenstein could only dream about. But the time is now. The crowds have their stakes of interest in hand and hunting for the proper door to beat down. Once that happens, they will expect payment for their hurt and promises of better results ahead. IMHO, President Black gets the urgency. He has been grappling with what is ahead about the bight of tomorrow. I'm guessing soon-to-be President Woman does too. The others, who seem to favor more that hargingering of doom by their audiences ... well ... not so much. If either of the lesser moves forward, we will find ourselves to blame and have to lay down much greater shares of revenge if we're not careful and don't start being prepared for the worst -- monsters have been created in science fiction stories for a long, long time, but that doesn't mean we should sit around and wait for the next act of the same old tales. 

Pretty Pink Show Pony

Revolutionaries are, of necessity, heavy on showcase talents. For that I fault few of such figures. But in this day and age, where technology makes anyone capable of drawing a real or virtual crowd, failing to cash-in on the possible helpful viral impacts that are being served up by such positioning is deep and unabidable leadership sin.

Presidential contender Sanders and the Bernie Brains that crowd together before him fail to grasp this and as such do injustice to the power and potential of cyber possibilities. The Sanders movement is desperately and unnecessarily avoiding the precise methods it ought to be focusing on if what it really wants is to show that change can and should be accepted. There is no excuse for this, nor should the source of the ongoing abuse of opportunity be forthcoming from the mouth of one who prides himself on whining about revolutionary new promises. Doing so continuously demonstrates and legitimizes disrespect for the interactive awesomeness of the empowerment culture that is digitalizing before us.

If this were not the case, there would be more instances that show Bernie putting his passions forward, letting them play out as part of his campaign. Presidential contenders can do a great deal and are free to follow all types of untested avenues for success -- look at Trump, for example, who has wrapped his entire campaign in the suit of failed past beliefs.

Funny thing is, the media has been somewhat helpful in calling this out. As a collective, they had a hard time ignoring the fact that, showy as her steps were, soon-to-be President Hillary went out of her way to head to Flint, MI, to drink the water of their suffering. She listened, helped put plans together, directed resources and volunteers, and basically showed that clear and clean democracy is as life-affirming as water: a necessary resource that ensures the vulnerable are around to be heard and to vote. She put her ideals into action when the opportunity arose -- simply and using rather old methods, true, but she made something happen by engaging the drive of her vision.

Did Bernie do anything collectively? Anything empowering or revolutionarily, disruptive with this situation as it unfolded? Anything, that is, more than speaking harshly about exploitative greed and government inefficiency; about GOP killer austerity -- elements of his mostly singular call to revel in injustice?

Did he issue a command for his troops -- millions of them -- to bombard the state leaders with paper or cyber tigers? Did he call his hordes together for a massive meeting of mind and body against the very classism he despises, thus dramatizing transformation into instant practice?

Has North Carolina been bombarded by those who are capable of uploading another $27 to feed the need for immediate change? Have the hateful Flint electeds "Felt the Bern" by having a parade of ugliness marched before their false sense of rationalizations?

Maybe better yet: Have any banking behemoths -- anywhere -- been deluged by the Bernie Beasts, commanding that we as a people everywhere be set free of another type of economic pollution ... that which allows for criminally exploitive financial and banking fees and charges?

Bernie tells us over and over that we need a revolution. As does Trump. But he almost never shows that he is the one who can turn those circumstances into obvious examples of righting wrongs directly before our eyes. I happen to think that the crowds and the media kept hoping they might see such demonstrations play out -- but since they have not been forthcoming, it is easier to watch Trump's escapades degrade into embarrassing examples of anger turned uglier. 

For Bernie to win at his game he needs to be more than a show pony. We need someone who is comfortable enough to feed and unleash his herds because they are saddled and ready with the technology that brings others together. A real president has to do this even when being dressed up by the necessity of other aspirational presidential wrappings. I don’t believe Bernie harbors more than the idea that being a pretty pony matters -- and that is the wrong approach to showcase.

Day of the Mommies

Even us rather unenlightened Norte Americanos -- no, not a Trump joke, but clearly it could be! -- are comfortable with the notion of the Day of the Dead. Likely most of us bear the burden of the fact that our thoughts turn first to zombiesque contemplations, but nonetheless, we accept the wonder of what stands behind the Latino/a qua Hispanic notion that our relatives past are worth remembering. They even get hungry for our attention.

But such is not the case for the respect our friends and family members of the Spanish traditions give to their mommies via Mother’s Day. Though a nice-sounding recognition for those who carry much of the nurturing and household burdens, gringos of various flavors prefer it commercialized as a Sunday off, perhaps so mom can cook. Makes it easier also to ensure that some get a break from regular religious doctrine, and it doesn’t interfere with our work schedules, including moms'. USAmericanos love to cash-in on such logic.

But Latino/as see if more uniquely. The love and admiration of the festival is grander and they pay it respect by anchoring it to the date of May 10th, similar to what they do with that the Dia de Muertos, though that reaches across October 31 through November 1 and 2 to accommodate cultural enclaves. All of which makes the case for accepting that it might well behove us to let them rename their pride for a Dia de Madre -- a Day of Mothers (Mommies Rule!). 

Respect comes as respect is deserved. This Spanish cultural pattern gets little recognition because most people in the commercialized Americas have given up on the importance of celebrations without money value. This goes with why so many of us have holidays and paid days off but don't use them. Perhaps if we took some time, on a given day, we might collectively see that certain symbols are truly the mother of unity.

Happy dia de madre, Reyna!

Trumping Xenoism

The American political culture is going through its own period of disruptive innovation. Unfortunately, the only viable product coming out is the coining of a new concept, namely, xenoism. Since that term cannot be found in a definitional search on Google, clearly it has no true meaning in life -- at least not yet.

But the biggest BrainDump in US politics -- the actions and intentions captured by GOP presumptive fool Donald Trump -- is breaking new ground by trying to capitalize on its potential. It ain’t cool to be racist, but it “might,” in some circumstances, be cool to be over-the-top American First. Favoring grandiose ideal of national exceptionalism has risen time and again as the rallying call of people with … well … at least delusions of motivational glory, often under the mistaken belief that their worries justify unusual takes on the world they live in. Fortunately, in this day of virtual globalism, such conceptions cannot be allowed to stand. Doing so makes them come across as a hybrid of xeno fears hiding behind racial animosities.

Enter xenoism. Xenophiles might be explicit lovers of things foreign and different, but xenoists are dislikers, haters, fearmongers of the same. Try as they do to straddle the demarcations between admiration and jealous hatred, their efforts fail and do little more than birth a new form of unhealthy skepticism. This is, by definition, all that Trump and his kin are, particularly since they are likewise willing to film their "reality" takes on those ugly others.

If we let them get away with it -- stand back, giving them the benefit of the doubt -- we do the disservice of adding legitimacy to their misunderstandings. Not comprehending or appreciating the world we live in is like and yet judging it with hurtful superiority serves no purpose greater than bringing our culture down to race, class, and gender defilements.

Xenoism empowers nothing useful. A powerful lesson we all might benefit from even if it requires us all to face the realization that in a virtual world we are all foreigners in our own lands at some point. 

Downside Fears of Progress

James Branch Cabell once wrote that “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”

Hard to think otherwise than that Bill Gross of Janus Capital is trying to get us to look under his skirt of downward-falling truths where fear cannot even be saved by the Knights of Viagra. Or so Paul Vigna might be implying in his Wall Street Journal MONEYBEAT commentary today (May 4, 2016) on “What to Do After the Robots Take Our Jobs.” 

The tone of their mutually self-gratifying assessments is that we ought to get used to the fact that technology is going to force us to dramatically change everything of the business around us. From work to market engagement to the assumption that the only way to rescue humanity from the ugly unfolding of economic calamities tied to the robots of progress is to seed the finances of the future with “helicopter money” -- a truly inverted proposition, if you ask me.

Helicopter money describes the notion that central banks, in unfathomable situations, gleefully print currency as they see fit to dump loads of comfort and stability into otherwise doomed marketplaces. This, Vigna says, is hardly an optimal (READ: optimistic) perspective. In fact, it is little more than unadorned, deeply pessimistic fear draped to disguise the naked empowerment that happens when capitalism is stripped of … what? … all it’s good attire?

Someone has lost a sense of which way is up. 

Digital and technological progress are far from detrimental, except to those costumed in the self-adorning outfits of the past. They are, in actuality, the diametric opposite: engaging options perfectly fit to mask the anger behind the disappointment of the masses who are truly ready to drive the stakes they hold into the bellies of greed and self-interest. That the banks and financiers want to drag us under the attire of their motherly protections to keep us from showing our styles, I have little doubt. But in reality, these are just efforts on the part of some to cover the fears the emanate from the future being downloaded around them.

The economics of the future -- like most of my beloved social sciences -- still treat the rapid fire realities of progress as something less science and more fiction, with little appreciation for the wisdom of the playful masses. Which is why the counter to the pessimism is a force of cyber enthusiasts who are willing to take hold of the handsets of digital opportunity and use that control to override the otherwise cynical expectations of the copters on our horizon.

Smart and interactive advocacy needs to look at what is happening in more entertaining, adventurous, even provocatively sexy ways. We need to write programs and scripts that play out the change as the kind of wonder it foretells. Doing so is the only way to respond to those who otherwise want to cash in on dressing us down with unnecessary fear and shaming.