Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Evangelicals Clinging More to Hierarchy

A coalition of evangelical leaders have released a “Christian manifesto” called the "Nashville Statement" asserting their belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and condemning the acceptance of “homosexual immorality or transgenderism.” This group asserted its belief in separate gender roles in its 1987 manifesto, "The Danvers Statement" which affirmed a “complementarian” view of gender roles in a push against secular feminism and egalitarian marriages.

Extreme in their push to return to outdated hierarchies, they are defining roles of submission of women to men, and asserting that anyone but hierarchical heterosexuals have little right to exist.

The fact that these statements are getting press points to the fact that more and more people are speaking out against the hierarchies that the people on the end of the see saw are holding on to for dear life, and losing their rational perspective to do so.

Nashville mayor Megan Barry issued the following tweet, "The “so-called ‘Nashville statement’ is poorly named and does not represent the inclusive values of the city & people of Nashville.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/30/evangelical-leaders-release-nashville-statement-on-sexuality-rejecting-gay-marriage/?utm_term=.8df65cae4b7f

Monday, August 28, 2017

Trump - Pardoned Arpaio as Hurrican Harvey Made Landfall

Donald Trump on Monday said he chose his time to announce he was pardoning former Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio because he “assumed the ratings would be far higher” while Hurricane Harvey made landfall.

Ever putting his own desires and personal needs before everyone else's, typical of a man who sees himself on the top of every hierarchy in the world, no one's needs trump his own.

“In the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally,” Trump said during a press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö. “You know, the hurricane was just starting.”

But people who see life from a lower perspective have a different idea. Democrats critisized Trump on Friday for timing, with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) accusing Trump of “using the cover of the storm” to issue the pardon.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348327-trump-i-pardoned-arpaio-during-hurricane-because-i-thought-tv-ratings

Monday, August 21, 2017

Kissin' Cousin of White Supremacy – White Masculinity

Rob Okum is the editor of Voice Male, a magazine that is dedicated to helping our society change the way we raise and view men and boys.

In his article, "The Poison of White Supremacist Masculinity," Okum states, "In our long-term strategy to address domestic terrorism we must make central raising emotionally literate boys, dismantling bullying masculinity, and demanding the CDC conduct a study of the mental health of boys and young men."

Okum and his colleagues have been writing and speaking for years about the gender of the killers—from Columbine to Orlando. He asks how people who covered murder suspect James Fields. Jr. failed to point out the obvious, that he was a disaffected, alienated 20 year-old male. 

"In white America’s ongoing work to unflinchingly take responsibility for our country’s shameful slaveholding origins, we must also examine how we socialize boys to become men. The kissin’ cousin of a white supremacist history is our patriarchal legacy...we must chop down the tree of violent, hate-filled white masculinity to get to the root of our malaise."

http://womensenews.org/2017/08/the-poison-of-white-supremacist-masculinity/

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Why Are Women in the Alt-Right? Explanation on PBS Newshour

If the Alt-Right movement has a face of white males, and they proclaim to support so many hierarchies, why are there occasionally white women present?

In a PBS Newshour interview with Seyward Darby, she explains that these women believe in the roles that hierarchies dictate for men and women.

"They very much like the idea of alpha men who embrace a very sort of aggressive form of masculinity.  But in terms of the place women see for themselves, they don’t believe that these men are misogynistic in the way that people looking from the outside might.

"They think that the men of the alt-right just understand biology and that men and women are fundamentally different, not equal, but equally important, and that men should be alpha, macho, fighting battles, running countries, making policy, whereas women have an equally important role on the home front, nurturing family units, inculcating the beliefs of this movement.  They would say they don’t see that as, you know, submission or subjugation.  They would say that it’s equally important, almost like a yin and yang."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/women-joining-alt-right/



Sunday, August 13, 2017

Charlottesville: WHACHUMs Acting Out For All to See

The LA Times Editorial Board has issued a statement that "Trump bears some responsibility for the racism on display in Charlottesville." With a "Unite the Right" demonstration attended by head of the KKK David Duke, the Friday night pre-protest chants included statements such as the Hitlerian “blood and soil” and “Jews won’t replace us.”

Donald Trump stated that "both sides do it." Trump deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this "Unite the Right" rally. Instead he believes that people who want to build and maintain hierarchies express just another opinion. But, these people are bigots. They are hate-filled. This is not just a protest where things, unfortunately, got violent. Violence sits at the heart of the warped, hierarchical belief system of the Right hierarchy builders. 

The torch-bearing parade of overwhelmingly white men shows who is behind these hierarchy-building decrees – the WHACHUMs discussed in our book, Everybody Jump Together, downloadable for free from this website. White males aren't born bigots, our hierarchy creates and encourages them. But if we join together with a common frame of hierarchies, we can push these men, and their leader Trump, off their game.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-charlottesville-racism-trump-20170812-story.html

Monday, August 7, 2017

Trump Insults Followers' Intelligence, But They Still Insist on Following the Top

"Why Do Trump's Supporters Allow Him to Insult Their Intelligence?" asks The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf.  Trump tweeted, "The Fake News Media will not talk about the importance of the United Nations Security Council's 15-0 vote in favor of sanctions on N. Korea!" \Mr. Friedersdorf lists many many articles about the N. Korea mainstream sanctions published before the tweet.

Considering how intent Trump supporters are on supporting him, no matter what he does or says, it is obvious that they are bowing to their programming to not question the top of the hierarchy, and to believe everything that filters down, no matter how ridiculous. Hail to the Hierarchy, no matter what.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-insults-the-intelligence-of-his-followers/536166/

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Whites Should Be More Scared of Whites Than Others

In hierarchies, if we are on top, we are programmed to believe that we should fear lower groups, which strengthens the hierarchy because of division, and provides excuses to treat lower groups with less respect.

From 2011 through 2015, CDC statistics covering 99% of the United States population show that the rates of homicides, gun killings, and illicit-drug fatalities are highest in counties where nine out of ten residents are white and where President Trump won the 2016 election.

According to Mike Males in the Los Angeles Times, white people should be more afraid of other whites than they are of people of color.

"The white Americans who are safest from such deaths are those who live in racially diverse areas such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, where two-thirds of residents are nonwhite, where millions of immigrants live, and where voters favored Hillary Clinton in 2016. Nonwhites also are safer in these areas overall, though rates vary by location...According to FBI data for 2015, when whites are murdered anywhere in the country, the murderer is five times more likely to be white than nonwhite.

"Overall, white Americans who live in predominantly white and Trump-voting counties are 50% more likely to die from murder, gun violence and drug overdoses than whites who live in the most diverse and Democratic-voting counties. The more white and Republican a county is, the greater the risk for white Americans."

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-males-white-americans-violence-sanctuary-cities-20170803-story.html


Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Affirmative Action? How About Looking at Legacy Admissions for Whites.

People in the United States are so programmed that we need to keep the top of the hierarchy on top.

Phillip Bump of the Washington Post points out that legacy admission to colleges are considered by many people to be valid, while affirmative action because of being a non-white-male are not.

"Last year, Gallup asked Americans what factors should come into play when considering college applicants. About three-quarters of respondents said a student’s high school grades should be a major factor; about 3 in 10 said economic circumstances should be.

"But what jumps out is a revealing comparison on affirmative action. Only 9 percent of respondents said that race or ethnicity should be a major factor in acceptance, with an additional 27 percent saying it should be a minor factor. But legacy admissions — giving preference to students whose parents had attended the same school — was viewed as something that should be considered with more weight than race."

Bump goes on to say that affirmative action for those from college-educated families — families that are more likely to be white — was viewed as more acceptable than affirmative action for black or Hispanic students.

The Trump family is used as an example. Father Donald went to Wharton School of Finance, as did his children Donald Jr. and Ivanka. But good luck in having administration and his attorney general focus on that injustice.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/08/02/of-course-the-trump-justice-department-wants-to-target-affirmative-action/?utm_term=.81ae813b6c7b

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Where Being Clueless at the Top of the World Has Gotten the USA

In an Article posted by Fareed Zakaria, and copyrighted by the Washington Post Writers Group, using Pew survey data, Mr. Zakaria is inviting the world to say good-bye to an era when the United States was admired and respected as a world leader, now facing the future of a Post-American World.

"The world has gone through bouts of anti-Americanism before. But this one feels very different. First, there is the sheer shock at what is going on, the bizarre candidacy of Donald Trump, which has been followed by an utterly chaotic presidency."

Describing the reaction of countries around the world to the Trump administration and a country who would elect him, he says, "The most dismaying of Pew’s findings is that the drop in regard for America goes well beyond Trump. Sixty-four percent of the people surveyed expressed a favorable view of the United States at the end of the Obama presidency. That has fallen to 49 percent now. Even when U.S. foreign policy was unpopular, people around the world still believed in America — the place, the idea. This is less true today."

The United States has fancied itself as being on top of the world hierarchy for many years. It appears that, by clinging to the hierarchy in this country that would elect Trump/Pence and their Republican followers, the world is no longer buying this commitment to hierarchies as a valid productive future.

Where will the commitment to our country's hierarchies end up on the global front? Who knows. While people in this country insist on remaining clueless at the top, other people all over the world can certainly see differently.

https://fareedzakaria.com/2017/07/28/say-hello-to-a-post-american-world/

Everyone But the Rich Suffer Under the Republicans - Now Medicare and Social Security

According to Reuters, the Republicans have decided to now go after Medicare and Social Security in their latest efforts to repeal Obamacare.

"President Donald Trump has vowed repeatedly that he 'wouldn’t touch' Medicare or Social Security, but someone forgot to tell House Republicans," according to the article. People on the top of hierarchies don't care how their decisions affect other people not in their elite circles, again, and whatever is promised in the past is up for changes, if the top can benefit.

Republicans promised to do away with Obamacare, and they don't care who they hurt in the process of finding any way they can to do just that. No one will be surprised when the people who really benefit are the rich and the insurance companies, who could receive even more business opportunities with the new Republican plan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-column-miller-medicare-idUSKBN1AC2W7