Under The Mistletoe – Bay Area Style

Only in the Bay Area can we truly leverage technology and tradition so unpretentiously and flawlessly. Check out when two guys flew a mistletoe drone over Union Square in San Francisco.

Reactions:

Press Release from the White House: No American citizen was targeted on American soil for this initiative.

Dick Cheney responded that we have just spoilt his holiday fantasies.

Fox News: Highlights this as another example of the war on Christmas – no explanation is forthcoming, though it is rumored that Sarah Palin will explain in her new sequel.

Whatever spiritual path you follow, may you always have someone to smooch or platonically hug! Drone or no drone. Happy Holidays.

Original article – http://feedly.com/e/UWgmEkC2 .

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 Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, The First Decree, and Ashbar – Wycaan Master Book 3 – all released by Tourmaline Books. Shalev is also the author of three social justice-themed novels including Unwanted Heroes. He swears there is a connection. More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter). Hang out with Alon on Google+

First Presidential Debate

Tonight is the first presidential debate.  I feel somewhat ashamed to say that I am excited. It is hype. There are strict rules, two very intelligent men have been prepping for sometime with teams of equally very intelligent professionals. 

I love sports, most sports, and it doesn’t take me long to get absorbed in a game on TV. Both teams or adversaries train and prepare for their specific opponent and we don’t know what the outcome will be, who will win, and what unexpected tactic or moment of brilliance will lead to the winning goal, points or knock out.

When you look at it objectively (and of course none of us do), this is one big show for the floating voter. I have mixed feelings regarding the floating voter, the undecided, and the independents. 

On the one hand I admire people who insist on analyzing policies or the integrity of a candidate, but are they really floating? A recent NPR clip interviewed several young independents, and after a few questions, declared them to be democrats. A friend who was listening with me commented wryly: “That’s obvious. These are thinking people.”

Having said that, I can understand why someone might change their vote because their circumstances have changed. A Republican supporter might have suffered from losing their savings, their house, or their job, without any hope of recuperating their losses, and consider the democratic agenda to be more reflective of their circumstances. A democratic voter might have come into considerable money, found God, or just set themselves up as a small businessperson, and figure the Republican agenda will help them.

Just to be clear, there are religious liberals and democratic entrepreneurs, and I am sure people who suffered from the Republicans irresponsible fiscal policies but stay Republican because of their values. 

If the candidates and their parties are not offering anything new, why are people undecided? We have spent a long time analyzing their policies, backgrounds, comments, and actions. And does it matter who wins the White House if the balance of Congress makes everything a stalemate anyway?

I have nothing to fall back on than sports and entertainment. This is what I would love to see happen:

Popcorn, anyone?

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).

Shaft Strikes Again – Norman Weekes

There are things we whisper to each other when white folk are not around.

Yes it’s true. When two or more Black folk stand by the water cooler we talk in-house. Most of it need not be shared. ‘They’ wouldn’t understand. It would take hours, maybe years of context to not be misunderstood. But at the risk of having my “Black Enough” card revoked, I’m going to share one of these secret communiques. For about two years now, ever since Obama started getting his ass kicked on every meaningful issue of concern to the Black community I’ve heard this or something like this:

After checking the room, looking over both shoulders one of my beloved – brothers or sisters will lean in and say  “Just wait until the second term. Then we’ll see the real Obama!”

The hope is that unencumbered by re-election politics he’ll transform from Urkel to John Shaft. Maybe even Dolemite. Something other than what he’s already proven to be. The guy we wanted. Not the guy he is – Benson. I can hear the First Lady screaming “Benson! Oh no you didn’t!” Obama’s recent open mic gaff to Russian President Medvedev gave hope to the fantasy. Never mind he was referring to foreign policy and stating the obvious.

I understand the desire to believe that the conformity, reserve and caution is just an act until he’s free to be the real Obama. After all, we’ve done this everyday for hundreds of years. It’s a coping mechanism that has served us well in a persevering kind of way. At the same time we desperately want to believe Obama’s just waiting for the opportunity to “stick it to The Man” even if he is “The Man”.

This theory ignores a cardinal rule of being Black in America. If you get in don’t f-it up for the next brother. The next Black president is alive today. Obama knows this. He may hope the next Black president is living in the White House today. If he is a Super Negro waiting to emerge, checks and balances will temper Obama’s second term. The Republican House and/or Senate along with conservative Supreme court justices who obviously sold their souls for eternal life will keep him in “check”. Wonder if Satan tried to return those souls after a quality check. Caveat emptor Beelzebub.

Second term Presidents rarely get wild and crazy in their second term. Nixon and Clinton were impeached and I’ve had the entire Bush 43 presidency erased from my memory. I don’t think his second term was very memorable but you can look it up.

In the final analysis the Obama we have is way better than any alternative. You know it, I know it, and the American people know it. As William DeVaughn reminds us: Be Thankful for What You Got.

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Norman Weekes is a volunteer in social justice non profits and occasional political activist. 

 

An Unsettling Conversation

It was not the setting where I would expect such a conversation. It was a Jewish philanthropy meeting and most of the people that I had addressed were there because they had money and were generous to the causes that moved them.

The meeting was over and we were drinking and eating around the buffet table when a well-dressed man approached me and asked whether students were involved with the Occupy movement.

What ensued was a discussion of the merits of the Occupy movement and the Tea Party. This man was a democrat and only used the Tea Party to illustrate a well-oiled machine – with money, a single message, and leadership.

But then he turned his attention to the Occupy movement. He talked about the need for leadership and a clearly defined agenda. I was not looking for such a discussion, we have covered it considerably on Left Coast Voices – search occupy in our search engine – and I was wary of my role at this meeting. But he caught my attention with his next thought.

The window of opportunity is closing he said. Once the weather improves, we will not be able to hide behind this excuse. Then he mentioned the upcoming elections. It would be inexcusable, he said, if the Occupy movement did anything that hurt the Democratic drive for Congress and the White House. I have offered my thoughts on this here.

But I want to finish with this thought. He spoke about the one achievement (not sure that it has been fully realized) is that the banks now understand that they serve the people and need the people.

The next step, he said, was to apply this accountability to the politicians. In his work, this man evaluates and promotes or fires his employees. Why are we not doing this with Congress? Why should they care that their rating is a pathetic 11%? They do not hold unique skills and there are many who would be happy to take their places.

He would like to see a credible forum that evaluates the politicians, decides whether they achieved the goals we voted them in to do (or at least made a serious effort to do so), and give them a public grade. Anyone who brings in a low grade gets fired. Unlike his business, we have a legitimate and open opportunity to send politicians who do not perform home every four years.

I asked him whether there was an organization that did this. He replied that the only people he knows are the Tea Party.

Can we not build a broader base that offers more objective data to the 99%. There might not be much in the way of equality these days, but if 99% vote according to a performance evaluation, we will see a lot of new faces on C-Span, and they will be more aware that we are carefully watching them.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).

A Lesson From The West Wing

I don’t want this election to about the Bible or any other topic that doesn’t get our nation back on its feet. As the Republicans candidates fall over themselves to win the primary in a holier-than-thou competition, perhaps we need to turn to a source that has guided us through many White House crises.

Enjoy…

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).

 

 

The Pied Pipering of America

We’ve all heard the old world story about the Pied Piper—the one where the elders hire the colorful clown to rid the village of pesky rats and when there’s a payment dispute the Pied Piper plays the magic flute once again. But this time he leads the villagers’ naïve children to their death. Historians say it’s a symbolic retelling of the Black Death during the dark ages.

Is America being led into a new dark age? Some say we are and point to our increasing ills: a corrupt Supreme Court privately entertained by corporations, White House-sanctioned torture, economic growth based on the perpetual selling of debt, increased reliance on finite resources, political agendas financed by big business and the Reaganomic elimination of the middle class.

Who are the Pied Pipers leading the American death march? Who’s paying these pipers? But more importantly, who are the naïve followers of the piper?

The Republican masses can be likened to lemmings. They are easily manipulated into followship pacts even when the end result or cause is nonsensical. This is primarily due to a common education level and conservative conditioning.

The education breakdown of the Republican population fits into a Gaussian distribution curve that is centered at the high school level. Since the bulk of the Republican followship has a mid-level education there is a lack of critical thinking typically associated with higher education. In contrast, the Democrat population has a bimodal distribution with peaks occurring in the disenchanted and critical thinking areas— these groups lack a followship mentality.

In addition, Cognitive Science tells us that Republicans have an authoritarian mind set. Their hierarchical structure begins with God and descends to country, father, mother, children, pets and so on. This conservative conditioning creates obedience, especially toward authoritarian leaders.

The Pied Pipering of America has been made easy by the Republican Party. Their authoritarian conditioning and lack of critical thinking creates a simple-minded mass followship. This is a Pied Piper’s dream. With a single playing of the political flute the whole group can be steered toward the highest bidder.

How do we fix this? Should we fix this?

-Roger Ingalls

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Roger Ingalls is well travelled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.

Millennials – Think of Rome & Go Vote!

I love the millennial generation. I work with students on the campuses of San Francisco and I revel in their confidence, their optimism, their drive for hands-on philanthropy. But if I have one complaint it is that they have become accustomed to instant gratification. They have an almost naive belief that if you play by the rules then the system will do the right thing.

Buoyed by promise of change and a sense of empowerment at having come of age to vote, these fine young people put a candidate in the White House who promoted the same values – the system can work if we believe in it.

What the candidate and his staff forgot to mention is that he was taking office after eight years of chronic mismanagement the repercussions of which had not yet finished wreaking their damage. The candidate and his party assumed that it was understood that it would take time to right the ship.

The millennials didn’t understand that. Neither did they understand how destructive an opposition can be (neither do most of us it should be noted). Remember how long it took to build Rome, and how the empire was destroyed by its own apathy.

The Obama administration can make the changes it promised, but it needs support in the House and Senate. It is ironic that he might lose this opportunity not because of those who oppose him, but because of the apathy of a generation who gave him the chance.

Rome was not rebuilt in a day and President Obama needs you to go to the polls. For the sake of the country, whatever your politics – go vote!
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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at www.alonshalev.com