This is what happens when you put an idiot in charge of the store, the store and everyone associated with it suffers . . . mightily. I speak, of course, of the twitter-in-chief, Donald Trump, whose latest proclamation on economic policy has the markets shaking and threatens to undermine a trade system that for decades has been responsible for fostering economic progress throughout the world. Now, the orange-headed buffoon wants to demolish that system and plunge the world back into a dog-eat-dog, tariff-walled trade system that was foundational to World War II.

He just has announced that he intends to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Before that he slapped tariffs on imports of solar panels and washing machines. As he said, it’s easy to slap on tariffs; unfortunately, it’s not a very bright way to level the economic playing field.

Assessing tariffs on imported goods may in the short run help some domestic manufacturers, but longer term such an action is self-defeating. Take for instance, solar panels. The Chinese manufacture close to 90 percent of the solar panels in the world. How do they do this? Lower labor costs for one, but principally by subsidizing their solar panel manufacturers. Is this fair? No, but combatting that by slapping tariffs on the imports of solar panels doesn’t really help American manufacturers of the solar panels because they produce such a small fraction of the world supply to begin with. Instead, what it does is raise the cost of solar panels in the United States and stunt consumer demand for the product. The result: a nascent solar power industry, which includes more than just the manufacture of solar panels, withers. Will this hurt the Chinese? Not really. They will just intensify their sale of solar panels to other countries that are working as fast as they can to build up their own solar industries. The United States solar industry will be left in the economic dust of the rest of the world and will be hard pressed to recover and quite possibly never be competitive.

Similarly, slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum imports may help higher-cost domestic suppliers of the products, but it will raise the cost of products that use steel and aluminum in the manufacture of their products, such as automobiles, the construction industry, semi-conductors, etc. Who pays the price ultimately for these tariffs? The consumers, of course.

More importantly, however, using tariffs as trade policy undermines the trade system that for decades was so assiduously developed and nurtured by the United States following World War II through the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) process. Through this process the system of tariffs that the world followed prior to World War II and pushed the Japanese to wage war on the United States, was gradually dismantled, and a system of tariff controls was instituted that helped lower tariffs worldwide and foster greater trade and economic development.

This is not to say there were not tariffs, but there was a system in place for countries to air their differences and to find mutually agreeable tariff and trade arrangements to the benefit of all. Unilaterally slapping tariffs on imports to help domestic industries that were not very competitive to begin with undermines the GATT system and ushers the world back into one of cut-throat competition and tariff walls.

Does this mean that the United States or any country for that matter should just sit back and let its domestic industries die on the vine and not do anything to protect them? Absolutely not, but hiking tariffs is a simplistic solution, in other words, no solution, to a much more complicated problem. There is a system in place for dealing with countries, such as China, whose governmental policies unfairly help their manufacturers at the expense of foreign manufacturers. It should be used. In the meantime, governments can find other ways to help their industries without having a deleterious down line effect on other segments of their economies tied to their industries.

First of all, governments should take a serious look at their domestic industries to determine what position they occupy in the overall economy and to what extent they possess a natural comparative advantage over foreign manufacturers. If a foreign manufacturer has a natural comparative advantage over domestic manufacturers and the industry does not represent a significant share in the economy of the country, i.e., represents a small share of GDP and employs a small percentage of the labor force, does it make sense to hike tariffs just for its benefit that will hurt associated industries and the economy as a whole? Of course, not. But that is exactly what Mr. Trump is doing.

Better to provide tax incentives and similar tools that in effect amount to a subsidy to bolster the industry and to help make it more competitive domestically and internationally. Alternatively, or additionally, the government should be fostering policies such as tax incentives for those industries that do occupy significant percentages of the GDP and employ large segments of the population to make them stronger and even more competitive.

Riding a dying horse gets one nowhere except stranded when the horse dies, which is what Mr. Trump has been doing by backing the coal industry at the expense of robust and growing industries such as solar and wind power, which are occupying an ever-growing share of the economy and the labor force.

One wonders who is advising Mr. Trump on his economic policies, or is he listening solely to the voices in his head and going with his infamous “intuition”? It would seem the latter to be the case, which is unfortunate because his policies, if one can even call them that, are only going to cause suffering in the United States store long after he has departed the scene.

I have never understood why all sporting events, at least in the United States, must be preceded by the playing of the national anthem. I have never understood the connection between a sporting contest on the field or court and a national song. Clearly, there is no law that I am aware of that requires sporting events be preceded by the national anthem. It is a tradition, as far as I can tell, nothing more, but one apparently many people believe, certainly the current occupant of the White House, judging by the recent hullabaloo over NFL players not standing during the playing of the anthem, that is some sort of litmus test of one’s patriotism.

I personally have no objection if someone chooses to sit during the playing of the anthem. That’s his or her choice and right. Where is it written that somehow not standing for the anthem is disrespectful and unpatriotic? To what and to whom? To those who have fought for their country? Do they really need the acts of others to affirm their own acts and deeds? And if someone doesn’t stand, does that really diminish what those who have fought for their country have done?

If in fact those who have fought for their country in the military fought for what this country stands for, among which, and perhaps foremost is the right of people to believe and say what they want without fear of reprisal from the government or anyone, I would think witnessing people protesting during the anthem would be testament that their efforts for the country had not been in vain, and that they actually should feel pride that people could exercise the rights they fought to preserve. They may not like what someone has to say, but they should be able to appreciate one’s right to say it, no matter how odious it may be to them. That is what make the United States great, and if we lose that, then we become just like any other country.

The truth is the act of patriotism is not simply standing before a symbol, a flag, and reciting a song. To equate something so superficial as that with patriotism is like saying the act of a Christian genuflecting in front of a cross is somehow spiritual. It is not. Being spiritual like being patriotic involves a purposeful deed, not simply adoration of a symbol. If someone genuflects before a cross and then goes out and swindles his fellow man, is he in fact spiritual, devoted to the precepts of his faith, assuming the precepts don’t include the swindling of his fellow man? Similarly, if someone stands before a flag and sings the national anthem, does that reflect the patriotism in his heart?

I dare say that it is quite possible the 9/11 terrorists and others that have followed since, when attending a sporting event in this country, if they ever did, may have followed the crowd and stood during the playing of the anthem. Does that make them patriotic? Or does their act of terrorism really show what actually was in their hearts?

Does the fact that Colin Kaepernick and of late many NFL players not standing for the anthem make them unpatriotic? Yet, many if not most of these players including Mr. Kaepernick devote many millions of their own money and much of their time to charitable causes here in the United States and elsewhere. Witness the more than $30 million raised by J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans for Hurricane Harvey relief. Is that not devotion to one’s country by trying to help others? I would argue that it is. 

Clearly, someone who sacrifices his life in the service of his country is patriotic, but service of one’s country can come in many forms. It doesn’t have to be just on the field of battle or in the halls of government. I would argue that anyone who acts to help his fellow citizens can be called patriotic.

For example, was Edward Snowden’s act of releasing information about the U.S. government’s illegal spying on U.S. citizens an act of patriotism or an act of treason as the government would have us believe? By releasing the information he was alerting the population to illegal acts by our own government of which we were unaware. In so doing, he has sacrificed his life for all of us. He cannot come back to this country without fear of being tried and imprisoned as a traitor. It was a selfless act on his part that to my mind constitutes devotion to his country. He could have kept silent and continued to be a part of the illegal spying apparatus, but because in good conscience he could not, he chose to bring to light in hopes of stopping what the government was doing and had tried to keep hidden from the public.

There have been many other such selfless acts in our country’s history, in which people have given of their time and money and lives to causes of justice in this country, to ensure that the founding principles of the country apply to all and not to just a few. Harriet Tubman helped slaves escape their bondage. Susan B. Anthony fought for the cause of women’s suffrage. Martin Luther King fought for the civil rights of African-Americans, and now, Colin Kaepernick and his fellow NFL players carry on that same struggle of Dr. King’s. Mr. Kaepernick has lost his employment as a result of it. And what was his egregious act? He simply refused to stand for the national anthem as a protest and as a means to highlight the continued discrimination he and others of his race have and do suffer from in this country.

What if he were to have joined the thousands of demonstrators in Jefferson, Missouri, following the police shootings there? Would he have lost his job? Probably not. But because he chose the very visible forum of the playing of the national anthem at an NFL game, watched by millions of people, he has been blackballed by the league.

For many, our twitter-in-chief included, their focus has been not on why he did it, and what he meant to say in doing it, rather, they have considered it as somehow disrespectful, an unforgiveable, unpatriotic act. But all he was doing was expressing his First Amendment right to free speech. What could be more American than to express his right, one I might add we all do every day and which we all hold most dear, and for which our members in uniform fight for?

Could Mr. Kaepernick have exercised his right of free speech differently that would not have engendered such vitriol? Perhaps, but then, would he have brought as much attention to his cause if he had? Probably not. He chose the forum he knew would get the most attention.

Does not our President do the same when he stands before the United Nations and vows to destroy a member of that august body, or at a campaign rally calls all Mexicans in this country criminals and rapists, or in a twitter tweet calls all NFL players who fail to stand for the national anthem sons-of-bitches?

They both are exercising their freedom of speech, the question we have to ask ourselves is which is the more patriotic? Which is the more devotional to the founding principles of the country? 

Patriotism comes in many forms, not just on the field of battle, but the important thing to recognize is the true act of patriotism and the true patriot for as Samuel Johnson observed, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

When will the people with the power to rid the country of the menace that is Donald Trump finally wake up and realize that enough is enough and begin proceedings to impeach him? If events of the last few weeks are not enough to convince them I don’t know what is. Clearly, this knuckle-dragger we have for President is unfit for office. While a majority of the electorate has recognized this fact since before the tweeter-in-chief was elected, the Congress has seen fit to continue to make excuses for the man and not do their constitutional duty and impeach him. It just shows the failure of our system of government, and how it has been, perhaps always was, co-opted and controlled by well-heeled special interests.

Let’s examine for a moment just what The Donald has been up to recently. He has moved the country and the world perilously close to nuclear devastation by daring the North Koreans to attack the United States or its allies. This is insanity run amok. It is one thing to use such provocative language against sane leaders, who would most likely brush them off as so much hot air, understanding that they are not meant for them directly, but are used for domestic purposes, to play to one’s political base.

North Korea, however, is not led by a sane man. He is quite looney as is the American President, and certainly as unwise. This is a man who gets his jollies by seeing how much misery he can inflict on his people. He is young and he is foolish. He is filled with enough machismo to see Trump’s language as a personal affront, take the dare and act on it. Anyone who has read Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, knows what the result will be. She was writing about the causes of World War I, which led to the deaths of 17 million people, and laid the groundwork for World War II, which killed more than 50 million. A nuclear response by North Korea would quite likely lead to the destruction of mankind or a world unfit for anyone or anything.

If the United States were led by a leader with knowledge and wisdom, a leader who recognizes the responsibility he has a leader of the most powerful country on the planet, he would do what past American Presidents did with the former Soviet Union and put pressure on the country via alliances, trade restrictions, and other diplomatic measures through a policy of containment to force change in the country and the way it operates. It would take time, but it does work. The Soviet Union, also a country like North Korea that put all its efforts toward building up its military and nuclear arsenal, finally collapsed from within from the sheer weight of its lopsided allocation of resources.

The same would happen to North Korea. Already, its long-time defender, China, is recognizing the threat that the North Korean regime poses to it and the world, and has agreed to put more pressure on the country through tougher sanctions and trade restrictions. Bombast coming from the Oval Office is not a proper response to China’s and the world’s efforts vis-à-vis North Korea. A measured response with accompanying diplomatic initiatives, much as Obama used in the case of Iran and its nuclear ambitions, would be a much better approach worthy of an American President.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump cannot stand the fact that his predecessor had more melanin in his skin than he does, and he is bound and determined to erase any remnant of Obama’s policies, in fact any evidence that Obama was President and inhabited the same house that Mr. Trump now does. Witness the tweeter-in-chief’s latest comments concerning the Charlottesville violence, claiming that both sides were responsible for what happened, in effect equating protest against racism and hatred with the racism and hatred being protested against.

While it may be true that it takes two to tango, it is wrong to legitimize racism and hatred by delegitimizing protest against the same. Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to realize that as President he represents all the people, but not just the people, but the principles upon which the country was founded and that are embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Perhaps Mr. Trump should read the Declaration, or have it read to him, so he can inform himself about the principles upon which this country was founded and he swore to uphold as President. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I doubt the white supremacists protesting in Charlottesville the removal of monuments to men who believed as they do were espousing the self-evident truths mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. It is my understanding that the white supremacists want to deprive anyone not like them of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If Mr. Trump believes as the white supremacists do, and it seems that he does by delegitimizing protest against the hatred and racism of the white supremacists, then, he does not believe in the principles of the country he was sworn to lead, and if so, he has no business being President. For the President, the leader of the land, to legitimize groups and beliefs that run counter to the principles he as President has sworn to uphold only shows that he is completely unfit to hold the job and office of President. Congress needs to do the job it was sworn to do and fire him now.

So, Donald Trump sees images of children gassed by the Assad regime in Syria and decides to send a warning to Assad not to do that again by attacking a Syrian military base from which Assad launched the gas attack. Isn’t this the same Trump who several years ago urged then-President Obama not to get involved in Syria after previous gas attacks? Why the sudden change of heart, because Trump suddenly has grown one? Puhlease!

Not unexpectedly, Trump subsequently is widely praised by many in the U.S., many who previously had been critics of him and his administration, for being presidential and showing “spine.” Hmmm . . . do you think Trump calculated this would be the reaction to his Syrian attack?

It is common practice by world leaders, especially despots who are recipients of much condemnation for their domestic policies, to launch foreign adventures to deflect criticism and attention from their domestic policies. Is Trump any different?

Let’s examine the possibility. Before and since taking office, Trump has been under a constant barrage of criticism for his suspected ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin. His administration and his campaign is under investigation for collusion with the Russians to disrupt the American election. What better way to deflect that criticism and investigation than to launch an attack on Syria, a client-state of Russia? Wouldn’t that send a message that Trump is no puppet of Putin and is not and has not been working with the Russians? Judging by much positive media reaction to Trump’s attack on the Syrian airbase, it would appear Trump’s action has initially done just that.

What if, however, Trump’s attack was planned with the knowledge and collaboration of the Russians? The Trump administration has already admitted that it warned the Russians beforehand of the imminence of, if not the exact time, of the attack, which gave the Russians and the Syrians time to move men and materiel out of the line of fire. Why do that if the intent of the attack was to send a clear message to the Assad regime and the Russians, who obviously were aware of if not in collusion on the chemical attacks, not to conduct any further chemical attacks on the Syrian people? Wouldn’t a surprise attack, which Trump blustered about conducting during the election campaign, be much more effective in that regard?

Already since taking office, Trump has tried to deflect criticism away from his alleged Russian ties and subsequent investigations of the same by claiming with no foundation that he was the victim of wiretapping during the campaign and after by President Obama. It did not work, however. Obama adamantly denied it, and no one, neither the FBI nor anyone else has been able to find a shred of evidence to support the claim. So, Trump’s ties to Russia have remained under the microscope of investigation. Could this attack be another ploy to divert public attention away from his Russian connection?

Trump knows that the media operates on a “man bites dog premise,” which is to say it reports the unusual, the outrageous, but rarely the mundane, or if it does report the mundane it is within context of the unusual. Trump ran his whole campaign taking advantage of this premise and was successful in doing so. What would stop him now from continuing to operate the same way?

Did not the Trump administration only days before the Syrian gas attack make the statement that it was no longer focusing on regime change in Syria? Then, suddenly, Syria is emboldened and conducts its gas attack, and Trump is so shocked he does an about-face and attacks the Syrian regime. If anyone seriously believes Trump is acting altruistically I have a nice bridge you can buy. The atrocities, including chemical warfare in the Syrian civil war have been going on for years now. The images of dead and mutilated women and children are plentiful. If Trump is so concerned suddenly with the plight of the Syrian people why doesn’t he open the doors to the U.S. to Syrian refugees?

The truth is that Trump’s attack on the Syrian airbase just like the righteous indignation by the Assad regime and the Russians as a result was a charade. The Russians knew the attack was coming; so did the Syrians. Trump told them. Why the indignation, unless their reaction was planned in advance, just like Trump’s attack and one might hazard the gas attack? Could it be that the entire sequence of events was orchestrated among the three—Trump, the Russians, and the Assad regime—to help Trump against his domestic critics?

Trump has demonstrated himself to be a master manipulator of the press; his election victory is testament to this. This latest series of events involving Syria is just another example of how he operates. This is from a man who refuses to release his full tax returns, which would show any possible connections between him and the Russians, and perhaps many other things not flattering to him. If he has nothing to hide, then, why not divulge them?

He does not divulge them because they would show he is in deep with Putin and the Russians, and this forewarned attack on Syria is a ruse, nothing else, to make people believe he is not a client of Putin. Don’t be fooled by Trump’s feint and misdirection; they are tools of the con-man, which throughout his career Trump has so ably demonstrated himself to be.

Let’s be clear about the Trump dragnet to round up and deport undocumented workers or others in the United States who arrived without proper clearance: it could have been avoided had Congress done its job, had our leaders not been so interested in their personal bank balances and getting elected, and had we as a people been more concerned about the plight of the undocumented and less about keeping the cost of a Happy Meal low.

For years, Congress has refused to come up with a comprehensive immigration law because it’s much easier and much more profitable for the members to rail against illegal immigration while at the same time being paid by companies that benefit from it.

For years, our leaders in the executive and legislative branches have been content, as long as they got paid and got re-elected, to listen to big business and its efforts to find ever cheaper sources of labor, in the process screwing the American worker and the workers in the foreign lands where the jobs went where the wages paid are so low that no one can live on them.

For years, we as citizens of the richest nation in the world have turned a blind eye to the exploitation of those who pick our fruit, bus our tables, prepare our Happy Meals, build our houses, clean up our hotel rooms, and clean up after us and our children because we wanted our creature comforts cheap.

In truth, there is enough blame to go around for what Trump is doing now. He’s just the latest leader of our land to show no mercy, no compassion for the least among us and to profit off an exploitative system. We sat back while President Clinton signed the NAFTA pact, which took as many jobs as it provided in Mexico, which transferred jobs from here to Mexico at less than livable wages, devastating whole communities in the United States, but filled the coffers of the corporations and the executives running them that lobbied hard for NAFTA. We sat back and watched without uttering a sound in disaccord while leaders of Mexico got rich off the American corporations setting up shop there and did nothing to help their people.

So, what happened? Their people came here. There were jobs here, not good paying jobs by our standards, but good in comparison to what they could get in Mexico if at all. They had no choice. It was either risk life and limb and pay exorbitant fees to human traffickers or starve. What would you do? And now Donald Trump, who has spent his adult life exploiting people for his personal gain, is now deporting the same people he has exploited himself. Should we be surprised?

What about those people who now face deportation who came to this country from other countries than Mexico, such as Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the list goes on, who fled from persecution and mayhem and murder? Were we unaware of them and their plight and the role of our government and our businesses in their persecution and murder, or did we just turn a blind eye to their situation because it was too much trouble to concern ourselves with “those” people?

Finally, Donald Trump has said that his deportations are to get rid of the “bad hombres,” the drug dealers and murderers and rapists that he claims have streamed across our border and infested our land. These are the same people who are wreaking havoc in many parts of Mexico, Central and South America, the “El Chapo’s,” the “Pablo Escobars,” and the list goes on. How did they come to operate in the United States? Did they just slip across the border in the middle of the desert? Hardly. We invited them here, businessmen  looking for a profit partnered with them, government officials who took money from them, and we, the great American consumers, who thought nothing of the mayhem created by our insatiable ingestion of the poison they were selling. There can be no market for a product without buyers. Should Donald Trump also start deporting those complicit in the drug trade, the American business persons who partnered with the drug dealers, the government officials who took payoffs from the drug dealers to turn a blind eye, the gun manufacturers who sold weapons enabling the mayhem and murder, our government leaders who adopted policies facilitating the trade, and finally anyone who purchased the contraband?

The truth is it is always the least in a society, those who cannot easily defend themselves who get targeted as the culprits for some perceived societal problem. It is also a truism, however, that we scapegoat the defenseless for our own complicity in the problem. “Surely,” we say, “we can’t be at fault for what happens elsewhere.”

Yes, condemn Donald Trump and his administration for their lack of compassion toward those whose only crime, if one wants to call it that, is the mistake of seeking refuge from harm or seeking employment. Also, however, look in the mirror for we all are responsible for creating the situations that force people to seek refuge from those who would do them harm or who are forced to seek employment here because there is none where they come from.

We live in a connected world. What we do personally, in business, and in government has repercussions far beyond our immediate selves, and it is time we wake up to that fact and that we are responsible for our fellow man, not just here but everywhere.

If we are indeed a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then, what our government does, it does in our name; we do it. We drop the bombs, we enter into pacts that benefit a few at the expense of the many, we enact legislation or take away regulations that govern how we treat certain industries, which have effects on our water and air, but that water and air does not just stay in one place; it travels and affects others far from here. When we allow industries to create products that kill, those products travel either directly or indirectly elsewhere. When we elect a president who acts like a child, who advocates and pushes harmful policies simply because he can, he does those things not just to us but in our name to everyone all over the world. To them he is us. When acts of terror are committed against us because of our government policies toward other lands and other people, or even laws or policies carried out domestically but having international effects, those acts of terror are directed not at our government, but at us; we are the government. It is time we start recognizing that fact and act accordingly.

I was channel surfing the other night when I came across a documentary entitled The Demolition of Truth that was airing on PBS. I was riveted to the screen. The movie is about the questions that have been raised by architects, engineers, and pilots among others concerning the “truth” behind the 9/11 attacks.

The government story is that the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, was solely responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City, damage to the Pentagon and many deaths there, plus the crash of a hijacked airliner in Pennsylvania, which apparently was supposed to be headed to Washington, D.C.

Much like the assassination of JFK, most people in the United States who were alive and old enough to understand the significance of the event can remember where they were when the 9/11 attacks occurred and the feelings they experienced at the time. The world and life in the United States will never be the same. Within 45 days of the attacks, the Patriot Act was passed and signed into law, essentially stripping us of many freedoms we experience under the constitution, all in the name of “security.” Within less than two years we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and are still there, the Marine base at Guantanamo Bay became synonymous with torture and holding people for years in prison uncharged, and the list of consequences goes on.

According to the people interviewed in the film, the government story does not hold water. Yes, airliners were hijacked and crashed into the twin towers, which everyone saw, but according to the film, and from further reading I have done subsequent to watching the documentary, the crashed airliners were not responsible for the total collapse of the buildings. In fact, the prevailing belief among those who do not believe the government’s version of events, the twin towers and tower #7, the Goldman Sachs building, which came down many hours later at 5:20 pm, actually came down through planned demolition.

According to the N.I.S.T. commission report, which was commissioned by President Bush some four years later, the buildings came down due to intense fires caused by the planes crashing into the buildings, weakening the structure and the weight and force of the top floors above where the planes crashed were such to essentially blast through the floors beneath causing a snowball-like effect on the whole structures.

I never questioned the commission report, never read it, in fact, never paid much attention. I suspect many people did the same. I assumed as did most, Al-Qaeda was responsible. But the film shows in stark detail that another very plausible explanation is that the terrorists were aided in their efforts by the purposeful demolition of the buildings.

I have witnessed the demolition of buildings. They come straight down so as to cause no or very little impact to the buildings around them, but for this to happen demolitions must be placed very strategically in the right amounts and with the right materials. Only experts in demolition have the knowledge and skill to do it. The twin towers and tower #7 came straight down as if demolition charges had been placed in them. The film shows on each floor a puff of smoke coming out just before the floors above crash onto them. Many eyewitness survivors and first responders have testified that they distinctly heard explosions in the buildings. Their accounts were not included in the commission report. Thermite, an explosive agent, was found in the rubble, also not included in the report. Tower 7 was not hit by any airliners, yet many hours later it came down just like the twin towers. Why? According to the commission it was collateral damage causing fires in the building. But its surface structure was unharmed.

According to the structural engineer of the twin towers, the buildings were designed to withstand a Boeing 707 crashing into them at more than 600 mph. He described the effect as being like poking holes in a screen netting. Granted, the planes crashing into the twin towers were Boeing 767s, which are bigger than a 707, but they were traveling at approximately 440 mph, effectively having the same crash potential as a 707.

A hijacked plane, United flight 11, supposedly crashed into the Pentagon. Yet, no plane debris was recovered, no luggage, no body parts from passengers. Similarly, none of these same items were recovered from the crash of flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. Anyone who has ever seen a plane crash site knows there is much plane debris, as well as body parts and clothing and luggage.

I am no architect, engineer, or pilot and cannot opine authoritatively on planes, buildings, etc., but I watched in the film and have read subsequently the opinions of many of these professionals who can give authoritative opinions and have, and they seriously question the commission findings, and provide very convincing arguments for alternative interpretations of what actually happened.

I also am not a conspiracy theorist, especially of one of this magnitude. My usual response to the idea of a conspiracy is that it falls apart when there are more than two people involved. In this case, there would have to have been many people, hundreds, who would have to not speak about what they really knew to be the truth. What are the odds?

Yet, is it possible that others were involved in the terrorist acts, possibly individuals from our highest levels of government? Could our government have colluded with Bin Laden? He had been a CIA operative working  with the moujahideen in Afghanistan during the time the Soviets invaded and occupied the country. Why is it Bush had seven years to track him down but couldn’t find him? Yet, Obama found him in two years or did he? Maybe the individual said to have been killed by Seal Team Six wasn’t Bin Laden at all.

It took Congress just 45 days to pass the Patriot Act. Legislation of that importance usually takes much, much longer. Had the Bush administration actually prepared the legislation in advance of 9/11, knowing it was to take place, and let it happen? Or was the administration actually involved in the planning and carrying out of the 9/11 event? It would have taken days to plant explosives to blow up those buildings. Granted, the terrorists could have had explosive experts doing the work for them, but they would have to have been very seasoned and knowledgeable demolition experts to do the work. If they used barely trained pilots, who were trained on Cessnas to fly the airliners, using very complicated maneuvers, is it reasonable to assume they obtained very knowledgeable demolition experts to set the charges to blow up the buildings? It seems unlikely unless they had the help of some organization that had connections to such individuals with the necessary expertise.

Why is it Bush went after Iraq in response to the 9/11 event? Al-Qaeda wasn’t even in Iraq, and the terrorist perpetrators hailed from Saudi Arabia. Did Bush and Cheney plan 9/11 to provide the excuse necessary to galvanize public opinion for an invasion of Iraq, using the pretense of the presence of WMDs there as further justification, only to find once there that there were no WMDs (which they probably knew all along), and quickly pivoted to the excuse of bringing democracy to the country? Could our country’s leaders have been so callous as to murder nearly 3,000 of their own citizens just to provide the excuse necessary to achieve their desired political ends? It seems too horrific to consider.

Yet, it has been speculated that FDR planned or at least did nothing when he could have to avert the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. He as Bush faced public opinion at the time decidedly against any further foreign adventures. FDR was barely able to get his Lend-lease program to England through Congress much less joining in the war effort with American troops. Without Pearl Harbor the United States would never have joined in the war in Europe. Without 9/11 would the American public have been so willing to support an operation in Iraq simply on the possibility Iraq had WMDs? It seems unlikely.

We may never know the answers to these questions, but if enough experts believe that the government’s story about 9/11 is extremely fishy and are calling for another investigation, it seems to me that another one should be made, independent of the executive branch this time, so the truth about that fateful day can come to light, or at least the findings of the N.I.S.T. commission can be confirmed. We owe nothing less to those who perished and to those of us who remain and to future generations to ensure the sanctity, security, and preservation of our democracy.

For further reading on the subject see: http://patriotsquestion911.com; political leaders for 9/11 truth; pilots for 9/11 truth; The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin and later editions. Many other titles on the same subject can be found on Amazon or at other booksellers. There also are many other groups calling for further investigation into the 9/11 events. They can be found through a Google search.

 

From what I understand, you have spent the better part of your adult life lobbying for conservative causes, in particular getting rid of public education. You have pushed for school choice in the form of Charter schools—publicly funded but privately run schools within the framework of public education—and public vouchers for parents to help them pay to send their children to private and parochial schools. The results of these efforts from the statistics I have seen have been mixed: Charter schools in general perform on a par with public schools, and voucher systems have as yet not been operating long enough to indicate any trend different than public school results. While many private and some parochial schools have had a history of outperforming public schools, they also have had the advantage of selecting the students they want to admit. Under a voucher system, if they choose to participate, I assume the participating schools will no longer have the option of choosing the students they wish to accept, and as such their results may not be as exemplary as in the past. That remains to be seen.

Regardless, if your intent as Education Secretary is to continue to push for more Charter schools and more voucher systems, I suspect you will achieve much the same results as you have in the past, which is to say not much better overall than standard public education. If, however, your objective as Education Secretary is to make a real difference in the lives of students and perhaps actually to improve public education, I would suggest you consider advocating for something other than just school choice.

The truth is determining how to make public education better is not a function of simply providing more school choice but identifying what is wrong or what has gone wrong with the model we already have that has been around for generations and has largely served society well, and coming up with the mechanisms to fix it. I recognize you believe in free markets and a market-based approach to virtually everything, education included. But this mindset blinds you to other approaches that might be more effective, cheaper to implement and better for all.

The trouble is schools are not products, and many people do not have the opportunity, however you may wish it so, to vote with their feet and go to a different school in the same way a consumer can change his brand of soap if he doesn’t like the results of the one he has been using. Someone who lives in a rural area can’t just create another school or drive a long distance to attend one that is better than the one in his area. An inner-city family dependent on buses cannot just decide to attend a school in the suburbs. Even if a student receives a voucher to attend a private school, one that is convenient, that still does not mean he would be able to afford attending it. More than likely the voucher would pay only partially the cost of attending the school, and the remaining needed amount would be more than the student could afford. Simply creating a Charter school that is run by its own board without oversight does not guarantee excellence, regardless of whether the school is for profit or non-profit. The essential structure of Charter schools is effectively no different than public schools, and they are just as susceptible to poor management and incompetence as public schools.

In essence, what makes a good school whether public, Charter, or private is good ethical management, competent, dedicated personnel, and an involved community that cares about the education of its children. This being the case, shouldn’t the objective be to focus on these factors at the schools that already exist rather than trying to replace the schools or add to them with more of the same without addressing these three critical factors? Why try to reinvent the wheel when the wheel already exists; it just needs some refinements?

Below, are the refinements I would suggest you consider if by some chance you can see beyond the blinders you wear of conservative ideology and the market mechanism and you really would like to make a difference in students’ lives as you testified in your confirmation hearings.

First, we need to dispense with the myth that all public schools are bad. They are not. I know, you believe that “government sucks,” but the truth belies the fiction you have been peddling for decades. Public school performance overall runs the gamut from bad to quite excellent. Similarly, another myth is that American students fall far behind their counterparts in other countries. Some may, but in general American students perform at a level close to or equal to the majority in the rest of the world.

This is not to say that American public schools cannot and should not do better. Certainly, if a student graduates from high school and cannot read, a fact for which there are unfortunately many examples, there is a real problem.

Of late, emphasis in many states and nationally to improve public school performance has been placed on teacher performance; specifically, creating standards and evaluation criteria to rid the schools of underperforming and incompetent teachers and rewarding those who perform well. The idea behind this movement is that teachers have the most impact on student performance such that they and they alone should be held to a high standard, and in so doing student performance will improve. The results of this movement in the same vein as the school choice remedy have been mixed at best. Student performance has not shown any appreciable improvement; rather, by placing the blame for low student performance on one factor—teachers—this has caused much uproar and consternation in teacher ranks, pushing many teachers, many of whom have much experience and a record of high student achievement to leave the profession rather than submit to what they feel, and justifiably so, is an arbitrary regulatory burden and an unjust attack on them and their profession.

Are there bad teachers? Of course, there are, just as there are bad doctors, bad mechanics, bad plumbers, etc. To indict all teachers for the ills of the public education system makes as much sense as to blame solely doctors for the ills of our health care system.

The truth is the ills of our public education system are not going to be solved by claiming one factor in the system is to blame or by claiming the only thing needed is to inject competition in the system by providing choice and all will be well. It won’t. Such answers are simplistic and fail to examine the peculiarities of education and come up with solutions that specifically address those peculiarities.

What we do need to examine is ourselves as a society and the importance we place as a society on the education of our children. If we really are committed to providing the best education possible for the many, we must recognize that we cannot short-change it and expect to have the best.

Commitment to education just as commitment to having the best military or the best health care translates into dollars. This is not to say that you merely throw money at the problem and expect good results; rather, you spend judiciously and in a planned and coordinated way, identifying what your objectives are, what inputs are needed to achieve those objectives and spending accordingly to provide adequate resources, both human and material, to provide the best outcomes.

In terms of education this starts with paying teachers an attractive salary commensurate with their education and responsibility such that you can recruit the best possible candidates to the profession. It means providing them with the best possible training for them to carry out their responsibilities competently. As it stands now, many teachers come out of college having knowledge of the subject or subjects they are to teach but having a paltry one semester of student teaching experience under their belts, and with this they are expected to be experts in teaching. This follows the notion that anybody can teach or that “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach,” which is insulting and misguided in the extreme. Not just anyone can teach. Good teachers have an aptitude to teach, just as good doctors or attorneys, mechanics, plumbers, etc., have a special aptitude for what they do. If you want good teachers, then, recruit people who first have an aptitude to teach. Then, train them appropriately and thoroughly to take advantage of this aptitude, which means giving them much practical experience in a classroom under supervision while they also are learning subject matter. Once they have graduated, place them in a classroom with mentorship, and finally reward them appropriately.

The reward, the pay for being a teacher, is critical. Is it right that we reward better other professions carrying equal preparation time and less responsibility than teachers? Do we really care that little for our children, those who someday will take the mantle of responsibility for the continuance of our society, by rewarding so poorly those who spend so much time with our children, who in many cases have the most impact on their lives and futures?

In our society today teacher salaries largely are governed by the market for their labor, which is to say their salaries are dependent on the supply of teachers in relation to the demand for their services. Yet, if we are serious about making public education the best it can be, we must move beyond this market paradigm and compensate teachers for the value of their services to us as one of and sometimes the primary influences on the lives and futures of our children and hence society. By moving to this different paradigm we also can and must expect excellence from our teachers, much as we do from our doctors, and when we do not receive the excellence we expect, measured by student performance, we must have in place a system that deals appropriately with non-performance.

Further, we must incentivize teachers to stay in the classroom and teach.  As it is right now, teachers are incentivized to leave the classroom for the greener fields of administration, the salary structure for which is higher than it is for teachers. What happens is that teachers who want and need higher salaries, leave the profession to move into administration, a field for which they may or may not have an aptitude. We are losing valuable resources when this happens. To avoid this, teacher salaries should be commensurate with administrative salaries. Where is it written that administrators must of necessity be paid more than teachers, when it is teachers who have the most direct impact on students and student performance? Essentially what we are saying by letting the market determine administrative and teacher salaries is that we value administrators more than teachers.

This is not to say that administrators are not important. They are, but not all administrators are as important or key to the education of children. Certain administrative positions are more important than others, in particular the head administrator of a school. Just as success on the gridiron is largely determined by the person leading the team on the field of play—the quarterback—the success of a school is dependent on who is in charge of the school—the principal. Without capable, determined, student-focused leadership in a school, the results will be less than exemplary. A good principal puts the needs of the students foremost, he or she demands excellence from his or her staff and will accept nothing less. The staff is put on notice that they must perform or risk losing their positions. There are many examples, some documented by Hollywood, of situations in which an underperforming school is placed in the hands of a very capable and determined principal, and the school becomes a high achiever despite whatever social-milieu of which it is a part or the particular disadvantages and challenges it and the students may face. Similarly, there are many examples of schools that have had a history of high achievement suddenly, usually upon retirement of the principal, placed in the hands of another leader, perhaps not quite as capable or determined as the former one, which have declined noticeably in performance very soon after the new leader has taken over.

Public schools are very much a part of the socio-economic environment in which they reside. This can and often is an impediment to success, especially if there is inadequate leadership of the school and the teachers are not as competent as they could be, are not held to high standards, and are less than motivated. What people need to understand about public schools, about any school, is that what comes through the door of every class is not just the students, but what the students bring with them in terms of their environment, family and otherwise, the attitudes of the parents and community toward school and education, among other things. Teachers are not miracle workers. They cannot magically impart knowledge in students who do not want to learn, who are only in school because they have to be there, whose parents or caregivers view the schools as babysitters, who take no interest in what their children are learning, who make no effort to enforce at home what the children are supposed to be learning in the school, or simply cannot because of language barriers.

Parental and community participation in the lives of the children, their care and interest in what the children are learning, and that they learn are key components to the success of a school. One key indicator of parental/caregiver involvement in the lives of the children and their interest in the education of their children is how many show up to “afterschool night” and parent-teacher conferences. As a rule, where there is majority participation in these events with little cajoling to attend, there is usually better student and school performance. Where there is disinterested attendance, there is usually low overall student and school performance.

Similarly, for there to be good student and school performance there must be mechanisms of discipline in the school that put all on notice that misbehavior in class will not be tolerated under any circumstances and that consequences for such misbehavior will be severe and are carried out. Teachers who are tasked with teaching nearly thirty students, and individualizing that teaching as much as possible to take into account adequately the differences among the students and their levels of growth and achievement, cannot do their jobs appropriately if they must constantly be disciplining children who act up because of emotional difficulties or simply have no desire to learn. Too much time is taken away from teaching those who want to learn, such that little teaching and learning takes place. This is the plight of too many public school teachers. It is not that many teachers do not have the classroom management skills necessary to maintain order and discipline (there are, of course, those who do not owing to inadequate preparation and training); rather, teachers with the skills to maintain order must devote an inordinate amount of time to classroom management, such that what is supposed to be taught is limited. For there to be good school performance there must be a partnership among teachers, administrators and parents, all working to ensure that students are made aware that misbehavior will not be tolerated, and that discipline is enforced. When there is good discipline, good learning occurs.

Teachers also cannot be expected to teach those who cannot learn. Proper resources must be supplied to enable teachers to devote their primary attention to those students who can learn. Teachers cannot devote all their time to students who for whatever reason have not the capacity to learn. This shortchanges those students who can. This is a reality that all public school teachers face, and if the objective is to make public schools better, then, it is up to the communities that support the schools to provide the resources (the dollars necessary) that will pay for the extra help the students who have trouble learning need for them to learn. This means providing an adequate number of specialists who can work with these special students. Such specialists might come in the form of reading interventionists, speech therapists, psychologists, tutors, para-professionals and more. They cost money, but if the objective is better schools and the community and society is serious about having better schools, then, the necessary funds for such specialists must be forthcoming.

Schools also ought to be able to draw on the professional and volunteer resources of the community, and mechanisms should be developed and implemented to take advantage of the resources. Many companies could volunteer their employees’ time to these endeavors, perhaps providing some form of tax incentive for doing so. Retired people with special skills and knowledge should be sought out and used to help students who need assistance. Communities are a wealth of knowledge and skill that for the most part largely goes to waste in the education of our children.

If the objective is more effective teachers and more learning by students, cut the excessive regulation to which teachers are subjected. I have heard many teachers lament such regulation and cry out, “If they would just let us teach!” Regulations are imposed on the teachers and schools by the federal government, the state governments, local school districts and school administrations, such that teachers must contend with a dizzying array of regulations and rules, many of which are totally unnecessary and make teaching more difficult and certainly a very unpleasant experience.

Similarly, stop the educational establishment from constantly changing and demanding how a subject should be taught. If a specific method is working, why insist that it be discontinued in favor of something else that is untried and frequently doesn’t work and is confusing to the students? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” An able and skilled teacher knows his or her students and what works. Yes, provide the curriculum of what is to be taught, but allow the teacher to choose how to teach it. Don’t dictate that it must be taught in a certain way. Not all students learn the same way, and a one-method fits all approach inevitably leaves some students behind. Allow the person closest to the students—the teacher–to determine what will work for his or her charges.

In addition, too often schools and school districts decide they want to institute a program that they have seen to be beneficial elsewhere and those in charge believe will be beneficial to their students as well. Unfortunately, more often than not, these programs are hastily put together and rolled out without first having thoroughly examined whether the program is a good fit for their system, if it needs to be modified in some fashion to make it a good fit, identifying how it will be implemented and evaluated, assembling the resources necessary, providing adequate training to those who will be executing the program, rolling out a beta version first to iron out the kinks, etc. Schools and school systems could learn a lot from the private sector in the process for implementing a program. Companies have much experience doing this and would be a good source of information and example, thus ensuring that a program is implemented correctly and has a greater chance of success.

At one time, students who did not demonstrate competence in the subjects taught were not passed on to the next grade. Now, they are regardless of whether they can demonstrate mastery. The idea for this is based on the notion that somehow not passing a student would irreparably harm the student psychologically. Assuming this idea is possibly true, and I doubt it is, what is more harmful to a student:  the temporary embarrassment of being held back or being passed on when not ready such that he or she falls so far behind the other students that in time the student just gives up and becomes a nuisance in the class due to bad behavior, eventually dropping out and then becoming a problem for the justice system and a captive of welfare? I would argue a temporary embarrassment is far less traumatic and much less expensive than a wasted life.

Schools and the country should jettison the misguided notion that students in the rest of the world are more advanced in their learning, such that students in the United States should be exposed to concepts earlier in their educational experience. Does it really make sense to insist that all students beginning in kindergarten learn how to read, add and subtract, and be able to write a paragraph? The Common Core pushes this notion and some school districts push it as well. Granted, there may be some students who at this early age can handle such demands of them. The vast majority, however, cannot.

What is the rush to stuff knowledge and skills down childrens’ throats? The reality is children learn when they’re ready to learn and not before. Maria Montessori proved this, and the schools that employ her system follow this philosophy with good results. Her ideas and philosophy have been proven by subsequent research in childhood development. Better to employ what has been learned about childhood development and expose children to concepts only when they are developmentally ready to accept them, rather than push them to learn something they are incapable of learning and scar them permanently psychologically. Nothing is worse than to be a teacher and inherit children from previous grades who because they were forced to learn concepts they were ill-equipped to learn are so far behind and are simply frustrated, with very low self-esteem, and who believe they cannot learn, which has become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Coinciding with this educational trend of pushing knowledge down students’ throats when they are ill-equipped to learn it, is the push to test students ad nauseum with standardized tests to determine how they are faring. At one time, such standardized tests were administered only in the third, eighth, and 11^th grades. Now, every year and several times a year they are tested, which is in addition to the tests they take for any particular unit of a subject. To accommodate the extra testing schools must allocate more human resources to it, resources that could be better applied to teaching the children or providing the specialized help they might need. Again, the teachers are well aware of their students’ needs. Fancy metrics and analysis with plans for addressing the students’ needs are a waste of time and money. If you want to know how the students are doing, ask the teachers, and let them deal with how they’re going to address the students’ needs.

Finally, if you want to know what is needed to improve the schools, ask those who are in the front lines of education: the teachers. They deal with these issues on a daily basis. Listening to someone who has a Ph.D. but has never set foot in a classroom as a teacher is like asking a mechanic what is needed to do brain surgery or a brain surgeon what is needed to fix a car.

So, Madame Secretary, if you really want to be an advocate for students and make America’s schools great again, start talking to teachers in the public schools, those who work at schools that are successful and those who work at schools that are not so much, and think about the suggestions discussed above and how you could become an advocate for their implementation. Of course, you can follow the conservative line and push for more choice in schools as you have the past 30 years, effectively gutting public education but achieving more of the same result of inadequate education for the many. It would just go by a different name. The choice is yours.

 

Were those tears streaming down Lady Liberty’s face upon the news of the Donald’s edict banning Muslim immigrants from the shores of the United States? Did she seem to be standing less resolutely, perhaps bent slightly in a depressive hunch? Was that her reaction to this latest of his campaign promises to “Make America Great Again,” or were the American people collectively projecting onto our great symbol of freedom and liberty their own dismay and sadness at the cruelty on display of our nation’s highest official?

While it is not unprecedented for the United States government to ban one group of people from our shores because it doesn’t like them (witness the ban of the Chinese and Japanese in the early 20^th century), since at least 1965 such immigration bans on the basis of religion, national origin, ethnicity, race, or gender have been forbidden by Congress. So, how is the Donald getting away with such an illegal act? Simply because he is President or is it he does not trust a Republican Congress to carry out its duty and pass legislation?

Granted, Congress’ recent history on that duty has been less than exemplary, but now that one party holds all the reins of power, one would think the Donald would be content to give Congress time to carry out its duty. Yet, he is not. He is acting like some power-drunk potentate issuing proclamations and edicts as if he believes he is the one who has the sole right to legislate, carry out the legislation, and rule on its constitutionality. In other words, the Donald is acting as if he is an omnipotent king, or lest one dare say it . . . a God.

Is that what less than one-half of the electorate voted for? Is that what we as a nation want, to throw away our constitution with its strict delimiting of powers of the various branches of government and the states and replace it with an all-powerful dictator? Clearly, it would seem by his actions, that this very result is what the Donald had in mind when he ran for the presidency. I question, however, if that is what the people had in mind; certainly, the more than half of the electorate who voted for Hillary Clinton did not have that result in mind, or perhaps that is exactly what they feared would happen and was one further reason they cast their votes against the Donald.

Of course, one could argue, and I’m sure many rabid Republicans would, that the Donald is not doing anything different from his immediate and past predecessors to hold the office of President. There is some truth to this; President Obama, especially in his second term, relied heavily on Presidential edicts to effect the change he wanted to see, but to be fair he did not do so because he wanted to usurp the Congressional function, but rather acted precisely because Congress had shown ever since 2010 a complete unwillingness to carry out its function to legislate, despite President Obama’s many entreaties to do so. It would have been one thing for Congress to not legislate because it disagreed with the President’s ideas and agenda. But this clearly was not the case, especially when he propounded legislative ideas his antagonists in Congress—the Republicans—had propounded themselves previously. No, Congress refused to carry out its duty to legislate so Republicans could demonstrate the contempt they felt toward Obama as President and as a person. This was never more evidently clear than in the refusal of the Republican Senate leadership to consider Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court nearly a full year in advance of the end of Obama’s second term of office. It was for this reason that Obama issued his edicts.

Is the shoe on the other foot, now? Is the Donald in issuing his edicts without legislation preceding them, conveying his contempt for Congress?

One could say that President Obama overstepped his authority in issuing edicts without Congress having first passed legislation on the subjects. Many Republican members of Congress in fact cried foul at what they saw as Obama’s usurpation of Congressional prerogative. They were well within their rights to do so. By the same token, however, shouldn’t they also be castigating their own President for doing exactly what his predecessor did about which they complained? Or by their silence and agreement are they communicating that what they complained about is in fact okay when one of their own does it?

This would seem to be the case, and as such, it seems Congress is very willing to have its function usurped when it is one of their own doing the usurping. If this is the case, the members of Congress are playing with fire because they may find that one day they will awaken to find that the person to whom they willingly deferred and passed their function and who holds them in contempt has burned down their house and has left them with nothing but empty titles to their names.

Perhaps this simple but plain fact was the reason why Lady Liberty was really shedding her tears recently, and not so much that her presence as a beacon of freedom to the world has been lost amongst the fearmongering and hatred on display in the form of a Presidential edict. Certainly, the Donald’s illegal Presidential edict to ban Muslims from our shores would be grounds enough for her tears, but something much more profound is happening as the Donald propounds his Presidential edicts and for which more than likely Lady Liberty is shedding her tears: we, like lobsters in water being slowly brought to a boil, are witnessing and experiencing our constitutionally-based system of government of the people, by the people, and for the people perishing from this earth.