You know, I always wanted to know what it would be like to simultaneously experience the Spanish flu, Great Depression, and 1968 mass protests while Andrew Johnson was president. Tweet by Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver who identifies as Political scientist (US law & policy), Health Policy & Management Postdoc @UCLA, freelance writer, @Columbia Ph.D., Cal bear, @springsteen fiend, @warriors fan Los Angeles, CA mirandayaver.com

What a strange 4th of July. Quarantined at home, watching the wildlife in the backyard, on a warm summer day, our life approaches perfection. But, outside our home, in the world, the pandemic has infected close to twelve million people, killing over one hundred thirty thousand of them in the United States alone. Safe at home, we have visitors two by socially distanced two, we drink good wine, eat exquisite food, and tell ourselves how lucky we are. Outside, mass protests for social justice continue with periodic bursts of violence, usually by so-called “law enforcement”. At home, everything has slowed down making life more conscience, more delicious. 1,391 miles away, in South Dakota, the President of the United States rants about saving Confederate statues of long-dead, slave-owning, traitors while attacking the patriotism of living people but, in my safe, quiet, nest I’ve only heard the vile rant from tinny speakers next to a fifteen-inch screen.

I say “Happy 4th of July” but my heart has become heavy thinking about the Fourth, weighed down by the reality of what life entails for many in our country. The reality of what we are, what we have been since our founding. I was taught – maybe not so much taught, as absorbed by osmosis – that the 4th of July is a celebration of our Freedom and our Liberty and our just general Goodness and Exceptionalism that those great Americans fought for. I knew that some of the men – and they were all Property-Owning White Men – who signed the Declaration of Independence forty four years ago owned slaves but I was able to overlook that horror, that injustice, in my admiration of what they left me, but, it turns out upon reflection, that they only left it to their fellow white men like me. Now, as my eyes are being forced open by the glare of reality – forced open by, among other catalysts, the writings of a long line of Black People – I am starting to look at that Declaration differently.

I think, How could these Declaration of Independence signers be so hypocritical? but the harder question is, How could I have been so hypocritical? so oblivious? I have been so righteous in my ignorance, so superiorly righteous about my country. At my home in a middle-class community, I am safe, as cops, protecting the same White Patriarchy that founded this country, shoot young black men with almost universal impunity. It is the strangest 4th of July, seeing the dichotomy between my life and the life of many of my fellow citizens. It makes me sad and hopeful.

Patagonia is proud to join the Stop Hate for Profit campaign. We will pull all ads on Facebook and Instagram, effective immediately, through at least the end of July, pending meaningful action from the social media giant. Tweet by Patagonia who identifies as @patagonia We’re in business to save our home planet. Ventura, California patagonia.com

When it comes to efforts to avert catastrophic climate change, Facebook is no ally. They are an enemy. Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University as reported on ThinkProgress.

We don’t have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true…I don’t believe that our platform should take that down, because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong. Part of a conversation between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg and the Washington Post on why they allowed an altered video of Speaker Pelosi.

I’m ambivalent about Facebook. I love to feel connected to friends who are not in my everyday physical life and I’ve had a couple of friendships that have been greatly deepened over Facebook, but Facebook is a net negative to my wellbeing. A negative that I am drawn to, maybe even addicted to, I want to quickly add. I don’t know if it is a design feature or a design flaw that Facebook promotes fear and loathing, but either way, it does. It shouldn’t and the most unlikely people, the companies that actually spend money on advertising on Facebook, are actually trying to change that.

The first that I saw or heard of it was when Patagonia Tweeted that it was joining The Stop Hate For Profit movement and would not advertise on Facebook or Instagram for the Month of July. On the The Stop Hate website, there are now close to a hundred companies that have joined the boycott, everyone from Verizon to Levi’s to Menlo Jazzercise. I don’t like what has happened to our public discourse and because Facebook is a contributor to that coarseness, it is time I either get on the bandwagon or shut-up. After thinking about it for days, I’m going to get on the bandwagon.

I hope you will continue to read my blog. You can follow me on Twitter which seems to have better nastiness filters or, you can sign below to be notified when I make a new post. If you want to make a comment, please make it directly on the blog or email me directly using the contact page.

I am afraid my blog will get lost, and I will lose contact with my Facebook friends but I am more afraid of the direction our country seems to be going and I want to do what little I can to not be a part of that.

This is a good time to question absolutely everything. You want to go back to the same old system? John Boyega @JohnBoyega who self-identifies as Dream and work towards the reality INSTAGRAM: @JohnBoyega

Republicans are the party of LIBERTY, EQUALITY and JUSTICE for ALL. We are the Party of Abraham Lincoln and the party of LAW AND ORDER! Tweet bu Donald J. Trump who identifies himself on Twitter as @realDonaldTrump 45th President of the United States of America

They are very intent on dividing us and stirring up hate and division in our country, we do have an opportunity in the next few months to decide where we want to go and how we unify our country. Representative Ilhan Omar speaking about President Trump and the Republican Party.

In my personal history – maybe personal mythology is more accurate, maybe something in between – my Dad was pretty much absent after I turned eight. For a long time, I thought my mother was a bigger influence on my life, but I’ve come to realize how much influence my dad has. 

He took me to my first car race and, several years later when I was thirteen, taught me how to drive. We argued over Dred Scott and the proposed tram from Palm Springs to near the top of San Jacinto Mountain. He took me to the 1960 National Democratic Convention and the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley. I could bum cigarettes off of him but he wouldn’t sign a permission slip to let me smoke at school.

I was deeply embarrassed that he was a draft dodger – during World War II, a time when everybody’s father had been in The Service – and deeply proud when, at a church service, he outed himself  as an atheist by sitting while everybody else kneeled to pray. He was soft and tender with me, much more than my mother. When we saw each other we kissed on the lips, I am not sure we ever shook hands.

He often forgot my birthday and he paid for me to go to College at, what I now know, was a sacrifice on his part. He died 52 years ago last May and I still miss him. 

He was my Daddy.

I turned eighty on June 15th, 2020 and nobody is more surprised and delighted than me.

On the way, I’ve learned a couple of things that I want to take the opportunity to pass on. When I say I’ve learned a couple of things, I mean I’ve learned a couple of things relatively recently. I also want to point out that learning something new at anywhere near eighty generally includes unlearning an old belief so it is not all that easy. It involves saying “I was wrong” and often that includes “for a long time”.

Perhaps the most recent thing I’ve learned is something I should have known earlier but I’ve spent a lot of energy trying to resist. Even now, I want to qualify this or make excuses but the truth is We are not the good guys. I am not the good guy.

I grew up in an America that was the shining beacon on the hill (and, yeah, it was called America back then). I grew up in an America in which we were welcomed as Liberators when we marched into Paris (we even let the French go in first). I grew up in an America that taught Democracy to the defeated Fascists (and now, I’m sorry to say, most of them are our moral superiors). When I was a child, I was taught that America is the greatest, kindest, most generous, country on earth, and I believed it all the way down to my bones. When we escalated the killing in Vietnam, I thought it was an anomaly but, it turns out, it wasn’t; when I read about how we treat our fellow humans who are not white, I thought it was only in the south, certainly not in California, but it is here. Yeah, sure, I knew we had built our country on the enslavement and degradation of black people but I thought that was in the past, just like the lynchings, just like Jim Crow. But the bad things we do to our fellow citizens and our fellow human beings everywhere, are not only part of our heritage, it is part of now. It is by design. It makes me sad and I want to pretend otherwise but we are not the good guys anymore.

There is no such thing as enough money. Even after we pass the threshold of having enough money to eat healthily and have decent, safe, shelter – and TV, I guess – more money is never enough money. No matter how much money was make or have, we think life would be better, easier, if we only had a couple of bucks more. For an extreme example, take Jeff Bezos, who is reputed to be worth $145B (that’s after paying his ex-wife $47B). That is a lot of money – at $10 per second, it would take about 460 years to amass that much money but he is still striving for more. He still pays the majority of his employees a sub-living wage under terrible conditions so he can have more. I suspect everybody would admire Bezos more if he led the way in paying well and providing decent healthcare – if Amazon was the best place to be an employee – but that would cut into his almost infinite money, so he doesn’t.

Cars go through an awkward phase as they age and it is worse the more stylish they are when new. They are like teenagers in that regard and it happens at about the same time. A sixteen-year-old car is an old car, a thirty-year-old car is a collector item.

Graffiti and outside wall painting are art. Much of the current art we are shown in museums is academic and is only relatable to the cognoscenti, in many ways it is sort of the equivalent to an inside joke. Often it is inferior to the wall art outside the museums. Compare Jeff Koons and Banksy. Banksy clearly has more to say and says it better.

Every ostracized group thinks they’re better than the ostracizers; as far as I can tell, they are right. I first realized this when I did a redevelopment project in Union City and the contractor who built the houses was a former Marine, Ed Dieden. When I was in the Army, way back in the 60s, we looked down on the Marines, we were told they were too dumb for the Army and the Marines were people the country used when we needed bodies for cannon fodder. We were told that Soldiers were smarter and the Army used them in smarter ways. But Ed was proud of being a Marine and he was smart. He knew the Marines were elite troops who were much better trained than the Army (and they didn’t wear unit badges on their shoulders like Cub Scouts because they were all one). It is interesting. BTW, that the first military officer to publically break with Trump was former General John Kelly, a Marine.

Growing up, there was a “best” Golf Club in town but they didn’t allow Jews and my Jewish – nonpracticing, but by heritage – dad assured me that we were better than them. (Interestingly, my Gentile mom did think they were better.)

Where I see it most clearly now is in relation to the Black Community. Michele thinks I’m being presumptuous here and have no right to speak for Black people, so I’ll let Reverand Al Sharpton say it, “George Floyd’s story is the story of black folks. You kept your knee on our neck. We had creative skills, but we couldn’t get your knee off our neck. It’s time for us in George’s name to stand up and say, ‘Get your knee off our necks.’” Black people think the problem is the White Patriarchy that has been enslaving, repressing, lynching, jailing, and now shooting them. We and I say we because I’m part of that White Patriarchy, have just been generally fucking over Black People since 1619 A.D. And during that time, they have persevered and have gone on like any other good citizen, making the best of a terrible situation; in any field where merit can be measured, Black people thrive. They thrive because they are smarter and work harder than most white people. Maybe counter-intuitively, the more Black people are put down, the more they think they are better than their oppressors.

Everything comes around again but in a slightly different form so you can’t use it. Like narrow ties from the sixties or mechanical watches from the same era.

Lastly – for now – I have my opinions, I definitely have my preferences but that is only what they are, my opinions and my preferences and they are not better or truer than yours. I am not morally right because there is no objective morality. I used to think there was, I used to believe in Socrates’ Allegory of the Cave and its reliance on an outside Objective Reality and Morality. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Materialist, I don’t think everything is dependent upon physical processes we can see and measure. I believe that the Universe is Alive and Evolving and there is more to It than we can see or feel. I do believe in The Mystery but, hard as I try, I don’t believe in a personal God or god who cares what I eat or how I have sex and, of course, who reinforces my take on what is moral (and whose supposed morality has been used to justify everything from the divine right of kings to all men are created equal). I do not believe that God exists and without that God, there is no Moral Law Giver.

But, on the other hand, that’s just my opinion.