Democratize the USA now!

As I posted on facebook to my fellow Americans! Just had a conversation with my best friend back there who is depressed about Trump's election. I pointed out that Hilary was pretty despicable as well. 
I'm sad that the Klu Klux Klan held a victory rally for Trump in the state I was born in, but I'm also really disappointed with the protests of Trump- now hear me out as to why: 
I wish everyone considering protesting the man would protest the specific conditions that brought him about instead. The most obvious of which is the electoral college. Seriously- the electoral college was established when only property holding white men could vote in order to make sure that EVEN THEY did not get an egalitarian democratic system- rather one controlled by the elite of property holding white men...just go read article two of the constitution in light of Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Papers. No one was hiding what the point of this was back then...Now people would be wise, in my humble opinion, to move past the 14th amendment and just fight to abolish this anachronistic mess altogether. And while they are fighting for democracy, they should get the FEC to fund a few more parties, and put them on the ticket in all states, to break the two party monopoly.
These struggles are infinitely winnable. At present it would take 5% of an election to get a third party on the ballot in the next election...or about 1 million signatures...what the heck are you people waiting for? Go round up the signatures and start filing the paperwork now...with the advent of the internet it could be done with a few dozen people in each state working together.
And people in the territories i.e. Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S.V.A, frankly, I'm not sure why you aren't in open revolt already... this whole PROMESA thing laid bare you are being made into subservient colonial subjects. The problem is the average mainlander doesn't know you exist. Really. I promise to wave your flag when you revolt. 

I tend to disdain politics, but things have gotten so bad, I'm going to put forth a modest proposal of what we might do to save the world. Because we should be building the future better than the past. 
Here are the five things Americans should do in order to democratize the country:

1. Get rid of the electoral college. 

Plenty of ideas in the original constitution had to go in the move towards democracy. Like that whole more representation based on color thing. Thats where the whole infamous blacks as three fifths of a person thing came from. From the original constitution  

Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 :

Representatives... shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Keep the dream of democracy in the USA alive- ban the electoral college!

2. Start voting for all citizens of voting age regardless of geography!

Perhaps you weren't aware, but millions and millions of your fellow citizens can not vote because they are considered to be of "alien race" by virtue of living in a US territory.  Puerto Ricans, Guamanians, U.S.Virgin Islanders, American Samoans...any of these people living in the US territories but not residing in a state can not vote in the national election... what is interesting is that these people tend to serve in the US military in disproportionally high numbers. On the other hand thousands of US citizens living abroad can and do vote. Perhaps because I live in Israel I kept getting messages reminding me to vote - because I could vote from "anywhere". Apparently while anywhere includes the outer reaches of the Golan heights, it does not include Puerto Rico,  an hour plane ride away from Miami full of 3.5 millions of US citizens.

3. Let criminals vote!

Admit it, your government is run by criminals anyways...in many cases much worse than some of the people behind bars. I mean seriously, Hillary probably should be in jail. If I were getting millions from shady Saudis over arms deals, wouldn't I be in jail? Of course it sounds absurd...because poor black people like me tend to commit much less profitable crimes, then get slammed out of normal citizenship for them. Why should people lose their right to vote based on crimes like smoking weed, when Hillary walks free?

4. Overturn Citizens United!

Corporations are not people. Large stacks of money are not people. People are people....have you all gone mad?! You live in a country where the bottom half of people have approximately no money- or less than that because they are in debt- and a few families and wealthy individuals own nearly everything. Think I'm kidding? The Walton family has 149 billion. You- if your are like most Americans- have a credit card, and  maybe an old computer. If money buys political speech your voices will not be heard.

5. Fight for third parties!

Most functional democracies have more than two parties. With the advent of the Clintonocrats you have less. Do you find it curious how Obamacare was Romneycare...or how welfare reforms slashing benefits came in under Bill Clinton? It's because nearly every politician is really a variation of the same right winger in US politics. Both major parties are for endless war in the middle east, militarism, and money. Big money. Wall street money. Time for a party that is more than window dressing for militarized corporate rule. Any day now...


Good luck with that from your American dissident in exile Dr. Moore.

Essure America

Reading about Essure only reinforces my knowledge that the USA is a medical disaster zone and NOTHING only approved there should be trusted. This is no tin foil hat babble, check out the BMJ: Safety and efficacy of hysteroscopic sterilization compared with laparoscopic sterilization: an observational cohort study - November 19, 2015

What frightens me is that Essure has nickel in it. Anyone who even went to medical school knows that nickel is the world's most common allergy. Nickel sensitivity is veery well studied and in some populations the sensitivity to nickel is over 10%! (Menne T, Borgan O, Green A. Nickel allergy and hand dermatitis in a stratified sample of the Danish female population: an epidemio-logical study including a statistic appendix. Acta Derm Venereol 1982;62:35-41.)What were these people thinking? This device is about as well thought out as telling women to stuff their vaginas with anything on-hand to prevent pregnancy...and just like that would do, this has also killed people from toxic shock syndrome.

Dear Amira Hess, it's not so simple....

So Amira,
Surprisingly we have never met. Given how small the Israeli left is, you would think we would have at least seen each other. I am a card carrying member of the lunatic left. My one and only publication in the Hebrew press is in Zo Ha Derech - amcommunist leaflet which is probably read only by Israels remaining 200 or so extreme leftists, and 200 members of the state security apparatus.  I was at lots of protests against the wars, active in Physicians for Human Rights and so on...but, on the other hand, I have not lived in Israel for that long.
In fact, I only made Aliya last year. Like you I had questions about why people would exercise this right that wasn't universal, and more importantly seemed mixed up with the oppression of another people. But you would never guess what precisely changed my mind...
I had attended the Technion. There I met many wonderful and complicated intellectuals including one Muslim colleague who happened to be related to a staunchly anti-Zionist politician. This guy was brilliant and kind. Years ago like every other girl in my neighborhood, I had a crush on him. As it turned out he refused to date me because I am Jewish or Jewish by association with a part of my family at least. Once he even told me "I hate Jews" to my face. I didn't think much of it, because frankly, as a black American, I've had a few "I hate white people" moments in my head.
A couple years ago I was back in the holy land, and ran into him. We caught up. I shyly mentioned that I was trying to immigrate. "I know what you think...it's wrong" I began, and rattled off a list of issues from the philisophical to the practical about Aliya. He interrupted me somewhere right around a tangent about how the legal system was designed to favor certain people..."What are you crazy?" he asked. "Come home. Just ten minutes ago you admitted you have to work so hard over there as a doctor you literally nearly died in a car crash driving home after a long shift. Come home. This is your life we are talking about! Come home!" he said, and then in a few seconds he realized the political implications of telling me it was my home and added "I mean, get a work permit so you can work in my country." And there you have it-the ultimate realization of a dream of labor Zionism. People, politically Palestinian or not, respect people who work.
I did come home, and my life- especially as a leftist- got better. Let me point out two ways. 1. My paycheck includes overtime regardless of who I work on. In the USA many of my extra hours would simply not be counted due to extreme capitalism. Here I'm a proud union member, able to provide by work as a doctor to anyone regardless of their ability to pay. In the USA, I might lose my medical license for such liberal socialist action. 2. My opinions can actually be expressed through elections. Unlike the USA, there is an extreme left involved in the government instead of hidden by a two party system featuring two corrupt parties. Outsiders may not have realized it, but the US is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Here in Israel taking money as a government official to influence you is usually illegal and called for what it is- corruption. In the US we call such actions many names: campaign contributions, lobbying and so on, and it's all part of the system.
So in sum, I found myself a place where I can labor with respect, and be part of the democratic process. I'll be using my labor and democratic rights to support many of the same causes as you do Amira...so ultimately, am I decreasing or increasing the problems of other people? Who knows, and frankly, who cares. After all, no one is paying that much attention to one crazy person. On the other hand if enough crazy people like me start showing up, we may eventually start some new confederated state with freedom, labor rights and democracy for everyone. Is that so bad?

Finally a boycott I can believe in...

Together let's work to end the evil empire:

http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa_boycott.html

Education and Inequality...

So there is new data out to the press confirming something I know painfully and personally. Education is not a an equalizer stronger than racism, rather a source of inequality. An example is an article that ran in the Washington Post. 

The mainstream press just keeps skying away from stating that last bit. But I'm here as an example to say that financially a great education can make you far worst off than your local 8th grade drop out. What I find most appalling is the response from academia. Not only have they trotted out myths about the invaluable assets an education gives one...they have trotted out individual achievers. This is the classic myth of capitalism itself. All this supposed emphasis on critical thinking, and these people can't even get past a tired old myth of the rugged American individual who works his way up alone through effort? Really! Horatio Alger? Johny Appleseed? It's all that packaged as a black woman successful...and it's ridiculous.

I happened to watch a lecture given at the University of California given partly by diversity deans and such...and someone self made and really rich woman came out and talked about how generational wealth was a new things for blacks and we lack mentors. Of all the problems of the black community, I must admit this one never crossed my mind...perhaps I was too worried we were all going to die from violence, horrible health care rationed out by racists and poverty to think that far ahead..
The myths of the brilliant individual have a dangerous flip side. Because one black woman can make it, then apparently they all can, right? So something must be defective with 99% of blacks...Well, this is the myth of capitalism anyways. That somehow the success of one will lead others to follow. But how many people can be in the elite when the elite is by definition the few?

I knew all about this stuff in the 9th grade thanks to my local public library, but apparently today's college kids are so miseducated that Universities can actually pull the wool over their eyes...which makes sense. As to the invaluable assets a college education brings, mental enrichment probably is not one of them. Few things are as damaging to minds as the kind of education dispensed in many places. Killing all interest in anything by presenting bone dry boring lectures and shutting down the natural curiosity of students seem to be the real area of exceptional excellence for some professors I had. I actually loved subjects like Organic Chemistry and Calculus even as I sat watching as many decent and intelligent people in my class had their dreams of going into medicine evaporate like some of our lab experiments. Instead of addressing what a farce instruction has become from all I hear today instruction has become even worse. Now adjuncts read from Power points for about 9$ an hour with predictable results. In science by the nature of the subject we have to try to discover reality in the laboratory...people in other areas only have to discover where to copy and paste essays from...plagiarism is apparently the shortcut that keeps college kids able to work enough hours to eat. I was incredibly lucky to be able to find science related jobs, but if you study literature I suppose foaming coffee drinks may be a good prelude to your future anyways. Sadly, without analytical- quantitative skills, you will be quite slow to figure out what is going on around you. If universities really wanted to promote an educated populace they would force everyone to take a course in mathematical logic and statistics. Clearly just the student loan debacle they have cooked us into could provide endless subject matter.

I do think getting an education is especially worth it if you are a black American mainly for one reason...it makes it easier to leave for a socialist Western country. If you have a technical education as an engineer, medical doctor, or high level scientist there is the possibility to leave.  That's right, I, a card carrying Hadash (Israeli communist party) member, am going to ironically suggest a very capitalistic and individualistic solution to this problem for those who can afford it. Screw society. Don't bother trying to improve it, heroes often get shot. And if you are a woman, you only have so much time on your hands to form a family. Taking a leadership role in a revolution might leave you very alone and childless, a price your male counterparts will not pay. Of course, someone has to lead the revolution....but start looking critically at how leftist organizations are run. Typically these groups have some older people who already have homes and children around. If they truly cared about you they would put themselves front and center in terms of martyrdom. Instead most of these groups include some wealthier old white men too eager to turn young vulnerable students into cannon fodder for causes that not so coincidentally increase their celebrity and power, albeit the imaginary power most leftists hold. Younger men are often too stupid to understand the issue with this. I'll never forget when I met Luke Rudkowski, and we happened to discuss how annoyed I was when I came very close to going to being imprisoned in a detention center due to helping refugees. I wasn't exactly part of a radical movement, rather just doling out medical care to children who for bureaucratic reasons had no country. These kids were the ultimate refugees. And most were not the relatively glamarous Syrian refugees in which case I might have been able to get the press on my side...but poor black African refugees who no one seemed to care about. Rudkowski seemed puzzled. "The more governments persecute you the more you will become a folk hero!" Someone needs to tell younger men like him that life is not a video game we are playing for coolness points...and some of us want everything such a young white guy would take for their birthright. We also deserve the right to live withing the framework of a society that helps us nurture families if we choose. It's amazing how many "leftists" particularly if they are Americans never think this through. These people will make all kinds of political noise about your right to kill your unborn children, but when it comes to you having a right to what they are born into...not so much....

Clearly, in reality, American society does not care about us . Do not forget that you can pack your bags, and go somewhere where people make sense. If you haven't joined the 11 black billionaires and are therefore part of the other 99.99% of black people...you might want to go somewhere where things like maternity leave, education or health care are rights not unaffordable goods on a market that always seems to be priced to exclude us. The truth is that if you leave the USA, you will suddenly realize that the democratic party- the electable left- is actually run by people who would be considered extreme right wingers almost anywhere else.  Democracy is dead in the USA, and you have been made into collateral damage. I do not write this as a hypocrite. I dealt with immigration issues for years while I was completely broke to be able to get out of the USA.

If leaving America sounds crazy consider the following: Many African Americans risked their lives for the dream of getting to Canada...you might only to have to fill out some paperwork.

Police Riots Are Back!

The world seems to be cracking open with violence and unrest not just in places like Syria. Swell spots like Cape Town  and Seattle are explosive. But there seems to be an unfortunate pattern behind all of this few will speak openly about. It appears in many cases police are instigating riots undercover. There does seem to be a pattern.
I suspect that this is not actually a global conspiracy in the way people might imagine, rather similar circumstances playing out around the globe. Financialization and the crises of capitalism have eaten from almost all public budgets, except military and security budgets. Not every cop is a moron, or unaware that their buddies in the firefighters, public hospitals, and so forth are looking at shrinking budgets. Sadly the "proof" that security forces are necessary may often be a pre-planned riot made at the expense of peaceful protesters.
This violence against people masquerading as violence from within people is yet another part of the despicable upside down post-modern world we live in like the new paradigm of the boss who pretends to be your friend; but inverted and armed.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=356343461181561


I suspect not only are the security forces instigating violence, they are making sure they are the only ones doing it. I have been involved in many leftists protests, and annoyed at how ridiculously unanimously pacifist they are. When the state is violent and dishonest, it's surely not a coincidence that leaders continuously preach nonviolence. Granted, I would never act violently due to the personal moral convictions I hold...but I wonder if this is always the right tactic. Nonviolence would seem appropriate when you can garner lots of media attention and sympathy. On the other hand, when your story is decidedly a non-story in the eyes of everyone, like the homeless families in America being increasinly harassed by the police...maybe strategic limited violence is called for a la francaise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY6NlGGe6GI

And now for real equality....

I'm getting kind of annoyed by all the rainbow flags on facebook. My 'yeah' for marriage equality is cynical and sarcastic..because I know full well gay marriage isn't really about equality at all. Of course I believe any two individuals should be able to marry. I also believe any three or four individuals should be able to marry. But let's be clear, gay marriage or plural marriage are about giving rights to people who are different from normative couples.

If we ever want equality, it's incredibly obvious if politically avaunt guard, that we actually need to start taking rights away from people. It may not sound kind or even democratic, but it is the only way towards a true equality for all Americans, married or not. In a world where everyone is respected equally, everyone could define their own relations as they see fit. If people see fit to sign up for sacred rights thousands of years old no one should stop them. Nor should anyone stop me from noticing that many wedding contracts are essentially the sale of a woman or in an even grimmer twist some families pay to get women off their hands. But giving extra rights to people for having some sort of religious and/or legal contract seems strange. No one even denies it is discriminatory, although few use the language of discrimination. Instead proponents trot out all kind of nonsense words like sacred, consecrate and so on which lack specificity not to mention reality. What marriage really does, as gay activists have spent over a decade pointing out, is give couples rights they would not get otherwise. These rights span from banal financial issues like taxation and retirement rights, to family issues like rights to visiting ones children when a partnership splits to just as important fuzzy rights like social respect. Over the course of a couple's lifetime this fuzzy issue of social respect has all kinds of implications on them and the children they produce. To this day it is not uncommon for people to refer to children conceived outside of marriage as illegitimate, or to discourage unmarried women from having children. The social stigma of singleness has a profound real negative effect on the lives of single people, although at it's base marriage is a legal agreement. As far as an actual argument for marriage, the most important one would seem that without it everyone would have to hire lawyers to negotiate the terms of their relationships...and hiring lawyers is almost never a good thing. Theoretically marriage harnesses traditions so old they won't go away, and bundles them with a bunch of benefits thereby encouraging marriage. If marriage is assumed to make people happy, then this is supposed to help everyone. Except it doesn't work that way. By bundling all these things together marriage is actually being discouraged in a larger and larger part of the population.

As society becomes more unequal, the real marriage equality issue is rapidly becoming who can afford to get married at all. While anyone can go to city hall and sign paperwork, the poor have some pretty strong disincentives from marriage. Just ask a recent university graduate. Women, in particular, have found that student loans, the price of education for almost anyone below the upper middle class function as an anti-dowry. But if those below the upper middle class fail to get a college degree or specific vocational training many of them are looking at a lifetime of precarious low paid work. Historically poverty has been almost defined by miserable working conditions: low level agricultural peonage leading the typical occupations of the poor. Now a growing number of the poor in the Western world do not actually work at all. As the sexual revolutions has slowly led many  to equate marriage with family formation; the poor face an increasing issue. If their wages are so low and so insecure they could never afford a family, why marry at all? And in fact, many do not. So many do not that in American women in their twenties most babies are born to unmarried women. As one enlightened trophy wife told me "Marriage is about money and property and inheritance and if you don't have any money, well..." Marriage has become a tool through which upper middle class people cement their status in society and pass advantages on to their children. Marriage has also become a tool of certain kinds of women who want to duck out of actually pulling their own weight in society. Who in their right mind, if they actually belong to the progressive left, can stand for this? It doesn't take a sociologist to look around and realize how unfair this is. But then again, I'm probably overestimating the ability of observation among average people. A well educated man I know, a PhD in Physics no less, recently remarked to me "How do they do it?!" When I described a religious Israeli woman I knew with five children and no job. "No." I replied "The question isn't how they can do it, the question is how I the working single taxpayer can do it, because in some sense it's my job to support these kids because chances are, neither of their parents work." Seriously, how do we hard working single women drudge between our tiny apartments and long hours in usually rather joyless lives while not resenting married women, much more socially approved, who play with Popsicle sticks all day. The answer lies in the illusion of choice. But increasingly marriage is not a choice available to everyone. For the truly poor marriage is often an unfortunate  choice to pin yourself to someone who might tip you over the edge financially. For truly poor men, even that might be a luxury. I am unfamiliar with the statistics, but if I had to guess, a truly impoverished man is probably many times more likely to end up in jail in the USA than a stable marriage.

People who really believe in social equality need to realize which fight is winnable. One potential fight would be creating a society in which people have anywhere nearly equal very good chances of marriage - a near impossibility considering some people are disabled in certain ways that make marriage unlikely. The winnable fight, is just taking the rights around marriage away. Everyone will have to grow up, fin for themselves, and come to personalized agreements over their property and life. Does that sound so awful? Why hasn't anyone encouraged this before?