God Bless America?

WARNING! This is going to be about religion… So if that makes you uneasy feel free to skip this post.

I don’t often write about my own faith. I tend to subscribe to the advice of the late Waite Phillips who once said he’d “rather see a sermon than hear one any day.” Faith is something that should always be seen more than heard. So I find myself watching the loud exhortations by the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, proclaiming his version of Christianity with a increasing feeling of frustration and yes, dismay.

It is tempting in times like these when a national political figure waves their religion around like a cape at bull fight; to reference Jesus’ own words on this sort of thing. How in Matthew Chapter 6 Jesus makes it very clear the “See how holy I am!” crowd have missed the entire point of the practice of faith. Or how in Luke, Chapter 18 Jesus tells the story of how people who claim how their faith makes them better than someone else, are anything but.

Yet I am reminded about a common question that politicians often get asked, especially at events like the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where a common query to would-be Presidents of the United States, is; “What is your favorite bible verse?”

When conservative radio host Bob Lonsberry asked Donald Trump that question in 2016, the resulting word salad was…. Impressive.

"Well, I think many. I mean when we get into the Bible, I think many, so many. And some people, look, an eye for an eye, you can almost say that. That's not a particularly nice thing. But you know, if you look at what's happening to our country, I mean, when you see what's going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us. And they laugh at our face, and they're taking our jobs, they're taking our money, they're taking the health of our country. And we have to be very firm and have to be very strong. And we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you."

Um…. Okay.   Wow.

The new Speaker of the House in his own podcast in 2022, framed his Christian faith in terms of a battle that needed to be waged. Saying that God wanted more aggression and less turning of the other cheek. "Obviously, this is an increasingly hostile culture," Johnson told the audience. "We all know that. We need to understand why that is, and we need to commit to do our part to confront it. The kingdom of God allows aggression."

He then referenced Scripture from Matthew 11:12, which according to a more recent translation, states: "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it."

Johnson sees his elevation to the office of Speaker as part of some divine battle plan. A Christian nationalist blueprint for an America where reproductive rights, birth control, divorce, LGBT people, and all separation of (his) church and the state is done away with.

Also, according to Speaker Johnson, God wants everybody to have guns. Lots and lots of guns. Telling Sean Hannity in 2016 that God is big supporter of the Second Amendment. And he is not alone in that belief. A 2021 survey found that “among Whites who said America should be a Christian nation, more than 4 in 10 named the right to keep and bear arms as the most important right. Not freedom of speech. Not even freedom of religion, but gun rights.”

The concept of “Christian Nationalism” has had a resurgence of popularity on the political and cultural right these days. The belief that the United States is or should be a Christian Nation first and foremost and the secular idea of any kind of separation of (Christian) church and state is the work of the Devil.

A conservative friend of mine recently asked me what my favorite bible verse was. I was tempted to pull out something ridiculous from the book of Numbers just to see his reaction, but instead I answered honestly. Proverbs 3:6

I’ll save you the effort of googling it. It reads: “In all your ways acknowledge God, and God will make your paths straight.”

My friend was really surprised by this, responding that it was an odd choice for a Gay man. Saying “that verse sounds like an endorsement of conversion therapy!” Clearly thinking “make your path straight” could refer to becoming heterosexual. I laughed and said if he was going to take every word in the bible literally, then he was clearly going to hell for eating shellfish and wearing cotton blend.

For me, one of the core tenants of my Christian faith has always been “Emanuel” or God with Us. The idea that we do not walk alone through life. But if we listen for God, we will find God. Not in the Mike Pence “God told me to run for President “way, but in the sense of knowing the right thing to do when it matters most.

Hearing God speak to us not as a booming voice out of parted clouds but in opportunities we find in our path. That verse in proverbs has always been for me, an invitation to be open to opportunities to live my faith, rather than just talk about it.

I remember the bedtime prayer I would say a child. Many of you may have said the same or a similar one. There are multiple variations on it. We said the 1932 Grace Bridges version:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray my lord my soul to keep,
In the morning when I awake
Help me the path of love to take.

I have always found the difference from the New England Primer version, the “if I should die before I wake” version to be significant. The path of love wasn’t some celestial escalator to a gated heavenly community in the sky. But rather the choices and opportunities that I would face that next day.   The path of love is the “straight path” Proverbs 3:6 invites us to be open to.

And to be clear, it’s an UPHILL path. Unlike the opposite. The path of pointing fingers at others, the path of “lets build a wall to keep THOSE people out”, the path of some voices mattering more than others because of the color of faces they come out of, or how they vote, or because they don’t come from people who loudly pray as they kneel on the House Floor for the CSPAN Cameras. 

That path is easy. Because that path leads downward.

And like most downward paths, when you start on it, gravity kicks in and helps propel you faster. The more people you can claim are less than, or are less ‘favored’ by your version of God the faster that downhill journey goes. The path of hate, the path of exclusion the idea that the Grace of God is a zero-sum proposition. America is God’s favored Nation so clearly other nations aren’t. That path is very easy.

The path of love is about the work of the Kingdom of God, here and now. Not about building a wall and hiding behind it waiting for Blond-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian Jesus to magically beam you up and all the people you don’t like are ‘left behind’. 

It is being open to things as simple and as complex, as looking for God in the people and situations we encounter every day. You will find work to do if you follow that "path made straight'. You will find people who are very different from you, who think different, act different and live differently.

Yet being open to a path made straight, can lead to lots of other things. Even to finding a sense of purpose. In the Lutheran liturgy in the service of Baptism there is wonderful moment when the congregation speaks words of welcome to the newly baptized:

"We welcome you into the lord's family, we receive you as fellow members of the body of Christ, children of the same heavenly father, and workers with us in the kingdom of God.”

What has always resonated for me in those words, is the idea that the  Kingdom of God is not, some distant Asgardian realm with glowing sidewalks and flying chariots. But is the here and now, with work to do. The path of love is an uphill one. Accepting that invitation in Proverbs 3 to be open to letting God make paths straight, is to accept that we need to do the work of the kingdom of God here, today.

We often hear religious figures talk about “Sharing the Good news” I have always defined that as trying to live a life were others “see a sermon” rather than hear it. Mike Johnson defines sharing the good news as telling people he disagrees with that God loves them less because of where they were born, who they love or how they vote. 

I like how Luther defined Evangelism as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. Its not about having all the answers it’s about helping others look for them along with us.  

Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson and I have very different ideas about what “evangelism” is. For him it’s about who and what he needs to oppose. For me it’s always been about what is it that I need to try to do today, to move just a little father up that path made straight,  the path of love.

One my favorite versions of the Easter story is found in John’s gospel. Where after finding the tomb empty Mary Magdalene lingers looking for clues as to where the assumed grave robbers have taken Jesus’ body. Then encountering Jesus, she doesn’t recognize him, until Jesus says her name. It is upon hearing Jesus call her by her name, she recognizes the risen Christ and is given instructions to take back to the disciples, she is given work to do. A path made straight.

In the weeks and months ahead, there is going to be a lot of noise. People like Mike Johnson will loudly proclaim they speak for God. That God has a preferred choice in the 2024 election, and people who don’t agree with that choice are enemies that God wants destroyed. I hope that in the year ahead we can listen for our name to be called. That we look for that uphill path and the work to be done here and now.

If America IS God’s country, shouldn’t we try harder to act like it instead of just saying so?

When the Enemy you Never Met Dies...

 

The Annual Pride Debate...

 Well it's June... So you KNOW what that means.

Like the rainbow flags going up on Market Street in San Francisco , the annual debate over the merits of LGBT Pride celebrations re-surfaces like a perennial weed that just won't stay down.

It's a debate that rages  inside and outside the  LGBTQ community. Inside the community, the question is; does some of the imagery of Pride celebrations hurt the cause of equal rights? Also, in the wake of legal victories such as Marriage Equality; some ask  do we even need pride celebrations anymore?

While critics and opponents of equality love to point to that same imagery as evidence of Gay folks wanting "special rights", and then pull out their favorite chestnut, of asking why are Gay Pride Celebrations acceptable but Straight Pride celebrations are not?

Sigh.... Really? It's like asking why isn't there a "White History Month". I get tired of trying to explain to people who really do know better, just how stupid they sound whey they try to make these types of arguments. But fine, since clearly there is some "genuine" confusion out there as to the reason for LGBT Pride celebrations , allow me to clarify.

States in the USA where you can be fired for being Straight =0
States in the USA where you could have been fired for being Gay = 28
Countries that will execute you for being Straight = 0
Countries that will execute you for being Gay = 11 (actually 12 Uganda just re-joined the list)


Growing up, how many books, songs, television programs, and movies did you see that featured straight couples meeting, falling in love and living happily ever after? Pretty much all of them. Ask someone who is LGBT how many positive images in popular culture they had growing up that affirmed who they are? The answer is, none, or at best few, if any at all.

Thankfully this has been changing dramatically in the past few years.

But until those recent advances, Gay characters in movies and television were either creepy villains or camp comic relief. If you doubt that, you really should check out the groundbreaking HBO documentary, "The Celluloid Closet".It shows clearly the disparity in popular culture where messages about sexual orientation were concerned.

 
The Celluloid Closet - Trailer

Then there is the area of religion. The number of straight kids who have been told they are going to hell simply for being heterosexual = 0. The number of LGBTQ kids who have been told that they are going hell simply for being who they are?  = Too many to even try to count.

To my Straight friends, I have to ask, how many times have "respected" public figures, politicians, pundits and clergy gone on national television demanding that everyone be given the chance to VOTE on your civil rights?

How often has someone told you that not being able to discriminate against you was somehow an attack on them? When was the last time you heard a member of the Supreme Court saying that simply by being allowed to exist, you were "an attack" on the moral fiber of America?

Anyone?? Yeah...I didn't think so...

I have a flash of the obvious for you, EVERY month is Straight Pride Month." There is a word for someone who truly feels that equal rights for people they don't like is somehow an attack on them. That word is "Bigot".

Saying LGBT people are human too, isn't an attack on straight people. Those people who really think it is, are, quite simply, bigots. People who say LGBT Pride celebrations need to be stopped, are in fact, the exact reason they all started in the first place.

In 2023 one would think such battles would be long over, but in the light of LGBT rights victories in the U.S. over the past few years, the American Talibangelicals have turned their sights to new targets; Trans Kids and Drag Performers.

The rhetoric on the American cultural Right Wing,  would have you believe a man in a dress and high heels reading  books to kids, is a greater threat than the LEADING cause of death for children in the United States: Gun Violence.

Are Pride celebrations good or bad for the cause of equality? The answer is both. With visibility comes closer examination.  

Opponents of equality love to show images of drag queens, leather daddies and shirtless men   dancing on parade floats, and scream "See! it's not about equal rights! They just want to recruit your kids into THIS!! They never show the families, advocacy groups, welcoming and inclusive religious denominations, and workplace affinity groups who participate in Pride parades.    After all, that wouldn't fit their desired narrative.

Media coverage is often complicit. CNN loves to show the drag queens and gogo boys, but when straight allies like the CEO of Kaiser Permanente, the largest non-profit health care company in the U.S.rides on a float in the SF Pride parade every year, with over 1,200 employees, their families, friends and colleagues, you'd think we all were invisible.

You never see CNN asking Tony Perkins, head of the certified Hate-Group, the "Family Research Council" on Fox News about the deadly cultural fetishization of guns and violence towards minorities on the cultural right, and how that had led directly to lethal antiemetic and homophobic attacks.

That would be admitting something of an inconvenient truth. 

It's much easier to just point at a group of shirtless men on a flatbed truck or women on motorcycles and say that they are the real threat to families.

I have always said that Pride celebrations are not really for the people who attend them. Instead, they are for the people who cannot attend them. Growing up as a Gay kid in a small town in South Central Wisconsin, there were times when I was convinced, I was the only gay person on Earth.

The constant message from popular culture, religion, family and peer groups was "boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married (or not) and have kids and live happily ever after". There was no happily ever after for someone who felt what I was feeling.

Then, for one weekend in June, I would turn on the TV News and see thousands of people just like me, in places like New York, San Francisco and Chicago saying "No, that's not true, you are not alone, and there is a big wide world out here beyond Sun Prairie Wisconsin. So hang in there .... we're here and we're waiting for you!"

1986 Pride Television Coverage

Now more than thirty years later, I watch coverage like this, and it seems so endearingly cheesy. Yet at the time, it was a lifeline to people like me, living with the fear and isolation of being "in the closet".

Pride Celebrations are the original "It Gets Better Project".

My straight friends never needed to be told that being straight was okay, and that they were okay because nobody ever told them they weren't.  

Pride isn't about celebrating being Gay, it's about publicly showing that being LGBT is just as much a part of the human experience as being straight is. I for one would love to see the day when Pride is obsolete. When that scared closeted gay kid, in some small town doesn't need to be told that he or she is fine just the way they are.

So this month we will see joyous crowds gathering in places like Market Street in San Francisco, Oxford Street in London, Halsted Street in Chicago, and Fifth Avenue in New York City, Hillcrest in San Diego, Montrose in Houston, and so many more.

And there is reason to celebrate. We have a President, and administration that honors the idea of "E Pluribus Unum" - that America is one out of many. So in this Pride Month , it is still vitally importing to add our voices voice to the chorus celebrating the diversity of America and the American Experience.

If for no other reason to let that one scared kid know, it really does get better. There is a world where "boy meets boy" and "girl meets girl", where you can be the person that every fibre of your being is screaming for you to be. A world where yes, you can fall in love and (if they want to) get married, and even live happily ever after...

Happy Pride Everyone.

The Power of Truth

The Congressional Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the US Capitol and the related issues surrounding the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election has finally, completed and released its final report (Linked below).

The author Joe Klaas, in his book "Twelve Steps to Happiness", writes; "The Truth with set you free... but first it will piss you off." There is plenty contained in the final report of the House Select Committee to do both.

 
Those Americans who value our 246 year-old experiment in representative democracy will be rightly horrified and then quite justifiably angry at what we as a nation have now learned about both the attack on the Capitol and the lies, high crimes and misdemeanors that let up to it.

 
Those who in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election defeat, chose for whatever reason, to believe that Democracy is only valid when it delivers results that they like, will of course also find reasons to be angry. For some it will be anger that the race war they so desperately hoped would be sparked on that day never happened.

 
Yet I hope some of those people who cheered the domestic terrorists who stormed the seat of our government, hoping to thwart the peaceful democratic will of the American People, will read this report and get angry for different reason. I hope it is the righteous anger that stems from the clear indisputable discovery that you were the victim of a con man.

 
Like that person who clicks on a Facebook "friend request" from someone they thought they know. Only to discover their in box and that of all their contacts flooded with bitcoin spam. Who then makes it their mission to expose the hacker and ruin their life.; I hope there are Republicans who now will throw away that red (made in china) MAGA hat and channel their anger to purge the Republican Party of the Trump poison and its associated criminals, grifters and yes... Traitors to the United States.

Sadly there are still those in the Republican Party for whom the truth, is too inconvenient. For unpatriotic gargoyles like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Goetz, Ron Johnson and their media amplifiers like TucKKKer Carlson; This report will be seen as an attack by the "woke" left on all they hold dear.

The report tells us many things. But the standout take-away is this: The 45th President of the United States, when faced with the reality that he had lost his bid for re-election chose to lie and lie repeatedly in an attempt to shred the Constitution of the United States and incite a civil war.

Thanks to the work of the Jan 6th Committee, the truth is here for all to see. That Donald Trump, is a narcissistic sociopath, who saw inciting a mob to attack and kill police officers in hopes of achieving the violent overthrow of American democracy... as a small price to pay to soothe his own ego.

 january6th.house.gov

The Joys of Air travel...

Ok ... can I vent for a minute?

I fully understand that for the Airlines and the travel industry as a whole, the resumption  of  passenger volume at or near  pre-pandemic  levels is a welcome  relief .    For many though,  there is a dark, aggravating  downside  to this.

With the return of wide spread air travel, airports and planes are once again filled with....

The general travelling public.

As I sit here in the San Francisco International Airport. I find myself missing the heydays  of the Covid 19 lockdown.  When if you were flying,,  it was out of necessity not desire.  Consequently, the majority  of travelers you encountered were seasoned  fliers who understood  both the basics and nuances of air travel. 

We are now back to the reality  of masses of people for whom:

-  The  concept of a boarding group number

-  The mechanics  of escalators and moving walkways

-  The ability to form an orderly queue

-  The  basic  physics  of  overhead  storage space 

-  The finite degree to which a seat can recline  

Are all clearly complete  mysteries. 

People who  who think a full sized suitcase somehow meets  the definition  of  a "personal item such as a purse or laptop ".

All those challenges however, pale in comparison to grasping the idea that these folks  and their assorted  family members could have selected seats when they booked their  flight. Or even before they  came to airport using online check in.  

Instead  they have no problem turning  boarding  the plane into an elaborate  game of "Let's Make A Deal".   Delaying the entire process while they  beg, plead, cajole, demand and even try to guilt and bully people who had the foresight to select seats beforehand into giving them up because  they all just HAVE TO BE TOGETHER! 

The reasons for this I can only assume is so they can help each other find their shoes at the end of the flight. Because they consider a pressurized confined semi public space a perfectly acceptable place to take them off.

Now don't get me wrong, very experienced  travelers  can be just as bad .  My personal  favorite  being frequent fliers whose  company  books them  in  economy class and they MUST get an upgrade  no matter what, or the world will  apparently  come to a cataclysmic  end. 

The core issue is, in my not so humble opinion, one of people not understanding the  basic reality  that when you are an airline  passenger  you are NOT in control.... of ANYTHING.   

None of the complex multitude of variables  and logistical elements  that need to all come together  for even the most basic of short haul flights are in your ability to control.

My beef with the "Travelling General Public" is  the entitled  belief many hold that air travel should be as convenient  and geared to their wants  as driving their own car would be.  Car travel is an individual  experience.   Air travel is a collective  group experience.   One where everyone  needs to make small accommodations  for the collective  good.   

Think of checking that clearly  oversized  carry-on, or  making that smallest of efforts  to not jump up and  block the boarding lane when they call for boarding group 2  when you are in group  5 as the post pandemic  equivalent of wearing  a mask or  social distancing. 

Do it for all of us , and we will all get where we are going .

Ok...I feel better now.  Excuse me while I go find an $11 cup of coffee.

Remembering history's first "Zoom Meeting "

 They say the worst thing you can have in live television is “dead air”. Suddenly in front of a room full of government and media dignitaries, with broadcasting history literally hanging in the balance, that is exactly what we were facing. Dead air.

The date was Thursday, October 15th, 1981. Two days earlier, I had boarded an Amtrak train in Columbus, Wisconsin, along with Mike Daugherty, John Garrett, Tom Gehrmann, Chris Kerwin, Anne O'Brien, Becky Weirough, Glenn Zweig, Steve Funk, and Mike Kennedy, Now in the ballroom of the Capital Hill Holiday Inn in Washington D.C. a live satellite demonstration, linking our group of American kids, and a group of young people in Brisbane Australia had just gone on the air.

We were there along with other young people who shared the unique experience of being media users, not just media consumers. We were from the “Kids 4” television project in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Kids4 had been on the air since 1978, and was an educational partnership between the local public access cable channel and the American Council for Better Broadcasting (ACBB, later renamed as the National Telemedia Council )

Joining us there in Washington, was a group from the KIDS ALIVE! Project in Bloomington, Indiana. Together, we were hosting a live cultural exchange via satellite with a group of young people from down under in Brisbane Australia, who hosted the popular children’s program WOMBAT on Australia's Channel 7.

The kids from the Australian television show went first, showing an amazing video montage of their studio, the gold coast of Australia and the stories they produced there at Channel 7 in Brisbane. Then it was our turn. Or so we thought...   

Kerri Brinson from KIDS ALIVE!, looked in the camera and cheerfully announced; “Well, here’s our video montage!”  And … nothing.

A technician from COX Cable Television, hurried into the room and whispered in the ear of a nearby adult that the Video tape player in the satellite truck, was not working, and therefore none of the prepared footage we had brought with us to Washington could be shown. So we proceeded to do what we always did when doing live television. We improvised. 

The kids from Indiana looked at us like we were nuts. They were not used to working live. One of the great things about the Kids 4 program is we started out doing all of our shows live. It was only after two years we switched to recording them first, then airing them.

Still, with a ballroom full of media dignitaries watching you , plus trying to fill time  with stuff off the top your head, AND cope with at least a 5 second time delay between you and the people you were trying to interview, it was bit tense, even by our standards. But the end result turned out to be something amazing and unexpected.

That one technical glitch turned what would have been a largely scripted exchange into an actual conversation.

Instead of following a script,  we talked.  Asking each other about school, about hobbies and what was it about working with television that interested them, as well as sharing our own experiences as kids learning to use media and not be used by it.

Of course at the time, it felt like a disaster.

Looking back on that day, now, more than four decades ago, I marvel at how much the world has changed. At the time, what we were doing in Washington DC that day was not all that remarkable from a technical standpoint. Live satellite broadcasts were hardly unusual in 1981. Yet from a cultural and educational standpoint, the Kids-to-Kids interconnect was nothing short of revolutionary.

As much as I say that live satellite television was commonplace in 1981, that isn’t to say the mechanics of it were simple. The path of the satellite interconnect - from Washington, D.C. to , Brisbane, Australia was a complex series of relays starting with a signal carried by cable to trucks parked just outside in the courtyard of the hotel. From there, the signal was  beamed by microwave across town to PBS Headquarters.

PBS then sent  the signal to KQED In San Francisco via a  satellite, 22,300 miles above the Earth. Which THEN transmitted it up to another satellite which relayed it across the Pacific Ocean,  and  down to the an earth station near Sydney, Australia.

Finally from there the signal travelled via land lines to the studios of Channel 7, Brisbane, where the Australian children received it and responded. Their messages back to the U.S. travelled in the reverse direction using landlines and satellites back to Washington, to the on-site satellite dish located in the courtyard of the Capitol Holiday Inn, which fed the signal into the ballroom room where it was seen on  large screens by all of us there.

Whew! Did you follow all that? Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz. But here is what you need to know, everything that I just described, in all its complicated glory, the average teenager can now do with the phone they carry in their pocket. No trucks needed, no delay and now we don’t even think twice about it.

 .
The Interconnect didn’t radically change the media landscape, or advance broadcast technology. What it did do, was in the space of a few short hours make the world a remarkably smaller place. It showed that live satellite broadcasting could be used for more than breaking news and sporting events

More than that, it laid the foundation for the type of personal inter connectivity that today, we take completely for granted. I know this, because I do it nearly every day. At least three times a week I will face-time, or WhatsApp video call or Facebook messenger video call with friends and family scattered all over the globe.  From London, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to San Francisco, and  Madison, Wisconsin,  and dozens of points in between.    What is commonplace today,  was nothing short of history making on that day in 1981

The interconnect was the first global Zoom meeting.

The greatest take away from that day for those of us fortunate enough to have been part of it, was the power of broadcast technology to bridge distances and connect people in new and exciting ways. It was, at least for me, a  life changing experience. A live demonstration of the power of broadcast technology to connect people and be a platform for sharing experiences and ideas, in (nearly) real time.

Media Literacy is more crucial now than ever before. Teaching young people how to harness the power of media, and connectivity as tools for education and empowerment is more important today, than it has ever been.

Teaching young people to be media users, not just media consumers has always been at heart of the mission of Kids 4 and The ACBB / National Telemedia Council . That mission, which took a gigantic step forward in 1981 continues today. Now as the International Council for Media Literacy You can find out more about the IC4ML and it's mission and legacy on their website,:  https://www.ic4ml.org

Those lessons of the Interconnect are even more important today than they were four decades ago. In a world where if kids in Sun Prairie, WI  want to talk to kids in Brisbane, Australia , all they need is a smart phone and a decent Wifi signal; 

Forty years on, it remains an experience that played a tremendous role in shaping my path in life I am so very grateful to have been a part of it.

Dear Wisconsin Voters... It's up to you

Many of my friends are shocked when they learn that I, used to be a Republican. How could a good progressive Gay man like me, ever have been a member of the GOP? The answer is found in a conversation I had one afternoon when I was thirteen years old.

I was attending an event hosted at Vilas Hall, on the University of Wisconsin Madison Campus. The event was to promote a media literacy and education organization I was heavily involved with at the time. 

Like many such events I attended, I spoke early in the program, and was the youngest person there. I would then have to sit there while speaker after speaker began to blur together, and my 13 year old mind began to wander. Realizing. I was in danger of nodding off, I quietly excused myself, and ducked out into the adjacent "green room" to get a drink of water.

As I walked into the lounge area I heard the sound of a Television, and saw an older gentleman sitting on the couch watching the University of Wisconsin Football game. With his curly white hair and trademark red vest, I instantly recognized former Wisconsin Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus.

 I had met him a few times previously, and was friends with his daughter Susan, with whom I worked with on media literacy and education projects. He saw me, motioned me over (remembered my name), and cheerfully announced that the Badgers were up by 7. I sat down next to him, and we watched game for a few minutes in companionable silence.

He then turned to me and asked how I was doing. I. talked briefly about the Media education project I was there to promote. Then I got up my courage and asked if I could ask him a personal question. Governor Dreyfus smiled and said; "So is this an interview Dave?". I assured him we were off the record, he laughed and gestured for me continue. I said; "Why did you want to be Governor?" Dreyfus had recently finished a very successful term, but then not run for re-election. A move that had surprised most, and frustrated many, inside the Wisconsin Republican Party. As the conventional wisdom was had he run again, he would have won re-election quite easily.

Looking back at the television to check the score, he turned the sound down and then asked me if I had ever noticed the murals in the rotunda of the WI State Capitol building. I proudly replied that I had, and eager to demonstrate my knowledge, rattled off the names of the four murals at base of the rotunda.  

Government, Justice, Legislation, and Liberty.

The former Governor of my home state then went on to give me the best civics lesson I have ever had. He explained that he had benefited from the education system and professional and economic opportunities that living in Wisconsin had provided. Consequently, he felt an obligation to "do his part" to ensure that those opportunities and advantages he had enjoyed, were protected and expanded.

He went on to say that our system was set up to make that possible. The executive branch (Government) worked with the Legislature and the State Senate to craft and pass the laws (Legislation) that were then interpreted by the courts (Justice). Combined, this system of checks, balances and cooperation between all three entities, ensured freedom and opportunity for everyone (Liberty).  

 He looked at the television, then back to me, saying, it was to ensure others had those same opportunities he enjoyed, was why he had gotten into politics.

It was at this point his daughter poked her head into the room and chided us both for. "hiding out" and said we should re-join the event next door. I shook Governor Dreyfus' hand and thanked him for taking the time to talk with me. "My pleasure Dave", he said, and we went back into the next room.

It would be a conversation that would stay with me for years, and it was on that day, at the ripe old age of 13, I decided that I , like Lee Dreyfus, was a Republican. I would join the Young Republicans, campaigning for Ronald Reagan in 1984. Two years later, I would cast my first vote. While a student in Germany in 1986, I proudly walked into the. American Consulate in Munich, filled out my absentee ballot and cast my first ever vote, for Republican Tommy Thompson for Wisconsin Governor.

That next year  I would stand  at  Berlin wall while Ronald Reagan challenged the then Soviet Leader to  "tear down this wall!"  The pride I felt as an American would only reinforce my belief that the Party of Lee Dreyfus, Tommy Thompson and Ronald Reagan was where I was meant to be.

I would go on to become an active member and officer of the College Republicans, even chairing the CR election efforts on campus for. Bush-Quayle '88 and '92. My reasons were clear. It was a Republican who had showed me the power of our system of government to make the lives of Americans better, and by extension, the world a better and safer place.

So what happened? Why did I leave the GOP? The most concise way to answer that question is  to simply say,  the  GOP left me. Or more accurately,  the GOP left me, Lee Dreyfus, Tommy Thompson, George HW Bush, Bob Dole and yes, even left Ronald Reagan.

The town of Ripon, Wisconsin was the birthplace of the Republican Party. As a very small boy, I lived  in Ripon and would regularly go past the landmark where the GOP had its creation. The Republican Party on the ballot next month in Wisconsin, the party of  Wisconsin incumbent Senator Ron Johnson,  bears no resemblance to the that party. Let alone to the party of Lee Dreyfus.

The Party of Ron Johnson  sees our great system of cooperative branches of government, with its checks and balance, as an obstacle not an asset. Johnson is a man who serves a small select group of corporate and financial interests. The people of the great state of Wisconsin, are at best a nuisance to be tolerated, and in truth, often seen as a threat to the agenda those interests have tasked the likes of Johnson to deliver for them

The Republican Party is addicted to crazy. It has embraced the darker politics of division and fear in place of faith in our system and public service to our citizens. Like many addicts, the Wisconsin Republican Party, doesn't want to get better.   The only way for the GOP to stop digging the deep dank dark hole it as been wallowing in, is to finally hit rock bottom.

This isn't just an election. It's an intervention. For the GOP, it's time for tough love.  If you are voting for the GOP.  it  is a vote to return to 50 million Americans without access to health insurance. It is a vote to turn the stunning natural beauty of the state of Wisconsin into a strip mined, fracked toxic wasteland where contaminated water catches fire when it comes out of the tap.  To support the Wisconsin GOP is to support wild ridiculous conspiracy theories soaked in a veneer of  white supremacism, and neo-fascist "Christian" nationalism.  A party that believes Trump is their 'God"

A vote for the party  of Ron Johnson is to hand what is left of the WI public purse over to unregulated special interests and then gut public education and services to pay their bar tab.

 It is to sacrifice Wisconsin's place as America's Dairyland in favor of becoming the. Mississippi of the North. An under-educated, under-employed, over polluted gilded swamp of the very rich, the very poor and nothing in between.

Trump Supporters liked to scream about how they wanted to “Make America Great Again!", which is nothing more than code for not wanting a people different from them to have any rights. Well,   I want to make the GOP great again. I want a Republican Party that believes in the synergy of Government, Justice , Legislation and Liberty.

Like with a child that has serious impulse control issues, America needs to give the GOP a time out. It's for the people of Wisconsin to step up and save the GOP. 

How? By voting out the twisted cult masquerading as the Republican Party .

My Hope for November 2022

 WARNING - The following is a political rant...

Returning to the US after spending any extended amount of time abroad is always an interesting experience. I make it a point when I am back in London to avoid watching American media. I watch BBC instead of CNN or MSNBC. I read The Evening Standard and the Metro instead of the Huffington Post. The Daily Mash instead of The Onion, etc. etc.

Now to be fair, the United States is not alone in having bizarre social and cultural quirks that make other countries scratch their heads in bewilderment. When you look at the complete and utter dumpster fire that is the UK’s xenophobia-driven decision to economically shoot itself in the face by leaving the European Union; Aspects of our own American weirdness can seem mild by comparison.

But this past week was the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. (CPAC) Which in recent years has morphed into something of a crazy Comic-Con for the fringiest of the far right fringe of American politics. Where the ideas and attitudes that our nation as fought wars to defeat are now championed as the new conservative gospel.

Watching the Cirque du Insanity that is CPAC unfold I find myself lamenting the loss of “American Greatness.”

In the space of less than one generation we have gone from being a nation that builds, to being a nation that buys. A nation where we have elevated narcissism (oh, sorry, I mean “Social Media Influence”) as a valid career choice. Where a nation that is descended almost entirely from immigrants, has convinced ourselves that some people are somehow less “American” than others.

The nation that in less than one century created technology that reshaped the world and fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe, now wages war against innovation because it might impact the profit margins of specific industries and corporations. The country that gave the world the polio vaccine now gets into fistfights in Walmart because vaccines infringe on “freedom” … or something.

The nation that created the idea of the social safety net after the great depression, is now a place where you can go bankrupt trying to pay for health care. Where death by poverty is considered a natural cause. The same nation that enshrined personal freedom into the first ten amendments to our constitution, is now a place that will force a rape or incest victim to bear her attacker’s child. All while claiming the right to own a military grade assault weapon is sacrosanct, and if such a weapon is used to slaughter children in their classroom… That is just the price we must pay for that “freedom”.

The nation that led a global fight to defeat fascism, and then for half a century faced down anti-democratic totalitarianism, demanding the wall it built through a city be torn down. That nation is now a place where domestic terrorists who tried to overthrow our democracy are lauded at CPAC as oppressed heroes. And fascism is cheered as being “Christian Nationalism.”

The nation that inspired the world to embrace representative democracy has in the space of less that a decade. become one where one side of the political spectrum touts the end of that democracy as "Making America Great Again."

The Republican Party is now the embodiment of the idea that facts no longer matter. Where if you lose an election, just keep lying about it and incite an armed mob to attack your opponents. The idea that any science that threatens the bottom line of campaign donors must be attacked. History that doesn’t fit a pre-conceived narrative must be expunged from textbooks.

Where the right to own an assault rifle is seen as more important than a grade-schoolers right to life, let alone liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Where a woman’s right to control her own body is less protected than a corporations right to give unlimited amounts of money to politicians.

All of this, has made America... Small.

Yet despite that litany of rancid stains on the fabric of our nation. I still truly believe that we are far more potential than we are actualized. The United States of America remains, as Benjamin Franklin once described it; “rougher, simpler, more violent, more enterprising, less refined. We are new nationality.”

The potential of that remains, I believe, to be truly limitless.

But to reach that potential, to become once again that “shining city on a hill, we need to remember who we are. What we saw on display at CPAC, what we hear emanating from the dark cesspools of outlets like Newsmax, OAN and the likes of Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Alex Jones, this is NOT who we are.

It is my hope that as we go to polls in this year’s midterm elections, we embrace the better angels our national nature and remember.

So Here We Are... Thanks for that.

I get it, you didn't mean for all this to happen. But, you just didn’t like her…

You “felt” she was dishonest, you said she lied, (about what exactly, you never actually specified…but I get it..) 

Setting aside the fact that she was the most investigated Presidential candidate in American history, by both the Media, and her political opponents.

Setting aside Millions of Dollars and hours of government resources were spent repeatedly investigating her and found no crimes, ever. Setting aside that she sat and testified for 11 hours about a tragedy that happened on her watch, and yet the men whose lies took America into the war that created the terrorists responsible for that tragedy, have never even been questioned under oath.

Setting all that aside… I get it, you just didn’t like her.

Setting aside the fact that there has been an entire cable news network that for over twenty years was near singularly dedicated to accusing her (with no evidence or proof whatsoever) of everything from bad fashion sense, to first degree murder. Setting aside the fact that she was the most experienced and qualified candidate to seek the Presidency in a generation.

Setting aside the fact that she was held to a standard of public transparency and critique that NO male candidate for the same office, has ever been held to.

Settling all that aside… I get it, you didn’t like her.

I know you felt Bernie was robbed, and you know what? He wasn’t. I have a news flash for you. The majority of American voters don’t do what the DNC subliminally tells them to. Hillary Clinton won more votes.

It’s not a rigged system it was math. Even without “Super-delegates” (Which we all agree were stupid are now reformed, thanks to Sen. Sanders…). she still would have been the nominee, because (again.. math,) she won the most delegates.

Setting ALL that aside, I get it, You just didn’t Like Hillary Clinton

I know you feel both parties are part of a rigged system that deliberately excludes third and more parties. You are right. It does, and you are correct in saying it is wrong. But guess what? There was no way whatsoever that this system was going to change in time for the 2016 election.

So, the reality was neither Gary Johnson or Jill Stein had a snowballs chance in hell of winning the election, assuming even they were on the ballot in all 50 states.  So like it or not the choice was between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Who, I get it… You didn’t like. )

 But it doesn’t change the fact that, these were your choices. And thanks to your "protest vote" we got Trump and he ended up getting three , count em! THREE appointments the United States Supreme Court.

I know you tend to tune out when people talk about the Supreme Court, because it is very abstract. But as you apparently were willing to accept those 4 years of a Trump/Pence administration, you should at least be intellectually honest about that meant in real life terms.  

Your “protest vote” against Hillary (who I get it, you didn’t like…) was in very real terms a VOTE FOR the following:

(Taken directly from the 2016 Republican Party Platform)

Appoint anti-choice Supreme Court justices:

"Only a Republican president will appoint judges who respect the rule of law expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including the inalienable right to life and the laws of nature and nature’s God, as did the late Justice Antonin Scalia.”

Appoint anti-LGBT and anti-Obamacare justices:

“Only such appointments will enable courts to begin to reverse the long line of activist decisions — including Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases — that have usurped Congress’s and states’ law-making authority.”

Legalize anti-LGBT discrimination:

"We endorse the First Amendment Defense Act, Republican legislation in the House and Senate which will bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

Make Christianity a national religion:

"We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country's Judeo-Christian heritage and further affirm the rights of religious students to engage in voluntary prayer at public school events and to have equal access to school facilities."

Privatize Medicare, the health plan for seniors:

“Impose no changes for persons 55 years of older. Give others the option of traditional Medicare or transition to a premium-support model designed to strengthen patient choice, promote cost-saving competition among providers."

Support traditional marriage but no other families:

"Children raised in a two-parent household tend to be physically and emotionally healthier, more likely to do well in school, less likely to use drugs and alcohol, engage in crime or become pregnant outside of marriage. We oppose policies and laws that create a financial incentive for or encourage cohabitation."

I could go on and on. This stuff was just the tip of the right wing fundamentalist iceberg. But I hear you cry that at the time you didn’t think Trump, really believed in all that far right claptrap, so you didn’t worry about it!   

So…. To be clear, at the time you thought Trump was lying when he said he supported the GOP platform “100 Percent” and were cool with that.   Funny, I thought it was because “she lied” you didn’t like Hillary?

And I won’t even get into how your “Protest Vote” played a direct role in the death of over half a million Americans thanks to Trump’s catastrophic failure to respond to the COVID 19 pandemic before it was too late.

Setting aside all the other issues we could talk about, like an immigration, policy that kidnapped children and put then in cages, an EPA that denied climate change, a commerce department t that gutted consumer protection, or the fact we now are left with a Trump Supreme court that is issuing rulings that make Citizen’s United look like childs play.  

Oh yeah, and your prediction that the Supreme Court “would never overturn Roe” so it wasn’t a factor in your vote…. Gee, that aged well. So as much as you like to pretend otherwise, your protest against Hillary Clinton, was a vote FOR Trump and the entire GOP platform.

But I get it, the fact you “felt” you couldn’t trust Hillary was way more important than a woman’s right to control her own body. I get it, the fact that it was clear that a Trump Presidency would damage our nation’s economy, global standing, national security, and environment, was just the price we need to pay to give the Libertarian Party a serious shot at 2028… or may maybe 2032!

I get it, the lives of over 1 million Americans who died from Covid, were not as important as you being able to say you didn’t “Sell out the Revolution!” and weren’t co-opted by the party machine!

So by all means, “be unsure” of whether or not you can “bring yourself to vote in the 2022 midterms this November. Or vote for Joe Biden in 2024, because hey, I get it… you probably just don’t like him either.

Or lots of your fellow Americans... apparently,