The Best Thing A Teacher Ever Taught Me

Recently, one of my sisters forwarded me an email with an interesting story about a dinner conversation between a CEO and a teacher.  The CEO, trying to make his point that the problem with education is that students are taught by people whose highest aspiration is to end up with such lowly paid jobs, turned to the teacher at the table and asked her what she made.  Instead of giving the CEO a dollar figure, she turned the tables on him by listing the things she would ‘make’ her students learn – hard work, sacrifice, responsibility, determination, to have a questioning mind, etc. - and concluded that in doing so, she would ‘make’ a difference in the world when they turned out to be doctors and engineers and even CEOs.

It is a heartwarming story for those who have (or had) a teaching role in schools, at home, or elsewhere, that what they do has a significant impact on the society we live in and in the world of tomorrow.

The story caused me to reflect on my own education, particularly the teachers who made a difference in my life.  Teachers who had not only imparted knowledge but also the love of learning as well as an approach to learning that would be useful even after I was done with school. 

In high school, I struggled with two subjects: advanced mathematics and the Malay language.  I dreaded attending the classes because I could not relate to what the teachers were trying to get across.  It seemed to me that my math teacher was talking to the blackboard every time because, if he was talking to me, I had no clue what he was saying.  The Malay language teacher would bring up one ancient Malay poem after anther, reveling in the beauty, structure, and rhythm of each when it should have been evident that the class, which was entirely made up of Chinese kids, did not have a sufficient grasp of the language itself.  I dutifully took notes of what I did not comprehend, doubting that I would ever get close to understanding the subjects.  The following year, I had new teachers for the subjects and suddenly everything that had been seemingly incomprehensible the year before made sense.  How did that happen?  What changed?  The magic of their teaching methods cleared the fog in my brains and I was able to grasp the logic of advanced mathematics and the complexity of prefixes and suffixes in Malay. 

When I was in college, one particular lecturer stood out.  She told the class that she didn’t want us just to study hard but she wanted us to study smart.  She started by teaching us to look for the underlying logic and reasoning behind each topic.  She helped us relate what we’ve learned to real world examples so that the lesson wasn’t just purely academic.  She taught us to analyze exam questions before attempting to answer them.  She taught us to look for the different parts to a question, the total score possible for each part of a question so we didn’t spend too much time on a part that fetched only a few marks.  She gave us a feel of the kind of answers examiners would look for and what gets us points and what won’t.  More than just the tactics to learning and passing exams, she taught us see the big picture and not be always stuck in the details or waste valuable resources in trying to be perfect.  She knew that most of her students were not from rich family backgrounds and we had to be smart about getting through our coursework and exams. She understood that the end goal for us was not just to pass exams but to get a good job that would hopefully help us realize our goals in life.

Once I started working, I quickly learned that whatever I had learned in school and in college was but a tiny dot at tip of the iceberg.  I had to learn the business that the company was engaged in.  I had to spend long hours pouring through numbers and contracts and processes.  It was an exciting time and it was rewarding when I was finally able to apply my knowledge to my work, using it to improve processes, organization and, ultimately, profitability.  For all those wonderful experiences, I will forever be grateful to those teachers in my life that taught me everything I know and instilled in me the love of learning new things.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes, “Give a man a fish and he will have food for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  Keeping that analogy in mind, the best thing that a teacher ever taught me was how to fish.

It is unfortunate that teaching and class sizes will be impacted once the Federal and State budget cuts come into effect.  We can all try to pass the buck and push the cuts onto someone or somewhere else but there is no denying that we can’t have what we can’t afford.  My hope is that the cuts will help spur us towards more intelligent ways of teaching, helping our kids learn how to fish rather than just giving our kids a fish.  After all, education does not stop at the school doors.

Budget Battles

Let’s face it – even if the US is not faced with a looming deficit and at risk of defaulting on its debts if the debt-ceiling is not raised, Congress should still be debating what the nation is spending its revenues and resources on and how to extract the most out of every dollar spent.  Congress should never be complacent, as they have been during the years of economic growth and prosperity, about the inefficiencies and bad policies we see at every level of Government. 

The results of the 2010 mid-term elections carry with it a clear message: the voters are tired of the same-old, same-old.  The Independents, tired of having to choose between two sides that have become so similar that it is hard to tell them apart, voted in a whole new bunch that ran on the message that they want to change Government.  Indeed, some of them ran on pretty extreme messages but it seemed that the risk was worth it, if only to stir things up and get the fat cats out of their seats to start doing something to right the ship.   

If we could rise above all the rhetoric about the numbers and who would be to blame if the government was shut down because no agreement on the spending cuts, we would realize that the real issue lies in complexities of our laws, layered on year after year, creating bloat and inefficiencies everywhere, sucking up precious national resources.  As the saying goes, “a dollar is a dollar”.  We want to be spending it in smart ways that generate more economic activity which in turn lead to job growth and revenue, and not in paying for duplicative or unproductive processes and administrative structures.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform conducted a study and came up with a report in December 2010 which we should all examine and build on if we are truly serious about what needs to be done.  It is not a perfect document and dissenting views are clearly enunciated but it is a good start.  The report proposes various changes encompassing:

• Discretionary Spending Cuts
• Tax Reform
• Health Policies
• Other Mandatory Policies
• Social Security
• Process Reform

It is a must read for anyone serious about the debate on our nation’s fiscal health.  You can access it at http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/

In every area listed by the Commission, we need a ‘Reset’ button to push for rationalization and simplification.  Complexities lead to loopholes, creating an unfair advantage for those who cleverly exploit the loopholes and a gross disadvantage for others.

We need a Reset button for our tax laws to account for the shift in economic and political dynamics we are witnessing around the world.  Asia is fast becoming the biggest consumer bloc and our survival and success will depend on how adept we are at meeting the challenges ahead.  To that end, our tax laws must be redesigned to incentivize job creation, especially in the export of goods and services.  We need incentives that will help make the US more competitive in the global market.  We already have some of the best institutions of higher learning, a well-trained workforce, excellent design and marketing skills, and fertile entrepreneurial breeding grounds especially in new-age technology.  Yet, our existing laws favor the off-shoring of millions of technology jobs to other countries.  We need our lawmakers to help bring about the re-creation of those jobs in the U.S.   

We need a Reset button for our defense strategy and our national security.  We can no longer afford the price of being the world’s sole policeman.  Recent events in Africa and the Middle-East have shown us that any change towards a more democratic world must come from within.  We need to be smarter about how we screen passengers at security checkpoints across the country.  We cannot afford to layer on more and more scanners, personnel, and checks each time that Al Qaeda threatens another attack on the US.  The Department of Defense spending has more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, ballooning from $300 Billion to just under $700 billion, and that number excludes Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs costs.   

We need a Reset button on healthcare and medical tort reform.  Healthcare providers today do not want to risk potential lawsuits and higher malpractice insurance and consequently they will often (especially if asked) prescribe all recommended tests and treatments regardless of whether or not they will be beneficial to the patient.  We need a rational quality of care that is determined by a panel of experts, not lawyers.  We need programs that encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle. We cannot afford a growing population of expanding waistlines and higher incidences of obesity, including cases in the very young.  Beneficiaries of government assisted programs such as Medicare and Medicaid should be subjected to annual “performance tests”, monitoring their weight and waist measurements. If their deductibles and co-pays for medication increase along with their expanding waistlines, they would quickly join the pound-for-pound challenge on the Biggest Loser.

We need a Reset button on end-of-life care.  We cannot afford to confuse compassionate care for the dying with extending life artificially. Trying to postpone the inevitable outcome for the very sick and the very old while denying care to young children which will allow them to grow into healthy, productive lives makes no sense. The notion that we will be ‘killing grandma’ by rationing care is ridiculous when the alternative is to have grandma hooked up to a host of machines and tubes for feeding, breathing, medicating, urinating, etc., because we can’t let go. We’re adults and we must think and act as adults.  Advocating the notion that a logical plan for end-of-life care means ‘killing grandma’ is infantile.

We need a Reset button on our energy policies.  We need to end our addiction to oil.  Our dependence on foreign oil hurts us, making us subservient to oil producing nations and lender countries that have autocratic governments.  We need to raise taxes on gas-guzzling vehicles while encouraging more eco-friendly cars.  We need to revisit subsidies to big oil corporations.  We need to invest in new infrastructure that will help move our energy consumption towards sources that are renewable.  We need to expand our electricity grid so that we can bring solar and wind energy from solar and wind farms to the cities and towns across the country.  We need to invest in support systems for car-pooling and use of mass transportation.  The arrival of hybrid and electric cars are great but they alone will not make a significant enough dent in our total oil consumption.

We need a Reset button on government jobs, civil and military services.  We need to flatten organizational structures and end promotion and pay increases based on seniority.  We need to eliminate unnecessary paperwork, pencil pushers that add no value to a process, increase productivity through greater automation and move towards a self-service model through modern technology.  We need to consolidate departments that overlap in function and we need to eliminate outdated regulations that discourage businesses from setting up shop or expanding their operations in the US.  We need enforcement officers that are more attuned to the problems businesses face and who will help them meet regulatory requirements rather than act simply as a deterrent to lapses and failure to comply.

We need a Reset button on our policies on granting visas to bona-fide visitors to encourage in-bound tourism.  We have amazingly beautiful cities, national parks, and exciting man-made attractions.  We have museums and art collections that are the envy of many.  Tourism is a highly labor intensive industry and it will create jobs that will always remain in the US.  We need to end the levying of hefty visa fees and, more importantly, we need to end the discrimination against young, single women.  The trend, seen first in Japan and now around the world is for more and more single female workers with a disposable income for whom travel and shopping are high on their priority list.

There are many more Reset buttons that can be added to the list.  However not a single one will be in place if our politicians continue in their game of ‘chicken’ and care only about their ego and political ideologies rather than the nation’s needs.

We are living in a fast changing world and systems and processes that worked well in the past may not be sufficiently adept in meeting the needs of today. Lengthy budget battles year after year distracts us from looking at what we need to be doing to positively influence America’s economic future and its role in a freer, more global and more democratic world.

A Race To The Bottom

There is a new paradigm in the halls of power and the best description for it is “austerity”. 

In the aftermath of the housing bubble and a near complete meltdown of the global financial system, Federal, State and City governments are faced with a sudden and sharp decline in tax revenues juxtaposed against a surge in prolonged unemployment and an increasing demand for government assistance.  

With a sustained recovery still uncertain and debt loads at unprecedented levels, it is not surprising that lawmakers, governors and mayors are clamoring to reduce spending in government programs at every level, especially those categorized as ‘discretionary’.  There is no denying it, the prize is bigger than just a balanced budget.

There is no easy answer to what ought to be cut or trimmed and slashing across the board blindly is not a sensible thing to do either.  We have to bear in mind that the intent or objective of most government assistance programs are to help those who are most in need.  Cutting funding for those programs would deprive the most needy of a lifeline.  Whatever we do and however we do it, we must be extremely careful that it does not turn into a race to the bottom where the cuts will affect our country's competitiveness and future. 

One target currently in focus is Education spending.  While increasing class sizes in public schools will deliver savings in total teachers’ salaries paid, the possible long term impact cannot and must not be ignored.  Public schools are where most of the country’s middle income and poorer half send their kids for an education.  The cuts would further disadvantage the very ones who need a greater degree of attention to help them climb out of the reaches of poverty and to do better than the generation before them.  The gap between these kids and those from well-to-do families who attend private schools will widen, increasing the wealth gap and social class distinction. 

We cannot afford a race to the bottom where Education is concerned.  Already, Americans kids lag in many areas when compared to test scores of students in other countries. 

If we were to be honest about balancing the budget, we need to face the reality that we will be spending over a trillion dollars on defense in 2011.  By choice or by default, we’ve become the world’s policemen and we are faced with the hefty costs as a consequence.

The war in Afghanistan is still on-going after nearly a decade and, although the bulk of our troops are out of Iraq, the costs there are continuing to mount.  In 2007, the Congressional Budget Office issued an estimate that the total cost of the two wars will reach $2.4 trillion by 2017.  Yet, there is and has been no “War Tax” to pay for those costs and that fact is conveniently swept under the carpet in the nation’s budget balancing exercise.

Returning to the topic of “austerity”, a New York times columnist wrote that any cut should ‘make everybody hurt’.  I’m not sure how his mind works on that one – the rich do not depend on government help so any proposed cut won’t affect them negatively.  If the rich is to share in the pain, they would have to contribute to the revenue side of the equation, i.e., pay more taxes.

Businesses have benefitted from lower wages and interest rates; executives and CEOs of banks have benefitted from the government bailout and low interest rates and are once again reaping six and seven digit bonuses.  The value of their stocks and stock options have soared in the last two years.  If we have to balance the budget, they should be the first in line to participate in the pain of getting the nation’s finances in order, and be proud of the fact that they did.

Sadly, the opportunity to let the Bush-era tax cuts lapse at the end of 2010 or to roll back cuts that benefitted the rich was swiftly put away for political expediency.  As the 2010 mid-term elections have shown, politics is an expensive business and it takes a lot of money to get elected or re-elected.  If you think that the amounts spent on political campaigns were indecent then, brace yourself for worse.  The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has, for all practical purposes, removed restrictions on how much corporations (or individuals using the cover of a corporate entity) may spend in advertising to back candidates who are favorable to their causes. 

Here again is another potential race to the bottom that is most vile and undesirable.  We are at the edge of a pit of cronyism, bribery and corruption.  Take a deeper look at the social unrest sweeping across Egypt, Africa and the Arab nations and you will realize that the cause of the uprising is not Facebook or Twitter but the pent up frustrations of a people denied a dream.  Ignoring the needs of the underclass while pampering to the rich does not bode well for the type of Democracy we claim to represent or are trying to promote in other parts of the world.

Any program of cut should be targeted at weeding out inefficiencies, mismanagement and waste.  There are many systemic inefficiencies in almost all governmental departments.  Archaic organizational structures, systems and procedures must be reexamined, eliminated or replaced and resources freed for more productive use.  Paperwork, forms, files, processes, etc., must be streamlined and automated.  Taxpayers should be encouraged to make suggestions on how the services they need may be delivered more efficiently or to file complaints regarding poor public employee attitudes. Unions should, by law, not be permitted to retaliate against management for taking disciplinary actions against employees for cause.  Government departments should be made to bid for the work that they do against independent outside contractors to ensure that they remain competitive and cost efficient.  If you have any doubts about how much can be saved, you’ll be reassured to know that the Congressional Budget Office report in 2007 estimated that the cost of mismanagement and waste in the Iraq war alone was some $10 billion.

“Austerity” is a nice word, as are the phrases “balancing the budget” or “living within our means” but they should not mean austerity for some and a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for others. 

Blood Money

I finished the year 2010 feeling a little better about things in general. 

The mid-term elections were over and the economy, although still struggling, were showing some signs of picking up.  I had done my part by shopping for Christmas presents on-line and at the stores and I had even picked up some ‘savings’ in the process.  When the year end retail and on-line sales statistics came out, hope was again in the air that the country was seeing an uptick in consumer confidence and that would lead to increased corporate hiring and spending.

The Congress, in a lame-duck session, was surprisingly able to pass some new laws that led many to believe that the Republicans and Democrats were finally on a new course that would enable them to move the business of the nation forward. 

Most encouragingly, the media had returned their focus mundane things such as the weather, a clear indication that nothing seriously bad was happening apart from the acts of nature that were disrupting travel and everyday life in various parts of the country.

Unfortunately, that period of bliss ended quite abruptly last Saturday.  One week and one day into the New Year, a lone gunman in Tucson, Arizona, fired into a crowd gathered outside a supermarket, seriously injuring an elected member of the Congress, killing a Federal judge and a number of other innocent victims, including a nine year-old girl who, as fate would have it, was born on 9/11/2001. 

It immediately brought to mind my blog last September titled “Dear World – a letter from America” and caused me to re-read it and ponder if there were salient points that I had missed or if I had been mistaken in my take on the vitriolic rhetoric by the various factions that had so troubled the people in the United States as well as in countries around the world as to the level of intolerance and hate that we were showing, in words and in actions that were repeatedly aired on Television, on radio talk-shows and in Blogs on the Internet. 

Sadly, “reality TV” has become too real for the families of those victims in Arizona who were injured or killed in this incident.  No amount of “could have”, “would have” or “should have” will ever mitigate their loss or bring back their loved ones.

Those who have been employing the language of hate, spurring their followers into a state of frenzy and those who are unstable enough in their minds into acts of violence, are now denying responsibility and quickly removing evidence of their hateful remarks from their web-pages, blogs and Twitter postings.

This latest manifestation of the destructiveness of spiteful words require an immediate re-imposition of civility in our discourse and a civilized approach to reconciling our differences.  We must eschew (shun, avoid, turn away from, have nothing to do with) those who employ barbaric words designed to incite others into acting out their anger.  We must deny them the reach and effect they desire from planting those words and seeds of hatred in the minds of their listeners. 

The Media has a duty to reject and not give air-time or printed space to people who capitalize on their fame and say anything that comes to mind with total disregard of the safety and well being of other.  Just as they would refuse to show graphic images of death and destruction, the Media must refuse to give voice to those whose spew hatred and whose words would clearly spur others into acts of violence.  It would not be a denial of the right to free speech – instead it would be the Media’s exercising of its duty to prevent the exploitation of free speech by those who clearly intend to cause harm.  What the Media carry as “news” must be worthy to be called as such and must pass the test of balanced reporting, and not be a verbatim report of unsubstantiated claims or wild accusations by some attention seeker.  If they report on the declarations of a person in the news, they must have a duty to investigate decry the lies and fabrications at the same time.

Clearly, gun laws around the country need to be improved – over the objections of the gun lobbyists and the NRA.  Those desiring to buy and carry a gun must be made to undergo psychiatric tests to ensure that they are not unstable in their heads and they are not and will not be a threat to community, both prior to being sold a gun and regularly afterwards.  It is no different than drivers having to pass eye-exams to renew their driving licenses.  Additionally, they should be required to purchase insurance coverage for victims of their actions, intended or otherwise, so that there is a recurring cost and reminder of the importance of safely handing the weapon they have in their hands.  States that permit the carrying of concealed weapons must immediately revoke those laws so that law enforcement and security officers can more easily carry out their tasks with impunity.

Profits that come from the destruction of innocent lives is Blood Money – not much different from the thirteen pieces of silver that bought the betrayal of Jesus.

We All Want To Live The American Dream

Just when I thought I had read up enough to understand what caused of the financial crisis that led to the actual or near collapse of some the major financial institutions, the Foreclosure Flap reared its ugly head, telling me that the underlying problems could be deeper than we’d realized.  We may have put out the fire caused by all the mortgage backed securities (a.k.a. toxic assets) but hot ambers are still smoldering and could break out anytime and burn us again.

What has been most shocking is that the problems are occurring in the United States of America which pride itself as being a nation of laws.  A look at the train wreck of the mortgage mess reveals a chain of dishonesty and a disregard of the laws that send shivers up and down the spine. The image of reliability, trustworthiness and enforceability of deals and investments in the US has been severely damaged as a result. 

Having laws but not the desire or the means to enforce them renders the laws simply useless.  As the former Chairman of the Fed has discovered, expecting the financial industry to self-regulate was a mistake.  It is akin to asking a drug addict to take charge of a warehouse filled with drugs.  Sadly, the people elected to positions of power AND responsibility took the first and forgot the latter.  They eliminated regulations that were designed to protect the average man on the street and they denied funding to those agencies that were set up to ensure adherence to the laws and regulations.  By demonizing “government” they chipped away at the rules that had been been carefully crafted to protect the innocent.  Corporate profits became their sole obsession and expanding that their only mantra.  In essence, they sold out the very people that had elected them into positions of power and opted for corporate welfare instead of helping the average American get closer to achieving their American dream. 

For most Americans, the “Pursuit of Happiness” entrenched in the Declaration of Independence translates to ‘living the American Dream’.  In the majority of instances, it simply means a decent job, a house, a spouse, two kids (and maybe a dog) and a car.  That simple dream is now more remote than ever before.  The so called ‘middle class’ is fast shrinking as decent paying jobs and industries have migrated overseas.  Graduates with higher degrees (and big student loans to go with them) often find themselves fighting for jobs that barely pay their living costs.  Their employers have higher productivity expectations and the longer hours at work often translates into less quality time with family and friends.  The wealth gap in America is rapidly increasing and the pendulum must start swinging the other way or something will break very soon. 

To turn the tide, our elected and appointed officials cannot continue doling out cash (remember the bailouts?), concessions and tax breaks to the big corporations and banks unconditionally.  Yes, we want them here and we want to help them succeed but we want them to be good citizens as well, providing decent jobs and paying their fair share of taxes.  Their focus cannot be on the short term profits alone – the longer term well being of the US consumers must be part of their priority too.  The US consumers cannot consume unless they have the ability to do so and fundamentally that means a steady job with a decent pay.  Flipping burgers and temporary jobs don’t make the cut.

We need to figure out what the appropriate criteria of a good Corporate Citizen should be and start enacting rules to bring that about.  Corporations that do not meet those expectations should be taxed at a higher rate or not be allowed access to the same incentives that Corporations that do. 

As a start, Companies that do not pass an American Content test (US employment and product component percentages) should be made to pay a penalty in the form of a surtax.  All companies closely monitor their employment numbers and their product content makeup so introducing a requirement that they disclose those numbers in their quarterly and annual reports should not result in any additional cost to the corporations.  Such a rule should not impact the small and medium sized businesses that have all or the bulk of their production and employment in the US.

Those who are in bed with the big corporations would decry this proposal as being protectionist.  We must peel away the rhetoric about protectionism and see that not all such rules are necessarily bad – lawyers, doctors and accountants from other countries can’t legally practice their profession in the US unless they have the necessary US training and certification.  Take away those protections and their jobs would quickly be outsourced to lower cost countries as well.

We’ve tried the carrot without the stick approach and we know that it does not work.  Corporations took full advantage of the system and did all they could to make their profits private and their losses public. 

However the winners or the losers of the mid-term elections choose to frame it, the exit polls point out that the real anger at Washington is about bailing out the big corporations at the expense of the American people.  We’ve saved the mega banks, the insurance companies, and the auto-manufacturers and we’ve pumped cheap cash at them but where are the jobs?  US Corporations are reporting higher sales and bigger profits but where are US based jobs?  Retirees who depend on income from their savings have seen interest rates plummet to near zero and they have had to rethink their retirement but where are the jobs for their grandchildren who are entering the workforce?

The late Ted Sorensen, who helped compose JFK’s inaugural address and the exhortation “Ask not what your country can do for you”, once wrote: “Government must give priority to the needs of ordinary citizens, workers, consumers, students, children, the elderly, and the ill, the vulnerable and the underdog, and not to the needs of those already sufficiently powerful and affluent to afford their own lobbyists.”

We all want to live the American Dream.  It should not be an impossible dream or one that is reserved for only the elite and the rich.  Take away the American Dream and you take away the hope of a nation. 

Dear World – a letter from America

Dear World,

Despite what you’ve seen or heard on the news lately, America is not what some fanatics would make it out to be.  Yes, there are the few loose nuts who made the headlines lately with their rants and the rather frightening and unreasoned blabbering.  Please just ignore them. 

Unfortunately, our media (notably our TV media) is constantly and desperately seeking to outdo each other in being the first to air the latest exciting news.  In doing so, some networks have opted for sensationalism and have forgotten what journalism is all about – informing the public of worthwhile news and analyzing, printing or airing topics that are important for the welfare of the nation and the general public.  Topics get old very quickly on a 24-hour TV news cycle and there are insufficient breakthroughs in medical research, weather and climate changes, development of new technologies, etc., to fill up the air time.  In their desperation to stay exciting in order to grab a bigger viewership and more advertising dollars, they have resorted to giving voice to attention seekers of all sorts.  Consequently, more and more TV “news” programs have taken on a tabloid characteristic.  If you are not one to fall for the “exposés” in supermarket tabloids, you shouldn’t fall for all the sensational news items on TV channels either.

Please, look beyond the obvious.  I am a hundred percent sure that if you take a closer look, you will find that there are, in reality, many times more sane people than the insane ones.  It is just that the sane ones aren’t as vocal or they find it harder to get the media’s attention.  On TV, sane and normal are not as audience captivating as the wild and unbelievable.  TV show producers love the “exotic” acts - those who would do anything to get their five minutes of fame in front of a camera.  What’s better for the networks’ bottom line than if they don’t have to pay for those acts?

The early settlers in America had left their homeland for the new world so that they could practice their faith free from the oppressive powers that controlled Europe back then and, when America became an independent nation, the founding fathers of the nation followed that same instinct and spirit of freedom and the authors of the US Constitution entrenched in it certain fundamental rights for all Americans, including the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the freedom to petition.  As a result of such freedoms, we can express our dissent without fear of arrest and incarceration.  Those freedoms, as you may have noted, are essentially freedoms of expression and do not extend to include acts of violence.

We can’t really silence the few individuals who are vocal and whose incantations are welcomed by the media.  We can only seek to expose their falsehood and lies by speaking out (or writing) against them, arguing our case with facts and good logic.  Exercising those same freedoms, some Americans voice their opposition to the offensive speeches through counter demonstrations and marches.  Sadly, there are also those who are in positions of influence and responsibility who choose to remain silent instead of bringing a reasoned voice to the debate. 

Freedom has a price and democracies are messy but the alternatives are oftentimes worse. 

America has shown and continues to show its true heart and compassion when disasters strike in other countries.  With little hesitation, Americans jump in to help rescue and treat victims of earthquakes, Tsunamis, floods, AIDS, and other disasters.  Because we’re essentially a mixed bag of immigrants from all over the world, anytime a disaster happens in some corner of the world, we feel it and we feel engaged and involved.  Although we are American citizens, we treasure the heritage and culture of the countries that we or our parents or their parents came from.

We are a nation of workers and our lives are not very different from yours.  We love our children like you do yours: we clothe and feed them, we send them off to school and we hug them and kiss them goodnight when bedtime comes.  We make mistakes (hopefully not too often) and we try to remedy them.  We do our best to learn from our mistakes and we try not to repeat them.  Sometimes we succeed and other times we fail but we don’t give up on trying.  When we fail, we laugh at ourselves and we try not to take ourselves too seriously.  We cry over the loss of a loved one and we sympathize with others who have experienced a personal loss.  We are excited at the success of someone we know and we root for the ‘underdog’ who is trying to beat the odds and come out on top. 

Our hope is that you will not listen to the few fanatics and false prophets who would exploit the sensitivities of others for their own glorification.  Don’t give credence to them or use the mindless words of the few crazies against all Americans.  Our appeal to you is to tune them out, just as you would tune out those among you who seek only to provoke and to incite others to no good.

Remember: not everything you see on TV or read on the Internet is real. Be sure that there is a hidden plot or lots of clever editing to keep the viewers or readers enthralled.  Just as you have learned to discern what’s real and what’s not on “Reality TV” shows, you must apply the same thought logic to what you see or hear on the news.

“Finally, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is fair, whatever is pure, whatever is acceptable, whatever is commendable, if there is anything of excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy-keep thinking about these things.”

Your friend,

America

[Quote taken from the letter of Paul to the Philippians]

The Power of Perception

A friend recently forwarded me a short story that has probably made its way around the Internet a few times but is nevertheless refreshingly poignant each time I get to read it. 

It goes like this:

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.

"That laundry is not very clean", she said. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:

"Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this."

The husband said, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."

The moral of the story was summed up as follows:

And so it is with life... What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look ...

(In the interest of fairness, the roles in the story can be switched.)

What fascinates me about the story is that it is so appropriate in this “Information Age” which, unfortunately, is filled with an equal or greater amount of Misinformation – distortion of the truth that is designed to mislead.  The Internet has enabled the explosive spread of all types of misinformation, of distorted half-truths and, worst of all, hate speeches – cleverly disguised so that they are not perceived as such, but rather as ‘shocking revelations’, some cross-referenced to external sources to make them appear authentic. 

It is easy for anyone with an agenda to put his or her thoughts up on a Blog and it is even easier to forward an email on a topic that is crafted in a way that pushes across a viewpoint that we favor.  Very easy and, sadly, too dangerous.

We don’t see or hear the word “propaganda” being used much these days.  The specialists prefer the more updated and less derogative term “spin”.  Either word means the same thing: publication and dissemination of distorted information with the objective of misleading.  In Propaganda and Persuasion, the authors Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell defined it as “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”.

Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, once said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it”.  A similar quote “A lie told often enough becomes the truth” is attributed to Lenin, the Father of the Soviet Union.

The intent of spin or propaganda is not simply to change your perception.  The ultimate goal is to get you to act based on those perceptions.  Therein lies the danger of blind faith – believing everything that we read or hear is true WITHOUT taking the time to do some fact finding and weighing the plausibility of the information before us.

Not all of us are born skeptics and we have a natural inclination to believe that other people are, in general, truthful.  That perception of honesty is what scammers and con artists base their schemes on.  They take an element of truth or fact, embellish it with touches of exaggeration and arrive at a story that is believable to the naive and those who, for one reason or another, need those fabrications to be reality.  Look at the supposedly sophisticated individual and institutional investors that put millions of their savings with Bernard Madoff.  Look at the billions lost in the supposedly Triple A rated (investment grade) securities based on sub-prime mortgages and over-inflated asset values.

A decade of economic growth tilted our perception on real-estate values and we ignored the probability that an explosive growth in values is unsustainable and is indicative of a bubble.  Those who came out against the cuts in interest rates as real estate values became over inflated were decried as doomsayers who are anti-American and anti-business.  More spin and lobbying led to loosening of bank regulations and Investment banks were able to take their leverage ratios to uncharted areas, and when that was not enough, moved the risky assets off their balance sheet so that they could go for broke.  Unfortunately, they did and had to be bailed out with taxpayers money.  What about those bonuses that were paid out of the banks’ so called “profits” before they went bust?  The spin they want you to believe is that they earned it and there is no way to for the taxpayers to recover those bonuses – not even if they were based on fraud…?!?!

Beware of the Power of Perception.  The only tool against being misled (yet again) is to spend time evaluating the spin and to research the facts. 

Bring out that power-washer and clean your window….!!