Farber writes: "As a culture, we have been duped into thinking that recycling is enough of a step in the right direction."
Discarded plastic materials block the Vacha Dam, near the Bulgarian town of Krichim, on April 25, 2009. Single-use plastic containers are 'the biggest source of trash' found near waterways and beaches. (photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images)
7 Ways to Launch Your Own Anti-Plastics Movement
By Bibi Farber, Earth Island Journal
26 December 17
e have a whole world of plastic that needs to be replaced with other biodegradable materials. We have come to rely on this indestructible modern material for every single facet of daily life.
The food you ate today was probably sold in plastic packaging, the vehicle you transport yourself in has plastic components, be that a car, bus, bike, train, plane, boat, kayak ... the computer you are reading this article on, even the charger and the wall socket protector … just look around.
It wasn't always this way. We have seen an explosion in the last 65 years. From 1950 to 2013, plastic production went from 1.7 million tons to 300 million tons a year. Then consider that all the plastic that has been produced since its inception is still here. It has not biodegraded, it has not been absorbed by the earth. It is, on the contrary, leaching toxic chemicals and causing destruction to the ecosystem on an unprecedented scale, choking and poisoning our ecological balance.
As a culture, we have been duped into thinking that recycling is enough of a step in the right direction. Certainly, any plastic we can keep out of the landfills and oceans is great, for whatever time that item is reused or recycled. But it simply postpones the plastic's destructive path and does not mitigate the damage. It's estimated only 25 percent of plastic is recycled anyway. The U.S. has one of the lowest overall recycling rates of any developed nation.
Worse, it keeps us consuming the stuff because we believe if we are recycling, it's ok.
It is not ok. According to The Davos Report by the World Economic Forum the oceans will contain, by weight, more plastic than fish by 2050. And, 77 percent of manmade waste that enters the ocean stays at the bottom. The waste enters the oceans via streams, rivers, drainage and all manner of marine vessels and fishing activities. Looking at the water's surface, you'd never know you're looking at a garbage patch. It's the microscopic plastic particles, small as a grain of salt, which fish mistake for food. The damage is vast: There are an estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in every single square mile of the ocean, the United Nations Environment Program reported.
The anti-plastics movement is now evolving from simply recycling. Today the goal is to radically reduce our collective plastic footprint, with a major shift in lifestyle and some promising new earth-friendly materials.
While polystyrene, known as styrofoam, takes thousands of years to decompose, a new mushroom-mycelium packaging made by Ecovative Design, can be disposed of simply by throwing it in the compost where it will biodegrade within weeks. It's solid, does not smell and can be "grown" to fit any package specifications. It's even edible, but perhaps not so tasty! Companies like IKEA and computer giant Dell are already using this amazing product.
2. Hemp
Exciting developments are on the horizon for one of the strongest fibers known to man. Plastic can now be derived from plant cellulose. At least 16 U.S. states have legalized industrial hemp production for commercial purposes and 20 states have passed laws allowing research and pilot programs. Hemp is an extremely efficient crop that grows up to 60 feet in just 90 days. It requires few pesticides and no herbicides.
The company Hemp Plastic has a composite material that can be molded for any number of plastic items. Hemp plastic is said to be 5 times stiffer and 2.5 times stronger than polypropylene plastic, which is used in everything from packaging, to lab equipment and textiles. There are thousands of plastic replacement hemp products on the market right now, including for furniture, electronics, fiberglass and other construction materials. Even door panels of some BMW's, Mercedes and Bugatti are manufactured using a hemp fiber basis.
3. Renewable Wood Pulp
Innovia, headquartered in the United Kingdom created NatureFlex products. They look like any plastic food packaging that one might expect to be used for nuts or dried fruit. However they are made from sustainably sourced, renewable wood pulp. They have a high moisture barrier and are fully biodegradable, even in the ocean. In 2010, the company tested its products in seawater and discovered that nearly all disintegrated within four weeks.
4. Bioplastics
Bioplastics are a new type of plastic made from plants. Though there is much less carbon dioxide produced during production, it does have a product footprint. Bioplastics also release carbon dioxide during the biodegrading process and do not biodegrade easily in all environments. Some in fact, do not biodegrade at all. However, they are less toxic than regular plastics.
5. Make it Package Free
Since we can't easily find products packaged in eco-friendly wood cellulose, hemp or mushroom mycelium in our stores just yet, the best place to start is to be aware of all packaging and make every effort to reduce it.
Beginning in Germany, but now all over the world "packaging free" stores are emerging. These stores are designed to sell items in bulk, from pinto beans to hair conditioner. Just bring your own containers, weigh them, fill them up and pay by the pound as you check out. But we don't have to wait for a new store to open. Many health food stores are implementing this system for the items in the bulk section, so you can say goodbye to hundreds of pounds of extraneous packaging (glass, metal, paper and plastic) right away.
Lauren Singer lives a Zero Waste lifestyle in NYC. She is one of the founders of The Package Free Shop, a retail store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "We offer everything that you'd need to transition to a low waste lifestyle in one place," she says. "For us living a package free life means that we are avoiding single use plastic and disposable products to the best of our ability."
In the store, you will find products like bamboo toothbrushes, re-useable cotton rounds for sustainable make up application and removal, and remember those stainless steel ice trays? Just pull the lever and the ice pops out perfectly every time. They sell steel airtight food containers and glass, organic cotton or bamboo replacements for hundreds of household items. Beauty and personal care products are sold in bulk, and in tins and glass jars. They also ship the goods to you, completely without plastic! All shipping materials are 100 percent recyclable and 100 percent compostable. Even the tape is made of paper.
Search here for packaging free stores in the U.S. and Canada: Litterless
Search here for packaging free stores worldwide: Bepakt
6. Plastic Product Alternatives
Life Without Plastic is another great example of a one stop online shop for safe, high quality ethically sourced, stylish and earth friendly alternatives to plastic products. You can see how to easily replace all that plastic in your kitchen. Use what you have—but there is no need to ever bring home any more.
Take a few minutes to look online at the thousands of new companies now making the plastic free life practical and affordable. Women's make up and personal care products no longer require relentless plastic consumption. How about flip flops made from natural rubber? Purrfect Play makes a whole line of plastic free pet toys.
7. Zero Waste Lifestyle
Zero waste is a term that rallies the goal that all waste will be recycled, composted, repurposed, and preferably never produced in the first place. There are zero waste restaurants and hotels, even stadiums and conference centers. Cities from Buenos Aires to Taiwan to San Francisco have passed zero waste resolutions, with innovative and ambitious plans to reduce consumption, extend recycling, and increase composting.
Zero waste is a revolution in the relationship between waste and people. It is a new way of thinking: There is no "away" when we throw away. We're just parking it somewhere else, at a tremendous cost.
With every purchase you make, consider the importance of the plastic-free future. A few things may cost a few more dollars initially. But the rewards of establishing a new precedent for how we shop, package, eat and consume have never mattered more. When it comes to plastic, it will always be here. Support the alternatives, starting now.
Signing Up for Obamacare After Trump Proclaims It 'Dead'
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=25490"><span class="small">Olga Khazan, The Atlantic</span></a>
Monday, 25 December 2017 15:03
Khazan writes: "Being an insurance-enrollment counselor is difficult in a time of tight budgets and confusion."
Debates and protests over the future of Obamacare were going on just weeks before open enrollment began. (photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Signing Up for Obamacare After Trump Proclaims It 'Dead'
By Olga Khazan, The Atlantic
25 December 17
The difficult job of an insurance-enrollment counselor in a time of tight budgets and confusion
or the six weeks leading up to December 15, the work calendar of Laura Holdrege, a health-care navigator in Salt Lake City, Utah, was booked solid. She and her colleagues at the Utah Health Policy Project worked overtime helping people sign up for insurance on Healthcare.gov.
Because of cuts imposed by the Trump administration, other navigator organizations in the state had reduced their ranks and were sending their clients to Holdrege and her team. She warned some that she could squeeze them in, but they would have to share their appointment with someone else. Toward the end, she ran out of appointment slots and began simply referring people to Healthcare.gov.
When they did sit down for their appointments, some people would ask, “Obamacare is gone, right?”
So went the first full Obamacare open enrollment under President Trump. It was surprisingly strong, with 8.8 million people signing up during the six-week period that ended last week. That’s 96 percent of the total during last year’s open enrollment, which was twice as long.
“These numbers debunk that theory that people don’t want it, that it’s not a good product,” said Emily Barson, a senior adviser with the national group Get America Covered, which assisted the cash-strapped navigators in spreading the word about open enrollment.
It’s also somewhat surprising, given the Trump administration’s many efforts to undermine and besmirch the law that’s named after the president’s predecessor. It slashed funding for advertising about the open-enrollment period and cut grants to navigators. It also halved the enrollment period and shut down Healthcare.gov, the site people use to buy insurance, on several Sundays during open enrollment.
In October, Trump announced he would end payments to insurers, the so-called cost-sharing reductions, that help cover expenses for low-income customers. Without them, some insurers threatened to raise their rates or pull out of the Obamacare marketplaces. That same day, he signed an executive order encouraging the sales of skimpier insurance plans, which could undercut the more robust plans sold by Obamacare.
“Obamacare is finished. It’s dead. It's gone,” Trump said in October—just weeks before open enrollment for Obamacare began.
“That kind of misinformation is very difficult to combat in a state where most people voted for the president and tend to believe the president first,” said Shelli Quenga, the director of programs at a South Carolina navigator organization called the Palmetto Project. To persuade people that Obamacare was not quite dead yet, she would gently walk them through the “window shopping” feature of Healthcare.gov, where they could see plans that were available.
But with half as many navigators as the Palmetto Project could afford in past years, it was tough. Quenga and her colleagues simply couldn’t reach some rural parts of the state. “It makes you sad for people who need information and you know just aren’t going to get it based on where they live,” she said.
Interviews with health-care navigators across eight states this week revealed a frenzied time in which navigators were forced to do more with less. People came in confused about whether their insurance would be cut off midyear. Some received letters quoting premiums that were much higher than they turned out to be. Still, almost all said they saw enrollment figures that were better than expected. (Eleven states have extended deadlines for enrolling; none of the navigators I interviewed were based in those states.)
Before open enrollment starts, navigators go to community events and phone bank to raise awareness about the Affordable Care Act. In some places, they also place radio, TV, and social-media ads. Much of that advertising effort was reduced this year, some said, because of the cuts to their grants.
Holdrege, in Utah, doubled down: She and her colleagues made flyers and spent part of September calling back past clients to tell them to come in during the new, 45-day period.
Others simply pared down the number of counties they worked in, or laid off staff. This year, the Utah Health Policy Project’s budget was cut by 60 percent just a few weeks before the start of open enrollment. “It’s a school superintendent looking at the school year, and not knowing how many teachers he can hire,” Matt Slonaker, the director of the Utah Health Policy Project, said. He said they were told their budgets were cut because of performance, which he found puzzling because they thought they had been performing well. They ended up cutting their navigator ranks in half.
I asked one director of a Missouri program, Catherine Edwards, why her organization opted to remain in the navigator program this year, despite seeing a 62 percent budget cut and the attendant layoffs and gutted social-media presence. Her organization, which otherwise focuses on senior citizens, could have simply sat out open enrollment.
“I tell you what,” she said. “Our case managers and outreach workers are dedicated to helping people in their community live better lives. If we could give people more access to health care, hopefully when they do age, they’ll age more healthily.”
After enrollment starts, navigators guide people through the process of signing up for health insurance, either through in-person appointments or on the phone.
Livbier Pearson, a navigator in Arizona, saw a smaller budget cut, but her team nevertheless worked Monday through Saturday, from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on some days. Her phones had 50 or so voicemails almost the entire six weeks, she said. She and several navigators said they ultimately couldn’t fit in everyone who needed in-person help.
Some people mistook Trump’s ending of the cost-sharing reductions as an end to the tax credits that individuals receive for buying health insurance. Meanwhile, because of a strange quirk in how the law works, the end of the cost-sharing reductions actually made the more generous “gold” plans cheaper this year than skimpier “silver” plans, in some parts of the country.
Leslie Bachurski, a director with the navigator group Consumer Health Coalition in Pittsburgh, had explained to her enrollees that the different metal-tiered plans are like rings—a gold ring is nicer than a silver ring. But she then struggled to explain why something better might cost less than something worse. She settled on, “just for this year, the gold ring is on sale!”
Several navigators said insurers had sent letters to customers quoting them wildly high prices for renewing their policies, potentially because they had overcompensated for the end of the cost-sharing reductions. For some, this created a chilling effect—a needless one, since the prices some of these individuals ultimately paid were much lower.
Sandy Dimick, the director of Get Covered Tennessee in Nashville, forwarded me a letter quoting a woman a monthly premium of $1,242. She said the woman actually paid nothing for her plan when she entered her information into Healthcare.gov. Another letter quoted $1,045 for a policy. That person got a silver plan whose actual premium was also $0, with a $20 deductible.
There was also confusion among people who fell into the Medicaid gap—a salary range, in states that didn’t expand Medicaid, in which people qualify for neither Medicaid nor tax credits to buy insurance. Navigators would try to problem-solve with them, Quenga said, asking if they could visit a low-income clinic or ask someone else to claim them as a dependent.
Though news coverage of the Affordable Care Act throughout the year often made repeal seem like Lazarus—rising from the dead over and over again—it also seemed to inadvertently publicize the law. Slonaker, in Utah, said that if open enrollment had been longer, his organization likely could have enrolled more people. “All this talk about health care made people interested in finding out what the alternatives were,” he said.
Even before the enrollment figures came out, navigators said their phones were ringing off the hook. They said most customers were happy with their plans and their cost, likely because they were getting hefty tax credits to buy them. (Many of those who didn’t qualify for the tax credits faced “a terrible reality,” one Iowa navigator told me, of premiums above $1,000 a month.)
Dimick, in Tennessee, said some of the navigators worked six- and seven-day weeks. One navigator was packing up his desk at a public library, where he had been enrolling customers, late at night on the final day of open enrollment. A woman came running in. She had been driving by the library when an NPR report about open enrollment came on.
“She thought she still had until the end of January,” Dimick said. He enrolled her in a plan with a very low premium. “She started crying and said, ‘Oh my gosh, to think that I almost missed this.’”
Burmila writes: "Though he probably doesn't realize it, Trump benefits from doing so many ridiculous things that his crises steal attention from each other."
President Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions. (photo: Getty Images)
The Year of Being Completely Overwhelmed by Trump
By Ed Burmila, Rolling Stone
25 December 17
Though he probably doesn't realize it, Trump benefits from doing so many ridiculous things that his crises steal attention from each other
ey, remember that time Donald Trump revealed classified intelligence from an American ally to the Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office?
You probably don't, and who can blame you? It happened nearly nine months ago, on March 23rd, and nine months is an eternity with this administration. But the amount of time that's passed is not the only reason you've put that incident out of your mind. There is a limit to how much we can focus on at once – and under Trump, the news cycles come at us so quickly and in such quantity that no single issue stays at the forefront for very long. A story about the president mishandling classified information – wasn't he accusing his opponent of that during the election? – and jeopardizing the relationship we have with allied countries is a big deal. It demands attention. Yet now it is just one of a mountain of scandals, mishaps and inanities that have piled up so high that focusing on any single event becomes a challenge.
Trump is like an assembly linethat cranks out new feuds, crises and headlines. If it's not classified info, it's Charlottesville. Or North Korea. Or kneeling NFL players. Or trade with China. Or terrorism. Or racist tweets about terrorism. Or the wall. Or Iran. Or repealing Obamacare. Or feuding on Twitter like a hyperactive teenager. Nothing gets the attention it would in calmer times, because every day brings several new "What the hell is happening?" moments.
Though he probably doesn't realize it, Trump benefits from doing so many bizarre and ridiculous things that they steal attention from each other. In many cases, the most egregious things he says are conveniently timed to take attention away from more serious issues – see his recent "Pocahontas" comments overshadowing debate about the tax bill in Congress or the controversy over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Trump has flummoxed academics, journalists and commentators attempting to fit him into the historical context of the presidency. Collectively, we appear unable to decide if Trump is some kind of strategic mastermind or so random and impulsive that even he doesn't know what he will say or do next.
But if this year is any indication, there is no multidimensional chess strategy playing out in his head. Looking at the Trump presidency day by day shows no strategy or plan of any kind. It looks on paper exactly how it has felt to live through: one crisis after another, with little time for rest or reflection. It is a car that is constantly veering off the road, and we have to fight so hard to keep from going over the edge that it's not easy to remember where we've been.
To illustrate that point, below are just some of the embarrassing, incomprehensible or flat-out stupid things from the first ten months of the Trump presidency that received a great deal of attention, but only for a very short time. This list may seem long, but it's only the barest sketch of the edifice of madness we now inhabit; a comprehensive one would be the size of a phone book. (Many thanks to TrumpWatch for helping me on this journey.)
February 12th: He conducts sensitive nuclear diplomacy with the Japanese prime minister (in response to a North Korean missile launch) in the open at his golf resort where his rich friends can see him.
March 4th: He accuses Barack Obama of wiretapping him. Spoiler: He didn't.
March 4th: Trump starts a Twitter feud with Arnold Schwarzenegger over ratings for The Apprentice. Arnold proposes they switch jobs. There is a momentary glimmer of hope that Trump might say yes.
April 14th: He drops a really, really big bomb on Afghanistan. Nothing is accomplished, unless you count giving every Duck Dynasty fan in the country an erection.
April 26th: He announces that the U.S. will withdraw from NAFTA, then reverses that decision when he learns what withdrawing from NAFTA would mean.
May 23rd: Signs the Book of Remembrance at Yad Vashem as if it is a high school yearbook, calling it "amazing," because that is one of the six adjectives he knows.
July 31st:Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci is fired ten days into his job as communications director, answering the question of whether a fourth-rate Sopranos extra could succeed as communications director.
Anyone else feel the anxiety build as you read through the list? I find myself googling "horse tranquilizers online free shipping" by the end.
And this is just the relatively minorstuff. It doesn't include inciting nuclear war with North Korea or threatening to sic the Justice Department on private citizens – or the cronies, hangers-on and bag men Trump has appointed to positions of power. Or that Supreme Court justice we'll have to live with for the next 40 years.
Taxes on liquor are likely to be rolled back by Congress in the near future, and not a moment too soon. If this is "winning," then, to paraphrase Plutarch, another year of winning such as this one and we are done for.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
Monday, 25 December 2017 13:00
Pierce writes: "Charity and good fellowship and concern for the less fortunate are the reason we built this country."
Salvation Army. (photo: Getty Images)
I Stand With Scrooge's Nephew
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
25 December 17
Charity and good fellowship and concern for the less fortunate are the reason we built this country.
s it happens, at midweek next, that song will become more than simply speculative, at least to me. An odd thought struck me recently that, given the state of things and the distance we’ve come since the Year of Our Lord 1953, the developments we chronicle here every day will have ramifications that I may not be around to see. This is the first time this ever occurred to me, at least so vividly. Maybe I won’t be around to see the entire sweep of the damage being done at the moment, or the entire effort it is going to take to repair it, somewhere down the line. It was not an unsettling thought, just an odd bit of mental flotsam caught up in the jetstream of daily events. It passed almost as soon as it arrived.I always loved the older carols, the ones that straddle the line between the sacred and the secular, the ones that summon up visions of light snow swirling in the yellow light of gas lamps as the night falls, and people in scarves and mufflers running to and fro while sidewalks choirs and street musicians play. It was an older time, crueler in many ways than the romances of the period would indicate. (A toast to Dickens, who saw through so much of it.) Christmas has survived so many things. It has endured bloody folly and the vicious ignorance of men and nations. It has defeated, in a hundred small ways, the faceless onslaught of commercialism and the steady pounding it takes every year from the relentless forces of greed and stupidity.This is only one of the ways the whole War on Christmas trope is meaningless. That war ended in 1681, when the Puritans here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) got knuckled into rescinding the law banning the celebration of what those grim, walking ice sculptures called “Foolstide." (An offense against this statute cost any jolly old miscreant five shillings, the price of five chickens.) Nevertheless, the humorless old gombeens hung on; in 1711, Cotton Mather deplored,
"I hear of a Number of young People of both Sexes, belonging, many of them, to my Flock, who have had on the Christmasnight, this last Week, a Frolick, a revelling Feast, and Ball, which discovers their Corruption, and has a Tendency to corrupt them yett more.”
Oh, shut yer gob, why don't you?But the victory became a rout only in 1856, when Massachusetts finally declared it a public holiday. By then, of course, the Irish had arrived in Boston by the boatload, the way the French finally showed up at Yorktown. Christmas won.
There isn’t a lot more to say. The country has voted itself into a very strange place. It has shanghaied itself, taken itself hostage, turned itself into Sheriff Bart upon arrival in Rock Ridge, holding a gun to its own head while making a getaway from an angry mob. Either we will find a way out of this situation or sink deeper into it. The former requires us to cut loose from many of our most cherished delusions. The latter requires that we invest even more faith in them. I think the answer to this dilemma lies in how you react to this touching holiday commercial. For myself, I think it’s very moving that the people who made this ad showed so much respect for the Yuletide traditions of North Korea.But there is hope. I saw it in Washington the day after the Inauguration, and in Nebraska, out in the fields out of which nobody's been able to carve a pipeline yet, and, most recently, in Alabama, where I spent an evening at what was undoubtedly the happiest election-night party I've ever attended. All that happiness, and surrounded at Christmastime, too.
There is nothing wrong with unbridled joy. That's the bug that got up all those tight Puritan asses in the years before immigration made Boston the great place that it is—and, not coincidentally, made America the great place that it is, too. Foolstide? You damn betcha, Winthrop. Gonna sing. Gonna dance. (Gotta dance!) Gonna wassail ourselves silly.Also, by god and the boar's head, we're going to remember that charity, and good fellowship, and a decent concern for the less fortunate, for the ones that find it hardest to sing and to dance, and who can't afford the cost of a good wassail, are not the simply the reason for the season, but that they're the reason this country was founded in the first place. In 1856, when the push to make Christmas a public holiday in the Commonwealth (God save it!) was nearing the finish line, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that the ice-encrusted personality of the old colony had melted away for good.
"We are in a transition state about Christmas here in New England. The old Puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so.”
And that process goes merrily along, despite the modern heirs to Cotton Mather, and despite the best efforts of public events and public people to snuff out the light of the candle in the window, not only here at the shebeen, but in a thousand other places. In the homes of the Dreamers, who wonder what the next knock on the door will bring. In the places where the opioid crisis has clear-cut a generation, and in the cold places of the north, where the ice is no more, and in all the places where parents look on the happy faces of their children and pray that the year will not bring catastrophic illness or crippling debt. As the Ghost of Christmas Present tells the slowly thawing miser in his charge:
“What place is this?” asked Scrooge.
“A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,” returned the Spirit. “But they know me. See!”
A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song—it had been a very old song when he was a boy—and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.
However, as always, I stand with Scrooge’s nephew.
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
Merry Christmas, happy solstice, jolly midwinter festival, Nollaig shona duit, to you all. Be well and play nice. Stay above the snake-line, and God bless us all, every one.
FOCUS: How #MeToo Can Help Right America's Wrongs in 2018
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=38164"><span class="small">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter</span></a>
Monday, 25 December 2017 11:30
Abdul-Jabbar: "Silence breeds further oppression, so if we want 2018 to be the year of kicking ass rather than groping it, we will have to raise our voices for every group who faces injustice: people of color, women, immigrants, Muslims, the LGBTQ community and anyone else being marginalized by those in power."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (photo: Getty Images)
How #MeToo Can Help Right America's Wrongs in 2018
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter
25 December 17
Sexism, racism and attacks on dissent made an ugly return in 2017, but the movement could make next year the "year of kicking ass rather than groping it," writes the NBA great and THR columnist.
an, 2017 has been the Tommy Wiseau of the century. A whole year of our short stay on Earth has been hijacked by a cast of clueless characters so tone- and times-deaf that they’ve made America look like the national road company version of The Room (“You’re tearing me apart!”). These disaster artists are dominating not only politics but, worse, our pop culture, which acts as the prophetic entrails of our country’s cultural and social future. And right now, those are some pretty grim gizzards.
The end-of-year party theme for 2017 is the long overdue Abuse of Power for Idiots. Although producer-in-an-open-robe Harvey Weinstein and President Trump (“Make America Grope Again”) have diametrically opposed political views, they are united in their belief that power over others is a license, even a duty, to exploit them. That’s not the worst part. The worst part is uncovering how many people have been, and still are, complicit in enabling the abuse despite their glib denials. If you’re at all wondering if I’m referring to you, then yes, I am.
The year 2017 was like time-traveling back to the ’50s, an era when most Americans had blind faith in government, parents, religion and Big Business. Father knew best, both figuratively and literally. Women were fashionable accessories, college students were pennant-waving boosters of the status quo, blacks were keeping their heads down, gays were in denial or hiding. And everyone except Ban the Bomb bums and civil rights agitators were patriots. Those White Fathers in power had only our best interests at heart, and anyone who suggested otherwise was a communist sympathizer bent on destroying the American Way of Life.
A simple life for the simple-minded. If you think that sounded good, then yes, I am referring to you.
That docile, complacent Ghost of America Past that Trump and his GOP cronies are trying so desperately to conjure is, to the rest of us, the racist, misogynist, homophobic demon we are desperate to exorcise. They act without shame, supporting accused child molesters for the Senate, passing tax bills that they know benefit the rich over the poor or middle class, aggressively seeking to restrict the constitutional rights of minorities, women, immigrants and the LGBTQ community, all in the smarmy pursuit of personal political power over conscience or patriotism.
Trump is to American values what Bizzaro Superman is to reality: a twisted parody of all that Americans hold dear, a clownish court jester who lacks the intelligence, integrity and self-awareness to see, or care about, the damage he’s doing. According to The Washington Post, in his first 298 days, Trump made 1,628 false or misleading statements. Is the America of 2017 no longer demanding truth from elected officials? Is it just too much effort for us to do as Thomas Jefferson advised? “If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances, out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations.” Well, this is the worst situation. Will we do what is right in 2018?
One bright ray of hope that we are capable of doing what is right has been demonstrated by the #MeToo movement. Pulling sexual predators out of the slimy shadows and thrusting them into the harsh, unrelenting light of public scrutiny has elevated the power of women against those who would diminish them. It has raised awareness among all men, even staunch supporters of women’s equality, who can undoubtedly recall a time or two when they acted or spoke to a woman in a way that was not appropriate. It has eliminated the typical male excuses from our social lexicon: “I was just kidding.” “Can’t you take a joke?” “You’re not even my type.” “You were coming on to me.” And all the other desperate and defensive phrases that need to be publicized so they will never be used again.
Another sign of American defiance in the face of political and social oppression is the mass protests by athletes, from high school to the pros. These protests fulfill Americans’ glorious past as a people determined to fight for what is right. From women’s suffrage to worker’s unions to civil rights to anti-war, Americans have used public protest to inform one another about injustices, at grave personal risk, in order to eliminate those injustices. Colin Kaepernick may be the face of such protests because he has been singled out for punishment by the NFL, but he has inspired dozens of players, coaches and owners in the NFL, NBA, WNBA and, to a lesser extent, the NHL and MLB. It is a joy to see so many embrace their responsibility as role models to kids and as members of the community.
The backlash already has begun. Women speaking out about harassment are called liars by celebrities and politicians. Sports organizations are trying to muzzle athletes from expressing themselves because they say sports is no place for political commentary. Yet they play the national anthem and have military displays that clearly express political opinion. Only the oppressed, mostly people of color who actually have reason to speak out, are being told to hold their tongues.
Silence breeds further oppression, so if we want 2018 to be the year of kicking ass rather than groping it, we will have to raise our voices for every group who faces injustice: people of color, women, immigrants, Muslims, the LGBTQ community and anyone else being marginalized by those in power who look at us with eyes, as W.B. Yeats wrote, “as blank and pitiless as the sun.”
I watched the incredibly moving viral video in which tearful middle schooler Keaton Jones recounts school bullies physically and emotionally harassing him and wonders why they do it. With a catch in his voice, he wonders what can be done about them. “Stay strong, I guess. It’ll probably get better one day,” he says unconvincingly, turning away from the camera as he weeps. Immediately, there was an outpouring of support from celebrities, politicians and athletes. I couldn’t help but think that’s where America is now, being bullied by some pretty ruthless villains. We can’t just hope things will get better one day, we have to make them better now. Together.
(Since the video was released, questions about Keaton’s parents’ racial views have been raised. That doesn’t make him being victimized less wrong or harrowing. Maybe that’s even more reason for us to rally around him, to show him the America we can make it.)
On HBO’s The Newsroom, anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) laments the America that has lost much of its greatness by describing the people we used to be when we were at our peak: “We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons, we passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons, we waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors. We put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. ... We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it, it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in our last election, and we didn’t scare so easy.”
Let’s make 2018 the year we don’t scare so easy and strive to become those people once again.
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e have a whole world of 
or the six weeks leading up to December 15, the work calendar of Laura Holdrege, a health-care navigator in Salt Lake City, Utah, was booked solid. She and her colleagues at the Utah Health Policy Project worked overtime helping people sign up for insurance on Healthcare.gov.
ey, remember that time Donald Trump revealed classified intelligence from an American ally to the Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office?
s it happens, at midweek next, that song will become more than simply speculative, at least to me. An odd thought struck me recently that, given the state of things and the distance we’ve come since the Year of Our Lord 1953, the developments we chronicle here every day will have ramifications that I may not be around to see. This is the first time this ever occurred to me, at least so vividly. Maybe I won’t be around to see the entire sweep of the damage being done at the moment, or the entire effort it is going to take to repair it, somewhere down the line. It was not an unsettling thought, just an odd bit of mental flotsam caught up in the jetstream of daily events. It passed almost as soon as it arrived.I always loved the older carols, the ones that straddle the line between the sacred and the secular, the ones that summon up visions of light snow swirling in the yellow light of gas lamps as the night falls, and people in scarves and mufflers running to and fro while sidewalks choirs and street musicians play. It was an older time, crueler in many ways than the romances of the period would indicate. (A toast to Dickens, who saw through so much of it.) Christmas has survived so many things. It has endured bloody folly and the vicious ignorance of men and nations. It has defeated, in a hundred small ways, the faceless onslaught of commercialism and the steady pounding it takes every year from the relentless forces of greed and stupidity.This is only one of the ways the whole 
an, 2017 has been the Tommy Wiseau of the century. A whole year of our short stay on Earth has been hijacked by a cast of clueless characters so tone- and times-deaf that they’ve made America look like the national road company version of The Room (“You’re tearing me apart!”). These disaster artists are dominating not only politics but, worse, our pop culture, which acts as the prophetic entrails of our country’s cultural and social future. And right now, those are some pretty grim gizzards.
