Something Rotten in America Is Coming This Way

08 Jan 2026 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

“Something Wicked This Way Comes” is a 1962 dark fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury.  It tells the story of  two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, in Green Town, Illinois, who confront the sinister Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show.  The show is part of a malevolent carnival that preys on people’s secret desires and fears.  Jim and Will are forced to battle evil and examine the nature of good and evil, youth and aging.  The title comes from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, and the story explores themes of good vs. evil, the fear of growing old, and the cost of wishes.

Macbeth is the story of a man driven by ambition and a lust for power to murder his king and seize his throne.  Like Bradbury’s novel, it is also a tale of good and evil.  The famous quote is “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” It is spoken by the Second Witch in Act 4, Scene 1, as she senses Macbeth’s evil approach, indicating his profound moral corruption even to supernatural beings.  Someone once noted that most great stories involve a battle between good and evil.  Fiction mimics reality.

The famous Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln also described a battle between good and evil and the sacrifice made to restore good.

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The cause was the elimination of the evil of slavery and racial discrimination, and the continuation of a nation built on the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Values that were not allowed to be held by a significant portion of Americans specifically Black people, Indigenous people but also including women, gay people, Asian people, and many immigrant groups

Today, the thought rings in my mind that “Something rotten comes this way.”  Yes, a paraphrase of the Bradbury quote but it has a somewhat different meaning to me.  Something rotten smells and stinks in our country.  Carved into a White House mantel is a quote by John Adams, “May none but honest and wise men rule under this roof.”  Today something is rotten in the White House.  The foul and putrid odor has spread to the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress.  Wise men search for the odor but cannot agree on its source.  When something is smelly we generally assume that it is rotten.  Hence my reflection that “Something rotten comes this way.”  It has been coming for a long time, but the stench and fetid smell have now become unbearable.  From the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the top of Mt. Whitney in California, the rank fumes are causing people to gag and vomit and leave our country.

What is the source of this rottenness?  The smell comes from an ever-enlarging foundation of greed and narcissism that has replaced integrity and morality.  From the pulpits of many so-called Christian churches to the podiums of our once great universities, Americans are now baptized or given diplomas in greed, avarice and opportunism.  Increasingly, cowards roam the halls of Congress where statesmen once tread.  Too many of our leaders lack morals or integrity.

Sycophants earn positions as heads of government with no qualifications except an unscrupulous ability to kiss ass.  The media daily screams headlines that defy logic and comprehension while profits for news conglomerates soar to ever higher peaks.  Meanwhile, the information contained in media broadcasts bears scant resemblance to the reality that most of us face.  Lying is the norm and has become one more strategy in a congressperson’s arsenal.  A stew of lies daily spread by the internet and its media minions.   None of us can escape complicity in this economy as we all breath its rotten air.

Something rotten comes this way:

How can we expunge this rottenness?  Will singing Kumbaya work?  Will hands across the aisles work?  Will prayers and thoughts work?  Will more empathy work?  What about better communication?  What about more people going to college to get educated?  What about doing away with Social Security and replacing it with Stock Portfolios?  What about more guns?  What about?  Sorry, I am out of simple solutions.  None of these so-called solutions work because they do not confront the real problem.  The golden idol that makes money the measure of all good things in life.  It may be possible to stop the spread of this rot, but it will take a change of heart as well as a change of mind.  Many of my friends ask me if it is not too late.

I only know one thing.  Unless we change the path that we are heading down, we can kiss democracy in America goodbye.  The rottenness will eventually infect the entire nation until we are left with nothing but a country of cowards, sycophants, greedy merchants and greedy consumers.  People who will continually lie to get ahead.  People with no goals except to consume the latest do-dads in hopes of becoming happier and more satisfied with their lives.

Ironic that so many Americans want to go down this path, since not one great prophet in history has preached that owning more stuff will either make you happy or get you into heaven.  Nevertheless, today we have Christian churches preaching the “Prosperity Gospel.”  A narrative that has millions of followers subscribing to a bastardization of every great scripture that has ever been written.

The prosperity gospel teaches that faith, positive confession, and financial giving to religious leaders will bring the giver personal wealth, health, and success.  It portrays material prosperity as due to God’s favor and poverty or illness as evidence of weak faith or spiritual failure.  The Prosperity Gospel is a Super Con because it monetizes hope, blames failure on the believer, and shields itself from disproof.  People buy into it because it promises certainty and reward in an unfair economy.  It exploits vulnerability, fear, and selective success stories to convince “true believers” that it is a Christian teaching.

Robert Tilton: “I believe that it is the will of God for all to prosper because I see it in the Word… I do not put my eyes on men, but on God who gives me the power to get wealth”.

Creflo Dollar: “When we pray, believing that we have already received what we are praying, God has no choice but to make our prayers come to pass”.

John Avanzini: “Jesus had a nice big house”, “Jesus wore designer clothes”, “Jesus was handling big money”.

Joel Osteen: “If you want to reap financial blessings, you have to sow financially”. He also states, “I believe God wants you to prosper in your health, in your family, in your relationships, in your business, and in your career”.

Oral Roberts:  “Sow a seed on your MasterCard, your Visa or your American Express, and then when you do, expect God to open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing.”

Friends, the only solution that will save our country along with our immortal souls is to defeat the basic tenets of corporate capitalism and to cast out the evangelists of hypocrisy who spread such false gospels as the “Prosperity Gospel.”  The corruption that we see in the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Universities, the Media and many so-called Christian Churches is a symptom of the rot that is associated with our predatory avaricious Corporate Capitalistic system.

Corporate Capitalism itself must be understood as a mindless media driven machine that puts profits over virtue.  A system in which the greater needs of society are no longer the recognized or given any priority.  All that is rotten today in America today can be traced to greed and avarice.  The same motivations that caused the Israelites to build the Golden Calf.  The Golden Calf still stands—no longer forged of gold but of brands, markets, and corporate power.  We bow to consumption, give obedience to profit, and keep silent to wrongdoing in exchange for comfort and toys.  We mistake greed for progress and idolatry for economic necessity.  We do not need a rejection of markets but a rejection of markets without moral and ethical anchors.

The late Pope Francis is quoted as saying that:

“From an economic point of view, it is irrelevant to produce tanks, or candy provided the profit is the same.  Similarly, it might be the same to sell drugs or sell books if the profit figures match.  If the measure of value is money, everything goes provided that the profit does not vary.  The measure of every human being is God, not money.”

Money becomes the measure of good and evil.  Money becomes the measure of a person’s value and even life.  Today, the religion of America has become “How can I get more money.”  The true prophets throughout history have always preached the potential dangers of focusing on accruing either wealth or fame.

Christianity (Jesus): “No one can serve two masters. … You cannot serve both God and money.”

Islam (Prophet Muhammad, Hadith): “Riches are not the abundance of worldly goods; rather, true riches are the richness of the soul.”

Judaism (Talmudic/Midrashic Thought): “The truly rich are those who are satisfied with what they have.”

Baha’i Faith (Baháʼu’lláh): “Material comforts are only a branch, but the root of the exaltation of man is the good attributes and virtues which are the adornments of his reality.”

Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota): “I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation.  We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right.  Riches would do us no good.  We could not take them with us to the other world.  We do not want riches.  We want peace and love.”

If we want to rid our nation of the rottenness and stench that is rapidly covering it, we must rid ourselves of the obsession that capitalism seeks to instill in us with every media at their disposal and every commercial that they can provide.  It is an obsession to own more, to possess more, to have more, to buy more, to shop until we drop.  You can have a heart attack so long as you have spent your last dollar.  Christmas has become $Mas.  Our world has become one big shopping mall.  We are speeding on a spending train to oblivion.  Next stop HELL. 

What Can We Do?

If the disease is moral, the response must be moral as well.   We must all:

  • Refuse to lie or accept lies
    • Reject those who tell lies to get ahead for any reason
  • Refuse to worship money and wealth
    • Reject anything to do with the “Prosperity Gospel”
  • Refuse to relate success with goodness
    • Teach that success is not always associated with morality or doing the right thing
  • Teach our children to be responsible
    • Responsibilities are as important as rights. Develop children who accept responsibility for their lives
  • Choose sufficiency over excess
    • Corporate Capitalism thrives on “wretched” excess. Ask yourself what you really need to be happy not what some commercial tells you that you need.

The single most important thing we can all do is to get off the spending train.  Substitute empathy for others for greed.  Substitute kindness for strangers and immigrants instead of suspicion and hatred.  Substitute charity for all for a desire for more stuff and more toys for oneself.  Substitute compassion for the poor and the needy instead of worrying about what you are going to get.  Substitute mercy and forgiveness for hatred and retribution.

Above all remember that we are all one people.  There are about 180 or more countries in the world.  Karen and I have only been to 45 now, but we have found that everyone in every country that we have been to want the same things:  Meaning for their lives.  Peace for their nation.  Safety for their families.  A decent place to live.  A good meal each day.

We must embrace the idea that everyone is entitled to these elements of a satisfactory life and not just people in our circle or community or nation.  People in every country of every color of every religion and of every political and economic philosophy deserve the same thing.  Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  

The Epidemic of Selfishness in America

24 Oct 2025 14 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Introduction:

We are living through a moral epidemic.  An epidemic of selfishness.  Selfishness has become the new normal — disguised as independence, celebrated as authenticity.  In the moral epidemic of which I speak, we are plagued by not one but several symptoms.  Selfishness is a disease that can be seen in many manifestations.  In this blog, I want to explore how ego, narcissism, ingratitude, denial of responsibilities, entitlement, demand for rights, and isolation are each contributing to a disease that is redefining the American character.  The remedy may lie in reviving gratitude, duty, responsibilities and connection.

A few nights ago, I went to a Hobby Lobby store with Karen.  She needed to pick up some quilt squares for her Thursday quilting guild.  Each week they have a contest, and the prize is a bundle of fat quarters provided by all the members.  They change the color of the fat quarters that members must bring to each meeting.  I left the store early and told Karen that I would wait for her in the car.  The parking lot was mostly dark and deserted.  As I walked to my car, I noticed that there was about a dozen or so shopping carts just randomly scattered around the lot.

I assumed that there were no cart bins available but upon further looking around, I noticed many bins where you could leave a shopping cart.  Instead, customers had just dropped the carts anywhere they wanted to.  As it was late at night, it would be really easy to hit one of these carts either by backing into them or hitting them as you tried to pull out of the parking lot.  This fact did not matter to the individuals who were TOO LAZY to just push their carts over to a bin and drop them off.

Karen is normally a very positive person.  When she came back to the car, I pointed the situation with the carts out to her.  I challenged her to find some “Good Reason” that these customers could not just push their carts over to an available bin.  My suggested reasons, “They were in a hurry and had to get to an emergency ward.”  “They needed to get to the airport, and they were late.”  “They did not have time to find one of the available bins to put their carts in because the football game was starting.”  “They were being chased by predators who wanted their Hobby Lobby stuff.”   “They were blind, or it was too dark to see the bins.”  These were my facetious reasons.  Karen laughed at my lame attempt at humor.  My conclusion:  Lazy and Selfish.    

Ego:

The age of the collective has given way to the empire of the self.  Every opinion feels sacred, every desire urgent.  Technology, consumerism, and politics all whisper the same message: “You deserve everything, instantly”.  But when self-interest becomes the ultimate good, the moral commons collapses. “You do your thing, and I do my thing” was part of the famous Gestalt prayer by Fritz Perls that became popular in the 70’s.  The attitude behind this prayer has morphed into the epidemic we see today where “shopping till you drop” and “he who has the most toys wins” now defines our National character.  A character suffused by obsession for buying things to help build our egos up.  But it is not enough to have more, our toys have to be bigger and better.  Better is defined by the brand name stamped on the purchase or the neighborhood that you live in.  Bigger is a 60-inch color tv or a car with 900 hp or a house with five bathrooms or a  Wendy’s Pretzel Bacon Pub Triple with 1530 calories.

Narcissism:

Narcissism is the psychological heart of the new selfishness.  My friend Bruce has mentioned this a million times to me whenever we discuss Trump and his followers.  I concede that it now exists and is more pervasive than at any time in history.  “I matter more than you do.”  “I am more important than you are.”  The unflattering title of a “Karen” (my wife’s name is Karen) is depicted in thousands of short videos and TV shows such as “Bridezilla” where a would-be bride is screaming “It’s all about me, it’s all about me.”  This has become our national motto, “It’s all about me.”

Narcissism feeds on admiration but rejects intimacy.  The narcissist seeks reflection, not relationship — an audience, not a community.  Social validation replaces self-knowledge, and performance replaces sincerity.  We have built a society of mirrors where no one truly sees anyone else.  In Greek mythology,  Narcissus was a strikingly beautiful young man who rejected the love of others.  He sat all day looking at himself in a pool of water and thought how beautiful he was.  He fell in love with himself.  Punished by the gods for his vanity, he wasted away out of despair because he could not be with his love.  Our country is wasting away from a virus that seems to be pervasive.  A virus of narcissism.  But it is only one of several symptoms killing us.

Ingratitude:

It took me over thirty Jesuit retreats to finally notice a quote by Saint Ignatius Loyola.  Loyola said that  “Ingratitude is the sin most offensive to Heaven.  It is the cause, beginning, and origin of all sins and misfortunes as it is the forgetting of God’s blessings and gifts.”  He described it as “The most abominable of sins”. 

The more I reflected on this thought, the more I realized exactly what he meant.  Ingratitude corrodes the soul from within.  It blinds us to the gifts of others, the sacrifices of those who came before, and the simple blessings of daily life.  When we stop saying “thank you”, we begin to believe that everything owed to us was earned — and that no one else deserves the same.  Gratitude is the soil of empathy; ingratitude is a cancerous rot.

I try to remind myself each day of the need for gratitude.  It is not always an easy virtue to arouse.  In these challenging times, it can seem to me that I have little to be grateful for.  I would never have believed forty years ago that I (WE) would have had to deal with Climate Change, a major Covid Epidemic, Trumpism and now heart problems, all in my seventies.  I once thought that like any good cowboy or cowgirl, I would simply ride off into the sunset after years of a peaceful meditative retirement.  Added to my woes is the fact that our national character seems to be eroding and replaced with a desire for a despot who would be king.

Denial of Responsibilities:

Freedom divorced from responsibility is not liberty; it is chaos.  We live in an era where accountability feels like oppression to many people.  People say that they hate the government. “Too much big government” is a rallying cry for right-wing fanatics.  Civic, moral, and even legal obligations are dismissed as optional, or outdated.  How many people do you see running green lights or ignoring posted speed limits these days?

Thus, we have the movement for “Less government.”  Let’s obliterate the agencies and organizations that might hold us responsible for something.  But something is always overlooked when it is convenient to make money or power.  How many people have ever been prosecuted for the preventable disaster that we call “Climate Change?”  Denial of responsibility led to continued use of fossil fuels which accelerated any potential changes in our global climate.  Denial of responsibility breaks the invisible threads that hold society together: trust, reliability, and mutual care.  “I don’t care what my thirst for money does to you as long as it benefits me!”

Entitlement:

“Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants.  When we think that we are automatically entitled to something, that is when we start walking all over others to get it.” — ― Criss Jami

Entitlement is selfishness institutionalized.  It is a step beyond responsibility.  Now I am not only irresponsible, but I am entitled to be irresponsible.  I have a legal right to be irresponsible.  It is my right to leave my shopping cart wherever the hell I want to.  I bought a product at this store.  This entitles me to do whatever I want with this shopping cart.  It is the conviction that one’s desires are moral imperatives.  The entitled person measures fairness by outcomes, not effort; comfort, not contribution.  When entitlement becomes culture, excellence disappears — because effort no longer earns respect.  It is taken for granted that some people are born superior and effort has nothing to do with success or failure.

Demand for Rights:

I want my rights.  I want my rights!  It is my right!  I know my rights!  Everywhere you look today someone is screaming about their rights.  I learned years ago (I wrote a blog about this issue) from Sister Giovanni of Guadalupe Area Project, that for every right there is a responsibility.  Have you heard anyone screaming for their responsibilities?

The modern cry is for rights — to speak, to choose, to consume, to be seen — but rarely for the responsibility that sustains those rights.  Rights without duties are like currency without value.  When everyone demands and no one contributes; liberty itself becomes unsustainable.  A functioning democracy requires not just the assertion of rights, but the acceptance of responsibilities.  See the short film on “Indigenous Rights vs Responsibilities” for a refreshing view of the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w43j30S1yDI

Isolation — The Logical End

Isolation and loneliness are epidemics of their own in America today.  A Cigna Group survey from June 2025 found that more than half (57%) of Americans are lonely.  Data shows that the amount of time the average American spends alone has increased significantly over the past decades, while time spent socializing with friends has decreased — “Why are we so lonely?”— by John Wolfson, Winter 2024, Boston Magazine

When ego, narcissism, ingratitude, entitlement, and denial of responsibility take root, the harvest is isolation.  When I count and you don’t count, I become estranged from you.  When I live in a community where there are insiders and outsiders, I become distant from humanity.  Back porches have replaced front porches in America.  I can walk down a village street or sit on my front step and not see anyone come by for hours.  We may live side by side with so-called neighbors, but we feel profoundly alone.  Digital life gives us constant connection but no communion.  Isolation breeds despair, polarization, and apathy — subtle diseases beneath our prosperity.

Conclusion — The Return of the Connected Self

The cure for selfishness is not suppression of the self but expansion of it — seeing the self as part of a larger whole.  To belong but not to a group of xenophobic fanatics.  To see the value of Inclusiveness not exclusiveness, diversity not homogeneity.  To see all people as equal before the law.  The foundations of DEI which seem so despised by people on the right .  We rediscover meaning when we give, not when we grasp.

Jesus gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Sermon on the Mount to remind us to take care of others.  It is still better to give than to receive.  In the New Testament of the Bible, (Acts 20:35), the apostle Paul recalls these words of Jesus.  “In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive'”

To rebuild our moral ecology, we must learn again the language of gratitude, duty, humility, and compassion.  You can start by reading any of the following works by the late Pope Francis: Whether you are Christian, Atheist, Buddhist, I think you will find some useful ideas in these writings.

  • The Name of God Is Mercy
    • Pope Francis emphasizes that God’s primary attribute is mercy, not judgment. He encourages the Church to become a “field hospital” for the wounded, emphasizes human sin, invites humble openness to forgiveness, and urges believers to extend compassion and reconciliation to all.
  • Fratelli Tutti – (All Brothers):
    • Published in 2020, this encyclical addresses fraternity and social friendship, calling for greater solidarity on a global scale.
  • Laudato Si’ – (Praise Be to You):
    • Published in 2015, this encyclical focuses on environmental issues and our responsibility to care for the Earth
  • Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future
    • Pope Francis’s “Let Us Dream” urges readers to see crises—like the pandemic—as opportunities for moral renewal and solidarity. He calls for compassion, social justice, environmental care, and inclusive reform, inviting humanity to rebuild a more equitable, sustainable, and spiritually grounded world guided by conscience and the common good.

The age of the isolated self and the Disease of Selfishness can end only when we remember that: “When I am not the center of the universe, people become human.”

PS: This Epidemic of Selfishness is the heart of the leadership and its cult of followers and sycophants that is leading the USA today. There will be no turning away from the direction that they are taking us, unless the citizens in the USA reject the elements that I have described in the above blog. We must return our country to a place where fear and greed do not guide our actions but instead we are motivated by love, kindness, charity, mercy and compassion. Not just for our friends and relatives and social circle but for everyone in the world. My God is their God as well.

Who Holds the Future?  Ilya Sutskever or Donald Trump

02 Oct 2025 22 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming ubiquitous and indispensable.  Predictions as to the future of AI range between two extremes.  AI will save humanity and usher in a Golden Age for Mankind.  An age that will make the Greek Golden Age seem trivial.  Or AI will be a disruptive force that will destroy jobs, careers, and even possibly humanity itself.  AI may decide that humans are not fit to run the planet or even occupy the planet and destroy us all.  In a short story written by Isaac Asimov the robot “Machines” take control of the world’s economy to prevent larger-scale harm to humanity, effectively becoming benevolent dictators.  — “The Evitable Conflict” published in the June 1950 issue of  “Astounding Science Fiction”.

Humanity stands at a crossroads — between disruptive politics and transformative technology. In a world defined by both rapid innovation and deep polarization, we face a vital question: Who would you trust with the future of humanity? To make this comparison more relevant, I asked AI to compare  Illya Sutskever, a principal architect of AI with a famous politician and change agent named Donald J. Trump.  Who I asked would you trust to lead the world into a Golden Age?  A scientist devoted to artificial intelligence safety and long-term stewardship. Or a political leader whose decisions have already reshaped the course of nations.

The Scientist: Ilya Sutskever

Ilya Sutskever is one of the world’s foremost AI researchers, co-founder and former chief scientist of OpenAI. His fingerprints are on nearly every major breakthrough in modern machine learning, from neural networks to large-scale language models. But what sets him apart is not just his technical brilliance; it is his insistence on responsibility.

Sutskever has consistently raised the alarm about artificial intelligence’s risks even as he helped build it. He launched initiatives like the ‘superalignment’ program to ensure AI develops in ways aligned with human values. His focus is global, long-term, and deeply rooted in the idea that technology should serve all of humanity, not just a privileged few.

Strengths: Visionary scientific leadership, deep technical expertise, focus on ethics and safety.

Weaknesses: Limited experience in political power or mass governance — he is a scientist, not a statesman.

The Politician: Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a businessman, media personality, and the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America. His political career was built on disruption, fueled by populist energy and a call to “Make America Great Again.” Trump’s influence is undeniable — he has reshaped U.S. politics, polarized public opinion, and left a global footprint.

Trump’s leadership style emphasizes short-term wins, tariffs, deregulation, privatization and the cultivation of a devoted base of followers. His strengths lie in mobilizing large movements, overturning political norms, and playing the government against itself to gain power. Yet his weaknesses are just as clear: division, authoritarian leanings, and a lack of sustained focus on long-term global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, or the existential risks posed by advanced technologies.

Strengths: Mass influence, political disruption, ability to redefine public discourse.

Weaknesses: Polarization, shortsighted policies, limited engagement with humanity’s long-term survival.

Who Shapes a Golden Era?

A Golden Era for humanity will not emerge by accident. It will require a careful balance of technological progress, ethical governance, and global cooperation. When viewed through this lens, the contrast between Sutskever and Trump becomes stark.

Sutskever embodies foresight, responsibility, and global vision. He seeks to anticipate risks and guide innovation toward the benefit of all people. Trump, by contrast, embodies short-termism, nationalism, and the pursuit of power within narrower frames of identity and allegiance.

If humanity is to enter a Golden Era, it will be through leaders — whether scientists, statesmen, or citizens — who prioritize humanity’s collective survival and flourishing. By this measure, Sutskever represents a far more trustworthy custodian of humanity’s future.

Conclusion

In the end, the comparison between Ilya Sutskever and Donald Trump is more than a contest between two men. It is a mirror reflecting the choices before us. Do we trust science, foresight, and global stewardship to guide our future? Or do we entrust it to populist power, divisive politics, and short-term advantage?

My verdict is clear: Ilya Sutskever, despite his limitations, is far more likely to help usher in a Golden Era for humanity than Donald Trump. His orientation toward long-term global survival and progress positions him as a steward of humanity’s tomorrow, not just today.

And yet, this question is not just about Sutskever or Trump. It is about all of us. Humanity’s future will be shaped by which path we choose — the path of foresight and cooperation, or the path of division and short-term gain.

Which path do you choose? A Golden Age just for America or a Golden Age for the Whole World?

What is Behind All These Bullshit Lies and Conspiracy Theories?

11 Aug 2025 5 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

In previous blog posts, I discussed two men whose lives had been damaged by false claims.  The claims misrepresented the truth and attempted to replace truth with slander designed for one purpose.  That purpose in both John Kerry’s case and John McCain’s case was to impugn them because of political positions they had taken on certain issues.  The truth did not matter.  The heroism of both men did not matter.  The damage to them personally did not matter.  The only thing that mattered to the propagators of these insults and lies was whether or not they could successfully destroy the reputation of two men and minimize their political influence.

In the case of Kerry, the lies were intended to prevent his run for the presidency.  In the case of John McCain, the lies were spread to nullify his influence in the Senate and as a revenge for his taking positions that were deemed inimical to his parties preferred interests.

I sent the following query to ChatGPT concerning these attacks.  I am going to post my query and show you the information that this AI engine gave.  Keep in mind, this is a non-partisan reply not attached to any efforts to extort money for any reason.

“What were the motives for the attacks against Kerry and McCain?”

The motives behind the attacks on John Kerry and John McCain—both decorated Vietnam veterans—stemmed from a mix of political, personal, and ideological factors. Despite their military service, both men became targets for smear campaigns, often by fellow veterans or political opponents. Here’s a breakdown of the key motives for each:

🎯 Motives for Attacks on John Kerry

  1. Political Opposition (2004 Presidential Election)
  • Kerry ran against incumbent President George W. Bush in 2004. As a decorated Vietnam veteran, Kerry’s service was central to his campaign.
  • Bush supporters sought to neutralize Kerry’s military advantage, particularly since Bush himself had avoided combat in the Texas Air National Guard.
  • The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth aimed to undermine Kerry’s credibility and patriotism, casting doubt on his war record and medals.
  1. Ideological Resentment (Anti-War Testimony)
  • After returning from Vietnam, Kerry became a prominent anti-war activist, famously testifying before the Senate in 1971.
  • He accused U.S. troops of war crimes—a stance that many veterans found deeply offensive and betraying.
  • Several of his attackers served in Vietnam but not with Kerry, and harbored long-standing anger toward his anti-war activism, not just his candidacy.
  1. Personal Animosity
  • Some individuals in the Swift Boat group had personal disagreements with Kerry going back to the Vietnam era.
  • The group’s leader, John O’Neill, was recruited by the Nixon administration in the 1970s to publicly rebut Kerry’s anti-war testimony—making it a decades-old ideological feud.

🎯 Motives for Attacks on John McCain

  1. Political Intra-Party Conflict
  • McCain frequently clashed with the Republican Party base and right-wing activists.
  • During his 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns, McCain was seen as a “maverick” who criticized party orthodoxy, making him a target for hardline conservatives.
  • Activists like Ted Sampley accused him of being untrustworthy and disloyal to conservative causes.
  1. Ideological Extremism
  • Groups like Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain promoted conspiracy theories claiming McCain was a “Manchurian Candidate” or communist collaborator—a narrative entirely without evidence.
  • These were often fueled by Cold War-style paranoia and deep distrust of the U.S. government, especially among fringe veteran groups.
  1. Retaliation for POW/MIA Reform
  • As a senator, McCain worked to normalize relations with Vietnam and debunked myths that American POWs were still alive there.
  • This angered POW/MIA advocacy groups, some of whom believed the U.S. government was covering up the existence of missing soldiers.
  • McCain’s efforts were seen by these activists as a betrayal of the POW/MIA cause, despite his own 5½ years as a prisoner of war.

🧾 Comparison of Kerry vs. McCain Attacks

Category John Kerry John McCain
Primary Political Motive Undermine 2004 campaign Undermine Republican campaigns in 2000 & 2008
Core Smear Falsified war record, dishonorable discharge Collaborated with enemy, “Manchurian candidate”
Main Accusers Swift Boat Vets (not same unit) Fringe veterans (Sampley, Kiley)
Real Underlying Motive Anger over anti-war activism Resentment over POW/MIA policies and intra-party clashes
Impact Damaged public perception, coined “swiftboating” Less impact, largely discredited

✅ Final Insight

The attacks on both men were rooted in a combination of politics, personal vendettas, and ideological warfare.  What’s ironic is that both Kerry and McCain were legitimate war heroes, yet were attacked not for what they did in combat, but for what they did afterward—one by opposing the war, the other by seeking reconciliation and compromise.

These smears illustrate how military valor doesn’t shield someone from political weaponization, especially in the age of media spin and partisan polarization.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Conclusions:

Over the last 100 years, the USA has witnessed a decline in morality and ethics.  Greed while always a pervasive influence in the world has become a hideous monster that lurks behind every deal and transaction that is now made.  An entire Congress, Supreme Court and Presidency is run by greed and self-interest.  A so-called Christian nation, Jesus would not recognize many of his followers.  Men and women who want to return the country to a state where money and economics are the raison d’etre for being.  The United States has been coopted by a lust for power and money.  The Shining City on the Hill no longer shines because of its Virtue.  It shines because of the reflection of the sun on its cheap gold plating.

The lack of virtue and morality in the country is amplified and reflected by a media that has one purpose:  Make as much money as it can for its corporate sponsors.  Congress exists for the same reason.  Politicians are guided by the rule as well.  Make as much money as they can for their corporate sponsors.  The man sitting on the throne whom we call a President knows he must also direct the country towards making as much money as he can for his corporate sponsors.  Courts, military, and every legislature in the country are guided by the same rule:  “Make as much money as they can for their corporate sponsors.”

Friends of mine inevitably bring up these questions:  “Can we do anything about it?  Is there any way to get the train back on its track?  What is possible in the face of so much corruption and greed?  What if we keep going in the same direction?  Are we witnessing the end of the American Dream?”

I want to say that hope only disappears when we become hopeless.  Where there is hope, there is possibility.  Regardless of how dismal and dark things are, they can only become darker if we give up all hope.  These are more than, “The times that try men’s souls”.  These are horrible times that destroy hope.  I wonder what history will say in 50 or 100 years about the terrible things America is doing to the world in the name of Exceptionalism and National Pride.

In truth our actions are based on the same evil that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.  The same evil that built the Golden Calf.  The same evil that has forever driven the wars and desecrations that infect civilization.  It is a disease that we have never found a vaccination for.  A disease that has gone from a minor infection to a pandemic.  It is a disease for more and more and more.  And the remedy that those infected with it find lies in more money, more things, more power, more and more and more.  And the media spreads the virus and disease with every kernel of its existence.  From text, to video, to radio, to the internet, the one constant is the media beating the drum for more and more and more.  Buy more and you will be happy and successful.  More is the secret for salvation. You will only go to heaven if you have more stuff than your neighbors.

So, buy now and don’t wait. 

The Hypocrisy of Paywalls and Political Campaign Contributions

01 Jul 2025 8 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

If you are reading this blog, you will note two aspects of my blog that might be salient.  They will only be evident if you look closely.  First, there is no Paywall.  I charge nothing for my ideas.  Indeed, I encourage you to repost or use my ideas in any way that you think will help others.  Second, there are no advertisements.  I take no money from anyone.  I am beholden to no companies or corporations for endorsements or financial remuneration.  If anyone does not like what I say, that is their problem.  I am free and unencumbered to say it and you are free and unencumbered to read it.  No sixty second sound bites from anyone before you can plow ahead.  The only thing standing between you and my blog are the bits and bytes of your computer and the speed of your Internet provider.

I point the above out because it seems that what is obvious to me is not obvious to others.  Most of us know that the USA and its government is seriously broken.  It is dysfunctional, immoral and often now illegal and unconstitutional.  What is the biggest reason for this?  Simple.  Money and greed and the power that money begets.  Ergo, if money is as they say, “The Root of All Evil,” than how can asking for more money fix the problem.  Imagine if there were a fire burning in your house and you tried to put it out by throwing money on it?  Well, that is what too many people are trying to do. 

Many bloggers are now asking for money before you can read their blogs.  How do they think this will make the world a better place to live?  “Just give me money and I will share my wonderful ideas with you.”  In other words, I am no different than the other greedy people who would sell their souls for a few dollars.  I will sell my soul for a few bucks that I might make on Substack or some other place that allows Paywalls and advertisements.

If you think advertisements are benign and harmless, you are delusional.  Madison Avenue and the corporate advertising machine are the number one brainwashers in America.  They are the primary reason that people keep spending and spending.  Madison Avenue exists to convince you that you are inadequate and that if you only buy product X, it will make you feel better and bestow happiness on your life.  Than, you only have to keep buying more to stay happy.  Think of the junk that you see every day trying to be sold to suckers to make their lives better.  Not a prophet in history preached that you can have a better life by having more things.  If you support advertising, you support this evil concept.  The foundation of this concept is Greed that pervades Corporate America. 

Next we have politicians whose every message ends with “SEND MONEY” or “DONATE TO MY CAMPAIGN.”  I cannot think of a campaign or revolution in history from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon or Lenin to Toussaint Louverture or Simon Bolivar or Gandhi or Martin Luther King, where they sent out advertising brochures or flyers asking for money.  They might have solicited soldiers or workers but people not money were their primary objectives.  You of course can argue that some of these individuals had the power and resources of the state to fund their campaigns.  I concede that this is true.  However, it is equally true that without people, their campaigns and revolutions would have failed. 

I see too many politicians who seem to believe that if they can only get enough money, they will then be able to buy enough advertising to convince you to vote for them.  Nothing could be more stupid.  Harris spent nearly a ¼ billion dollars more than trump during the last election and obviously lost.  All of her money did her no good.  Nor did her celebrity endorsements.  The day after the elections, the DNC asked for more money to defeat trump’s policies.  [By the way, the CEO of ActBlue, the major fundraiser for the Democrats has a gross salary of approximately $500,000 dollars a year and many of the senior executives of this organization make well over $100,000 dollars a year.  This should dispel any notion you have that fundraisers for the Democrats are benevolent donors of their time and energy.] 

The other point about advertising’s power to convince anyone to vote concerns the voters themselves.  How many trump supporters do you think changed their mind because they listened to or watched a Harris ad?  How many Harris supporters do you think changed their mind because they watched a trump ad?  And what of the thirty-three percent of the people who did not vote?  A percentage that has remained roughly the same since the first voting in this country for George Washington.  Nearly every election a third of Americans DO NOT vote.  How many of these non-voters do you think changed their mind to vote for either Harris or trump because of some cute and slick campaign ad?  Madison Avenue is laughing their asses off every time an election comes around because they are the real winners.  As the famous pianist Liberace once said, “I am laughing my way all the way to the bank.” 

Einstein once made the following two profound statements, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them” and “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  We are insane if we think that we are going to change a system based on greed and money by simply donating more money to fund this system.  What could be more preposterous than this idea?

Let me tell you a little story that I experienced in the 2024 election.  A friend of ours from church decided to run for state representative.  I believe that she supported many if not most of the same policies that I do.  However, I told her as well as others that I knew that I was no longer donating money to any campaigns.  We discussed some ideas at church one day and she was very pro-education, and she thought that we needed to do some things differently.  I gave her my personal card and said that I would be happy to discuss some of my ideas on education.  Ideas that come from teaching for over fifty years now.  A short time later,  she sent me a notice that she was hosting a campaign fund raiser.  I was somewhat surprised since I thought I made it clear that I would not donate money to anyone for a campaign effort.  I was also perplexed since I believed in her ideas, and I admired her personally.  Nevertheless, I decided to stick with my convictions about money.  Instead, I sent her an email saying that “I would not make campaign donations, but I would help her with phone calls, signs or going door to door.” 

Weeks went by.  She never called to set up a time to talk to me about my theories of changing education nor did she ever call to ask me to help physically in any way with her campaign.  Come the election, she lost to her opposition by a 56 to 44 margin.  Would my help have made any difference, or would my money have made any difference?  I have no way of knowing.

During the last election, being a guest on Podcasts has emerged as a new political tool and strategy.  Judging by the election results, it might be a better strategy than the money wasted on advertising.  Some data concerning the visibility that trump gained versus Harris gained on podcasts are as follows:

Trump’s Appearances/Mentions: Trump has been mentioned in or appeared on a significantly larger number of podcasts, with nearly 70,000 instances, according to Brookings, citing Ivy, a podcast discovery service.

Harris’s Appearances/Mentions: Kamala Harris has been mentioned in or appeared on a little over 12,000 podcasts.

This data suggests that while Trump had more individual podcast appearances, he also received substantially more mentions or coverage across a wider range of podcasts compared to Harris.

A friend of mine recently called me up to tell me that I should watch Pete Buttigieg on a Podcast called Flagrant with a guy named Andrew Schulz.  Four other young males of various ethnicities all casually dressed flanked Shultz and Buttigieg as they engaged in a casual banter about life and politics.  

This podcast and others of the same ilk have nothing in common with the traditional sit-down interviews that politicians used to have on shows such as Face the Nation and 60 minutes.  Podcasts like Flagrant are like sitting in your buddies living room or Arizona Room and slurping a beer while casually discussing the latest news.  Not a woman was present in the room with Buttigieg and Schulz.  A more or less macho image pervaded the discussions.  It seem macho has become the new norm in politics today.  Women can stay in the kitchen while the men hide out in their man caves and solve the problems of the world. 

My friend had asked me what I thought of Buttigieg?  I wondered if Pete attending all the macho podcasts was a strategy to set him up for the next election cycle.  I have a strong belief  that is what his advisors are endorsing.  Perhaps this is being pragmatic and simply making maxim use of the new media.  Or perhaps it is targeting the same demographic that trump targeted so successfully.  I queried ChatGPT to get the results on trump’s election demographics.  They were as follows:

| White voters (overall) | ~80–82% | Largest core group |

| White evangelical Protestants | ~82% (South); 43% of R base | Bedrock core |

| Latino voters | 46–48% | Historically high support |

| Latino men | ~54–55% | Key swing within Latino support |

| Asian Americans | ~40% | +10-point gain since 2020 |

| Black voters | ~15% (esp. young men) | Doubled since 2020 |

| Young men | ~55–56% | Social media & influencer effect |

A reasonable estimate for men aged 25–45 is around 50–52% of Trump voters.  This is a majority of his voting demographic.  Watch some of the podcasts like Joe Rogan and Flagrant and you tell me what demographic you think they are appealing to.  Rogan averages 11 million views on Spotify and Flagrant (numbers are not public) is estimated to be in the millions with specific episodes passing ten million viewers.  With these numbers and the type of audience watching, millions of dollars on traditional advertising is a waste of time and money. 

Conclusions:

  • If you want change in this country, do not send another dime to a politician.
  • If you must fund any politician, look at how many PACs they subscribe to or how many lobbyists they get funding from. Stay away from any with PACs hiding under aliases like Patriots for Freedom or Americans for Liberty.
  • Donate your time and talent to anyone running for public office before you donate any money.
  • Encourage your choice for office to get out there and talk to people. Consider people for office who can really relate to the people who are going to elect them.  Any lawyer that went to a private high school and then graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard and never served a day in the military or put in an honest days work is not likely to know the problems of the common people. 
  • Think before you send any money to anyone. What are they going to use your money for? 
  • If you have a printing press in your house or a tree that grows money, than by all means, send all the money you want. While you are at it, could you send me a few thousand dollars? 

P.S. 

Before I could even get this blog up, I get an email from the new “Hero” of the Democratic Party telling me the following and three times asking for donations in the same email.

“We will need to run the largest and most effective campaign in history for the next five months to win the general election. The same billionaires whose money could not stop us before, are throwing everything they have to crush us. And the reality is that they are going to go after any candidate in any part of the country who dares to champion working people.”

“What we will achieve together sends a message across America — and throughout the world.

The people can topple political dynasties. The people can build coalitions. The people can win.

So join our movement and lets bring forward a new generation of leadership.

In solidarity,”

Zohran Mamdani

Donate »

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Facts, Data, Evidence and the Search for Truth. How do we know what to believe anymore? – Part 1

13 Mar 2025 4 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

truth-2

I wrote the following blog in 2016 just before the Presidential elections that year. I am often guilty of too many political rants. I wrote the following blog and four others on the search for Truth and the relevance of facts, data, and evidence in this search. Some of the issues I describe here happened 9 years ago but as you will see, they are just as relevant and pertinent today as they were then. In fact, they are even more so. Regardless of your political persuasion, it is important to understand how Truth can be found and whether or not we are being lied to and conned. The US government has for many years developed a variety of means to obfuscate, ignore and/or stretch the Truth. If we as citizens can see when this is happening than we shall surely be forfeit to any mistreatment that comes down from the Government. I worked for almost 20 years to teach some of these ideas to private business, non-profits, military installations and many levels of government from city to state to federal. This blog is part one of the education I think we all need to deal with what I would call “the Search for Truth.” You will need to read all five parts to get an honorary degree in Truth Seeking and Truth Finding. Following is the start of my blog written in 2016

I watched several shows the other day in which Trump supporters were interviewed.  People are as curious about his supporters as they are about Trump.  Given the unquestionable fact that Trump is a greedy sexist racist hate monger, why would anyone support him?  The assumed knowledge is that his supporters are a bunch of ignorant losers:  people who are uneducated or at best semi-literate.  However, the data and demographics do not entirely support this conclusion.  Many Trump supporters are intelligent educated and literate people.  These are also people who believe in the United States of America and care about their country.  What then persuades or convinces them that Trump is the right person for the job of POTUS?  His qualifications pose a questionable proposition that would seem to fly in the face of all known facts in the entire universe.  This dilemma strikes at the heart of the matter.  We do not know what to believe any more.  What is a fact?  What is evidence?  What is objective data?  Where can we find facts that are truthful (not really a redundancy)?

I think about my graduate students at the college where I have taught for many years.  These are students who are working on an MBA and are highly literate, highly educated and highly intelligent individuals.   Many of them already hold very well paying jobs and responsible positions in successful companies.   Nevertheless, the challenge that I continually face is to teach them the difference between facts, data, evidence and truth.  Despite their literacy, few of these students understand the difference.  This is a scary situation.  If these highly educated students do not understand the difference between these concepts, how can we expect the many uneducated members of the general public to understand and comprehend the essential elements of truth finding?  I say essential because facts, data and evidence are the three pillars of truth.  If you do not have these, you cannot find the truth.

lies

Several problems make the issue even more complex.  In academia, we are dealing with a subset of life in which there is much less confusion over the truth since no one is deliberately trying to distort, lie or sell us anything.  There may be stupidity, lack of knowledge and even ignorance by many scientists and professors but the greed motive is much less tangible.  I am not saying it does not exist, but for most of my teaching career, I cannot think of anything I have ever tried to sell to my students and make a profit on.  I can say with some confidence that this is also true of all the instructors whom I have ever known or worked with.  The same situation does not exist outside of academia.  The marketplace is a vicious jungle when it comes to searching for the truth while academia is a tame zoo in comparison.

When we enter the marketplace and even more so in the political arena, the motive to convince us of something relies much less on elucidating the truth than it does on obfuscating the truth in order to sell us something.  Wells Fargo Bank wants you to open a credit account.  They don’t care whether you need it or not.  Volkswagen wants to sell you a car even if they have to hide the truth about pollution levels.  Every politician in America wants you to vote them into office.  They don’t want you to know the real truth about their competition or that they do not have all the answers to the problems facing our country.

Companies and politicians have a vested interest in hiding the truth from you.  Stories like Miracle on 31st Street where Macy’s sent people to Gimbels are few and far between and exist mostly in fantasy.  Similarly, stories about politicians with ethics such as “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” have become legendary because they depict a reality that seldom exists.  Most politicians will promise you the moon to get your vote and most companies will not tell you the truth about cigarettes, drugs, food or anything else unless forced to do so by some form of government regulation or mandate.  It does not matter whether it will kill you or not as long as you buy it or elect them.

trump-versus-hillary

Finally, we come to perhaps the biggest ruse of all.  If anyone is searching for the truth, they will eventually enter into the Fourth Estate.  This hallowed ground is defined as:  “A societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized.  Fourth Estate most commonly refers to the news media, especially print journalism or The Press.” (Wiki).   Thomas Jefferson believed that the two pillars of a democratic society were an educated citizenry and a free press.  Mark Twain was somewhat more skeptical about the power of the press and information to inform people when he noted that:  “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.”  The truth seeker has been taught since early childhood that in the domain of the Fourth Estate is to be found the truth.  Little do they know the quagmire they have entered into or that the role of truth finding in the Fourth Estate no longer exists.

la_verite_par_jules_joseph_lefebvre

Today, the major purpose of the news (whether print or digital or video or audio) is to sell.  Sell, sell, sell, sell and sell some more.  Sell junk, sell drugs, sell expensive credit cards, sell stuff and more stuff.  Stuff you don’t need, won’t need and will probably never need.  The job of the media is to convince you that you do need stuff, that you desire stuff and that you can not possibly live without stuff.

I once thought that journalists were a group to be respected.   This was based on the knowledge that they had often risked their lives and their reputations to bring us the truth.  Today, journalists are little more than pimps for advertisers.  They have sold their souls to the devil, descended into hell and may never come out again.  The measure of a journalist is not how much information they provide to the public but how many advertisements they can sell.  The changing role of journalists has made it even more difficult for people to find the truth.  Nothing in the news is remotely objective or unbiased any more.  Every paper, every station has their spin on things.  The spin is determined by who owns and controls the media.
Take polls for example.  As we go into the final days of the 2016 US presidential election, you can find polls that favor one candidate or the other candidate.  If there are seventy polls, half may favor one candidate and half may favor the other candidate.  There is no truth even in these so called unbiased statistical polls.  Many of my friends have suggested that the news media want the race to be close because this keeps people tuned in.  Much like a sports match, we would rather watch an event that had a pair of evenly matched contestants.  My friends have suggested that the news seems to do its best to insure that first one candidate gets major media attention thus elevating them in the polls and then it switches to the other candidate providing them attention that elevates their poll numbers.  I am not a big conspiracy theorist but this theory does seem to have some merit to it.

78-trump-debate-lies-758x426Regardless of whether the media intentionally want to keep the race close or not, there is no denying that the candidate who is the most obnoxious, the most outrageous and the most sensational will garner the most press.  Trump has been well aware of this and has continually manipulated the media into providing him billions of dollars in free advertising.   The fickle public seems to swing from one candidate to the other depending on who they see in the news.  Trump has undoubtedly benefitted from his ability to keep the press absorbed with his every utterance regardless of how inane they are.  He can tweet at 2AM in the morning and be assured that Fox News will carry his tweet on the 7 AM morning news.

stupid-trump-supporters

How then can we blame the general public, educated or not, of being uninformed or misinformed when most of our society is conspiring against them finding the truth?  It is a trap that I have fallen into when I have railed against the stupid, illiterate and uninformed Trump supporters.  Sadly, they are not to blame for their reliance on Trump to give them the truth.  The have certainly not found it in academia or the Fourth Estate.  I have some solutions to this issue but I do not have the entire answer to it.  I do have part of the answer.  It is quite clear to me that one must understand the difference between facts, data, evidence and the role of these three elements in helping to shape the truth.   In Part 2 of this blog, I will go into the subject of Facts in more depth.  In the following parts, I will cover Data, Evidence and Truth.

Time for Questions:

How do you know what to believe?  Who do you trust to give you unbiased information?  How much do you trust the news?  Are you satisfied with the quality of the information you get from journalists and the news?  What do you think we need to do to improve the quality of information the American public receives?

Life is just beginning.

“There’s a danger in the internet and social media.  The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don’t have to think, you just have to get more information – gets very dangerous.” — Edward de Bono

Who gives a damn about the poor, the sick, the hungry and the needy? 

09 Mar 2025 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Who gives a damn about the poor, the sick, the hungry and the needy?  According to Pastor John Pavlovitz, it is not the Republicans who voted unanimously on a budget to cut 2 Trillion dollars from aid programs for the needy.  It is not the Evangelicals who Pastor John says put altar calls and prayer ahead of any direct aid to the “marginalized.”  It is also not the many Conservative Christians who say that the Government should not be responsible for the poor and needy but who have yet to devote any money to help those in need, unless of course they be friends or family members.

Pastor John writes, “We’re not witnessing an overwhelming outpouring of compassion from Conservative church folk who have declared that they’re going to repair the homes and make the lunches and pay for the surgeries and watch the children for the tens of millions about to be kicked to the curb by this Conservative leadership—and we shouldn’t be holding our breath.” — “The Christians Mocking Jesus and Defunding the Least of These” — John Pavlovitz, 2-25-25

Tribalism reigns supreme among Conservatives.  My first responsibility according to VP Vance is to take care of my family, then my friends and then my immediate social network.  To hell with the needy who I do not know or who do not live in my social circle.  It is out of sight, than out of mind.

You might argue that we cannot afford all of these social causes.  That is a lie.  It is a matter of priority.  Consider that our military budget is greater than the next highest nine military budgets in the world.  Consider that we have given billions in foreign  aid to the Ukraine and Israel to arm themselves with guns and bombs.  Consider that our tax breaks for the rich have resulted in a situation where the rich are worth hundreds and sometimes thousands of times what even the average middle-class American is worth.

Average Wealth:  The mean household wealth for the top 0.1% is more than $158.6 million.

The Average American Family:  The mean income for all American families is $136.000

Top 1% Wealth:  The top 1% (including the top 0.1%) holds a staggering $49.2 trillion of wealth.  That is 31% of the total wealth of America.

The Bottom 50% of American Families, own just 1% of the wealth in the U.S., with 13.4 million of these families having a negative net worth.

But who gives a damn about income inequality.  These people are losers.  They are lazy or stupid.  Too many of them sit home all day expecting a handout.  All they need is motivation.  A good kick in the ass would get them going.  No one gave me anything!  All I ever needed was a hand-up not a hand-out!  Why should I have to take care of them.  Some of these people make a fortune on government handouts.  Let them win the lottery.  I have a hard enough time paying my own bills.

I walk down a typical American street.  Today I pass by an old woman dressed in the latest “unfashion.”  She is not carrying a Gucci handbag.  In fact, she does not even have a handbag.  She is pushing a shopping cart.  Everything she owns is in a shopping cart.  It is not a Mercedes shopping cart either.  She is moving from one side of town to another so that she can find a new place to set up for the coming evening.  She has learned not to stay in one place too long or the police will move her out.

Yesterday, I passed a homeless Veteran on the streetcorner carrying a sign that reads, “Veteran needs money for food.” I volunteer a few days each month at our local Veterans center.  I am there to help Vets that come in with problems.  Recently, I spent three days trying to help an 80 percent disabled Vietnam veteran get some state assistance under a mobility grant so that he could afford a walk-in shower.  We never got to complete the online form required by the grant.  Every other page had some type of document required to complete the form.

Joe (the Vet) has been asked to provide Proof of Service, Proof of Home Ownership, Proof of Homeowners Insurance and several other proofs.  He has had to come back three times to the center.  Each time he wonders why they just did not state all the forms needed before we started.  A question that I have no answer to.  I have to scan all these forms in as Joe does not have a computer at home.  As I write this, we still have not completed all the paperwork.  He has not returned yet with the remainder of the forms needed.

We can send Israel 3.5 billion dollars a year, but we can’t make it simple for a disabled war veteran to obtain a walk-in shower.  For the amount of money we send to Israel each year we could build 350,000 walk in showers.  But who gives a damn about the poor and needy.  And now some idiot with a chainsaw is going to cut thousands of jobs in Social Security, The VA and other government organizations to improve efficiency.  I worked for fifteen years with Dr. W. E. Deming, and other quality greats.  Dr.  Deming always said you improve a process with a scalpel not with a meat cleaver.  When you use a cleaver you cut the muscle and bone along with the fat.  This is no way to improve the efficiency of any process or organization.

By the way, I am not against aid programs to other countries in need.  However, the aid we send to Israel does not help the sick and needy.  Mostly it is used to build guns and bombs or buy guns and bombs.  But our President stops aid to countries where people are starving so he will have more money to give to his rich supporters.

Losers and more losers.  How come so many people need a handout?  

A few years ago, I happened to catch a glimpse of a popular TV show called Bridezillas.  The prospective bride was shopping for a $20,000 bridal gown and screaming, “It’s all about me!  It’s all about me!”  I suppose many people watched this program and enjoyed seeing the little spoiled brat ranting and ranting.  This is a “reality” show.  The real reality is that fifty percent of Americans today are this little spoiled brat.  How many people ranting about Immigration have ever been molested by an immigrant?  How many people wanting to build a border wall have ever lost their jobs to an immigrant?  How many people complaining about illegal immigrants want to do the hard menial work that I see so many immigrants doing all over the USA.  From Arizona to Michigan to Rhode Island to Wisconsin, I have seen dozens of migrant workers doing work that Americans feel is beneath them or does not pay enough.

We complain about poverty and people taking handouts, but our kids are not willing to work anymore because they are too busy playing video games.  We complain about taxes, but we can buy designer clothes, designer shoes, designer weddings and designer handbags.  We complain about inflation, but it does not stop us from eating out at expensive restaurants.  We complain about the price of eggs and gasoline, but we drive $85,000 gas guzzling pickup trucks so that we can be cool.

I inquired of a few people I met recently “How could you vote for a man who is vindictive, unethical, lies like crazy and loves to humiliate other people.”  I was told the same thing by each person I asked, “I don’t care about his personality as long as he gets rid of the immigrants and lowers my taxes.”  Who are the selfish greedy spoiled brats in America?  As Pogo said, “ We have met the enemy, and he is us.”   

The Conservative Evangelicals have bumper stickers and wear t-shirts that read, “What Would Jesus Do.”  I don’t claim to be a Christian and I don’t claim to be a very religious person, but I don’t think Jesus would kick the immigrants out, kick people out of their jobs and stop aid for the people in America and the world who are most in need of help.  The pastor at our church always says, “Give me Jesus, they can have all the rest.”  I don’t think he would want a Jesus who said, “It’s all about me!  I want my taxes lowered and these lazy poor people put to work right after we get rid of the immigrants”

I repeat my question:  “Who gives a damn about the poor, the sick, the hungry and the needy?”  Are you proud to say that you are not your brothers keeper?

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of the evil men.  Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper, and the finder of lost children.” — Ezekiel 25:17

Restore Democracy to America:  Ban the Lobbyists

03 Mar 2025 14 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

Lobbying is legal bribery.  Lobbying keeps politicians in the pay of vested interests.  As long as we have PAC’S, Paid Lobbyists, Cross-State funding of politicians and corporate money going to political campaigns, we will never have Democracy in America.  The saying “He who has the gold makes the rules “is true.  Our political system is in the pocket of paid lobbyists whose job is to see that our political leaders vote the right way.  The right way is determined by who can provide the most money for their forever campaigning.  Our politicians spend more time trying to raise funds for their next campaign than they do working for the American public.

In 1924 over 100 years ago, Senator Bob LaFollette, ran for president on a Progressive Party platform calling for among other things the need to BAN LOBBYING.  There is not an American voter who is not sick and tired of the money that is being extorted by most politicians to finance their next campaign.  The day after an election, you will get a message in your email box telling you how essential it is for you to send money NOW to so and so to help them be reelected.

Rachel Maddow on her TV show the other night (3-1-25) was describing the dissent that is growing among voters nationwide within the voting public.  There are political protests taking place all over America at campaign rallies, town hall meetings, civic meetings and in public office buildings.  People are sick and tired of their elected leaders standing by while they get fleeced.  This dissatisfaction is rife within America and includes voters and citizens from across all political spectrums.  Americans are standing up and demanding that billionaires not be allowed to run America.  Rich oligarchs like Elon Rusk are running amok within the political system because they can provide billions of campaign dollars to our ever hungry for money elected leaders.

In an interview with the leader of the Democratic Party, Hakeem Jeffries, Maddow said the public wanted to know what the Democrats would do to stand up for the rights of the people.  Jeffries started to give a bunch of inchoate efforts the Democratic party was making and mentioned the political rallies taking place.  He sounded like these protest rallies were something the Democratic party was organizing.  Maddow cut him off very quickly with the remark “These rallies are being organized from the bottom up.  They are a grass roots movement and are not a result of Democratic party initiative.”  Jeffries then proceeded with a list of things the Democratic party was planning to do.  His ideas were so vacuous and vague, I have not a clue what they are going to do.  One thing I am certain of, Jeffries did not say one word about moving to ban lobbyists and lobbying from the halls of our Congress.

Until we ban lobbyists, we will never restore our government to the government envisioned by the founding fathers.

We need to have a focused movement to ban lobbyists.  Every dissent in America over the next year or so should include a message to ban lobbyists.  The only way the people can regain control of the political system in this country is by making lobbying illegal.  I am calling on all American citizens to stand up and speak out against lobbying.  If you don’t want to speak out, then buy a T-shirt that says, “Ban Lobbyists.”  But every grass roots group in America needs to start an outcry to “Ban Lobbyists.”  Imagine if every Church, Synagogue or Mosque in America was speaking out against Lobbying.  Every protest group should have at least one sign calling to “Ban Lobbying.”  We should be putting signs up outside every legislative building in America saying, “Ban Lobbying.”

There is some precedent in Christianity for throwing the lobbyists out.  In Matthew 21:12-13 it is written:

“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” — New International Version NIV

Ask yourself what Jesus would do?  Would he stand idly by while the lobbyists bought and sold contracts and bills supporting more and more buying and selling?  I think not.  Jesus would have thrown them all out on their asses.  Those of you who claim to be Christians should take heed here.  There is much every religious organization could do to help clean the temple out, but they sit by doing nothing while our government is sacrificed to the false gods of materialism and profit.

Following, I suggest several ideas to take the money out of politics and to restore our political system to a semblance of a peoples democracy and not a democracy of Billionaires and Oligarchs.  If you like these ideas, than please share them with your friends, neighbors, families, church or whatever groups you belong to.

  • Make lobbying or trying to induce an elected official a crime akin to bribery because lobbying right now is legal bribery.
  • Call for the elimination of PAC money, Special Interest Groups and Corporate funding of political campaigns. Campaign funds should only come from eligible voters.
  • Set a limit of 1000 dollars maximum per year that any eligible voter can donate to political campaigns. You could spread this money across several campaigns or drop it all on one but the legal limit for one year would be 1000 dollars.  This money would be eligible for a tax deduction for the entire amount.
  • Ban the funding of political leaders in one state by voters from other states. You should only be allowed to support political leaders in your state of residence with exception of the office of President.
  • Repeal the Citizens United Decision.  This vote by the Supreme Court treats corporations as private citizens and as such they are entitled to free speech.  This finding is ludicrous in itself but it gets more ridiculous  The court then decides that free speech means corporations can act as private donors in campaign spending.  In other words, corporations are the same as private citizens and entitled to donate as much money as they want to politicians who will support their private programs.  Since when does any corporation have a soul or a heart or even a brain? 

It has been said with a great deal of truth that America is a country run, Of the Corporations, By the Corporations and For the Corporations.  America is being run by special interest groups across a broad spectrum of interests, but all without concern for the interests of the larger American public.  Do we want a government of corporations, or do we want a government of the people, by the people and for the people?  Here are the top ten Lobbying groups in America as of 2025 with the amount purportedly spent on lobbying.  Personally, I doubt the money shown here is in any way a legitimate representation of the amount actually spent by any of these groups. I will discuss why this is true later.

Top Spenders

Lobbying Client                    Total Spent

    1. National Assn of Realtors           $86,385,941
    2. US Chamber of Commerce         $76,260,000
    3. Pharmaceutical Manufacturers  $31,720,000
    4. American Hospital Assn             $29,017,803
    5. Blue Cross/Blue Shield               $27,146,300
    6. American Petrochem Mfg          $26,310,000
    7. American Medical Assn             $24,782,000
    8. Meta                                              $24,430,000
    9. Business Roundtable                 $23,400,000
    10. American Chemistry Council    $22,330,000

 I queried ChatGPT to see how much money lobbyists spent in 2024 in total and came up with the following information:

“In 2024, lobbying spending reached a record-breaking $4.4 billion.” — OPENSECRETS.ORG

“The total amount spent by lobbyists on political campaigns annually is not separately tracked and is encompassed within the broader category of individual and PAC contributions.”

A majority of funding for the 2024 election — over 65%, or nearly $5.6 billion — comes from political action committees, also known as PACs. — USAFacts

The above information leads to the inescapable conclusion that despite a slew of laws that allegedly govern the activities of lobbyists and PACs, the system is broken.  The system does not work to limit or proscribe the actual influence of lobbyists on our electoral system.   We must demand that the system be fixed.  The system is corrupt, misused and only serves to undermine and torpedo the democratic process in America.  We have enough media to educate people on laws and policies.  We do not need 12,000 paid lobbyists roaming the halls of Congress looking out for their interests and not the interests of the American people.

“The financial elite already have the politicians in their pockets, as a result of their lobbying.” — K. Eade

“Very few of the common people realize that the political and legal systems have been corrupted by decades of corporate lobbying.” — S. Magee

“The important thing to remember with the Internet is that there are large companies that have an interest in controlling how information flows in it.  They’re very effective at lobbying Congress, and that pattern has locked down other communication media in the past.  And it will happen again unless we do something about it.”  — E. Pariser

“As long as we, in the United States, continue to insist that our politicians have to spend all of their time raising millions of dollars for television ads, it will be corrupt.  If we leave it up to the politicians to clean up lobbying and finance reform, nothing is going to change.” — K. Spacey

Stand up and demand that your political leader take the money out of politics.  Ban Lobbying.  Ban Lobbyists. 

Restore Democracy to the American people.

 

 

The Lost Art of Leadership: Lessons on Leadership from Abraham Lincoln

03 Feb 2025 5 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

America has lost the “Art of Leadership.”  We no longer develop men and women with integrity and courage.  Instead of Statesmen, we have political hacks only concerned with getting reelected.  Instead of people with a backbone and the guts to stand up against injustice, we have a Congress of sycophants willing to do whatever they are told to do regardless of how unethical or immoral it may be.  We have thousands of lawyers who do not uphold justice but find arguments to support an amorality that meets the letter of the law but ignores the significance of decency, goodness, honesty, conscience and fairness.

In my next blogs, I want to write about 41 insights regarding leadership from one of the greatest American leaders and Presidents of all time.  I found a compilation of these insights in an old collectors edition of “Civil War Times” published in Winter, 2013.  I would like for you to hear the words of Abraham Lincoln and what he had to say about leadership.  I will include some of my own experiences from my years of working with senior management in over 32 organizations.  Some of the men and women I worked with were incredible leaders.  Most of them wanted to be better leaders and that is where I brought the teachings and thoughts of W. E. Deming to my consulting practice.  Dr. Deming achieved extraordinary results in business by tapping the knowledge, skills and abilities of ordinary people.  Senator Hubert Humphrey famously said that “Democracy is a system that achieves extraordinary results with ordinary people.”

I should issue one caveat before I begin this series.  There are some who disparage “Honest Abe” as not really caring about slavery.  They argue, Lincoln only fought the war to save the Union and not to free the slaves.  My readings and knowledge of Lincoln shows that nothing, I repeat NOTHING could be further from the truth.  Lincoln was appalled at slavery from the time he was a young child until he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.  The idea that Abe did not care about slavery is a lie fostered by a bitter Confederacy that wanted to hide their heinous practice behind the cloak of states rights.

Lincoln said,  “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”  –August 22, 1862, Letter to Horace Greeley

Lincoln also said, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery.  If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” —August 22, 1862, Letter to Horace Greeley

Two very different goals.  Two very different thoughts.  What are we to make of Lincoln’s motivations?  The Confederacy pushed the latter because it justified their defense of States rights to choose slavery as a viable economic system.  Several of the constitutions of the new Confederate states proclaimed their rights to practice slavery.

In its statement for seceding from the Union, the state of Georgia wrote the following:

“The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin.  It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party.  While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose.”

Alexander H. Stephens, the Confederate vice president said the following:

“Our new government is founded upon . . . its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition.”

Lincoln was always against slavery.  Long before he became president he argued about the evil and immorality of slavery.  He modified this position to include saving the Union at the beginning of the war as a political expedient to gain support for the war.  As it became clear that the North would win and thereby have the power to free the slaves and abolish slavery, that became his main objective.  There can be no doubt that he did both.  There can be no doubt that in doing so, he signed his death certificate.  Like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and many other civil rights martyrs, the cause of equal rights for all has always been a precarious position to assume.

Lincoln said that “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  Martin Luther King in his famous “I have a Dream” speech said that this promise was an uncashed check.  It is now “Eight Score” years from the date of the Emancipation Proclamation and we are once again engaged in a battle between racism and equality, between prejudice and tolerance and between fascism and democracy.  We have begun a new “Uncivil War” which has divided the hearts, minds and loyalties of Americans from the East Coast to the West Coast every bit as deeply as did our first Civil War.

Today we face a battle between those who believe that America should be a White Supremacist Christian nation ruled by rich oligarchs and those who believe in the concepts of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.  One half of America wants to create a country that believes in the concepts of White exceptionalism, America First and Evangelical Christianity above all over religions.  This half praises individual rights above individual responsibilities.  The rights of the individual are more important than the rights of society.

The other half of America wants to create a country where racism, sexism, exclusivity and prejudice does not exist.  This half believes that responsibilities are just as important as rights.  That the rights of others in society must be protected from those who would trample on them.  This group believes in democracy over oligarchy.  These Americans believe that we all have the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” as long as we take responsibility to insure that everyone in our nation shares these rights.

The war between these two sides of America has now entered a new phase.  The first phase started many years ago.  The second phase has started on January 21, 2025.  I want to help us to remember the ideas and insights of Abraham Lincoln as we move into this second phase.

Insight # 1

Fight the Good Fight:  The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.  — Springfield, Illinois, 12/20/1839

Lincoln was thirty years old when he said these words.  They reflect the words of Frederic Douglas who said, “ If there is no struggle, there is no progress.  Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.” 

The words of Patrick Henry also come to my mind,

“If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight!  I repeat it, sir, we must fight!

I keep these words and thoughts in my mind as our “Uncivil War” commences the next four years to preserve and protect what we call our democracy.  I have no doubt that many people have struggled throughout American history to save things that they believed in.  There has been times when African Americans, Latinos, Women, Indigenous People, Asian Americans and LGBTQ people have all been persecuted and where life must have seemed totally unjust and not worth living.  Many of us woke up on November 6th with similar feelings.  I cringed when I saw people walking around town waving Trump flags and others proclaiming that they voted for Trump.  I consoled myself with “hoping they would get what they deserved.”  Then I realized that “hope” was not enough.  We must fight for what we believe in.

How do we fight an “Uncivil War”?  Insight # 2 from Old Abe has some valuable thoughts to help us in this struggle.  I will share these in my next blog.

 

What Next after Trump’s Victory?

14 Nov 2024 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

First, we all want to know why and how Trump won.  Herein is a brief summary of some of the major reasons given by numerous analysts for Trump’s victory.  
 
“Sexism, racism, young males, rural angst, religion, Gaza, immigration, incel men, despair, Democrats off message, Biden, education level, conservative white women, inflation, right wing billionaires, Christian nationalists, desire for an anti-establishment figure, desire for change.” 
 
I have probably missed a few.  
 
The main reason I see is that Trump reflected 21st Century American values. Greed and narcissism among a large percentage of our populace who don’t want anything or anyone to get in the way of their shopping. They looked at Trump and saw themselves and their own values. 
 
The following quote was from a Salon newsletter.  
 
“This 2024 election is a referendum on the character of the Trump-voting public, and let’s not make it nice. They place minimal value on respect for truth and democratic institutions. They are more interested in punishing other people than in advancing the common good. They have a remarkable tolerance for crass and bullying behavior, care little for empathy and ethics, and are incapable of weighing basic facts.”
 
After reviewing many of the analyses of why Trump won, most of us are wondering what “next steps” could, should and will be.  My response to the election of Trump will be along the lines of the following:
 
Many of the comments I have read concerning the election reflect the dilemma between being and doing. I am going to try a middle ground. I want to avoid any savior complex as well as a “hopeless” complex. Not sure how I will manage it yet. In TQM we used the Pareto principle to attack problems.  We called it the 80/20 rule.  Twenty percent of your problems give you 80 percent of your headaches.  Thus, we always used some criteria to prioritize problems before starting to fix anything. 
 
My priorities stem from my reflections on comments as well as some of the demographics on voting during the election.  For instance, 110 million eligible people did not vote, 53 percent of White women voted for Trump, men (includes Black, White and Latino) preferred Trump 55 to 42 percent and 10 million fewer people voted Democrat than in 2020.  (Numbers behind the vote) After contemplating the meaning of these statistics and more, my top priorities would be:
 
1. Pure self interest/greed
2. Sexism
3. Anti-Establishment feeling
 
Not sure how to deal with any of these. Greed and sexism have been around since Moses. Best path may be grass roots action to educate people on economics. One thing for sure. Mainstream media is useless. It is strictly bent on making money. 
 
Peace, Wisdom and a Long and Healthy Life,

John,

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