How fear and group hatred is hurting us.

A guest blog by Allen Manzano, a writer and former editor living in Carlsbad, CA

I think we may be headed to the gradual collapse of government. We have already almost achieved it in California. Beginning with Prop 13 with its 2/3rds requirements for passage of a budget, term limits, and the rough justice of Three Strikes, California's citizens have voted in, along with fiscally unsound measures, a system of government easily leveraged by special interests with no real concern for the general welfare. It was done with tactics of fear and simplification that ignored the deliberative and collaborative processes that had brought California to the forefront. This is not something new in government but it is a fallacy to assume that complex and interconnected issues can be resolved by unstudied emotionalism and direct legislation.

It is what we may now have happening in the nation. The use of fear and group hatred is being combined with irresponsible fiscal proposals that will not solve our problems but lead us to disassembling what I consider a decent and progressive society. It is particularly threatening in the way our judiciary is also become politicized as a way to impose majority control in areas such as religion and private behavior. It is already facilitating distortions in our political system heavily weighted towards preferences for those with power and wealth.

The judicial system is crucial to the protection of the weak and few. But there are many on the current Supreme Court who do not accept this as fundamental.

Many will rejoice. Will ignorance and prejudice dominate over learning and tolerance. After 200 years of democracy are we are on the verge of self destruction? America will not lead the world forever. It will happen sooner rather than later.

Would you hire him?

That was the test for friendship, marriage and employment authored by the late Elnora Schmadel (yes, that was her real name). Elnora was a psychologist and held seminars for the business community in Orange County, Calif. She could be ultra blunt. I took her to lunch one day and her first question to me was, “Do you love your wife?” I was stunned for a moment since nobody had ever asked me that. “Yes”, I replied. “I think you do,” she said. She told us to get real about our business lives. If clients didn’t pay on time, cut them loose. If you worried about their creditworthiness, do a proper check on them. Sometimes she hit a raw nerve as when she got a business couple arguing with each other in front of us. But she was there to help us. I look at people in the workplace and wonder how they ever got hired. Guys who haven’t shaved in weeks, or taken a haircut or shined their shoes. Clerks are jerks goes the old saying but gee, we would respect them if they respected us as customers. My friend Kris, the Swiss restaurant owner, used to tell me that the first thing he looked for in a restaurant was all the hiring mistakes. This economy can’t afford hiring mistakes. We need to tighten up the workplace and make it function more smoothly and more profitably. I’ve written a paper titled: “A service economy requires a service mentality”. Next time you’re out shopping or dining ask the question of the help, “Would you hire them?"

Down and out in jobless America

There aren’t enough jobs for everyone. There are jobs out there but getting one is frustrating, menial and mostly impossible. But I have a suggestion for you if you follow me to the very end of this diatribe.
I know this from applying for a job as a census enumerator this Spring. Unfortunately, there were 20,000 applicants for 4800 openings in Nevada. Premise No 1: there are way more applicants than jobs.
Then I went to my first (and last) Career Fair. There were huge lines waiting to get in (see Premise No. 1). A girl came by with a large cardboard box collecting resumes. The booths inside featured franchise “opportunities”, Army recruiting, and real estate positions (puhleeze!). Premise No. 2: there are lots of people selling and nobody buying.
What about the jobs section of the newspaper? Surely there must be plenty of openings there. Perhaps I should let the philosopher Louis Jordan explain it in
“Choo choo ch’boogie”.
“Take the daily paper from the top of the rack,
And read the situation from the front to the back,
The only job that’s open needs the man with a knack,
So put the paper right back on the top of the rack.”
Premise No. 3: the classifieds are full of openings if you’re a forensic financial expert in ground sirloin, a nurse for the midnight to dawn shift, a cabdriver, and commission work in a cubicle.
If you go online you’ll see ads promising $7000 a week for licking postage stamps. Avoid these people like bedbugs and don’t ever give them your credit card number.
So what can you do? You have no voice in Washington, you’re facing a financial firing squad and all you want to do is make some money and keep solvent.
Let me offer a lesson from literature. There is a short story by Somerset Maugham called “The Verger”. Albert is a verger, a church functionary who helps a bishop in England. He is called in by two churchwardens who have discovered that he can’t read or write. They are horrified, and as a consequence he is fired.
He had saved a tidy sum but not enough to live on without doing something. While walking home he looked for a tobacconist but couldn’t find one. He thought, “I shouldn’t wonder but a fellow might do very well with a little shop here.” He found a shop to let and it was a success. In the course of ten years he had acquired ten shops and was making money hand over fist.
One day at the bank, the manager called him while he was making a deposit. He had over 35,000 Pounds in his account (a fortune then or now). The manager said, “Do you mean to say that you’ve built up this important business and amassed a fortune without being able to read or write? Good God, man, what would you be now if you had been able to?”
“I can tell you that sir,” said Albert, a little smile on his still aristocratic features, “I’d be verger of St. Peter’s, Neville Square.”
Premise No. 4: Employ yourself. Reach your own conclusions and don’t let anything hold you back.