Preserving American Values

Our nation stands under attack … not from without but from within. American values, our politics, and our culture have been corrupted.

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about

Websites: www.westillholdthesetruths.weebly.com; www.preservingamericanvalues.com; www.thepracticalbuddhist.com. A graduate of Brown U. and U. of Chicago Law School, I’ve had a varied career as a legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, management consultant, composer, teacher, and author. I have authored 7 books on topics as varied as Buddhism, child rearing, and politics, the latter of which received a pre-publication endorsement from James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic. My Buddhist blog was selected as one of the top 50 Buddhist blogs on the web.

Category: American Culture

  • Existential Inequality – To Abide in Peace or Not

    There has been much focus on the glaring income inequality in the U.S.  On the immorality of some people having so much, more than they could ever possibly make use of, while so many people have so little, not being able to make ends meet, homeless, even while working, while many others barely keep their heads…

  • Why Do Americans Put Up With Our Economic System?

    Income inequality in the United States is well documented.  Looking at the top 1% of the population … whether it’s high-flying corporate CEOs or tech billionaires or financial gurus or even the top worker bees … the disparity between their incomes and the average worker in their firms is staggering.  That people live in poverty, not having…

  • Trump’s Impact on the Increase in Anti-Semitic Attacks in Recent Years and How to Reverse the Trend

    Anti-semitism is not new to the United States.  It has always been here, sometimes more openly than others, but it’s always been part of the social puzzle.   Until the end of WWII, anti-semitism was very much in the open.  There was nothing politically incorrect about it.  Whether one looked at restrictive covenants in real estate development that prohibited…

  • The Ongoing Toxic Effect of Slavery

    There are many reasons why our country is dysfunctional today on so many levels. Most have to do with the nature of our culture, the “me” perspective, and the insecurity that becomes part of our psyche during our formative years and growing up. But there is another factor which I think has a major impact…

  • What About Protecting Children?

    During the past year, we have seen the #MeToo movement bring public awareness and public acknowledgement to the degradation suffered by countless women at the hands of countless men. And for those men who were called out who were in positions of power, many of them have fallen. Some have even been the subject of…

  • The American Social Contract Is in Trouble

    In my book, We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto, I noted that the Republican right wing has rejected the American social contract that had developed over time and was accepted by both political parties. Actually, it resulted from the policies of both Republican and Democratic administrations. The basic idea is that as citizens,…

  • Correcting the Perception of Poverty – More Whites Live in Poverty than Blacks or Hispanics

    Studies show consistently that most people, liberals as well as conservatives, think that most people living in poverty are Black or Hispanic. Given the extent of racism in this country, whether subtle or violent, (see my post, “It Always Comes Back to Race/Racism”), it’s not surprising that support for anti-poverty programs is thus non-existent among…

  • A Lack of Humanity Is Endemic in Our Culture

    Yesterday, I had two experiences that brought home a major problem of our culture … it’s inhumanity. If we think of this at all, we tend to think of this as a corporate problem – for example, the stories of insurance companies denying claims or corporations moving forward with toxic products that harm their employees…

  • Sex – Misused and Abused – A Different Perspective

    The reader might well ask, what does sex have to do with preserving American values?  Well, for one thing, as we know from the #MeToo experience, the male craving for sex often impacts the independence and integrity of women.  Their freedom from such abuse should certainly be an American value.   But also regarding the male, when an…

  • The Need to Transform the Health Care System

    There is currently much discussion, at least among Democrats, about whether there is a need to change the health care system from one which is based on private insurers to one which is a single payer government system … Medicare For All. But what that would look like and how we get there is not…