I’ve been busy with other things and haven’t blogged in quite a while.  But watching Bill Maher’s return to his Real Time show (9/30/23) after 5 months away incensed me so much that I am writing this.  Bill had Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as his opening guest.  DeSantis is a right-wing ideologue who is destroying public education in Florida and, in many ways, out-trumps Trump.  Yet, for the most part it was a love fest.  Bill approved of DeSantis’ anti-vax and anti-mask stances, saying DeSantis had gotten the covid response right and the federal government response was all wrong.  Bill has been harping on this for years.

And Bill absolutely loved DeSantis’ anti-woke stance, agreeing that “woke ideology corrupted institutions” with Bill saying, “you’re right, we’re on the same page.”  This is the DeSantis who prohibits public schools and universities from giving straight talk about racism and gender, from paying attention to diversity and equity, from offering ETS’ AP high school course in African-American Studies, and from teaching women and gender studies.  This is the DeSantis who is leading a witch hunt to ban books throughout Florida.  Bill has been on an anti-woke crusade for years (see many of my previous blogs), and he seems to have met his ideal politician.  It was truly a disgusting segment.  Mehdi Hasan, MSNBC commentator said, “Bill Maher chummily ‘interviewing’ Ron DeSantis on vaccines and wokeness is my definition of hell.”

But the worst part of the show was the discussion with panelists Mary Katharine Ham and Sam Harris.  Ham is another right-wing ideologue whose book, End of Discussion, has a subtitle that says it all: “How the left’s outrage industry shuts down debate, manipulates voters, and makes America less free.”  Sam Harris, podcast host, is one of Bill’s many favorite guests who are neither left nor right but offer some mixed muddle that accords with where Bill sees himself.  The discussion really highlighted Bill’s sexism and racism.

Bill is incensed that Nancy Pelosi and another Congresswoman criticized efforts to oust Dianne Feinstein before she died, saying, “when women age, they get pushed aside, when men age, they get a promotion.”  Bill asks rhetorically when has that ever happened?  Try news anchors, Bill, probably very true in much of the business world too.  Bill then goes on to criticize Gavin Newsome for saying he will appoint a Black woman in Feinstein’s place.  Bill whines, ‘do we need this sort of identity politics as opposed to appointing the best person?’  Both guests agree.  Ham even calls it racism.  Harris goes on to argue there was a time when affirmative action was defensible but no longer.

Bill goes on to cite a study that says that in 2021, following BLM and other protests, 94% of the 300,000 vacancies in 88 companies in the S&P 100 went to people of color, clearly believing that this affirmative action has gotten out of hand.  But Bill ignores the part of the study that says most of these positions were for laborers and service workers not senior roles.  Moreover, the study points out that the share of executive, professional, and managerial roles held by people of color in these companies only grew by 2%.  And Bill doesn’t acknowledge other studies that report that Black professionals in 2020 only hold 3.2% of executive or senior leadership roles and less than 1% of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies.

Bill then goes on to dismiss the criticisms he is sure he will get for having 3 white people discuss racism.  To me, the criticism has validity, but it’s not just 3 white people, it’s 3 white people who deny racism is a real problem anymore.  Bill essentially calls racism a “zombie lie.”  I know he can find Black people who agree with him, and he has.  The biggest problem with the show is that he thinks he is open to discussing all views, but he rarely has guests who challenge him.

Bill then went on to discuss the movie Barbie and the scene where she goes to Mattel headquarters and confronts what the movie calls “The Patriarchy” – the all-male Board of Directors of Mattel.  Bill then makes the point that the real Mattel Board of Directors is half women, so this is another “zombie lie.”  Bill goes on to say that in 2021 45% of Board seats in Fortune 500 companies went to women in 2021—so aren’t things getting pretty equal?  He says he got a lot of criticism for saying that but none of his critics disputed his statistics.  Well, how about the fact that only 31% of those Boards are composed of women in 2022 and only 7% are non-white women.  Bill never goes beyond the surface statistics that he thinks make his point!  As an aside, Bill said “I don’t know, maybe we do live in a patriarchy.”  Wake up Bill, there is no maybe!

Bill endlessly has made the point in previous shows that the left doesn’t acknowledge that things are much better today – and, of course, there has been progress – but Bill uses this to pillory the left and, as above, deny that racism and sexism are significant problems in the U.S. today.  The real zombies in today’s world are people like Bill and others on the right, they need to wake up.  That’s why they are all so scared of “woke!”

This was published as an op ed in The Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2022

I am an economist and a professor of international education policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. I teach about critical race theory (CRT) in all my classes. In one course I look at education issues around the world and their relationship to a country’s economic and social development. CRT is very relevant to understanding the nature of inequality in education and society. I even teach about CRT in my introduction to research methods course, where it is very relevant to understanding why many people argue research is not objective.

CRT essentially says that racism is much more than individual prejudice; it is embedded throughout society’s institutions, policies, structures, and cultures. Of course, not everyone agrees with that, but everyone doesn’t need to. It is widely taught because it is a valid perspective that is held by many. Defenders of CRT are making a mistake when they argue that it is mostly an academic subject in law schools. CRT is taught around the U.S. in graduate and undergraduate courses across many fields — in all the social sciences and many professional fields including public policy, education, communications, nursing and more. I’m not saying it dominates or that other perspectives aren’t being taught, but CRT has made great inroads because, to many, it makes sense and helps explain a lot about our past and current world.

It’s also a mistake to argue CRT isn’t being taught in our public schools. While few schools may mention CRT, across the U.S. all schools teach something about race and racism. Many teachers understand racism as systemic, as more than individual prejudice, and many share those perspectives in their classrooms. Thanks goodness they do! It is shameful that so many states are enacting laws or policies to ban CRT or control how racism is taught. The idea that education should not cause children “discomfort” is absurd. “History is not therapy,” as Timothy Snyder, Yale University historian, points out in an article titled The War on History is a War on Democracy. Good education often does and should cause discomfort.

The rhetoric attacking CRT is also shameful, as well as absurd. Sen. Ted Cruz called it a “bigoted lie, every bit as racist as Klansmen in white sheets.” Chris Rufo of the Manhattan Institute, who is responsible for weaponizing CRT for the right, said CRT is “a revolutionary program that would overturn the principles of the Declaration and destroy … the Constitution.” What nonsense.

Jan. 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Commentators rightly pointed out how people forget, how we need to teach its horror to every new generation, and how Holocaust education should be mandatory. Slavery was the original sin of this nation. We need to teach every generation the horror of slavery and its aftermath continuing to the present day. CRT should also be mandatory. While there is much good and beauty around us, we also live in a nation and a world of entrenched inequality. Women don’t have equal rights. LGBTQ people do not, either. People with disabilities face discrimination. People of different races, ethnicities, nationalities and religions confront bigotry and intolerance in country after country. Prejudice by individuals is rampant, but it is more than that. These inequalities are built into systems, structures, laws, policies and cultures everywhere.

There has been progress. Slavery, torture and genocide are no longer considered acceptable in most of the world. Attention to human rights is on the table. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals approved by the United Nations in 2015 offer a vision and a promise of a world without hunger or climate catastrophe, and with access to basic public services, clean air and water, and much more. But unfortunately, the goals are more rhetoric than reality.

Humanity is really at a crossroads. If we are to thrive – and perhaps even to survive – we have a lot to confront. Racism is a scourge in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world, perhaps everywhere. CRT offers insight into why this is so and what might be done to change it. CRT connects racism to other problems we face. Teaching about CRT thus becomes an important part of educating our children, youth and adults for a better world.

Steven Klees (sklees@umd.edu) is Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Professor of International Education Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park; he is also author of the blog and book titled “The Conscience of a Progressive” (Zero Books, 2020).

Just when you think things can’t get any crazier comes the charge of “grooming.”  Grooming is “when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and [sexually] abuse them.”

Recently, David Mamet, well-known American playwright, who when interviewed by Mark Levin on Fox News (4/10) said: “What we have is kids not only being indoctrinated but groomed, in a very real sense, by people who are, whether they know it or not, sexual predators….That has always been the problem with education.  Teachers are inclined, particularly men because men are predators, to pedophilia.” Thank goodness these remarks provoked a lot of outrage.  Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke for teachers everywhere, calling Mamet’s remarks “a repulsive demonization of the very people who have been a lifeline to our kids.”

But, unfortunately – and unbelievably – Mamet is far from alone.  Fox News, with hosts who are right-wing conspiracy theorists like Mark Levin, has become an echo chamber for grooming accusations.  Laura Ingraham calls public schools “grooming centers” and tells parents to send their children to private schools. Tucker Carlson, the most watched Fox commentator, did a segment on this where the banner at the bottom was: “Democrats are losing their minds because parents want to protect their kids from grooming.”

Of course, Fox News and the Republican Party are in synch, as usual.  Feeding the controversy is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Parental Rights in Education Bill,” dubbed by the critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which limits what can be taught about sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. DeSantis’ press secretary Christian Pushaw calls it anti-grooming legislation. She charges: “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer, or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children. Silence is complicity”

The controversy was further fueled as the Walt Disney Company, a major Florida institution, opposed the bill and is calling for its repeal.  DeSantis immediately threatened Disney with revoking laws that have favored it.  Republican Senators like Marsha Blackburn (TN) concurred.  Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene went further: “The immoral, disgusting, evil left is attacking our children. They are child predators. I’m not kidding you. Look at what is happening at Disney right now. Disney wants to completely take your children and they want to indoctrinate them into sexual, immoral filth.”  Even President Biden has taken a position, calling the Florida bill “hateful,” only to be accused by a host of One America News, Chanel Rion, as “the groomer-in-chief.”

This insanity goes far beyond the Florida legislation.  I would hope that most people who saw the hearings for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson were appalled by Republican Senators Josh Hawley (Missouri) and Ted Cruz’s (Texas) attempt to paint Justice Jackson as soft on child pornographers and pedophiles.  Three brave Republican Senators voted to confirm her.  Congresswoman Greene tweeted: “Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are pro-pedophile.”  As are presumably all the Democrats.  Not all Republican legislators have said such awful and ridiculous things – but there has been little in the way of denial.  And, in this case, DeSantis’ press secretary is right: Silence is complicity.

What were the outrageous extreme views of QAnon have moved from the fringes of the Republican Party to its center.  Before QAnon, Pizzagate was a more-than-fringe conspiracy that emails by associates of Hillary Clinton contained coded messages from Democratic National Committee members sponsoring pedophilia and a sex-trafficking ring.  Ordering a cheese pizza, the initials CP stood for “child porn.”  As if that wasn’t crazy enough, QAnon added baby-eating and blood drinking to the pedophilia charges and applied it to the whole Democratic Party.

As an educator, I feel very sorry for our teachers.  Their plight just gets more and more difficult.  The teaching profession has been under attack for decades.  Teachers have been blamed for everything from low test scores to the state of the economy.  Surveys of teachers used to report that a high percentage of teachers would like their children to become teachers.  In recent years, that percentage is abysmally low.  Legislators have increasingly treated teachers as workers to be monitored and controlled.  The recent controversies over school closures, vaccinations, and wearing masks have led to attacks on schools and teachers. Legislation making it harder to teach about racism and history makes it more difficult for teachers to do a professional job.

It is hard to write about all this without feeling both a deep sense of despair and anger.  How did the United States, most particularly, the Republican Party come to this?  How do we as a nation survive this?  I can’t respond to those questions here.  But I believe that the world, over the long haul, is changing for the better.  More people identify as anti-racist. More people are comfortable with different sexual orientations and identities (over 20% of Generation Z identifies as non-binary!).  Yes, all this makes many people anxious, and the Republican Party is playing on that anxiety, but I believe good sense will win out – eventually!

Jan. 6 committee members have been complaining about the ridiculously long delay in the DOJ charging Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, for contempt of Congress for refusing to respond to their subpoena.  Moreover, Merrick Garland and his DOJ seemingly have not moved at all to charge former President Trump and his many associates and enablers for their role in the Jan 6 insurrection and attempts to overturn the presidential election.  Unless this changes very soon, I think Biden made a huge mistake in appointing Garland as Attorney General.

Past AGs were often friends, colleagues, or even relatives of the President – at the very least people who the President knew would stand with them on important issues:  Bobby Kennedy for JFK, Clark for Johnson, Mitchell for Nixon, Meese for Reagan, Ashcroft for Bush, Holden for Obama, and Barr for Trump.  In appointing Garland, Biden was probably reacting to the many awful ways Barr served as a mouthpiece for Trump instead of a keeper of the law.  Plus, Biden probably wanted to stick it in Republican faces that they refused to consider Garland for the Supreme Court.

Well, Garland’s views and temperament may have made him a great Supreme Court Justice but his cautious approach to Trump and allies make him a lousy pick for AG.  As is very clear in the current makeup of the Court and in the battles over nominees, interpretation of the law is very ideological.  There are many very qualified candidates who would have made great AGs – how about Laurence Tribe, for example — who would rightly have Trump and his many henchmen charged by now!

A new CDC study of teenagers during the pandemic reports alarming levels of depression and thoughts of suicide.  Fox news commentators have combined these results with a “Johns Hopkins University study” done this past January that examined lockdowns across the world and concluded that they did not benefit public health to argue that lockdowns were pernicious.  These same commentators excoriate one of their favorite targets, Dr. Anthony Fauci, for refusing to admit that lockdowns failed and he “screwed everyone over, ruining our lives and our children’s lives.” Some go so far as to recommend that he be charged with child abuse.

There are many things wrong with this picture.  The CDC study did not compare their results to pre-pandemic levels of teenage depression and suicide, which had also been alarming.  Plus, this so-called JHU study has significant problems.  First, it was a working paper that has not been peer-reviewed.  Second, it had a strange definition of lockdowns that seemed to include mask mandates.  Third, it was done not by public health experts but by a group of economists through a conservative institute at JHU that is run by a senior fellow at the right-wing, anti-lockdown Cato Institute.  Far from an unbiased source.

There are plenty of studies and experts who say lockdowns likely saved many lives, and, with even more certainty, prevented public health systems from being overwhelmed with cases requiring hospitalizations.  Yes, lockdowns are a drastic step, but we were and are in the midst of a pandemic.  Reasonable people can and did disagree with the best remedies.  Lockdowns were instituted around the world because many public health experts thought they were required.  Dr. Fauci was not alone, he was just the spokesperson for prevailing scientific opinion.  Making him a target and blaming him is absurd.

The CDC has recently also been blamed for following requests from teachers’ unions about the protocols surrounding school closures and responses to the pandemic.  But the CDC regularly consults with organizations that are affected by their recommendations and neither the CDC nor the unions did anything wrong.

Fox news commentators and other right-wing critics have followed Trump’s playbook and continue to politicize what should be a public health discussion.  The pandemic is a tragedy, and we should all be working together to mitigate its impact.  In the U.S. we have had close to a million of our fellow citizens die of COVID so far and perhaps many more who have long term ill effects from the disease. I think drastic measures were needed, like lockdowns and mask mandates, and may again be needed in the future.  I think public health now demands a vaccine mandate with perhaps a nominal fine for those who refuse without a valid exemption.  All this right-wing nonsense about “freedom” – why should they be “free” to infect the rest of us?!

I thought it would be interesting – despite being distasteful — to watch Fox “News” coverage of the events held for the one-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021, insurrection – so I did.  There was a full day of events scheduled beginning with addresses by President Biden and Vice-President Harris, followed by testimonials from members of Congress who were hiding in the Capitol that day in fear of their lives, and closing with a vigil.  I watched some of it and found the testimonials moving and illuminating and Biden’s talk hard hitting.  I agree with MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace who called it a “blistering speech…slamming Donald Trump.”

Fox followed coverage of Biden and Harris’ talks with a show hosted by Fox commentators Trace Gallagher, Dana Perino, and Brett Baier.  The first reaction was from Perino who called Biden’s speech “divisive and political,” points echoed in Fox shows throughout the day.  It certainly was political in the sense that it went after Trump and the Big Lie.  I don’t think it contributed to making us more divided than we are already.  To the contrary, my hope is that Biden’s forceful enumeration of the evidence countering the Big Lie convinced some of the 60% or so of Republicans who believe it!  Polls indicate that that percentage has gone down, and perhaps the main hope for our democracy is for it to go down a lot more.

Baier’s first reaction to Biden’s talk almost sounded admiring — that it was “forceful, aggressive, and pointed.”  Baier is more moderate than the more extreme Fox commentators like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham.  On his own show later in the day, Baier even had an interview with Liz Cheney and offered “reflections on a dark day.”  Other commentators downplayed what happened on January 6, 2021.  Carlson put insurrection in quotes and said it was “barely a riot,” that it barely deserves a footnote in history and asks; “Why are we still talking about it, obsessing over it.”  Carlson and Hannity were especially incensed by Kamala Harris likening it in significance to the December 7^th attack on Pearl Harbor and 9/11.  They called her “absurd” and “ludicrous.”

But it is far from absurd.  All Fox commentators only consider Jan 6 as a one-day, one-off event that got “ugly.”  None of them recognize that the January 6 attack/riot/insurrection is so significant because it was just one part – a very violent part, yes — of a coup attempt orchestrated by Trump, the President of the country, and his many allies in and out of Congress, a plot to overthrow the elected government of the United States.  This never happened in the history of the country, and that is why the date should be seen as significant as the others Harris mentioned.

Carlson and Hannity spent a lot of both of their shows trying to compare the insurrection to violence that sometimes accompanied BLM protests during the summer of 2020.  They recited statistics of over 500 violent acts, people killed, injured police, and billions in damage and showed violent footage.  They both ask, “Where is the commission to investigate this violence?”  They basically ignore that the BLM protests were overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations by millions of people.  They excoriate Harris, showing clips of her supporting the BLM protests making it seem like she was supporting the violence that sometime occurred.  There is no investigation needed of that violence beyond what local officials have done to bring the perpetrators to justice.  If a national commission is needed, it is to investigate the racism in this country that BLM is responding to.  This comparison of January 6 and BLM makes no sense.  The January 6 committee is investigating a coup attempt!

Well, it’s a new year!  Let’s hope it is an improvement over 2021, but with the Oh My! variant – as I have taken to calling it – and the anti-democracy Republicans having a good chance to take back the House and Senate, we in the U.S. may be in for a very difficult and depressing new year.  I do hope we get a version of Build Back Better passed, which would be a positive step.

I haven’t written in a while.  One of my New Year’s resolutions is to rethink this blog.  Bill Maher’s been on vacation, and while Fox “news” is as outrageous as ever, I’m not sure I want to spend my time watching and commenting on it.  Today I will share a variety of thoughts.

Critical race theory is still in the news, although less so.  Too often, I have seen progressive Black scholars and commentators argue that the critics are wrong about it being taught in public schools, that it is something taught mostly in law schools.  I think that misses the point and is also incorrect.  CRT has made great inroads in the college curriculum, throughout all the social sciences and more applied subjects, like education and even nursing.  I teach a little about CRT in my political economy of education course and even in my introduction to research methods.  The 1619 Project is drawn on in some public schools, and many teachers recognize and teach that racism is pervasive, embedded in systems and structures in the U.S. as well as elsewhere.  Those who don’t, should!  State laws recently passed prohibiting this need to be challenged.

It is simply awful that children in U.S. schools now have to engage in active shooter drills!  The Second Amendment never envisioned the crazy gun culture we have.  The Supreme Court seems OK with challenging established precedents like Roe v Wade.  Instead, they should revisit precedents that allow guns to be ubiquitous and others that treat corporations as persons.  To do so means expanding the Court to end conservative domination.

Democracy in the U.S. is in deep trouble.  The Big Lie – that Trump won the 2020 election — is deadly.  One survey said 70% of Republicans believe the Big Lie!  A new poll out today said that has gone down to 58% — but still.  States are passing laws and appointing election officials that will make it easier to not certify the popular vote.  Especially scary was another survey that said 30% of Republicans agree with the statement: “Things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”   These are millions of our fellow citizens.  I really don’t know what can be done, but we ignore this situation at our peril.  Perhaps we need some sort of national dialogue, a truth and reconciliation commission.  I do understand something about the other side – if Trump had been certified the winner of the election and I thought it was fraudulent, I would be outraged.  Somehow, we need to convince millions that the Big Lie is a Big Lie.  But the overwhelming evidence has not been sufficient.

Evidence unfortunately seems beside the point.  Unbelievably, QAnon supporters believe that “the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.”  A quarter of Republicans believe this, 12% of independents, and even 7% of Democrats!  Moreover, only 20% of Republican fully reject QAnon conspiracy theories.

Our entire world is in very bad shape.  Humanity faces existential crises – Covid, climate change, other environmental destruction, and nuclear annihilation, among the most immediately threatening – and the outcome is far from certain.  Authoritarianism, fascism, racism, sexism, ableism, poverty, wars are all rampant.

Nonetheless, I am basically an optimist and believe that, over the long haul, humanity has made significant progress.  In much of the world, slavery is outlawed, women and minorities have rights, wars and violence are seen as problematic.  I realize each of these statements can be qualified, but I believe more people than ever before in history want a more equal, fairer, sustainable world.  I have worked in over 30 countries, and everywhere I have encountered many people who believe in the slogan of the World Social Forum that “Another World is Possible” and are struggling to make it so.  However, I am also a realist.  Whether humanity can survive and thrive is far from certain.

I haven’t posted in a long time but wrote this weeks ago and am posting it now as it is still relevant!  On a show last month (11/12/21), Bill Maher had Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank’s “Mr. Wonderful,” as his guest. Shark Tank is a very popular TV show where hopefuls with an idea for a business try to get a panel of very rich investors to put some money in it. O’Leary mentioned that he saw the pandemic as a main source of our global supply chain problems causing factories to close in many countries that supply essential parts. I agree. Closed production lines take time to re-open and, in a world of vaccine apartheid, many countries are still facing pandemic restrictions. Adding to this, demand for many goods stayed strong and increased as rich countries were coming out of pandemic. A shortage of truckers and warehouse workers, reflecting dissatisfaction with wages and working conditions, caused further delays and price and wage increases as demand for goods and workers outstripped supply.

Biden is being blamed for the consequent shortages and price rises when the problem is global, as present in Europe as it is in the U.S. The U.S. president can no more fix the global supply chain than he can lower the price of oil whose supply is being restricted by producer nations — which is also driving up all prices. I mean, it’s complicated and I don’t have a good diagnosis or solution. Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University said “Pandemic macroeconomics is a new macroeconomics…. We are to some extent flying blind.” One thing I do know is that we have world markets that are very interconnected and interdependent that have a certain fragility to them – small perturbations can have large repercussions and large perturbations, like the pandemic, has multiple, difficult-to-foresee consequences.

Bill Maher started his conversation with O’Leary by asking whether billionaires know more about the economy than the rest of us. O’Leary’s answer was “No!” but then he went on to give us his very biased view of the economy. O’Leary blamed Biden and government spending for inflation. Not true, Biden hasn’t spent that much yet and inflation is now a global problem not restricted to the U.S. Bill asked him something like:  ”How much is too rich? Income inequality is strong. There is an underclass in the U.S. who are barely getting by day-to-day?” O’Leary then went on rather incoherently that salaries in the film industry for animators and videographers are going up. Bill asks, what about everybody else? No answer. Bill reiterates, how much is too rich? O’Leary points out that there is always someone richer like Elon Musk, but he deserves his wealth and we’ll get his when he dies, no need to take it now. How crazy! First, “we” don’t get it when he dies, estate taxes are a joke. And second, so what if there are richer people, all that wealth is obscene, especially when over half the world is living so precariously. I think Warren Buffet would say that O’Leary’s philosophy is giving billionaires a bad rap (although, for the record, O’Leary doesn’t have a billion, “only” about 400 million).

And, of course, Bill and O’Leary end the conversation with “we’re both capitalists.” Bill says “there is no doubt that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than anything else.” Which may be true, but the other side is that capitalism has kept more people living at the margins than at any time in human history. Bill follows that with “we’ve tried other systems but nothing else works.” We’ve actually tried hardly anything. My book and my recent short piece explore TAPAS, There are Plenty of Alternatives, the critics response to Margaret Thatcher’s TINA (There is No Alternative).

As I’ve said, I think Bill is a good comedian, has good things to say about a number of issues, and often has interesting guests.  But he is getting much more conservative – I’m not sure that is the right word – I mean, too often he has what I consider bad politics on many issues, and he needs to be called out on these.  His last several shows demonstrate this in spades.

Let’s start a month ago (his Aug. 27^th show) where Bill closed his show complaining about people who “all they do is bitch about the country.”  They need to “have a little perspective.”  He said immigrants who have been here awhile know how good they have it, “We’re not the bad guys, we are fighting oppression.”  Look at life under the Taliban, Bill says — contrary to “woke ideology,” the U.S. is “Shangri-la” compared to many.  On last Friday’s show (Sept. 24), he said that he got savaged for those remarks but doubled down, saying, “If you think America is bad, try having Boko Haram move in next door.”

There is so much wrong here, it’s hard to know where to start.     But Bill’s whole argument is another straw person (as I have said in previous blogs, Bill often finds extreme views to react to).  No one thinks living under the Taliban or Boko Haram compares favorably with the U.S. It is just a silly, empty argument.  This almost sounds like an “America-love-it-or-leave-it” view, although he didn’t go quite that far.  But the U.S. is far from a Shangri-La and many countries do many things better than we do.  And for Bill of all people to take this view is bizarre – he has made his living criticizing America forever!

Another issue is that most progressives like me recognize that we need to spend much more on public services in the U.S. and that we need to raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for it.  Bill isn’t so sure and equivocates.  He went out of his way to point out that we already tax the rich quite a lot and quoted some study that said the richest 65,000 people in New York state pay 51% of the state taxes.  So what?!  The billionaires have been making out like the bandits they are during the pandemic.  We badly need much higher income tax rates, estate tax rates, and a wealth tax!

Bill isn’t so sure about the spending side either.  On various shows, he complained about the Democrats $3.5 trillion spending package which is doing things we desperately need, especially tackling climate catastrophe.  But Bill asks, “What the heck are they going to do with $3.5 trillion” and worries “It won’t be spent wisely” (Sept 10).  Of course, it is reasonable to worry that government expenditures are wisely spent, but the Democrats have answered the first question many times, and Bill knows it.  We have starved government over the past 40 years of neoliberalism, and child care, the environment, education, health care, inequality, poverty, voting rights, and much more need to be addressed.  On last Friday’s show (Sept. 24), he asked the question of why do the Democrats have to do this all at once, can’t they do it in pieces?  How ridiculous!  The Republicans would simply continue to block them on each piece, plus after the 2022 elections, they may not have the votes in Congress to get anything through.

To top it all off, Bill turns into an economics expert (also on Sept. 24), saying we can’t spend that much because the ratio of U.S. debt to GDP is 129%, and why is it so high when it was 114% after our biggest crisis – WWII.  There is no agreement among economists on what is too high – Japan’s is 237% — and progressive economists argue it could go much higher in the U.S.  Plus we wouldn’t need to finance expenditures with debt if we had a fair taxation system.

Bill, looking at more economic data, then went on to complain about the labor force participation rate being about 62%, arguing that 40% of the population are not working.  He said Democrats should remind people that they want people to work and should stop being known as the “party that gives out money.”  First, the labor force participation rate has been around 60% for decades, for lots of reasons.  This is not a Democrat issue, and it is certainly not because there are generous benefits for those not employed!  Bill has no idea what he is talking about here – economic knowledge is problematic, but no knowledge is worse, and Bill has just moved to the right on both taxation and spending, repeating Republican tropes.

Last but far from least, Bill continues to misunderstand racism and its implications for American society (see my previous blogs).  On his most recent show (Sept. 24), he went on and on about the “Black National Anthem” and how there can only be one national anthem, and this is fragmenting by race and “sends the wrong message that we are two nations hopelessly drifting apart.”  First, there is only one National Anthem.  “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a beautiful song written around 1900 that became the official song of the NAACP in 1919.  It has been dubbed the Black national anthem, but, of course, that is not an official title.  It is now being played at some National Football League games before the Star-Spangled Banner.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and like players kneeling down, it signals attention to the plague of racism in our society.

Bill says he was brought up to believe that “segregation by race is bad” – and in many ways I agree.  But that is not an absolute.  Separation by race is sometimes very useful, especially in today’s world, e.g., when Black people want to talk about racism among themselves, or when White allies do as well.  Bill complained that a 2019 survey of college campuses reported that 42% offered racially segregated residences and 46% had segregated orientation programs.  But this doesn’t mean that all students resided in racially segregated housing, just that that choice was available to some.  Black college students shouldn’t be forced to live in integrated residences.  And I bet nearly all those colleges had an overall orientation program for all students, but in addition offered ones to minority students that dealt with issues specific to what they face on campus.  There is nothing wrong with this!  This is not the Balkanization of the nation as Bill claims and is not on the path to the violent divisions of Yugoslavia, Rwanda, or Ireland as Bill suggests.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Sometimes separation is necessary to make progress and to heal the continued assault of racism today.

Bill needs to have guests on who understand this and can explain it to him and his audience, but he is not having many of those.  Instead, he has George Will on and hardly challenged him on anything, especially when he complained about the “multimillion dollar industry doing diversity training” and opined that “race relations have never been better.”  What nonsense!  Bill, you need to “woke” up!

It is both tragic and absurd that we have not seriously tried to vaccinate everyone in the world against the coronavirus.  This is a global public health crisis, and we need a global campaign and free, plentiful vaccines, many more than are forthcoming from the current World Health Organization COVAX initiative.  Mary Trump, Donald Trump’s niece, said that perhaps the worst thing that he did was to use the virus to divide the country instead of to unite us.  With saner U.S. leadership, we could be in a very different place right now with most Democrats and Republicans working together to stop the virus.  With more responsible global leadership, the world could be in a very different place in this fight for survival.  Let me return to this in a moment.

Our planet is in crisis.  In addition to the coronavirus, we face multiple, fundamental, even existential threats.  Climate catastrophe looms.  Widespread poverty and hunger kill too many, rampant inequality yields a precarious life for billions of people, nuclear disaster or war or is an ever-present possibility, conflict and violence is ubiquitous, hate, prejudice, authoritarianism, and nativism is on the rise, and more.

What is humanity to do?  We have the potential for a bountiful, beautiful, peaceful world, but how can we get there?  For the past 20 years, I have taught a university graduate course looking at alternatives to our present social and economic systems.  At some point in most years, someone brings up stories from films and books of alien invasions.  In these stories, it is the threat of conflict with people from other planets that unites the people of Earth to recognize their common humanity and common destiny.  I always say that I hope we will not have to wait for an alien invasion to do so.

But we have had an alien invasion – the coronavirus – and that time should be now.  This should have been the time – and it still can be – to mobilize the planet against this alien threat.  That would mean that all relevant countries institute something like the U.S.’s Defense Production Act and require private industry to produce and distribute the billions of vaccines needed as soon as possible.  This should be an immediate global, coordinated effort.

I always bristle when I hear Dr. Fauci and others talk of the need to vaccinate many more in the U.S. in order to lower the possibility of even worse mutations of the virus arising.  Yes, of course, everyone should get vaccinated, but the dangers from mutations in the U.S. is minor compared to the dangers of mutations from around our mostly unvaccinated world.  And, as we have seen, those mutations travel quickly.  Vaccinating the world is a moral imperative but it is also in our self-interest.  We in the U.S. will not be protected until the whole world is protected.

Naomi Klein calls the climate crisis a “civilizational wake-up call.”  So should the coronavirus be.  Klein argues that conservatives must see climate change as a hoax because, if not, they will have lost the “central ideological battle of our time – whether we need to plan our societies to reflect our goals and values, or whether that task can be left to the magic of the market…how can you win an argument against government intervention when the very habitability of the planet depends on intervening.”

I know many people are afraid of strengthening global governance mechanisms, but to survive, let alone thrive, humanity may have no choice.  We are already considering global rules on taxation.  In 2015, the United Nations voted unanimously to approve attaining by 2030 17 Sustainable Development Goals including no poverty, zero hunger, quality education, climate action, clean water and sanitation, decent work, reduced inequality, peace and justice, and more.

For these goals not to be empty promises, we need much more global action, coordination, and governance.  Perhaps someday, countries will even be considered anachronisms.  I certainly value the history and culture of my country and of other countries I have visited.  But I also recognize the common humanity I have seen everywhere.  We all share certain hopes, desires, sensibilities.  We also share common problems.  If human beings and our planet are going to survive the coronavirus’ immediate threat and overcome our longer-run challenges, we need saner and fairer ways of governing our lives together.  Being born to an advantaged family in an advantaged country is an accident of birth.  It should not make the difference between life and death.