I have SPENT a Life Negotiating for America -- & put MORE thought into a plan to upgrade America than Sanders has!

Why does someone who has negotiated globally and been a terrorism analyst on TV think Bernie Sanders has no solutions?

Because frankly, as a non-candidate I have put MORE thought into a plan to upgrade America than Sanders has! And he's the candidate for president who recently admitted in a newspaper interview that he "never thought about" how to do the things, like breaking up the banks, he has advocated for over a year!

You can say "Let's raise the minimum wage to $15" but unless we upgrade our skills, we will still lose the global technology race.

I HAVE thought about it --for decades--and developed a real written plan based on experience in the real world (about 50 countries.) Unlike Bernie, when i traveled the world I was not chasing popes or to praise Fidel Castro and the Sandinista socialists who had taken power by force.

I went from a farm in Iowa to schools in Texas before becoming a legal negotiator selling American products globally (which actually create jobs HERE).   I did it as a young professional for Fortune 500, and later as an entrepreneur for small outfits after a lay off in the 80s (documented in "Better Times Ahead April Fool").

I have not been a government employee for the last 30 years as BERNIE has. I went broke in the 80's after a lay off. I know what the bro life is like more than the Bern.

Bernie hasn't even had a regular job like the bros in decades, so what the hell does HE know about being broke when he's been on taxpayer payroll over 30 years?

Bernie bros, the link below shows how the world really works -- by someone who actually got off the farm in Iowa and traveled the world on negotiations not tourist junkets to shake a popes hand (I didn't do that when I ran for Congress. My voters were here in the U.S. A.).

Bernie is pandering to your ass - you need to upgrade your skills because the rest of the world is getting smarter. We won't win a world that so many are clueless about.

It's in "Agenda for American Greatness."

http://globalamericanvalues.blogspot.com/2015/07/agenda-for-american-greatness-2015.html

America vs. Tribalism in the Middle East -- Signs we are Becoming Like Them?

                                     America vs. Tribalism in the Middle East

                     Will We Become Them – Or Keep Being the American Tribe?

America has much to offer, but we are falling into the same trap I see happening in the Middle East - tribalism.  It’s killing them and will kill us if we don’t get back to what made America special, our acceptance and guarantee of equality and justice to everyone, not just members of your own tribe.

Over there it has been degenerating into a Sunni vs. Shiite vs. Kurd.  Iraq’s leader is a Shiite, so the Sunni’s get zero say in government. Therefore their army deserted and ran when ISIS came. Now its becoming a regional, multi-country Shiite vs. Sunni (vs. Kurds) battle, pushed by fundamentalists on both sides.

In America, we are starting to see the same bizarre religious fundamentalism and tribalism inflect our politics and society at large. We have people claiming to be “Christian” who basically feel “all” Muslims are terrorists, even though they never met a Muslim (or a Hindu or a Jew.)

These same people claim to be “Christian” while wanting to deny poor kids food or medical care by expanding Medicaid. They don’t seem to follow any words of Jesus that I ever read in the bible, like caring for the least among us and the outcasts. It’s like they never went beyond the Old Testament (“Stone the adulterers” and an “eye for an eye”). They represent “Christians” as little as ISIS represents Islam, because neither does.

Too bad because its pretty stupid since America was built on all of us being part of the one American tribe –not Christian vs. Muslim or black vs. white, or Asian, or African or European. My ancestors came from Norway, but I am an American.  That is what we should relate to – not colors or religion. Such tribalism brings us down and keeps us from focusing on the one key prize – setting up America the nation for winning in a competitive global economy as countries not based on democracy, like China, overtake us.

We should have a Congress saying “How best can we compete with Europe and China considering we have half century old infrastructure falling apart under our feet and kids not getting the skills needed to compete with kids from China and India who do qualify for high tech U.S. jobs that go begging because American kids don’t have those skills?

Instead, we have a Congress would oppose oxygen if the President came out for it. They get paid full time to work 111 days a day, and spend ite focused solely on the lobbyists and favor seekers in the 1%. Instead of helping us advance all Americans, especially those at the bottom due to the highest inequality in 80 years, its members lust for power -- fueled by money supplied by that same 1%. They use the money to become fishers of votes by pandering to the lowest common denominator, selling fear (not vision) and pushing phony facts and magic dust voodoo economics they know won’t work.

They do it because it works and the 99% get screwed.

So instead of putting country first, the politicians generate phony enemies, like Syrian kids fleeing death by ISIS. They rage against young black men and poor women needing community medical services because they are pregnant – while telling them to practice abstinence and not to “believe” in birth control. They oppose both abortion and the sex education and technology that would lower it to near zero.  They make possible what they oppose.

They rage against Planned Parenthood over abortion; but never mention that is only 3% of their activities; never mentioning the 97% of routine medical services it provides to poor women who need like mammograms, etc. that they can only get at a Planned Parenthood facility.

Instead, they try to shut them down, and failing that, rile up the extremes to take violent action until someone snaps, as happened in Colorado Springs.  The GOP candidates, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc. --they are accessories to murder of a policeman and two others. Free speech does not include the right to falsely shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater, or incite someone to kill employees of a facility.

Our infrastructure is going to hell in its post-retirement age, yet some politicians focus on hate speech and the same small minded tribalism.

You can change this by starting to treat others as part of this one tribe – as Americans!  We are one tribe regardless of your color, religion, sex or sanity status. Let's start acting like it. Treat others the way you wanted to be treated, with respect.

Michael Fjetland
Author, Better Times Ahead April Fool
Agenda for American Greatness (at the link)

I am White and a Global American in a multi-cultural, shrinking world. Racists are the DUMBEST people on Planet

Now is a good time to have this discussion. 

I am a white American with global experience and I am disgusted by the racism I have seen towards minorities. It is time to change this moronic activity. The unwarranted shootings of unarmed black men in contrast to the docile arrest of a white man who had just murdered 9 people in a church tells the tale. 

Racism is not limited to color. Those who hate gays so much that they oppose their right to marry the one human they love also fall into that category. No one picks the color they are born. No one picks their sex at birth. No one picks their sexual orientation - its part of who you are when born.

It is time for those of us who are not gay or a minority to stand up for the rights of those who are. We live in a multicultural world. Get used to it! 

I have traveled and negotiated in over 50 countries and met many people very different from my world. I found that they are great people. I learned that as 'different' as we think we are, we are all very much the SAME. All people want respect, a good job and opportunity. All people want freedom and a good life for their children.

In my world-of-experience opinion white racists are the STUPIDEST humans on the planet. I even met some in South Africa who wanted to immigrate into the USA (its in my book). Hell, they can't even spell. Somehow they think the dumbest white person is smarter or better than a person of color. 

What they don't realize that in this new world of skills, the person with the best skills wins - regardless of color.  Being white (or any color) and a high school drop out is not going to be a winning strategy.

The white shooters who used assault weapons on 6 year old school kids or midnight movie-viewers are people with little schooling and low self esteem. They have anger issues and easy access to guns and social media, where they hear only what they want to hear.  The NRA makes it easy for the unfit to buy military grade weapons. What's next? Legal nukes?

We need to change that. These kids need a wake up call. What makes you great people is not your color, but your kindness to others and your positive contributions to society, like raising good kids and paying your taxes. 

We Americans can do better if we set a high standard of what it is to be an American.We are a diverse country - racism has no place in 21st Century America. The killings in the Middle East are a religious form of racism - thinking others are somehow "less" equal to others.

I propose that we all strive to be "Global Americans" as defined below. 

1. Global Americans welcome diversity and treat ALL people equally, and with respect.

    Show Respect to All People, Where ever you are. Be polite and courteous.
2. Focus on solutions - (we all know what the problems are).
3. Stay focused on world events - They WILL impact us, sooner or later (aka Pearl Harbor, 911). 
4. Global Americans recognize that we DO have a stake in the planet as the oldest democracy. We must set the gold standard for freedom, justice and equality ("All Men are Created Equal")
5. Global Americans realize that it is vital for our future to STRIVE for America to be No. 1 in education and technology in this high tech global, space age economy. Our future survival depends on it. Nor can we survive a dead planet if we ignore climate change.

Care to suggest a "Global American" value? Please do, here or at our Facebook page. Comments welcome. My story.