Facebook and Politics Don’t Mix

To all my friends on Facebook: I am tired of the political bickering here largely based upon divisive left vs right party issues. As of right know, if you post such, I will read less of it and respond even less, unless I think I must, which perhaps might be too often, until I get used to ignoring you.I am not blocking anyone now for these reasons because I believe in open communications, but at my age, I don’t have to put up with any junk I don’t like. But I am tired of this BS, and it is making me increasingly tired of Facebook. One thing I swear to do is look vastly less at supposed news posted, real or fake, on Facebook, and I will turn again to direct news sources, which is easy enough to do with a few spare seconds. Thanks for the sparring, but no more, please!

Trump’s First Press Conference

One nice thing about getting to be an older man is that one no longer needs to give a damn about taking a strong position, and after just watching Trump in what was billed as his first press conference as President-elect, I’d rate him a one on a scale of ten, as he might say in commenting on young actresses.

Nice try, Mr. Trump. No, he didn’t even try.  In my 40 years of conducting scores of corporate news conferences and press briefings, I’ve never seen even the most calcitrant and abused CEO treat the press with as much open disdain as Trump did today. He courts the most intense scrutiny from the press any President has ever seen. I spent my career trying to build honest-broker relations with the press. In that respect, Trump is a total disaster, and if that is what his “base” wants to see, they are only confirming how “base” they are.

The loser in all this is not the press, it is you who are reading this, because of the questions not allowed to be asked and the questions remaining unanswered. You know, the French have had 13 governments since the original French revolution. That means they have peacefully thrown their entire government out 13 times. At this early stage of Trump’s reign, I’m sad to say it seems we may be due.

LET’S CREATE A UNIVERSAL DRAFT

I just saw an announcement that the Army has called for proposals from agencies for its recruiting account because the number of qualified young adults enlisting has been dropping. The fees available for such a new account, currently held by McCann Worldwide is shown to be up to $4 BILLION over a ten year period! That’s a lot of dough for recruiting.

Wouldn’t this be a good time to create a universal draft, which could not only save most of that $4 BILLION tagged for recruitment, but much more importantly, provide a training and service opportunity for all qualified young Americans in both the military and other federal service (such as rebuilding infrastructure throughout the nation)? It would expand employment and training opportunities for young people after high school, and perhaps before college or other technical career training.

One other by-product of a universal draft is that the citizenry, not only those doing federal service but their families, would be more engaged with the federal government, and develop a keener sense of what it takes to be a true American citizen. And, there would also be closer citizen oversight and participation in our federal government, because families across the land would be engaged in serving their nation, as well as benefit from the work of these engaged young Americans.