• ‘OFFICE POLITICS’ IS BROADLY ABOUT INTERACTION “OUTSIDE FORMAL ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES to accomplish personal objectives, at the expense of the organization… often an essential ingredient of trust and reciprocity which strengthen interpersonal relations at work.” With many offices now expected to remain virtual, the impact may be significant. “Research has shown that in offices moving from physical to virtual world, politics diminish, with less temptation to schmooze/seduce/charm/negotiate/persuade/influence, since the typical skills that enable manipulative & influential people to achieve this are less effective in the digital world… However, office politics will remain because: (1) Humans are political by nature, inherently optimizing self-interest first; (2) Online environments are simply technologically enabled complements for what people always had, wanted & needed – snooping on friends, inventing impulsive & superficial hookups, serving appetite for fake news or confirmation bias, and narcissist drive to engage in oversharing; (3) Personalities transfer intact, with people consistent & eager to express their identity & preferences (including finding a way to be political); (4) Many leaders need politics to retain power and protect their own interests above those of the organization… It’s not technology but culture that determines the degree of politics employees will endure working at home.”  [FAST COMPANY – 6/10/20]
  • THE COUNTLESS SYSTEMS OF OUR AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM follow a one-size-fits-all form of punishment for a “huge number of people that don’t fit well in society, incarcerating them in tiny spaces which, coupled with the highly contagious pandemic, has created a series of impossible situations” resulting in today’s chaos. The U.S. now regulates the “greatest number of laws of any country, at any time in history” – roughly 90,000 governmental bodies, each creating & enforcing some 18 million disparate laws, rules & regulations, through 18,000 policing agencies (city, sheriff, state, highway patrol & federal), housing over 2.3 million prisoners in prisons, jails, detention facilities & psychiatric hospitals. “One reason that the George Floyd murder struck such a nerve is because it tapped into people’s (primarily non-Caucasian) growing fear of ‘Big Brother’ and getting trapped in this system, with endless legal proceedings that make no sense, costing boatloads of money that no one can afford… Throughout history, the hallmark of a great nation has been its ability to resolve conflict, and virtually every nation struggles with this fundamental role of government… If overhaul doesn’t happen this time around, the next aftershock will be exponentially worse.”  [FUTURIST SPEAKER THOMAS FREY – 6/11/20]
  • PUBLIC URINATION HAS BECOME THE LATEST OFFSHOOT OF COVID-19, as public bathrooms remain closed and most don’t feel safe even using those available in re-opened bars & restaurants. Justice Reform in big cities which de-criminalized peeing in public isn’t helping, especially as people socially starved for three months have emerged to patronize ‘drink windows’ selling to-go cocktails & beers. New Yorkers now complain of a “whizzing in the wind” problem.  [LBN EXAMINER – 6/14/20]
  • “MADNESS HAS COME TO JOURNALISM… AND THE AMERICAN PRESS IS DESTROYING ITSELF… The traditional view of journalism was never based on some contrived, mathematic notion of ‘balance’ (like equal paragraphs for all sides) but on an ideal that showing good/bad/ugly facts would prod a better-informed public to better decisions, with accuracy, truth and trust in readers’ judgement being routes to positive social change… While ‘new movement’ leaders are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry and racial harmony – with ideas so toxic & unattractive that they eschew debate – are instead moving straight to shaming, threats and intimidation, counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives… and successfully conning organization after organization into empowering panels to search out ‘thought-crime,’ as it’s now established that anything can be an offense… Today’s reporting shields readers from knowledge of what a major segment of American society is thinking, and guarantees that opinion writers & editors will shape views to avoid upsetting colleagues, resulting in mis-informative pages & pages of people professing to agree with one another.”  [REAL CLEAR POLITICS – 6/12/20]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:     “Both politicians and diapers need to be changed often and for the same reason.”  But the U.S. Supreme Court has just declined to consider and “left in place a lower Court opinion upholding one of California’s ‘Sanctuary’ laws that limits cooperation between law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, which the Trump Administration have classified as ‘outrageous’ law.”

“Gaslighting the people!”  Who is really behind keeping the bogus Racism issue alive? A surprisingly smart and simple perspective:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YssYiNRNnHk&feature=youtu.be