Editor’s Note: Welcome to new subscribers. This week, the administration used the cover of more trumped up charges to bring back an illegally deported individual. They are also now workimg to send in National Guard units to California for a problem they are purposely creating. And the rest of the week? Trump and Musk. Two narcissistic men. Treating Americans as a captive audience. We’re the ones that have to suffer through this, on day 142 of the Great Con II.

When we go to the store and buy our groceries, clothing, shoes, and computers, we hardly think or care where stuff comes from (ironically, we’re spending a lot of time worrying more about where people come from). We’ve become accustomed to both the value and the vulgarness of distant decision-making.

For over a century, the American ethos of convenience has been underpinned by a dangerous cognitive shortcut: if a problem isn’t visible, it ceases to exist. This “out of sight, out of mind” mentality, which divorces decision-makers from the consequences of their actions, has enabled systemic exploitation of people, places, and resources. As long as we don’t consider where are garbage goes after we toss it, or where our electricity comes from, or who poured the plastic in the molds, or why workers are purposely kept below 40 hours a week, the physical and psychological distance between choices and accountability will reap long-term costs.

Our conveniences today are a dodge from responsibility if it causes problems later on for our kids and their kids. If we only prioritize a price tag or logo over the origins of products, we remain oblivious to forced labor in supply chains or deforestation linked to production. When goods are cheap, there is a typically a higher cost somewhere else. Remember, on a planet like ours, nothing disappears or stays hidden forever.

Corporate decision-making magnifies this dynamic. Headquarters in cities like New York or San Francisco or Seattle or Bentonville dictate decisions for workers in towns all across America. A 2024 Forbes study found that 77% of employees lose faith in companies after mass layoffs, yet executives from a distance rarely witness the collapse of local economies or mental fallout. We have witnessed this up close when Elon Musk, empowered by Donald Trump, was allowed to displace thousands of American workers, then walk away from it (and as reports are showing, Musk took away an increase in governmental contracts to his own businesses).

Evil or apathetic?

This detachment echoes a colonial mindset that has plagued America from the beginning: profits flow upward, while the costs associated with unemployment, addiction, foreclosures, layoffs, and lack of healthcare, are borne by communities rendered invisible to distant decision-makers. The same applies to environmental regulation. When CEOs in skyscrapers approve offshore drilling, fracking, or coal mining, they don’t directly experience the oil spills, lung diseases, or home drinking water that bursts into flames at the faucet.

Let them move or buy them out.

Distance sanitizes destruction.

We’re seeing more of this with the gamification of war-making, where lethal drones can be flown and managed from a great distance. Powerful for the controller and out of sight for the decisionmaker. Military strategists in Washington or Tampa can make drone strikes thousands of miles away, shielded from the “collateral damage” of noncombatant humans being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tools are new, but not the concept. Some of you will recall the Fortunate Son lyrics disparaging politicians who send others’ children to die instead of their own.

This mentality thrives because it’s profitable and personally empowering. That’s it. There’s no magic. They are types of greed. We’ve not only made wealth by passing off problems, but we make idols out of rich men without exploring how their money was made. Psychologists call this “hyperbolic discounting”: prioritizing immediate rewards over deferred consequences. By externalizing costs like pollution, poverty, and PTSD, decision-makers have privatized huge economic gains and sent the losses to local communities. What’s worse, through PACs and direct donations, they put their fingers on the side of public policy to keep kicking the can down the road.

Breaking this cycle requires a shift toward more future-focused decision-making - a framework that considers the needs of unseen stakeholders and unborn generations. Progress hinges on collapsing the distance of decisionmaking both physical and cognitive. If CEOs toured landfills, legislators visited war zones, and consumers met factory workers, the abstraction of suffering would dissolve. Transparency laws like supply-chain disclosures and carbon labeling could also bridge informational gaps. Democratizing decision-making-through ranked-choice voting (written about in Issue 49) and more employee ownership of business would also ground choices to a more local and lived reality.

The “out of sight, out of mind” mentality is a failure of empathy and imagination. It confuses convenience with progress, and proximity with truth. To build a sustainable future, we must get rid of the corporate slaveholder’s mentality; of being in the big house, getting something for nothing, and leaving others to pick the fields and pick up the pieces.

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This didn’t get as much attention as it should have. Prevention is the best investment, and a group of farmers in New York depended upon this public program to make good decisions. When those programs were cut, they sued and won. So far, it has been the judicial branch that has held the line for democracy, and this sentence in the story captured what is occurring. The plaintiffs alleged the actions violated three federal laws and were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”

That is exactly what is happening everywhere in this administration.

When we return to sanity, we are going to need a commission on how this happened, but most importantly why? Why did normal routine public programs become a scapegoat at a time of massive profit?

And why were we so quiet?

Wow.

I cannot tell you how much reading a piece like this bothers me. If you’ve been subscribing to this newsletter, you know I talk about the importance of developing a regular reading habit. If you want an easy indicator of what ails our nation, it is that half the country is not reading anything of substance. They are taking a shortcut to getting their continued education through arbitrary sources such as Fox News and TikTok.

The concept of reading is the hallmark of the advancement of nations in the world. That we can record and share our brilliance and creativity for others to learn from. If we feel we can have kids without the obligation of spending time with them in constructive ways that grow their brains, we’ve got real problems.

Reading is the easiest and cheapest form of entertainment and education, and if you start early, it is more likely to become a habit with your kids (and frankly, less work for you in the long run).

Instead of a pacifier or a screen, get a book.

There is so much covered in this article that relates to the topic of this issue. The hubris to make money off a public good. The lack of accountability or concern for the workers and communities. As the article and several commentators point out, these investors were probably smart enough to stay within the legal requirements of what they were doing.

But was it the right thing? Working America smells this for what it is.

It’s a huge problem when this type of profit-making is legal. When things like this are allowed to happen and go unpunished. The so-called profit comes from lots of little costs distributed in small-town America everywhere. It comes from the crushed souls of workers who go in daily to do their job for the most vulnerable, only to be jobless because of a few egos.

This is why you must elect real public servants and protect good public policy.

In the spirit of remembering the fight against Nazism, this is a very short film that you’ll enjoy. The two men who entered this schoolhouse were the last of the leadership of a great con. They followed a barker who, through luck, greed, and timing, took over his country through democratic means. The result is written for eternity.

No one likes to talk about death and dying, but if there is one place we need to evolve, it’s the funeral industry. Not only is the cost excessive to most families, but in the year 2025, putting an embalmed body into the ground, or even incineration, is probably not the most natural, or even human thing to do.

I’ve watched for several years now as natural, eco, or green alternatives are becoming more viable options. I’ve seen the burlap and seed bag types, but have never seen this concept of a mushroom casket. I have to admit I have a hard time not finding the second suggestion a bit humorous: a composter that will help tumble your remains to get it ready for proper composting.

Oh, my….

All fun aside, these are interesting developments. In places where I live that have high water tables, these are much more friendly options for the Earth.

Short story with a poignant ending. Always take time to honor and remember those who made a difference in your life.

You made it to the end. It was eighty-one years ago when many a young American slept a restless night on board ships, entered the fog of war in the early AM, and gave their last breaths on the beaches of Normandy.

Honor the sacrifice with some purpose and character.

Be a good human.