Snippets of Freedom

The Spring Edition of Lapham's Quarterly is entitled "Freedom". I am about two thirds through it but thought I would reprint some of the quotes that are interspersed throughout the articles.

But first, I searched my own blog for other posts about freedom, and I enjoyed rereading all three, so here they are in reverse chronological order.

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-right-to-choose.html

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2018/07/freedom-vs-security.html

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2011/09/repeal-of-dont-askdont-tell.html 

So, back to the quotes.

"I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.                         

                              Mikhail Bakunin, 1871

"Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it."

                                       George Bernard Shaw, 1903 

I quoted something similar to Bakunin in a recent, previous post. I paired it with Shaw's quote because I see this as the critical link that most people seem to be forgetting today. Freedom is not just doing whatever you want, and passing laws that elevate your (sense of) freedom by removing someone else's. Inherent in the ideal of freedom is the responsibility to advocate for freedom for everyone, which is surely the hardest and most dreaded byproduct of liberty for all. Sort of like acknowledging that trans people have a right to drink beer and shop for clothes at a local department store and that by so doing, you are not less free.

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"Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

                                      Rudy Giuliani, 1999

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant -- democracy to many."

                                      Marguerite Gardiner, 1839

At first I was surprised by Guiliani's quote, then, once I thought about it realized that he was always about freedom coming from authority, sort of like trickle down freedom, which makes his attraction to Trump all the less surprising. I paired it with Gardiner's quote to remind myself that democracy allows multiple voices to be heard, but even within that political system, as we so often see in today's political climate, there are voices that demand allegiance to their particular brand of tyranny, whether you call it political correctness or anti-woke ideology.

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"There are only two kinds of freedom in the world: the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounce possessions."

                                       Anais Nin, 1940

Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one."

                                         A.J. Liebling, 1960

Anyone who has read even a fraction of my posts knows that I am not a fan of the rich, especially the super rich. I often feel that Nin's quote reflects the dichotomy of how freedom exists in the world today, in that the rich and powerful are far too often free of accountability for their crimes. Liebling's quote flows along a similar line of thought, especially in light of the recent settlement between Fox and Dominion which, while it was certainly a large sum of money, has not stopped Fox News Corp from continuing to wield huge influence in American politics, despite the lies that were promoted about the 2020 election, and the continued lies spun out everyday since that verdict. Murdoch seems to be the poster boy for the negative aspects of both quotes.

Of course, it is easier said than done to renounce possessions, but not as difficult if one remembers that possessions are merely a tool, not the goal. 

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Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.              

                                  Agnes Repplier, 1916

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

                                            John Adams, 1814

I linked these two quotes as if to demonstrate, through Repplier's assertion, why Adams' quote is true. But not just to depress the reader, because I think it is only due to man's tendency to succumb to taking the easy way out, individually as well as collectively, that leads to democracy failing. It isn't because we don't know the ideals and heroic possibilities, and certainly not because we don't reach the occasional summit, but because we waste our energies on petty battles related to who should be more free, we exhaust our electorate by pulling them this way and that with the culture war of the day, then, and this may be viewed as my depressing statement of where America is headed, we kill off the best of those ideals and heroic possibilities by choosing the easy path which always leads to denying liberty and freedom to those regarded as "others".

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"Freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically speaking, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive."

                                            Thomas Mann, 1940

"When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for the normal people."

                                   Thomas Szasz, 1973

As is true for most of these quotes, I was unfamiliar with Mann's and Szasz's quotes but feel that both offer an interesting perspective. I paired them because I thought that Szasz gave an extremely apt example of how society and the individual can be mutually exclusive. One might go so far as to say that there are only two types of people in the world, those that agree that the good of the many outweigh the good of the few, and those that believe that if each individual looked out for herself, all would be better off. 

Of course, those who choose a course which is beneficial for themselves, at the cost of others, might face opposition from those who are used and abused so that one person can "take care of themselves". 

But then again, a plantation owner who believes that only through free labor can he maintain the plantation and provide for the dozens of people who live there, might emphasize the "sacrifices of the few for good of the many" The fact that most people acknowledge that deciding to act for the good of the many should be a voluntary choice, not one demanded through cruelty and fear.

Ultimately, I don't think freedom and equality have to be mutually exclusive, but perhaps that is one of the goals of humanity, one of the tasks set forth by the creator for us to aspire to; an age where both concepts coexist.

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"There's one thing about freedom. Each generation of people begin by thinking they've got it for the first time in history, and ends by being sure the generation younger than themselves have too much of it. It can't really always have been increasing at the rate people suppose, or there would be more of it by now."

                                             Rose Macaulay, 1923

"I prefer liberty with unquiet to slavery with quiet."

                                               Sallust, c, 35 BC

"Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; the liberation from the shackles and restraints of government."

                                               Emma Goldman, 1910

As a wrap, three quotes which suggest that freedom is an ongoing process which appears to be always evolving in a positive way yet always remains out of reach. What is interesting about the Sallust and Goldman quotes is that they suggest that real freedom is, if not violent, certainly messy. The problem, of course, is that violence is more often used to squelch freedom, especially by an authoritarian government, so it is easy to confuse and justify violence as a requirement for freedom. 

It occurs to me that in the quest for freedom, in the texts and essays and impassioned rhetoric, the word wisdom does not appear as often as liberty. Is that also a necessary part of the process of attaining freedom? It almost seems that raw emotion is cited, is brandished one might say, to attain freedom, as opposed to a thoughtful approach.

Is that the essence of the problem within humanity's struggle for freedom? Too much emotion, too little wisdom? 

I am reminded of the serenity prayer, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. 

Is wisdom the missing link when it comes to striving for freedom for all? The wisdom to know that "I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation," as Bakunin so eloquently stated?                 

Another Debt Ceiling Crisis

I wanted to comment on the current debt ceiling discussions, but thought I would check my past posts to see what I have written before. Here are links to the two posts I found relevant. They were written in 2011, after the midterm elections during Obama's first term in which he lost the House because the Dems lost 63 seats. It marked the beginning of the Tea Party Movement, a phrase not used much today, but only because our national politics now includes the hard line fiscal caucus of the right, who chirp a bit about the national debt during GOP presidencies but become apoplectic during Democratic ones, as they are now. 

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2011/08/loserswinners-in-recent-debt-ceiling.html

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2011/08/unexpected-waterfall.htm

I say that last bit because during Obama's 8 years the national debt increased by over 8 billion dollars, which is a huge number, yet during Trump's 4 years the national debt also increased by 8 billion dollars, which did not generate nearly as much outrage as was expressed by the Tea Party during Obama's years or as compared to what is happening today. Don't get me wrong, both sides of the aisle are guilty of spending money the country doesn't have, and both are certainly hypocrites when it comes to national debt fear mongering, accepting blame, and actual solutions.  

Here is an interesting article with 2 tables that display info about the national debt as it relates to presidential terms. The first details starting point, ending point, percentage change and total amount of that change. The second shows average debt accumulation per year for each president accept for Harrison and Garfield who died within a year of election. 

A quick examination of the numbers for the 21 presidents since 1900 beginning with Teddy Roosevelt who became president in 1901 with the assassination of McKinley, results in the following interesting tidbits.

9 Democrats, 12 Republicans

Biggest increase in aggregate, Obama and Trump, each with over 8 billion dollars, followed by Bush 2 with over 6 billion dollars accumulated. Biden is already over 2 billion, an amount no other president in history, let alone since 1900, had exceeded.

Highest increase by percentage (other than Wilson and FDR who each oversaw massive increases in the national debt during WW1 and WW2) was Reagan at 186%, then Bush 2 at 105%, Obama at a bit under 70%, Bush 1 at 54%, then Ford, Carter, Trump. Three of the top four were Republican, as were six of the top eight.

Average debt percentage increase per year, again excepting for the World War presidents, Reagan, Ford, Bush 1 in the top 3 spots, followed by Carter, Bush 2, Trump then Obama. Top three all Republicans, five of seven from the GOP.

Clinton, who I facetiously refer to as the best Republican president we have had in my lifetime, has the lowest yearly average of national  debt increase since 1970, and was the last president to preside over a yearly budget surplus.

One last interesting piece of data is the reference to the inflation rate. Up until the last 30 years, low inflation seemed to correspond to lower increases in the national debt, higher rates of inflation to higher spending. Now, low or high inflation, the debt increase has been exorbitant since LBJ, with only Nixon and Clinton recording average yearly changes below 7%. 

https://www.self.inc/info/us-debt-by-president/

If no party is above reproach, as the charts above indicate, then it is painfully obvious that both need to contribute to a change in direction. The last 40 years especially, have marked a dramatic turn in federal spending. I mentioned in a previous post that state spending during this time period, by percentage, has not risen as dramatically as federal spending. If it is because states can spend less knowing that Uncle Sam will kick in the rest, or because more federal spending has been required to meet the shortfall of lower increases in state spending, I would not hazard a guess. I do know that previous research indicates to me that in regards to education spending, states are lagging, but even this does not explain why we are spending so much more than we are collecting.

I made a sarcastic reference to supply side economics earlier in this post. I have little doubt that the changes in the tax structure that Reagan initiated during his two presidential terms, has played a role in the deficit, although more from the collection end than the spending side. Tax rates for the wealthy have declined dramatically since the 1960's requiring more monies to be collected from wage earners in the middle and upper middle classes. Don't let anyone tell you that the rich pay their fair share of taxes; the data is clear that a huge transfer of wealth has occurred towards the top end of wage earners in the last 60 years. Put simply, while the federal minimum wage has increased in small increments, and hasn't been adjusted at all since 2009, the percentage of wealth owned by the top 1% has leaped dramatically.

Collections have not kept pace with spending needs. And, now that it has been well documented that the IRS needs more funding, it is the monied interests of America that are caching the debate in terms of armed IRS agents taking your guns away, all the while knowing that by even the most conservative estimates, the rich are cheating the American government (and everyday taxpayers) of tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars a year. It is another example of how the 90% of us need to be inoculated from the propaganda of the rich who continue to try to drive wedges in the collective us by claiming the IRS will be after the average wage earner, when it is really the rich who will be, and need to be targeted for tax fraud, tax loopholes, and "creative" accounting.   

But again, that is only half of the ledger. Spending is also out of control. Everyone acknowledges it, but no one wants to be the first to volunteer to take less money. Are we just too selfish to solve this problem? 

As an older American, I generally turn away when I hear people say things like, no one wants to work today, or things were so much better when I was a kid, or other platitudes that tend to reflect memories that are mostly just a reflection of being jealous of those who are younger than ourselves. Mortality is a cruel mistress, as I am sure someone famous once said. When we begin to filter our perceptions through the realization that our best days are behind us, or worse, when we question whether we made the most of our lives, it is easy to direct invectives at those who still possess their youth. 

Yet, I do believe we have become too selfish, certainly more so than those born in the first 40 years of the 20th century. We all want someone else to receive less federal assistance, but bristle when asked to give up something ourselves.

Again, some of this is the result of the rich using their resources to create narratives about various parts of the middle and lower economic classes, which we read and believe without researching the veracity of their claims. Welfare queens who lived off Uncle Sam's teat, eating steak and having the latest techno gadgets was mostly a bunch of hogwash when propagated by the wealthy, yet was believed by millions, while, in the meantime, those with the most, especially big corporations, were awash in federal money. Depending on which research you access, it is estimated that if corporate welfare through tax incentives, political capitalism (granting exceptions to the rules that everyone else must follow), and, not to mention, cronyism and corruption, were to be assigned a monetary amount, it would far exceed the money paid to those on welfare. And, just to remind you,  children make up a significant percentage of those who benefit from welfare. 

Still, the question remains, how do we reduce federal spending, or at least reduce the level of increase?

I would look more carefully at corporations which earn huge profits and reduce or eliminate any subsidies they receive. The fossil fuel industry is an easy target, especially in light of the rise in gas prices in conjunction with the rise in fossil fuel companies' record profits, yet they are still receiving billions in federal subsidies. Why?

I am also sure there is much waste that can be eliminated. The Covid relief money, which was certainly a necessary expenditure, was not tracked well, and not targeted as precisely as it should have been. As is the case in many federal spending programs, means testing is not stringent enough. Those who need it should continue to receive assistance, but those who get help due to fraud or favoritism, should be winnowed from these programs. Unfortunately, better review of these policies, would require more civil servants, a proposal that is not popular, although, as I have said before, some of those who fight against more civil servants to monitor our spending, do so because they are receiving money they shouldn't, or cheating and don't want to get caught, or are the beneficiaries of corruption that is not being revealed due to a lack of public servants.   

One thought would be to tie future federal budget increases from year to year to the inflation rate, so that when inflation is high, spending would increase, but when inflation is low, spending increases would stay nominal. No reason to increase outlays by 5, 6 8% if inflation is at 2%.

Still, we are talking about trillions of dollars a year in deficit. That is why we need a framework for a plan that reduces the yearly deficit consistently, year over year, until we can achieve a balanced budget some time in the future. How far out? Perhaps ten years, which sounds like a long time, but, hey, we haven't had a balanced budget since 1990, so that is pretty good in comparison.

But always remember, a balanced budget should not necessarily be so sought after that it becomes a straitjacket. Unanticipated events require expenditures which may not be budgeted for, so there must always be room for deficit spending when necessary. That is one main reason why this artificial, politically driven debt ceiling crisis must be eliminated. Hash out spending priorities when creating budgets, not after spending has already been approved. 

Some might say that we are currently at the $30+ trillion debt ceiling because of Covid, which was certainly unforeseen. Could we have spent our money more judiciously during these past 3 years while battling the effects of the pandemic, sure, but fighting over an artificially created debt ceiling because we helped millions of Americans survive the consequences of the onset of Covid, the lockdowns to suppress its spread, the gradual recovery of jobs, not to mention the global supply chain disruptions, makes little sense. 

There are many hands involved when a society glorifies consumerism and a keeping up with the Joneses philosophy, allows the cost of living to outpace income increases, hands out credit cards like penny candy, allows the cost of education and medical care costs to escalate by double and triple more than wages, and then doubles down on the power of money through a Supreme Court ruling that equates money with free speech. Throw in the fact that we barely blink when athletes, CEO's, entertainment stars, and the like routinely earn as much money in two weeks as millions of Americans make in their entire working life, (50 million dollars a year is about 1 million a week, the average salary of $50K a year times 40 years is $2 million), and yes Virginia, we have a spending problem and a revenue problem. 

Is it any wonder why creating a national budget is so difficult?

And no wonder that when all is said and done, this current iteration of the debt ceiling crisis will do little to address the real problems, both sides will claim victory, average Americans will most likely lose some type of benefit, and the super rich will laugh all the way to the bank.    

But hey, at least drag queens will be swept from our lives!

How Woke Are You?

I am continually amazed at how, in some circles, being woke is considered a negative trait. Now, I could remind all those who are wielding the woke truncheon that one of the most woke people in the history of the world was Jesus of Nazareth. But I know that statement would not be taken in the vein that I am suggesting, but might be twisted by some to mean that I am suggesting that Jesus was some kind of combination pedophile, man in drag, homosexual. Yes, he certainly loved speaking with children, wore loose clothing and hung out, mostly, with men, but that is not why I consider him to be woke. His spirituality was clearly in excess of most, and his life's lessons, his greatest being love for all, when followed, makes our world a much better place to live.

However, rather than pursuing that angle, I thought it best to approach the issue from the perspective that, like so many societal debates, it is really only a matter of how woke someone is, not if. That we are really only arguing about degrees of wokeness.

Take women's rights. Just about 100 years ago, women secured the right to vote in America, after 150 years of not having a say in how our country was run. In other words, women have been able to participate in the democratic process for less time than our country has existed, not to mention for a speck of time when considering the the millennia that preceded when they were more property than people.

If you were to read the newspapers of the day, when women's suffrage was being debated, there was not a consensus, to say the least. Women were jailed, even force fed when they refused to eat. Popular opinion was not on their side, and certainly not the powerful men of the day who were quite happy with women staying home with the children so they could make all the consequential decisions. While the term woke was not used then, only woke people of the time thought women were smart enough to understand politics, or for that matter, be doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. Even wearing pants in public was controversial! 

While I am sure there are still some men who long for the days when women were property, I would imagine that most men today are now woke in this perspective, that their wives and daughters and granddaughters have every right to vote, become doctors, lawyers, etc, and should be considered equal in their mental abilities. 

Compared to our grandfathers and great-grand fathers, we are all incredibly woke in regards to women's rights.

Another obvious example is in the area of race relations. While there has been a resurgence of late of white nationalism in America, most people are far more woke in this issue than the men of the 19th and early 20th century, even more so than our founders, who penned the idea of "all men are created equal" but did not include women or men of color. But now, the vast of majority of people in our country believe in the rights of our black and brown fellow citizens, and eschew the idea that anyone should be owned by another. 

Additionally, mixed race marriages were against the law in many parts of America into the 1960's, yet biracial couples and their children are now generally accepted today, in politics, on the Supreme Court, and on TV commercials and shows. We "notice" biracial couples less because we are far more woke than previous generations.  

Now, in the area of homosexuality, we have not progressed quite as far when compared to considering female, brown and black citizens of America equal, but compared to the 1980's, there has been an obvious change in society's perspective. Over 100,000 people died from AIDS in America in the 1980's, which was bad enough, but worse when you consider that some on the religious right believed that they deserved to die, that is was a punishment from God. There was even some evangelicals who advocated for wearing masks when in contact with gay people, for fear of catching their disease. (Pretty ironic considering the backlash against masks that occurred during the pandemic).

But happily, while being gay isn't quite mainstream, we do have a cabinet member who is gay, and marriage equality for the LGBT community. While there are still some who believe that gay people can be converted, most of us accept that they were born that way, and that being gay is a trait akin to skin color or eye color and that it is part of God's grand creation design. 

Which brings us to the current kerfuffle over trans rights. I am still befuddled over why people are boycotting Bud Light beer because of their collaboration with a trans individual who is happy to feel better about them self. If Bud Light disappears from the market, does that mean those protesting have won something? Do they care if everyday Joes lose their jobs on Bud Light production lines? Do they think trans people might disappear if Bud Light isn't purchased anymore? 

If someone decides not to buy tuna because they believe some tuna makers are raping the ocean, or, won't purchase Exxon gas because of the Valdez accident, I get it. If you are boycotting Bud Light because Anheiser Busch believes trans people are people too, well, I guess that is also your right, but, when compared to holding tuna and oil companies accountable for their environmental misdeeds, it seems rather silly.

And another example of the misguided belief that more freedom for someone else equates to less freedom for oneself. 

They say that knowledge is power. Certainly, women becoming educated, and colleges being desegregated, provided those who previously were denied these white men only advantages, the opportunity for economic and social freedom. Or perhaps we might say that granting them more freedom, gave them those opportunities. 

There is certainly some debate as to whether transitioning men should be allowed to compete in women's sports, but the controversy about Bud Light was not about a trans person competing in sports, it was just about men who felt that their beer of choice, a light beer at that, shouldn't be consumed by a trans person. Perhaps as our understanding of why gender confusion occurs, how it was ignored in the past and the damage it did to those suffering from it, and how it can be addressed moving forward, will provide some insight to those who, like their predecessors who didn't understand why woman, black and brown people, and gay people should be treated equally, don't seem to have become quite woke enough to know that no one is free, until everyone is free. Or for some, until someone in their own family struggles with their sexual identity, and then, perhaps, they will get it. 

I guess what I am saying is that we have seen this movie before. A suppressed minority protests and fights for an equal footing in "the land of the free", the establishment pushes back by appealing to the good old days when everything was better, not mentioning that it was only better for them since they held all the cards and reaped all the benefits of the economy and social norms of the day, but eventually enough woke people realize that granting freedom to a segment of society does not make those who had previously created the obstacles less free. Freedom is not a zero sum game. Men did not become less free, nor did white people, once we moved closer to the ideal of all men are created equally and enlarged the circle to include women and blacks in our free society.

We are not free until everyone is free may perhaps, be one of the greatest sentiments ever expressed, and should be the goal for all people who claim to love freedom.

And, I would like to think, people will write about those unwoke people of today who believe it is OK to deny freedoms to the trans community, just as we write about those who fought against women's suffrage and civil rights. 

Better woke than asleep!

I found the following post, written in August of 2017, which I thought might be interesting to add to this post. It touches on the idea that reasonable people often have unreasonable ideas, but that if we maintain the idea that people with whom we disagree are reasonable, there is room to find common ground. Once we jettison that idea, and determine that those with a different perspective are not reasonable, or patriotic, or god-loving, there is little hope for society to come together to solve its problems.  Here is the link.

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2017/08/unreasonable-perspectives.html

A Film About a Man Called Otto

Watched "A Man Called Otto" over the weekend. I remembered that the advertised trailer had looked interesting, so thought it would be an entertaining movie to watch.

First, I have been a Tom Hanks fan for quite a while. I am old enough to remember him in his early days, the sitcom Bosom Buddies, movies like Bachelor Party, Splash and Money Pit when he was mostly a comedic actor, then as he took on more serious roles such as in Philadelphia, Forest Gump and Apollo 13, followed by his signature roles in Cast Away and the Da Vinci code series, not to mention all the voice characters he was doing during those years. Even in films that were not blockbusters, such as Larry Crowne and Cloud Atlas (which I especially enjoyed), Hanks has demonstrated not only a tremendous range of skills, but an incredible maturation of his ability to "act". When you add his performances in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and "News of the World", well, Hanks will certainly be considered one of the more accomplished actors of his generation. And it all started with him dressing in drag to find a cheap place to live!

So, I was expecting a high quality story, with some type of life lesson, and I was not disappointed, although, based on the trailer, was certainly surprised, pleasantly.

For those who have not seen the movie, and plan to do so, I would recommend not reading the rest of this blog, as it may spoil the plot. For those who have seen it, or don't expect to, here is my take.

The Hanks character, Otto Anderson, is the classic curmudgeon.  Everyone is an idiot. Nothing is as good as it was before. He speaks his mind with little filter, and with little concern for others' feelings. He is somewhat likable, partly because it is Tom Hanks, partly because some of what he says rings true for me as an older man, but mostly because there is a hidden Otto that slowly gets revealed when he fixes his neighbor's dishwasher while babysitting their kids so they can have a date, and offers to teach that same neighbor to drive when he realizes the person who was attempting the task is, well, an idiot.

As the movie progresses, we are also provided with glimpses of Otto's life, specifically how he met his wife, their mutual love, and the tragedy that altered the direction of their lives. The why behind his perception of life in the present, becomes apparent, and explains why he has decided to end his life.

The concept of suicide in this movie is presented in a way I can't ever recall in any other film. To say it is a bit comical insults the seriousness of why someone would want to kill them self, yet there is humor in the attempt that results in the hook holding the noose from the ceiling giving way, tumbling him to the ground, still alive, and the last attempt with a shotgun that only results in (another) hole in the ceiling. Are the failures a result of the fact that he really doesn't want to do it, because, as we find out in many instances, Otto is proficient in everything else he does? He does not suffer others' lack of knowledge precisely because he learns how to do things, and then successfully accomplishes those tasks.

The counter to Otto is his new neighbor, Marisol, a high energy, outgoing, pregnant, young woman who seems to base all her choices and actions on emotion, a direct contrast to Otto's logic. She is the person who accidentally foils his last suicide attempt in the garage, who brings him food to say thank you when he helps her seemingly incompetent husband navigate what Otto considers tasks that only an idiot can't do. And it is Marisol who gives Otto a reason to live, now that his dear wife Sonya has passed.

The turning point comes when Otto's neighbor is being evicted by an unscrupulous real estate company, and an absent, unloving son who has been (too easily, in my mind) duped by said company. Otto puts a plan in motion to fight the eviction using a social media journalist (what is that, he says earlier in the movie), and the avarice and arrogance of the real estate company and its representative against them. This is crucial because the neighbor was once Otto's best friend but Otto had let one negative happenstance cloud his judgement and spoil their friendship. 

One of the side plots of the movie, involves the young person who throws daily unwanted papers onto all the properties of the neighborhood where Otto lives. Another idiot dispersing idiotic junk mail. Whether through Marisol's influence or Otto's thawing to life, there is a scene where Otto comments that the bike being ridden by the paper tosser, needs the chain greased to reduce the squeaking. Again, to Otto, such a simple task that any idiot should know to do, but rather than just relaying that sentiment, Otto helps the young man, and in assisting him, finds out that Malcolm was one of Sonya's students. A teacher who Malcolm remembers as the only one who accepted him as a trans young man, the first to call him Malcolm when so many others would not. Then, when Malcolm's dad kicks him out of the house because he can't accept that Malcolm does not reflect his vision of what a man should be, Otto lets him crash on his sofa, calling Malcolm's father an idiot, which was, I thought, the first time the idiot moniker was actually deserved.

So yes, the movie is woke, as I commented to Nora when it ended. Whether those who have decided that it is best to create laws that tell a child that his/her self identity is not important to society would watch "A Man Called Otto", and realize their hypocrisy, I can't tell, but I would expect no less of those who are boycotting Bud Light to also boycott this movie, and perhaps even Tom Hanks for making such a statement. 

Perhaps someday, someone, maybe even someone who reads my blog, can explain to me why politicians, pundits, influencers, and everyday Americans believe God has made so many errors in creation. Whether it be in the creation of an inferior race, or allowing so many people the option of believing in different versions of God, or producing beings with different sexual inclinations, or an alternate understanding of their own gender identity, this god of ours seems to be far less proficient at making people as one would expect from a divine entity. 

Then again, maybe we are the ones with a skewed understanding of God's creation plan.

A Man Called Otto is the story of someone who loses his reason to live when he loses his soul mate, but gains the meaning of life when he realizes that what attracted him to Sonya in the first place was her understanding that it is only through compassion for others and recognition of the beauty of the diversity of creation, can our lives be meaningful. 

And so, at the end, when Otto does pass as a result of his congenital heart defect and not from his own hand, he dies knowing that he has left Marisol and her family, and Malcolm, and even the strange neighbor we occasionally see in the movie walking with exaggerated steps (like an idiot Otto from early in the film thought), better off than when he met them. And isn't that our real purpose, to leave the planet just a bit better off than when we arrived?