SAGE Class on Election Issues 2022

Would you like to dive down beneath the surface of political advertising dominating the media and study major crises facing our state and nation this election season?  SAGE (Seniors Achieving Greater Education) is sponsoring Election Issues 2022 focused on major problems confronting voters. We will be discussing and evaluating proposed legislative solutions. Classes begin 10-3 and meet weekly until 10-24 for 2 hours each session. It is a hybrid class available via ZOOM and also in person at UMPI. For the full brochure listing other classes click here. You will find forms and instructions about how to register on the last 4 pages of the brochure. For questions about the class or the instructor, message Moore Bowen on FB. 

Instructor bio: Alice Bolstridge, Ph. D. in English Literature is a retired English instructor and a long-time volunteer activist for solving social problems through the legislature. 

Prospective Schedule

 

On the War in Ukraine

I do not understand the purpose of a Facebook post about U. S. culpability in causing the war in Ukraine. Is it supposed to somehow bring about peace in Ukraine? Or is it to defend the Russian government for waging the war? Or is it just to persuade us that the US government sucks, too, and should back away from defending Ukraine?

 I asked these questions in a comment. One person responded  that the post is meant to look "behind the curtain of propaganda" and to apply "critical thinking skills" to the US involvement. The value of that, she said, should be obvious.

 I still don't get what I'm looking for.. I want to hear  What do we do with what we learn about the war, about the world-wide rise of autocracy and its use of forced or violent oppression, including in US? As a pacifist, I really want to know the answers to these questions. If there are answers.

 It seems this thread is a fight among people with common values for peace and democracy. Could it be that in seeing the problem as dualistic (Ukraine vs Russia or US vs Russia or east vs west or leader vs leader etc.), economic and class systems that cause world conflicts and war mostly get lost? Might it be more useful to focus on the systemic problems and seeking solutions to them? For alternative analysis of the problem and possible solutions, see Richard Woolf "Democracy at Work,."