Politics, Uncategorized
TEN REASONS I DISLIKE “HUSH MONEY TRUMP”
1. I DON’T WANT TO LISTEN TO another four years of his endless insults, blaming, garbage talk, and blind congratulation of himself while demeaning all who oppose him.
2. We cannot afford to have a President who LIES CONSTANTLY — multiple times each day, and complains that the media are against him when they fact-check and tell truths that contradict his lies. For instance, he did everything he could to kill Obama’s Affordable Care Act and now claims that he tried to protect and improve it, even as he vows to kill and replace it now.
3. He and Vance are absolutely committed to grinding women’s power under their boot-heels and re-establishing Maximum Patriarchy in which men make all the big decisions–including those aspects of women’s bodies and lives that they know nothing about.
4. When preliminary budgets come out, he ALWAYS WANTS TO ADD MORE TO THE MILITARY BUDGET PROPOSED BY CONGRESS, even though the military-industrial complex is already so well-funded that it’s deeply woven into every aspect of the economy and sucks up money needed for social services and health spending
5. He IS A TOTAL EGOMANIAC. “All for ME, and everybody and everything else can screw themselves.” I detest egomaniacs. He’s willing to destroy the bedrock protections of U.S. Democracy and put a dictatorship with him as the big boss,
6. He continues to SET THE PEOPLE OF OUR NATION AGAINST EACH OTHER. Every day. Many Ameiricans now literally HATE each other with a venom not seen in our nation’s previous hundred years. For example, he posts, ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.’ He is role-modeling behavior that millions of his followers imitate. While president he literally SPARKED AN UNPRECEDENTED NUMBER OF HATE CRIMES.
7. He was the most EXPLICITLY ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL President in the nation’s history. i.e. Close the parks! Shrink the national monuments. Eliminate regulations that protect clean water. Encourage more and faster burning of fossil fuels. Cut funding for renewables. Bad-mouth the idea of eve trying to stop or decrease the incredible floods and superstorms that are like nothing that used to happe, His anti-Nature stances and policies are even worse than those of George W. Bush, which were the worst in history.
8. I put a more store in a person’s character than his or her ideology. Trump has very little character. He DENIES RESPONSIBILITY and BLAMES SOMEONE ELSE FOR EVERYTHING that goes badly—even blaming his political opponents for Acts of God, including floods and other natural disasters.
9. HE’S A CROOK. Look at his whole history. He’s screwed contractors on his construction jobs (his former accountant says it’s part of his business strategy.) Bilked students in his fake “real estate university.” A rapist (substantiated in a court ordering him to pay millions in reparation.) A con-man (cheated New York state out of millions_. A convicted felon. Guilty of incitement to breaking and entering and homicide (the Jan. 6 attack.) Richard Nixon was an angel by comparison.
10. An astonishing number of people who have worked closely with him—mostly people he hired—now say he is totally unfit to be president. This includes his former Chief of Staff, Press Secretary, Secretary of of State, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice President, and many others. His response? To spew a string of insults and demeaning remarks about every single one of them (instead of thanking them for the service they rendered while they worked for him.) That’s no way to run a ship, a company, or a country.
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If you’ve supported Trump until now, it doesn’t mean you have to keep on doing so in order to protect your self-image as a good person. That’s just cognitive dissonance reduction. Remember the axiom that you can tell yourself “UP UNTIL NOW I . . . ‘ and then repent, be reborn in a spirit of truth and decency, and vote for Kamala Harris (who happens to be a decent human being. Seriously,)
Cultures, Environment, Politics, Uncategorized, Women & Gender
Last Sunday, May 14, 2022, crowds in more than 380 U.S. cities were in the streets protesting the intention of four and possibly five justices on a less-than-supreme court to support the anti-abortionists’ forced pregnancy agenda. Two of those justices have no business being there at all. They’re are there illegitimately due to Hard Cold Right wing political machinations by Mitch McConnell and Humpty Trumpty, but you know that story already.
Approximately three fourths of the people of this country support every woman’s right to decide whether she wishes to be pregnant or not. That’s not surprising since that right to self-determination was recognized by Argentina in 2020 and Mexico in 2021. But travel to Mexico or Argentina is too pricey for some of the women who would be hit by a U.S. ban.
The leak” of the draft opinion to jettison Roe vs. Wade has been the subject of great hand-wringing by right-wingers who decry the “loss of trust” in the Supreme Court as a result — especially by Justice Clarence Thomas whose wife is a rabid ultra-rightist partisan and whose own record on the court makes it clear that he should never have been appointed to it. I think that’s backwards. Keeping a potential ruling secret until it’s mposed on a nation bitterly imposed to it is one more anti-democratic act in which a few impose their personal will upon the nation. That’s oligarchy! Leaking had the effect of making possible nationwide debate by all concerned and affected citizens. Isn’t that what democracy is supposed to do? Indeed, shouldn’t any policy this huge and consequential be floated for public deliberation before any draft opinion is even written? That’s democratic. Decisions by a small cabal on a court that has been packed by the actions of an ultra right-wing Senator and President are not.
Thomas worries about the reputation of the Court due to the leak. The Court’s reputation already smells like a broken cessool. In 2000 it chose to ignore the will of the people and installed someone as president who was decisively defeated. Thomas’ own reputation is at the bottom of the cesspool (along with Alito’s.) The powerful reality is that the reputation of the court would be damaged many times more by abandoning Roe than by any leak. Jettisoning democracy is a much worse error than leaking an opinion.
Unfortunately the Hard Cold Right Republican establishment doesn’t give a wooden defecation about democracy despite all rhetoric to the contrary. They want control. In this case it’s men controlling women. It’s the old story of “keep them barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” Yes, there are some women fellow travellers who support that — apparently including Justice Amy Conan-Barrett —although she still has a brief window of time in which to redeem herself, to vote to keep Roe and escape the fate of being a traitor to her sex— but as the Texas vote legislature’s vote to pay a $10,000 bounty to people who rat on friends and neighbors who have orperform abortions shows clearly, just a few. The Texas legislation was supported by 59 men and 10 women (all Republicans.)
Women are every bit as entitled to be in charge of their own bodies and lives as men. And the people of the U.S. ought to be entitled to have a Supreme Court that is not empowered to legislate
from the bench by imposing its own minority views on the nation. If this Court does not come to its senses and leave the Roe vs. Wade ruling intact, the nation should rethink the Court’s structure and process—and include recusal measures in which someone outside the court can challenge conflicts of interest and require recusal by any justice so implicated. Kow-towing to a political ideology which says the few can impose their will on the many ought to be one ground for such a requirement of recusal.
In the meantime, I hope people all across the country will throw out of office and replace every elected official who supports any and every forced pregnancy agenda. Or it’s another nail in the coffin of democracy. As past Justice Salia put it, a democracy in which the people’s will is repeatedly ignored by a committee of unelected lawyers is not a democracy at all.
From the consciousnessandculture.com blog.
Cultures, Politics, Spirit, Uncategorized
STABBING DEMOCRACY TO DEATH
In an authoritarian nation like Russia a question is how close to totalitarianism, as under Stalin and under Hitler’s Germany, the authorities will go. Putin has taken steps to make it more so with his ever-greater censorship and moves to control everything in the media that does not follow his party line.
The United States has long paid at least lip service to democracy and viewed itself as a defender of “freedom.” Rather limited freedom for many of the people. It’s obvious in the patently antidemocratic “electoral college” for Presidential elections, with the result that two of the four presidents “elected” since the turn of the millennium had millions of votes fewer than their opponents. One political party has steadfastly and successfully opposed all attempts to eliminate the electoral college.
But in the years 2021 and 2022 the project of defeating democracy has taken a great leap forward. One political party U.S. is intentionally, systematically and methodically moving forward with a project to eliminate democracy and take authoritarian power for itself. This was visible to the entire world when the January 6 rioting mob stormed the Capital and tried to put the loser of even the electoral college vote into power.
That was just the visible tip of the iceberg. The greater damage, which may ultimately result in turning the U.S. into a fully authoritarian state with nothing but a fig-leaf of deceptive words that imply that it is a so-called democracy is the Republican project to 1) throw as many people as possible who look like they won’t vote Republican off the voter registration rolls, and 2) create electoral districts that assure them of victory at every level from state legislatures to the presidency regardless of what most voters want. While many people who are not Republicans realize this is happening, few have recognized it as the powerful threat to democracy that it is.
Computer databases and algorithms now make it possible to create electoral districts that are so bizarrely constructed to favor one party that no sane person would look at them and deny it. The “redistricting” or construction of new electoral districts that occurs every ten years after the census was never meant to be a political tool. It was meant to readjust districts to accord with population changes. But it’s a political tool now, wielded mainly by the Republican Party.
“Hey,” the Republicans say, “the Democrats are doing it too.” Yes—in the few states where they control the state office that does the redistricting—in retaliation for what the Republicans are doing in most of the country. But even in some of the states where the Democrats have control they have pushed successfully to set up nonpartisan commissions to carry out redistricting—such as in California. The results are radically different from the crazy-quilt districts of politically partisan redistricting. Those districts are typically constructed with a few simple lines. Any unprejudiced person looking at them would conclude that they are sensible. Any unprejudiced person looking at 2022 politically motivated districts would conclude that they’re just plain nuts.
The probable result is electoral victories for Republicans that reflect the will of a minority of the people and that disenfranchise many citizens. In other words, less democracy. Add that to the less democracy that comes from the systematic attempt to “cleanse” the voter rolls of as many probable non-Republican voters as possible. In other words, less democracy yet. That’s on top of the already anti-democratic electoral college.
Oh, and there’s also the matter of stacking the Supreme Court with political partisans instead of justices who have a history of impartial interpretation of the laws—partisans who are all too willing to “legislate from the bench.” Republican party legislators accuse the Democrats of that, but the evidence that they’re projecting their own dishonesty and hypocrisy is overwhelming.
Is all that the country we want? It’s what we’re moving toward.
I don’t love Democrats. I think many, and the party, are misguided in significant ways. I’d like to see other parties have a chance. I’d like to have electoral procedures that make that more possible, such as instant runoff voting. If I could set up my own party, it would be neither Democrat nor Republican. Beyond that, I might prefer no parties altogether. George Washington did, speaking again about how the “spirit of party” was a tragically negative influence that deterred democracy.
But as a minimum, there are four basic steps that could set the country back on a path toward more democracy rather than less. They are,
1. Nonpartisan drawing of electoral districts everywhere. Congress could require this.
2. Automatic registration to vote of every person at birth or naturalization. Denmark does this effectively.
3. Adopt Costa Rica’s Supreme Court procedure of having a rotating pool of justices with the requirement that any sitting justice, upon challenge (not upon his or her own volition), must be recused from any case where there is any conflict of interest and be replaced for that case with another justice from the pool.
4. Eliminate the electoral college in presidential elections—or at a minimum, require all states to apportion electors proportionally, as a few do now, rather than on a winner-take-all basis.
That’s a start. Unless we minimally do those four things, our nation is only a pretense of a democracy.
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Cultures, Politics, Uncategorized
Never before has a war been so thoroughly photographed and documented as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—the largest war in Europe since the end of World War II. As a result real events there can’t be papered over or denied as they often are by one side or both sides in most wars.
Seldom has an invasion been so obviously and clearly the doing of one person. History records Genghis Khan, Napolean, Hitler, and Stalin. Now we can add Putin. The past week heard President Joe Biden finger Putin by name, calling him a “butcher” and saying he should not remain in power.
Poor little verbally abused Vladimir acted grievously injured. How dare that nasty Mr. Biden call bombing hospitals, schools, kindergartens, apartment buildings and refugees trying to avoid getting killed the actions of a “butcher”? Even some of Biden’s European allies said that it was not nice for Mr. Biden to talk that way.
Really? At the very moment when Russian airplanes, cruise missiles, tanks and artillery are blasting away at Ukrainian cities and reducing Maruipol, to rubble, it is not nice to use the word butcher, or to suggest that the dictator who ordered the war and each day orders it to continue should be removed? (Especially since he called for the government of Ukraine to be replaced.)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that Biden’s words did not physically injure or kill even one person. If we had an observer recording the invasion and bombing we could probably identify at least a handful of people who were murdered by Russian military forces during the brief time it took Biden to utter those sentences. The only harm done by Biden’s words was to Putin’s ego.
Putin has called for “an end to the war.” Perhaps it has slipped his memory that it is his troops that have invaded another country. Perhaps he has somehow not noticed that Ukraine has not fired a single shot into Russia, and that the war is entirely and totally a matter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps he has forgotten that there was no war until he ordered the Russian army and air force to invade and bomb Ukraine. Perhaps it has not occurred to him that the war could easily end instantly if he does no more than order Russia’s armed forces to cease fire immediately – stop shooting and bombing – and withdraw from Ukrainian territory. He can do that all by himself. After all, he’s a big boy—isn’t he?
Perhaps also, despite his deluge of words about the dangers posed to Russia by the big bad European military alliance (NATO), he may have conveniently overlooked the fact that the primary reason it exists at all is fear by most European nations that Russia may attack them—a fear well founded in history, and that he has now made terribly obvious is 100% valid today.
The Butcher of Moscow has accused Ukraine’s government of being controlled by “neo-fascists.” Maybe he’s misplaced his mirror—the mirror that would show him that his accusations are projections. Let’s see what the dictionary says. “Fascism: Authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorship, rightism, nationalism. . .” Ah, I think we have almost a definition of the qualities Putin values in his government. One can reasonably suggest that HE IS THE NEO-NAZI in all this. But of course he does not care to look in the mirror.
Little Vladimir apparently wants respect. (Don’t we all?) To be thought of as a Great Man. Really? It’s too late. There is too much video footage and too many photographs which show that he deserves none at all. He may continue to bamboozle the Russian people long enough to keep his grip on power until he dies, but most of the world can see that the Emperor has no clothes. Historians from everywhere but Russia will speak of Putin’s war. Perhaps even of the Butcher of Moscow. He has said that he wishes to be like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Indeed—doesn’t he deserve a title too? How about “Vladimir the Small?”
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Cultures, Economics, Featured, Politics, Psychology, Uncategorized, Women & Gender
You’ve probably watched TV news that shows police car chases, murders, muggings, armed robberies, police shootings, and —well, you name the violent crime. At first glance they may seem quite different, but they have one thing in common: The perpetrators in all those categories are almost all male. In fact, pretty near the only category of violent crime in which women show up at all is those that take place in families or with close acquaintances, and even in those the numbers are far smaller for female than for male perpetrators.
If you raise your eyes from those details of the exciting 24/7 news coverage to look at violence in the broader sweep of history, you immediately see that the initiators and leaders of all of history’s great episodes of violence are male. To name just a few: Gengis Khan, many of the Roman Caesers, the Moghul invaders of India, Napolean, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin—all men, every last one of them. And the generals of their armies? Again, all men. Most women don’t want to send their kids off to die in wars.
The big time financial whitecollar criminals and the legislators who write laws that give the rich brutal economic control over the poor are also mostly male. Looking at economic injustice, most people tend to fixate on the differences between the wealthy and the non-wealthy and blame the former—or if you’re one of the wealthy you probably blame the “agitators” among the workers and the poor. But there too, the primary architects of the injustices are mostly male.
Even the “sociobiologists” who look at gender differences and conclude that “human beings are inherently aggressive” are themselves mostly male. It took me some time to look carefully enough at their research to see that most such investigators included only males in their research study samples. Ah, so! Suddenly the light shines brightly on a fatal flaw in those research designs that scientists call “sampling error.” If a research study which finds that so-called “people” are inherently aggressive has only men as its subjects, then the only “people” it tells us about are men. Although women sometimes take a forceful or even brutal role, on the average men tend not only to be more aggressive, but also to have a stronger drive to dominate, to “be on top.” (This tells us nothing about any particular man or woman.)
It’s not for nothing that the Native American Iroquois Confederacy in Eastern North America gave women’s councils the final power over any decision about whether a tribe would go to war. It saved the lives of a great many young braves, and of the people in other tribes who might have been their victims.
When we apply all this to an analysis of the grave problems that male dominance creates, the clear implication is that if women and men had equal power in making the policies decisions about war and peace, criminal law, and the allocation and distribution of economic benefits, many things would be better. Less violent crime. Less selfish greed enshrined in law. Less war. Less production of weapons of personal destruction and mass destruction. Less of the environmental destruction and pollution that goes along with building and maintainng a huge military machine.
Requiring a feminine as well as masculine perspective in all major decisions would make far more money and resources availble for a whole spectrum of socially and environmentally beneficial purposes instead of building more and more nuclear missiles and bombers and aircraft carriers and submarines and tanks and. . . and . . . and. . .
Can you see it yet? We are so used to the oppression of a society whose every aspect is built on a blueprint of male dominance that most of us don’t see much of it. It’s like a fish swimming in the water. Ask the fish what “water” is and the answer you’d probably get is, “What are you talking about?” Since I’m male it took quite a long time for me to come around to realizing all that. But it’s obvious in many ways, almost everywhere I look.
Some feminist sci-fi and fantasy writing, like The Handmaid’s Tale and other related works, is meant to dramatize male dominance and oppression so well that it can’t be overlooked. But it can also have the effect of causing the reader to think, “Thank heavens things are so much better than that here,” and overlook the many subtle yet powerful forms of sexism that are embedded in numerous ways throughout society. As a blatant example, that we’re still swimming blindly through the dark waters of patriarchy that have led to so much of the cruelty and suffering of the past three thousand years of civilization, you might note the 2021 Texas Republicans’ legislation that offered people ten thousand dollars to sue someone who has an abortion. The legislators who passed that bill were 59 males and 10 females. That’s the naked hand of masculine oppression right there.
“But,” you might object, “what about the 10 females? There are some women who are anti-abortion, and who support other measures that give men power over women too.”
Indeed. There’s even an identified psychological pattern called variously “Identification with the aggressor” and “identification with the oppressor,” in which someone who is beaten down or oppressed feels a little power by identifying with those in control. And just as there are some men who display qualities we tend to call “feminine,” there are also women who have adopted “masculine” qualities—especially in the business world, where they are strongly encouraged and reinforced.
The sleeping giant of female power is beginning to awake. But slowly. Too slowly to stave off disaster on an apocalyptic scale—probably before the end of this century. Some places have realized that and have taken active steps to equalize male and female power in making the big decisions that govern the structure and process of society. Such as, for instance, in Costa Rica where the Constitution requires that an equal number of male and female candidate be put forward for most kinds of electoral seats. I believe that we need to take parallel steps everywhere, all over the world. Rapidy. Waiting for that to happen through a gradual rise in consciousness is just too slow.
I encourage you to look around with alertness to all the potential ways in which a more equal balance of masculine and feminine consciousness, and male and female power and control in our institutions, can lead to a lighter and brighter reality in your personal life, the lives of those around you, and ultimately our world.
Cultures, Economics, Politics
Many who favor laws that prevent communities or counties from governing themselves and their enterprises as they see fit call themselves “Libertarian.” The word has a nice ring, doesn’t it? But most who use it have not considered the fact that it has three radically different meanings. As a result, it’s all too easy to slide back and forth among them as if they’re all the same thing. The three are:
Individual Libertarian. This means that every person is free to do as they wish as long as they’re breaking laws against physically injuring people or property –or not “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. In a true individual libertarian regime a person can drink booze, smoke weed, fuck anybody who is willing, have total control over their own bodies and reproduction or non-reproduction, or earn their living as a sex worker. Reasonable regulation includes such items as limiting the right to drive after drinking alcohol, and requiring sex workers to have a weekly physical exam to make sure they’re not passing on diseases.
Some apologists for corporate brutality, intimidation, deception, or other misdeeds claim that really they’re doing good because philosophically they’re “libertarians.” Confusing such a viewpoint with an individual libertarian one is like a shell game in which everyone is tricked into thinking the bean is under a different shell than it really is. An individual libertarian philosophy holds that government has no business telling us how to live our lives as long as we don’t harm others people or living beings. For example, “Mr. Conservative” Barry Goldwater was a very strong advocate of women’s control over their own bodies and reproductive choices. That’s an individual libertarian position.
But a Big Business Libertarian outlook is different. It holds that a corporation or other business can or ought to be able to do as it pleases with no oversight or regulation by the community, the city, the state, or anybody else. How strange, since many who hold that view also lobby constantly for government contracts, subsidies, tax incentives, land grants, and anti-labor and union-busting laws. Many actively seek government regulations that will give them a competitive advantage or wedge of entry into some market. An attorney friend of mine who works with vampire corporations and the ultra-rich says, “Their lobbyists are like a plague of locusts. No matter how many subsidies, tax breaks, and concessions they get, every day they’re over at the state capital asking for more –and more—and more.”
The big business libertarian view holds that Wall Street, the big banks, other global corporations, and “the invisible hand of the market” will look out for ordinary people’s interests. Really?
The grain of truth in a business libertarian view (not just big business) that is that even small mom and pop businesses are too often hobbled by an excess of rules, regulations and forms to fill out that don’t help anybody anywhere. The longer a government or business exists, the more of these there tend to be. It’s useful to have periodic reviews to scrap those no longer needed, clean up the rest, and make sure they are all written in language anyone can understand.
Realistic freedom for businesses includes freedom from intimidation by other businesses as well as from unneeded busybody government interference. That’s where preventing monopolies and ensuring competition comes in. And a socially conscious business libertarian view ensures competitive bidding and no sweetheart deals like those that are so common in matters like weapons system procurement. History tells us that this is likely occur only when there is an outside overseer who enforces it.
A third variation is a Plutocratic Libertarian view. This is valuing liberty for the wealthy and powerful above all, clearing the way for them to do anything they please regardless of how greatly it impoverishes or injures others or nature’s other beings. A plutocratic libertarian system tends to give lip service to the idea that everybody is equally free, while it actually enacts all kinds of restrictions on those who happen to be poor and powerless. Such as, for instance, laws against “loitering.”
Today’s hard-right ideologues who call themselves libertarians tend to be of the second and third kinds. Very few are genuine individual libertarians. Why does this matter? Because if a corporate giant and an individual are both free to do as they please, the former usually has the resources to crush any individuals who get in the way—often using government as its tool.
The ideology that underlies big business and plutocratic perspectives is the idea that everybody will make the “best” possible decisions for themselves that they can, and that will result in the best collective outcomes. That’s true — IF the only thing we care about is making AMMAP (As Much Money As Possible) and care little or not at all about any other ethics or values. Or about who benefits much, who just a little, and who gets royally screwed..
Consider this: Most economists have pretty good jobs and make enough to live fairly well. Their personal experience has a major effect on their theories. Such as making big decisions about whether to use their available funds for a new Lincoln or a new Lexus. Then we can look at someone who is clinging to survival by the fingernails. An economist is likely to watch with detached interest as to whether that person will use his or her very limited funds for healthy organic non-GMO food instead of cheap food grown with heavy use of herbicides and pesticides, or instead goes to a dentist to get decaying teeth made bad by cheap food filled or pulled. That’s the kind of “freedom of choice” that billions of people in the world face.
Or step back and look at the international scene. Todays so-called “free markets” are, in large part, arrangements agreed on by attorneys for big business (often that’s the case even when they are negotiators serving at the behest of government) that are really not free at all. A large share of international finance and commerce, for example, is tightly regulated by global and regional bodies like the World Trade Organization. As a result, “free trade” is often trade governed by rules devised by giant multinational corporations. The corporations don’t want countries, states, or communities making any rules that interfere with their ability to do whatever they please, however harmful to people, other living beings, and ecosystems it might be. And they ask legislatures to pass laws that keep countries, states, or communities from passing regulations that stop Vampire Capitalist corporation from bleeding them dry. The only “freedom” they want is for themselves. They certainly don’t want others to see and hear their negotiations with each other, since those are almost always carried on behind closed doors with no representatives of the press of the public present. Whose liberty is that?
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© 2021 by Victor Daniels. You may distribute this wherever and however you wish so long as it’s free. Any use in a manner that directly or indirectly earns compensation requires consent of the author.
Cultures, Politics
The terms “conservative” and “liberal” often confuse and conceal more than they reveal. Odd as it may sound, often they imply the very opposite of what they actually mean in a given situation. For example, when big banks and construction companies band together with their friends in government to ram an oil pipeline through farms and ranches of families who are totally opposed to it and who want to keep their land in agriculture like it has always been, they like to call themselves “conservatives.” But actually that’s just about as radical as you can get. The farmers and ranchers who want to protect their land are the ones who want to conserve the integrity of their land as it is. The big business interests try to tar them with the label “radical” because they oppose “progress” –i.e. having their land torn up by giant earth-moving machines they don’t want there—and they call themselves “conservative” even though they want to change everything around in dramatic ways.
What’s going on there, anyway? How can people be using labels that turn everything upside down and backwards so that anybody who’s not there but just hears someone’s report about the situation can so easily end up easily deceived and befuddled about what’s happening?
Actually it’s pretty simple. Especially with the term “conservative.” Two things are happening. One is that the word is being used in three different ways.
One of these is the historic way that means what most people tend to think it means. That is, keeping and preserving what’s valuable in our past ways. Many in this group, whom I call “true conservatives,” think that our most valuable traditions involve a combination of freedom and respect. That is, each person’s freedom to determine how he or she lives his or her own life, and respect for other people’s choices about how they live theirs. Of course there’s some wiggle room in that definition, since different people have different ideas about “what’s valuable.” No label is a prefect reflection of the reality it represents. But we can do our best to make our labels as clear and accurate as we can.
A second major meaning of the word is the idea that those who have the money and power ought to be able to make the political and economic decisions about what goes on in society. In the U.S. there are quite a few “think tanks” that spend most of their time and effort trying to channel all the power to the big business and investment decisionmakers—especially through “campaign contribution” payoffs that buy the legislators’ votes. And quite a few big businesses that move in with enormous machines that so totally transform a landscape that it ends up with no resemblance at all to what it looked like previously. And that, we’re called, is “conservative.” That’s part of the way the term is usually used in the media. I call that “so-called ‘conservative.’ My logic is that a word ought to suggest what it really means—not its opposite.
Finally, in its third major meaning the word is synonomous with “right wing.” That includes the idea that some people can tell others what to do. It’s a little tricker to define precisely, but everybody knows what it is. There’s a kind of hard cold “get out of my way, asshole, or I’ll punch your fucking face in,” attitude to it. And also, “the facts are what I say they are. My opinion is what counts, so shut up and listen.” There’s a clear authoritarian bent to that, just as there is with the second meaning above. Many conservatives of the first kind above, who are the only ones I regard as true conservatives rather than “card carrying conservatives,” are quite frankly horrified by this third group. I think it makes much more sense to call the third group simply “right wing,” since almost everybody knows what that means and there’s very little misunderstanding about it. In fact, if you look at right-wing rhetoric and behavior in places like Texas and Alabama and Georgia, I think the term “cold hard right” is the best description of many in this group. In short, as often as not so-called conservative means “rule by the rich,” “rule by a powerful leader or a powerful few,” or “male dominance,” or all of the above. Sometimes the cold hard right swings a radical wrecking ball at things real conservatives value.=
In short, an accurate use of the word “conservative” is moderate, restrained, and the preservation of what’s best in our traditions.
On the other side of the increasingly hostile political great divide, so-called liberal sometimes hides such meanings as “indulgent,” “anti-traditional,” “hostile toward any authority,” “unrealistically compassionate without reason or considered thought,” “wishy-washy,” or all of the above. It ought to mean free, open-minded, tolerant and responsible.
The root of the word, however, is “to liberate.” That points us toward asking “liberate whom?” “In what ways?” “Under what circumstances?” Historically, the answer has been “to liberate those who have been oppressed. But that can be pretty tricky too. For example, President Andrew Jackson portrayed himself as a champion of the common people, but only some common people. He was the most vicious and brutal president in the nation’s history in his treatment of American Indians. The notorious “removals” such as the Trail of Tears were most intense on his watch. And there is no compelling evidence that liberals have been any better than anyone else when it comes to imperialism and war: Vietnam was Lyndon Johnson’s war, even though Nixon expanded it.
In recent years “liberal” has somewhat fallen out of style and given way to “progressive,” which usually means openheartedness and compassion balanced by reason. But there too not everything is clear, since some progressives advocated unlimited immigration while others think that leads to housing shortages that push people into homelessness on the streets. And sometimes self-styled progressives seem to advocate more regulation and government red tape than necessary in order to achieve the goals they seek.
Finally, using those kinds of global labels for ourselves and others, and especially the media’s use of them and rabble-rousing demagogues’ of all kinds of political persuasions use of them seems to be contributing to the atmosphere of political antagonism and even hatred that is causing many people’s thinking to be muddy and confused and poisoning public discourse in our time.
So what should we do instead? I’d say, to the degree that we can, forget the labels. Forget which “movement” we belong to. In most cases, realize that any variety of of self-centered “I’m better than Them Others” thinking on any side of the political spectrum tends to lead us into generalizations that are shadowlands of deception. We need to have a clear sense of what we value, be truthful with both ourselves and others (not so easy, since it’s so common to lie to ourselves in order to protect our self-images, which often include self-deception as we tell ourselves that we’re real hot stuff and ‘them others’ are bad. For the most part more precise, specific terms and designations, based on careful observation of what’s going on in this situation serve us better.
END
1207 words, 1-16-21
Environment, Politics
75 new cities of a million people each. That’s what the
world’s annual population growth adds up to. (Meanwhile rising seas, extreme
temperatures, and a surge in natural disasters are reducing the amount of
livable land all around the world.)
“No
problem,” some people think. “If we eliminate the big gap begtween
rich and poor there will be enough to take care of everyone.” Nice talk.
With no evidence, no data, no knowledge of demographics or ecology, and no
thinking-through of their own. Just repeating something they heard or read in
the corporate media.
If you’re
an American, kindly look at the map and think about where in the United States
you propose to put those 75 cities of a million people each. If you’re a
European, think about where in Europe you propose to put the 75. (Keep in mind
that Europe is already very densely populated, and the less heavily populated
parts of the U.S. are either a) inhospitable, like huge swaths of desert that
have minimal water; or b) agricultural areas that are already part of the
ecological footprint that feeds big cities—and that are getting poisoned fast
by heavy use of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers and by feedlot
livestock piss and shit.
As it
happens, the 75 million new people every year are spread out all around the
world. So they’re not so disturbing to the U.S. and Europe (except for sending
floods of economic refugees toward them), but they do contribute to hunger,
hardship and extreme poverty in the world’s less industrialized regions.
Oh, and
there’s this: That 75 million is just in one year. There are the equivalent of
75 million new cities in the world every
year between now and 2030. (Do the math!) How could we be so mistaken
and complacent about the effects of skyrocketing world population? There are at
least three reasons.
First, politicians and big business
bosses everywhere keep telling us that we need more people and production to
have the gloriously prosperous future we all want.
Second, the media keep telling us,
“Birth rates are declining all around the world.” They forget to
mention that since the world’s population keeps growing, the growth rate can drop but the total number of people keeps rising,
because as the population base gets
larger, the rate of growth can decline, yet produce a greater total increase, because
the basis on which that rate is figured is greater. Confusing growth rates and
total growth is a key error.
Third, very
few people think about demographic
momentum. Today there are so many young
people that if every couple in the world had just enough children to replace
themselves, it would take from 50 to 70 years for Earth’s population to level
off. A young population has a built-in engine for growth because so many people
are entering or soon will enter their childbearing years. Young parents live
alongside their children and even their grandchildren. It can take a half
century before they reach old age and start making large contributions to the
death rate. So even if they all have just
two children, they can more than double the population. A population that
has been growing rapidly keeps on expanding long after its birthrate has
dropped to replacement level.
To keep this from getting to long,
I’ll just barely mention carrying
capacity. Ecologists tell us that if everyone in the world had the same
consumption level as the average American, it would take three more planets the size of Earth to support us all. Actually we
have to think about the carrying capacity of each place in the world. In some
regions it depends on foot. In some it depends on water. In the U.S. some folks
might argue that it depends on how many cars there’s space for on the streets
at rush hour. That’s another whole blog.
How can we possibly deal with
today’s overwhelming population growth? I suspect that if the world diverted
just one percent of its war machine spending toward that end it might be enough
to accomplish it. Five percent? You bet.
That’s not a plot to have more white people and fewer others in the world. Everybody of all nations and colors will benefit by not having more and more people competing for increasingly scarce resources.
Except, of course, the big bosses and other very wealthy folks who get rich off
others’ misery. It’s extremely important to deal with that issue. It’s also
extremely important to radically reduce population growth. The two agendas are
not opposed. They go together.
Environment, Politics
Senator Barbara Boxer (r) with singer-songwriter Carole King
Not long ago I picked up retired Senator Barbara Boxer’s book The Art of Tough. I like Barbara. She was my district’s Congresswoman and then my Senator. And one of the most resolute fighters for environmental causes in Congress. I read through part of her book, then was distracted by other matters. A few days ago I opened it again. I’d like to quote her at as much length as “fair use” allows:
‘In all my years in public life, not one person, Democrat or Republican, has ever come up to me and said: “Barbara, the air is too clean and the water is too safe.” What used to be a bipartisan consensus issue has become a divisive partisan one. The Republican Party that used to stand for environmental protection now stands with the powerful polluter lobby. . . on a mission to derail an American value that their party once championed. . . .
“Republicans took over the House in 2011. I was forced to spend far too much time burying their anti-environmental amendments—almost one hundred of them within just two years—that would weaken toxic waste laws, clean air laws, safe drinking water laws, the Endangered Species Act, and virtually every other strong, protective environmental law.
“They’ve tried to derail our landmark laws through the back door. I fear that’s their continuing plan, since they can’t possibly come straight at these laws. Clean air and water are just too popular among voters for any politician who wants to get re-elected to oppose them openly. So the big-polluter–controlled Republicans try to starve the Environmental Protection Agency, weaken enforcement, and roll back American leadership on the environment around the world in every way possible.
“The word they substitute for “rollback” is “reform.” The word they use to undermine the word “protection” is “regulation.” These Republicans title their anti-environmental bills in such a way that you would never know what they’re really about. For example, the Clean Air Strong Economies Bill, S-2833, introduced in 2014 by John Thune, the Republican senior senator from South Dakota, actually freezes the EPA from improving air-quality. . . .And my favorite—S-485, The Clear Skies Act of 2003 by Senator Jim Inhofe, senior Republican senator from Oklahoma, permits increased air pollution by millions of tons over the EPA’s scientists’ recommendations and also delays enforcement of smog and soot pollution standards. Makes you sleep better at night, right? . . .
“One of the harshest battles I have ever had to endure involved protecting us all from harmful chemicals. This is a story of deception, manipulation, special interest influence, and the revolving door. . . It has been lonely to take on a lot of these battles. Standing alone, all by yourself, isn’t a lot of fun, but there is no choice once you decide what is right. You must go forward. At least that is how it is for me.”
How did what Barbara describes happen? How did a political party that once supported a national consensus to clean up polluted air and water all across the land abandon that goal and sell its soul to polluters? How did it justify taking a wrecking ball to forty years of work to move the nation away from a dark nightmare of smoggy air, acid rain, and sewers and industrial waste that emptied into waterways, and toward clean air, swimmable rivers, and conscientious cleanup of poisonous wastes?
You might reasonably wonder, “Is the Republican Party really doing all that?”
It is. Even Richard Nixon, who resigned from the presidency in disgrace, appointed a decent, principled man as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. Bill Ruckelshaus looked at the burning oil slick on the Cuyahoga River where it ran through Cleveland’s industrial district and damaged two bridges (the nationwide joke was “Cleveland, city of light, city of magic”), and he resolved to move the nation onto a different path. A generation later the Cuyahoga River and Cleveland riverfront had been transformed. Restaurants and taverns along the many times cleaner river became destinations for lunch and dinner dates. Politicians of both parties followed Ruckelshaus’ lead, until . . . .
Until the nation’s politics reached a point where election and re-election campaigns became so expensive that many legislators and appointed officials just plain sold out. Sold their sense of ethics. Closed their eyes and ears to whatever the big corporations that shoveled campaign money at them didn’t want them to see or hear. And tried to revoke, destroy, or reverse every law protecting nature that big business didn’t like. Barbara Boxer tells many stories about specific events and senators. And as the 20th century ended and the twenty-first began, Republican legislators and appointees found their hands so permanently zipped into corporate lobbyists’ pockets that, well, shucks, they just couldn’t seem to get them out. And by cracky, they plain old just couldn’t even think straight no more. As for what the people wanted? Baffle them with Bullshit and smoke and mirrors so they can’t think straight either.
Who are the major players in this movie? It’s an open conspiracy. A huge one, with many players and more money to push it through than all the gold in Scrooge McDuck’s swimming pool. How did it begin? We can trace its roots as far back as the Depression-era plot to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt and his pro-environmental agenda in a right-wing plot to stage a coup d’etat, dump Roosevelt, and set up World War I war hero General Smedley Butler as a puppet front man for the plutocrats. But Butler had integrity. He refused. The plotters were unmasked and arrested. Their movement went underground and stayed largely hidden until Ronald Reagan was elected. Then it burst onto the national stage with a vengeance. Reagan “reformed” the tax policies that had been little changed from FDR’s time through the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter –the policies that were a foundation for the nation’s unprecedented prosperity during the post World-War II period.
Until 1980, when everything changed. Suddenly “Government of the people, more or less by the people, and more or less for the people” became “Government of the people, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats.” Its goal was explicitly reversed from “prosperity for all the people” to “incredible riches for the few and tough shit for the many.” Reagan ripped off the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had put on the White House roof and trashed the auto mileage standards that Carter had enacted. Etcetera. The foundation for that historic reversal had been laid by Lewis Powell, who was a corporate lawyer and member of the Phillip Morris board of directors until Nixon appointed him to the Supreme court, where he was a champion of the tobacco industry and tried to suppress the evidence linking smoking to cancer. In 1971 he penned a lengthy confidential memorandum that was an anti-New Deal blueprint that outlined a program for big business and plutocratic Overlords to dominate U.S. politics. Wealthy heirs, CEOs, and self-styled “conservatives” who were actually extreme right wing anti-democratic radicals in disguise responded to his call. The Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, the Carthage Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and Charles and David Koch and to an extent the Cato Foundation all pumped huge streams of money into the new right-wing agenda that Reagan made suddenly respectable. Not coincidentally it sought to eliminate almost all protections for the environment that interfered with big business’s ability to make make the maximum possible profits. I suppose this collusion ought to have a name. Powell is dead now and no one is more dedicated to the great Republican cause of turning the U.S. into a plutocracy (with the Big Lie ‘we are ever so democratic” as a cover story) than the Koch Brothers, so I reckon it makes sense to call the present Republican agenda “The Koch Plan.” Cut taxes on the rich and pay for it by trying to get rid of Social Security, etc. When allied with an international agenda of domination of developing nations by more developed, more powerful ones, and heedlessly poisoning our air and waters to make the richest even richer, this is called “neoliberalism.”
America had always had plutocrats, but not since the 1880s had they been so powerful or so in-your-face as the New Right became. The American Chamber of Commerce became a hired gun to help the corporate elite gut environmental regulation and skew the tax structure to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. That’s what it is today. (No my friend, it does not give a damn about your desire for clean air and water and unpoisoned crops and land.) ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, began creating blueprints for taking over state legislatures, executive branches, and courts and sent them all over the country to be enacted by state legislators who could be bought far more cheaply than national legislators. Ever since the 1930s most Americans had loved Roosevelt and appreciated what he did for them, like guaranteeing bank deposits and setting up Social Security. But then came Ronald Reagan, with Powell’s memo in the background. Reagan was one of the most gifted public speakers in the nation’s history, with a sunny, optimistic, engaging attitude. But from his campaign to become president until he left office, day in and day out he pushed the Powell Conspiracy viewpoint out into the nation’s consciousness. His words were a constant harsh drumbeat telling the nation that government was bad and big business was good. He was the first of three presidents who appointed Environmental Protection Agency administrators who did everything hey could to destroy environmental protections of every kind, MOST ESPECTIALLY those related in any way to fossil fuels. (Bush Junior was was the second, and #45 never saw a blade of grass he liked unless it was on a golf courses.)
Starting with Reagan, the Republican Party swung into line behind the Powell Conspiracy party line. Environmentally, its agenda was “glorify coal and oil and tar sands energy production, to hell with nature, and deny the reality of every environmental concern.” Economist James McGill Buchanan followed Powell as an intellectual kingpin of the big business total dominance of America agenda. And in their view, “democracy was so yesterday.” But they used democratic words and phrases as cover stories for their destruction of its substance. Their real agenda is to dominate and win at any cost and have everything as they want it. “Democracy” serves as a convenient cover story to disguise what’s really happening. Above all, they’re dedicated to giving the fossil fuel industry everything it wants. Today almost every Republican in elective office has close to zero ratings from almost every environmental organization, and close to zero on all the environmental protection items followed by Project Vote Smart.
That’s where we are now. Along with one more item. Most of the Republicans who hold their party’s anti-environmental, plutocratic, male patriarchy, dominate-at-any cost agenda have managed to convince themselves that their program is virtuous and righteous. Some will even tell you that “God’s on our side” – just like Adolf Hitler, who made “Gott mit uns” one of his slogans. After all, how can they live with themselves if they acknowledge that they’re destroying the biosphere in which their children and grandchildren will live? And so they lie to themselves and to everyone else about what they’re doing, and about its effects on the natural world and on society. And they act self-righteous as they defend their lies.
That, my friends, is how some of the politicans Barbara Boxer once respected lost their souls. After all, if they repented of their sins and took a stand to protect and restore our lands and air and waters, and truly strive toward government “By The People and For the People” instead of “By the Plutocrats and Overlords,” who would put out the big bucks to pay for their re-election? What would they say to their deluded friends who follow the Powell-Buchanan-Koch-McConnell-Trump agenda? Who would invite them to cocktails or golf?
So make no mistake. The Powell plutocratic republican open conspiracy, with the Koch Brothers, ALEC, and the American Chamber of Commerce at its center is alive and well. (At least somewhat open. Never has there been as much secret money flooding into right-wing political campaigns, with no disclosure as to who it comes from. That ain’t no inclination toward democracy, folks. And it ain’t no inclination toward treating Mother Nature well. If that’s what you want and support, here’s hoping you like what you get.
Politics
This is a personal evaluation of the first year of U.S President #45 in office.
(NOTE: PLEASE REALIZE THAT WHEN YOU MAKE A MISTAKE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIE TO YOURSELF TO JUSTIFY IT. The better path is to admit to yourself made a wrong call. We all make mistakes. Tell yourself the truth now and you can do so in the future. Lie to yourself now about getting taken in by a con-man and you set yourself up to be conned again and again. Just think about it.)
We have now had more than a year to watch and hear #45 in office. (He has insulted and demeaned so many people and events, and some so many times, that he sets almost the worst imaginable role model for our young people. I find him so thoroughly disgusting that since he seems to respect no one unless they think as he does and acts as he wants them to, I no longer respect him enough to speak his name. Barack Obama was the 44th President of the United States. The present Fake President or Pseudo-President or President #45 (or the S**t**le President– his own language—he just forgot to look in the mirror as he was speaking) is for me now just #45. I know others who are doing likewise. Please note that the paragraph is not an impartial factual statement, but rather my own personal evaluation of #45 to date. (This is a distinction that #45 has apparently not learned how to make.)
In the past there have been a few slogans. Theodore Roosevelt’s “Fair Deal.” FDR’s “New Deal.” JFK’s “New Frontier.” And a recent cartoon aptly referred to #45’s “Raw Deal.” What does it consist of? Just a some of the visible things we’ve learned are that he:
- Is probably the most skillful con-man that the U.S. has seen in the past 100 years—before the election he claimed to be a “populist” but his policies are for the billionaires.
- Is a pathological and probably compulsive liar. More that 2000 of his statements (many of them Tweets) have been formally documented as lies.
- Doesn’t even seem to know the difference between a truth and a lie. Apparently if he agrees with something he considers it true. If he disagrees with it he lies to both himself and others about it.
- Is far less concerned about foreign treason against the U.S. government and people than about possible discovery of any role he and/or his associates played in it.
- That he cares far less about the well-being of the country and its people than about the fortunes of the Republican Party, despite his once having said that if he ever ran for politics he would run as a Republican because Republicans are so dumb that you can put almost anything over on them (my paraphrase)
- That he is so deficient in kindness and compassion that his tax policies and proposals steal food, health, and shelter from those who are poorest in order to shovel huge additional amounts of money toward those who are already extremely rich, and more huge amounts of money to the military-industrial complex even though the U.S. War Machine ‘s budget is already larger than those of countries with the second through eighth largest military budgets put together.
- Has appointed a cabinet primarily composed of people whose entirely previous careers consisted of OPPOSING THE MISSIONS AND WORKS THAT THOSE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT ARE MANDATED TO CARRY OUT, because he personally has a different agenda than those that all our nation’s previous legislatures designed to be intelligent policy for our country.
- Doesn’t give a damn about beautiful places such as national parks and monuments, no matter how spectacular. Apparently he views everywhere in country as potential oil and gas drilling and coal and uranium mining territory.
- Unlike any president in U.S. history except Warring Harding, hs is blatantly using the Presidency to enrich himself personally even though he is already a billionaire.
- Speaks of “bringing us together” out of one side of his mouth as he consciously sets one group against another and refuses to act or even speak against prejudice and bigotry out of the other.
- Is a pawn of the Vatican in his initiatives to make it harder for women (especially poorer women) all around the world to obtain birth control and family planning information at the very same time that he talks about holding down population growth to make jobs more available.
- Rails about “fake media” when almost all the mainstream TV and radio stations and magazines and newspapers are owned by just six corporations, and at least one publication (the National Enquirer) has bought and suppressed stories critical of #45, while he himself is relentlessly driven to tweets that are lies.
- Received more than 200 million votes less than Hillary Clinton, and instead of instituting a government of national reconciliation that addressed both their concerns, ramrodded through his own agenda and completely ignored the concerns of a majority of the nation’s voters.
- Whenever criticized or challenged about anything, changes the subject or the meaning of the question (that is, “drags a red herring across the trail to throw a dog following the scent off the track.) He almost never admits the truth of almost any legitimate criticism or objection, or point of view different from his own.
- Has been accused of cheating at golf by various people who have played with him. No big deal, but it says something about what he is.
#45 has drawn attention to one of the most egregious deficiencies in the U.S. Constitution: It has no provision for a vote of no confidence to remove a defective chief executive from office. The impeachment process is far too cumbersome and political. This deficiency should be remedied when the time is right. In the meantime, a massive mobilization on every front, nationally and in every town and city, against the ANTI-POPULIST, VAMPIRE CAPITALIST provisions of the present government is one option. This could include national days of prayer and fasting (on which of course no work except that essential for public safety would be performed and no merchandise would be bought.) Perhaps someone else has a better idea.
In my view, Russia entirely aside, #45 is guilty of TREASON AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, LAND, AND REPUBLIC. He is for the 1/10 of one percent against the 99 9/10 percent, even though he has lied and conned so effectively that a deluded minority still support him.
If we draw a historical parallel with ancient Rome, he ranks with Caligula and Nero, and even worse than Commodus. His presidential portrait should show him behind prison bars.
That’s the first year. Now on to what the rest of the second year brings.
Note: This image is from Pinterest. I don’t know the copyright owner. If you’re him or her and you’d like it removed, just let me know. Thanks.
