Posts by: brandenpridgen

First They Came


Pastor Martin Niemöller

Reading time – 1:22; Viewing time – 2:32  .  .  .

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

“Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

“Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

It always arrives wrapped in a flag and starts small. We humans are nearly insensitive to and largely tolerate small changes, but small changes accumulate and become an avalanche that overwhelms. Pastor Martin Niemöller knew that as he railed against the cowardice of German intellectuals when the Nazis came to power. Note that the Nazis arrived on a wave of German frustration and rage over terrible economic circumstances and that they were democratically elected. Does that pattern sound at all familiar?

When I was a young teenager I confidently told my mother that the human atrocity that was the Nazis couldn’t happen here – not here in America. She looked me in the eyes fiercely and told me that it could. I didn’t believe her, even as her words scared me.

Now Donald Trump has told us that he will be coming for the Hispanics and then he said he’ll come for the Muslims. Who do you suppose will be next? And next after that? This pattern has been followed repeatedly throughout history, so it should come as no surprise to any of us that an unrestrained populism of angry people led by a sociopath always has catastrophic results. It’s already started. Watch for the guest essay on Wednesday and you’ll see. And Trump has already begun his excuses.the-work-goes-on

This is your country, so what will you do to prevent that from happening? What will you do to ensure that this is a country of hope and inclusion, the kind of America you believe in? We have seen that phantom idealism in the form of protest votes and abstaining from voting produce nothing more than a temporary illusion of self-satisfied purity, even as they allow the worst to happen. I assure you that ignoring the situation, refraining from speaking up and waiting for others to take action will not help. In fact, being passive will make things far worse.

What will you do?

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Sleeplessness


Reading time – 57 seconds  .  .  .

I am bewildered – terrified of what this megalomaniac might do with both houses of Congress in his lap. The Iran nuclear deal, NATO, the Middle-East – so much may be undone or destructively overdone that can shatter the tenuous grasp of world stability that this man doesn’t understand.

Larger still is that this country contains 58,000,000 people who knowingly elected this sociopath.

What kind of country is this when Trump events look like the Nuremberg rallies?

What kind of country is this where women, African-Americans, Hispanics, veterans and active military people were insulted, belittled and abused, yet millions of them still voted for him? Who are these people? How can we understand them voting for someone who hates them and would discriminate against them?

What kind of country is this when the winner intends to jail his political opponent? Was that just campaign talk? His followers don’t think so.

The Constitution expressly prohibits any religious test, yet Trump has pledged to prevent any Muslims from entering the country. Who’s next on his list for discrimination?

What kind of country is this when a candidate commits to deporting 12 million people (over 8,200 people per day, every day) and his idiocy is cheered by 58,000,000 others?

What kind of country is this where white supremacists’ voices of hate are welcome and where hate crimes have already soared?

What will happen to the Supreme Court? Whatever it is will shape America for decades and I’m very afraid of the shape it will take.

Is this how the really bad stuff starts? That is the question that is keeping me from sleeping well.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

One Last Time


nuclear-explosionReading time – 1:42; Viewing time – 3:19  .  .  .

Okay, one last time.

Donald Trump talks glibly about the use of nuclear weapons on whomever he might think of as our enemy, like those he thinks pose an existential threat to America because of a tweet that’s critical of him. And he has proposed exporting nuclear technology to at least 3 nations that currently don’t have it, thereby proliferating the annihilation threat to life on Earth. In short, Trump is cavalier about bringing about the end of civilization. That fully, completely and permanently disqualifies him from being President of the United States. No other issues need be considered:

.  .  .  even if he says he was speaking in hyperbole

.  .  .  even if he says that he wants to be unpredictable to keep the bad guys off balance

.  .  .  even if he says he had his fingers crossed when he said those things

No matter what, Donald Trump must not become President of the United States. Ever. Under any circumstances. No matter what else he says he believes or wants to do or, oddly, if he should ever actually make any sense. Never, ever.

So, great, you agree and you won’t vote for Trump. But you don’t trust, can’t stand and otherwise find Hillary to be pukable. You see her as untrustworthy and dishonest and perhaps as too hawkish and you fear she’ll get us into yet another avoidable war. You dread that her presidency might become a series of yet more Bill Clinton zipper scandals and, besides, the thought of Bill croaking out more of his Clintonian nonsense with a White House size megaphone is one of your worst nightmares. So, you can’t and won’t vote for Hillary. Got it.

But if you don’t vote for Hillary, who benefits?

Neither Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, nor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate, could benefit from your protest vote because they won’t get enough votes to win even a single state. The only one who benefits from your refusing to vote for Hillary is Donald Trump, because yours is one less vote that his vote total has to overcome.

Translation: If you don’t vote for Hillary, you will have voted for Trump. And,

donald-trump-must-never-become-president

Hillary was ahead by 8 – 20 points (pick a poll). Then Bernie won MI. We can’t trust polls – gotta vote.

Hillary was ahead by 8 – 20 points (pick a poll). Then Bernie won MI. We can’t trust polls – gotta vote.

So, do something to ensure there really is a future: Put a clothespin on your nose and vote for Hillary. All that hangs in the balance is civilization on Earth and it’s on you and me to do something about it.

What, these words aren’t persuasive enough? Well then, have a look at this and this and this and this and this and this and this. They are all Republican sources telling you to vote for Hillary. There are plenty more like these, but if you still want to vote for Trump or a candidate of one of the other parties or abstain from voting, then go ahead. Just don’t call me next year crying that you are bent over and braced for impact because civilization is ending.

Go vote. And bring your neighbors, your voting age children, your cousin Rita and your googly-eye Uncle Ralph. It’s time for every eligible voter to – get this: stand up for what they stand for.

Read what Dan Wallace has to say about this. Yes, really, go read it  .

Now, send this to everyone you know and urge them to show up on November 8 and BE A VOTER!

 

Make a plan to vote – click here.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA

– See more at: https://jaxpolitix.com/7679-2/#sthash.kHAUnsqU.dpuf


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The D. S. of A


What if our state and federal legislators were held to this standard?

What if our state and federal legislators
were held to this standard?

Reading time – 2:55; Viewing time – 4:39  .  .  .

At a time when a high school education is so often woefully inadequate for success in a global, interconnected world, where old time manufacturing skills have given way to computerized everything and where millions of employers are frustrated because they’re unable to find people with the proper training to do the jobs they have open, Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin continues to slash support for the formerly wonderful state universities in Wisconsin.

Rick Snyder, Republican Governor of Michigan, headed the drive to allow the state to take control of any municipal government in Michigan that the geniuses in Lansing deemed was in financial distress, the sanctity of the municipal voting ballot be damned. That led inexorably to the poisoning of the children in Flint, MI due to the diabolical economic decision to change the source of the drinking water for that city. Instead of the safe Great Lakes water they had used for a century, the Lansing imposed Flint dictator decided to provide water from the Flint River, water which is corrosive, and that resulted in the city drinking water becoming laced with lead. Nobody knows the human toll or the financial cost that ingestion of lead will exact over the long term, but it will be enormous. Snyder and his Republican legislature in Lansing are doing a tap dance around accountability and as of this moment they are still dragging feet on fixing their mess. Meanwhile, the residents of Flint are trapped in a water quality disaster and an economic squeeze of Rick Snyder’s doing.

Sam Brownback (R-KS) promised Kansans that if they elected him governor that he would slash taxes and that would magically result in increased revenue for the state because of the dramatic economic expansion that lower taxes would induce. So, they elected him governor. Instead of the results he promised, his plan resulted in way lower revenue for the now nearly bankrupt state and a depressed economy across Kansas. Who might have even guessed that reducing the state’s income might reduce the state’s income?

Bobby Jindahl is the Republican governor of Louisiana. His state is a financial disaster. It is ranked the worst in the nation in educating its children. There’s lots more – and none of it is pretty. Let’s just move on.

Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) is the titular head of the state with more real estate in peril as the oceans rise than anywhere else. The streets of Miami Beach are often under water and much of south Florida is at or only slightly above sea level, so it doesn’t take much of a wave or much of a rise in sea level to flood it. And Rick Scott, a former fossil fuel homie, denies global warming and the human imprint on it, so he does nothing.

And, of course, right here in Illinois where we have a bottomless pension debt, our governor is so out of touch that we’ll call him Bruce Rauner (R-Pluto). He hasn’t offered a thing to fix the pension crisis and he continues to govern by refusing every attempt to establish a budget. Yes, that’s right: Illinois has been operating without a budget for well over a year and Governor Rauner seems to think in the way of Ted Cruz, that if we just shut down the functions of government that somehow all the best things will happen. That hasn’t work out too well for Illinois college students, as threats of shutdown of entire institutions were imminent, nor did it work out for our mentally ill who, because of the governor’s draconian methods, were not even getting their meds. Let the games of the rich continue, because they aren’t affected by their restrictive policies, even as those who are most needy continue to suffer.

These are the D. S. of A, the Disaster States of America, although not all of them. The Republican leaders in these states proudly and self-righteously thumb their noses at our bloated federal government and the over-taxation of the public. Yet, oddly, as they fail their states, or their states face crises, like Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey, they expect the federal government to bail them out of their catastrophes. Either that or they just do more of what doesn’t work and declare victory.

How are you feeling about that? Keep that in mind as you vote for your state legislators on November 8.

Thanks to Steve Sheffey for pointing out this video.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

3 Q & As and The Supreme Court


supreme-court-minus-1Reading time – 1:49; Viewing time – 2:56  .  .  .

Much has been said about the long term consequences of the 3 – 5 Supreme Court Justice appointments that will be made over the coming 4 to 8 years by the next president. Whatever your notion of the type of Court we should have, factor the following into your voting decision making.

Donald Trump has spoken recklessly and cruelly by demeaning women, Gold Star families, POWs, Mexicans, Muslims and the disabled.

1. Two-part question: As President, what might he say about Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Peña Nieto of Mexico or President Erdoğan of Turkey? And is that a Presidential role model you want for your little ones?

Trump lost almost a billion dollars in one year. It’s not uncommon for businesses to have a bad year, but one billion dollars? Oddly, he says he is such a good businessman that he alone can lead our economy to greatness.

2. Does that make any sense to you?

Trump has spoken carelessly about the use of nuclear weapons, declaring that we should give them to at least 3 nations that are currently non-nuclear. Doing so would greatly increase the likelihood of America-hating extremists getting their hands on nuclear weapons. He has also said that he might use nuclear weapons in a first strike capacity. Such loose talk about nuclear weapons makes national leaders around the world far more than uneasy and it’s not difficult to imagine an adversary like North Korea (with its stunningly psychotic leader Kim Jong-un) perceiving that President Trump would nuke them, influencing them to strike us first.

3. Do you really want a Commander in Chief who is cavalier about nuclear weapons?

I’m no flag waver for Hillary Clinton and I have serious concerns about her as President. On the other hand,

1. She has some positive traits as a roll model and won’t insult women, men, members of minorities or the disabled, members of the opposition or international leaders.

2. She has a plan for the economy that, while imperfect, will have some good overall effect.

3. She won’t get us nuked by North Korea, nor will she start World War III.

That is to say, our choices this year may be dreadful, but these are the choices we have. We can eventually recover from brutish insults and wanton discrimination; from an insane economic policy that will add $10 T to the national debt; and from Supreme Court decisions we disagree with. We can’t recover from a nuclear war. That trumps everything, so stop sweating the Supreme Court decisions.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The 5 Things You Need To Know About RDP


Reading time – 1:49; Viewing time – 3:30  .  .  .rdp

At a 2007 Democratic Candidates Debate, Joe Biden famously said about Rudy Giuliani, “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11.”

The cause of this behavior was recently discovered to be Reality Denial Psychosis, or RDP. Here is how it manifests itself today.

There are still three things Rudy Giuliani mentions in a sentence, but the pattern is slightly different: a noun, a verb and trash talking Hillary Clinton with imaginary scandals.

cubs-win

CUBS WIN! Goin’ to the World Series!

There are others who suffer from this tragic brain disorder. Kellyanne Conway can’t seem to remove that plastic smile, as she does one Giuliani after another, pathologically and seamlessly shifting from any topic into an unconnected attack on Hillary Clinton. Boris Epshteyn does the same thing, although he doesn’t smile as he rips yet more angry fantasy from the air and talks over everyone.

Donald Trump has his own RDP pattern, but expecting from Trump a noun, a verb and then anything related to the noun and verb will only lead to frustration. Indeed, when people suffer from RDP we should expect disconnected fantasy.

For example, Trump received not one, but two national security briefings. He was told directly and in no uncertain terms the same thing the nation was told, that the Russians are behind the hacking to affect the outcome of our national election. Nevertheless, he denied that connection on stage during the second debate. He even questioned if hacking had happened at all. It is reported that because of Trump’s blizzard of words, neither the noun nor the verb has yet been found.

nyt-linkSadly, Trump and his surrogates all suffer from this not-rare-enough disease. The primary symptoms of Reality Denial Psychosis are quite real:

  1. The inability to recognize facts.
  2. An overwhelming desire to ignore the topic at hand and instead blurt fantasies.
  3. The ability of the disease afflicted to deny straight-faced what they have previously said, statements which are recorded for anyone to easily fact check.
  4. The strange need to rationalize deplorable behavior, like suggesting that criminally misogynistic “locker room” banter among male adults is somehow okay.
  5. Seeing oneself as a victim whenever confronted by adverse reality. This is often compounded by recurring claims that “The system is rigged” any time an RDP infected subject loses or thinks he will lose. Even with extensive treatment, most patients never overcome their “poor me” mental limitation and instead live their entire lives tragically both feeling sorry for themselves and enlisting others to whine along with them.

It will serve you well to keep this pathology in mind as you realize that yet another political interview has wasted your time with a noun, a verb and some unconnected personal attack. A noun, a verb and a national security fantasy. A noun, a verb and criticism of a woman’s appearance. A noun, a verb and mindless self-promotion. A noun, a verb and ___________ (you fill in the blank).

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Guest Essay – Prep for The Big Game


Reading time – 2:55  .  .  .

Pam Verner is a psychotherapist who specializes in treating people with addictions. She is compassionate and caring and she is an expert.  She recently penned a clarifying and compelling message and gave me permission to share it with you. Her message is vitally important. Now Pam.

I rarely (actually never) send out group emails—because we all generally get enough. I figure, why take up your time to read yet another email? But this time I decided I wanted to speak and share a video—just this once. This email is particularly for those who are unhappy with Hillary and want to vote third party just to make a statement to the current political parties. This is not the time for that. Here’s why.

First my take—(please know this is based upon my professional training and experience as a psychotherapist dealing with addictions):

Trump behaves and speaks like every addict in the throes of addiction. Please know, I deeply love alcoholics and addicts—and pray for their recovery. But they should never be at the helm of our country when they are held within the throes of their addiction. Someone in the throes of addiction needs help and support to see a better and truer path in life. Whether Trump is currently consuming drugs, alcohol, sex or whatever in an addictive pattern—I truly do not know. However, his thinking and behavior patterns surely resemble what I would call a “dry drunk,” i.e.– a pattern of addictive thinking. And that snorting he does when he is in a debate and appearing to feel somewhat threatened—well, to me that appears he is trying to call upon some sense of “remembered” power before speaking. Notice that he snorts deeply, then speaks. This is also reminiscent of a dry drunk —only perhaps more telling, a “dry drug.”

A hallmark of the mental pattern of addiction is to be caught within the web of “victim/rescuer/perpetrator.” It’s a classic dynamic in my field with which we frequently work. Trump is extremely skillful and intense in engaging with these three dynamic roles. I believe his populist support comes from sounding the rescuer trumpet. When he believes he is being attacked, he sounds the victim trumpet. The inordinate number of lawsuits he has [filed] against others shows how skillful he is in doing victim yet going into perpetrator role. What we are seeing now with the current tapes and female testimony is his perpetrator role.

With Trump, I believe the victim role and the rescuer role are simply covers for his primary pattern of perpetrator. Make no mistake, he is a threat to any vulnerable aspect of our country—our women, our children, our environment, our small businesses, our minorities, our public schools and anything else that does not have the strength to fight. Because that is the simple definition of a predator: A person who exploits vulnerability.

Watch this video of Trump being a predator. He looks as if he is stalking Hillary when her back is turned. That’s one thing a predator does – strikes when backs are turned. This video is both funny and horribly unsettling.

Remember the predator and vote [in] this election. Please do not throw your vote away on any third party.* The stakes are higher in this election than in any other in our history.

Instead, send Hillary to the White House (yes I know for sure she is not perfect). And send Trump to the treatment facility where he can get help to restore his humanity. It must be in there somewhere—it always is.

I will add this:

  1. * You may recall from a couple of my posts about the need to vote for Hillary and not a 3rd party candidate or to abstain from voting. The issue is that every vote that is not for Hillary is a vote for Trump, because it’s one less vote that he has to overcome in order to win.
  2. Watch the video. It’s creepy, but it’s important that you see it. While I was watching the second debate I desperately wanted Hillary to turn around, mid-sentence, and say, “Donald, this isn’t your turn, so go to your chair. I don’t care if you sit or stand, but women don’t like to be stalked.”
  3. Share this with your people, your friends, your colleagues, your neighbors, every Millennial you know or have heard of and even with your crazy Uncle Bill. Link it to your FaceBook page – just use the FaceBook linking button below (blue square with an “f”) and link it to all the other social media you use, too.

THANK YOU PAM VERNER for your professional insight and wisdom and for your courage to speak out!

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

To All Men: It’s About You


Somebody's Mom

Somebody’s Mom

Reading time – 1:43; Viewing time – 3:19  .  .  .

It’s not at all unusual to refrain from contributing to research on, say, Parkinson’s Disease – until your mom’s voice begins to shake and she has trouble getting her hands to do the most ordinary of things.

It’s just human nature to have cared when Malaysia Flight 370 went missing, but it’s likely you went about your day in an ordinary fashion. Unless you had loved ones on that airplane.

And so it is as we react to the revelations about Donald Trump and his sexual assaults. You care, but if it wasn’t you or yours, perhaps you just go about your business.

It wasn’t just the so called “locker room” tape from years ago that made this so awful, because there is now a steady drumbeat of women coming forward and disclosing his lewd, bullying and apparently illegal behavior that harmed them. Women across the country have rejected Trump because of his obvious misogyny.

There have been appeals to men on the grounds that they may have daughters, wives or sisters, so they should be able to relate to this brutality and abhor Trump and his abuses. After all, that would affect them. But that rather misses the mark, because some men don’t have daughters, a wife or sisters. Does that excuse them from the imperative to reject Trump?

Anna Marie Cox said it best after the Trump “locker room” recording was released. She said the obvious, that every man had a mother.

So, to all the men who had a mother: Is being abused by Trump the way you would have wanted your mother to be treated when she was 19 or 25? If she was beautiful, would you have thought that her beauty made her fair game for sexual ambush? Would it have been okay if she had been in the Miss Teen USA contest when she was 15 years old and Trump had walked into her dressing room while she was undressed? Would it have been okay if she had been assaulted by lewd comments as she did nothing more provocative than walk down the sidewalk or show up for work?

Perhaps it has to be that close – it has to affect we humans personally – in order for us to truly feel the empathy and sometimes the outrage we should feel over the undeserved suffering of others. Now, though, you don’t have to be a woman who was leered at or groped or raped or pinned against a wall, nor do those things have to have happened to your daughter, your wife or your sister. You’re not exempt from the imperative to reject Trump, because you had a mother. So, this is personal. This is about you.

Oh, and by the way  .  .  .

When I’m wrong, it’s important that I admit it, and so it is that I offer this ‘fess up.

A while ago I claimed in a post right here that those who support Trump aren’t idiots. They are simply people who are angry over being blown off and abused for so very long and Trump is the voice of their rage. Now, though, we’re told that 27% of American women still support Trump. Clearly, I was wrong. They really are idiots.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What Do You Want?


Reading time – 77 seconds .  .  .

coca-colaThe Coca-Cola company wants you to know that if pepsiyou drink Cokes, amazingly wonderful things will happen for you. Pepsico wants you to know the same thing, but assures you that it has to be Pepsi. And both of these companies want you to know what really great guys they are, so they promote STEM learning and women’s empowerment and other good causes. These companies and their lobbying organization, the American Beverage Association, care deeply about your health, so much so that from 2011 – 2015 they contributed to at least 96 health organizations. That sure makes them look like great guys. And they’re pretty good at making themselves look blameless for anything other than good times, too.

According to a report released by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, while those companies were doing their supporting of good causes, they were spending $10 million per year lobbying to defeat legislation – 29 bills – designed to curb the sugar consumption that comes from the soft drinks we consume, the very stuff that is responsible for about half of the obesity in America.

Let’s see  .  .  .  they make it look like they care about you and your health and then make sure that their advertising skewers you with implied promises that you’ll be lovely and be loved, that you’ll be forever young and beautiful and that life will be a joy, if only you’ll drink their bottles of sugar water. And they put their money into making sure that they maintain their God-given right to ensure there is never any legislation that would allow you to know the actual, fact-based truth. Sorry, but more sugar will not make your life eternally wonderful. It will just make you fat.

In case you’re the kind of person who thinks that we really do have a fat problem in America and you believe that we ought to do something about it besides imagine that people will somehow magically and consistently make nothing but good choices for themselves, in case you think that product labeling of the things you consume is a good thing, in case you want government that works for the people, the truth is that

YOU AREN’T GETTING WHAT YOU WANT!

And you can trace that to our pay-for-play system of government that allows $10 million per year to prevent you from knowing what you’re consuming and what it does to you. If you want to start getting what you want, you better stop voting for people who like things the way they are. You better start electing reformers.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Where?


Reading time – 1:01; Viewing time – 2:41  .  .  .

Uh-oh. Some snark follows. Sensitive readers should squint.

What candidates say matters. And to paraphrase Barney Frank, you want your next president to be someone who spends the majority of his/her time on this planet. Well, here’s how Politifact scored the candidates’ claims made in the second so-called debate. (Here’s the New York Times’ fact checking). NOTE: There is a pop quiz following the charts.

second-debate-politifact-clinton

Clinton Scorecard, 2nd Debate

Trump Scorecard, 2nd Debate

Trump Scorecard, 2nd Debate

Pop Quiz

  1. Do you notice any differences, any imbalance between the charts? Compare and contrast, especially the False and Pants on Fire statements. No credit will be given for incomplete, weenie answers.
  2. Which candidate appears to spend the majority of his/her time on this planet? Explain your answer using a language common to Earth.
  3. For extra credit: Exactly how much do you believe that Donald Trump is sincere, much less contrite, in his apology for his misogynistic, “locker room” comments in which he confessed to having committed criminal sexual assault?
  4. When did you first recognize the warts that identify this reptile?

Enter your answers in the What Do You Think? section below. Your score on this quiz will become 50% of your letter grade for the semester and will affect all of your future life options.

One more thing.

Following the first debate many people were speculating about the cause of Donald Trump’s frequent sniffling. Did he have a head cold? Was he really sad? Did a bug fly up his nose? The sniffing was far more pronounced throughout the second debate. Oddly, he doesn’t do that at his rallies, so what’s going on? Let’s put the speculation about this into the Donald Trump style of rhetoric:

Many people are saying – I don’t believe this myself – but many people are saying that he might be doing coke. This I am hearing. I don’t know if this is a fact. I’m just saying that people are saying these things. Believe me. This is true. I am hearing this. I’m a very successful businessman – I am the best – and I got that way because I know how to read people. He’s a total disaster. A total loser. Believe me.

So tell us, Donald, how do you you like it when that kind of crap is aimed at you?

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Bonus Section – You absolutely must read this piece of clarity from David Leonhardt, Opinion Editor, New York Times. Plus, here is his guide to second debate, Trump fact-checking:

He lied about a sex tape.
He lied about his lies about ‘birtherism.
He lied about the growth rate of the American economy.
He lied about the state of the job market.
He lied about the trade deficit.
He lied about tax rates.
He lied about his own position on the Iraq War, again.
He lied about ISIS.
He lied about the Benghazi attack.
He lied about the war in Syria.
He lied about Syrian refugees.
He lied about Russia’s hacking.
He lied about the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
He lied about Hillary Clinton’s tax plan.
He lied about her health care plan.
He lied about her immigration plan.
He lied about her email deletion.
He lied about Obamacare, more than once.
He lied about the rape of a 12-year-old girl.
He lied about his history of groping women without their consent.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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