COVID-19

FDB – Not a Typo


The Yungr Machine is a modification of the Wabac Machine.

Were I twenty years younger and living where there is a Republican senator or congressperson I would run for office in 2022. I’m licking my lips at the idea of running against any fool Republican who voted against the American Rescue Plan, which includes every Republican in Congress. By November 2022 it will be the single most positive and popular thing to impact the voting public in many decades and its popularity will climb as people get checks, vaccinations. jobs and their kids go back to school. Please, somebody, stuff me into the Yungr Machine so I can become a generation younger and run against an R in the mid-term election.

.

Passing the American Rescue Plan is a huge step in delivering what Americans want and desperately need. It has a 76% approval rating – over 60% of Republicans like it – and those numbers are going nowhere but up. It’s the kind of thing that makes people say, “Hey, this is pretty good stuff – these guys actually can deliver.” Some will say quite reasonably, “It’s about damn time,” and, of course, they’ll be right. We’ve dragged feet for decades on any kind of benefit package that actually helps working people and our most desperate.

This is so good that even stogy economists, like those at Goldman Sachs, as well as non-stogy Paul Krugman, are predicting 7.7% growth in GDP, and that’s nothing but good for everyone.

The key political play is for the Dems to keep the Plan properly framed and its benefits in front of voters for the next four years. That’s critical, because Trump will try to steal the glory by claiming that “only he” could have delivered Operation Warp Speed. Look for that BS coming soon to a communication near you.

Now imagine Biden delivering an infrastructure bill, a critically needed updating and rebuilding of our national foundation that politicians have been wagging tongues about and have steadfastly avoided tackling for at least 40 years. This will be a WPA-like package that puts millions more Americans to work with good wages and benefits and the self-respect that comes with that. That will be next on Biden’s playlist and, like the American Rescue Plan, it will be gigantically popular.

Big projects are what are needed for our big challenges. This is very much like the time of the Great Depression, in that there are big crises afoot, which opens a space for a strong leader with the right message to emerge and champion serving the people. Delivering on that opportunity will cement Biden as the right guy for our time and perhaps the cultural and economic successor to FDR; hence, the title, “FDB.”

Republicans know and fear this, so they especially want to oppose an infrastructure plan, because its popularity would likely portend 8 to 12 additional years of a Democrat in the White House and Democrats controlling Congress, too. That’s why they are scratching and clawing to keep the filibuster. They are desperate to prevent its modification so that they can continue to submarine every Democrat and every Biden effort. Their motto:

Obstruction Я Us

They are all about stopping anything that is good for We the People because that prevents Ds from having a win. They think that will put them in power. Too bad for you.

That is why Democrat efforts to de-fang the filibuster and prevent Republican obstructionism is so important to our nation. Read this to understand fully.

Republican legislators refuse to be responsive to the needs and desires of the American people, but they still want power. They ache for the appalling thrill of minority rule. They are unable to compete on policy, so they’re waging a war using cultural divisiveness, fantastical lying, gerrymandering and overt voter suppression. Sadly, in their complete absence of even a single idea of substance for We the People, they’re now using their lofty Congressional status to attack Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. Really.*

If you believe in majority rule, you better get into the fight to limit or eliminate the filibuster.

Fun Contest

There’s red wine, white wine and Republican whine, and they have already started their whining campaign about the American Rescue Plan. They are claiming that it’s full of “pork barrel spending.” They are wailing great cries of woe and rending their garments in anticipation of a fantasy mortal hog snort to our nation. This is exactly like Trump and Republican accusations of voting fraud in the 2020 election, in that in neither case are they able to point to even a single example of the horrible thing they decry. All they have are false accusations projected at spit-spewing volume.

Which brings to mind the title and key lyric of a fine blues tune:

Your Mind Is On Vacation (and Your Mouth Is Working Overtime)

So, the contest is to find an example of the pork that Republicans claim is in this bill. Submit your contest entry in the Comments section below. The contest winner’s name will be attached to a pork chop that will be sent to the Congressional pork whiner of his/her choice.

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  • *Tucker Carlson responded to President Biden’s Thursday speech, wherein the President offered hope that we will be able to gather with friends and family on the Fourth of July. Carlson said, “This is a free country. How dare you tell us who we can spend the Fourth of July with?” He’s quite good at indignation.
  • That empty headedness is what passes for thoughtful Republican commentary in a pandemic.
  • Okay, I accept your criticism that Tucker Carlson is anything but thoughtful. So, instead consider applying to him the blues tune title above.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Lessons


The Playground Lessons

When I was a kid the grown ups let me know when I behaved improperly and the messages were always very clear and compelling. That didn’t mean that I never did whatever-it-was again, but it did mean that I knew the rules and did whatever-it-was less and less often. I saw other kids learning that same hard way, too. “Betcha grown ups don’t get in trouble that way,” I thought, because, well, they’re grown ups.

Wrong.

Some didn’t learn their lessons,

like the huge community of Trumpist liars who never quite got the message that it isn’t okay to lie.

like the self-certain conspiracy theory followers who use their self-righteousness to bully others, even though they were taught on the playground not to bully.

like the rule benders who victimize others with their barely legal discrimination and hateful suppression.

like the shameful cowards who don’t stand up for what they know is right and don’t stand against what they know is wrong.

There are lots more, of course, but the point is that becoming an adult doesn’t guarantee anyone will leave childhood wrongdoing behind, even though we all know that it should. Some carry around their brattiness like a badge of honor all their lives and hone their skills with pride. They refuse to learn their lessons and you can see that any day in Congress and hear it constantly from the mouths of political blatherers. They all wear adult bodies, but inside some are just bratty kids from the playground.

Go tell their moms on them. Then they’ll be in trouble.

The Government Lesson

President Ronald Reagan famously and repeatedly said, “Government isn’t the solution to the problem; government is the problem.” That was an odd thing to say for a guy wanting to run government.

Surely, Reagan found a useful campaign tool in making government a boogie man. He gave people something to blame for their problems. He stoked the fires of discontent for his own benefit and left the resulting carnage to others. We are living in that carnage right now.

In contrast, President Biden now has our vaccination program humming along at over 2 million poked arms per day. We’re rapidly on our way to beating this horrible virus and restoring our more normal lives, all because government is the solution.

There are some things that even rugged American individualists cannot do on their own. That’s why we have government. Government is why we’re able to roll up our shirtsleeves and get vaccinated. That’s why Biden is decisively proving Reagan wrong. Because it turns out that government wasn’t the problem; Reagan was.

The Texas Lesson

Governor Greg Abbott issued an imperial proclamation that mask wearing is no longer required and all businesses in Texas are free to open fully as of today. That’s more than odd, given that it’s obvious that we have not defeated the coronavirus pandemic.

Worse, there are multiple mutant strains of the virus that are accelerating infections across the nation. They are more efficient in their transmission, meaning that we infect one another with even less exposure than from the original coronavirus. Worse yet, they are more serious and perhaps more deadly to humans. Surely, Governor Abbott knows this. So, why would he put Texans at mortal risk? I think I know.

Abbott knows that eliminating the mask mandate and opening up the state for full interpersonal viral transmission will result in massive numbers of Texans becoming gravely ill and many will die. I’m guessing that will affect fewer Democrat voters, as they are likely to wear a mask, Abbott proclamation or not. His order, then, will result in fewer Republican voters, thus helping purple Texas go Democrat for years to come. I think Abbott is a Democrat in Republican clothing.

Well done, Governor Machiavelli!

The Rights Lesson

Click the pic for a more legible view. Scroll down to the “Feminism vs Corporate Rule” article.

The Politics Lesson

If you want clarity about the realities of your political choices and the future of America, read Sheila Markin’s post here.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Carrots, Sticks and George Washington


George Washington’s Farewell Address was delivered to Congress in 1796. He offered profound wisdom to our young nation and his words have value that is undiminished by time. Indeed, it reads as though Washington had a telescope to see into the 21st century and address our challenges of today. His address is wordy in its 18th century style, but it is accessible with a little concentration and it is your reading assignment this week (click here to download the PDF).

Washington had great aspirations for the country he served selflessly through war and for years after that when he would have preferred to be in retirement on his farm.  Here is a piece of his hopes for this nation:

”  .  .  .  I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.”

The question now is focused on how we are doing in maintaining our brotherly affection, maintaining a free Constitution, ensuring that every department of government is “stamped with wisdom and virtue,” and that we have the happiness and liberty sufficient to recommend democracy like ours to other nations.

There are many Americans now wanting to bring our democracy and our Constitution crashing down and they are doing so while mouthing their perversely impassioned cries of democracy and liberty. We have politicians and blatherers spouting embarrassingly flagrant and witless lies to enrage our citizens against one another and our country. So much for our brotherly affection. And we have abandoned allies and supplicated to tyrants, hardly providing a recommendation of democracy to others.

It’s possible that we’ve back-slid on the path to Washington’s aspirations for us, so our focus needs to be on restoring the pursuit of those lofty goals. Right now it appears that we’ll need both carrots and sticks to begin to move in the right direction.

President Biden hit the ground running, even in the face of the refusal of Trump administration operatives to help in the transition, even in the face of their withholding critical information, even in the face of a complete lack of prior structure to tackle our national challenges and even in the face of their denials of Biden’s achievement and authority.

We are at last on a path to get the pandemic under control and stop killing thousands of Americans daily. We are on a path to restore economic security for our people and we’ve rejoined the global fight for our planet. We are in hopes of soon having the infrastructure program we’ve declared as critical for over three decades and which will benefit all of us in many ways. And we have begun to mend international fences with our allies and put tyrannical opponents on notice. All of that will go a long way to taming the fiery beast of American anger. Perhaps that will narrow our national divisiveness and make us safer here and around the world at the same time.

All are good things, but those carrots alone won’t be enough. It’s hard to picture Michigan Militia toughs suddenly becoming placid and deciding not to kidnap the governor or storm the state capitol with assault weapons, chanting like goosestepping morons about their freedom. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers won’t miraculously stop calling for a new civil war and threatening to once again attack Congress. Even now they’re threatening to kill Democrats. They are bent on violating Washington’s hope for us, “that [our] union and brotherly affection may be perpetual.” Preventing their violence and chaos will take more than carrots; it will take some sticks.

We need an ongoing and very robust domestic intelligence gathering engine and powerful national policing to crack down on the violent hard heads before they harm more Americans and before they bring down American democracy. That’s the tricky part, because in doing so we risk becoming a police state, compromising the very liberty Washington recommended to us and celebrated. That will be a huge challenge for a very long time.

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Follow Up to the Donald Trump Golden Calf Report

Last week I reported on the CPAC Trump golden idolatry extravaganza and hereby make a prediction based on biblical history.

The T-GOP, like the original wanderers, will take generations to forget their comfort in slavery and their supplication to a false god. Expect no quick miracles.

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Best Opinion Videos of the Week

Brianna Keilar at CNN captures the Pinocchio that Republicans are using to promote minority rule and restore Jim Crow. They are not and never will be real live boys.

And she skewers the jellyfish here.

As you watch the CNN clip, keep in mind the Rudy Question, from the movie The Rainmaker: “Do you even remember when you first sold out?”

Best Political Satire of the Week

Click me for the story

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Pop Quiz For Republican Senators


Answers are required for all questions.

Hints for conservatives are provided. Easy questions come first.

Impeachment – Second Chance to Get This Right

Since the beginning of his candidacy in 2015 the disgraced former president stoked violence against those who opposed him, including a continuation of his cavorting in the swamp of racism. He urged violence on protesters at his rallies, even guaranteeing legal fees for those who violently attacked protesters.

He began dog whistles to mob violence long before the November 3 election by claiming the only way he could lose is if the “election is rigged.” He went on to whine about fraud in nearly every public statement for months, but it was fraud that did not and does not exist. That was made abundantly clear by the judicial rejection of the over 60 lawsuits he brought.

He warned ominously that if he didn’t win he and his followers would be cheated. He fired off flare after flare of victimization of his followers to ignite their rage. He threatened them with loss of “their country” if they didn’t act forcefully. He told his followers there would be a big protest in DC on January 6, to be there, that “It will be wild” because “something” was going to happen. It was an only slightly vague message of “We’re going to show our muscle and take over the country.”

Of course, he didn’t explicitly say that last. Recall that Michael Cohen testified before Congress that Trump speaks in code like a Mafia don. So, he didn’t tell his rabid followers to go to the Capitol Building, trash it and find legislators, especially Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, and kill them. Instead, he called them to DC, promising a big event. He wailed about fraud and how his followers had been cheated for so long. He told them to march to the Capitol Building and “fight like hell or you won’t have a country any more.”

After months of inciting rage, he set his angry mob loose, directing them to the Capitol Building to fight like hell. And they did.

When such a thing is done in a Central American or Eastern European country it’s called an attempted coup.

Everyone knows all of that, including the Republican Senators and Representatives who could have been killed if Trump’s mob had found them. That leads to the next questions for Republican Senators who are yet to vote on the charge identified as House Resolution 232-197, Impeachment of Donald John Trump for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Incitement of Insurrection:

What is your resistance to convicting this traitor on the charge of inciting a murderous riot and insurrection – sedition? Recall that you witnessed it, so there’s no question about guilt. (Hint: There is nothing conservative in allowing someone to get away with sedition.)

Seven people are dead due to Trump’s treachery and hundreds are injured. Do you not care because it wasn’t you who got beaten by the weaponized staffs of American flags?

Is this all about you and your political career, such that the “preserve, protect and defend” part of your oath of office is secondary to the demands of your radical base and your selfish prospects for re-election?*

Republican Senator, maybe you’re a believer in an afterlife. Based on many of your past actions you just might be concerned about significant heat following your demise. You still have a little time to do what is right before the very worst thing happens. It’s worth considering. All that’s at stake for you is eternity.

So,

In this impeachment trial, what will you do? (Hint: There is nothing conservative about letting traitors get away with it.**)

Last question:

Do you smell something burning? Perhaps a sulfurous smell? It might be very close to you.

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Quotes of the Week

From motivational speaker Les Brown:

“You have to know what you stand for, or you’ll fall for anything.”

From Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and author of “On Tyranny”:

“If tyrants feel no consequences for their actions  .  .  .  nothing will change.”

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History Lesson of the Week

2017, Charlottesville, VA

White supremacists and neo-Nazis amassed in a rally of hate, where counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed – run over by an automobile driven by one of those white supremacists. The President of the United States told us there were “very fine people on both sides” and expressed nothing for Heather Heyer. He faced no consequences for coddling hate groups.

January 6, 2021, Washington, DC

White supremacists and neo-Nazis amassed in a rally of hate at the Capitol Building, where seven people died. The President of the United States told us that the insurrectionists were patriots. These are the very same people who vandalized the Capitol Building, symbol of our country, and threatened to kill congresspeople and the Vice President. They killed one cop and injured 140 more. Trump expressed nothing for the dead and injured cops. He said he is proud of the rioters and that they are very special. He has been impeached, but the Republicans in the Senate are threatening to refuse to convict him for his obvious crime.

Refusing to hold wrongdoers accountable inevitably leads to far worse behavior and ever-more dangerous outcomes. History is replete with examples of this and if we fail in our duty now there will be a worse megalomaniac in our future and we will not be able to prevent the death of our democracy at the hands of an enraged mob, incited by one who hates what we say we hold dear. We ignore the lesson of history at our inevitable peril.

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*To decide whether this is a sound course, be sure to read Ira Leavitt’s “Can Republicans Still Hit the Curve Ball?“

**Just wondering if you remember the good old days, when Republicans were unbending in protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States. They were fierce in their loyalty to country. So,

Do you remember?

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Schools and Some More Stuff


By the time this pandemic is over our kids will be as much as a year behind in school. Many are already having both academic and psychological issues due to isolation, including lack of the socialization that being in school provides. Plus, staring at a screen all day is just plain hard to do.

One of the ways schools have tried to minimize these adverse effects is to create a hybrid system, where 1/3 to 1/2 of the kids are in the classroom, which provides plenty of social distancing. As that’s going on, the rest of the kids follow along at home on their computers and the kids are rotated through the system. That only works, of course, when the kids have both computers and internet access, which simply isn’t the case for all kids.

Parts of the country are starting to “open up”, which means that we are incrementally allowing people to patronize bars and restaurants, but with perhaps only 25% occupancy. That provides separation so that we’ll only infect others with this deadly virus when we sneeze. “Opening up” has been part of new surges before and expecting different results now is demonstrably insane. Look for an increase in coronavirus cases around February 20. Open up bars? I have a better idea.

Actually, this isn’t original, but I’m proud to borrow from Vanessa Barbara’s essay in the Times, “I Can’t Believe I Need to Say This, but We Need Schools More Than Bars.” What if we converted bars and restaurants to school rooms?

Let’s see, bars and restaurants have tables and chairs in large, open areas. Check that box.

These are unused or vastly under-used facilities, making them available. Check that box, too.

A neighbor works for a company that runs an office with 1,000 – 1,500 employees. She’s been working from home for the past 10 months, as have her colleagues, and she periodically goes into the office for a short task. She reports that there are never more than 20 people in the entire building. That dramatic under-use of office space is typical across the nation.

Let’s see again: These are places with desks, chairs, great lighting, lots of room and internet service. Check all the boxes.

Another benefit of this kind of adjustment is that it minimizes the number of new teachers we’ll have to hire and train due to extremely small class sizes, because the class sizes won’t have to be smaller.

And yes, this can be done safely, even with the coronavirus unconquered, although with these new virulent strains now spreading that will have to be studied again.

Utilizing these spaces for school rooms could bring bar, restaurant and office renters a few months of financial relief and provide a venue for teachers to do what they are wired to do: teach kids. Our folks who are desperate for a bar or restaurant will just have to learn to live with disappointment for a little while longer.

The point is that we are living in a time when no road maps are available to deal with our challenges. That’s piled on top of our archaic education system format, leaving our kids behind their international peers and with life-long implications for under-performing, both individually and for us as a country. Legacy thinking from past centuries just can’t get the fix-it job done. We’re going to have to be creative now and, really, forever, if we’re to create the best outcomes.

It’s more complicated than transforming bars, restaurants and offices into classrooms, of course, and we humans have an infinite capacity to make things difficult. But what if we were to focus solely on educating our kids – would that simplify things a bit?

Turns out some folks have already done some outstanding work to ameliorate the learning losses our kids have endured, as well as the hits to their mental health. Read this report from McKinsey & Company. Pages 1 – 9 outline the challenges and our ongoing inexcusable education outcome disparities.* If you want to know how we’ll fix what’s broken, focus your attention starting on page 10.

Clearly, what we need is for our leadership to get out front and lead our kids back in school. That’s going to take some creative thinking and it’s going to cost money. All that’s riding on our getting this right is the lives of our kids and the future of our nation.

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Covid News

If you’ve been watching (who hasn’t?) you’ve seen that the infection numbers have been dropping for a short while. Not surprisingly, it’s more complicated than  that.

This (used by permission) is from my analytically superior colleague Dave Nelsen, who brought us the story last July of why masks work:

“[T]here are credible people out there who believe .  .  .  that the worst of COVID-19 is still ahead of us. Here’s one such article. FYI, Dr. Peter Hotez is President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute .  .  .

“The basic concern is about the UK and South African variants with their great transmissibility leading to a fourth, yet higher, final wave. Regardless, do not let down your guard. Every protocol that works against “standard” SARS-CoV-2 (masks, distance, good air flow indoors, etc.) also works against these new mutations.” [emphasis mine]

Here’s a link to the report.

Insanity update

You may recall that some of the survivors of the 2018 Parkland, FL school massacre are activists for gun safety reform. David Hogg is one of the leaders and I received an email from him last week, complete with a link to a video of QAnon conspiracy nut job Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Pluto). In the video you’ll see her harassing him shortly after the shootings when Hogg was just 17 or 18 years old, still in high school, and Greene was chronologically, at least, an adult. You have to see Greene stalking Hogg to believe it.

This woman is what is now passing as an honorable member of Congress. If you need more to be convinced of how deeply disturbed, cruel and dangerous she is (read: unhinged), click here.

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Some good news

The Biden administration is a week and a half old and has conducted a press briefing daily. The good news is that over these 12 days not a single reporter has been attacked, shamed or insulted by the press secretary, many questions have been answered, there have been no lies about the size of Biden’s inaugural crowd and every briefing has started on time. All in all, it’s what we used to call normal.

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A Little Bit of Fun – Plus

Perhaps you missed one of the candidates for president in the last election. Too bad, because he has some sense that is most often missing. Here’s a link to his message and here’s a link to his still available campaign website. Be sure to click the Issues tab.

This guy makes sense in his entertaining, tongue-in-cheek way. Thanks to AT for pointing to him.

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*From the McKinsey report: “The pandemic has forced the most vulnerable students into the least desirable learning situations with inadequate tools and support systems to navigate them .  .  .  Currently, the United States ranks 36th in math and 13th in reading in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings.”

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

You


Other than the “it’s a hoax” deniers, the super spreader attendees and the “you can’t tell me what to do” crowd, we all want to know the bottom line:

When can we get vaccinated and start down the road in the direction of something resembling what used to be normal?

Good thing you’re so smart that you’re reading this, because here’s your answer. Answers, plural, really.

In this nice piece of reporting by Helen Braswell of STAT you’ll learn why it’s taking so long to secure supplies of vaccines, distribute them and get a few cc’s into your arm, and much more. Plus, she provides a link for where to get vaccinated.

So, track down your vaccinations – get on the right list – and keep wearing your mask, socially distancing, washing hands and avoiding large gatherings for, oh, say the next 11 months.

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Republicans in Congress have suddenly been cured of their cyclical 4-year amnesia – sort of like the 17-year locusts – and have again discovered how awful and terrible and unconscionable deficits and debt are. The cure for their affliction is the same each time: the presence of a Democrat in the White House. Absent a Democrat living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue they can’t remember either of the “d” words and are peachy happy to increase spending and lower taxes on the wealthy. It happens every time. It’s too tiresome to list such things again, so just refer to this post for some sad recollections.

The point of mentioning the spontaneous remission of Republican amnesia is that their deficit fighting may well impact your health very soon. They are self-righteously invoking deficit and debt to refuse Covid relief in just about all forms, including providing money for the states to get vaccines into arms.

Recall that during the last administration of President He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the de facto Covid plan was for the feds to dump vaccines into states and then just walk away. Over the course of the prior 8 months they had been absolutely inept at crafting a plan to apportion vaccines sensibly and coordinate efforts to distribute vaccines to where needles and arms were waiting. The entire plan was solely to dump vaccines at airports. How’s that working for you?

Now the Rs want to restrict the money to fight this killer disease by, for example, severely limiting what goes to already cash strapped states. That’s cash strapped as in: laying off police and teachers because they have no money to pay them. How do you suppose the feds stiffing the states will work for you and your health?

Did I mention that 3,000 – 4,000 Americans are dying every day from this disease, while millions of doses of vaccines are sitting in freezers? What’s wrong with this picture and how’s that working for you?

If you have a senator or congressperson with an R next to his/her name, be sure to call them and ask why they don’t care if granny or your kids’ teachers or your neighbor or you all die. Ask them if instead of fully funding everything needed to end the pandemic in this country whether they instead will be co-sponsoring yet another tax cut bill for the rich.

And while you’re talking with them, ask if they’re dumb enough to believe that Democrats are running child sex trafficking rings or drinking the blood of children or any of the other ought-to-be unbelievable conspiracy theories. Perhaps they’re just going along with the crazies in order to be re-elected. Too bad, because that emboldens the crazies.

Exactly what went wrong with education in America that allowed people to believe such detached-from-reality stuff? How did we breed millions willing to surrender their common sense and to reject the realities of science and learning? Why have we allowed people with big megaphones to incite anger, rage and violence? And why have we allowed self-serving, power hungry people to put themselves ahead of our country?

Here’s a memo to Republicans in Congress from Sheila Markin’s recent post:

Hey you guys, what about standing up en masse to educate your duped base instead of caving in? Just tell your constituents the truth:

Biden won.

Trump lost.

Biden is a good guy and a moderate, not a radical flame throwing Antifa.

Trump incited an un-American attack on our government.

Is that really so hard to do?

Our democracy needs you to stop the disinformation and defend the truth. Trump is banned from Twitter. Now’s your big chance.

Something very freaky and weird and dangerous has happened and it has sorely affected our democracy and is threatening your life.

Last time: How’s that working for you?

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For more on the insanity, watch the video about South Dakota’s shameful ranking of having the worst mortality rate in the nation and the 3rd worst in the world. “How Gov. Kristi Noem Rebranded Her Failures as ‘Freedom’” is a study in self-promotion in place of the health of the people.  After viewing the video, ask yourself how that’s working for the people of South Dakota.

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Another important thing

Insurrection, impeachment, expanding GOP insanity and far more are happening with the result that other critically important issues get ignored due to our overwhelm. One such critically important issue is the humanitarian crisis at our southern border, as deportations of refugees and incarceration in concentration camps of children continue. It’s time we learned more.

I’ve signed up to attend the watch party with Witness at the Border on Friday, Jan 29, 6:30 PM CST. Will you join me? Use this link to sign up:

https://www.mobilize.us/witnessattheborder/event/371870/?referring_vol=2566916&rname=Jack&timeslot=2630094&share_medium=email_link&share_context=email_1

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Last thing

Jennifer Rubin writes for The Washington Post. She used to be a sane Republican. She’s still sane, but I don’t know if she considers herself to be a Republican now.

Either way, she offers 50 things that are better already. Read and smile.

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

What’s Next?


Chinese pictograph for crisis: danger plus opportunity

Earth’s tectonic plates have been put on notice that they are likely to be pushed back to where they belong.

Perhaps there are many who didn’t pay attention or who even boycotted the inauguration, so they did not hear the words that were spoken or feel the integrity behind them. Nevertheless, the world has been told that a new banner is flying. Beneath it is another banner containing this pictograph:

The night when President Obama was declared the winner of the 2008 election, mixed with the joy and renewal of hope of that night, I felt the weight that was about to fall on that man’s shoulders. We were headlong into the Great Recession, the likes of which few living Americans had experienced. It was a financial hole so deep that it affected the entire world. Perversely, within his first month in office Senate and House Republicans were daftly criticizing Obama for having failed to fully fix the financial crisis by then.

At the same time, we were enmeshed in two wars, both of which had been avoidable and which now were intractable, with no foreseeable exit. And it was clear that Obama would face nothing but fierce opposition from Republicans.

Perhaps you recall the reports of the Republicans who met at a restaurant on the night of his election and decided that their number one job was to “Make Obama a one-term president.” Their focus wasn’t to restore our national economy and get Americans back to work. It wasn’t to end the wars and bring our troops home. It wasn’t to form a more perfect union. Their celebration of our most recent exercise in democracy was to commit to obstructing progress and to regain power for themselves.

Obama passed the Affordable Care Act in his first two years, but not much more over the following 6 years, as a blizzard of Republican filibusters and dead letter legislation hampered any progress to overcome our enormous national challenges. Now, the challenges are even greater for President Biden.

There is the pandemic, our cratered economy, damaged international relations, compromised national security, the global climate threat, domestic terrorism and, oh yes, two intractable wars, plus much more. Biden’s first two years better be greatly productive and felt strongly by the American people, or his remaining time in office could be stifled in the same way as Obama’s. Refer again to the pictograph at the top right of this post.

From Ezra Klein’s brilliant essay, Democrats, Here’s How to Lose in 2022. And Deserve It:

But now Democrats have another chance. To avoid the mistakes of the past, three principles should guide their efforts. First, they need to help people fast and visibly. Second, they need to take politics seriously, recognizing that defeat in 2022 will result in catastrophe  .  .  .  And, finally, they need to do more than talk about the importance of democracy. They need to deepen American democracy.

Our nation is terribly sick, both medically and culturally. Not much, especially the economy, will get better until we stop the pandemic. Biden has rightly put that at the top of his to-do list, and doing so will meet Klein’s first imperative of fast and visible benefit to the people. To accomplish that he and his team will have to do something Trump’s team failed to do about the pandemic: deliver on the promise. No more bumbling. Making things more difficult is that Biden will have a lot of obstacles to overcome to get that or anything else done, and the Republican obstruction machine has already cranked up.

Now that a Democrat is in the White House they have suddenly discovered how awful deficits and debt are, just as they did in 2009 when Obama arrived. They didn’t seem particularly interested in such things when George W. Bush started two wars and cut taxes or when Trump squandered $2 trillion to enrich already rich people. Their now-regained fiscal stinginess is one of their favorite obstacles to progress that they love to place in front of Democrats.

Sen. Josh Hawley unconscionably raises an encouraging power fist to Trump’s mob of insurrectionists

Sen. Josh Hawley (he of the power fist salute to American domestic terrorists) objected without cause to a Biden secretary appointment. I’m not in Hawley’s head, but I suspect that he’s hoping to become the inheritor of Trump’s “base” and run for President on the White Supremacist ticket in 2024. There are plenty of other Republican senators and congressmen/women with equally overriding self-serving motives, who openly embrace extremist, hate-fueled conspiracy lies and who are just as power hungry.

With Chuck Schumer at the helm of the Senate we won’t have to worry about a pile up of ignored legislation, like the stacks of folders of House-passed legislation in McConnell’s office. Nevertheless, the filibuster remains for Republicans to use to stop necessary things from happening. Eliminating it will be difficult and doing so is a double edge sword that may prove to be harmful in the long term. But with it in place for obstructionists to use, all we’re left to count on is a sufficient cadre of Republican senators who will put country first. Bear in mind that hope is not a strategy and, by itself, simply can’t get the job done.

What can help, of course, are executive orders, many of which Biden signed in the afternoon following his inauguration. It’s a good start toward neutering the enormous list of Trump’s unscrupulous and unconscionable actions.

Ending the pandemic and embarking, for example, on a Rooseveltian infrastructure program will heal us medically and put Americans back to work, even as it will require bi-partisan cooperation. It will be a huge step toward the culture change and economic recovery we so desperately need.

That alone won’t cool off all the red hot, militant crazies, but people with money in their pockets are far less angry, not least because they feel a sense of dignity and of being in control of their own lives. Re-engaging everyone in such personal ways will be fast and visible to the public and will strengthen our entire country.

We hold the promise in our hands. It’s up to us to make that promise come alive. In the words of Amanda Gorman, “If only we are brave enough to be it.”

That’s what’s next.

For more, be sure to read Sheila Markin’s post here.

———————

Finally

From poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen:

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.

These are hard times and it’s difficult to know what to do and where to start. What is important is simply that we start. That we ring the bells that still can ring. We will never run out of naysayers, vapid criticism and self-serving idiocy. What’s important is that we refuse to let such things impede progress.

Follow Leonard Cohen’s advice. Today is a good day for that.

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

The Ledge


She tried to talk me off the ledge, but I only moved back a bit.

It was late in the afternoon and I was suiting up for walking the dog on a cold January day, muttering under my breath and slamming drawers that had done me no wrong.

“What’s the matter?” she asked in her gentle way.

“I’m mad as hell and not fit to be with. Please respect yourself by staying away from me. I’m so damned mad I’m trying to stay away from myself.”

She insisted on walking with me, so instead of grunting to myself as I walked the dog, I spoke mostly complete sentences.

I’m so goddamn mad that 4,000 of my countrymen are dying every day. President Doesn’t Give a Shit told us of his level of care directly, saying, “I’m not responsible for anything.” That comment was aimed specifically at anything having to do with our mass death pandemic, so of course I don’t expect any action from him to protect and defend the American people – you know, the ones dying at the rate of 4,000 per day?

But there’s a commission specifically tasked with distributing vaccines and getting them into the arms of Americans and now weeks after vaccines were available we’ve managed to vaccinate just 9 million people, while tens of millions more vaccine doses are sitting uselessly in freezers.

And 4,000 of us are dying every day. That’s one every 22 seconds. Go ahead – look at your watch or iPhone timer and count off the deaths. One every 22 seconds.

And every single one of those deaths is somebody’s mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or brother or sister or son or daughter or friend or co-worker or neighbor or the guy at the convenience store. Those who have died lost their lives. The survivors have lost their hearts.

And that goddamn incompetent distribution commission continues to bumble.

That’s why I’m furious.

Now President Burn It All Down has incited insurrection – sedition. He’s attempted to neuter the Congress, to violate every voter and take over the country in order to become a fascist dictator. His mobs have the same certainty that they are on the side of justice and what’s right, that they’re the true patriots and that God is on their side as does al Qaeda and ISIS and the World War II Nazis and the Hutu’s and Slobodan Milosevic’s army of ethnic cleansing thugs and all the rest of the genocidal maniacs.

This time the terrorists, the killers and the rampagers are our countrymen.

Our domestic terrorists believe they’re the true good guys because President Burn It All Down has told them so. He’s told them he loves them. Here’s what I’ll tell you.

We’ve always had our significant minority of citizens who hate, who dearly love to hate. I want to be bigger than this, but the truth is that right now I hate them. I fantasize about violently dragging those slimes off the walls of our Capitol Building and of beating the hell out of the vandals who beat the hell out our beautiful windows and doors of that building. I want to smash those who are trying to smash our Constitution.

My dad and 16.5 million of his generation served in the military in World War II. 405,399 of them died in Europe to end Nazism. On behalf of my dad and his compatriots in that awful war, our Greatest Generation says loud and clear that you goddamn neo-Nazis are an American disgrace. You are everything we know to be wrong.

That’s why I’m so damned angry.

In some ways what is even worse is the cabal of hypocritical, cowardly, manipulating cretins in Congress who have enabled and even encouraged the hate and violence, not out of some warped sense of patriotism, but for individual, stupidly selfish personal gain. We’ve known of their treachery for years and they have gotten away with it.

That’s why I’m livid.

The thing is, there are a lot of truly patriotic Americans on that ledge with me. That doesn’t ease my anger, but they and I know right from wrong and will not stand for anything less than full punishment for those who did these awful things. I expect that a lot of us will continue to be on that ledge until the balance of justice is restored.

Meanwhile, the domestic terrorists have promised more violence and hate in DC and in our state capitols this weekend and on Inauguration Day. So,

Memo to DHS, the National Guard and all the agencies that somehow managed to come out and beat the hell out of Black Lives Matter protesters last summer:

Show up and do your job this time. I don’t give a damn what President Doesn’t Give a Shit or Burn It All Down says to you. Do your goddam job.

On January 6 they failed us. They failed to do their job. Now the Capitol Building is desecrated and four more people are dead.

That’s why I’m on the ledge.

Late Additions

Three congressmen/women have tested positive for COVID-19 following their sheltering in the Capitol Building on January 6 with Republican congressmen/women who arrogantly, selfishly, stupidly refused to wear masks. They should be chained to the wall of the darkest, moldiest part of the basement of the Capitol Building and left there until they fervently apologize for their cruelty to others and swear to comply with the simple public health directions of the CDC for the duration of the pandemic.

Watch/listen to what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has to say about the attempted overthrow of our government.

—————————————-
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Proper Names


Trump has abandoned nearly all presidential duties since November 3. What’s missing from this list?

Reading time – 3:29  .  .  .

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name. – Confucius

The Crash occurred in October of 1929 during Herbert Hoover’s first year as President. He had been successful in business and had held several high level government posts where he produced good results. He beat Al Smith in the 1928 presidential election, was sworn in and proceeded to bungle his presidency because of his grossly inadequate response to the Great Depression.

Hoover opposed efforts to provide federal relief measures for the millions of suffering Americans, which was quite odd. He had led the American Relief Administration to help European countries following WW I and also led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to provide emergency relief. But he refused to do the things that were needed to help struggling Americans and to dig this country out of the depression.

Seattle Hooverville

One of the outcomes of Hoover’s intransigence was an enormous amount of homelessness. People were evicted for nonpayment of rent, but they didn’t just vanish. The had to go somewhere, so they found what materials they could and built ramshackle shelters. These hovels joined with others to create slums and there were hundreds of these miserable villages of homeless people all across the country. In a derisive gesture at the insufficient actions of the president they were called “Hoovervilles”.

Hoover wasn’t responsible for the crash, just as Trump isn’t responsible for the virus. Each of them, though, is accountable for their response to an American catastrophe that confronted them and each failed miserably. Hoover refused to do what was necessary. Trump blatantly said, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Click me

Trump proceeded to make a lot of noise about Covid-19, promising wildly impossible things (“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”), recommending treatments that are ineffective (hydroxychloroquine) or even toxic (Lysol and Clorox) and doing effectively nothing to protect the people. We’re nearly a year into the pandemic and we are still woefully short of PPE, Covid tests, contact tracing to create safety quarantines, and leadership to encourage the simple preventive measures that can minimize our suffering and deaths. There are vaccines, but Trump has refused to see the job through, making it impossible to get vaccines into American arms rapidly. Instead of helping the people, he’s still doing his “don’t blame me” dance. Trump’s refusal to take responsibility means that he put Harry Truman’s “The buck stops here” sign into locked storage and abandoned his post.

The old saying is that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but of course that isn’t literally true. The violin wasn’t invented until 1500 years after his death. But, “His infamous reign is usually associated with tyranny, extravagance” and ruthlessness. He killed his own mother. Perhaps oddly, Nero was a populist, having captured the fancy of many commoners. Nevertheless, Nero was a cruel sociopath.

Most of those descriptors of Nero sound painfully familiar today. Instead of his fiddling, we can accurately say that Trump golfed while hundreds of thousands died. It’s projected that 700,000 Americans will be dead from this disease by the time 75% of us are vaccinated some time late this year. At 2,000 – 3,000 deaths per day over the winter, the math is pretty simple. If the vaccine distribution problem isn’t fixed quickly, the mortality numbers will be far worse.

Roughly 75% of all of the deaths from this pandemic would not have occurred with proper presidential leadership from the start (see this).  The number of excess deaths caused by Trump’s ineptitude and intransigence are staggering. Biden’s plan should help, but the momentum is baked in for producing a terrible total.

Vaccines stuck in warehouses or on hospital shelves don’t help a bit.

It’s crucial that we apply the proper name to Trump’s well-earned responsibility for our massive, preventable suffering and death. What shall we call that? Trump Fever? Death by Sociopath? Leadership Abandonment Syndrome?

And what is the proper name for the slums of today that are populated by people displaced by this pandemic? Trumpvilles? MAGA Motels? Trump Tower Slums?

History will record the craziness of these years and the great harm brought to our country by a madman. There will be headlined paragraphs in history textbooks with the proper names for these times. One will be American Supplication to Russia. Another will be The Massive Assault on Democracy. Still another will be When America Abandoned Reality. But the biggest, boldest headline of all will be Massive Death and Suffering By Presidential Abandonment.

Here’s hoping that we learn the painful lessons* before us and make 2021 the year we restarted America’s great march to form a more perfect union.

—————————

  • * Try this on for a painful lesson we need to learn.
  • From a recent commentary: “the casualties to date are shocking and far in excess of what was expected  .  .  .” But are we really shocked?
  • Front line healthcare workers have been shocked. Families of the dead were shocked. The unemployed and food insecure are shocked. But a huge percentage of Americans – tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of us – go on with only minor changes to our lives, which doesn’t result in shock – only minor inconvenience. Worse, the numbers of the infected, hospitalized and dead are so large as to be mere statistics without an apparent connection to human beings and their suffering. It seems that there is no shock unless people are impacted directly. Perhaps we have a national empathy outage.
  • What shall we do with this lesson?
  • And millions of Americans oddly refuse to believe that Covid-19 is real. With the reality of suffering and death all around, they steadfastly hold to their claim that it’s a hoax and respond to calls for simple public health measures with refusal and scorn. Of course, that spreads the disease quite efficiently, which means far more people get sick.
  • What is the lesson begging for understanding in that?

—————————————-

Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Freedom


We begin with an incontrovertible fact, even as facts are so very 2015:

We have a lot of very big problems, challenges and opportunities in America and mounting them will require that we all get on board the solutions train. This will require our work, our sacrifice, our brilliance, our creativity and our cooperation in ways not demanded of us since WW II.

It’s my belief that if we succeed we will assure our prosperity and our leadership of this century. If we fail to do what is necessary, we will relegate ourselves to decline, insignificance and, at last, we’ll lose our freedoms.

We have fostered our decline through our anger, our rage, our self-righteousness and hatreds, which have led us to the lightning-charged divide that separates us from one another, where I-and-Mine are far more important than We-and-Ours. Sadly, we seem to have forgotten the lesson so painfully demonstrated and then laid bare by Abraham Lincoln, that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Whatever your personal certainties, you may safely be certain of that.

We are a nation borne of revolution, accurately seeing ourselves then as the underdog and we still prefer the underdog. Think: Rocky; whatever team is playing the team Tom Brady is quarterbacking; Star Wars; the Cubs. You get the idea.

We still think there’s something heroic when the little guy confronts the big guys and I’m wondering how much that fuels the popular resentment of those who have been called the “elites.” Never mind that the elites are equal citizens, that they actually may have earned what they have or that it’s possible they are creating opportunities for so many of us. There are those bent on resenting them and that helps to enlarge our national divide.

We have a lot of personal liberty absolutists, like the Michigan militia perps who plotted to kidnap and execute the Michigan governor  because they believed their freedom was abridged by her measures to stop the pandemic. They first expressed their displeasure by brazenly refusing to follow simple health guidelines to protect all of us, then by storming the state capitol armed with semi-automatic military assault rifles and waving Don’t Tread On Me flags, as though King George III had returned. They were clear about what they think our pandemic is about: it is about their own personal freedom. I-and-Mine.

They reminded me of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada cattle rancher who initiated a standoff against federal and state agents in 2014. Bundy had failed to pay his grazing fees on federal land for over 20 years and the Bureau of Land Management at last came to collect. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of armed anti-government absolutists joined Bundy. They proudly proclaimed that government overreach was the issue, that they were the true patriots and that the government didn’t and shouldn’t own and control land. They and Bundy apparently saw themselves as the freedom heroes of the story.

Bundy’s son Ammon seemed determined to have his own self-righteous fit of freedom in his occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon two years later. What they all have in common with our militias today is their clarity that I-and-Mine is more important than We-and-Ours. They thought that the federal land was theirs to do with as they pleased, regardless of the impact on others.

And that’s the problem. We cannot overcome our 21st century challenges and grab our opportunities if everyone acts as though s/he is an independent nation with absolute freedom of their own. So, I have something for folks like the Bundys and the camouflaged members of the Michigan militia who balk at anything that smacks of being an order or even simple direction.

Go ahead and refuse to wear a mask, socially distance or wash your hands. Stand proud and defiant. Feel free (I know you do) to congregate inside in small and large gatherings, in bars and saloons, in basement man caves and anywhere else you like. Spread COVID-19 within your freedom bubble in the manner of your choosing.

But when you become sick, as you surely will, when you have a fever and your body aches all over, when you’re weak and you can barely breathe and you feel like you’re drowning, don’t go to the hospital. You’ve done everything possible to ensure that you get sick – you had the freedom to do that. Now it will be time to man-up, to accept the consequences of your actions and not burden others who have played by the rules of We-and-Ours.

At that point it won’t be okay to dump your sick body onto the workload of our already horribly overworked and exhausted healthcare people. Just go into the woods and die alone. You have the freedom to do that. You will have lived your personal philosophy of I-and-Mine to the end and with your last tiny breath you will know that you died as you lived, all about you.

That’s absolute stuff, offered here as an extreme example to make the point that we don’t have to agree, but we do have to work together or we’ll metaphorically all die alone in the woods.

We have to stop our rugged individual stubbornness and our rages against authority. We have to agree that our absolute personal freedom stops at the tip of another person’s nose. We have to stop denying reality in some fit of grievance or resentment or denial. We have to stop listening to the hate mongers, the liars, the conspiracy theory con artists and the political manipulators. We have to hold our elected officials to account and call out their self-serving lies and then fire them. And if they’re criminals (no, that doesn’t mean “political opponents”) they have to go to prison.

And enough with so-called “alternative facts,” because they aren’t facts at all. They’re lies that make us weak. Even as difficult as it may be, we have to recognize that we are all on the same ship, and we will all share in its fate. Our future success lies in We and Ours.

So, we all have to roll up our shirtsleeves and partner with Rosie the Riveter. Our freedom is at stake in ways not even contemplated since WW II and surely not contemplated by our angry militants bent on assaulting other Americans. It’s time to build a new America, which makes it time to put down the guns and pick up a hammer. To those who won’t do that, get the hell out of the way of those of us who still think patriotism is a verb and it means that every one of us has an obligation to all of us.

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

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