Election Day--a day that will live in .......?

We are approaching the end, thank God, of our election season.  As I sit in front of the TV and try to digest what I see, it is so discouraging to be alive and witnessing what might be the disintegration of our America.  It just seems like there is a kind of insanity that is gripping half of our people.  Truth, honest truth, has been abandoned.  There seems to be a mass hysteria that has infected almost half our citizens.  It is an infection of anger, mistrust, belief in conspiracies, acceptance of lies as truth, abandonment of compromise, disgust for democratic principles we have been taught to cherish and honor.  There is a belief among these people that facts and reality are unimportant in the quest for power.

 

There are people who are about to possibly take the reins of our government and our society who accept the notion that truth is overrated.  Greed and power are all that matters, and reality is a myth.  Our democratic republic cannot exist in that kind of an environment.  A democratic republic has as its foundation the rule of law and the peaceful transition of power.  We have suffered through the leadership of a man who rejects both of those bedrock tenets and who has created a cult of followers who blindly pay obeisance to his lies.  Power is simply to be held onto at all costs, no matter the will of the people.

 

His 'plan' was to instill fear, hatred and violence in our body politic with an eye toward slowly, but relentlessly, replacing all those who believed in the tenets of our democracy with toadies and sycophants who revel in hisview of corruption in the service of greed and power.  

He has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams or nightmares.  He hovers in the wings like a malevolent blood sucking insect waiting for his minions to summon him back into power so he can continue feeding off the fears and paranoia of his followers and those of us who cry out in anguish at the loss of our dream of equality and tranquility.

No matter how loud the rest of us scream that a bleak future awaits us upon the success of this minority, we seem unable to stop them.....Well it does seem that way doesn't it?

 

And so, cometh the day of reckoning this Tuesday, November 8, 2022.  If the rest of us can amass enough energy to outvote this bubbling cauldron of liars, we might be able to salvage our democracy from the jaws of election deniers and those who would bow down to autocracy and fascism.  

 

I would like to agree with Michael Moore, the well-known documentary film maker who in the past has tried to reveal the corruption of various segments of our society.  Of all the pundits I see on television who all 'tsk, tsk' their fears of the disappearance of our democracy, Moore is the only one who is optimistic in his prediction.  He says that there are 'more of us than them', and all we have to do is show up and vote.  He is expecting a resounding clarion call to our better angels.  

 

I wish I had his faith......Vote like your life depended on it---it does!

Where Have All The Children Gone.....

 There really is only one solution.  

 

As we try to navigate the horrors of repeated gun massacres, it is so obvious that action is stalemated by 50 Republicans in the Senate in the face of support by 90% of our citizens to take comprehensive action to control America's gun culture.  How is it with that kind of support, our representatives blindly accede to the gun lobby?  It is our own fault.  We must retake our right to vote from those who want to prevent us from exercising as a majority.

 

The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of Americans want significant action on this and every other major issue that grinds our society into little pieces.  But all action is foiled by legislators and a party that wants to preserve their cash contributions from the gun lobby.  Greed trumps murder.

 

So how is it that with overwhelming support for change and regulation nothing happens?  The problem is deeper and more serious.  What we are experiencing is a broken representative government.  Our republic is hostage to minority rule.  

 

The Republican party is hell bent on twisting and gerrymandering our redistricting process.  They are singularly focused on passing laws that put election control in their hands to the extent that they can unilaterally decide to ignore actual voting results.  Our representative government is corrupted by an archaic electoral college process that has enabled Republicans who do not win the popular vote to secure office.  Republican Presidents who have not won the popular vote are able to stack the Supreme Court with arch conservative justices, especially with the help of Mitch McConnell who thumbed his nose at the Constitution and illegally prevented a popularly elected president from fulfilling his constitutional duty to appoint a Supreme Court justice. 

 

Worse than that, we have Republicans who represent all of us in the Senate and the House who are cowards!  They are not leaders.  A leader would DO something in the face of this mass carnage.

 

What is the answer?  We have no other mechanism now except to choose people who will actually lead and work for us.  We must recapture the ballot box.  If our republic is to survive, we must vote for people who will work for us and not simply posture for greed.  If we do not vote for good people who are honest and believe in our Constitution, then we are doomed as a democracy---sooner rather than later.

 

There are more of us than there are of them.  Let's take our country back.  Vote for people with morals and a conscience.  That's what the founding of America was based on--not the acquisition of power at whatever cost.  A friend of mine, Peter Yarrow, from Peter, Paul, & Mary, gives us all a plaintive, melancholic, moment to think about what we must do.

 

LINK: https://vimeo.com/716663975

 

Make America Better Again

 

The evolution of human history generally means that conditions of life improve over time.  The BBC produced a wonderful segment featuring Hans Rosling's "200 Countries in 200 years" that graphically shows how civilization has progressed from 1820 to 2020  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo)  This demonstration supports the idea that improvement of the human condition should keep accelerating into the future.  That kind of improvement depends on progressive thought, invention, scientific discoveries, and the maintenance of human rights.  America has been at the forefront of that curve for the past 200 years.

 

We like to think of our progress as being the result of, and dependent upon, the maintenance of personal freedom and liberty, and promulgation of the rule of law and majority rule.  

 

Something has happened over the past several decades, however, that has thrown a monkey wrench into the gears that have been reliably churning out societal improvement in our country.  Somehow, we have missed a beat in the evolution of positive societal change in America.  In our country's 240-year history we have more or less successfully battled the scourges of slavery, disease, racism, misogyny, income inequality.  To be sure there were, and are, battles royale over issues like health care, voting rights, marriage rights, gender rights, and abortion rights.

 

But at the heart of all these battles there was a belief and adherence to

fair play, the rule of law and majority rule, meaning that whatever the majority of our citizens wanted would ultimately steer evolution toward progress and the betterment of American society.

 

That has changed....  and that change is not a good one.  

In America we now have a political party that has morphed into a religious, zealous, theocratic minority that wants to enforce their beliefs and tenets upon all of us, even though they are a minority of our citizens.  They all believe that fair play is not as important as winning.  Deceit is OK.  Lying is OK.  In fact, whether they deny it or not, they do not believe in democratic principles any more.  Representative government is only good if they have the power.  Elections are only fair if they win.  Rules that were set up with the founding of our country are only important when they support this party's desires.  Otherwise it seems OK to use raw power to shape American society their way.

 

The result of this transformation is that the majority's rights are ignored and become less important than the tyranny of minority power.  Effectively this system then becomes an autocracy of the minority.  The result is that society begins to stagnate and crumble.  Inalienable human rights can be abridged because this party does not honor them.  Voting rights, which are the fulcrum of democracy, can be suppressed or ignored.  Theocratic harnesses on personal freedom can be enforced by a lopsided non-representative judicial system.

 

We are living through a period where our progress and evolution as a free society is in retrograde.  So, the obvious question is, "How did this happen?".  What are the reasons for this movement backwards, and how can we fix it?

 

This unhappy result is partly because the forces of progressive thought have been hibernating.  They have allowed Christian Nationalism/autocracy to be ascendant.  The Christian nationalist far-right movement in the US has taken it upon itself to force its morays upon the majority in this country thanks to the archaic Electoral College.  The fundamental tenet of separation of church and state has dissolved.  Some might blame its name brand leaders, but in reality it is the minions of their voters who have bought into the Big Lie, conspiracy theories, and notion that their righteousness supplants anyone else's beliefs or desires.  This ignorant zealousness and deification of its leaders has pushed their rabid leaders to do whatever they deem necessary to maintain their power.

 

The other major reason we find ourselves in this predicament is that the quality of our education has been degraded by the consistent effort to control and attack historical fact, like the effort to reject the 1619 project; to ban books and information from students in our schools, like the efforts in Tennesee and Florida; to promote conspiracy theories like Critical Race Theory; and other red herring issues that support Republican efforts to mold society into their image of what American society should be with no regard for the majority's wishes. 

 

We are witnessing the corruption of the American experiment.  With the impending Supreme Court decision regarding Roe v. Wade, those regressive forces clearly demonstrate how the majority's wishes and rights on the matter of abortion are being abrogated by unelected politically motivated Supreme Court justices appointed by Presidents who have not garnered the majority of the popular vote.  They are out of step with the majority of American citizens.  This decision might finally awaken the hibernating majority to the precarious danger to our democracy. 

 

Let's hope so......

Resurrection

Hello friends!  It has been a while since I have posted, mostly because my Facebook account was hacked in early January when someone posted some porno on my site and Facebook shut me down.  I have just now gotten back on, which is why many of you have been getting friend requests as I try to rebuild my little network.

So, what have I been thinking about lately?  Well, you all are probably familiar with my predilections for topic choices, so maybe I can be a bit more circumspect in my choices and take a perhaps a less strident tone.  But there is no denying the fact that our country is going through a dark time with regard to truth, conspiracy theories and political comity.

Take the recent Supreme Court hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, as
an example.  We saw a broken system of hearings where selection has become completely partisan.  This is really tragic and worrisome.  What used to be 'advise and consent' with a nod toward acceding to a sitting President's right to nominate and confirm a candidate he or she chooses, has turned grossly partisan, into utter disrespect for the President's choice and the nominee's credentials.  What was so insulting in the end to Jackson's confirmation, was the Republican party's choice to snub the newly confirmed Justice by walking out of the chamber when the confirmation vote was affirmed.  How rude.  How tawdry.  How completely indicative of the degenerative failure of political comity and respect by a US Senator.  What seems so hypocritical is that almost to a man, with the exception of people like Cruz, Hawley, Graham, and Blackburn for whom there is no hope for any kind of unifying instinct, all other Republicans spoke only highly of the candidate, extolling her credentials and character.  Then they all proceeded to vote against her, and then in a final demonstration of their lack of character, simply walked out on her and sullied the moment.

I consider myself politically an Independent.  But as I survey the landscape of our political choices that are coming into focus for the 2022 midterm elections, I am amazed by the apparent dichotomy between the parties' motivations and objectives.  Is it just me, or does the Democratic party seem to be behind all kinds of measures and policies that the majority of the public approves and basically are in support of people, and trying to find ways to help them, while the Republican party seems to be against all of that and really doesn't have any policy initiatives that are in support of people but only seem to be trying to restrict opportunities to help people and promoting fear and slander? (Did I imagine that many Republicans labelled democrats as pedophile lovers if they voted to confirm Jackson?)  

Republicans support denying women's reproductive rights, voting rights, trying to restrict medical support and enhancement of the Affordable Care Act.  They vote against environmental initiatives, climate change initiatives, child care support, pharmaceutical industry controls on pricing.  And, they vote as a bloc on all these issues with rare independence as exhibited by Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney.  Democracy seems to be an impediment to this political party.

So as the upcoming election comes into view, I would urge all of you to look at the individuals who are up for election.  Do they still espouse the Big Lie that the election was stolen?  Did they stand in the way of our democratic process for electoral decision making?  Did they reject the peaceful transfer of power?  Are they supportive of measures that help the common folk and try to reduce tax burdens on them and restrictive regulations?  Are they interested in trying to reduce adverse climate trends?  

If you are deliberate in your own attempt to analyze the candidate's moral center and belief in our system of government, then perhaps our republic will last several more years.  If you blow it off and subscribe to 'fear, suspicion, and conspiracy' theories which seems to be the only real policy of one of our parties, then we are headed down a dark alley for sure.