Democrats are Professional Losers

I heard Michael Moore once say this, "Democrats are professional losers." In light of recent events, I'd have to agree. Let me explain before you cast me off as a disgruntled Bernie Bro. There is no doubt in my mind the powers that be in the Democratic Party threw all of their weight (and I'm sure a few dollars as well) behind Joe Biden. Why? Bernie Sanders offers a more left stance on many major issues. For most of my lifetime we have drifted further right because our distinctly American Oligarchs want it that way. They have long paid the bills for our shit show attempt at democracy. Any small amount of democracy left was power-washed away with Citizens United. It is so bad companies pay for regulations they write to become law so they can go on TV and say we are regulated! The Democratic Party has been bought right along side their Republican friends. Remember when Republicans used to like things like good roads, schools and even Social Security? The pro-business party knew such things were necessary to keep an economy going. Now pro business means no regulations, no accountability and this quarter's bottom line. The democrats are much the same way but without the religious, homophobic, xenophobic science denying tendencies. Democrats pretend to be your friends while rummaging through your pockets to steal whatever is left.

We live in a time of grave, clear and present dangers. Climate change / ecological collapse, nuclear proliferation, a rising tide of nationalism / fascism. Yet we cower clinging to the familiar same ole politics of moderation and compromise. Which turns out to be neither. Was Obama's drone bombing really any more moderate than Trump's kids in cages? Was Hillary (I never met a war I did not like) Clinton the great compromise we needed in the face of Trump and his brand of self-worship and national nihilism? Yet here we are four years later with Joe Biden and his brand of moderation. "Hey Republican friends and banker / finance cronies, I want to cut Social Security too!" Yes, it's natural to fear change. But things are going to change.

Continuing down the path of business as usual is NOT sustainable. I think we have waited too long already and our inability to accept reality is going to hurt a lot more then it would have otherwise. Had we taken President Carter's example of putting solar panels on the White House and ran with it how far along a better road could we now be? But Nope. Democrats ran a moderate / compromise candidate and we got eight years of Ronnie RayGun! Bill Clinton and Barack Obama broke this pattern only reveled  to be status quo protectors while in office. Trump won because he was not in this club. (That's how his supporters see him to this day.) Oh, and a little thing called the Electoral College that can give the office to the candidate with the second most votes. You Go Greatest Democracy in the World! We are headed for a crash into the side of a granite mountain called reality. Instead of slowing down, we are accelerating. This is going to hurt.                         

Trump is Gonna Trump

Well here we are on the verge of a worldwide pandemic. What's Emperor Donald going to do? Pass the buck to Vice President Mike "No Science" Pence. Yup, he put that guy in charge of our response. And Trump is going to tell us everything is under control with vaccines just around the corner. Of course thy are, right? Right. The dearly beloved stock market is taking a hit and this is all The Donald cares about. He measures himself according to this number which is another absurdity of American politics. Does the President actually have anything to do with the national or international economy? The economy runs in bust boom cycles no matter which clown car party is in the White House at the moment. Yet both parties take credit when little is due and blame the other when things are bad. Getting off topic... Maybe that rant another time. Microbes are an old foe. We are better at fighting them but never defeat them completely.

All the aircraft carriers, fighter planes and tanks are useless in a war with microbes. Bad microbes come around from time to time to change history. Ask the Europeans about The Black Plague or Native Americans about diseases of the old world. It is unlikely that Coronavirus will be anything like these two killers but it may still me a history changer. These things have to run their course and at best we can hope to slow them down some. It may change the outcome of an election or two if it disrupts the world economy. This is not a Hollywood Movie or Stephen King Novel so don't run off to your bunker just yet. Humanity has always faced deadly microbes and we are still here. Just maybe it will make us reconsider our priorities? Probably not. There is too much money in war machines and war making.

Trump is going to do what he does best finger point, blame others and stoke fears. We have the CDC and other related agencies for a reason. Were budget cuts a god idea really? Big Daddy Putin in Moscow has no answers. A bunch of "Yes" people is useless. Insert miracle is never a good answer to a scientific problem. Sorry if that offends you. That's not even the saddest part. What's even more sad is a full third of this country will follow him right off the cliff of science denial and economic delusions. Sooner or later such a leader faces his downfall. Trump will face his but what will be the cost to the rest of us in the meantime?                     

The Long Apocalypse

 William Gibson on the apocalypse: “it’s been happening for at least 100 years”

Are we living the apocalypse out? What if it is not one very bad day for humanity but rather an on going event? I guess we could adjust the start date a little, say the start of the First World War. That sets the stage for the next hundred years or so. Perhaps like markets, life is also self correcting? But with different time scales. Read the article and see what you think.   

 

We have nothing to fear but Words.

Immigrants, communists, socialists and terrorists are tried and true good old American words to whip up fears and stir hatreds. We have always had the old immigrants are gonna take our jobs and trash the neighborhood talk. After World War II Communists became public enemy number one. There were reds in every town and under our beds, including yours! Don't like somebody, call them a Commie and watch their career spin into the ground. Don't like a movement? Call it Communist and a threat to our Holiest of Holy, National Security. Reap the bloom of beatings, police brutality, bombings and assassinations. Real Communists murdered? Watch the killers go free! We recoil away from our darker selves choosing instead to hide away in a land of myth and make believe where soldiers defend our freedom from evil aggressors like the North Vietnamese, Panama, Grenada, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh wait, those last three were to fight terrorists and evil doers who hate us for our freedom. Hate us for our freedom? In what universe does that make any sense? Here more recently we have the latest scary word, Socialism.
Socialism according to Merriam Webster:

Definition of Socialism

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.

3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.


Yup, sounds scary. Getting rid of private property changes everything. What, I cannot sell my house or plant a garden? Well that sucks! Let's look at a bigger picture. I can't discharge toxic waste into the stream running through the land my paper plant sits on? Sounds like old fashioned Communism to me! It is all in perspective. What exactly is "the state?" The state is supposed to be us, the people. Then along came Ronnie and Margaret in the '80's. The state was changed into nameless, faceless bureaucrats who were in our way and holding us back via over regulation. Ronnie and Margaret helped replace democracy with something seldom if ever mentioned in polite company or on prime time TV, Neoliberalism. Now we have a truly terrifying word and concept that almost no one ever talks about.      

Is Authoritarian Communism what Bernie supports? No, I don't think so. He supports something called Democratic Socialism. If you take a few minutes to read the linked information, you can see a clear difference. It goes something like this; people run things, not a handful of oligarchs. It is more Democratic. But those in power will stick to the scary socialism definition to discredit Bernie. The Cold war trained us to lump Socialism in with Authoritarian Communism (old Soviet Union).

We've already talked about terrorism. That's old news. The Donald and company now want us afraid if immigrant caravans coming to pick fruit and vegetables near you...   

So... What Can I Do?

We are trained from a pretty young age to believe we are powerless. That's not always so. Consider Rosa and Greta.  Movements start with people. If you don't want to start one, well there are plenty to support for a better world. Here are a few examples:

The Poor People's Campaign 

Amnesty International

Climate Justice Alliance 

Southern Poverty Law Center

Advancement Project

Do you really think screaming at your TV or angry facebook rants are going to change anything?

We cannot afford to sit this out.  

The Enemy is Us

As a country, we are terrible at self-reflection. We cannot dare look in the mirror. What would we see looking back? We had a brief moment in time where we were the "good guys." That was decades ago in the Second World War and for a short time afterward. We crushed the expansionist dreams of Japan with one hand and put an end to Germany's "Master Race" madness with the other. Then we helped both rebuild (along with much of the rest the world). We saved South Korea from the dark rule of the Kims. Sometime afterward we lost our way.

Was it the Communist scare of the 50's? Was it with Kennedy's assassination or Nixon and the "Southern Strategy?" None of these helped. A little later we added the deadly mix of religion and politics and the new Golden Rule. You know, "He who has the gold makes the rules." Let's not forget our much older (unacknowledged) transgressions; genocide, slavery and colonization. How do these affect us today? Well, there are a number of people who think we can do no wrong, have never done anything bad and our leadership is unquestionable and infallible. The ethnic cleansing of the west and the horrors of slavery are glossed over in most schools if they are taught at all. Colonization? Forget about it! How can we expect a nation incapable of self-questioning to hold itself and it's leaders accountable? We cannot.

We look on as the show trial in the Senate follows the script we all read before. Almost everyone knew Emperor Donald would not be convicted of anything. We do nothing. Our so called opposition Party oozes corruption incapable of learning anything from the last election. They squirm around trying to find a candidate unoffensive to their millionaire and billionaire masters. The will of the people be damned! Now it is the turn of the courts to cash in their independence. They are stacked with judges who are far more concerned with the rights of property owners than civil or human rights. Our three branches of government have merged into one, The Executive.

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How about a look in the mirror friends? We are going down "faster than groupies on the Limp Bizkit tour bus." We face financial collapse, climate collapse and ecological collapse. You have a choice. You can accept this fate assigned to you by others or fight like hell.
                 

Keep on winning with Emperor Donald

The pundits are practically ejaculating all over themselves talking about how great the economy is doing. Low unemployment, low interest and a soaring stock market makes for a rosy picture indeed. We vote with our wallets (and whoever we would rather have a beer with because that's important). So does that mean four more years or even The Donald for a lifetime self-appointment to the presidency? Would enough of us even care? Yeah, sure the economy is chugging along at the moment; the food is still getting to the cities, crime is down and society is still functioning more or less. There is only one little problem. It is not sustainable.

Debt. Running a massive debit seems to be the American way. Hey, watch your share grow here. I've never been a debt worry wart But at some point this will matter. What happens when our credit runs dry? No more wars to watch on TV. No more bailouts for banker-gamblers. Even the wealthy will have to start paying taxes! Funny how one political party has gone quiet on this issue (unless we ask for something that may help people). Debt will kill off the good times by itself. But wait there's more! 

Climate change. Man made, God made or made by space aliens secretly taraforming the Earth for their own ends, this IS happening.  I'll go with man made. Because you know, SCIENCE. Things are going to change fast in often unpredictable ways. They are not going to be good for humanity. Hey, the planet will be just fine. It is just us and many other life forms that are screwed. Even our good friends in National Security understand this. Putting our fingers in our ears and screaming LALALALA does not change what s happening one bit. None of this is good for a functioning economy much less a society. The next item is a true killer as well.      


Massive income inequality. This never works out well. Here is a brief overview of some of the consequences. It is also a hard thing to stop once it is going. Consider wage stagnation for the last fifty or so years. The .1% running away with all the money always backfires spectacularly sooner or later. Here is some more good general reading on income inequality.     

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This explains a lot. Hypernormalization - a long doc but well worth your time.