James, I appreciate your sentiments. My position is so far to the Left that I sometimes describe it as a Speculative Fiction Leftist. I do care about the people I grew up with in rural southeastern Wisconsin, most of whom grew up on dairy farms. Some are still farming. Some time ago I "unfriended" a man who was a neighbor growing up, and…
James, I appreciate your sentiments. My position is so far to the Left that I sometimes describe it as a Speculative Fiction Leftist. I do care about the people I grew up with in rural southeastern Wisconsin, most of whom grew up on dairy farms. Some are still farming. Some time ago I "unfriended" a man who was a neighbor growing up, and we went all the way through school together from second grade. I decided I'd be happier if I just excluded him from my reality. For those who hold sincere religious beliefs, I am happy for them, but G*d help them if they try to foist their personal beliefs on me or on anybody else who does not wish to be bothered. I blame the conservative movement for everything that is wrong, or is holding us back from being able to fix the things that are within our power to fix. I think we should reframe the whole conversation, change the public narrative, look to the long-term future, and change the way we do things so that Earth will still be habitable a thousand years from now, and ten thousand years from now. If we don't take drastic concerted action soon, we won't even make it to the turn of the century. And that's just the problems we already know about. I think we should expand the concept of the new James Webb Space Telescope, make bigger segmented mirrors, and lots of them, so we can get a better understanding of what the universe has in store for us. While we're bickering here, there is a lot we don't know about the world in which we live. The conservative movement wants to impose austerity on us. Bad idea. Our federal government, our Congress, needs to spend lots of money into our economy to bring everyone up out of poverty. Deficit spending does not matter. We will always be able to pay our debts. When Congress spends money into our economy we tend to prosper, and money flows into the hands of our neighbors and friends at the bottom tiers of our economy. We can build a new economy based in part on repairing the damage that our economy has over the past three centuries inflicted on the planet. The so-called conservatives are standing in our way. In every election we need to ask them to get out of our way, because we have a lot of work to do. Either join us, or get out of our way.
Great post, David H. I think if I was a young person today, I'd be furious about the failure of political leaders to address climate change and gun violence. (Actually, I AM furious!) I really hope that young adults will vote like their lives depend on it and replace these idiots with people who are willing to do something positive for a change.
Yes, the young adults need to get involved. I am continually pushing my sons (I think they'd be called millenials) to pay attention and be sure to vote. But they're both busy as hell raising my grandkids: I understand the time pressure they're under.
Amen to all that. I, too, have a lot of friends who are devout, but I'll have no truck with organized religion. I don't believe it's ever been shown to be a force that advances the human race. That doesn't mean I exclude them: I just understand the limits I have to place on any contact with them. You're right about that last point: there was a motto over the door in one of them many barracks I spent time in: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way".
James, I appreciate your sentiments. My position is so far to the Left that I sometimes describe it as a Speculative Fiction Leftist. I do care about the people I grew up with in rural southeastern Wisconsin, most of whom grew up on dairy farms. Some are still farming. Some time ago I "unfriended" a man who was a neighbor growing up, and we went all the way through school together from second grade. I decided I'd be happier if I just excluded him from my reality. For those who hold sincere religious beliefs, I am happy for them, but G*d help them if they try to foist their personal beliefs on me or on anybody else who does not wish to be bothered. I blame the conservative movement for everything that is wrong, or is holding us back from being able to fix the things that are within our power to fix. I think we should reframe the whole conversation, change the public narrative, look to the long-term future, and change the way we do things so that Earth will still be habitable a thousand years from now, and ten thousand years from now. If we don't take drastic concerted action soon, we won't even make it to the turn of the century. And that's just the problems we already know about. I think we should expand the concept of the new James Webb Space Telescope, make bigger segmented mirrors, and lots of them, so we can get a better understanding of what the universe has in store for us. While we're bickering here, there is a lot we don't know about the world in which we live. The conservative movement wants to impose austerity on us. Bad idea. Our federal government, our Congress, needs to spend lots of money into our economy to bring everyone up out of poverty. Deficit spending does not matter. We will always be able to pay our debts. When Congress spends money into our economy we tend to prosper, and money flows into the hands of our neighbors and friends at the bottom tiers of our economy. We can build a new economy based in part on repairing the damage that our economy has over the past three centuries inflicted on the planet. The so-called conservatives are standing in our way. In every election we need to ask them to get out of our way, because we have a lot of work to do. Either join us, or get out of our way.
Great post, David H. I think if I was a young person today, I'd be furious about the failure of political leaders to address climate change and gun violence. (Actually, I AM furious!) I really hope that young adults will vote like their lives depend on it and replace these idiots with people who are willing to do something positive for a change.
Yes, the young adults need to get involved. I am continually pushing my sons (I think they'd be called millenials) to pay attention and be sure to vote. But they're both busy as hell raising my grandkids: I understand the time pressure they're under.
We need to join the young people and support their efforts. There is a lot of work yet to be done.
Amen to all that. I, too, have a lot of friends who are devout, but I'll have no truck with organized religion. I don't believe it's ever been shown to be a force that advances the human race. That doesn't mean I exclude them: I just understand the limits I have to place on any contact with them. You're right about that last point: there was a motto over the door in one of them many barracks I spent time in: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way".