I found myself a single mother of a special needs child after a divorce in the 1980s. Although I had sights on becoming a physician I decided Nursing would be more financially attainable. I took out some student loans and worked part time jobs to support getting my degree in nursing. I miked cows, worked at a Woolworths as a cashier a…
I found myself a single mother of a special needs child after a divorce in the 1980s. Although I had sights on becoming a physician I decided Nursing would be more financially attainable. I took out some student loans and worked part time jobs to support getting my degree in nursing. I miked cows, worked at a Woolworths as a cashier and whatever jobs I could do when I wasn’t in school. Some say that was admirable but I still ended up with 15,000 in loans to pay off and the worst part was the time that I didn’t spend with my daughter. I needed to find a fulfilling career to provide for us both and make sure she had everything she needed to prosper and live life to her potential, and be happy and secure. I achieved my career goals and have advanced in my nursing career. And my daughter has had challenges but overall is doing okay. However if I hadn’t had to work extra jobs while going to school full time while single parenting a special needs child, I truly believe her outcome would have been better. I remember when I was in grade school in California in the 60s it was free to go to the junior colleges and very inexpensive to go to state colleges. Then Reagan became governor and everything changed . Then living in Idaho in the 80s Reagan as President screwed up education for the whole country.
After I graduated and started working I worked as much extra that I could to pay off the student loans. That took more time away from my daughter that could have been so beneficial to her development, security and abilities.
So I applaud President Biden for taking this step that has potential to provide so much more than financial relief, but gives time and nurturing back to our children
Karen, I remember those years too. You worked hard single parenting, going to school all for a better future. School was so much more affordable. Cal Poly was $70 a quarter and yes, community college was free. And blame Reagan for raising tuitions and taxes and taking away mental health services and hospitals and the list goes on. My loan, $2500 was mostly forgiven as I taught in a low income school after graduating. Repubs have caused so much lasting economic and social damage in this country. Policies aren’t just for a term. They can last decades.
I agree Irenie. I lived in the Bay Area and Reagan started closing down the mental hospitals. Specifically I remember Agnew State Hospital in Milpitas if I remember correctly. Halfway houses were supposed to be set up. But what we saw was what seemed like the beginning of the homeless crisis. It was very sad and cruel, and so unnecessary
Yes, Karen, Reagan decided that schizophrenics and those on the spectrum no longer needed to be in a locked facility so he ordered those mental hospitals to close. That has proven disastrous and what about cutting welfare for those who really needed it?? That created the homeless situation that has not been fully addressed to this day.
But you did everything in your power to make a better life for you and your daughter. I certainly hope you are able to reap from the benefits from your profession, one so very admired by me.
I started working at the local jail in 1985 and saw first hand where those people who had been previously housed in state hospitals ended up when there was no "local option" for any of them.
I have a friend whose son is schizophrenic. She had to move her son to a locked facility in Florida because there were none in CA. She headed NAMI in our county and found no other alternative. She now lives in Florida with her husband who is going through early stages of dementia and her son, who she took out from the facility to save money. She regrets moving.
Marlene, you really describe so many families, hidden or hiding. People who have been “committed “ can be held for three days and then released. Supposedly for continuing care and with a continuing diagnosis. But that care is nonexistent. And worse in and since the Pandemic.
Ally, we really did not deal with these maladies at all. We allowed these people to be thrown in jail, in prison, to just be convicted for a crime they had no control over. They are still in prison and that too, is a travesty. The Innocence Project folks have continued to investigate those who are on Death Row. They are trying to transform lives everywhere and I wish them continued success. Our judicial system has to partner with mental health divisions more and more so that the innocent get help and the outright guilty, serve time in jail. Bad cops are slowly being caught and dealt with, but not quick enough. I am certain you saw plenty, Ally. Being a woman and being gay, it must’ve always been very challenging for you. I imagine you held steady because what else could you do?! We have a long ways to go but change can happen. In the words of Barack Obama “YES WE CAN!”.
I had a friend who finished his medical residency in Seattle circa 1983 & worked off his medical school loans treating inmates in the Seattle jail. Same experience but, this young Doc was fully capable of initiating a proper treatment protocol.
I worked in Chicago during that time. The hospitals were literally dumping van-loads of people directly onto the streets! Prisons have became the "mental health care" in this country.
That is what is very very sad in our country. Improving health must become our next major goal. There isn’t one person who has not been traumatized by Trump’s 4 years plus J6.
Unconscionable by any measure, and republicans have skewed the story and bragged about their evil for decades. Surely one of the reasons why Rupert Murdoch chose that time to honor us with his evil presence. From WaPo in Jan 1981 “at a dinner last month In Washington honoring Mr. Murdoch for his work on behalf of Mr. Reagan, Representative Jack Kemp, a New York Republican, Said, ‘Rupert Murdoch used the editorial page, the front page, and every other page necessary to elect Ronald Reagan President.’” And the Republican version of history began in earnest…
My recollection is that there was a general push to close down mental health facilities because conditions in them were generally very bad. The result was, indeed, that people who were in mental institutions were "dumped" without backup facilities for their care, resulting eventually in homelessness and all the associated problems. Reagan was bad news in many ways, but was not the only one to shut down mental institutions. Again, this is based on my memory. If I'm wrong about it, please post a correction.
I remember as well, Karen; "homeless" People began to appear in the SF Financial District when I was a full time law clerk & I walked to night class at 6 pm. 1983-1986.
I worked in SF off of Golden Gate and VanNess in the 70’s. When approaching city hall, the only homeless person you’d see was a guy relieving himself near the trees there. One person!
I went to Berkeley Jan '73 to June '75. I don't know who was homeless and who wasn't, but there were significant numbers with mental health problems. I do remember once, when I had a room in a fleabag hotel next to campus letting a woman who was obviously quite mixed up sleep on my floor.
There were also a lot of people there at that time who were poor, and seemed to be there for the cool of Berkeley, and probably because it never got too cold there.
“San Francisco business owners propose civil disobedience.Frustrated business owners in the Castro District have threatened to stop paying city taxes and fees if the city does not help the area’s unhoused people. “You can’t have a vibrant, successful business corridor when you have people passed out high on drugs, littering your sidewalk,” the Castro Merchants Assn.'s co-president told the San Francisco Chronicle. “These people need to get help.” San Francisco Chronicle
I am an advocate for compassion and kindness. and study the research on their benefits. Some great work on this science is happening near you. Are you familiar with the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education based at Stanford Medical school. There are many other great researchers working in California . Jeremy Lent founder of the Institute of Liology also lives in your area. I learned about the awful Mont Pellerin Society from Jeremy.
I remember too. The argument was that the mental hospitals were unduly restrictive and awful for a lot of people who would have better lives in halfway houses. True enough. But then state governments shuttered the hospitals without creating the halfway houses and related services. Lots of non-functional people were dumped on the streets.
Yes, Reagan touted “freedom” as a justification for releasing mental health patients. Sometimes. At other times he cited saving the costs incurred for treatment. Republicans have no shame. It started before Reagan but has been on a steep decline since his time.
No need to wonder. Conservatives didn’t like what college students were doing with their relative freedom, especially their political actions against the war in Viet Nam, against segregation and voter suppression, against poor treatment of factory, service, and farm workers. Saddling students with debt was meant both to control them with that burden, and to reduce the number of people getting educated.
For details, Google “Lewis Powell memo.” Greenpeace has a good article on its website.
Let’s review: Reagan’s mind was shot and absolutely nothing was in his heart. I do think that his son, Ron, Jr., became an lifelong atheist because of his dad’s lies.
And Reagan’s evil has made greedy fools of so many. Who knew that his promises of a better America would be like a piggy bank for the rich and a “bellwether” for hard times for others. And Rupert arrived on the scene just in time to make the Schitt smell like roses. Peggy Noonan was busy writing the script, Michael Deaver had the photo ops aligned with the propaganda, and the dirty tricksters were on pointe. What could go wrong, hindsight is 20/20.
When Regan was running for office there was an enormous billboard on Santa Monica blvd. in Socal that had a photo enlargement of Regan dressed as a fancy dude cowboy drawing his pearl-handled guns from his very fancy holsters with the caption coming out of his mouth in a cartoon bubble saying "Stick-Them-Up-Suckers!"
Wow! Hindsight on how he and his comrades impacted our country financially indicates a continuing ruthlessness of the "cowboy" and his monkey mentality and who had Alzheimers? How much damage did Ronnie do, or was it his "handlers" who continue to try to destroy our democracy and keep the old boy, white-privileged, non-trickle-down-system thriving, for only them? I blame the entire republican party for being so self-absorbed and immature about winning, lying and cheating our country, at all costs, for their white-privileged-male cause. We are not going backwards with your cheating and dumbing down. You need to grow up and live in this new century in America and help us solve domestic and global problems together rather than attack your own country and democracy. Republican behaviors and actions are now fully anti-democracy and anti-American. Time to leave them in the dustbin. Vote like your and our country depends upon it! And may Justice prevail for all these political criminals.
Yeah, apologies to all the good cowboys who work so hard. Difficult to be politically correct in a corrupt political world where nouns get so twisted. It reminds me of when G.W. Bush, after 9/11 spewed about "the Axis of Evil" and "you are either with us or against us." We had the support of so many of the world's countries in our grief and then he went and threw out those divisive epithets which was the old-white boy mentality that was often referred to as the "cowboy mentality." I think it is just old-white-privilege patriarchal mentality. Ronnie's good ol' cowboy and monkey routine hid the republican atrocities that were being installed with a benign symbol of America. Well, benign for some of the people.
I never learned about slaves who fought for our country, or who were the original cowboys, because you never see them in books and movies when I was growing up.
"Black cowboys have long been a part of the culture of the American West, though you wouldn't know that if your knowledge of cowboys stems mainly from movie Westerns. The real-life truth is that, after the Civil War, when the Wild West really began to flourish, somewhere around 25 percent of all cowboys were Black. Some historians claim the number is even higher than that.
But Callies, who runs The Black Cowboy Museum in Rosenberg, Texas, simply laughs.
"In 1830, 1840, the 1850s and '60s, there was nothing but Black cowboys," Callies says. "You wanna know why? In Texas, 'cowboy' was a slave name. The white man didn't want to work horses and work cows. He refused to be called a cowboy. He wanted to be a cowhand or a cow puncher.
Just fascinating historical rabbit holes I fall down when I read LFFA and comments! But I do find that the historical reference to "cowboy" has slavery/racism at its' etymological roots fascinating.
The patriarchal 'feudal' system is the foundation of our country and it does not want to die, but feels the deep fear of our Constitution almost becoming reality where equality is concerned. Money = Power over. Just ask the white boys like donnie, jared, mitch, the kochs, rupert, etc., oh and vlad and so many of their comrades we are learning about.
Again, sorry to current cowboys, and to all our early black cowboys, where this title was the horrific white man's adaptation of his power to keep them in diminutive enslavement by calling them cow "boys."
Pensa, So informative and so much we never learned in school. And this you write: “I never learned about slaves who fought for our country, or who were the original cowboys, because you never see them in books and movies when I was growing up.” That’s happening, especially in southern states. Florida and Desantis’ WOKE anti education act. Anti 1619, anti CRT which isn’t taught in lower grades. Don’t make my child feel bad about slavery or the KKK or white supremacy. Or Black or Brown or Native people. Don’t tell my children the Truth.”
Thank you for this knowledge and reference to facts. My 87 year old Texan husband (married here in my CA 60 years ago and here has remained) is now chair bound and in beginning stage of dementia and has found pure pleasure in reading every cowboy tale paperback he and our son can find. He’s said it’s because of the strong values of those on the side of what is right, and of course, the familiar settings and history.
I’m good with the family’s cowboy roots of Kentucky to Texas to Montana. We have done it from top to bottom. Hard times to good times we never bought in to anyone else’s idea of who they thought we were. We were never above anyone but damn sure not below either. If I walked by you on the street in a baseball cap and tennis shoes, you might turn your head to see what in the hell smelled like shit and sweat.
You did grab my attention with a statement that holds water. “fear of our constitution almost becoming reality.” That came home with a bang. That’s a new perspective and I am sure glad you brought that up.
I can’t speak to anything but junior college, but I lived in Cali from 1976-79 (Jerry Brown was Governor), and it was virtually free to attend junior college then. I think there was a ~$10 student fee/semester. Reagan was awful, for sure, but I don’t think he stopped the free JC in Cali.
Reagan destroyed the mental health (and so many other) system in California. They moved the patients from Agnew to the empty frat houses next to San Jose State University. I spoke with them every day leaving classes there. To this day Reagan's plan has left countless hundreds of thousands without mental health care in California.
I'm not well enough read to know to what degree Reagan was the mastermind of discrediting democracy and the common good in favor of the claimed superiority of plutocratic leadership, but the whole party seemed in cahoots. Reaganomics metastasized over the following decades into numerous crisis, including natural disasters (COVID is one) negligently prepared for or even made more damaging. Jan 6th and the corruption of SCOTUS can all trace a chain of events, at least in large part from Regan's election.
And in subsequent years, who has gained, who has lost (quality of life, such as job security and defined benefit pensions, as well as relative income) and who has been running in place? What has improved that has anything to do with Republican policies? What has been lost or has measurably declined? Or is threatened? Connecting the dots, what do we see?
Yes, state universities and community colleges were once affordable and heavily subsidized. Who benefited by changing that, individually, or as a society? And apart from the cruelty, what do we pay to keep the mentally in jail rather than in care or else equipped with adequate resources? Why are we doing this?
Think how unqualified modern day repub presidents have caused havoc and mayhem . TFG, Reagan are only two. And when they want to claim they care, like Bush, they label it. Compassionate conservatism. But that’s it. As opposed to presidents who actually care and act.
Joy, thank you for this link. So worth reading and so true. “Ronald Reagan left California public education worse than he found it. A system that had been the envy of the nation when he was elected was in decline when he left. Nevertheless, Mr. Reagan’s actions had polit- ical appeal, particularly to his core conservative constituency, many of whom had no time for public education.” Repubs have consistently dismantled and destroyed safety nets and critical services. Public education and public medical services and insurance. Why is the question. The same funds that could provide the best education, medical health services, mental healthcare and insurance and environmental protection are tax breaks for the wealthiest people on the planet. That lack of empathy and compassion is a sickness.
I’m from CA and lived through this era; my sister was at Cal during those turbulent years….not part of the Reagan fan club. And yes, many thanks for posting this; will read it when I’m less angry!
Yes and no. Yes, but with important counter-examples. For instance, Nixon's views on the environment (worth looking up) such as:
"Like those in the last century who tilled a plot of land to exhaustion and then moved on to another, we in this century have too casually and too long abused our natural environment. The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future. "
even:
"Quite inadvertently, by ignoring environmental costs we have given an economic advantage to the careless polluter over his more conscientious rival."
And there is more. I posted it elsewhere, but Ike's approach, though politically conservative, still strongly contrasts with Reagan and since:
"This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
His ghost oversees the evil we have in Republican circles today. They are devoted to the greed, Pharisee mentality, and pseudo patriotism that rules the fools today. At least two of his children knew. That’s what alerted me.
We frequently read that the country started going off the rails when Reagan was elected POTUS. I never felt that the man was intelligent enough to have been elected, much less mastermind such draconian reversals in social programs and wealth redistribution. It all seemed too "scripted" (appropriately enough for a B grade actor): first a grooming period as governor of a major state, and then "showtime". Since Reagan, I have seen other Republicans of modest intelligence gain that high office. George "Dubya" Bush and Little Donnie Trump spring to mind. I know that conspiracy theories abound, but I have a terrible, sinking sensation that underlying the Republican Party (and perhaps the Democratic party as well) is a highly organized, sinister cabal running this puppet show. Not necessarily Smersh, or the Illuminati, but something very evil and very good at maintaining a low profile. I hope I'm just terminally paranoid.
I have always had the same feeling. Reagan and W are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. But they had egos that could be manipulated by the people in the background you are referring to.
I believe that if there is ever a complete history of politics written about this era, it will need to include the unmentioned Oligarchs who have pulled our strings for decades. The recent revelations about Leo and his benefactors could be a chapter in the book that needs to be written. We have been had by big money.
We have been living in a fantasy democracy and our society is really more like the "Gilded Age" than we realize.
When it comes to sociopathic policy I am never sure how much is mapped out in corporate board rooms and how much is just a drift towards a Hobbesian "State of Nature" when we fail to effectively constrain our human-nature "reptile" impulses. The atrocities of war, including Abu Ghraib etc. (sufficiently terrible, that in the end, Obama decided to hide them) show that it's not just "them" with a problem, and of course collective history of abuse toward other races has been horrifying since well before independence. I think there is also plenty of evidence here and abroad of better angels, but that takes work, solidarity and ennobling humility to sustain. The “devil” enjoys the aid of the power of entropy.
Reagan certainly was authentically, narcissistically, right wing, but was celebrated as "The Great Delegator" (as well as "The Great Communicator") by the press. Yet off to the side, there was some press discussion of his some of his jaw-dropping instances of confusion and memory lapses even during his first term; mostly dismissed as quirky, never early-stage dementia. And Reagan's talent as a communicator is mostly cited as slogans; "The Effective Pitch Man" would far more accurate. Reagan was made for TV, and it was clear, just as on a Hollywood set, there was an large array of cast and crew at the backside of the camera lens, and one would suppose, a director, or perhaps a team of them, that somehow did not appear in the closing credits; just as we are discovering in examining the attempted coup on January Sixth.
Real paranoia is tragic and unhelpful, yet unregulated corporate entities have a very grim history, as the British East India Company's horrifying depredations in India instruct (as well as their role in the actual cause of the real "Boston Tea Party"); and the current era conspiracy to distract from the evidence and consequences of climate abuse is by now well documented. Sometimes they really are out to get you.
You’re not paranoid. Google Leonard Leo. I understand how most of the viewing public had not heard of him, but certainly those enmeshed in politics knew of him and his plans. How are we just now learning of him after he has already caused so much irreversible damage?
I blame St. Ray Gun for starting a lot of the problems we see today. Now two people running for gov here in Oregon do nothing but show the outcome of homelessness and blame the D's. Nearly every week we have a situation where the police kill someone having a mental health episode. People are working to change this, but progress is very slow. In the meantime the D candidate shows what she has done, is doing, what her plan is and what she has done in the legislature to help ordinary Oregonians. No ugly pictures of her opponents either. I have a Facebook friend who works extensively with the unhoused. It isn't pretty and she does amazing work, but has a high level of frustration because of all the red tape and the hospital treating, but not keeping people she brings to the ER. She has been thrown out of the hospital at least once because they won't put up with abusive language. There are some groups here in Salem who work with the unhoused and run at least one micro housing site. The city is getting more in the pipeline. The one downtown was held up because the apartment owner across the street filed a law suit. He did not prevail. In Portland the mayor had all camps along certain walking routes to schools and around schools removed. It is disconcerting to me how much one man, Ray Gun, can cause to go south and now we have the festering caner death star doing more destruction.
At my jc, it was 3$ for parking, 4$ for basic health insurance per semester. Or maybe the other way around! My nursing degree cost was books, uniforms and daycare, the last of which was in campus and relatively low cost. With two little kids, it made my career possible.
John Kenneth Galbraith said, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfish,” Or said another way, “what’s mine is mine; what’s yours is mine also.” The Koch family and their network has been grossly detrimental to the health of our democracy.
Let's not stop at the Koch's. There are hundreds of other wealthy people who have directly impacted our health and welfare by hiring political goons to game the system for their benefit and to our detriment. These greedy, selfish and self-absorbed people have done so much damage, caused so much harm and are responsible for so many deaths. Talk about crimes against humanity.
It is a society one can join by invitation only. It was formed in 1947 by Frederick Hayek and 60 of his friends. They met in a beautiful village in Switzerland . Hayek was concerned that Hitler had lost the war. I first heard of them about 2 years ago. I consider myself fairly well read . I grew up in the Republic of Ireland. I have lived in Canada since 1985. Actually I just visited my Swiss relatives and asked them about this. They had not heard of this. I read about them in an article written by Jeremy Lent . The title is The Five Conspiracies everyone should know about. I thought it was impossible that there could be an International organization influencing public policy for 55 years that no one knew about. Please look for yourself and let me know. This article was published by a number of alternate news sources including Open Democracy. I have asked all kinds of people I know including a retired Canadian journalist and a historian. I think perhaps Nancy Mclean who wrote Democracy in chains may have mentioned this. Hayek went twice to Chili to advise Thatcher and Reagan’s nasty friend Pinochet. I view him as a total psychopath. He went on to receive the Noble prize in economics. ……..
I had to take a look. “The MPS has close ties to the network of think tanks sponsored in part by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.”
“Philadelphia Magazine described the Atlas Network as "supporting free-market approaches to eliminating poverty and noted for its refutation of climate change and defense of the tobacco industry". “ (From Wikipedia)
The tern "free market" seems almost axiomatic, but what does it mean? The definition of "freedom" I can draw from the way the phase is commonly applied is that this is specifically "freedom" for those with more than enough money to do whatever they damn well please, and to capture markets entirely through oligarchical monopolization.
That's not the same sort of "freedom" we seem to intend to mean when we talk about a "free county" or a "free society" in which the an array of widely shared choices and opportunities for all. A monopoly of political power is despotism.
I think its one of numerous examples of manipulation using compartmentalization. Republicanism started off with the goal of freeing people from the absolute rights of kings and aristocrats and was founded on ( sorority) , fraternity, equality and freedom.
Witnesses to the birth of the French Republic were horrified by the abuse and cruelty that ensued. In Ireland although women were very active and fought very bravely in the Easter Uprising, they were subsequently wiped out of the history for almost a century. I personally have an abhorrence of violence. Although there is a point where being able to defend oneself is very important. I value Primum non nocere. First do no harm. Restraint is important. Freedom for me does not include an absence of restraint. I do not believe freedom includes the right to hurt and harm carelessly and wantonly.
Please keep looking and check out the article by Jeremy Lent. I am travelling and visiting family. Otherwise I would search and send the link to the article published in Open Democracy. I have the impression that Angela Davis knew about these shenanigans. I bought and tried to read her excellent book written in the Reagan era and I was so upset that I could not read this . Her writing is clear . I just could not bear to read it. It was too upsetting. I trued to read this sometime in the past 18 months when President Trump was still President and I found it too frightening. Heather’s newsletters cheer me up a lot.
Have a similar story, though my student loans were lower because I worked for an employer with a 75 percent education reimbursement benefit. I, too, am the divorced mother of a special needs child. My child resented my absence. She's an adult whose special needs led to cognitive decline. She was placed in a nursing home to await placement in a community of care facility. Sometime after mother's day, the nursing home allowed her to discharge herself. They won't tell me where she is. She's been off social media since last September, doesn't answer the phone, email, or texts. I have no idea where she is, or how to communicate with her. This probably would have been different, if I could have raised her in Biden's version of America instead of Reagan and the Republican version of America.
Oh, Christina, what a terrible thing. Surely every mother here can only begin to imagine that kind of loss. On top of the awareness of your pain, I don't know about anyone else, but your story makes me very angry. What kind of human beings could craft a world in which this could happen? I am so sorry
Sending love and hugs your way. Can’t imagine how hard this is (I’m a single parent too so I get what you had to do and why) And yes to raising children and living in Biden’s America! Fingers crossed that your daughter contacts you soon.
Karen, thank you so much for telling your story. I became a teacher rather than a nurse, but you've made me think back to those days of single parenting, working, getting two degrees, and the absolute exhaustion at the end of the day. Even the time I had left for my son was marred by that constant push against collapse. Like you, I made it, but that most important mother-child relationship wasn't helped. I, too, paid my student loans, and I fully support President Biden's extension of loan forgiveness. For the life of me, I can't understand the Reagan-era belief that if I didn't get mine, then nobody else should get any either. There is enough pie in this nation's pantry for all of us to have a slice--if a few of us would take a little bit smaller piece. I see in Biden's approach a larger commitment to reversing the foundations of how we think about government and each other. It's a huge job and the push-back from those who have benefitted from Reagan's trickle-down economy is like a tsunami. But every single step counts.
Yes. Biden seems to me to be playing a long game. He won't be around to see the impact of this push for a more humane world. Nor will I. But I don't doubt the long-term changes his way of thinking promises. Joe Biden is far from a perfect man, not a perfect president. But at this time in our history, I continue to believe he is the right man for the job
Karen, Thank you for setting us on your difficult journey -- combining your strength and determination against the American system, which gave you and many more millions of parents less and less support. I think, too, of the Americans, through no fault of their own, who could not maintain the kind of grueling schedule you did. With all that you have accomplished Karen, you still seem to feel lacking -- and that is the fault of the wealthiest country in the world not supporting American families. I think you accomplished a great deal for yourself and your daughter -- how many of us following your story could have the conviction that we would have done as well? Good work Karen against terrible odds.
I grew up in California and attended college from 1968 to 1971, when tuition was affordable. I happened to come across this from my school newspaper as I was researching something else. This was evidently the turning point in making education out of reach for the non-elite.
1966-10-14 - Daily Sundial - CSUN University Library Digital Collections:
A. S. President John Cagle, along with 14 student leaders from Southern California have come out against gubematorial candidate Ronald Reagan's proposal to charge tuition in the State's colleges and universities.
“A. S. President John Cagle, along with 14 student leaders from Southern California have come out against gubematorial candidate Ronald Reagan's proposal to charge tuition in the State's colleges and universities.
Cagle emphasized that he was not against Reagan as a candidate, but only on his stand to charge tuition.
•That could be the final step that puts a college education beyond the reach of hundreds of young people in this state,* they charged. *I am definitely opposed to any levy of this sort for students, Cagle emphasized.“
I was in California during that odd transition as Ronald Reagan began his campaign to shift America to a nation of wealthy plutocrats and, although I witnessed many of the events everyone is recalling, there is something that almost takes my breath away to read the catalogue of all of them together. There is something nightmarish about the relentless speed and efficiency of the Republican machine. The comments here remind me of an article in TWP that outlined, in detail, the half century of planning and preparation that ended in the repeal of Roe. Chilling. We are up against a juggernaut, with a long, hard fight ahead. We need to keep on working.
So much of that tuition goes to sports and marketing. Professors' salaries have not increased significantly, and they are expected to publish and produce work that brings status to the universities.
If you want to get violently ill, take a look at how the University of Oregon spends its money, and what new buildings have been built in pursuit of athletic "excellence". To add the most insult to injury, Bob and Jane Sanders (U of O alumnae) wanted to donate 10 million dollars to the university to build an elite softball facility for the women's softball team. The university initially declined, as they were so busy building men's facilities (the UO axed their successful wrestling program after OSU won a national baseball championship, built a "state of the art" baseball stadium from a donation by another wealthy alum, Pat Kilkenny; along with the Matthew Knight Arena for basketball). Eventually, Jane Sanders Stadium was built, and the general admission area is known as "The Bob". If anyone watched the World Track Meet, you saw what they did to Hayward field. In state tuition is now $13,857 and out of state tuition is 39,309 (with a HUGE international student component.)
Professor salaries? $105 K Football coach's salary? 6 year contract at 29.1 million. Men's basketball is 3.2 million, women's is 750K. The best news? Softball coach gets $345K, basketball gets 337K.
First Reagan screwed up California then moved on to screw up the country and so many people’s future. But he was a good actor who cleverly pulled the wool over our eyes.
There are those who would dispute the "good actor" sobriquet, and I am one, but he was a decent con artist and set the stage for the Republican party as we see it now. Authoritarianism under any other name would maintain the stench.
Even as a kid in the 1950s I recall not liking his vibe, and yet he became immensely popular with the press and the public. I was never able to see what they saw in him. and in retrospect, he just seems worse. It was never big, heavy handed "government" (which Republicans blatantly love to sic on others) that Reagan famously decried and discredited, it was government of, by, and for, ALL of the people he and his party despised; and that's what is under systematic attack today.
Better actor than I ever thought, right out of central casting. Oscar-level performance at that presidential thing. But the thinnest veneer, and the greedy made it seem real. Sort of like chump but he was an abject failure, although the portrait of him spewed by Fox would make him a super hero to MAGAt fools and greedy bastards…
You are in a wonderful club, Karen, that receives little recognition but quietly does it’s damndest to provide for our kids, love them, support them by growing ourselves, and applauding their opportunities when they are grown. Our children’s success is our reward. I understand every nuance in your comment today.
Your last paragraph is my nomination today for the best closer I am sure to see all day.
Ok first, I must snicker a bit….my first job was a cashier at Woolworth’s!!! ALL if the departments were managed by older women in the neighborhood- I think we all walked to work. Store Manager was a young energetic man. I learned so much about every part of that store from those nice ladies. Then I became a single mom to 2 girls. I eeked out AA degrees in Acctg & Comp Science (BY MAIL!!) only because my employer agreed to pay for them. With 2 girls I could never have found an extra dime for education. All those seemingly minor events set me up for a 45 year career as a Contract Administrator.
Much of it available to me just because I was lucky enough to have been born an attractive white middle class girl in the USA.
If my tax dollars are spent helping others out of debt, just so they get the same opportunities I did - I’m thrilled with that!
Karen, I became a single parent in 2006 (I have one daughter). I was a college graduate with a well- established career and few financial challenges other than keeping to a strict budget (first world problem in my case). I hear stories like yours and just so admire the courage and persistence it took for you to work that hard to earn a degree while caring for a special needs child. It is physically and emotionally difficult to be a single parent. Add special needs to that and many would fold under the enormous pressure. That you were so successful is inspiring!
One of my major goal as a single parent with my daughter was to help ensure that she had “only” $20k in students loans to pay back when she graduated. I succeeded. Yes, I still have a modest amount to pay on the loans I took out for her but it is manageable. I’m proud of that in part because my ex decided he didn’t need to help our daughter after she turned 18. Meanwhile, Rian got herself into the London College of Fashion, one of the most prestigious fashion schools on the planet - with zero scholarship money available. So momma was left with the six figure bill - gulp!
What the Biden Administration has done is to truly help many families find balance - work hard, pay their bills and work towards a brighter future. Grateful for that, particularly for women like you and me; single parents, working hard, paying the bills while also raising kids. Hope this helps lots of folks reach towards their dreams. And Karen, give yourself full credit. What you did and continue to do for your kid is outstanding!! From one who knows....
Wish the government would find a way to dun the deadbeat dads who decided to just walk away. These are the same issues we are facing with forced birth. The man can, if he chooses, skate away.
I believe state legislatures have responsibility too for the escalating costs. My college education was relatively achievable in the early 70’s though I had a PT job for the university during three of those years. With the trend to Repub state houses and Repub disdain for education for all and against “elites,” state support for higher ed greatly diminished since Reagan.
Today's encore selection -- from A Brief History of Doom by Richard Vague. Ronald Reagan's campaign slogan in 1980 had been "Let's Make America Great Again." For his re-election campaign in 1984, it was "It's Morning Again in America." A series of financial crises in that decade would belie that:
"Many remember the 1980s as a renaissance in the United States. Newly elected president Ronald Reagan and Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker were credited with defeating the inflation of the 1970s. Real GDP growth averaged 3.3 percent. Unemployment declined to less than 6 percent, and the stock and bond market ended the decade up 228 percent and 253 percent, respectively.
"Yet those memories belie stark realities of calamities and crises. The decade of the 1980s was one of the most economically turbulent and crisis laden in American history.”
Reagan marked a new acceleration in the gap between the ultra-rich and the middle class. It's why the 1% controls 80% of the nations wealth, and the middle class less than 15%.
Thank you for sharing your story, Karen. You, and others like you, are our truly greatest Americans… and always will be…. generation after generation to come.
According to Republican talking points, Karen, you’re supposed to be angry and bitter because you had to pay off your loan and now others are getting a break not available to you.
Instead, you realize that the hardships you had to face took away time and nurturing from your daughter and you don’t want others to suffer in the same way. You are an admirable human being and exemplify what is best about our country and about any member of a civilized society.
Thank you so much Gina. I can’t imagine being angry or feeling cheated like the republicans want me to be. Apparently they think everyone is as greedy and self serving as they are. Of course their goal is to put down President Biden’s successes. My goal is to contribute to a better future for our children.💖
Karen you are the selfless giving love that the United States Of America is founded upon. You are the quiet celebration of the American Patriot satisfied with all the hardship it has been required to achieve your ability to contribute making America a better place to live, to enjoy freedom and peace!
You are the dream obtained by exerting yourself beyond exhaustion beyond what you could ever imagined without quitting!
You are the true American hero recognized through outpouring of gratefulness by all those whom you daily inspire by your freely given lovingkindness for their comfort and peace!
Thank GOD for giving us the blessing of your Amazing Grace!
Kudos to you. Please focus now on self - stewardship for you and your daughter. Focus on both your health and well-being. Consider checking out the work of Riane Eisler and Dr.Gabor Maté . Also Master Mingtong Gu , founder of the Chi center and all who work in the field of healing intergenerational trauma. You are an inspiration.
Absolutely love Dr. Gabor Mate. Stumbling across a lecture on C-Span years ago, I was able to see my family trauma in a different light. Absolutely warped my brain, in a very positive way.
Thanks, I will be interested to read what you think. No rush. I am trying to learn all I can about healing individual, intergenerational, collective and planetary trauma. I have no delusions about my own very limited capacity to integrate all kinds of information and co- creating an ecological civilization. At almost 66, I am sorting through all that I have been taught, learning and unlearning with the goal of participating in respectful exchange of ideas. Currently I appreciate my Irish Catholic upbringing for focusing me on the Common Good . I am very impressed by the work of Kristin Monroe , who reports that only 3% of us are capable of true altruism. I view people who really care for those with complex needs as likely in this group. I am certain now that I am in the 97%. By this I mean that when I accept my many personal flaws and limitations rather than aiming for sainthood, I do better. For example I see many benefits to living a vegan life-style. However the effort I would need to make these changes would take from other commitments. So I try to choose and support plant based eating but I am a flexitarian. I am attempting to find common ground , common cause and decency and to discern between imperfection and true anti-social behaviours . Not sure if this makes any sense to you. People like Dr.Gabor Maté are a lot mire articulate. I am very concerned about how to transition away from fossil fuels and exploitation of nature in wise ways that cause the least harm to the most vulnerable everywhere. Thanks for your interest. My website is called BeCompassionateNLca. I love how Heather integrates so many complex ideas and shares the essence with her writing. I am not aware of any equivalent Canadian writer. I admire the writing of my Zoom course friend named Gracious Unfurling. She also writes very clearly on the wonder of nature and our Responsability to protect non human lfe.
You are an inspiration in so many ways. I am sorry you had to spend so much time away from your daughter just to pay off debt due to loans to finance your education. I too worked to pay for my masters degree as a single parent, but l did not have a special needs child nor were the costs off education so prohibitive. As a nation we need to make education more affordable and reward those who strive to improve their lives. Education benefits the nation. And, loving parents are it’s backbone.
I found myself a single mother of a special needs child after a divorce in the 1980s. Although I had sights on becoming a physician I decided Nursing would be more financially attainable. I took out some student loans and worked part time jobs to support getting my degree in nursing. I miked cows, worked at a Woolworths as a cashier and whatever jobs I could do when I wasn’t in school. Some say that was admirable but I still ended up with 15,000 in loans to pay off and the worst part was the time that I didn’t spend with my daughter. I needed to find a fulfilling career to provide for us both and make sure she had everything she needed to prosper and live life to her potential, and be happy and secure. I achieved my career goals and have advanced in my nursing career. And my daughter has had challenges but overall is doing okay. However if I hadn’t had to work extra jobs while going to school full time while single parenting a special needs child, I truly believe her outcome would have been better. I remember when I was in grade school in California in the 60s it was free to go to the junior colleges and very inexpensive to go to state colleges. Then Reagan became governor and everything changed . Then living in Idaho in the 80s Reagan as President screwed up education for the whole country.
After I graduated and started working I worked as much extra that I could to pay off the student loans. That took more time away from my daughter that could have been so beneficial to her development, security and abilities.
So I applaud President Biden for taking this step that has potential to provide so much more than financial relief, but gives time and nurturing back to our children
Karen, I remember those years too. You worked hard single parenting, going to school all for a better future. School was so much more affordable. Cal Poly was $70 a quarter and yes, community college was free. And blame Reagan for raising tuitions and taxes and taking away mental health services and hospitals and the list goes on. My loan, $2500 was mostly forgiven as I taught in a low income school after graduating. Repubs have caused so much lasting economic and social damage in this country. Policies aren’t just for a term. They can last decades.
I agree Irenie. I lived in the Bay Area and Reagan started closing down the mental hospitals. Specifically I remember Agnew State Hospital in Milpitas if I remember correctly. Halfway houses were supposed to be set up. But what we saw was what seemed like the beginning of the homeless crisis. It was very sad and cruel, and so unnecessary
Yes, Karen, Reagan decided that schizophrenics and those on the spectrum no longer needed to be in a locked facility so he ordered those mental hospitals to close. That has proven disastrous and what about cutting welfare for those who really needed it?? That created the homeless situation that has not been fully addressed to this day.
But you did everything in your power to make a better life for you and your daughter. I certainly hope you are able to reap from the benefits from your profession, one so very admired by me.
Who could have foreseen President Reagan being shot by a person with mental health issues, Not the President.
Oh, the irony!!
Irony, indeed!
Good point there, Patrick!
I started working at the local jail in 1985 and saw first hand where those people who had been previously housed in state hospitals ended up when there was no "local option" for any of them.
I have a friend whose son is schizophrenic. She had to move her son to a locked facility in Florida because there were none in CA. She headed NAMI in our county and found no other alternative. She now lives in Florida with her husband who is going through early stages of dementia and her son, who she took out from the facility to save money. She regrets moving.
I feel for her. As I've said many times before, we're the most backward of the western industrialized nations.
America is anti-American.
Marlene, you really describe so many families, hidden or hiding. People who have been “committed “ can be held for three days and then released. Supposedly for continuing care and with a continuing diagnosis. But that care is nonexistent. And worse in and since the Pandemic.
How we as a nation deal with both of these issues (well, all of them) Is a travesty.
Ally, we really did not deal with these maladies at all. We allowed these people to be thrown in jail, in prison, to just be convicted for a crime they had no control over. They are still in prison and that too, is a travesty. The Innocence Project folks have continued to investigate those who are on Death Row. They are trying to transform lives everywhere and I wish them continued success. Our judicial system has to partner with mental health divisions more and more so that the innocent get help and the outright guilty, serve time in jail. Bad cops are slowly being caught and dealt with, but not quick enough. I am certain you saw plenty, Ally. Being a woman and being gay, it must’ve always been very challenging for you. I imagine you held steady because what else could you do?! We have a long ways to go but change can happen. In the words of Barack Obama “YES WE CAN!”.
4 holding rooms in ER at local Catholic hospital for mental patients sad situation, but no where to put them
See, that is pathetic and ridiculous!!
I had a friend who finished his medical residency in Seattle circa 1983 & worked off his medical school loans treating inmates in the Seattle jail. Same experience but, this young Doc was fully capable of initiating a proper treatment protocol.
I bet you did Ally.
I worked in Chicago during that time. The hospitals were literally dumping van-loads of people directly onto the streets! Prisons have became the "mental health care" in this country.
That is what is very very sad in our country. Improving health must become our next major goal. There isn’t one person who has not been traumatized by Trump’s 4 years plus J6.
Improving healthcare AND shoring up the social safety net to Scandinavian standards.
❤️ I totally agree!
Very true.
Unconscionable by any measure, and republicans have skewed the story and bragged about their evil for decades. Surely one of the reasons why Rupert Murdoch chose that time to honor us with his evil presence. From WaPo in Jan 1981 “at a dinner last month In Washington honoring Mr. Murdoch for his work on behalf of Mr. Reagan, Representative Jack Kemp, a New York Republican, Said, ‘Rupert Murdoch used the editorial page, the front page, and every other page necessary to elect Ronald Reagan President.’” And the Republican version of history began in earnest…
🤬🤬
It’s so sad and should never have happened.
My recollection is that there was a general push to close down mental health facilities because conditions in them were generally very bad. The result was, indeed, that people who were in mental institutions were "dumped" without backup facilities for their care, resulting eventually in homelessness and all the associated problems. Reagan was bad news in many ways, but was not the only one to shut down mental institutions. Again, this is based on my memory. If I'm wrong about it, please post a correction.
Some were badly run, yes, but others were effective.
I remember as well, Karen; "homeless" People began to appear in the SF Financial District when I was a full time law clerk & I walked to night class at 6 pm. 1983-1986.
I worked in SF off of Golden Gate and VanNess in the 70’s. When approaching city hall, the only homeless person you’d see was a guy relieving himself near the trees there. One person!
I went to Berkeley Jan '73 to June '75. I don't know who was homeless and who wasn't, but there were significant numbers with mental health problems. I do remember once, when I had a room in a fleabag hotel next to campus letting a woman who was obviously quite mixed up sleep on my floor.
There were also a lot of people there at that time who were poor, and seemed to be there for the cool of Berkeley, and probably because it never got too cold there.
“San Francisco business owners propose civil disobedience.Frustrated business owners in the Castro District have threatened to stop paying city taxes and fees if the city does not help the area’s unhoused people. “You can’t have a vibrant, successful business corridor when you have people passed out high on drugs, littering your sidewalk,” the Castro Merchants Assn.'s co-president told the San Francisco Chronicle. “These people need to get help.” San Francisco Chronicle
I had a number of friends who lived in the Mission, Castro & other south of Market Districts; the issues go back decades.
I am an advocate for compassion and kindness. and study the research on their benefits. Some great work on this science is happening near you. Are you familiar with the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education based at Stanford Medical school. There are many other great researchers working in California . Jeremy Lent founder of the Institute of Liology also lives in your area. I learned about the awful Mont Pellerin Society from Jeremy.
I remember too. The argument was that the mental hospitals were unduly restrictive and awful for a lot of people who would have better lives in halfway houses. True enough. But then state governments shuttered the hospitals without creating the halfway houses and related services. Lots of non-functional people were dumped on the streets.
Yes, Reagan touted “freedom” as a justification for releasing mental health patients. Sometimes. At other times he cited saving the costs incurred for treatment. Republicans have no shame. It started before Reagan but has been on a steep decline since his time.
He was terrible for California, much less the US.
Unnecessary for certain. California had the funds so you must wonder what was in Ronald Reagan's heart and mind.
No need to wonder. Conservatives didn’t like what college students were doing with their relative freedom, especially their political actions against the war in Viet Nam, against segregation and voter suppression, against poor treatment of factory, service, and farm workers. Saddling students with debt was meant both to control them with that burden, and to reduce the number of people getting educated.
For details, Google “Lewis Powell memo.” Greenpeace has a good article on its website.
Let’s review: Reagan’s mind was shot and absolutely nothing was in his heart. I do think that his son, Ron, Jr., became an lifelong atheist because of his dad’s lies.
Fame and fortune!
And Reagan’s evil has made greedy fools of so many. Who knew that his promises of a better America would be like a piggy bank for the rich and a “bellwether” for hard times for others. And Rupert arrived on the scene just in time to make the Schitt smell like roses. Peggy Noonan was busy writing the script, Michael Deaver had the photo ops aligned with the propaganda, and the dirty tricksters were on pointe. What could go wrong, hindsight is 20/20.
When Regan was running for office there was an enormous billboard on Santa Monica blvd. in Socal that had a photo enlargement of Regan dressed as a fancy dude cowboy drawing his pearl-handled guns from his very fancy holsters with the caption coming out of his mouth in a cartoon bubble saying "Stick-Them-Up-Suckers!"
Wow! Hindsight on how he and his comrades impacted our country financially indicates a continuing ruthlessness of the "cowboy" and his monkey mentality and who had Alzheimers? How much damage did Ronnie do, or was it his "handlers" who continue to try to destroy our democracy and keep the old boy, white-privileged, non-trickle-down-system thriving, for only them? I blame the entire republican party for being so self-absorbed and immature about winning, lying and cheating our country, at all costs, for their white-privileged-male cause. We are not going backwards with your cheating and dumbing down. You need to grow up and live in this new century in America and help us solve domestic and global problems together rather than attack your own country and democracy. Republican behaviors and actions are now fully anti-democracy and anti-American. Time to leave them in the dustbin. Vote like your and our country depends upon it! And may Justice prevail for all these political criminals.
Yes and yes and yes!
❤️
Bad day for cowboys in blue denim and callouses.
Yeah, apologies to all the good cowboys who work so hard. Difficult to be politically correct in a corrupt political world where nouns get so twisted. It reminds me of when G.W. Bush, after 9/11 spewed about "the Axis of Evil" and "you are either with us or against us." We had the support of so many of the world's countries in our grief and then he went and threw out those divisive epithets which was the old-white boy mentality that was often referred to as the "cowboy mentality." I think it is just old-white-privilege patriarchal mentality. Ronnie's good ol' cowboy and monkey routine hid the republican atrocities that were being installed with a benign symbol of America. Well, benign for some of the people.
I never learned about slaves who fought for our country, or who were the original cowboys, because you never see them in books and movies when I was growing up.
"Black cowboys have long been a part of the culture of the American West, though you wouldn't know that if your knowledge of cowboys stems mainly from movie Westerns. The real-life truth is that, after the Civil War, when the Wild West really began to flourish, somewhere around 25 percent of all cowboys were Black. Some historians claim the number is even higher than that.
But Callies, who runs The Black Cowboy Museum in Rosenberg, Texas, simply laughs.
"In 1830, 1840, the 1850s and '60s, there was nothing but Black cowboys," Callies says. "You wanna know why? In Texas, 'cowboy' was a slave name. The white man didn't want to work horses and work cows. He refused to be called a cowboy. He wanted to be a cowhand or a cow puncher.
"Until people started hearing about the cowboys back East, and they didn't know they were Black. And they got famous. And then all of a sudden, the white cowboys started saying, 'Hey, I'm a cowboy.'" https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/black-cowboys.htm
Just fascinating historical rabbit holes I fall down when I read LFFA and comments! But I do find that the historical reference to "cowboy" has slavery/racism at its' etymological roots fascinating.
The patriarchal 'feudal' system is the foundation of our country and it does not want to die, but feels the deep fear of our Constitution almost becoming reality where equality is concerned. Money = Power over. Just ask the white boys like donnie, jared, mitch, the kochs, rupert, etc., oh and vlad and so many of their comrades we are learning about.
Again, sorry to current cowboys, and to all our early black cowboys, where this title was the horrific white man's adaptation of his power to keep them in diminutive enslavement by calling them cow "boys."
Pensa, So informative and so much we never learned in school. And this you write: “I never learned about slaves who fought for our country, or who were the original cowboys, because you never see them in books and movies when I was growing up.” That’s happening, especially in southern states. Florida and Desantis’ WOKE anti education act. Anti 1619, anti CRT which isn’t taught in lower grades. Don’t make my child feel bad about slavery or the KKK or white supremacy. Or Black or Brown or Native people. Don’t tell my children the Truth.”
Thank you for this knowledge and reference to facts. My 87 year old Texan husband (married here in my CA 60 years ago and here has remained) is now chair bound and in beginning stage of dementia and has found pure pleasure in reading every cowboy tale paperback he and our son can find. He’s said it’s because of the strong values of those on the side of what is right, and of course, the familiar settings and history.
I’m good with the family’s cowboy roots of Kentucky to Texas to Montana. We have done it from top to bottom. Hard times to good times we never bought in to anyone else’s idea of who they thought we were. We were never above anyone but damn sure not below either. If I walked by you on the street in a baseball cap and tennis shoes, you might turn your head to see what in the hell smelled like shit and sweat.
You did grab my attention with a statement that holds water. “fear of our constitution almost becoming reality.” That came home with a bang. That’s a new perspective and I am sure glad you brought that up.
Wow, had no idea
Oh, and there are so many still alive today!
I can’t speak to anything but junior college, but I lived in Cali from 1976-79 (Jerry Brown was Governor), and it was virtually free to attend junior college then. I think there was a ~$10 student fee/semester. Reagan was awful, for sure, but I don’t think he stopped the free JC in Cali.
Reagan destroyed the mental health (and so many other) system in California. They moved the patients from Agnew to the empty frat houses next to San Jose State University. I spoke with them every day leaving classes there. To this day Reagan's plan has left countless hundreds of thousands without mental health care in California.
I'm not well enough read to know to what degree Reagan was the mastermind of discrediting democracy and the common good in favor of the claimed superiority of plutocratic leadership, but the whole party seemed in cahoots. Reaganomics metastasized over the following decades into numerous crisis, including natural disasters (COVID is one) negligently prepared for or even made more damaging. Jan 6th and the corruption of SCOTUS can all trace a chain of events, at least in large part from Regan's election.
And in subsequent years, who has gained, who has lost (quality of life, such as job security and defined benefit pensions, as well as relative income) and who has been running in place? What has improved that has anything to do with Republican policies? What has been lost or has measurably declined? Or is threatened? Connecting the dots, what do we see?
Yes, state universities and community colleges were once affordable and heavily subsidized. Who benefited by changing that, individually, or as a society? And apart from the cruelty, what do we pay to keep the mentally in jail rather than in care or else equipped with adequate resources? Why are we doing this?
Think how unqualified modern day repub presidents have caused havoc and mayhem . TFG, Reagan are only two. And when they want to claim they care, like Bush, they label it. Compassionate conservatism. But that’s it. As opposed to presidents who actually care and act.
Actions speak louder than words.
And of course the blame for the homeless is ALWAYS put on “democrat-run” states and cities
By design, listen to five minutes of Rush and Newt for starters… and their Fox adherents carry on the work.
One take on Reagan's effect on higher education: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ684842.pdf
Joy, thank you for this link. So worth reading and so true. “Ronald Reagan left California public education worse than he found it. A system that had been the envy of the nation when he was elected was in decline when he left. Nevertheless, Mr. Reagan’s actions had polit- ical appeal, particularly to his core conservative constituency, many of whom had no time for public education.” Repubs have consistently dismantled and destroyed safety nets and critical services. Public education and public medical services and insurance. Why is the question. The same funds that could provide the best education, medical health services, mental healthcare and insurance and environmental protection are tax breaks for the wealthiest people on the planet. That lack of empathy and compassion is a sickness.
I’m from CA and lived through this era; my sister was at Cal during those turbulent years….not part of the Reagan fan club. And yes, many thanks for posting this; will read it when I’m less angry!
I think that sort of thing was common in the GOP after the New Deal.
Yes and no. Yes, but with important counter-examples. For instance, Nixon's views on the environment (worth looking up) such as:
"Like those in the last century who tilled a plot of land to exhaustion and then moved on to another, we in this century have too casually and too long abused our natural environment. The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future. "
even:
"Quite inadvertently, by ignoring environmental costs we have given an economic advantage to the careless polluter over his more conscientious rival."
And there is more. I posted it elsewhere, but Ike's approach, though politically conservative, still strongly contrasts with Reagan and since:
"This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
His ghost oversees the evil we have in Republican circles today. They are devoted to the greed, Pharisee mentality, and pseudo patriotism that rules the fools today. At least two of his children knew. That’s what alerted me.
We frequently read that the country started going off the rails when Reagan was elected POTUS. I never felt that the man was intelligent enough to have been elected, much less mastermind such draconian reversals in social programs and wealth redistribution. It all seemed too "scripted" (appropriately enough for a B grade actor): first a grooming period as governor of a major state, and then "showtime". Since Reagan, I have seen other Republicans of modest intelligence gain that high office. George "Dubya" Bush and Little Donnie Trump spring to mind. I know that conspiracy theories abound, but I have a terrible, sinking sensation that underlying the Republican Party (and perhaps the Democratic party as well) is a highly organized, sinister cabal running this puppet show. Not necessarily Smersh, or the Illuminati, but something very evil and very good at maintaining a low profile. I hope I'm just terminally paranoid.
I have always had the same feeling. Reagan and W are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. But they had egos that could be manipulated by the people in the background you are referring to.
I believe that if there is ever a complete history of politics written about this era, it will need to include the unmentioned Oligarchs who have pulled our strings for decades. The recent revelations about Leo and his benefactors could be a chapter in the book that needs to be written. We have been had by big money.
We have been living in a fantasy democracy and our society is really more like the "Gilded Age" than we realize.
When it comes to sociopathic policy I am never sure how much is mapped out in corporate board rooms and how much is just a drift towards a Hobbesian "State of Nature" when we fail to effectively constrain our human-nature "reptile" impulses. The atrocities of war, including Abu Ghraib etc. (sufficiently terrible, that in the end, Obama decided to hide them) show that it's not just "them" with a problem, and of course collective history of abuse toward other races has been horrifying since well before independence. I think there is also plenty of evidence here and abroad of better angels, but that takes work, solidarity and ennobling humility to sustain. The “devil” enjoys the aid of the power of entropy.
Reagan certainly was authentically, narcissistically, right wing, but was celebrated as "The Great Delegator" (as well as "The Great Communicator") by the press. Yet off to the side, there was some press discussion of his some of his jaw-dropping instances of confusion and memory lapses even during his first term; mostly dismissed as quirky, never early-stage dementia. And Reagan's talent as a communicator is mostly cited as slogans; "The Effective Pitch Man" would far more accurate. Reagan was made for TV, and it was clear, just as on a Hollywood set, there was an large array of cast and crew at the backside of the camera lens, and one would suppose, a director, or perhaps a team of them, that somehow did not appear in the closing credits; just as we are discovering in examining the attempted coup on January Sixth.
Real paranoia is tragic and unhelpful, yet unregulated corporate entities have a very grim history, as the British East India Company's horrifying depredations in India instruct (as well as their role in the actual cause of the real "Boston Tea Party"); and the current era conspiracy to distract from the evidence and consequences of climate abuse is by now well documented. Sometimes they really are out to get you.
You’re not paranoid. Google Leonard Leo. I understand how most of the viewing public had not heard of him, but certainly those enmeshed in politics knew of him and his plans. How are we just now learning of him after he has already caused so much irreversible damage?
“Rules the fools”. Love it. So Jeri why do so many bank robbers wear Reagan and Nixon masks and how soon will the Trump masks be in vogue?
I blame St. Ray Gun for starting a lot of the problems we see today. Now two people running for gov here in Oregon do nothing but show the outcome of homelessness and blame the D's. Nearly every week we have a situation where the police kill someone having a mental health episode. People are working to change this, but progress is very slow. In the meantime the D candidate shows what she has done, is doing, what her plan is and what she has done in the legislature to help ordinary Oregonians. No ugly pictures of her opponents either. I have a Facebook friend who works extensively with the unhoused. It isn't pretty and she does amazing work, but has a high level of frustration because of all the red tape and the hospital treating, but not keeping people she brings to the ER. She has been thrown out of the hospital at least once because they won't put up with abusive language. There are some groups here in Salem who work with the unhoused and run at least one micro housing site. The city is getting more in the pipeline. The one downtown was held up because the apartment owner across the street filed a law suit. He did not prevail. In Portland the mayor had all camps along certain walking routes to schools and around schools removed. It is disconcerting to me how much one man, Ray Gun, can cause to go south and now we have the festering caner death star doing more destruction.
If Oregon can succeed with the unhoused crises through people like her, the entire west coast will benefit, as will the nation.
He also locked up more people than anyone else in history all the while proclaiming “freedom”
He locked up so many people that “for profit prisons” exploded! GOP are relentless in figuring out ways to profit. https://www.criminaljusticeprograms.com/articles/private-prisons-vs-public-prisons/
At my jc, it was 3$ for parking, 4$ for basic health insurance per semester. Or maybe the other way around! My nursing degree cost was books, uniforms and daycare, the last of which was in campus and relatively low cost. With two little kids, it made my career possible.
So true. Reagan was a big supporter of the Mont Pellerin Society. The Koch brothers were major funders.
John Kenneth Galbraith said, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfish,” Or said another way, “what’s mine is mine; what’s yours is mine also.” The Koch family and their network has been grossly detrimental to the health of our democracy.
Let's not stop at the Koch's. There are hundreds of other wealthy people who have directly impacted our health and welfare by hiring political goons to game the system for their benefit and to our detriment. These greedy, selfish and self-absorbed people have done so much damage, caused so much harm and are responsible for so many deaths. Talk about crimes against humanity.
An amazing book that shines light on one of the right's most influential (and unknown) movers is Nancy MacLaine's Democracy in Chains: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-architect-of-the-radical-right/528672/
Had to Google it, but there were so many who signed on to evil.
What is Mont Pellerin? I have not heard of it (though I can guess).
It is a society one can join by invitation only. It was formed in 1947 by Frederick Hayek and 60 of his friends. They met in a beautiful village in Switzerland . Hayek was concerned that Hitler had lost the war. I first heard of them about 2 years ago. I consider myself fairly well read . I grew up in the Republic of Ireland. I have lived in Canada since 1985. Actually I just visited my Swiss relatives and asked them about this. They had not heard of this. I read about them in an article written by Jeremy Lent . The title is The Five Conspiracies everyone should know about. I thought it was impossible that there could be an International organization influencing public policy for 55 years that no one knew about. Please look for yourself and let me know. This article was published by a number of alternate news sources including Open Democracy. I have asked all kinds of people I know including a retired Canadian journalist and a historian. I think perhaps Nancy Mclean who wrote Democracy in chains may have mentioned this. Hayek went twice to Chili to advise Thatcher and Reagan’s nasty friend Pinochet. I view him as a total psychopath. He went on to receive the Noble prize in economics. ……..
Thanks.
"He went on to receive the Noble prize in economics. …….."
Weird. So did Milton Friedman
I had to take a look. “The MPS has close ties to the network of think tanks sponsored in part by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.”
“Philadelphia Magazine described the Atlas Network as "supporting free-market approaches to eliminating poverty and noted for its refutation of climate change and defense of the tobacco industry". “ (From Wikipedia)
The tern "free market" seems almost axiomatic, but what does it mean? The definition of "freedom" I can draw from the way the phase is commonly applied is that this is specifically "freedom" for those with more than enough money to do whatever they damn well please, and to capture markets entirely through oligarchical monopolization.
That's not the same sort of "freedom" we seem to intend to mean when we talk about a "free county" or a "free society" in which the an array of widely shared choices and opportunities for all. A monopoly of political power is despotism.
Yes, I believe you nailed it, free of regulations. Free to lie, price gouge, monopolize, deny livable wages or benefits. The libertarian way.
Yep!
Yep,
I think its one of numerous examples of manipulation using compartmentalization. Republicanism started off with the goal of freeing people from the absolute rights of kings and aristocrats and was founded on ( sorority) , fraternity, equality and freedom.
Witnesses to the birth of the French Republic were horrified by the abuse and cruelty that ensued. In Ireland although women were very active and fought very bravely in the Easter Uprising, they were subsequently wiped out of the history for almost a century. I personally have an abhorrence of violence. Although there is a point where being able to defend oneself is very important. I value Primum non nocere. First do no harm. Restraint is important. Freedom for me does not include an absence of restraint. I do not believe freedom includes the right to hurt and harm carelessly and wantonly.
Please keep looking and check out the article by Jeremy Lent. I am travelling and visiting family. Otherwise I would search and send the link to the article published in Open Democracy. I have the impression that Angela Davis knew about these shenanigans. I bought and tried to read her excellent book written in the Reagan era and I was so upset that I could not read this . Her writing is clear . I just could not bear to read it. It was too upsetting. I trued to read this sometime in the past 18 months when President Trump was still President and I found it too frightening. Heather’s newsletters cheer me up a lot.
Have a similar story, though my student loans were lower because I worked for an employer with a 75 percent education reimbursement benefit. I, too, am the divorced mother of a special needs child. My child resented my absence. She's an adult whose special needs led to cognitive decline. She was placed in a nursing home to await placement in a community of care facility. Sometime after mother's day, the nursing home allowed her to discharge herself. They won't tell me where she is. She's been off social media since last September, doesn't answer the phone, email, or texts. I have no idea where she is, or how to communicate with her. This probably would have been different, if I could have raised her in Biden's version of America instead of Reagan and the Republican version of America.
Oh, Christina, what a terrible thing. Surely every mother here can only begin to imagine that kind of loss. On top of the awareness of your pain, I don't know about anyone else, but your story makes me very angry. What kind of human beings could craft a world in which this could happen? I am so sorry
How very sad and painful for you. Politics has a very human side, lest we forget…
Sending love and hugs your way. Can’t imagine how hard this is (I’m a single parent too so I get what you had to do and why) And yes to raising children and living in Biden’s America! Fingers crossed that your daughter contacts you soon.
O.M.G. I’m so sorry!
"hearting" this doesn't seem appropriate. This is a horrendous situation. I feel for you!
I am so sorry that you have had all this suffering. May you and your beloved daughter be reunited.
I am so sorry.
I’m so sorry Christina. That breaks my heart as I’m sure your’s is broken. My hope is the two of you will connect again soon.
So sorry that you must suffer so terribly because the unfeeling system
My heart goes out to you.
Karen, thank you so much for telling your story. I became a teacher rather than a nurse, but you've made me think back to those days of single parenting, working, getting two degrees, and the absolute exhaustion at the end of the day. Even the time I had left for my son was marred by that constant push against collapse. Like you, I made it, but that most important mother-child relationship wasn't helped. I, too, paid my student loans, and I fully support President Biden's extension of loan forgiveness. For the life of me, I can't understand the Reagan-era belief that if I didn't get mine, then nobody else should get any either. There is enough pie in this nation's pantry for all of us to have a slice--if a few of us would take a little bit smaller piece. I see in Biden's approach a larger commitment to reversing the foundations of how we think about government and each other. It's a huge job and the push-back from those who have benefitted from Reagan's trickle-down economy is like a tsunami. But every single step counts.
So well said Dean!
What too many fail to see is that sometimes you do have to take a smaller slice now, but the reward is more pie for everyone later (second helpings).
Yes. Biden seems to me to be playing a long game. He won't be around to see the impact of this push for a more humane world. Nor will I. But I don't doubt the long-term changes his way of thinking promises. Joe Biden is far from a perfect man, not a perfect president. But at this time in our history, I continue to believe he is the right man for the job
Exceptionally well said, Dean Robertson! Thank you!!
Thank you for sharing your story too Dean. It’s amazing how many of us have similar stories. And we persevere! 💖
Karen, Thank you for setting us on your difficult journey -- combining your strength and determination against the American system, which gave you and many more millions of parents less and less support. I think, too, of the Americans, through no fault of their own, who could not maintain the kind of grueling schedule you did. With all that you have accomplished Karen, you still seem to feel lacking -- and that is the fault of the wealthiest country in the world not supporting American families. I think you accomplished a great deal for yourself and your daughter -- how many of us following your story could have the conviction that we would have done as well? Good work Karen against terrible odds.
💕💕💕💕 You are an amazing, wonderful mama.
I grew up in California and attended college from 1968 to 1971, when tuition was affordable. I happened to come across this from my school newspaper as I was researching something else. This was evidently the turning point in making education out of reach for the non-elite.
1966-10-14 - Daily Sundial - CSUN University Library Digital Collections:
A. S. President John Cagle, along with 14 student leaders from Southern California have come out against gubematorial candidate Ronald Reagan's proposal to charge tuition in the State's colleges and universities.
https://digital-collections.csun.edu/digital/collection/Sundial/id/4687/rec/510
“A. S. President John Cagle, along with 14 student leaders from Southern California have come out against gubematorial candidate Ronald Reagan's proposal to charge tuition in the State's colleges and universities.
Cagle emphasized that he was not against Reagan as a candidate, but only on his stand to charge tuition.
•That could be the final step that puts a college education beyond the reach of hundreds of young people in this state,* they charged. *I am definitely opposed to any levy of this sort for students, Cagle emphasized.“
I was in California during that odd transition as Ronald Reagan began his campaign to shift America to a nation of wealthy plutocrats and, although I witnessed many of the events everyone is recalling, there is something that almost takes my breath away to read the catalogue of all of them together. There is something nightmarish about the relentless speed and efficiency of the Republican machine. The comments here remind me of an article in TWP that outlined, in detail, the half century of planning and preparation that ended in the repeal of Roe. Chilling. We are up against a juggernaut, with a long, hard fight ahead. We need to keep on working.
👍🏼
So much of that tuition goes to sports and marketing. Professors' salaries have not increased significantly, and they are expected to publish and produce work that brings status to the universities.
If you want to get violently ill, take a look at how the University of Oregon spends its money, and what new buildings have been built in pursuit of athletic "excellence". To add the most insult to injury, Bob and Jane Sanders (U of O alumnae) wanted to donate 10 million dollars to the university to build an elite softball facility for the women's softball team. The university initially declined, as they were so busy building men's facilities (the UO axed their successful wrestling program after OSU won a national baseball championship, built a "state of the art" baseball stadium from a donation by another wealthy alum, Pat Kilkenny; along with the Matthew Knight Arena for basketball). Eventually, Jane Sanders Stadium was built, and the general admission area is known as "The Bob". If anyone watched the World Track Meet, you saw what they did to Hayward field. In state tuition is now $13,857 and out of state tuition is 39,309 (with a HUGE international student component.)
Professor salaries? $105 K Football coach's salary? 6 year contract at 29.1 million. Men's basketball is 3.2 million, women's is 750K. The best news? Softball coach gets $345K, basketball gets 337K.
Those salaries are nuts! Some would say this is the price for fielding a winning team and of course in America, winning is everything.
Americans (generally) have all the wrong priorities. Instead of finding success in their own lives they vicariously enjoy other people's success.
I'm not suggesting that being the best at something is the goal; but being the best person you can be is reward enough.
Whoa!
This is an important point in Will Bunch's brilliant new book: "After the Ivory Tower Falls"
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/will-bunch/after-the-ivory-tower-falls/
Exactly!!
The football coach at UCLA, a public university, makes $4.1 million annually.
it shows where Americans put values. Always sports. Teachers? Nada.
First Reagan screwed up California then moved on to screw up the country and so many people’s future. But he was a good actor who cleverly pulled the wool over our eyes.
There are those who would dispute the "good actor" sobriquet, and I am one, but he was a decent con artist and set the stage for the Republican party as we see it now. Authoritarianism under any other name would maintain the stench.
You’re right. He was a B grade actor and a fake cowboy, not a good actor in the sense of theatrical quality.
Even as a kid in the 1950s I recall not liking his vibe, and yet he became immensely popular with the press and the public. I was never able to see what they saw in him. and in retrospect, he just seems worse. It was never big, heavy handed "government" (which Republicans blatantly love to sic on others) that Reagan famously decried and discredited, it was government of, by, and for, ALL of the people he and his party despised; and that's what is under systematic attack today.
He actually made my skin crawl, the Reagan Democrats were the vilest of all.
Ronnie worked over the General Electric ( GE) lunch circuit.
His monkey was a better actor. Now we have to contend with the orange monkey, who is a horrible actor but highly financed by his comrades and cult.
Better actor than I ever thought, right out of central casting. Oscar-level performance at that presidential thing. But the thinnest veneer, and the greedy made it seem real. Sort of like chump but he was an abject failure, although the portrait of him spewed by Fox would make him a super hero to MAGAt fools and greedy bastards…
The Great Communicator
With Noonan’s script and Nancy as executive producer…
Doesn’t take much of an actor to fool the MAGAt rabble.
You are in a wonderful club, Karen, that receives little recognition but quietly does it’s damndest to provide for our kids, love them, support them by growing ourselves, and applauding their opportunities when they are grown. Our children’s success is our reward. I understand every nuance in your comment today.
Your last paragraph is my nomination today for the best closer I am sure to see all day.
Thank you.
Salud, Sister. 🗽🥂
Yes - best closer!
Thank you Christine! I feel strongly about this and the words just flowed.💖
Ok first, I must snicker a bit….my first job was a cashier at Woolworth’s!!! ALL if the departments were managed by older women in the neighborhood- I think we all walked to work. Store Manager was a young energetic man. I learned so much about every part of that store from those nice ladies. Then I became a single mom to 2 girls. I eeked out AA degrees in Acctg & Comp Science (BY MAIL!!) only because my employer agreed to pay for them. With 2 girls I could never have found an extra dime for education. All those seemingly minor events set me up for a 45 year career as a Contract Administrator.
Much of it available to me just because I was lucky enough to have been born an attractive white middle class girl in the USA.
If my tax dollars are spent helping others out of debt, just so they get the same opportunities I did - I’m thrilled with that!
Good old Woolworth’s! What would we have done without them? 😹
Karen, I became a single parent in 2006 (I have one daughter). I was a college graduate with a well- established career and few financial challenges other than keeping to a strict budget (first world problem in my case). I hear stories like yours and just so admire the courage and persistence it took for you to work that hard to earn a degree while caring for a special needs child. It is physically and emotionally difficult to be a single parent. Add special needs to that and many would fold under the enormous pressure. That you were so successful is inspiring!
One of my major goal as a single parent with my daughter was to help ensure that she had “only” $20k in students loans to pay back when she graduated. I succeeded. Yes, I still have a modest amount to pay on the loans I took out for her but it is manageable. I’m proud of that in part because my ex decided he didn’t need to help our daughter after she turned 18. Meanwhile, Rian got herself into the London College of Fashion, one of the most prestigious fashion schools on the planet - with zero scholarship money available. So momma was left with the six figure bill - gulp!
What the Biden Administration has done is to truly help many families find balance - work hard, pay their bills and work towards a brighter future. Grateful for that, particularly for women like you and me; single parents, working hard, paying the bills while also raising kids. Hope this helps lots of folks reach towards their dreams. And Karen, give yourself full credit. What you did and continue to do for your kid is outstanding!! From one who knows....
Wish the government would find a way to dun the deadbeat dads who decided to just walk away. These are the same issues we are facing with forced birth. The man can, if he chooses, skate away.
Thank you Sheila! And you and your daughter are amazing. Congratulations to both of you💖
I believe state legislatures have responsibility too for the escalating costs. My college education was relatively achievable in the early 70’s though I had a PT job for the university during three of those years. With the trend to Repub state houses and Repub disdain for education for all and against “elites,” state support for higher ed greatly diminished since Reagan.
Here is a timely essay about the Reagan era:
Delanceyplace: eclectic excerpts by editor Richard Vague
https://www.delanceyplace.com/index.php
Today's encore selection -- from A Brief History of Doom by Richard Vague. Ronald Reagan's campaign slogan in 1980 had been "Let's Make America Great Again." For his re-election campaign in 1984, it was "It's Morning Again in America." A series of financial crises in that decade would belie that:
"Many remember the 1980s as a renaissance in the United States. Newly elected president Ronald Reagan and Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker were credited with defeating the inflation of the 1970s. Real GDP growth averaged 3.3 percent. Unemployment declined to less than 6 percent, and the stock and bond market ended the decade up 228 percent and 253 percent, respectively.
"Yet those memories belie stark realities of calamities and crises. The decade of the 1980s was one of the most economically turbulent and crisis laden in American history.”
Reagan marked a new acceleration in the gap between the ultra-rich and the middle class. It's why the 1% controls 80% of the nations wealth, and the middle class less than 15%.
By design, deliberately and with malice
Thank you for sharing your story, Karen. You, and others like you, are our truly greatest Americans… and always will be…. generation after generation to come.
Thank you KD❤️
According to Republican talking points, Karen, you’re supposed to be angry and bitter because you had to pay off your loan and now others are getting a break not available to you.
Instead, you realize that the hardships you had to face took away time and nurturing from your daughter and you don’t want others to suffer in the same way. You are an admirable human being and exemplify what is best about our country and about any member of a civilized society.
I bet you’re a great nurse.
Thank you so much Gina. I can’t imagine being angry or feeling cheated like the republicans want me to be. Apparently they think everyone is as greedy and self serving as they are. Of course their goal is to put down President Biden’s successes. My goal is to contribute to a better future for our children.💖
Karen RN
WOW!
Karen you are the selfless giving love that the United States Of America is founded upon. You are the quiet celebration of the American Patriot satisfied with all the hardship it has been required to achieve your ability to contribute making America a better place to live, to enjoy freedom and peace!
You are the dream obtained by exerting yourself beyond exhaustion beyond what you could ever imagined without quitting!
You are the true American hero recognized through outpouring of gratefulness by all those whom you daily inspire by your freely given lovingkindness for their comfort and peace!
Thank GOD for giving us the blessing of your Amazing Grace!
Sweet Precious Angel!
Kudos to you. Please focus now on self - stewardship for you and your daughter. Focus on both your health and well-being. Consider checking out the work of Riane Eisler and Dr.Gabor Maté . Also Master Mingtong Gu , founder of the Chi center and all who work in the field of healing intergenerational trauma. You are an inspiration.
Absolutely love Dr. Gabor Mate. Stumbling across a lecture on C-Span years ago, I was able to see my family trauma in a different light. Absolutely warped my brain, in a very positive way.
Yep
Thank you Frances. I will check them out❤️
Thanks, I will be interested to read what you think. No rush. I am trying to learn all I can about healing individual, intergenerational, collective and planetary trauma. I have no delusions about my own very limited capacity to integrate all kinds of information and co- creating an ecological civilization. At almost 66, I am sorting through all that I have been taught, learning and unlearning with the goal of participating in respectful exchange of ideas. Currently I appreciate my Irish Catholic upbringing for focusing me on the Common Good . I am very impressed by the work of Kristin Monroe , who reports that only 3% of us are capable of true altruism. I view people who really care for those with complex needs as likely in this group. I am certain now that I am in the 97%. By this I mean that when I accept my many personal flaws and limitations rather than aiming for sainthood, I do better. For example I see many benefits to living a vegan life-style. However the effort I would need to make these changes would take from other commitments. So I try to choose and support plant based eating but I am a flexitarian. I am attempting to find common ground , common cause and decency and to discern between imperfection and true anti-social behaviours . Not sure if this makes any sense to you. People like Dr.Gabor Maté are a lot mire articulate. I am very concerned about how to transition away from fossil fuels and exploitation of nature in wise ways that cause the least harm to the most vulnerable everywhere. Thanks for your interest. My website is called BeCompassionateNLca. I love how Heather integrates so many complex ideas and shares the essence with her writing. I am not aware of any equivalent Canadian writer. I admire the writing of my Zoom course friend named Gracious Unfurling. She also writes very clearly on the wonder of nature and our Responsability to protect non human lfe.
You are an inspiration in so many ways. I am sorry you had to spend so much time away from your daughter just to pay off debt due to loans to finance your education. I too worked to pay for my masters degree as a single parent, but l did not have a special needs child nor were the costs off education so prohibitive. As a nation we need to make education more affordable and reward those who strive to improve their lives. Education benefits the nation. And, loving parents are it’s backbone.
Thank you Jane. You are an inspiration too. I love your last two sentences 💖