There is a profound disconnect between the reality of what is happening in America right now and what we are hearing from the White House. Tonight, Hurricane Laura is barreling toward the coasts of Louisiana and Texas. The storm is on the verge of becoming a Category 5 hurricane, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall in the continental U.S. Its winds have reached 150 miles per hour and the National Hurricane Center has warned of an “unsurvivable” storm surge of up to 20 feet, as well as anywhere from 5-10 inches of rain. Forecasters warn that half of Lake Charles, Louisiana, home to almost 80,000 people, might be submerged. More than half a million people have been ordered to evacuate the region, but this will be a tall order for the 23.3% of the population there that lives in poverty.
Trump has learned the lessons of Putin's philosophical mentor, Ivan Illyin, a little late it seems. Putin's guru essentially wrote, as explained by Timothy Snyder in the Road to Unfreedom, that the bully can sufficiently intimidate the majority by use of lies, corruption and violence in the name of a resentfull minority that he will be able to fabricate his own illusiory world and force the world to accept and thereby maintain his ascendance and his clan's controll of all of the wealth. However, when the bully is faced with the courage of the people who refuse to accept the "alternate" facts and fight for their COLLECTIVE freedom even in the face of violence, then his balloon bursts.
The strength of a democracy is the representation by the vote and thus the capacity of the system to regularly renew itself in the name of the majority.Trump's only hope of survival is to prevent that majority coming together, getting to the polls and expressing its incontrovertable desire to be obeyed.
those children and others who die each year from gun violence
those people of color who are systematically denied justice
those people who are hungry
those people who are without shelter
those people who struggle for a myriad of reasons because of how they look, act or love differently from some politician, preacher or privileged silver-spoon-fed moron who has never in their life known want or fear
Enough already – it is time we stop allowing people to pass the buck to God and well past time that we demanded accountability, be that in the streets or in the voting booth – ideally, both.
I've said this repeatedly, only to have it fall on deaf ears.
It it high time to make military service in Iraq or Afghanistan a DISQUALIFYING condition for employment as a police officer. I say this because it is apparent that those who have served there are fonts of untreated PTSD, and view policing as a military action, occupying certain communities and targeted at certain melanin-rich citizens of this land.
PTSD is so insidious, and can remain dormant for decades. My own father of blessed memory was 89 when his PTSD break occurred, due to his service during the Battle of the Bulge. Thankfully, the psychiatrist he saw at the local VA Hospital was able to treat him, and provide the solace he had so long lacked.
These kids who have served in conflicts abroad are not being monitored for PTSD. Who knows what this cohort is going to experience in the years to come? What is thoroughly apparent is that policing is not an appropriate profession for any of this cohort, period.
Whatever else is going on, it seems abundantly clear from the difference between cordial police treatment of aggressive armed white men facing them brandishing their weapons even when violating curfews or similar restrictions, and the deadly police treatment of black men who maybe possibly might have a weapon, that there is a fundamental systemic difference in prejudgment based on perceived race that controls the outcome far too often. It is so deep, that I understand people who say the only solution is to start over, with a new model of community safety that includes some of what we now call policing but has very different premises.
Professor Richardson, I had just read some NYT reports about Hurricane Laura and the expected damages. That we have a President who is ignoring (so far) what is happening, who has not yet given the affected communities his assurance of help, who ignored the people and homes who were hurt the the derecho in Iowa, who thinks if we just raked the forests in California they’d be okay is almost too much to bear. We the people must not depend on our federal government while he is in office, he does not care. “There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.” And they are running the government. We must do everything, everything we can to decisively vote them out.
Thanks for mentioning the derecho (inland hurricane) which caused huge damage in Iowa on August 10. When trump ‘visited’ Cedar Rapids, where I live, he did not bother to leave the airport.
Wade Davis piece in Rolling Stone takes a long, hard look at what Covid-19 has laid bare in America. Within that context, he address America's (or the Republican's) cult of the individual. "The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness."
This has so much relevance for what we have been covering in our chats, what you have been covering in your letters, Heather, and what is addressed in your books.
What will the 1% do with no one left to support them? Maybe they'll start blaming each other for whatever comes next and implode. My ballot will be here on October 5th. Voting on the 6th, straight to the county election office with my mask and sani-wipes and ballot tracking, just to be sure. Hoping to live that long. Gloomy news, but thanks for the wrap up. Stay safe out there.
“Creating their own reality might have worked for Bush’s people in 2004, but sixteen years later, with the country in conflagrations both natural and manmade, it seems that approach is no longer viable.“ I beg to differ. Trump has been creating his own reality for decades. All he needed to do to win the electoral college was find enough...um...susceptible voters. Of which there are far too many. In this 2020 campaign it’s Trump versus reality. And I’m not sure which one will win. I have lost all faith in Trump’s base, they are unreachable. I just pray there aren’t enough of them for him to do it again.
Thanks as always for your insight and ability to organize the mayhem in our world into digestable bites. However I am troubled by your use of the word militia to describe the armed group trying to "save" America. Militia as a word has a positive connotation in our world as there were militias from states fighting the British during the Revolutionary War.. to my mind these are thugs, terrorists with AR-15s and should be described as such.
Chickens coming home to roost, as (I think) Huey P. Newton would say. Good for the sports teams - if professional sports leagues are shut down, maybe someone will pay attention. No bread, no circuses...
I've decided that what drives me most crazy is the sheer ignorance of the American populace. (Present company very much excluded :-)) It's not just my local, although a great number of the locals have the IQ of sheetrock. No, it is supposedly educated people who have fallen into the Cult of Trump, having been softened up and groomed by Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. over the past 20 years.
No amount of fact-based, double-blind tested, in-your-face concrete evince can ever break through the mush their grey matter has apparently turned into.
Professor Richardson, as always thank you for this synopsis of a troubled nation. I am baffled by what has become the norm coming from the White House. I can't help wonder, does this Administration believe that the people are that gullible or ignorant that they won't fact check their bluster?
I guess I don't understand why the band of thugs in the WH are getting away with this picture of our country that only plays for a very few. Where are the democrat voices screaming about the Hatch Act violations, and why aren't they screaming over and over? Where are those voices pointing to vigilante activity at many levels. Where is the help desperately needed in LA, CA, IA? Where is the uproar about the false advice about testing for the virus? I wish the press would focus on real issues, and not the shit show that is the RNC. The show is a "reality" show, but if the press would spend more time on the real world, we might finally hear those voices.
Thanks for the cogent Reuter’s article on Biden and police funding, I was just able to explain to my sister why what’s she’s “heard” about his position is wrong. She will vote for him, but is in an industry with many Trump adherents - the “I don’t like what he does personally but he’s good for the economy” folks. I am terrified at how many people may be operating this way.
Trump has learned the lessons of Putin's philosophical mentor, Ivan Illyin, a little late it seems. Putin's guru essentially wrote, as explained by Timothy Snyder in the Road to Unfreedom, that the bully can sufficiently intimidate the majority by use of lies, corruption and violence in the name of a resentfull minority that he will be able to fabricate his own illusiory world and force the world to accept and thereby maintain his ascendance and his clan's controll of all of the wealth. However, when the bully is faced with the courage of the people who refuse to accept the "alternate" facts and fight for their COLLECTIVE freedom even in the face of violence, then his balloon bursts.
The strength of a democracy is the representation by the vote and thus the capacity of the system to regularly renew itself in the name of the majority.Trump's only hope of survival is to prevent that majority coming together, getting to the polls and expressing its incontrovertable desire to be obeyed.
“May God bless and protect …”
those people in the path of the hurricane
those children and others who die each year from gun violence
those people of color who are systematically denied justice
those people who are hungry
those people who are without shelter
those people who struggle for a myriad of reasons because of how they look, act or love differently from some politician, preacher or privileged silver-spoon-fed moron who has never in their life known want or fear
Enough already – it is time we stop allowing people to pass the buck to God and well past time that we demanded accountability, be that in the streets or in the voting booth – ideally, both.
I've said this repeatedly, only to have it fall on deaf ears.
It it high time to make military service in Iraq or Afghanistan a DISQUALIFYING condition for employment as a police officer. I say this because it is apparent that those who have served there are fonts of untreated PTSD, and view policing as a military action, occupying certain communities and targeted at certain melanin-rich citizens of this land.
PTSD is so insidious, and can remain dormant for decades. My own father of blessed memory was 89 when his PTSD break occurred, due to his service during the Battle of the Bulge. Thankfully, the psychiatrist he saw at the local VA Hospital was able to treat him, and provide the solace he had so long lacked.
These kids who have served in conflicts abroad are not being monitored for PTSD. Who knows what this cohort is going to experience in the years to come? What is thoroughly apparent is that policing is not an appropriate profession for any of this cohort, period.
Whatever else is going on, it seems abundantly clear from the difference between cordial police treatment of aggressive armed white men facing them brandishing their weapons even when violating curfews or similar restrictions, and the deadly police treatment of black men who maybe possibly might have a weapon, that there is a fundamental systemic difference in prejudgment based on perceived race that controls the outcome far too often. It is so deep, that I understand people who say the only solution is to start over, with a new model of community safety that includes some of what we now call policing but has very different premises.
Professor Richardson, I had just read some NYT reports about Hurricane Laura and the expected damages. That we have a President who is ignoring (so far) what is happening, who has not yet given the affected communities his assurance of help, who ignored the people and homes who were hurt the the derecho in Iowa, who thinks if we just raked the forests in California they’d be okay is almost too much to bear. We the people must not depend on our federal government while he is in office, he does not care. “There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.” And they are running the government. We must do everything, everything we can to decisively vote them out.
Thanks for mentioning the derecho (inland hurricane) which caused huge damage in Iowa on August 10. When trump ‘visited’ Cedar Rapids, where I live, he did not bother to leave the airport.
Wade Davis piece in Rolling Stone takes a long, hard look at what Covid-19 has laid bare in America. Within that context, he address America's (or the Republican's) cult of the individual. "The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness."
This has so much relevance for what we have been covering in our chats, what you have been covering in your letters, Heather, and what is addressed in your books.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/
What will the 1% do with no one left to support them? Maybe they'll start blaming each other for whatever comes next and implode. My ballot will be here on October 5th. Voting on the 6th, straight to the county election office with my mask and sani-wipes and ballot tracking, just to be sure. Hoping to live that long. Gloomy news, but thanks for the wrap up. Stay safe out there.
“Creating their own reality might have worked for Bush’s people in 2004, but sixteen years later, with the country in conflagrations both natural and manmade, it seems that approach is no longer viable.“ I beg to differ. Trump has been creating his own reality for decades. All he needed to do to win the electoral college was find enough...um...susceptible voters. Of which there are far too many. In this 2020 campaign it’s Trump versus reality. And I’m not sure which one will win. I have lost all faith in Trump’s base, they are unreachable. I just pray there aren’t enough of them for him to do it again.
Thanks as always for your insight and ability to organize the mayhem in our world into digestable bites. However I am troubled by your use of the word militia to describe the armed group trying to "save" America. Militia as a word has a positive connotation in our world as there were militias from states fighting the British during the Revolutionary War.. to my mind these are thugs, terrorists with AR-15s and should be described as such.
Chickens coming home to roost, as (I think) Huey P. Newton would say. Good for the sports teams - if professional sports leagues are shut down, maybe someone will pay attention. No bread, no circuses...
Thanks Heather. Too bad the Trump organization doesn't own a golf course in the path of Hurricane Laura because that would create a response, eh?
That sound you hear is my head exploding.
I've decided that what drives me most crazy is the sheer ignorance of the American populace. (Present company very much excluded :-)) It's not just my local, although a great number of the locals have the IQ of sheetrock. No, it is supposedly educated people who have fallen into the Cult of Trump, having been softened up and groomed by Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. over the past 20 years.
No amount of fact-based, double-blind tested, in-your-face concrete evince can ever break through the mush their grey matter has apparently turned into.
How does one counter that?
Professor Richardson, as always thank you for this synopsis of a troubled nation. I am baffled by what has become the norm coming from the White House. I can't help wonder, does this Administration believe that the people are that gullible or ignorant that they won't fact check their bluster?
I guess I don't understand why the band of thugs in the WH are getting away with this picture of our country that only plays for a very few. Where are the democrat voices screaming about the Hatch Act violations, and why aren't they screaming over and over? Where are those voices pointing to vigilante activity at many levels. Where is the help desperately needed in LA, CA, IA? Where is the uproar about the false advice about testing for the virus? I wish the press would focus on real issues, and not the shit show that is the RNC. The show is a "reality" show, but if the press would spend more time on the real world, we might finally hear those voices.
Thanks for the cogent Reuter’s article on Biden and police funding, I was just able to explain to my sister why what’s she’s “heard” about his position is wrong. She will vote for him, but is in an industry with many Trump adherents - the “I don’t like what he does personally but he’s good for the economy” folks. I am terrified at how many people may be operating this way.