For an astonishing six hours today, South Korea underwent an attempted self-coup by its unpopular president, Yoon Suk Yeol, only to see the South Korean people force him to back down as they reasserted the strength of their democracy.
It will happen in the U.S., Anthony, and soon if the orange felon does his tariffs thing.
The working-class souls who bought into his shtick -- never mind the actual good programs Dems had put in place -- all belly-ached about the price of eggs. Watch them after the convicted criminal's tariffs kick off new and historic bounds of inflation.
The sex perverts, incompetents, and goons-for-Russia among his cabinet appointments don't matter to the tens of millions who thrill to sex perversion and "bing-bing-boing-bong," but inflation?
But it's not "All because of racism and misogyny."
America's working classes and their communities got devastated by the tens of millions when finance, corporate, and other elites over four decades offshored all those jobs.
But the devastation included the gnawing sense that Dems, pundits, mainstream media, and all the professor classes totally had no sense at all of the pain abroad the land. No school read any books -- and there were many good novels, memoirs, and histories on this -- about the abandonment of the working classes.
Schools instead standardized tested kids to death -- as if all American kids wanted to go to college, to which all the tests were geared, as if everyone in school just attended school for the neutered, dehumanized language Diane Ravitch attributes to all the packaged corporate textbooks and all the standardized tests ("The Language Police," 2003).
The tens of millions were bereft, enraged but with no clear targets for their rage. When the orange felon came along, with all his hatred of brown and black people, his record of serially abusing women, those prejudices just provided the convenient targets of immigrants and somewhat-empowered women, or women with attitudes.
But the greater rage simmered for all bureaucrats, all college-educated but totally unaware of what had happened across the land.
I have worked in education for 29 years Phil. Let's not beat up on the education system, ok? It is too small a portion of the overall problem to single out over and over and over again as I see here in these comments. I have seen thousands of good students taught critical thinking, ambitious well- educated teachers and invested parents. I have worked at the University level and K-12.
How about we look at the adults glued to their phones who have memorized the NFL rankings but can't be bothered to learn some issues of the election. How about we look at the century's old legacy of hatred in this Country that has been brought to the surface and ignited all over again?
How about we look at the adults who can't be bothered to get invested in education and expect educators do all the work? How about we look at the starvation budgets imposed on the public system for years the treatment of teachers like low paid servants?
In summary. American is an undereducated society which has devalued education for centuries and is now suffering the results.
The American voter has become a sheep primed for a cult monster to come along.
Excellent points, Barbara. And how about we remember how it was the Republicans, not the Democrats, that ruined public education, as they quietly populated school boards over decades, dumbing down the American populace and instituting the unfunded No Child Left Behind mandate in the 2000s?
I grow weary of the claims that Democrats have abandoned the middle class. In the last election we had a Democrat child of immigrants who worked her way to becoming a state Attorney General and Senator running against a wealthy Republican con man who never did an honest day’s work in his entire life.
I am exhausted from the lie that Democrats are not for the middle class. They have been the party of the middle class. People refuse to listen. People refuse to examine Biden's record for the middle class. People ignored one of the most solid platforms for the middle class in the history of this Country debuted by Harris in her campaign.
Not to mention that the vouchers system, allowing parents to put their children in charter schools at taxpayer expense, drained resources from public schools.
‘No child left behind’ the faux centerpiece of the ‘childish’ potus little bush! He bragged about the Houston district student performance rates and appointed that district superintendent to be Sec of Education! Later it was revealed that someone ‘cooked the books’ regarding the heralded data!!
Yes, totally agree, and lets not forget how Reagan started gutting financial support for public education, costing thousands of teachers their jobs, including my own. In addition to No Child Left Behind that Bush pushed through, support for Pell Grants was also cut, as was support for public universities. All despicable Republican policies, undermining public education now for over 40 years!! Its no wonder that sadly a lot of those in our country are undereducated.
Barbara, you are not alone. Spending during the Thanksgiving holiday broke all records. It was not the price of eggs that shifted the electorate right, but the price of democracy.
Well said, Barbara Mullen. If we survive as a democracy, we must decouple public education funding from property taxes. It is that single thing that has led to the educational inequality in this country. We are reaping the fetid harvest of that system now with the millions of uninformed voters who allow their heads to be filled with nonsense by Fox News and the Republican propaganda machine. That's easier than thinking for yourself.
I hadn't thought about the property taxes funding education angle. People resent the heck out of it too. People have been taught to look down on someone with an education. Thus the term "elite."
This synapse is great, a continuation of mindful exposures needed. The focus has been, is, about what 2-5% of the population amounts to, surrounds itself with mirrors then blames the mirrors..little self examination -what part was played by whom.
Statistics like the average person can’t read above a 7th grade level? Yea, the world capitulated technology so fast and consumerism swallowed the need for cheap mores, pushing a me me generation to charge charge charge ..it exploded by self propelled dreams leaving behind real goals.
Our history shows racism from the get-go, our professed escape from religious persecution, manifested in spades -the natives deity Mother Earth , the pollution of greed, and the richest’s abuse of the ‘underlings’.
The American Dream? A pristine new land was consumed .
What’s needed, is re-evaluation. Prioritize the goals we really want/set up our constitution to uphold, what damage is done ,get back to the mess created, and leveling the ‘playing field’.
Barbara, that's a superb defense of our educational system (my daughter is a teacher, albeit elementary, as were my sister, sister-in-law, Special Needs Aide late mother, among others in K-12; my brother teaches college-level math and computer science); and analysis of how Americans value (or devalue) it. I especially love the comparison to sports knowledge -- that's a very astute observation. I think the average male knows more sports stats and player personnel and has much less an awareness of (or interest in) history or economics.
Teachers are notoriously underpaid, especially when compared to other municipal employees such as police who are typically given a higher starting salary (with
only a 2-year Criminal Justice degree) than a teacher who typically has a Bachelors and a Master's, as well as the associates student debt. Further, police officers can retire young on a nice pension and continue to work after retirement. Surely we value police (and other first responders) for the dangers they face daily, and their compensation should reflect that. But K-12 teachers should also be well-compensated for their important role of educating citizens, and let's not forget they also face danger daily.
Thank you, Barbara and I love your post. I have long felt the same way and although I am retired, I am truly tired of seeing education used as a scapegoat. I was in a high school where most teachers cared about the students even taking them in on occasion. In my own classes, I emphasized critical thinking, research, and analysis of sources. Every year until the state took over most funding, we had to beg the local community to pass the budget. And the problems continue. Just yesterday a three week strike ended in the town south of us with both teachers and kids happy to be back. The super there is one of my ex-colleagues who has forgotten where he came from. They had a fine superintendent, who was too woke, and got removed by the board. She is now the head of the Teacher Standard and Practices Commission. We have had several districts where there have been problems caused by regressive right boards. One thing I notice is that these people are all arrogant. This is why people must pay attention to all elections including school board elections.
Thank you for sharing your direct experience. Those darn School Boards! Too many egos from non-educators mucking up the works. The last people who have a voice in education is this Country are the teachers.
We have ignored the critical power School Boards have in this Country for too long.
Barbara, you've occasionally made statements I disagreed with (not important), but with your posts in this thread I agree completely.
Americans, in general, are poorly educated, but it is not the fault of public education. The blame lies squarely on Republicans and evangelicals – often the same folks – who have worked all levels for government for at least two generations to cripple public education by hamstringing teachers and redirecting public funding toward parochial and for-profit schools.
Why? Because an educated public becomes an informed public. And an informed public doesn't vote against its own interests for the sake of one issue.
Kamala Harris offered a comprehensive plan, explained in very understandable terms, exactly what the middle-class American public has been begging for. People who claim she didn't are made deaf by their racism and/or misogyny.
She reminded voters of the Biden administration's successes – of which she was a part – while simultaneously stating that she is her own woman and would build her own record of success on a foundation of success, for ordinary Americans, not the tycoons. People who didn't hear that didn't want to. Fingers in their ears, singing "La la la la la."
Your comment about adults glued to their phones reminds me of a field trip me and my second graders took to a water resource education center. The parent volunteers, (whose main job was to watch a small group of students) were literally scrolling on their cell phones during the free exploration part of the trip! The time where I really needed them to be watching their groups!
I see workers everywhere on their phones. We now have text driving instead of drunk driving. It is now common to sit at green lights because the front car is on their phone. There have been times even honking hasn't worked and we end up in a red light again.
I hate to sound like a zealot here but cell phones played a significant role in this election. We all know the massive net right wing media has thrown over information systems today.
Barbara, you write that [America] "is an undereducated society which has devalued education for centuries." I beg to differ. I think the current prejudice against educated people has happened over roughly the last 50 years, since Nixon, Agnew and George Wallace. I am old enough to recall when American public education was considered one our prize jewels, envied (and emulated) throughout the world. We are letting it be destroyed at our peril.
Also need to add that since the Citizens United decision by the Robert's Kangaroo Court, ALL elections are openly for sale to anyone with money to throw around. The lack of anything close to a fairness doctrine was deeply damaging in the last election with endless ads financed by dark money (often likely including illegal off-shore funding) spewed lies, distortions, and fed the masses a distorted and very dark picture of the country. Since the masses can't be bothered to get informed, they fall victim to these ads (and even if they tried, their local news is likely owned by Sinclair, Clear Channel, or Fox Noise, making it yet another propaganda spigot).
Barbara, I just watched a segment of the West Wing (starting at season 6, episode 10) where Jimmy Smits, AKA Matt Santos is running for president and right away, he wants to talk about public education and Josh, the savvy political operative is trying to reel his ambition for improving American education. Written by talented lefty screenwriters, so if you have watched and remembered how he felt about the state of education in America, you might see a reason to beat up on public education. If you ever had the chance to read John Taylor Gatto's books, one of them entitled Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling struck a cord with me. Have you ever gotten the chance to watch George Carlin's rant on American education? A hint: "Obedient Workers!". I think you may be taking Phil's comments too personally.
And what was the cause of all that offshoring? Couldn’t possibly be overreaching unions who made the cost of manufacturing here so expensive that business executives did their bog standard capitalist thing and sought the lowest wage places they could. Capitalism, for all its vast benefits is also a predatory system that periodically eats its own in search of profit margins. It was capitalists, after all, who in the initial phases of industrialism brought about the reactions that led to communism and socialism.
And the education issue? Nothing to do with the conservatives who, following Brown v Board and Engel v Vitale sought to eviscerate the public school system which had once been the envy of the world. We’ve forgotten what education is supposed to be in a democracy - a training ground for the most advanced kind of citizenship there is; not just basic 3 R training and job preparation or a way to turn out children who think just the way their parents do.
The real problem here is the complexity of the modern, completely interconnected and interdependent, highly technical social, political, and economic world. We are a very long way from being primarily an agricultural society in thirteen little colonies huddled along the Atlantic shore - separated from Europe and Asia by vast oceans. That was the world in which our Republic was created, and it bears little resemblance to the place in which we find ourselves today. What have we done to educate our citizens for this world?
American are and always have been notoriously short-sighted. We have been so delighted with American ‘exceptionalism' that we’ve lost sight of just what that exceptionalism consists of - an open promise, not something already etched in stone. When we ratified the Constitution we took our destiny into our own hands. Freedom and individual rights are an awesome responsibility, and we’ve often fallen far short of recognizing that.
So now we’re stuck with a man who has no concept of responsibility for anything except his own advancement, no matter at whose expense. And we’ve done it to ourselves. There’s no 'outside force' to blame here. As the cartoon character Pogo once put it so well, “We have met the enemy, and they is us”.
Exactly. It’s the greed of the ruling class seeking to amass as much wealth as possible while starving their own workers that led to offshoring American jobs. Unions would not allow their members to put up with the low wages and abysmal working conditions suffered by foreign workers. But somehow we’re okay with exploiting workers in other countries.
Here’s a crazy, radical idea: how about CEOs make a few less dollars in order to pay fair wages? How about we stop thinking of wealth as the ultimate achievement of one’s life?
During the golden period of the automobile industry the manufacturer’s negotiators gave the unions what was asked knowing that the cost would be passed onto the buyer!
W. Edwards Demming’s ‘Top Quality Management’ system was rejected by the management of GM only to find a wise audience in the Honda car company! They implemented his system to manufacture the Honda Civic which had instant appeal to car buyers in America! Management not unions seeded the decline in the auto industry!
I’m curious. What reasons could there be that do not involve looking for the lowest overhead costs in order to remain competitive in a world market? If businessmen can’t find them here, then what?
First. I am always, always of America bashing. It is a weak tool for change.
Second. "American are and always have been notoriously short-sighted. "
I am overcome with the critical advances occurring in this century alone that have indeed proven America's propensity for advancement. Shortsighted? Only to those who have blinders on. Covid response from Biden? Strengthening NATO shortsighted? The Alliance of Japan, Australia, United States and India? Please take a moment to look at the State Department work and the Department of Transportation work, the CHIPS Act and the institution of internet infrastructures in communities that had none. I could write pages.
Contempt prior to investigation is a common malady.
I was not referring to what Biden and his administration may have accomplished. Indeed, I am almost as impressed by his presidency as anyone else (until his disastrous decision to run for a second term). My criticism is for the American voter; that group who once enabled slavery, excluded women from the franchise, made the Jim Crow era possible, helped dig us into three wars in which we never should have been involved, and a good half of whom ignored the very Biden accomplishments you tout in favor of a man so manifestly unfit for the Presidency as to defy the imagination, all for the price of a dozen eggs and some skeleton Haitians seeking ‘pet food’.
Like yourself, I’ve been in education all my life (40 plus years). Indeed, I’m the third generation of my family to do so. We got started in 1894 and so have been at it for half as long as we’ve been a country. But it has always been in the independent sphere, both ElHi and collegiate. And so we’ve never really had to deal with the State, an organization which should have nothing to do with education since as citizens we should be as willing to challenge it as well as any other institution as needed.
Not short-sighted? Just for starters, how about a country founded on the principles of freedom and individual rights that retained slavery. What price have we paid for that?
Almost perfect--but, not quite. The above statement by Aslo White deserves repeating: "It’s the greed of the ruling class seeking to amass as much wealth as possible while starving their own workers that led to offshoring American jobs. Unions would not allow their members to put up with the low wages and abysmal working conditions suffered by foreign workers. But somehow we’re okay with exploiting workers in other countries.
Here’s a crazy, radical idea: how about CEOs make a few less dollars in order to pay fair wages? How about we stop thinking of wealth as the ultimate achievement of one’s life?" A big "AMEN!"
"The real problem here is the complexity of the modern, completely interconnected and interdependent, highly technical social, political, and economic world."
This is a first world problem for some people. The rest of the planet begs to differ.
James. that is one superb comment. Thank you. An ignorant electorate is the enemy of democracy. One might think that any alternative to the likes of a man with his history, temperament, ignorance, virturelessness wouldn't stand a chance to be nominated let alone win th WH./
Exactly right, Phil, and so well put, sadly. I was a Michigan lobbyist for heath, education and social services and was in a meeting at the capitol where Governor Granholm announced our Michigan auto jobs were being automated or going overseas, but no worry, all those workers would be going to college to learn how to do computer work. And she also endorsed what I called "No Child Left Untested." In one fell swoop she denigrated, and lowered the standard of living for, our hard working class, and they never forgot that it was Democrats who did it.
That stuff started before Granholm was born. Tax code of 1952. Eisenhower recession. 1959. In 1973, Nixon let the dollar float, foreign cars flooded the market. Reagan - rise of Maqiadora Mexico.
When non-educators get out of the way, when extremists take their hands off the books and when people get serious about funding schools and public libraries change will happen.
Americans need to stop treating schools like daycare.
We might be forgetting another part of the problem: kids no longer go out to play; they are attached to their phones and social media which includes much disinformation. I dont see how education can be returned to the post 1950s when our kids are no longer those kids.
i support public education, and my entire family is public educated. I am concerned that the system is failing to evolve with the times. even the cost of In State public university education has risen beyond affordability for many middle class folks. trade specific tracks which could start in high school are rare. many working class families don't see how a system designed to prepare for college is working for them. i am not am not an educator but there seems to be a miss here.
I hear what you are saying, and I do feel for those workers. But it wasn't Granholm who offshored those jobs, and those players didn't lift a finger to help retrain them for a new economy. Her efforts to get them new skills should have been applauded. If the delivery was glib, or insensitive, that is a problem. But she was doing the right thing. If memory serves, several other states were doing the same. I am not sure what the workers wanted them to do. And how they never seem to hold the Republicans accountable is just astounding.
As a former public school teacher, I want to let you know that testing and curriculum are mandated by elected local school boards and state legislators and state boards of education, which in NC are appointed. The Republicans in NC have held a majority for years and have made war on public education at all levels. Educators have been set up for failure by defunding public education and shuffling money to private schools through “choice” vouchers.
Really sad, really frightening. The more I hear about what’s happening in some states across the country, the more I am grateful to be living in Illinois.
BitsyBelle -- and I too grateful to be in Nova Scotia, Canada! I'm a native to western Pennsylvania but my *last* residence (of many) was Colorado, Boulder County (a fairly blue county most of the time) so that's where I vote absentee.
And don’t forget his (faux) victimhood resonated strongly with those whose lives had been affected by loss of jobs, e.g., coal mining, and presence of opioids and other social ills.
even though Biden was able even in a hostile environment to get new manufacturing started in many of these forgotten states. Almost no one knew though and that is a failing of media.... and democrats.
Americans have been living in a vile stew of lies and bigotry ever since Reagan ended the Fairness Doctrine and ram-rodded citizenship for Rupert Murdoch through Congress, allowing him to own an American media conglomerate. Teaching-to-the-test is bad but let's not ignore the real causes here.
Standardized tests are not to help kids get into college. Schools and states use them to make sure the kids are learning what they’re supposed to learn based on the curriculum chosen. If necessary, the curriculum and the teaching methods are adjusted. Whether you go to college or not, you want children to know the basic skills of reading, math, knowledge of science and history and literature. That’s basic education to be able to function in society. It’s especially important now when kids missed at least one year of in class learning.
Standardized testing is an essential feature of a democracy, rich or poor, north or south, Texas or California, Mississippi or Maine,i all children need to get a proper education. How else are we to know if these goals are achieved?
Exactly. What would anyone think if students were not tested, and we had no idea if the curriculums and the methods were working or if teachers were actually doing their jobs. And I say this as a former middle school teacher for 21 years.
Phil, may I address you informally? While your post rehashes what has been posited by others, it does not address the loss of nearly NINE MILLION votes for the Democratic Candidate in 2024 compared to the more than 81 million votes Biden received in 2020! HCR received more than 3 million compared to the 2024 turn out!
Barbara clearly stated what the talking heads tried to ignore, racism and misogyny ruled the day!
Phil, it was the Republicans that championed standardized testing. Google "No Child Left Behind". That was done by George W. Bush. In fact, it is the Right that has visited so much destruction on the working class, while the policies of the Left have done nothing so much as try to repair the damage. It's outrageous and wrong to say that the Left/Democrats have abandonded the working class. It is the working class that has abandonded the Democrats -- largely because of racism and misogyny.
After the 2016 election, pollsters, political scientists, and sociologists researched the electorate and found that about 20% of Trump's support was attributable to economic anxiety, while the other 80% was attributable to "social anxiety," i.e., racism and sexism. I see no indication that those percentages have changed much in the intervening eight years, but I guess we'll find out in a year or so when all the research for this election has been completed.
Phil, you write: "America's working classes and their communities got devastated by the tens of millions when finance, corporate, and other elites over four decades offshored all those jobs."
It's true, starting at least with Reagan the oligarchs, using mass media (TV, radio, newspapers) have used wedge issues to sucker average white working class Americans into voting Republican, i.e., voting against their own best social and economic interests. [Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" 2004]
Phil, while I agree with you up to a point, but I also agree with Barbara Mullen in her post on education. I would also suggest that plenty of bureaucrats know exactly what has happened and a good many of them, at least here in Oregon, live in small towns. Bureaucrats did not move their jobs overseas; greedy corporations did and lots of vulture capitalists bought up local companies to plunder them. It wasn't bureaucrats that keep grocery prices high, but the corporations who run them. I just read an article about the depth of hatred for women in this country and part of the anger is that men think they are no longer top dogs just by being men. Racism is also deep in our history. I also read an article yesterday posted by the Alternative Park Service which said that Muskrat has posted names, addresses, and family information about some of the employees of the Park Service. Patel has a long list of names of people he intend to go after should he become FBI director. And all the teachers I know absolutely hate standardized tests, which only help the company that publishes them.
tRuMp’s bigotry, racism, misogyny resonate deeply with those who voted for him. His foul, hateful blatherings make sense to them - HE is saying all the idiotic things they believe and wished they could say out loud — and now they can! They vote for him because of “his policies” and deep thoughts? Puhleeez. The worst of the worst have taken over everything.
"The worst of the worst have taken over everything."
But the 'worst of the worst' are not only those who voted for Trump. It is those who created the conditions to run Trump as president and to overturn the executive, legislative, and judicial institutions of government to keep him in power. Those whose resentments of Federal government run the Republican party - hollowed out and propped up by those who have overturned the Constitution to drain it of social and economic justice. As personified by the Roberts Court, McConnell senate, and Johnson House. The Federalist Society, Heritage Society, Teneo Network and a myriad of grass root and astro turf antidemocratic entities funded by Charles Koch et al (through bagman Leonard Leo.) A media dominated by bedfellows and fellow travelers from Father Coughlin through William Buckley, George Will, to Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones - from Murdoch to Musk. (And a left wing divided by such as Ralph Nader and Jill Stein.)
lin• it is indeed a multi-headed monster. It is both those who buy into the hatred of other and anger that we have the same rights and those who are already obscenely wealthy and want to further enrich themselves and completely and resent anything standing in their way.
Which is worse Barbara? Apathy or Ignorance? 1/3 of the registered voters couldn't be bothered to vote. Only 1/3 of the voters elected Trump and yet he has the power to become the next Fascist ruler.
Remember the chant, "the whole world is watching?" Well, they are and most of them are terrified.
Gary I would imagine apathy stems from ignorance of the reality of the situation. I am going to poke the bear here because the Democrats have been cowed into silence on this issue.
1. How much did voter suppression tactics affect turnout?
2. Why aren't recounts being done where there are razor thin margins?
3. How could everyone be so wrong? All the swing States? Such a sweeping win with the thinnest margins keeps me up at night. People are afraid to call this out and people like Lichtman are scratching their heads.
I read murmurings of people feeling something smells off. But heaven forbid we should do anything like recounts. We are being bullied into silence.
Or. Even worse the older politicians in the Democratic Party are such rabid institutionalists they just can't wrap their heads around the fact of the election was stolen. Gore all over again.
Barbara, I agree with everything you say, but I truly believe that things are happening behind the scenes. These things that keep us up at night are being investigated. Spoonamore continues to do so, and his knowledge of what can happen and may have happened is impressive. But as to when it will be made public? I think timing is everything. Sending light and love to the good forces at work everyday, rather than going into despair. I may be a hopeless idealist, but for me, I have to take this stand at this time.
Thank you, Carol. I needed to be reminded of the web of light workers on the planet. I invite you to look at my substack as I attempt to invoke the positive side. There is no charge.
I can't tell you how much angst and frustration this has caused me. A whopping third of eligible voters couldn't be bothered.....how could they NOT know what was at stake? Trump is everywhere - his craven, self-serving corruption, his brazen statements about revenge and retribution, the list goes on. Harris and her team were shouting it from the rooftops. And I am so tired of people not giving Biden credit for all the work his administration did to bring the economy back after Covid and the disastrous first Trump term. It is NOT our responsibility to educate every single voter on every issue. Americans' passive laziness and just accepting the first thing the enters their feeds with no critical thinking is just infuriating. We have to do better as an electorate.
Where I live, in a very red area of Florida, the people around me are brainwashed from only watching Fox (Faux) News. Rupert Murdoch, with the help of Roger Ailes, figured out how to do this to people. It is hard to convince them otherwise, when they think repetition of something means it's true.
The only problem is the Biden Administration had strengthened the unions and had added 800,000 good paying blue-collar jobs.
It is true the corporate of super high prices really tilted things. The media corporate greed led them to showcase him for 9 years. Harris was relatively unknown. What a sad, sad, sad, mess. I haven't slept well since the election.
Amazing, isn't it? I guess it becomes so much a part of a person's identity they don't even notice anymore. Then they hurt themselves. That is what amazes me. People have suffered under this guy, and it looks like it is going to get even worse, and they don't connect the dots.
And know what. The concept of preserving our Democracy would have been an easy thing to sell in the past. We have had our Democracy so long people assume it would always be here, or they don't realize what could happen. Well. It just did.
Did you tune into Heather's Chat yesterday? She discussed Americans' disconnect with real suffering and not understanding what oligarchy would bring, because even those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale have safety nets that Musk and Trump would love to destroy. When Musk makes casual remarks about crashing the economy or that there may be some suffering for a little while, he won't feel it, but a fair portion of the people who voted for Trump will and it will be catastrophic for them.
Via trump. Americans have been given an IQ test, a very unique one . Sadly, wee now see the large number of disengaged, perpetually non-curious, easily manipulated, poorly reasoning people there are among us. Ignorance in voting against your own families needs is observable proof of my point. Lost in a lost world are these souls who've condemned America, and Americans, to this catastrophe!
I've already told my kids they better get bail money ready because if Trump, his Billionaire Buddies, or any of those Republicans, yes Mike Lee (R-Utah) I'm talking to you, try to "reform" Social Security, I'll show him just what reform looks like. 😡
Corporations can much more effectively package all life if their workers have all gone to schools where standardized testing and neutered-language corporate textbooks rule -- not reading any full books or writing essays attentive to individuals and their larger contexts.
And the price of eggs—climate change, exaggerated by corporate greed. When do Republicans get in step with the natural world? Does greed completely dominate them? Recognizing the loss of the middle class from trickle down and the decline of public education (aided by the Kochs and their ilk), it is sad to see the state we’re in. Exceptional indeed!
We can counter their inflation schtick with "what about the minimum wage?"
Sure it only directly affects about 1.5 million people, but in the 20 states with minimum wage stuck at $7.25 an hour it reduces the entire range of wages.
If a family of four makes $15 an hour instead of $7.25 and hour their income would be $60k instead of $29k. Their eligibility and need for SNAP benefits goes away or is greatly reduced. And they have an additional $2500 a month to pay their bills.
The Republican politicians can scream "states rights" all they want, but the fact remains that save Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, it's all red states with the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
If the minimum wage were raised to $15 an hour it would affect 17 million workers in the US.
Gary, Florida is an exception with a minimum wage of $12 that will increase to $15 in 2026 due to an amendment passed in 2020,Of course,the GOP fought against it.
the only problem is that they raise the minimum and then the big grocery chains inflate prices so their bottom line stays artificially high, and the new wages lose value.....and god help the poor ones in states where they did not get a wage raise. Now their wages won't support life. at all.
😹Although regarding sexual perverts I would not underestimate the slow-burn effect upon families of generations of endured sexualized violence in any society. There is growing historical evidence that not just the 18th century French Revolution but the 17th century Irish Rebellion were instigated by men and women who could no longer accept the dire destructive social effects of decades of a Droit de Seigneur status quo 🐈⬛
Monnina, i hope we don't have to wait as long as the French and Irish people waited to not longer accept the status quo of those times. Every minute we are weak, every minute we are absent from the international arena, Russia, China and the other authoritarian regimes would be entrenched there and it would take another Churchill and another Roosevelt to return to the Pax Americana.
Agreed. However in times of existential crisis such as these, I see benefit in studying the experiential wisdom of all our Blessed Ancestors. Being willing to learn, not just from their past successes, but also from their past mistakes. So through hindsight gifting us the ability not to repeat them and gifting them retrospective redemption.
First, “frog in the pot, heat rising gradually.” Nobody will notice. Second, “bread and circus,” the nation will see it all as theater. Last, “the revolution will not be televised”, but BS right wing spin will. Musk and Trump will keep everything for themselves.
The price of eggs was lower when tRump was president? Now, that is the best reason in the world to elect a despicable, virtueless, wannabe dictator. Never mind that the painful inflation was worldwide and much less in the USA.
Sorry, but for many millions the price of eggs matter because it is cheaper than other proteins we are able to purchase. Looking down at them means to make less of their needs. Most often, they are fight to pay rent, heating electrical bills, work around the clock and don’t have the education, foresight or encouragement to see beyond the everyday. It is a dehumanizing process.
It actually has happened already on Manhattan Island of all places. There once was a time when liberals and conservatives alike held the view that making money off of other people's illnesses was immoral. But, thanks to the so-called "Delaware Process" we have allowed the institution by which we organize American business to become thoroughly corrupt. So a healthcare CEO gets shot. Surprise, surprise. New York of 2024 becomes a tad like Paris of 1787.
"... the crappy group of Senators and Congresscritters that will be in place in a few weeks."
While I'm glad you eventually qualified that by specifying Republicans, I still suggest lumping Democratic elected officials with Republican elected officials is unsupported by the evidence. For instance falsely equating the Progressive Caucus with the Freedom Caucus. Falsely equating Jim Clyburn with Jim Jordan. Benny Johnson with Mike or Ron Johnson. Eliding the fact that hundreds of Democrats go to work in Congress everyday to push back and to make progress.
the problem is freedom is always bought with blood. who stands first almost always pays with their life. to throw it aways is the height of stupidity. yet here we are.
It will when the people have no money to feed their families and have been laid off from their job's and can't pay their mortgage. That should be enough to motivate them to come out and protest.
''For the rest of the world, though, South Koreans’ immediate and aggressive response to a man trying to take away their democratic rights is an inspiration. Among other things, it illustrates that for all the claims that autocracy can react to events more quickly than democracy can, in fact autocrats are brittle. It is democracy that is determined and resilient.''
South Korea has a highly educated population of people who understand the difference between democracy and fascism. According to Wikipedia,
"South Korea is one of the top-performing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in reading literacy, mathematics and sciences with the average student scoring 519, compared with the OECD average of 492, placing it ninth in the world. ... Education is regarded with a high priority for South Korean families, as success in education is often a source of honor and pride for families and within South Korean society at large..."
there's your answer..it lies with an educated public. I understood even as a teenager following politics that the government wants to keep the public dumbed down inorder to keep their power and siphon off the taxpayers' teat.
Thanks for this, Michael. I was fortunate to be taught to critically think at the excellent, progressive Catholic junior high and high school I attended in Montana. I'm so thankful to my wonderful teachers. Interestingly enough, none of my classmates are Trump supporters. They well know fascism when they see it.
Michael, your piece on critical thinking here describes exactly what is needed. I would emphasize that this kind of thinking can and should be central to all levels of education as Colleen experienced. Unfortunately right wing Republicans have recognized since Reagan that doing so cultivates left leaning voters and they have pressed to degrade public education ever since. Trump will surely take the next step with a new secretary of education if he isn't stopped by the Senate.
Thank you—my feelings are the same about it being taught at all levels of education. I'm currently writing an essay on how a free press is also central to teaching critical thinking. I'm thinking about smart commentators like Rachel Maddow.
Like you, I value Rachel Maddow. I also taught for thirty-four years at a high school level and stressed critical thinking. It is so important in everything we do.
True democracy thrives when people have the power to shape their lives, communities, and futures through self-determination. It is the cornerstone of freedom, ensuring that decisions reflect the will and needs of the majority while respecting individual rights.
Michael, democracy is determined and resilient as long as it doesn't go "by the book " all the time and every time. We are facing the abysm because that.
This is a great and inspiring piece. I have been saying that we need to have our own media platforms. Right on for Blue Sky. However, we also need to have a population that is clear it does not want authoritarian rule. Do we have that?
We have a population that wants to be taken care of, in spite of what they say. American individualism is a look they pose in, not the actual reality. They vote with their wallet. We all have to hang our existence on the structure provided. We do not have other options, and when it is not based on critical thinking and reality, or when destroyed by top-down economics without any brakes, things get painful and we can't cope, feel trapped. Reaction is almost always to the stupid end of the spectrum. look at history.
A friend just shared a video on how things are going in Argentina under Milei. It seems great to the wealthy, and everyone else, not so much. Apparently a lot of people voted for him that are libertarians. I can share a link with you, I saw it in German, but found a version in English. It is called Argentina after one year ofPresident Milei. https://youtu.be/SWhDTdWND1I?si=OJRyWvJWDjL39p95
It is showing some of the poverty, and people being fed at soup kitchens of private agencies and churches, but mostly the well off. They tell us that now Argentina is one of 5 countries with the largest income gap between rich and poor in the world, along with South Africa (Elon Musk is shown in the film), Brazil, Mexico and Columbia. Here is a shorter French film on it in English. That one talks about what Milei needs from Trump. https://youtu.be/Ra-WB4FL7zs?si=ZrsOhBxxZE9X3gdE
What I notice is that when economists analyze how well an economy is doing, they look at different things than the average person does.
Argentina is supposed to be an economic warning for us, although we do not have a bad economy with such high inflation.
Economists, Linda, all went to universities void of humanities.
They see "life" as nothing more living, natural, or involving regular people than do the standardized testers and the packagers of corporate textbooks.
Check out Joe Trippi’s podcast from last week: “The way forward begins now”.
To summarize, we need an online pro-democracy community that is 24/7 365 days a year, not an awesome ground game that ramps up in time for elections. Trippi has concrete ideas for this.
We have not stated what we want, and how it will work. Almost everyone thinks short term profit taking is the best approach to business. Making conditions best for the people seems to have gotten tagged as Socialism (and then that seem to think that that is the same as Communism - which rules similarly to Fascism). We want fairness. Soon, our attention will be focused on the millions of immigrants being processed at the Texas border - a summer of people in tents with inadequate air conditioning - the number one cause of weather related deaths.
How to appeal to the audience ..bringing forth truth , facts, problems in a fashion palatable for a society geared to Butthead and Beaver (no offense intended) formats because that’s what they like.
Substack is a rich sort of thinkers, reading is our thing ,the older subset. It ain’t the same anymore , there’s a need to acknowledge this.
We need not buy into the fear, nor emulate the hatred,ridicule, nor sensationalize the faults…there’s enough to go around on both ‘sides’. It’s about the whole. Education is key, let’s pick that ball back up . It’s crucial. Next is revamp the marketing with good quality -entertainment -while getting the point across. There’s plenty of great writers to do that in at least 2-3 formats.
American citizens had their chance to vote against tyranny and a dictatorship on November 5th “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. And, we blew it! We are watching a train wreck of a so-called administration being put in place. Dangerous incompetence and the very worst and most disgusting choices for the country.
The first thing that ran through my head when I heard the news is that trump will invoke martial law here at some point. Weak, evil men use violence to get their way and trump (with no checks and balances) is probably thinking “what a brilliant move” and now he will have the power The only hope we have is not from the people but from the military disobeying any such orders!
Nope, I’m not over the election results and never will be. IMO by pardoning his son, Biden looked at the landscape and sent us all a strong message …… trump won’t adhere to any law but his own - take cover!
....We are watching a train wreck of a so-called administration being put in place. Dangerous incompetence and the very worst and most disgusting choices for the country.... yup in a NUT shell.
Well if Biden declared martial law for those reasons he would be acting just like Yoon did ie unlawfully and BIDEN is the one who should be overthrown. Martial law is never an appropriate step to take in a democracy unless there is an actual armed uprising. Trumps appointment of a idiot or even an accused sexual predator isn't any kind of justification for martial law to keep Trump or of power. Hopefully the Senate will act appropriately and refuse to confirm him but regardless there would be no justification for Biden to declare martial law or to prevent Trump from being sworn in.
However, what will happen when Trump declares martial law, which looks quite possible? It will be the most efficient way to deport immigrants and also lock up liberals. And, if he times it before inflation takes over, he will have succeeded in destroying the government quickly. And 50% of the population will not care. Americans are not like Koreans.
he used chaos before. Destroyed the committee structures he wanted gone by depriving them of funding and/or leadership, a one two punch. this time he will have free reign. very frightening.
🙏🏼 Hopefully, most states are carefully checking their votes and will not rubber stamp the certification. Tffg donthecon complained about cheating right up until AP declared him the winner. This election stinks to high heaven.
“President-elect Donald Trump is considering nominating Republican presidential rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as Defense secretary, according to two people familiar with the situation.”
Don’t expect American masses to rise up quickly and in unity. Except for minorities, too many Americans have been privileged into complacency. That complacency, coupled by being boiled like the proverbial frogs for so long with lies, misdirections, omissions, hate, & fear, has sealed our fate. We will likely live with fascism for the next century or longer with help from all the spyware in our electronics.
Before unifying, if it can ever happen at all, Americans unfortunately need to experience the ugly consequences of this electoral decision.
I am surprised Heather didn't mention the South Korean women's birth strike called the 4B movement, which stands for "no marriage, no childbirth, no dating, and no sex with men," all expressing a rejection of traditional gender roles and expectations. I recently read that South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world. That will make everybody cranky and may contribute to political distress.
As the schools in all modern countries have kicked humanities off the curriculum, and have vaulted more standardized testing instead, the boys and men have -- much more than girls and women -- gotten neutered anyway.
Standardized testing reduces all life to abstract categories, logical and rational groups, easy to package, and unit-by-unit linearity. Nothing human. Nothing personal. Nothing natural.
Add to that how schools virtually nowhere ask anyone to read any real books whole, to see any larger contexts.
So guys all over the world just glom onto their "smart" phones. No social life, no desire for dating, no imagination outside the living dead zones set by those tests.
Knowing South Korea and its people fairly well, from the wee hours when I 1st learned of Marshall Law being being called, I absolutely had faith that the “people” of all parties would not tolerate it. After all, they fought with their blood for a republic. The huge irony, as all of us can see, is the final “scene” to restore democratic process played out like Jan. 6th. Except, except in righteousness for democracy. It is a reminder to all of us.
I have to step in: Martial Law: Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Marshall Law does not exist (although Wiki did list a man named Marshall Law who lives in San Francisco). Marshall, as in a rank in law enforcement is sometimes substituted for "martial" which is the military takeover of a government since they are homonyms: sound the same with different meanings.
Average Americans clearly do not “vote their wallets.” They vote their prejudices- racism, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia. That’s why, in part, the Middle Class disappeared.
Thanks, Anthony. Seems like you understood the point of Heather’s post very well. Sadly, the comments immediately went down a fruitless rabbit hole after you gave us a great opening for a fruitful discussion.
Anthony- Thanks. Seems like you understood Heather’s lesson very well. Sadly, the comments went down a fruitless rabbit hole after you gave a start to a fruitful discussion.
Once again, as in Ukraine, we see ordinary citizens who recognize that democracy is "minding their own damn business." May we be as clear thinking and brave as they.
I wonder if Little Rocket Man has a finger in this pie? Great to see the rapid ascendancy of Bluesky. I liked the vision of the lawmakers climbing the wall to get in to vote. Reverse image of what happened at the Capitol.
I listen to the BBC as I'm falling asleep and on into the day, and that's where I heard about it all. "Bewildering" was the first word that I thought of when I heard the inttial news, and then "Inspiring" when I herd about the legislators showing up. Can we count on our legislators is the question that remains...
Given how many legislators acted prior,during,and after Jan 6th definitely you can't count on a significant number of them. On the other hand Betsy, there are heros among those on the other side, those not afraid of speaking up. It's a mixed answer.
I heard it on the BBC at 7 am, Eastern Australian Time. I wouldn't miss them - they are very quick with the latest, even if it is always bad news from wherever. I'm happy that you looked for me, Alexandra, but no - I've got as much on my hands as I can cope with at present. Middle-aged children!!
I keep thinking that it won’t be long before our personal troubles take a back seat to our national troubles, as they become personal. At least in the US.
Lordy, it’s too early, or late. Snooze time…. Hang in
Yep. This week, at its last session for the year, the Australian parliament unanimously passed a law banning access to social media for under-16s. Elon Musk sent the Prime Minister a message straight away saying that he couldn't do that to X, it amounted to blocking free speech not only in Australia but all over the world. Our PM told him to go jump, (short for "jump in the lake"). Not his actual words, but it's an appropriate expression, for someone given to leaping up and down.
I wonder what the final count was to WaPo of people cancelling after the refusal to endorse Harris. Legacy media is dying. We can use this as an opportunity to build other information systems such as Bluesky, Substack, Meidas Touch etc.
Heather made a pretty good argument in politics chat yesterday regarding NOT abandoning legacy media. I don’t have the time stamp but essentially she supports the writers there, and the cadre of attorneys who have their backs, and the $$$ to support all. She compared it with her small contribution with Buddy as her point man. Good stuff.
the weird thing is we voted in these incompetents yet both Trump Social Truth and Musk's X are not doing well commercially. did not one who voted for them see the signs this portends?
Imagine a world, Jim, where American students read books from all over the world.
Whole books. From South Korea, Iran (even the many in exile from there), South Africa, Egypt, Japan, various European countries, West Bank and Israel, and Central and South American countries, too.
Our many good teachers yet in American schools could venture these good human explorations. How many might prefer that to being harnessed always to teaching-to-the-next standardized test?
And our billionaires? What do you think they'd prefer? Good human stories in widely varying natural and cultural settings? Or more abstractions, neutered but logical categories, and all the unit-by-unit linearity which makes for yet more dutiful corporate packagers?
Phil, I appreciate what you offer generally and am jumping in now in defense of people (including myself) who are challenged to sit and read a book (for varied reasons). I agree that skills and habits of reading would be best set when children are young but I'd counterbalance that by saying that physical motion as it enhances brain function and cardio-vascular health plus reliable cues for physiological hunger for nutritious foods -- that ALL this needs revamping. Make less sedentary days for students and maybe sitting and reading will be a welcome outcome and add venues for conversations about what reading generates in people's world views too. But then, we'd need to question what happens in those buildings we call schools!
My way of life required so much active labor that I've finally merged well with Audible and I can listen to books while doing the manual labor and physical exercising I like to do that dovetails well with how I earn a living. I'm often blue-toothed to earphones or a portable speaker or my car but I still buy hardcopies of my favorite listens to write in (that I almost never sit with).
Joan and Phil, I agree with both of you. I too have become a fan of Audible or books read by actors and authors, at the fingertips of my phone. So I can "read" while walking the dogs or exercising. My consumption of books has doubled from pre-audible days.
The trend toward charter schools (public-private partnerships) where students in small classrooms are encouraged to actually read books is, in my view, not a bad one. Unlike fully private "Christian nationalist" schools, they seek out ethnic diversity and challenge preconceptions.
My late husband, some decades ago, had business in S Korea. He said it was his favorite Asian country, and had great admiration for the his friends/colleagues and the Korean people overall. During one trip, there were protest/riots over some government action: there were riot police of course. He heard noises in the middle of the night and, looking out his window, saw the police using their riot shields as “dust pans” while the protesters were using brooms to sweep up debris. In the morning, no trace of the protests. Given that incident, I’m not at all surprised at the response to a declaration of martial law. I am inspired by the example!
Heather, you wrote this with a smile on your face, I bet! I was surely grinning while reading this historic day’s recap. Bravo for the people in South Korea and for their legislators for speaking out forcefully, but doing so without violence! Our country has a lot to learn. We can do this, y’all. YES WE CAN
Unfortunately, American citizens have guns that do the talking. A coup would be a blood bath, as the small assault on the Capitol proved. Bluntly speaking, South Korea does not allow the general public to be armed, hence a bloodless coup.
sadly true. and people who supported this mad man who I broke acquaintance with all said they 'welcomed the revolution'. without any intelligence that it will be their children's blood that will be spilled.
Theres the reason why the govt wants you to keep an arsenal of guns. That is until they declare martial law..then that very same govt will take them away except for their own Gestapo
A lesson for the US ... "it illustrates that for all the claims that autocracy can react to events more quickly than democracy can, in fact autocrats are brittle. It is democracy that is determined and resilient."
Inasmuch a coup frightens people, the stalwart surge of South Koreans citizens to shut down the phoney martial law reflects how precious is a new and thriving democracy to its citizens. 🙏Perhaps we in The United States have taken our republic for granted for so long, we simply do not know how -- or why -- to fight for it any more. 😱 But fight we shall, if necessary. ✌🏽
Ned, I had the same response about the temporal exigency of defending something relatively recently achieved against the odds. They also live with a northerly shadow of extreme repression whilst the US have democracies at both poles.
Good point, K.S.C. North Korea has been aggressive; the move by Mr Yoon, however, was using the gangster régime in Pyongyang as a pretext for usurpation.
they stopped him quietly before -but now risk censure and court-martial. and he will now have control of the football again. he might even store it in a bathroom at Mira.....
You are so right. He and Putin have a plan, one wonders if Putin and the Heritage nuts will have a battle for the soul of chump…. Just kidding. Many players in this game.
I was browsing through BlueSky when Sarah Jeong started talking about what was happening. She was just amazing, and she made me smile. We CAN resist Trump’s thugs. I’m more convinced than ever.
Later today, Lawrence Tribe posted an incredible article here on Substack called “How to be Sand in the Gears of Tyranny.”
A book coming out in February - "The Flu and the Fed" - charts a history of pandemics followed by takeovers of various places since the time of the Roman Republic. It apparently takes a long time to get over all the disruption that a pandemic causes, and here we have another example. Incredible. I wonder if pandemic viruses cause brain disease in some people who are power hungry and they lose the ability to regulate their emotions. Trump would be a super example.
Trump never learned to regulate his emotions, and power corrupts. I wonder what the authors have to say about the collective amnesia that has come over us - at least those who are not still suffering with long covid. That amnesia is a sign of collective trauma. Not to mention the lingering Mass Delusion. . .
Heather, your Letters help cut through the fog of our minds. Thank you!
It has been said that Trump's handling of the Covid pandemic helped to sink his chances of re-election in 2020. First there was Trump, then Covid, and now Trump again. Can we draw any conclusions? whether consonant with or contrary to the thesis of this book.
I hope the Americans will exhibit the same strength and bravery to oppose the new dictator in our country when he pulls the trigger.
It was mentioned that members of his own party stood to oppose him. We won't see that here. Republicans will abandon our country to promote the new dictatorship. NOTE: the correct term is dictatorship - not autocracy.
Here the dictator won't call it martial law. He'll probably call it a patriotic rebirth.
They spent 4 years promoting us being at each other's throats, angry and divided, in order to advance political careers and win elections. I will never forget that. I hope history speaks their names.
Forgive me for being off topic, but I have to share what was just in the inbox (from the NYT):
California Democrat Flips Seat in the Last House Race to Be Decided
The final House race was won by Adam Gray after Representative John Duarte, the Republican incumbent, conceded in California’s 13th District. Mr. Gray’s victory means that Democrats will have 215 House seats compared with 220 for Republicans.
Well, given how close the race was, I'm just relieved that the margin went in our favor. It's time now to start thinking about the seats that we can flip back in 2026.
Congratulations South Koreans! This is such a strong moment for struggling Democracies everywhere. We needed this boost.
I ask again. Where are the Leaders of the Democratic Party? President Biden goes to Africa. VP Harris has effectively disappeared. Hakeem Jeffries is not gaining national traction. We need help here!
There are times when citizens rise up against tyranny! We should learn from the South Korean people! 🧐 Thanks, Heather!
It will happen in the U.S., Anthony, and soon if the orange felon does his tariffs thing.
The working-class souls who bought into his shtick -- never mind the actual good programs Dems had put in place -- all belly-ached about the price of eggs. Watch them after the convicted criminal's tariffs kick off new and historic bounds of inflation.
The sex perverts, incompetents, and goons-for-Russia among his cabinet appointments don't matter to the tens of millions who thrill to sex perversion and "bing-bing-boing-bong," but inflation?
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security cuts? ACA gone? No FDA? No school vaccinations? No Department of Education? A dictatorship? Martial Law?
People have no idea what they have caused. All because of racism and misogyny.
Of course it's bad, Barbara.
But it's not "All because of racism and misogyny."
America's working classes and their communities got devastated by the tens of millions when finance, corporate, and other elites over four decades offshored all those jobs.
But the devastation included the gnawing sense that Dems, pundits, mainstream media, and all the professor classes totally had no sense at all of the pain abroad the land. No school read any books -- and there were many good novels, memoirs, and histories on this -- about the abandonment of the working classes.
Schools instead standardized tested kids to death -- as if all American kids wanted to go to college, to which all the tests were geared, as if everyone in school just attended school for the neutered, dehumanized language Diane Ravitch attributes to all the packaged corporate textbooks and all the standardized tests ("The Language Police," 2003).
The tens of millions were bereft, enraged but with no clear targets for their rage. When the orange felon came along, with all his hatred of brown and black people, his record of serially abusing women, those prejudices just provided the convenient targets of immigrants and somewhat-empowered women, or women with attitudes.
But the greater rage simmered for all bureaucrats, all college-educated but totally unaware of what had happened across the land.
I have worked in education for 29 years Phil. Let's not beat up on the education system, ok? It is too small a portion of the overall problem to single out over and over and over again as I see here in these comments. I have seen thousands of good students taught critical thinking, ambitious well- educated teachers and invested parents. I have worked at the University level and K-12.
How about we look at the adults glued to their phones who have memorized the NFL rankings but can't be bothered to learn some issues of the election. How about we look at the century's old legacy of hatred in this Country that has been brought to the surface and ignited all over again?
How about we look at the adults who can't be bothered to get invested in education and expect educators do all the work? How about we look at the starvation budgets imposed on the public system for years the treatment of teachers like low paid servants?
In summary. American is an undereducated society which has devalued education for centuries and is now suffering the results.
The American voter has become a sheep primed for a cult monster to come along.
Please excuse my rant.
Excellent points, Barbara. And how about we remember how it was the Republicans, not the Democrats, that ruined public education, as they quietly populated school boards over decades, dumbing down the American populace and instituting the unfunded No Child Left Behind mandate in the 2000s?
I grow weary of the claims that Democrats have abandoned the middle class. In the last election we had a Democrat child of immigrants who worked her way to becoming a state Attorney General and Senator running against a wealthy Republican con man who never did an honest day’s work in his entire life.
I am exhausted from the lie that Democrats are not for the middle class. They have been the party of the middle class. People refuse to listen. People refuse to examine Biden's record for the middle class. People ignored one of the most solid platforms for the middle class in the history of this Country debuted by Harris in her campaign.
Not to mention that the vouchers system, allowing parents to put their children in charter schools at taxpayer expense, drained resources from public schools.
‘No child left behind’ the faux centerpiece of the ‘childish’ potus little bush! He bragged about the Houston district student performance rates and appointed that district superintendent to be Sec of Education! Later it was revealed that someone ‘cooked the books’ regarding the heralded data!!
Yes, totally agree, and lets not forget how Reagan started gutting financial support for public education, costing thousands of teachers their jobs, including my own. In addition to No Child Left Behind that Bush pushed through, support for Pell Grants was also cut, as was support for public universities. All despicable Republican policies, undermining public education now for over 40 years!! Its no wonder that sadly a lot of those in our country are undereducated.
Yes, it was Rs who did this, not Ds. And I agree about Harris.
Democrats have abandoned the working class, imo.
Barbara, you are not alone. Spending during the Thanksgiving holiday broke all records. It was not the price of eggs that shifted the electorate right, but the price of democracy.
Well said George. Thank you.
..."the price of Democracy." A great sentence.
Well now it appears we are really going to pay a really bad price now.
Did you mean the price of unregulated capitalism?
Well said, Barbara Mullen. If we survive as a democracy, we must decouple public education funding from property taxes. It is that single thing that has led to the educational inequality in this country. We are reaping the fetid harvest of that system now with the millions of uninformed voters who allow their heads to be filled with nonsense by Fox News and the Republican propaganda machine. That's easier than thinking for yourself.
I hadn't thought about the property taxes funding education angle. People resent the heck out of it too. People have been taught to look down on someone with an education. Thus the term "elite."
Exactly! This model for funding public education is a failure and vouchers are making it worse.
This synapse is great, a continuation of mindful exposures needed. The focus has been, is, about what 2-5% of the population amounts to, surrounds itself with mirrors then blames the mirrors..little self examination -what part was played by whom.
Statistics like the average person can’t read above a 7th grade level? Yea, the world capitulated technology so fast and consumerism swallowed the need for cheap mores, pushing a me me generation to charge charge charge ..it exploded by self propelled dreams leaving behind real goals.
Our history shows racism from the get-go, our professed escape from religious persecution, manifested in spades -the natives deity Mother Earth , the pollution of greed, and the richest’s abuse of the ‘underlings’.
The American Dream? A pristine new land was consumed .
What’s needed, is re-evaluation. Prioritize the goals we really want/set up our constitution to uphold, what damage is done ,get back to the mess created, and leveling the ‘playing field’.
It’s not all lost..yet.
Well said. Thank you.
Patricia, you've expressed what I couldn't.
Barbara, that's a superb defense of our educational system (my daughter is a teacher, albeit elementary, as were my sister, sister-in-law, Special Needs Aide late mother, among others in K-12; my brother teaches college-level math and computer science); and analysis of how Americans value (or devalue) it. I especially love the comparison to sports knowledge -- that's a very astute observation. I think the average male knows more sports stats and player personnel and has much less an awareness of (or interest in) history or economics.
Teachers are notoriously underpaid, especially when compared to other municipal employees such as police who are typically given a higher starting salary (with
only a 2-year Criminal Justice degree) than a teacher who typically has a Bachelors and a Master's, as well as the associates student debt. Further, police officers can retire young on a nice pension and continue to work after retirement. Surely we value police (and other first responders) for the dangers they face daily, and their compensation should reflect that. But K-12 teachers should also be well-compensated for their important role of educating citizens, and let's not forget they also face danger daily.
Cheers to you for being an educator!
Thank you, Barbara and I love your post. I have long felt the same way and although I am retired, I am truly tired of seeing education used as a scapegoat. I was in a high school where most teachers cared about the students even taking them in on occasion. In my own classes, I emphasized critical thinking, research, and analysis of sources. Every year until the state took over most funding, we had to beg the local community to pass the budget. And the problems continue. Just yesterday a three week strike ended in the town south of us with both teachers and kids happy to be back. The super there is one of my ex-colleagues who has forgotten where he came from. They had a fine superintendent, who was too woke, and got removed by the board. She is now the head of the Teacher Standard and Practices Commission. We have had several districts where there have been problems caused by regressive right boards. One thing I notice is that these people are all arrogant. This is why people must pay attention to all elections including school board elections.
Thank you for sharing your direct experience. Those darn School Boards! Too many egos from non-educators mucking up the works. The last people who have a voice in education is this Country are the teachers.
We have ignored the critical power School Boards have in this Country for too long.
Barbara, you've occasionally made statements I disagreed with (not important), but with your posts in this thread I agree completely.
Americans, in general, are poorly educated, but it is not the fault of public education. The blame lies squarely on Republicans and evangelicals – often the same folks – who have worked all levels for government for at least two generations to cripple public education by hamstringing teachers and redirecting public funding toward parochial and for-profit schools.
Why? Because an educated public becomes an informed public. And an informed public doesn't vote against its own interests for the sake of one issue.
Kamala Harris offered a comprehensive plan, explained in very understandable terms, exactly what the middle-class American public has been begging for. People who claim she didn't are made deaf by their racism and/or misogyny.
She reminded voters of the Biden administration's successes – of which she was a part – while simultaneously stating that she is her own woman and would build her own record of success on a foundation of success, for ordinary Americans, not the tycoons. People who didn't hear that didn't want to. Fingers in their ears, singing "La la la la la."
"People who claim she didn't are made deaf by their racism and/or misogyny." Very well said.
I am fine with folks disagreeing. Makes us all think. I do not like any name calling or being mean though. I can't recall you ever doing that.
Abt half minus a fraction .... as for the 1/3rd who didnt bother to vote and usually dont....
Rant on! Brava!
Barbara, Spot on!!! Thank you.
Your comment about adults glued to their phones reminds me of a field trip me and my second graders took to a water resource education center. The parent volunteers, (whose main job was to watch a small group of students) were literally scrolling on their cell phones during the free exploration part of the trip! The time where I really needed them to be watching their groups!
I see workers everywhere on their phones. We now have text driving instead of drunk driving. It is now common to sit at green lights because the front car is on their phone. There have been times even honking hasn't worked and we end up in a red light again.
I hate to sound like a zealot here but cell phones played a significant role in this election. We all know the massive net right wing media has thrown over information systems today.
The educated voted for Harris- dah!! Next to black prodestants the 2 largest demographics that voted for Harris were Jews and the secular.
Where did I say the educated voted for Harris? Got data? I have been waiting for the final numbers.
Barbara, you write that [America] "is an undereducated society which has devalued education for centuries." I beg to differ. I think the current prejudice against educated people has happened over roughly the last 50 years, since Nixon, Agnew and George Wallace. I am old enough to recall when American public education was considered one our prize jewels, envied (and emulated) throughout the world. We are letting it be destroyed at our peril.
Also need to add that since the Citizens United decision by the Robert's Kangaroo Court, ALL elections are openly for sale to anyone with money to throw around. The lack of anything close to a fairness doctrine was deeply damaging in the last election with endless ads financed by dark money (often likely including illegal off-shore funding) spewed lies, distortions, and fed the masses a distorted and very dark picture of the country. Since the masses can't be bothered to get informed, they fall victim to these ads (and even if they tried, their local news is likely owned by Sinclair, Clear Channel, or Fox Noise, making it yet another propaganda spigot).
Barbara, I just watched a segment of the West Wing (starting at season 6, episode 10) where Jimmy Smits, AKA Matt Santos is running for president and right away, he wants to talk about public education and Josh, the savvy political operative is trying to reel his ambition for improving American education. Written by talented lefty screenwriters, so if you have watched and remembered how he felt about the state of education in America, you might see a reason to beat up on public education. If you ever had the chance to read John Taylor Gatto's books, one of them entitled Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling struck a cord with me. Have you ever gotten the chance to watch George Carlin's rant on American education? A hint: "Obedient Workers!". I think you may be taking Phil's comments too personally.
Amen! The ultimate fault lies with the parents of Millennials and Zoomers.
Ah, a nation of victims. Poor us!
And what was the cause of all that offshoring? Couldn’t possibly be overreaching unions who made the cost of manufacturing here so expensive that business executives did their bog standard capitalist thing and sought the lowest wage places they could. Capitalism, for all its vast benefits is also a predatory system that periodically eats its own in search of profit margins. It was capitalists, after all, who in the initial phases of industrialism brought about the reactions that led to communism and socialism.
And the education issue? Nothing to do with the conservatives who, following Brown v Board and Engel v Vitale sought to eviscerate the public school system which had once been the envy of the world. We’ve forgotten what education is supposed to be in a democracy - a training ground for the most advanced kind of citizenship there is; not just basic 3 R training and job preparation or a way to turn out children who think just the way their parents do.
The real problem here is the complexity of the modern, completely interconnected and interdependent, highly technical social, political, and economic world. We are a very long way from being primarily an agricultural society in thirteen little colonies huddled along the Atlantic shore - separated from Europe and Asia by vast oceans. That was the world in which our Republic was created, and it bears little resemblance to the place in which we find ourselves today. What have we done to educate our citizens for this world?
American are and always have been notoriously short-sighted. We have been so delighted with American ‘exceptionalism' that we’ve lost sight of just what that exceptionalism consists of - an open promise, not something already etched in stone. When we ratified the Constitution we took our destiny into our own hands. Freedom and individual rights are an awesome responsibility, and we’ve often fallen far short of recognizing that.
So now we’re stuck with a man who has no concept of responsibility for anything except his own advancement, no matter at whose expense. And we’ve done it to ourselves. There’s no 'outside force' to blame here. As the cartoon character Pogo once put it so well, “We have met the enemy, and they is us”.
Proof, please, that "overreaching unions" were the cause of, or even a significant factor in, the offshoring of jobs? Go on, dear; we'll wait.
Exactly. It’s the greed of the ruling class seeking to amass as much wealth as possible while starving their own workers that led to offshoring American jobs. Unions would not allow their members to put up with the low wages and abysmal working conditions suffered by foreign workers. But somehow we’re okay with exploiting workers in other countries.
Here’s a crazy, radical idea: how about CEOs make a few less dollars in order to pay fair wages? How about we stop thinking of wealth as the ultimate achievement of one’s life?
During the golden period of the automobile industry the manufacturer’s negotiators gave the unions what was asked knowing that the cost would be passed onto the buyer!
W. Edwards Demming’s ‘Top Quality Management’ system was rejected by the management of GM only to find a wise audience in the Honda car company! They implemented his system to manufacture the Honda Civic which had instant appeal to car buyers in America! Management not unions seeded the decline in the auto industry!
I’m curious. What reasons could there be that do not involve looking for the lowest overhead costs in order to remain competitive in a world market? If businessmen can’t find them here, then what?
First. I am always, always of America bashing. It is a weak tool for change.
Second. "American are and always have been notoriously short-sighted. "
I am overcome with the critical advances occurring in this century alone that have indeed proven America's propensity for advancement. Shortsighted? Only to those who have blinders on. Covid response from Biden? Strengthening NATO shortsighted? The Alliance of Japan, Australia, United States and India? Please take a moment to look at the State Department work and the Department of Transportation work, the CHIPS Act and the institution of internet infrastructures in communities that had none. I could write pages.
Contempt prior to investigation is a common malady.
I was not referring to what Biden and his administration may have accomplished. Indeed, I am almost as impressed by his presidency as anyone else (until his disastrous decision to run for a second term). My criticism is for the American voter; that group who once enabled slavery, excluded women from the franchise, made the Jim Crow era possible, helped dig us into three wars in which we never should have been involved, and a good half of whom ignored the very Biden accomplishments you tout in favor of a man so manifestly unfit for the Presidency as to defy the imagination, all for the price of a dozen eggs and some skeleton Haitians seeking ‘pet food’.
Like yourself, I’ve been in education all my life (40 plus years). Indeed, I’m the third generation of my family to do so. We got started in 1894 and so have been at it for half as long as we’ve been a country. But it has always been in the independent sphere, both ElHi and collegiate. And so we’ve never really had to deal with the State, an organization which should have nothing to do with education since as citizens we should be as willing to challenge it as well as any other institution as needed.
Not short-sighted? Just for starters, how about a country founded on the principles of freedom and individual rights that retained slavery. What price have we paid for that?
Almost perfect--but, not quite. The above statement by Aslo White deserves repeating: "It’s the greed of the ruling class seeking to amass as much wealth as possible while starving their own workers that led to offshoring American jobs. Unions would not allow their members to put up with the low wages and abysmal working conditions suffered by foreign workers. But somehow we’re okay with exploiting workers in other countries.
Here’s a crazy, radical idea: how about CEOs make a few less dollars in order to pay fair wages? How about we stop thinking of wealth as the ultimate achievement of one’s life?" A big "AMEN!"
"The real problem here is the complexity of the modern, completely interconnected and interdependent, highly technical social, political, and economic world."
This is a first world problem for some people. The rest of the planet begs to differ.
The rest of the world is being dragged into this maelstrom whether they want to be or not.
Interesting essay but a bit overdone with union bashing, who got crucified as whole industries were wiped out thanks to treaties made by goverments.
Again, the issue is globalization and its effects on economics.
Agree with what you say, James, except the bit about the unions.
To what, then do you ascribe offshoring? Simple greed on the part of business owners? Or is it a natural reaction to global competition?
James. that is one superb comment. Thank you. An ignorant electorate is the enemy of democracy. One might think that any alternative to the likes of a man with his history, temperament, ignorance, virturelessness wouldn't stand a chance to be nominated let alone win th WH./
James, yes, yes, yes.
Exactly right, Phil, and so well put, sadly. I was a Michigan lobbyist for heath, education and social services and was in a meeting at the capitol where Governor Granholm announced our Michigan auto jobs were being automated or going overseas, but no worry, all those workers would be going to college to learn how to do computer work. And she also endorsed what I called "No Child Left Untested." In one fell swoop she denigrated, and lowered the standard of living for, our hard working class, and they never forgot that it was Democrats who did it.
That stuff started before Granholm was born. Tax code of 1952. Eisenhower recession. 1959. In 1973, Nixon let the dollar float, foreign cars flooded the market. Reagan - rise of Maqiadora Mexico.
You are in circular firing squad formation.
Effective image -- "circular firing squad formation".
When non-educators get out of the way, when extremists take their hands off the books and when people get serious about funding schools and public libraries change will happen.
Americans need to stop treating schools like daycare.
We might be forgetting another part of the problem: kids no longer go out to play; they are attached to their phones and social media which includes much disinformation. I dont see how education can be returned to the post 1950s when our kids are no longer those kids.
i support public education, and my entire family is public educated. I am concerned that the system is failing to evolve with the times. even the cost of In State public university education has risen beyond affordability for many middle class folks. trade specific tracks which could start in high school are rare. many working class families don't see how a system designed to prepare for college is working for them. i am not am not an educator but there seems to be a miss here.
I hear what you are saying, and I do feel for those workers. But it wasn't Granholm who offshored those jobs, and those players didn't lift a finger to help retrain them for a new economy. Her efforts to get them new skills should have been applauded. If the delivery was glib, or insensitive, that is a problem. But she was doing the right thing. If memory serves, several other states were doing the same. I am not sure what the workers wanted them to do. And how they never seem to hold the Republicans accountable is just astounding.
As a former public school teacher, I want to let you know that testing and curriculum are mandated by elected local school boards and state legislators and state boards of education, which in NC are appointed. The Republicans in NC have held a majority for years and have made war on public education at all levels. Educators have been set up for failure by defunding public education and shuffling money to private schools through “choice” vouchers.
Really sad, really frightening. The more I hear about what’s happening in some states across the country, the more I am grateful to be living in Illinois.
BitsyBelle -- and I too grateful to be in Nova Scotia, Canada! I'm a native to western Pennsylvania but my *last* residence (of many) was Colorado, Boulder County (a fairly blue county most of the time) so that's where I vote absentee.
And don’t forget his (faux) victimhood resonated strongly with those whose lives had been affected by loss of jobs, e.g., coal mining, and presence of opioids and other social ills.
even though Biden was able even in a hostile environment to get new manufacturing started in many of these forgotten states. Almost no one knew though and that is a failing of media.... and democrats.
Americans have been living in a vile stew of lies and bigotry ever since Reagan ended the Fairness Doctrine and ram-rodded citizenship for Rupert Murdoch through Congress, allowing him to own an American media conglomerate. Teaching-to-the-test is bad but let's not ignore the real causes here.
You've summarized it well. The "bangsters and corporists" have the money and the power. We ain't seen nothing yet!!
Standardized tests are not to help kids get into college. Schools and states use them to make sure the kids are learning what they’re supposed to learn based on the curriculum chosen. If necessary, the curriculum and the teaching methods are adjusted. Whether you go to college or not, you want children to know the basic skills of reading, math, knowledge of science and history and literature. That’s basic education to be able to function in society. It’s especially important now when kids missed at least one year of in class learning.
Standardized testing is an essential feature of a democracy, rich or poor, north or south, Texas or California, Mississippi or Maine,i all children need to get a proper education. How else are we to know if these goals are achieved?
It's the consensus on what a proper education is that is the rub.
Exactly. What would anyone think if students were not tested, and we had no idea if the curriculums and the methods were working or if teachers were actually doing their jobs. And I say this as a former middle school teacher for 21 years.
Phil, may I address you informally? While your post rehashes what has been posited by others, it does not address the loss of nearly NINE MILLION votes for the Democratic Candidate in 2024 compared to the more than 81 million votes Biden received in 2020! HCR received more than 3 million compared to the 2024 turn out!
Barbara clearly stated what the talking heads tried to ignore, racism and misogyny ruled the day!
How about investors/hedge funds buying up single homes and jacking up rents. The price of eggs maybe one thing but rents are another thing.
Sometimes my songs speak for me: "They're Eating Cats and Dogs Say J.D. Vance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiNusL05JUo
It's time to bring back that 60s bumpersticker: Eat The Rich!
Ya know, everybody says that, but lemme tell you, you eat even ONE rich person and the whole world just loses its mind.
it should never be about rich and poor. wealthy people have a right to riches.
I never saw that one. I was a pre-political hippie lost in a purple haze. Ya baby.
Nice job Mr Balla
Phil, it was the Republicans that championed standardized testing. Google "No Child Left Behind". That was done by George W. Bush. In fact, it is the Right that has visited so much destruction on the working class, while the policies of the Left have done nothing so much as try to repair the damage. It's outrageous and wrong to say that the Left/Democrats have abandonded the working class. It is the working class that has abandonded the Democrats -- largely because of racism and misogyny.
After the 2016 election, pollsters, political scientists, and sociologists researched the electorate and found that about 20% of Trump's support was attributable to economic anxiety, while the other 80% was attributable to "social anxiety," i.e., racism and sexism. I see no indication that those percentages have changed much in the intervening eight years, but I guess we'll find out in a year or so when all the research for this election has been completed.
And this anxiety runs rampant among the younger generation, attached to their phones instead of their teachers, prime "victims" for disinformation.
Phil, you write: "America's working classes and their communities got devastated by the tens of millions when finance, corporate, and other elites over four decades offshored all those jobs."
It's true, starting at least with Reagan the oligarchs, using mass media (TV, radio, newspapers) have used wedge issues to sucker average white working class Americans into voting Republican, i.e., voting against their own best social and economic interests. [Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" 2004]
Phil, while I agree with you up to a point, but I also agree with Barbara Mullen in her post on education. I would also suggest that plenty of bureaucrats know exactly what has happened and a good many of them, at least here in Oregon, live in small towns. Bureaucrats did not move their jobs overseas; greedy corporations did and lots of vulture capitalists bought up local companies to plunder them. It wasn't bureaucrats that keep grocery prices high, but the corporations who run them. I just read an article about the depth of hatred for women in this country and part of the anger is that men think they are no longer top dogs just by being men. Racism is also deep in our history. I also read an article yesterday posted by the Alternative Park Service which said that Muskrat has posted names, addresses, and family information about some of the employees of the Park Service. Patel has a long list of names of people he intend to go after should he become FBI director. And all the teachers I know absolutely hate standardized tests, which only help the company that publishes them.
I agree.
tRuMp’s bigotry, racism, misogyny resonate deeply with those who voted for him. His foul, hateful blatherings make sense to them - HE is saying all the idiotic things they believe and wished they could say out loud — and now they can! They vote for him because of “his policies” and deep thoughts? Puhleeez. The worst of the worst have taken over everything.
"The worst of the worst have taken over everything."
But the 'worst of the worst' are not only those who voted for Trump. It is those who created the conditions to run Trump as president and to overturn the executive, legislative, and judicial institutions of government to keep him in power. Those whose resentments of Federal government run the Republican party - hollowed out and propped up by those who have overturned the Constitution to drain it of social and economic justice. As personified by the Roberts Court, McConnell senate, and Johnson House. The Federalist Society, Heritage Society, Teneo Network and a myriad of grass root and astro turf antidemocratic entities funded by Charles Koch et al (through bagman Leonard Leo.) A media dominated by bedfellows and fellow travelers from Father Coughlin through William Buckley, George Will, to Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones - from Murdoch to Musk. (And a left wing divided by such as Ralph Nader and Jill Stein.)
lin• it is indeed a multi-headed monster. It is both those who buy into the hatred of other and anger that we have the same rights and those who are already obscenely wealthy and want to further enrich themselves and completely and resent anything standing in their way.
Dam-n… that’s a song if I ever heard one.
The Abundance Agenda: Neoliberalism's Rebrand by Dylan Gyauch-Lewis.
Which is worse Barbara? Apathy or Ignorance? 1/3 of the registered voters couldn't be bothered to vote. Only 1/3 of the voters elected Trump and yet he has the power to become the next Fascist ruler.
Remember the chant, "the whole world is watching?" Well, they are and most of them are terrified.
Gary I would imagine apathy stems from ignorance of the reality of the situation. I am going to poke the bear here because the Democrats have been cowed into silence on this issue.
1. How much did voter suppression tactics affect turnout?
2. Why aren't recounts being done where there are razor thin margins?
3. How could everyone be so wrong? All the swing States? Such a sweeping win with the thinnest margins keeps me up at night. People are afraid to call this out and people like Lichtman are scratching their heads.
I read murmurings of people feeling something smells off. But heaven forbid we should do anything like recounts. We are being bullied into silence.
Or. Even worse the older politicians in the Democratic Party are such rabid institutionalists they just can't wrap their heads around the fact of the election was stolen. Gore all over again.
Barbara, I agree with everything you say, but I truly believe that things are happening behind the scenes. These things that keep us up at night are being investigated. Spoonamore continues to do so, and his knowledge of what can happen and may have happened is impressive. But as to when it will be made public? I think timing is everything. Sending light and love to the good forces at work everyday, rather than going into despair. I may be a hopeless idealist, but for me, I have to take this stand at this time.
Thank you, Carol. I needed to be reminded of the web of light workers on the planet. I invite you to look at my substack as I attempt to invoke the positive side. There is no charge.
I can't tell you how much angst and frustration this has caused me. A whopping third of eligible voters couldn't be bothered.....how could they NOT know what was at stake? Trump is everywhere - his craven, self-serving corruption, his brazen statements about revenge and retribution, the list goes on. Harris and her team were shouting it from the rooftops. And I am so tired of people not giving Biden credit for all the work his administration did to bring the economy back after Covid and the disastrous first Trump term. It is NOT our responsibility to educate every single voter on every issue. Americans' passive laziness and just accepting the first thing the enters their feeds with no critical thinking is just infuriating. We have to do better as an electorate.
Where I live, in a very red area of Florida, the people around me are brainwashed from only watching Fox (Faux) News. Rupert Murdoch, with the help of Roger Ailes, figured out how to do this to people. It is hard to convince them otherwise, when they think repetition of something means it's true.
A third or more almost never vote.since forever.
I would add corporate greed and union busting.
The only problem is the Biden Administration had strengthened the unions and had added 800,000 good paying blue-collar jobs.
It is true the corporate of super high prices really tilted things. The media corporate greed led them to showcase him for 9 years. Harris was relatively unknown. What a sad, sad, sad, mess. I haven't slept well since the election.
Exactly the reason
Hmmm. We'll see. If covid and January 6 didn't do it...
Seems that racism and misogyny rarely take a holiday.
Amazing, isn't it? I guess it becomes so much a part of a person's identity they don't even notice anymore. Then they hurt themselves. That is what amazes me. People have suffered under this guy, and it looks like it is going to get even worse, and they don't connect the dots.
It appears to be an uncurable disease.
And ignorance and stupidity and mental laziness and and and.......
And know what. The concept of preserving our Democracy would have been an easy thing to sell in the past. We have had our Democracy so long people assume it would always be here, or they don't realize what could happen. Well. It just did.
Did you tune into Heather's Chat yesterday? She discussed Americans' disconnect with real suffering and not understanding what oligarchy would bring, because even those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale have safety nets that Musk and Trump would love to destroy. When Musk makes casual remarks about crashing the economy or that there may be some suffering for a little while, he won't feel it, but a fair portion of the people who voted for Trump will and it will be catastrophic for them.
No, I haven't. I will listen today. Thanks Kathleen! Have a good day.
Via trump. Americans have been given an IQ test, a very unique one . Sadly, wee now see the large number of disengaged, perpetually non-curious, easily manipulated, poorly reasoning people there are among us. Ignorance in voting against your own families needs is observable proof of my point. Lost in a lost world are these souls who've condemned America, and Americans, to this catastrophe!
This should be published everywhere. Bravo.
Your last sentence says it all! A criminal as potus and incompetent and unqualified radicals as cabinet heads!
Exactly, millions will not vote for a non white female.
Exactly, Barbara. Sherrilyn Ifil wrote a good piece on this exact topic: https://sherrilyn.substack.com/p/why-have-race-and-gender-been-erased?utm_source=publication-search
Oh man. This looks good. I will read it. I really love it when Richardson's readers share resources.
And tran's rights!! That may have been a bigger issue than many recognize.
This is tragic. Trans people were encouraged to be more present in society. Now this.
I've already told my kids they better get bail money ready because if Trump, his Billionaire Buddies, or any of those Republicans, yes Mike Lee (R-Utah) I'm talking to you, try to "reform" Social Security, I'll show him just what reform looks like. 😡
and lack of critical thinking skills and understanding?
No they don't. Ashamed of what voters have done.
Racism, I agree, but there is no justification for ignorance and stupidity.
Oh but there is, Patricia.
Corporations can much more effectively package all life if their workers have all gone to schools where standardized testing and neutered-language corporate textbooks rule -- not reading any full books or writing essays attentive to individuals and their larger contexts.
And the price of eggs—climate change, exaggerated by corporate greed. When do Republicans get in step with the natural world? Does greed completely dominate them? Recognizing the loss of the middle class from trickle down and the decline of public education (aided by the Kochs and their ilk), it is sad to see the state we’re in. Exceptional indeed!
We can counter their inflation schtick with "what about the minimum wage?"
Sure it only directly affects about 1.5 million people, but in the 20 states with minimum wage stuck at $7.25 an hour it reduces the entire range of wages.
If a family of four makes $15 an hour instead of $7.25 and hour their income would be $60k instead of $29k. Their eligibility and need for SNAP benefits goes away or is greatly reduced. And they have an additional $2500 a month to pay their bills.
The Republican politicians can scream "states rights" all they want, but the fact remains that save Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, it's all red states with the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
If the minimum wage were raised to $15 an hour it would affect 17 million workers in the US.
Gary, Florida is an exception with a minimum wage of $12 that will increase to $15 in 2026 due to an amendment passed in 2020,Of course,the GOP fought against it.
the only problem is that they raise the minimum and then the big grocery chains inflate prices so their bottom line stays artificially high, and the new wages lose value.....and god help the poor ones in states where they did not get a wage raise. Now their wages won't support life. at all.
Pitchfork Economics podcast with Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein. Minimum wage 101.
😹Although regarding sexual perverts I would not underestimate the slow-burn effect upon families of generations of endured sexualized violence in any society. There is growing historical evidence that not just the 18th century French Revolution but the 17th century Irish Rebellion were instigated by men and women who could no longer accept the dire destructive social effects of decades of a Droit de Seigneur status quo 🐈⬛
Monnina, i hope we don't have to wait as long as the French and Irish people waited to not longer accept the status quo of those times. Every minute we are weak, every minute we are absent from the international arena, Russia, China and the other authoritarian regimes would be entrenched there and it would take another Churchill and another Roosevelt to return to the Pax Americana.
Agreed. However in times of existential crisis such as these, I see benefit in studying the experiential wisdom of all our Blessed Ancestors. Being willing to learn, not just from their past successes, but also from their past mistakes. So through hindsight gifting us the ability not to repeat them and gifting them retrospective redemption.
Will it? I doubt it.
First, “frog in the pot, heat rising gradually.” Nobody will notice. Second, “bread and circus,” the nation will see it all as theater. Last, “the revolution will not be televised”, but BS right wing spin will. Musk and Trump will keep everything for themselves.
Don't under estimate independent journalists to get the news out to the American people.
The price of eggs was lower when tRump was president? Now, that is the best reason in the world to elect a despicable, virtueless, wannabe dictator. Never mind that the painful inflation was worldwide and much less in the USA.
the MAGA fell for it though
My middle of the night thought a couple weeks ago was "who knew the price of eggs was the cost of our Democracy?"
Sorry, but for many millions the price of eggs matter because it is cheaper than other proteins we are able to purchase. Looking down at them means to make less of their needs. Most often, they are fight to pay rent, heating electrical bills, work around the clock and don’t have the education, foresight or encouragement to see beyond the everyday. It is a dehumanizing process.
Thanks, Phil!
Let’s use South Korea as an example of what to do!! 🇺🇸😉
It actually has happened already on Manhattan Island of all places. There once was a time when liberals and conservatives alike held the view that making money off of other people's illnesses was immoral. But, thanks to the so-called "Delaware Process" we have allowed the institution by which we organize American business to become thoroughly corrupt. So a healthcare CEO gets shot. Surprise, surprise. New York of 2024 becomes a tad like Paris of 1787.
I’m pretty conservative so I wouldn’t have responded quite like you but this is so true! What a world!!
Let's hope South Korea's demonstration of 'how to overthrow a wannabe dictator' becomes the playbook for American people when the time comes.
I don't have much hope for that Kazz with the crappy group of Senators and Congresscritters that will be in place in a few weeks.
And Elon Musk was raised in apartheid South Africa and he appears to be the co-President elect.
Which Republicans are going to stand up to Trump? I don't see it happening.
"... the crappy group of Senators and Congresscritters that will be in place in a few weeks."
While I'm glad you eventually qualified that by specifying Republicans, I still suggest lumping Democratic elected officials with Republican elected officials is unsupported by the evidence. For instance falsely equating the Progressive Caucus with the Freedom Caucus. Falsely equating Jim Clyburn with Jim Jordan. Benny Johnson with Mike or Ron Johnson. Eliding the fact that hundreds of Democrats go to work in Congress everyday to push back and to make progress.
When the US starts looking like a Taliban ruled state, maybe even MAGA extremists will start missing what they once had and took for granted.
Gary Musk is the co-President that found his way into trump's wallet, but never "elect"
I also don’t expect our “sheeple” to take to the streets either.
Once the encomy crashes and the American people rebel against Trump, let's see how loyal the Republican congress is , they have
a choice to be loyal to Trump or lose their seat during the midterm elections.
Curious to know if it aired on Fox and how it was framed. Did any of their viewers make the connection?
the problem is freedom is always bought with blood. who stands first almost always pays with their life. to throw it aways is the height of stupidity. yet here we are.
Kazz, that time will come and I hope as you do.
It will when the people have no money to feed their families and have been laid off from their job's and can't pay their mortgage. That should be enough to motivate them to come out and protest.
The Lesson
''For the rest of the world, though, South Koreans’ immediate and aggressive response to a man trying to take away their democratic rights is an inspiration. Among other things, it illustrates that for all the claims that autocracy can react to events more quickly than democracy can, in fact autocrats are brittle. It is democracy that is determined and resilient.''
South Korea has a highly educated population of people who understand the difference between democracy and fascism. According to Wikipedia,
"South Korea is one of the top-performing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in reading literacy, mathematics and sciences with the average student scoring 519, compared with the OECD average of 492, placing it ninth in the world. ... Education is regarded with a high priority for South Korean families, as success in education is often a source of honor and pride for families and within South Korean society at large..."
once we became so enamored of celebrity, this was almost inevitable. once facades become more important than facts, the door to many things opens.
there's your answer..it lies with an educated public. I understood even as a teenager following politics that the government wants to keep the public dumbed down inorder to keep their power and siphon off the taxpayers' teat.
https://www.michaelcorthell.com/2023/10/cultivating-critical-thinking-vital.html
Thanks for this, Michael. I was fortunate to be taught to critically think at the excellent, progressive Catholic junior high and high school I attended in Montana. I'm so thankful to my wonderful teachers. Interestingly enough, none of my classmates are Trump supporters. They well know fascism when they see it.
Thank you for this!
Michael, your piece on critical thinking here describes exactly what is needed. I would emphasize that this kind of thinking can and should be central to all levels of education as Colleen experienced. Unfortunately right wing Republicans have recognized since Reagan that doing so cultivates left leaning voters and they have pressed to degrade public education ever since. Trump will surely take the next step with a new secretary of education if he isn't stopped by the Senate.
Thank you—my feelings are the same about it being taught at all levels of education. I'm currently writing an essay on how a free press is also central to teaching critical thinking. I'm thinking about smart commentators like Rachel Maddow.
Like you, I value Rachel Maddow. I also taught for thirty-four years at a high school level and stressed critical thinking. It is so important in everything we do.
Which begs the question: Would the US be able to self correct as the South Korean democracy seems to be doing?
No.
How about a man using Russian psy ops to take away our rights?
True democracy thrives when people have the power to shape their lives, communities, and futures through self-determination. It is the cornerstone of freedom, ensuring that decisions reflect the will and needs of the majority while respecting individual rights.
Michael, democracy is determined and resilient as long as it doesn't go "by the book " all the time and every time. We are facing the abysm because that.
Exactly right. The people have the power of self-determination #1.
https://www.michaelcorthell.com/2024/10/essay-peoples-voice-guiding-principle.html
This is a great and inspiring piece. I have been saying that we need to have our own media platforms. Right on for Blue Sky. However, we also need to have a population that is clear it does not want authoritarian rule. Do we have that?
THAT is the question.
We have just enough nincompoops to have voting the wrong candidate into office.
We have a population that wants to be taken care of, in spite of what they say. American individualism is a look they pose in, not the actual reality. They vote with their wallet. We all have to hang our existence on the structure provided. We do not have other options, and when it is not based on critical thinking and reality, or when destroyed by top-down economics without any brakes, things get painful and we can't cope, feel trapped. Reaction is almost always to the stupid end of the spectrum. look at history.
A friend just shared a video on how things are going in Argentina under Milei. It seems great to the wealthy, and everyone else, not so much. Apparently a lot of people voted for him that are libertarians. I can share a link with you, I saw it in German, but found a version in English. It is called Argentina after one year ofPresident Milei. https://youtu.be/SWhDTdWND1I?si=OJRyWvJWDjL39p95
It is showing some of the poverty, and people being fed at soup kitchens of private agencies and churches, but mostly the well off. They tell us that now Argentina is one of 5 countries with the largest income gap between rich and poor in the world, along with South Africa (Elon Musk is shown in the film), Brazil, Mexico and Columbia. Here is a shorter French film on it in English. That one talks about what Milei needs from Trump. https://youtu.be/Ra-WB4FL7zs?si=ZrsOhBxxZE9X3gdE
What I notice is that when economists analyze how well an economy is doing, they look at different things than the average person does.
Argentina is supposed to be an economic warning for us, although we do not have a bad economy with such high inflation.
Economists, Linda, all went to universities void of humanities.
They see "life" as nothing more living, natural, or involving regular people than do the standardized testers and the packagers of corporate textbooks.
Check out Joe Trippi’s podcast from last week: “The way forward begins now”.
To summarize, we need an online pro-democracy community that is 24/7 365 days a year, not an awesome ground game that ramps up in time for elections. Trippi has concrete ideas for this.
https://resolutesquare.com/podcasts/1nNpfbwmX2mtKllTsjQzRo/the-way-forward
We have not stated what we want, and how it will work. Almost everyone thinks short term profit taking is the best approach to business. Making conditions best for the people seems to have gotten tagged as Socialism (and then that seem to think that that is the same as Communism - which rules similarly to Fascism). We want fairness. Soon, our attention will be focused on the millions of immigrants being processed at the Texas border - a summer of people in tents with inadequate air conditioning - the number one cause of weather related deaths.
Good..or damning question, Linda.
I agree and underscored this many times.
How to appeal to the audience ..bringing forth truth , facts, problems in a fashion palatable for a society geared to Butthead and Beaver (no offense intended) formats because that’s what they like.
Substack is a rich sort of thinkers, reading is our thing ,the older subset. It ain’t the same anymore , there’s a need to acknowledge this.
We need not buy into the fear, nor emulate the hatred,ridicule, nor sensationalize the faults…there’s enough to go around on both ‘sides’. It’s about the whole. Education is key, let’s pick that ball back up . It’s crucial. Next is revamp the marketing with good quality -entertainment -while getting the point across. There’s plenty of great writers to do that in at least 2-3 formats.
American citizens had their chance to vote against tyranny and a dictatorship on November 5th “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. And, we blew it! We are watching a train wreck of a so-called administration being put in place. Dangerous incompetence and the very worst and most disgusting choices for the country.
The first thing that ran through my head when I heard the news is that trump will invoke martial law here at some point. Weak, evil men use violence to get their way and trump (with no checks and balances) is probably thinking “what a brilliant move” and now he will have the power The only hope we have is not from the people but from the military disobeying any such orders!
Nope, I’m not over the election results and never will be. IMO by pardoning his son, Biden looked at the landscape and sent us all a strong message …… trump won’t adhere to any law but his own - take cover!
....We are watching a train wreck of a so-called administration being put in place. Dangerous incompetence and the very worst and most disgusting choices for the country.... yup in a NUT shell.
If Pete Hegseth becomes Secretary of Defence, people should follow South Koreans and Biden can declare martial law.
Well if Biden declared martial law for those reasons he would be acting just like Yoon did ie unlawfully and BIDEN is the one who should be overthrown. Martial law is never an appropriate step to take in a democracy unless there is an actual armed uprising. Trumps appointment of a idiot or even an accused sexual predator isn't any kind of justification for martial law to keep Trump or of power. Hopefully the Senate will act appropriately and refuse to confirm him but regardless there would be no justification for Biden to declare martial law or to prevent Trump from being sworn in.
However, what will happen when Trump declares martial law, which looks quite possible? It will be the most efficient way to deport immigrants and also lock up liberals. And, if he times it before inflation takes over, he will have succeeded in destroying the government quickly. And 50% of the population will not care. Americans are not like Koreans.
MAGA will call it Marshall Law.
Exactly, ha
😂
he used chaos before. Destroyed the committee structures he wanted gone by depriving them of funding and/or leadership, a one two punch. this time he will have free reign. very frightening.
Hegseth won’t become Secretary of Defense until AFTER Biden is already gone. Biden CAN though (with full immunity) call for new elections.
🙏🏼 Hopefully, most states are carefully checking their votes and will not rubber stamp the certification. Tffg donthecon complained about cheating right up until AP declared him the winner. This election stinks to high heaven.
How exactly is it possible that Biden could call for a new election?
“President-elect Donald Trump is considering nominating Republican presidential rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as Defense secretary, according to two people familiar with the situation.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/03/trump-considers-desantis-defense-secretary-hegseth-00192521
yes and that is a real issue if you look at his past performance.
Yes & one of those persons sources is Marc Caputo at The Bulwark. Good man.
Per Marc this morning, there have been "direct discussions" but, not a done (forgive me) 'deal' yet at this time.
Don’t expect American masses to rise up quickly and in unity. Except for minorities, too many Americans have been privileged into complacency. That complacency, coupled by being boiled like the proverbial frogs for so long with lies, misdirections, omissions, hate, & fear, has sealed our fate. We will likely live with fascism for the next century or longer with help from all the spyware in our electronics.
Before unifying, if it can ever happen at all, Americans unfortunately need to experience the ugly consequences of this electoral decision.
Absolutely!
I am surprised Heather didn't mention the South Korean women's birth strike called the 4B movement, which stands for "no marriage, no childbirth, no dating, and no sex with men," all expressing a rejection of traditional gender roles and expectations. I recently read that South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world. That will make everybody cranky and may contribute to political distress.
No problem, Gloria.
As the schools in all modern countries have kicked humanities off the curriculum, and have vaulted more standardized testing instead, the boys and men have -- much more than girls and women -- gotten neutered anyway.
Standardized testing reduces all life to abstract categories, logical and rational groups, easy to package, and unit-by-unit linearity. Nothing human. Nothing personal. Nothing natural.
Add to that how schools virtually nowhere ask anyone to read any real books whole, to see any larger contexts.
So guys all over the world just glom onto their "smart" phones. No social life, no desire for dating, no imagination outside the living dead zones set by those tests.
Knowing South Korea and its people fairly well, from the wee hours when I 1st learned of Marshall Law being being called, I absolutely had faith that the “people” of all parties would not tolerate it. After all, they fought with their blood for a republic. The huge irony, as all of us can see, is the final “scene” to restore democratic process played out like Jan. 6th. Except, except in righteousness for democracy. It is a reminder to all of us.
I have to step in: Martial Law: Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Marshall Law does not exist (although Wiki did list a man named Marshall Law who lives in San Francisco). Marshall, as in a rank in law enforcement is sometimes substituted for "martial" which is the military takeover of a government since they are homonyms: sound the same with different meanings.
Average Americans clearly do not “vote their wallets.” They vote their prejudices- racism, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia. That’s why, in part, the Middle Class disappeared.
And 99.9% of the J6ers
Thanks, Anthony. Seems like you understood the point of Heather’s post very well. Sadly, the comments immediately went down a fruitless rabbit hole after you gave us a great opening for a fruitful discussion.
Anthony- Thanks. Seems like you understood Heather’s lesson very well. Sadly, the comments went down a fruitless rabbit hole after you gave a start to a fruitful discussion.
Wake up America! We could be next!
Amen!
Once again, as in Ukraine, we see ordinary citizens who recognize that democracy is "minding their own damn business." May we be as clear thinking and brave as they.
I wonder if Little Rocket Man has a finger in this pie? Great to see the rapid ascendancy of Bluesky. I liked the vision of the lawmakers climbing the wall to get in to vote. Reverse image of what happened at the Capitol.
Are you on Bsky, Anne-Louise? Searched for you with no luck. Just got on and looking to follow any LFAA people over there!
It's how I learned about the attempted SK coup yesterday. Really fast news!
I listen to the BBC as I'm falling asleep and on into the day, and that's where I heard about it all. "Bewildering" was the first word that I thought of when I heard the inttial news, and then "Inspiring" when I herd about the legislators showing up. Can we count on our legislators is the question that remains...
I was recalling just now the sight of Josh Hawley, before, and after. His hasty retreat was hilarious.
As we used to say in the old nabe, He beat feet.
Appropriate.
It's been many years since I heard that expression: "beat feet" meant RUN!
Given how many legislators acted prior,during,and after Jan 6th definitely you can't count on a significant number of them. On the other hand Betsy, there are heros among those on the other side, those not afraid of speaking up. It's a mixed answer.
I totally agree. Republican lawmakers are spineless wimps.
And the corporate media white washes everything Trump does or says.
🇰🇷 🦋
Can we count on our citizens to rise up in mass?
Maybe not in mass, since that’s a solemn event, but surely en masse. (😙)
Thanks for the correction.
MLM, thank you. I just jumped on my Martial vs. Marshall law wagon in a previous post. I'm now picturing Marshall Law in Mass...😉
p.s. Marshall Law is a man who lives in San Francisco.
We probably did have a legislator named Marshall at some point in MA's history which would give us Marshall Law in Mass...
Another English or ESL teacher? I stopped using red pen decades ago--moved from pen to pencil--but I still make corrections in my head..
English major
I heard it on the BBC at 7 am, Eastern Australian Time. I wouldn't miss them - they are very quick with the latest, even if it is always bad news from wherever. I'm happy that you looked for me, Alexandra, but no - I've got as much on my hands as I can cope with at present. Middle-aged children!!
Never gets easier, does it. Lulls come
I hope I can puncture the current crisis before "Happy Christmas".
I keep thinking that it won’t be long before our personal troubles take a back seat to our national troubles, as they become personal. At least in the US.
Lordy, it’s too early, or late. Snooze time…. Hang in
Yep. This week, at its last session for the year, the Australian parliament unanimously passed a law banning access to social media for under-16s. Elon Musk sent the Prime Minister a message straight away saying that he couldn't do that to X, it amounted to blocking free speech not only in Australia but all over the world. Our PM told him to go jump, (short for "jump in the lake"). Not his actual words, but it's an appropriate expression, for someone given to leaping up and down.
Go to Koreanist in Bluesky, also Sara Jeong.
I just followed you there. https://bsky.app/profile/stevebrant.bsky.social
Got you back, Steve! Route 66 forever!!!!
🎶If you ever plan to motor West ... 🎶
Bryan, I cannot find you on bsky. I'm 540ally
Just followed you Ally, I’m Kathy-r.bsky.social if you’d like to follow back.
@jdintx.bsky.social
I just followed you over there; I’m http://Kathy-r.bsky.social or Kathy Rizzoni if you’d like to follow back.
Will do, thanks
Found you!
Sanity on bsky
I've been trying to create a Bluesky account for days. The hCaptcha bit (are you a human) isn't working.
I'm sorry you're having trouble, Talia. There's been some pretty overwhelming traffic there - stampede of people fleeing Xitter.
Bluesky now at 24 million
That's good news Barbara, but can't wait for X to devolve to a few million alt-right nut cases worshiping Elon and Trump.
Maybe then the corporate media will ignore them. Not likely, but we can hope.
It's like the WAPO and The NY Times. WAPO offered me a 4 week subscription for $.99 good for a year or an annual subscription for $29.
How stupid do they think we are? So, it's $13.00 for a year if you pay every four weeks or $29.00 for annual. It's not worth it at $1 a year.
I wonder what the final count was to WaPo of people cancelling after the refusal to endorse Harris. Legacy media is dying. We can use this as an opportunity to build other information systems such as Bluesky, Substack, Meidas Touch etc.
Heather made a pretty good argument in politics chat yesterday regarding NOT abandoning legacy media. I don’t have the time stamp but essentially she supports the writers there, and the cadre of attorneys who have their backs, and the $$$ to support all. She compared it with her small contribution with Buddy as her point man. Good stuff.
the weird thing is we voted in these incompetents yet both Trump Social Truth and Musk's X are not doing well commercially. did not one who voted for them see the signs this portends?
(Insert Blade Runner joke here!)
Alexandra, I'm 540ally over there.
Go to Sara Jeong in Bluesky where you can see the videos.
Thanks, everybody - I'll do it.
Very sad contrast
I'd bet on it.
Very inspiring! I never thought in the 1980s that the U.S. could learn about defending democracy from the South Koreans, but here we are!
I never thought in November 5th 2024" that the US could learn about defending democracy from the South Koreans, but here we are!"
Imagine a world, Jim, where American students read books from all over the world.
Whole books. From South Korea, Iran (even the many in exile from there), South Africa, Egypt, Japan, various European countries, West Bank and Israel, and Central and South American countries, too.
Our many good teachers yet in American schools could venture these good human explorations. How many might prefer that to being harnessed always to teaching-to-the-next standardized test?
And our billionaires? What do you think they'd prefer? Good human stories in widely varying natural and cultural settings? Or more abstractions, neutered but logical categories, and all the unit-by-unit linearity which makes for yet more dutiful corporate packagers?
Phil, I appreciate what you offer generally and am jumping in now in defense of people (including myself) who are challenged to sit and read a book (for varied reasons). I agree that skills and habits of reading would be best set when children are young but I'd counterbalance that by saying that physical motion as it enhances brain function and cardio-vascular health plus reliable cues for physiological hunger for nutritious foods -- that ALL this needs revamping. Make less sedentary days for students and maybe sitting and reading will be a welcome outcome and add venues for conversations about what reading generates in people's world views too. But then, we'd need to question what happens in those buildings we call schools!
My way of life required so much active labor that I've finally merged well with Audible and I can listen to books while doing the manual labor and physical exercising I like to do that dovetails well with how I earn a living. I'm often blue-toothed to earphones or a portable speaker or my car but I still buy hardcopies of my favorite listens to write in (that I almost never sit with).
Joan and Phil, I agree with both of you. I too have become a fan of Audible or books read by actors and authors, at the fingertips of my phone. So I can "read" while walking the dogs or exercising. My consumption of books has doubled from pre-audible days.
The trend toward charter schools (public-private partnerships) where students in small classrooms are encouraged to actually read books is, in my view, not a bad one. Unlike fully private "Christian nationalist" schools, they seek out ethnic diversity and challenge preconceptions.
My late husband, some decades ago, had business in S Korea. He said it was his favorite Asian country, and had great admiration for the his friends/colleagues and the Korean people overall. During one trip, there were protest/riots over some government action: there were riot police of course. He heard noises in the middle of the night and, looking out his window, saw the police using their riot shields as “dust pans” while the protesters were using brooms to sweep up debris. In the morning, no trace of the protests. Given that incident, I’m not at all surprised at the response to a declaration of martial law. I am inspired by the example!
Heather, you wrote this with a smile on your face, I bet! I was surely grinning while reading this historic day’s recap. Bravo for the people in South Korea and for their legislators for speaking out forcefully, but doing so without violence! Our country has a lot to learn. We can do this, y’all. YES WE CAN
Unfortunately, American citizens have guns that do the talking. A coup would be a blood bath, as the small assault on the Capitol proved. Bluntly speaking, South Korea does not allow the general public to be armed, hence a bloodless coup.
Oh Maureen, you sucked away my optimism, because you’re right. The guns, the dang guns.
sadly true. and people who supported this mad man who I broke acquaintance with all said they 'welcomed the revolution'. without any intelligence that it will be their children's blood that will be spilled.
Theres the reason why the govt wants you to keep an arsenal of guns. That is until they declare martial law..then that very same govt will take them away except for their own Gestapo
Si! se pueda!
A lesson for the US ... "it illustrates that for all the claims that autocracy can react to events more quickly than democracy can, in fact autocrats are brittle. It is democracy that is determined and resilient."
Hear hear!! This bears repeating!
Learn US, or relearn
Inasmuch a coup frightens people, the stalwart surge of South Koreans citizens to shut down the phoney martial law reflects how precious is a new and thriving democracy to its citizens. 🙏Perhaps we in The United States have taken our republic for granted for so long, we simply do not know how -- or why -- to fight for it any more. 😱 But fight we shall, if necessary. ✌🏽
Ned, I had the same response about the temporal exigency of defending something relatively recently achieved against the odds. They also live with a northerly shadow of extreme repression whilst the US have democracies at both poles.
Good point, K.S.C. North Korea has been aggressive; the move by Mr Yoon, however, was using the gangster régime in Pyongyang as a pretext for usurpation.
Chump would not hesitate to use the military. I hope military brass are watching
they stopped him quietly before -but now risk censure and court-martial. and he will now have control of the football again. he might even store it in a bathroom at Mira.....
You are so right. He and Putin have a plan, one wonders if Putin and the Heritage nuts will have a battle for the soul of chump…. Just kidding. Many players in this game.
What great news for South Korea. Now, let us be inspired by their people!
Morning, Lynell. Excellent news indeed!
I was browsing through BlueSky when Sarah Jeong started talking about what was happening. She was just amazing, and she made me smile. We CAN resist Trump’s thugs. I’m more convinced than ever.
Later today, Lawrence Tribe posted an incredible article here on Substack called “How to be Sand in the Gears of Tyranny.”
They will start out by dumping the Sahara into the gears of an already stressed machine.
A book coming out in February - "The Flu and the Fed" - charts a history of pandemics followed by takeovers of various places since the time of the Roman Republic. It apparently takes a long time to get over all the disruption that a pandemic causes, and here we have another example. Incredible. I wonder if pandemic viruses cause brain disease in some people who are power hungry and they lose the ability to regulate their emotions. Trump would be a super example.
Trump never learned to regulate his emotions, and power corrupts. I wonder what the authors have to say about the collective amnesia that has come over us - at least those who are not still suffering with long covid. That amnesia is a sign of collective trauma. Not to mention the lingering Mass Delusion. . .
Heather, your Letters help cut through the fog of our minds. Thank you!
He was who he is way before the pandemic.
Oops. The Fed and the Flu, had the title backwards.
Interesting thought, I look forward to seeing their data. Authors are financial industry people, not academics, FYI. Thanks.
It has been said that Trump's handling of the Covid pandemic helped to sink his chances of re-election in 2020. First there was Trump, then Covid, and now Trump again. Can we draw any conclusions? whether consonant with or contrary to the thesis of this book.
but on a positive side it also brought on the Renaissance
Inspiration for real! Meidas Touch is already rounding up supporters to be in Washington when the time comes. Keep a back pack packed.
Wish I could go. Will in spirit
I hope the Americans will exhibit the same strength and bravery to oppose the new dictator in our country when he pulls the trigger.
It was mentioned that members of his own party stood to oppose him. We won't see that here. Republicans will abandon our country to promote the new dictatorship. NOTE: the correct term is dictatorship - not autocracy.
Here the dictator won't call it martial law. He'll probably call it a patriotic rebirth.
They spent 4 years promoting us being at each other's throats, angry and divided, in order to advance political careers and win elections. I will never forget that. I hope history speaks their names.
Let’s hope we can do as well. Thank you South Koreans. Thank you Ukrainians. Thank you to all who resist tyrants and oppression.
Thanks you Gina..👋
Forgive me for being off topic, but I have to share what was just in the inbox (from the NYT):
California Democrat Flips Seat in the Last House Race to Be Decided
The final House race was won by Adam Gray after Representative John Duarte, the Republican incumbent, conceded in California’s 13th District. Mr. Gray’s victory means that Democrats will have 215 House seats compared with 220 for Republicans.
Betsy what a shame it was the last pending result of the last election....could you imagine if we had a few more....?
Well, given how close the race was, I'm just relieved that the margin went in our favor. It's time now to start thinking about the seats that we can flip back in 2026.
Congratulations South Koreans! This is such a strong moment for struggling Democracies everywhere. We needed this boost.
I ask again. Where are the Leaders of the Democratic Party? President Biden goes to Africa. VP Harris has effectively disappeared. Hakeem Jeffries is not gaining national traction. We need help here!
And soon!!!!!
Who will lead the Dems in 2028, provided you have another election
I think they should be front and center right now. The old guard needs to go. Harris needs to decide what to do now.
We can't wait until 2028. We will be lucky if we have an election in 2026.
A great article is What is the Democratic Party? by David Dayen at The American Prospect.
Thank you. I'll read it.
Thank you for an inspiring letter tonight!
These events restore some of my shaken faith in human nature.