One day short of his first 100 days in the White House, on April 28, 2021, President Joe Biden spoke to a joint session of Congress, where he outlined an ambitious vision for the nation. In a time of rising autocrats who believed democracy was failing, he asked, could the United States demonstrate that democracy is still vital?
I've written and posted the same simple message ever since I saw that the Republicans had increasingly taken over the media news cycle. If Joe is going to be this generation's FDR, he must promote, promote and promote and be backed up by serious Democrats who put out the same message. The Republicans have done this for years and in so doing, they've built support for their crazy ideas, policies and wars. Why on Earth can't the Democrats get over whatever they're doing instead, and verbally support Joe all the time? His poll numbers would be vastly better if they did and if Joe had regular addresses to the nation from the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. Let's have American know the truth. There's no time to lose.
Biden has been a wonderful president. He is the opposite of the self-aggrandizing dictator in waiting. If he has a flaw, it is that he is too modest. A monthly address to the American public would be extremely helpful at this point. It could focus on all that he has done- and the dangers that Americans face if they give up on the fight for democracy. Unfortunately, we live in a world where if you don't take control of your narrative- of who you are and what you stand for- someone else will. The front page of every newspaper shouldn't be headlining Trump's absurd deceitful cries of persecution. It should be about all that Joe is doing to rebuild the middle class and revive the American dream. You go Joe.
Broadcasting Joe’s successes might best be done by millions of us acting in a supportive role. Where Joe’s time and energy has clearly been spent making my country move in the best direction of my life I can only feel that I need to help. IMO in reading both HCR and the many thoughtful people here I am becoming more energized, confident and eager to to contribute. I have been the unwitting recipient of the best our democracy could provide the average citizen for all these years. As I stare into the advertised future destruction of our democracy by the GOP I’m reminded of the best we can be and how important it is. Today the litany of lies by the GOP is in full view unbridled with seemingly clear direction. I’ve never felt the need to say very much in any forum but here I am now.
Lie #1 (IMO): “It’s better to have anyone other than a career politician in office “. Lately I’ve seen stark evidence where that is not true. I only need to look at the last two presidents for comparison. Where DT would (and did) replace knowledgeable people within our government to resonate with his simple minded control, JB has relied upon the best in their respective fields to contribute. I could go on.
As for now thanks to HCR and all of you for inspiration.
I think he's bypassing mainstream media a lot and using social media/podcasts to get his message out. I think we will probably see the payoff in the election and pundits will scratching their heads and lamenting "but he ignored us". Bet your sweet bippy he's ignoring you. Apologies for Boomer centric "bippy" reference. Happy New Year to all.
You are so right, Richard! Fireside chats, I believe they were once called. The media loves sensation, and Trump certainly gives them that, but it is all crap with no substance, The Dems need to step up and take the spotlight away from the Republicans.
Richard I agree. Also, I've been listening to youtube videos of Trump supoorters; they spout powerful lies as the truth, and they don't need to defend or explain. E.g. The election was stolen. it's much easier to promote one-sentence lies than to explain complex truths.
President Biden and his writers, as well as all of us who want to inspire folks about his accomplishments, need to understand WIIFM (what's in it for me?) and learn the sales technique of "selling the benefit, not just the feature. (e.g. "This detergent has no perfumes or dyes, which means it's safe for sensitive skin and it's likely that no one in your family will have an allergic reaction").
Every statement of success needs to be followed by "which means X, Y, Z ( a benefit in plain English. ) E.g. "Inlfation fell from 6.4% to 3.1%, which means .......something that will make sense to a low-middle income person who still sees food prices as too high. The fact that this is a good economic indicator will probably not mean anything to them, and even if it does, they still want to know WIIFM?
And I don't know how to word the benefit of inflation going down to someone who isn't experiencing lower prices.. So I need to find out.
I expect seeing the price of gas and groceries go down would help make it a bit clearer. That your child 14 and older or Uncle Bob or cousin John managed to get a job recently after being out of work since Covid closed everything down. It has to be concrete and local.
And of course deep down if there’s any there there the former president came on as a showman from day 1 because that’s what he has always been, a showman. With nothing but smoke and mirrirs and meanness and self self aggrandizement behind the curtain. Just watch 5 seconds of “The Apprentice” if you can stand that much. Which Biden is not. And Americans are sucked in by show. It’s a core function of our society. I’m sorry but I have long felt PT Barnum had it right. There’s one born every minute. And to make money media will usually play to that crowd.
Something you'll never see MAGA wearing is a t-shirt with "See you at the Polls!" imprinted on it. Only Dems know the history behind that slogan. I say it to people in passing and they get it.
I 'really' like that idea Tracy; especially the fact that it presents such a profound, silent 'dog whistle' - lol ! By the time it's fully figured out, some may have habituated themselves to walk straight through their own fears, learning what courage really is; acting despite fears. Courage is 'not' absence of fear, goes the old yet very true saw. Not all, but most bullies I've ever known have fearful souls themselves; Anger, I have learned is a 'fear based manifestation and bullies are full of it, as well as sh_t. You just have to rationalize the basis of their fears - they back off of that being revealed 8 times out of 10.
You can easily also observe that bullies never travel alone; they 'need' audience and back-up so to speak, b/c they don't have the personal courage of their own convictions to peacefully speak their own minds alone. When you wear your shirts - and proudly, go in numbers greater than one; if for no other need than a recorder / witness to events should it go to that, an event that might need witness (and / or a threat of witness). I don't know what your concealed carry laws are in your locality; another thought 'bubble' is to acquire equally visible patches that identify you - in an understandable-to - them sort of reverse dog whistle that you also support the only obvious 'dog whistle' amendment they fully blow wind about, and display that 'you' just might be carrying at any time, whether you are or not carrying. Actual gunshots hurt like hell if you don't know; the threat of return fire can be sobering, regardless if you can or would. A patch that signals the possibility plants doubt and fear; Something on the order of a patch proclaiming, "I passed the CCW" , or "My magazine is loaded; 9 + 2, what about you". >Just some thoughts... and share if you like. I am and will not be "anybody's Huckleberry." *edit in > I misstated the 'Huckleberry' reference.
Hi Alice, I love the pun! My plan is to less confrontational. For me, being Pro Biden is a “bluish-purple” message with more embracing and less rejecting. But I will definitely high-five anyone donning a “ByeDon” shirt as we pass down the grocery aisles.
Being a female in the red state of MT &older I will not make myself a target for the MAGAs here. I do mine by posting on the WH fb page to counter the MAGAs & on maga state congress people.
I do understand this and I am not interested in being a target either. MAGAs around here are very aggressive. We do donate to various races including those in other places and I do post Heather's Letter to Facebook where I see others reposting it and I know some of their friends are not Ds.
I'm thinking about this, Shawn. It is a fabulous idea, and sent my mind wandering off (it is really to young to go off unsupervised like that... but I digress): There is no shortage of "bumper sticker" MAGAt slogans. I see them plastered all over vehicles here in Eugene, and they range from the loosely disguised "Timber Unity" (they support "working families", like my wife and I don't *or did, in my case* that are MAGAt to the core) to all the "Oregunian" flavored 2A supporters, to "Let's Go Brandon"; same vehicles usually have flags flying from/stickers stuck on them.
I'm thinking of a shirt with some of the stats from today, maybe 2 or 3, with a "Thanks, Brandon" at the bottom, with aviator sunglasses in the "o" of Brandon.
Ally, I love your fabulous idea to make "a shirt with some of the stats from today, maybe 2 or 3, with a "Thanks, Brandon" at the bottom, with aviator sunglasses in the "o" of Brandon." I don't understand how you would use aviator sunglasses in the o. Perhaps, instead, add aviator sunglasses as the signature?
Great idea Ally. If you do this, let me know how it goes. We have plenty of the same vehicles here in Salem sporting MAGA stickers and of course, flags....often on jacked up vehicles. I would also add that neither the Keizer police nor the Salem police enjoy much support from people who oppose MAGAs. Some of them have been seen aiding and abetting when we have people like the Proud Boys in town. The legislature is not in session, so less action now although earlier this year a couple wing nuts wanted to bother progressive and/or black businesses downtown.
I am in. Does anyone else have a favorite Biden tee shirt source? I'll put it with my 'I Love Jimmy Carter' and my 'Birdie Sanders' shirts. I buy 100% cotton made in the USA when I can find it.
Hoover had [gave America] the “Great Depression” … “W” (Bush 2) gave us the “Great Recession” … and now the twice impeached “orange j” wants a second opportunity to make our lives (those that survived his first - and hopefully only - term shenanigans) - worse than during his first administration; … politics and politicians are occupying much too much of our daily lives!!!
Educate, promote, motivate … not just about a third of the American registered voters who fail to fulfill their responsibility of being a good American citizen - but also those who feel that they want to “sit out” - not participate - our next presidential election because they are unhappy or feel that they will be with the pending choices for the position of being the 47th POTUS
For the primaries, it’s more like 2/3 don’t vote. That has got to change. MSM gave 🤡💩🎃 huge headlines for winning primaries with very low turnout. Check stats on you secretary of state’s website.
"… politics and politicians are occupying much too much of our daily lives!!!"
That's for sure. And there's so much nonsense in it. The petty squabbles between corrupted politicians who blatantly make power grabs to fill their pockets and satisfy their commercial puppetmasters--that is the message we send to the world about American government. In terms of change, I'm not saying to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but at least change the water.
Maybe the reason repubs get more coverage is they are crazy in the extreme, they fight and propose what would have once been thought wild schemes—in short, they are more entertaining.
Some Ds love to diss what they see as establishment Ds although I haven't seen much lately. We do have one D here in Oregon who is really irritating me as she is acting like she is the D candidate for District 5 when we have not had the primary and she has strong Ds running to be the candidate as well. I am in District 6, so can't vote for the candidate there, but I hope the voters choose someone who cam retire the R after one term.
Bill, While the idea of periodic informal Oval Office chats likely would have a meaningful impact, I would urge we not discount that the Administration’s achievements have had minimal affect on the 60% living precariously from paycheck to paycheck, wherein family income typically only is sustained by more people working longer hours, while still weighted down by mortgage debt, credit card debt, car payments, and the like.
Accordingly, I would urge Democratic leadership to underscore the social infrastructure piece of BBB that, while receiving zero support from House and Senate Republicans, passed in the House in 2021 and mostly would have passed in the Senate under reconciliation, but for Manchin’s and Sinema’s opposition. The legislation included $15 hourly minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, the child tax credit, affordable, quality childcare, universal healthcare, investments in housing, in eldercare, and more.
To amplify the legislation that Dems tried to deliver, I would submit these “chats” address questions such as “Who do you want here—somebody who doesn’t want to cut the price of prescription drugs or those who do?” “Somebody who doesn’t want to extend the child tax credit or those who do?” “Doesn’t want to provide affordable, quality childcare and Universal Pre-K or those who do?” “Doesn’t want to make investments in paid family and medical leave, in housing, in eldercare, and in climate or those who do?” My point, and note I haven’t mentioned the Party’s accomplishments, is that Democrats have an extraordinarily appealing narrative that represents the interests of a broad range of people, if only they would deliver it.
I'm in agreement with you, Barbara. My daughter and her husband work in the non-profit sector in Chicago, and while the Democratic government there has resisted dire cuts, donations are way off in charitable enterprises, and one huge social services agency is about to close. Life for the poor—working or not— is a struggle. Added to that is the practice of transporting immigrants from Republican states to Democratic cities that are struggling to provide for them. We need these people; I've just been following stories about the dire lack of employees in senior residences and care facilities. New Mexico is in crisis, and several other states are right behind them. I don't know who is counseling Biden to stay silent about immigration (IMO it was not a great decision to leave it all to Vice President Harris. She was just getting her wings, and although she has risen to the occassion, some people doen't think things are dire unless the President says so.)
Right on! The irony is that so many people whose voting decisions are based on their own personal bigotry and fear are also those who are utterly dependent on entitlements programs, social welfare, and other institutional assistance that the Dems invented and the Rethuglicans would love to eradicate. It's not just that the whole idea of private charity being sufficient is ridiculous, it is that the gobsmacking disparity between the wealthiest 10% in the world--which controls 85% of the world's wealth--and everyone else is continuing to keep the downtrodden, the working poor, and the underemployed and undereducated in thrall. And yes: I looked up the stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
@ Progwoman, I wholly am in agreement with your perspective regarding immigration. We’re already seeing a hemorrhaging of support from young people and people of color, who particularly are concerned about DACA and the status of TPS, both being issues I believe Biden could lend a hand through executive orders.
Progwoman, you are right. While Biden’s achievements are remarkable (especially with one hand tied behind his back politically), doing things for the people most in need of relief would be useful, e.g., the child tax credit that paid lower income people monthly. (You know, “socialism.”)
As I write down your suggestions, I can hear the MAGA crowd's replies. The ability of the faux news to twist anything positive to fit their narrative. The audiences are the ones that are silent & struggling
My worry about paying my bills is laid 109% at repubs feet. If they shut down the government, we will see evil at work. Blame the perps. Good suggestions otherwise
Jeri, Regrettably, I fear GOP plans to shut down the government are part of a ploy to create increasing chaos and foment increasing insecurity so increasing numbers become willing to accept any authoritarian option in order to provide some sense of normalcy and security in their lives. Accordingly, Dems must not allow Republican machinations to go unchallenged.
The GOPs refusal to even meet with Democrats to come up with a compromise plan to deal with immigration is a similar tactic. Republicans bash Biden daily about problems at the Mexican border but don't want to do anything but offer a draconian, absurd plan that would never pass the House and Senate. This is also a ploy to hurt Biden's re-election chances.
That said, Biden needs to become much more vocal about the problems and how he proposes to ease them.
Michael, I agree that the GOP’s tactics relative to immigration are a prime example of Republican efforts to undermine Biden. Moreover, these tactics are working. As we speak, I understand that Biden is hemorrhaging support from young people and people of color, particularly over the status of DACA and TPS, two policies wherein Biden could lend a helping hand through executive order.
Katharine, Admittedly, I partially posted hoping others would join me in pressing the White House to amplify what they tried to deliver and the folks who voted against it.
Barbara, those excellent, targeted “chat” questions would possibly work very well using the “postcard” method. Not sure if postcards can be used for presidential elections...
KathyB, The names and addresses provided for postcard writers cover candidates up and down the ballot, excluding the Presidency. Still, I include items from my list as they relate to particular candidates.
As someone who writes scores of those postcard s, the message is dictated by and tailored to specific campaigns. But last year the reproductive rights messages were greatly successful.
..if only the voters would come out better than 2020
..if only Justice would be swift
..if only WE THE PEOPLE would unite FOR PEACE
the autocratic nations old and new suffer from oppression , none in history have fared well NONE..autocrats worldwide, their complicit, and many of their ‘enemies’ ends are disastrous...peace does not ‘pick a fight’ . Peace sustains, promotes, delivers, reduces deficits, encourages hope.
AND...peace keepers don’t stand on the heads of those under water while screaming victim/revenge/foul/blame game fame/walk not baulk
Patricia, Admittedly, your point regarding my effort to take the fight to Republicans not resonating among, as you say, “complicits” is valid. Still, I expect there are sufficient numbers of “persuadables,” who could help Democrats retake the House, hold their 49 Senate seats (discounting Manchin and Sinema), flip 1 Republican-held Senate seat, hold the White House, and also win contests in battleground state and local elections.
Thanks and I’m definitely on that same page , been advocating this quite awhile. I KNOW there’s more of us’ins than them’ ins , trying my best to rally forth the noteworthy statistics of the voting block who won’t be bothered and how much they matter/I care. What I’ve emphasized is the lesson brought into stark reality ,in hopes it is seen for the worth it affords .
Love your posts .
Happy New Year to these brilliant formats , commentators and authors and TRUTH…Let It Ring In The New Year’s Bell of Freedom -Loud Clear and Resolved🫶
Patricia, Like you, I wish every truth warrior I have met through Substacks good health, resilience, and, especially glimmers amid an unprecedentedly challenging era.
Exactly! Good strategy, if u read any of the MAGA posts they blame their financial woes on President Biden &the good economic numbers are very slow to benefit the 60%.
Carole, We think alike. Accordingly, I fear House Republicans, expecting the blame to be pinned on Biden, plan to shut down the parts of government whose funding will expire in January.
Yea, as long as Biden is our Babe at home, who gives a rat's ass if he's participating in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and increasingly the Left Bank. 1,000 Palestinian children, now amputees (many done without pain killers), and 8,976 dead. But gee, that's over there, whoever heard of Gaza anyway. It's the home front that counts. Biden's just a loyal friend of Bibi's. So what if he wants to send millions more to him, Israel is keeping the Middle East in line! Gotta have that security!
Selina, Though not noted in my comment, I continue to write letters pressing that continued military funding to Israel be conditioned upon an immediate and permanent ceasefire and movement towards a diplomatic resolution. As I expect you would agree, the U.S. currently is complicit in war crimes, mandating that leadership stop equivocating.
It’s a totally different topic, I understand but I don’t think that Biden has any love for Bibi nor does the majority of Israel’s population. I wonder what you think would be the solution to this horrible, very complicated and multi layered situation. Another time perhaps?
Yes! And VP Harris should participate as well. Her reaction to Dobbs - her style of outrage - is what most of us who are furious about such a decision want to hear.
But few mention the following. It is wonderful to talk about past and current successes. They are many. But people want to hear "what are you going to do for me next". The enormous problems of an insane healthcare system, pathetic childcare system, cruel inefficient elder care and the ridiculous cost of education are examples of crippling problems. Issues that are overwhelming. All the stats and wonderful numbers can't fix these crises of modern life. Is there any wonder as to why the majority of Americans think this country is headed in the wrong direction?
And some sincere anger about gun deaths would be appropriate, no? And I haven't mentioned the big one! The Climate Crisis. Want to rally younger people? Get really pissed off on TV and social media about how we are walking into a nightmare that many novels and movies have portrayed. And blame the idiot Republicans for poo pooing it. Blame for denying the science we have had for decades. Young people respect science!
We should be hearing from Biden and Harris and the Democratic leaders of Congress about the plans they have to solve these problems - problems rich people don't have to face. Problems that have solutions that have been blocked by Republicans. Selfish, elitist white supremacist men who block attempts to solidify voting rights and the rights of women to control their own lives.
We have all had a nice meal. Thank you. But the fridge is empty. Time to explain how it will get refilled. Time to explain who wants to hog the food and starve our kids. Young people need more than a friendly fireside chat. They need a bad ass, pissed off leader who is angry that common sense solutions to the problems of young families are being torpedoed by fascists.
And follow that with a history lesson about Russia. A story about Putin and how he deals with the opposition. A story full of photos of a decimated Ukraine. A story about a nation that is a bulwark of democracy against Putin's imperialist ambitions for a new Russian Empire. We could include a list of the opponents he has killed. Show their faces.Time to play hardball.
If all of that isn't enough or it doesn't stir you. Consider that the leader of the House of Representatives (two heartbeats from the presidency) wants to establish the US as a "Christian" nation - essentially creating a National Religion. Young people are not going to like hearing that - lots of "Spiritualists" and Nones in that demographic. I find that almost as terrifying as Climate Change. That's fascism writ large.
There is a lot to be proud of from Biden and Harris and company. But it is statistical. People don't vote for stats. They vote for change. They vote for a vision of a better life.
Bill, I very much appreciate how you have demonstrated that Democratic leadership, receipts in hand, need to take the fight to the Republican Party. Democrats rightly expect this, and, while I don’t presume said messaging would have much, if any, impact on far-right extremists, I imagine there are sufficient numbers of “persuadables,” who could help Dems retake the U.S. House, hold their 49 U.S. Senate seats (discounting Manchin and Sinema), flip 1 Republican-held Senate seat, hold the White House, and also win contests in battleground state and local elections.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, Bill. I am very worried that young people won't support Biden - either by voting for a third-party candidate or not voting at all - because of what's happening in Gaza. They need to be reminded about the other issues at stake.
Biden did a wonderful job explaining his views in his January interview at the White House with Heather Cox Richardson. He does best when comfortable. Heather and the setting made him comfortable. If his monthly updates to the nation were similar he would not hesitate. His hesitation due to his stammer makes me so nervous for him. That didn’t happen with Heather.
No one who saw that interview would think Biden resembled in the slightest the Fox (etc.) image they push. HCR’s questions were not marshmallows, and one that I remember was critical of his position.
Unfortunately there are voters who prefer a YouTube clip to confirm their pre-existing views. As a child of the ‘50s I remember when networks carried presidential speeches as if they would be regarded as necessary by citizens to inform themselves.
Write a letter and mail it. I already have. No one listens to Joe Schmoe but my suggestion was based on something I did trying to help elect a senator from my state of CT in 2006. I suggested to the campaign manager at the time a program of asking every supporter to find only one person, a friend, an acquaintance, anyone who would likely vote democratic but highly unlikely to vote. Period. And work them over the course of the campaign. I found one such person and I knew she wasn’t that politically oriented. Up to Election Day. I called her on that day and asked if she had voted and she told me yes. I explained to said manager Andy his response exactly was, “Why only one person why not 10?” I was certain he didn’t take it seriously. His/ our candidate lost in a 3-way race with the independent but really, republican winning. Sounds stupid right? But in my heart, I know that I brought one extra vote in. And if every supporter embarked in theory, the count would double. I sent letters to each Senator, Democratic Party central as well as the president. But I’m certain that no one took it seriously. They really only listen to highly paid consultants. But I had to express my opinion regardless. As you should.
I could not agree more with your suggestion, Bill. You can text or call the White House and suggest it to Biden and Harris. It’s whitehouse.gov. I have written many times since his interview with HCR that he should have regular fireside chats. I thought he really sparkled. Last Friday Roy Zimmerman gave a free concert that you can see on YouTube. He’s got a new song WOKE and he’s changed VOTE HIM AWAY to LOCK HIM AWAY. He held up his copy of DEMOCRACY AWAKENING. It’s a great mood changer when you need to recharge. The link is on his website https://www.royzimmerman.com/ and he’s leaving it up for a few weeks. Biden would be smart to use him in his campaign.
A Fireside Chat -- From "Donald's Vanity Tantrums"
President Roosevelt began a series of informal radio chats to the American public during a turbulent time in the 1940s. The radio back then was akin to communicating like Twitter is today. Here is an excerpt:
“My fellow Americans, it is whispered by some that only by abandoning our freedom, our ideals, our way of life, can we rebuild our defenses adequately, can we match the strength of the aggressors. …I do not share these fears.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Recently, President Trump has suggested a quaint, fireside chat kind of reminiscent of FDR. Here is a sneak preview:
“My friends, Hillary Clinton will never see the inside of the White House again as long as I live.
“The people love me and I’m addressing you with warm feelings. I know that you have it in your kind hearts to keep me as your president for life. The Constitution now allows this continuation of the executive branch and our blessed homeland needs a guy like me to lead it. I have authorized The Enabling Act, which I borrowed from Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s proposal to restrict powers of the Reichstag in 1933. His SS troops made legislators give up most of their civil liberties and transfer state powers to the Reich government. I’m please to tell you that the democrats have signed away their legislative powers while my ICE agents surrounded the House. I now have the power to dissolve Congress and allow my cabinet to pass much needed laws and to Make America Great Again. And I pledge to you that all fake impeachment activity against me is ending.
“One of my first acts tomorrow will be to have Nancy Pelosi and Shiftless Adam Schiff picked up for questioning in order to ascertain their patriotism for these United States.
“I know I’ve been accused of quid pro quo with Ukraine. There is nothing wrong with finding out the truth about liars and cheats like Slow Joe Biden. And there’s nothing wrong asking a nation to help with discovery of wrongdoing on the part of a corrupt man. As your President for Life, I will always tell you the truth. When I make a promise to you, I intend to keep it.
“This concludes the first of my fireside chats. I can’t wait to tell you what I have in store for other scum Trump haters.”
I think Biden needs a PR office in the White House working 24/7 to get the information out on progress that has been made, etc. Actions have been taken, success has been happening, and yet I'll bet that most Americans don't know it -- for reasons we all know re social media and lies.
Reliably Once per week, same day and time. Sometimes with well spoken administration folk such as Pete Buttigieg. For the busy among us simultaneously a speech, podcast and substack. How about less than ten minutes or less twice per day with ongoing latest from the administration.
What HCR writes is all true! But it ignores the words of the late Marshal McLuhan, 'the media is the message.' It should not be necessary for HCR to lay out facts that are out there for all to see if they only would look. Frankly, Joe Biden will never be as great a communicator as FDR was., and whose fireside chats offered comfort to a nation sorely in need of it. That 'media' was indeed the 'message,' even more than FDR's words. Still, there must be a way to get this message out.
Speak slowly and distinctly, Joe. When you speak too fast and get wrapped up in your “stump speech” mode, you make mistakes...and the Rs can’t keep up anyway.
Thanks for the wonderful poem Fern! For several years, I owned a vinyl LP also called "Where the Sidewalk Ends", in which Shel Silverstein reads several poems from the book. I'm pretty sure that poem was one of them. It is almost 'Robert Frostian' in the way it deals with sleep/death/what really matters. My favorite remains "Somebody Ate the Baby" however :)
“Your spirit and care always lifts mine” This s a message I will work hard to keep front and center as I join others to preserve and build our democracy as we work to elect leaders who will care about all of our children.
I am well aware of the evil and sadly complacency we will have to overcome but this thread and always HCR provide the momentum to never give up.
My age, as is true of President Biden, is helping me to clarify our goals. I am going to my bookshelves and dig out Shel and other books that we used to teach values to our children. It will remind me what this journey is all about. Thanks to Fern and others in this thread that show how and why we’ll do this.
Fern, I’ve written down “your spirit and care always lifts mine,” attributed to you. This is why I love the comments section of HCR’s letters. Good people showing up fully. Thank you.
Just watched My Fair Lady last night. The absolute arrogance of the aristocracy in how they viewed "those people" is so relevant today. It never seems to go away.
Fern, you always provide such wisdom and inspiration to our community. Best wishes for a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year, a year where we continue to see a democracy“...of the people, by the people, and for the people”. 💕
Dear Kari, to sunlight and rain, and to our spirit and our work, our strength, and our caring for one another. Warm wishes, good health and good cheer to you. Thank you for dropping by and sharing your message on behalf of us, the people, and democracy. 💞
After reading HCR's letter today, I was so uplifted, that I sent a copy to one of her Senators and her Congressman in ME. I thanked them for all they have accomplished with President Biden and I also suggested they read her newsletter as well as everyone in their campaign office.
I didn't bother sending this to Senator Collins who is incredibly thin skinned even though she is HCR's Senator as well. She does what Mitch allows her too except with a few confirmations. It gives her cover to say she voted to approve Kagan, Sotomayor and Kentaji-Brown.
There are many challenges we must face as a nation. One glaring issue that I once thought was settled and certain was the United States as a representative democracy. Yet, as Supreme Court 'Justices' Alito and Thomas have gleefully expressed -nothing is settled law.
The leading candidate for the Republican party is an admitted felon. His lawyers asserting "Presidential immunity" are effectively saying, "Trump committed criminal acts, but you cannot hold Trump responsible because he was President." (Of course it will be argued that inciting an insurrection, betraying national security, obstructing justice, suborning perjury and other such crimes are NOT official duties of the President), eventually, points of law will be decided by a group who have already demonstrated their lack of ethics.
For all of those in the "election was rigged camp" -note that Trump's defense is not a plea of innocence. Such thinking would require the application of logic, something sorely missing from the willfully ignorant.
The same fervent supporters of Trump are the same voters who elevate the corrupt and/or the incompetent like Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Comer, Rick Scott, Lauren Boebert, Ron Johnson, Marsha Blackburn, Ryan Zinke, Ron DeSantis, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Scott Perry and Jim Jordan's to lead in Congress or in State leadership roles. They are the reason that books are banned, women's rights are regressing, and "trickle-down" is seriously discussed as a form of economics instead of the mass fraud it represents. They wrap themselves in the American flag claiming "true patriotism" and yet are directed by Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch in terms of what to believe and who to hate. They immerse themselves in religious scripture, picking out any passage they can (while ignoring many others) rationalizing their own greed, selfishness, and hatred of anyone who looks, believes, or loves differently. The people they are told to choose as leaders are those who are most likely to fight against equity, justice, and democracy. So-called leaders who represent the interests of the obscenely wealthy, the oil, gas, and coal industries, big pharma, and others over law and policy that would benefit a vast majority of Americans.
The Biden/Harris Administration has done a remarkable job thus far with certain exceptions and yet there remains far too many who will not care about the metrics of a strong economy when they are told by Fox 'News' or even the New York Times columnist David Brooks to ignore the metrics because a burger and fries costs $78 dollars now, They are told that the democratic party are socialists or communists because they want to strengthen Social Security instead of privatizing and destroying it. They are told climate is a hoax, and ignore the millions who perished from COVID -don't let the big nanny government make you wear a mask or get a vaccination. Whooping Cough is now rising in Suffolk County, New York -the same Congressional district that elevated liar George Santos to Congress, interesting, isn't it?
The unfortunate reality is that any meaningful form of democracy requires a well-educated, well-informed, and engaged society. In the United States all three pillars have been successfully attacked for generations. When Grover Norquist said "I want a government so small I can drown it in a bathtub" he really meant -a democracy so fragile. Others like Norquist have said this since Reagan and even before. Paul Weyrich who started right-wing Heritage Foundation said "I don't want people to vote." And yes, Heritage is the same entity that has published the playbook to finally destroy any hope for democracy in the United States as https://project2025.org.
The 2024 election is vital in the United States. Not only the Presidential race -Congress and State Legislature as well. Fundamentally, if we are to remain loyal to the Constitution and to the concepts of equity, justice, and democracy -we must elevate leadership who are committed to democracy. And, beyond that, we must elevate leadership who can navigate in a world that is rapidly changing due to conflict, climate change, and technological advances. While a group of loud, sociopathic circus acts are entertaining, they are not the people to lead the United States through the challenges we will confront -whether together or divided.
Well said. Republicans are pushing misinformation through their talks (watch Trump) and social media. The average Joe is getting “crime is up” and “the economy is bad.”
Right now, misinformation is winning. For Republicans, the end (power), justifies the means (misinformation, gerrymandering, buying justices, etc.) Social media (Fox and their ilk) are poisoning truth, thanks to funding from their wealthy owners.
Craig, I just read Noah Berlatsky's writing on Public Notice.
One sentence, to me, says it all.
"Republicans and conservatives simply won't say the economy is good while a Democrat is in office."
They won't admit to ANYTHING that will make President Biden look favorable, and yet many have taken credit for his accomplishments after voting against them.
When did politics become filled with weak, hateful, revenge-filled men and women? I'm sure these people have been there, but I think that Donald Trump has given them voice to whine and deny the truths of democracy.
Republicans politicians fear Trump’s ability to hurt them, financially or otherwise. Even at the organizational level, the party cannot control him and his “speech” (accusations and lies), so they are forced to openly support him and his mental distortions. They are a cancer on our nation—Trump and his minions.
The disgusting Newt Gingrich/Frank Luntz CoPac memo, "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control," was sent to Republican candidates running in the 1990 elections.
I did not know of its history but believe I had read a CATO Institute suggestion about using such tactics, back when I read a lot of their research (but was almost always mystified by how such thorough research could end up with conclusions that seemed so different from what the research seemed to show). I eventually figured they wanted to know so much background information that they could more effectively counter any less well researched information any opposition would have.
I thought it was just another minor step in the gutter when I became aware of it's growing impact around 1994, but was sickened enough by the growing use of the tactics in 1996 to leave the party over it. By then, it was gathering full steam and growing even closer to what I believe the CATO Institute had suggested as effective "Leninist" verbal attacks and soft sabotage of every program your opponents got credit for, even if it was exactly what your side would do if they were the ones getting credit for it.
A well placed fund raiser telling us we had to "fight dirtier than Democrats" and seeming to hint at becoming candidates, regardless of our skills and interests, got me started looking at what that might lead to. Everything I learned about ALEC as I looked into it, turned me against my old party. The experience of described by one local Democrat who actually believed they were non-partisan, as they claimed at the time, signed up, intending to remain a Democrat helping to develop legislation both parties could support, found out the recruited candidates had little chance of impacting any final decisions, they were all over ruled by the sponsors.
After I read the 1996 version of the GoPac memo I tried to find a better way to use language effectively than the rough "sailor talk" my Veteran sailor mother-in-law would sometimes slip into when frustrated with some project (she didn't use it against people in the presence of others). I tried to follow the advice of George Lakeoff.
"...In his 1996 book Moral Politics, Lakoff described conservative voters as being influenced by the "strict father model" as a central metaphor for such a complex phenomenon as the state, and liberal/progressive voters as being influenced by the "nurturant parent model" as the folk psychological metaphor for this complex phenomenon. According to him, an individual's experience and attitude towards sociopolitical issues is influenced by being framed in linguistic constructions..."
I suspect many are nearly limited as I am in trying to work from his level of expertise and prefer to follow, at most, a list of slogans and easy to remember tactics even if they can't remember the ones proven most effective in either positive or negative ways. I was looking for an Independent or Democratic alternative to the GoPac memo in 2016 and was not having much luck trying to make a Lakeoff version. I settled on a non-scripted habit of trying to calmly ask any with opposing views what they believed in and stood for, initially inspired by an Anthropologist, and more so by Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s answer to a question from Cat Greenleaf on “Stoop Talk.”
The Anthropologist that joined our corner rally one week had made the following sign:
"Who you voted for
is not as important as
What You Stand For"
It inspired me to make business card size copies and use them to politely ask those who expressed disagreement, in civil or uncivil confrontational ways (as well as just interested passers by), what they stand for.
Almost all could express something they stood for, so that was the start of discussions about why they stood for it. I'd say 95% could provide some rationale for their beliefs so we could go on to discuss why we see differences and how much of each other’s sources make sense in a better balance of views. It is a slow process, but we have had many soften their incivility, expand their views, and even some join us with signs borrowed from us or their own new creations.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, himself was the other half of the inspiration, with his Talk Stoop reply to Cat Greenleaf surprising him with complimenting his "Skyhook" but asking him what he thought his greatest accomplishment was outside of basketball. After some thought (if I recall correctly), he said it was learning "get my point across without offending, or confusing, anyone".
Great advice for all of us.
I converted the lists into tables I can compare more easily but they don't transfer well. The ones I used can be found at:
The above link has a link to the 1990 GOP version and lists of the Democratic version (too long for me but useful in making personal lists, with friends coordinating).
The above list is the 1996 GOP version, easier to read than other versions, but hard to swallow, as its ramped up implementation caused me to leave the party.
The dark side became too dark for me when the Southern Strategy brought in so many Southern Democrats and Dixiecrats, that their kind of slaveholder mentality took over the power within the party using arguments for States Sovereignty they try to leverage to control the whole country. I haven’t read “How the South Won the Civil War,” yet but I suspect it adds a lot of details to what I already sensed. For now, my incomplete review of thoughts over the years comes to the following.
The party left me completely (and apparently Elizabeth Warren), by 1996. Though I have been independent since then, I did donate to Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaign and register as a Democrat to support Bernie Sanders in 2016 before again becoming an Independent (who has not voted for a single Republican on any ballot in the last 24 years (though I did write-in Shiela Bair once in California where it had no effect other than to see if they counted my ballot).
I had too much on my plate with contractors remodeling our kitchen, health issues, etc to even begin to dig into the Dec 26 Letter which, to me, brought up the crux of the problems with monied interests deliberately corrupting or becoming unwitting complicit with what I’d call secret frenemies in authoritarian countries supporting disposable oligarchs.
My first impressions were of the World Wrestling Entertainment where different actors were made heroes or villains sometimes exchanging roles to keep the public “entertained,” while they made fortunes off the careless public that don’t care that there is such cheating going on. I looked upon some of our wealthiest financial sector as sort of the management of the WWE with a portion of them willing to work with powerful members of either major party to make sure they got as much profit out of the suckers as possible, while most of the others sat back and tried to make their profits more ethically.
I still believe there are many that really do have the best interests of our society in mind and do support the building and maintenance of individual rights and opportunities, infrastructure, education, health care, and protection of the whole planet’s ecosystems suitable for humans. It seems we are now falling further behind so many other countries that may have the same ideals and goals as our Declaration of Independence, but are doing better in meeting not just those goals but also the honest agent legal structures and public support in meeting all the other goals not included in the Declaration (equal rights, affordable and effective health care, education, infrastructure (new and maintenance of existing infrastructure), as well as more than their share of protecting the environment for the whole world.
My old party’s complicity with the worst of our financial sector bad actors and authoritarian kleptocracies now threatens more than just our democracy in that it endangers the very ecosystems of the planet that we humans depend on. Such carelessness already generates masses of refugees desperate to flee regions growing more uninhabitable and the political instability that comes from hoarders desperate to stay in power or expand over more productive lands of others (like the Southern Democrats and complicit northerners who passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act).
This country is suffering from psychological terrorism. All thanks to Republicans. To understand a malignant narcissist is to understand the worst of humanity. Over 60 million people suffer in silence from narcissist abuse in this country. Agent Orange and his supporters have abused this country beyond the pale. It's meant to bring us to our knees and beg for forgiveness. He gives other narcissists a voice, a platform to justify their abuse. The mental gymnastics at play here are feeding the beast. Entertainment news feeds off the corpse of lies, greed and power. That's how they pay the bills. Democrats need to get their shit together. United front works. Back our man or shut the fuck up.
As heather and others point out, crime is "down", Bloomberg et al say the economy is remarkably "up". Democrats need more political power to advance social support as already noted.
It is hard to find quality leadership in a corrupt political system which requires donor fealty as a prerequisite for election, much less subsequent reelection. We are going to have a revolution, forced on us by some combination of climate change, the consolidation of wealth by global elites, and the total loss of privacy and civil liberty forced upon us by the marriage of government and Big Tech. I agree the loud circus acts aren’t capable of addressing the challenges; I would argue, neither are the pragmatic incrementalists wedded to a corrupt system of governance controlled by monied interests.
You are right that we need a well-informed citizenry. Unfortunately, 90+% of Americans live in tribal silos, including HCR and the majority of commenters here, who have coupled the authoritarian threat to democracy with a WWII vision of American Exceptionalism, a combination which clouds reasoned judgement when it comes to a Democratic Party critique of responsibility/complicity for our current ‘challenges’.
Biden’s ‘remarkable’ job is anything but; to slough off exceptions like nuclear brinksmanship in Ukraine, a genocide in Gaza, and a pitiful attempt in addressing climate change as mere footnotes in the job accountability ledger is faulty, as is continuing to cheer for an economy that is failing millions. Whatever happened to liberal critique that using the stock market and GDP to measure economic well being was flawed analysis?
We are, indeed, challenge challenged. I just hope enough Americans realize we need a political revolution, not pragmatic incrementalism (Biden-Harris) disguised as such, in order to counter the authoritarian threat, which can come from a government/tech overreach just as easily as from the GOP extremists and Christian fascists. We’ll see. 2024 is going to be…. interesting.
“We could have been so much more. We have the ability to create a healthy and harmonious world and collaborate to give everyone on earth everything they need, and instead we’re killing the biosphere while arguing about whether or not it’s anti-semitic to oppose an active genocide.
We could have peace on earth and move from competition-based systems to collaboration-based ones to maximize our creative and innovative potential and spend our existence exploring the outer universe and the universes within ourselves, and instead we’re ramping up brinkmanship between nuclear-armed states and arguing about whether or not it’s ethical to rain military explosives on a giant concentration camp full of children.
We have the technology to let every scientist on earth share ideas and information with each other around the world in real time in any language, and instead we’ve fractured scientific development into atomized little echo chambers of closely-guarded secrets in the name of profit generation and “national security”.
How did we get here? How were we duped into trading paradise on earth for this lunatic dystopia? How did we allow ourselves to give up everything our species has the capability to be in exchange for this nightmarish paradigm of endless ecocide and exploitation and oppression and war and militarism?“
So many excellent points Tom. Thank you for taking the time to respond in a detailed and well-thought-out manner (although from some of our other interactions, I've come to expect no less).
I do cringe at thought of the system is flawed, it is primed for corruption, and therefore it is challenging to find quality leadership. Having met on occasion with Senator Merkley, former Rep. Mike Honda, State House members, I do not see a Democratic party landscape where people like MTG, Lauren Boebert, James Comer, and Paul Gosar's -who all are deeply incompetent and/or despise the system they have taken an Oath to protect. It reminds me of the arguments made about "W." when he invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. We were told that not supporting the President meant we were dishonoring the troops.
I think it's incredibly important to address the flaws in the system without positioning that until we do, both sides will produce the equivalent result. One look at this Supremely Corrupt Court should provide sufficient evidence against saying both parties are different sides of the same coin.
What makes me a pragmatic incrementalist (and I've been called far worse -mostly by an ex-wife or two) is fear. And do know that you could want an incremental approach -without being wedded to the current flawed system -in fact both incremental and rapid approach to change -want change because the system is flawed, we just have different approaches to yield a similar outcome. A sustained, incremental approach, predicated upon better education, fact and evidence-based journalism, and engagement could yield a sustainable outcome without the potential for suffering and violence of an abrupt shift. Nevertheless, you would raise the point that incrementalism is what led us to today. And yet I would say -there has never been a comprehensive countervailing response to what Lewis Powell articulated in his memo of 1971 -calling for a well-funded machine to produce oligarchy in the long run.
I think economic metrics should go beyond GDP and the Dow Jones. Unemployment is an important measure. I've not seen wealth inequality as a metric -but it should be a major factor in describing whether a 'strong/growing' economy is a fair economy. I you'd agree that we cannot aspire toward democracy in a system that is producing massively concentrated wealth.
And yes, the news about the sale of weapons to Israel is deeply troubling -and is likely connected to the power of AIPAC (to your point, a flawed political system predicated upon large donations will yield horrific decisions). While I believe Israel has a right to defend itself, and whose right to exist should be recognized, such rights to not extend to a mass slaughter of Palestinians.
This pragmatic incrementalist shares your dreams of the kind of quality and dignity of life all people could have if we lived in a peaceful and collaborative world.
Regardless of the path we choose to arrive at such a world -I will continue to work toward such a place until I draw my last breath -and grateful to folks like you who challenge us all to arrive sooner, rather than later.
“Pragmatic incrementalism”—I like that descriptor. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Okay, I’m willing to accept the list of things we as a society and as a political machine do poorly. But instead of simply listing them in criticism, the next step is proposing possible resolutions. Otherwise one is just whining.
ML, in an entrepreneurial spirit, I’d offer mankind a bracelet (at Amazon), “WWYD” (What Would You Do” as a thought starter before uttering the litany of societal woes oft times recited as proof that “both sides” fail at finding “Balance” (apologies to Mr Miyagi”
The problem with using “an examples kist ” of woe is that when you employ a simple solution to a complex problem without exploring the aftereffects of that solution for unwanted repercussions, you potentially create more problems than you solve
Ask Not What Jesus Would Do, ask What Would You Do, then do it. Don’t have the resources? Hmmm? Find them
I’m happy to share about it. Essentially a place where people can have respectful conversations, form agreements about the outcomes we seek (regardless of political ideology) and work collaboratively to codify law, policy, and elect leadership we can hold to account.
George, as a knucklehead southern socialist living in Trumpland, whose wife also resides in the leadership field, I respect and enjoy reading your perspective, as well as your humor (the ex-wives caveat cracked me up).
May we maintain our sanity through what promises to be an insane 2024. Peace, t
Tom, I agree with you 100%, even your critique of Joe Biden and the complicity of the Democratic party. We need to know how we got here if we ever expect to get to a better place. Great comment!
That said, the elections in Nov. 2024 will likely be a point of no return, for better or for worse. And despite his inadequate response to what is rapidly becoming Israel's genocidal response to Hamas's truly disgusting terrorist massacre of civilians, Joe Biden is the only choice sane people can make. Elections are always a choice between less than ideal candidates, and I do not believe we can survive another Trump presidency
As to whether another Trump presidency would be a point of no return, I would encourage everyone to channel the Zen Master story from Charlie Wilson’s War.
Interesting, if, as i feel, greatly overdone. On the side, how do you think a "revolution" might come about, and by whom? And i don't think condemning the very rich is such blanket terms without including the widespread, essential benefits from organized business helps anyone. If i had to pick some major ideas, already mentioned repeatedly on this site, and Democratic Party aspiration: electoral reform, higher taxes on major sources of wealth , political financial reform , more generous financial support for lower income groups. This does pit the Dems against the GOP, and it's hard to see how proponents on either side can avoid finding themselves in competitive "bubbles" . Esp these days.
I have no idea what will happen. I wouldn’t be shocked if neither Trump nor Biden is on the ballot come Election Day.
As to ‘condemning the very rich’, there is no justification for the existence of billionaires. None. Discounting that concept because I don’t mention the benefits of small business entrepreneurship is like saying I can’t condemn the genocide in Gaza without noting the Hamas attack on 10/7. That’s fallacious reasoning.
Tom, there are theories of civilization which explicitly postulate wealth interests are core to them. Edward Gibbon for one, as for no justification, I guess you'll just have to speak for yourself. I do agree that the current degree of wealth inequality is a big problem, esp when considering the broad state of lower income Americans. We can leave the Hamas Israeli war out of it as far as I'm concerned. Do agree small business is a significant part of American economy. I'm sure though you've heard much of M&A. Often small enterprises eg Tech sector get going in order to be incorporated in larger enterprises. I think the growth of corporations is a combination of expanding markets and developing technologies which lend themselves to making bigger is often better. But NOT unregulated in terms of business practice and redistributing some of that wealth into social infrastructure, for want of a better term.
I doubt your prognosis on major party candidates will unfold. Trump and the GOP are trying to sound like steamrollers, but hopefully sufficient independents will stem that with more political power for the Dems. We'll see.
Offering a revolution with nothing to back up a who and how and when seems pointless to me.
Frank, I’ll dispense with pointing out the quibbles I have with your response to my comment, and just let Billy Strings speak for me. Unless we change course from the present corrupt duopoly, we’ll continue to take on water.
Mmm. A Democratic strategist spins hopeful messaging, on a Democratic Party propaganda site, for siloed Democratic Team Blue denizens. What could go wrong?
You seem to give blame to Biden for actions beyond his control. Putin, Netanyahu, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others started the violence. Even Republicans started the political violence on Jan. 6th. Biden can only control how he reacts and even that is measured by multiple factors beyond his actual control. The whole point is that we are not (yet ) a dictatorship. Democracy is messy, with many missteps, yet it is also the only form of government that OVERALL promotes the least amount of violence towards others.
But it must be taught. Our current failures are due to removing good citizenship teaching in our schools. And the capitulation of people who are old enough to have had that teaching, yet feel economically stressed having landed in the bottom 90%, and the top 10% fearing that they might loose their socially precarious status.
No, sorry. You are a victim of propaganda. Hamas didn’t start the violence on Oct. 7, Israel did in ‘48. Biden could stop the genocide with one phone call, just as Reagan did when Israel overreached in Lebanon back in the ‘80s. He won’t, hence, Genocide Joe.
The U.S. backed Putin into a corner, which Biden enthusiastically endorsed, coup and all in Ukraine, and then reacted with horror when the bluff was called.
The biggest indicator of violence is who supports it, and who perpetuates it. Nobody does it better than the American Empire in pursuit of world hegemony.
The US does not govern Ukraine, but it does support UKRAINIAN democracy to govern THEIR country. The biggest indicator of violence is who resorts to the first blow as a way to get what they want. The world already let Putin invade Crimea.. That's why he came back for seconds, and if he wins,, will invade further into Europe.
Standing up to such bullies is the only way to stop them. You have fallen for Russian disinformation trying to blame the expansion of NATO for Russian Agression. The classic chant of the gaslighting abuser is "Look what you made me do!" NO sir, I am not the disinformed one.
The middle is is a different story due to such a long ighting history going back into Antiquity. We'd all be better off forgiving the past and forging a fresh equitable start. Which is why the US pushed for a two state solution for decades under both Republican and Democratic presidents...until Trump.
The US does not govern Isreal, but Isreal is our largest recipient of foreign aid. Isreal's leader today is far more hard core, right wing than was the leader in the 1980s. Lebanon was a shit show in the 80s. But in the middle east, blame can be spread in both directions because both sides have been sniping at each other for so long. But when one side uses violence, it's impossible to extend them more civil rights.
You can’t be this naive about American Empire. No, I take that back. Obviously you can.
You know little to nothing about levers of power, Russian history, Ukrainian history, nor, for that matter, American history as it pertains to foreign policy. When you can tell me why the word Jakarta began appearing, painted on walls and buildings in Latin America, in the 60s-early 70s, then perhaps we can engage further.
Your Middle East tit for tat analysis is equally fallacious, as you ignore the oppressed/oppressor dynamic at play.
And now reflect on all that you are personally doing to improve the world. To make whatever small corner of it you can the paradise you feel is lost. It only changes if we do. The positive actions only resonate out if we make them. And make them again. And again. We may disagree on a lot in this present craziness. But the future needs our positive, open-hearted, good-faith actions. I hope I meet you out in that field.
Would appreciate you tell folks about the following, and ask them to contact their congressional representative to cosponsor HJR-54, so we can remove undue financial corruption from our politics. More info here - MoveToAmend.org
George, your posting is wonderful--comprehensive and totally on point. I wanted to give a particular amen to "the mass fraud of trickle-down". One of the "principles" of the Supreme Court abomination, Citizens United, aside from "Money is speech." and "Corporations have citizen rights." is that "Implicit quid-pro-quo is not bribery." This is directly and entirely about trickle-down. The massive tax cuts for the ultra-rich by Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump (with sops to the non-wealthy to make them politically palatable), supposedly were made because the recipients would use the wealth to build the economy (i.e., trickle-down). What they were, in fact, were massive implicit-pro-quo payoffs for ultra-rich bribes ("campaign contributions"). "Mass fraud" indeed, with the blessing of the Supreme Court.
Although most of my traditional career was in technology, I became interested in economics, and greatly enjoyed John Kenneth Galbraith’s eloquence and accessibility of key concepts. (Also Joel Bakan’s “The Corporation” helped evolve my thinking). I often think if more people understood the so-called economic system of ‘trickle down’ favored by the obscenely wealthy and their political shills, there would never be a close election again.
Great compilation, George! I want to correct one itty bitty thing though…the felon has never admitted to his crimes. We know he did them and he knows we know! No matter, may you have a lovely New Year’s!
You are right Marlene -although I would submit his lawyers did. They are claiming immunity not innocence. 🤓 And hoping it's a wonderful year for you and all who value democracy, justice, and equity (and perhaps an awakening for those who do not).
It’s good news for everyone, almost. The # of homeless men, women, and children has grown significantly in the past 2 years. Why? And what do we do about making sure they’re part of this economic boom? No one today should be homeless.
Hi Peter, I agree, corporate America, and the wealthy corporations who own most of the apartment buildings nation wide, think otherwise. We as a nation have allowed this travesty, for the past 40+ years, by not paying attention to what was happening around us. Too many took the attitude we have ours, let the rest of them work for theirs - except with jobs going to Asia, costs of higher education sky rocketing, and stagnant wages, together with an ever worsening climate; hard work no longer pays off, so, our grandchildren are suffering the consequences of our cumulative neglect.
I could name a hundred -- hell, many more than that -- novels, films, memoirs, songs, and other such that have shown "what was happening around us."
Our elite media? Other than Ari Melber, zero.
We have to go to our stand-up, late night comics for humanities literacy. And they are, what? -- by definition -- laughable?
All the more proof as to the deepest damages our billionaire classes sicced on all of us, not only the U.S., but all the world. (See, Minae Mizumura, "The Fall of Language in the Age of English," Columbia U. Press translation from the Japanese, 2016.)
“Mainstream media failures in covering the war in Ukraine this year ranged from seeming to downplay questions about who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and ignoring key flashpoints that could have expanded the conflict into a direct U.S. war with Russia.
But back in June, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman provided a window into how many top journalists and pundits view U.S. foreign policy more broadly, and the war in Ukraine specifically: through the lens of American exceptionalism. Krugman used the D-Day anniversary this year to lament that Americans and other Western democracies weren’t sufficiently supportive of Ukraine’s war against Russia, saying then that if the country’s counteroffensive fails (which by now it has), “it will be a disaster not just for Ukraine but for the world.”
As RS noted at the time, Krugman’s argument “follows a problematic pattern among many in the media whose historical reference point will always be World War II and in turn believe the United States can apply that experience to any other world problem no matter how dissimilar or unrelated it is, or whether even a military solution is required.” Of course there were many calling for a more diplomatic approach to ending the war then and the evidence six months later suggests they were right.
A month before Krugman’s article, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum published a lengthy article running along the same themes. The piece was based largely on an uncritical relay of an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that crescendos to a call for taking back Crimea — a maximalist military objective that most sober observers believe to be unachievable — and overthrowing Putin, all in the name of a global struggle between good and evil. Except, as QI’s Anatol Lieven pointed out then, most of the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way.
“It is not that people in these countries approve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Lieven wrote in RS. “It is that they do not perceive such a huge difference between the regional hegemonic ambitions and criminal actions of Russia and the global ones of the United States; and they are thoroughly sick of having their opinions and interests ignored by Washington in the name of an American moral superiority that actual U.S. policies in their parts of the world have repeatedly belied.””
Ret. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S military forces in Europe, totally disagrees with the so-called "sober" observers cited. Crimea is the key to defeating the Russian invasion and the Ukrainian goal is straightforward: cut off Russian logistics by closing the Russian land bridge and taking down the Kerch Strait Bridge. Put Crimea under a siege and starve out the Russians. To facilitate this, the U.S. needs to provide long-range precision munitions like ATACMS to destroy Russian command centers, munition depots, and logistical choke points; also bolster Ukrainian air force capabilities to enable a proper combined arms effort.
Putin has made Russia a criminal nation, like North Korea but more dangerous. May I suggest that Russia needs another 1917 event, and defeat may bring it on. That would appear to be the only solution to the mortal danger to the world threatened by this criminal regime. The nuclear threat will be with us until this occurs.
Water under the bridge now, but Gorbachev asked for aid to convert the Soviet system into a social democracy like the northern European nations of Denmark or Norway. That idea was repugnant to American neo-liberals who fantasized over creating a Randian economic system--their wet dream. Instead they catalyzed chaos, massive poverty, and the rise of oligarchy, authoritarianism, and eventually Putin fascist totalitarianism. So the Western democracies face a much more difficult situation today.
There are many factors contributing to the rise in homelessness over the past 2 years. One is the end of rental assistance and other protections renters had during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, due to skyrocketing demand, rents have risen dramatically, pricing many out of their homes. Another is that a fairly large number of people who were homeless at the start of the pandemic were given 'temporary' housing in motels, etc. This has also ended, so many of those folks are back out on the streets.
There are deeper, systemic reasons for homelessness in this country, which have been touched on in the above comments. I agree no one should be homeless or hungry in the USA, when we have such ample means to solve these problems right now, with no real need to change/enact any new policies.
Agreed. In Florida, the gougers are running rampant and make the economic gains of the Biden Administration almost irrelevant. It’s sick and sad to see.
Said Jacques Delors, the ablest man ever to lead the EU, who died last week aged 98.
He'd also said of President Mitterand's grand revolutionary plans when he came to power:
"There's nothing more dangerous than that... making people think that, with the wave of a magic wand, you can change things."
Mitterand's grand plans fizzled out within a few months and Delors got the blame for bringing the bad news -- the unpalatable truth. Shoot the messenger...
Mitterand went on to be -- after Charles de Gaulle, France's last great presidential monarch.
Joe Biden did rather more than wave a magic wand. Alone in the whole world, he actually produced unbelievable economic results. And this was done by putting an end to the voodoo -omics -- Reagan, not Econ, nothing to do with any household -- that had for decades vampirized the wealth of ordinary, hard-working Americans.
But no one noticed. All too busy watching the wild wild show of a Coney Island huckster, while pockets were picked... and those who paid the showman to keep the people -- and the cops -- distracted... patiently tunneled their way towards The Heist of the Millennium... stealing... AMERICA...
Great idea, Lynell. Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, and Val Hoyle will be getting a note from me! (I know where they all stand, since I get multiple emails from them all the time, but still...)
Thanks, shall do all I can -- for the sake of our poor world -- not out of love for the party of relative sanity -- given the Bedlamitic state of GOP. But, as a "furriner", I'm limited...
So good to see the actual, positive, constructive which Heather Cox Ricardson points out here.
Good to see Biden point it out. Good to see Kamala Harris do her bit regarding respecting rights all Americans have, or should.
More Dems should appear in public willing also to speak to the actual, the positive, the constructive.
They can largely ignore the Republicans, and the massive hole they've fallen into for blindly following the fat. orange, diaper guy, for blindly parroting whatever social media billionaires have algorithmed for them, for avidity for the cerebral rushes they get from Fox News pedaling its lying sensationalism.
Come on, Dems -- be specific. Speak with sympathy for the youth and others Barbara Kingsolver presents in "Demon Copperhead." Remind us of the depths to which the Paul Newman character first had to tumble in "The Verdict." Touch on the closed loops trapping Walter Mosley's old man in "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned." Remember how the main couple showed it's always personal in both the John Grisham original book and the movie re-make of "Runaway Jury." Quote some of our older, more famous writers speaking out these days for kids whose books others seek to take away from them.
Heather Long of the Washington Post should call it "Biden's miracle". Thank you for providing once again the clear outline of facts for us. This piece, along with yesterday's summary of Abraham Lincoln's economic intent, provides such a strong contrast for us to share when comparing with the Republican economic policy of the past 40 years.
Is it a miracle or just the application of horse sense? Reaganomics was always a con game, and after 40 years of it, it has more than outstayed it's welcome. Sure billionaires love it and make all the noise they can make in it's favor, but the middle class as shrunk, and our problems have multiplied. We can keep stampeding off cliffs, or take a much closer and longer look at what has worked and what doesn't. Even in the face of wholesale Republican sabotage, rational, and dare I say, patriotic strategy is beginning to break us out of our tailspin.
That's Economics for oiks. Yes, folks, for the oiks, not the oikos (that's Greek for "the household" which is why no one seems to understand it...)
Under Conmanomics, the household's Under No Management (presented as New Management) the people serve the 0.001% as slaves and those with the wrong kind of face or skin are downgraded to vermin.
There can be an odor of Mrs Clinton's "deplorables" about it... though it goes without saying that there's no lack of uppity moneyed oiks or, in London, fashionable upper class oikishness...
N.B. I lived in Scotland for a few years this century but never in England for donkey's years. So I'm not with it... Not a clue if this word's still used or who uses it... Just like the sound, the economy of it.
During the Trump administration Heather Long wrote about the unemployment numbers each month for the WAPO. She almost always gave credit to the TFFG administration for the good numbers and when they weren't so good didn't blame him. She received so many bad comments they finally moved her to other stories on the economy.
Thanks Heather! Wonderful uplifting letter tonight. We all need to grab onto a few facts or keep a copy of this summary in our datebooks to pull out and share w friends, coworkers, young people , anyone in our neighborhood to reassure ourselves & our friends of the actual successes the Biden presidency has accomplished in these very short years.
Your succinct coverage of his Real Succeses must be ‘advertised’ everywhere we settle w everyone old & new to each of us! Talking points are excellent bits for others to hang onto,
Thank you, Dr. Richardson for giving us the reality instead of the make believe of corporate TV. Biden's mind is not slipping or faltering, it is better with knowledge and experience. Kamala Harris has fulfilled the expectations we had of her. This is the team we need until January 20, 2029.
Thank you, Professor, for another letter providing specific details, the good news we must share with the public, especially those who still look at our current president as not “performing.” MSM and the administration need to continue sharing the specifics of how this administration has helped citizens and our Democracy. At the same time, we must continue to focus on underserved communities and citizens, who are not benefiting from the changes. Tall order, especially when the repubs often work against rather than for our progress and future. Voting, supporting and helping to create change for all citizens and getting the word out. That’s our job.
Well gosh darn. We’ve been doing pretty good why change things? Go Joe and thank you Professor, for explaining things so well and expanding our knowledge of our society. We can’t thank you enough. May the new year be bright for everyone. Peace, love, and compassion and always a little hard work. I love America.
A good percentage of those living on the street have some form of mental illness, and part of the problem is there’s no affordable place for them to be treated. Ever since state mental hospitals began to be shut down in the 1980s, this has been a growing problem. Society has not provided adequate outpatient care to replace the hospitals.
Many homeless are also addicts — either alcoholics or drug addicts. Even if there were a successful way to treat addiction (which there is not unless you’ve got cash to play for it), the majority of addicts would refuse treatment either because they deny they have a problem, or because they like the effects and are terrified of quitting. Or both. The law prevents forced treatment unless one can prove the person is a danger to others or self, and then only limited care is available for a limited time.
Neither group is capable of supporting themselves financially. They are unemployable, even if they wanted to work.
So it’s a complicated and expensive challenge to eliminate homelessness, at least for these people, with no easy solutions. But some cities have been successful in doing so. I’ve read that Nashville is actually saving a lot of money by providing free housing for the homeless.
Having worked in some institutions, I have the same conclusions. Also in CA under Regan as gov, funding for support systems for the "deinstutional" people was pulled up abruptly as well as for people on state medical aid leaving them without prosthetics & other medical needs.
Peter, I had a front row seat to the "close the state institutions and send them to their communities for treatment" debacle. There are NO local community centers that treat either mental illness and drug dependence that are not court ordered, and those are based heavily on criminal conduct* that has occurred. Most of the mentally ill in this area self-medicate with street drugs, and even when they are released from custody, they go right back to the street drugs than to the pharmacy with their script for meds. (A former recruit of mine is currently the sergeant in the jail who oversees this side of the local corrections system.)
*The conduct mentioned here is overwhelmingly "ordinance violations" of prohibited camping, urinate/defecate in public, open container. Other crimes (theft, assault, sexual assault) are rampant as well, but most of the people that do personal crimes as opposed to property crimes are held longer in custody, but never really treated...
Overflowing with teenagers who have either tried suicide and failed or have sought help for the severe depression that can lead to suicide. They’re sleeping in the hallways and waiting rooms because every single bed in mental health treatment facilities in the state is occupied with patients for the same reason or other reasons. There’s no place to send them.
Parents are frantic, scared, angry. I’d say it’s a complete breakdown of a very poor mental health care system that’s under-funded and under-staffed. I also think the training and education counselors receive is inadequate. At a state-funded agency in New Bedford where I was a counsultant, I found staff counselors with no training and no license at all. Working under the license of the agency itself or one of its licensed therapists, they were “Christian” counselors trying to heal drug addicts, and people with severe anxiety disorders or depression, using prayer. I’m not kidding. There just aren’t enough trained and licensed counselors for the number of people who need help.
I did too. I was doing a CPE Summer internship at Worcester State Hospital in 1981 and had to take the state's Commissioner of Mental Health and his entourage on a tour through the hospital. It was clear to me then that he had already decided that the hospital would close. Many of the older patients had lived there most of their lives because they were seriously ill. To put them out on the street (the excuse was there would be plenty of group homes to take them in, so not to worry) was cruel and abusive. In protest, unionized mental health aides went on strike. It was an awful mess.
Any excuse for fashionable am-I--my-brother's-keeper? irresponsibility... is better than none.
I followed the collapse into unaided psychosis of a friend and neighbor. Or rather, he and his ever-deèpening troubles followed me. Until kind death released him.
He'd wake me up at 3 in the morning, ringing my bell. Alcohol and drug cocktails.
And there was literally nothing that could be done to help him. His doctors hid behind a screen of "medical secrecy" and could not, would not, be reached. A thin veil of hypocrisy masquerading as "ethics". But they too were powerless to help.
Only, they made it all worse.
What a threadbare ragged pretense of a society... No longer a society at all.
Poor, poor America! Poor world...
Yes. POOR. Such abject poverty. What have we come down to?
And so much of this our wretchedness seems rooted in the mean, deep-ingrained mentality of poverty so prevalent among the materially ultra-wealthy.
The imbalance is so great that calls for revolution are senseless. The collapse of something so absurdly top heavy is inevitable. All the more so when those on top deliberately undermine the base on which their and our existence depends.
The contagion of mass madness was released from psychiatric hospitals, finding super spreaders at the very summit of this manheap we still call a society.
Some people, I’m afraid, can’t or won’t be helped, and our society’s strangely misguided values and laws prevent those of us who want to help from doing so, even if we knew how. It’s against the law to force someone like your friend into treatment for longer than 2 weeks in Massachusetts and, if necessary, permanent care. The so-called rights of the individual to make decisions for him/herself take precedence even if the outcome is continuing suffering and eventual death. How is that loving one’s neighbor as one’s self?
Currently I am reading a book most of you would probably blow off as fluff and never give a thought to but LISTEN UP:
It's "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - A memoir.
See, you stopped reading already. But it has possibly the best simplest explanation of how we got where we are now - The 50s.
And its written by Bill Bryson. I think it's his best work, especially as it gives a glimpse of how we got here but also outlines your government at work - good and bad.
Check it out. At worst, you'll get a good laugh but it's so much more than that. Published in 06, it mentions drinking bleach.
Thank you so much for reminding me of another Bryson book. It was so heartening when I interacted with a young man reading “A Walk in the Woods” recently. I just wish my recall were quicker these days.
"This was a dramatic shift from the previous 40 years of U.S. policy, when lawmakers maintained that slashing the government would stimulate economic growth, and pundits widely predicted that the Democrats’ policies would create a recession."
"that government OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
President Biden needs to have periodic informal chats from the Oval Office. It would benefit him and serve to be a uniting force.
I've written and posted the same simple message ever since I saw that the Republicans had increasingly taken over the media news cycle. If Joe is going to be this generation's FDR, he must promote, promote and promote and be backed up by serious Democrats who put out the same message. The Republicans have done this for years and in so doing, they've built support for their crazy ideas, policies and wars. Why on Earth can't the Democrats get over whatever they're doing instead, and verbally support Joe all the time? His poll numbers would be vastly better if they did and if Joe had regular addresses to the nation from the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. Let's have American know the truth. There's no time to lose.
Biden has been a wonderful president. He is the opposite of the self-aggrandizing dictator in waiting. If he has a flaw, it is that he is too modest. A monthly address to the American public would be extremely helpful at this point. It could focus on all that he has done- and the dangers that Americans face if they give up on the fight for democracy. Unfortunately, we live in a world where if you don't take control of your narrative- of who you are and what you stand for- someone else will. The front page of every newspaper shouldn't be headlining Trump's absurd deceitful cries of persecution. It should be about all that Joe is doing to rebuild the middle class and revive the American dream. You go Joe.
Broadcasting Joe’s successes might best be done by millions of us acting in a supportive role. Where Joe’s time and energy has clearly been spent making my country move in the best direction of my life I can only feel that I need to help. IMO in reading both HCR and the many thoughtful people here I am becoming more energized, confident and eager to to contribute. I have been the unwitting recipient of the best our democracy could provide the average citizen for all these years. As I stare into the advertised future destruction of our democracy by the GOP I’m reminded of the best we can be and how important it is. Today the litany of lies by the GOP is in full view unbridled with seemingly clear direction. I’ve never felt the need to say very much in any forum but here I am now.
Lie #1 (IMO): “It’s better to have anyone other than a career politician in office “. Lately I’ve seen stark evidence where that is not true. I only need to look at the last two presidents for comparison. Where DT would (and did) replace knowledgeable people within our government to resonate with his simple minded control, JB has relied upon the best in their respective fields to contribute. I could go on.
As for now thanks to HCR and all of you for inspiration.
Richard every word you wrote gives inspiration and hope…let’s get Joe Biden elected 2024 Democracy
Deserves to survive VOTE!
I’m 100% BIDEN, Marsha ✅
I think he does give these. But media neither broadcasts or publishes them.
I think he's bypassing mainstream media a lot and using social media/podcasts to get his message out. I think we will probably see the payoff in the election and pundits will scratching their heads and lamenting "but he ignored us". Bet your sweet bippy he's ignoring you. Apologies for Boomer centric "bippy" reference. Happy New Year to all.
You are so right, Richard! Fireside chats, I believe they were once called. The media loves sensation, and Trump certainly gives them that, but it is all crap with no substance, The Dems need to step up and take the spotlight away from the Republicans.
Richard I agree. Also, I've been listening to youtube videos of Trump supoorters; they spout powerful lies as the truth, and they don't need to defend or explain. E.g. The election was stolen. it's much easier to promote one-sentence lies than to explain complex truths.
President Biden and his writers, as well as all of us who want to inspire folks about his accomplishments, need to understand WIIFM (what's in it for me?) and learn the sales technique of "selling the benefit, not just the feature. (e.g. "This detergent has no perfumes or dyes, which means it's safe for sensitive skin and it's likely that no one in your family will have an allergic reaction").
Every statement of success needs to be followed by "which means X, Y, Z ( a benefit in plain English. ) E.g. "Inlfation fell from 6.4% to 3.1%, which means .......something that will make sense to a low-middle income person who still sees food prices as too high. The fact that this is a good economic indicator will probably not mean anything to them, and even if it does, they still want to know WIIFM?
And I don't know how to word the benefit of inflation going down to someone who isn't experiencing lower prices.. So I need to find out.
I expect seeing the price of gas and groceries go down would help make it a bit clearer. That your child 14 and older or Uncle Bob or cousin John managed to get a job recently after being out of work since Covid closed everything down. It has to be concrete and local.
Concrete and local - exactly!!
So well put. Thank you Richard.
Like all “classic” Democrats, they believe what they have accomplished will “speak” for itself
And of course deep down if there’s any there there the former president came on as a showman from day 1 because that’s what he has always been, a showman. With nothing but smoke and mirrirs and meanness and self self aggrandizement behind the curtain. Just watch 5 seconds of “The Apprentice” if you can stand that much. Which Biden is not. And Americans are sucked in by show. It’s a core function of our society. I’m sorry but I have long felt PT Barnum had it right. There’s one born every minute. And to make money media will usually play to that crowd.
I’ve posted this message before too.
My New Year’s resolution is to wear a Biden shirt every time I go grocery shopping.
I’m keeping one in the car next to the reusable bags.
As I pass other shoppers, my presence becomes the message people need to see and hear about Biden. Enthusiasm. Pride. Humanity. Spaghetti sauce.
I got my Biden shirt at a random Etsy site called “Beantown Strong.”
I’m always looking for new ones if anyone has a favorite design... share a link for me (and all of HCR’s avid readers, please.)
Please join me and make “grocery runs for Biden” a movement. I’m in Florida. We need this everywhere.
All you have to do is buy a Biden shirt, and wear your heart on your sleeve on every grocery trip til NOV 2024.
Awesome.
My T-shirt says:
Protect and Preserve Democracy!
Defend and Protect Women's Rights!
Vote ONLY for Democrats!
Something you'll never see MAGA wearing is a t-shirt with "See you at the Polls!" imprinted on it. Only Dems know the history behind that slogan. I say it to people in passing and they get it.
I 'really' like that idea Tracy; especially the fact that it presents such a profound, silent 'dog whistle' - lol ! By the time it's fully figured out, some may have habituated themselves to walk straight through their own fears, learning what courage really is; acting despite fears. Courage is 'not' absence of fear, goes the old yet very true saw. Not all, but most bullies I've ever known have fearful souls themselves; Anger, I have learned is a 'fear based manifestation and bullies are full of it, as well as sh_t. You just have to rationalize the basis of their fears - they back off of that being revealed 8 times out of 10.
You can easily also observe that bullies never travel alone; they 'need' audience and back-up so to speak, b/c they don't have the personal courage of their own convictions to peacefully speak their own minds alone. When you wear your shirts - and proudly, go in numbers greater than one; if for no other need than a recorder / witness to events should it go to that, an event that might need witness (and / or a threat of witness). I don't know what your concealed carry laws are in your locality; another thought 'bubble' is to acquire equally visible patches that identify you - in an understandable-to - them sort of reverse dog whistle that you also support the only obvious 'dog whistle' amendment they fully blow wind about, and display that 'you' just might be carrying at any time, whether you are or not carrying. Actual gunshots hurt like hell if you don't know; the threat of return fire can be sobering, regardless if you can or would. A patch that signals the possibility plants doubt and fear; Something on the order of a patch proclaiming, "I passed the CCW" , or "My magazine is loaded; 9 + 2, what about you". >Just some thoughts... and share if you like. I am and will not be "anybody's Huckleberry." *edit in > I misstated the 'Huckleberry' reference.
I’ll join you. Someone on one of the “stacks” I read has mentioned a “ByeDon” shirt.
Hi Alice, I love the pun! My plan is to less confrontational. For me, being Pro Biden is a “bluish-purple” message with more embracing and less rejecting. But I will definitely high-five anyone donning a “ByeDon” shirt as we pass down the grocery aisles.
I have that magnet on my carr--right across from my American Flag magnet.
I’ve got one that says “Christians for Biden Harris. Restore the Soul of This Nation”. I need to wear it a lot more often.
WWJD?
BIDEN-HARRIS
You are a very brave person!
There’s safety in numbers. Join me! But I’m also happy with your nod of support here. Thanks and Happy 2024… especially on the morning after Nov. 5th.
Being a female in the red state of MT &older I will not make myself a target for the MAGAs here. I do mine by posting on the WH fb page to counter the MAGAs & on maga state congress people.
I do understand this and I am not interested in being a target either. MAGAs around here are very aggressive. We do donate to various races including those in other places and I do post Heather's Letter to Facebook where I see others reposting it and I know some of their friends are not Ds.
I know how you feel, but those quieter agreeable fellow Biden supporters will take heart that their sentiments are shared.
Thanks Shawn..great idea...💙💙 VOTE ALL THE COMPLICIT OUT💙💙
voting REALLY works too...let’s hear the vote that was heard around the world 2024 💙
TRUE BLUE
Wow. Thanks for the support here. Let’s call it BOGO. Biden’s Operation Grocery Outreach. I made it into a Substack post. https://open.substack.com/pub/shawngauthier/p/bidens-operation-grocery-outreach?r=4j5a4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true
I'm thinking about this, Shawn. It is a fabulous idea, and sent my mind wandering off (it is really to young to go off unsupervised like that... but I digress): There is no shortage of "bumper sticker" MAGAt slogans. I see them plastered all over vehicles here in Eugene, and they range from the loosely disguised "Timber Unity" (they support "working families", like my wife and I don't *or did, in my case* that are MAGAt to the core) to all the "Oregunian" flavored 2A supporters, to "Let's Go Brandon"; same vehicles usually have flags flying from/stickers stuck on them.
I'm thinking of a shirt with some of the stats from today, maybe 2 or 3, with a "Thanks, Brandon" at the bottom, with aviator sunglasses in the "o" of Brandon.
Ally, I love your fabulous idea to make "a shirt with some of the stats from today, maybe 2 or 3, with a "Thanks, Brandon" at the bottom, with aviator sunglasses in the "o" of Brandon." I don't understand how you would use aviator sunglasses in the o. Perhaps, instead, add aviator sunglasses as the signature?
Well, an "o" is sort of face shaped. I am NOT a graphic designer, however! I like you idea, though.
Ah, now I understand! I was imagining a pair of aviator glasses as the o. Great idea, Ally!
Great idea Ally. If you do this, let me know how it goes. We have plenty of the same vehicles here in Salem sporting MAGA stickers and of course, flags....often on jacked up vehicles. I would also add that neither the Keizer police nor the Salem police enjoy much support from people who oppose MAGAs. Some of them have been seen aiding and abetting when we have people like the Proud Boys in town. The legislature is not in session, so less action now although earlier this year a couple wing nuts wanted to bother progressive and/or black businesses downtown.
Springfield Police are the same way. Overall, EPD is pretty good, although there are some individuals...
Lol Ally !
I am in. Does anyone else have a favorite Biden tee shirt source? I'll put it with my 'I Love Jimmy Carter' and my 'Birdie Sanders' shirts. I buy 100% cotton made in the USA when I can find it.
I made a tee in 2019 listing some of our traitors beginning with Benedict Arnold and I ding with Donald Trump.
Bill, I love that you made your own shirt. Nice touch for being the messenger we need right now.
💙🤣👏🏻
I’m in the market for new Biden Shirts too! I have so many fun Obama shirts. Any artists or designers out there? Shout out!
I’m in complete agreement with your shirt, Joel!
That’s a great idea. Must find shirt!
Hi Virginia, Google “Beantown Strong Etsy” They have shirts I like. I’m always looking for other links too.
Hoover had [gave America] the “Great Depression” … “W” (Bush 2) gave us the “Great Recession” … and now the twice impeached “orange j” wants a second opportunity to make our lives (those that survived his first - and hopefully only - term shenanigans) - worse than during his first administration; … politics and politicians are occupying much too much of our daily lives!!!
Educate, promote, motivate … not just about a third of the American registered voters who fail to fulfill their responsibility of being a good American citizen - but also those who feel that they want to “sit out” - not participate - our next presidential election because they are unhappy or feel that they will be with the pending choices for the position of being the 47th POTUS
Ring the bells loudly to let the truth shine brightly. Leonard Cohen “Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in”
From Anthem https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=leonard%20cohen%20anthem%20lyrics&tbm=&shem=rime&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5
Thank you. Thank you!!!
I suggest we call Trump's time in office, "The Great Regression." (...or maybe "Transgression?") Thanks for playing...
I vote for the latter.
For the primaries, it’s more like 2/3 don’t vote. That has got to change. MSM gave 🤡💩🎃 huge headlines for winning primaries with very low turnout. Check stats on you secretary of state’s website.
"… politics and politicians are occupying much too much of our daily lives!!!"
That's for sure. And there's so much nonsense in it. The petty squabbles between corrupted politicians who blatantly make power grabs to fill their pockets and satisfy their commercial puppetmasters--that is the message we send to the world about American government. In terms of change, I'm not saying to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but at least change the water.
Maybe the reason repubs get more coverage is they are crazy in the extreme, they fight and propose what would have once been thought wild schemes—in short, they are more entertaining.
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Click bait.
Better click bait. It's all about the money.
Infotainment X100
Write him a letter today.
Some Ds love to diss what they see as establishment Ds although I haven't seen much lately. We do have one D here in Oregon who is really irritating me as she is acting like she is the D candidate for District 5 when we have not had the primary and she has strong Ds running to be the candidate as well. I am in District 6, so can't vote for the candidate there, but I hope the voters choose someone who cam retire the R after one term.
And we citizens must do our part to support our president
so .... why aren't leading democrats talking uu,,, the sucess story ????
Why, because he’s BUSY running the country. That’s for the all the highly paid surrogates to do, so get on with it!
We Democrats know absolutely nothing about messaging. You are right in what you say and you expressed it in a very clear message.
Yes , I absolutely agree.
My thoughts too!
Bill, While the idea of periodic informal Oval Office chats likely would have a meaningful impact, I would urge we not discount that the Administration’s achievements have had minimal affect on the 60% living precariously from paycheck to paycheck, wherein family income typically only is sustained by more people working longer hours, while still weighted down by mortgage debt, credit card debt, car payments, and the like.
Accordingly, I would urge Democratic leadership to underscore the social infrastructure piece of BBB that, while receiving zero support from House and Senate Republicans, passed in the House in 2021 and mostly would have passed in the Senate under reconciliation, but for Manchin’s and Sinema’s opposition. The legislation included $15 hourly minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, the child tax credit, affordable, quality childcare, universal healthcare, investments in housing, in eldercare, and more.
To amplify the legislation that Dems tried to deliver, I would submit these “chats” address questions such as “Who do you want here—somebody who doesn’t want to cut the price of prescription drugs or those who do?” “Somebody who doesn’t want to extend the child tax credit or those who do?” “Doesn’t want to provide affordable, quality childcare and Universal Pre-K or those who do?” “Doesn’t want to make investments in paid family and medical leave, in housing, in eldercare, and in climate or those who do?” My point, and note I haven’t mentioned the Party’s accomplishments, is that Democrats have an extraordinarily appealing narrative that represents the interests of a broad range of people, if only they would deliver it.
I'm in agreement with you, Barbara. My daughter and her husband work in the non-profit sector in Chicago, and while the Democratic government there has resisted dire cuts, donations are way off in charitable enterprises, and one huge social services agency is about to close. Life for the poor—working or not— is a struggle. Added to that is the practice of transporting immigrants from Republican states to Democratic cities that are struggling to provide for them. We need these people; I've just been following stories about the dire lack of employees in senior residences and care facilities. New Mexico is in crisis, and several other states are right behind them. I don't know who is counseling Biden to stay silent about immigration (IMO it was not a great decision to leave it all to Vice President Harris. She was just getting her wings, and although she has risen to the occassion, some people doen't think things are dire unless the President says so.)
Right on! The irony is that so many people whose voting decisions are based on their own personal bigotry and fear are also those who are utterly dependent on entitlements programs, social welfare, and other institutional assistance that the Dems invented and the Rethuglicans would love to eradicate. It's not just that the whole idea of private charity being sufficient is ridiculous, it is that the gobsmacking disparity between the wealthiest 10% in the world--which controls 85% of the world's wealth--and everyone else is continuing to keep the downtrodden, the working poor, and the underemployed and undereducated in thrall. And yes: I looked up the stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
Well said, Linda.
@ Progwoman, I wholly am in agreement with your perspective regarding immigration. We’re already seeing a hemorrhaging of support from young people and people of color, who particularly are concerned about DACA and the status of TPS, both being issues I believe Biden could lend a hand through executive orders.
Progwoman, you are right. While Biden’s achievements are remarkable (especially with one hand tied behind his back politically), doing things for the people most in need of relief would be useful, e.g., the child tax credit that paid lower income people monthly. (You know, “socialism.”)
As I write down your suggestions, I can hear the MAGA crowd's replies. The ability of the faux news to twist anything positive to fit their narrative. The audiences are the ones that are silent & struggling
My worry about paying my bills is laid 109% at repubs feet. If they shut down the government, we will see evil at work. Blame the perps. Good suggestions otherwise
Jeri, Regrettably, I fear GOP plans to shut down the government are part of a ploy to create increasing chaos and foment increasing insecurity so increasing numbers become willing to accept any authoritarian option in order to provide some sense of normalcy and security in their lives. Accordingly, Dems must not allow Republican machinations to go unchallenged.
The GOPs refusal to even meet with Democrats to come up with a compromise plan to deal with immigration is a similar tactic. Republicans bash Biden daily about problems at the Mexican border but don't want to do anything but offer a draconian, absurd plan that would never pass the House and Senate. This is also a ploy to hurt Biden's re-election chances.
That said, Biden needs to become much more vocal about the problems and how he proposes to ease them.
Michael, I agree that the GOP’s tactics relative to immigration are a prime example of Republican efforts to undermine Biden. Moreover, these tactics are working. As we speak, I understand that Biden is hemorrhaging support from young people and people of color, particularly over the status of DACA and TPS, two policies wherein Biden could lend a helping hand through executive order.
Exactly right, deliberate and tactical. Wish MSM would call it the evil it is.
Thank you for this. A good way to reach even more of us counting pennies kind of people. Marketing gurus could condense to sound bites or ear worms.
Katharine, Admittedly, I partially posted hoping others would join me in pressing the White House to amplify what they tried to deliver and the folks who voted against it.
Barbara, those excellent, targeted “chat” questions would possibly work very well using the “postcard” method. Not sure if postcards can be used for presidential elections...
KathyB, The names and addresses provided for postcard writers cover candidates up and down the ballot, excluding the Presidency. Still, I include items from my list as they relate to particular candidates.
Thank you for your reply Barbara!
As someone who writes scores of those postcard s, the message is dictated by and tailored to specific campaigns. But last year the reproductive rights messages were greatly successful.
..if only it wouldn’t be shot down by complicits,
..if only the voters would come out better than 2020
..if only Justice would be swift
..if only WE THE PEOPLE would unite FOR PEACE
the autocratic nations old and new suffer from oppression , none in history have fared well NONE..autocrats worldwide, their complicit, and many of their ‘enemies’ ends are disastrous...peace does not ‘pick a fight’ . Peace sustains, promotes, delivers, reduces deficits, encourages hope.
AND...peace keepers don’t stand on the heads of those under water while screaming victim/revenge/foul/blame game fame/walk not baulk
💙💙VOTE ALL THE COMPLICIT OUT💙💙
Patricia, Admittedly, your point regarding my effort to take the fight to Republicans not resonating among, as you say, “complicits” is valid. Still, I expect there are sufficient numbers of “persuadables,” who could help Democrats retake the House, hold their 49 Senate seats (discounting Manchin and Sinema), flip 1 Republican-held Senate seat, hold the White House, and also win contests in battleground state and local elections.
Thanks and I’m definitely on that same page , been advocating this quite awhile. I KNOW there’s more of us’ins than them’ ins , trying my best to rally forth the noteworthy statistics of the voting block who won’t be bothered and how much they matter/I care. What I’ve emphasized is the lesson brought into stark reality ,in hopes it is seen for the worth it affords .
Love your posts .
Happy New Year to these brilliant formats , commentators and authors and TRUTH…Let It Ring In The New Year’s Bell of Freedom -Loud Clear and Resolved🫶
Patricia, Like you, I wish every truth warrior I have met through Substacks good health, resilience, and, especially glimmers amid an unprecedentedly challenging era.
Exactly! Good strategy, if u read any of the MAGA posts they blame their financial woes on President Biden &the good economic numbers are very slow to benefit the 60%.
Carole, We think alike. Accordingly, I fear House Republicans, expecting the blame to be pinned on Biden, plan to shut down the parts of government whose funding will expire in January.
Barbara,
I wrote my comment before I read yours. We are in synch. Again.
Bill, When we’re in synch, I know I’m on the right track.
Barbara Jo, I like your pointed questions that get right to the heart of what Joe needs to say.
Sander, Thank you for your affirming reply. It boosts my confidence as I launch my 2024 letter writing campaign to candidates up and down the ballot.
Yea, as long as Biden is our Babe at home, who gives a rat's ass if he's participating in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and increasingly the Left Bank. 1,000 Palestinian children, now amputees (many done without pain killers), and 8,976 dead. But gee, that's over there, whoever heard of Gaza anyway. It's the home front that counts. Biden's just a loyal friend of Bibi's. So what if he wants to send millions more to him, Israel is keeping the Middle East in line! Gotta have that security!
Selina, Though not noted in my comment, I continue to write letters pressing that continued military funding to Israel be conditioned upon an immediate and permanent ceasefire and movement towards a diplomatic resolution. As I expect you would agree, the U.S. currently is complicit in war crimes, mandating that leadership stop equivocating.
It’s a totally different topic, I understand but I don’t think that Biden has any love for Bibi nor does the majority of Israel’s population. I wonder what you think would be the solution to this horrible, very complicated and multi layered situation. Another time perhaps?
Do you really think having tfg in the White House would do a better job?? I sure don't.
Ellen, I just responded to your question. It appears right before yours.
Conversation is the currency of democracy.
Very catchy. Have to borrow that one whenever it fits. Hope you haven’t copyrighted it.
Open-hearted conversation creates the fertile soil for every good possibility.
A tried and true approach, for sure. Would love to see him do this.
Yes! And VP Harris should participate as well. Her reaction to Dobbs - her style of outrage - is what most of us who are furious about such a decision want to hear.
But few mention the following. It is wonderful to talk about past and current successes. They are many. But people want to hear "what are you going to do for me next". The enormous problems of an insane healthcare system, pathetic childcare system, cruel inefficient elder care and the ridiculous cost of education are examples of crippling problems. Issues that are overwhelming. All the stats and wonderful numbers can't fix these crises of modern life. Is there any wonder as to why the majority of Americans think this country is headed in the wrong direction?
And some sincere anger about gun deaths would be appropriate, no? And I haven't mentioned the big one! The Climate Crisis. Want to rally younger people? Get really pissed off on TV and social media about how we are walking into a nightmare that many novels and movies have portrayed. And blame the idiot Republicans for poo pooing it. Blame for denying the science we have had for decades. Young people respect science!
We should be hearing from Biden and Harris and the Democratic leaders of Congress about the plans they have to solve these problems - problems rich people don't have to face. Problems that have solutions that have been blocked by Republicans. Selfish, elitist white supremacist men who block attempts to solidify voting rights and the rights of women to control their own lives.
We have all had a nice meal. Thank you. But the fridge is empty. Time to explain how it will get refilled. Time to explain who wants to hog the food and starve our kids. Young people need more than a friendly fireside chat. They need a bad ass, pissed off leader who is angry that common sense solutions to the problems of young families are being torpedoed by fascists.
And follow that with a history lesson about Russia. A story about Putin and how he deals with the opposition. A story full of photos of a decimated Ukraine. A story about a nation that is a bulwark of democracy against Putin's imperialist ambitions for a new Russian Empire. We could include a list of the opponents he has killed. Show their faces.Time to play hardball.
If all of that isn't enough or it doesn't stir you. Consider that the leader of the House of Representatives (two heartbeats from the presidency) wants to establish the US as a "Christian" nation - essentially creating a National Religion. Young people are not going to like hearing that - lots of "Spiritualists" and Nones in that demographic. I find that almost as terrifying as Climate Change. That's fascism writ large.
There is a lot to be proud of from Biden and Harris and company. But it is statistical. People don't vote for stats. They vote for change. They vote for a vision of a better life.
Bill, I very much appreciate how you have demonstrated that Democratic leadership, receipts in hand, need to take the fight to the Republican Party. Democrats rightly expect this, and, while I don’t presume said messaging would have much, if any, impact on far-right extremists, I imagine there are sufficient numbers of “persuadables,” who could help Dems retake the U.S. House, hold their 49 U.S. Senate seats (discounting Manchin and Sinema), flip 1 Republican-held Senate seat, hold the White House, and also win contests in battleground state and local elections.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, Bill. I am very worried that young people won't support Biden - either by voting for a third-party candidate or not voting at all - because of what's happening in Gaza. They need to be reminded about the other issues at stake.
Biden did a wonderful job explaining his views in his January interview at the White House with Heather Cox Richardson. He does best when comfortable. Heather and the setting made him comfortable. If his monthly updates to the nation were similar he would not hesitate. His hesitation due to his stammer makes me so nervous for him. That didn’t happen with Heather.
No one who saw that interview would think Biden resembled in the slightest the Fox (etc.) image they push. HCR’s questions were not marshmallows, and one that I remember was critical of his position.
Unfortunately there are voters who prefer a YouTube clip to confirm their pre-existing views. As a child of the ‘50s I remember when networks carried presidential speeches as if they would be regarded as necessary by citizens to inform themselves.
I had that thought too; a fireside chat sort of affair. Alas though, I think he's too busy doing our work.
No, it's just a simple lesson from successful marketing, and it works.
Fireside chats by the light of a flat screen. Could be a very good thing.
Absolutely. So now - we could use some 'fire side chats'. How do we get THAT message to the Biden campaign??
Write a letter and mail it. I already have. No one listens to Joe Schmoe but my suggestion was based on something I did trying to help elect a senator from my state of CT in 2006. I suggested to the campaign manager at the time a program of asking every supporter to find only one person, a friend, an acquaintance, anyone who would likely vote democratic but highly unlikely to vote. Period. And work them over the course of the campaign. I found one such person and I knew she wasn’t that politically oriented. Up to Election Day. I called her on that day and asked if she had voted and she told me yes. I explained to said manager Andy his response exactly was, “Why only one person why not 10?” I was certain he didn’t take it seriously. His/ our candidate lost in a 3-way race with the independent but really, republican winning. Sounds stupid right? But in my heart, I know that I brought one extra vote in. And if every supporter embarked in theory, the count would double. I sent letters to each Senator, Democratic Party central as well as the president. But I’m certain that no one took it seriously. They really only listen to highly paid consultants. But I had to express my opinion regardless. As you should.
Young people would not be there. They are still on TikTok and SnapChat.
I could not agree more with your suggestion, Bill. You can text or call the White House and suggest it to Biden and Harris. It’s whitehouse.gov. I have written many times since his interview with HCR that he should have regular fireside chats. I thought he really sparkled. Last Friday Roy Zimmerman gave a free concert that you can see on YouTube. He’s got a new song WOKE and he’s changed VOTE HIM AWAY to LOCK HIM AWAY. He held up his copy of DEMOCRACY AWAKENING. It’s a great mood changer when you need to recharge. The link is on his website https://www.royzimmerman.com/ and he’s leaving it up for a few weeks. Biden would be smart to use him in his campaign.
A Fireside Chat -- From "Donald's Vanity Tantrums"
President Roosevelt began a series of informal radio chats to the American public during a turbulent time in the 1940s. The radio back then was akin to communicating like Twitter is today. Here is an excerpt:
“My fellow Americans, it is whispered by some that only by abandoning our freedom, our ideals, our way of life, can we rebuild our defenses adequately, can we match the strength of the aggressors. …I do not share these fears.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Recently, President Trump has suggested a quaint, fireside chat kind of reminiscent of FDR. Here is a sneak preview:
“My friends, Hillary Clinton will never see the inside of the White House again as long as I live.
“The people love me and I’m addressing you with warm feelings. I know that you have it in your kind hearts to keep me as your president for life. The Constitution now allows this continuation of the executive branch and our blessed homeland needs a guy like me to lead it. I have authorized The Enabling Act, which I borrowed from Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s proposal to restrict powers of the Reichstag in 1933. His SS troops made legislators give up most of their civil liberties and transfer state powers to the Reich government. I’m please to tell you that the democrats have signed away their legislative powers while my ICE agents surrounded the House. I now have the power to dissolve Congress and allow my cabinet to pass much needed laws and to Make America Great Again. And I pledge to you that all fake impeachment activity against me is ending.
“One of my first acts tomorrow will be to have Nancy Pelosi and Shiftless Adam Schiff picked up for questioning in order to ascertain their patriotism for these United States.
“I know I’ve been accused of quid pro quo with Ukraine. There is nothing wrong with finding out the truth about liars and cheats like Slow Joe Biden. And there’s nothing wrong asking a nation to help with discovery of wrongdoing on the part of a corrupt man. As your President for Life, I will always tell you the truth. When I make a promise to you, I intend to keep it.
“This concludes the first of my fireside chats. I can’t wait to tell you what I have in store for other scum Trump haters.”
Well, that's just terrifying!
Satire from my book. I imagined the story way before (4 years ago) his comments were interpreted to mean the same.
I think Biden needs a PR office in the White House working 24/7 to get the information out on progress that has been made, etc. Actions have been taken, success has been happening, and yet I'll bet that most Americans don't know it -- for reasons we all know re social media and lies.
Reliably Once per week, same day and time. Sometimes with well spoken administration folk such as Pete Buttigieg. For the busy among us simultaneously a speech, podcast and substack. How about less than ten minutes or less twice per day with ongoing latest from the administration.
What HCR writes is all true! But it ignores the words of the late Marshal McLuhan, 'the media is the message.' It should not be necessary for HCR to lay out facts that are out there for all to see if they only would look. Frankly, Joe Biden will never be as great a communicator as FDR was., and whose fireside chats offered comfort to a nation sorely in need of it. That 'media' was indeed the 'message,' even more than FDR's words. Still, there must be a way to get this message out.
Speak slowly and distinctly, Joe. When you speak too fast and get wrapped up in your “stump speech” mode, you make mistakes...and the Rs can’t keep up anyway.
Yes, but would the Networks cover it? I’m betting no
With great respect to President Joseph R. Biden and to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Thank you, HCR, for your teaching, insight and kindness.
No Difference
by Shel Silverstein
Small as a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We're all the same size
When we turn off the light.
Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We're all worth the same
When we turn off the light.
Red, black or orange,
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.
So maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!
"No Difference" by Shel Silverstein, from Where the Sidewalk Ends. © Harper Collins, 1974. Reprinted with permission.
Oh man, I have always loved Shel Silverstein ! You chose the best of the best, my wonderful friend. 💞
Love to you Marlene as well as strength and good cheer to you and the family in 2024.❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️☕☕❕❕❕
My best wishes to you and yours, Fern! Let’s kick some ASS in 2024!!🥰🥂🎉🕊️
Marlene, I'm going to strengthen my legs🦵🏻🦵🏻 beginning today, so I'll have the power to kick the foes of democracy in all the right places. 😊
Thanks for the wonderful poem Fern! For several years, I owned a vinyl LP also called "Where the Sidewalk Ends", in which Shel Silverstein reads several poems from the book. I'm pretty sure that poem was one of them. It is almost 'Robert Frostian' in the way it deals with sleep/death/what really matters. My favorite remains "Somebody Ate the Baby" however :)
So, good to see you, Steve. We will be at it a lot more in 2024! Your spirit and care always lifts mine. Cheers!
“Your spirit and care always lifts mine” This s a message I will work hard to keep front and center as I join others to preserve and build our democracy as we work to elect leaders who will care about all of our children.
I am well aware of the evil and sadly complacency we will have to overcome but this thread and always HCR provide the momentum to never give up.
My age, as is true of President Biden, is helping me to clarify our goals. I am going to my bookshelves and dig out Shel and other books that we used to teach values to our children. It will remind me what this journey is all about. Thanks to Fern and others in this thread that show how and why we’ll do this.
Fern, I’ve written down “your spirit and care always lifts mine,” attributed to you. This is why I love the comments section of HCR’s letters. Good people showing up fully. Thank you.
Thank you, Martha. Being together today has filled me with good spirit, warmth and determination; we bolster each other's strength as we go forward.
Love it Fern; I own that book from long, long ago.
Thanks for that, Fern!
I love Shel Silverstein. He's probably banned in Floriduh, which makes me love him more!
Sidebar: My spell check recognizes "Floriduh" as a valid spelling.
With all, you brought a hearty laugh! Thank you, Ally!
I needed that laugh!
Just watched My Fair Lady last night. The absolute arrogance of the aristocracy in how they viewed "those people" is so relevant today. It never seems to go away.
Time to turn out the light.....
Fern, you always provide such wisdom and inspiration to our community. Best wishes for a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year, a year where we continue to see a democracy“...of the people, by the people, and for the people”. 💕
Dear Kari, to sunlight and rain, and to our spirit and our work, our strength, and our caring for one another. Warm wishes, good health and good cheer to you. Thank you for dropping by and sharing your message on behalf of us, the people, and democracy. 💞
Yes, one of my favorites. I often used this poem when I was teaching. I wonder if it would now be "banned"??
Most likely.
Ditto. 🤗
Thank you Fern. Will get out that book and re-read it. Bought it for my kids long ago.
thank you! a lifetime fan of silverstein. this takes me back;)
: 0 ) !!!
Good call, Fern. Letters turned off the light. This is different.
❤️❤️❤️
😊💞
The reluctance to back what Biden has accomplished, to reelect him for more of the same, is captured in a Yiddishism, crudely translated:
"What's the matter? The bride is too beautiful?"
After reading HCR's letter today, I was so uplifted, that I sent a copy to one of her Senators and her Congressman in ME. I thanked them for all they have accomplished with President Biden and I also suggested they read her newsletter as well as everyone in their campaign office.
I didn't bother sending this to Senator Collins who is incredibly thin skinned even though she is HCR's Senator as well. She does what Mitch allows her too except with a few confirmations. It gives her cover to say she voted to approve Kagan, Sotomayor and Kentaji-Brown.
Yeah, well, she also believed Kavanaugh. (Oh, and thought tfg “learned his lesson” after his first impeachment.)
Thank you for your comment on Susan “ oh he’s learned his lesson “ Collins.
Good for you, Gary!! That’s the spirit!👏🏼👏🏼🎉
Tachlis!
Will have to google this one, Steve, but I’m liking it because I’m sure it’s apropos.
HA! My parents would be cracking up!😄
lol w
Thank you Heather.
There are many challenges we must face as a nation. One glaring issue that I once thought was settled and certain was the United States as a representative democracy. Yet, as Supreme Court 'Justices' Alito and Thomas have gleefully expressed -nothing is settled law.
The leading candidate for the Republican party is an admitted felon. His lawyers asserting "Presidential immunity" are effectively saying, "Trump committed criminal acts, but you cannot hold Trump responsible because he was President." (Of course it will be argued that inciting an insurrection, betraying national security, obstructing justice, suborning perjury and other such crimes are NOT official duties of the President), eventually, points of law will be decided by a group who have already demonstrated their lack of ethics.
For all of those in the "election was rigged camp" -note that Trump's defense is not a plea of innocence. Such thinking would require the application of logic, something sorely missing from the willfully ignorant.
The same fervent supporters of Trump are the same voters who elevate the corrupt and/or the incompetent like Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Comer, Rick Scott, Lauren Boebert, Ron Johnson, Marsha Blackburn, Ryan Zinke, Ron DeSantis, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Scott Perry and Jim Jordan's to lead in Congress or in State leadership roles. They are the reason that books are banned, women's rights are regressing, and "trickle-down" is seriously discussed as a form of economics instead of the mass fraud it represents. They wrap themselves in the American flag claiming "true patriotism" and yet are directed by Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch in terms of what to believe and who to hate. They immerse themselves in religious scripture, picking out any passage they can (while ignoring many others) rationalizing their own greed, selfishness, and hatred of anyone who looks, believes, or loves differently. The people they are told to choose as leaders are those who are most likely to fight against equity, justice, and democracy. So-called leaders who represent the interests of the obscenely wealthy, the oil, gas, and coal industries, big pharma, and others over law and policy that would benefit a vast majority of Americans.
The Biden/Harris Administration has done a remarkable job thus far with certain exceptions and yet there remains far too many who will not care about the metrics of a strong economy when they are told by Fox 'News' or even the New York Times columnist David Brooks to ignore the metrics because a burger and fries costs $78 dollars now, They are told that the democratic party are socialists or communists because they want to strengthen Social Security instead of privatizing and destroying it. They are told climate is a hoax, and ignore the millions who perished from COVID -don't let the big nanny government make you wear a mask or get a vaccination. Whooping Cough is now rising in Suffolk County, New York -the same Congressional district that elevated liar George Santos to Congress, interesting, isn't it?
The unfortunate reality is that any meaningful form of democracy requires a well-educated, well-informed, and engaged society. In the United States all three pillars have been successfully attacked for generations. When Grover Norquist said "I want a government so small I can drown it in a bathtub" he really meant -a democracy so fragile. Others like Norquist have said this since Reagan and even before. Paul Weyrich who started right-wing Heritage Foundation said "I don't want people to vote." And yes, Heritage is the same entity that has published the playbook to finally destroy any hope for democracy in the United States as https://project2025.org.
The 2024 election is vital in the United States. Not only the Presidential race -Congress and State Legislature as well. Fundamentally, if we are to remain loyal to the Constitution and to the concepts of equity, justice, and democracy -we must elevate leadership who are committed to democracy. And, beyond that, we must elevate leadership who can navigate in a world that is rapidly changing due to conflict, climate change, and technological advances. While a group of loud, sociopathic circus acts are entertaining, they are not the people to lead the United States through the challenges we will confront -whether together or divided.
Well said. Republicans are pushing misinformation through their talks (watch Trump) and social media. The average Joe is getting “crime is up” and “the economy is bad.”
Right now, misinformation is winning. For Republicans, the end (power), justifies the means (misinformation, gerrymandering, buying justices, etc.) Social media (Fox and their ilk) are poisoning truth, thanks to funding from their wealthy owners.
Craig, I just read Noah Berlatsky's writing on Public Notice.
One sentence, to me, says it all.
"Republicans and conservatives simply won't say the economy is good while a Democrat is in office."
They won't admit to ANYTHING that will make President Biden look favorable, and yet many have taken credit for his accomplishments after voting against them.
When did politics become filled with weak, hateful, revenge-filled men and women? I'm sure these people have been there, but I think that Donald Trump has given them voice to whine and deny the truths of democracy.
Republicans politicians fear Trump’s ability to hurt them, financially or otherwise. Even at the organizational level, the party cannot control him and his “speech” (accusations and lies), so they are forced to openly support him and his mental distortions. They are a cancer on our nation—Trump and his minions.
Trump and his cronies-in-crime.
The disgusting Newt Gingrich/Frank Luntz CoPac memo, "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control," was sent to Republican candidates running in the 1990 elections.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOPAC
and https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/29/2066545/-Messaging-Monday-Language-a-Key-Mechanism-of-Control-updated-for-2022
I did not know of its history but believe I had read a CATO Institute suggestion about using such tactics, back when I read a lot of their research (but was almost always mystified by how such thorough research could end up with conclusions that seemed so different from what the research seemed to show). I eventually figured they wanted to know so much background information that they could more effectively counter any less well researched information any opposition would have.
I thought it was just another minor step in the gutter when I became aware of it's growing impact around 1994, but was sickened enough by the growing use of the tactics in 1996 to leave the party over it. By then, it was gathering full steam and growing even closer to what I believe the CATO Institute had suggested as effective "Leninist" verbal attacks and soft sabotage of every program your opponents got credit for, even if it was exactly what your side would do if they were the ones getting credit for it.
A well placed fund raiser telling us we had to "fight dirtier than Democrats" and seeming to hint at becoming candidates, regardless of our skills and interests, got me started looking at what that might lead to. Everything I learned about ALEC as I looked into it, turned me against my old party. The experience of described by one local Democrat who actually believed they were non-partisan, as they claimed at the time, signed up, intending to remain a Democrat helping to develop legislation both parties could support, found out the recruited candidates had little chance of impacting any final decisions, they were all over ruled by the sponsors.
Wow. That link to the list of words to be used was quite ... eye-opening. Thank you for sharing.
After I read the 1996 version of the GoPac memo I tried to find a better way to use language effectively than the rough "sailor talk" my Veteran sailor mother-in-law would sometimes slip into when frustrated with some project (she didn't use it against people in the presence of others). I tried to follow the advice of George Lakeoff.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff
"...In his 1996 book Moral Politics, Lakoff described conservative voters as being influenced by the "strict father model" as a central metaphor for such a complex phenomenon as the state, and liberal/progressive voters as being influenced by the "nurturant parent model" as the folk psychological metaphor for this complex phenomenon. According to him, an individual's experience and attitude towards sociopolitical issues is influenced by being framed in linguistic constructions..."
I suspect many are nearly limited as I am in trying to work from his level of expertise and prefer to follow, at most, a list of slogans and easy to remember tactics even if they can't remember the ones proven most effective in either positive or negative ways. I was looking for an Independent or Democratic alternative to the GoPac memo in 2016 and was not having much luck trying to make a Lakeoff version. I settled on a non-scripted habit of trying to calmly ask any with opposing views what they believed in and stood for, initially inspired by an Anthropologist, and more so by Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s answer to a question from Cat Greenleaf on “Stoop Talk.”
The Anthropologist that joined our corner rally one week had made the following sign:
"Who you voted for
is not as important as
What You Stand For"
It inspired me to make business card size copies and use them to politely ask those who expressed disagreement, in civil or uncivil confrontational ways (as well as just interested passers by), what they stand for.
Almost all could express something they stood for, so that was the start of discussions about why they stood for it. I'd say 95% could provide some rationale for their beliefs so we could go on to discuss why we see differences and how much of each other’s sources make sense in a better balance of views. It is a slow process, but we have had many soften their incivility, expand their views, and even some join us with signs borrowed from us or their own new creations.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, himself was the other half of the inspiration, with his Talk Stoop reply to Cat Greenleaf surprising him with complimenting his "Skyhook" but asking him what he thought his greatest accomplishment was outside of basketball. After some thought (if I recall correctly), he said it was learning "get my point across without offending, or confusing, anyone".
Great advice for all of us.
I converted the lists into tables I can compare more easily but they don't transfer well. The ones I used can be found at:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/29/2066545/-Messaging-Monday-Language-a-Key-Mechanism-of-Control-updated-for-2022
The above link has a link to the 1990 GOP version and lists of the Democratic version (too long for me but useful in making personal lists, with friends coordinating).
https://web.archive.org/web/20130902053532/http://web.utk.edu/~glenn/GopacMemo.html
The above list is the 1996 GOP version, easier to read than other versions, but hard to swallow, as its ramped up implementation caused me to leave the party.
Glad you left the dark side!
The dark side became too dark for me when the Southern Strategy brought in so many Southern Democrats and Dixiecrats, that their kind of slaveholder mentality took over the power within the party using arguments for States Sovereignty they try to leverage to control the whole country. I haven’t read “How the South Won the Civil War,” yet but I suspect it adds a lot of details to what I already sensed. For now, my incomplete review of thoughts over the years comes to the following.
The party left me completely (and apparently Elizabeth Warren), by 1996. Though I have been independent since then, I did donate to Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaign and register as a Democrat to support Bernie Sanders in 2016 before again becoming an Independent (who has not voted for a single Republican on any ballot in the last 24 years (though I did write-in Shiela Bair once in California where it had no effect other than to see if they counted my ballot).
I had too much on my plate with contractors remodeling our kitchen, health issues, etc to even begin to dig into the Dec 26 Letter which, to me, brought up the crux of the problems with monied interests deliberately corrupting or becoming unwitting complicit with what I’d call secret frenemies in authoritarian countries supporting disposable oligarchs.
My first impressions were of the World Wrestling Entertainment where different actors were made heroes or villains sometimes exchanging roles to keep the public “entertained,” while they made fortunes off the careless public that don’t care that there is such cheating going on. I looked upon some of our wealthiest financial sector as sort of the management of the WWE with a portion of them willing to work with powerful members of either major party to make sure they got as much profit out of the suckers as possible, while most of the others sat back and tried to make their profits more ethically.
I still believe there are many that really do have the best interests of our society in mind and do support the building and maintenance of individual rights and opportunities, infrastructure, education, health care, and protection of the whole planet’s ecosystems suitable for humans. It seems we are now falling further behind so many other countries that may have the same ideals and goals as our Declaration of Independence, but are doing better in meeting not just those goals but also the honest agent legal structures and public support in meeting all the other goals not included in the Declaration (equal rights, affordable and effective health care, education, infrastructure (new and maintenance of existing infrastructure), as well as more than their share of protecting the environment for the whole world.
My old party’s complicity with the worst of our financial sector bad actors and authoritarian kleptocracies now threatens more than just our democracy in that it endangers the very ecosystems of the planet that we humans depend on. Such carelessness already generates masses of refugees desperate to flee regions growing more uninhabitable and the political instability that comes from hoarders desperate to stay in power or expand over more productive lands of others (like the Southern Democrats and complicit northerners who passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act).
This country is suffering from psychological terrorism. All thanks to Republicans. To understand a malignant narcissist is to understand the worst of humanity. Over 60 million people suffer in silence from narcissist abuse in this country. Agent Orange and his supporters have abused this country beyond the pale. It's meant to bring us to our knees and beg for forgiveness. He gives other narcissists a voice, a platform to justify their abuse. The mental gymnastics at play here are feeding the beast. Entertainment news feeds off the corpse of lies, greed and power. That's how they pay the bills. Democrats need to get their shit together. United front works. Back our man or shut the fuck up.
It includes the guns-for-all and the you-can’t-make-me-stop-at-stop signs, antigovernment activities.
As heather and others point out, crime is "down", Bloomberg et al say the economy is remarkably "up". Democrats need more political power to advance social support as already noted.
Well written George. Bravo ~
Thank you! I blame three cups of coffee. :)
Well keep drinking then!! 🙂 Bravo indeed! Needs to be shared widely and often.
Wish my coffee worked that well. Bravo!
lol ~
Well written indeed - keep the coffee flowing! (But don’t forget to eat something to counter the jitters!)
Thank you Karen. If I could forget a few meals I wouldn't have to spend so much "quality-time" with my stair machine. :)
🤣
It is hard to find quality leadership in a corrupt political system which requires donor fealty as a prerequisite for election, much less subsequent reelection. We are going to have a revolution, forced on us by some combination of climate change, the consolidation of wealth by global elites, and the total loss of privacy and civil liberty forced upon us by the marriage of government and Big Tech. I agree the loud circus acts aren’t capable of addressing the challenges; I would argue, neither are the pragmatic incrementalists wedded to a corrupt system of governance controlled by monied interests.
You are right that we need a well-informed citizenry. Unfortunately, 90+% of Americans live in tribal silos, including HCR and the majority of commenters here, who have coupled the authoritarian threat to democracy with a WWII vision of American Exceptionalism, a combination which clouds reasoned judgement when it comes to a Democratic Party critique of responsibility/complicity for our current ‘challenges’.
Biden’s ‘remarkable’ job is anything but; to slough off exceptions like nuclear brinksmanship in Ukraine, a genocide in Gaza, and a pitiful attempt in addressing climate change as mere footnotes in the job accountability ledger is faulty, as is continuing to cheer for an economy that is failing millions. Whatever happened to liberal critique that using the stock market and GDP to measure economic well being was flawed analysis?
We are, indeed, challenge challenged. I just hope enough Americans realize we need a political revolution, not pragmatic incrementalism (Biden-Harris) disguised as such, in order to counter the authoritarian threat, which can come from a government/tech overreach just as easily as from the GOP extremists and Christian fascists. We’ll see. 2024 is going to be…. interesting.
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/how-the-hell-did-we-get-here
“We could have been so much more. We have the ability to create a healthy and harmonious world and collaborate to give everyone on earth everything they need, and instead we’re killing the biosphere while arguing about whether or not it’s anti-semitic to oppose an active genocide.
We could have peace on earth and move from competition-based systems to collaboration-based ones to maximize our creative and innovative potential and spend our existence exploring the outer universe and the universes within ourselves, and instead we’re ramping up brinkmanship between nuclear-armed states and arguing about whether or not it’s ethical to rain military explosives on a giant concentration camp full of children.
We have the technology to let every scientist on earth share ideas and information with each other around the world in real time in any language, and instead we’ve fractured scientific development into atomized little echo chambers of closely-guarded secrets in the name of profit generation and “national security”.
How did we get here? How were we duped into trading paradise on earth for this lunatic dystopia? How did we allow ourselves to give up everything our species has the capability to be in exchange for this nightmarish paradigm of endless ecocide and exploitation and oppression and war and militarism?“
So many excellent points Tom. Thank you for taking the time to respond in a detailed and well-thought-out manner (although from some of our other interactions, I've come to expect no less).
I do cringe at thought of the system is flawed, it is primed for corruption, and therefore it is challenging to find quality leadership. Having met on occasion with Senator Merkley, former Rep. Mike Honda, State House members, I do not see a Democratic party landscape where people like MTG, Lauren Boebert, James Comer, and Paul Gosar's -who all are deeply incompetent and/or despise the system they have taken an Oath to protect. It reminds me of the arguments made about "W." when he invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. We were told that not supporting the President meant we were dishonoring the troops.
I think it's incredibly important to address the flaws in the system without positioning that until we do, both sides will produce the equivalent result. One look at this Supremely Corrupt Court should provide sufficient evidence against saying both parties are different sides of the same coin.
What makes me a pragmatic incrementalist (and I've been called far worse -mostly by an ex-wife or two) is fear. And do know that you could want an incremental approach -without being wedded to the current flawed system -in fact both incremental and rapid approach to change -want change because the system is flawed, we just have different approaches to yield a similar outcome. A sustained, incremental approach, predicated upon better education, fact and evidence-based journalism, and engagement could yield a sustainable outcome without the potential for suffering and violence of an abrupt shift. Nevertheless, you would raise the point that incrementalism is what led us to today. And yet I would say -there has never been a comprehensive countervailing response to what Lewis Powell articulated in his memo of 1971 -calling for a well-funded machine to produce oligarchy in the long run.
I think economic metrics should go beyond GDP and the Dow Jones. Unemployment is an important measure. I've not seen wealth inequality as a metric -but it should be a major factor in describing whether a 'strong/growing' economy is a fair economy. I you'd agree that we cannot aspire toward democracy in a system that is producing massively concentrated wealth.
And yes, the news about the sale of weapons to Israel is deeply troubling -and is likely connected to the power of AIPAC (to your point, a flawed political system predicated upon large donations will yield horrific decisions). While I believe Israel has a right to defend itself, and whose right to exist should be recognized, such rights to not extend to a mass slaughter of Palestinians.
This pragmatic incrementalist shares your dreams of the kind of quality and dignity of life all people could have if we lived in a peaceful and collaborative world.
Regardless of the path we choose to arrive at such a world -I will continue to work toward such a place until I draw my last breath -and grateful to folks like you who challenge us all to arrive sooner, rather than later.
“Pragmatic incrementalism”—I like that descriptor. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Okay, I’m willing to accept the list of things we as a society and as a political machine do poorly. But instead of simply listing them in criticism, the next step is proposing possible resolutions. Otherwise one is just whining.
The cracks letting the light in
ML, in an entrepreneurial spirit, I’d offer mankind a bracelet (at Amazon), “WWYD” (What Would You Do” as a thought starter before uttering the litany of societal woes oft times recited as proof that “both sides” fail at finding “Balance” (apologies to Mr Miyagi”
The problem with using “an examples kist ” of woe is that when you employ a simple solution to a complex problem without exploring the aftereffects of that solution for unwanted repercussions, you potentially create more problems than you solve
Ask Not What Jesus Would Do, ask What Would You Do, then do it. Don’t have the resources? Hmmm? Find them
What’s the plan, man?
Agree
I’m working on one part of a potential solution set. A trusted civic social network: https://civ.works.
I’m intrigued.
I’m happy to share about it. Essentially a place where people can have respectful conversations, form agreements about the outcomes we seek (regardless of political ideology) and work collaboratively to codify law, policy, and elect leadership we can hold to account.
MLM, the resolutions are out there, Medicare For All as an example, and have been for years now.
Including the descriptor ‘possible’ in any discussion of resolutions is where the real whining lies.
I say “possible” because anything is possible. After we get through naming the possibilities, the brainstorming begins.
After naming the possibilities, the lobbying begins. Fify.
George, as a knucklehead southern socialist living in Trumpland, whose wife also resides in the leadership field, I respect and enjoy reading your perspective, as well as your humor (the ex-wives caveat cracked me up).
May we maintain our sanity through what promises to be an insane 2024. Peace, t
Tom, I agree with you 100%, even your critique of Joe Biden and the complicity of the Democratic party. We need to know how we got here if we ever expect to get to a better place. Great comment!
That said, the elections in Nov. 2024 will likely be a point of no return, for better or for worse. And despite his inadequate response to what is rapidly becoming Israel's genocidal response to Hamas's truly disgusting terrorist massacre of civilians, Joe Biden is the only choice sane people can make. Elections are always a choice between less than ideal candidates, and I do not believe we can survive another Trump presidency
As to whether another Trump presidency would be a point of no return, I would encourage everyone to channel the Zen Master story from Charlie Wilson’s War.
We’ll see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2L1-TgfKb4
Interesting, if, as i feel, greatly overdone. On the side, how do you think a "revolution" might come about, and by whom? And i don't think condemning the very rich is such blanket terms without including the widespread, essential benefits from organized business helps anyone. If i had to pick some major ideas, already mentioned repeatedly on this site, and Democratic Party aspiration: electoral reform, higher taxes on major sources of wealth , political financial reform , more generous financial support for lower income groups. This does pit the Dems against the GOP, and it's hard to see how proponents on either side can avoid finding themselves in competitive "bubbles" . Esp these days.
I have no idea what will happen. I wouldn’t be shocked if neither Trump nor Biden is on the ballot come Election Day.
As to ‘condemning the very rich’, there is no justification for the existence of billionaires. None. Discounting that concept because I don’t mention the benefits of small business entrepreneurship is like saying I can’t condemn the genocide in Gaza without noting the Hamas attack on 10/7. That’s fallacious reasoning.
Tom, there are theories of civilization which explicitly postulate wealth interests are core to them. Edward Gibbon for one, as for no justification, I guess you'll just have to speak for yourself. I do agree that the current degree of wealth inequality is a big problem, esp when considering the broad state of lower income Americans. We can leave the Hamas Israeli war out of it as far as I'm concerned. Do agree small business is a significant part of American economy. I'm sure though you've heard much of M&A. Often small enterprises eg Tech sector get going in order to be incorporated in larger enterprises. I think the growth of corporations is a combination of expanding markets and developing technologies which lend themselves to making bigger is often better. But NOT unregulated in terms of business practice and redistributing some of that wealth into social infrastructure, for want of a better term.
I doubt your prognosis on major party candidates will unfold. Trump and the GOP are trying to sound like steamrollers, but hopefully sufficient independents will stem that with more political power for the Dems. We'll see.
Offering a revolution with nothing to back up a who and how and when seems pointless to me.
Frank, I’ll dispense with pointing out the quibbles I have with your response to my comment, and just let Billy Strings speak for me. Unless we change course from the present corrupt duopoly, we’ll continue to take on water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbAvUKRomU0
Give us a break, Tom, you be the smartest man in the room.
and folks might enjoy this essay from MSNBC ... https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/biden-2024-election-polls-strong-rcna130507?cid=eml_mda_20231231&user_email=a3f5d7cfabfa11bb2178a6036429dda5b5f0aa5fba7d48288b1fbfec7990b28c
Mmm. A Democratic strategist spins hopeful messaging, on a Democratic Party propaganda site, for siloed Democratic Team Blue denizens. What could go wrong?
You seem to give blame to Biden for actions beyond his control. Putin, Netanyahu, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others started the violence. Even Republicans started the political violence on Jan. 6th. Biden can only control how he reacts and even that is measured by multiple factors beyond his actual control. The whole point is that we are not (yet ) a dictatorship. Democracy is messy, with many missteps, yet it is also the only form of government that OVERALL promotes the least amount of violence towards others.
But it must be taught. Our current failures are due to removing good citizenship teaching in our schools. And the capitulation of people who are old enough to have had that teaching, yet feel economically stressed having landed in the bottom 90%, and the top 10% fearing that they might loose their socially precarious status.
Inequality is the biggest indicator of violence.
No, sorry. You are a victim of propaganda. Hamas didn’t start the violence on Oct. 7, Israel did in ‘48. Biden could stop the genocide with one phone call, just as Reagan did when Israel overreached in Lebanon back in the ‘80s. He won’t, hence, Genocide Joe.
The U.S. backed Putin into a corner, which Biden enthusiastically endorsed, coup and all in Ukraine, and then reacted with horror when the bluff was called.
The biggest indicator of violence is who supports it, and who perpetuates it. Nobody does it better than the American Empire in pursuit of world hegemony.
The US does not govern Ukraine, but it does support UKRAINIAN democracy to govern THEIR country. The biggest indicator of violence is who resorts to the first blow as a way to get what they want. The world already let Putin invade Crimea.. That's why he came back for seconds, and if he wins,, will invade further into Europe.
Standing up to such bullies is the only way to stop them. You have fallen for Russian disinformation trying to blame the expansion of NATO for Russian Agression. The classic chant of the gaslighting abuser is "Look what you made me do!" NO sir, I am not the disinformed one.
The middle is is a different story due to such a long ighting history going back into Antiquity. We'd all be better off forgiving the past and forging a fresh equitable start. Which is why the US pushed for a two state solution for decades under both Republican and Democratic presidents...until Trump.
The US does not govern Isreal, but Isreal is our largest recipient of foreign aid. Isreal's leader today is far more hard core, right wing than was the leader in the 1980s. Lebanon was a shit show in the 80s. But in the middle east, blame can be spread in both directions because both sides have been sniping at each other for so long. But when one side uses violence, it's impossible to extend them more civil rights.
You can’t be this naive about American Empire. No, I take that back. Obviously you can.
You know little to nothing about levers of power, Russian history, Ukrainian history, nor, for that matter, American history as it pertains to foreign policy. When you can tell me why the word Jakarta began appearing, painted on walls and buildings in Latin America, in the 60s-early 70s, then perhaps we can engage further.
Your Middle East tit for tat analysis is equally fallacious, as you ignore the oppressed/oppressor dynamic at play.
And now reflect on all that you are personally doing to improve the world. To make whatever small corner of it you can the paradise you feel is lost. It only changes if we do. The positive actions only resonate out if we make them. And make them again. And again. We may disagree on a lot in this present craziness. But the future needs our positive, open-hearted, good-faith actions. I hope I meet you out in that field.
Backatcha.
Would appreciate you tell folks about the following, and ask them to contact their congressional representative to cosponsor HJR-54, so we can remove undue financial corruption from our politics. More info here - MoveToAmend.org
Thanks!
George, your posting is wonderful--comprehensive and totally on point. I wanted to give a particular amen to "the mass fraud of trickle-down". One of the "principles" of the Supreme Court abomination, Citizens United, aside from "Money is speech." and "Corporations have citizen rights." is that "Implicit quid-pro-quo is not bribery." This is directly and entirely about trickle-down. The massive tax cuts for the ultra-rich by Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump (with sops to the non-wealthy to make them politically palatable), supposedly were made because the recipients would use the wealth to build the economy (i.e., trickle-down). What they were, in fact, were massive implicit-pro-quo payoffs for ultra-rich bribes ("campaign contributions"). "Mass fraud" indeed, with the blessing of the Supreme Court.
Fully agree Don.
Although most of my traditional career was in technology, I became interested in economics, and greatly enjoyed John Kenneth Galbraith’s eloquence and accessibility of key concepts. (Also Joel Bakan’s “The Corporation” helped evolve my thinking). I often think if more people understood the so-called economic system of ‘trickle down’ favored by the obscenely wealthy and their political shills, there would never be a close election again.
“I don’t want people to vote.” Says it all
Beautifully expressed. Thank you!
Great compilation, George! I want to correct one itty bitty thing though…the felon has never admitted to his crimes. We know he did them and he knows we know! No matter, may you have a lovely New Year’s!
You are right Marlene -although I would submit his lawyers did. They are claiming immunity not innocence. 🤓 And hoping it's a wonderful year for you and all who value democracy, justice, and equity (and perhaps an awakening for those who do not).
I am sharing this! Long but very informative
Matt Rosendale of MT is a very loud supporter of T & needs to be included along with Zinke & the hopeful Sheehy to out Jon Tester
It’s good news for everyone, almost. The # of homeless men, women, and children has grown significantly in the past 2 years. Why? And what do we do about making sure they’re part of this economic boom? No one today should be homeless.
Hi Peter, I agree, corporate America, and the wealthy corporations who own most of the apartment buildings nation wide, think otherwise. We as a nation have allowed this travesty, for the past 40+ years, by not paying attention to what was happening around us. Too many took the attitude we have ours, let the rest of them work for theirs - except with jobs going to Asia, costs of higher education sky rocketing, and stagnant wages, together with an ever worsening climate; hard work no longer pays off, so, our grandchildren are suffering the consequences of our cumulative neglect.
Yes, exactly, Fay.
I could name a hundred -- hell, many more than that -- novels, films, memoirs, songs, and other such that have shown "what was happening around us."
Our elite media? Other than Ari Melber, zero.
We have to go to our stand-up, late night comics for humanities literacy. And they are, what? -- by definition -- laughable?
All the more proof as to the deepest damages our billionaire classes sicced on all of us, not only the U.S., but all the world. (See, Minae Mizumura, "The Fall of Language in the Age of English," Columbia U. Press translation from the Japanese, 2016.)
Ari's recent interview of Tom Hanks upon the publication of Tom's introspective novel was memorable.
I will check out MIZUMURMA🙏
Mizumura, correction.
I just listened to that one a couple of days ago; the hip hop segment was hilarious; Tom is a treasure
Love the way Ari surprised Tom among his movie posters. : )
We definitely have an ‘elite media’ problem.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/media-foreign-policy-2023/
“Mainstream media failures in covering the war in Ukraine this year ranged from seeming to downplay questions about who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and ignoring key flashpoints that could have expanded the conflict into a direct U.S. war with Russia.
But back in June, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman provided a window into how many top journalists and pundits view U.S. foreign policy more broadly, and the war in Ukraine specifically: through the lens of American exceptionalism. Krugman used the D-Day anniversary this year to lament that Americans and other Western democracies weren’t sufficiently supportive of Ukraine’s war against Russia, saying then that if the country’s counteroffensive fails (which by now it has), “it will be a disaster not just for Ukraine but for the world.”
As RS noted at the time, Krugman’s argument “follows a problematic pattern among many in the media whose historical reference point will always be World War II and in turn believe the United States can apply that experience to any other world problem no matter how dissimilar or unrelated it is, or whether even a military solution is required.” Of course there were many calling for a more diplomatic approach to ending the war then and the evidence six months later suggests they were right.
A month before Krugman’s article, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum published a lengthy article running along the same themes. The piece was based largely on an uncritical relay of an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that crescendos to a call for taking back Crimea — a maximalist military objective that most sober observers believe to be unachievable — and overthrowing Putin, all in the name of a global struggle between good and evil. Except, as QI’s Anatol Lieven pointed out then, most of the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way.
“It is not that people in these countries approve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Lieven wrote in RS. “It is that they do not perceive such a huge difference between the regional hegemonic ambitions and criminal actions of Russia and the global ones of the United States; and they are thoroughly sick of having their opinions and interests ignored by Washington in the name of an American moral superiority that actual U.S. policies in their parts of the world have repeatedly belied.””
Ret. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S military forces in Europe, totally disagrees with the so-called "sober" observers cited. Crimea is the key to defeating the Russian invasion and the Ukrainian goal is straightforward: cut off Russian logistics by closing the Russian land bridge and taking down the Kerch Strait Bridge. Put Crimea under a siege and starve out the Russians. To facilitate this, the U.S. needs to provide long-range precision munitions like ATACMS to destroy Russian command centers, munition depots, and logistical choke points; also bolster Ukrainian air force capabilities to enable a proper combined arms effort.
Putin has made Russia a criminal nation, like North Korea but more dangerous. May I suggest that Russia needs another 1917 event, and defeat may bring it on. That would appear to be the only solution to the mortal danger to the world threatened by this criminal regime. The nuclear threat will be with us until this occurs.
Water under the bridge now, but Gorbachev asked for aid to convert the Soviet system into a social democracy like the northern European nations of Denmark or Norway. That idea was repugnant to American neo-liberals who fantasized over creating a Randian economic system--their wet dream. Instead they catalyzed chaos, massive poverty, and the rise of oligarchy, authoritarianism, and eventually Putin fascist totalitarianism. So the Western democracies face a much more difficult situation today.
Trickle Down Economics: shit flows downhill.
Availability of affordable housing, living wages, and an understanding of the difference between "want" and "need" are good starting points.
There are many factors contributing to the rise in homelessness over the past 2 years. One is the end of rental assistance and other protections renters had during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, due to skyrocketing demand, rents have risen dramatically, pricing many out of their homes. Another is that a fairly large number of people who were homeless at the start of the pandemic were given 'temporary' housing in motels, etc. This has also ended, so many of those folks are back out on the streets.
There are deeper, systemic reasons for homelessness in this country, which have been touched on in the above comments. I agree no one should be homeless or hungry in the USA, when we have such ample means to solve these problems right now, with no real need to change/enact any new policies.
Agreed. In Florida, the gougers are running rampant and make the economic gains of the Biden Administration almost irrelevant. It’s sick and sad to see.
"Folks don't fall in love with a growth rate."
Said Jacques Delors, the ablest man ever to lead the EU, who died last week aged 98.
He'd also said of President Mitterand's grand revolutionary plans when he came to power:
"There's nothing more dangerous than that... making people think that, with the wave of a magic wand, you can change things."
Mitterand's grand plans fizzled out within a few months and Delors got the blame for bringing the bad news -- the unpalatable truth. Shoot the messenger...
Mitterand went on to be -- after Charles de Gaulle, France's last great presidential monarch.
Joe Biden did rather more than wave a magic wand. Alone in the whole world, he actually produced unbelievable economic results. And this was done by putting an end to the voodoo -omics -- Reagan, not Econ, nothing to do with any household -- that had for decades vampirized the wealth of ordinary, hard-working Americans.
But no one noticed. All too busy watching the wild wild show of a Coney Island huckster, while pockets were picked... and those who paid the showman to keep the people -- and the cops -- distracted... patiently tunneled their way towards The Heist of the Millennium... stealing... AMERICA...
Ah... now there's THE ART OF THE STEAL for you!!!
Well said, and truer than true. My favorite post this am
I will be contacting my Democratic representatives to urge them to support Biden/Harris for 2024. It'd be great if you would do the same!
U.S. House: https://contactrepresentatives.org/
U.S. Senate: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
State Legislators: https://pluralpolicy.com/find-your-legislator/
Great idea, Lynell. Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, and Val Hoyle will be getting a note from me! (I know where they all stand, since I get multiple emails from them all the time, but still...)
Yay, Ally! I figure this is our chance for them to hear from us that we aren't interested in this country turning into a dictatorship.
Thanks, shall do all I can -- for the sake of our poor world -- not out of love for the party of relative sanity -- given the Bedlamitic state of GOP. But, as a "furriner", I'm limited...
Thanks, Peter!
So good to see the actual, positive, constructive which Heather Cox Ricardson points out here.
Good to see Biden point it out. Good to see Kamala Harris do her bit regarding respecting rights all Americans have, or should.
More Dems should appear in public willing also to speak to the actual, the positive, the constructive.
They can largely ignore the Republicans, and the massive hole they've fallen into for blindly following the fat. orange, diaper guy, for blindly parroting whatever social media billionaires have algorithmed for them, for avidity for the cerebral rushes they get from Fox News pedaling its lying sensationalism.
Come on, Dems -- be specific. Speak with sympathy for the youth and others Barbara Kingsolver presents in "Demon Copperhead." Remind us of the depths to which the Paul Newman character first had to tumble in "The Verdict." Touch on the closed loops trapping Walter Mosley's old man in "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned." Remember how the main couple showed it's always personal in both the John Grisham original book and the movie re-make of "Runaway Jury." Quote some of our older, more famous writers speaking out these days for kids whose books others seek to take away from them.
Heather Long of the Washington Post should call it "Biden's miracle". Thank you for providing once again the clear outline of facts for us. This piece, along with yesterday's summary of Abraham Lincoln's economic intent, provides such a strong contrast for us to share when comparing with the Republican economic policy of the past 40 years.
Is it a miracle or just the application of horse sense? Reaganomics was always a con game, and after 40 years of it, it has more than outstayed it's welcome. Sure billionaires love it and make all the noise they can make in it's favor, but the middle class as shrunk, and our problems have multiplied. We can keep stampeding off cliffs, or take a much closer and longer look at what has worked and what doesn't. Even in the face of wholesale Republican sabotage, rational, and dare I say, patriotic strategy is beginning to break us out of our tailspin.
Even Reagan's opponent and eventual veep correctly called it "Voodoo Economics" when he opposed Reagan, then yielded to the dark side.
CONMANOMICS.
That's Economics for oiks. Yes, folks, for the oiks, not the oikos (that's Greek for "the household" which is why no one seems to understand it...)
Under Conmanomics, the household's Under No Management (presented as New Management) the people serve the 0.001% as slaves and those with the wrong kind of face or skin are downgraded to vermin.
Oik gevalt.
Brit slang. Derogatory.
There can be an odor of Mrs Clinton's "deplorables" about it... though it goes without saying that there's no lack of uppity moneyed oiks or, in London, fashionable upper class oikishness...
N.B. I lived in Scotland for a few years this century but never in England for donkey's years. So I'm not with it... Not a clue if this word's still used or who uses it... Just like the sound, the economy of it.
During the Trump administration Heather Long wrote about the unemployment numbers each month for the WAPO. She almost always gave credit to the TFFG administration for the good numbers and when they weren't so good didn't blame him. She received so many bad comments they finally moved her to other stories on the economy.
Thanks for the insight, Gary
"Economic"??? "Policy"???
Socialism for the 0.001% and there is no polite name for the excretory manna that trickles down from on high, when it doesn't cascade.
Thank you for your succinct summary of President Biden’s accomplishments.
Thanks Heather! Wonderful uplifting letter tonight. We all need to grab onto a few facts or keep a copy of this summary in our datebooks to pull out and share w friends, coworkers, young people , anyone in our neighborhood to reassure ourselves & our friends of the actual successes the Biden presidency has accomplished in these very short years.
Your succinct coverage of his Real Succeses must be ‘advertised’ everywhere we settle w everyone old & new to each of us! Talking points are excellent bits for others to hang onto,
and pass along in their days!
Thank you, Dr. Richardson for giving us the reality instead of the make believe of corporate TV. Biden's mind is not slipping or faltering, it is better with knowledge and experience. Kamala Harris has fulfilled the expectations we had of her. This is the team we need until January 20, 2029.
Thank you, Professor, for another letter providing specific details, the good news we must share with the public, especially those who still look at our current president as not “performing.” MSM and the administration need to continue sharing the specifics of how this administration has helped citizens and our Democracy. At the same time, we must continue to focus on underserved communities and citizens, who are not benefiting from the changes. Tall order, especially when the repubs often work against rather than for our progress and future. Voting, supporting and helping to create change for all citizens and getting the word out. That’s our job.
Exactly so, Irenie.
Well gosh darn. We’ve been doing pretty good why change things? Go Joe and thank you Professor, for explaining things so well and expanding our knowledge of our society. We can’t thank you enough. May the new year be bright for everyone. Peace, love, and compassion and always a little hard work. I love America.
A good percentage of those living on the street have some form of mental illness, and part of the problem is there’s no affordable place for them to be treated. Ever since state mental hospitals began to be shut down in the 1980s, this has been a growing problem. Society has not provided adequate outpatient care to replace the hospitals.
Many homeless are also addicts — either alcoholics or drug addicts. Even if there were a successful way to treat addiction (which there is not unless you’ve got cash to play for it), the majority of addicts would refuse treatment either because they deny they have a problem, or because they like the effects and are terrified of quitting. Or both. The law prevents forced treatment unless one can prove the person is a danger to others or self, and then only limited care is available for a limited time.
Neither group is capable of supporting themselves financially. They are unemployable, even if they wanted to work.
So it’s a complicated and expensive challenge to eliminate homelessness, at least for these people, with no easy solutions. But some cities have been successful in doing so. I’ve read that Nashville is actually saving a lot of money by providing free housing for the homeless.
Having worked in some institutions, I have the same conclusions. Also in CA under Regan as gov, funding for support systems for the "deinstutional" people was pulled up abruptly as well as for people on state medical aid leaving them without prosthetics & other medical needs.
Peter, I had a front row seat to the "close the state institutions and send them to their communities for treatment" debacle. There are NO local community centers that treat either mental illness and drug dependence that are not court ordered, and those are based heavily on criminal conduct* that has occurred. Most of the mentally ill in this area self-medicate with street drugs, and even when they are released from custody, they go right back to the street drugs than to the pharmacy with their script for meds. (A former recruit of mine is currently the sergeant in the jail who oversees this side of the local corrections system.)
*The conduct mentioned here is overwhelmingly "ordinance violations" of prohibited camping, urinate/defecate in public, open container. Other crimes (theft, assault, sexual assault) are rampant as well, but most of the people that do personal crimes as opposed to property crimes are held longer in custody, but never really treated...
Exactly. In Massachusetts, ERs have been
Overflowing with teenagers who have either tried suicide and failed or have sought help for the severe depression that can lead to suicide. They’re sleeping in the hallways and waiting rooms because every single bed in mental health treatment facilities in the state is occupied with patients for the same reason or other reasons. There’s no place to send them.
Parents are frantic, scared, angry. I’d say it’s a complete breakdown of a very poor mental health care system that’s under-funded and under-staffed. I also think the training and education counselors receive is inadequate. At a state-funded agency in New Bedford where I was a counsultant, I found staff counselors with no training and no license at all. Working under the license of the agency itself or one of its licensed therapists, they were “Christian” counselors trying to heal drug addicts, and people with severe anxiety disorders or depression, using prayer. I’m not kidding. There just aren’t enough trained and licensed counselors for the number of people who need help.
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My wife is a clinical psychologist. Mental health is NEVER a priority in many arenas.
That's true!
I did too. I was doing a CPE Summer internship at Worcester State Hospital in 1981 and had to take the state's Commissioner of Mental Health and his entourage on a tour through the hospital. It was clear to me then that he had already decided that the hospital would close. Many of the older patients had lived there most of their lives because they were seriously ill. To put them out on the street (the excuse was there would be plenty of group homes to take them in, so not to worry) was cruel and abusive. In protest, unionized mental health aides went on strike. It was an awful mess.
Any excuse for fashionable am-I--my-brother's-keeper? irresponsibility... is better than none.
I followed the collapse into unaided psychosis of a friend and neighbor. Or rather, he and his ever-deèpening troubles followed me. Until kind death released him.
He'd wake me up at 3 in the morning, ringing my bell. Alcohol and drug cocktails.
And there was literally nothing that could be done to help him. His doctors hid behind a screen of "medical secrecy" and could not, would not, be reached. A thin veil of hypocrisy masquerading as "ethics". But they too were powerless to help.
Only, they made it all worse.
What a threadbare ragged pretense of a society... No longer a society at all.
Poor, poor America! Poor world...
Yes. POOR. Such abject poverty. What have we come down to?
And so much of this our wretchedness seems rooted in the mean, deep-ingrained mentality of poverty so prevalent among the materially ultra-wealthy.
The imbalance is so great that calls for revolution are senseless. The collapse of something so absurdly top heavy is inevitable. All the more so when those on top deliberately undermine the base on which their and our existence depends.
The contagion of mass madness was released from psychiatric hospitals, finding super spreaders at the very summit of this manheap we still call a society.
Some people, I’m afraid, can’t or won’t be helped, and our society’s strangely misguided values and laws prevent those of us who want to help from doing so, even if we knew how. It’s against the law to force someone like your friend into treatment for longer than 2 weeks in Massachusetts and, if necessary, permanent care. The so-called rights of the individual to make decisions for him/herself take precedence even if the outcome is continuing suffering and eventual death. How is that loving one’s neighbor as one’s self?
Fear drives our culture, not love.
Ally, I have expressed something of my feelings about this unspeakable situation -- and what it means for us all -- a little further down this thread.
A catastrophe waiting to happen. As surely as a glacier about to calve mountains of ice into the ocean.
Only, what's about to collapse is far from clean and cold.
The rising oceans, fire and flood, will follow. Planet may suffer skin disease well into geological time.
ATTENTION:
Currently I am reading a book most of you would probably blow off as fluff and never give a thought to but LISTEN UP:
It's "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - A memoir.
See, you stopped reading already. But it has possibly the best simplest explanation of how we got where we are now - The 50s.
And its written by Bill Bryson. I think it's his best work, especially as it gives a glimpse of how we got here but also outlines your government at work - good and bad.
Check it out. At worst, you'll get a good laugh but it's so much more than that. Published in 06, it mentions drinking bleach.
Gotta run. Duck and cover.
Thank you so much for reminding me of another Bryson book. It was so heartening when I interacted with a young man reading “A Walk in the Woods” recently. I just wish my recall were quicker these days.
Love Bill Bryson, worthy of a read.
"This was a dramatic shift from the previous 40 years of U.S. policy, when lawmakers maintained that slashing the government would stimulate economic growth, and pundits widely predicted that the Democrats’ policies would create a recession."
"that government OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
(emphasis added)
If only Rupert would tell the tale.