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Good morning all! I admit that my take on all of this is going to be idiosyncratic, but when is it not?!

Firstly, the space program of the 1960s. My father was an aeronautics engineer who designed telecommunications satellites--most of which are the ones folks in the developed world (and beyond--he had a very interesting career!) have used since the 1960s for fun stuff like telephone calls. For us the space program was central to our lives and I followed it closely. My dad was also a raging lefty--which could make it hard to work for some of the people who paid his salary--and I think the thing that disappointed him most about the direction the space program went after 1968 was the fact that despicables like Nixon and Reagan were in charge of it after the hopefulness of the Kennedy years. My sorrow at the death of Robert Kennedy in 1968 and my disgust that Nixon got to be the one to congratulate the Apollo team still resonates in me: it was a pivotal moment in my life.

Secondly, the current space programs, both publicly funded and private (i.e. Bezos and Branson and their ilk): The USA has done a terrible job of maintaining and expanding a responsible and useful space program. The fact that there has never been a good replacement for the space shuttle; the fact that the decision to abandon deep space development for decades while littering our near-space environment with junk has hampered the growth of a responsible program: these are elements of shortsightedness that generations of Republican administrations (and arses like Clinton, whose programs were driven by popularity ratings) have wrought. The most innovative stuff is coming out of the three private companies--Space-X, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin--because these sociopaths (and really, they are all three sociopaths) have enough money to be able to throw it around with wild abandon, while the USA pinches pennies and lets its own citizens starve and struggle. I know that a robust NASA will not solve world hunger, but again: isn't that the job of government, not private individuals?

Thirdly, Bezos and Amazon: I admit I am conflicted. The guy is remarkably weird. But he also had a model to get, initially, books and information out to places where there was a dearth of both and he was willing to lose money like it was sludge going downstream for years in order to make that happen. I taught for almost 2 decades at a university in a part of the country that had virtually no bookstores for 100 miles in any direction and the public libraries were terrible. I was dependent on Amazon--especially in the long winter months when travel to a Barnes and Noble or Borders was almost impossible--as were all my students and colleagues. And Bezos was losing money for all those years but kept doing what he was doing, patiently building up his retail model. Is he deeply strange? Yes. Is he tone-deaf? Yes. Should he be paying a s***-ton more in taxes? Oh my goodness, yes. But in many parts of the country, his company was a lifeline, and it remains one of the better-paying jobs for a whole lot of people.

What I don't understand is why people rail about Bezos but not about the Walton family, whose business model did more to kill off Main Street, USA than Amazon ever did. Perhaps because Bezos is in-your-face strange, and the Waltons seem so, um, homey? I buy from Amazon because I refuse to give the Waltons any more of my hard-earned money.

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I have paid zero attention to the Bezos/Branson space race, mostly because, these days, my vision of space travel and space life is influenced by of the post apocalyptic/dystopian fare I've consumed throughout my life. Bezos's thanking the little people who work for him, buy from his Amazon, and read his newspaper reinforces my belief that the class and caste systems that plague us on earth will surely follow us into the heavens. That's no way to live.

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Heather, I so admire your ability to gather facts into a narrative. Your Letters have explained history to me in a way I can understand for the first time ever. I appreciate you so much. Still, I am aware that others might take the same facts, combine them with other facts, and see a different story. You have taught me to be wary of all truth tellers, even yourself.

As to this topic, I'll add my little opinion: I don't care a whit about space travel, and I think that technology creates as many problems as it solves, if not more. The only "progress" I care about is in the fuller utilization of our human capacity to lift each other up. There is so much to be done.

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"“I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this..." This might be the most tone deaf thing I've ever heard from someone who should know to fake it better.

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Imagine the good that could be accomplished if the rich and mega-rich just paid their fair share of taxes. How about using those tax dollars on renewable energy, combating climate change and making life better on our own planet. If there is intelligent life on any other planets, I feel pretty confident they don't want us to come and trash their environment like we've done to our own. Bezos needs to get over himself and stop playing with his penis rocket.

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When you’ve been able to amass your money by not paying your fair share of taxes, your “privately funded” venture is a diversion of rightfully public funds. This new space race is publicly funded, but absent public controls and alignment. Socialize the expenses, privatize the profits.

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"After May 4, 1970, when the shooting of college students at Kent State University in Ohio badly weakened Nixon’s support, he began to rally supporters to his side with what his vice president, Spiro Agnew, called “positive polarization."

Combined with the unsubtle racism of Nixon's Southern Strategy, thus began the decades long Republican policy of dividing Americans against each other that has led us to what we have today; two Americas that reside in different universes, and our national wealth controlled by a handful of unelected, supremely, in some cases psychotically, self-centered white men.

Jeff Bezos could not have existed in Kennedy's America. We must make that so again.

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Jeff Bezos’s remarks thanking Amazon employees and customers were repugnant. Those employees are real people that he takes advantage of in order to make billions of dollars.

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Bezos’ comment reminds me of the Christmas party where all company employees received a crisp 100 dollar bill as a bonus, while the firm owners had pulled down millions that year. “Thank you.” I mean, what condescending BS.

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What an uplifting story! John Kennedy was no saint, but during his brief time in office he did manage to help bring out an optimism about the ourselves and our future. Johnson lacked his charisma, but (except for Vietnam — and that’s a huge but) did accomplish passage of the Voting Rights Act and other key legislation that continued to extend the vision of FDR’s New Deal to groups previously left out of the American Dream.

And then the Movement Conservatives come to power. And with them the notion that the government is the problem reignites our inner demons. Now we have the Super Haves, maintaining their wealth by scaring those in the middle that those at the bottom are trying to use the government to steal the middle’s resources and wealth for the benefit of the bottom. Meanwhile the rich get richer and richer and richer.

And then earlier this week, Bezos returns from his privately funded space venture and makes remarks that clearly were not vetted by his public relations people, admitting that his efforts were largely funded by his employees and customers, leaving out the part about how his ability to pay next to nothing in taxes sufficiently enriched him so he could underwrite his private space venture while shifting the burden of paying taxes to those of us in the (former) middle class.

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I used to be really enthused by the idea of people living in space. Now, the idea depresses me. I wouldn't want to live in an artificial, sunless environment away from Earth. I no longer think all the resources being poured into getting humans into space are necessarily worth it. Although, now, we can't do without satellites for communication. Michigan is supposed to have a spaceport in the fairly near future for launching satellites. But, everytime they shoot a rocket up, it puts more exhaust in the atmosphere, and another hole in the ozone.

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Just keep thinking about all the homeless or housing insecure families that could have been given housing and food security right here on this planet for the cost of that space flight.

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If the government does something—like develop the complex technologies needed for space flight—we all pay for it with our taxes, we all benefit and we all own it, collectively. If a private company like Amazon does something—even if they use technology developed by the government and owned by us all—we all pay for it, a small number of people benefit exorbitantly, and anywhere from one person to a handful owns it. Tell me again which system you prefer.

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We could compare this billionaire's selfish enterprise with what his ex-wife is doing. MacKenzie Scott recently gave 8.5 billion dollars to various organizations and associations, dedicated to helping people to have a better life. In her own words: https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/seeding-by-ceding-ea6de642bf

As Louis Aragon, a French poet, said, "La femme est l'avenir de l'homme" (woman is man's future).

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Jeff Bezos is on a multimillion dollar ego trip funded by his employees and customers. Accompanying him is a story he tells as to why he is pursuing space and as we might expect from a man talking about himself he is declaring what the future should be like and he wants that future for his future generations. It is all about Jeff Bezos folks while back here on Earth the old news about poverty, crumbling infrastructure, right-wing oppression of minorities, etc. struggling to survive go begging for attention. We have lots to address here at home without chasing some egomaniacs dream about the future.

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Stay tuned for the next episode of Amazon's new series "Oligarchs In Space" !

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