If they do change divorce laws to stop no-fault divorce, what will they do if some people, especially women, refuse to marry? I truly do expect this to happen in some of states with a red supermajority. Will they then enact laws to force women over a certain age to either marry stay under the guardianship of a male relative? Certainly ba…
If they do change divorce laws to stop no-fault divorce, what will they do if some people, especially women, refuse to marry? I truly do expect this to happen in some of states with a red supermajority. Will they then enact laws to force women over a certain age to either marry stay under the guardianship of a male relative? Certainly banning or limiting access to contraception will make women more economically vulnerable. I think things will continue to get worse at the state level, even if we have a blue sweep at the federal level this November, far from a sure thing.
Thank you as always Dr Richardson for shining a light on what’s happening and giving us an historical context I for one didn’t have with respect to the economics of the Wild West.
I imagine it would speed and be a multiplying factor, furthering widely publicized trends in our failing population growth. From talking with various folks, young and old, and study I do, the failing population growth has gone hand in hand with our diminishing economic equity; "Why would I dare bring children into this unfair system, where we would struggle, mostly unsuccessfully to provide for them, much less afford to help them with higher education" ? Young people actually 'do' have those discussions.
Falling population, D4N, goes hand in hand with something more nefarious.
My perspective is Japan, where I've lived some years now -- and have grieved at how dehumanized junior high schools have become, and much worse high schools.
Standardized tests rule, wiping out humanities -- or, rather, turning what dead textbooks refer to as famous novels and such only into randomized fragments, suitable only for more vicious but personally empty standardized testing. All machine gradable, of course. No need for the human anywhere.
And the young are responding by ceasing to date. Ceasing to have boyfriends and girlfriends. Not marrying. Not starting families. Nor even much continuing the larger families into which they were born. Getting much, much into weirder and weirder forms of voyeurism.
Unlike Japan and China, there are lessons to be embraced by all in the USA in the successful assimilation of immigrants who value the opportunities of work, education, and relative safety in welcoming communities, and who serve in our military and congregate in our churches and compete on our athletic fields, Trump deliberately ignores this golden age of immigration is what keeps America vibrant, young and strong. Defunding public schools, mass deportations, and thumbing one’s nose at bipartisan immigration reform and support for a free Ukraine are losing propositions in the land of the truly free.
no less important! Crucial! Creativity and Out Side The Box Thinking are the crux of the biscuit.
And we MUST support our almost extinct Journalists and Investigative Writers! They are Dying thanks to GOOGLE's monopoly on ADS. This is a BIG CHANGE that has massacred local, city, state and National Journalism.
Investigative Journalism.
Think of all the times they have saved us from our despots!
For most here, I'm guessing you might recall Woodward and Bernstein.
But there are Sooooo many more that we have forgotten, whom we took for granted, and they and their organizations and their entire Infrastructure have been quietly, cynically, destroyed. Destruction of regulation of media monopolies. Murdering the Fairness Doctrine. Encouraging the proliferation of Shock Jocks. Not just Stern. Who at least had some values. Sort of.
But Rush Limbaugh. How much damage done by One disgusting human.
OK, I'm done my rant. Support Your Favorite News Source(s) By Subscribing. Just like you do here. Even some you semi-hate, like NYT, or WaPo, or LA Times. We need them.
ok bye
The Press has always been a precarious Jewel in our checks and balances.
Murdoch is also highly complicit in the decay of the media. He has managed to wreck journalism in his native Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United Ststes.
So many novels, memoirs, histories, and films have shown the great vitality, as well as our great need, for those who stick their needs out for human decency.
So many works of art show, too, the incredible, unbelievable corruption among our greedy rich, our on-the-take public officials.
Might it soon be time for a "Clarence Award," or make that plural, for
the investigative reporting and parallel arts which nab our most disgustingly, cravenly, predictably corrupt?
...and Patrice, where would you place Julian Assange in the pantheon of investigative reporters? He certainly revealed A LOT about how our government was actually working in Iraq, etc.
sorry, after ranting I just realized I read your comment kind of backwards. Truly, I am so lost. I am so afraid. I am so afraid for my children, and all children, and all life on earth. Forgive my vehemence. It is my desperation, completely out of proportion to what you said, and totally off base.
Matt, I'm a little confused by what you wrote. Do you mean both athletics AND arts are less important? Or one is less important than the other? Or something else? (Sorry, it's early.)
Except when immigrants, preferable illegal ones, suit him, as in staffing his golf clubs. Illegal ones are beholden to him and in no position to complain.
Phil, I may have a chance to travel to Nagasaki with my orchestra, St. Paul Civic Symphony. Nagasaki and St. Paul are sister cities, and Nagasaki also has an orchestra which is the sister orchestra to the St. Paul Civic Symphony.
Where are you located in the unlikely event that we could cross paths?
Taketa-shi, Matt, is halfway between Oita-shi on the Pacific, and Kumamoto, just above Nagasaki. (The railroads call Taketa "Bungo-Taketa.")
Let me know dates, and I can arrange modest hotels here for you and any traveling with you. Personal interests of your own, and others traveling with you -- and I can note books providing lovely, thematic apt travel background.
We've also very, very fine restaurants here. None elegant, but deliciously attentive to local sourcing.
Also two rivers, three tall mountains around Taketa, many Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, an incredibly scenic site, with ruins, of an old hilltop former castle, and many hills, woodland, and terraced rice fields throughout.
Color me green with envy Matt. *Say* Should your orchestra have want or need of a guitar player, I'm offering.. Once upon a time I could really 'shred' as the kids say today.... lol.
You're observing a manifestation of the STEM education lie. I'd love to see STEM abolished from English usage and replaced with STEAM where 'A' is art.
Teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics without teaching art makes as much sense as teaching people that have no place to go how to drive.
"Art is what we call it when what we do might connect us." - Seth Godin.
I know of young people who are seriously reluctant to bring children into what seems like an increasingly threatening world situation. We are not sufficiently caring for the common weal.
Unlike some, I always remember most of my family were post famine Irish immigrants. More people should remember that and remember their own families were viewed with disdain when they first came here. Immigration processes operated much more quickly then and weren’t bogged down in paperwork and slow processes. In addition, there were flat out bans of people from Japan, China, and other Asian nations, which changed in 1965 with the Immigration and Nationality Act. Unlike Jeff Sessions, I don’t want to return to ethnically exclusionary policies.
I'm a mixed European mutt as far as I can tell from asking my parents about ancestry. But also on my dad's side, there was a priest and a 16 year old having a child. I will have to bring that back up over cribbage as probably important family history, if shameful.
We could do it without immigration, have organic population growth of our own, if only there were some hope of a bit more economic equity. I have nothing against immigration mind you, but I will say that it's no cure all and wasn't always in the past. The benefits did not serve all; it served employers.
Also people would simply say "F*CK YOU! I am doing it [whatever 'it' is banned via a law scripted on piece of paper-litter] anyway and you, government, can not stop me." That will belie the charade of law-&-order among the M.A.G.A.s since widely ignored laws surely attenuate the rule-of-law even further.
I assume you refer to Trump. If you refer to me, I suspect my comment was not clear. Trump and his followers scream law-&-order yet erode the rule-of-law with these oppressive measures that will only provoke defiance.
Young people certainly are having these discussions & I fully support them in exercising being Child-free By Choice. I don't see a slowing population growth as 'failing'. Forced birth is wrong on every level & significantly, any claim of 'pro-life' can't be based on myths, control, & demand economics, it has to be about quality of life. Economic abuse, creating deficit & poverty mentality, is a huge part of abuse of power & dysfunction in every area of our lives. All humans, especially children, need a much healthier environment than the current reality of life being ruthless, competitive sport. I hope with all I am that the discussions lead to that, a thorough dismantling of myths that are not serving us.
Very frightening scenario. In the end, I believe President Biden will win with a plurality as Mr Kennedy siphons more votes away from Trump than from President Biden. As Dr Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist recognized for her work in dealing with violent people, says, together with a small group of experts gutsy enough to speak out: take away the dictators and the social contagion dissipates as followers snap back into reality. Almost like they are waking up from an alcoholic black-out.
While not being deeply schooled in psychology but very much in women's liberation early feminist thinking for almost 60 years, I am wondering if what we see now in the MAGA population is a form of mass hysteria for the loss of whatever they think they've lost which is largely imaginary as they partake in Trump's own version which apparently fuels their own emptiness as if they were looking for the missing parts that never existed. Which is why possibility frightens them at the core. It's particularly frightening for them to see that other people are embracing their own possibilities. So do they have the equipment to do that? I think not at this point. And they refuse the education that would provide it. Extremely fear-based.
For centuries Americans with white skin didn’t have to compete with people who have “colored” skin for jobs, housing, medical care etc.
From the 1600s to 1954 Black people were legally and practically subjugated and segregated-left on their own to establish a way of life in America.
Trump tells Black people that immigrants are taking “their jobs” because Black people always had to deal with slavery (unpaid labor) and lower level employment (housekeepers, farm hands, waiters etc.)
Seeing Black faces in high places (president of the nation, defense secretary, minority speaker of the house, budget director etc.) is scary. Why should they have to compete with or be under the authority of “those people”?
I understand why so many people don’t want to confront white supremacy and caste in our society. It’s entrenched and nuanced. Now that the actual “whites only” signs have been taken down it’s invisible to many. White supremacy is what’s holding us back from being a true democracy. That’s what this election is really about for Rs-more than abortion, guns, climate change etc. Joe Biden has invited “those people” to the party-it’s ruining the country. They have to take it back. States rights is the mechanism.
“All that is necessary to be done is to make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.” -Frederick Douglass (1866) (from essay in The Atlantic)
You can’t choose to not get educated, and then expect that you will have the needed skills that an education provides you with as the business environment evolves, which it’s bound to do. Nothing is static, everything is in a constant state of change, to not recognize that is to have stuck your head in the sand, while the world we are part of merrily evolves away from where you decided to get off. It’s lunacy, if you have any question what those people look like spend a few minutes watching the orange turd at one of his rallies, the people standing behind him are classic examples. It’s pathetic really. 🤷♂️
Thank you. I have been looking for years at the phenomenon of the whole idea of assumed superiority in all its many many forms. As a healer I cannot afford nor should I to look at people as classifications; everyone is so individual and with my anthropology training, single lesbian motherhood and many kinds of activist I have been able to see patterns and how they evolve or don't or devolve. It's always the human behavioral facts to tell the most. The media is so besotted with image and its own forms of lying that there's no relying on them. I like Substack where our voices are real and our experiences are in use.
"In the end, I believe President Biden will win with a plurality as Mr Kennedy siphons more votes away from Trump than from President Biden."
I am really struggling to see how this is a plausible scenario, considering Kennedy has only qualified for the ballot in a small handful of states, and his ballot access even in some of those states is now being challenged in court. He is literally a non-factor until further notice, no matter how much fun the number crunchers might have with such a. hypothetical.
The only realistic path to a Biden victory is for a majority of voters to vote for him again, just as they did four years ago. I see no reason why this is not still the most likely outcome.
The U.S. has excused, rationalized, funded, helped to arm, and otherwise joined the far-right Israeli settlers as they have for years goaded, provoked, stolen land from, and imprisoned, tortured, and murdered Palestinians of the West Bank.
The U.S. has had zero programs otherwise -- say, to help teachers and schools who could help local Jews and Palestinians learning English to see each other as individuals.
Gaza as one word means U.S. commitment only to war, war, hate, hate.
Well, Phil, as eloquently as yo have expanded upon Patrice's comment, I would try to balance that expansion just a bit by reminding you that for all the Israelis have trampled on any apparent respect for Gazan rights and territory, the Israelis have been perpetually confronted by intransigent Arab leaders who remain committed to the destruction of this new nation the United Nations (?) wrought in their land in 1948. It is an area which has no easy solution beyond a refusal to demonize either side but to work to bring about some arrangement to share what we once referred to as "The Holy Land."
People are upset because they cannot understand President Biden's predicament of having to maintain our only allies in the Middle East. Israel. Especially now that Iran is in the equation. You win some and you loose some. Both sides are wrong. It is a tragedy. But if Hamas truly cared about Palestinians, they would have released the hostages and would have negotiated a deal. They do not care. No Arab country cares about them. They never have. They buses them as props. Devastating!
Yes, I found this letter to be (as they all are) outstandingly clear and balanced. Gunsmoke, eh? Little House on Prairie? Exciting, comforting, fairytales. And then it turns out that guns were banned in Dodge City!
Just like they were Banned from the NRA convention in TX, when Donny spoke for the gun lobby,
right after 376 cowardly, gun toting local, state and federal Police Officers, Sheriffs, and Border Patrol (!) stood by while a local kid massacred 21 teachers and students at their school in Uvalde.
I believe those young adults who experienced gun violence in school, now old enough to vote and run for office, are going to see continued expansion of gun ‘rights’ very differently.
Anne-Louise, the stories in the Little House books were given quite a whitewash by their author (Laura Ingalls) to render them acceptable to the children for whom they were intended. Methinks Pa may not have been such an effective settler/provider and therefore had to keep moving on.
That's already happening. Whether women choose to have children or not. And of course, soon these women will have to stop having sex unless they can get their hands on a condom.
Ironically, the "Right" (can we begin to call them the Wrong?) will decry the "breakdown of the family" as their cruel policies continue to decimate it.
And yes, the whole point of "Sovereign" state power (and just plain Sovereign power, which is still a strong movement, but now quieter), the whole Point is that Power is easier to exert Locally.
We are about to see the activation of "sovereign" militias from all Red states. They have been strutting loudly to the drumbeat of Divine Governor Abbott of The Republic of Texas, defending the border against the infidels who would defile their women, or, or, something....
As David Dayen said a couple months ago, we are sleepwalking toward fascism.
(not sure if that was the word he chose, but it's the truth)
My Granny and her boyfriend Randy were together for decades; I believe he asked her to be married several times but she said no each time. She had already tried twice and realized she wasn't the type of person to live with someone else all the time. She was a warm person who I miss very much since her passing a few months ago, but she was fiercely independent and could be very difficult in many ways. He had his house, she had her condo, he would come to visit on weekends and bring extra groceries, and that was just fine and dandy for everyone concerned.
My cousin Margie has not gotten married because her first marriage was abusive and... well, she just doesn't cotton to the idea any more. She and her boyfriend love each other very much, treat each other very well, and are doting parents to the sweetest little girl. They are looking forward to buying a house jointly soon.
My cousin Steve just got married to his now-wife a few years ago, also after already having had a child. They are very laid back SoCal types and just hadn't gotten around to it, I guess. It was a fun little shindig. Their son got to be the ringbearer for Mom & Dad, stuff his face with grandmother's Mexican wedding cookies, and run around messing up his nice shirt. Perfect!
My aunt Jane got married very young to her best friend Sean, raised four kids into adulthood together (one of whom is Steve), then realized the romantic "spark" just was not there there for her, if it ever truly was, after she found it with Mark instead. She has now been monogamously together with Mark for 20 years, but she and Sean never legally got divorced. She still ran a business out of the family home, and all the participants got along on the best of terms. Sean passed away last week from cancer and she is absolutely devestated. They loved each other deeply for half a century; the exact way they did just shifted back and forth was all.
There is no reason people cannot just be loved and happy outside of typical strictures and structures if that is what suits them. This seems to terrify some people. Baffling.
P.S. I changed all names herein to protect the innocent.
My grandmother originally from the mountains of East Tennessee, same thing, Will.
She married at 14 (she was born in 1907 -- most girls there were ripe for that then).
But her husband, age 16, felt guilty at his own carousing for years already then, and for more than two months avoided consummating the marriage.
Their marriage ended before I was born. She'd moved to California with their three little girls (including my then-girl-mother), he, after a fourth girl, to various places.
When I knew her as my grandmother, she wore only loud and pastel colors. A bra that formed twin peaks. And opinions even then (Goldwater era) wildly right-wing.
Will, the consistent backdrop to each of your stories is one of the feelings and care about the other which underlie each of the unmarried you describe. Marriage provides a legal basis for partnership which may not be necessary for all. Perhaps we should not get to bent out of shape at withering marriage statistics which are simple to get at, and worry more about the frequency or incidence of the underlying relationships which result in children who are cared for and cared about sufficiently to grow into responsible caring adults...a much more elusive statistic to find and compare.
Will, your family's history mirrors a lot of my Mom's side of the family in California (Venice to Carmel) although I suspect that my Mom is your granny's age. My folks married a bit late in their lives (my Dad was 30, Mom was 26) and they didn't have me until they'd been married nearly 10 years.
You make good points. Between the potential end of NF divorce and the criminalization of abortion and birth control , why would any forward-thinking woman get married?
For different reasons, that’s what’s happening in Japan with devastating social and economic consequences. Young women are refusing to marry, leaving an aging population with fewer and fewer young people to carry on and care for them. Once reliant on strong family networks, rural areas are dying and loneliness is rising.
The cowboy of Wild West myth was often a loner who moved around taking work where he could find it. He carried his possessions with him. He worked for the men who owned the ranches. Often, individualistic men and their families wound up as the victims of circumstances, such as weather or worse. They could not go it alone and often took the families down with them.
I keep making that point to the MAGAts that I still interact with (much more accurate these days than calling them friends). Even a side by side comparison is met with a carefully and well thought out "Nuh uh".
I wonder, Ally, if you're from Portland, Willamette Valley Oregon.
Or the far-right, MAGA-rabid eastern part of the state?
I wonder because, as I peruse maps of the current massive heat waves and destructive flooding in the U.S., the worst-hit areas are those with very high MAGA populations.
They keep voting for climate-change denial politicians. And now they suffer the realities they've continued for years and years to deny.
In case you haven’t noticed, thanks to the work of feminism in particular and po-mo progressivism in general, marriage is circling the drain already—with predictable negative consequences for society in general and children in particular.
If they do change divorce laws to stop no-fault divorce, what will they do if some people, especially women, refuse to marry? I truly do expect this to happen in some of states with a red supermajority. Will they then enact laws to force women over a certain age to either marry stay under the guardianship of a male relative? Certainly banning or limiting access to contraception will make women more economically vulnerable. I think things will continue to get worse at the state level, even if we have a blue sweep at the federal level this November, far from a sure thing.
Thank you as always Dr Richardson for shining a light on what’s happening and giving us an historical context I for one didn’t have with respect to the economics of the Wild West.
I imagine it would speed and be a multiplying factor, furthering widely publicized trends in our failing population growth. From talking with various folks, young and old, and study I do, the failing population growth has gone hand in hand with our diminishing economic equity; "Why would I dare bring children into this unfair system, where we would struggle, mostly unsuccessfully to provide for them, much less afford to help them with higher education" ? Young people actually 'do' have those discussions.
Falling population, D4N, goes hand in hand with something more nefarious.
My perspective is Japan, where I've lived some years now -- and have grieved at how dehumanized junior high schools have become, and much worse high schools.
Standardized tests rule, wiping out humanities -- or, rather, turning what dead textbooks refer to as famous novels and such only into randomized fragments, suitable only for more vicious but personally empty standardized testing. All machine gradable, of course. No need for the human anywhere.
And the young are responding by ceasing to date. Ceasing to have boyfriends and girlfriends. Not marrying. Not starting families. Nor even much continuing the larger families into which they were born. Getting much, much into weirder and weirder forms of voyeurism.
Unlike Japan and China, there are lessons to be embraced by all in the USA in the successful assimilation of immigrants who value the opportunities of work, education, and relative safety in welcoming communities, and who serve in our military and congregate in our churches and compete on our athletic fields, Trump deliberately ignores this golden age of immigration is what keeps America vibrant, young and strong. Defunding public schools, mass deportations, and thumbing one’s nose at bipartisan immigration reform and support for a free Ukraine are losing propositions in the land of the truly free.
I'd add being members of our arts as well as athletic fields, which is less important.
no less important! Crucial! Creativity and Out Side The Box Thinking are the crux of the biscuit.
And we MUST support our almost extinct Journalists and Investigative Writers! They are Dying thanks to GOOGLE's monopoly on ADS. This is a BIG CHANGE that has massacred local, city, state and National Journalism.
Investigative Journalism.
Think of all the times they have saved us from our despots!
For most here, I'm guessing you might recall Woodward and Bernstein.
But there are Sooooo many more that we have forgotten, whom we took for granted, and they and their organizations and their entire Infrastructure have been quietly, cynically, destroyed. Destruction of regulation of media monopolies. Murdering the Fairness Doctrine. Encouraging the proliferation of Shock Jocks. Not just Stern. Who at least had some values. Sort of.
But Rush Limbaugh. How much damage done by One disgusting human.
OK, I'm done my rant. Support Your Favorite News Source(s) By Subscribing. Just like you do here. Even some you semi-hate, like NYT, or WaPo, or LA Times. We need them.
ok bye
The Press has always been a precarious Jewel in our checks and balances.
Murdoch is also highly complicit in the decay of the media. He has managed to wreck journalism in his native Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United Ststes.
Please don't be "done" with your rant, Patrice.
So many novels, memoirs, histories, and films have shown the great vitality, as well as our great need, for those who stick their needs out for human decency.
So many works of art show, too, the incredible, unbelievable corruption among our greedy rich, our on-the-take public officials.
Might it soon be time for a "Clarence Award," or make that plural, for
the investigative reporting and parallel arts which nab our most disgustingly, cravenly, predictably corrupt?
...and Patrice, where would you place Julian Assange in the pantheon of investigative reporters? He certainly revealed A LOT about how our government was actually working in Iraq, etc.
sorry, after ranting I just realized I read your comment kind of backwards. Truly, I am so lost. I am so afraid. I am so afraid for my children, and all children, and all life on earth. Forgive my vehemence. It is my desperation, completely out of proportion to what you said, and totally off base.
No worries! I can see how it could be interpreted as athletics over arts, not what I meant!
I hear you loud and clearly. You are not alone.
Sending hugs, Patrice! And here, you have a lot of people cheering you on!
Matt, I'm a little confused by what you wrote. Do you mean both athletics AND arts are less important? Or one is less important than the other? Or something else? (Sorry, it's early.)
Except when immigrants, preferable illegal ones, suit him, as in staffing his golf clubs. Illegal ones are beholden to him and in no position to complain.
So well put
A profoundly pessimistic time of 'anomie' or the distress of one's world unravelling.
Phil, I may have a chance to travel to Nagasaki with my orchestra, St. Paul Civic Symphony. Nagasaki and St. Paul are sister cities, and Nagasaki also has an orchestra which is the sister orchestra to the St. Paul Civic Symphony.
Where are you located in the unlikely event that we could cross paths?
Taketa-shi, Matt, is halfway between Oita-shi on the Pacific, and Kumamoto, just above Nagasaki. (The railroads call Taketa "Bungo-Taketa.")
Let me know dates, and I can arrange modest hotels here for you and any traveling with you. Personal interests of your own, and others traveling with you -- and I can note books providing lovely, thematic apt travel background.
We've also very, very fine restaurants here. None elegant, but deliciously attentive to local sourcing.
Also two rivers, three tall mountains around Taketa, many Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, an incredibly scenic site, with ruins, of an old hilltop former castle, and many hills, woodland, and terraced rice fields throughout.
More at my e-mail, EssDiff@gmail.com .
Thanks so much, Phil. I've copied your email address and will get in touch as I hear more.
Color me green with envy Matt. *Say* Should your orchestra have want or need of a guitar player, I'm offering.. Once upon a time I could really 'shred' as the kids say today.... lol.
I'd love to be able to play guitar! If only that were part of a symphony orchestra, I think modern composer could write it in.
What is your instrument Matt ?
You're observing a manifestation of the STEM education lie. I'd love to see STEM abolished from English usage and replaced with STEAM where 'A' is art.
Teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics without teaching art makes as much sense as teaching people that have no place to go how to drive.
"Art is what we call it when what we do might connect us." - Seth Godin.
Here's a good reference source: https://www.steamco.org.uk/
Where do you live?😳
Not clear to whom you're replying, Leslie.
I know of young people who are seriously reluctant to bring children into what seems like an increasingly threatening world situation. We are not sufficiently caring for the common weal.
For my part, my advice to young people who ask is: Do mot get married, do not have childre
As do I. With my 5 nieces and nephews, only one has had children, two daughters.
The solution to lack of population growth in any country is more immigration. But we can't have that!
Maybe if we get back to our roots as a nation of immigrants, welcoming other cultures and religions, that will solve our troubles.
Unlike some, I always remember most of my family were post famine Irish immigrants. More people should remember that and remember their own families were viewed with disdain when they first came here. Immigration processes operated much more quickly then and weren’t bogged down in paperwork and slow processes. In addition, there were flat out bans of people from Japan, China, and other Asian nations, which changed in 1965 with the Immigration and Nationality Act. Unlike Jeff Sessions, I don’t want to return to ethnically exclusionary policies.
I'm a mixed European mutt as far as I can tell from asking my parents about ancestry. But also on my dad's side, there was a priest and a 16 year old having a child. I will have to bring that back up over cribbage as probably important family history, if shameful.
We could do it without immigration, have organic population growth of our own, if only there were some hope of a bit more economic equity. I have nothing against immigration mind you, but I will say that it's no cure all and wasn't always in the past. The benefits did not serve all; it served employers.
Also people would simply say "F*CK YOU! I am doing it [whatever 'it' is banned via a law scripted on piece of paper-litter] anyway and you, government, can not stop me." That will belie the charade of law-&-order among the M.A.G.A.s since widely ignored laws surely attenuate the rule-of-law even further.
Doesn't the expression "eff you" translate, Ned, more simply just as "MAGA"?
The eff-you would be people fed up with M.A.G.A. authoritarianism; I am thinking about Prohibition as an analogy.
Well of course he deliberately ignores it. He is supremely, dangerously ignorant.
I assume you refer to Trump. If you refer to me, I suspect my comment was not clear. Trump and his followers scream law-&-order yet erode the rule-of-law with these oppressive measures that will only provoke defiance.
Trump.
Young people certainly are having these discussions & I fully support them in exercising being Child-free By Choice. I don't see a slowing population growth as 'failing'. Forced birth is wrong on every level & significantly, any claim of 'pro-life' can't be based on myths, control, & demand economics, it has to be about quality of life. Economic abuse, creating deficit & poverty mentality, is a huge part of abuse of power & dysfunction in every area of our lives. All humans, especially children, need a much healthier environment than the current reality of life being ruthless, competitive sport. I hope with all I am that the discussions lead to that, a thorough dismantling of myths that are not serving us.
NOTE: my assumption that Mr Kennedy was on the ballot of every state was WAY OFF. My apologies. Many thanks to Will from California.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/05/28/rfk-jr-says-hell-be-on-the-ballot-in-these-states-with-more-in-the-works-his-campaign-says/
Very frightening scenario. In the end, I believe President Biden will win with a plurality as Mr Kennedy siphons more votes away from Trump than from President Biden. As Dr Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist recognized for her work in dealing with violent people, says, together with a small group of experts gutsy enough to speak out: take away the dictators and the social contagion dissipates as followers snap back into reality. Almost like they are waking up from an alcoholic black-out.
While not being deeply schooled in psychology but very much in women's liberation early feminist thinking for almost 60 years, I am wondering if what we see now in the MAGA population is a form of mass hysteria for the loss of whatever they think they've lost which is largely imaginary as they partake in Trump's own version which apparently fuels their own emptiness as if they were looking for the missing parts that never existed. Which is why possibility frightens them at the core. It's particularly frightening for them to see that other people are embracing their own possibilities. So do they have the equipment to do that? I think not at this point. And they refuse the education that would provide it. Extremely fear-based.
Religion does that to some people.
For centuries Americans with white skin didn’t have to compete with people who have “colored” skin for jobs, housing, medical care etc.
From the 1600s to 1954 Black people were legally and practically subjugated and segregated-left on their own to establish a way of life in America.
Trump tells Black people that immigrants are taking “their jobs” because Black people always had to deal with slavery (unpaid labor) and lower level employment (housekeepers, farm hands, waiters etc.)
Seeing Black faces in high places (president of the nation, defense secretary, minority speaker of the house, budget director etc.) is scary. Why should they have to compete with or be under the authority of “those people”?
I understand why so many people don’t want to confront white supremacy and caste in our society. It’s entrenched and nuanced. Now that the actual “whites only” signs have been taken down it’s invisible to many. White supremacy is what’s holding us back from being a true democracy. That’s what this election is really about for Rs-more than abortion, guns, climate change etc. Joe Biden has invited “those people” to the party-it’s ruining the country. They have to take it back. States rights is the mechanism.
“All that is necessary to be done is to make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.” -Frederick Douglass (1866) (from essay in The Atlantic)
You can’t choose to not get educated, and then expect that you will have the needed skills that an education provides you with as the business environment evolves, which it’s bound to do. Nothing is static, everything is in a constant state of change, to not recognize that is to have stuck your head in the sand, while the world we are part of merrily evolves away from where you decided to get off. It’s lunacy, if you have any question what those people look like spend a few minutes watching the orange turd at one of his rallies, the people standing behind him are classic examples. It’s pathetic really. 🤷♂️
I think you have an excellent point there. Possibly an unpopular one. Yes I have had similar thoughts. You verbalised them well.
Thank you. I have been looking for years at the phenomenon of the whole idea of assumed superiority in all its many many forms. As a healer I cannot afford nor should I to look at people as classifications; everyone is so individual and with my anthropology training, single lesbian motherhood and many kinds of activist I have been able to see patterns and how they evolve or don't or devolve. It's always the human behavioral facts to tell the most. The media is so besotted with image and its own forms of lying that there's no relying on them. I like Substack where our voices are real and our experiences are in use.
"In the end, I believe President Biden will win with a plurality as Mr Kennedy siphons more votes away from Trump than from President Biden."
I am really struggling to see how this is a plausible scenario, considering Kennedy has only qualified for the ballot in a small handful of states, and his ballot access even in some of those states is now being challenged in court. He is literally a non-factor until further notice, no matter how much fun the number crunchers might have with such a. hypothetical.
The only realistic path to a Biden victory is for a majority of voters to vote for him again, just as they did four years ago. I see no reason why this is not still the most likely outcome.
gaza.
You're going to need to reply with more than one word for me to consider your point of sufficient substance.
I'll provide it for Patrice, Will.
The U.S. has excused, rationalized, funded, helped to arm, and otherwise joined the far-right Israeli settlers as they have for years goaded, provoked, stolen land from, and imprisoned, tortured, and murdered Palestinians of the West Bank.
The U.S. has had zero programs otherwise -- say, to help teachers and schools who could help local Jews and Palestinians learning English to see each other as individuals.
Gaza as one word means U.S. commitment only to war, war, hate, hate.
Well, Phil, as eloquently as yo have expanded upon Patrice's comment, I would try to balance that expansion just a bit by reminding you that for all the Israelis have trampled on any apparent respect for Gazan rights and territory, the Israelis have been perpetually confronted by intransigent Arab leaders who remain committed to the destruction of this new nation the United Nations (?) wrought in their land in 1948. It is an area which has no easy solution beyond a refusal to demonize either side but to work to bring about some arrangement to share what we once referred to as "The Holy Land."
People are upset because they cannot understand President Biden's predicament of having to maintain our only allies in the Middle East. Israel. Especially now that Iran is in the equation. You win some and you loose some. Both sides are wrong. It is a tragedy. But if Hamas truly cared about Palestinians, they would have released the hostages and would have negotiated a deal. They do not care. No Arab country cares about them. They never have. They buses them as props. Devastating!
This is a reply to Will from Cal. It should read they use them, not buses, last paragraph. Where is the edit button? 😃
Well, I did not do my home-work, me-thinks.
Thank you, Will.
How does Kennedy fit into the Project 2025 scenario? Is he Plan B? Or, the morning-after pill?
I thought her contagion of trump attitudes interesting. We all see it, but didn't have an explanation for it.,
Yes, I found this letter to be (as they all are) outstandingly clear and balanced. Gunsmoke, eh? Little House on Prairie? Exciting, comforting, fairytales. And then it turns out that guns were banned in Dodge City!
Just like they were Banned from the NRA convention in TX, when Donny spoke for the gun lobby,
right after 376 cowardly, gun toting local, state and federal Police Officers, Sheriffs, and Border Patrol (!) stood by while a local kid massacred 21 teachers and students at their school in Uvalde.
I believe those young adults who experienced gun violence in school, now old enough to vote and run for office, are going to see continued expansion of gun ‘rights’ very differently.
Anne-Louise, the stories in the Little House books were given quite a whitewash by their author (Laura Ingalls) to render them acceptable to the children for whom they were intended. Methinks Pa may not have been such an effective settler/provider and therefore had to keep moving on.
Heather has spoken about this I think in her talks with Joanne Freeman or perhaps on her fb discussions. The whole Little House stuff was mythology.
Beat me to it, Jen. Lots of the Now and Then podcasts mentioned it, and I am sure I've read her LHotP commentary here.
That's already happening. Whether women choose to have children or not. And of course, soon these women will have to stop having sex unless they can get their hands on a condom.
Ironically, the "Right" (can we begin to call them the Wrong?) will decry the "breakdown of the family" as their cruel policies continue to decimate it.
And yes, the whole point of "Sovereign" state power (and just plain Sovereign power, which is still a strong movement, but now quieter), the whole Point is that Power is easier to exert Locally.
We are about to see the activation of "sovereign" militias from all Red states. They have been strutting loudly to the drumbeat of Divine Governor Abbott of The Republic of Texas, defending the border against the infidels who would defile their women, or, or, something....
As David Dayen said a couple months ago, we are sleepwalking toward fascism.
(not sure if that was the word he chose, but it's the truth)
What Are You Doing To Get Out The VOTE?
I call them "richt". It feels more accurate and sometimes ppl ask me if I can't spell.
I hope you tell them, "oh no, it is intentional."
In Australia, de facto relationships are generally well tolerated, with some 18% of couples not formally married.
My Granny and her boyfriend Randy were together for decades; I believe he asked her to be married several times but she said no each time. She had already tried twice and realized she wasn't the type of person to live with someone else all the time. She was a warm person who I miss very much since her passing a few months ago, but she was fiercely independent and could be very difficult in many ways. He had his house, she had her condo, he would come to visit on weekends and bring extra groceries, and that was just fine and dandy for everyone concerned.
My cousin Margie has not gotten married because her first marriage was abusive and... well, she just doesn't cotton to the idea any more. She and her boyfriend love each other very much, treat each other very well, and are doting parents to the sweetest little girl. They are looking forward to buying a house jointly soon.
My cousin Steve just got married to his now-wife a few years ago, also after already having had a child. They are very laid back SoCal types and just hadn't gotten around to it, I guess. It was a fun little shindig. Their son got to be the ringbearer for Mom & Dad, stuff his face with grandmother's Mexican wedding cookies, and run around messing up his nice shirt. Perfect!
My aunt Jane got married very young to her best friend Sean, raised four kids into adulthood together (one of whom is Steve), then realized the romantic "spark" just was not there there for her, if it ever truly was, after she found it with Mark instead. She has now been monogamously together with Mark for 20 years, but she and Sean never legally got divorced. She still ran a business out of the family home, and all the participants got along on the best of terms. Sean passed away last week from cancer and she is absolutely devestated. They loved each other deeply for half a century; the exact way they did just shifted back and forth was all.
There is no reason people cannot just be loved and happy outside of typical strictures and structures if that is what suits them. This seems to terrify some people. Baffling.
P.S. I changed all names herein to protect the innocent.
My grandmother originally from the mountains of East Tennessee, same thing, Will.
She married at 14 (she was born in 1907 -- most girls there were ripe for that then).
But her husband, age 16, felt guilty at his own carousing for years already then, and for more than two months avoided consummating the marriage.
Their marriage ended before I was born. She'd moved to California with their three little girls (including my then-girl-mother), he, after a fourth girl, to various places.
When I knew her as my grandmother, she wore only loud and pastel colors. A bra that formed twin peaks. And opinions even then (Goldwater era) wildly right-wing.
Will, the consistent backdrop to each of your stories is one of the feelings and care about the other which underlie each of the unmarried you describe. Marriage provides a legal basis for partnership which may not be necessary for all. Perhaps we should not get to bent out of shape at withering marriage statistics which are simple to get at, and worry more about the frequency or incidence of the underlying relationships which result in children who are cared for and cared about sufficiently to grow into responsible caring adults...a much more elusive statistic to find and compare.
Exactly so, John.
Will, your family's history mirrors a lot of my Mom's side of the family in California (Venice to Carmel) although I suspect that my Mom is your granny's age. My folks married a bit late in their lives (my Dad was 30, Mom was 26) and they didn't have me until they'd been married nearly 10 years.
And throughout Europe and the UK.
You make good points. Between the potential end of NF divorce and the criminalization of abortion and birth control , why would any forward-thinking woman get married?
For different reasons, that’s what’s happening in Japan with devastating social and economic consequences. Young women are refusing to marry, leaving an aging population with fewer and fewer young people to carry on and care for them. Once reliant on strong family networks, rural areas are dying and loneliness is rising.
The cowboy of Wild West myth was often a loner who moved around taking work where he could find it. He carried his possessions with him. He worked for the men who owned the ranches. Often, individualistic men and their families wound up as the victims of circumstances, such as weather or worse. They could not go it alone and often took the families down with them.
Sioux, is the American Taliban. With their own superior version of Christian law replacing Sharia law.
I keep making that point to the MAGAts that I still interact with (much more accurate these days than calling them friends). Even a side by side comparison is met with a carefully and well thought out "Nuh uh".
I wonder, Ally, if you're from Portland, Willamette Valley Oregon.
Or the far-right, MAGA-rabid eastern part of the state?
I wonder because, as I peruse maps of the current massive heat waves and destructive flooding in the U.S., the worst-hit areas are those with very high MAGA populations.
They keep voting for climate-change denial politicians. And now they suffer the realities they've continued for years and years to deny.
Eugene, south end of the Willamette Valley. Liberal thinking enclave that isn’t as liberal as it would like to be.
In case you haven’t noticed, thanks to the work of feminism in particular and po-mo progressivism in general, marriage is circling the drain already—with predictable negative consequences for society in general and children in particular.