That's easy. They represent their donors. Their only legislative focus right not is to assure the estate tax is reduced. Clearly aimed as a benefit to the inheritors of the biggest wealth in the country. So, while Democrats are representing the People; Republicans are bending kneed to their donors. Republicans are focused on avoiding being primaried.
Yes but large numbers of people are voting for them regardless right across the country! Certainly they don't all benefit from reductions in the Estate Tax. Gerrymandering aside, it is the myth of total individual independence....the rugged, dependable "Malboro Man" out on his own... and John Wayne etc's portrayal thereof that needs to evolve. The Republicans have always used this as a battering ram and a shield. The underlying message being that if you don't vote for us you are not a true American....a "wussy", a pussy or what ever name you want call it.... something soft and pliable that shouldn't be allowed to exist, get in the way....or to vote.
A new ethos is required, a new sense of what being an American means....and the role models to back it up and provide guidance. Biden is doing a good job, but it is the younger generation that has to anchor the "New America and the New American". This does not necessarily mean that we all have to shed our existing identities...however we define them...but that we start to reorder our priorities in the values that we so take for granted. Closer to the top must come elements of "consideration for the other", "sharing rather than hoarding" and a sense of responsibility for the community rather than merely for oneself.
While President Biden is doing an excellent job, there are too many narcissists confusing 1st amendment right with anarchy, too little civics education, and too little training in how to discern facts and logic from fiction and misinformation. I want the country to adopt a GWB -- Gross Well Being index. All policy and legislation would be tested against its ability to improve the well being of all. At this point I don't know who leads in teaching the values you describe... Any clues?
Cathy I believe Biden has created an agency, or a department of an agency, that is now evaluating all legislation on a social benefit index of some kind. Brand new. Anybody else seen this? It’s not exactly a happiness index, which I think is a lovely idea, but it’s a good start in the right direction.
The GWB index works very well in small poor Himalayan communities but there are considerable difficulties both of measurement....what do you put in the index and how do you rate everything against them....and also in the word "ALL" as most changes, while they might help the majority sometimes also "hurt" the minority. What value do you put on gains and losses?
The economic indexes are far from satisfactory from any society's point of view to measure "well being or happiness" that's for sure but at least it can be measured in a quantitative if not qualitative fashion. More is not better necessarily that's for sure in all spheres of life.
I'm using Dr. Seligman's definition of Well-Being -- happiness by itself is a fleeting emotion with no lasting effect. Seligman's five elements of Elements of Well-Being (PERMA) are Positive emotions (happiness), e
Engagement (totally immersed in something to the point you lose track of time), positive Relationships, Meaning (doing something larger than your self), and Accomplishment. Great Britain is focusing on Well Being rather than GDP because it is a resource locked island and can't continue to grow GDP (yes, I'm over simplifying...) Seligman helped the U.S. Army with a million soldiers set up the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program based on resilience training etc. See https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/learn/soldiers
How do you counter greed and accumulation of personal wealth? How do we get to the Native American definition of wealth which is measured by your generosity to the community/tribe. Also, thinking forward when the technology revolution we are in is realized we need a new economic model not based on employment. I'm not convinced that minorities would have to lose their voices in this or that everything need be done simply for the majority rather than say individual communities.
If a minimum living wage is a humane good idea, why not a humane maximum level of income and wealth. Is it possible that one can have too much wealth? I would argue that it is.
I understand well GWB's use in particular circumstances and small groups when a questionnaire technique can be used or by individual interview. The problem comes when you have to develop proxies in much larger groups.
I love the reference to the UK...not so harmoniously unified these days..as the thought of narcissistic Boris caring for other than himself reduces me to uncontrollable mirth. The island status of Britain was indeed a limiting factor on growth and particularly on lucrative, non-hand dirtying investment for the wealthy in the 18th and 19th Cs and thresult was a commercially driven slave trade from Africa to America and a fight for empire and colonies which fired the industrial revolution. These days we have free movement of capital around the world...no need to worry about something so inconsequential as the natives...at home or abroad.
Not just the radical right Protestant leadership: the radical right Catholics are also singing this song. Two archbishops in the US are telling people not to get the J&J vaccine because they claim it is produced from aborted fetuses. Which is a total lie.
The J&J vaccine used in its development process a stem cell line that began with cells from an aborted fetus. For people passionately opposed to abortion (not for me), this is a problem. The mRNA vaccines used stem cell lines only in testing, and are another step removed because they actually used a cloned (as opposed to direct) stem cell line.
The Catholic Church has said its congregants are morally obligated to get vaccinated to preserve life, even if that means getting a vaccine produced with aborted cells:
'The Vatican ... Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared it “morally acceptable” to take [vaccines] that relied on cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production “when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available.”'
There's actually a grain of truth to it, but the Pope puts maintaining your life via the vaccine above boycotting it over a very tiny relationship to fetal tissue in the process of developing the vaccine. I'll try to backtrack the source. Snopes I think is where I read it.
This is one thing that I have never understood. There is this 'christian' group out there voting these two issues. Isn't it true that they vote what their christian leaders tell them or preach to them about? What motivates these leaders? Are they in a power struggle too? Why don't they turn away from violent vitriolic money oriented politics? I am using an uncapitalized 'c' on purpose and note that the word leader is specific from priest or an actual clergy label.
There is a large and growing Christian Left. They actually accept the tenets expressed by the Sermon on the Mount that is considered by theologians to be a. Summary of the teachings of Jesus. The Christian Right was bought by the Republican Party long ago.
The evangelicals who I know personally, effectively vote how their pastor says. It's not rote, he gives them reasons, but that is how it works. They will get vaccinated if, and possibly only if, their pastor advocates for it.
I doubt most christians vote the way their pastor, priest, etc. tell them.
This Gallup survey of party views of abortion was pretty interesting. Goes from 1975 to 2020. While the survey broke down abortion into three categories, legal for any reason, legal for some reasons, illegal for any reason. I chose to report on the illegal for any reason.
Shelly do you have any supporting evidence that the two issues are being driven by white Christians alone. This is my observation, and can't say its, fact, but people of color tend to attend church at a higher ratio/per capita than whites.
Not only that I'm a white Christian. And my denomination is one of the mainstream. And we support the LGBTQ "rights" such that we now allow congregations to determine for themselves if these individuals can be ministers or we'll allow same sex marriages. Not every congregation agrees, but at least its not a total ban.
Well played Stuart. I'll say it again: American society has to move from ME to WE.
You mentioned symbols like the Marlboro man. A few years back up in the upper midwest I was giving a presentation on "The Future of Work". I pulled up a slide of John Wayne and said that's the driving ethos of the past. Next came a slide of Oprah Winfrey and I said that the ethos of the future. I was politely asked to leave.
I really liked that essay Lynell--and the sentiment of the word, which emphasizes community over self while not denying the importance of the individual, is something desperately needed in the West.
Thanks for sharing this. We are really "in this canoe" together, both during the pandemic, and globally, in this changing climate. The earth is our canoe.
Opinion: The indigenous custom behind New Zealand’s strong covid-19 response
Opinion by Matthew Milner and Richard Ngata
March 11 at 5:00 AM PT
Matthew Milner grew up in New Zealand, and is now pursuing his M.B.A. and M.A. in Education at Stanford University. Richard Ngata, of Māori descent, is a pediatric registrar/resident at Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland.
Life in New Zealand is almost back to normal. While the United States has seen more than half a million deaths from covid-19 — with a death rate of more than 160 per 100,000 of population — New Zealand has lost only 26 people at a rate of 0.53 per 100,000.
Two months ago, one of us, Richard, went to a New Year’s festival with more than 12,000 fellow revelers — something barely imaginable in the United States, where most concerts are online-only. Meanwhile, teachers, including Matthew’s parents, have been instructing in person since May without requiring masks or social distancing measures.
Why has New Zealand fared so much better? Many people argue that these differences stem from New Zealand’s geographic advantages, and there is no doubt that being an island nation has helped. But other island nations, including Britain, have had very different outcomes.
There is a deeper reason: Manaakitanga.
While New Zealand hasn’t always been great at recognizing or celebrating our indigenous Māori culture, campaigning by Māori advocates has helped to ensure that Māori culture is now well-incorporated into society. Manaakitanga is one of many customs of the Māori people that are now taught in New Zealand schools. It holds that others have importance equal to, and even greater than, one’s own.
Manaakitanga is about understanding the power of the collective. It derives from the Māori term “mana,” which is the spiritual life force and energy that every living thing possesses. When you honor the mana of others, your own mana will increase through the respect you have earned. When you acknowledge these connections, you understand that your freedom as an individual is only as strong as your place in the community.
This community approach underpins many aspects of life in New Zealand. We provide health care to anyone who needs it. Our gun safety laws focus on keeping the community safe. And manaakitanga is one of four key values the Teachers Council for New Zealand wants teachers to focus on in the classroom.
But never has the importance of manaakitanga to our society been more evident than at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Last March, when New Zealand went into full lockdown, people were not permitted to see others outside their “bubble” (such as a household); only one person from each bubble could leave at any given time, and not travel farther than five miles from the house.
This strict lockdown lasted six long weeks, and while there was political pushback, the “team of 5 million,” as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern calls New Zealanders, stayed home and stamped out the virus.
New Zealanders were willing to give up many of their individual freedoms and face personal hardship for the benefit of the community. People lost income and jobs, and the closed borders separated families (and still does). As a doctor, Richard saw much of this firsthand: Seeing patients became more complicated, and his father, an air force electrician, couldn’t work and wondered whether he would still have a job when the lockdown finished.
Still, people found ways to connect and support each other. The lesson of the coronavirus is that an individual approach is not sufficient and that it takes a team for us all to gain true freedom. The Māori proverb “He waka eke noa” expresses these sentiments clearly: We are all in this canoe together.
The response to the pandemic has been very different in the United States, as Matthew has experienced personally; there has been greater resistance to lockdowns, social distancing and even wearing masks. Some attribute this to a difference in leadership. While then-President Donald Trump was playing down the virus, Ardern was running daily broadcasts alongside the nation’s director-general of health to clearly communicate the latest updates and restrictions. The central message: “Stay Home, Stay Safe, Be Kind.”
Yet there’s another crucial difference: People in New Zealand listened and were willing to put their community above themselves, while many in the United States were not, even when experts and officials began to speak out about the seriousness of the pandemic.
Much of the resistance to covid-19 warnings can be attributed to American individualism. But the past year has also seen the country embrace change. The U.S. government temporarily extended unemployment insurance and halted evictions, alongside other significant measures of support for millions of struggling Americans. And the United States has begun to reckon with its racist past and present, making strides to better support marginalized groups.
Like New Zealand, the United States is a place of great diversity, steeped in its own way in indigenous and immigrant cultures. Our hope is that the United States can apply the lessons of the pandemic to all areas of society — and, in doing so, embrace manaakitanga.
An historian I studied under taught that all countries have their founding mythologies. America’s is that of the cowboy riding into a town controlled by an evildoer, confronting and defeating him, and then riding off again. It embodies frontier justice, the belief that man can make good triumph over evil under his own wits and strength and of course the defining idea of the “preux chevalier” - the one who by leaving sends the powerful message that there is no personal gain in it for him.
My prof’s ultimate point is that countries live out their mythologies unconsciously over and over again (the two World Wars and sundry other interventions in America’s case), and that these mythologies are profoundly hard to dispel.
It is hard, if not impossible, to imagine a new ethos for America that would replace its founding one. The Marlboro man is perhaps one of the most clever and insidious advertising campaigns ever, touching on America’s mythology but updating it to be shown in a tribute to the self-reliance of work.
That it came out at the tag end of the Industrial Revolution which displaced millions of men who worked with their hands is a bitter irony.
I question whether much of the evil fomented by militias and lone gunmen in the last thirty years would have happened had the world not lurched forward into the Information Revolution, with its call for men to work with their brains more than their strength.
The concept of manhood itself has been revolutionized by the above, but also by women in the workforce, by the cultural imperative for the male to participate fully in the raising of children, by the increasing specialization of the age...
We rightly celebrate this as an advance societally in our ability to do more advanced work (a vaccine in 9 months). We rightly celebrate the unshackling of women (for its own sake and for the deeply beneficial effect women have on society by their full participation in it).
It’s my belief though that we have not sufficiently recognized the displacement of the traditional male. The passing of Industrial America over to Information America has happened with the speed of tectonic plates suddenly shifting - a Fukushima of sorts.
I saw the effect in my profession as teacher. It was monumental. My career passed through a couple of decades when educational authorities (never more powerful than when they arrive at the dinner party with dead roses) were lamenting education’s disastrous effects on girls and “teaching” us how to better meet their needs. The reality on the ground was that girls were *killing* boys in academic attainment. Girls were flooding in droves into universities while boys were going straight off the cliff like lemmings.
I further believe that a sudden rise (in schools) in mysogyny in the 2000s (sexting, demanding of nude pictures, spreading of same) could be partly attributed to boys failing day in and day out en masse (so to speak) in front of girls who were furiously struggling for academic perfection (themselves reaping the bitter fruit “gained” by their Herculean effort to be and become Wonder Women).
The last forty years have been a fubar, plain and simple. It has happened everywhere that societies have de-industrialized, but with particular force in America. There’s no place for the Marlboro man, but he lives on in the mind. And periodically (Waco, Ruby Ridge, OKC, the US Capitol), the militias run wild.
Also, local bookstores, which seem to be making a reappearance. My town lost ours during the Bush recession, and mourned deeply. Some of us needed a bookstore, so we formed a community-owned bookstore (members get a discount), with a single employee and a number of volunteers. It's working, and the table in front of me bears the fruit. I refuse to use Amazon. I can order through the bookstore. Would rather pay a few dollars than subsidize Amazon's practices.
As I read this. "Wonder Woman" kept flashing in my mind, and then lo and behold, there she was in the next to last paragraph! I vote for WW as our next best replacement for Marlboro Man. She too rides to the rescue and then departs. And as an added benefit, she does not smoke!
Wonder Woman is a transitional model. Similar heroic individual, this time female. We need to move beyond the “savior” model to a collective one. Our quest for someone to save us makes us very vulnerable to tyranny.
The problem is that there are few equipped to be Wonder Woman. Yet so many women in the middle class are driven to aspire to that - by education (my years teaching at an elite public school saw how drilled in this obligation to be all to everybody is), by the competitive forces that naturally arise among all strivers, by the natural forces that seem to have the effect of quashing all rebellion in women...I always found the girls wondering what *they * were doing wrong, while the boys cried “Bullshit” to coercive teachers...until they reach an age when they realize “there’s no there there”. The reckoning can come as early as adolescence (a retired school nurse told me the rate of anorexia in Grade 9 girls at the two most elite girls’ schools was 50%) and when I asked the Director of Admissions of one to confirm that this was preposterously exaggerated, she sighed and admitted the stats were about right).
It may be postponed until university. Some make it into the workforce and are brilliant and successful. But the biggest challenge is work and children - the time when “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg is most poisonous - at that point many women crack. I was privy to many of their stories as Director of a school that flew against the grain. They were enough to make one weep and simultaneously feel enraged for a system of living that chews up both men and women.
Why should some zillionaire's privileged offspring never have to lift a finger, or their children or their children's children? It is entirely reasonable - to say nothing of morally defensible - to tax inheritances progressively, and at very high percentages for the largest fortunes. A couple of million $$ should be enough for any surviving spouses or offspring. America does not need an aristocracy, just fair distribution of the wealth.
Personally, I'm torn on this issue. If I start a business, work hard and it becomes a success, people buy the product or service, I pay the taxes per law, why shouldn't I be able to pass on to my spouse and children what's been earned?
Agree that we need a realistic taxing policy in this country that makes folks pay their fair share. And, we need an IRS system that is equipped and staffed to go after the "big money." Last year the US Tax Commissioner was being challenged as to why he was focusing on the "middle income tax brackets" and he was very blunt. "It's easier. They don't lawyer up. And Congress collectively has stripped him of resources over the years."
Well, I think most inheritances are not taxed much, if at all, in most states, though I may be mistaken. It's really a question of magnitude, and I would think inheriting an enormous sum of money (or winning it in the lottery, for that matter) is no way to build character. Dying and leaving enough cash to help one's children put a down-payment on a house sounds pretty normal, but leaving them a substantial part of the Walmart or Amazon fortune does not. Just my pedestrian point of view. And yes, I agree with you (I presume) about progressive taxation and the IRS going for the biggest tax cheats first.
Think you're right about inheritance taxes as I recall. I know we had to pay some taxes on my parents estates but they were related to income/property, not wealth.
Agree that money is no way to build character and I would imagine by the time most people die, their kids already a defined character. Understand your sentiment though. One of the issues I think we hear is children of wealthy parents rarely go into public service or volunteer organizations, etc. Seems they go into the family business which complicates the matter more.
I just read about a lottery in some State where 4 winners are sharing over $1 Billion. This is one of the ways the 0,1% fight against sharing their money. They create the impossible dream of being like them and encourage those that manage to pull up the drawbridge after them.
I agree that gambling is just stupid--but if it goes underground then it is both stupid and uncontrollable. I hate the whole lottery boondoggle but people wold find some other way to throw away their money--church bingo Thursdays anyone?
There are frequently convenient letterboxes between the original donor and the "poodle pol" to attempt to wash the corruption "whiter than white". These need to be exposed too.
Not necessarily as some is spent in principle over the heads of the politicians on "political ads" which are classed as "educational" such as explaining how government doesn't work, extolling private education etc. Non-political, Hah!
Yes I believe the ability to commit corruption and get away with it in court has been guaranteed—almost like the first amendment— as long as you can afford to pay 5 or 6 of the priciest lawyers.
I think it insults poodles! I know it is a British expression but as the mom of a beautiful and brilliant standard poodle (named for George VI because he is a very dignified fellow) whom I rescued in September, I must object! 😁
I think it’s more like the dark monies are then incapable of being traced sufficiently or u have to have the investigative skills of a nYtimes reporter to trace it back.
I’m just a messenger Stuart. We can credit whatever muse provides the idea and the inspiration. Just look at what everybody is bringing to the table. Beautiful sentiments.
They represent their employers. The majority of roughly 10% of the electorate, who finance them, have them on a very tight leash, and in return for payments made grovel to do their bidding.
Republican's have already written the story of Trump as the economic wizard and any economic downturn in the economy as the result of Biden's give away, rather than the consequence of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy. People addicted to Trump are blind to disaster avoided. I' m afraid their made up story is more believable than democrat's "Biden saved us from COVID", especially since republicans have been creating mutant COVID that will create a 3rd wave in July.
According to T and the R's, the 6 years of improving economy under President Obama were fake. The day T took office, the economy was in good shape because of him. The man's disastrous handling of the pandemic - lying, denying, using the federal government to steal PPE from hospitals (in one case they walked right into Mass. General Hospital and seized a new delivery, at the height of the crisis here), actively spreading ideas that made it worse (anti-mask etc) - all that was actually doing a very good job. "Don't believe what you see, don't believe what you read, believe what I tell you."
It does seem like some R's are continuing to spread covid deliberately. They did it when their boy was in the white house, perhaps to oblige his idol Putin. They do it now.
It is with relief that Attorney General Merrick Garland has been sworn in. His knowledge of the DoJ and its people is extensive as is his depth of understanding of the Rule of Law. He will truly be the Attorney of the People and make sure Justice is served equally to all. He may have more impact at the DoJ than he would have had as one of nine Supreme Court Justices. He certainly seems the right man at the right time and place!
Yes, that's why I think he's the right man for the job. His knowledge as the leader prosecutor will very likely give the DOJ more chops and skills for going after domestic terrorists, which Jan. 6 has highlighted the importance of addressing that issue.
Bulldog Garland grabs sedition by the leg and NEVER LETS GO.
As AG his impact on American history will be greater than if he served on the Supreme Court. Punishing the guilty and stamping out the embers of insurrection and treason is essential for the future of democracy everywhere.
Mitch McConnell stepping down?! Resigning not just his leadership position but his Senate seat? Quitting and going home? Is that really a possibility? A credible rumor?
“...there are signs that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) might be stepping down (there is a move afoot in the Kentucky legislature to change the law to remove the ability of the Democratic governor to choose a senator’s replacement)...”
Just the possibility of the most vile, villainous, viper to slither through the halls of the Senate crawling on his belly back to Kentucky, abandoning his party to the trumpists, is, to me, very big news.
If McConnell quits, the last stabilizing force in the Republican Party will be gone. The average IQ of congressional Republicans will drop 30 points. The lust for power will be unbounded. The destruction of the Republican Party would be a very real possibility.
I don't think he will go home to KY. He will go somewhere from where his wife is not extraditable when it is her time to be indicted for all of her tainted activities.
With a bit of luck we'll see a "Valentine Day" massacre amongst pretenders.....this is going to be bloody and Trump will not be able to hold them back....even if he wanted to. He'll be telling them all that he doesn't need them anyway as he controls the vote....and the money.
“Vile, villainous viper” and “the last stabilizing force in the Republican Party”. I can’t even wrap my mind around how MM can manage to fit both descriptions at once. What an astonishing indictment against the party he leads.
Don't you think this is just another power play on his part? I'm sure he'll still be pulling strings and worming his way through the halls of the senate somehow. Puppet Master Mitch. AND he'd be willing to step aside publicly to allow a gerry-rigged new law to force the Dem Governor to appoint a Repucklican. Accomplishes many goals for them. Majority in the Senate, hamstring the governor, let Mitch work his will from the smoke-filled back room, and poke Biden in the eye. (this totally disgusts me to think like this, but I think it's the way it is)
Mitch McConnell was perhaps the smartest, wiliest legislative politician in our history. The point is that, if he quit, the Republican Party would be leaderless, with no one even close to having McConnell’s leadership talents, no matter who took his seat.
I'm not so sure. Perhaps it will be like when the military breaks up a terrorist cell, and it splinters into a thousand sharp little units, all doing their own damage--that can be much, much harder to manage and protect against.
Nah... they are (mostly) such lightweight empty suits, so desperate for a ‘leader’ that they have hitched their wagon to Trump. I believe he’s over. And when McConnell leaves, who will be the Pied Piper to lead them off the cliff...?
Here's the proof that the Republicans want the power to select replacement Senators. Quote from a KY Republican regarding the bill to require input from the majority in power @ the state level (made by Mr. McGarvey): “I’m open to the concept if there were two Democratic senators and a Republican governor, but I don’t think we would ever do this bill if that were the case,” McGarvey said. “I think the reason we’re doing this bill is because there are two Republican senators and a Democratic governor.”
I hate the KY legislature doing this with a Dem governor, but I loved it when Beacon Hill did it with a GQP governor. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
The thread of authoritarian strategies runs thru all the Repugs. It is simply put that that mostly white men have managed to feed their addiction to power for many years now with the help of dark money, gerrymandering, other strong arm tactics etc. Why they have to resort to these strategies is the simple fact that if there was a truly fair democratic vote like recently in Georgia— they just wouldn’t have the votes. They know that and they have honed all the other skills and connections they have to keep their power intact. The tides have turned now and they know that too.
The bill requires an election within three months. The R's could leave it at that, but they are too afraid of having a Democrat in the Senate for even that long.
Recently I was talking to a friend who happens to be Black and female, who broke the ceiling long ago, working for some of the top IT Industry leaders. We were musing about Virginia turning purple then blue. She told me about how in the southern state she came from, there was a turning point when a wealthy Silicon Valley company came in and established a beachhead for tech companies; her Dad told her to get an engineering degree because of that, back in the 1980s. Years later that state is slowly turning purple as well. I told her I recently read an article about why Virginia turned blue, and the author stated that the turning point was when American Online (AOL) moved into Reston, VA and established a mini-Silicon Valley there nearly 40 years ago. I wondered if this was part of a trend. She told me "It doesn't matter how racist people are, money talks. The racists around here want money and are willing to look the other way and tolerate Blacks to keep the money flowing..." I thought that was rather telling. After years of watching IT companies struggle with training to try and wring sexism and racism out of their ranks, and constantly failing, also rather ironic. We need to keep our focus on the corporate entities that have been feeding these beasts for a very long while and call them out when they back Republicans who continue to spout the Big Lie or vote for legislation that suppresses votes.
When my brother worked at Apple, he played a key role in AOL getting going, when they won a contract competition to host apple's private online E-world on the "mini" servers that were not small at all, but smaller than the standard mainframes.
"everybody shouldn’t be voting…. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”
Can somebody refresh my memory on the difference between a democracy and a republic? Cause this sentence sure sounds like Arizona does not want a democracy. Quality of vote? WTF?
Isn't this the mind set of the men who founded the country whom Prof. Richardson has described? That they contended that there were certain informed and politically sophisticated men who should run the government, sit in congress and decide for the common people? It wasn't until Lincoln declared that the common man had an equal right to the country and elected office that Americans began to ask for greater representation. The original idea of "republic" was a constrained notion that included only wealthy, propertied, men. So, we could say that we are going backwards in time?
Even before Lincoln, as the electorate was already expanding, Andrew Jackson based his two terms as President on appeal to the common man. But for the wrong reasons. He knew that they were basically gullible and ignorant of what was going on, so he used them. This flaw in democracy had been recognized by Jefferson who thought education would cure it. It hasn't. (Jackson's appeal to the common man was so admired by the 45th president that he hung his picture in the oval office.) Lincoln finally put democracy back on the right track until the former slaveholders and their Northern business allies reasserted their power and destroyed post-civil war Reconstruction. And we are still fighting to restore Lincoln's concept of democracy.
Yep--and not even a republic, but an oligarchy in which a specific small group of people control everything and everyone else becomes a forelock-tugging peonage.
Ok, per Google, a "republic" is a form of representative government, which creates a "democracy"? So, potato, potatoe?
Still, no matter the semantics, a government by the people, not the corporations (although i remember Romney kindly manspaining corporations are people). Sigh.
Careful there, apparently Republicans think that human gender is dependent on potato gender, you could be destroying the white supremacist family with your frivolity.
Joe Biden promised to unite the country. Some analysts have interpreted the commitment as a promise to bipartisanship. Quite the opposite. "The American Rescue Plan ... was supported by 76% of the American people, an extraordinary level of popularity." Joe Biden is fulfilling his promise to unite the country. There is more to come. An infrastructure bill that creates jobs in every zip code and improves all of our lives could be as popular as the "American Rescue Plan."
Biden's statement about "We the people" calls for another shout out to fellow HCR Reader Jeff Carpenter's very cool graphic, "We the People, All of Us This Time!"
“The government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital,” Biden said. “It’s us. All of us. We the people.”
Love this image. Carpenter needs to make a bumper sticker. Joe's keeping his head down and doing the work. He’s not distracted by the clown show. I grow more hopeful each day.
First time I laughed out loud to a letter from an American. As I was reading about the latest 'cancel culture' victims Dr. Suess and the Potato Head family, I thought to myself, 'I can't believe I'm reading this' and then - (I cannot believe I am writing this…). Thanks for the laugh!
I have engaged with some of my friends on the "right" over this whole Potato Head scandal (what makes this particularly amusing is that in my professional attempts to avoid profanity and vulgarity when speaking with the public, "potato head" and/or "chowder head" were my go-to phrases for other terms of endearment more commonly used in law enforcement). To the ones who are young enough (my age or younger) to have played with a Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head themselves, I ask if they ever mixed and matched Mr. and Mrs. attachments on their beloved Potato Heads; pretty universally the answer was yes. My reply was then "I rest my case."
Maybe John Kavanaugh of the AZ Republican Party is right. Maybe each voter should be asked one simple question before they are allowed to cast their vote. And that question should be, “Who won the 2020 Presidential election?” It should be a multiple choice question with only 2 possible answers. Anyone who can’t or won’t answer that question truthfully shouldn’t be able to vote. Because quality matters. PS - no one at me. I’m just kidding. But it’s fun to imagine Tucker’s head falling off if someone suggested it.
"the quality of votes"? Talk about a not so subtle attempt at class separation again. Are we headed back to counting non-white people as 3/5 of a person? Watching the gyrations of the GQP as they try to distract their base and everyone else from the fact that they have no policies to offer except division leaves me appalled that they have such a large body of adherents.
Arizona state representative John Kavanaugh, who chairs the state’s Government and Elections Committee, made headlines yesterday when he explained that Republicans were happy to create measures that kept people from voting because “everybody shouldn’t be voting…. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”
That just made me ill. Republicans not only believe this, now they are coming out and saying it out loud
Nope. Time to let go of the righteousness and get to work creating a decent future. I've had enough of Republican pettiness (and, for that matter, Democrat as well). Let's get past that and be grown-ups taking care of our communities
I am a very dedicated griller/smoker/outdoor cooker. As evidence, I offer that after a long needed replacement of our stove, it was two months before I actually used it. That said, I have cooked everything outdoors, from the most basic to some very complex stuff. This portion of today's letter really stood out:
(quote) Today, Republicans pushed back on Biden’s vaccine success by taking offense at what they suggested was his attempt to dictate how we spend the Fourth of July. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted an image of a steak on a grill with a star over it and the caption “COME AND TAKE IT.” (end quote)
I have grilled many, many, many steaks. On the 4th of July, however, it is ALWAYS hotdogs and hamburgers (and not the stuffed gourmet kind of burgers, but burgers as intended. Grilled medium and topped with cheddar cheese for those who want it). A traditional meal, served up with both potato salad and cole slaw, with homemade ice cream for dessert.
Steaks for the "All-American 4th of July" illustrates to me just how out of touch Cancun Cruz is.
He really is out of touch (remember his Cancun run while we were sitting in the freezing cold and dark?), but keep in mind that 'this is Texas, where everything is bigger and beef (and oil) rules.'
Having said that, yeah, Ally, you are right. July 4th is hot dogs, burgers, and apple pie, the all American food trio. The man disgusts me.
How he doesn’t disgust every adult (and terrify every child) in this country (the rest of the world is laughing softly behind the curtain), is beyond me. He is the ultimate litmus test to validate education as well as a moral compass.
I think its time we referred to Government as “Our Government” as opposed to “The Government” which makes it sound like a third party,( if not a foreign country,)and
not a part of the USA. Without our government there is no USA.
COVID-19: It's not too late to embrace New Zealand's success over the coronavirus. We just need to adopt their Manaakitanga philosophy (the power of the collective):
We could also do with a bit more from NZ...the Waitangi Tribunal would be a good place to start. The Waitangi Treaty of 1975 set up a mechanism to redress the grievances of the Maori people concerning the non-respect of original treaties signed by the colonialist British regime in the 19thC. These original treaties guaranteed "Tribal Rangatatiratanga" and confirmed Maori land ownership. Rangatiratanga is a Māori language term that is often translated as "absolute sovereignty". It appears in the Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed by the British Crown and Māori chiefs (rangatira) in 1840.
The problem is the need for "good faith" in real negotiations; a necessary ingredient in Waitanga. Not seen for a very long time in the respect of treaties signed by the US gov in all dealings with Native Americans. In principle the Lakota/Dakota/Cheyenne already own the Black Hills but...there are squatters that are blackmailing them and the Gov to stop them occupying their land
Let’s do the math here, shall we?
75% of America wants this legislation.
0% of Republicans in Congress voted for this legislation.
Now, if you’re a Republican, what does this math tell you?
Survey says: No Republicans in Congress represent the American people. Clearly they are representing something else.
That's easy. They represent their donors. Their only legislative focus right not is to assure the estate tax is reduced. Clearly aimed as a benefit to the inheritors of the biggest wealth in the country. So, while Democrats are representing the People; Republicans are bending kneed to their donors. Republicans are focused on avoiding being primaried.
Yes but large numbers of people are voting for them regardless right across the country! Certainly they don't all benefit from reductions in the Estate Tax. Gerrymandering aside, it is the myth of total individual independence....the rugged, dependable "Malboro Man" out on his own... and John Wayne etc's portrayal thereof that needs to evolve. The Republicans have always used this as a battering ram and a shield. The underlying message being that if you don't vote for us you are not a true American....a "wussy", a pussy or what ever name you want call it.... something soft and pliable that shouldn't be allowed to exist, get in the way....or to vote.
A new ethos is required, a new sense of what being an American means....and the role models to back it up and provide guidance. Biden is doing a good job, but it is the younger generation that has to anchor the "New America and the New American". This does not necessarily mean that we all have to shed our existing identities...however we define them...but that we start to reorder our priorities in the values that we so take for granted. Closer to the top must come elements of "consideration for the other", "sharing rather than hoarding" and a sense of responsibility for the community rather than merely for oneself.
While President Biden is doing an excellent job, there are too many narcissists confusing 1st amendment right with anarchy, too little civics education, and too little training in how to discern facts and logic from fiction and misinformation. I want the country to adopt a GWB -- Gross Well Being index. All policy and legislation would be tested against its ability to improve the well being of all. At this point I don't know who leads in teaching the values you describe... Any clues?
Cathy I believe Biden has created an agency, or a department of an agency, that is now evaluating all legislation on a social benefit index of some kind. Brand new. Anybody else seen this? It’s not exactly a happiness index, which I think is a lovely idea, but it’s a good start in the right direction.
I will go look for it. Thanks for the pointer.
The GWB index works very well in small poor Himalayan communities but there are considerable difficulties both of measurement....what do you put in the index and how do you rate everything against them....and also in the word "ALL" as most changes, while they might help the majority sometimes also "hurt" the minority. What value do you put on gains and losses?
The economic indexes are far from satisfactory from any society's point of view to measure "well being or happiness" that's for sure but at least it can be measured in a quantitative if not qualitative fashion. More is not better necessarily that's for sure in all spheres of life.
I'm using Dr. Seligman's definition of Well-Being -- happiness by itself is a fleeting emotion with no lasting effect. Seligman's five elements of Elements of Well-Being (PERMA) are Positive emotions (happiness), e
Engagement (totally immersed in something to the point you lose track of time), positive Relationships, Meaning (doing something larger than your self), and Accomplishment. Great Britain is focusing on Well Being rather than GDP because it is a resource locked island and can't continue to grow GDP (yes, I'm over simplifying...) Seligman helped the U.S. Army with a million soldiers set up the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program based on resilience training etc. See https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/learn/soldiers
How do you counter greed and accumulation of personal wealth? How do we get to the Native American definition of wealth which is measured by your generosity to the community/tribe. Also, thinking forward when the technology revolution we are in is realized we need a new economic model not based on employment. I'm not convinced that minorities would have to lose their voices in this or that everything need be done simply for the majority rather than say individual communities.
If a minimum living wage is a humane good idea, why not a humane maximum level of income and wealth. Is it possible that one can have too much wealth? I would argue that it is.
I understand well GWB's use in particular circumstances and small groups when a questionnaire technique can be used or by individual interview. The problem comes when you have to develop proxies in much larger groups.
I love the reference to the UK...not so harmoniously unified these days..as the thought of narcissistic Boris caring for other than himself reduces me to uncontrollable mirth. The island status of Britain was indeed a limiting factor on growth and particularly on lucrative, non-hand dirtying investment for the wealthy in the 18th and 19th Cs and thresult was a commercially driven slave trade from Africa to America and a fight for empire and colonies which fired the industrial revolution. These days we have free movement of capital around the world...no need to worry about something so inconsequential as the natives...at home or abroad.
Try this as a starter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
Well said!
Most of the people I know who voted republican vote one issue.
Abortion or LGBTQ rights, largely driven by white Christian evangelists claiming their values are under assault, that THEY are the victims.
Not just the radical right Protestant leadership: the radical right Catholics are also singing this song. Two archbishops in the US are telling people not to get the J&J vaccine because they claim it is produced from aborted fetuses. Which is a total lie.
The J&J vaccine used in its development process a stem cell line that began with cells from an aborted fetus. For people passionately opposed to abortion (not for me), this is a problem. The mRNA vaccines used stem cell lines only in testing, and are another step removed because they actually used a cloned (as opposed to direct) stem cell line.
snopes on J&J: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-vaccine-aborted-fetal-cells/
The Catholic Church has said its congregants are morally obligated to get vaccinated to preserve life, even if that means getting a vaccine produced with aborted cells:
'The Vatican ... Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared it “morally acceptable” to take [vaccines] that relied on cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production “when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available.”'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/02/archdiocese-new-orleans-johnson-vaccine/
Their justification is that it comes from an old fetal cell line. More so than Pfizer or Moderna.
It would appear they are singing from the same hymnal-is that bipartisanship? LOL!
So what would you say is the motivation for this sort of thing?
There's actually a grain of truth to it, but the Pope puts maintaining your life via the vaccine above boycotting it over a very tiny relationship to fetal tissue in the process of developing the vaccine. I'll try to backtrack the source. Snopes I think is where I read it.
This is one thing that I have never understood. There is this 'christian' group out there voting these two issues. Isn't it true that they vote what their christian leaders tell them or preach to them about? What motivates these leaders? Are they in a power struggle too? Why don't they turn away from violent vitriolic money oriented politics? I am using an uncapitalized 'c' on purpose and note that the word leader is specific from priest or an actual clergy label.
So let me name the elephant in the room: patriarchy. It’s the foundation of all modern religions.
There is a large and growing Christian Left. They actually accept the tenets expressed by the Sermon on the Mount that is considered by theologians to be a. Summary of the teachings of Jesus. The Christian Right was bought by the Republican Party long ago.
The evangelicals who I know personally, effectively vote how their pastor says. It's not rote, he gives them reasons, but that is how it works. They will get vaccinated if, and possibly only if, their pastor advocates for it.
I doubt most christians vote the way their pastor, priest, etc. tell them.
This Gallup survey of party views of abortion was pretty interesting. Goes from 1975 to 2020. While the survey broke down abortion into three categories, legal for any reason, legal for some reasons, illegal for any reason. I chose to report on the illegal for any reason.
Democrats - 8%
Republicans - 27%
Independents - 23%
https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.aspx
Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Haha
Shelly do you have any supporting evidence that the two issues are being driven by white Christians alone. This is my observation, and can't say its, fact, but people of color tend to attend church at a higher ratio/per capita than whites.
Not only that I'm a white Christian. And my denomination is one of the mainstream. And we support the LGBTQ "rights" such that we now allow congregations to determine for themselves if these individuals can be ministers or we'll allow same sex marriages. Not every congregation agrees, but at least its not a total ban.
Tunnel, blinkered vision
Yep. People vote their pocket book and personal circumstances.
not sure about that. there are so many who vote against their own interests
And they live next door to me!
Well played Stuart. I'll say it again: American society has to move from ME to WE.
You mentioned symbols like the Marlboro man. A few years back up in the upper midwest I was giving a presentation on "The Future of Work". I pulled up a slide of John Wayne and said that's the driving ethos of the past. Next came a slide of Oprah Winfrey and I said that the ethos of the future. I was politely asked to leave.
Wow. Just, wow.
Wrong audience
Oh my God!
Agree with Ally House - Wow.
Beverly Falls, whenever your name appears, there's also an image of a beautiful waterfall. May justice and mercy pour down upon us.
Since my last name is Falls, I use the waterfall as my profile image. Yes, we need an outpouring of justice, mercy and love. Thank you!
OH! That stung. But I'm from the upper midwest. Why was I surprised.
"consideration for the other," see New Zealand: Manaakitanga! https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/11/new-zealand-covid-19-maori-indigenous-manaakitanga/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_opinions&utm_campaign=wp_opinions
I really liked that essay Lynell--and the sentiment of the word, which emphasizes community over self while not denying the importance of the individual, is something desperately needed in the West.
Thanks for sharing this. We are really "in this canoe" together, both during the pandemic, and globally, in this changing climate. The earth is our canoe.
Jacinda Arden 1000%!
Thank you. We need a big serving of this.
paywall
Opinion: The indigenous custom behind New Zealand’s strong covid-19 response
Opinion by Matthew Milner and Richard Ngata
March 11 at 5:00 AM PT
Matthew Milner grew up in New Zealand, and is now pursuing his M.B.A. and M.A. in Education at Stanford University. Richard Ngata, of Māori descent, is a pediatric registrar/resident at Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland.
Life in New Zealand is almost back to normal. While the United States has seen more than half a million deaths from covid-19 — with a death rate of more than 160 per 100,000 of population — New Zealand has lost only 26 people at a rate of 0.53 per 100,000.
Two months ago, one of us, Richard, went to a New Year’s festival with more than 12,000 fellow revelers — something barely imaginable in the United States, where most concerts are online-only. Meanwhile, teachers, including Matthew’s parents, have been instructing in person since May without requiring masks or social distancing measures.
Why has New Zealand fared so much better? Many people argue that these differences stem from New Zealand’s geographic advantages, and there is no doubt that being an island nation has helped. But other island nations, including Britain, have had very different outcomes.
There is a deeper reason: Manaakitanga.
While New Zealand hasn’t always been great at recognizing or celebrating our indigenous Māori culture, campaigning by Māori advocates has helped to ensure that Māori culture is now well-incorporated into society. Manaakitanga is one of many customs of the Māori people that are now taught in New Zealand schools. It holds that others have importance equal to, and even greater than, one’s own.
Manaakitanga is about understanding the power of the collective. It derives from the Māori term “mana,” which is the spiritual life force and energy that every living thing possesses. When you honor the mana of others, your own mana will increase through the respect you have earned. When you acknowledge these connections, you understand that your freedom as an individual is only as strong as your place in the community.
This community approach underpins many aspects of life in New Zealand. We provide health care to anyone who needs it. Our gun safety laws focus on keeping the community safe. And manaakitanga is one of four key values the Teachers Council for New Zealand wants teachers to focus on in the classroom.
But never has the importance of manaakitanga to our society been more evident than at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Last March, when New Zealand went into full lockdown, people were not permitted to see others outside their “bubble” (such as a household); only one person from each bubble could leave at any given time, and not travel farther than five miles from the house.
This strict lockdown lasted six long weeks, and while there was political pushback, the “team of 5 million,” as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern calls New Zealanders, stayed home and stamped out the virus.
New Zealanders were willing to give up many of their individual freedoms and face personal hardship for the benefit of the community. People lost income and jobs, and the closed borders separated families (and still does). As a doctor, Richard saw much of this firsthand: Seeing patients became more complicated, and his father, an air force electrician, couldn’t work and wondered whether he would still have a job when the lockdown finished.
Still, people found ways to connect and support each other. The lesson of the coronavirus is that an individual approach is not sufficient and that it takes a team for us all to gain true freedom. The Māori proverb “He waka eke noa” expresses these sentiments clearly: We are all in this canoe together.
The response to the pandemic has been very different in the United States, as Matthew has experienced personally; there has been greater resistance to lockdowns, social distancing and even wearing masks. Some attribute this to a difference in leadership. While then-President Donald Trump was playing down the virus, Ardern was running daily broadcasts alongside the nation’s director-general of health to clearly communicate the latest updates and restrictions. The central message: “Stay Home, Stay Safe, Be Kind.”
Yet there’s another crucial difference: People in New Zealand listened and were willing to put their community above themselves, while many in the United States were not, even when experts and officials began to speak out about the seriousness of the pandemic.
Much of the resistance to covid-19 warnings can be attributed to American individualism. But the past year has also seen the country embrace change. The U.S. government temporarily extended unemployment insurance and halted evictions, alongside other significant measures of support for millions of struggling Americans. And the United States has begun to reckon with its racist past and present, making strides to better support marginalized groups.
Like New Zealand, the United States is a place of great diversity, steeped in its own way in indigenous and immigrant cultures. Our hope is that the United States can apply the lessons of the pandemic to all areas of society — and, in doing so, embrace manaakitanga.
As the proverb goes: He waka eke noa.
Thank you, Linda, Ally and Cathy for liking. Speaking of earth, I just watched the documentary Kiss The Ground through the Sierra Club. It was inspiring. Someone in it had a MEGA sign, Make the Earth Great Again! I understand you can watch it on Netflix. Also, you can rent it for a dollar, I believe through this link. Here is the trailer: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=kiss+the+ground+documentary&docid=608009143345286194&mid=F3435736EDF8698FB997F3435736EDF8698FB997&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
An historian I studied under taught that all countries have their founding mythologies. America’s is that of the cowboy riding into a town controlled by an evildoer, confronting and defeating him, and then riding off again. It embodies frontier justice, the belief that man can make good triumph over evil under his own wits and strength and of course the defining idea of the “preux chevalier” - the one who by leaving sends the powerful message that there is no personal gain in it for him.
My prof’s ultimate point is that countries live out their mythologies unconsciously over and over again (the two World Wars and sundry other interventions in America’s case), and that these mythologies are profoundly hard to dispel.
It is hard, if not impossible, to imagine a new ethos for America that would replace its founding one. The Marlboro man is perhaps one of the most clever and insidious advertising campaigns ever, touching on America’s mythology but updating it to be shown in a tribute to the self-reliance of work.
That it came out at the tag end of the Industrial Revolution which displaced millions of men who worked with their hands is a bitter irony.
I question whether much of the evil fomented by militias and lone gunmen in the last thirty years would have happened had the world not lurched forward into the Information Revolution, with its call for men to work with their brains more than their strength.
The concept of manhood itself has been revolutionized by the above, but also by women in the workforce, by the cultural imperative for the male to participate fully in the raising of children, by the increasing specialization of the age...
We rightly celebrate this as an advance societally in our ability to do more advanced work (a vaccine in 9 months). We rightly celebrate the unshackling of women (for its own sake and for the deeply beneficial effect women have on society by their full participation in it).
It’s my belief though that we have not sufficiently recognized the displacement of the traditional male. The passing of Industrial America over to Information America has happened with the speed of tectonic plates suddenly shifting - a Fukushima of sorts.
I saw the effect in my profession as teacher. It was monumental. My career passed through a couple of decades when educational authorities (never more powerful than when they arrive at the dinner party with dead roses) were lamenting education’s disastrous effects on girls and “teaching” us how to better meet their needs. The reality on the ground was that girls were *killing* boys in academic attainment. Girls were flooding in droves into universities while boys were going straight off the cliff like lemmings.
I further believe that a sudden rise (in schools) in mysogyny in the 2000s (sexting, demanding of nude pictures, spreading of same) could be partly attributed to boys failing day in and day out en masse (so to speak) in front of girls who were furiously struggling for academic perfection (themselves reaping the bitter fruit “gained” by their Herculean effort to be and become Wonder Women).
The last forty years have been a fubar, plain and simple. It has happened everywhere that societies have de-industrialized, but with particular force in America. There’s no place for the Marlboro man, but he lives on in the mind. And periodically (Waco, Ruby Ridge, OKC, the US Capitol), the militias run wild.
Grandin, Greg. The end of the myth: from the frontier to the border wall in the mind of America.
Focusing on US domestic and foreign policy, this is Grandin's most "American" book. A true hemispheric and international historian (e.g. Fordlandia, CH, Jun'10, 47-5822), he is well-qualified to place America's frontier mythology in global context. The End of the Myth is both timeless and timely. It traces understandings of the frontier over the full course of US history, and is relevant to current debates over immigration, national identity and security. Grandin describes how Americans viewed and used the frontier as a safety valve relieving internal conflicts; encouraging individuals' rights to migrate helped to avoid recognizing broader social rights. Americans also extended their frontier through expansion beyond US borders; overseas imperialism mirrored domestic conquest of indigenous peoples and exploitation of minorities, with racial prejudice as driving force. Grandin (NYU) precisely documents this bleak view of history. He is less persuasive arguing that the border wall has replaced the frontier as defining myth. Despite heated contemporary rhetoric, it's less universal, more contested than frontier mythology. Nevertheless, his sense that constricted pessimism now substitutes for expansive optimism is acute. The myth has yet to end, but this revealing history stimulates productive debate. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. -- Choice Vol 57, 1, Sept 2019 © American Library Association. Contact permissions@ala-choice.org for permission to reproduce or redistribute.
NB, less than 10 hours before the Amazon boycott officially ends. Hang in there, bookoholics!
The public library is always an ethical option.
Joan 100%
Also, local bookstores, which seem to be making a reappearance. My town lost ours during the Bush recession, and mourned deeply. Some of us needed a bookstore, so we formed a community-owned bookstore (members get a discount), with a single employee and a number of volunteers. It's working, and the table in front of me bears the fruit. I refuse to use Amazon. I can order through the bookstore. Would rather pay a few dollars than subsidize Amazon's practices.
As I read this. "Wonder Woman" kept flashing in my mind, and then lo and behold, there she was in the next to last paragraph! I vote for WW as our next best replacement for Marlboro Man. She too rides to the rescue and then departs. And as an added benefit, she does not smoke!
Wonder Woman is a transitional model. Similar heroic individual, this time female. We need to move beyond the “savior” model to a collective one. Our quest for someone to save us makes us very vulnerable to tyranny.
The problem is that there are few equipped to be Wonder Woman. Yet so many women in the middle class are driven to aspire to that - by education (my years teaching at an elite public school saw how drilled in this obligation to be all to everybody is), by the competitive forces that naturally arise among all strivers, by the natural forces that seem to have the effect of quashing all rebellion in women...I always found the girls wondering what *they * were doing wrong, while the boys cried “Bullshit” to coercive teachers...until they reach an age when they realize “there’s no there there”. The reckoning can come as early as adolescence (a retired school nurse told me the rate of anorexia in Grade 9 girls at the two most elite girls’ schools was 50%) and when I asked the Director of Admissions of one to confirm that this was preposterously exaggerated, she sighed and admitted the stats were about right).
It may be postponed until university. Some make it into the workforce and are brilliant and successful. But the biggest challenge is work and children - the time when “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg is most poisonous - at that point many women crack. I was privy to many of their stories as Director of a school that flew against the grain. They were enough to make one weep and simultaneously feel enraged for a system of living that chews up both men and women.
Not many Wonder Women around. Or Supermen.
We are fallible and not convinced of it.
Yes, United we stand, divided we vote Republican.
Are they voting for them? I'm not sure that Amy McGrath really lost. Are the polls that off?
Oooooo, very nice!!!
Why should some zillionaire's privileged offspring never have to lift a finger, or their children or their children's children? It is entirely reasonable - to say nothing of morally defensible - to tax inheritances progressively, and at very high percentages for the largest fortunes. A couple of million $$ should be enough for any surviving spouses or offspring. America does not need an aristocracy, just fair distribution of the wealth.
Personally, I'm torn on this issue. If I start a business, work hard and it becomes a success, people buy the product or service, I pay the taxes per law, why shouldn't I be able to pass on to my spouse and children what's been earned?
Agree that we need a realistic taxing policy in this country that makes folks pay their fair share. And, we need an IRS system that is equipped and staffed to go after the "big money." Last year the US Tax Commissioner was being challenged as to why he was focusing on the "middle income tax brackets" and he was very blunt. "It's easier. They don't lawyer up. And Congress collectively has stripped him of resources over the years."
Having no inheritance tax spreads the virus of affluenza. And, to the best of my knowledge, there’s no vaccine for that yet.
True.
Well, I think most inheritances are not taxed much, if at all, in most states, though I may be mistaken. It's really a question of magnitude, and I would think inheriting an enormous sum of money (or winning it in the lottery, for that matter) is no way to build character. Dying and leaving enough cash to help one's children put a down-payment on a house sounds pretty normal, but leaving them a substantial part of the Walmart or Amazon fortune does not. Just my pedestrian point of view. And yes, I agree with you (I presume) about progressive taxation and the IRS going for the biggest tax cheats first.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/inheritance-tax/
https://www.bankrate.com/taxes/do-you-have-to-pay-tax-on-inheritance/
Thank you, M Minicucci.
Think you're right about inheritance taxes as I recall. I know we had to pay some taxes on my parents estates but they were related to income/property, not wealth.
Agree that money is no way to build character and I would imagine by the time most people die, their kids already a defined character. Understand your sentiment though. One of the issues I think we hear is children of wealthy parents rarely go into public service or volunteer organizations, etc. Seems they go into the family business which complicates the matter more.
I just read about a lottery in some State where 4 winners are sharing over $1 Billion. This is one of the ways the 0,1% fight against sharing their money. They create the impossible dream of being like them and encourage those that manage to pull up the drawbridge after them.
I would make gambling in public places illegal. It's just a drug to keep poor folks down.
I agree that gambling is just stupid--but if it goes underground then it is both stupid and uncontrollable. I hate the whole lottery boondoggle but people wold find some other way to throw away their money--church bingo Thursdays anyone?
I once had a friend who declared that lotteries were “a tax on the credulous”, I’ve never heard a better description.
Gambling is already underground; don't forget that there have been criminal "families" involved in it in the past.
We have the same chance of winning the lottery it whether we play or not.
That's not literally true, but it captures the essence of it.
Especially when you know that essentially the winner is benefit solely from this tax on the poor.
Do any of them need a new best friend? I am available.
Yes Cathy— it’s all about the donors of dark money. I wonder if each legislator had to disclose who and how much...
There are frequently convenient letterboxes between the original donor and the "poodle pol" to attempt to wash the corruption "whiter than white". These need to be exposed too.
Unfortunately, until Citizens United and its ilk are curbed or eventually set aside, it is all legal corruption.
Not necessarily as some is spent in principle over the heads of the politicians on "political ads" which are classed as "educational" such as explaining how government doesn't work, extolling private education etc. Non-political, Hah!
Still sounds like "legal corruption" to me.
Yes I believe the ability to commit corruption and get away with it in court has been guaranteed—almost like the first amendment— as long as you can afford to pay 5 or 6 of the priciest lawyers.
Stuart, really‼️How could you 🤨 Are you suggesting that money gets laundered going to politicians ⁉️
“Poodle pol” what an apt description of various pols, my own congressional rep for sure.
I think it insults poodles! I know it is a British expression but as the mom of a beautiful and brilliant standard poodle (named for George VI because he is a very dignified fellow) whom I rescued in September, I must object! 😁
Yours is a very majestic and handsome poodle, I must say!
I am a great admirer of George VI, with two legs or four.
Ha! I read that first as 'poodle pool' and flashed on trickle-down economics. /s
🤣😂
Seems like that should be de rigueur...
I think it’s more like the dark monies are then incapable of being traced sufficiently or u have to have the investigative skills of a nYtimes reporter to trace it back.
If I were a Republican politician these days from any but the most deeply red state, I would be squatting over a pile of bricks.
That image made me laugh.
Then my day is made!
Bwahaahaaa! That image made me spit my coffee! Well stated, David.
Well said, good sir.
Well, I try to keep it clean and wholesome.
👍😘
Their platform in the last election tells us exactly what they support - [ (nothing) ]
Great starting point ,Roland.
I’m just a messenger Stuart. We can credit whatever muse provides the idea and the inspiration. Just look at what everybody is bringing to the table. Beautiful sentiments.
Wonderful things sprouting from the unconscious mind.
That’s why our dreams and our solitude are so very important....
They represent their employers. The majority of roughly 10% of the electorate, who finance them, have them on a very tight leash, and in return for payments made grovel to do their bidding.
Yeah, themselves
Republican's have already written the story of Trump as the economic wizard and any economic downturn in the economy as the result of Biden's give away, rather than the consequence of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy. People addicted to Trump are blind to disaster avoided. I' m afraid their made up story is more believable than democrat's "Biden saved us from COVID", especially since republicans have been creating mutant COVID that will create a 3rd wave in July.
According to T and the R's, the 6 years of improving economy under President Obama were fake. The day T took office, the economy was in good shape because of him. The man's disastrous handling of the pandemic - lying, denying, using the federal government to steal PPE from hospitals (in one case they walked right into Mass. General Hospital and seized a new delivery, at the height of the crisis here), actively spreading ideas that made it worse (anti-mask etc) - all that was actually doing a very good job. "Don't believe what you see, don't believe what you read, believe what I tell you."
It does seem like some R's are continuing to spread covid deliberately. They did it when their boy was in the white house, perhaps to oblige his idol Putin. They do it now.
Led by Mercers and Murdochs.
Don't forget the De Vos family.
I’ve worked so hard to forget them! Argh!
Love your answer Spooky
Me, too, Roland. Spooky gets it.
Really beautifully written
How do I access your profile? When I click on your icon, all I get is a larger version of the photo and your start date in June 2020.
It looks more like Voltaire's smile of reason.
https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/voltaire-francois-marie-arouet-known-1694-1778-writer
Seems quite common for those in power anywhere to struggle to hold on to it, more violence happens as their fear of losing it grows.
Like cuomo’s unwillingness to gracefully resign. It’s the addictive nature of power.
Yes the will.
Amen to that Spooky!
It is with relief that Attorney General Merrick Garland has been sworn in. His knowledge of the DoJ and its people is extensive as is his depth of understanding of the Rule of Law. He will truly be the Attorney of the People and make sure Justice is served equally to all. He may have more impact at the DoJ than he would have had as one of nine Supreme Court Justices. He certainly seems the right man at the right time and place!
He can do the SC afterwards. He's got a massive reconstruction and cleansing operation on his hands now.
Nah. He's too old for a SCOTUS seat now. Eight years as AG would be much better!
Your description of his clean up/cleansing that's needed is accurate.
I think I know why Republicans in the Senate slow-walked this Attorney General's confirmation - he's going to bring a new focus to the DOJ, for sure. I came across this NPR piece from 2016 about Garland's role in prosecuting the Oklahoma City bomber that gave me new insights into his professional background: https://www.npr.org/2016/04/19/474689286/out-of-the-horror-in-oklahoma-city-merrick-garland-forged-the-way-forward . A stellar pick, I agree!
Yes, that's why I think he's the right man for the job. His knowledge as the leader prosecutor will very likely give the DOJ more chops and skills for going after domestic terrorists, which Jan. 6 has highlighted the importance of addressing that issue.
Bulldog Garland grabs sedition by the leg and NEVER LETS GO.
As AG his impact on American history will be greater than if he served on the Supreme Court. Punishing the guilty and stamping out the embers of insurrection and treason is essential for the future of democracy everywhere.
I like the nickname!
Hear! Hear!
yes, this may be one reason the moscow turtle is taking his leave to abscond with his yet unindicted wife
Mitch McConnell stepping down?! Resigning not just his leadership position but his Senate seat? Quitting and going home? Is that really a possibility? A credible rumor?
“...there are signs that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) might be stepping down (there is a move afoot in the Kentucky legislature to change the law to remove the ability of the Democratic governor to choose a senator’s replacement)...”
Just the possibility of the most vile, villainous, viper to slither through the halls of the Senate crawling on his belly back to Kentucky, abandoning his party to the trumpists, is, to me, very big news.
If McConnell quits, the last stabilizing force in the Republican Party will be gone. The average IQ of congressional Republicans will drop 30 points. The lust for power will be unbounded. The destruction of the Republican Party would be a very real possibility.
Let’s make some popcorn.
I don't think he will go home to KY. He will go somewhere from where his wife is not extraditable when it is her time to be indicted for all of her tainted activities.
It would be nice if he could be linked to them.
Nice?! NICE?! It would be like the greatest day in the history of the world!
The nicknames Moscow Mitch and Chengdu Chao suggest possible destinations.
With a bit of luck we'll see a "Valentine Day" massacre amongst pretenders.....this is going to be bloody and Trump will not be able to hold them back....even if he wanted to. He'll be telling them all that he doesn't need them anyway as he controls the vote....and the money.
I'm wondering if health problems may be the reason for this. Just speculating.
Nothing else could drive McC from his favorite place.
Nahh, I think it’s more likely spouse problems
Exactly
“Vile, villainous viper” and “the last stabilizing force in the Republican Party”. I can’t even wrap my mind around how MM can manage to fit both descriptions at once. What an astonishing indictment against the party he leads.
Don't you think this is just another power play on his part? I'm sure he'll still be pulling strings and worming his way through the halls of the senate somehow. Puppet Master Mitch. AND he'd be willing to step aside publicly to allow a gerry-rigged new law to force the Dem Governor to appoint a Repucklican. Accomplishes many goals for them. Majority in the Senate, hamstring the governor, let Mitch work his will from the smoke-filled back room, and poke Biden in the eye. (this totally disgusts me to think like this, but I think it's the way it is)
His lust for power wasn’t exactly bounded.
Not bounded, but certainly carefully crafted and thought out. Lesser men than he will be clawing at each other to take his place.
Mitch McConnell was perhaps the smartest, wiliest legislative politician in our history. The point is that, if he quit, the Republican Party would be leaderless, with no one even close to having McConnell’s leadership talents, no matter who took his seat.
Further proof of their curtain call approaching...
I'm not so sure. Perhaps it will be like when the military breaks up a terrorist cell, and it splinters into a thousand sharp little units, all doing their own damage--that can be much, much harder to manage and protect against.
Nah... they are (mostly) such lightweight empty suits, so desperate for a ‘leader’ that they have hitched their wagon to Trump. I believe he’s over. And when McConnell leaves, who will be the Pied Piper to lead them off the cliff...?
Here's the proof that the Republicans want the power to select replacement Senators. Quote from a KY Republican regarding the bill to require input from the majority in power @ the state level (made by Mr. McGarvey): “I’m open to the concept if there were two Democratic senators and a Republican governor, but I don’t think we would ever do this bill if that were the case,” McGarvey said. “I think the reason we’re doing this bill is because there are two Republican senators and a Democratic governor.”
I hate the KY legislature doing this with a Dem governor, but I loved it when Beacon Hill did it with a GQP governor. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
The thread of authoritarian strategies runs thru all the Repugs. It is simply put that that mostly white men have managed to feed their addiction to power for many years now with the help of dark money, gerrymandering, other strong arm tactics etc. Why they have to resort to these strategies is the simple fact that if there was a truly fair democratic vote like recently in Georgia— they just wouldn’t have the votes. They know that and they have honed all the other skills and connections they have to keep their power intact. The tides have turned now and they know that too.
What?
So there’ll be an election I guess. But he’s irreplaceable
That is going to be interesting
The bill requires an election within three months. The R's could leave it at that, but they are too afraid of having a Democrat in the Senate for even that long.
Recently I was talking to a friend who happens to be Black and female, who broke the ceiling long ago, working for some of the top IT Industry leaders. We were musing about Virginia turning purple then blue. She told me about how in the southern state she came from, there was a turning point when a wealthy Silicon Valley company came in and established a beachhead for tech companies; her Dad told her to get an engineering degree because of that, back in the 1980s. Years later that state is slowly turning purple as well. I told her I recently read an article about why Virginia turned blue, and the author stated that the turning point was when American Online (AOL) moved into Reston, VA and established a mini-Silicon Valley there nearly 40 years ago. I wondered if this was part of a trend. She told me "It doesn't matter how racist people are, money talks. The racists around here want money and are willing to look the other way and tolerate Blacks to keep the money flowing..." I thought that was rather telling. After years of watching IT companies struggle with training to try and wring sexism and racism out of their ranks, and constantly failing, also rather ironic. We need to keep our focus on the corporate entities that have been feeding these beasts for a very long while and call them out when they back Republicans who continue to spout the Big Lie or vote for legislation that suppresses votes.
When my brother worked at Apple, he played a key role in AOL getting going, when they won a contract competition to host apple's private online E-world on the "mini" servers that were not small at all, but smaller than the standard mainframes.
"everybody shouldn’t be voting…. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”
Can somebody refresh my memory on the difference between a democracy and a republic? Cause this sentence sure sounds like Arizona does not want a democracy. Quality of vote? WTF?
Sounds to me like elitism in the extreme—the elitism, btw, repubs decry at every opportunity.
not elitism, white supremacy
Isn't this the mind set of the men who founded the country whom Prof. Richardson has described? That they contended that there were certain informed and politically sophisticated men who should run the government, sit in congress and decide for the common people? It wasn't until Lincoln declared that the common man had an equal right to the country and elected office that Americans began to ask for greater representation. The original idea of "republic" was a constrained notion that included only wealthy, propertied, men. So, we could say that we are going backwards in time?
Even before Lincoln, as the electorate was already expanding, Andrew Jackson based his two terms as President on appeal to the common man. But for the wrong reasons. He knew that they were basically gullible and ignorant of what was going on, so he used them. This flaw in democracy had been recognized by Jefferson who thought education would cure it. It hasn't. (Jackson's appeal to the common man was so admired by the 45th president that he hung his picture in the oval office.) Lincoln finally put democracy back on the right track until the former slaveholders and their Northern business allies reasserted their power and destroyed post-civil war Reconstruction. And we are still fighting to restore Lincoln's concept of democracy.
Backwards from Lincoln's vision, yes I agree. Staying the same from our illustrious framers. Time to MOVE ON! Amen.
Yep--and not even a republic, but an oligarchy in which a specific small group of people control everything and everyone else becomes a forelock-tugging peonage.
HA, you nailed my current psychological state!
Ok, per Google, a "republic" is a form of representative government, which creates a "democracy"? So, potato, potatoe?
Still, no matter the semantics, a government by the people, not the corporations (although i remember Romney kindly manspaining corporations are people). Sigh.
Only Dan Quayle spells potato "potatoe."
Potato head, Mrs. Potato head
Careful there, apparently Republicans think that human gender is dependent on potato gender, you could be destroying the white supremacist family with your frivolity.
Perfectly compatible with a republic though....but not a democratic one!
Joe Biden promised to unite the country. Some analysts have interpreted the commitment as a promise to bipartisanship. Quite the opposite. "The American Rescue Plan ... was supported by 76% of the American people, an extraordinary level of popularity." Joe Biden is fulfilling his promise to unite the country. There is more to come. An infrastructure bill that creates jobs in every zip code and improves all of our lives could be as popular as the "American Rescue Plan."
Biden's statement about "We the people" calls for another shout out to fellow HCR Reader Jeff Carpenter's very cool graphic, "We the People, All of Us This Time!"
“The government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital,” Biden said. “It’s us. All of us. We the people.”
https://jcarpenterstudio.com/portfolio-portfolio/public-art-projects/we-the-people-2
Love this image. Carpenter needs to make a bumper sticker. Joe's keeping his head down and doing the work. He’s not distracted by the clown show. I grow more hopeful each day.
Just posted Biden's quote with Jeff Carpenter's graphic on fb! As my kids would say, "Sweet!" Thanks Ellie!
First time I laughed out loud to a letter from an American. As I was reading about the latest 'cancel culture' victims Dr. Suess and the Potato Head family, I thought to myself, 'I can't believe I'm reading this' and then - (I cannot believe I am writing this…). Thanks for the laugh!
I have engaged with some of my friends on the "right" over this whole Potato Head scandal (what makes this particularly amusing is that in my professional attempts to avoid profanity and vulgarity when speaking with the public, "potato head" and/or "chowder head" were my go-to phrases for other terms of endearment more commonly used in law enforcement). To the ones who are young enough (my age or younger) to have played with a Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head themselves, I ask if they ever mixed and matched Mr. and Mrs. attachments on their beloved Potato Heads; pretty universally the answer was yes. My reply was then "I rest my case."
Well played! The Potato Head family, in all it's incarnations, is saved! Hallelujah!
As Repugs obsess over cartoons and toys, the Biden admin forges a more perfect Union.
Maybe John Kavanaugh of the AZ Republican Party is right. Maybe each voter should be asked one simple question before they are allowed to cast their vote. And that question should be, “Who won the 2020 Presidential election?” It should be a multiple choice question with only 2 possible answers. Anyone who can’t or won’t answer that question truthfully shouldn’t be able to vote. Because quality matters. PS - no one at me. I’m just kidding. But it’s fun to imagine Tucker’s head falling off if someone suggested it.
"the quality of votes"? Talk about a not so subtle attempt at class separation again. Are we headed back to counting non-white people as 3/5 of a person? Watching the gyrations of the GQP as they try to distract their base and everyone else from the fact that they have no policies to offer except division leaves me appalled that they have such a large body of adherents.
Pamela, add 'terrified' to 'appalled'. Absolutely.
Back to not counting them at all.
Arizona state representative John Kavanaugh, who chairs the state’s Government and Elections Committee, made headlines yesterday when he explained that Republicans were happy to create measures that kept people from voting because “everybody shouldn’t be voting…. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”
That just made me ill. Republicans not only believe this, now they are coming out and saying it out loud
The more they say it out loud, the more we can challenge the voters to turn out in defiance of attempts to silence them.
Ironically, that could be considered true, but in the exact opposite of how radical Republicans intend the statement.
I'm truly disgusted.
New bumper sticker: When Only Morons Vote, Republicans Win
Love it but I’d never stick it on for fear of a gun slinger getting road rage at me
LOVE this.
Nope. Time to let go of the righteousness and get to work creating a decent future. I've had enough of Republican pettiness (and, for that matter, Democrat as well). Let's get past that and be grown-ups taking care of our communities
I am a very dedicated griller/smoker/outdoor cooker. As evidence, I offer that after a long needed replacement of our stove, it was two months before I actually used it. That said, I have cooked everything outdoors, from the most basic to some very complex stuff. This portion of today's letter really stood out:
(quote) Today, Republicans pushed back on Biden’s vaccine success by taking offense at what they suggested was his attempt to dictate how we spend the Fourth of July. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted an image of a steak on a grill with a star over it and the caption “COME AND TAKE IT.” (end quote)
I have grilled many, many, many steaks. On the 4th of July, however, it is ALWAYS hotdogs and hamburgers (and not the stuffed gourmet kind of burgers, but burgers as intended. Grilled medium and topped with cheddar cheese for those who want it). A traditional meal, served up with both potato salad and cole slaw, with homemade ice cream for dessert.
Steaks for the "All-American 4th of July" illustrates to me just how out of touch Cancun Cruz is.
He really is out of touch (remember his Cancun run while we were sitting in the freezing cold and dark?), but keep in mind that 'this is Texas, where everything is bigger and beef (and oil) rules.'
Having said that, yeah, Ally, you are right. July 4th is hot dogs, burgers, and apple pie, the all American food trio. The man disgusts me.
How he doesn’t disgust every adult (and terrify every child) in this country (the rest of the world is laughing softly behind the curtain), is beyond me. He is the ultimate litmus test to validate education as well as a moral compass.
Ally, Your July 4th meal made my mouth water.
What time do you serve it?
And what can I bring? A jello salad?
did you mean a jello mold?
Oh, Yes! Of course! Lime for St. Pat's!
Did someone mention potato salad?? Be still, my cholesterol count!
I'll be driving down from the Olympic Peninsula...happy to bring a dish to share
I think its time we referred to Government as “Our Government” as opposed to “The Government” which makes it sound like a third party,( if not a foreign country,)and
not a part of the USA. Without our government there is no USA.
I adore your phrase “power sloshing around.” In my experience, sloshing usually involves spillage.
What a great phrase! (And visual image...)
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Mixed news here, for sure.
Justice: This "Long Arc of the Universe" article about our new Attorney General was so uplifting. "So can we start arresting people today or do we have to wait? Asking for a nation." https://www.commondreams.org/further/2021/03/11/long-arc-universe
Addressing Climate Change: Seems our holdover Postmaster General wants to bypass "electrifying" new postal delivery vehicles: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/09/it-definitely-stinks-lawmaker-demands-sec-probe-huge-stock-buy-just-dejoy-announced?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email
COVID-19: It's not too late to embrace New Zealand's success over the coronavirus. We just need to adopt their Manaakitanga philosophy (the power of the collective):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/11/new-zealand-covid-19-maori-indigenous-manaakitanga/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_opinions&utm_campaign=wp_opinions
We could also do with a bit more from NZ...the Waitangi Tribunal would be a good place to start. The Waitangi Treaty of 1975 set up a mechanism to redress the grievances of the Maori people concerning the non-respect of original treaties signed by the colonialist British regime in the 19thC. These original treaties guaranteed "Tribal Rangatatiratanga" and confirmed Maori land ownership. Rangatiratanga is a Māori language term that is often translated as "absolute sovereignty". It appears in the Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed by the British Crown and Māori chiefs (rangatira) in 1840.
https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/
Could this be applied to our Native American treaty problems? Will they ever get the Black Hills back as their land?
The problem is the need for "good faith" in real negotiations; a necessary ingredient in Waitanga. Not seen for a very long time in the respect of treaties signed by the US gov in all dealings with Native Americans. In principle the Lakota/Dakota/Cheyenne already own the Black Hills but...there are squatters that are blackmailing them and the Gov to stop them occupying their land
There's Hope:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/native-americans-rep-haaland-s-nomination-interior-secretary-signals-new-n1251727
Thank you. An area of interest for me. Appreciate your suggestion
The larger matter of respecting historic treaty rights of indigenous people is a major global problem.
<> J Belich, Making Peoples
____, The Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict: The Maori, the British, and the New Zealand Wars
<> M Sahlins, Islands of History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi
TY, Stuart!!
Thanks!