If you are a fair minded person, you tend to think others are as well. Enough of that! Those of us who support democracy need to have teams of folks concentrating on the long haul and looking at the R's to see what they are doing. Project 2025 needs to be shouted out all over the place. The Federalist Society is Robert Bork's revenge for…
If you are a fair minded person, you tend to think others are as well. Enough of that! Those of us who support democracy need to have teams of folks concentrating on the long haul and looking at the R's to see what they are doing. Project 2025 needs to be shouted out all over the place. The Federalist Society is Robert Bork's revenge for the treatment of his SC nomination. Joseph Coors (yes, Coors beer) helped found the Heritage Foundation. These are lengthy long term projects that are seeking to advance a superior moral justification for selfishness, as John Kenneth Galbraith would say. They are probably more libertarian than conservative because they don't want ANY constraints on their ability ti garner wealth. There are more regular people than morbidly rich, we need to vote our numbers.
JennSH, I love your description, morbidly rich. They are obscene and their tentacles are everywhere buying up everything they possibly can and ruining things like health care clinics and vet clinics to use two examples here in Oregon. There was an article yesterday about a subsidiary of United Health (Death) buying a large Eugene medical clinic. Many doctors left. Now the ones who are still there have huge patient loads and great numbers of patients have been told they no longer have a doctor. These morbidly rich are greedy to the core.
I know and agree about the vet clinics. Every sizable one is going corporate. I am on the East Coast, and I understand that the same thing is happening to marinas.
Anne, sometime ago I read that private equity firms are also buying up smaller oil producing companies—what could possibly go wrong?!!! Imagine all profits squeezed out, cautions and controls let lapse before selling off what remains….likely to let the public dollar fund any necessary remediation. IMHO they are like a plague of locusts moving from field (businesses) to field. Sad that for some “more” is never enough.
"A plague of locusts" is a great metaphor, maybe a perfect one. I've never heard it before.
Yes, what could go wrong? Letting the public dollar fund remediation - that's a new angle for me. I've heard that private equity firms hire the most aggressive workers that they can.
Knowing the veterinary business, I think it is so sad that poor people, many working very hard, I've seen it, either decide they can't afford a pet or are anxious about health expenses or go into high-cost debt to pay for emergencies. Some young people use GoFundMe, but they are people with tech awareness and some savvy and some contacts. Pets are so important for the mental health of so many.
Actually, Anne, the term I believe is from the Bible…so the phrase, in one form or another has been around a very long time! Lends even more gravitas that it is a biblical warning/punishment and it fits those profit/value vampires (another apt descriptor!) very well. I do not understand those who strive for riches, and then for even more on top of that (pretty clear by my lifestyle & circumstance that it’s not an issue I have!)….I also like the saying regarding a job/career/goal: To make a living, not a killing. Also, to me, there is a sort of benediction in telling someone “I wish for you enough”. I think MAGA true believers are enthralled by gold-plated Don….from his toilets, his fake-fancy Versailles decors, to his face & his hair…all sparkle & flash. There is a Emily Dickinson poem (from about the early 1870’s) I especially like that speaks to this:
I loved the Emily Dickinson poem! It was new to me. Thanks.
I have tried, and failed, so many times to understand Trump that I now just go to the default of mental illness, which I truly believe. And I completely agree with you that the true believers of MAGA are enthralled with the "plated wares."
All the nice, cheap (Pacific) ocean-side places to stay around here for clamdiggers and families (with sand on the floors) are being bought up and gentrified, charging astronomical prices.
It's a damn shame the "morbidly rich" cannot fund projects which enhance the lives of people, animals, our environment, rather than what they are doing; taking away, making our choices more limited, doing the exact opposite of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" (the U.S. Declaration of Independence).
"The phrase gives three examples of the unalienable rights which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect." Wikipedia
Thankfully, there are a few exceptions, like Mackenzie Scott (Jeff Bezo's ex-wife), who has made huge contributions to numerous community-based organizations. I love what she is doing.
Voting our numbers has always been the challenge. Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States is an excellent compilation of the success that the morbidly rich and powerful have had in suppressing, coopting, or simply ignoring the will of the people whose labor and money they build their empires on. If/when the failed insurrectionist is finally brought to book for his crimes it will be a notable step in a direction that is rarely, if ever, traveled.
Good idea, but the Coors family cashed out a long time ago when Miller Brewing bought Coors. The deal avoided anti-trust examination because of the dominance at the time of Anheuser-Busch in the beer market.
Yes, we do! Need to vote and shout about Project 2025.
“Libertarian” has always had such a patriotic sound to it. To the adolescent intellect it sounds like “I can do whatever I want, nobody can make me.” Ignore other people who want liberty of their own. Bless Galbraith for his phrase “the moral justification for selfishness.”
It seems to me that there is more than one flavor of "Libertarian" and in any case many who call themselves "Conservative" or "Libertarian" are just spinning an obfuscatory pretext for their own malignant narcissism. The same was done for feudalism, and for slavery; pious justifications, backed up by violence. I have met self-labeled "conservatives" and "libertarians" wit seeming conscience and integrity, but they seem like outliers.
If you are a fair minded person, you tend to think others are as well. Enough of that! Those of us who support democracy need to have teams of folks concentrating on the long haul and looking at the R's to see what they are doing. Project 2025 needs to be shouted out all over the place. The Federalist Society is Robert Bork's revenge for the treatment of his SC nomination. Joseph Coors (yes, Coors beer) helped found the Heritage Foundation. These are lengthy long term projects that are seeking to advance a superior moral justification for selfishness, as John Kenneth Galbraith would say. They are probably more libertarian than conservative because they don't want ANY constraints on their ability ti garner wealth. There are more regular people than morbidly rich, we need to vote our numbers.
JennSH, I love your description, morbidly rich. They are obscene and their tentacles are everywhere buying up everything they possibly can and ruining things like health care clinics and vet clinics to use two examples here in Oregon. There was an article yesterday about a subsidiary of United Health (Death) buying a large Eugene medical clinic. Many doctors left. Now the ones who are still there have huge patient loads and great numbers of patients have been told they no longer have a doctor. These morbidly rich are greedy to the core.
I know and agree about the vet clinics. Every sizable one is going corporate. I am on the East Coast, and I understand that the same thing is happening to marinas.
Anne, sometime ago I read that private equity firms are also buying up smaller oil producing companies—what could possibly go wrong?!!! Imagine all profits squeezed out, cautions and controls let lapse before selling off what remains….likely to let the public dollar fund any necessary remediation. IMHO they are like a plague of locusts moving from field (businesses) to field. Sad that for some “more” is never enough.
"A plague of locusts" is a great metaphor, maybe a perfect one. I've never heard it before.
Yes, what could go wrong? Letting the public dollar fund remediation - that's a new angle for me. I've heard that private equity firms hire the most aggressive workers that they can.
Knowing the veterinary business, I think it is so sad that poor people, many working very hard, I've seen it, either decide they can't afford a pet or are anxious about health expenses or go into high-cost debt to pay for emergencies. Some young people use GoFundMe, but they are people with tech awareness and some savvy and some contacts. Pets are so important for the mental health of so many.
Actually, Anne, the term I believe is from the Bible…so the phrase, in one form or another has been around a very long time! Lends even more gravitas that it is a biblical warning/punishment and it fits those profit/value vampires (another apt descriptor!) very well. I do not understand those who strive for riches, and then for even more on top of that (pretty clear by my lifestyle & circumstance that it’s not an issue I have!)….I also like the saying regarding a job/career/goal: To make a living, not a killing. Also, to me, there is a sort of benediction in telling someone “I wish for you enough”. I think MAGA true believers are enthralled by gold-plated Don….from his toilets, his fake-fancy Versailles decors, to his face & his hair…all sparkle & flash. There is a Emily Dickinson poem (from about the early 1870’s) I especially like that speaks to this:
It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At the bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
IMHO the TFFG definitely is “plated wares”!
I loved the Emily Dickinson poem! It was new to me. Thanks.
I have tried, and failed, so many times to understand Trump that I now just go to the default of mental illness, which I truly believe. And I completely agree with you that the true believers of MAGA are enthralled with the "plated wares."
All the nice, cheap (Pacific) ocean-side places to stay around here for clamdiggers and families (with sand on the floors) are being bought up and gentrified, charging astronomical prices.
Same where I am (the mountains). There is a lot of money out there that is looking to make more money.
It's a damn shame the "morbidly rich" cannot fund projects which enhance the lives of people, animals, our environment, rather than what they are doing; taking away, making our choices more limited, doing the exact opposite of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" (the U.S. Declaration of Independence).
"The phrase gives three examples of the unalienable rights which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect." Wikipedia
Thankfully, there are a few exceptions, like Mackenzie Scott (Jeff Bezo's ex-wife), who has made huge contributions to numerous community-based organizations. I love what she is doing.
I agree with you.
Voting our numbers has always been the challenge. Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States is an excellent compilation of the success that the morbidly rich and powerful have had in suppressing, coopting, or simply ignoring the will of the people whose labor and money they build their empires on. If/when the failed insurrectionist is finally brought to book for his crimes it will be a notable step in a direction that is rarely, if ever, traveled.
Let's start by not buying Coors beers. It worked with Zillio.
Good idea, but the Coors family cashed out a long time ago when Miller Brewing bought Coors. The deal avoided anti-trust examination because of the dominance at the time of Anheuser-Busch in the beer market.
Yes, we do! Need to vote and shout about Project 2025.
“Libertarian” has always had such a patriotic sound to it. To the adolescent intellect it sounds like “I can do whatever I want, nobody can make me.” Ignore other people who want liberty of their own. Bless Galbraith for his phrase “the moral justification for selfishness.”
It seems to me that there is more than one flavor of "Libertarian" and in any case many who call themselves "Conservative" or "Libertarian" are just spinning an obfuscatory pretext for their own malignant narcissism. The same was done for feudalism, and for slavery; pious justifications, backed up by violence. I have met self-labeled "conservatives" and "libertarians" wit seeming conscience and integrity, but they seem like outliers.