The question is are the MAGA crazies in the House a bright and shiny distraction or are they too stupid to understand the grand plan of the Republican oligarchs?
Time for America to get a history lesson about when FDR faced down the "economic royalists".
Some eye-opening reports from Tom Hartmann shed light on this--and Project 2025 is jus…
The question is are the MAGA crazies in the House a bright and shiny distraction or are they too stupid to understand the grand plan of the Republican oligarchs?
Time for America to get a history lesson about when FDR faced down the "economic royalists".
Some eye-opening reports from Tom Hartmann shed light on this--and Project 2025 is just a revisitation on steroids of what went on when the Republican moneyed interests held government before the Great Depression.
Biden needs to start cribbing FDRs speeches and identifying the underlying threat to decomocracy--the billionaire republicans who are funding the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.
Too many Democrats are focused on Trump and Tuberville and MTG and the Proud Boys--the bright and shiny objects. The real threat that needs to be called out is the unelected billionaires that are developing the strategy to take over government. That is what FDR did, That is what Biden needs to do,
Here are the links to two of Hartmann's posts. He writes about this with much more eloquence and knowledge than I have.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” -Thoreau
Some say the love of money is the root of all evil. Surely that's true when it's sociopathicly so.
How profoundly has "Reaganomic" deregulation of the flow and uses of money changed our governance and society over the last 40+years? Except for Muskovite billionaires, what does the average citizen have to show for it? Are we now a happier, healthier, more secure society? Is our anticipated future brighter than ever?
Teddy Roosevelt promise a "square deal", FDR, a "new deal"? How, after all these years, have Reagnomic "reforms" been anything but a raw deal?
Commencing his campaign against welfare queens in Philadelphia Mississippi, eviscerating the Air Traffic Controllers Union upon taking office, slashing taxes for the rich while smilingly reminiscing about his Gipper days while the resultingly starved governmental services withered, and their beneficiaries suffered, ignoring the first major wave of homelessness due directly to his policies, never mentioning the word "AIDS" while people died during the plague years, waging war against the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua while encouraging the first generation of treacly, creepy fascist, faux Christian warriors (Oliver North, looking at you)....
I just read a banned book ( goal this summer) called Boys Kissing Boys. It talks about 4 different circumstances of boys coming out. The point of the story is that there are "angels" or gays who have died commenting on the state of affairs now and when they were young boys, dying of aids. No one ever mentioned it. No research was being done.
Great, succinct summary of all these deals. To me, the worst legacy of Reagan was the validation of Ayn Rand libertarianism, creating the false shibboleth of federal government as THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. That concept flies in the face of American political tradition, built on the concept of the social contract, and expressed in three short words. WE THE PEOPLE. Reagan’s raw deal created the conditions for the breakdown of America, and the fulfillment of Franklin’s prophecy, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
The rhetoric of the Reaganoid "GOP" is anti-government, and that resonates because some governments are horrible, and even the best of governments is unlikely to please all of the people all of the time. But Republicans routinely talk out of both sides of their mouths, opposing "government" when it troubles the rich or assists the general welfare. Hold that yardstick to the changes they have made and propose, and I think it commonly fits. When Reagan demonized "government" he was aiming at government of, by, and for the people. Not government that props up profligate mega-corporations, or bombs small countries, or arrests and indicts peaceful protesters. Not goverment that polices bedrooms. Societies are extremely interactive and many disparate things are happening at any given time, but how many Republican initiatives since Carter have not disproportionately enriched and empowered the wealthiest among us and not disadvantaged and disempowered the general public, or some already disadvantaged segment of it? Reagan was the smarmy salesman for plutocratic restoration the "Gilded Age". And then some.
Thoreau. the great Transcendentalist, knew what he was doing. What Kenneth Burke called "Beyonding"--seeing beyond the "shiny objects" and working on the root killers.
Why the constant focus on what republicans did many years ago? Democrats have had ample opportunities to make changes. Politics today are not a history lesson and I don’t think invoking FDR helps anyone decide how to vote. You want voters to overwhelmingly vote Biden Harris, then focus on common sense issues; cost of living, high cost of housing, controlling your own budget based on the taxes you take in now, and a reasonable approach for immigration to prevent the hammering cost for US cities. And Who cares what Thoreau said.
Historical perspective does matter, Paul, lest we fall into repeating our mistakes over and over again. And I, for one, do care what Thoreau said. Always seeing the larger picture is essential to moving forward. While aware of what has been done in the past, we can more wisely assess what is happening now, appreciate what is the same or different, and thus can in a more informed way focus on common sense issues to get out the vote.
Not to mention: If you, Paul Lewis, see no value in reviewing Republicans’ past tricks and atrocities, scoff at invoking FDR or Thoreau, believe “Politics today are not a history lesson,” why in the holy heckenbob are you reading the brilliant Heather Cox Richardson?
There’s a difference between learning from the past-- I enjoy that hence why I read this newsletter, and harping on events that don’t win you elections.
Considering that at least two of your common sense issues are directly in the hands of business and a third (budget) is indirectly in the hands of business through government contracting, what measures would you recommend that the government take to reduce the first two and control the third? It seems that so many people blame government for things that are under control of business, instead.
I am of the opinion that "business" does some things that serve society very well, although "we the people" still get to prescribe rules for commerce in instances that are not serving the public interest, such as polluting or passing out opioids like candy. And some of the legitimate interests of our society are too vital and some powers too dangerous to NOT be controlled, supervised and provided by the public sector. I think many current instances of current "privatization" rage from a bad deal for the pubic, to just plain nuts.
Careful, you are on the verge of making the argument that republicans make- that there is little need for so much government given it’s ineffectiveness. I don’t have a set of great answers to your question. But just look at Housing. Nothing hurts housing affordability faster than rising interest rates. Those rising rates are wholly within the term of President Biden and he at least has the tool of budget proposals and he can use restraint in spending. I don’t know how he would tackle wage- price spiraling, corporate greed, or supply constraints.
This is why you need to understand history- your grasp of how economics works and its intersection with government will improve. One hopes. Your "analysis" ascribes things to the government that do not belong there. Example: housing affordability. You seem to have no understanding at all of how that works. For one thing, because something happens during the term of a given president does mean causation: it usually means that economic factors set in motion during the previous administration has finally caught us up in another mess. It's not up to me to educate you, but I can urge you to learn a little more about how things work before you eat any more shoe leather.
Home mortgage rates are set by the government? I didn't know that. On a more general note, I'd subscribe to some of what JL Graham says in his comment above: there are some things that government is better suited for, there are somethings that business is good at, and there are some things that religions are good at. My main point above is that business is seldom adequately held to account for its inefficiencies and inequalities, perhaps because by its nature business is a very diffuse endeavor. It's easy to blame government for things outside its control, if only because its a relatively unitary entity, and so easy to point at.
The fact that Thoreau said it does not make it true, but I think Thoreau and others have managed to state very cogent thoughts gracefully enough to be worth repeating and crediting. Also, often, valued quotations are already familiar to the reader, and citation points to a connection with a specific issue.
History, be it very recent or well in the past, is our only guide to what works and does not work, and why, is our only basis from which to project forward. We don't always call it history, but we learn from experience and and my extending and adjusting the logic of what has happened before. Newton spoke of stranding on the shoulders of giants. We also stand on the shoulders of many, many forgotten people to get to where I can type on a "wireless" device, and you can see it from very far away. Every one of us draws from an enormous pool of accumulated knowledge.
Useful to know, I think, is that we have fought with the seduction of plutocracy before in many forms, including the violence-enforced "supremacy" of feudal lords, and the so-called "Robber Barons" of the "Gilded Age". FDR was among those who helped empower the general public, helping end cynical hazards and exploitation imposed on the public by the overly powerful. And back in the day, his efforts were was popular. As part of a decades long general trend of reforms that a corrupted SCOTUS now rules illegal, the rights of the many abused people were advancing, and the "middle class" expanded. Plutocraticly bankrolled Reagan Republicans attacked that progress, and do to this day. And how has that worked out?
It seems to me that if people had a "good enough" sense of enough of the history of how things got to be the way they are today, many more would be making different choices. In particular; follow the money. It appears to me that reining in the power of exceptional wealth to interfere with the democratic process and a well informed electorate, is key to making better headway with the common sense issues you speak of above. For some, perhaps our whole species, it might realistically be the difference between life and death,
That what trumpers complain about are things some of things which Biden has no control of. Their big complaint is how much it costs to fill the tanks of their trucks. Trump's friend the Prince and Russia have put a cap on oil until Dec. We produce a lot of oil. I read we were the biggest producer, but I don't know. If we cut back on oil use, we might be more independent. Oil production has gone up. They blame Biden for stopping the building the pipeline which was supposed to make hundreds of jobs. They didn't look beyond their noses to see that only 50 people were needed to maintain the pipeline.
Besides the scary environmental consequences fossil energy, it also happens to come in a form that is easily monopolized. It means other nations can extort and threaten us by withholding it, and domestic companies can get away with extortionate prices. Republicans hate taxes that at least build our roads and educate our kids. What to monopoly pricing do for us beside make de facto lords of the very rich that often bankroll efforts to blunt or destroy democracy? What if we had been working far more seriously on alternative energy sources ever since Carter? Even Nixon was on board with that effort; and yet since the "Reagan Revolution" it has been opposed tooth and nail.
"Politics today are not a history lesson..." Oh, but they are, Paul. They reflect the past and unless we understand how things come to pass, we cannot understand how to deal with them. Your "common sense issues" are all based in events of the past which have set the trajectory of the present. Some of those dynamics were set in motion long ago. We need to explore and analyze history in order to deal with those issues. There are many first hand observers of what happened in the past who can shed important light on all those issues you mention. How we got in that mess gives a pretty good clue about what we need to do to get out. Whether you decide to use that tool for insight and understanding is up to you. But you might give it a try.
Yes it is. That is why Biden and Harris have to talk about it. The media will only start reporting it if they start talking about it. And talking about it in historical context. Biden needs to invoke FDRs ghost across the whole breadth of FDRs policies, not just the social safety net issues. It would bring a backlash from the big money, but it might wake up some of those economically left behind in this country to who really is responsible.
Maybe Joe could start with "When America was last at this crossroads, FDR said..."
I'm not one to want to copy the past, but we can surely learn from it. In fact everything we have learned from is now in the past, Including the lines I read on this page. I think the future will always surprise us one way or another, but we rely on learned repeating patterns every day, like how to fry an egg. Some patterns should set off alarm bells, and others that may have rendered service in the past, fallen out of fashion, yet are available to reevaluation in modern circumstances. A lot of things Republicans claim would cause the world to implode proved useful in the past. You can't step in the same river twice, but "fortune favors the prepared mind".
The bit about the river comes from Heraclitus who was a really interesting ancient Greek dude. Only fragments of his ideas remain and those recounted by others. He thought that reality was in flow. Many of the old Greek thinkers were astonishingly prescient, including, by credible means, calculating with surprising accuracy the circumference of the earth, within 50% the circumference of the moon, the correct order of the then observable planets, and the fact that they and we orbit the sun. Aristotle thought everything circled the earth, so that was that for the Middle Ages.
My eighth grade science book attributed "fortune favors the prepared mind" to Alexander Fleming who "accidentally" discovered the anti-bacterial qualities of Penicillin. But what he noticed took a talent for observation and the understanding to grasp it's extended significance, which illustrates the quotation. I have read that he did not actually use those words, but something like them; but I think it is still a powerful phrase even if, in the end, anonymous. It seems to me that this phase captures much of the means to innovation and resilience.
Look at Hitler. Made a deal with Chamberlain not to invade the Chechs. and then he went on to bulldoze his way through Europe, Africa, the Scandanavian countries, Eastern Europe. He even had subs off our coast, destroying our merchant ships. Now we have Russia trying to take over Ukraine with eyes on Latvia, Moldova, etc. He has Belarus in his pocket already.
Perhaps he should invoke both FDR and cousin TR. reiterate the best of the Square Deal & The New Deal changes that made America safer, saner, more civil.
Scariest is this C-SPAN interview from Paul Dans the head of Project 2025--which is now a "huge coalition" of more than 70 Republican groups to "systematically prepare" If you want a true hair on fire moment be sure to listen to the discussion of changes to the justice department and making is subservient to the presidential direction.
The purpose of that project is to set up the next gop admin to throw out the Constitution and rewrite it using the convention of the states that the real DEEP STATE has been organizing for years.
Precisely correct Georgia. Isn't it amazing that nearly everyone focus's on the distracters in plain view without questioning "Where do they get the seeming endless financing"? I've puzzled over much of that for 30 years or so. Along the way I had a theory and have followed the bread crumbs. It is the same that FDR faced, just a bit modernized and better hidden; the same breed of suspects learned and reapplied the learned lessons for this well planned attack, with help from U.S. adversaries. Nothing is beneath them. Nothing...
“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”.
-Edward L Bernays (the “father of public relations)
Bernays was a master at propaganda recognizing that indeed the wealthy are “puppeteers” who can control the public mind and compel people to act in whatever ways they want.
Trump along with many others has used all of the techniques designed to appeal to people’s emotions including using simple language, name calling, symbolism, fears, and attacks on opponents.
His whole act is orchestrated to distract and confuse the public. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “when evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hate, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love”.
Bernays concedes that propaganda is “psychological warfare”. Let’s hope that more people will see what’s hidden so evil does not win.
Gina-- So true, “Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”. -Edward L Bernays (the “father of public relations) -- Basic to the power of the Third Reich.
As this article shows DeSantis is way more amenable to the role of puppet than Trump would or could be. And you can't say he hasn't gotten results in Florida in line with the master agenda.
Spot on, Georgia. Jason Garcia does deep dives into all things DeSantis.
“ In fact, you could make a pretty compelling case that Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature have themselves become just another front group for these same superrich special interests.”
Georgia Fisanick: Yes. Exactly. "The real threat that needs to be called out is the unelected billionaires that are developing the strategy to take over government. "
Agree wholeheartedly. I’ve also suggested elsewhere that the CCC be reincarnated, to deal with the tragedy of America’s homeless and inner city poverty. But, no, the idea would never fly today. It would die on the cross of socialism. But yes, Joe Biden could channel FDR. The case against Google isn’t a bad place to start.
The CCC! Bravo. Spent 3 years of my childhood within walking distance of a CCC camp. My first dog would run off for the petting he got there and was regularly returned! The men kept the National Park clean and trim. Of course they were drafted or had jobs after Pearl Harbor.
I think the answer to the question you pose in the first graf may be "yes."
The MAGA morons in the House are definitely a distraction, to the extent that they divert resources away from governing and toward dealing with their b***s****; it also appears that a goodly number of them (I'm thinking Gym Jordan, Paul Gosar, MTG, etc.) are also too stupid to see where all of this is leading.
It's kind of a case of "We may be lost, but we're making great time!" -- except we're headed toward a cliff.
Absolutely. Nail the perpetrators (predators of democracy) behind the farcical adolescents pretending to be legislators. One example:
"Billionaires Cash In On Abusive Farm Worker Scam
To staff their agricultural properties, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and other tycoons are using a controversial visa program linked to labor abuses and human trafficking."(levernews.com. Sept 12, 2023) Notable too, for the reader, is in The Lever's reportage about the size of farm land real estate these tycoons are purchasing, and its negative impact on wages for everyone. Isn't it time to cap wealth?
Excellent advice! People like Leonard Leo are running the show, thinking they're doing it behind the curtain but it's as blatant as the sun in the sky....
Thank you Georgia for your links and your intelligence. Hard to believe how easy it is to come up with TRUTH if we look for and listen to the intelligent and brilliant educators and officials and even pundits who are not beholden to the crooks. In any century. Many of us read the same voices. But sadly many do not.
Wow thank you so much for this link. My brother follows Hartmann religiously. I am familiar with him by way of his excellent critiques of mental health.
The question is are the MAGA crazies in the House a bright and shiny distraction or are they too stupid to understand the grand plan of the Republican oligarchs?
Time for America to get a history lesson about when FDR faced down the "economic royalists".
Some eye-opening reports from Tom Hartmann shed light on this--and Project 2025 is just a revisitation on steroids of what went on when the Republican moneyed interests held government before the Great Depression.
Biden needs to start cribbing FDRs speeches and identifying the underlying threat to decomocracy--the billionaire republicans who are funding the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.
Too many Democrats are focused on Trump and Tuberville and MTG and the Proud Boys--the bright and shiny objects. The real threat that needs to be called out is the unelected billionaires that are developing the strategy to take over government. That is what FDR did, That is what Biden needs to do,
Here are the links to two of Hartmann's posts. He writes about this with much more eloquence and knowledge than I have.
https://hartmannreport.com/p/can-america-take-on-and-defeat-the-425
https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-shocking-gop-plan-to-dismantle-e60
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” -Thoreau
Some say the love of money is the root of all evil. Surely that's true when it's sociopathicly so.
How profoundly has "Reaganomic" deregulation of the flow and uses of money changed our governance and society over the last 40+years? Except for Muskovite billionaires, what does the average citizen have to show for it? Are we now a happier, healthier, more secure society? Is our anticipated future brighter than ever?
Teddy Roosevelt promise a "square deal", FDR, a "new deal"? How, after all these years, have Reagnomic "reforms" been anything but a raw deal?
Let's see....
Commencing his campaign against welfare queens in Philadelphia Mississippi, eviscerating the Air Traffic Controllers Union upon taking office, slashing taxes for the rich while smilingly reminiscing about his Gipper days while the resultingly starved governmental services withered, and their beneficiaries suffered, ignoring the first major wave of homelessness due directly to his policies, never mentioning the word "AIDS" while people died during the plague years, waging war against the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua while encouraging the first generation of treacly, creepy fascist, faux Christian warriors (Oliver North, looking at you)....
Raw enough so far?!?!
Reaganomics Tartare
Touche, Joanne!
BTW, to you, and to all the kind folk who seem to "like" my post here, I thank you all for your graciousness.
Thanks, Daniel Streeter, Jr., for giving something to be gracious about!
I see you knew the guy.
Reagan was likely already sliding into dementia in that early concrete thinking phase when he was elected to office
He even came in making certain that the hostages weren’t seen to be freed by President Carter.
Boy what a great summation of reaganomics. What damage that shallow self serving dolt did.
I just read a banned book ( goal this summer) called Boys Kissing Boys. It talks about 4 different circumstances of boys coming out. The point of the story is that there are "angels" or gays who have died commenting on the state of affairs now and when they were young boys, dying of aids. No one ever mentioned it. No research was being done.
Thank you, Daniel
J l Graham, excellent verbiage, square deal, new deal, raw deal. I think everyone can understand that plain and simple summation;language. Thank you
Great, succinct summary of all these deals. To me, the worst legacy of Reagan was the validation of Ayn Rand libertarianism, creating the false shibboleth of federal government as THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. That concept flies in the face of American political tradition, built on the concept of the social contract, and expressed in three short words. WE THE PEOPLE. Reagan’s raw deal created the conditions for the breakdown of America, and the fulfillment of Franklin’s prophecy, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
The rhetoric of the Reaganoid "GOP" is anti-government, and that resonates because some governments are horrible, and even the best of governments is unlikely to please all of the people all of the time. But Republicans routinely talk out of both sides of their mouths, opposing "government" when it troubles the rich or assists the general welfare. Hold that yardstick to the changes they have made and propose, and I think it commonly fits. When Reagan demonized "government" he was aiming at government of, by, and for the people. Not government that props up profligate mega-corporations, or bombs small countries, or arrests and indicts peaceful protesters. Not goverment that polices bedrooms. Societies are extremely interactive and many disparate things are happening at any given time, but how many Republican initiatives since Carter have not disproportionately enriched and empowered the wealthiest among us and not disadvantaged and disempowered the general public, or some already disadvantaged segment of it? Reagan was the smarmy salesman for plutocratic restoration the "Gilded Age". And then some.
J L Graham: Raw and Rancid.
Even putrid.
Thoreau. the great Transcendentalist, knew what he was doing. What Kenneth Burke called "Beyonding"--seeing beyond the "shiny objects" and working on the root killers.
WITH the root killers.
Why the constant focus on what republicans did many years ago? Democrats have had ample opportunities to make changes. Politics today are not a history lesson and I don’t think invoking FDR helps anyone decide how to vote. You want voters to overwhelmingly vote Biden Harris, then focus on common sense issues; cost of living, high cost of housing, controlling your own budget based on the taxes you take in now, and a reasonable approach for immigration to prevent the hammering cost for US cities. And Who cares what Thoreau said.
Historical perspective does matter, Paul, lest we fall into repeating our mistakes over and over again. And I, for one, do care what Thoreau said. Always seeing the larger picture is essential to moving forward. While aware of what has been done in the past, we can more wisely assess what is happening now, appreciate what is the same or different, and thus can in a more informed way focus on common sense issues to get out the vote.
Well countered, Carol T.
Not to mention: If you, Paul Lewis, see no value in reviewing Republicans’ past tricks and atrocities, scoff at invoking FDR or Thoreau, believe “Politics today are not a history lesson,” why in the holy heckenbob are you reading the brilliant Heather Cox Richardson?
There’s a difference between learning from the past-- I enjoy that hence why I read this newsletter, and harping on events that don’t win you elections.
Considering that at least two of your common sense issues are directly in the hands of business and a third (budget) is indirectly in the hands of business through government contracting, what measures would you recommend that the government take to reduce the first two and control the third? It seems that so many people blame government for things that are under control of business, instead.
I am of the opinion that "business" does some things that serve society very well, although "we the people" still get to prescribe rules for commerce in instances that are not serving the public interest, such as polluting or passing out opioids like candy. And some of the legitimate interests of our society are too vital and some powers too dangerous to NOT be controlled, supervised and provided by the public sector. I think many current instances of current "privatization" rage from a bad deal for the pubic, to just plain nuts.
Careful, you are on the verge of making the argument that republicans make- that there is little need for so much government given it’s ineffectiveness. I don’t have a set of great answers to your question. But just look at Housing. Nothing hurts housing affordability faster than rising interest rates. Those rising rates are wholly within the term of President Biden and he at least has the tool of budget proposals and he can use restraint in spending. I don’t know how he would tackle wage- price spiraling, corporate greed, or supply constraints.
This is why you need to understand history- your grasp of how economics works and its intersection with government will improve. One hopes. Your "analysis" ascribes things to the government that do not belong there. Example: housing affordability. You seem to have no understanding at all of how that works. For one thing, because something happens during the term of a given president does mean causation: it usually means that economic factors set in motion during the previous administration has finally caught us up in another mess. It's not up to me to educate you, but I can urge you to learn a little more about how things work before you eat any more shoe leather.
Home mortgage rates are set by the government? I didn't know that. On a more general note, I'd subscribe to some of what JL Graham says in his comment above: there are some things that government is better suited for, there are somethings that business is good at, and there are some things that religions are good at. My main point above is that business is seldom adequately held to account for its inefficiencies and inequalities, perhaps because by its nature business is a very diffuse endeavor. It's easy to blame government for things outside its control, if only because its a relatively unitary entity, and so easy to point at.
The fact that Thoreau said it does not make it true, but I think Thoreau and others have managed to state very cogent thoughts gracefully enough to be worth repeating and crediting. Also, often, valued quotations are already familiar to the reader, and citation points to a connection with a specific issue.
History, be it very recent or well in the past, is our only guide to what works and does not work, and why, is our only basis from which to project forward. We don't always call it history, but we learn from experience and and my extending and adjusting the logic of what has happened before. Newton spoke of stranding on the shoulders of giants. We also stand on the shoulders of many, many forgotten people to get to where I can type on a "wireless" device, and you can see it from very far away. Every one of us draws from an enormous pool of accumulated knowledge.
Useful to know, I think, is that we have fought with the seduction of plutocracy before in many forms, including the violence-enforced "supremacy" of feudal lords, and the so-called "Robber Barons" of the "Gilded Age". FDR was among those who helped empower the general public, helping end cynical hazards and exploitation imposed on the public by the overly powerful. And back in the day, his efforts were was popular. As part of a decades long general trend of reforms that a corrupted SCOTUS now rules illegal, the rights of the many abused people were advancing, and the "middle class" expanded. Plutocraticly bankrolled Reagan Republicans attacked that progress, and do to this day. And how has that worked out?
It seems to me that if people had a "good enough" sense of enough of the history of how things got to be the way they are today, many more would be making different choices. In particular; follow the money. It appears to me that reining in the power of exceptional wealth to interfere with the democratic process and a well informed electorate, is key to making better headway with the common sense issues you speak of above. For some, perhaps our whole species, it might realistically be the difference between life and death,
That what trumpers complain about are things some of things which Biden has no control of. Their big complaint is how much it costs to fill the tanks of their trucks. Trump's friend the Prince and Russia have put a cap on oil until Dec. We produce a lot of oil. I read we were the biggest producer, but I don't know. If we cut back on oil use, we might be more independent. Oil production has gone up. They blame Biden for stopping the building the pipeline which was supposed to make hundreds of jobs. They didn't look beyond their noses to see that only 50 people were needed to maintain the pipeline.
Besides the scary environmental consequences fossil energy, it also happens to come in a form that is easily monopolized. It means other nations can extort and threaten us by withholding it, and domestic companies can get away with extortionate prices. Republicans hate taxes that at least build our roads and educate our kids. What to monopoly pricing do for us beside make de facto lords of the very rich that often bankroll efforts to blunt or destroy democracy? What if we had been working far more seriously on alternative energy sources ever since Carter? Even Nixon was on board with that effort; and yet since the "Reagan Revolution" it has been opposed tooth and nail.
"Politics today are not a history lesson..." Oh, but they are, Paul. They reflect the past and unless we understand how things come to pass, we cannot understand how to deal with them. Your "common sense issues" are all based in events of the past which have set the trajectory of the present. Some of those dynamics were set in motion long ago. We need to explore and analyze history in order to deal with those issues. There are many first hand observers of what happened in the past who can shed important light on all those issues you mention. How we got in that mess gives a pretty good clue about what we need to do to get out. Whether you decide to use that tool for insight and understanding is up to you. But you might give it a try.
Thank you, J L
Classic JL...classic🤣
Dealing from the bottom of the deck...
Completely agree. And isn’t it something that Project2025 is not discussed on mainstream media!
Yes it is. That is why Biden and Harris have to talk about it. The media will only start reporting it if they start talking about it. And talking about it in historical context. Biden needs to invoke FDRs ghost across the whole breadth of FDRs policies, not just the social safety net issues. It would bring a backlash from the big money, but it might wake up some of those economically left behind in this country to who really is responsible.
Maybe Joe could start with "When America was last at this crossroads, FDR said..."
I'm not one to want to copy the past, but we can surely learn from it. In fact everything we have learned from is now in the past, Including the lines I read on this page. I think the future will always surprise us one way or another, but we rely on learned repeating patterns every day, like how to fry an egg. Some patterns should set off alarm bells, and others that may have rendered service in the past, fallen out of fashion, yet are available to reevaluation in modern circumstances. A lot of things Republicans claim would cause the world to implode proved useful in the past. You can't step in the same river twice, but "fortune favors the prepared mind".
You can't step in the same river twice, but "fortune favors the prepared mind".
Love this!
The bit about the river comes from Heraclitus who was a really interesting ancient Greek dude. Only fragments of his ideas remain and those recounted by others. He thought that reality was in flow. Many of the old Greek thinkers were astonishingly prescient, including, by credible means, calculating with surprising accuracy the circumference of the earth, within 50% the circumference of the moon, the correct order of the then observable planets, and the fact that they and we orbit the sun. Aristotle thought everything circled the earth, so that was that for the Middle Ages.
My eighth grade science book attributed "fortune favors the prepared mind" to Alexander Fleming who "accidentally" discovered the anti-bacterial qualities of Penicillin. But what he noticed took a talent for observation and the understanding to grasp it's extended significance, which illustrates the quotation. I have read that he did not actually use those words, but something like them; but I think it is still a powerful phrase even if, in the end, anonymous. It seems to me that this phase captures much of the means to innovation and resilience.
Thank you for that mini- lesson. Really appreciate that!
Look at Hitler. Made a deal with Chamberlain not to invade the Chechs. and then he went on to bulldoze his way through Europe, Africa, the Scandanavian countries, Eastern Europe. He even had subs off our coast, destroying our merchant ships. Now we have Russia trying to take over Ukraine with eyes on Latvia, Moldova, etc. He has Belarus in his pocket already.
Perhaps he should invoke both FDR and cousin TR. reiterate the best of the Square Deal & The New Deal changes that made America safer, saner, more civil.
It got a fair amount of mention in the WaPo and gets regular notice on MSNBC.
Not enough to drown out the facist propaganda TC. That propaganda machine has been going non stop for a very long time.
Some coverage like what's below from the AP but google it and not a lot comes up that is not from Heritage itself and conservative outlets.
https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981
Scariest is this C-SPAN interview from Paul Dans the head of Project 2025--which is now a "huge coalition" of more than 70 Republican groups to "systematically prepare" If you want a true hair on fire moment be sure to listen to the discussion of changes to the justice department and making is subservient to the presidential direction.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?530201-3/paul-dans-2025-presidential-transition-project
Georgia, Thanks for posting the link to C-span's interview with Paul Dans. I will have to go to their site after watching this.
The purpose of that project is to set up the next gop admin to throw out the Constitution and rewrite it using the convention of the states that the real DEEP STATE has been organizing for years.
There are now 19 states that have legislatively adopted the Convention of States position for calling an Article 5 convention to amend the U.S. Constitution. The necessary number to make this happen is 34. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/convention-states-constitution/
Precisely correct Georgia. Isn't it amazing that nearly everyone focus's on the distracters in plain view without questioning "Where do they get the seeming endless financing"? I've puzzled over much of that for 30 years or so. Along the way I had a theory and have followed the bread crumbs. It is the same that FDR faced, just a bit modernized and better hidden; the same breed of suspects learned and reapplied the learned lessons for this well planned attack, with help from U.S. adversaries. Nothing is beneath them. Nothing...
“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”.
-Edward L Bernays (the “father of public relations)
Bernays was a master at propaganda recognizing that indeed the wealthy are “puppeteers” who can control the public mind and compel people to act in whatever ways they want.
Trump along with many others has used all of the techniques designed to appeal to people’s emotions including using simple language, name calling, symbolism, fears, and attacks on opponents.
His whole act is orchestrated to distract and confuse the public. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “when evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hate, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love”.
Bernays concedes that propaganda is “psychological warfare”. Let’s hope that more people will see what’s hidden so evil does not win.
Gina-- So true, “Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”. -Edward L Bernays (the “father of public relations) -- Basic to the power of the Third Reich.
Agreed, Georgia, go after the puppeteers, not the puppets.
And the puppet-in-chief-in-waiting is.....
Ron DeSantis
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/conservative-think-tank-emerges-force-behind-desantis-campaign-2023-08-18/
As this article shows DeSantis is way more amenable to the role of puppet than Trump would or could be. And you can't say he hasn't gotten results in Florida in line with the master agenda.
He does have the look of a ventriloquist's puppet.
Spot on, Georgia. Jason Garcia does deep dives into all things DeSantis.
“ In fact, you could make a pretty compelling case that Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature have themselves become just another front group for these same superrich special interests.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/jasongarcia/p/the-billionaires-financing-union?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Manchurian Candidate . . .
Georgia Fisanick: Yes. Exactly. "The real threat that needs to be called out is the unelected billionaires that are developing the strategy to take over government. "
I am naive, but isn't there a limit on how much can be donated? Or do you go through Russian operatives to get more money?
Agree wholeheartedly. I’ve also suggested elsewhere that the CCC be reincarnated, to deal with the tragedy of America’s homeless and inner city poverty. But, no, the idea would never fly today. It would die on the cross of socialism. But yes, Joe Biden could channel FDR. The case against Google isn’t a bad place to start.
The CCC! Bravo. Spent 3 years of my childhood within walking distance of a CCC camp. My first dog would run off for the petting he got there and was regularly returned! The men kept the National Park clean and trim. Of course they were drafted or had jobs after Pearl Harbor.
I think the answer to the question you pose in the first graf may be "yes."
The MAGA morons in the House are definitely a distraction, to the extent that they divert resources away from governing and toward dealing with their b***s****; it also appears that a goodly number of them (I'm thinking Gym Jordan, Paul Gosar, MTG, etc.) are also too stupid to see where all of this is leading.
It's kind of a case of "We may be lost, but we're making great time!" -- except we're headed toward a cliff.
I like your analogy here, Andrew. "...lost but making great time" as we throw our democracy over the cliff.
Well said. We have worshipped money instead of sustaining democracy. Time to reverse course and try to save the planet and democracy for humans.
Absolutely. Nail the perpetrators (predators of democracy) behind the farcical adolescents pretending to be legislators. One example:
"Billionaires Cash In On Abusive Farm Worker Scam
To staff their agricultural properties, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and other tycoons are using a controversial visa program linked to labor abuses and human trafficking."(levernews.com. Sept 12, 2023) Notable too, for the reader, is in The Lever's reportage about the size of farm land real estate these tycoons are purchasing, and its negative impact on wages for everyone. Isn't it time to cap wealth?
Excellent advice! People like Leonard Leo are running the show, thinking they're doing it behind the curtain but it's as blatant as the sun in the sky....
Thank you Georgia for your links and your intelligence. Hard to believe how easy it is to come up with TRUTH if we look for and listen to the intelligent and brilliant educators and officials and even pundits who are not beholden to the crooks. In any century. Many of us read the same voices. But sadly many do not.
Thom Hartmann and Heather Cox Richardson are our lifelines for the chaos we've been living through. So appreciate both.
Thank you!!!! Georgia!
Well said, thank you for sharing the link. 👏👏👏👏
Thank you for those links.
Wow thank you so much for this link. My brother follows Hartmann religiously. I am familiar with him by way of his excellent critiques of mental health.