Skip to main content

Political thoughts

Mitch Mcconnell denying the raise was an principled act. Nobody gets a raise. We should recognize when demonized people stand for principle. Maybe he just did what the polls told him, but still it's in line with the philosophy instead of bare knuckles power grab.

I'm sure Trump has done such things too, just can't think of any off hand.

One party celebrates the winners, wants to get out of the way of these great people. Feels government is a hindrance. They were so sick of the idea of Hilary that they elected something far worse. There's actually a perverse joy in thwarting liberals by certain conservatives. They don't want to do anything, they are the party of doing nothing. They are quite happy to have Trump wreck up the place, despite him being the opposite of everything they believe in. They'll take his crumbs plus annoying the opposition over anything constructive.

I do believe that we need this yin and yang. There are unintended consequences of progressivism, no matter how much I love it.

One party thinks about the proverb that what you do to the least of us, you do to all of us. The other party sees that as rewarding losers. Instead we need to get out of the way of winners. Jeff Bezos played the game, and won. Leave him alone. The power of his substantial wealth is earned. Gates turned to philanthropy. Bezos wants to go to Mars.

The swings, between the 2 parties is mitigated by the Republican tactic of running up the debt. The conscientious Democrats can't improve entitlements too much under their leadership. Never mind that being so heavily in debt is against their so called core values, and that debt money lessens the value of it. A true patriot would not use this tactic. I feel very strongly that Republicans are not patriots. They utilize the rhetoric of patriotism best.

The Republicans would say, well, the enfeebling entitlements don't really empower people by giving them health care, housing, education and environmental protections they have not earned. You get those things through internal discipline. The individual is the thing, not forces of government.

The Republicans who like to get anti-Darwinian fundamentalists to vote for them, believe very strongly in the survival of the fittest (misreading Darwin btw). They are OK with cutting out the weak, not supporting them, to the point that they murder hundreds of thousands with the stroke of the pen, with their policies.

There is a bureaucratic underclass that is utilitarian and buffets the storms. We have become a paperwork society. Paperwork is also a tactic to push away people seeking entitlements, a tool used to dispirit the underclass.

It's a false choice. We can empower the individual and we can work on the larger social forces. We can run an efficient and effective government.

Savvy liberals ignore Trump. All he wants is attention. He's going to go down as our worst post war president, but you can't deny that he tapped into something ugly in America: Hate, resentment, and glee in others suffering. Minorities were not surprised but enlightened liberals are daily traumatized by his actions.

My hope is that the disgust for Trump, the desire for better angels, will swing Elizabeth Warren into office, and a return to the dream of supporting the middle class, for a living wage, childcare. As a social worker I realized that child care is a huge impediment to progress, and a huge factor in the inequality between the sexes. Child care would help all minorities as well. It would level the playing field. There's a kind of perverse desire to punish parents. It's a common sentiment to suggest that people should only have children they can afford. But Warren understands financial setbacks and the vulnerability of larger forces swarming up and swamping families. This is why I endorse her.

There are dangers in moving too left. To bring about communist policies. There is a reason Cubans vote Republican (not all of course), they don't want to move towards Cuban policies in any way. Che thought people should donate their weekends to farmers and work on farms for free. I think leisure time is sacred and don't want that revolution. What I want is people being saved by reliable health care, people developing because of good education, people living is nice housing. Republicans fear that people won't strive if people get things for free, without having to work for it. Republicans see the dark side of humanity and want to harness it. Greed is good. Never mind that Trump comes from a pimp grandfather, a KKK loving father, and he is a philandering luxury real estate tycoon. Tycoon is strong. He hid his taxes as long as he could because debt. Debt betrays a core value. It only in Hillary being the other option that conservatives hold their noses and support him, "Christians" hold their noses and support him. Let 350 children die every year for our love of guns, an element of the constitution that supported slavery even though slavery is not directly mentioned in the US constitution.

The big knock against Warren is her being thrilled to have a trace of Native American blood. Native Americans were offended, she's not really one of ours. The reality of the matter doesn't matter, it's the public's perception. They have demonized her the way they do Hillary and AOC. Warren has some fight in her, and yet, she doesn't need this to validate her ego. So many president candidates are all about chutzpah. They will eventually fall by their own hubris like Clinton did. Like Obama didn't. My favorite presidents have real character and are often characterized as ineffectual. Carter's "malaise speech" asked if America was entitled to inexpensive gas. Americans don't want to hear that. When gas prices go up, the TV stations dispatch a reporter to record the ire of citizens who don't like raising gas prices.

Time will tell if Warren can transcend negative characterizations by Trump in the American people's minds. The reality is that she is the populist candidate, but in the curiouser and curiouser world we live in, that is still up for grabs. Republicans fear the dancers in Kurt Vonnegut's story with weights on them to make them average. They want to soar. Global warming is just God's punishment for all the sinners.

Liberal glee is just as bad as conservative. The people who thought it was really funny that Christians petitioned Netflix to stop a show on Amazon Prime. Jeeze, how stupid can you get. My conservative relatives say, you can't teach stupid, and that perhaps is what the liberals are saying here. I think it's a mistake to think spirituality leads to stupidity but secular humanists tend to score highest on religion quizzes. Trump may very well win the cultural war and get reelected. He says he believes in God and that's good enough for most Americans. Jimmy Carter is probably the most Christian of presidents, but in our curiouser and curiouser politics Donald Trump is seen as the fundamentalist candidate.

Politics is a great place for the clashing of ideals and reality. So many contradictions drive people away, and it's that indifference that exacerbate people disengaging. One of the elements of reading deeply into Shakespeare is the ambivalence of his dense poetry and lack of personality in the writer. We know so little about him, and his plays don't have super duper messages even if people try to co-opt them. Tolerating ambivalence is an important human trait, and especially useful in politics.

I see Clinton as practically Republican and Nixon surprisingly liberal. Nobody is all bad or all good, but partisanship doesn't see things that way. There were crazy fights in the legislature in America, and we make fun of the fights in the Japanese legislature which is relatively young. Charles Dickens was shocked by the American legislature's barbarity.

America righted the wrong of slavery in the Civil War. There was no righting of the wrongs done to the indigenous population that were ghettoized. Native American women still disappear all the time, as if they are the least, the a vulnerable population.

To see vulnerable populations is a loser mentality. People need to rise up. Let's celebrate the winners. Never mind the transgender people who betray the patriarchy and wish to change genders. They are murdered. The atrocity of transgender murder and prejudice unseen. We've been waylaid into the bathroom issue. "I don't want my daughter going to a bathroom in an enclosed stall with someone who was born into the wrong gender body, and I only recognize as male."

America, and human in general, need more integrity, need to reach for the higher evolution. There is an important part in therapy where you open up to the feedback of others and work to reconcile the external perception with the external perception. America needs to do that now.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Character list of Inherent Vice the novel

Fay "Shasta" Hepworth played by Katherine Waterston in the 2014 movie Larry "Doc" Sportello: Our hero, gumsandal.  Shasta Fay Hepworth: Former beautiful love interest. Mickey Wolfmann: Real estate tycoon, Shasta's sugar daddy, paying for apartment in Hancock Park. Mrs. Sloane Wolfmann: wife. Has her own side piece Mr. Riggs Warbling Deputy DA Penny Kimball: lawyer from district attorney office, who fooled around with Doc for a time. Works next to Rhus Frothingham (female book, male in movie).  Aunt Reet: Aunt in real estate. "Bigfoot" Christian Bjornsen: Hollywood detective and actor. Married to Chastity. Spoiler: His partner Vincent Indelicato is wacked by Adrian Prussia, but Puck did the actual job. Mrs. Chastity Bjornsen: Gets on the phone on page 260 of the paperback to defend Bigfoot's day off from work. Calls Doc Mr. Moral Turpitude, accuses him of running up Bigfoot's mental health bills.  Denis: friend who he goes and gets a pizza with

Democracy or democrazy?

Admittedly the choice between corrupt democrats and corrupt republicans isn't the political choice I want. I'd rather vote my way towards fairness, elimination of poverty, anti-trust laws that fight the consolidation of corporations (you read about grocery stores lately?), education, infrastructure. What you do get is a vote for democrats that vote to end rail strikes ( source ) because they can't carve out of the profits a sick leave, versus reality denying, Russian bought, obstructionists who might lower taxes, and want smaller government. The Ron Swanson's of the world who hate government and work in government. I've been running into people who believe the corrupt choices aren't worth even making. Reasons not to pay attention.I've thought that a few times in my life, but I don't think that now.  There are real choices about health care for women, and even just an attitude towards democracy. It's hard to fight past the rhetoric, and understand eve

Consent

You couldn't have a better title to a memoir in these times. You can read about Humbert Humbert, and other male narratives, but the female narrative of the statutory rape is fulfilled by this book. I feel slightly ill while reading this book. What she goes through is off, and it's hard to put a finger on it besides  Hebephilia . All the collaborating details from her mother, to her doctors, to her father. Vanessa Springora will be remembered for other things, she is a director and a publisher. I'm not sure if  Gabriel Matzneff will be remembered for other things. At least not on this side of the pond. I do have a kind of jealousy for the appreciation of the intellectual life in France.  Matzneff cites Lewis Carroll , and others as having the appreciation for youth. I read his Wikipedia page. That led to other questions about photographers who take pictures of their children. That led me down a creepy path. As much as Springora tries to not make it sexy, I wonder how many