Oh Them Dems!

Nice job Democrats! You really nailed the messaging at your convention last week! I few technical glitches but great programing! With no second half of the season pennant runs to distract me, my political wonkiness lead me to take a peak at a virtual political convention.

Was I pleasantly surprised! It was entertaining and at times riveting!

The opening night singing of the national anthem brought me to tears. Yes, I am a patriot – disappointed and discouraged but still a patriot. Second place for the best singing of national anthem goes to the Chicks – loved their original harmony – they left me misty-eyed. Stories of people from all over the United States both hopeful and sad were told with great care and expert editing. The story lines were exceptionally interwoven into each night’s theme. The roll call of the states was WAY BETTER than live roll calls – watching it unfold sure left me hungry for calamary! Barak’s break with tradition was nothing compared to the bulldozer that The Donald has taken to tradition and decency, so it’s all’s fair in a battle for democracy. Julia Louis-Dreyfus was a welcome comedic counterpoint to the seriousness of the final evening. Finally, the much anticipated speech by Joe Biden, left me gaffless!

From a media coverage perspective, I tried a little bit of everyone. Was disappointed in PBS, CBS, and NBC. I finally settled in with MSNBC nicely done Joy, Rachel, and Nicolle. But it was in the 11^th Hour with Brian Williams that they really were the most entertaining and giddy. Very fun to watch the three exhausted hosts let their collective hair down.

So this week it is on to the Republican convention. The bar has been set high.

Please pleasantly surprise me again!

State of The Donald Address

Here we are a day before The Donald has to give his annual State of the Union address. It is an archaic requirement of the Constitution. Who knows perhaps The Donald can get the Supreme Court to do away with that too.

Here are my predictions:

• The Donald will talk about HE delivered “the biggest” tax cuts in U.S. history and how it will benefit the middle class. Two quick points: 1) It is not the biggest tax cut in U.S. history – JFK owns that. 2) The middle class got only a token cut – wow I guess I can take my wife out for a moderately priced steak dinner although certainly not Manny’s
• The Donald will tout how HE has made government smaller. This is true with almost all the cuts coming in consumer, financial, and environmental protection positions. Guess we don’t have to worry about consumer safety or Wall Street having another meltdown since we will not have air to breath or water to drink in the future anyway.
• Finally he will address the need to overhaul U.S. intelligence gathering abilities and that is where of course he will go off script for sure. Sadly that will make the headlines so no one will notice the emperor has no clothes on.

 

MLK Day & Violence in the U.S.

Martin Luther King was, in addition to being an icon of the movement toward civil rights, a champion of non-violent action to effect cultural and societal change.

We can profit greatly from his non-violent approach to the violent bigotry and hatred he faced in the culture of the United States in the 1960’s. However, in order to do that we must first understand what violence looks like in the early 21^st century.

While the same brand of bigotry and hatred Dr. King faced has never disappeared from the shadows of our culture there are some fundamental societal changes that have made it possible for them to re-emerge into the societal mainstream. So what allowed this almost unthinkable shift in our cultural norms to occur?

In My Opinion:

The root of these changes can be found in the historically disproportionate distribution of wealth that currently exists in the United States. The development of the huge, no mammoth, disparity in wealth has resulted in a politics of scarcity.

It is a politic that results in the average person being fearful of losing their piece of the economic pie. One that makes them focus on me and mine verses sharing in the common good for my neighbor and me. These same economic victims of economic violence are inclined to sit out any serious political action that might endanger their economic well being or status out of some misplaced fear of loss. Hence, the election of “The Donald” who promised he could fix everything for them.

This irrational fear of political engagement and responsibility is propagated by a government that is bought and paid for by the wealthiest 1% in the United States and bolstered by a media that is effectively owned and controlled by those same 1%.

Where is the moral outrage from our governmental leaders over the racial violence that is done by even civically allowing a conversation of the building of a wall? Obviously, there is none since the President of OUR United States can brand Mexico as just another s***hole country if he chooses and still be supported by his party to remain in office.

Where is the media’s social responsibility for bring civility to the public square? Obviously it has been sold to the advertising revenue bonanza of anonymous Political Action Committees that will soon be delivered to the detriment of an informed electorate. The only bastion of true news seems to be found in commentaries of late night comedians such as Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers. The only blatant cultural outrage to be heard in the media is coming from the likes of Jimmy Kimmel. So long as it’s not “real” news it is OK for late night, otherwise, I guess it’s just, well you know “fake.”

This is the root of our societal violence. It is a violence that is constantly and subconsciously directed on the middle and lower classes of our society. It is a violence that permeates our sensibilities and allows us to behave in ways that are less than fully human. It allows us to publicly sanction – BY OUR OWN INACTION – the most outrageous behaviors so long as it is not directed at us.

Dr. King would understand this economic violence as blatant racism directed at all people of color unless that color was the same as someone from say Norway.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

~ Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller

New Year’s Resolutions

I am not a big fan of the make ’em and break ’em New Year’s Resolutions but hey I did eventually lose the 25 pounds I vow to shed every year (it was 35 actually and for all the wrong reasons). Despite that I do like broader resolutions that require people to think and act about our culture such as the #metoo movement.

Anyhow here are the curmudgeon’s top 3 New Year’s Resolutions for our country/culture to work on in 2018:

Medicare for All

I’m not going to debate this. We are the richest country in the world and the only industrialized county in the world that does not provide basic universal health care for  every man, women, and child. The only people that benefit from our current non-health care system are insurance companies. Bernie has it right. And it will cost the government a lot less than our tax bill gives to the rich. Lets demand that the government stop playing political games with people’s health to appease the insurance/pharma/hospital lobbies!

Campaign Finance Reform

We need public campaign financing that outlaws private donations and any form of political advertising by anyone other than the candidates themselves. Reform that requires media outlets to carry a certain number public forums that includes all filed candidates as a part of their license to use the public airwaves, and finally that limits the campaigning to 6 weeks prior to the election.

Debate the details but this would:

• get the control of the election out of the hands of the 1% (remember we have the best government money can buy and the 1% has bought and paid for it).
• allow the best candidate to run for office and have a chance to win (have the democrats or the republicans really done anything lately except run candidates that can’t win and candidates that hate government respectively).
• allow representatives and senators to work on policy and actions instead of starting to run for re-election on day one of their current term.
• would be so much easier for the people to focus on an election if the noise was limited to a reasonable period instead of a one year or two year cycle of campaigning (we who live in Minnesota are in for a real treat of misleading campaign ads this year – thanks for nothing Al.)

Impeach Donald Trump

OK this is pie in the sky but I can only hope we can somehow get rid of this buffoon who not only demeans the Office of President of the United States but also its citizens!

 

Happy New Year!

 

 

Obituaries

Apparently I have arrived at that point in my life where I read the obituaries in the morning when I read the paper. Not to find out if I’m listed although there are some mornings I’m not so sure. Rather I find myself reading obituaries to see if anyone I know has died. Yes a number of friends and acquaintances I know have passed in recent years and seemingly at an ever increasing rate. Living in the same metro area that I grew up in certainly adds to the list. May they all find eternal rest!

As a regular reader of obituaries there are just a couple of things that I find quirky.

First of all are the pictures. I know that people look fabulous when they are young. But I didn’t meet your aunt, uncle, mother, father, sister, or brother until they were in their 80’s. So a picture of them from before I was born doesn’t help me to know if the William Anderson in the obituaries is the person I knew.  I mean how much time do you think I have to read the paper in the morning anyway?

The second thing that I find amusing is including the “nee Blickendurfer” when a woman has died and is survived or predeceased by her husband of 65 years. OK I get that the whole ancestry thing can come into play for some future family genealogist. But, was Jay really that bad a catch seven decades ago?

The last thing that bugs me about obituaries is really a slam on me. It is the “full notice to follow” obituary. Rather than going to my computer – yes I read a paper paper, I know I’m such a luddite – to visit the mortuary web page I expect there to be a full notice. You see I’m actually quite lazy. And of course, the full notice doesn’t always appear in the paper. Was that the Bill Anderson I knew? Heck after a couple of days I’ve forgotten all about Bill. I guess at a certain age you start to become forgetful too.

Now, what was that last thing about obituaries that I was going to mention?

Monday Morning Curmudgeon

I had to take a month off just to catch my breath and watch the Sleight of Hand that has been Washington in the Congress’ first month and The Donald’s first weeks. It has been a freak show and a belly up to the public trough for corporations and the ultra rich. Who do you think is paying for bank deregulation, (did we lose our memory of the great recession – I mean is there a sane person that thinks banks need less regulation), the elimination of regulations restricting natural gas flaring on public lands (who needs clean air and less carbon emissions), and the removal of regulations regarding water pollution cases by mountain top removal coal mining (heck coal miners don’t drink water anyway)?

So how did we get here? Who’s to blame?

One culprit is the main stream media.

No not the internet crazies but the main stream media that covers every idiotic tweet that The Donald makes. You might think that the biggest things he did were his immigration orders blocking refugee resettlement and starting to build his wall. Did you fall for the Washington Sleight of Hand? The courts have intervened in the immigration freeze (you do need to trust our institutions or we are truly lost) and there is no money to actually start building The Donald’s wall. But that is all the media reported because it was controversial and guaranteed to get them a bigger audience share than actually explaining about mountain top removal coal mining – boring.

FYI – the stage is set for the next cover story, the confirmation of Neal Gorsuch. This will be covered to the max because everyone loves to watch a street fight and the Democrats will provide lots of action as revenge for the Republicans refusal to consider the Merrick Garland nomination.

This will be great theater but it does not actually serve the citizens of the United States and in fact limits the flow of information on what is really happening in Congress.

Other co-conspirators are the ultra rich and their Super PACs.

Ok, I don’t necessarily want to pick on the Koch brothers but they are such an easy target. Charles and David Koch provided the initial funding for the Cato Institute. They are key donors to the Federalist Society, the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Institute for Justice, the Institute for Energy Research, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute. Their primary PAC was Citizens for a Sound Economy now called FreedomWorks. It  was co-founded by David Koch in the 1980s. In 1990s, the brothers created the spinoff group Citizens for the Environment and  its affiliated Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation which became Americans for Prosperity. These organizations and PACS are all conservative organizations that needless to say reflect the Koch brother’s commitment to “free market” economy including health care and are the front line for climate change deniers. These groups appear to add legitimacy to fringe viewpoints that do not benefit real people at all. The Koch brothers (and other ultra rich PAC funders) spend a lot of money on political advertising and the creation of political propaganda targeted at confusing uninformed middle class citizens. In short they have more money than God and they know how to use it.

The real perpetrators of this societal meltdown are you and me – the hicks!

Do you actually believe that a MULTI- BILLIONAIRE president will do anything meaningful for middle class families? In the words of Willie Stark from All the Kings Men:

Now, listen to me, you hicks. Yeah, you’re hicks too, and they fooled you a thousand times, just like they fooled me… Now listen to me, you hicks! Listen to me, and lift up your eyes and look at God’s blessed and unfly-blown truth. And this is the truth. You’re a hick, and nobody ever helped a hick but a hick himself!

We have bought into the Washington Sleight of Hand. We bemoan our presidential choices and stayed home on election day. Who do you think benefited from that?

We bought into the myth that a man who thinks nothing of stiffing small businesses for the work they performed, declares bankruptcy 6 times costing hundreds their livelihoods while he continues to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous actually cares about us middle class hicks.

Worst of all we became so focused on the dysfunctional presidential race that we largely reelected the same Congress that had at 74% disapproval rating only to have a Congress with a 76% disapproval rating at the end of their first month in Washington.

Isn’t it time us hicks wised up and started to get involved and informed about our government and our world. a world that may not outlast The Donald.

In the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson, lets “Make America Smart Again.”

Monday Morning Curmudgeon

Why do we have ONLY a two party system? Can there be no other way? I thought that in a democratic republic anyone could be elected to represent us.

Sadly the deck is stacked and other candidates who are on the ballot in all 50 states don’t even get to be heard on a national television.

Shame on the Commission on Presidential Debates for failing in their mission.

Shame on TV journalism for failing to take the initiative and inform the public in what could be a monumental moment in our history.  Edward R. Murrow must be turning over in his grave.

Free speech isn’t free any more it goes to the highest bidder!