The Biggest Political Lie that You Believe

As the Government Shutdown Grinds on and Federal Employees Continue to not Receive Paychecks......

Well, not your Congressional Representatives and Senators, THEY continue to get paid, the media continues to allow one of the biggest political whoppers, typically uttered by sub-par Congressional members, to continue apace.....

“It would be very strange for the American people to have weighed in, in support of Democrats standing up and fighting for them, and within days for us to surrender without having achieved any of the things that we’ve been fighting for,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. (Emphasis mine)

They're not "fighting". Full stop. No politician "fights". They bloviate, they sit together and eat caviar and drink sparkling wine, they go to fundraisers masked as dinner parties, they stroll around D.C. laughing with their families and friends, but they don't 'fight'.

The myth of the brave, fighting Pol is one of straight fantasy. And it leads us to poor government and even poorer representation. It draws focus from statesmanship and quality leadership to silly things like red tennis shoes. And the creaking, aging media eats it right the eff up. Honestly, they love this shit. It gives them the vapors.

But the uneducated, useful idiot loves it. From further down in the article....

“Moderate Senate Democrats who are looking for an off-ramp right now are completely missing the moment,” said Katie Bethell, political director of MoveOn, a progressive group. “Voters have sent a resounding message: We want leaders who fight for us, and we want solutions that make life more affordable.” (Again, Emphasis mine)

Of COURSE you do Ms. Bethell.  Because you're stupid, shallow and don't understand that they're not "fighting" for you, they're working to increase their power base, regain control of the Houses of Congress and maybe score some choice committee positions that will help them attain their true goal of rewarding their political patronage.

Yes, you want "solutions" that will make life more affordable. Yet you probably supported the pandemic subsidies that (in part, not in whole) led us into this mess in the first place. You want affordability without having a basic understanding of how things work. You want Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, filibustering so hard that he passes out on the Senate floor. What you get instead is Chris Murphy, with his hairdo and make-up applied for the camera, regurgitating words that some staffer gave him to say.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: We get the government that we ask for, and we get it good and hard. In this case we get it without lubrication.

I've no doubt that, eventually, this government shut-down is going to end. The end will not come, however, as the result of some brave "fight" put up by a milquetoast. It will come when both sides start to feel the wrath of an electorate that's had enough and then one side or the other will choose to just stop "fighting" (read: showboating for the cameras) and will be forced to capitulate.

The other side will then claim victory and will cast their "opponents" (read: co-conspirators) as weaklings who lacked the strength of courage to continue keeping on. They will then all congratulate themselves on a job well done and retire to wherever it is that they meet up to smoke cigars and sip Brandy.

Of course the media will eat this up and the cycle will continue.

News Round-up(10/2/2024)

 Wars and rumors of wars.......

Saying the quiet part out loud. - It's never been about stopping climate change. It's always been about a redistribution of income from wealthy nations to NGOs and other quasi-governmental firms who will then tell the poor what to do.

That's quite the increase. When you  have elected leaders who truly believe that property ownership is theft from the government then you get results such as these.  If you don't already have a plan for an exit strategy out of Harris County you should start planning one.

As a matter of fact, a Texas exit strategy might not be a bad idea. The problem, and their are many, with Texas Democrats right now is that they have been out of power for so long that they are angry, and are going to overreach and are going to make life miserable.  The best thing for Texas right now would be some balance. I do not think we're going to get that, and I think the reversal is going to be stunning. Mostly because of a lack of adults in any room in government.

The biggest news story people are not paying enough attention to. This could be a big deal. In large part because the head of the union appears to be a low-functioning idiot who cannot even remember his 3 main talking points without having people remind him of what they are. I don't begrudge them their pay requests, but fighting against technological upgrades is akin to an old man hollering at the clouds. For this to get resolved the union is going to have to appoint a leader who can speak into a microphone without spitting on the first three rows.

Did you watch the VP debate last night? I did not. Nor did I watch either of the two Presidential debates. Kamala is a tool, Trump is a narcissist. No matter who wins, America loses.

BadScience People can say whatever they want to say when there are no repercussions. 

Will the last business to leave California please turn off the lights? The problem with government by boogeyman is that you, eventually, will run out of boogeymen to blame all of your problems on.  Eventually the people will look to you as the culprit.  Of course, by then they're probably too poor and there are no jobs left to matter anyway.

I really hope that this is the last we hear of Anna Delvey

RIP Dikembe Mutombo One of the great Basketall big men and ambassador's of all time.  And one helluva commercial star.

RIP Pete Rose. One of the most controversial baseball figures of all time. Both one of the greatest hitters and, apparently, one of the worst betters to ever grace the game.  In an age where games are sponsored by FanDuel and DraftKings it's time to relent and put the man in the Hall of Fame. at this point the hypocrisy is through the roof.

And finally...

One of the reason's we continue argue about climate change is that the arguments of the climate warriors are based on lies and logical fallacies. No one involved in carbon capture is suggesting that it is a silver bullet that will 100% solve the problem, yet that is what the climate warriors are attesting. 

In fact, the world HAS made some progress on carbon reduction and, China, India and some other nations notwithstanding, the Western World has taken steps to reduce their carbon omissions. But the climate warriors want stupid goals like "zero carbon now" and "just stop oil" which would plunge the world into economic chaos, kill Billions, and knock us directly back to the dark ages. Perhaps they do want a return to the days with the Catholic Church was the font of all knowledge and truth?  Of course, this time around it would not be the Church, it would be the United Nations.

Think about how scary that thought is.

I'm already bored (and done) with this election season.

If you spend any time watching the Olympics then you undoubtedly know what America Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been told to believe in by her handlers. (read: Barak Obama's people)

Yes, we get it. An America where the working class are suddenly given things that two decades of Democratic rule have taken away from them. a fair shake for the "working man" and....abortion.

It's Hope! It's Love! It's Fairness!  It's leading to endless dreck like this and this.

Please make it stop. At this point, between the hokey media coverage of Harris/Walz and Trump's continuous droning on and on and on and on about well....himself, the campaign has already grown tiresome.

If you've read this blog for any period of time now, you know that I gave up on politics a long time ago. I don't vote, I just don't care. After 23 years of working with governments at all levels at my place of employment I've learned that it doesn't really matter who is in charge, which party gets to claim victory. The graft and political favors just go to different people, but they still go regardless of who is in power.

Whether it's a Democrat or Republican government they're still going to make sure your taxpayer dollars go to their political patrons. The people who supported them and got them into office are going to get PAID, it's just that the names on the checks are different.

And the politicians themselves are going to engorge themselves on the public largesse. Yes, even bastions of the little guy like Bernie Sanders and "The Squad" are getting rich off the public teat. The only good place to be in an authoritarian government is in the Politburo after all.  You (and I) are not there, they are.

While there might be some window dressing around the edges that looks a little different the window of politics for both parties is the same. For Democrats, they want to make sure that the people who have been with them since the days of Al Gore making a movie that contained multiple factual errors get theirs. For the GOP it's their friends in the petrochemical industry.

That energy security probably means a mix of oil, solar, geothermal and nuclear is not the point. You government doesn't give a shit if you freeze in the dark, as long as their political patrons get paid. And the greatest crime against humanity is that our politicians have wasted Trillions of dollars trying to prevent climate change instead of investing Trillions on how to DEAL with it. Leadership?  You wish.

So now we're facing a long, bleak election season with the top of the ticket race being a match-up between Barack Obama's Avatar and.....The Orange One.

The honest truth here is that, no matter who wins, we all lose.

Public Health and the Future of Travel: How do we Solve a Problem like COVID-19

News out today that Clark County, NV is considering a new mask mandate for everyone indoors in public places regardless of vaccinated status makes me wonder what the point of getting the vaccine was? Couple that with Dr. Anthony "I'm lying because my lips are moving" Fauci calling for EVERYONE over 2 years of age to wear a mask, vaccinated or not, and it's becoming pretty clear that COVID-19 is going to be with us for quite some time. 

As much as we wanted it to go away, it won't. At least not anytime soon.

Never-you-mind that the media is STILL continually getting it wrong, acting as if the vaccinated cannot catch COVID-19 instead of recognizing that the vaccine makes you far less likely to get seriously ill should you be exposed and that you're most likely to be either asymptomatic or just feel like you have a cold.

When it comes to COVID-19 misinformation, the mainstream media is potentially the biggest offender of all. I'm assuming the Twitter suspension for those reporters is not forthcoming.

This is a big problem for you if you have travel plans in the future (as I do).

Planning for your casino trips just got a lot more difficult because it's hard to know what is going to be open, what, if any, capacity limitations are going to be in place and whether or not you're going to eventually have to provide some proof of vaccination to do much of anything?

I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't.

In a perfect world the clear answer would be "Get vaccinated and you should be fine" and the promises that we were given that if we got vaccinated we could return to something resembling normality would be borne out.

My feeling however is that was never really in the cards.

Our ruling class had to know that there was going to be a healthy level of vaccine hesitancy among the general populace and they HAD to know that this was going to cause COVID-19 to continue it's spread. Given that they never seriously looked at vaccine passports or something along those lines they also had to know that keeping restrictions in place, and limiting business and people, was always going to be a long-term strategy. While I do not think that mass lock-downs will ever be back on the table (they were wrong-headed, never before contemplated in pandemic response and utterly ineffective, often causing worse consequences than the virus itself) I do think that there is no small portion of the ruling class that LIKES wielding this new-found power and doesn't want it to go away all that quickly.

No, that's not a conspiracy theory, it's human nature. The missing village idiots who are in charge of things really only want to be both loved and feared as smart and powerful. Sure, they will mask their edicts in the language of "for the children (or helpless)" but it's really about exerting more control over those that can help themselves.

So, what are we going to do about COVID-19?

For now, we're probably going to have to put the masks back on, regardless of how idiotic this is for people who have 2 doses of vaccine flowing through their veins. The alternative is to refuse to wear a mask and risk arrest. A rather ironic false-choice being given to us by people who often call for the decriminalization of non-victimless crimes. Hey, if that's your thing, go for it. I, for one, would like to stay out of jail.

Depending on your feelings toward vaccination getting two jabs probably really is your best defense for the time being. Not perfect by any means, but better than nothing, assuming you have not previously caught it and have contact immunity that is. I have been fully vaccinated but have many friends who, for one reason or another (not all of them conspiracy theorist stuff) have chosen to not. So, we have to suck it up and wear masks, and listen to people screaming that they're useless. Another good idea would be a re-emphasis on social distancing. Hopefully you're all washing your hands, practicing good hygiene and covering your mouths when you cough/sneeze.

None of these things are perfect, but they do seem to help.

My biggest fear is that some local dictator types are going to try and reinstate lock downs.

They were not terribly effective the first time around and there's little reason to believe they will be the 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th, depending on where you live). Unless you are insane. Which, given the actions of the ruling class is a definite possibility.

Stay safe.

The Attack on the Holy Temple Will NOT go Unpunished.

 Yesterday was ridiculous. There is no other word for it.

If you've not paid attention, and I would not blame you if you didn't, yesterday possibly the most motley group of protestors ever 'stormed' the US Capitol with the sole intent of disrupting the Congressional certification of the Electoral College vote for the 2020 US Presidential election.

It should come as no surprise that the ruling class is viewing this as a Holy War. Upon reconvening every Representative or Senator was afforded the chance to record themselves a future campaign ad where they rallied around the iron tree of Democracy and were allowed to denounce the protestors in one form or another. Many (Democrats) called for Trump to be impeached, many (Republicans and Democrats) denounced this 'unprecedented' attack on Democracy and all but stripped the humanity away from the protestors, suggesting that they might be willing to support stripping away their rights as well.

Of course, all of this was done after they had emerged from their "secure locations' some of them remaining cowering in lock down hours after the Capitol had been cleared.  "Fighters" for the little man indeed.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D - The village that's missing it's idiot) took the booby prize however when he compared this dust-up with Pear Harbor.  I shit you not.

As is custom these days, social media erupted. On the Left there was rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, as well as, not surprisingly, a surprising amount of blood lust as many called for pain and death for the rioters. On the Right there was a desperate search for equivalence and hypocrisy, as people desperately searched past tweets of Ilhan Omar, AOC and others for Tweets in support of BLM and Antifa (and they found them).

Reactions went from falling on the fainting couch and rending garments, to wishing pain and death on all of the protestors, even IF they did not partake in the storming of the Temple walls. There were many calls for Trump to be impeached or removed from office via the 25th Amendment. Twitter, of which I am a member, fell rapidly into a sewer of bad takes, name-calling and otherwise intelligent people losing their damn minds.  I've taken a break from the platform for a few days to allow these spleens to fully vent before I return.

If you're looking for a trend here, it's this: The protestors who entered the Capitol and scared a bunch of politicians were not simple political protestors taking things too far. No, while that may seem what it is you're viewing this through the wrong lens. What this was, to the ruling class, was a sullying of the Holy See of America and an attack on the Religious Order to which they worship.

In short, the invaders were attacking the House of God. This was sacrilege. 

And the punishment for it should be Biblical.

This is why the Democrats are suddenly the DC Police best friends, despite spending the entire year demanding they be "defunded". This is why Republicans have fled from Donald Trump despite initially backing him and showing willingness to dispute the Electoral count to bolster their own political aims.

From that perspective this is a very simple matrix.

Joe Biden is God.

The Democrats in Government are his Angels.

Donald Trump is the Devil.

His supporters are the Demons.

The ruling class views this (falsely) to be American Armageddon. 

In reality, we are not witnessing the fall of Babylon at this moment, but it could not be too far away if our ruling class is not up to the job.  Early returns from Biden ("America is better than this") and Obama (America needs to come together in support of Biden and his policies) are not promising.

You Cannot Block Every Horrid Person on Social Media (That doesn't mean you cannot try)

 I'm writing this Tuesday after logging off from work, looking at news stories featuring horrid fires in California and Hurricane Laura bearing down on the Texas/Louisiana State Line.

I'm also coming off a stint on Twitter, America's cess-pool, and I have some thoughts on all of this that you may, or may not (if you're one of those Twitter turds in the pool) want to read.

Firstly, it's become very easy for us to project our personal hatred on whatever Golems we have personally created as evil incarnate, onto the poor who are left with precious few life choices and no easily attainable options.

Many look at those displaced by the California fires and their first response is: "Well, they voted in these stupid liberal Democrats who refuse to clear the underbrush so....they deserve it."  

Or you may look at the people in the petrochemical industry in Lake Charles and think: "Big oil is going to super heat the Earth and kill mankind so.....they deserve it."

But, do they? Really?

I'm here to tell you that no. They do not.

Instead of your haughtiness and disdain they deserve your empathy and (most importantly) support, if you can provide it. In most cases the victims are of the innocent sort, poor, overwhelmingly minority and the exact same people that the Caucasian BLM supporters claim to be in support of while simultaneously tearing down.

Yes, the oil/gas/petrochemical industry is not an environmental saint, but they also provide meaningful, living wages for many in an area that offers few. In fact, in many areas of Southwest Louisiana the only employment options are petrochemical factories, casinos, or the service industry, none of which are valued by society's "elites", despite the fact that these same "elites" would break out in hives if they had to perform the duties of the serfs.

The are overwhelmingly poor FWIW.

"Well, they can go get green jobs" is something that you might say.

You can say this but that would be incorrect. Because, you see, even in the most pie-in-the-sky "green" plans the mentions of "good paying, green jobs" are always something that fit under the "to be created" category, something the Government promises will materialize but has no meaningful plan to produce. In short, there are no jobs. It's either the factories, casinos, hotels, restaurants or these retail shops that people are stuck with, or nothing at all.

"Well, they can MOVE" you counter.

Except they cannot.  For the most part these are very poor people, living paycheck to paycheck with few options for escape. They don't have the savings to up and move, and to ride out the time that it would take for them to obtain a new job. In many cases it's the safety nets in these states where they have no options, that keeps them where they are. It's also families and support systems that anchor them in place.

Secondly, these things that you hate, Republicans, Democrats, the ruling class, Evil Big Oil, is really anger directed at the ruling class.

The dark secret to all of this is that it's not the ruling class who is going to be feeling the pain. The Executives and politicians in areas that are burning in California are in no danger, they've traveled far away, in most cases to their 2nd or 3rd homes (Even Bernie Sanders, that great Socialist, owns 3) and while they will suffer some property damage they can either write the rules in their favor for help (politicians) or have plenty of insurance to make them whole (executives and...politicians).

The ruled, what's left of the middle class and the working poor, don't have that luxury. In many cases they lose their only residence, are forced to evacuate to a shelter, and have little ammunition to fight the insurance companies in the manner the ruling class has.

It's the same for the people in Lake Charles, who are looking at losing everything with nothing in their arsenal to combat it. Their communities are looking at the very real prospect that they are going to be destroyed, not partially, but utterly and completely blown away.

Today, on Twitter, I have blocked almost 100 people who used this tragedy to pile on, to make a political point against the opposite side. I will continue doing so. While I believe it is impossible to block them all I am going to continue to do so. Not because I don't want to hear opposing points of view, because I do, which is why I leave the comments on here, but because I do not consider their points of view to be valid. I don't believe that any point of view that cheers on human pain and suffering to be relevant or worth listening to. Do I believe they have a right to say it? Yes, but I also have a right to tune them out. You do as well.

Lastly, much of this rhetoric is force-fed to us by the media and the ruling class. They feed it to the masses to try and divide us, to keep us from realizing where the true power lies. The most 'vital' Democratic function you can do is to engage, it's not to vote (which is actually the laziest form of participation in a Democracy). A voting populace who then tunes out is an elected official's dream. It's the media's dream as well, because they NEVER HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.

But an engaged electorate, who holds the elected officials to the rules and laws that they themselves lay upon the ruled, is the most powerful function in a healthy Nation, and it's the one that takes the most work.

If a politician breaks the rules? Have them indicted.

If the media tells lies? Make them go broke by unsubscribing or not watching.

If a company deals unethically? Force them to fire the board and executives.

But stop punishing the ruled and working class, because they haven't done anything wrong. Much like you and I they're just trying to get by the best they can.

And help those in need.  Because now the need is worst than ever and the ruling class is less likely than they ever have been to do the job they were hired to do.  It's up to us.

2020: Our Rulers have no Clothes (or Clues)

As we roll into month six of our never-ending partial lock downs it's becoming increasingly apparent that those we unfortunately elected to rule us have little clue as to what they are doing, or what they're going to do, going forward to get us out of this mess.

Unfortunately, because the entire country views things through a partisan lens and scored via zero sum, whether or not you think your ruling class is doing a good job is directly related to which party you pledge fealty to.

Granted, few people rise to the rank partisanship of Paul Krugman (who is, without a doubt, one of the worst thinker/writers in the US) there are writers across the political spectrum who are using this ongoing public health disaster as nothing more than a chance to try and amass political power and shame their political opposites into the dustbin of history.

Ironically, Democratic thinkers are ignorantly starting to parrot Karl Rove, dreaming of "permanent majorities" due to the self-immolation of the Republicans. Of course, no majority is permanent and eventually a ruling party will begin to eat itself from within. Look no further than the Republican Party in Texas, or what's going on right now with the Democrats in California.

My feeling is that Texas will not "flip" in 2020, but it's going to be close.  I'm not even sure in 2022 or 24 that will happen, but many so-called pundits will continue gaining paychecks assuring us that it will.

The real issue is going to be a potential Biden Presidency, which could prove catastrophic for long-term Democratic plans. Biden is low-functioning at this point, and that's as big of a concern as is the ego of Donald Trump.

America could use a firm hand on the tiller right now, but there are no adults in the room that seem capable of guiding this listing ship.  The rocks are getting closer, and we seem intent on sailing directly toward them waiting for them to move out of our way.

This is not a Democrat/Republican issue, it's a Ruled/Ruler one. The Ruled are getting destroyed on every level, economically, health-wise, freedom-wise, and in public safety. The Rulers are continuing to find creative ways to do nothing while trying to look like they're doing something in desperate attempts to draw your eyes away from their utter incompetence in handling both the pandemic and the issue of systemic racism.

Years from now historians are going to look back at 2020 and wonder just how it was a country with so many advantages squandered them so quickly and elected such a low-functioning, vile, group of people to rule them.

I used to think that, at some point, the populace will wake up, take a good hard look at the situation and come to the realization that we've made a complete hash of this. Instead we've got a group of rulers who cater the the Twitter mobs, who have no idea what an average citizen looks like or feels, and is more comfortable mingling at a DC cocktail party dining on lightly braised swan than they are shopping for groceries in their old neighborhood.

Finally, your elected officials are habitual liars. For all of her fawning media coverage AOC's voting record is fairly in-line with Nancy Pelosi's diktats, except in issues where a bill's fate is certain and the parties allow representatives to "bet their conscious" (shouldn't they do that on every bill?) Ted Cruz talks a good game, but he rarely votes against what the party heads say. He just talks a lot to be perfectly honest.

There's no governor that understands what they have done or what they are doing, and don't throw Cuomo in my face, his order to nursing homes requiring them to admit elderly COVID-19 patients likely killed hundreds, if not thousands, and our Mayors are even worse. (fining the poor $250 for mask non-compliance is the most Sylvester Turner of all Sylvester Turner's moves to date)

The reality is the USA is currently a rudderless ship where the crew is drunkenly scrambling around the ship looking for the Captain.  Unfortunately, the captain has already abandoned ship.

Grab the braces, set the sails, and steer your own damn ship away from the rocks.  We can find calmer waters, but we're going to have to do it ourselves, the old fashioned way, relying on our communities to band together, give the ruling class a strong middle finger and dealing with this mess ourselves.

One last note:  Carolyn Goodman got her "Las Vegas experiment" and it has not gone well 

To be fair though, very little has gone well in regards to COVID-19 primarily because the ruling class has squandered every bit of their credibility and continue to do so.

Social distance, wear a mask, practice good personal hygiene and take care of your self. What we've learned during this mess is that the ruling class will not do so. They're to busy getting fitted for invisible clothes.

Winners (and losers) and the destruction of wealth 'in these times'

As we roll into the dog days of Summer there's still much concern about COVID-19 (rightly so) but we're starting to see our ruling class increasingly pivot to crocodile tears for the majority of folks that are going to be casting votes come November.

In-between made-for-TV accusations against one's political enemies of incompetence, corruption, stupidity and down-right evil is a sudden, manufactured concern for those who have lost their jobs due to forced closures, fear-mongering and general ham-handedness by the very same rulers.  Suddenly people being out of work, broke, and holding no hopes for the future is less a reality brought on by shuttering the economy, and more the result of......something the other tribe has done because they don't care sufficiently about the poor and suffering.

It's never about policy, it's about "feels".

The battle lines here have always been simple: It's the ruling class against the middle-class, and the rulers have all of the power over the ruled and there's little the latter can actually do about it.

Oh sure, you're told you can vote, but what is the difference between voting for a Corporatist party and voting for a Socialist party?  Both want to remove the largest amount of money from you that they can, to distribute to their political patrons, the only difference is where they want the money to go.

There will always be winners and losers, even in a so-called "fair and just" Socialist system. The ruling class in Soviet Russia had dachas while the ruled waited in long-lines for bread. At least straight-out strong men were honest about what they were doing. The only difference between a Bolivarian "revolutionist" and an African strong-man was one of marketing.

As such, the only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is one of messaging. Republicans have not, in recent times, done a very good job of conveying their message. Democrats have done a very good job convincing the ruled that removing their money and freedom from their control is in their best interests. The ruled have lapped up their message because of the unending drum-beat of government competence, this despite the fact that we see constant reminders of just how incompetent our government truly is.

Yet, time after time, we see the government cause a problem and we're told, in the media and by the ruling class, that the solution to the problem is MORE government.  Look as schools for example, America's education system is a cesspool of poor administration and corrupt unions. It has as little to do with education children as "climate-justice" has to do with stopping climate change. Yet we're told over and over that the "solution" to the problem is more money, more putting children into failing schools, and more funding.  Funding, by the way, that will not, in most cases, go to the actual education of children, but into the coffers of political connected organizations whose goal is increasing the bottom line.

As COVID-19 continues to work its way through the population, and a communicable virus continues to do what a communicable virus is going to do, we're now being force-fed a happy myth of bailouts and stimulus checks and the horrific lie of universal basic income, the idea that the government should provide everyone with just enough money to scrape by, the central premise of this being that the only thing worse than being poor is having the temerity to believe that one can make a living income without the benevolence of the ruling class.

How to pay for all of this?  The scourge of the moment is the "ultra-rich". They seemingly have an endless bag of money that could be distributed to the masses if only the government had the will to tax them until their eyes bleed.  Just don't pay attention and realize that the entire combined wealth of the hated ultra-rich couldn't fund Medicaid for a year, much less in perpetuity. 

What we're left with is an angry populace that's wondering when they're going to get theirs, when the rich are going to be placed in the public square and be forced to answer for their crimes of success while being pelted by organically sourced, non GMO tomatoes.

Ah well, at least we still have our freedoms......oh...wait.

2020: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Firstly, and this might come as a shock to you, I'm an upper middle-class Caucasian male.  As such I'm not going to use this format to lecture you on how you should feel about the Black Lives Matter protests that are currently ongoing.  I'm not going to tell you how to feel about it, I'm not going to lecture you on what you're doing wrong in thinking about it.

I'm just going to say that I have no idea what minority, especially Black, Americans are going through but I understand they are angry and empathize with their feelings that nothing has been being done about it for quite some time, decades even.

I will also say that THIS is why we have the 1st Amendment, to allow the people to gather and protest the government and ask for redress from grievances. 

So, some good can come from this. We can have some change, the demilitarization of our police force for one, a re-look at some of the policies that allow police to use smaller charges as smoke-screens for blind-searches for bigger crimes, for an end to no-knock raids and for meaningful change withing the criminal justice system.  Ending qualified immunity for the police would also help (and might do the MOST to help FWIW).

Harder to end is going to be the Blue Line. The idea that police protect their own, that some will look the other way when a crime by other officers happen, that's a bigger issue that's not going to be resolved by a politician giving a speech, or passing a law.

Hard truth: You're never going to 100% eradicate racism. In a perfect world yes, it would be possible but this is not a perfect world and we are not perfect animals. You cannot police minds, even minds holding beliefs as fundamentally wrong as this, thinking that a person's worth is contingent on what color of skin they were born with. There will always be lesser animals among us. How we deal with this is going to say just as much about us as it does about them.

My hope is that something meaningful, fair and just comes out of this. My fear is that the solution is going to be built out of anger and opportunity instead of justice and fairness. America has a pretty sad track record in the Western Hemisphere of tearing down old regimes and putting in place something sensible that works.

Our biggest problem is our reliance on both the Republican and Democratic Parties to run our political system. We've co-opted our democracy not to corporations, but to two groups of influence-peddlers who's primary goals are score-keeping and dividing up the Country in the false hope of gaining a "Permanent Majority".  Because of this we forget the greatest truism in America:  "It's US (the People) versus THEM (The Government) when it comes to protecting our rights.

I can hear people now: "But the Government is there to protect our rights."

This is not true, our rights are there to protect us from the government, full stop. The Government can only protect our rights IF our rights come from the government.  And if they did, what the government provided they can take away.

Granted, there are times when flawed government policy strips people of their rights, which is why we have the Justice System, and why (despite what people say) the War Between the States was fought so long ago*.

At the end of the day however, it's the provision of the people to stand up to the government and demand their rights be recognized, which is what you're seeing today in these protests that are spreading across the globe. Man does not grant rights, they are natural, given by whatever higher power you believe in. They cannot be stripped away by government unless the people are compliant and give their permission to have them taken away.  This is true, obviously, in cases where force is not invoked to remove rights. That's a post for another time**.

Again, my purpose here is not to lecture you on how to feel about that. I have my feelings, you have yours, and those people out there marching have theirs.  And they're doing a very effective job getting their message across.

Do I have worries?  Of course I do.  I'm concerned about the rumblings of military deployment to try and quell the violence. The military is not a scalpel it is a broad sword. I am concerned that our tendency to turn things from discussions and dialogue into a lecture is going to result in backlash. This issue needs meaningful discussion, not a dressing-down of anyone who looks or thinks differently.

This feels like a key moment in history. It feels as if we have a perfect storm of circumstances, COVID-19 lock-downs and the resulting economic collapse, have freed people from the trappings of work and are allowing this to continue longer than it normally would. That means that this will go on longer than the normal news cycle and, with an election upcoming, some legislation might be passed by a Congress with an eye on re-election.  That legislation is almost certain to be partisan and rife with unintended consequences but I think something gets done.

Which leads me to my last point:  The solution to this issue is not simply electing more Republican or Democratic politicians, depending on your political point of view.  Many of the atrocities that have happened have taken place in cities under Democratic rule. Many of the legislative drivers of these problems have sprung from Conservative State Houses and Washington D.C. 

Anyone telling you that the solution to this problem is to "Vote Blue" or "MAGA" is simply regurgitating the advertising campaign of two of the biggest money collecting agencies in the US today. 

The answer to all of this is to elect politicians who espouse workable policy goals with which you agree. Then, and this is the tricky bit, to hold them accountable by un-electing them if they don't produce.

If they are successful and advance policies you like? Then by all means vote them back for a 2nd term. But if they don't?  It's up to the citizenry to vote them out, even IF that means casting a vote for the other "side". This is where, as a society, we have failed. It's also why we're still looking at Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnel's ugly mugs on TV cameras still.

That is what we need to change, and it's also why we continue to fail because we have not, as a society, shown a propensity to wish to do that.  Until we do meaningful change is never going to happen, no matter how many protests we decide to hold.

*Despite what we hear the "Civil War" WAS fought to eradicate slavery. The "State's Rights" that were being contested was directly related to that.  And yes, I do think that having Confederate monuments in the US is odd. It's one of the odd instances in history where the losers got to tell their tale.

**Slavery was a taking of rights by force. Anyone who says otherwise is being ridiculous. True 'fascism' (not the politically convenient meaning we use today) is the deprivation of rights by force, as is communism, and "seizing the means of production" FWIW but people do not want to recognize that depending on their political leanings.

COVID: How to navigate the partisan waters.

Trump is either the worst President in the history of the United States of America, OR he's the best we've ever seen. There can be no middle ground.

You must either shelter-in-place in your home, ordering delivery and staying 20 feet away from every other human lest you die, OR you march on State Capitols in protest, bearing guns and try your best to not be associated with the grimy creep hoisting Nazi symbolism. There can be no middle ground.

Either we're all going to die, OR we're doing an unprecedented job. There can be no middle ground.

You've seen the stories, you've watched the news, you see the breathless missives on social media and, if you're like me you think: "What a load of crap!"

I've had discussions with people who, with a straight face and without a hint of irony, suggested that people can go outside provided they be willing to forego healthcare services. For the good of society. I've also had people suggest I want people to die because I'm starting to side against the lock down model of Coronavirus prevention, leaning more toward opening up with social distancing while working hard to isolate the more vulnerable among us.

The problem, today, is that this is now considered to be "radical" by some. With the media constantly feeding us a steady diet of panic, turning otherwise harmless interactions into psuedo-racist assaults, with the health experts lumping in ANY COVID-19 symptom into the Novel Coronavirus buckets, and with government generally doing a terrible job providing meaningful virus data, it's getting real hard to try and remain a calm, measured realist in an increasingly freaked out world.  What am I on about?  Think about this. When you see a statistic that says "[insert your State here] has had a grim day with the highest count of New COVID-19 cases EVER!!!!" it really means nothing absent more information about the number of tests performed.

More tests, means more cases, not necessarily that the pandemic is getting worse. Nor is it clear, yet, that this soft-reopening is leading to a so-called "second wave" as breathless young J-school grads are implying.  In fact, in a cruel twist of irony, medical providers are LOSING money, and in some cases filing for bankruptcy during a PANDEMIC.  That's just insane when you think about it.

Are some of the protests occurring the master-plan of "far right activists"?  At some level that is possible, but the more likely scenario is that people without work, and without means of feeding their kids, are getting sick and tired of having parks closed, not being able to get their hair cut, and not being able to provide.

On the other side the conspiracy theory du jour is that those mean, evil Democrats are intentionally killing the economy to damage The Bronzed Ego which would put Captain Creepy Confusion into the White House.  Possible?  Yes, but if you've been around any politicians for any period of time you'd soon realize that they couldn't conspire to open a can of beans, much less pull off something this complex.

The more likely scenarios are this:  We have allowed ourselves to be ruled by low-functioning idiots. They type of people who, as in the Biblical tale, are more likely to bury their wealth in the Earth rather than invest it. They are a risk-averse lot who's worst fear is not "having people die" but instead being "blamed for having people die" on their watch.  It's bad for being re-elected you see.  Yes, there is an element of Torquemada in some of these mini-despots, they crave the power, need the power to assuage their egos. But, and this is important, for the most part their Poly-Sci degrees don't give them the intellectual bandwidth to have a full concept of what they are really doing. So, they're playing it safe.

As for the protesters?  Most of these people just want to get back to work. Most people on the beaches are practicing social distancing, but are being made to look like their not through dishonest camera angles. Most adults with an even half-functioning brain understand, and will comply, with social distancing and will wear PPE if the local Pinochet's will just stop with the overreach and the rule by angry diktat.

If there has been any bad actor in this crisis it's the media. America's so called "5th Estate" has long abdicated their role of being America's watchdog, and has devolved into America's fear-monger. That's a problem, and I don't think there's an easy fix because the Emperor is completely unaware that he is sans clothes.

The United States are facing a mess of issues right now, and partisanship, plain laziness, institutional incompetence and downright dishonesty, have made it damn near impossible to get any semblance of the straight story.

And this is where it falls on you.  Because, in these United States since, oh the 1970's, we've fallen down on our responsibilities as citizens. We have handed over the administration and resolution of all things to an increasingly all-powerful government, asking them to deal with issues that they were never constructed to handle. We look at media stories uncritically, demanding that J-school grads with no real-world experience on the items on which they are reporting convey truths with 100% accuracy. We expect companies to be our gate-keepers for bad things.

Every step of modern life now is about having someone else do things for us, for relying on others to be the holders of our common sense. Then, when things go pear shaped, we look at those to whom we've outsourced our security for recompense.

The only way to resolve this is if enough people start taking control of their own lives, to stop screaming at our institutions every time something goes wrong, to force ourselves to spend time doing the important things rather than creating Tik-Tok videos.

Will it be hard?  Yes.  Does this mean that we're totally on our own?

Of course not.  because government does have a role and serve a purpose, corporations do have a role and they serve a purpose. The media has a crucial role and serve a vital purpose to the proper functioning of the Republic.

And we have a purpose as well. A critical one, a vital one. One that we've refused to perform for quite some time now.

Let's use this pandemic to change that.

Creepy ads

I don't know who matches up the pictures to the ads on some websites, but the pictures are just scary.

If you click on those ads you have something wrong with you, especially the kids head and hands for learning a new language ad. Creepy.

The end of American Civilization. (Part 1)

These are pictures I took today at the Houston Boat Show. What you are seeing is the fist step of the end of America: fake fireplaces in vehicles designed for camping.

And people thought it was a great idea.

We're done.