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.

The on-going scourge of Social Media

The wife and I made an escape last weekend. After three months of work from home, of only making one trip per week. to the grocery store, wearing my mask. we decided that we needed to get out of the house, more specifically, I needed to get out of the house.

So we decided to pack our bags, our masks and around 2 gallons of hand sanitizer to make the trip to our "local" casino in Lake Charles.  We spent a fun weekend gambling, losing, eating good food, drinking good wine and cocktails, sitting in a pool cabana on Sunday, and generally just having a grand time.

Yes, we wore our masks, we had sani-wipes and used them to disinfect every machine that we sat down to, and we wore our masks for the most part, except if we were sitting at the bar drinking and playing video poker, at which point it seemed a little silly to keep them on when we'd have to touch them repeatedly to pull them down and keep drinking.

Was there a risk of contracting COVID-19?  Yes, probably so. But at some point we have to return to living life in the safest way possible, but we do need to get back into the swing of things and start being productive again. Virus gonna virus, we just have to adapt to our new realities.

We need human interaction, we are social animals after all.

What I did notice is that, after 3 months of lock down, my human interaction compass was mightily skewed by the cesspool that is social media.  If you believe Twitter, every conversation surrounding race etc. is fraught with anger, name-calling, one-upmanship and online "owns".  Drop the mic moments seem to be the goal, and there's no room for nuance. no room for those little moments in Houston interaction that allow for understanding.  Twitter. especially is a cold, brutal place full of awful people whose only reason for existing is to injure others. Not physically, they don't have the guts to do that, but there are different ways to ruin people's lives. You know about "SWATting" and you've certainly heard of "cancel culture" by now, these are just some of the ways bad actors on Twitter go about stifling debate.

Twitter is where the "Karen" meme revealed itself, and it's where the worst of humanity is placed on a pedestal to be mocked, knocked down and humiliated, where mob-rule is the rule and the powers that be seem little inclined to police their huge bot problem.  The government's "solution" to this is to cudgel them into submission, or extinction, by removing their "platform" privileges and making them responsible for what's posted by their users.

Like any government response, this is not going to work, it's only going to push cancel culture underground where, in my opinion, it becomes more dangerous.

The good news is that regular, decent society still does not operate like social media society but the gap is getting smaller., mainstream media reporters, too lazy to work their beat, scour social media for unvetted memes and broadcast them nationally, without question, and without applying journalistic principles such as verification and corroboration. This is leading to social media creep into polite society and, unless we do something to stop this, we're going to live in a society where mob mentality rules, and rule of law goes the way of the Dodo.

It's a big problem.  We're still, just, in a place where decent humans can have a polite conversation on difficult issues without resorting to cancel culture and mob anger.

Humanity needs to keep that, or we're going to regret that it's gone.

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: The Slow, Gradual re-opening of our souls

Over the weekend we started to see some very public signs that the world was coming out of its State-mandated slumber.

In Germany, soccer was played, albeit without fans, but real, live soccer was played. Here in the State's there was some golf. Granted, not the PGA style golf that we're used to, but players lugging around their own bags, being miked up, and only one guy touching the flags, while another one carried around a rake, was at least something. NASCAR held a race, again without fans, and for the first time in six weeks we had to be nervous for the driver when watching a wreck.

Some, not all, States are allowing some businesses to open. Here in Texas restaurants can once again welcome some customers inside to dine, nail salons and barbers can paint nails and cut hair again. Little signs of normalcy. (Side note: get that hair cut folks, some of you are looking a little rough)

Since this was, and might be again, a gambling blog, it's important here to discuss casinos beginning to slowly reopen. Louisiana, my 'local' allowed casinos to open today, and they have, at 25% occupancy and with strict protocols in place. I am not going to be one to rush out of visit.  As it stands now I'm planning in the 2nd half of June for my first foray. I'm looking forward to it. A nice long video poker session coupled with a Tito's and soda (or three, or four) is just what this writer needs.

The point is that people need interaction, we're social creatures after all, for the most part anyway. As this went on and on and drug out there was evidence that people were finding creative ways to get out and do things. This seemed to be working out pretty well in most places but, in a few States (California & New York for example) we saw that the worst crime in the world was defying the rulers. Governors who emptied the prisons of criminals were fining and locking up people who had the temerity to question authority. 

Maybe it's not a coincidence that the States suffering from the worst outbreaks, also have some of the worst elected officials, who were wrongly given glowing coverage by the media before the true stories started coming out?

The long and short of this is that no reopening plan, even the most thoughtfully crafted ones, will be successful without you.

I don't mean in terms of getting out. That decisions is up to you and entirely dependent on your circumstances. What I mean is that IF you decide to go out, the success of this plan is going to depend on you practicing social distancing, wearing PPE effectively, and continuing to practice good hygiene.

Until we get an effective vaccine this is going to be the new reality for all of us and I don't think that's going to change soon.  We're going to have to adjust and get the economy moving, and get people's jobs back so that they can care for their families.

Doing this the correct way should determine whether or not we have to shelter in place again.  I say SHOULD because I'm not sure that it WILL based on what we're seeing from our rulers today.