This is a mashup of something from the news and a suggestion from someone on Twitter.
I don’t believe it necessary to say anything more. Do you?
Category Archives: Politics
Time to be Thinking Hard About Our Future
I wrote and posted the following on my Facebook Timeline and shared it with several groups to which I belong:
The feedback has been positive, with the exception of a few Trump supporters in a local community group known for the number of people on it who are averse to anything negative about their “dear leader.” I posted it there on purpose, just to stir the pot a bit.
As the corona virus pandemic continues to spread across the U.S., and people come to grips with how it’s going to affect them, I’m seeing more and more posts from folks outlining just how hard the most vulnerable among us (economically) are going to be hit, even if they don’t get sick at all.
If ever there was an argument for universal healthcare and a strong, resilient social safety net, if not UBI or a socialist economy, I think this might be it. Our fear of socialism is actually a fear of authoritarianism, but the two are not inextricably intertwined. Also, we’re already living under an authoritarian regime and it’s only going to get worse as long as Republicans have anything to say about it.
Donald John Trump, and every one of his brain dead sycophants, represent a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of the people of the United States. Everything he does, every choice he makes, is predicated on assuaging his fragile ego and is aligned with his re-election campaign and his economic interests. Even when he appears to be looking out for the nation’s economy, it is only inasmuch as it affects, and reinforces, his own financial interests. He needs to be gone immediately but, thanks to the greed and avarice of the Republican party, we will have to wait until near the end of next January to remove his worthless ass.
As John Pavlovitz posted on Twitter recently:
This President didn’t create this virus, but he ignored it, denied it, joked about it, weaponized it, politicized it, and exacerbated it. He is culpable for the chaos and the unnecessary illness, and yes, the preventable deaths because of it—and his supporters are too. This is the human cost of the MAGA cult delusion, and we’re all paying for it now equally.
https://twitter.com/johnpavlovitz/status/1238127737031864321?s=20
I have one disagreement with John, however. We’re NOT paying for it equally. The most marginalized of us will suffer far more than those of us higher up on the economic food chain. Since I’m semi-retired and, when I do work, I can work from home, if school is cancelled my youngest, who’s still in high school, will have someone at home to care for her and my oldest, who works with 4th graders through our local Boys and Girls Club, will also have a comfortable home and whatever she needs until school resumes. They will not go hungry, unless we’re forced to stay inside for longer than a couple of weeks.
There are millions of children who depend upon school breakfasts and lunches to get a good, reasonably nutritious meal (sometimes the best meal of the day) and there are lots of parents who cannot afford to miss work should they be required to stay home for a week or two. I have no doubt many on the right see this as a matter of survival of the fittest, but I can’t go along with such a callous view of how we are to function as a society.
We are social animals and we thrive when we take care of each other, recognizing that we are all dependent on our collective strengths to overcome our individual weaknesses. It’s time we recognize this basic reality of our humanity . . . and pay homage to it by lifting all boats, not just those of the wealthy and powerful.
The word ‘equality’ shows up too much in our founding documents for anyone to pretend it’s not the American way.
Martha Plimpton
Photoshop Efforts (cont.)
I think I’ve mentioned before I am experimenting with, and getting better and better at, using Photoshop . . . mostly for creating political commentary, though with other applications in mind as well. I did a fair amount of work 12 – 15 years ago with Fireworks, a product of Macromedia (since acquired by Adobe, creators of PS) related to Dreamweaver and Flash.
Fireworks was quite similar to PS, so much of what I learned back then was applicable when I started using PS. However, the latter is far more feature-packed and useful, IMO.
Here is my latest, quite simple creation, inspired by a tweet, which I will also share. First, the tweet.
Here’s the graphic. I first posted this on Twitter and Facebook with the face from a photo and without a filter. After I looked at it later on, when some had commented on my posts, I realized it would likely look a bit better if I used an artistic filter, so I applied one with brush strokes. I do think it blends a bit better this way. What do you think?
Screw “The Rule of Law!”
Can we please stop using the phrase “Rule of Law?” The law has been used in this country for some of the most racist, vicious, and nefarious acts committed anywhere and it’s not, IMO, a useful phrase. Better that we use “Equal Justice Under the Law.” Here are a just a few examples of laws that have been passed or rulings that have been handed down that make the point:
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 – At the time it was passed, Chinese were only .002% of the population, but white people were worried about maintaining “racial purity.” Like today’s fears of immigrants, it was claimed they were taking jobs from white Americans.
People v. Hall – 1854. In this case, the California Supreme Court ruled that Chinese people had no rights to testify in court, adding them to the language of the laws at the time that stated “No black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be allowed to give evidence in favor of, or against a white man.”
The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was facilitated by numerous laws and Executive Orders, including EO 9066, signed by our “Democratic Socialist” President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. My own in-laws were forced to assemble at Santa Anita Racetrack, where they resided in captivity until they were transferred to the Granada War Relocation Center in Colorado (AKA “Amache”) where they were interned for over two years.
Slavery – The laws supporting slavery are too numerous to recount here, as each state had its own “Slave Codes,” which were designed to give slave owners absolute power over their slaves, including forbidding slaves to even defend themselves or their family. In many, they were forbidden from learning to read or to leave their plantation without written permission. All of these restrictions were perfectly “legal” at the time.
The history of the U.S. and Native Americans is rife with treaties and acts continuously taking away land or forcing entire communities to leave their ancestral lands and move to less desirable locations, as well as hundreds of treaties which were broken by the U.S. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced the removal of five tribes, culminating in a forced migration later known as the “Trail of Tears.”
There are numerous instances in history, especially notable ones being the laws passed in Nazi Germany making it unlawful to aid Jews and providing for their imprisonment and extermination.
All these were done under the color of law, e.g. the “Rule of Law.” We need to stop using this term. As I noted above, “Equality Under the Law” seems far more on point if we’re interested in freedom, justice, and equality of all peoples.
Lindsey The Pilot Fish
A few days ago, Rolling Stone Magazine published an article entitled “How Lindsey Graham Lost His Way.” In it, Steve Schmidt – former campaign manager for John McCain – offered his assessment of the type of person Senator Graham is. I thought I would memorialize his words on my blog in the hope others will see it digested from the original article, which is located here. What follows are two statements from Schmidt, both of which are acerbic and revealing.
“We see more examples of this in film and literature, but there are instances of principled men and women laying down their careers in service of what is right. Clearly, that person will never be Lindsey Graham. With regard to the cruelty and abuse that was directed at John McCain by Trump, I think Lindsey’s flaccidity in defending him says a lot about his character. Nobody wants to be in a bar fight when they go out on Friday night. But when someone walks up and punches your best friend in the face, you’ve got to do something. Lindsey has demonstrated he’s the guy who runs out the door.”
“People try to analyze Lindsey through the prism of the manifest inconsistencies that exist between things that he used to believe and what he’s doing now,” Schmidt says. “The way to understand him is to look at what’s consistent. And essentially what he is in American politics is what, in the aquatic world, would be a pilot fish: a smaller fish that hovers about a larger predator, like a shark, living off of its detritus. That’s Lindsey. And when he swam around the McCain shark, broadly viewed as a virtuous and good shark, Lindsey took on the patina of virtue. But wherever the apex shark is, you find the Lindsey fish hovering about, and Trump’s the newest shark in the sea. Lindsey has a real draw to power — but he’s found it unattainable on his own merits.”
Thread by @djrothkopf: “Just got this via text: “You are a retarded kike. You dont want to win 2020. You enjoy complaining about Trump.” It was accompanied by this […]”
I want . . . no, I need to share this thread. Although I have been an atheist for most of my adult life, I was born a Jew and am bar mitzvah. I feel it is incumbent upon me to stand not only with my fellow Jews, but also with all those who suffer oppression, prejudice, and hatred. I am not a public figure, so I have not been attacked like David, but if this keeps up (and, especially, if Trump is re-elected) we can expect things to get worse, perhaps a lot worse. Don’t think it can’t happen because this is America. As David points out, America is responsible for the slaughter of our native peoples and the enslavement of Africans for centuries. Our hands are hardly clean. We need to be prepared for the worse, all while working to bring about a better world for all.
Thread by @djrothkopf: “Just got this via text: “You are a retarded kike. You dont want to win 2020. You enjoy complaining about Trump.” It w by this and other anti-semitic art. This is Trumpism. The instances of this & worse happening in my life […]”
My Twitter Suspension
Uh oh! Ricky’s been a baaaaad boy. This is what happens when you suggest a man surrounded by secret service protection and the best medical care in the world experience something everyone’s speculating he’s experienced already. The man responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of needless deaths and who knows how much misery. The man who vilifies those he represents and spews a constant stream of vile, hateful lies and deceptions. The person who violates Twitters rules on a daily basis and suffers nothing for his transgressions. And, of course, there’s precious little I can do about it. I will appeal and suggest context matters, but I can’t even be sure what I was responding to. I think I know what it was, though, so I’ll go that route.
Golly gee whiz! I sure hope I didn’t hurt his feefees or anything.
Bribery or Extortion?
A lot of airtime has been spent over whether or not Donald Trump offered a quid pro quo to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Many astute commentators, however, have pointed out that a quid pro quo is not necessary in this case and, in any event, the real criminal activity here is either bribery or extortion. I would argue that it’s actually both. Let’s look at the elements of bribery.
- The individual being bribed is a “public official,” which includes rank-and-file federal employees on up to elected officials; [President Zelensky is most definitely a public official, as is Donald Trump.]
- A “thing of value” has been offered, whether it’s tangible (such as cash) or intangible (such as the promise of influence or official support); [Lots of cash was offered to Zelinsky. This is the “Quid.”]
- There’s an “official act” that may be influenced by a bribe (such as pending legislation that may have a direct impact on the party offering the bribe); [The Ukrainian government was to make an official announcement it was conducting a corruption investigation into the Bidens and the DNC server. This is the “Quo.”]
- The public official has the authority or power to commit the official act (for instance, the official is a senator who is voting on a particular piece of legislation); [Two Presidents . . . duh!]
- There must be the establishment of intent on the part of the bribing party to get a desired result (the intent to sway the vote by handing over an envelope full of cash); [The “transcript” of Trump’s call and plenty of testimony], and
- The prosecution must establish a causal connection between the payment and the act meaning there must be more than just a suspicious coincidence. [Again . . . lots of testimony from highly credible witnesses to the ongoing attempt at extortion].
It’s become quite clear the American public is a bit uncomfortable with the Latin phrase, quid pro quo and, in fact, as previously stated a definitive “this for that” offer isn’t necessary. Given the totality of the evidence so far, it’s quite clear to anyone who is really paying attention—and understands how the law works—Trump was using the threat of Russian violence to extort an announcement of (at the minimum; actual investigation as they real object) an investigation into Burisma and Hunter Biden.
It can also be argued, at the very least, that Trump was also soliciting a bribe from Zelensky before he would release the money Congress had already authorized for military aid to the Ukrainians. Also offered, in exchange for such a bribe, was a meeting at the White House for President Zelensky.
What’s important to realize is there is no reason to dwell on whether or not there was a specific quid from quo (an offer of something in exchange for something else) to find Trump was engaging in extortion and (as previously noted) at the very least solicitation of a bribe.
That Trump is a common criminal and con man, who has managed to grift his way into the highest office in the land, should be quite obvious to all but those who are now deeply enmeshed in his cult of personality. What this says about that swath of the populace supporting him is quite uncomfortable to fathom. Regardless, I’m looking forward to his impeachment and, if we’re fortunate, removal from office of this deeply deranged and hateful man masquerading as an actual President of the United States of America.
A Forgotten Limerick
Looking through some of my old writings, many of which have never been published (some because they’ve never been finished,) I came across this limerick. It’s dated December 3, 2013.
Fox newscasts, so chock full of hate
Render truth an impervious gate
They so often dissemble
We can’t help but tremble
With hope they will soon meet their fate
Systems Savvy 