The demise of the American worker—hint, it’s no accident

What ‘they’ don’t want you to know about the American economy, and the average American’s place within it.

For over 50 years now, starting with the Reagan administration, corporate America has consciously and with cold-blooded premeditation, waged war against Americans. They doubled down in the 1990’s, by deciding the only way to respond to competition from overseas companies that profited by abusing workers and paying starvation wages, was to do the same here.


The steady erosion of the middle class is a direct result. Any time you hear a corporate CEO say something like, “It’s the only way we can stay in business,” what they really mean is, “It’s the only way we can maintain the level of profit demanded by our wealthiest investors.” The most effective way corporations have of ensuring profit levels that make people like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and their ultra wealthy investors happy, is to take an ever larger slice directly from the American worker.


Insane housing costs, and especially ridiculously out-of-reach apartment rental rates, work in exactly the same way. The next time some apartment manager or executive dares to use the phrase, “We’re just bringing rates up to market,”—or something similar—interpret that to actually mean, “We’re just taking every last possible penny out of your sorry ass in order to make our largest investors richer, and we’re doing it because we can.”


Never buy any lie about trying to benefit “all” investors, which implies they it’s for the “mom and pop” investors too. Small investors make up an infinitesimally small amount of overall investment. The stock market is about “the average American” in the same way as a war is about “the people in the fox holes.” When you read about the state of the “economy,” you are actually reading about what’s good for Wall Street, i.e. the wealthiest among us, the top 1-5%. It is as meaningless to the average American as those last few french fries you toss away are to you.


The truth about the American economy, and the well-being of its citizens lies in the earning power, things like the ability to live in a decent home, provide for their children, including sending them to college, have access to good, affordable health care, plan for retirement, etc. Every time you are told something about how many jobs were added to the economy, your response should not be “Oh, that’s good.” It should be, How much do those jobs pay? Are they full time? Are there health benefits? Can that person live comfortably with that pay and those benefits?


Simple fact: If wages had kept up with inflation and productivity since the 1970’s, the minimum wage paid American workers would be somewhere between $25 and $32 per hour (depending on which chart/source you get your information from). Why is it not?


Through the first three-fourths of the twentieth century, American workers could live in a decent house, provide for their children, including sending them to college, have access to affordable (not free) health care, take a vacation without having to indebt themselves to a credit card with a 20%+ interest rate.
That has changed, not as the result of a world-wide economy, but as the direct result of the response to a world-wide economy by the wealthiest 5% of Americans who are damned if they will make any adjustments to their own grand lifestyles. It is a response as cold-blooded as John Wick, to devalue the American worker across the spectrum.


Only we the people can decide what we intend to do about it.

Republicans Continue to Fight Against Equality in Voting Rights

Republicans are once again fighting tooth and nail against the John Lewis Voting Rights. Behind all of the outrage and hyperbole of their determination lies one simple, unavoidable truth. The Republican party sees people of color as second class citizens existing under the management of white supremacy. And they have a couple of powerful tools at their disposal, both given to them by Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, yes, the founders of the nation themselves.

It becomes increasingly obvious that the founding fathers (for whom my long-standing respect slowly but surely decreases) made two enormous gaffes that virtually eliminated the “..all men are created equal.” statement in the Declaration of Independence.

1. The Electoral Collage, which continues to this day providing the most racist and most hateful minority of Americans with the means to undermine—if not effectively eliminate—the rights of the majority, most notably those of people of color and non-evangelical “Christians.”

2. The assignment of federal election governance to the individual states. Certainly, states should have control over those elections held within and electing officials within that state and that state only. However, it is beyond any level of logic or legitimacy for federal elections, assigning seats within the national government’s executive and legislative branches, to be vulnerable to the prejudices and whims of individual states. …It is the very definition of insanity for national elections not to be run under rules, procedures and accountability set forth by the national government, and applied by the national government uniformly and equally within all states. If the first gaffe allowed democracy to be held hostage by a minority of the citizenry— as it did and does—the second was a virtual surrender by fiat of that democracy. One can only wonder why the intelligent, much adored and very nearly deified founders should make two such complementary and, potentially fatal, ( in terms of our democracy ), “mistakes” at the same time.I think we are well past the point of needing to question the real motivations of our revered founding “fathers.”

Was true democracy, and equal rights for all Americans, ever, really on the table? Or does Lady Liberty raise her torch of something that the founders never actually intended?

Democrats: Impotent Legislators of the Impotent Left

In case you hadn’t noticed, American democracy is essentially already gone.

It has been hijacked. By 1/3 of the country determined to rule over the entire populace

……by a repressive, regressive, fascistic, gang of religious cultists and gun-wielding social misfits

……sponsored by the greediest level of society, the 5% who control this gang with lies, fake promises, and manufactured “socialist” villains for their own gain

……championed by the most unscrupulous, devious, power-mad public “servant” outside the world of fiction, a true-to-life Sheriff of Nottingham. Mitch McConnell is evil incarnate, the most unscrupulous politician I can remember.

The takeover has been empowered by

…..a Democratic party that hides its cowardice behind “respect for rule of law” and a “commitment to the high ground” that can best be described as “Please don’t hurt us.”

…..Gutless Democratic Presidents. Yes, this means Joe Biden

……and a 2/3 of the country too blase, ambivalent, and yes, scared, to deal with thugery in the only way that thugs understand, with equal toughness.

Our Democracy is virtually gone as of right now, because the thugs on the right are strong, and we high-minded, principled on the left are weak. We are all mouth, and little action. Our high mindedness is our security blanket.

Yours truly included.

We are a principled but weak, hapless bunch of villagers. We don’t need more principled but weak legislators.

We need the Magnificent Seven.

NO, NO, AND 1000 TIMES NO, JOE

Do NOT play wimp to the Bully Republicans

Joe, a Washington Post headline this morning shouts that you are ready to deal with the Republicans. You are ready to “compromise,” which means you are ready to make a half-assed effort at progress on both the environment and the economy. You’re ready to GIVE IN to bully McConnell, who has been acting as the real decision maker in this country for over two decades.

DON’T DO IT, JOE.

If the Republicans wish to let America’s infrastructure collapse because of their allegiance to the most greedy, LET IT.

And shout it from every podium, rooftop, and news source in the world, that you tried to help America, and save the environment, but the Republicans blocked you and put the very rich above the good of the country. Again.

You will lose much of my, and America’s, respect if you “deal” on this. This is very possibly our ONLY chance to get this country on the right track, both environmentally and economically, and if you give in to make deals like this, YOU ARE BLOWING IT.

The Republican party has made it clear that it is the party of white supremacy, and of allegiance to the richest Americans and the greediest corporations. They can no longer even begin to try making a case that they give the slightest damn about the average American.

LAY INTO THEM, JOE.

Stand strong. Make sure Nancy Pelosi does, too. Pass a REAL infrastructure and environment-saving plan, any way you have to do it. You can do this, and you can do it by leveraging your strength and communicating clearly with the very Americans whom the Republicans routinely sell out while claiming to care about them. Make absolutely and deafeningly clear to them that Democrats are trying to help them, while Republicans sell them down the river.

Moscow Mitch has repeatedly said he will block all Democratic legislation, just like he did with Obama. SHOW HIM THIS WORKS BOTH WAYS. Make him know that every single piece of legislation coming from Republicans is dead on arrival.

There is no middle ground on this Joe. There is only the right side, and the wrong side. When I and millions of Americans voted for you, we thought you were the right side. Now is not the time to equivocate, to give in, to surrender.

You can be Roosevelt, Churchill, Johnson. You cannot be a middle of the road, bad deal maker. You can’t be Charlie Brown. Start to compromise, and McConnell will walk all over you, all over America’s democracy, all over the environment, just like he’s been doing.

No, Joe. Don’t do it. The Republicans have been proving for years that good guys can’t win. Don’t let them keep doing it. If you want to be a nice guy, you have to be like the nice guys that took down Hitler.

Don’t wimp out, Joe. Don’t shrug, and give in. Raise hell, Joe. The Republicans want to keep controlling America in the name of the greediest and the white supremacists. They want a fight.

Make them wish they hadn’t asked for it.

Republicans want to force you to compromise for one reason: so that they can maintain the status quo, and Joe, we all know what that looks like.

Down and dirty, Joe. Trench warfare. Scorched earth. It’s the only way to win this. There is no participation trophy.

When the dust settles, when average Americans can breathe better, drink cleaner water, earn the income they deserve, afford a nice home, put their kids through school, and plan for a comfortable retirement, regardless of the color of their skin or their gender, then and only then can America prove the lie of today’s corrupt Republican party; only then can we drive a wooden stake through the heart of the vampire known as Trumpism. Only then can we start to truly dismantle white supremacy.

Do Your Words Mean What You Think They Mean?

File under: Signs of Failed Humanity

I’m confused. So many people say they are angered and horrified when they see posts showing how animals are brutalized and tortured from day one to day last in factory farms. They see the immoral suffering inflicted on these sentient, helpless-to-resist, agonized beings and express how disgusted it makes them.
And then they go right ahead, and continue to eat the mutilated bodies and produce of these animals and smacking their lips. Today. In a supposedly enlightened era. When good substitutes this meat are ever more available.


Today., every time I hear a meat eating friend express outrage at the torture and brutal murder of animals while posting pictures of their oh-so-delicious meat dishes, I’m prompted to say, like Inigo Montoya, you keep using these words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.


One word does come to mind. Hypocrisy.


I was one of these people myself, into my seventies. But those of my generation lived in a vacuum of denial. We deluded ourselves with the idea that animals were treated well, and lived well, right up to the moment of their death. I finally LEARNED.

I wish my friends and acquaintances would learn. I wish everyone would learn.

There is, in the 21st century, no excuse for not knowing not learning, not being better. There is no excuse today. There is no longer any denying the horrors of the meat and dairy industry.

If we are decrying and condemning those horrors while using our next breath to express how delicious our ham and bacon, beef, chicken, and turkey dishes are, we should at least have the honesty to stop using words that don’t mean what they say.
It’s 2021. We can’t love eating that meat and also say we care about the suffering attached to it. Because we don’t mean it.


It’s called hypocrisy.

130 Days in- Are We Having Fun Yet?

130 days into the Biden Administration, and where are we? Biden announces a sweeping, environmentally strong, infrastructure plan….Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin say nope, not going to do that…. Democrats say, uh, ok, uh, what will you let us do? Is it okay if we do , maybe, a little bit? While they are doing nothing, which has become a virtual trademark, the Biden administration says sure, go ahead, to Donald Trump’s environmentally disastrous and insane sale of the Alaska to big oil. Biden and the Democrats say we need a bipartisan investigation of the January 6 insurrection….Mitch McConnell says nope, not going to do that…. Democrats say, oh, gee, shucky darn, we’re sorry, Mitch, please don’t hurt us. Biden says he’ll tax the rich…Mitch McConnell says nope, not going to happen…. Biden says, well, gee, maybe, if we could, just a teensy bit, please, Mitch? Can we? Huh? I mean,…OW that hurts, Mitch. Please stop hitting me. Trump and his crazies, which are at this point THE Republican party, continue to push the BIG LIE, which is actually a collection of big lies. A handful of Republicans object to this with their mouth, while continue to follow along meekly with their vote…. The Democrats? Crickets. Democrats take what I guess is the much advertised ‘high road,’ and don’t bother to aggressively engage. They take Nixon’s “If I close my eyes they can’t see me,” approach. As a matter of fact, the Democrats continue to take the Nixon approach to governing, The Democrats are Bert Lahr’s lion, the circus clown with a rubber mallet. They continue to play Coyote to Mitch McConnell’s roadrunner. They are Danny Kaye’s Walter Mitty, only with less courage and no happy ending in sight. They are the Marx brothers without a funny script. All Mitch McConnell needs is a leather suit and a whip. 130 days in. Somebody tell me, please, how much things have changed?

So the Chiefs got trounced. So what?

So the Tampa Bay Bucs treated the Kansas City Chiefs the same way Captain America treats bad guys. Hey, no problem. There’s always next year. And there’s nothing wrong with the Chiefs that replacing the entire offensive line and coaching staff can’t fix. Don’t buy into all that stuff about Patrick Mahomes suddenly looking mortal. The young Mr. Mahomes isn’t the villain in this sorry little episode. As we used to say when the St. Louis Rams were offering up Kurt Warner like sliced salami to defensive rushes, look to the offensive line. Or the lack os same.

The Bucs defense spent more time in the Chiefs backfield than Mahomes did. And that’s because he was constantly running for his life. The Chiefs’ offensive line was the politest in history, waving to Miami’s guys and yelling “Hiya, how ya doin?” as they went by. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Chiefs failed to protect Mahomes, even though I’m pretty sure I saw a K.C. player point at him a couple of times and yell, “He’s over there!”

On the other hand, it could be that the Chiefs’ finances are so strained by paying Pat Mahomes Kansas City’s entire GDP for the next ten years, they had no choice but to raid local junior colleges for the offensive line. Seriously, though, all kidding aside—and I’m not kidding—the Chiefs offensive line was so lost and confused the entire game, (notice how I graciously avoided saying the words like BAD, & AWFUL), I expected to see Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels run onto the field in Chiefs uniforms.

You’d think Miami was playing 15 guys on defense. Wait a minute. Were they? Was this some kind of deep state Roger Goodell conspiracy to fix football games while simultaneously running sex slave rings on the back side of the moon? Maybe we should check with the Qanon folks. Honestly, every time Patrick took a snap I got flashbacks of Paul Newman and Robert Redford running out the door of that hut into the entire Bolivian army.

And where did Kansas City get this apparently entirely new offensive line for the Super Bowl. I mean, I love Andy Reid, but I knew the Chiefs were in trouble when I read the backs of the OL jerseys and saw the names: Howard, Fine, Howard, Martin, Lewis, Abbott, Costello. Oh well. It’s just a game. And if I seem a little wacky, who can blame me? Wackiness is all Tom Brady and the Bucs defense has left us Kansas City fans. Congratulations to them. There is no joy today in Mudville.

We won’t have to worry about Tom Brady for too much longer, though. I have it on good authority he has promised to retire when he hits 65.

Is the GOP that Loony, that corrupt, or both?

There is certainly plenty of evidence to support the latter. Let’s be perfectly clear here. There is not so much as a feather, a sliver of fingernail, a hair’s breadth, a whisper of a breath that any fraud whatsoever occurred during the 2020 election. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won. Fair and square. the people have spoken. Overwhelmingly, by over 8 million votes. Every election official in every state has verified that it was an honest election. That’s not even open to question.

The only place where any fraud occurred— and this is of course not unusual— was in the mouth of Donald J Trump. Lies coming from Donald Trump are nothing unusual. As a matter of fact, they are the new normal in American politics. What verges on insane, is that Trump, serial lying, thoroughly immoral, completely corrupt, snake oil salesman extraordinaire and wannabe dictator that he is, commands the almost complete fealty of what was once upon a time (a long time ago in a parallel universe far, far away) a legitimate political party. The manner in which the entire Republican Party continues to suck up to Donald Trump’s obvious lies and clear attempt to fashion a coup, would have at one time been unthinkable. But here we are.

Let’s say this again. There is not and has never been even the slightest doubt as to the legitimacy and honesty of this election. As a matter of fact, if you’re looking for fraud, you should be looking at the various tricks pulled by the Republican Party, such as closing down vast numbers of polling places, gerrymandering in the extreme, attempting to intimidate voters not to show up through the actions of the white supremacist and Neo-Nazis that the GOP now embraces. Or perhaps always embraced, but now do so openly.

The election was above board. But Donald Trump throws out wild, baseless, lies, and as if he were the Messiah himself, the second coming, the Republican party jumps on the wagon. The Republican Party is behaving like a sad, tragic, but very dangerous overstuffed clown car careening downhill. It’s not enough for them to just keep their mouth shut and let Donald Trump rant and rave. For many of them, it becomes necessary to expose themselves as being equally corrupt and uniformly bound to the lies that Trump tells.

The latest of these, is Missouri’s Cole County Assessor, Christopher D. Estes. You know, we like to think that someone in as important a position as that of County assessor, is of sound mind. But recently, when Georgia state senator Elena Parent posted that the Georgia election, just as had all of the election officials in all of the states, had been shown to be honest, aboveboard, and with no hint of fraud, Mr. Estes could not resist shining broad doubt upon his mental acuity by accusing her of being treasonous, and part of a coup. He even implied that this heinous crime was worthy of execution. I’m assuming he did it with a straight face.

I’m not a great important man like Mr. Estes. I’m not an esteemed County assessor. I’m just a former schoolteacher who knows a thing or two about delving into the facts and the truth of a situation. And I have to wonder whether Mr. Estes is mentally infirm, or corrupt, or I don’t know, maybe under the threat of violence and possible death from Trump and his supporters. Because what he says has absolute no basis in fact. None. Zip. Zero. As Hitler preached, Mr. Estes and his fellow Republicans continue to accuse “the others” of that which they themselves commit.

But Mr. Estes is not alone. This is the point we have reached in terms of the Republican Party itself. Other than a handful of the top leaders, Mitch McConnell—the Benedict Arnold of our time—Ted Cruz, and a few others, I would like to think that the rest of the GOP still possesses at least a modicum of morality and sense of ethical conduct. Sadly, that isn’t the case. Looking for an attempt at a coup? The GOP is doing it right out in the open.

How can an entire party allow themselves to become willing, apparently even eager, accomplices to the kind of corruption and dishonesty that is the stock in trade of Donald Trump? Were they hijacked? Shanghaied? Or is Trump exactly the Al Capone of politics they have been waiting for? Can they really be that stupid, that ignorant of the genuine, repeatedly proven facts? Are they possibly in actuality that mentally unbalanced? Can it be they are so corrupt and bent on controlling the country that right and wrong have lost any meaning for them? Is there no decency left in them?

Are they being bribed? Are they genuinely in fear for their lives and the lives of their families if they dare step out of line? Is Donald Trump running some kind of new Mafia family, with Neo-Nazis and the Proud Boys and KKK as his enforcers? If these questions sound fantastic, I would have agreed not too long ago. But the obvious willingness to be a part of one of the most astonishing system of lies ever inflicted upon American democracy and government; the clear complicity in what can only be described as an all-out attempt to stage a coup against the American democratic process and fashion a dictatorship in place of it, make these questions, no matter how distasteful or fantastic they may sound, necessary.

The real facts are clear beyond refutation. The states have said so. Republican Governors and election officials have said so. The courts have said so. The Supreme Court, with three Trump-appointed justices, has said so. We are left with only one genuine, crucial question. What in the name of Hell is going on with the Republican party? Whatever it is, it ain’t good for America. You can take that to the bank.

11

12:01pm – 01/20/2021 – KEEP IT SIMPLE

Keep it simple. 12:01 pm, 1/20/2021Like everyone else, I’ve been riding a terrible roller coaster of highs—Biden wins!—and soul twisting lows—what if Trump refuses to go, what if GOP legislatures manage to void the popular vote, and various opinions on the spectre of constitutional crisis.

Then I woke up this morning and had an epiphany of clarity. Let’s, as the military says, keep it simple stupid. And let’s recall the logic of Occam’s Razor: the simplest answer is usually the right one.

In the latter case above, if GOP legislatures do indeed connive to override the popular vote with rigged electors, we have a problem. In that case, there is going to be hell to pay, and possibly a full Uncivil War. That is the worst case scenario, and one that is probably very unlikely. For that to happen, the Republicans will have to get past actual judges, as in state supreme courts. History tells us that judges, even Republican judges, are much harder to pervert than are politicians.So let’s put that possible but highly unlikely nightmare aside and deal with the more likely situation.

What if, after votes are recounted and re-audited ad infinitum and Joseph Biden is reaffirmed over and over as the President, Trump says he won’t go. I’ve been reading a plethora of hand-wringing discussions about the Constitution not providing for such a bizarre situation. I think they are all missing the point. Remember Occam’s Razor. Remember what the Sergeant says, keep it simple stupid. The answer is right in front of us.

The founding fathers weren’t so dumb after all, at least not in this case, but their ghosts are probably thinking we are.12:01 pm, eastern standard time, January 21st, 2021. Joe Biden is President and Kamala Harris is Vice-President. The entire power of the federal government is removed from Donald Trump and vested in them. All of the people who work within the government, including the Congress, (except for a few Trump toadies) know this. The FBI knows it. The Secret Service knows it. The National Security Agency knows it. The U.S. Military certainly knows it, and I can’t think of anyone more united in their dedication to the Constitution rather than an individual than them.

The entire structure of our government knows who will be President the moment Joe Biden finishes taking the oath. We should, and can, expect their heads to swivel from Trump to Biden with the smoothness and certainty of a Swiss watch movement. Donald Trump will still be defiant. He will still be loud. But he will in that instant lose every ounce of power he possesses. He will be squatting on property which is not his. Whether he leaves on his own or is politely but firmly guided out of the White House by the FBI and Secret Service, he is done and gone.

But what if he exhorts his demented followers to violence in his defense, as he may do? And what if they respond, as many of have threatened to? The answer to that is, again, simple. There is no need to make it complicated. They will be committing armed acts of sedition, and should be dealt with accordingly. With whatever force is necessary. Police? Absolutely. National Guard? Most assuredly. 101st Airborne? Marines? Navy Seals? Absolutely. Because any way you look at it, armed sedition is armed sedition. It is treason. There should be no confusion or hand-wringing about how to deal with it.

It would be sad, and it would be unpleasant as hell. But I remember Ben Franklin’s statement: “We have given you a republic. If you can keep it.” In retrospect, this is exactly the kind of situation the good doctor probably envisioned as a possibility. I don’t think he felt he should have to explain it. Americans have voted. The voice of the majority is clear and decisive, by six million votes. The peace of the nation is not now in their hands. The responsibility for that is in the hands of that segment of Trump voters who threaten violence.

They can parade, carry banners and flags, raise their voices. They can do all of this, peacefully, and that is their absolute right. Raising up arms and resorting to sedition because they are unhappy about losing at the polls, is not. It must be met with whatever level of force is necessary.12:01 pm, 1/20/2021—Keep It Simple.

TERRORISM – The Accurate Word for Voter Intimidation

Terrorism. I just saw this on Yahoo news. Let’s be very clear here. These are truly deplorable people. They are domestic terrorists. Police intervention must be immediate and firm.
A couple (more if necessary) of uniformed officers (police, sheriffs, marshals, FBI, U.S. Marshals, etc.) should be positioned at every polling place where this may or does take place. They should position themselves between these domestic terrorists and people arriving to vote, and clearly assure voters they are not in danger and should not feel intimidated.
There must be absolutely no question about who is in charge.
Any one of these people who steps out of line even a little bit, the tiniest bit, must be immediately arrested and charged with terrorism.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/armed-groups-show-polling-sites-113500449.html