Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Democracy Dies?

 


How did democracy in America die? Two ways.  Gradually, then suddenly.

Democracy Now! reports world leaders view US & Trump as 19th Century Racial Imperialists and Trump particularly as “Bully”.  The Felon Guy has put the Supremacy Stamp on The White House giving it new meaning.


Democracy Now! had guest saying the many Musk/Trump unconstitutional lawsuits taking time in court is like the Submersible Blender in the Aquarium, the fish won’t survive.


One can deduce the single most destructive instrument to our democracy is MSM Sycophant News


Let Them think it’s a democracy w/ their thumb on the scale GOP win power by slimmest margins, bc election process is theirs thru Gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter crosscheck purge, corporate news, SCOTUS, Electoral College, Billionaires, Voter Purge in Blue States, long lines hrs. to vote


Where are the Former Presidents speaking out in unison against the dismantling of US violating Constitution?  They have the responsibility to defend our Democracy, Constitution ! Their Oath has no expiration date. This goes beyond Politics


Gerrymandering is where the politician pick the voters instead of the voters choosing the politician.  This is how minority groups win via GOP.  Now with Voter Suppression its Gerrymandering elevated and democracy ended.


There’s a ‘War' being waged on US with destruction coming from Edicts on the population’s social safety net in lieu of bombs,  but with the same destructive BOOM


Think of “Firings” in goverbnebt as Destructive Bombs: 

Closing CDC - Viruses BOOM,

Releasing all Insurrectionists BOOM,

For Profit Health Care BOOM, 

Firing of Inspectors General BOOM

Mass School Shootings w/Filibuster BOOM

FAA director fired - BOOM


The Election Process has been corrupted  from the Bottom of the Food Chain traveling up to the Morbidly Rich. The Felon Guy did not win Voter Suppression Won. Greg Palast Reports:  “Trump Lost.  Harris was cheated 3,565,000 votes by Jim Crow tricks”

He said the numbers quoted were from gov. reports


Election Fraud? GOP has been doing Voter Purge for at least the last 4 years. SCOTUS allowed Voter Purging in VA less than a week from Election. Trump spilled the beans in one of last Rallies said:  “We have enough votes.” Today, Greg Palast proved by gov.t numbers that VP. Harris won overwhelmingly,


We’re witnessing Organized Crime with all 3 branches of government complicit including the Fourth Estate owned by 5 multi national corporations.


Reminded:

“We will take America without firing a shot.  We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within”. - Nikita Khrushchev


Since a foreign nation bombed Pearl Harbor, a date which will live in infamy, defined the Enemy, then those who cut Medicaid, allowing Measles Bombs on “Any Town” USA, also defines the Enemy, both Foreign and Domestic.


Judging by results, Wealth / Profit transcends Cruelty. The measurement now is NOT the amount of Money, but the degree of Cruelty that is significant. 


Speaking Corporatese




“Sergeant Toomey:  What would you do if the entire Japanese Army were behind you?
Private Eugene Jerome: Surrender and get some sleep.

Private Selridge:  If this keeps up, we'll lose this war. They'll be speaking German in Chicago.” 

from Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon


Today it’s not obvious to identify those who want to destroy the basic foundation on which we preach freedom, the Great Middle Class and the pinnacle of democracy.  


President Roosevelt referred to them as  Economic Royalists and “Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob”. 


President Truman said: “The Republican Party, … favors the privileged few and not the common everyday man.”  President Jimmy Carter said that we are now an Oligarchy.  


And now today we speak Corporatese.  Our news media speaks of Dow Jones Industrials, NASDAQ, which does not reflect the happenings of the majority of working Americans, but in reality reflects the Wall Street gangs.  


We speak of Corporate Inversions which is the moving of American jobs and American factories to other countries. We speak of Off Shore Tax Havens. All legal.   


Our cities throughout the Rust Belt, the name given to our devastated industrial heartland, resemble the bombed out cities of WWII Germany.  


Detroit, for example, had a population of over 2 million residents in its heyday and was listed as the richest city in America due mainly to its industrial base revolving around the manufacturing of automobiles.  


Today the population of Detroit is under 700,000 with the difference in resident’s abandoned houses resembling what time did in lieu of bombs.


The text book definition of Profit is a measurement of efficiencies between competitive companies. Since we no longer enforce the Sherman Anti Trust Act via Ronald Reagan, profit has morphed into a destructive force entity with Conspiratorial Capitalism thrust upon us today coupled with the monopoly factor.  


We see, for example, the increase in prices for life saving medicine increasing 600% to 3,000% for no other reason but that big Pharma can.  


We have replaced text book Capitalism with Conspiratorial Capitalism, a systemic corrupt system bought and paid for by legislators and corporate lobbyists.


Conspiratorial Capitalism is the collusion among legislators, right-wing judges, and corporate mass media.  The federal government lowers the tax rate for the wealthy, stops enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Legislation, anti-labor and essentially gives corporations and Wall Street free will.  


We now have a corporate press free from the Fairness Doctrine, which the FCC under Reagan in 1987,  left broadcast corporations worry free about broadcasting in the public interest." 


There is nothing in the corporate news about the decline of the middle class, which the last 35 years has left America destroyed while the Republican agenda of closing factories in the United States to the tune of 50,000 factories and moving American jobs to China continues. 


Republicans continue  blocking legislation to restore American manufacturing industry. We do not enforce our tariffs that all other countries use to protect their manufacturing base!


The powerful right-wing network that hijacks state politics and government through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) continue their nefarious agenda of wealth redistribution upwards to the rich. Composing legislation, calling for a conference of all state legislators to attend, then handing out previously composed legislation for the legislative attendees to take back to their state legislation to vote upon is what ALEC is about. And, with a majority of Republicans in many state legislatures, the vote is “Aye.”


Our health care is like no other in the world and defines what profit means today by holding hostage and skimming off the top to a destructive degree.  The health care insurance is a sham with CEO billionaire “banksters” reaping rewards. Health care has morphed into a disease. 


How can we define and justify profit with private prisons?  Where can efficiency occur in this prison for profit industry except by sacrificing basic human needs?  The Private Prisons takes the word profit to a disgusting definition.


A new business model for profit is government subsidies. The largest retailer is the apparent founder of this business model whereby they pay their workers below substance wages. Their employees then apply for food stamps and medicaid in order to live, all subsidized by the American taxpayer.


Ronald Reagan’s infamous 9 words: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  Reagan’s First Inaugural: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” 


From this foreboding idea that government is incompetent sprang the buzz word “privatize”.  Let’s privatize everything! 


The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) is a United States federal statute enacted by the 109th United States Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 20, 2006, a poison pill mandating that the USPS pre-fund 75 years of benefits for its employees within a 10 year window.  


An all inclusive example of Corporatese is GOP Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan who Installed Emergency Managers to sell off city assets to the rich. 


Here was Gov Snyder’s game plan: give $1.8 billion in tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations at the expense of Michigan cities’ budgets, then ask the individual cities to make up the difference. 


Knowing that this shorting the cities of expected revenue sharing, many cities would have hardships and struggles to make up the difference, especially cities with large black populations like Benton Harbor, who lost a children's lakeside park to a rich private golf park, given in perpetuity by the Klock Family in memory of their lost child to the children of Benton Harbor.


When the individual cities fell behind in their fiscal obligations, Rick Snyder sent in his appointed Czar, an Emergency Manager to sell off the city’s assets, in other words a transfer of wealth upwards.


Let’s privatize everything because the Market Place is the best arbiter of freedom!  Just a few examples of innumerable …


Perhaps the enemy is only an idea, albeit a bad idea.  The solution would be to educate the American public through the mass media.  But the mass media is owned by 6 corporations who speak only Corporatese!  Therein lies the problem.


Friday, February 21, 2025

Being Bullied



 

 

I’ve never been able to accept be bullied.  Even to this day.  I remember grade school 2nd grade when an errant student probably a grade or two ahead of me, would taunt me outside the entrance, even jump on me and ride me like a horse.  I would try to avoid him, but he always continued.  


One day he tried to ride me and my temper over took me and I went into a rage, knocking him down, jumping and pounding him until a couple of student pulled me off him.  He got up and ran.


I remember a day in the Army in Turkey playing pool in the game room.  I was about to shoot when a drunkard grabbed my target ball, and said “what the fuck you gonna do about it?”  I put my cue stick on my shoulder, and he looked at me and said, “wacha gonna do, hit me with you cue stick? Go on, I dare you.”  I put my cue stick on the table and left.  I didn’t want to dirty my nice Pendleton Shirt. 


I changed shirts, and went to the Service Club Fountain, but turned around because I thought he was in there.  So I went to the NCO Club.  I sat at a table with 3 buddies I worked with.  Ordered my beer.  Chatted.  


Then the asshole came to my table and started to taunt me, seeing out the corner of my eye his waving his fist in jest.  Then he sat down next to me and said some thing, but when he poked his finger into my chest. I parried his fist, and gave him a striking blow to the center of his face.  He jumped up, I jumped up swinging a right hand blow to his jaw, his falling down on the floor, and my saying ‘you get up and I’ll kill you’.  He put his head back down on the floor.  My buddy at the table grabbed my arms to restrain me. The Sergeant of Arms came over to my table and shouted for me to leave.


His buddies said that they were going to get even with me.  Somewhere, somehow.


I walked back to my barracks looking at my bloody fist and remembering my dad saying “don’t take shit off no one”.


Sunday there were about a half dozen or so other soldiers who stopped by my room and congratulated me.  They too were intimidated.


Monday morning at the mess hall, having breakfast, the bully came to my table and said “I want to talk to you outside”.  I stood up, waited, then he said, “go on, I’ not gonna hit you from behind”. 


So we stood outside and I said “if you want to continue this fight, come on, but you’ll not win”.  He said he didn’t know what hit him, cause Sunday morn his face was sore, but was drunk at the NCO Club.  I told him what happened, but when he poked me, that was what started.  He said that he was drunk and didn’t remember, but if what I said was true, he said that he owed my an apology.  He shook my hand and from then on, if we approached each other, even across the street, he would wave.


Maybe the bully’s self esteem level is elevated when confronted with a stupidity of the fist confrontation, and was able to take control with an apology to the superior who won. 


I hold esteemed belts in Aikido & Karate, Aikido worked with one incident.  We were invited to daughter and son-in-law’s  cottage.  Early Sunday morning I heard a dog barking.  Looked out the front door and there was a women jogger with a little dog snipping at her heals with the dog’s owner laughing, as he stood on his front lawn in pajama bottoms only.  


I went out side to observe and then his little Whippet attacked me, barking at my heal.  I took off my belt and gave a swipe, the dog whelped and ran home.  


“You motherfucker” the pajama man yelled while charging me — used attackers running force against him, ducked and  used his momentum to flip him way into the air (looked like a deer in the headlights) his landing on his back, and the fight was over - stood my ground!  


Daughter and son-in-law went for a boat ride when I called the Sheriff and asked that I not press charges.


But that was nothing compared to the doozy lately.   


She moved in with her live-in-boyfriend.  A sign of Low Life in my opinion and turned to be true.  We put up with his broken muffler for 5 months.  When I posted a note on our window his broken muffler at 6:45 AM was annoying.


From then on, he took their huge garbage bins out for pick up at 6:45 AM and waited until the next day, at 6:45 AM to retrieve them, rattling them so disturbingly loud.

We contacted City Attorney/Prosecutor and he allowed them to take out their bins only on pick-up day but had to bring them back same day.


I took her misdirected Amazon deliveries thrice to her door, his answer the door one time, baby in arms, took the package and thanked me.  


But when our misdirect Amazon delivery went to her house, they kept the delivery.  When confronted, he said that he returned it.  Amazon said there was no record of a return for that ticket number.  It was impossible for him to return our delivery because it happened within one day when we confronted her.  And, Amazon only takes returns at Kohls Dept. Store, and if perchance he gave the misdirected delivery to the Amazon driver, the driver would have put in on our porch.  Bullshit.


One Tuesday morning at 6:45 AM, garbage pick up, he rattled his garbage cans and it pissed me off.  So I hung a sign out on our front porch “Next Door Kept Our Amazon Delivery” (not accusing them of stealing our package, but according to the law they stopped the delivery, took charge of the delivery when they could have just thrown the package on our front porch.)


He went ballistic.  “Mother Fucker”, “God Damn” when he came home from lunch.  I left the sign up for 2 days.  The Asshole was pissed.  The City Attorney in a telephone conversation told me to take the sign down.


They put their security camera on their garage above our 6 foot privacy fence.  I spent the day putting up a leafy blind that I bought from Amazon for $80.00 on the fence to block the camera from viewing our yard.  After he got home from work, he immediately went and put the camera above my blind.


Then the lady moved the camera  and placed her security camera at their bathroom window, facing our bedroom window.  It’s been a battle ever since with 1 false police report against us for our bright light in our window for our flowers interfering with her camera, and our  911 call for her live-in boy friend threatening bodily harm against me for my posting a memo on my memo board 10 feet from our window seen only from her camera.


We filed a Neighborhood Complaint Form with the City Prosecutor .  They even used a picture from my memory board as evidence for his 3 hour tirade. 


The City Prosecutor showed us their "photo shop" picture of my memory board, blown up so large that my memo looked like it was posted in our window.  I showed the Prosecutor a picture of our room with the memo board 10 feet from our window, and he looked at it with exclamation “a’ha”.  Also showed him a spread sheet with over 200 line items of dogs barking, and other harassment.


We left our one hour meeting explaining to the prosecutor that all we wanted was this harassment to stop and he smiled and said “I think so”.  Then the 2 yahoos were called into the prosecutors meeting room.  


When we got home, we noticed that the lady packed her bags and left for over a week.  


I wish that I was a ‘fly on the wall’ to hear what the Prosecutor told this two yahoos, because since then things are quiet.  They were clearly in violation of voyeurism/invasion of privacy, and neighbor harassment, which holds not only a money fine, but imprisonment.  We think that he read them the ‘riot act’.


My point is to never let the bully win.  Never give in because the bully enjoys power.

I don’t know if I was Atticus Finch or easy prey.



 

Friday, February 14, 2025

The Moral Compass





Today, overwhelming evidence shows that people vote against their own best self interest.

Ike was last legit Republican President, Nixon conspired with Viet Nam to continue the war (Treason), Reagan conspired with Iran to hold the hostages, (Treason), George H.W. Bush came from Reagan, George W. Bush was appointed by SCOTUS, and Trump lost the popular vote.


Paul Weyrich, religious conservative political activist and commentator of the New Right said: “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”


The GOP wins power by the slimmest margins, only because the election process is theirs through Gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter crosscheck purge, corporate so-called news, SCOTUS Citizens United, Electoral College, Billionaires with Dark Money.  It would take a tsunami of progressive voter turnout to overcome.


Sen Whitehouse’ reply to GOP when they ruled “because we can”: “Don’t think when you have established the rule of ‘because we can,’ that should the shoe be on the other foot, you will have any credibility to come to us and say: ‘yeah, I know you can do that, but you shouldn’t.”


The Dumbing Down of America with 40 years of  Reagan’s “Government is the Problem”, no Civic Classes taught in school, and his appointing Bennett Education Secretary who despised public education, can be traced to the source of our woe.


Long standing Eloise Psychiatric Hospital is now a strip mall, golf course & condominium thanks to Reagan’s policy of making mental illness a homeless problem.


Irony: the poor & disenfranchised cleave to the very people who cause their Woe - the GOP. Why? “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcom X


The Republican Health Care Plan: “Don’t Get Sick, And if you get sick, Die Quickly” - Alan Grayson 


Who are the nefarious “They” that we keep referring to in our everyday political discourse?  James Madison, fourth President of the United States, in his Federalist Papers No. 10, explained that Factions, like minded groups, were the natural state of man.


A Faction when standing alone is Benign, but when aligned with other Factions is dangerous when the uniting Cancer is HATE coupled with fear and prejudice. That’s the “They” and the GOP is the Cancer.  


Here is a short list at random of issues which the Republican Party votes against solving:

  1. Toxic waste
  2. Homelessness
  3. Guns
  4. Hunger
  5. Pregnancy
  6. Cancer
  7. Hate
  8. Tearing children from their parents
  9. Cutting Medication
  10. Lack of Healthcare
  11. Coivid 19
  12. Misogyny
  13. Student debt
  14. Racism
  15. Poverty
  16. Autocracy and strongman government
  17. Untreated mental health, closing Eloise
  18. Air and Water Pollution

Reminded:

“Well, all I know is what I read in the Papers.” - Will Rogers


Visitor from Planet Ethics would agree with Deepak Chopra that “The Nature of Reality in the Conscious Mind is thru Stories.“ The Corporate Media controls the stories, is owned by five corporations, and is the source of our woe. Main Street Media shows no guilt in replacing Journalism with Infotainment.


The GOP is the antithesis of ethics. What is mysteriously scary is the question: are Republican Candidates the Fomenter or Reflection of their Electorate?


The GOP has "morphed" into an "incredibly dangerous" party, says Ken Burns.  "It's going to be difficult for the Republican Party to figure a way to escape the specific gravity of the darkness that engulfs it."