U.S.A. R.I.P. ?

I really, really hope I'm wrong. 

But is it over for the nigh two hundred-and-fifty-year-old experiment in democracy dubbed the United States of America?  The Republicans long ago sold their withered souls in worship of their criminal cult leader. But that seems just fine with a majority of Americans, or at least a sufficient number to win the Electoral College and now possibly the popular vote as well. The Supreme Court seems to have been bought off by jokers with cavernous pockets. We now stand on the precipice of a theocracy with its help. 

The ugly truth is the ultra-rich have purchased their pet politicians who only pretend to pay lip service to the citizens, who are likely sooner than later to be robbed of even the illusion of a proper democracy in order that even more wealth can be transferred from a future serf class into the pockets of preening neo-nobility. We will be allowed enough pocket money to fulfill our roles as consumers, but little else beyond that. I really hope those saps who bought the Republican lies like being peasants. 

As the planet Earth is puking up humanity in general, we seem to not want to even go out with some dignity. We shall live a world thoroughly fracked but without enough potable water. The rising temps and the rising oceans will slowly but surely change the world in the centuries to come. Will man survive? Earth doesn't care. The Solar System cares even less. And the Universe doesn't even know of our existence. 

I am an old man and while sad and more than a wee bit bitter to see this day arrive, I know that my children will really be the ones to suffer. All of this so a handful of fat old white men can cling to their power a few hours longer. The very order of the world, one fought for generations ago by regular men and women who sacrificed it all, will be transformed for the worse. Ironically, my daughter who teaches history is scheduled to teach about "The Shot Heard Around the World" today. The irony drips she said, as he teaches about the beginning of the nation on possibly the very day it began to end. 

The United States of America 1776-2024?

I really, really hope I'm wrong.  

(Just a note to say that it might be quite some time before I update this blog again. I'm taking a break from public affairs for a bit. Look for my usual nonsense at the Dojo. Thanks to those who have visited, read my sentiments and commented.)

(Just another note to say ignore the note above.)

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Avengers Assemble!

While voting has been going on in various states around the union for days if not weeks now, today is actually "Election Day", the day it's decided who the next President of the United States of America will be. There are many other important, even crucial elections, especially those regarding the Senate, but we all have our eye on the biggest prize. That will determine whether the country I was born in continues, or if it changes in all sorts of dark ways. Women in particular are on tenterhooks as to what the decisions will be. It is indeed time for all "Avengers" to "Assemble" and save the day from the villains abroad in the land. 

More later when we have concrete news. 

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At Last! Bold New Super-Heroines!

I am enjoying the out-sized irritations of certain talking heads among Conservatives concerning a fairly simple action enjoyed by women for over a century -- the right to vote. The very idea that a woman might enter the voting booth, a venerated place where anonymity is sacrosanct, and while there choosing differently than her husband is driving them mad. I cannot actually believe they are surprised. When women were stripped of the absolute control of their bodies, controls which were meted to mostly men in state legislatures who immediately installed laws which have already killed more than a few women seeking simple healthcare, this day of reckoning was almost assured. Do they really think women are as stupid as they imagine them to be? It seems so. 

Our election is far from over, but early numbers about who is voting suggest women have a ten percent advantage so far. Just on the basis of that number alone, it seems we can reason out how things are going to go. All that's left is to parse the peculiarities of the Electoral College which as we know hasn't put forth a truly winning Republican President in over thirty years. 

Women seem to want those rights back that the sniveling Supreme Court wrenched away from them several years ago. And the only way that's going to happen is if Republicans are stripped of power and Democrats installed, both in the state and federal legislatures. The dwindling demographic called "white men" cannot stand up to a wave of women of all races coming for their heads. If I were them, I'd change my tune or turn tail and run. 

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The Kult Of Kentucky!

 On my ballot in Kentucky this year is an initiative which would allow a change to the state's constitution. It's called "Amendment 2" and it reads in part thusly:

"The General Assembly may provide financial support for the education of students outside the system of common schools." 

Such a change would allow the Republican super-majority in the Commonwealth's legislature to generate funding or shift funds to private schools such as charter schools and other private institutions, as well potentially religious schools. The latter seems a clear violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but I rather suspect the current Supreme Court would support this outlay of tax funds. If such would be the case, I as a taxpayer would be supporting a religion I did not necessarily share. 

Even more immediate is that Kentucky public schools are generally strapped for funding despite being in the top half (barely) of the states in the nation. We were once near the bottom of the rankings. Nearly all of that improvement resulted from a court decision way back in 1991, at the beginning of my career which transformed funding in the state. For nearly fifteen years the state's schools saw tremendous improvements (relatively speaking of course) but in this century, slowly and bit by bit the changes made as a result of the 1991 ruling have been chipped away. As the reforms and the money have withered so have the results, especially in many of the counties in my state which are poor. Kentucky has the honor of having the poorest county in the nation within its borders. As it turned out my late wife was from that county. 

Another reason for these changes is one which won't be discussed openly - a desire to racially resegregate the schools. The schools in Kentucky were forced to desegregate when I was a young student in the late 60's. It didn't matter much in my isolated Appalachian community as there were virtually no people of another race living there. But in places like Louisville there was violence. Race animus fuels so much of American politics.

I don't know how this vote will go, but if this amendment wins passage, we will almost immediately see a wholesale strip mining of public-school resources. My eldest daughter still teaches publics school and the need for teachers is so desperate that I don't fear for her job. But I do dread that her job will become more and more difficult as tax funds meant to support her efforts for all Kentucky students regardless of race, creed, or color are siphoned away so that upper-class Christian white folks can get a break on private school tuition. 

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The Mob Who Loved The Swastika!

The outrageous display in Madison Square Garden last night was a new low point in the history of the United States. In outright imitation of a Nazi rally held in the Garden in 1939 in support of Hitler's Germany, we get an official Republican Party event intentionally designed to resemble it now in the Fall of 2024. Of course, at the head of this dark discourse was our very own "Sweet Potato Hitler" -- Donald Trump. He wanted to give New York City a fresh black eye I suppose and at the same time bellow to his critics that he was still relevant. 

And tragically it's the truth. With too many crimes to list and too many scandals to monitor, the leader of the Republican Party spews his hate, assisted by a phalanx of fellow haters, folks with big mouths and black hearts. In place of Hitler's Jews, we have Haitian migrants, here legally. Instead of fomenting hate against the Romani, we see hate intended to scare Hispanics. "Send Them Back!" has become the "Build That Wall!" of this latest vile campaign. Puerile nativism at its ugliest. 

But without question the moment of the night came long before Trump took the podium when a "comedian" proclaimed that there was an "Island of Garbage" in the middle of the ocean, and it was named Puerto Rico -- an American territory. All the F-Bombs, insults, and lies that were to follow had a hard time topping that piece of rancid rhetoric. I'm a defender of transgressive comedy and this was certainly that, except it failed in one important regard -- it wasn't funny -- not even a little bit.  

Like the Insurrection on January 6, 2020, Trump and his lowlife cronies have given the nation another dark day to record. When this gang of malcontents are washed away by time, these critical low points moments will be recorded. Like the Nazi Rally so many decades ago which is seen with shame today, so too will this latest debacle be understood to be a time when a hateful madness overtook too many Americans still mired in the racism which has sadly been a feature of our history. Either that, or we're all fucked. (Don't blame me, they said it first.)

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The Race War Rages!

The race continues. 

My various schemes to distract myself from the election to-and-fro have been marginally successful, but with less than two weeks to go until the decision, it gets more and more difficult. I suddenly wish I had a job to so that I could be distracted by that. It's a "race war" which rages inside myself, in that I am at war with my own better judgment not to pay attention to the race. 

What passes for the Republican Party these days has been doing all manner of stunts to distract the voters from their dismal candidate. Crazy polls get dropped into the averages to raise his chances in the minds of flaccid media who can always be counted on to miss the story time and time again. I cannot but worry that America's ingrained misogynism cuts against a supremely qualified candidate as it did a decade ago when this madness unleashed upon us. I cannot shake the nervousness when I realized that despite his mountain of negatives, the race remains competitive. Again, I believe the good guys will win, but that it's not a rout already makes me very sad indeed. Some Americans seem all too eager to elect Doctor Evil as president. 

But enough for now -- where's my book. 

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It Takes A Woman!

It feels to me like Kamela Harris is winning the election. Others are coming around to that conclusion and early voting suggests that the much-desired victory might be a big one. She kept her powder dry, and now is appearing in a host of venues, letting the Americans and the world know who she is. She's focused and tough as well as compassionate. Whether it's snapping back at a Fox News troll who is trying to trick her into denigrating other Americans or whether it's taking the time to insist a grieving woman gives voice to the name of her departed mother, Kamela has shown us what it's like to replace fear with courage and dread with hope. We are perhaps only a few weeks away from very likely seeing how America will be different with a woman guiding the ship, taking the hand off from a great leader in President Biden. Let's all keep those positive vibes! 

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The Powers Of Nature!

We have witnessed what becomes of our meager civilization when the natural world is roused. Monstrous hurricanes have ravaged the much of the Southern United States. Florida has been hit a few times and even the mountains of western North Carolina have proven to unsafe from these new more powerful storms. It's not unprecedented but it's extraordinarily rare and that rarity is what is changing. But what can we do but batten down the hatches and hold on. It's probably too late to stop the engine of climate change now that it's chugging along.  We could stop lying to ourselves, but that's unlikely as well. 

Without doubt, other than profound loss of life and horrific damage these storms will create, the greatest victim has been the truth. Yet again we see a presumptive "leader" of our society use tragedy as opportunity and lie to help himself by damaging his rivals. And then his toadies echo his lies. What is lost in this exchange, is that we are all victims or potential victims of these events and by breaking the trust between a government and its people, especially in these desperate times costs lives. When one thinks a person cannot get lower, he manages to find a way. 

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A Balanced Approach!

What few readers I might have here might have noticed that I've slacked off here in more recent weeks. The reason it two-fold. I firmly believe that Kamela Harris and Tim Walz will win in November and that the world will be spared a second Trump administration. The other is that keeping close tabs on the give and take of the election is actively bad for my health. To say that the outrageous behavior of Trump and his lackeys enrages me is to put it mildly. These people are planning to steal the Presidency, but I am confident that there are people prepared to forestall that outcome. I have to believe that. 

The folks who care for me want me to consider my health above other concerns and I respect their wishes. So, if the posts are fewer than this summer, don't think I've given up. I'm just taking precautions. I have to balance my desire to engage the political world with the need to stay healthy. Wish me luck. Wish us all luck, that in a few weeks this nightmare will begin to be over. 

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What Me One Hundred?

Former President Jimmy Carter is 100 years old today. A remarkable feat for anyone, especially a man who saw the stress of four years in the White House. That has to shave off at least a few years. Carter came into office in the wake of Watergate. He was the Democratic answer to a Republican problem. (Sound familiar?) He came to Washington as a successful governor of Georgia and brought with him a team which took some time to find its footing in the White House. Not unlike Barrack Obama he had some difficulty finagling with Congress, especially in a time mired in a lackluster economy.

But he was the man who brokered the first peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. He saw the future and knew that coal and oil were the energy source of the past. I often imagine what the world might have been like for Americans if we had as a nation embraced the changes Carter sought. He was the President who truly brought the Vietnam War to an end when he pardoned those who had escaped the clutches of the draft.  His work with Habitat for Humanity has been transformative in the public mind, and suggests that Presidents need to be more than just onlookers when they leave office. He might has lusted in his heart, but he and his wife Rossalyn brought dignity to an office which has in recent memory been disgraced. 

It was a flagging economy and a failed efforts to rescue the Iranian hostages which denied Carter a second term. The former he could only endure and lead us through, the latter was actively undermined we learn in recent years by his political opponent Ronald Reagan. I am shocked that more is not made of this stunning news, especially in a time when such behavior has become normalized by the Republican Party. 

In the final analysis though, Jimmy Carter had the makings of a great President, but he has remained all his long life a great man. Happy Birthday Jimmy! 

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