Freedom

 

Freedom

When we see those who protest the vaccine mandates issued by various authorities they invariably have placards proclaiming FREEDOM. Do those people really consider what freedom means in the context of our society, our Constitution, our laws?

In a distant beginning we had true freedom. Freedom to take what we wanted, freedom to kill those who offended us, freedom to do as we wished and, if we had enough strength, freedom to bend others to our will. That is why we established societies and governments and we surrendered those freedoms to that government and in return that government protected us. The lack of those protections is freedom.

In our case we established our own nation with the Constitution as our defining document. One of the provisions in the Preamble to the Constitution is “to promote the general welfare.” Now, there may be some who that they never agreed to that but they did and they do through representation of those they elect to high office. When people cry out that their Freedom is being threatened are they saying they no longer want the protections of that government? Of course not, what they mean is that the want the freedom to do as they wish and that the “General Welfare” is less important than what they want.

So, consider this. Freedom is indeed “nothing left to lose.”

A friend of mine is an executive of a home health agency and he and I speak often of the issues involved in promoting the general welfare in groups such as a company's employee base. Most employers are sensitive to the concerns and wants of their employees since their contentment is vital to the effective use of that resource. Most employers really wish they didn't have to deal with this but it has become obvious to them that the effectiveness of their company depends on their employees being able to do their jobs and show up for work. An employee base can't be effective if it can't be counted on to show up for work and to not carry disease to the people it serves.

So, the following words represent some of my friend's thoughts as he tries to thoughtfully consider his employees and those that his company serves.

“Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose!”

From “Me & Bobbi McGee”

Written by: Kris Kristofferson, 1969

Recorded & Popularized by: Janis Joplin, 1970

Those Powerful yet very poignant words are from one of the most memorable blues rock classics of the past 50 Years. They truly seem to perfectly summarize the philosophy of those individuals refusing to be vaccinated against the deadly COVID-19 Virus!

Is this so-called “FREEDOM” truly worth losing EVERYTHING you have to live for? The

word “Freedom” to most of us carries with it personal, familial & societal responsibilities

as well.

Do those that sacrifice their life unnecessarily to become another covid victim of the unvaccinated really want the epitaph on their tombstone for all those Loved Ones they leave behind to read?

“Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose!”

All We Can Say Is, SAD, SO SAD!

Written By: JTWILSON

And that is My Take on freedom.

An Imaginary Furor

 

An Imaginary Furor

There is an imaginary furor over the “Build Back Better” bill which, it is said, will carry a price tag of $3.5 Trillion. By comparison the national debt is now thought to be in the vicinity of $28 Trillion.

First, I would like to emphasize that this is not a one time expenditure. This is the estimated cost of the programs proposed over a ten year period. We do several things that cost $350 Billion per year such as the military budget.

But here is the real point. THE COST DOES NOT MATTER! What matters is whether or not we will deal with the issues the bill is meant to address. If we do not deal with those issues the cost will not matter because we won't be here. At least not in the current edition of the United States of America.

Climate Change is no longer an ephemeral prediction. It is a fact and it is created by human consumption. The major culprit is Carbon Dioxide which is a by product of using fossil fuels. Methane is another more potent gas that is released from wells that produce petroleum products but another more threatening source is the release of methane from previously frozen permafrost. Temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than almost anyplace else.

Increasing inequality of economic well being is creating more dissatisfaction and crime and is leading to a corrosive political environment. When the economy is performing well for all classes then peace reigns. Economic inequality is caused by laws that favor corporations and those wealthy enough to use arcane tax shelters to lower their taxable income. Inheritance allows the transfer of wealth across generations. Wealth that is locked up and denied to the majority of people who live paycheck to paycheck. Increasing use of robotics is eliminating low wage, low skill jobs and leaving a large portion of our population without access to the shared wealth of our prosperous nation. Even our politicians see this but are unable to address it due to their reliance on those monied interests to fund campaigns.

 

Racial discrimination and nativism have resulted from the self-serving desires of elected officials who are more than willing to stoke the flames if it means more votes. The political atmosphere has allowed strident accusations that have no basis in fact and 10 second sound bytes create negativism that are almost impossible to counter.

 

These are just a few of the issues facing the United States of America and, indeed, much of the rest of the world. Climate Change is creating more weather related disasters that require more emergency funding to address. How long before we are no longer able to fund those efforts due to their cost? Already something like 40% of Americans pay no income tax although there is little way to escape payroll taxes. That is not sustainable and it creates the impression that not all of us share in the welfare of the nation. Droughts in the West and Mid-West are affecting food production in the breadbasket of America. Floods and storms are wreaking havoc on our cities and even mountainous areas of the Appalachians.

Economic security and racial strife are inextricably linked. It is within our power to correct these things but the wealthy political donors, hedge funds and the need for increasing shareholder values prevent that from happening.

These are only a few of the enormous life changing threats that will either destroy the ideals that created our nation or create a substitute nation that will bear little resemblance to the one we grew up in. They are not being addressed. Instead we flail about accusing one or the other of cultural issues that have no existential threat to our country.

These are the things that President Biden is attempting to address in the Build Back Better bill and the For the People bill. The latter seeks to restore the power of the people to exercise their obligation to vote by making greater the opportunities to vote. This past Presidential election was the most examined election ever and the electoral infractions are so minuscule so as to be irrelevant despite what the former President alleges. It is opposed by Republicans who realize that to win office they have to restrict voting or change their message and the latter is not going to happen. It seems like this is a no-brainer but it is happening nevertheless.

For The People is designed to insure voter access to the polls, establish campaign finance laws and eliminate gerrymandering but was filibustered in the Senate by Republicans and has yet to become law. This denies the people the opportunity to select the kind of government they want while making it easier to vote. Republicans erroneously claim it would promote voter fraud although this past election was the most secure ever.

Build Back Better is designed to move the United States from fossil fuels to renewable forms of energy, support families that have been ignored for 40 years and restructure the tax burden so that the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes instead of using legal loopholes to avoid them.

The cost of these is significant but the cost of not doing them is enormous. We have become a society that ignores the least of us and attempts to create a labor force that is kept employed in a system that does not pay a living wage. This leaves the taxpayer to make up the difference in support programs. But Climate Change is the one that has the power to be an existential threat. If we do not deal with it we can say goodbye to the world that we know.

My Take is You Can Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later when it will be too little too late.

Expectations

 

Expectations

From what I gather a significant number of you are astonished that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is not going smoothly. Let me ask you. Did you think that those people would just call an Uber or catch a bus to the airport at Kabul? Did you ever consider just what would have to be done to establish an orderly removal of whatever portion of the Afghan people decided they'd be better off in the United States? Lastly, how many of you are actually aware of what has been going on in the negotiations between the United States and the Taliban to facilitate this withdrawal?

Look, I agree that what we are seeing is horrendous. To see people so desperate to leave their home country that they seriously try to hang onto the sides of a huge, roaring jet is just unbelievable but there they were. No one can deny the horrific nature of what we are seeing.

But, let's take a look at the facts on the ground. The United States has been negotiating with the Taliban since President Trump was in office. As a matter of fact, his administration is the one that initiated this deal. That represented a scarce moment when I agreed with him but that does not absolve President Biden of responsibility. According to his own admission he would have sought withdrawal even if it were not already in the works. I agree.

We were down to 2500 troops in Afghanistan which is not enough to secure even the embassy much less a mad dash to the exits that we are seeing now. Did the people of Afghanistan think we would just stay there to protect them from all harm indefinitely? Did none of them expect that they may be required to defend their own country? More to the point, did you expect we would do that? According to polls some 70% of the American public wanted the United States to withdraw. In my opinion the public is experiencing a bout of irrational expectations and blaming the President for what they are seeing. As the President said, “There was no scenario for withdrawal that did not include chaos.” The choices were bad and then worse.

Maybe you think the United States could have airlifted 100,000 troops to Afghanistan overnight and created patrolled corridors for any Afghan that wanted to leave. That is not realistic and, without a doubt, would have instigated armed conflict with the Taliban. If you are paying attention you will note that there has not been any armed conflict during this withdrawal.

I don't mean to say this has been flawless. It most certainly has not but to even consider that it could have been is foolish. Visas apparently were not issued in a timely manner to those deemed deserving of evacuation. One report I read said that began with the state department under President Trump and his advisor, Stephen Miller. Reportedly they did not want those people to receive Visas without undergoing all of the checks and investigations that are usual. Just offhand, I'd say quite a significant number of you wouldn't want that either. It should not go unsaid that nobody expected the Afghan Army to just go home or that the President would catch a flight (reportedly with cars full of cash) to the UAE.

We have removed some 30,000 people from Afghanistan. That number includes many who were working with us but, as one official said, this is changing from a withdrawal to a refugee mission and I know how many of you feel about refugees. We have the capacity to remove 9,000 people a day and the President just commandeered some commercial carriers to facilitate that removal.

We should remember that “War is Hell.” A phrase credited to General William Tecumseh Sherman and he certainly should have known since he brought hell to Georgia. How we as a people can feel divorced from that dictum is an indictment of not only our intelligence but also of our compassion. War is the least noble of mankind's achievements and represents our most significant failure. I don't mean just for the United States but for all nations. Sometimes it is forced upon us but usually we just stumble into it. What we should never do is diminish the odds of things happening that we just did not see coming. Another military man said that plans go out the window when combat starts and ne'er a truer thing was ever said.

What I would like you to do is when you see those images of desperate people ask yourself. What could we as a nation have done to prevent this from happening? Go ahead and criticize the President. As he said, the buck stops with him. But try to not be unjust about it and just be an armchair quarterback.

My Take is this. We are a soft and fickle people. As has been noted, less than 1% of our population has any relationship whatsoever with our armed forces. That means not just those serving but those who are related in any way. That makes us too willing to sacrifice someone else's loved ones.

The Most Dangerous Man in the Country

 

Over the past 13 or so years Mitch McConnell has proven himself to be the most dangerous man in the United States. While he has been a party apparatchik ever since he steamrolled Walter Huddleston it is only with his rise to power as Minority Leader that he became able to use his political wiles and profound knowledge of arcane Senate rules to promote minority rule of our legislative process.

Upon the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency he famously promised that his main role would be to make President Obama a one term President. Due to the popularity of the President he was unable to fulfill that promise but he was able to engineer a Republican majority in the Senate and a rise to Majority Leader.

His efforts at faking negotiation with President Obama over the Affordable Care Act dragged out the length of time it took to get a bill. He kept offering hope that a compromise could be reached while all the time never intending to make any significant concessions. But he did extract some concessions. The public option fell by the wayside as a result of his machinations before the President realized there was nothing more to be gained and pushed ahead with what was left. The decimation of the bill eventually led to the court decision to eliminated the public mandate. These two acts by the Minority Leader hamstrung the ACA and created many of the faults that people later found disappointing about the bill. With the help intended for the working people who could have benefited from the public option fractured and sources of revenue to support the bill eliminated it limped on to passage. It is a tremendously popular package that insured millions of people and, even now, President Biden is proposing that the public option be made a part of the bill and that its coverage be extended.

Senator McConnell also brought the court case that resulted in the infamous Citizens United ruling which threw into the garbage years of Campaign Finance regulations to limit the power of large, well-heeled interests. Through his leadership he gradually eroded campaign finance laws to hide the identities of those who made political contributions to political organizations so the people couldn't see who is attempting to control their government.

He has been true to his word to block every bill proposed by Democratic administrations while at the same time using Senate rules to confirm a vast number of Conservative Republican Judges to the Federal Bench. The objectives of Reactionary Republicans to control the Federal Judiciary has been largely realized during his Senate leadership but possibly the most vile thing he has done is to refuse to bring the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court seat vacated upon the demise of Antonin Scalia to the floor for discussion. His control of what comes to the floor for discussion short circuited the constitutional process of confirming Federal judges.

For four years he enabled the Presidency of Donald Trump who could never have been successful without the machinations of Senator McConnell. He made sure that Trump's objectives were hand-carried through the Senate. Then when the House of Representatives impeached President Trump he controlled the examination process in the Senate to encourage acquittal. When the House impeached the President again he pooh-poohed the charges and refused to even allow a trial with witnesses allowing President Trump to escape again.

Now, having lost his Majority when President Biden was elected, he is choosing to allow the former President to allege the election was rigged calling into doubt the sanctity of the vote and causing the nation to split with the most egregious of the protesters spouting conspiracy theories which the Senator is allowing to pass because the Republicans know if the truth comes out they'll never be allowed to hold office again. Even when those conspiracy theorists and criminals attacked the Capitol while our elected representatives were performing their duty to confirm the President he still gave the insurrectionists cover. Even now he refuses to allow an investigation to move forward by using his favorite too, the filibuster, to thwart rule by the majority of the people.

The result of all of his conniving has been to weaken the ties that bind us and cause what may be irreparable damage to our Republic. His venality will be legendary. Even now he is blocking the President's efforts to help our country and it's citizens recover from decades of crushing inequality and a world-wide pandemic.

And he is our Senator. Elected time and again by the people of Kentucky. My Take is that it is time for him to go before he destroys the foundations of our Democratic Republic. The most dangerous man in the United States.

Short cuts

A few headlines I found interesting this morning.

 

 

 

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cicadas-brood-x-eating-foodies-delicacy/?ftag=CNM-00-10aac3a 

 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-has-and-hasnt-changed-since-george-floyd-was-murdered/

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/23/999202593/once-nearly-extinct-the-florida-panther-is-making-a-comeback 

 https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2567668/the-beatles-get-back-release-date-and-other-quick-things-about-the-peter-jackson-documentary

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/us/politics/arkansas-republicans-sarah-sanders.html

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-capitol-siege-government-and-politics-09db9c7d605ec1af56b78bb7ba25a685   (it seems the GOP is being disengenuous about its objections to this investigation.  Susan Collins has had the fear put into her over her job and is lining up with the party line).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYihtRX2FK0   (Devin Booker is turning into quite the star).

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/24/two-doses-of-covid-vaccines-provide-protection-against-india-variant.html  (an apparent rejection of the arguments of the anti-vaxxers and proof the protection from the vaccinations is widespread).

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/23/nyregion/undocumented-immigrants-poverty-nyc.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage  (a refutation of the argument against continued government benefits.  Some countries actually have a wage replacement benefit for times such as this).

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/arts/television/bob-dylan-birthday-comedy.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage  (because it's Bob Dylan).

Picking Your Pockets

 

Picking Your Pockets

I read the other day where our erstwhile Attorney General was suing someone, the United States Treasury I think, because there are qualifications in the Covid Relief Bill that prevent states from using the money to fund tax cuts. Those Republicans really don't want you to have that money nor do they want the money to be used to fund activities by the state for the  

benefit of its citizens. They would much rather the money be used to gorge the wealthy and leave you to take the crumbs from the table. Seems they want you to be afraid that you will lose not only your salvation but also your right to be called an American if your government tries to help you out.

My parents were born in the Gilded Age. For those of you who missed that day in school, it was a time when wealthy people had managed to buy Congress and the Presidency. The disparity between wealthy and poor had become so great that the working poor were little more than serfs to their liege lords. If your name wasn't Rockefeller, Vanderbilt or Carnegie you were barely making it until you died. Usually at a pretty young age.

Dad was born on the West End of Louisville and didn't really have it too bad for a few years until the Great Flood took everything they had. Dad's family, a large one, ended up living on a shanty boat on the river but later was able to move to a home on the shore. But that was little help since the depression had started when Wall Street crashed. They had very little. He told me of picking up coal that had fallen off the trains in order to be able to have some heat. This would have been in the 1920s and 1930s. He lived in poverty until the biggest works project in history came which was World War II. Then the Navy took over his room and board.

Mom was born into the mountains of Leslie County and she has told me many times of how the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration put people to work  

building public buildings and roads. They built Ky. 80 which ran past their house. Until then Wooton Creek served as part of the road. Mom left the mountains in 1939. First to Florence and then to Louisville where she went to work as a comptometer operator in a factory. She and her family were brought up dirt poor while the big money from U.S. Steel and others raped the mountains for their timber and coal leaving total devastation in its wake. Most of all they left the people as poor or poorer than they were before the big money from up East came.

They met after the war in Louisville and birthed me. The point here is that they revered President Roosevelt so much that they gave me the middle name of Franklin. People of that generation had a picture of Roosevelt on the wall right beside Jesus. Sometimes it was just Roosevelt. Roosevelt took office during a time of massive unemployment and soup lines. Homes and farms were being foreclosed on with people losing everything they had.

Does any of this sound familiar? Have you seen the miles long lines of people lined up for food. They may have a fancy car but they don't have money for food or rent. If you don't take anything else away from this I want you to remember this.

THE DISPARITY IN WEALTH IS GREATER NOW THAN IT WAS IN THE GILDED AGE. I'm not lying. Look it up.

And the wealthy have once again bought our Congress and the Kentucky Legislature is solidly in their pockets. They need to keep you poor and barely making it so that you'll be thankful for those crumbs and won't have enough energy to pay attention. They're doing a great job of that too.

They manage to keep the voters in line by telling them they don't have enough sense to know when and how to have their own babies while, at the same time, picking your pockets. They tell them the world's best universities are indoctrinating their children to become Communists and Socialists. These are the same universities that educated and built the richest country in the world. But wait! Some want to build new schools that will indoctrinate your children in a different direction that will keep the rich people in power and teach them that poor people are poor because they just aren't smart enough or don't work hard enough. To top it all off the new Gilded Age people want to do to the entire earth what Big Timber and Big Coal did to Kentucky. Strip it of all the wealth and leave nothing but a smoking heap and poor people.

My parents lived it and told me about it. I haven't forgotten and I can see what is happening.

My Take is this. We need another Roosevelt.

 

No More Time

 

No More Time

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

Hosea 8:7

I've been planning to write this column on Climate Change for quite some time. Now Bill Gates has a new book out and I thought I'd better get with it so I wouldn't sound too derivative. I have watched and read a large number of things about Climate Change and even went so far as to name last year the year I would focus on that issue. As the old saying goes, “If you want to hear God laugh just tell Him your plans.” Certainly, the pandemic and the response to it became so overwhelming that it sucked all the oxygen out of whatever room you happened to be in. We still don't know if we are going to get ahead of this virus but even as consequential as it is Climate Change is going to make it look like a Sunday in the park.

Yes, that's a pretty bold statement. We just passed half a million dead in the United States alone within the last few days but the costs of Climate Change could easily beat that by an exponential factor. We still have those who say it is a hoax perpetrated by China to disrupt the hegemony of the United States in economic markets all over the world. That is a bigger lie that the one that said Covid 19 was a hoax.

Houston, Texas is a city of 2.3 million people and growing rapidly. As a matter of fact, Texas is now the fastest growing state in the union and we have just witnessed the complete paralyzing of that 2^nd largest state by a snow and ice storm. The electrical grid went down due to demand when the frigid temperatures, unknown in many parts of Texas, rendered inoperable gas and oil machinery. The fossil fuel advocates tried to blame it on wind power but there was an infinitesimal number of those producers that failed. Why did this dramatic weather even happen? It happened due to the disruption of normal weather patterns that have existed in Texas for centuries. Now look at the terrible weather events that have hit Houston in the past decade.

Wildfires in California that burn the vegetation and then mudslides that wreak havoc on residential communities. California is called the breadbasket of America due to the production of so much of the food that we eat and drought wiped out much of that this past year. The avocado shortage got all the press but if you were paying attention you saw grocery prices jump 25% to 50% or more. Climate Change. It is here, it is impacting us and it's going to get much worse no matter what we do. We have dawdled so long that all we have a chance to do is limit how bad it can be.

Recent years have seen floods in the upper Midwest that prevented farmers from planting and then drought that killed what managed to grow. No, these are not normal weather cycles. These are the effects of Climate Change. Here in Kentucky we may be somewhat insulated from the worst effects but those of us who grow food and farm are experiencing the impact of the unpredictability of the weather.

Now, consider New Orleans, Miami, Charleston, New York and other coastal areas that are subject to the vagaries of the seas. A few years ago we saw a tropical storm inundate New York City. North Carolina is still trying to recover from floods. I could go on and on but these things are only harbingers of what is to come.

Diseases that have previously only known in sub-tropical or tropical climes are moving north with the changing weather. Right now President Biden is introducing legislation that will attempt to alleviate some of the suffering and some of the effects and the costs are in the trillions of dollars. Look at where we are financially as a nation right now and ask yourself from where will the resources come?

What happens when the demands at home become so much that we can no longer afford to keep naval fleets all over the world. As a matter of fact, what happens if the sea level rises even a little bit where our naval bases are? How will Climate Change affect our ability to do business and generate taxes to operate our government? Will we have to cut social services at a time when the need will be greater than at any time in our lives and maybe in the life of humanity? We can get through this but not by doing things the way we have been doing. Likely we will have to change economic models if we are to survive as a free nation. We will no longer be able to afford to allow 1% of our population control 90% of the resources. The possibilities boggle the mind and will require the participation of our entire nation if we are to be able to pass a free nation on to our children and grandchildren.

My Take is that I could go on and on boring you with “what ifs” and statistics but there is not enough space here. As a nation we are going to have to get smarter and you and I are going to have to get smarter too. We have no choice but to do so or witness the decline of our nation and our species. Climate Change is here and it is awesome in its power.