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.

That's What Friends Are For

 

That's What Friends Are For

I got the first shot of my vaccination for Covid 19 this morning, January 6^th. This was far sooner than I expected to receive it but the opportunity arose on the spur of the moment and I took it. I rarely act that quickly. I was in line a half hour after being notified of the possibility. I am greatly appreciative to the person who notified me and to LCRMC for administering the vaccinations. I was not the first one there. I would estimate that there were possibly as many as 75 people there before me. I was very uneasy standing in line with all of those people in an enclosed space but everyone was at least masked and socially distanced. I have noticed that of late many more people are wearing masks and zealously being socially distanced and I am appreciative of that. It seems that about everyone now has known someone who has been very ill with Covid 19 or has passed on. That will change a lot of minds.

I had asked friends who have some sort of access to the medical community to give me a heads up if any vaccinations became available and one did that withing 24 hours. That is the value of friends and networking. Let me take this opportunity to remind people that no man is an island. We all depend on each other regardless of what some would tell us.

I have been diligent about keeping up with the vaccines and the state of their distribution so it is possible that I have been more informed about what is going on. For instance, I was aware that doses of the vaccines were being distributed to people in group 1A. If you don't know what group you are in you need to find out. No one cares more about your health that you do. I also knew that sometimes, when everyone in a group has been vaccinated, the extra doses were made available to the public. Due to the stringent controls on how the vaccines are stored there is every effort to use up the ones available in order to not lose them due to expiration.

I will admit that this is not a fair and just way to distribute the vaccines. A just and fair method would have registered every citizen and scheduled the vaccinations according to need. Indeed, that was once the plan and there was an office in the White House dedicated to that purpose but, alas, it was disbanded shortly following President Trump's inauguration. He told the public that he knew where to find doctors and, besides, he knew more about the topic than anyone. That office would have put forward a national plan to deal with the pandemic and set up the distribution chains into the states. That was not done and this administration just allocated the vaccines to the states and said the ball is in your court.

Speaking of the Lake Cumberland District Health Department the job of contact tracing and administering large numbers of doses of the vaccines proved overwhelming and there is not yet any coherent system of letting people know when they can receive the protection afforded by the vaccines. Congress asked in the last stimulus package for money to fund these measures for the health departments but, as you know, it was held up in the Senate. So, if you want to blame someone now you know who to blame.

Going forward I still don't know how we are going to vaccinate 330 million people not once but twice without additional resources. I sincerely hope that when President-elect Biden takes office that he put emergency measures in place to accomplish this monumental task. He has said that he will.

Sadly, we knew this was going to happen. We saw it coming with H1N1 and Ebola. Our medical professionals knew it was not a matter of if but when and that is why the office in the White House was established. Our lack of a coherent national plan has cost us the lives of 340,000 of our brothers and sisters. January is predicted to be the worst month of all for deaths and even with the vaccinations we must not lower our guard. It is likely the death toll will reach half a million before we can rest.

But, with the vaccines, there is a bright spot on the horizon. We have a new President coming and a new administration that will be more attentive to such things. A bright spot is that infections from the flu are down a staggering 98% which proves the efficacy of masks, distancing and vaccinations.

My Take is that what is also proven is the value of your network of friends. Value yourself enough to want to help your friends. Talk to them, ask for help. Left alone we are of no use to anyone.

Trans Pacific Partnership

 Take notice here that Pacific Rim nations are forming an trading alliance that does not include the United States.  They are doing this in order to create a hedge against rising Chinese influence in the South China See and environs.  You may (or may not) recall that late in the Obama administration there was an effort to create the Trans Pacific Partnership that included all of these countries plus the United States.  During the Presidential campaign Democrats were forced to abandon this effort due to reactionary comments from the opposition.

 It was not just a trade association but was also a military one in the sense that trade ties make for a larger bully pulpit.  One that would be able to counter Chinese influence and their "Silk Road" initiative.  But, as is often the case with the United States, petty politics interfered to the detriment of national security.

 I sincerely hope that the Biden administration is able to align the United States with these other nations to accomplish the purpose of controlling Chinese hegemony in the Pacific. 

This from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

 

 

Asia-Pacific nations to sign big trade deal

dpa

HANOI, Vietnam Asia-Pacific nations are set to sign on Sunday the world’s biggest free-trade agreement at a virtual summit hosted in Hanoi, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said.

“The signing of the regional comprehensive economic partnership tomorrow is a concrete action that shows the determination to cooperate and integrate in the region,” Phuc told regional leaders and businessmen at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting on Saturday.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership covers 2.2 billion people and 29 per cent of global economic output. Having been negotiated since 2013, it is expected to be signed during an online ceremony on Sunday at the 37th ASEAN Summit in Hanoi.

The world’s biggest trade agreement will include 10 ASEAN member states – Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei – along with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

Prior to finalizing the agreement, 31 rounds of negotiations and 18 ministerial meetings took place, while self-imposed deadlines for the deal were missed on six occasions.

A Recent Histor of Presidential Elections

 

A brief history of presidential elections this century includes several in which the winner did not score a majority but claimed the prize anyway.

In 2000 with Vice-President Al Gore running against George W. Bush, Gore stupidly did not want to be linked with the most popular president in our lifetime, Bill Clinton. You may recall that the count went on forever in Florida with the race yet undecided. Bush's brother was governor, the Florida Secretary of State was Republican and they pulled the plug on the count in West Palm Beach County which was heavily democratic. Guess who the lead attorney was for the Republicans? Bill Barr, the current Attorney General. The courts upheld the stopping of the count and Gore conceded rather than drag the country through a constitutional crisis. But think of how things could have been different. The Bush administration disregarded the warnings from the Clinton Administration regarding Al Qaeda and the September 11^th and we were at war. A Gore administration would have carried on the policy of the Clinton administration and there is a high likelihood that 9/11 would not have happened. No Afghanistan, no Iraq.

In '04 Bush took on John Kerry who was leading nearing the election when a scurrilous group launched a series of commercials alleging that Kerry had failed in his duty and that his military record was false. This of the man who commanded a Swift Boat and earned the Bronze Star but it was enough to tip the scales.

Hallelujah, the world became aware of Barack Obama over the next eight years but our own Senator Mitch McConnell thwarted most of Obama's legislation and refused confirmation of hundreds of federal judges. See where we are now?

Then in '16 Hillary Rodham Clinton took on Donald Trump. HRC is likely the most qualified person to run for president in our lives. She was leading up until the time the FBI director announced they were reopening the investigation into her e-mails 10 days before the election. She won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. The difference was in 3 rust belt states with a total vote difference of 80,000 votes over 3 states.

This makes 3 elections since 2000 where Republicans have used nefarious means to win an election. I call them stolen. This is the difference in our country now. We must take nothing for granted this time. If they can steal the election you can bet they will.

Say Her Name

 

Say Her Name

Breonna Taylor

One of our friends posted the other day that sometimes the law just does not give us what we need. She said that is the fault of the law and the law needs to be changed. She is right. AG Cameron said one thing the other day that I can agree with. He said (I'm paraphrasing) that sometimes the Criminal Code is insufficient to bring justice. It is hard to grasp but that is so.

According to the law it appears that the warrant was lawfully obtained although it contained erroneous information. In this the Metro Police said they will be instituting more careful oversight of the warrant process. Maybe that is enough, maybe not. A civilian witness testified that the police did knock to announce themselves. I don't know what the interval was between the announcement and the breaching but it is ludicrous to think that someone is awake at all hours to hear it. It seems apparent that more time is needed between announcement and breaching. Maybe no breaching at all. It was alleged that it was a “no knock” warrant but that appears to not have been so.

After breaching the man in the apartment opened fire on what he took to be intruders as is his right. The police returned fire as is their right under existing law. They are trained to fire until the threat is eliminated which usually means dead. In this case their fire was misdirected and the threat lived on but Breonna Taylor was eliminated.

Police almost everywhere enjoy limited immunity from prosecution for their actions. I can understand that but that should be more limited but it can't be more limited until their training changes and the rights of citizens are strengthened.

This is where “Defund the Police” comes in. Police have been gifted with military armaments and vehicles and use military tactics. This is wrong. Police are not military, they are not even para-military. They are citizens with the job of enforcing the law. Training must change to reinforce this ideal. The funding for para-military operations needs to be diverted to training social workers and other mental health professionals to attend to calls where deadly action may be required. All members of law enforcement need to be trained in de-escalation of tensions even if it means that they must back off and wait. Police must not be allowed to be something other than a regular citizen doing a dangerous job.

The tactics they use fall the heaviest on disadvantaged and minority populations. They would not use the same tactics in a high rent or gated community. That is wrong and should be corrected. That is discriminatory application of the law.

Often police recruits are people who only want the badge and gun so they can bully people and those recruits need to be weeded out. It is obvious that we need new codes for police conduct and we need them now but you can bet when that effort gets underway there will be those who cry that the police need those abusive techniques in order to protect themselves. I say they can protect themselves and the citizens they serve by being better trained. In addition, they need to know that when they fail their training and use deadly force inappropriately they will be subject to the weight of the law like everyone else.

Some say the police are outgunned and that may currently be true but that can be solved by instituting some common sense gun laws including registration, restrictions on who can carry a weapon and what type and (in my opinion) by requiring insurance on each weapon sold just like we do vehicles.

Breonna Taylor should not have died and a grave injustice has been committed with no one being held responsible for her violent death. As a nation, we cannot allow that to happen. Yes, the AG was right. The criminal code has proven insufficient to bring justice and we have seen it happen time after time after time. And we have seen it happen in more significant numbers in minority populations. That should cause someone in power to recoil in horror. The President (who couldn't care less) says that we kill more white people than we do African-Americans and that is true but we kill African-Americans in far larger percentages that we do others.

My Take is this. Tyler Childers asks us what we would do under similar circumstances. We should ask that of ourselves before we condemn Black Lives Matter.

 

 

 

The Cooperation of Societies

 

The Cooperation of Societies

The reptiles and dinosaurs appeared on this planet during the Mesozoic Age which began some 225 million years ago. They were a durable bunch and persisted until they were taken out by a visitor from outer space that made landfall (or sea fall) just off the Yucatan Peninsula some 65 million years ago. They had a run of almost 200 million years. They were splendid in their variety and it seems there was one to fit every niche in the existing ecology. Likely, they would still be dominant had that asteroid not come to us. It is also likely that humans would not have risen to the current status had they survived because they were marvelously adapted to their surroundings.

But their demise gave room for mammals to begin their long climb to superiority. It took another 77 million years for our genus, Homo, to take root. Through the many permutations of evolution it took another 7 or 8 million years for our species, Homo Sapiens, to take root. That is less that 1 million years that our species has existed out of the 4.5 billion years of the earth.

Other variations of our family tree stayed in the trees or on the mountains where the environment afforded some margin of safety. One of the things that has differentiated our genus from others is the habit of forming communities. As a matter of fact, one could argue that it is our reliance on communities that allowed our genus to grow and proliferate. As far back as anyone can deduce primates have lived in groups. It is through reliance on those complex relationships that the group prospers. Those which lose the contact of the group find themselves in desperate straits because it is nearly impossible to find protection and adequate food without the group. It was from such groups that the genus homo began to prosper. First as opportunists gathering enough food and protection to survive by taking the leftovers from other animals and the fruit and other food that nature offers then beginning to use tools and learning how to use the group to hunt. Other mammals use groups to hunt and maybe the early proto-humans took an example from that. Whatever the case they proved to be very good at using the group to make up for the lack of overwhelming physical characteristics. They went from being the prey to preying upon other species but no other species experienced the accompanying growth of the brain. That greater brain allowed them to devise strategies, develop tools and use fire. As their diet improved so did the growth of that brain and the genus homo branched into several sub-species. We are now discovering that they did not remain separate but interbred and preserved the best characteristics of each species.

Then about 10,000 years ago one of the most important events in evolutionary history happened. The hunter-gatherers learned how to farm. This meant they could stay in one spot, raise families, build permanent shelters and develop more complex and larger societies. The downside to this is that rules became necessary to maintain a semblance of peace and to distribute the products of their labors. Millenia passed with rules being made by a strong man, priests and by inheritance. Godly intervention was sometimes construed to appoint a person to be the ruler thereby reinforcing the right of the ruler to dominate. Sometime shortly prior to the third millennium past there began to arise the thought that people should be able to govern themselves. Of course, it wasn't for all people and usually didn't include women. Maybe it was applicable only to land owners or people of wealth but philosophers had quite a time of it deciding who would be the righteous possessors of the right to make laws that would govern all. That was an odd notion and any form of democracy had a difficult time taking root but still instances occurred that tried this or that form.

But then, some 800 years ago some English subjects decided that the King had too much power and that power included making war which impacted them directly. They demanded that the King grant some amount of power to the nobles and such. Of course, the common serf still had no rights. The King was still allowed to hold power because he was obviously appointed by God who ordained the right to rule. None of this allowed the common people to prosper.

It was into this milieu that the American colonies were formed and it only took a hundred years or so before they decided they should form their own societies and their own laws to govern them. Those treasonous people followed the thoughts of the philosophers of the enlightenment period and declared that certain rights were endowed by the Creator whoever that was. Somehow they missed the fact that women and those enslaved were people so it took a while longer to extend the right to vote for their leaders.

Since then it has been almost 250 years and participation in this democracy is almost universal having been extended to all men, finally all women and we are still working on making sure that everyone has the expectation that their votes will be counted.

All of this leads to the laws that govern us and their purpose. In 1789 after a bloody war with Great Britain our United States of America was formed with a Constitution enumerating the rights and responsibilities of citizens. It is worth noting that the prime consideration and basis for all rights relied on property rights. This group of laws was created by our legislature and submitted to the individual states for ratification which was forthcoming thereby creating a contract between the governed and those who govern. That contract is still in force having never been negated by a successful Constitutional Convention.

Over the decades the courts have held that, according to our Constitution, all people are created equal and endowed with certain rights. Also that each person had the right to an expectation of being treated equally under the law. As populations increased strains began to show in the fabric of society and our courts have rendered decisions that impacted interpretations of the intent of our Constitution as the needs of society grew ever more complex.

Today we find ourselves in a heated discussion over exactly what the Constitution intended for its citizens. It is difficult to determine sometimes since there are conflicts in interpretations. But it is certain that without rules to keep the peace and prevent disruptions that would threaten the republic our existence as a free people would be endangered. Our social contract has held us together all these years by encouraging cooperation and compromise. Until there is a successful constitutional convention the contract binds all citizens of this republic. It seems plain that as population increases and resources become more precious that a more cooperative nature is going to be required. Some are resisting this with every fiber of their being claiming to not be bound by the Social Contract but they are wrong.

My Take is that the human race, not just our country, will require more cooperation and sharing of resources rather than less. Without this enmity is guaranteed and the republic is endangered.

BUSTED

I got a cow that went dry

and a hen that won't lay.

A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day,

The county's gonna haul my belongings away

Cause I'm busted.

Ray Charles

Yes, folks, we are in a world of hurt. We can't go to work the way we used to or we stand a good chance of getting sick and, after that, a fair chance of dying. That is really not a big deal to a lot of folks especially those who aren't going to have to work that assembly line. They are far more interested in the financial end of things and, truthfully, we should be also. But we need not be so troubled that we are willing to give up our lives and leave our families without any hope going forward. Any government that asks you to do this is a government that has failed in its main purpose and does not have your welfare at heart.

I'm probably not in as bad a shape financially as some of you. We don't have much but what we have is paid for. We survived long enough to qualify for Medicare and Social Security which isn't much but it is more than a lot of people in big houses and driving new SUVs have. I know how to grow a garden and have done so for at least half my lifetime now but there is no way that today's world will allow you to subsist on that alone. But if you are a person who cares about this country and cares about what kind of future you are leaving your children you should be terrified.

Here is the issue. With very few people working our government is going to experience a sharp drop in revenue. We already spend a third more than we receive for various reasons that do not include people unwilling to work. After the crash of '08 we used about $2 Trillion to bail out the banks and for stimulus. We've spent about $6 Trillion on wars that we needn't have fought and can't win. Now, we are spending Trillions more to try to keep America from turning into Somalia. Where is the money coming from? Well, it's kind of a win/win situation because all we have to do is print up some more money. We can't trade it for gold or silver any longer so it is a financial medium that depends on itself for reliability. The only way it can fail is if enough people begin to see it as a currency that is no longer reliable. Since it is the global standard that means if the dollar goes down so does the world's financial markets. It is faith in the United States and the dollar that keeps the world's financial markets in motion. Can the dollar fail? Who wants to find out?

I want you to consider what would happen if, for some reason, people quit accepting the dollar as payment for goods and debts. I also want you to consider how government gets money to pay for things to be done. For instance, how does Social Security get paid for? How does our military get paid for? Have you ever thought about who gets that money that we spend on our military? What happens if we can't pay for the fuel to keep ships and planes moving? Or to pay our men and women in the Armed Forces. Necessarily we would be required to pull our forces out of service and bring them home. What if we can't pay to have our roads and bridges maintained (which apparently we can't)? I'm sure you don't need me to provide the answers to these questions but think about it.

So, here we are (and the rest of the world also) with a virus threatening to kill or make ill almost half of us. We can't work if we're too sick to work. We can't go around infecting everyone else. That's what the Bubonic Plague did and that set civilization back 400 years and brought on what we refer to as “The Dark Ages.” Pandemics have plagued mankind that we know of as far back as history goes but in the past century we became able to fight them back. Now one has arisen that we don't know how to fight but we do know some things that work to alleviate the symptoms.

What I want you to do is to consider the amount of disruption that this virus, a tiny thing we can't even see, has caused. It has totally disrupted global trade, financial markets, energy production and every other facet of our lives you can think of. What do you think would happen if we jumped the gun to return to our endeavors only to create a larger pandemic than we now have? That is what we did a hundred years ago with the Spanish Flu and the second wave was much larger than the first. Many find that to be an acceptable outcome. Right now we are existing on government debt providing us with the currency that is necessary in today's lives. Can that government sustain that obligation to it's citizens through another wave of infection and death or would we be left to our own devices? Can we maintain medical services or would we be left to die with bodies placed at the front door for pickup as they were in times past? Perhaps the answer to that lies in what is happening in nursing homes.

Those wanting us to return to work are being short-sighted and betray their allegiance to money rather than people. These things have the ability to bring down governments and the next one we get may not be so considerate of it's citizens. We must continue the distancing until we arrive at some way to lessen the effect of the disease or a vaccine to immunize us or we risk losing it all. Yes, it is that desperate.

My Take is that this is bad but there is an enemy in the wings already on the move to hit us again and it has the potential to make Covid 19 look like a walk in the park. We not only need to get back to work, we need to restructure our society so that we will be better prepared when, not if, it comes. Be smart.

The Hammer

The Hammer

If we take nothing else from this catastrophe we should at least realize that having a national health care service that could be quickly mobilized to deal with the increasing risk of viral and bacterial pandemics would be a good thing.

Just as the 1918 Flu epidemic, Sars, Mers, H1N1 and now Covid 19 all jumped from animals to humans this virus is aided by the increasing pressures for land and food forcing humans into closer contact with animals and in closer contact with each other. We haven't seen it yet but there are viruses and bacteria thawing in what used to be permafrost. Tiny enemies that have been in the deep freeze for millenia. Climate change will force humans to live in ever closer surroundings that will maximize transmission of any disease and especially those for which our species has not developed resistance.

I don't know that Climate Change contributed to this outbreak but other pressures brought on by increasing populations and demands for food certainly did. We fool ourselves if we think that our globally sourced food supply has been vetted in the same manner that our domestic supply has. In Southeast Asia food production and humans exist in the same space. Many places use human waste to fertilize crops and serve as food for animals. In our own country the use of inspections has been drastically reduced and in many cases left up to the producers themselves to decide whether or not their product gets to market. Upton Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle in 1906, would be horrified to see the worker abuse and lack of food preparation still rampant in the United States food industry. It is getting worse, not better.

After the Wall Street crash and the onset of The Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 and took office in 1933. It took him and the Democratic Party two more years to enact the Social Security Act. It was passed over the objections of the Republican Party and their howls of socialism. It was far more limited than today in its scope but it provided some help to the elderly destitute people. Soon the ideal of a National Health Care plan began to take shape with the support of both Republican and Democratic administrations but it took until 1965 for Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party to pass the National Medicare Plan, again over the howls of the Republican Party and cries of socialism.

Presidents as diverse as Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton advocated for a National Health Care Plan to cover all citizens with President Clinton failing to do so over Republican objections during his administration. Finally, with the Presidency of Barack Obama some semblance of what was to be a National Health Care plan was passed, again over the howls of the Republican Party and cries of socialism. The plan came under immediate attack in the courts and some key provisions of the act were held to be either illegal or unconstitutional which decreased the number of citizens covered leaving several million without access to medical care.

And here we are today. In the throes of uncertainty and calamity, not knowing what our risk is or how we may be affected. In the middle of a Presidential campaign where health care is a key issue and, still, the Republicans are howling and crying socialism. One Democratic candidate wants to do away with all private insurance and enact a Medicare for all while the other wants to reinforce the Affordable Care Act as a transition to a National Health Care plan. Republicans would prefer to do away with all forms of government intervention except to support business. In my opinion, strengthening the Affordable Care Act is the most likely to get done but, make no mistake, my goal is National Health Care.

In the flu epidemic of 1918-1919 50 million people died globally out of a population far less that what we have now. Yes, medicine is vastly improved but population is far greater and we still don't know what we are facing with this virus. The fatality rate for flu is one tenth of one percent. .1%. For Covid 19 it is somewhere between 2% and 4%. At least 20 times greater. It is projected that 60 million to 150 million of our citizens will be exposed. Depending on the infection rate that is 1,200,000 to 3,000,000 fatalities. In Italy, one of the hardest hit countries so far, they have come to the point of being unable to treat all their sick and are having to make decisions on who gets treated and who doesn't.

Does it sound like I'm angry? Well, I am. I don't blame President Trump for Covid 19. He didn't have anything to do with that. I do blame him for his inept and corrupt administration and his incessant lies in an effort to diminish the importance of early testing and treatment. I am angry that he rejected using the already available test from the WHO. I am angry that he disbanded the agencies that were established to protect us from these types of things. I am angry at what this is going to do to our economy and the lost lives. I am angry at his Republican enablers that have known all along what kind of threat he is to our republic. And I am very angry that all he is concerned with are his polling numbers. It is my sincere prayer that the President and his enablers bear the burden of their infamy heavily and without cease.

My Take is that the only way this can be made useful is to elect a Democratic wave as was done in 1932, 1964 and 2008. A wave large enough to push National Health Care over the finish line.