Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Yet another underprivileged minority begins to emerge

Privilege came up in a conversation with a friend a couple of years ago. The friend did not accept
that I did not recognize being privileged. At the time I had not picked up on the modern concept of privilege. Not too long after that I realized what caused our difference of opinion.

She was speaking to the comparison between white people and minorities in which generally white people enjoy advantages that most minorities do not. My concept at the time, and I realize it now, was narrower and involved privilege among white people and I certainly do not enjoy the same advantages as the wealthy do. In fact it is that lack of privilege that has forced a new minority of which I am probably a charter member or about to become one. But because of our conversation, I now understand the broader view of privilege, the concept that simply because I am white I enjoy a certain level of privilege within a diverse community of minorities.

It goes like this: The recent election was devastating in so many ways but the next morning the sun rose, so there's that. And there's still snow in the forecast. Big fat moon coming up in the sky if we can see it. Cleared up some nagging chores throughout the day and it appeared the Earth was still spinning. So what's to worry about? This isn't the first president I didn't vote for.

Why is it that now we are supposed to unite and support our elected president in an atmosphere of cooperation and patriotism after eight years of our current president facing the worst obstruction of any in history.

The Republicans want us to come together to support the new president. After eight years of Republicans doing just the opposite to one of the finest presidents the country has ever had, that is not going to happen. A racist, misogynistic egotistical uninformed bully has been elected president largely from votes by people who will suffer more under this new administration. And the dangers he presents to the country far outweigh any desire to "just get along."

The idiocy of people voting against their own interests is described no better than in the attached meme. Wave the confederate flag and then tell people they lost the election and to get over it. Right.
On the same day that meme appeared this president-elect told a 60 Minutes interviewer he was going to get rid of Roe v. Wade but not same-sex marriage because that issue has been settled by the Supreme Court. That is the level of ignorance we are going to face for the next four years.

And those same voters who bought the presidential candidate's mantra of cleaning out Washington and taking back the country managed to increase majorities in both houses of Congress, the very people who caused what needs to be changed.

You have to laugh at those people who wanted to kick out the beltway insiders to get a fresh start and then voted for most of the incumbents in Congress, the very people who have caused the problems bothering people. With the presidency and majorities in both the House and Senate and the philosophies they espouse, the very core of our democracy is threatened and the people most likely to suffer most are those who voted for them.

For example, a large voting block of elderly people supposedly voted to maintain those majorities. Talk about voting against your own interests, this new power structure has vowed to cut or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, two programs that benefit the elderly and which many of us might not survive without.

The president-elect says he objects to Social Security on moral grounds. Moral grounds? I have been paying into Social Security since 1958. This was my retirement and I paid for it. As a matter of fact I am still paying for it as even my Social Security payment is subject to taxes and the FICA withholding, plus I pay a premium for Medicare as well. What is moral about taking it away from all the people who have contributed over the years? And in an era of skyrocketing drug prices and other health commodities, what is moral about removing the Medicare safety net?

Cutting or removing those programs will create a whole new minority, a whole new group of people without privilege –  old white guys who depend on Social Security and Medicare.


So, to my mind with this threat over our heads along with so many others, I see no reason to shake hands, no honeymoon period, no "get behind the new president to make things work." It is time to obstruct the obstructionists at every opportunity. A true patriot is obligated to fight to save the country, not shake hands and move on with the folks who would destroy the fabric or our very foundations. I have no intention to be part of "one-united-people." A man who consistently spouts divisive policies is not a uniting factor and in fact is creating new minorities to crush all the time.

Regarding Social Security and other stuff

3 comments:

  1. I'm agreeing with everything you said in your last paragraph, and am not proposing any honeymoon period, but I think a lot of energy is being wasted in the streets when it could be used to prepare for the election of 2018. THAT is where the fighting can do some good. Unless somebody has Mr. Peabody's wayback machine to make the clock go back.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have been using the Pandora's box analogy and thinking that I could hold onto the hope at the bottom. But that is naïve. History is full of people who believed that and found out the hard way that they were wrong.

      Delete
  2. With the presidency and majorities in both the House and Senate...
    About the only silver lining I find in this highly fracked up situation is that the proverbial ball is totally in the republican court. Either Trump will do nothing but run the country along establishment republican lines-in other words more of the same failed policies which will alienate all those people who thought he would "shake things up and drain the swamp." Or he will get seriously stupid trying to play president and drive the country straight into a brick wall proving his incompetence.
    Yeah, the latter will hurt a lot of people but I figure this is one of those periods in American history where we are just going to have to ride this shit wave to the very end.
    As for making nice with that piece of filth, Trump and his supporters can kiss my ass.
    The one question I have is whether the democrats have the courage and stamina to oppose Trump and then make a case in 2018 as to why the republican congress should be voted out of office.

    ReplyDelete

Best headlines ever

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Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

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"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Commenting on an athlete with hearing impairment he said the player didn’t show any “uncomfortability.” “He's not doing things he can't do."

"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

"He's got to have the lead if he's going to win this race." "

"Kansas has always had the ability to score with the basketball."

"NFL to put computer chips in balls." Oh, that's gotta hurt.

"Now that you're in the finals you have to run the race that's going to get you on the podium."

"It's very important for both sides that they stay on their feet."

This is why you get to hate sportscasters. Kansas beats Texas for the first time since 1938. So the pundits open their segment with the question "let's talk about what went wrong." Wrong? Kansas WON a football game! That's what went RIGHT!

"I brought out the thermostat to show you how cold it is here." Points to a thermometer reading zero in Minneapolis.

"It's tough to win on the road when you turn the ball over." Oh, really? Like you can do all right if you turn the ball over playing at home?

Cliches so embedded in sportscasters' minds they can't help themselves: "Minnesota fell from the ranks of the undefeated today." What ranks? They were the only undefeated team left.

A good one: A 5'10" player went up and caught a pass off a defensive back over six feet tall. The quote? "He's got some hops."

Best homonym of the day so far: "It's all tied. Alabama 34, Kentucky 3." Oh, Tide.

"Steve Hooker commentates on his Olympic pole vault gold medal." When "comments" just won't do.

"He's certainly capable of the top ten, maybe even higher than that."

"Atlanta is capable of doing what they're doing."

"Biyombo, one of seven kids from the Republic of Congo." In the NBA? In America? In his whole country?

"You can't come out and be aggressive but you can't come out and be unaggressive."

"They're gonna be in every game they play!"

"First you have to get two strikes on the hitter before you get the strikeout."

"The game ended in the final seconds." You have to wonder when the others ended or are they still going on?

How is a team down by one touchdown before the half "totally demoralized?"

"If they score runs they will win."

"I think the matchup is what it is"

After a play a Houston defender was on his knees, his head on the ground and his hand underneath him appeared to clutch a very sensitive part of the male anatomy. He rolled onto his back and quickly removed his hand. (Remember the old Cosby routine "you cannot touch certain parts of your body?") Finally they helped the guy to the sideline and then the replay was shown. In it the guy clearly took a hard knee between his thighs. As this was being shown, one of the announcers says, "It looks like he hurt his shoulder." The other agrees and then they both talk about how serious a shoulder injury can be. Were we watching the same game?

"Somebody is going to be the quarterback or we're going to see a new quarterback."

"That was a playmaker making a play.”