Sunday, June 10, 2018

When good people do nothing

In college my minor was political science. Despite what some folks may think of liberal
college education I came out of that with the idealized concept of Congress and especially the Senate as arbiters and leaders and, yes, statesmen at the national and international level. Imagine the shock of realization that they saw their jobs as selfishly channeling as much federal money as possible into their own districts.
Alaska's gang proved particularly adept at that. While they connived to extract every possible dollar out of the federal government into something for Alaska, they mostly voted along the lines of whatever party they thought they represented, statesmanship be damned, morality too.
But the evolution didn't stop there. In the years that followed that first lucid non-idealistic awareness, the representation changed to what exists now, where they represent not the people, barely their own districts anymore and now represent the monied interests of the country, legislating for huge corporations and ultra rich barons who in turn fund the campaigns that keep the people who represent them in power while they rake in huge profits and impoverish their own employees.
And the nation has blithely followed along. A noisy ignorant plurality of Americans vote against their own interests because of the manufactured fears along religious, racial and patriotic lines. Their rulers twist every negative issue to keep those fears alive. A football player kneels during the national anthem to bring attention to the racism in this country and is vilified for disrespect to the anthem and the flag and the autocrats silence the original message in a cacophony of patriotic shouting.
We even shrug off the massacre of our children by gun-toting maniacs, while those supposedly representing the masses, actually only represent a well funded- organization that represents gun manufacturers and uses their money to influence those public representatives.
We cruelly separate children from their parents in the fear of too many brown people coming into the country. Meanwhile crops die in the fields because no red-blooded American wants to pick them — that's menial labor always done by those same people we are now sending back to their own countries to be murdered while their children languish in fear behind the wires of what can only be called concentration camps.
And what does a large segment of that coalition of the rich whose whole existence is based on the moral of "love thy neighbor" do? Nothing. Nada. Oh yeah one of them pleaded with his followers to provide him with enough money to buy an $80 million private jet airplane. Maybe that would bring him closer to god, because nothing he does on terra firma is going to if the teachings are correct. The rest could care less as they worship in billion-dollar cathedrals, the kind Jesus and Sampson tried to tear down.
An for crying out loud we have to teach our children how to stay alive when someone starts shooting up their schools. Is there anything imaginably worse than that?
There are so many instances where the oligarchy has mistreated the people who support it with their labor and their acquiescence, they can't all be listed in a single polemic that anyone would read.
It has caused a national malaise, a sort of background depression that comes to the fore every so often when the #fakepresident that ignorant plurality elected does something so outrageous we almost can't believe it. Consider this as a prime example. That #fakepresident is about to attend a historic meeting with the dictator of North Korea. This has not been done since Korea was left divided by a hot war and then a cold war since the 1950s, with a history dating into the mid 1800s. What does this #fakepresident say and do with that for background? He says he doesn't need to and won't do any preparations for the meeting. He will "read" his counterpart and that is all he needs. What could go wrong with that? Yet we shrug our shoulders and pass it off as "well that's Trump." Then we wait anxiously to see how what outrage he commits this time.
The question is what is the next step in that progression of the evolution by government representation in this country? All of the options except one are almost unthinkable. Photographs of children behind chain link in America today raise too-vivid parallels to those photos we have seen in history books of children in their striped outfits staring out from behind barbed wire in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Are we going to keep shrugging our shoulders and letting it happen? That's what Germans did in the years leading to that great war
That one option is out there, but when 67 percent of those eligible fail to vote even in a presidential election, what hope is there? It can be changed but it is going to take an effort, even if it is only to take an hour out of our precious lives to vote in November, while we are still allowed to vote. The alternative is unthinkable. If we are going to act in fear let's make sure we fear the right thing. The longer we let it go on, the longer it's going to take to repair the damage.
Here's a start. This summer students who started the March for our Lives movement after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school in Parkland, Florida, are taking a bus tour to register young people to vote. They plan to visit 20 states with more than 50 stops and also every congressional district in Florida. The first stop is June 15 in Chicago. They are targeting the four million people who will turn 18 this year. Now there's a voting bloc.
And take heart, things like this worked once before:


MORE POLITICAL COMMENT

1 comment:

  1. You need a button for "right on target." When I studied civics, we were told that senators had six-year terms so they could be more deliberative, and not react to whims, while the representatives had two-year terms so they would be more responsive to their constituents. Obviously none of them are following that plan. Members of congress too often grab and run. Senators are bought by the highest bidders, and ultimately it all comes down to party loyalties. We have a president whose only interest is himself as he jets around the globe willy-nilly tossing out insults to world leaders who don't bend to his will. Vote as though your life—and the lives of those you love—depend on it. They do. It's not your "right to vote," it's one of the duties of citizenship. VOTE, Vote, vote...

    ReplyDelete

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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

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"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.”