Our Lives Will Never be the Same, Nor Should They
New Age
March 22, 2020
You wish you had a Tesla, but you need a ride and a 1969 Road Runner is still cool
Without the Depression would we have social security? We can drive the Covid-19 crisis to a political watershed election all while self-isolating and sheltering in place. The first step is to stop petty nonsense. We could do very well in a capitalist system if we actually had one. We have an oligarchic system of corrupt cronyism. No one should get bogged down in labels. There are no groups in our political system who are more into socialism than the Trumpers. Corporate big-shots want to exploit this crisis for more giveaways. They will leverage a law to respond to the recession to undermine the power of workers. The Trump rally crowds want more giveaways for themselves. They think they are getting less because the other people are stealing it. People who are illegals, recipients of foreign aid, and lazy minorities. I watched an interview with West Virginians voting for Romney. They were complaining they hated Obamacare. Why, because it wasn’t generous enough. Most people did not sit through political theory classes. The vast majority have no idea what the real definition of classical liberalism, socialism, communism, or any other ism is. Abstract definitions do not fit a messy reality. Do not allow a movement to splinter with arguments over words and labels instead of tangible policies.
We need goals fighting climate change is the highest priority. Propose practical steps to get there and find legislators to support them. We will get some who now attack the Green New Deal as socialism. Rebuild our institutions with accountability and oversight. We will have allies who rail against capitalism. We can not accept corruption from Republicans or Democrats. Senator Feinstein’s blind trust seems no more blind than the Trump Crime Family’s arrangement. We need government running services that are carefully audited, not services contracted to private contractors. The contractors always seem to be cronies. People rail over Citizens United, but Mitch has packed the courts. Constitutional amendments are hard to pass. We need to achieve good government by other means; we need a series of laws that make minor reforms in voter registration, ballot access, and fairness in campaign advertising. Let each law be challenged in a series of separate lawsuits. Some challenges may prevail, but it will bring attention to the tactics of suppression. Moscow Mitch has filled the judicial system with white supremacist corporate toadies. These judges will remain impediments for a generation or more. A simple fairness law, if a party or candidate is attacked, the person or shadow group responsible for that ad would have to give 33% of the amount paid to the one attacked for rebuttal time. It takes away no ones “free speech” (hack and cough) but adds simple fairness to the political debate. We must strive for expanded voter participation if we are ever to overcome the institutional power of wealth.
We need the Blue Wave and it can happen
We need more policies where we can see measurable results. Biden type Democrats offer to add ten percent to Head Start. Head Start is good program we need to address solutions in a more comprehensive way than adding to or deducting from the budgets of a multitude of programs. TARP was attacked. President Obama talked about a smart grid, but did we ever see a smart grid or a map of the progress? Did President Obama ever go out and stand beside a newly built part of a smart grid? We threw some money away in a pathetic attempt at high speed rail. We have to build the roadbeds not ride on freight rails. We need an integrated transit system connecting regional airports to hubs and city centers. A plan like the Eisenhower Interstate system where government builds the foundation. We should use the interstate right of ways for the roadbed needs when feasible. Private companies will build the engines and cars; transportation companies will the pay the fees to use it. It is how we built interstates, airports, and river navigation controls. Our solutions can work together to improve more than one problem facing us. An integrated transportation plan can be a climate solution, an economic solution, and a quality of life solution. We need the political power to do the things that will build a better planet and a new age in human society.
Covid-19 has laid bare the inadequacies of our health care system. It endangers us all, we must not let this moment pass; we need dramatic reform. Many Republican policies designed to save money are costing us far more in the long run. We cannot ignore toxic waste, sea level rise, and destruction of the eco-system. It is not saving society anything. It is simply handing the bill to someone else. All activity must have an allocation for its true cost in taxes or regulation. If destructive activities are allowed to be laissez-faire, it costs us all. We need control of the Senate, the House, and the Executive branch. We need to make 2020 a year where we are all allies. We can argue policies, approaches, and ideologies later. We cannot allow single issue purity to undermine the first priority of gaining control. After 2016 we had nothing and look where it has led.
I have a reason to care about our future world
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