New Years Eve Edition: Do not give up. It is on us.
Let's reflect on this New Years Eve. We have asked many politicians to do the right thing. Lets use 2022 to demand it or else ...
Notes
A Newsletter worth reading
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Here is the message to my listener who said: “I have all but given up on humanity.”
Worthwhile Reads
Neither Democrats nor Republicans will save us! Here is the deal!
We must defeat this false Right-Wing messaging. They know if Americans are enlightened, it is over!
Notes
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A Newsletter worth reading
[REPRISE]I was born and raised in Panama. As I inferred in my book “As I See It: Class Warfare the Only Resort To Right Wing Doom,” most around the world revered the image under which America sold itself. This quote from my book is probative.
My maternal grandfather immigrated to the United States in the 1950’s. He had not returned to Panamá until sometime in the early 1970’s when I was really young. To this day I remember picking up his shoes, looking at the soles and telling him, “Imagine these shoes walked in the United States”. Such were the feelings one had for this land.
It has been demoralizing after being here a few years to see the accelerating destruction of America. While it started before I got here, Reagan perfected the path of our demise with his statement, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” This statement disassociated the average American from their government. It broke the pact, “we the people.” It was by design. If one loses faith in the government, “we the people,” then what is left?
The Right solidified the narrative with the fallacy that only the private sector, the corporation, was efficient or got things right. Reagan and his posse’s stance created a new government, the undemocratic corporation, and strongholds in the private sector who answered to no one. And with that power, they have been robbing us all blind. The income & wealth disparity is calculable.
I will be damned if I will allow the constant misinformation to drive the country so many love, believe in, and die for, to fall into a fascist state. It is the reason I gave up a lucrative software engineering business that the American system afforded me to build. Becoming a full-time independent progressive writer/blogger/journalist and activist allowed me to do my part. My goal is to continue seeding the internet and airwaves with the truth. My Substack Newsletter, Medium Articles, Books, Blogs, & media/radio programs are my small part in realigning our politics appropriately. To some, it is mere altruism and idealism. It is essential to me and the many others who have chosen this path.
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Here is the message to my listener who said: “I have all but given up on humanity.”
I make the case that we cannot give up on humanity as it plays into the game of oligarchs, plutocrats, and corporate executives.
I got an email from a supporter that almost broke my heart. I immediately came to my senses. I had the following two paragraphs in my Politics Done Right Newsletter that I believe elicited the email.
The year ahead is enormous. If we live up to our humanity, it will work out well. ...Each of us has the power to incentivize goodness and humaneness with our acts. We need not live up to the expectations of those who need us at each other’s throats. Let’s use this holiday season to reevaluate ourselves and give others a place to land to do good. That act will let the country live up to its claimed values.
He said, “I have all but given up on humanity.” Given what we are living through, it is not hard to understand why many people feel that way. But he was not just checking out. That email was likely a message to someone he felt comfortable with, giving him reason to stay checked in and engaged. I see that as my purpose and the purpose of many of us who have a platform to help navigate a system that can fluctuate between being too sterile for humanity, inhumanely cruel, and sometimes surprisingly supportive. My response, of course, was not to give up.
Fareed Zakaria had two historians on his show this Sunday that gave me hope while may scare many. In the 1860s, we had the civil war. In the 1960s, JFK, MLK, Malcolm X, & Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. Riots and polarization were high. Understand, none of this was ever started by the masses in the aggregate. And many plutocrats have always profited from the turmoil.
We still have avenues to communicate with each other. It is incumbent on us not to give up on our brothers and sisters, humanity. Those who profit from the chaos need to factionalize us. It is incumbent on those who see the big picture to continue the engagement; otherwise, those dependent on our confused state will profit.
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Neither Democrats nor Republicans will save us! Here is the deal!
Yesterday I had entrepreneur—engineer & founder of Voter Education Project as the featured guest on Politics Done Right. During the interview, one of our listeners/supporters, Norman Rennalls, left a prescient message that left an indelible reality that we should all note, especially now. It is more than just Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, he left it on a stream that was unavailable after the live broadcast.
The basic notion would ask the rhetorical question. When the corporatocracy coopts both parties, what can Americans do? What is left when there is a rigged two-party political system where the corporatocracy has its tentacles in both parties to prevent beneficial policies? When the parties create a polarized electorate that has become gullible, how can we have good government by and for the people?
Karl came none too soon. Karl Smith wrote an article at his site titled "2022 State of Emergency! Democrats must Sell the Brand, or We All Lose!" where he lays out the case Democrats better heed. He wrote the following.
With the upcoming election in 2022, our lives, well-being, property, economy, democracy, and future are on the line. We all know what is on the line, so it is extremely important that we elect more Democrats to keep the US House and Senate and win more state houses and governorships!
Democrats have a great product but only sell it well enough to win about half of the voters. Too many voters vote against their own best interests and what is best for a healthy democracy, economy, and future. But those voters do not think they are. …
To win elections, Democrats count on getting out the base, registering new voters, the charisma of candidates, and policies voters should support. Democrats sell their policies mostly on morality. They say or imply it’s morally right to educate people, provide access to health care and require equal pay for equal work. Democrats say these policies are good for the economy but have never explained how, except it puts money into the bottom of the economy that gets spent quickly. A few candidates have talked about the speed of money but not tied that to a few other basic principles or people’s lives.
Democratic party strategies tend to work in more urban areas, with younger or more educated people and people of color. These strategies tend not to work with more rural areas, with older and less educated people, and older white men.
I loved the entire article. The interview made it even more explicit. I do want to add a corollary. I want to elect politicians, not by their label of Democrat, but anyone who will support the policies that help all Americans and ensure everyone has access to success. Republicans do not have a monopoly of harming many. Manchin, Sinema, and a few other Democrats hiding behind them seem to have the interests of the corporations more so than their constituents.
The bottom line is the following. Neither Democrats nor Republicans will save us or make things better for us. A politically engaged constituency must force the hand of the politicians. After all, there are more of us than the monied interests. But we must re-empower the population which the corporatocracy disempowered by design. And that is where you and I can make a difference. Share these videos, blog posts, and articles. It is important that they are out there.
We must defeat this false Right-Wing messaging. They know if Americans are enlightened, it is over!
Those of you who have been a part of the Politics Done Right family know that one of my most important tenets is keeping the conversation open on all sides. One of our supporters sent a link to a video by Canadian Right-Winger pseudo-intellectual Jordan Peterson discussing post-modernism and its supposed connection to Marxism titled "Political Correctness and Postmodernism". And of course, the intent is to scare people away from following the poor and middle-class economic policies; classic Right-Wing orthodoxy. Note that when he talks postmodernism he means Left-Wing or Progressives.
My reply to this Right-Wing "scholar's" video in my newsletter was civil but the point of fact.
Peterson attempts to disqualify the Left by asserting they are devout Marxists. He then implies that the policies they want have only been tried by tyrannical states. Of course, he fails to note that the tyrannical states most on the Left would like to emulate are Scandinavian countries. Of course, my belief is that the Scandinavian countries while orders of magnitude more humane than America, still maintain economic systems where the wealthy profit on the intellect and service of the masses. There is a better way.
There is one phrase that he used that is the coup de grace, the expectation to instill the fear of the Left to his listeners, “Resentment and the demand for power disguising itself most reprehensibly as compassion.” Of course, he implies that it is just power we seek.
He forgets.
It was unfair power used to colonize the Americas. Collective atonement is not a bad thing.
It was unfair power that affected genocide in the Americas to take the land.
It was their power that denied the poor, women, & POCs equal rights under the law.
It is unfair capital power that has created the billionaires not solely from their own intellect, but the composition of our collective intellect former and present.
I could go on and on. But Mr. Peterson used a large cloth of words to shield the reality. The reality is that the masses when empowered will start asking why. Why did they allow themselves to be antiseptic slaves to the few?
This guy made my blood boil. I would love to debate him in an engineering kind of way.
This is the type of battle we will have to continue to fight. It is one of constant education and enlightenment of the population in general. These guys have a lot invested in the status quo that is hurting the rest of us.
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