On Republicans Disenfranchising Fellow American Citizens So They Win Elections

“American democracy means every eligible person has the right to vote in an election that is fair, open, and secure. Our goal always should be to increase, not decrease, voter participation.” —Former President Jimmy Carter

A Comparison of Presidents

Three former Presidents have made public statements on our current national situation, given the George Floyd death. I thought seeing 4 of them, side by side, could and possibly would be telling.  I think I was correct on that.

First, we'll hear from Jimmy Carter:

“We need a government as good as its people, and we are better than this. As a white male of the South, I know all too well the impact of segregation and injustice to African Americans. As a politician, I felt a responsibility to bring equity to my state and our country.”

Next, George W Bush:

"America's greatest challenge has long been to unite people of very different backgrounds into a single nation of justice and opportunity. The doctrine and habits of racial superiority, which once nearly split our country, still threaten our Union. The answers to American problems are found by living up to American ideals — to the fundamental truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by God with certain rights,"

Barack Obama:

“There is a change of mindset that is taking place, a greater recognition that we can do better, That’s a direct result of the activities and organization and mobilization and engagement of so many young people across the country who put themselves out on the line to make a difference,”

Finally, current President Donald J Trump:

“You have to dominate. If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time, They’re going to run over you. You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.”

It speaks for itself. It all speaks for itself.

Quote of the day -- on war

Quote of the day--on war. And peace

The question for America after the election (guest post)

What I've asked for some time:

"The question I keep asking myself is, assuming Obama wins, will right-wing Republicans understand it as a repudiation and as a result temper their vitriol and become more reasonable, or will they see it as a further provocation and become even more vituperative and extreme? I'd like the believe the former but I fear the latter.

The issues that divide us -- the size of government, the impact of large companies and Wall Street on our economy and democracy, whether women have a right to control their own bodies, for example -- are not new points of division. The first has been with us since the time of Jefferson and Hamilton; we've been arguing over the second since the late nineteenth century; the third has been a point of contention since Roe v. Wade. So why, now, have these divisions become so rancorous?

We were far more divided over Vietnam in the late 60s and early 70s, over civil rights in the 60s, and over communism in the 1950s, than we are over the current group of divisive issues -- and yet in those days we carried on a national dialogue of sorts. We watched the same things on television and believed the same arbiters of facts (Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite); we came across others in our communities and sometimes our own families who disagreed with us; we didn't have Fox News or Rush and his imitators. We hadn't split into blue states and red states.

The fundamental question, assuming Obama wins, is how and whether we can find common ground again?"

--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.

When, if ever, will we come back together as Americans, all of us, and work together to solve our problems?

Links: https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?ref=stream

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich

Quote of the day

“We must make it clear that a platform of ‘I hate gay men and women’ is not a way to become President of the United States.” --Former President Jimmy Carter

Looking backward, going forward

It's an old concept and it's hard to shake but too many of us--individuals, sure, but whole societies and our governments, federal, state and local--seem to be trying to go forward but are doing it by looking back. That is, we're using rules from the last 100 years or even more, thinking old rules and laws apply to current problems and situations.

Nowhere is this more true than in our wars. The saying is that the beginning of the war today, paraphrased, is always fought in the last war's terms. It is especially true now, with what must always be referred to as "Bush's War". The thought was, however much it's denied, that we need to go in and take over their oil, since we need it so badly into the future.

If you operate in the past, this is certainly true. We have used cars and combustion engines, etc., to propel our society forward, to increase our productivity and even for something as simple as recreation. Sure.

But we've known we need to ween ourselves off the "oil fix" since the 70's? Remember? Our President at the time warned us about it. You know, Jimmy Carter? And he was right, of course. We should have been turning down our thermostats in the winter and driving less and driving more fuel-efficient cars and giving tax breaks for truly beneficial, alternative energy sources.

We did it for a little while, it went away, so we voted in Ronald Reagan and walked away from it all, fools that we are.

So instead of looking and moving forward, we looked and moved backward. We made and drove ridiculously large automobiles (the kind we used to make fun of) and kept importing oil. And that's where we are today.

In the meantime, our government, acting on our behalf, looked in the rear view mirror and attacked another sovereign nation, quite against international law, as I've written here before--and refuse to forget.

So that's why we're in this huge mess we're in. We're in a war we shouldn't be in, losing soldiers we shouldn't be losing, sending money and materiel to another country--and in the Middle East, no less, where so much of the world's money is going, for great irony--and so on.

What we should do, for the world's and our own benefit, if we were to start looking forward--hey, I can be hopeful, can't I--is sponsoring a huge scientific effort to harness solar power, specifically with photovoltaic cells. The benefits are so great and plentiful it should be obvious to us all--even the "little guy" on the street.

First, we take all the pressure off the Middle East. That would take at least several minutes off the "doomsday clock". (Remember that? If not, Google same). It would ratchet us down from nuclear annihilation significantly. It would take ugliness out of relationships between the United States and the former Soviet Union--another big benefit--and so much more.

Additionally, it would take carbon dioxide production out of our existence, in a very real way. With efficient electrical power, created from photovoltaic cells, entire countries could and would power their homes and businesses this way. There would be no reason we couldn't have and use this as a source of energy for our automobiles. Those two switches alone would put us on phenomenally improved paths to energy independence and far cleaner air and atmosphere.

This would, of course, have the effect of reducing Global Climate Change in a very real way. This would help put off the radical change of the world's living spaces. The benefits are great and almost immediately tangible.

If we were looking forward, the "war" we should and would wage would be on ourselves, to do this very thing--perfect solar energy, specifically with photovoltaic cells. Keeping in mind the truism that "the greatest battle is the battle within", it seems like this is the new, forward-thinking war we should be in, if we should be in one at all. Battle ourselves to be more conservation-minded, more creative, more "new-thinking", if that's a word. Not to sound like a politician, God forbid, but we need to truly challenge ourselves to be and to do everything we can to bring about this specific change on this planet as soon as possible, for all our many benefits.

Sure, the current electrical power companies would have to lose out, as would the oil companies since we would need neither any longer but we've got to go forward, for all our survival.

The country that does this, that perfect solar power, will actually, truly win "the war". They will be the country that is far ahead technologically and so, reap the financial benefits. They'll be the big winners in this world--and not a shot will have been fired.

It's the same way with newspapers, technology, the paper industry and news, all wrapped in one. If we keep looking backward, we'll keep asking the question, "what's going to become of the newspaper?" But if we look forward, we'll realize we have to do away with newspapers for obvious reasons. First, we can no longer afford to keep cutting down trees to create them. Face it, the forests are the lungs of the planet (not my original thought) and we can't keep cutting them down so we can keep up on one- and two-day old news. The computer and the internet are far faster. Newspapers are failing anyway. We have to go on to this next medium. (Of course, we'll also have to force ourselves, as citizens of our countries and the world, to open our eyes and minds to news--some of which we won't want to hear or believe and this will be difficult, at least--but it's got to happen.

The same is true for the enitre paper industry. We really need, worldwide, to start going paperless. It was predicted years ago and we aren't even remotely close to it but we have to. We need to go paperless for the our own existence and the existence of the planet. Again, we're cutting down trees but can't afford to continue to do so. We've had paper for thousands of years but we really do, frankly, need to give them up. Face it. It's too obvious and too obviously true if we don't just continue to look back.

I'm convinced that the solutions to man's biggest problems--electrical energy, oil and the use of it, the automobile and the internal combustion engine, Global Climate Change, war and wars, war over energy, the seemingly intractable problems in the Middle East and so much more--are just beyond our grasp. The answers aren't that far away. We can reach and grab them, with effort. And we should--but we have to look forward--we have to stop looking back. We have to look at our situation now and into the future.

And we need to start very soon.