The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Archive for the ‘human-rights’ Category

Same Pandemic, Worlds Apart (2/6/2022)

Yesterday’s front page headline began with: “Worlds Apart.” The information provided was about the Pandemic. The “worlds apart” was defined only by New York and Florida.

Gannett Pravda did a lousy job. A number of weeks ago, The New York Times did a much better job at providing the details about “worlds apart.”

The line graph on the front page did demonstrate that the deaths in Florida surpassed those in New York in about the 3rd quarter of 2021 and continues to be ahead of New York right down to 1st quarter 2022.

If one examines this line graph and superimposes the leadership of the USA over the graph, one will see that the rise at the beginning of 2021 began to level off in New York and remains flatter up to today. In contrast, Florida’s death rate surged under DeSantis from second quarter 2021 and has only begun to flatten in the third quarter 2021, as it surpassed the death rate in New York. 

Furthermore, the surge New York experienced was first to second quarter 2020. New York suffered with the most numbers of COIVD-19 at that time while Florida did not even have as much from those coming in. After all, New York City is a larger transportation hub from around the world than Miami or Orlando. Add to New York, Amtrak trains which connect with Canada (Montreal) and the Buffalo airport on the border with Canada.  This new virus was not known and many people, like Governor Cuomo, attempted to meet the demand it brought on and did so with little knowledge about it. Florida’s DeSantis did not have to reckon with that. Yet, Trump and DeSantis remain a favorite, in spite of the sexual harassment of Trump. Where is Cuomo?  In spite of the heavy corrupt, unethical, immoral, human injustice (bigotry) practices of DeSantis, DeSantis is still there and Cuomo is not.  Give me a break. 

Furthermore, at the early stages of the virus, as New York suffered the most, Trump did nothing to help the northeastern states with the equipment to do so. Trump had, at his disposal, the Defense Protection Act. It is a war, not a political battle. Trump and lousy DeSantis treated it all as politics. Again. It was and IS a war.  So, when hospitals moved COVID-19 patients across state lines and put them in nursing homes, the stupidity of the population did not blame Trump who was responsible for cross-border transport, but directed at Cuomo, the governor of Michigan (Democrat), the governor of Oregon (Democrat), etc. All about GODDAMN politics and nothing else.  Why? To destroy democracy and implement an autocracy, on the part of Trump. Goddamn TRUMP and the Republicans, not the Democrats, you iddiotic lainbrains out there. 

The New York Times detailed article had a map of the USA and its 50 states. The writer compared facts and statistics regarding vaccination, masking, and other modes to help win the war against a virus. In other worrds, one could consider that in the third quarter or so of 2021, a Democratic Party governor in Oregon presided over over a mask mandate and did so before New York re-implemented the mask mandate. Florida never implemented a mask mandate. In fact, DeSantis acted like a dictator being vicious against those who DID wish to wear masks and the companies and organizations which wished to insist employees wear the masks.  All of this, by dictator DeSantis and dictator Trump needs to be considered. I see little of it being discussed openly and that is a disgusting thing which is happening in journalism today. 

Furthermore, some nations about the size of New York, Florida, and other states in the USA, there is no comparison. A CBS report mentioned Japan and how it’s vaccination rate helped give it the lowest COVID-19 positivity rate. Many other reports about Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand confirmed some of this. The one shortfall in the USA was the lack of contact tracing. Yet, when Biden, the CDC, and Democrats proposed that we increase contact testing, the voices of idiots in the USA spoke loudly with the microphone they were given and it was not done to the degree it should have ben done. When we are fighting a war, we can set aside the “voice of people who don’t know one Godman thing about the issue” and do it.  We did when fighting World War I and World War II. Some of it was not good (i.e., bigots and discrimination against black folks, Japanese-Americans, and the LGBTQ+.  As with the state of Israel and its ability to be an example for fighting war on a virus, Israel’s military has defeated their enemies and have not implemented DADT in the military and used females in its military. Goddamn the white supremacists and bigots against gay folks for insisting it is “patriotic” to have segregation and DADT. Goddamn them. Goddamn them with plenty of damnation for they have no sense of humanity and human justice. 

These idiots who push for a military-industrial complex based on a love of money, created perpetual war with a military-industrial complex, warned by former General Eisenhower that we SHOULD NOT DO, and wonder why we have a problem in drafting soldiers, so we create a professional military to defend oil and other issues, not to protect the USA and its human beings, when it becomes necessary to do so.  In the process, we have dictatorial assholes like Trump and the Republican leadership, now have a problem calling the bluff of Goddamn Putin and Russia, and take Putin’s position regarding bigotry towards the LGBTQ+. 

This is stupid, stupid, stupid.  It  does NOT reflect my idea of what it means to be a PATRIOT.  Go to hell in trying to force the ideas about bigotry towards groups o fpeople in the USA and shoving it down the throats of many of us who object to this and giver a PROACTIVE warning because a reactionary action will do little good and brings hell on earth.   idea on me. But perhaps to do so, you will support Trump, DeSantis, Scott, Gaetz, Marjorie the bitch, and others.   In this case, you are a traitor in support of Putin.

It’s the pandemic, stupid. Learn from the past pandemics and the errors made in first dealing with this one. Stop making claims that if we DON’T fight the war, then humans in America can succeed better than SHOULD we fight the war on a virus.  I can once again, mention what Kierkegaard said about moving forward by learning from the past, but not to just do what was done in the past. But it evidently does no good to say this, does it?
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Thomas Friedman & Putin’s Russia

Dear Editors:

Thomas Friedman always provides interesting reading. However, some of his latest writings are very lengthy (longer than what I write) and go into great detail regarding the economics behind dealing with Putin and the Russians as they invade the Ukraine.

In 1977, I was enrolled in a college class in Soviet History. I was working to complete a second major besides my music education degree.  The professor of that class predicted that unless the West comes to grips with the fact that dealing with matters regarding the Soviets and the Middle East and focusing on the issue of oil, there was little chance of success. He told the class that ideology had nothing to do with it, but it was oil that would guide who succeeded, unless we developed alternative fuels to oil and saved oil like a savings account in reserves to be used when it became necessary.

America has not learned about this, but the Russians and the Chinese have.  Same with Saudi Arabia and even Iran. It is the Muslim sect in Saudi Arabia which inspired the U.S. and faked us out with Middle Eastern wars. Most Afghans are of the same sect. That was why a man named Osama bin Laden was located in Afghanistan.  The control over Hussein was something the Saudis wanted. When George W. Bush left a vacuum in Iraq after bringing down Hussein, it opened doors for supporters of the Saudis in both Iraq and Syria. America was faked out with the ISIS group which does executions in the same manner that the Saudis do. A sword or knife  to chop off a head.  America was faked out.

America was faked out with the Reagan push for Gorbachev to “take down those walls.”  It was a strategy on the part of the Russians to make it look like peace was achieved, as the Russians collected their power base.  I saw it and spoke about it, but was scoffed at because everyone just wanted peace and was willing to sacrifice American justice in order to achieve peace. 

Recent events which demonstrate that ultra right wing, not ultra left wing, movements are happening in former Soviet bloc nations. one is East Germany. The other is Hungary.  Friedman and the rest of the media are totally ignoring all of this. In those years, it had nothing to do with communism.

Figures I have heard in recent years is that the Soviet state killed more Jews than Hitler’s Germany did.  Such figures were presented at a speech on the campus where I was a professor. All the speaker did was blame communism, not the Russian leaders like Stalin.  I thought it was rather crude and rude as Americans were being faked out. A fake is a good gesture in football, but not in running our lives in America.

Even PBS is biased against Joe Biden and snubbing him on the eve of his State of the Union address by ignoring the good things which are happening in the economy, in favor of a Trump-like approach to dwell only on the bad. Unemployment is down. Yet a PBS announcement about the State of the Union address and they feature a woman complaining about “needing to eat.” Last I knew, the Republicans don’t like the Democrats because of the food stamp program. So what gives with a woman who has trouble eating? It simply does not make sense, at all. 

In line with what I am saying about energy and the predictions made by the professor in Potsdam in the 1970s, what about the Chinese? A few years back a CBS Sixty Minutes report told us about how new alternative energy sources were not good money makers, but could develop into such over a long term investment. Americans were not willing to invest, but the Chinese did see the possibility for long-term investments which would pan out over time.  Just as the professor predicted in the 1970s, but it was the Chinese, not Americans, who were putting forth the investments for the long-term, while Americans have been, and still are, faked out by the evangelical horde of puritanical bastards who get upset if someone somewhere is having a good time. Americans are also being faked out by Rick the Prick Santorum and his wishes to block service in healthcare to anyone who is opposed to his own personal beliefs.  Then there is Rick the Prick Scott and Ron DeSatan of Florida who keep shoving into our faces the fake stuff about socialism and how all Democrats are socialist. They make certain that no one like me and MANY OTHERS, don’t get heard as we try to address issues of healthcare in line with Adam Smith and Teddy Roosevelt types of thinking that it is best to have regulated capitalism. Regulated capitalism is NOT socialism, if one would dare look it up. In fact, central based newspapers and any businesses in energy, communications, and other trades is a form of socialism and even communism, put in place by Reagan’s supply side economic theories which are bizarre. They create the centrally planned corporations with monopolies, doing so in the name of “free markets.”  No one listens. And America is suffering from losses in technology, alternative fuels, and newspapers, plus other commodities, due to it. Local control of newspapers and media have been wrestled away from local areas and consolidated into a communist type central bureaucracy, in the guise of “capitalism.”  And the media, including Thomas Friedman, never mention these things. Instead, we read two pages of details, some of it repetitive, about all this drivel regarding Russia and Ukraine which is absolutely bizarre and lacks much meaning for the situations we are facing.

We need a Teddy Roosevelt. I have never really cared for TR’s statement, “speak softly but carry a big stick.” TR came in second place as a third-party candidate in 1912, losing to Woodrow Wilson. The more I think of it, Wilson spoke softly but did not carry a big stick, when it came to dealing with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, as did the Republican candidate, Taft. Too bad TR lost that election in 1912 and never ran again in 1916. 

Who and what money is manipulating our media with mind control with these issues?  Why are so few in the media considering what I am saying?

​

​What I hope and pray for, rather than letting Robertson and other evangelical shitheads place fear in people’s minds, is that there is a leadership contingent made up of people like TR and the generals from World War II, particularly, General Dwight D. Eisenhower who led one of the greatest military invasions from the sea which has ever happened.  The true God is a caring and loving God and would not bring on Armageddon by way of pushing humans into war.  However, the true God to whom I believe does want peace WITH justice. In World War II, after great losses, we did achieve peace with justice.  It was a tough one. But we need to remember that Chamberlin sat by when Hitler invaded Poland and did nothing.  Even DEMOCRAT FDR wanted something done, but his hands were being tied by Republicans and threats of an overthrow by many Republicans, in the USA. Thank God it was discovered before it was hatched. Here we go again, though. Threats by people from southwest Florida like fascist-leaning ones in those days gone by – Lindburgh, Ford, and others.  Today it is Ric the Prick Scott from Southwest Florida.  That area of the nation is NOT the only area, as we learn about lunkhead Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan, too, plus other areas. 

​Shut up the perverted puritanical types and televangelists (plus others who fake the population), as they endeavor to work to divide and conquer in the name of fascist autocratic theology of hate, and other autocratic means.  They do this in the name of a god which is made in the image of the human lunkheads with money and fascist ideals.

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, human-rights, Journalism & Media, war

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Stupidity of Republicans and Bleeding Heart Liberals

Dear Editors:

Feb. 20, 2022, The New York Times.

Susan Collins wants to reform the Electoral College? Why? Is she afraid if she runs for the presidency, only a popular vote being in place will means she would lose? Democrat Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election with the popular vote, but Republican Trump won the Electoral College vote. Susan Collins lives in fear that she would lose due to the demise and destruction of the Electoral College? And in her “bipartisan way” she is going to convince Democrats who have no confidence in themselves that they might live in fear at the loss of the Electoral College? it is like putting a Band-Aid on a deep wound which might need to be stitched back together and expecting the wound to heal, as the person with the wound bleeds to death.

Another reader in the newspaper, when reacting to David Brooks and his lainbrained ideas that we should have hope that evangelicals would come to their senses, said, Brooks is simply putting wallpaper over a problem. Having hung wallpaper myself, I found that if there was a lump of wallpaper paste, it simply got covered over, but it still existed. Just as with a wound which needs something more than a Band-Aid.

Americans are poor at remembering history in order to learn and move forward. There is no sense for what the Danish Kierkegaard said:

​In the 1850s, when the Republican Party was formed, we can learn from history regarding the Republicans, civil war, and the Dred Scott Decision. The Republican Party was formed from members of the Whig Party which was dying at that time. Many Whigs became disgusted with the work by George W. Bush’s maternal line ancestor who was president at the time, a Democrat, who nixed the compromise arranged regarding slavery. ​The bleeding heart Yankee liberals in the Supreme Court felt they needed to appease the South (i.e., Dixie white supremacists and forerunners to the KKK and Jim Crow ideas) by issuing a scathing attack of a black man in that SCOTUS decision. Politics and appeasing white people prevailed, not justice for human beings, as the SCOTUS is SUPPOSED to do.

Being in these situations today and considering Republican Senator Susan Collins with SCOTUS today, there is too much being done to “appease” the other side. That would include the words of David Brooks, too. Appeasing the South did not nothing to divert a civil war after Abraham Lincoln was elected. When will America learn before it implodes from within?  After all, we want to feel better about “turning the other cheek” to those who are lousy ones and insist on their dictatorial anti-human race ways. Considering friends like that who want to destroy democracy in America, who needs enemies?

With friends who are being “overly nice” to the other side so as to show empathy to hateful bigoted people, it is as if hatred and bigotry need to be recognized as protected by a U.S. Constitution. Such hateful people and bigots are confusing the population with ideas which have survived from  Reagan, a hateful Democrat turned Republican, that “government is the problem.” Translated. To the hateful and bigoted ones, government is only a problem when it regulates how Americans should treat one another and not have hatred and bigotry. Reaganomics with deregulation actually got extended to the notions of hatred and bigotry. How do I know? I was a member of the Republican Party at the time. I feel just like the former Whig Party members who decimated the party and began a new one. David Brooks, too, has no brains and knowledge of history on this one.

But Senator Collins? Reform the Electoral College? Senator Elizabeth Warren says (in my words), DESTROY the Electoral College. It has outlived its purposes when it was created during the time of only 13 colonies and it took quite some time to get the election results from New England to Georgia.  It is no longer needed and could be replaced by a hybrid system based on the parliamentary system in Britain (and Canada and other nations in the British Commonwealth which has a very brilliant constitutional monarchy with the royal family doing the ceremonial stuff that our president does with all the other duties of the president).  Get rid of the Electoral College, specify that, should no candidate win more than 50% of the popular vote, then the top two winners do a runoff election on the day when the Electoral College would normally meet.

Democracy takes participation and time, so I don’t accept the crap about trying to get voters registered and to get them out to vote. Don’t give me bullshit about the complexity of the situation, but solve the problem.

Let me just say that we can make excuses and any excuse will do.  Getting people involved in the democracy by voting and also working for issues and ideas for solutions is what takes to run a democracy. It takes a strong Middle Class, destroyed by big fat pigs who have seen an increase in salaries, since Reagan, of over 1000% while workers have seen a rather flattened increase over the same period and work too hard to have time for voting and elections. The Middle Class has been destroyed in this period of time, along with unions and worker rights.

Suggestion. Abolish the Electoral College. On presidential election days, close all bars and grills and make those a holiday. Consider that anyone objecting to this due to their false ideas that their “individual rights” have been violated are nothing but traitors to this nation. Sorry to be so tough and play so much hardball with this question. But it is true. 

Why do I suggest the above solution? Because in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, it just happens to mention “WE THE PEOPLE.”  It does not say, “Me, myself, and I, dictator Trump or DeSantis or Scott…” It does not specify any other INDIVIDUAL only.  It does not identify a god (demagogue) with divine rights which is made in the image of hateful and bigoted men and women (like David Brooks with his heart out to evangelicals). 

When will people like Brooks and Collins wake up and learn from history, before it is too late? When will bleeding heart Democrats learn from history?

Sometimes a Band-Aid is necessary for a wound. But the question about the Electoral College is a deep wound causing too much divisive rigor in this nation. It is so deep that we really need to work to eliminate it and not expect perfection with a blind eye towards hate and bigotry with no chance of SCOTUS justice being accomplished so as to maintain the balance with scales of justice. In this case, the scales of justice need to be heavily weighted on the side of humanitarian ideas of coexistence and not political ideology or preference of political party. In the 1850s, a political party was destroyed and it was not the Democrats which have evolved, over time, into a more humanitarian party. I saw many such white racist bigots in Dixie leave and join the Republicans, of which I was a member. I found them to be disgusting people who tried (and are still working hard at trying to balance to their dictatorial hateful side)  to balance the scales of justice towards their side of hatred. 

Is my writing too long? Too bad. It is important to say what needs to be said here and do so in detail. I apologize for the detail because I might just detain those who are two thumbs just reading fake news on mobile phones or the fake news on Fox / Fake News. Is there a vulgar word in the text, without a “bleep” to cover it over? Really? I am surprised.  Well. At least it was not the “f” word.

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Annual News: Lincoln’s Birthday

Happy belated Feb. 12 Birthday, Abraham Lincoln.Republican Party run by idiots who have no idea about humanitarian Lincoln.

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Commentary, human-rights

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Daily News: MAGA My Way

Make America great again.Not like big fat piggish ways of Donald Trump fascists with love of money 1st.MAGA my way.

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Perhaps Clarification Necessary, From Historical Evidence, too?

Dear Fellow Community Members:

A very good letter to the editor appeared in the Feb. 2 edition of The Times-Tribune of Scranton, PA. From Richard London of State College, who writes, “Socialism bluster ignores reality.” London touches on the “knee-jerk reactions” of Republicans who are always clamoring for a fight with Democrats (as I interpret this; you can interpret it as you like). I have viewed this contentious attitude from Republicans since I was a Republican myself and EXPECTED to be contentious with all Democrats. I kid you not. I remained with that party in Florida for many years and am sad I did.

What my partner and I have observed is this. There is no goal of Republicans to solve the problems of this nation, but just act like dictators and force everyone to go along with their desires. It began under Reagan and we viewed it during those years. My partner and I did not actually meet until 2005, but when we compared notes, it was astounding as to how our notes matched each other. I can say the same thing about his now-deceased brother who had been a Republican for many years.

it is unbelievable to be in “Yankee-land” and have difficulty in finding people who are on the same page as we have been since coming together in 2005. This letter to the editor is one of the first we have read which demonstrates being on the “same page” with someone up north. Sad to see that this does NOT come from the Gannett Pravda of Binghamton which has condensed the size of its newspaper, reduced the information it once provided, and evidently does not provide information for those of us on this same page. We really dislike Gannett as it also took over the newspaper where my partner worked for some 33 years as a copy editor. That newspaper in Palm Beach County did the same thing – condensing the information to nothing and then claiming, “no one reads newspapers.”  Of course they don’t when the saboteurs at the top reduces them to nothing. Perhaps that also explains why it is so damn difficult to find people here in the Southern Tier who are on the same page? Just a conjecture on my part.

In light of what I just said, let me share that letter by Richard London (perhaps a professor? I have no idea, but his address is State College, PA).

Socialism bluster ignores reality

Richard London

State College, PA

The Times-Tribune (Scranton, PA), 2 Feb. 2022

Editor: An accusation that Republicans love to hurl at Democrats is that they are “socialists.”

Do Republicans understand what American socialism, also called “democratic socialism,” really is? Do they confuse it with Soviet socialism, from the old U.S.S.R. days, or modern socialism in authoritarian places such as North Korea or Venezuela?

Socialism, or socialization, is any structure in which a governmental agency – federal, state or local – collects funds from the general public via taxes, and uses the money to provide a service back to the population at little, or no, cost. The arrangement has been authorized by the people, though their representatives; hence democratic socialism.

Everyday examples of socialism include public schools and highways (state level), Social Security and Medicare (federal level), and public libraries (local level). Nearly all Republicans embrace and enjoy these benefits provided by the socialization mechanism, but many of them decry socialism in general.

Maybe it’s a knee-jerk reaction to Democratic social issue proposals. Maybe Republicans just don’t understand the term. Maybe they understand, but want to turn public opinion against proposals by using a loaded term from the past.

The difference between Republicans and progressives is not that progressives accept socialization and the Republicans reject it, since both clearly accept it. Both are willing to use the mechanism for examples such as education, highways and libraries, and even for retirement and health insurance plans (at least for the elderly); progressives want to use it for additional things to benefit the public.

There are some parts of this letter, I wish to place add-ons, but will not go to long length to do so. Being that i spent 40+ years in education and as a librarian, I feel there is one thing I wish to add regarding the statements about libraries being part of the “socialization.” The public library here in Newark Valley exists due to an endowment more than 100 years ago from two Republican families here in Newark Valley. I am told that it is able to run by means of dividends from that endowment. I speak of the Tappan-Spaulding Memorial Library in Newark Valley. The Tappan family, especially, was once a big family here in Newark Valley. Republicans, for sure.

I mention this because of the “bluster” surrounding socialism. This library was never one of socialism, but one of capitalist investment and return on investment, by way of dividends earned.

With this being said, Mr. London’s comments about Social Security and Medicare can be challenged as NOT necessarily being socialism. That is where people today, I believe, are confused as to what socialism AND capitalism are about. The aristocracy of the 19th Century grabbed hold of the ideas of capitalism and spun those ideas around so as to benefit the aristocracy and supply side economics. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican “progressive” tried to spin the thoughts of capitalism to those of REGULATED capitalism. Remember TR was called the “trust buster?” Remember that Thomas J. Watson was nearly arrested, before founding IBM, for working at NCR and working to do a Trump-type of thing; “destroy the competition.” Regulations almost sent Watson to jail. He reformed when he created IBM and there are many who can be thankful for that. It was those idiots who took over the corporation after Watson who sent it reeling to North Carolina and Texas.

Social Security and Medicare have received funds, just like a CAPITALIST endowment, from the common folks like you and me. The “bluster” over socialism, in my humble opinion, has totally destroyed the ideas of endowments, dividends, and return on investments. Thus, we have Trump and Republicans working to destroy Social Security and Medicare, in the name of anti-socialism which is described by Mr. London in his letter.

It is damn difficult to find anyone on the same page I am with regard to the practicality and REALITY of capitalist considerations of Social Security and Medicare. I’ll be damned if I can find anyone who does not conform to the false notions of Karl Marx which blames capitalism. Karl Marx SHOULD have blamed the aristocracy of the day and its grip on promoting supply side economics which they called, “capitalism.” The stupidity of some economists of the 1970s and then Reagan in 1980 brought back this notion about supply side economics and today, we are falsely giving accusation to Social Security and Medicare as being socialism when, in reality… (REALITY is a word in the title of Mr. London’s letter to the editor), the money we all put into those government programs gets stolen from us, by both Democrats and Republicans alike, to use for government programs (like war and a war on drugs for the sake of drug lords which apparently now focus on the locality near the old IBM on Washington Avenue, Endicott) where they should not be used. We common folk forfeit the ability to gain dividends from our CAPITALIST investments, due to this false talk about it all. 

I know everyone wishes I do not make the article so lengthy. But let me tell you about how my lack of length and detail and no one understood my writings about the Ozempic med saved in a refrigerator for three months, rather than one month. Until I went into detail with a comparison of Ozempic in a refrigerator to milk in a refrigerator over three months, no one even tried to consider what I was saying and THINK, as Thomas J. Watson suggested IBM employees do.  THINK is for the sake of common folk, Middle Class, and democracy. Republicans today don’t want THINK, so they work to destroy public education, while Democrats sit around like a bunch of wimps and let the Republicans do what they want. That is REALITY, as pointed out by Mr. London of State College, PA. That is the reality to which I address.

In college at SUNY Potsdam History program (I minored in history, behind my major of music education), I was introduced to books by Dr. Daniel Boorstin. Dr. Boorstin eventually became the only decent part of Ronald Reagan of the 1980s. Boorstin was appointed as Librarian of Congress (after I earned my Masters of Library Science from Syracuse University). Dr. Boorstin’s book series is titled, The American Experience. Each book was about some different aspect. The Explorers. The Colonials. The one we read was about the American DEMOCRATIC experience, but I have purchased and partially read the others in the series. They are very interesting.

I am going into this detail as background for what I am about to say. Boorstin’s democratic experience includes a chapter about the first insurance commissioner in Yankee-land Massachusetts, Erasmus Wright. What does he have to do with what I am saying here? Because in the 19th Century, Erasmus Wright took on big insurance of his day who were run by criminals who took people’s money for life insurance but rarely had the money left over to pay when the people died. To me, this is no different than big homeowners insurance (especially in Florida) taking our money and never considering the capitalist investment and the dividends available when the money is not used. Instead, we always end up with a zero return on investment. Same thing with life insurance when Erasmus Wright of Massachusetts took it on. Same thing, too, with employer-provided health insurance for 40 years, many times with money contributed by ME, the EMPLOYEE, and nothing in funds to collect dividends. I am angered by Blue Cross & Blue Shield for the money I contributed over 25 years as a college professor and now being told by Medicare Blue Cross Blue Shield (Excellus) that “they cannot pay for pre-existing conditions;” while I pay premiums for six months.  UHC of AARP says the same thing, while I paid membership dues to AARP for some 20 years or so. That endowment with dividends works for the local library. But lawyers and accountants with their big fat wallets, make rules against the thinking about endowments into insurance for us little folks who pay all the taxes. I don’t recall the name of the health insurance coverage I had prior to 1995 when I began working for the college, but there is an investment there, too. Add to that privatized insurance what I have paid into Medicare and Social Security (FICA) over 40 years total and I should have enough of dividends to help pay for my health care and retirement.

But the norm is to only do this with big fat pigs of corporations, but not for the common folk. And then have to listen to the “bluster” about socialism which “ignores reality.” I write and write and write and write and write about these things and neither Democrats or Republicans pick up on it. I would expect that of lousy fascist Republican leaders who defend the fat pigs, but what about the Democrats? Nothing but wimps who are afraid of being blasted by false “bluster of socialism?” It is sickening.

No wonder a friend and colleague (professor) had to talk me out of leaving this nation back in 2016 when lousy Trump was elected, so I could live in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, or even Scotland. This friend said, “we need people like you who are willing to stand up against what is going on.” Here I am. All alone.

But then again, I cannot collect ANY Medicare in any of those nations, thanks to the bullshit of Republican fascist control. So why bother? The only options? Live in the mountains of Mexico and Central America where I have to live in heat and humidity, which I really is lousy for me.Should I have the dividends earned for Medicare, FICA, and PRIVATIZED insurance, over many years, I might have a chance of living in those other nations.

I might add that it was a Democrat who put that homeowners’ insurance crap in place in Florida. Shame on him. But then again. What the hell did Jeb Bush, Rick the Prick, or DeSantis do to reform it from that? Nothing. Yet, some miserable SOB in Pennsylvania will attack our Democratic Party governor in NY for trying to find a solution to the gun problem by way of “bail reform.” Why? Because those idiots in Florida have more interest in the wealthy fat pigs than they do about the impact of insurance criminals on common folk. DeSantis puts in place stupid ignorant rules to put down the teaching of history regarding slavery and sexual identity in the schools. No. He does not do something to actually help the common folk, only for the damn fundagelical Southern Baptists of the Baptist Conservative Network and other ultra right wing religious bastards. But for insurance? What does DeSantis, Rick the Prick or Jeb Bush do about that? Not one damn thing, as they gerrymander the state in order to maintain a one-party legislature and governorship (with TERM LIMITS, too), which were CREATED by gerrymandering for the sake of central Florida white supremacists.

I am obviously very angry about these situations and become angry at anyone who supports these damn Republican fascists.  So I write. And I write. And I write. And I write. Someone pay attention and stop leaving me all alone and not seeking the same page with me (common ground); or perhaps HIDING what they truly believe, especially if they are not impacted by racial or sexual identity issues.

Category:

Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Education, Gun Safety, Healthcare, wellness, medicine, History & Genealogy, human-rights, If it's broke let's fix it TOGETHER

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Chick-Fil-A & Thruway

Dear Gov. Hochul:

As a gay person in a same-sex marriage, I must speak out against the contract to Chick-Fil-A on the New York State Thruway. The thruway has a “captive audience” with drivers who travel on it. Drivers have no choice for choosing various places to eat because the drivers are not able to easily get off and back on again. Please consider the end of such a contract. Here are my reasons.

  1. The CEO of this company opposes same-sex marriage and encourages the employees not to do such a thing.
  2. The anti-gay bigotry promoted in such a manner encourages New Yorkers who claim to be liberal at times to consider there is no reason to be in opposition to such a contract because they are “not gay,” so why bother oppose such measures? A similar attitude existed regarding gay folks and Jews in the Germany of the 1930s while Hitler was attempting to consolidate his power. If people were Gentiles, what was to bother them by the treatment of Jews? If people were not gay, what was to bother them, should there be something done to gay folks? Blind eyes. Deaf ears. Look what happened.
  3. The worst part of this is the advances made for human rights in America by de-segregation. Multi-cultural and multi-racial communities are working out, even if someone makes claims there is some which have not. Quite frankly, I have seen some all-white communities which are a bunch of crap in attitude and other ways. I lived in multi-racial communities and we lived in peace, until some lainbrained idiotic white skinned person with a Confederate flag waving from the back of a pickup truck invades the neighborhood in order to mock the success of integration and multi-racial goodness. What people today are doing with regard to gay folks is working to force us back into the closet of segregation which has been overturned. People who keep their sexual identity hidden get hired in places like Chick-Fil-A while those who refuse to hide in a closet are not hired. In spite of gay folks respecting those who want to remain in a closet, we are being forced there as well, as had been the days before human beings all around were treated with respect and honor, no matter what the sexual identity. We who are gay could be angry and make claims that those in the closet are liars. In fact, they could be considered liars, but we try to have respect for them. Too bad we don’t get respect from the other 90% of the population and those who turn a blind eye and deaf ear towards what happens with Chick-Fil-A on the Thruway.
  4. One more thing. I am a diabetic. Chick-Fil-A food is full of carbs. Bread coating on the chicken. French fries. A restaurant like Starbucks has food with a smaller amount of carbs. Arby’s is a fast food restaurant in which diabetics could order a roast beef sandwich and remove it from the bun. What is the reason for giving this contract to Chick-Fil-A when it does not have an overall approach with either sexual identity or with carbs?
  5. There should be eating places owned by gay folks, in order to provide overall competition that is fair.

After protesting this, for some reason, I get subjected to mockery by stupid New Yorkers. For instance, someone mocks me with: “Chick-Fil-A has good food.” Did I say the food was not good? Who are the stupid ones who push such drivel in a taunting manner? Who pushes such crap and why do they continue on such a lousy path? As a diabetic, I never say the food at Chick-Fil-A is “bad.” It is a matter, as my dad would say about fried food, “I like it, but it does not like me.” When something drives up my glucose levels, I have to say that the food “does not like me.”

Category:

Commentary, human-rights

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