IF YOU LIKE THIS BLOG, PLEASE SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND OTHERS YOU FEEL MIGHT ENJOY READING IT.
What to Do with
What the January 6 Committee Discovers
The Associated Press reported the other day that while the House panel
investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection attempt had enough evidence to
suggest that the defeated former president committed crimes, that doesn’t mean
that he would be charged with committing them, or that the Department of
Justice would even investigate them, if they are not already doing so.
That’s well and good because such legal action, even disregarding the
defeated former president’s expertise in delaying litigation, would probably keep
going on for at least several years.
(Recall it took ten years in courts to rule on Remington’s partial
responsibility for the Sandy Hook school shootings, because of the manner in
which it advertised its weapons.)
The important
thing is that the evidence uncovered by the House Committee be widely released
to the public so that they might be made aware of the *evils which
permeate the Republican Party, convincing voters to throw the G.O.P. out of
office at all levels, national, statewide and local.
· * To start a
list, these ‘evils’ include catering to white supremacists, attacking voting
rights, disregarding women’s rights, preferring foreign dictators to democratic
leaders, defying the Constitution, downgrading science, misusing the First and
Second Amendments, legitimatizing ignorance, etc.
Just opened a new toothpaste tube (Colgate Cavity Prevention) and noted, after careful searching on the box, that it was made in Mexico.
I figure that the raw materials and the manufacturing equipment needed to produce a tube of toothpaste cost
about the same in the United States as in Mexico, but the wages and benefits
paid to those who are employed to oversee its production there are far less
there than north of the border. Being
that the cost of living and the standard of living in Mexico are less than they
are here, the Mexican workers are probably happy with their jobs and I ought to
be happy being able to pay only about $2 for the toothpaste. Were it made in the United States with its
higher cost of living and higher standards of living for American workers, it
probably would have cost me about five or ten dollars!
The only unhappy people are the American workers who would have had a
job with a decent salary and benefit package if it were made here. But then, could I afford toothpaste at ten
dollars a tube? At least it wasn’t made
in China.
This is a problem. Other than settling
for serving food and busing off tables in restaurants, making beds in hotels,
cleaning out planes between flights, and other low-paying menial jobs, what are
the occupational potentialities for the relatively unskilled worker? We cannot
become a nation of scientists, engineers, technicians, physicians, lawyers, educators,
programmers, coders, media creators, bankers, and accountants, with everything else
outsourced to places where labor is inexpensive. There will never be enough such jobs for all
that aspire to them. Even jobs as
salespeople or telemarketers are disappearing too, as automation and the
internet offer alternatives.
Solutions might include mandating a maximum twenty-five hour work week,
with full benefits, or temporarily increasing the number of government jobs as
FDR did during the Great Depression with the CCC and WPA, but we had better
find one quickly, or we will have millions of unhappy citizens on our hands,
ready to fall for any line of malarky a potential dictator might offer them. Many did this in 2016 and look at the make-up of many State legislatures!
The key might be in how our government taxes corporations which profit
from outsourcing their manufacturing process, like the production of my tube of
toothpaste. Many major corporations pay
no income taxes whatsoever because of loopholes that are provided for them by
legislators to whom they generously donate at campaign time. Out of their profits might come the resources,
via taxation, to subsidize workers limited to that 25-hour workweek (no second
jobs allowed) and providing them with benefits and paying for those additional
government jobs too. Their shareholders might suffer a bit but perhaps they will move their cash from stocks to bonds.
Opponents of such solutions will scream ‘socialism’ but all it would be
is defining a fairer way of distributing the nation’s wealth.
No Fly Zones - Some criticism of our Ukraine policy claims that we limited what we had been doing in terms of military aid to protect that nation from Russia (just as Henry Kissinger had capped military aid to Israel to 'just enough') thereby encouraging Putin's military attack. Even today, we correctly oppose the 'no-fly-zone' that Zelenskyy wants since, in enforcing it, the danger of direct conflict between American resources with those of Russia would risk igniting a nuclear World War Three. Zelenskyy responds that World War Three has already started, in Ukraine. Western democracy has to do better for Ukraine than what it did for Spain in 1938, but the danger of nuclear war limits options.
Will Oligarchs and Russian People Stick with Putin? - Increasing
economic sanctions on Putin personally and the Russian state will only back him
into a corner and risk his committing nuclear suicide for us all. The
pressure must be on the oligarchs, themselves a bunch of thieves who fear
losing their ill-gotten wealth, and the Russian people to get rid of him.
And I think they now get the idea and know what to do. In today's electronic world, the truth gets through even to the Russians in the street. The Russians did get
rid of the Czars a century ago. They know the drill. There is a reason Vladimir Putin sits so far
from others when he has a meeting, and it isn't social distancing. He
doesn't want to be too close to anyone, fearing what Brutus did to his buddy,
Caesar. It may take a while, and it might not even be violent, but I think this is the way it will come down.
Those who demonstrated for freedoms in Selma should be supporting Ukraine in its struggle with Russia. Instead, what I have read are complaints that while European efforts to rescue Ukrainians are admirable, the same efforts are not being made for those fleeing despotism in the Middle East and Africa (and in the United States, for those fleeing Central American terrors). They ask if this difference in Europe’s efforts is based on the Ukrainians being people ‘just like us,’ and not ‘different’ as others seeking sanctuary might be. Simply, racism.
This lack of conspicuous
support for Ukraine from those who support civil rights in this country reminds
me of the old story of the Black man who, when asked if he would like to
convert to Judaism, replied “Hell no, I got enough trouble being Black.”
(Actually, the story involved using the Yiddish equivalent of the “N” word.) They may have a point.
An interesting article on this can be found by CLICKING HERE or visiting https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1083423348/europe-welcomes-ukrainian-refugees-but-others-less-so
No comments:
Post a Comment