What Type of People We Are
In a recent post, I argued that our brains are wired in a certain way, and that we have little in any control over our values and beliefs.
German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte seem to be saying something similar here. To take me as an example, I’m no more capable of being a Trump supporter than I am in believing in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.
They moved the line…
When he bragged about sexual assault… When he invited Russia to hack Hillary’s email… When he mocked a disabled reporter, called women dogs, disparaged a POW, insulted a Gold Star family & a military widow…
When he extorted Ukraine, lied about a pandemic, asked Georgia to “find” 11,780 votes, spread the Big Lie, incited an insurrection & sent a rabid mob to hang his VP…
When he stole nuclear secrets and lied about it, and obstructed the investigation… When he became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes…
When he appointed people who ordered extrajudicial lethality on the high seas… When he ordered attacks that k!lled elementary school 120 students (73 boys and 47 girls), 26 teachers (all of whom were women), seven parents of students (four men and three women), in the middle of negotiations…
When he gave access to sensitive systems with private citizens’ information to an unelected billionaire and a band of hackers in an “efficiency” project that cost taxpayers extra hundreds of billions…
When he accepted a $400M luxury jumbo jet from Qatar… When he took in billions from manipulated cybercoin and futures trading…
When he pardoned major fraudster and drug dealer donors and 1500+ treasonous conspirators and v!olent insurrectionists… When de declared that the destruction of US cities each with millions of citizens is “a small price to pay”…
When he has now long been blatantly and seriously implicated in the Epstein files…
Still, far too many still seek to move the line again – even a constitutional line for 2028.
Nothing the stable genius could ever do would cross the line for MAGA-GOP.
Nothing. Because there is no line.
Not really.
History has painful lessons we’re all going to learn again and again until we learn to remember.
Good government won’t come from people who hate government.
Good healthcare won’t come from making illness profitable.
Good schools for every child can’t charge money for knowledge.
Good societies won’t come from making prisons profitable.
Good infrastructure for all is impossible without mandatory investment.
Good soil, water, air, and climate, won’t endure lawless free-for-alls with the cold claws of greed.
Peace will not come from making War profitable.
Greed must be shackled, harnessed, and directed, before it will work for the greater good of nations.
We will all learn these things, sooner or later – in the nick of time, or far too late.
Always, comes the question: Who’s going to pay for it?
Why, we all will pay for it, of course… a little money from each one of us now (through progressive tax), or a lot of blood later from us all just a short way down the road as the unsustainable house of cards collapses.
Want improvement? End the bribery system by which our leadership takes power. Simple. Not easy.
How? State by state popular referendum for constitutional amendment codifying:
• Money isn’t speech
• Corporations aren’t people
• Tax-paid-only elections with ranked choice voting
• Jury trials and 25-years in prison – for all bribers & bribed AND for willful liars, either in their campaigns or in office – unpardonable, with a permanent bar from any office of trust or profit
• Abolishment of the old slavers’ Electoral College
• NO stock ownership while in office nor for five years afterward
Solutions:
• Living wages, rent controls, and strengthened retirement protections
• ‘Tax-paid only’ systems for elections, transit, healthcare, K-12 and universities
• Hard limits on wealth and power
• Family planning education, and voluntary contraception, to cut world population
• Less meat, to free up ranch land for rewilding, to allow biodiversity to recover
• Protection for fish nurseries and spawning grounds
• A rapid shift away from toxic fossils, to proven and cheaper sunlight and wind
For many reasons, time grows short. We must stand up and speak out – while we still can.
Minneapolis reminds us of the way to resist… 50,000 in a city of 430,000, showing up with:
• Truth
• Teamwork
• Non-violence
• Non-compliance
• Communication
• Humor
• Direct Action
• Perseverance.
These eight factors alone won’t be enough, but each one will always be indispensable.
Peaceful not Passive… We’ve seen that our opposition is now cruelly prepared and brutally eager to kill and maim. If we resort to weapons of war ourselves, it will lead to our own demise. The history of movements like our suffragettes, our factory, retail, and farm labor, our civil rights, our LGBTQ+ pride, and independence in India, is all quite instructive.
We are the people we’ve been waiting for. If not now, then when?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Watch, work, learn, teach.
Don’t. Give. Up.