This woman’s insight at left is interesting, but fear isn’t the primary reason I’d stay out of the United States if I were a European or Canadian. Rather, it’s boycotting evil. I don’t use Amazon, I don’t shop at Home Depot, I don’t eat at Chick Fil A, and I don’t go to Florida for any reason.
I just met a married couple in their early 30s, no kids.
The guy wanted to know what I do in life, and I explained that I’m a writer in environmental sustainability. This caused him to chuckle and ask, “Holy cow. How’s that doing?”
I admitted that it seems to be a war we’re losing to greed, and to especially Big Oil. I quoted Kurt Vonnegut who said shortly before he died, “It appears that this will be the first civilization that went extinct because fixing its problems wasn’t cost-effective.”
He looked at his wife and replied, “That’s why we don’t have any kids.”
Trumpism could be defined as the rejection of truth and science, and the willingness to tell bald-face lies in order to make Donald Trump appear to be an honest and effective servant of the American people.
Until what time, if any, that the United States repudiates Trumpism, any foreign government that trusts us will be acting very foolishly indeed.
The nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides financial backing to thousands of public radio and television stations, including NPR and PBS. Republicans have succeeding in forcing it to close, making it that much harder for Americans to receive information that is critical of the president.
This is a vital step toward fascism that all would-be autocrats take on their road to absolute power.
If I were designing college curricula, an entry course of probability and statistics might be the only one I’d make mandatory. Want to major in history or English? That’s fine, but I don’t want you to check out of here with no understanding of how the most important underlying forces of nature work.
As the young fellow here points out, the topic can be broached much earlier in students’ math careers (though not before they’re proficient in adding and multiplying fractions and decimals).
What American actor and activist George Takei says here is 100% accurate.
If any sane and decent person were advising Republicans, he’d urge them to cut ties with Trump as soon as possible, and return to some level of credibility as a legitimate political party, rather than an organization of criminals and liars.
Virtually every day brings a new catastrophe.
Per the BBC: (Late last week) Trump has fired the boss of one of America’s most important economic institutions hours after weaker-than-expected jobs data stoked further alarm about his tariff policy. On social media Trump claimed that Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), had “RIGGED” jobs figures “to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”.
From ABC News:
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called President Donald Trump’s accusation without providing evidence that the top Bureau of Labor Statistics official manipulated jobs report numbers “a preposterous charge” on Sunday.
Speaking with “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos, Summers said that one official would not be able to change the numbers. “These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals. There’s no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number,” Summers said.
Isn’t the entire Republican party cringing in embarrassment? The president of the United States rejects truth if it doesn’t represent him in a good light. This is depravity.
It’s long past time for a change. He’s insane, and needs to be removed via the 25th Amendment.
To the author of the meme here:
The guillotine was invented about 80 years after Louis XIV, associated with Versailles in late 17th and early 18th Century; it’s known as the instrument that beheaded Louis XVI and Marie Antionette in the French Revolution in 1789.
Having said that, the point here is a good one. People–any people–will put up with only so much indifference to their suffering before they’ll take action.
Now, a “revolution” today can only be nonviolent. Those in positions of power have at their disposal such incredibly powerful martial technologies that violent assaults are impossible.
Former labor secretary Robert Reich notes at left that Trump’s firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes right out of the playbook of all tyrants.
Here’s an excerpt from yesterday’s OpEd in the NY Times by David Brooks:
“Trumpism… is primarily about the acquisition of power — power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice. …
What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.
It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power. …
I’m really not a movement guy. I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now.”
As a percentage, there are very few people on this planet who view Earth as “one big group project,” but these folks are, in the main, members of the more than 200,000 groups whose purpose is environmental and social justice.
Some of these groups are large, e.g., the membership in the Sierra Club, where some are a fraction of that, e.g., readers of 2GreenEnergy.
Even in total, these people may be a small minority of Earth’s population, but we’re certainly not “no one.”
