Convential Wisdom Bought and Paid For

Conventional wisdom can be a death knell for us all.  Special interests like big oil and gas can use it with deadly effect.

Right now we watch in horror as one hurricane after another explodes through the southeast.  We watch in horror as wildfires destroy hundreds of square miles, fed by temperature levels in the 100s.

We watch in horror as Africa and the Mideast struggle with violent upheavals fed by drought and famine.

And we elect a climate denier.  That’s right the United States, in a classic example of special interests (and I’m counting Russia here) went exactly the wrong way in combating global climate change, setting any kind of real effort to save the earth back dozens of years.  When Russia interfered in the election, by helping Trump, it did so for a purpose...Russia’s economy depends on oil and gas production even more than we do!  Global warming gets you arrested in Russia!

It is the same thing as electing Reagan whose first thing was to take the solar panels off the White House.  The message was clear:  coal is king...and global warming accelerated. 

He did that, like Trump pulling us out of the Paris Accords, because he was paid to do it. 

Both were paid in a manner of speaking by the oil and gas cabals, both here and overseas, that sees profit above everything.  Who knows, and they know, that global warming is a real man made thing, their fuel is what is doing it, but they don’t care….they will all be dead when it really kicks into high gear.

Only problem is, it is kicking into high gear RIGHT NOW!

So Trump, now becomes hurricane Donald, trying to show how well prepared we are, as global warming super storms virtually destroy the economy.

The hurricanes and the fires will cost trillions...the rise the the sea levels will be more...and we will soon join Africa and the Middle East and India; etc., in mountains of debt, and financial ruin.

And it will happen right now...Our debt ridden economy that cannot afford decent medical care, is being blown up right now by hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires.

But will we get out of our cars?  Will we demand mass transit and pay for it?  Hell no its all about me!

ME….ME….ME...ME….ME...ME...ME..

In football, where I  played and coached, that attitude has one result:  you get beat!

NO, because conventional wisdom, bought and paid for by oil and gas and coal, dictates that this is all a ruse, a China conspiracy according to Trump who destroyed American leadership in this battle for survival, by voiding the Paris Agreement.  Right there he probably doomed our grandchildren!  We do it everyday when we jump in our cars and drive endless miles to work.

It was not fair;  Trump lied. “I won’t be the mayor of Paris but the mayor of Detroit”...(Hell he won’t dare go to Detroit).

In fact it was fair, it did admit to the “developing nations like India” that the industrialized west had cheated and contributed the bulk of CO2 to the atmosphere, and now sanctimoniously wanted to curb emissions...so language was put into the agreement pledging help to quickly change to clean energy production for India and other “emerging nations”.  That “compromise” might of saved us…..until Trump voided the Agreement!

And Solar City and other clean energy companies led the charge.  The oil and gas companies pledged quietly that they would kill the Paris Accords PRECISELY because of the clean energy aspect, the compromise that got the Paris Agreement passed by all but two nations!

Killing the Paris Accord had everything to do with big oil, coal and gas!

Trump is a shill of oil, coal and gas.  He is owned by them.  The Secretary of State is a former CEO for Exxon for God’s sake.

And if you talk to the ordinary American they will tell you, with conviction, that the global warming thing is overblown, that conventional wisdom and common sense dictates that we are exaggerating.

Tell Texas that...tell Florida that.

Florida right now has to pump water off city streets in Miami everyday at high tide, because the ocean levels have raised so much due to global warming.  The Republican Governor of the state has kept this quiet, even threatening all state employees with being reprimanded if they even utter the words “global warming”.

And today, he is pleading with his citizens to basically evacuate the ENTIRE STATE!  How is he going to hide this?

And you, you keep driving...you keep ignoring the bus...you even make sure junior gets their car so they can drive to school like the “cool kids”...as parking lots burst and commutes go up to 100 miles one way everyday.

Try highway 80 lately from Sacramento to the Bay Area...try the Altamont Pass lately?

So we keep pouring CO2 into the atmosphere, at it was  106 in San Francisco and you are putting a gun to your grandchildren’s heads.

We can fix this...but we can’t do it until we stop electing Republicans….they are bought and paid for by oil, gas and coal…..

Some Democrats are too, but the clean energy industry has had to go Democratic because the Republicans are OWNED by big oil

And we can’t do it with Trump as President.

The Reckoning!

Weaponize the Law

Trump obiously never read the Constitution, nor did he read any Civil War History.    Many of our "founding fathers" owned slaves, and 600,000 people died in the Civil War to settle the issue of slavery.  But...and this is critical, the founding fathers, including Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton et al, decided that an imperfect union was better than no union at all.

And their compromise failed, and long after they died, the country flew apart.

But even then, Lincoln had not freed the slaves...the south, the traitorous south, attacked Ft. Sumtner...the North, ill prepared for war, was caught flat footed..

Lincoln tried everything he could do to stop it, including recommending sending all he slaves back to Africa.

But the sides were drawn, the abolitionists would not tolerate the sins of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

One problem here is people have forgotten the Civil War.  If Lee stays with the north, along with other Confederate generals, the war never happens.  Without the military genius of Lee, the war has far fewer casualties on both sides.

The fact is Lee and Jackson and all of them were traitors.  Most of them were Westpoint graduates and had taken a oath to preserve and protect the Constitution.  And the broke that oath.  It wasn't without anghst, but they broke it.

And they ALL had read the Constitution, that specifically calls for the death penalty for treason.

And they ALL knew what treason was.

And after the Civl War there were no monuments built of southern "heroes".  It was during the era of the KKK, when the first Democrat since the Civil War was elected President,  Wilson, that the statues went up.  This was 1914!

What in the hell does this have to do with Civil War history?  It was a message to the north that "the south shall rise again"..

The inconvenient truth of WWI and WWII changed that forever, proving that the United States had to stay united for self preservation.

The Civil Rights of the 1960s and the progress of humanity culminating in the election of President Obama and the global economy makes it impossible to allow secession ever again.

And white supremacy must be ended; either peacefully or otherwise.  And this is not a call to arms, the law has plenty of domestic terrorism to end nazism with arrests and convictions, because these idiots can't keep their mouths shut.

There is a clip of a white racist who has just been informed their is a warrant for his arrest.  He has bragged about his guns and his bravado.  When he finds out he is up for arrest he literally cries like a baby.  Suddently jail is in his future and his tough guy exterior evaporates.

Things change when you life is altered with jail.  And many white supremacists are going to meet that fate.

Because,  the LAWs are there, many because of 9/11, that give huge powers to the state to arrest terrorists.

And the white supremacist web sites are so stupid that they tell the world about their terrorists intents.

Give to the Southern Law Poverty Center...that is who files the lawsuits and demands the government follow the law.  Arrest the fascists.

This is the mistake the south made in the Civil Rights era.  They kept killing and kidnapping and ran smack into the Civil Rights Law.

The Voting Rights Law has been lessened by the Supreme Court, not so with the Civil Rights Law.

The weapons to destroy white supemacy are right there....

They exist in the courtroom and not on the battlefield.

Welcome to America

Science can help...So can history.....

Fox News and other conservative outlets (that's right conservatives are responsible for racism getting worse) have harped away on talking points to  convince that racism is over but at the same time attack people of color for "black lives matter", for unemployment "ban immigrants" and for terrorism (ban Muslims).

All of these are dog whistles, alerts to white supremacy, to take their nation back.

But  this nation was and in many ways still is, owned by white supremacy.  Every indicator of economic success, every indicator of wealth, shows that whites are still far in advance in achievement to people of color.  People of color have made some progress to be sure, but as far as overwhelming the white majority, no way.

Now, mixed race, those who so indicate in census, are increasing dramatically: as if it makes any difference.  But to the white supremacist it does; and currently they have no gripe....none!

It was 1947 when Major League Baseball finally integrated.  It was in the early 1970s that NCAA Football finally integrated southern schools.

History proves that conservatives are lying, for political advantage by the way.  On the one hand they lecture that political correctness is a problem, that we don't need to be careful of what we say anymore about our black neighbor, because racism is over.  We don't need Affirmative Action anymore because racism is dead.

Meanwhile, we need to build a border wall to keep the brown Mexicans out and stop immigration of the black Middle Easterners.  And statistics show that racial preferences and advantages are far from over.

The problem is history..  I am presently engaged in yet another "conversation" with a good 'Christian' who claims to not be racist, and he  goes on and on that liberals cause racism by talking about it; that the Democratic Party is the racist part.

Both of these are Fox Talking POINTS!  I have watched them do it.  If we don't talk about race it will go away, while conservatives pass voter suppression laws keeping people of color from voting?  If we ban immigration of dangerous people (people of color) we will be safe and that is not racist.  The facts show that homegrown terrorism is far more damaging than foreign grown since 9/11.

And finally, if we ignore 1970 on, we will realize that liberals and the Democratic Party that is now more diverse than the society it serves and is definitely NOT racist!

One thing about white supremacy; it thrives on lies.  For over 100 years the south maintained a segregated society claiming that African Americans liked it that way.  "You don't understand us, they want to live apart, it is our ways", I have heard from southerners for years.  Fact is segregation was used as a club to keep people of color poor and hopeless.  Or from the north, "We are integrated, there is no racism here"...

Then Detroit blew up, Watts blew up, and the urban riots showed that the north also has a problem.

WE ALL ARE RACIST.  YOU CANNOT GROW UP IN THIS SOCIETY AND NOT BE, AND THAT GOES FOR ALL COLORS AND GENDERS.

Being part Native American, and a lifelong adherent to integration and diversity, I  still hear my inner self make racist responses to what I see.

Why?  Because my inner ear was trained from growing up in America to recall the racist jokes, the “Step and Fetch It” , Amos and Andy, and yes, the “Redskins” of John Wayne Movies.  And there was an avalanche of racist “teachings” when I was growing up.  There was no way to avoid them...NONE!

And that is why “political correctness” is essential in this culture.  We have to practice it forever.  And yes, we ALL have to practice it.  When a group of African Americans are joking around and dropping the “N” word over and  over, with children around, they are perpetuating the racism.

The white kid if they are watching , and some of the stuff is hilarious, and thinking, “I can belong (like Bill Maher) and utter that word when I joking around.  They do, and the fight is on!

And that word, in the proper context, cuts like a knife and will start a fight in a heartbeat.

Look, we live in a diverse culture, and that is not going to change.  The “Take America Back” is a dog whistle that says, take America back from those people.  Yes, I know it is also political, but remember, the Democratic Party now is diverse and contains the people of color of the nation;  even in a political context.

Make American Great Again implies that a Black President made America less.  Take My Country Back from whom specifically?  Guess!

Let's say for the purpose of argument that Obama took America away from Whites.  Even if he did, and that is a matter of opinion, our racist past does not allow it…statistics don't lie, whites are firmly in control of the United States.  In fact it is getting more so.

Think not, then look at what is happening.  The Alt Right, fascism is growing.  Young people who don't read history, actually believe that white people are losing their position of privilege, while harping on as conservatives that government regulations hamper liberty; which conveniently precludes government from protecting civil rights.  The Voting Rights Acts was gutted, Voter ID has resulted in a Republican majority in the Senate and the House, and a conservative majority rules the Supreme Court....how much more white can it get!???

Ever seen a picture of Republican staffers, or the Cabinet, or the leadership of the House or Senate:  almost all male and all white!

In many ways we need more protection of civil rights today than we did in 1963!  If any groups are losing right it is the minority groups.  The backlash toward Obama is very strong.

If you still doubt that then look at who is President. Look at the Congress, full of white men (Republicans) elected through gerrymandering and voter suppression that would make George Wallace proud.

History is screaming at us right now. Fascist white supremacy is so bold now, by a openly racist President, that they actually are growing, in a post Obama era.  This is again, classic white backlash, which we have seen in 1970 with Nixon and the Southern Strategy and finally with Reagan and his “shining city of a hill and his war on drugs” that incarcerated an entire generation of people of color.

Look, you have to work at diversity every day….you have to be aware every minute.  You have to be able to take it if a person of color unleashes his or her anger on you.  You have to be ready with history to explain and be HONEST!

I was playing golf a few weeks ago with a young African American man.  He explained that he was VERY successful in advertising, obviously upper middle class.

After a few holes, when I had shared my educational background, he asked me straight up; “Why do White People hate Black People”?

So I told him….and it took the rest of the round to tell the story.  And it was based on historical information, data and yes history.  As I went on and on (as I am wont to do) he kept shaking his head.

Then he thanked me.  He said that most of his white friends, when asked that question, immediately said, “White people don’t hate black people”...and then went on and on in defense.  He said it was refreshing to hear a white person actually tell the truth...I told him I was racist and working on it...I told him he was also, and working on it.

Welcome to America!

George Will Right??

Gee George can you write a little more elitist and sanctimonious?

George Will has won awards for flouting his lexicon all over the place. 

In this case, he is (I think) bemoaning the era of Trump. 

Somewhere in there he, I think (I was flipping open the Dictionary all the time) is saying that electing Trump was a good thing becauses Congress is becoming like Madison (the play?).

Madisonian I think is the term he makes up.  What?

Look, the separation of powers in the Constitutionn is NOT an absolute.  All of the Constitutional guarantees that Will brags about end abruptly when the Idiot in Chief pushes that red button.

It is in foreign policy, not domestic policy, that we are at the most peril.  Will, as usual misses the point (if anyone can decipher his point) of this.  Forget domestic politics, the split in the Republican Party has proven once again that not separation of powers protects us from disaster, the divided Republican Party is sufficient.

No, the real danger in oversees; it is the stupid investment of unbelievable power in the President with NO control over issues of no control.

I was hoping the Russians had bought him off, but Congress just took care of that, voting for sanctions that are veto proof; assuring a confrontation with Putin in the future.

And this will be a confrontation fraught with danger, since Putin still has something on Trump that he will play in the depths of a crisis.

And Trump, the narcisstic lunatic that he is just might decide to end it all and take us with him.

The Reckoning led by Donald Trump?

Jesus was Right!

Pottersville was what Frank Capra called it....the village where the rich amoral banker had taken over; leaving its citizens poor, drunk and broke.

The Great Depression was a massive hit to the wealthy...the roaring Twenties and WWI were blamed on the super rich.

I remember reading comic books about "Richie Rich".  We were taught that rich was dangerous, that you lost your humanity if you became rich.

Of course, it goes further back than this; Jesus preached against the rich, aiming at Jewish Hierarchy (mostly the Priests) who got rich from cooperating with the hated Romans and from swindling the poor through sacrifice scams.

Jesus only went postal once, surprising considering he operated in a Roman dominated dictatorship, at the Jewish Temple, where he physically assaulted the Priests and their scam.

This is a little daunting considering that the Son of Man had the full power of God on his side; he could have evaporated the Temples if he wanted to.

But he did not; he used them to teach that wealth was suspect; that you get as many rich people into heavan as you could get a camel through the eye of a pin.

Today, we worship wealth.  We have elected by far the biggest asshole and the richest President in our history.  We buy tons of electonic devices, post to a Facebook ran by a Trillionaire, and all aspire to become the entrepeneur that hits the jackpot and becomes rich as well.

And the gap between rich and poor widens constantly.  And the homeless grow in numbers.  And our danger of annihilation at the hands of a crazed rich President grow everyday.

Jesus was right; distrust the rich, they hate you!

It's All a Game??

“I began to realize it was real work. It wasn’t a game,” he said. “The decisions you make are important. The work is important. It affects lives.”  THIS IS A STATEMENT BY A REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLYMAN.

What I have always felt, and this is a stereotype is that Republicans run for office to add to their resume...to impress their Rotarian friends, to be part of a club of always adding to their resumes, their position in the corporate business scheme of things.

Most of their votes are self serving in most ways, going with the party line which is easy since the party line ALWAYS benefits business and the corporate bosses and culture.

So they hate liberals...they hate civil rights.  they live in a world of haves and have nots, and always blame the have nots.

This is what you hear right..."The homless are mostly lazy and refuse to work".  "These people are working the system to get welfare"... "Food stamps are a scam...look at all the cheating".

Now they soften their guilt, AND THEY HAVE GUILT, by trooping into mega-churches that are built on anti-abortion zealotry with millions of dollars.  They rail against the lefties who are for killing babies.  This of course ignores the miniscule number of abortions that are done every year.

But to somehow atone for their sell outs and whoring of their social responsiblity, they decide to dictate to others moral imperatives.

So we get the Moral Majority bullshit.  We get the health care crisis because Republicans are always trying to repeal and replace human  compassion with a world of vengence of punishment for being LAZY.

And of course you can never convince them with statistics and science that the vast majority of the unemployed and the poor are there for things beyond their control.  They fret about the "deficit" ALL THE TIME...but relish getting taxes cut for the rich or their interests like it is a game.  It's all a game of screwing government, of destroying unions, of ripping public anything...and for sure not believing in global warming.

Of course, their grandparents as "Make America Firsters", refused to commit the United States to fighting fascism until it was almost too late....putting the world in critical jeapordy and costing 55 millions lives.  The Republicans fought and defeated Wilson by staying out of the League of Nations, missing multiple opportunities to stop Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. 

Their foolishness and again, selfishness, almost destroyed the world.

And today, what do we see...why.... they elected Trump....who stands at the precipice of already being the worst President we have ever had. 

So now this assemblyman, who is getting slammed by his party for voting for cap and trade and actually believing in global climate change.  This breaks the "code" of the GOP, that it must be one the wrong side of history all the time.

Why are they always wrong...why?  When you represent minority interests, when you believe that you not we count above all else; you do wrong things and think being a legislator is a "game".

WWII was not a game..the Civil War was not a game!  And the GOP is not a game!

They Cannot Govern

They just cannot govern. 

A few years ago, it was Reagan, he said "The scariest thing to hear is I am from the Government and am here to help"..

The audience then was the Greatest Generation who had lived throught the Great Depression and WWII, and knew better.  But the cost of the war was the big lie that unfortunately both parties has kept away from the American People....

The American People had been sold the lie that the war was paid for with war bonds....not even close.

It took until Reagan's administration to put a dent in the federal deficit that was a direct product of WWII and the rebuilding of Europe with the Marshal Plan.  The 90% Tax on income over some millions for the very rich, was used, along with high income taxes to pay the bill

And Reagan, and other California rich folks, decided enough was enough, and sold the anti-tax propaganda to the public over and over again...and they listened.

We listened and Prop 13 was born, and tax cuts to stimulate the economy...and we had not paid for the Vietnam War yet.

You see wars are expensive.....and they cost lots of money...especially when you fight them wrong (Vietnam) and create a social/economic train wreck.

Think I'm lying?  Look at George W. Bush and Iraq....he lied to get us into that mess, then floated a huge tax cut, following on the Reagan game plan, and splat....2007/08...Great Recession.

They just cannot govern....

It takes government expertise to make this work.  And Trump especially, elected once again with Conservative Anger....is blowing up in our face. 

YOU HAVE TO GOVERN...AND REPUBLICANS CANNOT GOVERN....

Conservatives keep promising results, and now are trying to deliver on repealing the ACA that about 2% of the American People want.

But it will definitely hinder governing; and punish people of color and the poor.

They just cannot govern!