Stephen Altschuler

thoughts on environment, politics, health, life issues

Human nature

The War Against Democracy is On!

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The war against democracy in the country that has most championed it is now being waged as definitively as when Germany invaded Poland in ’39 or Japan invaded Pearl Harbor in ’41, specifically now by Republicans in Congress and some 19 Republican-led State legislatures, along with two turncoat Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, and, Oh yes, still Whiner in Chief, Donald John Trump. That’s a long sentence for a short headline, I know, but anything shorter and I might have lost your attention. And at this point, what with the pandemic inall, lost attention might result in a critical lost battle which Republicans would certainly seize upon to their strategic advantage.

And in a time of war, unity is only an issue if either side is disunited in their resolve to win. The Republicans, Trumpian to their rotten core, are indeed united. They could care less about democracy, a form of government that is anathema to their basic values of power, fear, greed, and intimidation. Those are values inherent in authoritarianism, in dictatorship, in oligarchies, in fascism. Democrats, excepting for the two previously mentioned, are for democracy, in full. Its values are governance by, for, and of the people–all the people, equally. They are in favor of a federal government using its financial resources to benefit the people via external and internal infrastructures. They are in favor of an open and healthy unobstructed debate of the issues of the day, hoping, even insisting, to come to consensus–that paragon of democracy that holds a country together, no matter how diverse its population. For without democracy, a country, as we have seen time after time, will lapse into the dregs of one-party rule which leads to dictatorship. And the world has rarely seen a benign and righteous dictator.

A time of war is a tense time, one of uncertainty as to how the outcome will manifest. Who will win? And what changes will unfold? And will the country survive as we’ve known it? It is a political war, yes, but it happens during a war on a lethal worldwide pandemic that should have drawn this world together but that has a further divided it. And to further complicate things, we are also at war with a rapidly changing climate that, because of human intransigence, ignorance, and greed, is rearing its head like the Buddhist realm of the hungry ghost with its figurative huge belly and an impossibly rope-thin neck that can never satisfy that chronically huge stomach. Forever starving; never satiated.

With all these rampant, out of control hungry ghosts, the prognosis for the health of humanity and the health of our Mother Earth is guarded, to say the very least.

In this political war, which, in a sense, is the keystone for the fighting of the other wars, we will see how resilient our democracy is. We are witnessing a kind of D-Day where the forces for democracy–the Commission to Investigate the January 6 insurrection, President Biden, the Attorney General, Stacy Abrams and her Fair Fight, most of the Democratic Party including its legislators and its voters, liberals, along with many anti-Trump Republicans and Independents–are massing its forces on the front lines to challenge the forces of fascism, or the governance by the few at the expense of the many. The fascist forces, which include Trump Republican legislators and election officials on local, state, and national levels, white supremacy gangs, QAnon crazies, anti-vaxers, anti-maskers, anti-mandaters, anti-Semites, anti-Moslems, our highly partisan Supreme Court, many white Christian evangelicals, and cult Trumpsters throughout the country, have fortified their armies with misinformation, conspiracy theories, ancient phony myths, Trump lies, false rationalizations, using social media, Fox “News”, extremist right wing radio shows, and Trump appointed federal judges.

Truth be known, the leading fascists are adept at manipulating facts to support their cause. They recruit their gullible minions then brainwash them to the point of their readiness to drink the proverbial Kool Aid. That’s when the minions get radical, as they are now, trained to threaten those they perceive as against their view of reality. It’s been happening like that for centuries. And the false thinking and intimidating behaviors from the time of Jesus when a Jew who preached peace and love for all was falsely accused and put to death, to the bloody and cultist middle ages when the end of times, called Armageddon, believed and feared by millions, was actually predicted to take place September 1, 1492, to present times when evangelicals still believe in the coming Armageddon when their Christ will return to Jerusalem, hence the only reason the Jews of Israel are at all tolerated, and lead the faithful to heaven while others who fail to convert, like Jews and Moslems, will burn in hell. Things really haven’t changed much.

So I say to fascists who forever pop up their heads like wack a mole puppets, I predict democracy will win this war. It won’t be easy but our motivation is extremely high. We have fought off attacks previously in our history: The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, World Wars I and II, The Depression, McCarthyism, and the Donald Trump presidency and its ugly aftermath. But the pandemic may be our most formidable enemy and we only have the Democrats fighting that. Unvaccinated mostly Republicans are, like cult members, apparently willing to die to make Joe Biden look bad. Very sad and very deplorable, indeed.

We still have time to mount that D-Day, though time is running out. The Commission on Jan. 6, Garland and the DOJ, cases against Trump are all moving along but at a snail’s pace. The 2022 elections and its Republican promise of voter suppression, gerrymandered districts, and partisan vote counting will ultimately tell the tale as to where we are headed as a democracy. And as I stand on the edge of the cliff looking out at a broad expansive sea, I have only a hope and a prayer that the country will do the right thing increasing Democrat majorities in both Houses of Congress thus allowing President Biden to continue making the progress he has already made.

Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

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In 1864, East Tennessee native Admiral David Farragut shouted those words as his ships were stalled in Mobile Bay by Confederate torpedoes. Here’s how Ned Jilton II of the Times News described the dramatic and critical battle in a feature piece on 8/13/20.

“Early on the morning of Aug. 5, 1864, Farragut’s fleet began to advance. The monitors and the forts started to exchange fire. To better evaluate the battle, the admiral climbed up into the rigging of his flagship as officers and sailors took up positions to relay his orders to the crew.

As the fleet entered the bay, the lead monitor, the USS Tecumseh, began to turn to engage the CSS Tennessee when an explosion ripped through its hull. The monitor had struck a torpedo and quickly sank with most of her crew.

The ships behind Tecumseh, fearing more torpedoes, slowed and nearly stopped as the vessel sank, forcing the ships behind them to slow. The fleet bunched up, giving the big guns of the forts easy, slow moving targets. The admiral’s plan was quickly falling apart.

Farragut shouted through a trumpet to the USS Brooklyn ahead, “What’s the trouble?” To which he received the reply, “Torpedoes.”

Farragut gave the legendary reply, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

Spurred on by those words, the fleet began to move forward again and into the bay. There they attacked the Rebel fleet until the only ship left fighting was the CSS Tennessee. Farragut’s fleet converged on the mighty Confederate ironclad and pounded it with cannons and then resorted to repeatedly ramming the vessel before it finally surrendered.”

So why do I bring this up at this time? News reports these days are full of scary predictions of how Republicans will more than likely retake the House and possibly the Senate in the ’22 midterm elections. Despite every sign, every indication that Trump-led Republicans have become the party of No, of obstruction, of blocking all Democratic initiatives despite their obvious benefit to ordinary Americans struggling with the realities of a deadly pandemic and its effect on employment, the world economy, action against the climate crisis, and of supporting a megalomaniac autocrat who instigated, and possibly organized, a coup against our government, voters are still ready and poised to turn the Congress over to this party of do-nothings and death threats. It’s discouraging, to say the least, and causes me to lose hope in the efficacy, wisdom, common sense, and even sanity of our country.

My only hope is the battle cry of Admiral Farragut, which I’ll paraphrase here: Damn the predictions. Full speed ahead! Often in our country when we hear a prediction of a sure-thing defeat, the underdogs get inspired and show the pundits a thing or three. We’ve seen it in sports many times, witness the ’69 Mets, witness Jack Fleck beating Ben Hogan in the U.S Open in ’55, witness the “Miracle on Ice” when the men’s U.S. hockey team beat the Soviets at Lake Placid in the gold medal game in 1980. And we’ve seen it in politics. Witness Lincoln beating Douglas in 1860, witness Truman beating Dewey in ’48, witness Kennedy beating Nixon in ’60, witness Clinton beating Bush in ’92, witness Obama beating McCain in ’08, witness Biden beating Trump in ’20, and witness two unknown Democrats beating shoe-in incumbent Republicans in the crucial Georgia U.S. Senate races in ’21.

What happens in both sports and politics is that people get inspired, and when people get inspired all bets are off. It’s Katy bar the door! And I think that could well happen in 2022. The constant barrage of media prognostications of Republican victories will scare the pants off Democratic voters nationwide, not only retaining the Democrats’ control of Congress but widening the party’s majorities, giving Joe Biden a tremendous victory and restoring the country’s forward movement under his leadership. The case against Trump’s seditious acts will continue, leading to a ruling that, if not landing him in prison, will deny him the opportunity of ever running for public office again, from dog catcher to president.

How about it Dems? Isn’t that enough to get you out of your pandemic malaise and get to the polls this November? Let’s show the bastards something they never figured: a Democratic landslide significantly increasing Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. That’ll put the nail in the political coffins of such spineless cowards and traitors as McCarthy, McConnell, Hawley, Taylor Greene, Jordan, Cawthorne, Brooks, and, yes, Donald Trump. It also relegates DINO’s Manchin and Sinema to the back benches where they belong. It lets Joe Biden proceed with an agenda that will reenergize this country in ways we haven’t seen since FDR got us on the path out of the Great Depression, or JFK had us believing in Camelot for the coming 60s.

All because Dems came out in droves and voted in such numbers in 2022 that no amount of Republican voter suppression or partisan Trump-infused election officials or even the toxified Trump Supreme Court could reverse. It’s all in your hands, my hands, our hands.

Just do it as Admiral Farragut did it, and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

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Two new books of mine will give you further insight into my thinking and may inspire you further in dealing with the challenges our present world presents. They are Into the Woods…and Beyond, and The Valley Spirit, both available at Amazon. Thank you.

The “All About Me” Years

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The 1920s were the Roaring 20s. The 30s were the We’re all in this together years. The 40s were the Uncle Sam Needs You Years. The 50s were the I Like Ike Years. The 60s, after JFK’s murder, were the Ask What Your Country Did to You Years. The 70s were the Me Decade. And now, jumping to the 2020s, it’s the “All About Me” Years, on steroids via social media and Donald Trumpoids. As the rollicking and over the top vodka commercial says, “Sometimes you just gotta give the people what they want!” And what about half the population wants is no masks, no vaccines, no shutdowns, no facts, no science, no reality, and well, apparently, no democracy, which includes very little government intervention even when faced with a worldwide pandemic. What’s next? No traffic lights, smoking allowed everywhere, cell phones and video games allowed when driving, relieving oneself anywhere and anytime, resisting police guarding our government buildings like our U.S Capitol, and, yelling fire in a movie theater even when there is no fire, and many other examples of a no holds barred freedom of speech that some 1/6 rioters are using as their absurd defense. No restrictions. Total freedom to do anything an individual wants and chooses to do. No mandates and…well, no laws because aren’t laws just more mandates? Guns? Sure, anytime, anywhere. Even kids can bring them into schools because well, to forbid it would be a mandate that would restrict a kid’s freedom. Kids could also curse out their teachers, bully other kids, and spout out lies and falsehoods when answering questions, just as they hear their country’s leader, Donald Trump, do on Truth, his social media platform, where anything but Truth will be presented. And rampant death threats on anyone and anytime? Sure. Why not. There are no consequences. Politicians rarely speak out against them. So good people resign from important job to save them themselves and their family against this tyranny. It’s all despicable and unconscionable.

Democracy? “We don’t need no stinkin’ democracy!” Trump and the All About Me-rs, scream. That’s just something the Democrats invented to steal elections and keep Trump out of power. Voting? Just more government bullshit! We don’t need no stinkin’ voting. And one party, the Republican one, will do just fine. In the All About Me years, people do what they damn well want to do, fuc*k the consequences because there are no consequences. White power? Sounds good, like in the old days, say the Trumpsters on the street, in the bars, in the stadiums, in the diners, and on the roads.

That’s the America we saw on January 6, 2021 at our nation’s Capitol building, with its writing continuing to be on the wall, as the saying goes. Trump, Carlson, Hannity, McConnell, Cruz, Taylor Greene, and the cult followers have continued to lay the groundwork of their own fascist infrastructure since the reign of Donald the Small. Battleground states have established new voting procedures where traditional Democrat voters–Blacks, urban poor, students, youth–will have a harder time casting their ballots; voting districts have been gerrymandered to rig elections in favor of Republican candidates; and those tallying and approving vote counts will be partisans loyal to Donald Trump and company. All signed, sealed, collected and delivered, to the governors of 19 states controlled by their Republican legislatures. Merrick Garland says there’s really nothing much he can do about it until the Congress enacts the two voting rights bills. But Congress is stymied because no Republican senators will have the courage and wisdom to vote for the bills, including Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, and two Democratic senators, Manchin from West Virginia and Sinema from Arizona refuse to back a carving out of the filibuster to get those bills to the floor (as McConnell did to push through three ultra-conservative Trump nominees to the Supreme Court).

So there you have it, America. The GOP, after years of searching, has finally found its Viking leader who will figuratively rape and pillage the U.S. Constitution to drop this pesky Democracy and opt for a Trumpian strongman government where White Christian super rich men rule, where lies are labeled truths, profit is holy, and the climate crisis is a hoax fading into the fog of memory. The American experiment with “all men are created equal” will be over, along with one person, one vote, due process, and “give me your tired, your poor.”

If you want a model for how it will all pan out, that’s easy: Just look at Xi Jinping and China today; and Putin’s Russia; and Belarus, Hungry, Syria, Turkey, and other authoritarian one-party regimes. Is this what we want for our country?

So you choose, America. In 1861, a war was fought to save our Union. Lincoln and many Americans stood up to Southern slaveholding secessionists and the duped country boys who fought for them. Democracy won that time, at great cost to human life and limb. What now? Will we stand up to Trump and his “All About Me” Viking hordes as we did in the 1860s and 1960s for civil rights and the principles of equality this country stood, and still stands, for?

I hope so. I truly hope so.

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For a break with politics, pandemics, and pets on FB, check out my latest book, The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life, available at Amazon. It gives some vital guidance on finding balance in life during these troubled times. Thank you.

How to Handle Trump (and other) Bullies

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In responding to a Trump bully on FB, I replied, “Ah, another Trump bully looking for a fight.” That, so far, has shut this bully up. But who knows. They do have a tendency to simmer for a while then raise their ugly heads again in toxic reply. Most of these Trump followers are either hardened cult members who’ve swallowed the Kool Aid and would effectively die for their fascist leader. Or perhaps they are politicians in the fetid mold of Marjorie Taylor Greene who back Trump as they would a deal with the devil that they bargain will get them reelected or at least prevent death threats to them or their families as never-Trump folks have experienced. Or perhaps they are Fox “News” viewers who are longing to be noticed and acknowledged in a society that is changing faster than you can say Jack Robinson, and, in fact, are increasingly looking like Jackie Robinson. They’re scared for their future and voted for Trump in an attempt to stem the rising tide of reality, the tide that raises even their resistant ships.

Whoever they are, their minds tend to harden and calcify over time, particularly as Trump doubles and triples down on his election and Joe Biden presidency lies. They are not necessarily white supremacists who are merely riding on Trump’s coattails with their own nefarious agenda, but they are also not necessarily those on the streets or in their Trump trucks carrying Trump placards. But many are ardent Facebookers who seem to be constantly monitoring the news feed for posts criticizing their heavyweight (or is it overweight?)champion. It’s almost like they hover over their computers in endless vigil like East German soldiers used to do at the Berlin Wall ready to shoot those trying to escape. Ultimately, like any bully, their aim is to perpetrate a fight, a virulent diatribe that devolves into a deeper and deeper rabbit hole of vitriol. So their initial foray is a direct spit in the eye, wanting to be sure to get the kind of response they are looking for.

It is, of course, tempting to spit back, thinking that will shut this bully up, but it doesn’t work that way. For that revs up the bully and gets his inner juices to acidify even more. He then gets even more personal, for he knows from experience that the more personal his attacks the more he will inflict an injury not on the body but on the ego which is even more apt to get a personal response. Once that response is accomplished, he’s off to the races knowing he’s enticed a probable liberal into the kind of confrontation he’s looking for. On the other hand, such a Trump bully would probably make a good ad man, getting people to buy products that they don’t particularly need or even want. But that’s another post.

So I would suggest to take a breath and not respond to the Trump bully’s first volley. This is after all a kind of cold war not a hot one. Check to see how their bullying comments makes you feel, both intellectually and viscerally. What’s your first reaction and what would you say back if you responded immediately. Would it be “an eye for an eye”? Would it be a “never again”? Would it be a “love thine enemy?” It’s always good to just observe that first reaction before any actual action. That’s puts the situation under your control and not the bully’s who expects you will act on your first reaction immediately. Bullies love gut reactions as they often lead to the fights they crave.

After that first wave hits the shore, see if you can come up with something that conveys your feelings without getting personal. That’s key, for as soon as you get into personal territory you bring out the bully’s claws. From the 8th grade through high school it was often obnoxious reference to one’s mother that got the cock fight going. But in adulthood it’s words like “insane” or “stupid” or “idiot” or “cult” or now, “Trump” that revs up the engines. One word of caution: bullies are quite adept at turning a dialogue into an out and out fight. Any reaction on your part is, in part, a victory for a bully, particularly a Trump bully. So remember, in a flight or fight scenario, flight is as good a reaction as any. That translates as instead of responding, forget and continue to scroll the news feed. That turns the boil to a simmer to an outright turning the flame off. But if you must respond, read on.

Whatever you come up with (and I do think you should consider my suggestion at the beginning of this piece), you’ll need to go back to the bully’s comment that got you to this point in the proceeding. Do you actually know what he is saying and why he is saying it (btw, the bully is almost always male!)? Is your comeback addressing what he is saying? If you were him, what would your reaction be to your return comment? That effectively passes your comment through a few filters, which offers no guarantees of success but at least more thoroughness on your part).

And what is success? For me, it would be what I experienced in my most recent skirmish: no response at all. Silence from the bully indicates that none of his criteria have been met for further battles. I submit you will never convince a Trump bully to acquiesce to your argument. He will never agree with you or even concede you have a point. His belief is ironclad, rigid, inflexible, and as hardened as an anvil, just like his leader Donald Trump. And as that attitudinal approach will be Trump’s downfall, as it has already led to his defeat in the 2020 election, it will ultimately and eventually lead to the bully giving up his campaign, much like the kid in the 8th grade who bullied me for a time back in the day, or this guy in FB who failed to return my “Ah, another Trump bully looking for fight.”

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A Happy, healthy, peaceful New Year, y’all!

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Three books of mine, all published in 2021, await your inspection and, perhaps, purchase on Amazon. They are The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life, Into the Woods…and Beyond, and Golf 360: For Current Players and Those Considering the Game. Thank you.

Death Threats

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Death threats have no place in a representative democracy, which, despite the right wing attacks, we still have in America. Death threats are a tool of the mafia, of totalitarian regimes, of street gangs, of impulsive crimes of passion, of white supremacists, of Trump Republicans, and, because Trump has never spoken out directly against it and instigated the January 6 insurrection, Trump himself. There is a deep hatred, a deep anger, that permeates this country, that soaks to its bones, that floods its mental and moral basements and alleyways. There’s a rot when anger and hatred smolder for too long, causing a festering like an infected finger from too much nail bitting (of which I experienced as an anxious child).

In America, that rot has festered since 1619 when the first slaves were brought here from Africa. We as a country have made impressive physical progress since then but we have been woefully bereft of spiritual, moral, and emotional progress, as evidenced by the way we’ve treated those freed from slavery, Native Americans whose land we stole from and whose treaties we’ve habitually broken, and many other minorities who we’ve discriminated against and disempowered over the decades. We have sunk to a new low with the foul smell of a slur an Oregon father stained on a TV broadcast the Bidens were holding for children during Christmas. You’ve all read about it. I needn’t repeat the curse words disguised as a well known internet code for a despicable curse phrase against our legally and honorably elected President near the end of an otherwise sweet event.

Yes, we are a country capable of great philanthropy, of great charity, of great perseverance, of great perspicacity, indeed, of great love for our families, our neighbors, and our communities. If only we could concentrate and expand on those virtues and not be mired in uncontrolled gun ownership, drug dealing, gang warfare, white supremacy, conspiracy theories, right wing fantasies and mythologies, and…death threats against good, public servants, lately including, yes, doctors in hospitals who stand up to patients and their families who demand being given unproven, unapproved anti-virals for their Covid-infected relatives, governors who put into place mandatory mask and vaccine requirement to try to preserve public health, judges who rule against challenges to those mandates, nurses who support those mandates and common sense measures–front line nurses and health care workers who were once cheered publicly and openly by an adoring public–congresspeople who care deeply about this country and the welfare of its citizens.

Now we’re even hearing that Steve Bannon, advisor to Donald Trump, has a podcast called The War Room, and is advocating for civil war. Right. Civil war. He want to go back to a so called golden age where all people are not created equal, entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No, that’s just for rich, whites who own property, just like the original constitution said. According to Bannon, Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Muslims, etc, are all of an inferior race and are meant to serve people like him, like the slaveholders in the South used to say while perpetuating and rationalizing the practice of slavery for 250 years, and then Jim Crow-slavery for another 150 years. Steve Bannon is hater extraordinaire, trying to reinstall his boss and Godfather Don Donald, the hater supreme who runs the whole nasty enterprise. Cult leader Trump has not uttered a single word to discourage the death threats surely lodged mostly by his followers, some of those 89 million who once followed him on his now-banned Twitter feed.

To his credit, Trump has now endorsed Covid vaccines after his extended silence has killed thousands (of mostly his followers). Of course, he has political motives as well as he tries to take full credit for the vaccines. But that’s Trump being Trump so we’ll allow him that indulgence. In addition, Trump has said nothing to deter his buddy Bannon from essentially calling for a civil war. Trump would embrace the Devil himself if the Devil expressed a liking for Trump.

So America is in the grips of the likes of Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, and Donald Trump and all his Republican minions who bow before him and kiss his ring. And the hatred, lies, and vitriol continue to project verbal vomit from his mouth. And many of his 89 million continue to believe his lies and emulate his angry and coarse ways and means.

But there is a solution to all this, you know. There is a way out, and a way back to a strong democracy the world honors, appreciates, and cooperates with. It’s to open the curtain and expose all these jokers as the weak incompetents that they are. Trump and Bannon are 12-year old bullies in older, adult bodies. And what’s the best way to deal with a bully? Anyone have an answer to that? Who among you has ever been bullied? I’ll bet quite a few. I have, and I’ll tell you it did no good to try to avoid them, to try to wish them away. The boy had a group of his cult members with him as he ordered me to hold the Junior High School door open for him every morning. One day, I didn’t and he hit me hard in the stomach with the others laughing behind him. It doubled me over as I struggled by my locker. At that point, another boy, a Black fellow I didn’t know came over and asked if I was OK, and told me he had my back. The next day I again did not hold the door open for the bully. And you know what? He never bothered me again. Bulliess are essentially weak and insecure.

That’s what we need to do with the likes of Trump and Bannon. Continue not to hold the figurative door open for them. Continue to do our jobs in the face of death threats and vicious fascist attacks on our Capitol. Continue to speak out against the voices of right wing extremism. Continue to oppose the hatred and anger and lies and false prophets.

We are a country founded on the principles of equality of all, of governance of the people, for the people, by the people, of a government that cares about its people. One person, one vote, encouraged, allowed, by law, by history, by destiny. Never forget who we are as Americans. Never cease to oppose those who want to redefine who we are to fit their distorted, self-serving, and, yes, evil minds.

Thank you for your attention, and if you have the inclination, please pass this post on to others.

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In my ongoing efforts to spread some good news and perhaps lay out a blueprint for how society can live in more harmony each other and with our Earth, please check out my book, The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life, available at Amazon. Thanks.

Time to Show Your Cards, JB: Modifying the Filibuster

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McConnell did it to push through three Trump nominees to the supreme court to make it Trump’s Court, which is a threat to our democracy, our Bill of Rights, as well as life on Earth. Failing to pass the two federal voting rights bill will also threaten our democracy, progress on climate change, and pave the way for Trump or one of his surrogates to run for, and perhaps win, the presidency in ’24. And the only way to pass those bills is to carve out a way to hobble the GOP abuse of the filibuster. No amount of political donations will accomplish this. No amount of rhetoric will accomplish this. No amount of speechifying will accomplish this. No amount of street demonstrations will accomplish this. Only political arm twisting and jawboning and deal making and quid pro quo-ing, like Lyndon Johnson used to do, will accomplish that. Even Powder Milk Biscuits won’t accomplish that. Just good hard-nosed politicking is what’s needed and I just haven’t seen it among the current crop of politicians in Washington. Certainly the Republicans are lily-livered wusses. I’ve come to expect that among that sorrowful crew. But I expect more of the Dems.

I’ve known for years there’d be trouble between the moderates and the progressives. A progressive golf bud of mine told me in ’16 that he hadn’t voted for Clinton because Bernie wasn’t nominated, so he just didn’t vote. That was essentially a vote for Trump. I don’t play golf with that asshole anymore. With progressives it’s either their way or the highway, I’m sad to say. There’s no middle ground, as they are essentially a third political party: DINOs, or Democrats in Name Only. With their slogans of Defund the Police and Erase College Debt and Medicare for All, they are, to a large extent, responsible for the Democrats losing a number of key seats in the House of Representatives, giving them the very slim majority margin they currently have and putting the Dems in extreme danger of losing their House majority altogether in ’22.

The Dems also have another kind of DINO in the Senate. Manchin and Sinema. And because of their stubborn stances against the key policies of Joe Biden, they are actually shamelessly attracting substantial right wing money, which is despicable. Their motivation? Money, of course, but the power they think they’ll accumulate by playing to their supposed bases in Arizona and West Virginia. These two may do more harm to our country than those Trump hordes did on January 6. At least many of those were sent packing, prosecuted, and imprisoned. Sinema continues to flit around the Senate chambers pretending to be a righteous power broker. And Manchin prances around like a desert camel with his head up in the clouds somewhere, thinking he has to model the late Sen.Robert Byrd to impress his base back home. Just a couple more true Democratic senators hopefully added in 22, then those two will be permanently stalled at the end of the runway. But for now, they’re in the control tower.

So it’s time to show your cards, Joe. Time, that great taskmaster, is running out. Nineteen Republican-controlled state legislatures have stacked the deck with laws that will guarantee elections on all levels will go their way. You can’t play Democracy with a stacked deck, Joe. You gotta have at least two to tango for a Democracy to have any kind of validity and trustworthiness. Otherwise, people stop voting, permitting the fascists to fill the vacuum. That’s the Trump GOP plan. A bloodless coup that the people don’t realize happened until after the election. How’d they do that? the Dems will scream. That’s not fair, but when they go to court to make their challenges, the judges will hit the gavel, declaring the states have a right to set their election rules, and you had the right to challenge them before the election but didn’t. Rule for the Defendant. Case closed. Country screwed!

Think about it, dear readers. There’s still time to act. Call or email your Democratic senator to put pressure on Joe Biden to put pressure on Manchin and Sinema to change the filibuster rules to allow a majority vote on these voting rights bills, currently stalled by GOP obstructionists, which will essentially disempower those Jim Crow-like voting laws signed into law by key Republican states.

Our democracy, our country, our planet are on the line.

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Check out Sacajawea Press offerings in memoir, nature, self-development, and sports categories at www.stephenaltschuler.com.

I am not so much an American as…a Citizen of Planet Earth

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With early Neanderthals and homo sapiens, there were no countries, no states, no cities, not even villages. They were simply inhabitants of Earth, living lives that satisfied their immediate needs while caring for the resources they were dependent upon for their survival. That eventually changed and people did band together into cities and countries, with allegiances to those places. They began to identify themselves with whatever city they lived in to such a degree that they would war against other cities they felt were against the interests of their city. As we know now those cities organized into countries and the wars grew more intense. There was some limited cooperation between countries but some became long time enemies involved in cold and/or hot wars. A couple of those wars were world wars where millions perished.

Nature knows of no such nationalistic boundaries or wars. When tundra swans fly from the Arctic to Washington state they have no awareness of the place name where they land, only that it is a place of warmer climate, more fresh water, and abundant food. When caribou cross over from Canada to Alaska they pass through no checkpoints or border crossings. And the swallows know not if they are in South America or Capistrano. Yes, we have seven continents on Earth, but it was only people who divided them into countries and states, and then chose common languages, customs, laws, and mission statements to unify them.

Well, few of these divisions have worked. Twenty five hundred years ago the Buddha preached to his followers that human beings were primarily motivated by greed, hatred, and delusion, and that’s pretty much the case today, resulting in war, fear, suspicion, and human-caused despoiling of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, rivers, forests, and air. As I write people on this planet are dying of hunger, thirst, and oppression from authoritarian governments. Greed, hatred and delusion still fuel the engines of ignorance and lies.

So, yes, I am an American, but my Jewish maternal grandparents came here from Russia in the early 20th century, giving up their identity with that country to come to another place, with courage, faith, and determination, where they could live in peace and raise a family. My Jewish paternal grandparents came from Russia and Germany for the same reasons just before WWI broke out. They perhaps heard of a place that proclaimed in their founding documents, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution…” They wanted what their birth countries couldn’t and wouldn’t give them.

Now, I too, possessing the genes of my grandparents, want something of life that my birth country, the United States, has tried but couldn’t and wouldn’t give me: a national commitment to insure justice for all, a democracy that encourages all eligible to vote and not suppress that right to vote, domestic tranquillity that controls guns as well or better than it controls cars, civil rights as the Constitution dictates, reparations for the progeny of those abused and defamed in the slavery era, including Blacks and native Americans, thus securing the blessings of liberty, and…turning away from excessive profits to heal the natural environment of this planet that we have so degraded. A military-industrial complex that Eisenhower so wisely warned us of. McCarthyism. The assassinations of JFK and RFK and MLK. Corporate greed and power. The present-day aftermath of slavery still staining our nation in the form of white supremacy. The threat of nuclear war or meltdowns. Systemic racism. Gun violence. Anti-maskers and anti-vaxers and anti-honest educators. The obstructionist Mitch McConnell. The obstructionists Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. The toxic insanity of QAnon. The hypocrisy of Mark Zuckerberg. The fake news of Fox News. Donald Trump and his Minions of insurrectionists, cultists, and, yes, ingenuous House and Senate GOP representatives. An ultra-conservative Supreme Court, made that way by Trump and McConnell. We are spinning, faster and faster, down a rabbit hole of no-return. Caught in a black hole of misinformation, myths, and lies, all of our own doing.

So, yes, I am American, but I am more a citizen of Earth and owe my allegiance to Earth, and devote all my remaining energies to the healing and preservation of Earth and all its oppressed people and abused environment. For the governing mission of Earth is to live and let live; to treat others–plants, wildlife, natural resources, and people–as we would like to be treated; to not judge, for in the same way we judge others, we will be judged; to find in every adversity the seed of an equal or greater benefit; to love our neighbors as we love ourselves; to truly consider the lilies of the field, and how they grow.

I declare myself an citizen of Earth, ready to call out those who degrade it. Care to join me?

Democracy

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I’ve come to believe that the polarities in our country have less to do with political parties then with being in favor of or against democracy. And it may be a pretty even break. Since we have a representative democracy where we elect leaders to represent us on Federal, State, and Local levels, the actions of those representatives reflect the mood, temperament, and wishes of the voters of their district. So when all of the Republicans in the House vote against a bill that all the Dems voted for, you’ve got a good picture of the country as a whole. And when you have a routine measure like the debt limit voted on the other day, the picture becomes crystal clear. The debt limit was protected against partisan manipulation back in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed, and it hasn’t been an issue since…until now.

What’s more, the debt limit does not relate to current spending but to the previous spending of the prior administration, in this case the 7.8 trillion that Trump spent to add to the deficit. That means that all the Republicans in the House voted against the ability of the government to pay for the money their dear leader Trump borrowed, and they approved, in the last part of his presidency. Their purpose? To seek political revenge against the Democrats, while hurting the country at large. That is not how a democracy is supposed to work. It’s not an adolescent game of tit for tat, of if you do that to me, I’ll do this to you, of, as a Mafiosa boss might say, play ball with me or you’re toast!(except the Godfather doesn’t represent anyone but himself and “his family”).

Of course the main thing a democracy guarantees is the right to vote, and the 14th Amendment took care of that for all male citizens, black or white, though not yet for women. That didn’t come until 1920 with the 19th Amendment. And the 14th insured there would be no abridgment of the right to vote, which included voter suppression laws that are now presently in effect in some 17 Republican controlled states. My question now is why hasn’t the present Justice Department under Merrick Garland challenged those laws on the basis of the 14th Amendment? What’s he waiting for? The ’22 election is too important to allow those laws to go unchallenged, and the DOJ is the only viable agency to do so. So wake up Mr. Garland and do your job!

Democracy’s been around since the 5th century B.C., starting in Athens, Greece when that town was itself a city-state. It started as a direct democracy like they have in Switzerland today, but evolved into different forms such our representative form and Britain’s Parliamentary form. But you may not have known that at the very beginning of our country, there was a strong anti-democracy movement, similar to what we see today with Trump and the Republican party. This was spearheaded by the aristocracy who were mostly elites and slave holders in the Deep South and in Appalachia. They were blatantly and openly white supremacists who believed the “Negro” race as well as poor whites should be subservient and enslaved to the rich who alone were civilized and cultured enough to set the standards for society. They used all sorts of rationales, including the Bible and the pseudo-science of the day to eventually convince even poor whites from the South and midlands to fight a Civil War to preserve slavery and the positions of the wealthy plantation owners throughout the Deep South. That foul air of white supremacy lingers to this day in the policies of the Republican Party, Donald Trump and his cult followers who would like to see him back in power, not as a president but, this time, as an oligarch and, perhaps, worse.

So, yes, we’ve seen this before–with Native Americans, with black slaves from Africa, with Irish Catholics from Ireland, with Jews from Eastern Europe, with Hispanics, with Moslems, with Chinese immigrants, with gays and lesbians, with the disabled, with Black American citizens. Have I missed other fringe groups? Probably. We have not been a particularly tolerant and compassionate country. And we needn’t look any farther than today to the actions of the Trump Republican Party to see examples of this intolerance and obstructionist policy.

But now they see a real opening to bury this ancient blot on aristocracy called democracy with a Napolean called Donald Trump. So they rally round this charlatan and drape him in praise and gold. They explain away his obvious lies. We all saw the January 6th insurrection with our own eyes. We saw Trump incite the crowd beforehand. We saw the Trump infused animals storm the Capitol, harm officers, put our legislators in fear for their lives, smash TV equipment, even kill one officer, Brian Sicknick. We saw how they desecrated and tried to overturn the workings of democracy, without remorse, without shame. And now Republicans are trying to pass this off as an anomaly, as just one day, as something Trump had no part in.

It doesn’t fly, does it. It just doesn’t bloody fly. Our eyes told our brains the truth. And as long as the truth stands tall and true, democracy will endure. These wee radical right wing, white supremacist Trump politicians can’t destroy it. It has endured since the 5th century B.C.

Oh, and btw, another provision of the 14th Amendment put forth, in case the GOP and Fox News didn’t tell you: In its later sections, the 14th Amendment authorized the federal government to punish states that violated or abridged their citizens’ right to vote by proportionally reducing the states’ representation in Congress, and mandated that anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States could not hold civil, military or elected office (without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate).” Perhaps Donald Trump and company weren’t aware of that provision…nor apparently is Merrick Garland.

As for democracy’s essence and prophecy, Lincoln said it simply and best: ” this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

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My new book The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life is now available via Amazon. It’s a gently stated book, published by my own Sacajawea Press, that will enrich and enliven your life. I hope you purchase it and enjoy it. I mean, sheez, it’s 99 cents, for God’s sake! Thanks, y’all.

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