Tag: immigration

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business Ethics, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Marie Antoinette, the arrogant, out-of-touch 18th-century Queen of France, reportedly responded when hearing that French citizens were starving and demanding bread, “Let them eat cake.” (That’s what I’d been told my entire life—but I found out while looking for a source to cite that the quote is an urban legend.)

Even though she probably didn’t say it, “Let them eat cake” remains THE metaphor for out-of-touch, clueless autocrats.

One such is our would-be king, who can find unlimited money to unleash his goon squads on the defenseless (including at least 170 US citizens as of 6 weeks ago), prosecute his political enemies without cause, put on an expensive but pathetic military parade, literally carve his name into public buildings and propose putting his image on National Parks passes, chase after every little thing his minions see as promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (and what’s wrong with those goals anyway?) to the point of changing from a vision-disability-friendly font to a hard-to-read one on government documents, scrub websites and even museum exhibits of mentions of heroes of color or who are female while eliminating free National Parks admission on Black-related holidays MLK Day and Juneteenth, tear down a big chunk of the People’s House (the East Wing of the White House) without permits, build a useless and expensive ballroom, also without permits, spend a fortune to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War and to change such things as military bases and national parks back to their former White Supremacist names.

And let’s not forget his proposed $20 billion bailout of his ally in Argentina. Or the biggest boondoggle, $2 trillion in tax cuts for super-wealthy corporations, who, not coincidentally, have funded/are funding his campaign, inauguration, and ballroom. Other corporations and institutions—law firms, universities, and media companies, especially—paid large amounts that sure look like bribes after being harangued by the administration for not sufficiently condemning their own DEI initiatives and other specious grounds.

Many of them could have easily won in court, but—gee, what a surprise—paid these huge settlements while they had business before the federal government: universities trying to get back far larger sums in federal grants, media companies facing mergers, and big law firms so scared of this president that they donated millions of dollars in pro bono services to his pet causes (even though they then lost business to other firms who stood fast). Shame on all these capitulators who chose short-term gains over long-term reputation, throwing away their integrity to try to pacify a bully who will only come back for more!

Yesterday, this vain and ostentatious man proposed a US replica of the Parisian Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery, identifying it as “the number one priority” of his domestic policy chief, Vince Haley. Let them eat cake!

Yet, there’s no money to keep ACA premiums from doubling or worse, none for SNAP, none for USAID (likely killing up to three million people each year around the world, according to Oxfam)—nothing for the programs that help real people who aren’t wealthy in the US or around the world.

After wrecking the economy with his tariffs, his decimation of the workforce through his immigration policies, and his misdirected economic priorities, he dismisses affordability as a “Democratic hoax.” He tells the suffering public to buy fewer toys for their kids. This from a man who has never known a day of hunger or been unable to afford something in his life. A man born to privilege, but not to love. An openly corrupt man who has used the presidency for personal and family gain (and to help his obscenely wealthy corporate benefactors, billionaires, and convicted criminal friends) in ways we have never before seen or even dreamed of in the US.

But he is losing his luster, even among his base. Middle-class and working-class people, from farmers to plumbers, are hurt and upset by the economic mess. People who believe in human decency are appalled by the clear violations of due process, the violent attacks on non-criminal immigrants and those who stand up for them, the snatching up of immigrants who followed all the regulations and were taken at court hearings to get asylum, and the unilateral cancelation of many citizenship finalizations—in short, the climate of fear and intimidation.

Seven million people came out in public to protest these abuses on the most recent No Kings Day. Each of those probably represents many others who couldn’t get time off work, who worry that they would be picked up by ICE, who have physical limitations that made a public demonstration a poor choice, etc.

According to researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, if 3.5 percent of a country’s population withdraws consent from the government and nonviolently refuseds to cooperate, the government tends to fall. As of this summer, the US population stood at 347,275,807. 3.5 percent of that is 12,154,653. If each No Kings participant represents just ONE additional supporter who didn’t show up, that’s 14 million—well above the 3.5 percent threshold. So we have the power to stop the slide to authoritarianism, to reclaim our government from the thugs and crooks, and to build something far better than we had before.

What will be your first step on this road to victory? Who will you work with to carry it out?

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By Posted on Posted in Consumer Issues, Ethics in Government, Politics, propaganda, Science Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Remember when this administration came into power in January and immediately declared war on government waste, fraud, and abuse? Remember Elon Musk and his inexperienced DOGE sidekicks freezing government programs, firing tens of thousands of workers who turned out to be essential, literally closing the doors of some agencies (in a process that even Fox News called “frenetic and error-riddled”), and, oh yeah, stealing our personal records for unknown purposes, in direct contravention of privacy laws?

Oddly enough (sarcasm), DOGE didn’t find much actual waste, fraud, or abuse. But they sure caused a lot of it—$21.7 bn in waste, fraudulent claims of $115 bn in savings, but a real number more like $2 bn (1/10 of what their shenanginas cost us taxpayers)—and abuse of tens of thousands of hard-working civil servants who suddenly found themselves the targets of partisan witch-hunts, along with the millions of US citizens who depend on those folks. And, as Senator Richard Blumentahl (D-CT) notes, not only would DOGE’s waste have more than funded a number of programs they cut, there’s also corruption involved: “Musk and his companies were able to avoid at least $2.37 billion in potential liability due to federal investigations or other regulatory actions.” (We could have a much longer post about the hundreds of instances of corruption in this administration generally—but I’ll save them for another blog post down the road. This example, though, is directly relevant. Avoiding prosecution is likely a big part of why Musk took the job in the first place.)

But if this administration is really concerned about waste, fraud, and abuse, please explain why we’ve experienced—a few among hundreds of examples ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of billions, with a b:

Using the lower numbers where there’s a range, just these few examples total $321,003,090,800. By comparison, the state budget passed in July here in my own state of Massachusetts was $61 bn.

In short, do not believe anyone in the administration who says anything they do is about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. They are committing waste, fraud, and abuse—massively. Isn’t it time we held them to account?

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Diversity, Environment, language, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Science, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I often find myself disagreeing with, disappointed in, and even demonstrating against President Biden’s policies.

And yet, assuming he’s the candidate in November, he will get my vote. I admit he might not if the US had adopted ranked-choice voting. But until it does, a vote for any third-party candidate is a vote for the main opponent of your preferred candidate. More importantly, I believe that the bad things Biden has done have been part of his own effort—sometimes accurate and sometimes off-base—to leave the world  better than he found it. He is, fundamentally, a good person, And despite never having a majority in both houses of Congress, he’s done quite a bit of good as president:

  • Shepherding a phenomenal economic turnaround, the best post-COVID economy in the world, and creating or recovering hundreds of thousands more jobs
  • Replacing skepticism with science on topics ranging from global climate change to the safety of COVID vaccines
  • Restoring US leadership on the world stage after it was torn to shreds by his predecessor
  • Supporting labor, the middle class, the poor, and the disenfranchised—and doing his best to hold big corporations and the super-rich accountable for dong their part
  • Championing the right to vote—and the right to have that vote properly counted

As I write this BEFORE the first primaries and caucuses, that opponent is likely to be the orange-haired former president. Yeah, the guy who is facing more than 90 felony counts, who has bragged about a history of sexual abuse (and been accused of many others and found liable in one he didn’t admit to). The serial liar who was caught in 30,000 false statements just during his four-year presidency. The narcissist who thinks rules and laws don’t apply to him. The person who stacked the Supreme Court with people who have undermined the values shared by most US citizens, overturned longstanding legal precedents, and for the first time in modern history, stripped away the rights of whole classes of people.

And, let’s not forget, the man who has promised that if he is elected, he will focus not on governance, not on the economy, not on human rights—but on revenge against his perceived enemies, active harassment of people who might be a different color, ethnicity, political philosophy or religion, and who repeatedly uses language straight out of Hitler.

Yesterday, Christmas 2023, both men issued Christmas messages. Robert Hubbell devoted his daily newsletter to these messages—and their contrasts couldn’t be more stark. Biden spoke of unity, teamwork, kindness, and hope. But DT used his bully pulpit to wish that those he perceives as “EVIL and SICK…THUGS” (which includes the military and those who favor electric cars) “ROT IN HELL” (capitalization is his).

Please make sure you’re registered to vote. That your friends know why you will vote for Biden. And that the records of these two men while in office leave no choice.

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