THIS GUY AGAIN

 After almost a year of the Joe Biden presidency, it's easy for a progressive to feel a sense of whiplash: on the plus side, the mere exiting of Donald Trump and all the corrupt and incompetent people he surrounded himself with  was a cause for relief and celebration.  Sanity was restored, with Biden cutting an elderly but good natured figure who would bring common decency back to the White House.  And while at first it appeared that the Republican party, other than Trump, did well in the 2016 election (they actually gained seats in the House of Representatives), when the Democrats pulled off a post presidential election upset by winning two senate seats in Georgia, giving them a narrow control of the Senate, things were looking up. Shortly after taking office, Biden passed a stimulus plan that cut child poverty in half.  He also just passed an infrastructure bill, something that Trump tried to do in vain for years.  Plus, even though the Supreme Court appears to be lost to progressives for decades, he's managed to appoint more lower court judges in his first year than Trump did.  

But, on the negative side, Biden's promise to put the pandemic behind us has proven hollow.   While this can be blamed on both the variants of covid and the conservative resistance to vaccines, it still makes him look bad, as a weary country about to face another deadly pandemic winter takes its anger out on him.  Add to that the fallout from inflation (especially in gas prices), the rise of violent crime and the general perception by the public that the economy is doing poorly (it's actually doing quite well) and it's easy to see why his approval ratings are low (although not lower than Trump's were at the same time in his term).

But from a progressive perspective, there has been nothing more frustrating from this presidency as the Build Back Better Bill.  First proposed almost a year ago, this was a bold multi trillion dollar package that would nationalize child care and paid parental leave, while also working to transition this country away from fossil fuels.  In its initial form, it would have been the most progressive bill passed since the new deal, and by raising taxes on the rich to aid the poor, it would have been the first genuine attempt to even this country's shameful class imbalance since Ronald Reagan's massive tax cuts for the rich and gutting of social programs drastically increased that imbalance back in the 1980's.

But then the Democrats discovered that a slim majority in the Senate meant that these welcome changes couldn't pass without serious revisions to the bill.  Not when every Democratic vote would be needed, and one of those Democrats was Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  From the beginning Manchin has demanded cuts to the bill before he would vote for it.  For months those cuts were made with a meat axe, with the cost of the bill sliced by more than half, muting the positive effects of it. Barely a week would go by in the past year without Manchin preening for the press while demanding more and more spending reductions in the bill. For a while, it almost appeared that Manchin had been placated, but just yesterday, in an interview on Fox News, he said he still opposed it, citing national deficit and inflation concerns.  He did this even after Biden had reached out to him personally, and even after every study of the bill found that any impact it would have on inflation would be minimal.  None of that mattered, Manchin shot the bill down.  It's a bit hard to understand just what Manchin's game is here: is he showing off for the Republicans before switching parties?  Is he killing the bill because he's afraid that the climate change provisions might hurt his coal rich state?  His national deficit concerns are really ridiculous, given that the bill's spending would take place over a decade, making its yearly amount a mere fraction of our nation's defense spending. (Congress just passed a $768 billion defense bill for this year, and that number won't be going down in the next ten years!)

So is it all over for the bill?  Hopefully not.  There's still a chance that a reduced version will be introduced that will win him over.  At this point, it would probably be best to let Manchin himself write the bill, which will probably be a hollowed shell of its former self, and sullen progressives in congress will have to support it just to avoid a total loss.  And once again, the concerns of the poor and middle class will be ignored in this country, as they have been for decades.

ANOTHER DESPICABLE ACT

 

Ever since Donald Trump left office there has been a stream of terrible stories about just how corrupt and incompetent our former president was.  Most have dealt with just  hard he was pushing to overturn the twenty twenty election (from verbally pleading with election officials to considering calling a state of emergency), and while those are all upsetting (especially given that Trump will probably run for the presidency again in twenty twenty four),  another kind of recent revelation has really stunned me.

Recently, Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows released his book about his time working in the White House.  At first, it appeared to be a standard issue tome that would sell well with conservative readers. Trump himself even gave a positive blurb to the book.  But then Meadows went and mentioned an important, unknown detail: that the former president had tested positive for covid three days before his debate with Joe Biden and that he openly exposed Biden to the virus during the debate without any kind of warning.  This ran counter to the administration assertion that Trump's positive test came after the debate. The host of the debate, Chris Wallace of Fox News, later said Trump was not tested before the debate because he arrived late.  He added that they relied on the honor system (always a mistake when Trump's involved).  And, of course it wasn't just Biden that was exposed, the Washington Post has found that Trump came in contact with five hundred different people without warning any of them of the possibility of infection or taking any precautions.  Perhaps most appalling, the day after that positive test he met with military families, putting all of them and their loved ones in danger.  This from a man who claims to love the military!

Trump has responded to this revelation by doing what he usually does; lying.  He called the reporting on the book "fake news", and Meadows himself now appears to agree with him, contradicting his own book.  But, because the timeline between  when Trump first tested positive and when he publicly admitted it has always been hazy, it stands to reason to assume that our former president avoided telling the public about his positive test.  Former New Jersey Governor Chis Christie, a former Trump supporter who now seems to be the only Republican willing to openly challenge him, has said that he definitely believes that it was Trump himself that gave Christie covid while he was prepping the president for the debate.  And, in classic Trumpian sociopathic style, Christie also says that Trump called him when Christie was near death from the virus to make sure that he didn't tell other people that it was Trump who spread the virus to him.   

Ever since Trump entered the presidential campaign in twenty fifteen, pundits have compared his popularity with the Republican base to a cult, with his passionate supporters attending rallies and cheering his every word.  After his June twentieth rally last year in Tulsa Oklahoma, in which thousands of supporters stood next to each other maskless and screamed at the height of the pandemic, I said that the Trump cult could now be called a death cult in which followers risk their own lives to express their adulation.  To me, it couldn't seem to get any worse.  But now,  once again, he's hit a new low, openly endangering the lives of military families and possibly thousands of others because he didn't want to admit to the world that he himself had contacted the same virus that he had been downplaying since it first arrived.  And, as always with Trump, this new information will do little to shake his popularity with his base, who will shrug off the threat he placed on innocent people by echoing his cry of fake news.  Truly, this man's ability to get away with despicable behavior without consequence is utterly depressing.  And the fact that he very well may run for the presidency again in twenty twenty four despite this latest news shows just how far our country has sunk since he first threw his hat in the ring, in what seems like an eternity ago. 

RESPONSIBILITY

 With the rise of another covid variant, the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe Vs Wade, and more news coming out about how much Donald Trump tried to steal the last presidential election, it's almost easy to not notice that there was another horrific school shooting in our country which resulted in the death of four teenagers.  Sadly, these kind of shootings  have become so common that news coverage of them end quite quickly.

But this shooting seems different,  oh sure, both sides have already put out their usual talking points, with Democrats pushing for tougher gun laws and Republicans making a few vague comments about the need for better mental healthcare without offering any way to expand such care.  Same as usual.

But this shooting has,  raised the possibility of charges for the shooters parents, and questions about whether or not the school acted responsibly issues that are rarely brought up.  Today, the fifteen year old shooter's parents were booked on four charges of involuntary manslaughter, to which they pleaded not guilty.  The charges were based on the fact that not only did the shooter's parents purchase the gun for him, they were also warned by the school about some disturbing, violent drawings that he had made at school.  (he had also searched on his phone for ammunition at school, which the parents shrugged off.  His mother even seemed to encourage it.) Amazingly, they did nothing about their child's dark thoughts, and, according to the woman prosecuting them, didn't even lock up his gun after hearing about them.

This case raises some interesting questions about responsible gun ownership and parental responsibility.  Now, I do have some sympathy for them in that parenting teenagers can be very difficult.  I remember from my own teen years that I had several male friends (and even a couple of female ones) that were obsessed with violent movies and music, and sometimes they would draw pictures not unlike the ones that this boy drew, and, of course, none of them every actively acted out on those dark obsessions.  Really, embracing a dark view of life is a common thing that many teens go through.  It's not entirely unreasonable to believe that this shooter's parents just thought that he was going through a phase.

But the fact that they never even tried to hide the gun that they had bought for him as a present makes it hard for me to completely exonerate them.  Even though their purchase of the gun was legal, surely the fact that their son was going through a potentially violent stage should have convinced them to at least lock the gun up, if not keep somewhere out of the home.

And what about the school?  A few hours before the shooting, the school requested that his parents take him out of the school and to immediate counseling, but they strongly requested that he be allowed to stay, and so he did, with tragic results.  Really, this seems to be almost as much the school's fault as the parents.  This was a student who was exhibiting violent thoughts and who was potentially armed.  Surely there are times when the safety of all the children in school is more important than the desires of one set of parents.  In other words, I think it's reasonable that a child to be not allowed to remain in  school, even if his parents really want him to stay.  When you hear stories about how other high school students are suspended or expelled for less disturbing behavior than this, it seems tragically absurd that the school didn't do more to prevent this tragedy.  The case will probably come to court sometime soon, and we'll see if a financial settlement to the parents of the children that were killed is possible.  While similar lawsuits in the past have failed, it's possible that this time the school's actions will seem so irresponsible to a judge that the lawsuits may be upheld.

Let's face it , tougher gun laws are not going to be passed anytime in the near future in this country.  That's because, even though a majority of Americans support the passing of such laws, most of them do not feel strongly enough about them to vote for politicians that would pass them.  Gun control just isn't a big issue in most elections, and with Republicans poised to retake the House of Representatives next year, there's no chance of anything changing on that score.  So I'm glad to see at least that the parents in this case are being held responsible, and hopefully there will be some criminal consequence for them.  Even the most pro gun people accept the notion that gun ownership is something to take seriously and responsibly.  Surely, keeping a firearm out of the hands of a potentially dangerous teenage boy is criminally negligent.  

THE REAL SCHOOL CRISIS

             

The Southern Strategy was a conservative political strategy that began in the presidential campaign of Richard Nixon in nineteen sixty eight.  Put simply, it was a way to scare Southern white voters, many of whom were still angry about Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's  signing of the Civil Rights Voting Bill in nineteen sixty five, into voting for Republicans.  This was done by peppering Nixon's speeches with racially coded words like "war on crime", knowing full well who that war would be waged on. In this way, Nixon flipped the Southern states, which had been strongly Democratic for years, into Republican states.  While some Republicans claim that no such strategy was ever used, conservative commentator (and former Richard Nixon staff member) Pat Buchanan defended it in twenty thirteen by writing: "After Richard Nixon cobbled together his New Majority, the GOP carried 49 states in 1972 and 1984, 44 states in 1980 and 40 in 1988."  In other words, the Southern Strategy worked in Nixon's campaign, and versions of it helped Republicans win in later years.

The latest version of this strategy worked again last Tuesday when Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin won the governor's race in the state of Virginia.  While there were a number of factors in his victory (like Biden dipping popularity), one of the big ones was the relatively new issue of Critical Race Theory.  Building on the frustrations of public school parents who are weary of the pandemic and the fights over mask mandates in schools, the Republican party has seized on the issue of Critical Race Theory as a new thing to scare white voters with, to imply that poor little white children are being taught to hate themselves.  The fact that CRT is not being taught in k through twelve schools in Virginia (or any state) and that it was a term first used in law schools is irrelevant, it just sounds scary to white parents and gets them to vote for Republicans, (Youngkin repeated the words over and over in debates and interviews) which is all that matters.  In a way, it's the perfect boogieman for conservatives; Youngkin can say he will ban CRT from schools, and he isn't lying in that it isn't taught there anyway.  Such is the low nature of politics that our country has fallen.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that there is a crisis in our public schools that is not being addressed: wildly uneven funding.  The whole idea of public schooling in this country is based on the common sense notion that every child born here is given the opportunity of a quality education.  But our current public school funding system makes a mockery of that idea.  According to the funding for public schools website, about forty four percent of public school funding  comes from local property taxes, and not surprisingly, the wealthier the neighborhood, the higher the property taxes and the more money that goes to public schools.  Put simply, our current system results in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

And these differences in spending are often dramatic even within the same state.  In Mississippi for example, a school in Brookhaven spends about six thousand dollars per student a year, while  the neighboring Natchez spends about three thousand dollars more per student.  While this disparity has lasted for years, attempts to address it have been controversial (like school bussing, which lasted a few years in the seventies but is no longer used).  But whatever the remedy, it is a national disgrace that winds up hurting all of us. Poor children who go to schools like jails often wind up in real jails, something for which we all pay.  So, instead of being scared of the words Critical Race Theory, I wish voters were more concerned by another far more real educational problem: the school to prison pipeline.  Although there has been some movement away from our country's desire to fill our jails, America still has the highest prison population in the world.  Fulfilling the promise of our public school system and making them more equal is one way that we can even the playing field for the poor in this country.  Sadly, it will still be a problem long after conservative media has moved on from Critical Race Theory to some other way to scare white voters.

THE TROUBLE WITH TESLA

                                                                         

I drive a two thousand and eight Toyota Prius.  Over the years, I've been very happy with it, but it's about to reach the hundred and fifty thousand mile mark, so I'm starting to think about replacing it.  I know I don't want another Toyota, because they've been donating to Republican congresspeople who deny the twenty twenty election results and climate change (which is a real shame coming from the same company that popularized the fuel efficient hybrid engine).  So I would like to buy an electric car.  And these days, that usually means a Tesla.

Recently Tesla became a trillion dollar company after the Hertz car rental company agreed to buy thousands of them.  This is the crowning achievement of a company that seemed at first to only be catering to wealthy progressives who wanted to show the world that they care about climate change (and drive a flashy, attention getting car at the same time).  

Founded way back in two thousand and three, Tesla is the first auto company  to sell exclusively all electric vehicles.  One of the keys to the company's success was that it laid the groundwork so well: there are now over twenty five thousand Tesla charging stalls all across the US, Canada and Mexico.  Add to that the fact that each car comes equipped with onscreen maps showing the nearest charging center and information that tells the driver how far they can on their remaining battery energy, and you have an effective way to make sure that drivers don't get stranded.

All the Tesla models have a sharp, sleek design, and the ability to go from zero to sixty in mere seconds seems to excite a lot of macho car owners (not me so much). Plus, it not only saves money on gas, it also has fewer moving parts than a normal car, so there's less to have to replace.  Yes, the Tesla has made electric cars cool and has built up an often rabid fan following while doing it.  

If that's the case, why would someone like me considering buying a different brand of electric car?  Two words: Elon Musk.  While not one of the Tesla company's founders, Musk was a primary share holder and he  took over as CEO in two thousand and eight.  He is also  currently the world's richest man.  As the company's figurehead and primary spokesman, Musk had said and done some things over the years that I find objectionable.  While I don't mind his ego or showmanship (those are to be expected) there are other things about him that are troubling.  His behavior as a boss has been described as unstable and sociopathic by former workers who said that he engaged in "wild firing rampages."  In twenty eighteen he tweeted out a claim about the Tesla company that was considered false by the Security and Exchange Commission, which wound up fining him twenty million dollars for it.  That same year, Musk tried to help out the rescue of Thai schoolboys stuck in a flooded cave by building a small submarine.  When the children were saved without it,  he angrily tweeted out that one of the rescuers was a "pedo guy", although he later apologized.  

When the pandemic hit, he claimed that the danger of it was overblown, promoted chloroquine as a cure for Covid, and tweeted in March of twenty twenty  that "Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April."  He was also mad about having to temporarily shut down his factories during lockdown.

And he seems determined to promote the so called "Full Self-Driving Capability" in the Tesla cars, even though this self driving mode still requires the driver to pay attention.  Not surprisingly, some Tesla owners have tried just letting their car drive itself, and have even gotten out of the driver's seat while the car is going.  This has lead to some high profile accidents; so many, in fact, that the government is currently investigating the company.  Which hasn't stopped Musk from still offering the feature, along with inflated claims of its effectiveness that, according to the New York Times, the company's own engineers disagree with.  You would think having a successful company that produces only electric cars would be enough, but Musk also wants to start a self driving revolution, even if that means using the American public as "beta testers".

And being the richest man in the world hasn't tamped down Musk's greed; he recently tweeted out "Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you" in regards to a proposed wealth tax.  Is there anything more pathetic than a man worth hundreds of billions of dollars complaining about having to pay a reasonable tax rate?  How about if that same  man also once took billions of dollars in government subsidies.  Yes, that's right, over the years Tesla and Musk's other companies have received billions of tax dollars.  It's entirely possible that Tesla would never have survived the recession of two thousand and nine without the low interest loans it got from the Department of Energy. You'd think that a guy who knew that wouldn't begrudge paying a fair tax rate on his hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth.  But that's Elon Musk for you.  He's the single best argument against buying a Tesla, no matter how good they are as cars. 

ASHLAND OREGON: A TOWN IN CRISIS

 Located just a few miles from the border with California, Ashland Oregon is a lovely little town of around twenty thousand people.  With beautiful mountainous views and nearby state parks, it's a great place to visit.  Although the city has a college, its main attraction is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the oldest Shakespeare festival in America.  Founded in nineteen thirty four, it has thrived over the years, expanding from just one outdoor theater to two more indoor ones.  With an average of four hundred thousand people visiting each year, the festival is the driver for the town's economy, with hotels, stores, cafes and restaurants lining the streets outside the theaters.  Warm summer nights are usually very lively in the town, with tourists milling around the crowded sidewalks near the theaters while live music plays.  

I have been going to the festival for over twenty years, and I have seen some wonderful productions there, not only of Shakespeare plays, but of many others too. (They started performing non Shakespeare plays back in nineteen sixty). In recent years  the festival has  even started  embracing new plays by young authors, along with performing many of Shakespeare's lesser known plays and the results are often striking.  Despite the high quality of shows the festival has provided over the years, I think the future of the festival, and the town of Ashland itself, is in doubt.

The pandemic has obviously hit Ashland hard, with the Shakespeare festival all but cancelled for over a year except for some online shows.  But the pandemic will eventually subside. Unfortunately, there is something else affecting the town that is not going to subside: climate change.  In the last few years, increased heat and drought conditions have led to forest fires all over the state of Oregon.  Sometimes these fires threaten the town itself (as one did in 2020), but even when they don't, they lead to smoke from the fires pouring into the city.  At times the smoke is so bad that health regulators recommend that people should avoid going outside entirely.  Not surprisingly, these conditions can wreak havoc on the festival, especially in the open air theater, which is the largest of the three.  Even in the days before covid, the festival had to cancel precious shows due to the poor air quality.   And shows being cancelled means less people visiting the town.  To make matters even worse, the fire season happens during the Summer, which is also the height of tourist season.

Now, the festival has been trying to adjust, with some outdoor shows being moved into different venues, and there's even been some talk of putting some kind of retractable dome over the open air theater.  But, these just seem like stopgap ideas that don't deal with the real problem ahead.  Even if they can still perform the shows, people are not going to want to travel to a town that's sometimes surrounded by fires and that has poor air quality.  You can't blame tourists for staying home when your town is inside a so called "heat dome", as Ashland was earlier this year.  And when the tourists stop coming, the economy of the whole town will suffer.  I hate to say this, but in a few years this charming, seemingly vibrant city could become a ghost town.

In many ways, the sad story of Ashland is one that is being echoed in many small towns all over the world.  Climate change has gone from something that naysayers could dismiss into a horrifying reality, with millions of people facing drought, fires, floods and other natural disasters on a scale unseen in human history.  It's a tragedy that will make future generations wonder why we did so little to stop it.

"NEVER BEEN MORE DIVIDED"

                             

It has become fashionable in the media to say that America has never been more divided, or at least, not so divided since the Civil War.  Some have even ominously said that they can see our political divide leading to another Civil War arising in our country sometime soon.  While it is certainly hard to argue with the truth that red states and  blue states want very different things for this country, and often seem to live in different worlds (much less a country), to me the idea that America could ever again wind up in a violent conflict between different states seems outlandish.

The important thing to remember about the American Civil War is that the Southern states were all united in their desire to leave America and form the Confederacy.  While there has been some rumblings about states succeeding recently (Texas leaders flirted with it during the Obama presidency, and California leaders during Trump's) the idea that eleven states would join together to leave the country all at once like the Confederate states did back in eighteen sixty is crazy.  There is no way of knowing just how to even begin that process in our modern world.  And forming a whole new country in this day and age would be a massive undertaking that would displace millions of people.  I just don't see that happening.  Also, it should be pointed out that the Southern red states that might want to split off from the rest of the country would flounder without the federal government dollars that flow to their states every year.  While Southern politicians can score political points when they rail against California, losing the shared revenue that comes from a state that has the fifth biggest economy in the world would be devastating to them, and they know that.

What happened on January sixth is a good example of what I'm talking about; yes, it was a disgrace, but it was also utterly ineffectual as any kind of power grab.  It (thankfully) resulted in only a handful of deaths and injuries, and did nothing to change the election.  It was hardly the start of any kind of civil war, it was just a bunch of fools committing foolish acts of vandalism.

If you really want to see a country divided, look at what went on in the nineteen sixties as the Civil Rights movement and the anti war movement often ripped this country apart.  Here are just a few examples: the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. sparked riots all across the country, lasting days and resulting in forty three deaths, thousands of injuries and tens of thousands of arrests.  The assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy just as he was likely to win the Democratic nomination for president, was  another shocking blow to the nation.  In Chicago, the Democratic convention saw pro and anti war delegates in shouting fights on the convention floor while outside thousands of anti war protestors were subjected to a heavy handed police force that resulted in days of rioting and thousands of injuries and arrests.  The election of Richard Nixon saw him successfully use the so called "Southern Strategy" of racially coded words exploiting the divisions in our country.  The amazing thing about all the events I just listed is that they all happened in a single year!  Yes, nineteen sixty eight saw more violent, divisive events happen in this country than Trump, for all the strong feelings he's inspired,  brought out in the four years of his presidency.

And nineteen sixty eight was just one year from that era when the country seemed mired in violence and chaos.  Earlier years saw big riots in places like Watts, while later years saw the rise of The Weathermen, a left wing anti war terrorist group that carried out bombing attacks against government buildings.  And somehow, despite all the craziness of those times, with Southern states openly defying the federal government's desegregation and voter's rights laws while the younger and older generations fought (both verbally and physically) over the Viet Nam war, the country was not torn apart.  It held together, just as it will continue to now.

So yes, saying that America is on the verge of all out civil war is an easy way  for newscasters and pundits to scare viewers and get them to keep watching, but it will never happen.  Oh sure, I'm as scared as anybody that some Trump supporters might try to get violent again, but it couldn't rise to the level of sparking a war.  America will continue to muddle along, with deep political divides but little actual physical political violence, just like we always have since the end of the Civil War.