Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Welcome to the New Republican Party

The Republican Party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Hoover, Eisenhower, and Reagan bears no resemblance to the New Party of Trump.  Somewhere between the 1860s and about 1936, the Democratic party of small government became the party of big government, and the Republican party of big government became rhetorically committed to restricting federal power.  I say rhetorically in this instance because while they have been successful in removing many restrictions on big business they have more recently used the power of the federal government to stifle competition and restrict entrepreneurship and new business.  More recently, the old Republican Party has devolved to become more racist while the Democratic Party, formerly famous for the 1948 splinter group of the segregationist Dixiecrats, has become the champion of minorities.  As arguably the greatest poet of the 20th century stated, “For the times they are a-changin'.”

Link to YouTube Video of Performance

The Times They Are A-Changin' 
        by Bob Dylan 

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'. 

The New Republican Party, or NRP, is using a divisive new mouthpiece to obtain many of their personal goals.  Many Republicans would probably tell you, off-the-record, that they don’t approve of many of his methods, but they will enjoy the ride while it lasts.  While both parties have been guilty of legislation that benefits them personally, the NRP is currently taking this greed to new heights.  With both recently enacted legislation and proposals outlined for the immediate future, our lives will be irreparably changed.

The NRP is attacking what I call the Non-Wealthy Class (N-WC) to the betterment and enrichment of the Wealthy Class (WC, not to be confused with Water Closet even though there are similarities).  This newly defined N-WC or Non-Wealthy Class is a better classification for analysis as the former middle-class migrates to an amalgam of poor, soon to be poor, and the never quite affluent enough to retire.  The bullet points below outline my predictions for what this legislation and other actions of the NRP will achieve for the wealthy:

·       Restrictions on affordable healthcare will kill off those who are not wealthy so they will not be a burden to wealthy society.  As long as there are enough N-WC’s around to bag their groceries, build their yachts, clean their homes, grow their food, and cook and serve their meals, the WC will be content.
·       A good formal education will be inordinately expensive so as to restrict access to the wealthy so they can maintain their status through future generations.  Basic education will be restricted so that the N-WC’s will only have access to enough training to allow them to serve the wealthy, i.e., the new slavery.
·       Tax reforms will benefit the wealthy and shift a disproportionate share of the tax burden to the N-WC.  While large corporations can afford teams of tax lawyers to sometimes get their taxes to zero (Amazon, Trump?), new entrepreneurs without such legal tax advice will be at an extreme disadvantage and destined to fail.
·        In order to preserve control of their political power, the NRP will use gerrymandering, voter suppression, the advantage of the Electoral College, and the Big Lie (outlandish statements repeated often).  By lowering the tax burden of big business, the NRP guarantees more campaign finance contributions to ensure their re-election.
·       Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs will be curtailed to make more money available for those programs that benefit the wealthy.
·      Wages will be suppressed so that the cost of goods and services for the WC will be lower.  This forces employees into tax supported social programs where the WC enjoy major tax advantages.
·      The NRP will allow their president to lie to the American public without challenge to divide the nation and make it easier to control.  With fear of job loss, gun loss, false national pride, and a loss of white supremacy, the masses can be coerced to vote to maintain the NRP.
·      Money will be spent building a wall on the Mexican border to support the Big Lie that we are under attack, that this will make major inroads toward solving our drug problem, and that it will drastically curb illegal immigration.
·      The NRP will continue to make judicial appointments that favor both the WC and evangelicals.  While it is easy to understand the greed of the WC, I find the hypocrisy of this latter group to be mind-numbing.  The evangelicals will tolerate and even make excuses for the behavior of the most non-Christian presidential leader this country has ever had in order to further their agenda.  While Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Johnson had no declared religious affiliation, neither exhibited a callous disregard for a common morality.

The poor and soon-to-be-poor are more easily controlled with promises.  Elusive reforms may be dangled at election time to thunderous applause.  The NRP’s claim to “love the under-educated” is a testimony to the fact that they are easier to manipulate.  Such a goal is just as despicable as the old “keep them barefoot and pregnant” adage for spousal control.





Friday, March 22, 2019

The New and Improved United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution

We, the White People of the United States of America, in Order to Make America Great Again, establish Injustice, insure domestic Chaos, provide a Common Fence to be known as The Great Wall of Trump, promote the general Welfare of the Wealthy, and secure the Blessings of Tax Reform for Donald J. Trump, UCC, and His Affluent Friends, do ordain and establish this Declaration and Constitution for the United States of Donald.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that while all white men are created equal, President Donald J. Trump, UCC, was created more-equal than Others. He was endowed by his Creator, Individual One, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are infallibility, scientific genius, and the ability to wear very long red ties.

Three score and twelve years ago, a Great Ego was born to this earth. In the beginning, GOD, UCC, aka the Great Omnipotent Donald, created the heaven and the earth and crime without punishment. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of GOD, UCC, moved upon the face of FOX News. And Trump said, Let there be light: and there was darkness. And he called the darkness to be light and convinced His followers that it was so. And Trump saw the darkness, that it was good: and Trump divided the light from the darkness. And Trump called the light Night, and the darkness he called Day. And the evening and the morning were the first day of His presidency. And Darkness was the New Light.


So proclaimeth his Royal Orangeness, the Great Omnipotent Donald.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Background
The history of King Donald of New York is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
King Donald, UCC

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
--------------------------------------------
My apologies to the writers of the U.S. Constitution, Abraham Lincoln, the King James version of the Bible and its Book of Genesis, George Orwell and his Animal Farm, and the writers of the Declaration of Independence. While great liberties were taken with all of these historic works, know that from the phrase above that reads, “The history of King Donald of New York,” all that follows is verbatim from the Declaration of Independence as it related to the King of Great Britain. It was scary for me to read those paragraphs and know that those references are not so far from our world and news of today.
Individual One, UCC

For the curious among you, the UCC title at the end of some Trump references stands for Unindicted Co-Conspirator.

Signs of Aging

  While on my occasional morning walk, I took a moment to reflect on my time in the neighborhood. We moved in almost 40 years ago when every...