One summer, during my teens, I decided to read the Bible cover to cover to see how all those stories fit together in context. One of the stories which shocked me was the story of Solomon’s ruling that the baby over which two women were struggling should be cut in half — each to get a half. Of course I saw the point, that the real mother would sacrifice to save her child. Solomon’s decision, on the surface, seemed evil and irrational, but his intellect and wisdom prevailed and the real mother got her baby back.
This story was played out this election season in Bernie Sanders’s decision to turn his baby over to the Democratic Party. He knew and trusted Hillary Clinton to foster it. Bernie passed Solomon’s test for wisdom; the Green Party and other Hillary Haters failed miserably.
The GOP and their big-moneyed “Johns” have a long game plan to divide and conquer. It adeptly uses the Left’s weaknesses to its advantage. It knows that the Left is burdened with compassion and a conscience; therefore, when one of us is hurt, we all hurt and become disheartened. The world is much easier for people who have no conscience, but those of us who try to be intelligent, informed, compassionate and wise are the best of the human race; however, the GOPs count on our becoming discouraged and failing to show up for every election. We dawdle over minutiae and put vulnerable people and our vulnerable environment at risk, just because. The Left may have the intellectual class, but intellect without wisdom can be destructive.
Our democracy is pluralistic in nature; every time someone wins, others lose. It takes wise and experienced leaders to make the hard decisions which directly influence our complex and finite lives. Haters are not qualified to lead. Hatred is basically ignorant, self-indulgent, irrational, and leads to irrational decisions. To demand that people so unqualified as our perennial third-party candidates be able to force their bad judgment on the world is irrational, and parties which put party above people and the country are just evil. The anarchy for which both the far left and the far right seem to wish would give even more power to the brutish elements of our society — which is the GOP plan.
As for the evangelical so-called Christians, the Bernie Brothers, the Green Party and especially Jill Stein, I vote them off the liberal/progressive island. They do not represent our values. Their only agenda is to defeat Democrats. They are self-indulgent, hypocritical, sociopathic drama queens who want only to create anarchy. I understand that Jill Stein even encouraged her people to vote for Trump. They went after Al Gore, one of our most important environmental leaders, and helped W get elected. I hope to goodness Bernie’s people run under the Democratic ticket so that we can recognize them. I will never vote Green Party again. Social justice and economic equality belong to the Democrats now. They ran a hard-fought and clean campaign, and I am proud of them. The Alt Left can bugger off!
P. Ann White
Meridian, Texas
Donald Trump is now backing up the truck in preparation for the frenzy of looting and plundering of public assets by all of his friends and relatives and enthusiastic promoters.
His businesses are to be put into a “blind trust” (ha!) made up of all his sons and daughters and their friends and relatives, who will now proceed to carry off all the US government property they can get their hands on.
Rudolph Giuliani, the obviously unhinged former “America’s Mayor,” distinguished for setting up New York City to be attacked on 9/11 by failing all his responsibilities to prepare for such a disaster, will apparently become secretary of state, where he can rant and rave at Russia as they launch hydrogen bombs at us.
Perhaps Cliven Bundy can become secretary of the interior, and preside over distribution of western lands to cattle ranchers, mining companies and casino gamblers. The Grand Canyon may become the Donald Trump Landfill; Yellowstone Park the Dick Cheney Hot Spring Baths. Sheldon Silver can spread gambling casinos all over the Midwest, where they can become barracks for the swarms of Chinese soldiers pouring into the Midwestern states, as they cross the Mexican border, using the Trump Wall as a launching site for the Chinese People’s Republican Army! At that point, casino gambling will be the only significant American industry, having been vigorously promoted by the Trump government as a glittering symbol of “Free Enterprise.”
Harvey Stoneburner
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Now that common sense has been firmly laid to rest in BB-brain land by Fox “News,” the “Enquirer,” and whatever assorted supporters/henchmen/billionaire greedies, etc., we should soon see:
1) The gutting of environmental efforts to save us from global mayhem and the acceleration of privateering “Bundyites” taking over public lands, plus government sales of same.
2) More tax breaks for the rich.
3) Increasing attacks on Social Security, Medicare and other such “entitlements.”
4) The war on Planned Parenthood, furthering the cause of keeping women “in their place” and pumping up population growth.
5) More 12th-century despots on the Supreme Court to keep progress in its place. (The Boss has promised this for sure.)
Thank you so much, red state voters, for your latest assault on REASON!
Judith Redding
Bellevue, Wash.
I’m fully vindicated. From predicting it was time for the 60% of the voters discouraged from voting by the unholy alliance between both parties and the corporations and their lobbyists, they came out of the woodwork and voted. For the first non-politician in our history they took advantage of the opportunity to show their contempt for the welcoming of aliens, both legal and illegal, by both parties, preaching of it as humanitarian to welcome these unfortunates. Its real effect was to bring in cheap labor and break the unions. Not only farm workers, but high-tech. While the very companies they worked for were claiming the skilled workers were not available, at the very same time our skilled workers were graduating from colleges and seeking employment. To add to the heartlessness, these sorry excuses for humanity were importing people from India and forcing the very workers already doing the work to train their replacements under threat of withholding their severance pay if they refused.
Forgetting that charity begins at home, those pseudo “bleeding-heart humanitarians” dismissed its effect as part of the process of competing in the 21st century.
What’s going to prove interesting is if the people responsible and capable of making the change in our financial system are willing to share the wealth or continue to think they can carry on as they have been. To do so threatens a real revolution…
Alton Eliason
Northford, Conn.
We eagerly anticipate Gene Lyons’ post-election column since he has been the PP columnist who has, for too many months, been ceaselessly abusive of any of many who dared recognize Hillary Clinton as a deeply-flawed, vulnerable candidate. Whether it was supporters of Bernie or Trump or the other options, his scornful mockery made him a tiresome twice-monthly annoyance, ossified in his denials, long before the reckoning of Nov. 8. Only Ted Rall had the courage to remind PP readers why millions had understandably turned to a third party or even left the presidency option blank.
For heaven’s sake, Jefferson County (Beaumont, Texas) elected a black female sheriff over a white incumbent, yet still went heavily Trump. Hillary won the popular vote with fewer votes than the last two losing Republican candidates. [Editor’s Note: Not even close; as of Nov. 27, Clinton had 64,826,234 votes, far ahead of John McCain’s 59.9 million in 2008 and Mitt Romney’s 60.9 million in 2012. And Trump’s 62,493,730.]
If the Dems learn these and other real lessons, this Election Day could turn out to be the first meaningful step toward President Elizabeth Warren in 2020. More than likely, however, the Democratic Party will render itself even more irrelevant. Gene (and other discredited Hillary publicists such as Paul Krugman, Nicolas Kristof, et al.) will blame minuscule factors such as sexism, racism, Comey, Russians or anything other than the harsh truth.
John Samore
Albuquerque, N.M.
With ominous clouds on the horizon and rapidly approaching us, we must now take to the ramparts and establish a strong defense.
To address climate change, the most serious threat to living on our mother earth, it is necessary to become an active supporting member of Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Rainforest Action Network, The Nature Conservancy, and Union of Concerned Scientists and other established environmental organizations.
To protect our human rights we must actively be involved with the American Civil Liberties Union.
In order to oppose further spread of racial injustice and violence against minorities, it is necessary to join and support Southern Poverty Law Center.
Do not sit in a corner and whine. Be active. The time is now.
Skip Hannon
Bradenton, Fla.
Americans have just elected a new president! Over 80% of the Trump voters say they voted for The Donald because he promised to make “changes” in America and because they were dissatisfied with the “professional” politicians in Washington. Would any of them, I ask, choose a “non-mechanic” to fix their car, a “non-pilot” to fly their plane, a “non-doctor” to operate on them, or a “non-lawyer” to defend them in court? Hardly! Nevertheless, they think a “non-politician” is exactly the guy they want to run their government. Mr. Trump - without any information to date from his tax returns — has an established record as a cheat, a swindler, a tax-dodger, a racist, an inveterate prevaricator and a “groper” — but no matter! He’s the new leader, who Americans have chosen to guide America backwards to greatness. What could possibly go wrong with this scenario? My advice? Pray if you pray, or, otherwise, just “good luck!” Cheers!
Rolland Amos
Severn, Md.
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2016
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