We are disgraced. Once our president – Washington – was renowned for his character and judgment. WE have elected a “man” renowned for his lack of character and judgment. Washington prevented a revolt by military officers, “our” recently elected president ENCOURAGED & STARTED A REVOLT against the U.S. government; still lies about it.
Once our president – Lincoln – said “With malice toward none, with charity for all..” WE have elected a “man” renowned for his lack of charity, and above all – for his malice toward many.
Once ur president – FDR – was called a “traitor to his class,” the wealthy, because he REALLY tried to help “the forgotten man.” WE have elected a “man” renowned for his TALK about helping ordinary people – like YOU, but his POLICIES favor the rich and connected
Once our president – Eisenhower – said “May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. WE have elected a “man” who tolerates NO dissent from his “wisdom” and who demands loyalty to himself above all.
Once our president – Republican Hoover – said “The trouble with capitalism is capitalists. they’re too damn greedy.” WE have elected a “man” who said “You can’t be too greedy.” And LIVES that creed.
Once our president – Republican Ford – said “Truth is the glue that holds government together.” WE have elected a “man” who said over 30,000 documented lies as “our” president; whose entire public life has been built on DOCUMENTED falsehoods; who for the last decade has won or been a top candidate for the Politifact “Big Lie of the Year; who objected to to his 2024 campaign speeches being fact-checked.
Once our president – Republican Coolidge – said. “The governments of the past could fairly be characterized as devices for maintaining in perpetuity the place and position of certain privileged classes, without any ultimate protections for the rights of the people. The Government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.” WE have elected a “man” who is building a government of billionaires; ho has selected two of them to create “government efficiency – who’ve said they’ll cut $2 trillion fromYOUR government’s budget [which cannot be done without cutting things like Social Security &Medicare]; a president whose $1 domestic “achievement” was an immoral, anti-democratic 2017 tax cut for the rich which he wants to renew in spite of its responsibility for 25% of national debt, trillions more if extended.
Once our president – Republican Theodore Roosevelt – said “No people is wholly civilized where s distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse>”. WE have elected a “man” who ORCHESTRATED a plot to steal the 2020 election, then told THE BIG LIE that it wasn’t he – who lost by 7 million votes!!! – but his opponents who’d stolen the election. The Capitol was trashed, police were killed & injured, hundreds convicted of rioting said they’d “been called” by this “man’ to “stop the steal.” !!!
Once our president Cleveland – said “Communism is a hateful thing and a menace to peace and organized government; but the communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and selfishness, which insidiously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil.” WE have just elected a “man” who talks about “the deep state,” who’s vowed to fire government officials who dare discipline him and his businesses, who nominated a “loyalist” to run America’s to law enforcement agency [and that man vowed to clean house of disloyal people]; who put far right zealots on a severely corrupted “supreme court” who have undermined American democracy with lying decisions.
II. We are disgraced – because we are damaging and killing our own children. We tolerate four plagues that have damaged children here and around the world: climate crisis denial; social media poisoning their minds; gun violence; censorship.
Read the New York Times Magazine for November 10, 2024 for young people’s stories from Peru, Bangladesh, Tanzania; Greece; Alberta; Nigeria; New Zealand on the impact of climate crisis NOW and for their entire lives.
Read “After Babel..How Social Media Dissolved The Mortar of Society And Made America Stupid” [Jonathan Haidt; May, 2022; The Atlantic. Read “The Dumbest Generation..How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future” [English professor Mark Bauerlein]
Watch the DVD “Cyberbully” [ABC Family]; then research the number of children committing suicide and going to doctors for mental health help; spending 4-6-8 hours daily on social media because they’ve BECOME ADDICTED.
December 18, 2024, Washington Post: more than 31,000 K-12 students experienced a 2024 school shooting; 426 school shootings since 2/20/99 Columbine High. December 17, 2024, New York Times: guns are the leading cause of deaths of children in 2020 and 2021
An elementary teacher reports these children’s questions about an active shooter: “If I was in the bathroom, should I jump out the window?; “How will we get to our homes if we don’t know how to cross the street yet?; “What if I can’t find my teacher and all the classroom doors are locked?”; “If the shooter came into the room and killed people, would you have to go home by yourself?” What “civilized” society FORCES its children to HAVE to ask such questions ?????
Read “Book Bans Harm Kids” [ Editors; December, 2024; Scientific American ]: “Censoring what children read deprives them of reality and the chance to feed their curiosity and develop empathy…Under the guise of protecting children from harm, they vow to defund public libraries and alter school curricula. But its the book bans themselves that cause the most harm, robbing youngsters of opportunities to think critically, explore ideas and learn about experiences different from their own. The people responsible for moving books from classrooms and libraries are trying to limit the flow of information. Their efforts aim to undermine democracy..create..young people who will not question authority..”
A “Our Children Are Drowning” letter [Minnesota Star Tribune; 12/21/24]: “Our children are drowning – emotionally, socially, and mentally – and we’re standing on the shore, reacting only when they go under…We must face a difficult reality; Our children are not learning what it means to connect, to belong, to feel seen and supported…We need to rethink how we raise, teach, and nurture our children.”
***Our children are drowning because this “society” has STOLEN THEIR CHILDHOOD INNOCENCE.
III. VIGILANCE
*** “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.” [Wendell Phillips]
*** “The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a low extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” [Robert W. Hutchins]
*** “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. but we cannot have both.” [Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis]
!!!!! Educate YOURSELF !!!!!
1}. Research pre and post-1980 American income, wealth, tax statistics. Much happens because of dramatic post-1980 changes – CORRUPTIONS -actually. From 1947-73, America – by DESIGN – had balance in those statistics. We had rich people, what we DIDN’T have, was obscene greed, allowed by law. The lower 90% struggles – BY DESIGN – because the top 1% – about 3.5 million – live in previously unimagined luxury [accept for the Gilded Age of 1865-1900 – which they’re trying to recreate] . A totally CORRUPT “supreme court” has facilitated this with immoral decisions like “Citizens United.” As long as we have current “campaign finance” existing – NOTHING will improve for the lower 90%.
2]. “Democracy in Chains” [Nancy MacLean, 2017]: ‘..the single most powerful and least understood threat to democracy today: the attempt by the billionaire-backed radical right to undo democratic governance…a stealth bid to reverse-engineer all of America, at both state and national levels, back to the political economy and oligarchic governance of midcentury Virginia…”
3] “Dark Money…The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right” [Jane Mayer, 2016 – or – see “Dark Money DVD, directed by Kimberly Reed.
4]. “Evil Geniuses”. [Kurt Andersen, 2020]: ‘…the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. the clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy..”
5]. “Perfectly Legal”. [d.C. Johnston, 2003]: “The tax system is becoming a tool to turn the American dream..into an impossible goal for tens of millions of Americans…used to create a nation where fewer stable jobs and less secure retirement income…used by the rich..to shift risks off themselves and unto everyone else…perhaps worst of all, our tax system now forces most Americans to subsidize the lifestyles of the very rich..”
6] “Erasing History..How Fascists Rewrite The Past To Control The Future”. [Jason Stanley, 2024}. – just like the fictitious “Big Brother,’ and sending “bad” history “down the memory hole”!!!!! – explains how much of the FAR RIGHT’s war on education, their censoring “bad’ books and “bad” information – so THEY can LIE to YOU and YOUR children.
7]. “How Democracies Die” [S. Levitsky 7 D. Ziblatt, 2018]: “The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. the bad news is that , b y electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.”
8] “The Death of Truth..Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump” [M. Kakutani, 2018 – Pulitzer Prize winning literary critic]: “truth decay” – the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life, fake science, fake history, fake Americans on Facebook, fake followers; much more fakery. – outside of crooks – most of it by the FAR RIGHT
*** Mr. and Mrs. lower 90%: DO SOMETHING!…..SPEAK UP!…REFUTE LIES!…VOTE! WHY? The war, identified by billionaire Warren Buffett – is directed at YOU, YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR GRANDCHILDREN, it is an ORGANIZED THEFT of the 1947-73 golden American middle class prosperity: shipping jobs overseas, virulent hostility toward ANY labor union, BUYING LEGISLATION in states and Washington. As Nobel Prize in economic winner Joe Stiglitz said – the post-1980 inequality DIDN’T JUST HAPPEN, it was DELIBERATELY planned and executed. Do REAL research – mostly off the I-net: the Reagan, Bush II, Trump regimes have permanently damaged American democracy – BY DESIGN. Speak up, act – or it WILL get worse… for YOUR children and grandchildren…….time is running out on YOU
With Justice For All 