This is an incredible article by Chris Hedges about the increasing isolation of Americans and what he sees as the socio-political implications of that isolation.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_lonely_american_20150628
Coaching for the third act of life. 65+
This is an incredible article by Chris Hedges about the increasing isolation of Americans and what he sees as the socio-political implications of that isolation.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_lonely_american_20150628
I subscribe to Delancyplace.com blog and check it every day. The author’s tastes generally agree with mine and I have bought and read many books based on his recommendations. Today, he encloses a list of the best 12 books of the last ten years, and then follows it with a list of the “best of the rest.” For readers, I heartily recommend this list. I own and have read many of these books myself and have several more in my “to do” pile. Have fun.
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As you know, I just announced my candidacy last Thursday — and what a few days it has been.
While we will never raise as much money as our opponents who receive huge donations from wealthy individuals and super PACs, I have been amazed by the outpouring of grassroots financial support that we have secured. While my opponents hold fundraising events in which a handful of millionaires make huge contributions, we are gaining extraordinary support with modest contributions coming from the working families and middle class of our country.
That’s what my politics is all about. That’s what I want to do throughout this campaign. And I want to thank all of you for your support.
This campaign will take on the biggest challenges facing our country. We must stand up and fight back. We must launch a political revolution which engages millions of Americans from all walks of life in the struggle for real change.
Sign on to endorse our campaign’s progressive platform — click here to add your name. Here’s what this campaign is going to talk about:
Income and wealth inequality: In the United States today we have the most unequal wealth and income distribution of any major country on earth — worse than at any time since the 1920s. This is an economy that must be changed in fundamental ways.
Jobs and income: In my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which puts millions of our people back to work. We must end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to fight for pay equity for women.
Campaign finance reform: As a result of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, American democracy is being undermined by the ability of the Koch brothers and other billionaire families. These wealthy contributors can literally buy politicians and elections by spending hundreds of millions of dollars in support of the candidates of their choice. We need to overturn Citizens United and move toward public funding of elections so that all candidates can run for office without being beholden to the wealthy and powerful.
Climate change: Climate change is real, caused by human activity and already devastating our nation and planet. The United States must lead the world in combating climate change and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainability.
College affordability: Every person in this country who has the desire and ability should be able to get all the education they need regardless of the income of their family. This is not a radical idea. In Germany, Scandinavia and many other countries, higher education is either free or very inexpensive. We must do the same.
Health care: Shamefully, the United States remains the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people. The United States must move toward a Medicare-for-all single-payer system. Health care is a right, not a privilege.
Poverty: The United States has more people living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of our country. I believe that in a democratic, civilized society none of our people should be hungry or living in desperation. We need to expand Social Security, not cut it. We need to increase funding for nutrition programs, not cut them.
Tax reform: We need real tax reform which makes the rich and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy avoid their tax responsibilities by stashing their money in the Cayman Islands.
And these are just some of the issues that we will be dealing with.
Stand with me and endorse this platform for our campaign.
The struggle to create a nation and world of economic and social justice and environmental sanity is not an easy one. The struggle to try and create a more peaceful world will be extremely difficult. But this I know: despair is not an option if we care about our kids and grandchildren. Giving up is not an option if we want to prevent irreparable harm to our planet.
This country belongs to all of us, not just the billionaire class. That’s what our campaign is all about, but it cannot be won by me alone. That is absolutely for sure. To win this campaign, all of us must be deeply involved.
In the coming days, weeks, and months we need to hear your ideas as to what issues are most important in your communities. We need to hear your thoughts about how we can mount the effective campaign we need to win. We need your help in spreading the word so that your friends, neighbors and co-workers become involved in the effort.
Please stand with me. Please join the grassroots revolution that we desperately need.
Sincerely,
Senator Bernie Sanders
Trying to make sense of what I see of life of life in America on TV news these days, I sometimes turn to the arts, in this case to poetry. Helps me to see more clearly, inwardly…as well as outwardly. Sharpens my feelings of guilt, my pain over what I and my white countrymen have done, are doing–and have allowed to be done–intentionally and unthinkingly. I am particularly enlightened by Hughes, but feel no relief. “I, too, am America.”
WHAT HAPPENS TO A DREAM DEFERRED?
Copyright © Langston Hughes.
Well now, here’s an interesting twist to the issues of campaign financing and strategy. Seems the Bush advisors feel that a Super Pac should be running his not-yet-announced campaign for President. Super Pacs, of course, can raise unlimited amounts of money from unnamed sources, so influence peddling is finally legitimized and “out of the closet.” And American Democracy continues its morph into a plutocratic, corporate, self-serving oligarchy. It’s legal, according to the Court, but is it right? Appropriate? Best for all Americans, not just the very rich?
Looks to me like there will be ‘no holds barred’ in the upcoming campaign. Personally, I just can’t wait for an endless array of negative political TV ads (funded by the Super Pacs) to interrupt already offensive and vapid network programming!!
Meanwhile, as hundreds of millions of dollars flow in from an “anonymous somewhere” to get candidates elected, the leaders of political parties and the politicians in government seem to ignore the problems/”challenges” we face: the American educational system is a mess, thousands are homeless, millions are living at or below the poverty level, the environment continues to be degraded at an alarming rate, the vital components of our infrastructure are rapidly deteriorating, racism continues to rear its ugly head in a variety of venues (not the least of which is police-blackcommunity relations), veterans are left without adequate medical/mental health care, and on and on.
Clearly the current way of doing “governance” in our country is not working. And if we expect our elected representatives, themselves products of this increasingly skewed system, to self-correct, we are victims of a delusion or we’re partaking of too much of Colorado’s state flower.
As conscientious citizens, dedicated to improving the common weal, we need to think very seriously about what road this country “needs to travel by” in the future. And to think about what’s next for me as an individual voter, for my family and friends, for the guy sleeping on the grate downtown? About what my options really are?
A headline article in the Washington Post today excitedly reported that yet another milestone has been reached in the seemingly inexorable creep of democratic America toward a plutocratic and oligarchic America. The Citizens United decision has produced its expected results as millions and millions of publicly untraceable dollars continue to pour into the coffers of Presidential candidates. The candidates, of course, know from whence the money comes and will shape their policies accordingly if and when elected. The 90% who barely afford to subsist on their salaries and wages can’t really get into this “buy influence” game at all. So, the minority wins–not really a guiding tenet of representative democracy.
The greatest democratic experiment in the history of the world is being sorely tested on a battlefield where dollars combined with with voter apathy and stagnant incomes will weaken or eliminate what used to be championed as “one person, one vote.” A key operative principals of capitalism now seems to be: everything can be bought because everything has its price. Apparently, the Koch brothers et. al. have discovered this truth and are exploiting it with ‘no holds barred’ to achieve their vision of self aggrandizing democratic rule.
To be a “premier fundraiser” qualifies a candidate for what? Winning the “money race?”
Groups backing Ted Cruz raise $31 million in a single week |
GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz vaulted to the top tier of the 2016 money race Wednesday as supporters announced that super PACs backing his bid had raised $31 million in a single week.The haul — which ranks as one of the biggest fundraising surges in modern presidential-race history — served as a sudden wake-up call for the rest of the likely Republican field, particularly Jeb Bush, who until now had enjoyed his status as the premier fundraiser in the contest’s early stage. |
This story struck me as another indicator that “Being” in this universe is interconnected an interconnected web– an expansion and elaboration of John Donne’s concept of “No man is an island….”
Note the distance in miles between the animal lover’s home and funeral.
I love this story. It reminds me that I must focus on trying to treat everything as Everything–and to treat each sentient individual as a noble, worthy, irreplaceable, and integral part of the Whole.
Here goes what’s left of American democracy; welcome American plutocracy. Never mind which political party. We’re talking major “system failure,” engendered by the triumph of the new contribution guidelines established by the Citizens United ruling. No surprise, really, just profound sadness that a noble experiment in the “peoples’ rule” is losing ground–and maybe the battle–to the self-interest of ultra-rich. And we write and talk about a million dollars as if it were nothing.
As I write this, I am watching three Hispanic men, heavily clad to protect themselves against the 9 degree, snow, cold and wind, pushing snow shovels to clear the walks of a strip mall across the way–for probably minimum Colorado wage of $8.23 an hour, or $66 a day, or (for a 6 day work week) less than $400 a week, or $1600 a month. At the same time, I know that there are a minimum of 5000 homeless men, women, and children trying to survive the winter blasts–just in Denver.
By the way, it would take one of my snow-shoveling workers 625 months–or 52 years–to earn a $1,000,000.
Please limit your contribution to $1 million–at least for now.