Showing posts with label populism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label populism. Show all posts

Saturday, June 01, 2019

Quote of the day: Populists can't look forward

“Populists can’t talk about the future, only the past”
- Timothy Snyder
Heard on https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=438&artikel=7229514

Sorry, I can't make the link work properly.

He speaks in English.  Interviewer's comments are in Swedish.

Some of his books are:
On tyranny : twenty lessons from the twentieth century 
The road to unfreedom : Russia, Europe, America.  This book was the subject of his interview (he spoke English).
Bloodlands : Europe between Hitler and Stalin

These are available in the Duluth Public Library.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Other views on Trump and Washington’s Farewell Address

Just when I think I have an original thought, a quick Google search reveals that many others have written about the same subject, sometimes well over a year ago:(

Here is a sample of some of these writings:

Washington’s Farewell Address: the Trump version,
The Christian Science Monitor, Jack Pitney, 2015-09-23

This is a hilarious parody of Trump’s speeches and tweets.  Too bad few, if any, of the non-voters read this before the election.

How America’s First President Predicted Donald Trump: John Avlon explains why George Washington farewell warning is more relevant then ever." Tina Nguyen, Vanity Fair, 2017-01-13

John Avlon has written other political books including Independent Nation  and Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.

Is a Trump presidency what George Washington warned us about?”, Eric Black, MinnPost, 2016-11-15

And an indirect reference to Farewell Address is “The Republic Repeals Itself”, Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine, 2016-11-09.

What irritates me about many of these writings is statements that Brexit and Trump were populist movements.  But the number of the people who did not vote for Brexit or Trump far outnumber those who did.  Unfortunately, too many of those in opposition didn’t bother to vote.

Friday, May 06, 2016

Bernie Sanders, second choice after none of the above

I really am not happy with our choice of Presidential candidates this year, but from all that I can read Bernie Sanders is far above being more interested in the people than the special interests.  It really is time we bring government back to "We the People" rather than "We the Corporations" or "We the special interests".

If you are for Bernie Sanders, before sure to vote even if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.  If you stay away because your first choice didn't get the nomination, consider that if you stay away that is one more vote for the party of the plutocrats.

That said, here is one of Bernie Sanders latest pronouncements about bringing government back to "We the People".

In the United States today, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, 47 million Americans are living in poverty.

Almost 22 percent of American children are poor and we have the highest child poverty rate of almost any major country on earth.

Let’s be clear. Living in poverty doesn’t just mean you don’t have enough money to buy a big screen TV, a fancy laptop, or the latest iPhone. It goes much deeper than that.

Living in poverty means you are less likely to have a good grocery store in your community selling healthy food. Far too often it means you don’t know where your next meal is going to come from. Living in poverty means you are less likely to have access to a doctor, dentist or mental health care provider. It means you have less access to public transportation, which makes it harder to find a job. It means you are less likely to have access to child care.

In the United States of America, poverty is often a death sentence.

Yesterday, I spoke about poverty in McDowell County, West Virginia — one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in America. In 2014, over 35 percent of the residents in McDowell lived in poverty, including nearly half of the children. The roads are crumbling and only 6 percent of adults have a college education. Less than two-thirds have graduated high school. It has the lowest life expectancy for men in the entire nation. I hope you’ll watch part of my speech on poverty and share it with friends and family on social media.

\Bernie Sanders Speaks on Poverty in McDowell County, WV [See Video]
https://go.berniesanders.com/page/share/poverty-is-a-death-sentence


Poverty is an issue we must address. In 2011, the American Journal of Public Health found that 130,000 people died in just one year alone as a result of poverty.

This is not an issue we can just sweep under the rug and hope it will go away. Because it won’t.

And when I talk about it being too late for establishment politics and economics, this is what I mean. When I talk about thinking big and outside the box, about rejecting incremental change, I am talking about the millions of Americans who live in poverty who have been tossed out, left behind, and abandoned by the rich and powerful. We need to create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.

Here’s what we need to do:

Rebuild our country’s crumbling infrastructure. A $1 trillion investment in our infrastructure will create at least 13 million jobs all over America - jobs that cannot be outsourced.

We must rewrite our disastrous trade policies that enable corporate America to shut down plans in places like West Virginia and move them to Mexico, China, and other low-wage countries.

We can create 1 million jobs for disadvantaged youths through legislation I introduced with Rep. John Conyers of Michigan.

We need to increase the wages of at least 53 million American workers by raising the minimum wage from a starvation wage of $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour.

At a time when women workers earn 79 cents for every dollar a man earns, we need to sign the Paycheck Fairness Act into law. Equal pay for equal work.

We need to make health care a right for every man, woman, and child through a Medicare for All single-payer system.

We need to treat drug addiction like a mental health issue, not a criminal issue.

We need to ensure every worker in this country has at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, two weeks of paid vacation, and one week of paid sick days.

We need to impose a tax on Wall Street to make public colleges and universities tuition free while substantially reducing student debt.

At a time when half of older workers have no retirement savings, we’re not going to cut Social Security, we’re going to expand it so people can retire with dignity and respect.

No president can do all of these things alone. We need millions of Americans to begin to stand up and fight back and demand a government that represents all of us. That is the political revolution.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

Paid for by Bernie 2016
(not the billionaires)
PO Box 905 - Burlington VT 05402 United States - (855) 4-BERNIE

Stand against the powerful special interests who are systematically buying our Congress and have their sights set on the presidency.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

A clever but off-the-mark sign

"Politicians are like diapers, they need changing often".

This sign has been on a signboard for a business on Woodland Avenue in Duluth for sometime.  I'm not sure if the sign belongs to the auto repair business or to a small office that seems to be attached to the auto repair building.  Google street view is a bit blurry on the details.

I didn't double check, but many references attribute it to Mark Twain with the added phrase "and for the same reason."

We could also apply this slogan to CEOs.  They get entrenched and get the board they selected to give them larger and larger compensation.  Boy, talk about a stinky deal!

The problem with this slogan is that it assumes that a frequent turnover of politicians will ensure new ideas.  It might on occasion, but like all serious jobs, being a politician requires a lot of effort and learning.  If we had the turnover as the sign implies, then the politicians would be at the mercy of their staffs or lobbyists.  The degree that they do depend on these two groups is bad enough, but a greater number of new politicians would make the situation even worse.

Besides, we do get to vote against politicians.  We have a hard time voting against CEOs.  And we want neither our politicians or CEOs to be like diapers.

An afterthought!  A complaint about politicians is a bit of elitism.  The people get to choose the politicians; the plutocrats get to choose the CEOs.  This phrase then implies that the people are ignorant and not to be trusted with governance.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Quote of the day: Even a dead fish can…

"Swim against the current: Even a dead fish can go with the flow"

Title of a book by Jim Hightower:

"…serious words of wisdom to share here, namely: question authority, trust your values, seek alternatives, break away, stand up for your beliefs, and swim against the current!

"Their book introduces readers to people across the country who have actually done this-people in business, politics, health care, farming, religion, and other areas who are taking charge, living their values, doing good, and doing well."

From the ad at http://www.jimhightower.com/store/swim_against_the_current.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Let's start our own mass movement

Here's something you can do to change the politics of the country without much time or any dimes.

Remind at least two people to vote and to be the dēmos in democracy. "dēmos" is Greek for people. Ask them to also remind at least two people to vote. Tell friends, send the link to others, write comments on forums, or send letters to the editor.

We will know that we're successful when others pass this message to us. And we will know that we're really successful when the worst turnout in any precinct, county, or state is 75 percent.