||| FROM HEDRICK SMITH |||
Washington – Normally, elections clear the air, bring new faces to power, offer the dawn of a new day, a fresh beginning, and an opportunity for political healing. Not this year.
Whatever the final vote-counts, the electorate has rendered a split and potentially crippling decision. The scarring schism of polarized America, of two warring camps with passions inflamed on both sides by Donald Trump, has produced a sharply divided government – a Democrat headed for the White House, a re-entrenched Republican Senate – that may prove incapable of governing together and resolving the nation’s most urgent issues.
We are today a wounded nation. We have suffered through four years of a train-wreck presidency that has left our body politic broken, bruised, and bleeding, and our political institutions sorely riven, damaged, and in desperate need of emergency care.
Yet even as we try to hobble forward, President Trump has tried to throw us into reverse, salting our wounds with his corrosive smearing of the integrity of the vote count. With an animal instinct for the impending humiliation of his defeat, Trump callously put his personal interest above the nation’s need to heal and move on.
1992: President Bush-1 Offers to Help His Victor
Contrast that with the last time an incumbent U.S. president lost his race for re-election. That was 28 years ago…
READ FULL ARTICLE: http://reclaimtheamericandream.org/2020/11/have-we-just-crippled-washington/
Washington has been crippled and corrupted for many decades. More and more, I think about the prophetic books that have told us what to expect : 1984, Brave New World, and many more.
People uninvolved in educating themselves about our true history, for starters, are doomed to repeat what they are told and not think for themselves. This is what has happened ad nauseum, and #45 is the culmination of what has been boiling underground, unchecked, because we have all been lulled to sleep by talking heads, so the Handlers can achieve the next grift.
Now it’s coming back out into plain view; we’re still racists, misogynists and sexists, ageists in both directions, and all the rest… Why should we act so shocked? You can’t legislate away the ‘isms’ – you have to change the consciousness, which can’t happen as long as people aren’t digging deeper into ourselves than the continual propaganda coming from everywhere.
I wish us all a huge Wake Up, and that we can figure a way out of the civil war that seems to be brewing. Until we can all recognized how much we as a people have been duped, we’ll continue the infighting, missing the entire lesson – again! Meanwhile, Earth suffers our choices, as do all the other countries we’ve invaded for no good reason other than extraction, and I’m afraid we will kill all life on this planet before we learn our lessons and get to the business of at least trying to save it!
Yes, Sadie’s comment lays it out well….when has this bird, not been wounded? Mr Smith suffers the ‘shock’ that favism is now in plain sight like the Vichy police captain in Casablanca. As Chou en Lai commented on the French Revolution (1793) in nineteen seventy five – “Too soon to tell.”
Those with pledged hatred of America, both domestic and abroad, are celebrating right now. Let that sink in, people. Regardless of your political beliefs, that fact should disturb everybody.
You are wrong, Mr. Farrick. I condemn your comments.
People are celebrating because they have been uplifted by our country voting for justice and decency and truth.
And BECAUSE they love and care about America.
Wow, way to twist my words, Kristen. Please read my post more carefully. I was referencing those with pledged hatred like Iran and far left extremist groups who really don’t like America. It’s a happy day for them, and that is very telling and concerning.
Hmmm… Mr. Farrick – could it be that Iran and some of these other countries like Syria, might be heaving a sigh of relief that perhaps – and it’s a slim chance without Public involvement and self-education – we will NOT invade their countries for oil or mineral extraction or pipeline “rights,” or cripple their economies with embargoes because they dare to want their sovereignty?
Many of us, fully aware of the two “choices” the two main corporate parties chose FOR us – and many of us not happy about it – still choose to try to go toward some kind of unity of our country, because we see civil war being fomented, and we want to unify our people and aim for some decency and finally move away from our bloody history of invasion and colonization and try something different that hasn’t been successfully given a chance in this country. We do this because we love our country.
We owe this to our young. We owe them our sincere efforts to try to stop runaway climate change and the destruction of Life on Earth – war being one of the biggest culprits of that destruction; extractive industry close behind and supporting the endless wars of aggression – on our own people, even. We can do better, and we need to. Time’s almost up.
Sadie, you said it well! And if you go back in time a mere four years, you will see that “those with pledged hatred of America” were celebrating then as well. Dale, if you’re worried about Joe Biden being Hawkish enough, let me remind you his son served multiple active duty tours in live combat even while JB was the VP. He is a strong supporter of the military and has always been. The USA is the #1 spender on military in the world. Do we really need to spend more on it than the next 9 countries COMBINED, especially when most of them are our allies?
I assure you, as a resident of Delaware (where most of us have run into JB many times,) he will not be a pushover when it comes to defending our country or its principles, when they are morally correct.
San Juan County may look “blue” on a map. But blue or red, systemic racism undermines everything our country does in attempting to move forward in a positive and healing way. Yesterday, my husband met a neighbor up the road on a walk. She felt compelled to unload her frustration over Biden,s win. She does not know my husband, but continued her rant against all the “Kikes” who interfered in the election outcome. My husband is Jewish, but did not call her on her hateful tirade. He just kept walking. I, on the other hand, will call her on it if I cross paths with her.
Jennifer, thanks for sharing. As a Jew who has been considering retiring to Orcas for a few years, that’s quite enlightening. I really doubt that most Orasonians feels that way, but there is a diverse population there and many “deeply red” believers. I have met many on my visits and initially was taken aback, until I realized Orcas is really part of America and the real world. I agree that you need to speak up, in a civil manner. Perhaps being caught off guard, your husband was too flustered to ask this woman how she knew that Mr. Kushner interfered and why he wouldn’t want his father-in-law re-elected so he and his wife could keep their jobs?
If you do get to talk to this woman, may I suggest you find out where you have shared values, and only after that, consider discussing policy or implementation. I have every reason to believe that everyone, regardless of party affiliation or loyalty, shares the values of honesty, integrity, respect for family, desires health and economic security, personal safety, etc. If we can meet those with whom we disagree on a platform of shared values, we will have a chance to then compromise on methods. Putting values first keeps both sides from seeing the “other” as an enemy and reduces the dehumanizing/demonizing we have all seen for the last 4 years.
Dale Farrick’s contention that those of us who rejoice in America’s repudiation of Trump and Trumpism are joined by “those with pledged hatred like Iran and far left extremist groups who really don’t like America” is hopelessly simplistic. Farrick fails to take into account the diversity among those who view Trump as an existential threat. Iran’s government may well feel relieved that they are no longer threatened by the unpredictable behavior of an unbalanced world leader with a finger on the nuclear button. Domestically, however, our reasons are very different. We are celebrating the survival of American democracy from the threat posed by a would-be authoritarian. An enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.
What do I think of the elections?
Hmmm…well, I guess if I took out the part about the DNC, and the Democratic Party screwing Bernie out of the process in both the 016, and the 020 elections (you know… the death of democracy)… if I was to take that out of the picture, and forget that had we voted for Bernie we wouldn’t be where we are today. And, then if I overlook the fact that in a two-party system we’re voting for the lesser of two evils, and that both sides cheat in legal ways using such tactics as controlling the media, gerrymandering of voting districts, massive voter-suppression, voter-intimidation, outright lying and cheating… all of which, of course, lead to the decision actually being made by a group of super-delegates… if I considered all of that reality I’d say it went according to plan.
Did it lead to the favored candidate winning the election? Barely, and maybe… I mean, it’s not over yet. Did the best man (the best team) win the job? Maybe, I mean, we’d all like to think so. Although, in looking at the democratic candidate’s dismal past track records it’s difficult to ascertain the probability that we’re going to incur meaningful change under a new democratic administration… I mean, both candidates have been part of making the status quo what it is for many years. And lest we forget… using Donald Trump as the new comparison for how good or bad a president can be is a truly low bar to set… we deserve better.
How do I think this election went? In speaking in terms of the national election– to the 53 other people that voted Green Party in SJC this election… I’m with you. In regards to the pending Democratic Party winners, I can only say, “that the more things change the more they stay the same”.
Locally, we’ll have to wait and see. Cindy is new, and we’ve yet to see the influence that she will bring to the table… with Rick we know what another 4 years of him and his team will bring. The people have spoken and they want something different for Orcas Island, something more in line with the common good, and not the special interests ($$$) of a few.
Congratulations and good luck Cindy… I hope you, and your counterparts, will remain more open to dialogue with the “many” of us that have shown that we differ with the growth agenda currently being promoted than the current administration has been.
Oh, THAT Washington.