Different lenses.

So here is the thing that I have been considering today and contemplating as unanswerable, and yet still important. I have seen/read in different sources (news, Sojourners magazine) recently that literally more conservative Americans are receiving a different version on their news sources (Fox, etc.) of what 45 is doing and saying. One might say (and yes I am saying) that they are not being told the truth. So what I have been thinking about is: if they were being told the truth, or that which mainstream media is laying bare, and they were to see/hear that it is different than that which their own usual news sources presents, would that make a difference to 45's base? So to take this further: what I am really trying to figure out is, if his base was exposed to what it is that mainstream news sources (CNN/MSNBC) are broadcasting, and that base was to realize that it is different from what their own news sources are broadcasting, would they question their own news sources? Or just believe automatically that the mainstream is biased against the president? Since I believe the mainstream version of things that I hear/read everyday would they do the same with their own sources, or would they be curious as to why things are different? Are there truly groups of people in the United States so different from one another that what I am unable to accept as acceptable is truly okay with another group? Like, what is going to happen in November? Am I going to be stuck living in a country with this president still in office because other people in this country find his stupidity and his lying and his immorality acceptable?

End of February in the hospital.....

This blog entry was written sometime in the last few days of February.  I was in the hospital with non-virus-related pneumonia.

As a dental strip that shows where dental flossing needs to improve – 45 is showing us the weaknesses in our system that must be addressed and remedied.

For that matter this is like the Law (OT) showing us our humanity and where we needed to change.

He is not providing healthy, vibrant leadership.  He is a tool in someone’s hands and his sole purpose is to fulfill a conservative Republican agenda for a white evangelical party that is breathing its last and will not yet let go – before it inflicts even more damage on an America that is new and different and longs for vision in a new direction.

As these two realities clash and as evangelicalism finally dies – we can pray that there are not too many pieces to put together a different whole.  Pray that we have been transformed but not shattered.

p.s., not every Republican is like 45.  I know one or two who have maintained at least a somewhat different value system.

In My Opinion....April 5, 2020.

 

Blog April 5, 2020

In My Opinion….

IMO we are dealing with two major issues in this country, the USA, right now.

1.   A total lack of preparation for a pandemic even though there was a roadmap laid from the 44th administration. There is an excellent book called The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis.  In it he explores “the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition.”  Well, this is one of the things that was botched. 

2. A lack of understanding of a strong federalist system of government versus a Libertarian or decentralized form of government.  A lack of understanding of how the American government functions in the best interest of the people, and not the 1% at the top. 

3. Our health care system and our economic systems have both been laid bare.  We can see the utter dysfunction in both of them and how this country is geared towards the wealthy…I read somewhere that when the billionaires are calling for the economy to open up and people go back to work, it is because it is the people that continue to make this person rich.  It is their labor and nothing that the rich person is accomplishing alone.

1     1  And 2:  On the first point, I pray that 45 is voted out of office so that we can have a President come in that knows what he (and someday we pray a she) is doing, and actually cares about the people and not just lining his own pocket.  The work was done in the previous administration to work with a company and through that collaboration tools were created specifically to deal with a pandemic.  Machines that could make ventilators much more quickly than the conventional equipment.  The other thing that is vital that was worked on is making the Medical Face Masks n95 reusable.  This would have been a game changer at this moment in history, and it would have been a very economical move. 

We need a centralized Federal government that understands the flow chart.  Yes, many things are in the hands of Governors and Mayors.  Part of the reason we are the UNITED states is so that the Federal government can centralize the kinds of things that might have made this pandemic less powerful on our shores. 

It is beyond my comprehension how someone that occupies the oval office cannot be either so ignorant, or perhaps so lazy, as to see that it is the function of federal government to see to the production of things like ventilators, even if there are thousands of them and they sit in waiting for many years  .

I am realizing that some of what we are seeing is Libertarian principles in practice.  This is how things are supposed to work:  The federal government has the stockpile for the nation.  When there is a crisis the state governments are supposed to be able to request the equipment that they see as a reasonable projection of what they will need in order to care for the sick and not have to make ethically devastating decisions about who will live and who will die.  The ones who will die are the ones that are not chosen to have the life saving equipment.  When there is a shortage.  There are not supposed to be shortages.  State governments are not supposed to be competing against each other and driving the costs of production or acquisition higher and higher.  Governors have reported having orders made and paid for and having the order redirected to another entity.  Because the federal government has had such a lack of planning or being responsible for the federal work of preparation, this country is facing a horrendous death rate of our citizens.  And 45 is just cozy fine in his safe occupancy of the oval office.  It is not meant to be a safe house.

As I see it the Democratic party in our two party system believes in a strong federal government.  Government is a good thing and is responsible for the well being of every citizen in the country and around the world.  As well as having a global sense of responsibility for the world.  To who much is given, much is expected.  

In the Republican party there is a tendency at this point in history to see the Libertarian party principles as the best way to go.  Government  is not good, the less government intrudes into our lives the better.  A weak federal government and a strong decentralized government, as in the states and territories, is ideal.  The rich have no obligation to help the ordinary people which make up the much greater percentage of our population.

I think that the consequences are clear of believing in the decentralization of government, with the meaning that the federal government does not see itself responsible for the welfare and well-being of each of the states.  Instead the job of preparation is supposed to be totally left up to the decentralized government through the individual states.

Because the country does best when the federal government is active in procuring and planning, and 45 did not announce, we are going to do it my way, we are seeing the devastation that this has brought to the country.  Governors and Mayors are scrambling to project how much/how many life saving equipment (both for the patients and for the front line health workers) will be needed and trying to find those things not only in the United States but around the world.  

Which is why China now owns us.  China is sending us supplies which gives them the great pleasure of having the United States of America over a barrel, so to speak.

The consequences of this lack of understanding the role of the different parts of the government where the role of government is valued as the place that cares for people….things as small and as hugely important as food stamps, the safety net, these things are being destroyed by this government that does not believe that government is good.

And people are dying. 

First thing then is a total lack of preparation for the work that was ahead.  A total ignorance of the flow chart.  Caring about and concern for only the “base”.  Even passing legislature that will harm the very people who, through the flawed Electoral College, voted him into office, and his “base” is still by his side.

On the subject of health care and the economic system the false façade has been pulled off of them and we can all see them for the glaring ugliness that they actually are. 

We have a for profit medical system in this country.  It is a disgrace to have our health care operate in this way.  The people who are responsible to shareholders are going to choose

the cheapest way to do medicine so that instead of having money go to the care of the people, the money lines the pockets of the rich shareholders.

The system is dysfunctional to an extreme degree by not having universal health care that is available to every person, citizen or not, who presides in this country, as well as those that are visiting. 

With the coronavirus that we are dealing with now as a country it is laid bare that there are people who have no way to pay for time in a hospital to heal from this disease without becoming so debt laden that they will be under the shadow of that debt for a very long time.  Measures have been passed legislatively to have testing for the virus covered by the government.  If I have no health insurance and the test comes back positive, what then? 

Emergency rooms have a legal obligation to treat anyone who comes to their doors, and then the person without health insurance will be billed for the services.

We are a society with classes.  We tout ourselves as being equal.  And we are not.

This, the inequality, is also clear in our economic system.  I have come to realize that I agree with Andrew Young, former presidential candidate in the Democratic political

party.  He is calling for a basic income that every person, except perhaps the 1%, would receive in order to obtain a sense of security in their lives.  I have read again and again these last few weeks that it is a privilege to be able to stay home/stay well.  Because of how our capitalist economic system is set up we have people who work in industries that do not provide health care, do not provide sick leave, and do not provide a living wage.  For a huge percentage of people in this country.

The decision was made that as a country we would allow the economy to take a hit in a way that we have not seen since the Great Depression in the twentieth century.  It seems to be a totally dualistic decision.  Either we continue to live as we always have and watch the death rate from this virus probably go into the millions of citizens.  Or we try to save lives and “flatten the curve” to allow less people to get sick at once and not overwhelm the healthcare system. 

The healthcare system is overwhelmed.  Unemployment is now into the millions.  Our economy is being devastated, but more than that, many human beings are being devastated.  The light is being shined upon the deep, festering dysfunction in a way of life that privileges some, and has no regard for others.

And we have a president that claims no responsibility at all.  He thinks that the states should have been doing the work of the federal government.

Because of course government is evil and the less intrusion into the lives of the people, the better. Including dismantling Environmental Protection Agency acts that were put in place by the 44th administration when Barak Obama was president.  Protecting the environment is government intrusion. It also is not lucrative for the industries that continue to make the wealthy, wealthy.

Robert Reich has said something to the effect of:  we are in a system where the majority are not well financially but the millionaires and billionaires are flourishing excellently.

So this is In My Opinion.  We need to be a little more a Socialist Democracy.  The system has to function for the poor as well as the rich.

Right now it does not.