Tag: politics

To the younger generations

This is a note for the younger generations.
We’ve had 250 years of entitled white guys (with one notable exception) running things.
We are now at the pinnacle (or nadir, whichever you prefer).

In those 250 years, 230 of them have been war. We’ve had 20 years of peace. In 250 years.
The man currently in the White House is a crime boss, a rapist, and a conman. If you took every single horrible thought, cruel impulse, and twisted desire that men normally fight against and compressed them all into one man, it would be Donald Trump.

Rape culture is rampant; health care is only for the elite few, food and gas are becoming more and more scarce, the environment is turning inhabitable, and the nation is full of racism, distrust, ugliness, hatred, greed and lust.

The ones who have spoken out against it all the most effectively have been women. And now I even read about “Getting rid of liberal women” when they are the only ones keeping the slightest bit of sanity around us.

Truth has fallen in the street and equity cannot enter.
The president uses his words to cause riots and hatred and violence in the street.

To the younger generations. We’ve left you a mess. Old white guys have left you a crumbling ruin and they continue to desperately hang on to power long after they should be corpses. And we still aren’t sure how much of Mitch is still left.

It will take courage and compassion, and speaking as an old white guy, I would be glad to entrust this mess to those who would do far better than we did.

But now is the time to start and to take up the reins. Don’t let this election pass you by. Get out there and vote.

You have a choice all over the country. You won’t find perfection. You won’t find it anywhere.
But your choices are these: The same shit that has been poisoning us for decades – greed, racism, misogyny, rape culture, entitled power, madness and death.

Or those who will do their best to shore up what is left and leave a better world to the next generation.

The future belongs to you. Do you know that nasty uncle that you have to put up with at Thanksgiving, with the foul mouth, hateful words, stupidity and groping hands?
You can bet your ass he’s voting.

I say that it is time to quit allowing him to elect our leaders.
Get out and vote. We can do better.

Delays in Healthcare?

“If we do universal healthcare, we’ll have to wait MONTHS to get an appointment!”

Have you heard that one?
I have a few answers.

First, we wait months NOW. By taking away the power of the mega corporations who now control access, we will actually shorten wait times and travel distance.

When a corporation makes a decision about opening a clinic or hospital, or whether to keep on open, they make the decision based on the bottom line. What decision will put the most money into the pockets of the share-holders.

The wait times and quality of care don’t enter into their discussion unless it affects the bottom line. If massive layoffs of nurses, closing rural clinics, and cutting staff makes sense to the bottom line, that is what they will do.

If they decide to put one RN on the whole floor and staff the rest with CNAs, that is what they will do.

Imagine taking that power away from the corporation, and putting it in the hands of elected boards and experts who make decisions based upon quality care?

Second, The assumption is that when healthcare doesn’t cost the people, but is universal – then the masses will want healthcare and that will bog down the system.

You can see the minds of people working. A white man has to wait for care, and he sees the brown people and the black people in the waiting room. His mind will go to blame, but he puts the blame in the wrong place.
Rather than blame the system of healthcare that we have in this country, he resorts to his racism. “If it weren’t for THESE people clogging up the system, I’d be in and out.”

Yes, I’ve actually heard that. The assumption is that POC of indigenous people, or Mexican people don’t deserve quality healthcare. Their children aren’t as important as mine. They’re all freeloaders.

Or perhaps the poor mother, whose kid is sick and she has to go to the ER or clinic because she can’t afford anywhere else. Will we just call her a freeloader, or a “welfare queen”?

Inherent in all these ideas is that there are some people more deserving of healthcare than other people.
Whether it is white people, male people, employed people, healthy people, people with money – however you want to divide the country up. One group deserves healthcare. The other does not.

I reject the idea that some people do not deserve healthcare. This is why I support universal, free healthcare. Whether a child lives or dies should not be based upon whether that child is in the “in” group or the “out group”.

The fact that a person is human and worthy of inherent dignity is enough for them to deserve access to healthcare.

“All humans are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

This ideal has not been realized, either in 1776, or today. But throughout our history there have been “progressives” who believe in making “progress” towards that goal.

They have almost always been mistakenly called socialists. Lies travel faster than truth.

But I am honored to count myself as among them.

The myth of the “lazy liberal”

“Why don’t liberals just get jobs”

This lie has been spread since Reagan’s racist “Welfare queens” comment.

It has about as much truth as Haitians eating pets.

Six months after 1-6, a man told me that it couldn’t have been conservatives rioting. “They all have jobs. It’s the liberals that don’t have jobs.”

But lies aren’t harmless. They cause untold suffering and pain.

It was the lies about immigrants that inflicted brutal, untrained thugs with military weapons on our civilians.
And it was the lies about “welfare queens” and “lazy libs” that is causing our economic collapse.

We fight the lies, then we build a better Minnesota.

I’ve been in human resources and management for most of my life. I have never met these “lazy liberals”. Almost everyone I meet is desperate to work, eager to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

No one ever wants to spend a day in the unemployment office. They aren’t there because they are lazy. They are there because they are desperate.

And it is also true that people get discouraged – they have to work two or three jobs to keep healthcare, or get the medicine they need, or afford gasoline or daycare. And they watch as the companies they slave for get richer and richer.

The solution is NOT to starve people into compliance. The solution is to create healthy environments where humans thrive, have time to take a weekend off, can afford to go out for dinner every once in a while, and keep a roof over their heads without fear.

I propose:
Universal healthcare. If billions aren’t lining the pockets of the insurance companies and health conglomerates, it can go back into labor, saving money for everyone.

Free childcare for working families. The biggest hindrance I see, especially for women, is the cost of childcare. We can fix that and both business and workers can focus on other things knowing that the children are cared for.

Mandatory paid days to care for sick children. You shouldn’t have to lose your job when your child gets sick.

We can create a far better Minnesota for everyone, but it will take courage to go up against the billionaires who won’t give up without a fight.

Unregulated Business and Death

In the study of economics, there is a concept called “neoliberalism”, not to be confused with left wing politics, also sometimes called “liberalism”.

Neoliberalism is the economic system that we have been operating under for decades. It was theorized by Friedman and Hayek, and others, and championed by Reagan.

The idea is that if the markets are completely free from regulation and government interference (liberal=free), then corporations will thrive and the effects of that will “trickle down” to consumers.

The problem is that they didn’t take into account corporate greed. Corporations are made up of people, and people who run them and make decisions are answerable to shareholders who demand more and more, even if it is counter-intuitive.

Look at the history of industrialism. A corporation will NEVER do what is in the best interest of its employees unless they are forced to.
They had to be forced by law and by unions to pay overtime, to provide days off, to make the workplaces safe, to pay a minimum wage – and more recently, to provide healthcare, paid leave, family leave and so on.

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in Manhattan caught fire. It was on the top floor of a large building. It employed mostly immigrant women.

To keep the women from “escaping”, the owners locked the door.
146 people, mostly women and girls, burned to death or jumped out the window and plummeted to their death. People stood in shock on the sidewalks and watched their neighbors die brutal and agonizing deaths. It marked a change in the awareness of the public, similar to watching ICE thugs terrorize neighborhoods.

As we remember 9/11, let’s also remember the results of unregulated capitalism. The women that died didn’t affect the owners at all. Immigrant labor was cheap and replaceable.

But one woman who watched in horror from the sidewalk later became the Secretary of Labor for FDR and brought about the changes in the workforce that the current capitalists are now trying to dismantle. Her name was Francis Perkins.

In our own day, the deregulation of corporations is leading to bankrupt cancer patients, poisoned food supply, massive poverty and unemployment and record high prices.

I believe in and support business. But I also know that unscrupulous men generally move up the ladder to places of power and use that power to consolidate power and wealth into the hands of the few.

Business MUST be regulated to thrive. If employees are healthy, paid a living wage, have access to healthcare and are safe, the company will prosper.

But the unscrupulous men who hold the power would rather have the extra billions.

So they cut wages, cut labor, cut equipment costs, lock the fire escapes, and do whatever they can get away with.

Until the people say “ENOUGH.”

I’m saying “enough”. If the Federal Government refuses to regulate the safety and equity of our businesses, the state MUST do it or we are right back to 1911.

Study history. It might help.