19th Century

The Survival Of America As We Know It Depends On A Massive “Blue Wave” This November!

Ronald 2 Comments

Donald Trump has thrown down the gauntlet, in informing Congressional Republicans that they should abandon any legislation on immigration until after the “Red Wave” he predicts is coming in the midterm elections of 2018 this November.

God forbid any such “Red Wave”, which would defy history, as the record shows the party in the White House always loses seats in the first midterm election after a President has been inaugurated, with the one major exception being FDR and the Democrats in 1934, but Donald Trump is no FDR!

If people stay home and do not vote, or if people continue to believe the lies of Donald Trump and the Republicans, then we as a nation, not those of us who care, but everyone else, will get what they deserve–a return to the 19th century Gilded Age before federal government played a role in the lives of the American people.

It will mean the end of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, labor laws, environmental legislation, consumer protections. civil rights for minorities, women, gays and lesbians, and the disabled, and the loss of the Bill of Rights.

We will live in a nation controlled by the super wealthy in every sense, and we will be influenced by autocrats in Russia and other totalitarian dictatorships, and we will be threatened by the loss of our traditional foreign allies, and we will face dire poverty after a Great Depression that would make the 1930s depression look like a minor event.

Some reading this might think I am using hyperbole, but seriously, even if one thinks they have heard this before, the reality is as follows: There is no more crucial election for the long term future of our nation than this midterm election.

The Democrats are far from perfect but even many conservative commentators, such as Jennifer Rubin, George Will, David Frum, Bret Stephens, Steve Schmidt, among others, have repudiated the Republican Party and Donald Trump, and warn us of the need to kick the Republicans out of control of both houses of Congress, and many state governorships and legislatures.

Donald Trump is the most dangerous person in American history, and the process to start taking away his destructive influence is NOT to say it is hopeless, and why bother voting?

It is, rather, that if we do not fight for our future, then there is no future!

Rural, Blue Collar, Poorly Educated Vs Urban, Suburban, White Collar, Well Educated: The 19th Century Vs. The 21st Century

Ronald 11 Comments

After the British vote to leave the European Union, and the support that Donald Trump has gained in the United States, one thing is very clear!

We are in the midst of a revolt of the rural, blue collar, poorly educated against the urban, suburban, white collar, well educated who promote modernization and tolerance on the issue of immigration and race.

It was urban Londoners against the rural parts of England who voted to exit Europe, as it is the major urban centers and surrounding suburbs of America against the hinterland of Appalachia, the rural South, the Great Plains and the Mountain West, who love Donald Trump.

It is really nostalgia for the 19th century against the modernization of the 21st century, and a desire to isolate oneself from outside influences and nations.

The effort must be made to prevent the narrow mindedness of what happened in the United Kingdom from spreading, like a disease, to the United States in this year’s election.

All progressives must unite around Hillary Clinton and help to shape her progressive agenda, assuredly more than under her husband, Bill Clinton, in the 1990s!

The False Glamor Of Secession: The “Red” States, Quebec, And Scotland

Ronald 15 Comments

The concept of secession has become a key word in society when there are discontented people who somehow believe central government in a democracy is evil, because it will not allow them to pursue their prejudices.

So we have, more in the past than right now, the glamor of secession that has been promoted by French speaking Quebec to overcome the English influence in the rest of Canada, although Quebec would be in very poor economic shape if it did secede.

We also have the move for Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom, breaking away from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but in reality, that would impoverish Scotland.

And then we have the “Red” states, particularly those in the South, but also including the Southwest and the Great Plains, who dream of secession, mourning the failure of secession during the Civil War.

And yet, it is these “Red” states that are, by far, the poorest states in America, and get loads of benefits from the national government that they profess to hate!

It seems more the reality that these people living in the “Red” states who wish secession are purely ignorant, lack education, and have no clue as to how much they benefit from the federal government, so they are spiting themselves with their own stubbornness.

But really, what it comes down to is that they resent the inability to discriminate freely against African Americans, Latinos, women, and gays, due to federal laws and intervention by federal courts.

These states claim to be “devout” and “religious”, but actually are far from being so, as they lack all ethics and morals that true religion teaches!

These states have many people who wish the 19th century was back, when men dominated women, whites dominated over African Americans, and a small plantation elite controlled all government, much of it in the national government, until that “evil” man, Abraham Lincoln, came along and reasserted the basic teachings of the Founding Fathers, that this was a nation of freedom, liberty, and justice, even though many of the Founding Fathers practiced hypocrisy and deception themselves, but knew it was wrong! The Civil Rights Movement had begun with the end of slavery, a long, hard fought battle still being waged!

Lincoln opened up a new concept of America, and he would see leaders in the 20th century, including Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson assert federal authority in the manner of Lincoln, revolutionizing the two political parties. The Democrats would become the Republicans of the Civil War in principle, and the Republicans would become the old, prejudiced Southern Democrats, fighting against equal opportunity and justice.

Meanwhile, the people of the “Red” states became victims, who were appealed to on the basis of fundamentalist religion, which had worked against integration of the races, and wanted to keep women down in a subservient position, and worked against promotion of equality for gays and lesbians, even though they had such people in their own midst, preaching one thing and conducting their lives as the opposite, pure hypocrisy!

Once the struggling people of the “Red” states realize they have been victimized by religious and political propaganda, the Republican Party will be as dead as a doornail, as it is a party based on pure hypocrisy and lack of basic principles of the party they created 160 years ago!

1912–Triumph Of Progressivism! 2012–Triumph Of Progressivism!

Ronald 2 Comments

A century apart, America veered to the left, and we had a triumph of progressivism both in 1912 and 2012!

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Eugene Debs, and even, to some extent, William Howard Taft, promoted an agenda that would set the standard for the future New Deal and Great Society and ObamaCare.

Now, in 2012, we have institutionalized the New Deal, Great Society, and ObamaCare for the future; and we have seen more women elected to the House and Senate than ever before; we have seen openly gay candidates win in the Senate and House and in local races; we have seen the first Buddhist Senator and Hindu House member from Hawaii elected; we have seen labor help elect a whole group of progressive Democratic Senators across the nation; we have seen Hispanics and Latinos play a major role in politics; we have seen a more progressive House and Senate emerge; we have seen Barack Obama given political capital to bring about greater change in his second term; we have seen the Supreme Court preserved as a balanced body for the long term; we have seen the progressive vision of TR, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, even Nixon and Ford, Carter, and Clinton preserved and enhanced; and we have seen a repudiation of an interventionist foreign policy , as under the neoconservative influence during the Presidency of George W. Bush.

America is moving forward into the 21st century, just as in 1912, we moved forward into the 20th century. We have repudiated, in 1912 and 2012, returning to the 19th century!

If Only: The 68th Birthday of Senator Paul Wellstone, If He Had Not Been Killed In Plane Crash In 2002!

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Minnesota blessed the nation when they elected progressive Paul Wellstone to the US Senate in 1990, as he became one of the very best US Senators in American history, speaking for the average American in his nearly twelve years serving his constituents and the country at large. He demonstrated courage, as when he voted against giving authority to President George W. Bush to intervene in Iraq.

Tragically, he was killed in a small plane crash in October 2002, while campaigning for re-election, and his death shocked the nation and this author, who burst into tears upon hearing the tragic news! He was one of my all time favorite political leaders!

Wellstone might have been a Presidential candidate in the future, had he not had his life tragically cut short.

On today, what would have been his 68th birthday, we should honor his memory, and dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of his dreams to make the nation a better place, fighting the good fight against those who wish to take America backward to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century!

Too Much Government On All Levels? The Truth Is Quite Different!

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Conservatives LOVE to tell the American people that government at all levels is too large, too overwhelming, and that we do not need as much government as we have had, despite the constantly growing population of the United States, now at about 313 million and counting!

The argument is that government has multiplied at all levels, but that is absolutely NOT the truth!

On the federal level, we have about 4.4 million government workers, only slightly up from 4.3 million a few years earlier.

On the state and local level, there are about 14 million people who work for governments, down slightly from a few years earlier.

Realize that if you add the total number of federal employees to the number of state and local employees, it is about 19 million, which is about SIX percent of the total population, actually slightly less!

Also realize that federal employees are only about 1.5 percent of the population, and only one fourth of the total number of government workers.

Also realize that the majority of state and local government employees are in education, health care, police protection and corrections, with many others in firefighting and sanitation services.

Also, not all government employees at any level are full time, so the part timers do not gain the kind of health care and pension coverage of full time workers.

Also, about 2 million people are in the federal government civilian work force, with an additional almost 600,00 in the postal service, and a little less than 2 million in the military and security fields.

Are we willing to cut our military, or not get the mail delivered, or believe that two thirds of one percent of the population is too much for civilian federal government services?

Are we willing to cut in large numbers our teachers, health care personnel, police officers and prison guards, firefighters, sanitation workers, and the numerous other classifications of state and local workers who make our lives better in so many ways?

In other words, it is time to stop acting as if there is too much bureaucracy on the federal, state and local levels, as the number of government workers is TOO FEW, not too many, for a society of 313 million people, and continuing to grow rapidly!

This is the 21st century, not the 18th or 19th century, when populations were small. We cannot go back to the “good old days”, which were not, by the way, all that good!

Newt Gingrich Favors Bringing Back Child Labor To America! Is He For Real?

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Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the present frontrunner in some polls for the Republican Presidential nomination, has come out for the revival of child labor for children under the age of 14-16, as a way to promote the work ethic and earn some money.

Suggesting that younger children be employed to clean the schools they attend, replacing union employed janitors, Gingrich said it would promote pride in their schools and encourage learning for poor children. He called the present child labor laws, passed in 1938 under the Fair Labor Standards Act, “stupid”!

Imagine this, after a century of child labor laws, first passed on the national level under President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1920s, and then finally established under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Newt Gingrich wants to go back to the days of children younger than 14 working and supporting their families, which aged them rapidly, caused dropouts from school, and denied them their childhood to have fun, to learn, to play, to grow up, before going to work as mid teenagers.

It has been shown that many high school students who work do poorly in school, and often drop out at age 16 or 17 without graduating high school, which just guarantees low income and poverty for the long haul of their lives.

Newt Gingrich stands for the “sweat labor” conditions of factories and mines in Great Britain and the United States, before social justice brought about the idea that children under 14 should not be acting as if they were adults, and should be encouraged to get an education.

While it is true that work never hurt anyone, it is outrageous and disgraceful that we should be advocating a return to the 19th century and early 20th century of the Industrial Age in the 21st century!

Have we come this far to go backwards and make for a class of poor children who will, effectively, be “serfs” for our schools, and making far less than the minimum wage?

It is obscene that Gingrich would have the gall to propose such a harsh idea, particularly for one who has never known what it is to work hard, other than to bloviate ad infinitum about his own virtues, and to make a career of promoting division and turmoil in his quest for wealth and attention from the American people!