* And speaking of The Doors, it's Sunday morning, ya know? I wonder, is anyone else out there thinking they could do a better job of governing the planet than God? I think there should be. And I'm not talking about psychopaths and sociopaths who wanna be a Big Boss and wanna conquer the world. I'm talking just nice folks who would like to lessen human suffering. As the Hedonistic Revered Jim intones in the title song, "Soft Parade": "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!" Or maybe God just says Nope, no will do. Which again brings me back to my question. I think many of us would be far kinder, would not hide behind clouds, or such nonsense. So when we are praying over this holiday season, maybe confront God with his crappy earth management. Way too much suffering and hate out there. Just come down and talk to us for once and tell us to be nicer to each other, will ya? Kurt Vonnegut understood. So did Ian Anderson, when he sang He's not the type you have to "wind up on Sundays."
* I have always wondered how many people lie on applications to get into "undecided" focus groups. I think it is more than we are led to believe by people such as the notorious right wing pollster, Frank Luntz. This focus group for the December 19, 2019 Democratic Party debate supposedly showed only six supporting Sanders before the debate, and suddenly, 14 like him. And what people think of themselves as moderate or liberal or conservative becomes murky really quickly when specific issues are argued. What I think some people in the Democratic Party are starting to realize is Bernie is not running a campaign. He is creating a movement and mobilizing people. He is following the labor organizer's credo: Educate, Agitate, and Organize. It was Bernie's closing statement to millions of viewers at the end of last Thursday's debate. It is this strategy tat scares upper middle class professional and managerial types who dominate corporate media executive suites and punditry.
* I have always wondered how many people lie on applications to get into "undecided" focus groups. I think it is more than we are led to believe by people such as the notorious right wing pollster, Frank Luntz. This focus group for the December 19, 2019 Democratic Party debate supposedly showed only six supporting Sanders before the debate, and suddenly, 14 like him. And what people think of themselves as moderate or liberal or conservative becomes murky really quickly when specific issues are argued. What I think some people in the Democratic Party are starting to realize is Bernie is not running a campaign. He is creating a movement and mobilizing people. He is following the labor organizer's credo: Educate, Agitate, and Organize. It was Bernie's closing statement to millions of viewers at the end of last Thursday's debate. It is this strategy tat scares upper middle class professional and managerial types who dominate corporate media executive suites and punditry.
* And there is this moment Andrew Yang shared about Bernie. Precious. As readers of mine know, I adore the ida of a universal basic income, and have stressed the need to begin to separate income from work. Rich people have done that millennia and do it through today. Some become wastrels, others find causes to become involved in that sometimes benefit humanity, and others continue to do work of some sort or another. It would not be much different if there was a good UBI for every person in the US. My concern about Yang's proposal is telling people they can't have food stamps if they take UBI. My other concern is, are we ready for a 10% value added tax, which is essentially a sales tax? Where I depart from him is also about timing. We need a major push for infrastructure redevelopment, as the Army Corps of Engineers keep reminding us every year. It is up to over $4 trillion, and many of the jobs to be done cannot be done with robots or drones. We need people. And with the decline in birth rate to levels that may be demographically catastrophic from various perspectives, we will need people to do these jobs. So Bernie's job guarantee makes more immediate sense than Yang's UBI proposal. Bernie stands for increasing benefits and increasing the poverty line that is currently at just over $12,000 a year, which is certainly not enough in most places where people live. I think Bernie is more practical--funny, that--but Yang's ideas about Democracy Dollars, privacy rights, and other proposals have great merit. It is too bad Yang speaks too much like Elon Musk about nuclear energy, self-driving commercial trucks, and the like. That stuff ain't feasible without big risks to the environment (nuke power) and we are way far away from self-driving commercial trucks.
* Sam Seder and Michael Moore give better commentary in about 12 minutes altogether than two weeks' of cable news punditry. And next time we consider stereotypes regarding military personnel, remember the chart in this link from Foreign Policy magazine from last month. It is likely growing for Sanders. Sanders has more than double the donations than the military vet Mayor Pete (Mayor Pete is in second place) and nearly triple the donations Trump has received from military personnel.
* I love these holiday conversation starters. Watching heads of my fellow Baby Boomers and the addled Oldsters explode is as important as carving the turkey. Tommy Siegel may be my new favorite political cartoonist. :)
* The big news in corporate media has been the two editorials from places not deemed to be liberal left bastions: An official editorial from Christianity Today, a major evangelical publication, and the second, from a senior editor at National Review, Bill Buckley's magazine. Both call for Trump's impeachment and removal. Now, one may say, wait a minute. These folks would be ecstatic with President Pence. That is why I am glad Schiff is willing to continue investigating Pence for his involvement in the Ukraine scandal. Pence should have known better, but showed his true Dominionist ends-justify-the-means mindset. He is the fruit of a poisonous tree and should also be removed.
* My frustration grows with Krystal Ball and others who are more firmly anti-anti-Trump. It is possible to decide, even by oligopolist standards, what Trump continues to do and how Trump continues to behave is not good for American society or any remaining positive norms our Founders bequeathed to our continent. And this in the face of significant numbers of Americans in favor of removing Trump from office. It is not that Ball is wrong, as yes, MSDNC and CNN are wall-to-wall about impeachment and impeachment related stuff. However, it is at least theoretically possible to focus on more than one thing at a time. It is, though, naive of anti-anti-Trumpers, including Ball, sadly, to think corporate media will suddenly find time to talk about income inequality and labor strikes if there was no impeachment proceeding going on. Corporate media will talk about guns, abortion, immigrants and anything else they can find to avoid such structurally based analysis and arguments about the economy or climate change's relationship to the elite powers who govern the nation and the world. So the argument that we should not impeach Trump falls apart as badly as Trump's defenders' attempts to avoid admitting what Trump himself already admits about his own conduct. Impeaching Trump is part of a larger solution. It does not vindicate the system, though we would hear a lot of that nonsense, just as we did in 1974 after Nixon resigned. It doesn't change the singular fact Trump is a danger to what remains of our republic.
