12-19-2020, 11:26 AM
(12-19-2020, 07:56 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(12-19-2020, 07:37 AM)David Horn Wrote:(12-19-2020, 04:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... The current dialectic seems to be the red seeking to avoid change, the blue seeking to solve problems...
I honestly would like to believe this is true, but the signs seem to point elsewhere. Red is not opposed to change at all; in fact, they pushed some outrageous radical and reprehensible change under Trump (one of the primary reasons his followers love him). Change can be for the worse as well as the better. And Blue is looking more and more like throwbacks to some mythical model to faux perfection, wedded in process rather than progress. All the return-to-normal cheerleaders are out in the streets being their typical mild selves, advocating for more Clinton/Obama, as long as none of their toes get crushed.
If, as seems likely, Biden adds a Republican or two to his cabinet or the upper echelons of the West Wing, feel free to go back to sleep. We'll be in for a muddle.
I see the major issues of the crisis as being elitism, racism, sexism, environmentalism, COVID, and if the economy can be separated from elitism, that. Class structure is the key to the first three. We have a remnant of the Agricultural Age. Environmentalism is associated with the old belief that God gave the Earth to be exploited rather than it needing to be conserved. We have to grow beyond it. COVID can be lumped with being prepared for various natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, ocean rise and pandemics. Trump specifically is weak on the above. The idea that independent rural inhabitants can take care of whatever comes at them is the opposite theory. Urban folk start thinking of saving a whole city. Working together and having a plan seems a better solution.
What do you see as the crisis issues? I can agree to a nostalgia to get away from the Trump era, but if we are to try to build back better we have to move on.
Methinks you have been dwelling among the red too long.
Over on the 4T website I brought up an issue that doesn’t get nearly the coverage that it should, and that is the lack of affordable housing and how developers are hamstrung by restrictive zoning laws and homeowners associations.
Also feel it is time to legalize or at least decriminalize sex work. The PTB now should realize that prohibition of this activity hasn’t been any more successful than it was with liquor a century ago. And yet some sex workers themselves don’t want legalization because then they would have to start paying taxes on it.
Perhaps the legal drinking age should be lowered as well to bring us in line with the rest of the world. The US is just about the only place in the developed world where you have to be 21 to have a drink. And it is being enforced in a very draconian way. Where I live if you purchase alcohol products at the grocery, if the cashier is less than 21, he or she can’t even ring up the sale. A manager has to be called, thus holding up the lines.
I would also like to see us move away from a strict at will employment model towards a system where a just cause is needed for employers to fire somebody. Several years ago I wrote a book titled JUDAS TIMES SEVEN, which deals with the dark side of office politics. Should have become a best seller but didn’t have the necessary funds for prom and still don’t. Maybe if I win the lottery.
Will leave you with these four but I am sure there will be more.