The Coronavirus

[Eric the Green]

(06-14-2020, 10:14 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-13-2020, 01:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-13-2020, 07:39 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 06:25 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-12-2020, 02:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The ecological and global warming aspects CANNOT be left out of the blue agenda and the crisis resolution in this 4T. Science makes that clear. Solutions must be instituted in this 4T, or they will be too late. Even so, further push will be needed in the 2T and I agree with your prediction about it.

I strongly sympathize.  People are being disappointed in advance of Biden.  We don't know how he will balance the economy and the planet.  We don't know if his VP choice will step up.  Still, I can't see what other than ecology is on deck for the awakening.

Anyone?

Biden is a quintessential Silent.  He's all about pouring oil on troubled water, and a lot less about taking a stand.  Unfortunately, as desirable as his sympathetic position is, it mends the heart but has zero impact on actual problems. That said, you can't doubt that he's fully sincere.  Look at his personal history.  But he's not the right person to hold that job today.  Worse, it's looking more likely that his VP choice will be someone like him in focus: healing wounds, not building better institutions.  It will be a lost opportunity.

Again I remind you. You put too much stock in leaders. The leader will have to bend to the national will.

You assume there still is such a thing as national will.  I see a shattered system made up of groups of likeminded individuals, but few if any universal beliefs.  Coalescing that into a powerful whole is the work of leaders -- far too few in evidence at the moment.

It's true; it would be nice to have a good leader who could do this, and we don't seem to have one. I wonder if any leader could bring the factions on the left together into a focused alliance for this creative building.

The national will is divided between two nations, with some minority of folks not on either side. It will be up to the folks to see the connections, especially on our side. Meanwhile, even these groups will be separately pushing for change, and there will be some alliances. It can't be just the work of leaders, especially political leaders. FDR said to some labor leaders in the 1930s: "I agree with your cause; now go out and make me act on it." It's up to the people to push things forward, and then the leaders will follow. 

Even if the various causes are not seen by their advocates as part of a whole or an alliance; the leaders will be pushed on all fronts, because the problems won't go away, and people are rising up and not sitting back and giving up. The more-liberal candidates have been developing their item agenda list, as pushed by various groups and movements. Reversing climate change/new energy systems, equality and opportunity/shifting priorities, gun control, reforming the police, reclaiming democracy, nationally-effective health care for all. People are rising up about all these things and more. What unites these items, really, is to replace Reaganomics and the Southern Strategy with a people and community oriented agenda in a mixed economic system. We need Lincoln's prescription to be filled again, two saecula later. Government, not just "free enterprise," of, by and for ALL the people.

There is some evidence that Biden is being pushed. So, we'll see.