Just in Time for Halloween, the Republicans Cornered the Market on Hell

It’s been a hell of a week for civil society, the rule of law, women, the vulnerable among us, the qualities of compassion and empathy, and any hope we might have for narrowing economic inequality. As always, the Republicans, both elected and not, jumped on their high horses, grabbed their metaphorical lances, and brought hell to their fellow citizens. 

So far, none of them has pleaded that the devil made them do it, but one does have to wonder. 

Let’s make a little list of their transgressions, shall we?

1. Our right-wing Dept. of Health and Human Services, supported by the courts (through the opinion of two Republicans judges), blocked an immigrant teenager who is currently held in a detention center, from getting a legal abortion. Instead, they made sure she had anti-abortion counseling, an ultrasound and enough legal stalling to risk that she will be forced to give birth when the deadline for an abortion passes. 
2. Trump told a grieving widow of a black soldier, “her guy” "knew what he signed up for”. He promised another grieving father $25,000 for his loss, then didn’t send the check.
3. The Congress has passed a budget “framework” that will lead to their appalling tax cut proposal, which will further increase both economic inequality and the national debt.
4. Betsy DeVos, the incompetent idealogue who runs the Dept. of Education, has gone after regulations that support students with disabilities.
5. Trump continued his full-blown attack on the ACA and the less fortunate among us who rely on it for health care coverage.

There was more …. but this, from the Republican electorate, took the cake:

"Many Trump voters who got hurricane relief in Texas aren’t sure Puerto Ricans should”, declared a headline from the Washington Post.

And why would this be? Well, it seems only some of us humans are actually deserving of help.

“Guess what? There’s a big chunk of the population that lives without electricity all the time,” Ramirez said, saying she was sharing the experiences of a friend who has family on the island. 

Hogg, 76, nodded his head in agreement: “They never had it. Never had it.” 

“They don’t live deprived, because it’s a beautiful environment,” she continued. “The weather is nice, the climate is good most of the time, so it’s different from here . . . It works there because of the climate. It wouldn’t work here.” 

About 96 percent of Puerto Rico’s electricity customers had service before Maria made landfall, according to federal data; many of the rest had no power because of Hurricane Irma two weeks earlier.

Sounds an awful lot like "Those slaves sure had it good! They had free room and board and good weather to work in!" Several voters interviewed, made sure to pledge their continued devotion to the president and their resolve to elect him again. Their opinions were clear: People, even those in the mainlaind U.S. who have recently suffered, have themselves to blame if they couldn’t afford flood insurance, had no resources to pull themselves through, or by implication, were the wrong color. When one woman suggested that Puerto Ricans should move to the mainland where there was better infrastructure, her husband countered that they should stay right where they were and “fix their own country up”.

The callousness, the denial of government’s legitimate role to help its suffering citizens, the enforcement of religious beliefs on all when others may not share them, is a stark reminder of what the last election exposed and legitimized. A significant number of our fellow citizens are unfeeling, brutal defenders of the belief that they are better than “those people”, that there is a bright line between the deserving (them) and the ones who aren’t. They are compelled to ensure that the rest of us know which side of the line we live on; their commitment to community extends only to those who live in the red zone, not the blue one. And that zone is defined not by your state but by your worthiness as a person. And a whole hell of a lot of us are not worthy.

If I believed in hell, I’d be praying hard that the whole lot of them end up there. They are sure willing to assign the rest of us to perdition, both here on earth or in some make believe world below our feet. And just like the Borg, they are doing their best to ensure that "Resistance is futile".    

Ominous- A Passover Reflection

I've been consumed with taxes and now Passover, so while I've been thinking about a series of posts, there has been no time to write one. But today, while eating my heart-healthy oats, I watched the video below. Frankly, it scared me to death ...not a good way to start a day of cooking for my favorite holiday.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So, what does this have to do with Passover?

Passover celebrates freedom, rebirth, the strength we gained by facing adversity as a community. It is a story of perserverence...40 years of wandering the desert, trying to find our purpose and a philosophy that could guide a community of souls. The story starts with our journey to Egypt, looking for a place to farm and survive. Little did we know that slavery awaited us. In time, we were led out of slavery by a quiet man who mobilized us to flee in search of a life of freedom...and responsibility as well (remember those Ten Commandments we picked up along the way?). There are many lessons to be learned around the Seder table and I love exploring all of them.

Passover always falls close to the celebration of Earth Day...a reminder of our obligation to provide stewardship over the planet G-d entrusted to us. We are betraying that trust. We cannot be free, or strong, or worthy of G-d's faith in us if we continue to care more about our material life than we do about the future of humanity as a species. The Earth is melting. Literally. And it's melting fast...far faster than anyone anticipated. It seems that each month we hear about revised estimates to doom. It terrifies me. Using the human body as an analogy, I know only too well how quickly biological systems can shift, shut down, run amok ...with rapid death ensuing. One minute, the clinicians think there is time enough... and the next minute they are calling time of death. We are lousy at realistic projections of calamity in part because our understanding is limited and in part because the denial gene is so powerful. But systems march on, oblivious to our human flaws, living out their own destiny.

This Passover, I pray that all humanity wakes up. Fast. We cannot arm-wrestle over the wisdom of cap-and-trade, limits on emissions, shutting down coal-fired plants. We cannot sustain our current lifestyles. Period.

I'm not sure that we are smart enough, or wise enough, or courageous enough. But I pray, nonetheless.

Economic Blind Faith

Paul Krugman wrote a column today titled, "Financial Policy Despair". Reading it sure didn't cheer me up, though the market was expected to open 'up' today. What does it mean that when my most trusted economist gets depressed, the markets rebound?

Makes sense, when you think about it. Krugman, and some other economists who have zero interest vested in 'the way things are', continue to feel increasing despair over the Obama/Geithner management team. It's clear to me that the market has ceased to reflect anything meaningful regarding the true state of the economy. Translate -- whether or not the majority of Americans are going to hang on through all of this. Instead, it's a barometer of how confident Wall Street is that the Big Boys will recover their gold. And when the Big Boys are happy, a chill starts to trickle through me.

I supported Obama. I had great hope and I'm trying hard to hang on to all those good feelings I had when he won the election. He wasn't my first choice because I believed he didn't have a solid vision nor the requisite personality traits to play hardball. Hillary was my choice, and I'm still convinced she would have provided stronger and more progressive leadership. But I have stood behind Obama because for all our flaws as Democrats, and Obama's flaws in particular, we can't afford Republicans running things any time soon.

But now I'm really, really worried. First, for the economic near- and long-term. Here in Kansas City, local job losses are mounting. It's much worse than I expected -- unemployment at 8.2% and growing. The worst-case scenarios being played out are nearly immobilizing in their implications. Much more stimulus money is going to be needed, but that's at risk as Obama listens to people deeply embedded in the Wall Street mentality.

Secondly, if Obama's policies fail -- and I think the risk of that is growing -- then the Democrats will be in deep difficulty politically at the mid-term elections. That will compromise any other transformative change we need to make in this country. Health care and the environment will be in even greater peril.

I haven't yet figured out how to influence any of this. I feel completely impotent. The best I can do is plan and work towards personal and community-based survival strategies that help us weather the deeper crash that may yet lie ahead. Let's hope our communal creativity won't be tested.