"The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations."
-Bertolt Brecht
One benefit of the political collapse of the United States is that it provides a ready distraction from the frustrations of getting a new virtual office up-and-running. Trying to get my Go Daddy email account to work resulted in the loss of access to my Outlook account at D&S. And I still can't get 365, which I paid for, to host the new email account. But when I use the function on the Go Daddy page to send a test email from the new account to my gmail account, I receive the email.
And the guy who's supposed to be renting me a hive office in PC and help with webpage design and marketing has a bad habit of not returning calls or messages. My last day is a week from now. I have to have this stuff up-and-running. Wondering if I can just hire the firm's current IT vendor to do it for me. He always returns calls.
So it's a blessing to have all this political bad news, a man-made disaster that just keeps getting worse by the day. And the Spray-On Sun King has only been enthroned for five days.
Apparently half the federal government has been told to stay home, or if they accepted job offers they're finding those offers rescinded. Bad news if you're a smart law student who passed up a big firm job to accept an internship at DOJ. Really bad news if you're a nurse whose family is all packed up and ready to move to that job working with disabled vets at a VA facility, only to be told "just kidding!"
These folks voted for the guy, who then did exactly what he said he'd do. But that was all meant for some other victim, right? I can't help feeling a little schadenfreude at all this. I'm with the blogger--I hope this disabled veteran loses his house and his marriage, and ends up living under an overpass.
Meanwhile another friend in Texas, a lifelong secondary school educator with a raft of awards for teaching excellence, was on social media this morning correctly voicing concern that the voucher program being enacted in that state would gut the public schools, leaving behind only the kids who lacked the resources to get themselves to a private school and commit to the family participation those schools generally require. But I know her family, and they are all outspoken, virulent MAGA people.
There is, of course, a meme for all this, that's been around as long as the DJT political nightmare.
Yep, that's the one.
Their households vote against their own interests, over and over. So do we, when you think about it: Peg and I are white, older professionals (I almost wrote "middle aged", but let's get real here) with a nest egg. The 2017 tax cuts have been a boon for us, and extending them will benefit us even more. DEI does nothing for us. We'll be dead before the full effects of manmade climate change fully manifest. And yet we voted for the other side.
I think both we and the MAGA disabled vet would give the same explanation why we voted against our personal best interests--there are things that are more important. At the risk of sounding presumptuous about all that, I would posit that the discriminating factor that makes one act of self-sacrifice for the tribe more valid than the other is the fact that only one of us is living in a world of mostly objective truth. Sitting on the couch at Dad's house with Fox News blaring, I'm almost overwhelmed at the stream of misleading statements and outright lies in which the bubbly hosts marinate their audience, hour after hour. These middle and lower middle class folks who voted Elon Musk president are responding in what seems to them an ethical way because all they see and read is nonsense, all day long.
In other news, a ladybug alighted on the door to the home office in Corning this morning.
My understanding is that the arrival of a ladybug is a sign of good luck for as many years as there are spots on its back. This one seems like a particularly lucky omen, if that's the case. A ladybug on a 17 degree January morning in upstate New York. Truly miraculous.
Comments