Western Democracies

Democrats Need To Go On The Offensive, Play Hardball, If They Are To Keep Control In Congress In 2022!

admin Leave a comment

The Democratic Party has a history of staying cordial, pleasant, and being unwilling to go on the offensive and play hardball.

The Republican Party, historically, and conservatives in general, are always on the offensive, play nasty and dirty, and love to stir emotions of fear and scare as regular tactics.

This was true even before the age of Donald Trump, using the words “Socialism”, “Communism”, “Liberalism”, and “Progressivism” as code words to keep uneducated and ill informed voters to support a party that only truly cares about corporations and the wealthy, and is excellent as “pulling the wool over one’s eyes”, about what is truth, facts, and reality.

From the age of Joseph McCarthy, through Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and on to Donald Trump, their strategy and tactics have been to manipulate and deceive Americans to think they are the true party of the average Americans, which is furthest from reality.

So Democrats must become more aggressive, and go on the attack, not just against Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole, as a threat to American democracy and the rule of law.

And they must emphasize the details of what they are doing with their “Build Back Better” agenda, the most advanced programs since the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson.

The “Build Back Better” programs will have a dramatic effect on everyday life for tens of millions of Americans, long overdue to make the lives of average Americans along the lines of other Western democracies in Europe, Canada, and Australia!

The Economy Over Character And Morality: The Typical Trump Supporter

Ronald 59 Comments

It is very disconcerting that a large percentage of Donald Trump supporters admit they do not like his tweets; wish he would stop uttering a lot of his controversial comments and promotion of divisiveness; and yet still support him, all because of the stock market being up, and their 401 Ks being better, and many wealthy people getting massive tax cuts.

So economics, the evil of money, dominates them, and if Trump takes us into a war; or is destroying environmental laws; or undermining consumer protections; or is flirting with authoritarian leaders; or is destroying our traditional alliances with democracies; or is threatening civil liberties and civil rights; or is mistreating migrant children and undermining their physical and emotional health long term; or is out to destroy all regulations of corporate practices; or is turning our court system back to the Gilded Age; or is working to destroy all the good that came out of the New Deal of FDR and the Great Society of LBJ; well, that is not important as long as one’s economic prosperity is greater.

The fact that the economy being in good shape is due to the amazing revival under Barack Obama, and would most certainly have continued under Hillary Clinton, is often denied by such people. And they clearly do not give a damn what happens to the nation, as long as they, personally, are doing well economically. Nothing else matters, as this is a case of ME, MYSELF and I, and nothing else.

So character and morality and the harm being done to America does not matter as long as one is economically better off personally, so to hell with what is good for America!

What could be more despicable than that? But remember, a similar mentality existed in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and look what it led to!

Capital Punishment In Oklahoma And Arizona: Obscene, Barbaric And MUST End Nationally!

Ronald 2 Comments

The issue of capital punishment is always controversial, but with the reality that support for it is declining, and it is becoming much more difficult for states which allow capital punishment to gain the appropriate drugs to be administered, so as to avoid violation of the Eighth Amendment, “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”!

We have now witnessed the obscene and barbaric use of a mixed cocktail of drugs which set up what is barred–botched executions in Oklahoma a few weeks ago, and now today, in Arizona!

The inmate who was executed in Oklahoma took 40 excruciating moments to die, and today, it took two hours for the inmate in Arizona to die!

This is totally unacceptable, and the whole concept of capital punishment itself is despicable, and MUST end nationally, as it does not deter crime, and too many people are executed who have been on death row, a situation in which many have been exonerated of their crimes by DNA evidence!

But even if a criminal is truly guilty, the idea that America allows capital punishment when only a few nations do so, including China and Iran, makes us stand out as uncivilized, as compared to other western democracies in the world!

Governors Mary Fallin of Oklahoma and Jan Brewer of Arizona should be condemned for their hardline stand, amazing even more so in that to imagine women authorizing unconstitutional “experiments” with unknown cocktails of drugs is to make one wish to vomit!

It does not take courage, but rather lack of humanity, for these two GOP Governors to have allowed such a despicable example of violation of the Constitution of the United States!

Many Significant Anniversaries In 2014

Ronald 1 Comment

As we enter the year 2014, we are reminded that many significant anniversaries, that have affected America and the world at large, are being celebrated this year.

In 1689, 325 years ago, we had the Glorious Revolution in England, which ended absolute monarchy and established the rule of Parliament, and the promotion of the English Bill of Rights, all of which would become the model for the American Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

In 1789, 225 years ago, we had the French Revolution’s beginning, with its promotion of the concepts of liberty and equality, and it would affect the concept of revolutions in other nations over time, and also advocate the concept of popular sovereignty and democracy.

In 1914, 100 years ago, we saw the beginnings of the First World War, which would kill over 8 million people, bring about America’s first major international engagement, and lead to the rise of Communism in the Soviet Union, Fascism in Italy, and Nazism in Germany, all leading to World War II.

In 1939, 75 years ago, we had the beginnings of a war that caused even greater loss of life and property damage, World War II, and would see the horrors of the Holocaust, and the rise of America to leadership of the free world against the Soviet menace, and the beginnings of the Cold War.

In 1989, 25 years ago, we would see the end of the half century Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, led by the United States, with the Berlin Wall symbol, which had been built in 1961, suddenly coming to a dramatic end, and the liberation of the Eastern European nations which had been part of the Soviet Empire, followed by the fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.

We will see a lot of attention paid to these anniversaries this year, particularly the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War, as they have shaped so much of world history and American history in the past century!