We should ship all #AR-15 style guns to #Ukraine. They urgently need military grade weapons. Perhaps the #GOP could coordinate shipping?
“No parent should drop their kid off at school and then need a DNA test to ID which child is their child because they have been blown to pieces by an AR 15.” – David Hogg
Bazookas, howitzers, or machine guns are banned. Those arms are dangerous and solely useful for military purposes. AR-15 style assault weapons should be included in this group. Common sense would rule if it weren’t for the efforts of the NRA and the GOP.
“Unrestricted access to deadly weapons is a political choice, and we should say it.”
Paul Krugman
Article V of the Constitution provides two ways to propose amendments to the document. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress, through a joint resolution passed by a two-thirds vote, or by a convention called by Congress in response to applications from two-thirds of the state legislatures.
The men who wrote the Constitution wanted the amendment process to be difficult. They believed that a long and complicated amendment process would help create stability in the United States. Because it is so difficult to amend the Constitution, amendments seem like they are permanent. BUT AMENDMENTS BE CHANGED. The Constitution provides the way.
“When are we going to do something?”
Hypocrisy anyone? Guns are banned during Trump’s upcoming speech at the NRA conference.
Things change over time. About 55 years ago, my college required one semester of a foreign language for graduation. Since I was majoring in math and physics, I wanted a language besides English that most scientific papers were being written in. At that time, Russia was the most “scientific” country other than the United States. So I took a semester of Russian! Let’s face it, I got a C for the class.
Я не говорю по-русски.
Pronounced: YA ne govoryu po-russki.
Meaning: I don’t speak Russian.
Time marches on. These days, Russia is no longer a scientific powerhouse, even if they do help support the International Space Station. If I were to apply the same logic today, I would have to choose Mandarin Chinese!
Russia has become a failed state. The future was theirs to have, and they blew it. What a shame. Let that be a lesson to folks in the USA. We too must learn to cooperate with our world neighbors. There is room for both Capitalism and Socialism.
We should all de-militarize and spend all that saved money on climate change solutions. Otherwise, 55 years from now the world will be a different place for everyone!
The new mini-series on Netflix named “The Chair” is really quite good. It stars Sandra Oh who portrays a college professor who gets caught up in cancel-culture’s impact on life in a university. Perhaps I wouldn’t have understood if I hadn’t just finished reading “The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth” by Jonathan Rauch. His book is primarily about truth within democracy and recent attacks on our society from the media, right wing pressure groups, lobbyists and even politicians. I highly recommend it to anyone who values preserving truth and freedom within our democracy.
Jonathan Rauch was able to finally explain clearly to me how it is that some “truths” that are supported by a majority of people can be ignored, run down, and voted out of existence by just a few. Some of these truths cluster around the climate crisis, financial inequality, racism, jobs. I have always blamed lobbyists, conservative media, evangelical religious groups, etc.. I have felt impotent and powerless when things that were obvious to me continuously were defeated. At least now, Rauch has helped me understand the mechanics of these many distortions of truth that are pushing our society towards the brink of autocracy and fascism.
The following is a portion of a paragraph quoted directly from his book.
“A field known as “public choice” concerns itself with the ways in which narrow pressure groups can out-organize and dominate much larger majorities. Consider American rice farmers. From 1995 to 2019, U.S. rice subsidies cost almost $17 billion. The benefits were concentrated on a small set of farms; two-thirds of the money went to the biggest 10 percent of the farms, each of which received an average of almost $1.3 million. You could be sure they were organized, resourced, and determined to defend their subsidy, and woe unto the legislator who would try to zero it out. Meanwhile, the cost was spread over the whole U.S. population. Rescinding the entire amount would have saved each of about 140 million taxpayers about $120 over the period, or less than five dollars a year: too little to notice, much less to organize against. lf a group opposing rice subsidies did manage to organize, the rice lobby would pull out all the stops to defeat it. But usually, as the economist Mancur Olson showed, the asymmetry between concentrated benefits and diffused costs is such that the majority interest does not organize at all. Over time, pressure groups accumulate, capturing resources which might have flowed elsewhere. If the process is not checked, entire economies and societies can calcify and rot.”
This example really affected me. Many years ago, I watched my Uncle cry over losing his farm to big-business farmers and no one seemed to care. Rauch’s book has a chapter with suggestions for us to resist, fight back, and defend the Constitution of Knowledge. I highly recommend that you read his new book. Understanding contains the beginnings of solutions.
The Guardian, my favorite newspaper (I am a subscriber), recently (16 Nov 2020) ran an article by Ed Pilkington titled “America’s flawed democracy: the five key areas where it is failing”.
The five areas where Pilkington believes we need to fix are:
The electoral college
Voter suppression
The Senate
Judges
Redistricting
This article is excellent, in my opinion, and needs to be read by anyone who cares about this country. To see the article CLICK HERE. Our government needs structural changes.
A copy of the article is available here for you to print and discuss with your friends. PDF HERE
“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” – an old saying
There is an action group called Represent Us whose goal is to pass powerful state and local laws that fix our broken elections and stop political bribery. Their strategy is central to ending political corruption, extremism and gridlock. I’ve always thought highly of them as a group. Given that Jennifer Lawrence is on their Board of Directors doesn’t hurt either! You can find their web site here:
But that is not why this post is here. Jennifer Lawrence has launched a campaign to get people to take action using a short 12 minute film called Unbreaking America.
People who watch this short film are more likely to take action.
And studies show that when just 3.5% of a population engages in sustained activism, they have the power to push the entire nation to change. That’s 11 million people.
I’m trying to do my part by helping you find their campaign! Be sure to watch Jennifer’s film. It is worth your time!
“I don’t give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them, and they think it’s Hell.” – Harry Truman
Chomsky Says Trump a ‘Sociopathic Megalomaniac’ Who Made US ‘Singularly Unprepared’ for Pandemic
New comments from the renowned academic come after he accused Trump of wanting “to destroy the prospects for all organized human life… in the near future.”
Jims BBS 