I just went to the gas station to fill up the tank. As I was about to leave, a beaten-up, dirty truck pulled in. I glanced at the back of the truck, as I walked back to my car, because it was covered with bumper stickers. One bumper sticker said, “I love my country, I hate my government.” Another said, “Socialism=spread the misery among all.” There were political bumper stickers supporting Trump and our current Congressman, the Trump sycophant Lee Zeldin.
I drove away, and got no more than 200 yards away from the station when I decided I wanted a photograph of the back of the truck, which had at least 20 bumper stickers of a similar type. The grizzled old man driving the truck was pulling away. I followed him all the way home, about a mile away, but did not have the nerve to go into his driveway (I thought, “what if he has a gun and thinks I am stalking him?”). But I noticed that his house was tumble-down, his windows were as dirty as his truck, and his lawn was overgrown.
He is the perfect Trump voter. Hates government. Hates the elites. Hoping Trump will “drain the swamp” of bureaucrats and lobbyists. Hates those who are dependent on government programs. Yet from his woeful condition, I expect that he goes to the Post Office (government) to pick up checks.
I wonder why people who rely on government aid–whether it is social security or Medicare–hate government. He must have gone to public schools; he doesn’t look like a graduate of Andover or Exeter. Do people like him swallow propaganda from the Koch brothers and other libertarians?
What do you think?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It would not surprise me in the least that he spends a lot his day watching Fox News and other right wing media. He has probably done this for years. They’ve melted his brain. He probably has no clue that his Medicare or Social Security is government provided/organized.
Another bird brained teacher speaking as if they know what they are speaking of. As of 5 years ago I after 40 years of working like a dog have contributed over 250,000$ to my individual SS account. As 7 years is usually the double point of saved money for the the most part of those years I will estimate a real time value of well over a million dollars contributed. How long at 30,000$ a year will it take me to earn that money back you moron.
Sherman,
If social security were privatized, it would have all disappeared in the 2008 recession.
CalSTRS, the California (unionized) teachers retirement fund invests the money those members had deducted from their pay checks and the matching funds from the district where they taught, and that retirement fund lost almost $60 billion during the 2007-08 recession.
On February 2009, CalSTRS reported:
2008 was the worst year since 1931 and the worst decade for stocks in 200 years.
Even though the fund stands at $120 billion, CalSTRS has ample funds to pay pensions for the next 30 years. …
The only reason CalSTRS survived was that it has fought to hold on to its cash and net worth that was invested in the private sector.
Several times over the decades California governors have borrowed from CalSTRS during economic down turns to make up deficits, and then later when they could pay CalSTRS back, they all refused. CalSTRS took those governors to court each time, and won forcing the state to pay back what it borrowed.
On the books, SS looks like it has more than $2 trillion, but Social Security has no money. It has IOU’s from Congress because all of the cash collected through the Social Security Tax flowed into the general fund and was spent as it came in to pay for the many endless wars, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and to support the most expensive military budget in the world. Since World War II, the U.S. has spent between $30 – 40 Trillion on its military.
Social Security has no cash to fall back on and if Trump defaults on the national debt who loses the most, China or the U.S. working class.
China only owns about 7 percent of the U.S. national debt. The biggest losers will be the U.S. working class that paid into SS during all those decades they worked. More than 60-percent of the federal national debt is owed to the Amercian people, the working class.
A default (and Trump is the king of bankruptcies – his companies gone bankrupt so many times and cost U.S. banks hundreds of millions if not billions that U.S. banks won’t loan him any more money) would mean that Congress would not have to honor its IOUs to Social Security.
Let’s not forget that one of Trump’s campaign promises to his ignorant, easy to manipulate, deplorable base was to get rid of the federal national debt. The best way to do that is to default and file bankruptcy.
The extreme poverty rate could easily soar to 50-percent if that happens.
Interest is so low that no one doubles their money on savings in 7 years. Rates are now 1-2% on savings. Figure out how long it will take to double your savings with those rates.
Sherman Kearns What do TEACHERS know anyway. Let’s just hire test monitors–it’s cheaper. Snore.
This is what a privatized social security system looks like:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chile-social-security-20160812-snap-story.html
Pretty good of you to go by the 9 % returns on an average S&P fund .
So where would your money be if Wall street was not bailed out to the tune of 12 – 17 trillion depending on who is doing the counting. As the Fed says the recurring loans should not count more than once . Talk about socialism for the wealthy.
Let me see if I can help you with that . You would have been wiped out .
Now anyone who objects to Social Security as Socialism. Who feels he is not getting his bang for his buck . Should certainly have objected to CitiBank being given a cash infusion of 350 Billion dollars to cover bad gambling debts which had been leveraged 40x,by Citi and other Wall Street firms. To achieve returns for very wealthy people .
What a bird brained Idea to encourage “moral hazard ” by not teaching Wall Street investors that ” Irrational exuberance ” is risky business. And if you would ask the man who coined that phrase and it was not Greenspan. Robert Schiller would have told you that it could take decades to recover from a crash . And the crash in 2008 would have been a total melt down the end of capitalism as we know it . Had the big bad Federal Government and quasi Governmental Federal reserve bought up endless piles of worthless paper. When those markets did recover it would have been very slowly if at all.
Viva Socialism it saved my 401K
Dear Mr Kearns,
I like that Diane recognized your angst and answered your intelligent grasp of what happened
You explained your experience so well, that if you REMOVED the ‘bird-brained’ reference and the word ‘moron’ it would have expressed a really common and hurtful experience that we all know.
Your experience and your anger is honest and real, but, sir, I write at OPED News, http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
where commentary , argument and discussion can get very heated, HOWEVER, ad hominem comments (i.e. attacks on the author) will be flagged–> and those who cannot GRASP, that the hateful, nasty rhetoric that is OK these days, on many blogs, are NOT ACCEPTABLE where professional people speak.
It is easy to imagine that the brand of nasty vituperative which is popular on the internet is useful anywhere where one blogs, but, sir, WORDS MATTER, TO TEACHERS, and parents, and readers who come here to learn TRUTH ; how we express ourselves matters to those in a culture that still practices old values about conversation.
I respect Diane, former Sec’y of State, author, and Politico’s “One of The Most IMPORTANT Americans. in whose room you now visit to speak. We all do. I respect the readers and those who write here.
The people who come here regularly will grasp how you feel, without your spitting at the author!
And that is my 2 cents or, as they say today: IMO
Diane, if social security was run by the government, it would be bankrupt. Oh wait, it is. And not sure I agree with you as I work with private pensions. Many have rebounded nicely and continue to be managed better than social security and are growing better than social security which isn’t too hard to do since all social security really is, is big a government IOU. It is not a pension plan one can depend on.
Tricia,
The same people who advocate privatizing social security already did it in Chile.
The pensions (invested in the markets) are so small that most people can’t afford to retire.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/world/americas/with-pensions-like-this-315-a-month-chileans-wonder-how-theyll-ever-retire.html
Diane, People can’t afford to retire on SS in this country.
Privatize it and it will shrink by 50% as Wall Street takes its cut and recessions reduce the principle.
Diane, keep it the way it is and the government will continue to take 100% and use it for something else. Wall Street cannot keep 50%, way too many regulations and fee disclosures protecting investor.
Tricia,
Sad that you trust Wall Street more than your own government
Tricia Farmer Wait a little–those regs are on the block as we speak complements of that same neo-liberal idiocy.
Tricia Farmer People weren’t SUPPOSED to be able to “retire on SS.” It was originally meant to be a supplement.
Mr. Kearns’ estimate of his $250K contribution doubling in 7 years is based upon the premise that the full amount was invested at the beginning of the 40-year period & remained untouched during that time. In fact, that total accumulated gradually, pay period by pay period, over his work history. Even accepting that inaccurate assumption, however, for the $250K to have doubled (100% gain) within the 7-year period between 1973 & 1980 would have required that it earned an annualized rate of about 10.41%, a bit optimistic. If it had been invested in an S&P 500 index fund (http://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-data), the actual total gain over the 7 years would have been 10.65%, a bit short of the hoped-for 100%. For it to reach 100% gain, it would have had to remain invested for about 12-1/2 years, AND Mr. Kearns would have to have been willing to endure the market drops of 29.72%, 11.5%, & 9.73% of 1974 (the 1st year of investment very shaky start!), 1977, & 1981, respectively, without panicking & withdrawing the money, locking in the losses (see why they call it social security?).
Here are some very rough figures I came up with based on the SS contributions having instead been invested yearly in an S&P 500 index fund & left over the 40 years from 1972-2012; they’re admittedly imperfect due to limited data, but they error is more likely to be on the plus side, particularly since I haven’t deducted presumed fund management fees or the fact that an index fund generally falls short of its benchmark index. I have no idea how much Mr. Kearns contributed to SS each year, so I based this on an equal yearly amount of 250K/40: $6250. Of course the actual amount would have started at a lower value & increased to a larger value, so the figures for earlier years are greater than the actual amounts, & later years are less. Also, the money would have been invested with each paycheck rather than annually, so I’ll admit this is very rough; I’m not an accountant. However, I think it’s safe to say it demonstrates the amount wouldn’t have doubled in 7 years (remember, that calculation makes the assumption that the entire $250K was invested at the beginning of the 40 years rather than gradually over that time, so it takes even more liberty than my estimate).
FWIW:
time for the total value of the account to be double the amount invested so far: about 13 years & 3 months (almost double the optimistic 7);
time for the total value to be >$500K: about 22-1/2 years (at this point, based on $6250/yr, about $144K would have been invested, yes, that’s substantially better than 100% gain, but wait, there’s more);
value of the total account in 2012 at the end of 40 years: $1492830 (497% gain, about 4.69% annualized).
So yes, ultimately there would have been a substantially higher yield, –>allowing for various assumptions,<– including Mr. Kearns being patient & having faith in the market continuously over 40 years, & not counting the cost of his peace of mind during those bad years, including the nearly 40% drop of 2008 (that’s where that “security” part comes in again: it’s guaranteed).
All that considered, I can say with absolute certainty & accuracy how long it actually did take for Mr. Kearns’ SS contributions to double: 0 years, 0 months, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0.000 seconds. That’s because SS requires the employer to match the employee’s contribution dollar for dollar with each paycheck. Once again: security.
If I may just digress for a moment: Mr. Kearns, how did you determine that @RetiredTeacherNYC is an ornithologist?
🙂
Union pensions should be privatized.
Deborah,
I assume you don’t have one. And that you would like to see all unions gone. Why do you hate working people?
Is she talking about public pensions? I am assuming that truck drivers, etc. already have privately run retirement benefits. If so, I hope she intends to include our Washington D.C. civil servants from the President on down.
Does anyone else remember being sold the bill of goods that our defined benefit “government” pensions were waved in our faces as a compensation for lower wages? Interestingly enough, no one told me I would be donating a good chunk of my social security earnings to the greater good because I also paid into a teachers’ retirement fund. I’m hoping that it won’t affect me too much since I never made that much as a teacher or in the private sector.
How about Congress give up its pensions first?
Deborah,
How about Congress give up its pensions and health benefits first? Way too expensive.
“People weren’t SUPPOSED to be able to “retire on SS.” It was originally meant to be a supplement.”
When you have struggled your whole life to make it to the middle class, a supplement to what?
When there are no unions going to bat for workers in most private sector jobs and employers pay low wages, without providing pensions, and give few benefits, if any, workers scrape by from paycheck to paycheck. They have no disposable income to put into savings or to get their own 401Ks etc. They could never afford to buy a home so they throw what little money that have each month down the rent toilet. Come retirement time, they have no equity and SS is all that people have to get by on. It’s too low to live on because it’s based on what they contributed to it over a lifetime of being paid low wages.
homelesseducator You are preaching to the choir here. Another problem: if you are poor, you probably will choose to receive benefits at 63 rather than later; however, if you do so, you get only half of the benefits per month. So a person who really needs more and chooses out of that need, gets less in the long run. Makes no sense.
You got it right… kearns lives in a bubble. Nothing you say will register.
And I am sure he paid taxes his whole life to reap those benefits you self-righteous ignorant fool.
Veronica,
I objected to “I hate my government.” To me, the American government is the Constitution and the rule of law. Do you too hate our government?
Veronica Republican double-speak plank: If you are a pot, call the kettle black.
You have the right to disagree but please refrain from using such hate-filled language. If you disagree so strongly, find a different blog.
Diane,
Actually you’re incorrect. The Constitution is in place to rein in the Government. To protect Americans from government getting too big. It literally governs the government.
You saying that it IS the government is irresponsible and pathetically ignorant.
Good job, teacher!
The Constitution defines the government. It lays out the three branches of government and the checks and balances among them. The amendments to the Constitution lay out a basic framework for our rights.
Rachel Recca Wrong. The Constitution IS the government in this sense: it self-identifies its own source and function as being of/for/and by “the people.” So it defines, limits, and assigns essential powers in a democratic state (small d)–where those powers are circular, not centered in some abstract idea of “the government” as somehow opposed to the people who live here. It doesn’t “reign in the government” as much as it reveals, as democratic, its circular source of power. BIG DIFFERENCE. And so if “we” go off course, it’s up to all of us to make it right–hence, the freedom of speech, the press, etc., where the hope is that we can become “more perfect” on this long arch of making civilization work.
Thanks, CBK. I was shocked that anyone would think the Constitution has no connection to our government. It is the defining document of our government.
dianeravitch Besides the flushable trolls that have shown up, I have to wonder why many of these folks seem to KNOW NOTHING about their own government, how it works, or how it’s so different from other kinds of government. Obviously, there is a GREAT EDUCATIONAL VACUUM that the Right has swooped in to fill–and such bumper stickers as you saw are code for “in your face–this is what I think and you can’t do anything about it.” It’s an appeal to the American Adolescence in us.
But if bumper stickers and reality TV are replacements in the US for what used to be reasonable dialogue, we’re toast.
Veronica
Would you like to bet on that one .
Well said. Yes, those who listen to a steady diet of Fox News have distinct characteristics. If you read about how cults draw in their victims and what happens when the victims become brainwashed, it is frighteningly like the man described. Fox was founded to “stage propaganda as news and even it is wasn’t true, people would believe it”…..(paraphrased from Roger Ailes.)
” the perfect Trump voter” but not the typical Trump voter, who is a typical Republican–white, higher than median income, lives in a segregated suburb
I meet some of the criteria. But I have an African-American Air Force Master Sergeant and his family on one side of my house, and an inter-racial couple on the other side. There are several Indian and Pakistani families on my block. Caucasians are the minority on my block.
Are they “your” African Americans and Muslims?
Some of your best friends are black, right?
@TOW: I do not get your meaning. What do you mean by “your”?
I’ll give it try. No doubt your intention in writing is well intended. Your entire block is diverse. All of those individuals are on the same street by their own choice.
It’s all in the pronouns! (teachers and administrators really need to understand this)
And, no, this is not being hyper-sensitive or over-the-top.
Change “I” to we and talk about “our” block and it’s a different statement (again, benefit of the doubt if you read this blog – no ill-intent on your part).
“I” conveys you allow, you let, you bless others to be on your block. Maybe you are not white and I leap that assumption. Regardless, over and over we hear this language of the majority allowing the minority to sit at their table instead of it being our table.
It reminds me of the the desegregated classrooms (ubran to suburban) across the country where the kids on the buses were “allowed” to go to the suburban schools – where the suburban folks talked about “those” students coming to “our” schools. And, “Why should ‘my’ taxes pay for ‘their’ education?”
Add the minority thing and that’s an additional “uh oh” revealer. Yes, yes, yes… in 2044 whites will be the minority in the U.S. Sooooooo… what the’s purpose of making the claim?
If it is to point out that the Congress, state houses, and LOCAL SCHOOL BOARDS do NOT have non-white representation, that’s one thing.
If it’s “watch out folks, “our” (a.k.a. white) nation/state/school district is changing, that’s another.
For clarification: The pronoun “my” in this post is used in a demonstrative sense, not in a possessive sense. I do not own this block, I do not own this neighborhood. BUT, I have every right to refer to this block, as “My block”.
Every person here, is here of their own free will and accord.
Charles – understood
my point is that words strike a chord. Those of us that work with thousands of kids and parents are maybe (necessarily) more sensitive than most so as not to offend.
I have another bumper sticker for this fellow, it says, “Bite the hand that feeds you.”
Chuckle.
LOL!
In my opinion, when the only claim to self-worth is being white, you will follow anyone who supports that belief no matter what else he does or doesn’t do. It would be instructive to remember that people like that are not operating from a place of intellect so reason does not dissuade them from their views. It is a more primitive emotion that motivates them based on envy, a psychological basis for hatred.
This just made me feel nauseous reading it. This is relevant and true. I know people that this describes perfectly.
Yup. But how do we explain the more numerous, educated supporters?
That was very gutsy of you to follow this man to his home. It was the better part of wisdom not to have driven onto his property. At the least, you would have been showered with a torrent of profanities. Or who knows, he might have thought that he had a secret admirer? He probably gets steady dosages of Fox news and hate wing radio to reenforce his already right wing views. He may even be a veteran who is entitled to government benefits.
I’m a veteran who is entitled to government benefits because I served 28 years in the Navy. But I detest trump and all he stands for. Please don’t think that all veterans are trump admirers.
Wow! There are a lot of hateful comments here. Judge much?
My last sentence was in no way, shape or form a slap at veterans. I was just making the point that this anti-government man was getting government benefits via the VA which is a government run program. This is assuming that he is even a veteran, he may not be a veteran.
Absolutely veterans are entitled to lifetime support from the VA because of their service. One of the regular commenters here is Lloyd Lofthouse who is a veteran of Viet Nam. I do not think that all veterans are Trump supporters. Come to think about it, maybe we should not be making so many judgments about this man based on bumper stickers alone. He may be a decent human in other respects.
Strange how liberals who abhor racial profiling, have no qualms about voter profiling.
I did not vote “for” Donald J. Trump. I live in Virginia, the home state of the previous Vice-Presidential candidate, Senator Kaine. I knew that Virginia was in Hillary’s hip-pocket, so it did not matter how I voted. ( Some, not all, conservatives abhor the electoral college, as much as some liberals).
My vote was a protest vote only. The electoral college system has effectively disenfranchised people like me, who are a minority in a state with an overwhelming Democratic majority. (Democrats in Utah, and Republicans in WashDC are in the same boat). I voted AGAINST the anti-Christ in a skirt, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I do not “hate” government. Nevertheless, as a person who lived through Vietnam (I never served in country, but I was on active duty during the conflict), and Watergate, I have an innate distrust of government. I believe, as did George Washington, that “Government is like fire, a dangerous servant, and a terrible master”.
I am a former employee of the federal government. I was in the Air Force, and I worked for the State Department, the Commerce Department, and the Defense Department (civilian). I also worked on military projects in Iraq/Afghanistan/Kuwait for over 10 years. I have seen up close and personal, the waste, fraud, and abuse that is inherent in government. I am damn proud of my federal service, and I have no problem with the man I see in the mirror each morning.
Some (not all) people on the lower end of the economic scale, tend to have a lower educational level. I used to say that school is where you go to learn about people like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Bill Gates, who dropped out of school and became millionaires and billionaires.
I still get a chuckle, when I see the photo of the man carrying the placard that read “Keep your government hands off my Medicare”.
Some (not all) people who have less education, tend to believe propaganda and are more pliable to the dictates of Madison avenue and the talk-show hosts like Limbaugh and Levin. For most people, education tends to make them more cynical, and less likely to be led like sheep.
Charles said: “Strange how liberals who abhor racial profiling, have no qualms about voter profiling.” Ha, ha, ha, hilarious. Diane does not have the powers to arrest anyone nor does she possess a gun with which to shoot a perp.
LOL.
People like Trump and Joel Osteen line their pockets with money from the poor who support these Pied Pipers, despite the fact that the doctrine being spewed runs counter to their needs. I’m sure Trump supporters who have been affected by Hurricane Harvey will be glad for assistance from their big, socialist government.
That awful president that you hate so much, reached into his pocket and donated $1m of his own money to hurricane relief. How much did Obama donate during hurricane Sandy-or did he just show up for photo ops?
And don’t forget that he gave $7 to the Boy Scouts.
Is Trump really giving $1 million of his own money or is it coming from his organization, which is not his money? I’m waiting to hear confirmation.
I was wondering why all of a sudden there were emails expressing so much hatred. MAGA is not a site I could stomach. Makes me feel constricted and ill inside to read.
Government is not the problem even though it sometimes doesn’t respond as I’d like. I cannot want millions to loose their healthcare. Government was close to passing such a disastrous law. The problem is who is representing ‘We the people’.
The writer of “The Art of the Deal” wrote yesterday that he doubted Trump would ever put up $1 million. It might come from his foundation, but the money in his foundation was put there by others, not Trump as David Farenholdt showed in The Washington Post. Trump has not contributed to the Trump Foundation since 2008. Linda McMahon, former head of the Workd Wrestling Foundation, now head of the Small Business Administration, put millions into his foundation. So maybe he will donate some of the McMahon money.
I am sure that you believe that this is a valid and rational question, and it is for someone who lives in a bubble, but for all of us WHO know exactly what Trump is (from all that he says and does) it reveals that you are operating with ‘alternative facts.
Those of us who actually have a view of OBSERVABLE REALITY, thanks to access to real facts, would never compare an immature, impulsive, selfish, narcissistic, ego maniacal liar to Obama.
I am no fan Obama’s politics, but I know what an admirable human being he is.
He hasn’t donated anything yet. https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/homenews/administration/348982-white-house-still-seeking-input-on-charities-for-trumps-1-million%3famp
We all paid in with our taxes. You folks seem to think we should give it to illegals.
So did the folks who were affected by Hurricane Sandy. Remember how Texan politicians responded?
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/08/texas_lawmakers_voted_against_our_disaster_aid_but.html
Veronica, tell me how much of our taxes we have given to undocumented immigrants? I don’t think you have any idea.
Before you reply, click the links in the comment and learn the facts.
An Alt-Right conspiracy theory, where you must have swallowed the lie without checking the facts, claims that illegal immigrants cost $338.3 billion dollars a year – more than the Iraq war.
Fact chek.org looked into this and concluded from the facts available to everyone that bothers to look that, “The e-mail includes a link to a CIS report that contradicts some of the e-mail’s own claims. The report found that illegal immigrant welfare use ‘tends to be very low.’ It also estimates the total federal net cost of households headed by illegal immigrants at under $10.4 billion, a small fraction of what this message claims.”
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/
Digging a bit deeper, I discovered that many undocumented aliens also pay taxes.
“A left-leaning research organization estimated that undocumented immigrants paid about $12 billion in total taxes in 2010, while a conservative think tank pegged it at $17.6 billion.”
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/oct/02/maria-teresa-kumar/how-much-do-undocumented-immigrants-pay-taxes/
Now, let’s put that into perspective as a ratio vs the total cost of welfare.
A United States Senate Budget Committee report that was published while Jeff Sessions was still the ranking member said, “The total amount spent on these 80 – plus federal welfare programs amounts to roughly $ 1.03 trillion.”
Click to access CRS%20Report%20-%20Welfare%20Spending%20The%20Largest%20Item%20In%20The%20Federal%20Budget.pdf
Be aware that welfare does not include Social Security or Medicare because those two programs are not welfare.
Conclusion: $10.1 billion of $1.03 trillion is less than 1-percent of the total.
Did I miss a post on giving everything to “illegals”? Or is that just the typical conservative comeback? Veronica, it’d be great if you could raise your responses to a level higher than that of a two year old throwing a tantrum.
Actually I bet he isn’t a Trump supporter at heart. I bet he thinks all politicians are corrupt. And many of those living in the conditions you describe, are too proud to accept welfare checks, especially if they are of the older generation.
Thanks for giving us another scenario. I know this type of individual as well.
Very brave of you to follow the truck. Made me think of British art critic and public intellectual John Berger(‘Ways of Seeing’), who left cosmopolitan London in 70s to live in Swiss Haute Savoire, wrote fiction about peasant life there, said peasantry has long history of anti-statist opposition, b/c govt. elites, local aristocrats, and central bureaucrats over-tax and over-regulate peasants’ self-regulated productive way of life. Along comes Trump addressing rural outsiders with vulgar colloquial discourse of bluff, bluster, lewd suggestiveness, and ridicule, Trump condescending, flattering that he is one of them, will drain the swamp, stand up to parasites, right-wing populist discourse engineered to capture rural white folks for whom centralized govt. is an alien force of privileged looters, vulnerable to concrete and charismatic left-wing populism(non-racist, anti-sexist, pro-environment, anti-war, tax the billionaires, etc.)generally restricted from reaching mass audiences(until Bernie Sanders campaign). Trump offers man with the truck symbolic power, a theatrical ruse vulnerable to colloquial socialist appeals especially when material conditions decline.
Such a pleasure to read your writing, Ira. Quite a gift you have with the language even or perhaps especially when you write in this stream-of-consciousness style.
I too, love your wonderful little paragraph. Can I use your description of his manner of address? I am writing about the way people talk to each other, and if you go to my response to Mr Kearns, you will see that.
This is probably a person who is unhappy with his life. Looks like he has given up on it, just waiting for the end. Someone like this hates his existence and looks for someone to blame. Fox will tell him who is the problem…immigrants, blacks, Latinos and elitists. tRump has given him a glimmer of hope. Get rid of all those unimportant people. He has to have someone to look down upon.
He will never realize that he is responsible for his deplorable condition. It is much easier to blame others.
My neighbor recently put his house up for sale. When he did, he finally removed all the trump/pence signs (6 months after election) in his yard and stopped flying his confederate flag. Guess he didn’t want to limit his prospective buyers.
If I flew the Confederate battle flag on my flagpole, I would be asking for trouble. I fly the USA flag sometimes, and the flag of the Russian Federation on Russian holidays like V-E Day. I fly the Kentucky State flag, on Derby Day.
Sometimes, I fly the Bonnie Blue Flag, on Confederate memorial day, and other Confederate holidays, like Jefferson Davis’ birthday, etc.
see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Blue_Flag
( I am a member of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, I have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy)
” I have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy”
And you think this is something to be proud of? That your ancestors fought for the “right” to hold other human beings in bondage? That those ancestors rebelled against their country (an act of treason) to fight for that “right”?
What makes you think the bonnie blue flag is any better than the stars and bars? It’s still a symbol of a hateful period in the history of the South. People may not react to it as much as they react to the confederate flag because they probably don’t know what it is, but it’s no less hateful.
Excellent comment by Dienne. Agree.
Yes, Dienne and Joe! What we think of German or German-Americans who would fly the Nazi flag on April 20, Hitler’s birthday and the most important holiday during the Third Reich? Or Italians or Italian-Americans who would fly the flag of fasces that was the state flag under Mussolini? That’s how we should think of the flags of the so-called Confederacy.
I am proud of all of my ancestors. My Great-great-grandfather wore the gray uniform, and fought in Morgan’s raiders for the Confederacy. I also have an ancestor who wore the blue uniform, and did his duty for the Union side. I have ancestors who went AWOL from both sides in the conflict.
You are right, that most people do not know about the Bonnie Blue flag. I display it for heritage, not hate.
(BTW- My family never owned any slaves, they barely owned the dirt under their own fingernails)
“I display it for heritage, not hate.”
It’s a heritage of hate. There’s no way around it. The South seceded over the issue of slavery – it’s in every one of the secession documents. The South was fighting for the right to own human beings even if the individuals doing the fighting did not own slaves. It really is that simple.
I too have ancestors, on my father’s side, who fought for the Confederacy. I feel sorry for them. Dirt poor whites who were bamboozled into giving all for rich men to own slaves. They were fed lies of “preserving their heritage” and Lord knows what else to keep in place a system that actually kept them poor, since they couldn’t compete against “free” labor. But that’s what’s always done in times of war: tell young men lies and whip them into a frenzy so they’ll take up arms and die for a cause that often has nothing to do with them, their “freedoms,”or even their country’s national security.
Bet this person has NO LOVE of READING … only FOX News.
That Dump is a reflection of him…SAD. I bet this man has hatred in his heart, just like the Dump.
This country has become more and more terrible ever since Nixon and Watergate scandal.
Common Core and testing have held this country BACK from truly being literate and knowledgeable. Terrible.
At least his bumper stickers zeroed in on government issues. I followed an older couple once who had an image of a donkey with President Obama’s head that read “does this ass make my car look big”. I told them that I was offended by the sticker and that all they were interested in was starting fights – not solving problems. I wish there was some way to have a discussion with these folks but it seems they have an impenetrable mind set.
I saw that same thing on the back of a truck in the CVS parking lot and took a picture and posted it on FB to represent the rednecks in my community. This was before the November election. I saw this same truck last week with the same thing on the back. It was driven by what I call an “old fart” and I am 71, but don’t fall under that category!
Diane I think they listen to Fox and talk radio and have drunk that poison for years.
You made several comments which seem very judgemental and elitist. In addition, some comments are not necessarily true. “I wonder why people who rely on government aid – whether it is social security or medicare- hate government.” Both my husband and I rely on medicare since we are recently retired. He also receives social security, which I might add, he earned, and I am dependent on PERA, the
retired teacher pension fund in Colorado. We both worked hard to receive these older American aids. We do not hate government, nor elitists. In fact, my husband is a retired military man and spent years in upper management for IBM. We both are graduates of public school and universities, but certainly not elite schools. Who cares? We enjoyed successful careers, and we would be considered politically conservative. We love our country and were raised to respect our president. We do not look down on people who drive beat-up cars or live in run-down houses. We were taught to be kind and look for the good in people. You seem to imply that people such as this “grizzled old man” are somehow less than the rest of the of us. This kind of attitude only serves to further divide people in this country. It is time we try to look for what we have in common and try to work together. I have enjoyed reading your posts over the years, and I have read your books. We are strong supporters of public education, but your comments left me feeling looked down upon and judged. Thank you for allowing me to express my opinion.
Totally agree with your comment! Amen!
To Debra…that is comment I am referencing agreement!
“Openminded” and Debra: I’ve seen and heard several people, personally and on TV, who say they “hate government” AND “don’t touch my social security.” First, in case you don’t get the hypocrisy there, it’s totally contradictory to claim both things.
Second, and to your experience of getting government assistance and NOT hating government, neither your nor my experience determines the all. Not ALL people do either; but some are complete hypocrites–they both hate government and love their social security. My guess is they’ve “bought” the neo-liberal and Republican (some/most?) duplicitous party line and naively trusted the wrong people.
And third, if you claim to remain open-minded, I know of many who are not–they’d rather think what is true is “fake” just because, heck with the evidence, they dogmatically want to stick by their man.
But fourth, after what we’ve seen from Trump since the election, I’m convinced that, if there was reason to be on the fence before the election, anyone who COULD still support him now is–sorry about that–morally dense and politically dead.
Amen to this comment, Diane you are no better than this man. I bet he didn’t go home and trash you via the Internet.
Dennis,
I did not know his name. He may have gone home and trashed me on the Internet. A gray-haired old lady driving a 2004 red convertible with no bumper stickers. Who the hell does she think she is?
So, in your opinion, opening a discussion is the same as ‘trashing.’
Hnnn. Not much thinking goiin’on there.
I read Diane’s comment three times and I’ll be damned if I read anything judgmental in it. She was questioning why this man felt they way he did given this penchant to advertise his political views. I do the same thing every day. You confuse observational with judgmental. Big difference. “Grizzled old man” conjures up a different image than, say, “voluptuous, blond woman.” Neither is judgmental. Your, and the ironically named Openminded, on the other hand, seem like you have waiting to pounce on a comment like this and your express your judgmental views. I’m also wondering if respect for the president was as strong last year. I’ll be judgmental and venture to guess it wasn’t.
Debra,
I was not looking down on his truck but on his bumper stickers. Especially the one that says “I live my country. I hate my government.”
Does he really want to abolish social security? Medicare? The postal service? The national parks? Public schools? Public highways? Disaster relief? The military? Border patrols? Customs enforcement? The FAA? NASA?
Are you seriously suggesting that there is nothing wrong with govt? My gosh it’s bumper sticker not an essay. I’ll bet if you could bestir yourself to talk to him instead of looking down your elitist assuming nose you might find he has some real thoughts on real issues. MAGA BABY!
Another vacuous red herring. No one is suggesting “that there is nothing wrong with govt.” That’s why we have this these things called politics, debate, analysis, accountability, and engagement, just to name a few.
GregB You have to take the wads of cotton out of their ears first.
Diane, the statement “I was not looking down on his truck but on his bumper stickers” belittles you! You also said, “a dirty beaten down old truck”; maybe he was one of the unfortunate poor who could not afford a better truck. If that wasn’t judgmental I don’t know what is because of your added statement (a lie) that you were only referring to the stickers.
That aside, let me tell you why I even bothered to read your post. I started following you in the fight against Common Core because I believed that you were against it. I was warned by some Common Core Warriors that you were not to be trusted, that your true colors were blue and, to my disappointment, they were right. You supported the other candidate who was (hopefully her defeat has burned her out of the clan) totally in the pockets of Globalists like the Rothchilds and the Soros and Gates and… the whole of the Progressive (militant) UN Agenda 21, that has now become UN 2030 Agenda, driven by the like of Pearson and Gates money. Nothing is as telling of your position on Common Core, as your politics. No one could be more disappointed in you as I am, except the children of this country who, if they fully understood what is being done to them, would detest your betrayal as much as I detest your betrayal of the fight to save their public education from maniacs like Coleman, Duncan, King, Obama and most importantly the Clintons!
I don’t know where our public education will end up under Trump, but I know it won’t become the Global “one size fits all” system invisioned by the UN and Pearson. But, if we lose that fight and somehow we find ourselves back in those same clutches a few years from now, know that you will be counted among them, not among the warriors who fought against them.
Rita,
I never thought our American public school system was created by the UN.
But then, I am a historian of education and know that Horace Mann and Henry Barnard were great Americans, not Communists.
Rita,
If Trump and DeVos have their way, we won’t have public education.
By the way, what has DeVos done to stop Common Core, as Trump promised?
Rita A closer (and longer) reading of Diane’s posts here would reveal to you that she is no fan of the so-far Democratic Party’s ideas about education.
Diane, please don’t act like you didn’t understand me. You know damm well I was not saying that the UN “created” our public education system. I’m well aware of all your credentials, I just don’t understand why you turned around about Common Core and all the harm it has already done. Additionally, I also stated that I don’t know what Trump will do, but I know the it won’t be David Coleman’s Common Core, or Bill Gates, or Clintons!
“…You know damm well…”
…….
You loose your credibility when you use such language. We are not in the habit of reading swear words on this blog.
Rita,
I don’t support the Common Core. I have never supported the Common Core.
DeVos, on the other hand, supported the Common Core as did everyone on the board of Jeb Bush’s foundation board. I have heard nothing from her about getting rid of it. Have you?
No, I have not and am waiting impatiently. But my question is about where you stand? Who’s pocket did you fall into that made you the sheeple that you became following those people I mentioned who have purchased our children’s education for their Globalist agenda. You’ve responded to everything but that. Why?
Rita,
I don’t support the Common Core. I never have. No one pays me anything for my views. I am 79 years old and fully independent. You are a trump troll. Does anyone pay you?
Rita,
Let’s flip that question – who owns your brain: Fox News, Breitbart, or is it another conspiracy theory site?
I didn’t see that anyone wrote that all people who voted for Trump are like this. Chill!
Devos was never picked to run the DOE she was picked to dismantle the DOE as is layed out in our Constitution education is an issue that is not in the enumerated powers of the Federal government. I have heard that one of our Congessman has written a one page bill ending the DOE as of Jan 1st 2018, time will tell.
Diane, I’m responding to you here, because there’s no more “reply” feature on our conversation. I guess I used up my allowance!
I’m not a troll and I’m not in anyone’s pocket either!
I’m 70 years old, as though that matters, and I’m a grandmother of two who witnessed my oldest grandchild suffer through kindergarten…yes, kindergarten!!
A child that was brilliant in nursery school, but told his mother he didn’t want to go to school after just a few weeks with Common Core. 75 minute “lip lock” to “work” was the first activity of the their day. That’s when I became what you insinuated I am: “You are a trump troll”.
We both know the list of characters on both sides of this fight. You more so than I, but you buckled to the Clinton machine, not me!
And, still, you will not address the Global side of Common Core. That make you not only a turn coat, but a coward.
Rita,
This is my last response to you.
I do not support Common Core. I never supported Common Core.
I endorsed Clinton because I believe that Trump is a liar, is ignorant, is a racist, and a misogynist, as well as a perpetrator of sexual assault. I also found his fondness for Putin disturbing. Now we know he was trying to get permission from Putin to build a hotel in Moscow as he was campaigning.
I did not address the Global side of Common Core because I don’t know what it is.
When I don’t write about something, it is not because I support it. I also have not written about apples or soccer or Malaysia.
But I assure you I do not support Common Core and never have and never will.
Wow…have u ever followed an Obama Hillary or Bernie bumper sticker home? That’s scary! That’s why I never put a bumper sticker on my car! I’ve known hard working former dems with trump stickers get boulders thrown at their vehicles! That’s not peaceful protest! That’s vandalism…so sad that people can’t allow others to have freedom of speech unless it’s what they believe!? We all have room for improvement…so be respectful and work together to fix problems! It’s called compromise! Together we stand…divided we fall! Seems too many people prefer divided! God Bless America!
You’re aware that Mitch McConnel said when Pres. Obama was elected he would oppose all of the President’s initiatives?
In the current U.S. oligarchy (read Martin Gilens’ research), people have to resist in a multitude of ways because they have been prevented from true representation e.g. gerrymandering.
Yes that’s true. Citizens are locked out of the system because of corrupt govt. Might just encourage someone to think I love my country I hate my government! 🙄
Jennifer,
Your government is the Constitution, the military. The police. The firefighters. The national parks. The air traffic control. The highways.
You hate all that?
Government of the people, by the people and for the people is under attack by the 400 richest families in the U.S. The richest 0.1% who are destroying democracy in order to replace it with oligarchy are Bill Gates, Charles and David Koch, the self-proclaimed God, Bloomberg, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Art Pope, Philip Anshutz, at al.
Jennifer, when the government ceases to exist, who is going to protect you from the colonialists like Marc Andreeson, Peter Thiel (who used the word oxymoron to describe women voting in a capitalistic democracy), and Reed Hastings?
Wow, tolerance????
I recently saw a new white pickup in good condition with 2 bumper stickers, One said: Trump /Pence 2020 and the other said. Pence/Ryan 2024. Scary!
Well, maybe if the Democrats had something to offer this man…. Besides contempt, that is.
What do the Republicans have to offer him? Tax breaks for the wealthy. Cutting of Medicaid. A HOPE for jobs. A belief that white men are superior. Pollution by gutting the EPA. Relief from terrorism by increasing troops in Afghanistan and a buildup in funding the military. (I haven’t heard much from the Repubs to dispute it.)
carolmalaysia Well-said. And to aim contempt at Republicans only, and not to “follow that man home” in our minds–not with contempt, but rather with a combined sense of head-banging wonder and political outrage–would be to think of him in the same way as the neo-liberals do–someone who cannot think for himself (instead of won’t), and who is there to be manipulated by the more powerful. We live in democracy where we are ALL responsible to some degree, and most of all for our own ignorance.
Yes, that’s exactly what the Republicans offer. And since the Democrats offer nothing better (or even equal or even close), people are going to take what’s offered. The Democrats could be a force for good, for restoring what can be good about government, for helping ordinary people. But instead they have chosen to side with the Republicans in serving wealthy and corporate interests. At least the Republicans are honest about it and offer a way for (white) people not to feel so bad about the misery they’re stuck in. All that Democrats can offer is the same misery but with heaping sides of contempt and shame.
Maybe like most conservatives he just wants to be left the hell alone to live his life. Govt is in many ways the problem, not the solution.
Jennifer, so you favor no military? No police? No public schools? No social security? No Medicare? No highways? No elections? No air traffic control? No government? Just a state of nature.
I think the point was he probably was receiving something from big Government liberal programs .
Oh, you mean those programs that help people in need? I hope you never need one!
Cheryl Hays
I think you took that out of context
“Govt is the problem.” Yeah, except during natural disasters when everyone wants a handout. No atheists in foxholes, and no libertarians in times of disaster. All eyes on Texas as they recover from fewer safety regs on industry.
I believe many of you are taking a very simplicities view of this situation. I know many people who are very well off, very well educated and extremely well read, who simply cannot stand anyone receiving assistance of any kind. Interestingly, their educations were paid for by others, totally. That assistance was acceptable.
I imagine he thinks he’s done something to earn his government “entitlements.” Perhaps he served in the military, perhaps he Is working poor. He might assume the other “government leeches” haven’t earned their “entitlements.” This is how a lot of people I know think. Also, Fox News. People are brainwashed. It scares the crap out of me. We have a state level media just like it: Supertalk MS.
By definition, all entitlements are earned.
Why I used quotation marks.
My entitlements are earned not yours. !!
The average American retiree takes out one-third more than they paid into the system. If they retired in 1980, they will have taken out three times more than they paid in.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/feb/01/medicare-and-social-security-what-you-paid-what-yo/
There is a reason why we pay in ahead of time…so our money can earn more money. We would not be in “trouble” if congress did not use our retirement money as a piggy bank.
Abbey,
Most retirement funds (unlike SS) are invested in real estate and the national and global market. That means if there are gains, those gains are in addition to the money contributed by the teachers and school districts that paid into the retirement fund.
For instance, CalSTRS, the worlds largest educator-only pension fund had an investment portfolio value of $213.5 billion as of July 31, 2017.
Most teachers do not pay into Social Security while they are teachers. They pay into a fixed retirement fund.
From my interactions, there are some angry white voters who think that blacks are getting too much government help. Their entitlements are not okay, but not if black people get them.
Also, if it’s anything like the white poor southern idea that “I’m poor but at least I’m not black”…You know???
Well Diane I’m the only bumper sticker in my neighborhood .
It says. “Don’t blame me I voted for Bernie” .
But lets be honest Trump won Suffolk county, exclude the minority vote who did not vote Trump and that’s a hell of a lot more than toothless Hillbillies that must have voted for him. (Notice I did not use the term Red Neck ) . Although I will admit that almost every Trump voter I know is more dependent on the State than they choose to admit . From construction workers being paid the minimum wage on Public Works projects . Better known as Davis Bacon which puts them on par with Long Islands well compensated teachers . To the couple who bitched about having to fill out the medicaid forms for their mentally ill adult son …..
But then there is my accountant who remarkably didn’t know that no” illegal” ,undocumented immigrant is on Obamacare. I suspect that she voted for Trump . Or the women in my wife’s Gym. It would seem that there are plenty of people who seem relatively affluent who voted for him. But are they? And why do they feel victimized? . I suspect there is a reason Roosevelt and LBJ didn’t means test Social Security and Medicare. Perhaps more of Trumps vote was Obamacare than we choose to admit, as Americans saw their healthcare costs rising and someone else receiving something they could not get. Trump came down the escalator pointing to Hispanic immigrants and Blacks. . Americans only like Socialism when they get to partake in it, which is why ACA raised so much angst. It is also why Republicans want to impose means testing as the surest way to kill all social programs as the caps never keep up with inflation. .
I just came back from a wake where there were many very well-to-do folks with very comfortable lives who have the same political philosophy (if we can call it that). The thing that ties them all together? Resentment is policy. Doesn’t matter who you’re resentful toward, but people who don’t look something like you do usually fit the bill.
I don’t understand how anyone could follow someone home just because of a bumper sticker…on either side!? That’s just creepy. And to judge someone based on the condition of their appearance or home on top of that. That is just crossing a privacy line to me…and I believe all those who worked hard their whole life paying in to social security or served their country is surely not a govt handout or socialistic entitlement. I am all for factual debate but not violent and vulgar protest from ANY side. I pay very close attention to both sides and make my decisions based on what
I see and hear myself not what it printed or reported by any one media. I AM a former DEM and have realized that is not the direction I see for my children’s future in America. I want them to work hard and earn what they receive and not to depend on govt to survive. They should never feel entitled for things they haven’t earned. They are of Cuban decent and have seen what a socialist society has created for their grandparents… They came to.America legally and have prospered through hard work and love for America. Greatful to have opportunity that was taken away from them by a socialist dictator who destroyed a beautiful country and povertized its people. So….I do not hate government but hope that their goals are in the best interest of all American citizens and not political gain and profit! I …and my vote…am not for sale! A bumper sticker should never embolden anyone to do harm or invade the rights of another person…there is no bravery in following a private citizen to his or her home…or maybe some people think this acceptable? Would they…had it been a Hillary sticker on their family member’s car…and someone felt the need to make judgements and show up on their driveway? I think not…or at least I would hope so! Just sayin…
Cubans came here “legally.” They were offered refugee status. If they got in a boat and made it to Florida, they were “legal.” So condescending and elitist. Typical.
And please, in the next floodings, don’t rely on the government. Do it all yourself.
What can I tell ya’ll that you don’t already know. The rabid Trump supporters have heard from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Radical Right Wing talkers who are funded by the American Oligarchs such as the Koch, DeVos, Walton, and other obscenely wealthy families that government is evil, taxes should always be lowered even it that means social services have to be cut, the military and its supporting industries must get an ever larger portion of our tax dollars, Social Security is a rip off and a Ponsie scheme, and on and on. They believe it and if someone points out that they’ve been lied to for all these years they have been trained to join their leader, Trump, and scream “Fake News”!
These are the same folks who went to the Tea Party Rallies carrying signs that said “Keep Government out of Health Care, and Keep your hands off of my Medicare! Over the last 20 years the Republican lead Educational Reformers have forced our public schools to go back to teaching methods used during the Gilded Age (1880s and 1890s) that relied on rote memory and discouraged any critical thinking.
Those of us who are educational professionals have spent too much time trying to fight these “reforms” instead of stepping out front and leading the fight to truly reform public education by demanding equitable funding, professional pay for educational professionals, limits on class sizes and maximum student loads beginning in the Kindergarten and through high school, demanding an end to the meaningless tests of educational progress and institution of requiring that students and their parents if they are elementary students maintain portfolios of their school work to demonstrate their own progress.
If we take back reform we can teach the future voters critical thinking and get them to think before they vote. Only them then we will be stuck with voters like the one described in this post.
Three initiatives planned to destroy higher ed. (1) Gates-funded Frontier Set which has support from the associations of land grant colleges and state universities, 31 private and public colleges and, two state higher ed systems “to implement business models of collaborative course development and delivery”. (2) Gates and Walton-funded Center for American Progress which advocated for a plan for student outcome measures tied to accreditation (similar to legislation introduced by Rubio) published in Forbes in Nov. 2016 (3) Gates-funded New America’s plan to give state taxes to legacy admission colleges, which is posted at its site, “Starting from Scratch or a New Vision for Higher Ed.”
Democrats own education. How can you possibly seriously blame the GOP for the state of education? The leftist in the Democratic Party have shaped education to their will for decades.
I blame media for using the terms right and left when the issue is democracy vs. oligarchy. Republican and DINO politicians like Jared Polis, Michael Bennett, Gina Raymond, Corey Booker and DINO lobbyists like DFER and CAP are anti-democracy and pro-concentration of wealth.
Six Walton heirs have wealth equivalent to 40% of Americans combined. Gates has wealth equivalent to 750,000,000 people. Income inequality has reached the level at which, historically, the ruling elites were overturned.
The movie, Dr. Zhivago shows us the dear price paid for excesses like Mnuchin and his wife.
I liked this blog better before the current political animus reared its ugly head.
Compartmentalizing contributed to the takeover of democracy by oligarchs like Gates and Walton heirs.
I have a former friend who voted for Trump. That former friend that I first knew way back when we were children, has his medical through the VA and he bashes the VA and wants to get a voucher for his medical care and see the VA shut down.
I have no complaints about the VA so far. In fact, during my working years, I had medical through the school district where I taught and the VA is much better than all the medical plans I had in the private sector during those 30 years as a teacher.
Half of his income is from Social Security, but he has complained about Social Security being socialism and that too many deadbeats collect SS. Back when we were still friends, I told him he had the power to turn down Social Security. He replied, “I earned that” as if no one else in the country earned their SS the same way, by working and paying the SS tax.
I paid into SS long enough to earn it too, but because I was a public school teacher for 30 years, the SS I was eligible for was cut in half from $600 to $300 and when I made the mistake to sign up for Medicare as a backup medical plan to my VA, that SS was cut to $150 a month. I want to cancel Medicare so I can get back that $150. Anyone know how to do that?
That former friend’s SS is about $2,000 a month – and he complains about SS.
He also collected unemployment insurance for years. During his working life, he managed to be unemployed almost every year for the maximum amount of time to collect unemployment checks. He studied the system and learned how to manipulate it. For instance, if you quit a job, you can’t collect. You have to be fired. So he managed to deliberately get fired from some of his jobs so he could avoid working and collect unemployment.
We were friends for decades and we talked. That’s how I know all this.
Instead of working he played tennis when there was no snow in the mountains and skied almost every day when the resorts were open near Bend, Oregon where he had a friend who let him stay free during the ski season – while he was collecting unemployment.
He started working when he was 15 just like I did. In fact, we both washed dishes nights and weekends for the same coffee shop and attended the same high school. He graduated a year before I did.
I worked for 45 years from 15 to 60. And during those 45 years, I never collected unemployment while he managed to have long vacations supported by his unemployment checks. I estimated that he probably worked a total of 20 – 25 years between age 15 and 60.
Because he had so much time on his hands while living off unemployment, he listened to Alt-Right radio. Denis Prager is his favorite talking conservative head who hates all liberals. He loves that man so much he must worship the skin that flakes off of Prager and turns to house dust.
If he had worked like I did and hadn’t collected years worth of unemployment, he probably would not have had time to become a Prager addict and be programmed to hate anything liberal and progressive. I suspect many of Trump’s supporters fit this same profile.
And I’ve heard this former friend complain about all the deadbeats that collect unemployment, food stamps, etc. – as if he wasn’t one.
That’s why we are former friends. Who needs friends like him?
My older brother is alive thanks to VA medical benefits.
I don’t understand how anyone can “love his country but not his government.” This is not my original thought: “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization”
I had an uncle who fought in WWII. While fighting in Burma, he came down with a rare skin disease (fungus, virus, bacteria, I don’t know) that ate his fingernails, his skin, etc.
The VA became his medical provider for the rest of his life and managed to keep that skin disease under control. That uncle lived into his mid-90s. He told me once that whenever his skin disease flared up, he went to the VA and he was put into a large metal vat with only his head above the purple fluid he was submerged in. I never heard him complain about his VA medical coverage. How many private sector medical providers treat rare tropical diseases like that?
They don’t.
The VA is responsible for coming up with treatment for many rare diseases that our troops picked up all over the world while fighting in one war after another.
If the VA is closed and combat vets are sent to the private sector with a voucher, how many of them will end up being denied for medical care that the VA treated them for?
My brother gets his medical through the VA. He is very anti-big government.
Obama set up concentration camps to kill people.(He used to say that only Christians and Jews were being killed but then expanded it.) Obama was the anti-Christ who would destroy the US. Pope Francis is being controlled by Satan. The world’s joining the Paris Climate accord is a ruse to have the world controlled by satan to have a one world order. The leader of the UN is also working with satan to have a new world order. Liberals are killing people. He keeps a gun because he knows that the government is going to start killing people and he is ready to defend his family. (Apparently, the military has been storing up food to prepare for this event.)
I don’t discuss politics with my brother. He lives in another state and every so often sends me an email. I’ve learned to delete them. If I reply, I’ll get a deluge of stuff I can’t read.
I often wonder what site is so violent and promotes such extreme hatred and fear. Other than this, he is basically a good person. Don’t get him on politics or religion.
He also says that since I don’t believe in Jesus, when he has his second coming I’ll be doomed to an eternity in hell. He suggested that I go to the Moody Bible institute to learn about the bible. [He has no idea of what I believe. He isn’t someone I can discuss things with.]
How sad that there are actually people who believe this extreme stretch of reality. I can’t imagine living in such a constant state of fear. How many people are like this? I doubt that many readers on this blog are aware of such silent hidden disturbances in this country.
Maybe it’s the fast food and/or something they are putting in the water that is messing with their ability to reason that is causing this increased fear leading to aggressive behavior.
Without taxes and government, no military, no police, no firefighters, no highways, etc.
So as long as your sugar daddy keeps you clothed and fed it’s ok if he beats you also. Come on the govt is very exploitive in many ways including creating generational poverty. Waste, fraud, the IRS being used to target political enemies if an administration. Indoctrination of our youth via public school (hooray common core). Many examples of govt abuse. It’s very easy to see if you stop and use those lauded critical thinking skills.
Diane the Trump supporters I talk to here in Michigan are (1) out of work workers, both black and white, (2) small business owners who know it’s a double edged sword, (3) employed factory workers both black and white who see their jobs being whittled away. Not so easy to stereotype.
All of those voters think he will create jobs and work miracles. He won’t. He’s a sack of empty promises.
Here’s the President making that promise:
He also promised to fix the inner cities? How?
A one trillion $ infrastructure bill promised by Trump, to make millions of jobs, gets a standing ovation from Pence and Ryan…HA! what a bunch of hypocrites.
Guess the government can’t do that and give tax breaks to the wealthy so how about privatizing all that infrastructure and creating toll roads and toll bridges to make profits for corporations. $$$ is the god of the GOP.
Average people won’t be able to afford those tolls. (This happened in Indiana. Way to go Pence!)
What do you think, Diane, should I be holding my breath in anticipation?
There is one thing true in that video. 6 trillion wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a quarter of that, we could have put solar panels on the roof of every structure in the United States. Think of the jobs that would have created, and the energy independence. The opportunity costs of those wars have been breathtaking.
The Republican Congress is about as likely to make that trillion dollar promise come true as I am likely to sprout wings while I’m sleeping this evening. Somehow this is all going to happen by magic–a few million in tax credits is going to generate a trillion-dollar private sector investment. Is every street and bridge in the U.S. to be come a toll road? I needs some help with the math here.
and just how big is a trillion? Well,m a million seconds is 11 and a half days. A trillion seconds is a little over 31,688 Years. If you spent a dollar a second for 190,128 years, that we would how much we’ve spent on those wars.
Well it was Obama who promised to lower the sea levels and heal the nation. Lol that didn’t happen! Trump has promised to do what govt should do – get out of the way. And we already have so much better economic growth under Trump in just the time he’s been in office. Obama = record slowest recovery ever. Depression era economic expansion. Billions in stimulus disappeared to political friends. Budget so nuts his own party wouldn’t vote for it. Trump wasn’t my choice but I totally approve of what he has done so far.
Jennifer Demente There you have it, my friends. JD is a troll–her/his job here is to change the subject away from education and oligarchs, etc. So “delete” and let’s get on with it.
CBK: You are definitely on to the ruse! Thanks!
I blame ignorance. People wo are ignorant look to others to tell them who to blame, and in his little bubble it’s them damn socialists, or liberals or democrats or neo cons.
I write at OPED as you know, and one troll who spreads his nonsense there, instead of making an argument or discussing the subject of the article he did his usual attack and this time he actually ‘Democrats are unAmerican’ his national being that most dems grasp that the Constitution’s Freedom of Speech amendment did not mean to condone hate speech.
Ignorance spread through the WORDS OF PEOPLE who surround us in the echo chambers where we spend our time.
Here is an interesting article on the subject… I have not read it all, so feel free to tell me if it meanders from the truth:How America Went Haywire – The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/
found this there:
“The American experiment, the original embodiment of the great Enlightenment idea of intellectual freedom, whereby every individual is welcome to believe anything she wishes, has metastasized out of control. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams, sometimes epic fantasies—every American one of God’s chosen people building a custom-made utopia, all of us free to reinvent ourselves by imagination and will. In America nowadays, those more exciting parts of the Enlightenment idea have swamped the sober, rational, empirical parts.
and this:
“When did america become untethered from reality?”
I first noticed our national lurch toward fantasy in 2004, after President George W. Bush’s political mastermind, Karl Rove, came up with the remarkable phrase reality-based community. People in “the reality-based community,” he told a reporter, “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality … That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” A year later, The Colbert Report went on the air. In the first few minutes of the first episode, Stephen Colbert, playing his right-wing-populist commentator character, performed a feature called “The Word.” His first selection: truthiness. “Now, I’m sure some of the ‘word police,’ the ‘wordinistas’ over at Webster’s, are gonna say, ‘Hey, that’s not a word!’ Well, anybody who knows me knows that I’m no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They’re elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn’t true. Or what did or didn’t happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that’s my right. I don’t trust books—they’re all fact, no heart … Face it, folks, we are a divided nation … divided between those who think with their head and those who know with their heart … Because that’s where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen—the gut.” Whoa, yes, I thought: exactly. America had changed since I was young, when truthiness and reality-based community wouldn’t have made any sense as jokes. For all the fun, and all the many salutary effects of the 1960s—the main decade of my childhood—I saw that those years had also been the big-bang moment for truthiness. And if the ’60s amounted to a national nervous breakdown, we are probably mistaken to consider ourselves over it.
Each of us is on a spectrum somewhere between the poles of rational and irrational. We all have hunches we can’t prove and superstitions that make no sense. Some of my best friends are very religious, and others believe in dubious conspiracy theories. What’s problematic is going overboard—letting the subjective entirely override the objective;
I think the birth of the hate filled, Alt-Right, conspiracy theory, alternative fact (lies) media machine took off after Reagon got rid of the Fairness Doctrine and the 1st Bush made sure it didn’t come back.
The argument was that the Fairness Dicrone was unconstitutional because it limited free speech. What it really did was make it difficult to lie and get away with it. It’s hard to get away with spreading conspiracy theories and lies when you have to let someone else have the same amount of time on the same media source at the same time to counter with facts that prove the Alt-Right crap is mostly wrong.
Sort of like a debate with rules instead of a one sided rant supported with lies.
Lloyd Lofthouse I had forgotten about those policy-and-life changing events. Thanks for the reminder.
Concentration of wealth is the root cause. When resources are made scarce by the greed of a few powerful people, predictably, the 90% divide, with people turning against those they can conjure as being beneath them. Fox and talk radio moved the process along more quickly.
You forgot the damn hippies.
Comic relief! Just wondering, did you intentionally leave the “d” off of the end of your name?
GregB Methinks that the name “Demente” is a troll lure.
CBK, I’ve been told on many occasions that I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, as you once again confirm.
GregB Not sure what you mean by the sharp-knife comment; but you can understand that, coming from a spoon.
GregB Such persons take another person’s authenticity, and expectations of it from others, as an opportunity: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
CBK: maybe it’s too Southern, it means I’m not too smart; kind of like not being the brightest bulb, or as a friend of mine used to say about a certain senator’s intelligence, “there’s only 40 watts burning in that 100 watt bulb.”
GregB Uhhhh. . . . NO. I don’t buy it. But that’s okay.
Nah, GregB, you’re probably just a little too trusting and, for that matter, sincere. It’s hard to get your head around the concept of a troll on a blog that can (or at least used to) feel like Diane’s living room.
I can block some but not all. It requires too much time.
I count on you to correct their comments as I am going to a fundraiser this afternoon.
You are too generous, speduktr! Also, we’ll dust off the furniture, fluff up the pillows, and clean the windows and everything will be fine again.
“People like me do not have a voice in anything”
An NPR report (sorry, can’t cite it) from the primary season research what do T voters have in common. Only one statement got agreement across all ages, race, gender, geography, and socio-economic status.
No voice. These folks have no voice against authority and love that t has the guts to say what he wants.
And that he screams and yells at elected folks, baits enemies, makes outrageous statements. They tolerate the comments they disagree with, believe it when he says “just kidding,” and only believe his news.
His 35% don’t watch real news or believe it’s fake. Their news comes from tweets and conservative media. They don’t even know he back peddles the next day that only real news reports. Heck – recent focus group showed many of his supporters do not know who Muller is – and blames others for the wall not going up.
Of course, there are the 1%ers, the racists, the anti-Obama crowd, and those who only care about a conservative Supreme Court appointment. They ignore or give him a pass on everything no matter how outrageous, stupid, or bad for the country.
On a panel of both Trump and Hillary supporters, (I think it was CNN), the Trump supporters didn’t even know who Mueller was. All the others did.
Can’t judge a book by its cover.
I’ve heard the hate speech on television, and it always amazes, me at least, how dumb the spewers sound. Most don’t, or can’t speak in proper sentences. Is “dumb” passed down? I know children learn what they live, but are they just, literally, dumb? I cannot imagine living in a rathole, broke, and thinking that I’m superior to others, or better than anyone. Yet, its on display all the time, the ignorance, the stupidity, the bigotry, and the superiority. Dumb.
Kids in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, all brought up to hate America/Americans. Young boys taught to shoot guns and kill. Girls taught to cover their bodies from head to toe – yet, still – they are raped, tortured, murdered, used as mules, sold in human trafficking, and proudly wear suicide bombs and take their own lives. We think that is madness – they think that is normal – its just how it is.
So, how do you tell an uneducated/under educated, brought up to be a bigot and/or racist, that he/she is not superior to non-whites, and that Trump is not his/her savior?
All that can be hoped, perhaps, is that they realize, by his actions, that he is not with them, he is against them.
I keep waiting daily for Trump to resign. Here’s hoping.
“Kids in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, all brought up to hate America/Americans.”
Boy, I sure can’t imagine why people in those countries might hate America/Americans. I mean, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that we’ve been occupying, drone bombing and special oping their countries for 15+ years now.
Habits of thought, learned in youth, harden over time, becoming inflexible and stubborn like the joints of old age- causing pain.
Ideas that go under the banner of “progressive” often require people to change their own thinking and adjust their norms.
It’s not the press that has a liberal bias, but the truth itself. For instance: increasing social tolerance for gay people doesn’t reflect the adoption of an agenda, so much as an acceptance of the fact that gay people actually exist, always have, and deserve equal rights.
Same thing with global warming. Proponents of environmental protection and the move away from fossil fuels, towards renewable energy, aren’t adopting an agenda, so much as acknowledging the truth… (the freakin earth is warming from fossil fuel use and man made climate change!!!)
A host of cozy myths obscure the truth underlying these and other issues like: immigration, poverty, education, jobs, a living wage and the distribution of wealth in America.
Ideas are the one thing that are (potentially) free from the fleshy limitations of an imperfect world, and yet…some people don’t want to be challenged by them.
What I find more disturbing is the people who know better: educated, thoughtful, ethical, prosperous people who knew he was a shameless fraud and huckster but voted for him anyway. I can’t forgive them. Many are in my hometown of Dallas, and some are in my family.
Similarly, I read that, after Paul Ryan’s father died, he was able to survive due to his dad’s Social Security death benefits. I know others who experienced the same thing and who are very grateful for that social safety net.
Could someone please explain why Ryan is now so determined to get rid of Social Security?
Because of Ryan’s masters, probably the Koch brothers, who told him to.
Yeah, that would explain why he comes across as being so spineless. What a snake. Ryan must be under the impression that jumping through hoops created by billionaires is the price he’s got to pay to keep his job. He ought to be checking in on what Wisconsin voters want, because if it was Kansas billionaires who decided that, Ryan would have had a much easier time at his recent Town Hall meeting.
Trump barely carried Wisconsin and I read the number of Trump supporters there now has been decreasing, so Ryan just might lose his job over his failure to represent his people. From this keyboard to God’s ears… .
The man with the bumper stickered pickemup truck might have kids or grandkids in public school. That would make him our friend. I could be his kid’s teacher. Poor guy, he’s down on his luck. Forty years or more of the Corporate One Party running Main Street into the ground, and he’s come to hate his government. He hates establishment. He no longer maintains his property because, what’s the point? Good wages are no longer available for pickemup and fixemup. I feel great sympathy for the man, starting with the kids I imagine he has. Trump isn’t the change he was hoping for. Something still has to change! Amazon is Everything. Even tiki torches are made in China.
Perhaps we are witnessing an example of blind rage? — with the emphasis on blind: beyond comprehensive sight, and eventually beyond thought. Perhaps this Trump supporter recognizes a blind rage in Trump himself? If so, it would be easy to connect with and support the perceived “like-minded” individual.
They have always been with us. They were always there. What won the election for Trump was the level of dissatisfaction with the way our government is run. Arne Duncan, for Pete’s sake. Neoliberalism, for Pete’s sake. The obstruction of the GOP, they should have been taken to the woodshed. Nothing gets done, except the governing elite and the rich get richer. The government is run by and for the rich. Is it any wonder than ordinary people were fed up with the usual tribe? Voting for Trump was a vote against the status quo, solely. I wish our system allowed the top two Repubs and Dems to run, that way we could have expressed our disgust for the status quo by voting for Bernie.
These guys do not worry me as much as my senator McCaskill. Trump is president because centrist democrats insisted on going with the safest possible candidate. It was taken for granted by the right that she was a dangerous socialist, when the reality was that she did not stand for much of anything. Give her or McCaskill something dangerous to talk about—-like the damage done by Bill Gates and Arne Duncan……they will find a way to tiptoe out of the way because it would not make any sense to divide the party by saying that Obama was a good president but not a perfect one. The people who could tolerate Hillary out numbered those who couldn’t…but not by much, and the energy and passion of those who could not stand her (I voted for her, by the way) was and remains phenomenal. She is used as the argument for why we should quit picking on Trump and Russia—she was worse, they will say—they know it in their hearts. I wrote to mccaskill about a problem with what the veteran’s administration—her assistant’s unresponse was rude beyond belief. I demanded some information about the charter schools in Missouri, and she sent a mimeographed piece of crud, which made no effort to deal with what I was asking. McCaskill has an answer for everything….and her answer to me is….what do want joe?…..a right winger to take my place for the republicans? The guy who has bumper stickers displayed, easily denigrated, is making an effort to stand for something. however illogical. Centrist democrats insist on standing for almost nothing. They are dangerous enough that consideration to having a third party should be considered.
Few people who call themselves Democrats get my blood boiled like McCaskill. She’s a Rahm Dem. Great comment, Joe.
Maybe it’s because we live in an incredibly unequal, deeply ideological society, and the media stokes fear and ignorance in the public at the behest of the ruling class, so that the ones at the top can maintain their power and profits.
For a long time now, I’ve been calling what’s happening to our politics the Galapagos Effect. People are isolated on their political islands. Conservatives go to their websites that tell them that the top 10 percent of earners pay 70 percent of taxes. Liberals go to theirs that tell them that the top 1 percent gets 48 percent of the income. Each gets confirmation of and no challenge to their notions. And then the inbreeding starts on those islands, and the real craziness develops–“Bush is a shape-shifting reptilian from the Pleiades with a spaceport under the Vatican”; “Obama isa Kenyan-born Islamacist working to establish American death camps under Shari’ah law who has poisoned our waterways and skies with chemicals that change kids’ genders.” That sort of thing. Both widely held theories in the good-ole wacky US of A.
Bob, nice to hear your sane voice again. I am a trusted writer at OpED News, which means that I only post verifiable reality with links to facts. I have noticed what you have observed. Thanks to the internet, people are locked into their echo chambers where nasty innuendo and hateful rhetoric is de rigor.; as one troll told me when I objected to his ad hominem attack, is “the real world, Susan, get used to it.”.
I flagged his remark and complained to the publisher, who makes it clear that argument may not get ugly, and disagreement does not give the right to hateful words.
LOL. It’s always been nasty in the trenches, Susan. In the old days, the acrimonious debates in broadsides and pamphlets would result, from time to time, in people’s losing their heads. But this extreme isolation on Internet islands–that’s new. We’re seeing speciation into distinct varieties of Hominid.
Good point. Here is a point of view about the WORDS we are hearing these days:
How America Went Haywire – The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/
Years ago, I rented office space for my little publishing house in a beautiful, refurbished brick, nineteenth-century school building overlooking a marsh in Gloucester, MA. The place was owned by a wacky fellow who had made a pile of money by creating the first computer program to generate astrology charts.
One day, there appeared in the parking lot an old pickup plastered over with stickers. I remember a few: Love it or leave it. You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Warning: I don’t brake for hippies. I’d rather be fishing. And, most alarming: Women–can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em.
My employees and I found ourselves curious about who the owner of this truck might be, so I kept an eye out. Then there he was. A guy old at 35, his face an angry highway map of broken capillaries from excessive drink, one of those guys whose every move is aggressive, who walks on the balls of his feet to make himself look bigger. I felt sorry for him. I could imagine his drunken father hitting him when he was five. Such people are not born that way. I wanted to tell him that his bumper stickers probably wouldn’t help him much with the ladies he was having all those problems with. But I didn’t.
Dear Bob,
I love the way you write. I am a retired teacher, and I write about education at OPED, and post and comment on important issues . Here is my AUTHOR’S PAGE which contains my resume, and, at the bottom, there are ‘blue button’ links.
One is to my series pages , which contain links to what is happening in education today, with thethe incredible information that Diane provides. http://www.opednews.com/author/series/author40790.htmll
my QUICKLINKS are interesting, and the comments I write when I post a link to an article, is interesting.
http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.html
You can message me there, and I will give you my email. I speak privately to many who write here.
Thanks, Susan!
Possible other future bumper stickers:
I’ve paid into SS all my life, and all I got was this lousy privatized system that mirrors the one in Chile.
I’ve paid into Medicare all my life, and all I got was this lousy voucher from Paul Ryan.
Who needs school when you’ve got choice?
The far right needs me; without me, they can’t feed off my liver.
I enjoy the greatest freedoms in the world: free to work 80 hours a week and have nothing to show for it.
Democracy: It’s SO overrated!
Corporations are people; and average, everyday people who are not corporations are sub-human.
If you don’t have enough money, then it’s because God don’t really love ya.
My other house – I mean only house – is a homeless shelter.
LOVE your creativity!!! Great bumper stickers!!
Yes!
Wonderful.
LOL.
Obamacare was Romneycare until it wasn’t. The Ministry of Truth is ever vigilant in its Rectifications.
Thank you. I aim to be both angry and creative at the same time. I should have taken that job producing shows for World Wide Wrestling. Oh well . . .
Did you actually write this? And post this?
Yes, Denis. Did you write the pro-Trump statements on your Facebook page?
Social Security isn’t a hand out from the govt they took that shit out of his pay. All I see is this woman is making assumptions not basing her thoughts on fact so it basically another liberal woman that’s like to hear herself judge… ehh… I mean talk. She has no clue of this mans background to make the presumptions she made.
Typical liberal crap making up shit without research or facts.
I knew an old man years ago in Poughquag NY that fits this mans description. He was a veteran worked 30 years was retired on a pension and assumedly collected his Social Security. When he died he had a large sum of money he left to his only son. The man drove an old beat up car and lived in a run down house and kept to himself.
He was not poor or on any govt benefits.
Because people don’t live like society tells them they shouldn’t have people making assumptions. It’s sad.
My opinion is people should mind their own business and stop casting judgement instead of following others around make assumptions.
Why assume he was a veteran?
Michele,
This is a blog, not a mandate. You don’t have to read it. I speak my mind, as you do. Find blogs more to your liking.
If Social Security is privatized, as it was in Chile, you won’t get a monthly check.
RIght on! And Trump is bent on privatizing it and means testing it!
Michele I guess Diane couldn’t take it that the driver meant what was on his bumper stickers. It’s one thing to not jump to stereotypical conclusions; it’s another to abdicate your intelligence.
I have people in my family like that. You couldn’t pry open their closed-minds with a crowbar. So be it. BE like that, and leave me alone too. EXCEPT: now you are messing with the source of our entire well-being and apparently you don’t even know it.
We don’t HAVE a perfect union; but we certainly want to keep one so that we can work towards that perfection. How does “I hate government” help with that ongoing project.
CBK,
I have five surviving siblings. (Two died.) One brother and one sister voted for Trump. We stopped talking about the election. My brother is dependent on programs that Trump wants to eliminate.
dianeravitch I know–but we are all head-banging in frustration about the show of complete ignorance in people we thought had some modicum of political sense. (What else could motivate someone to follow someone home as you did?) I haven’t heard a reasonable explanation yet about why they voted for Trump? It’s just a bunch of misguided shallow sxxt: “I hate the government,” without understanding what that really means. And they won’t listen to simple explanations, or answer questions like your own about living without “the government.” Light’s off.
But I think the raft of over-the-top complaints here are a kind of troll gang-up, or at least it “sounds” like that to me. They’ve been waiting for an entrance, and you gave it to them. Me thinks they’ll go away in awhile. But I don’t know how you/we can separate education from what’s going on in the Trump administration. It’s deadly, and that’s no hyperbole.
I followed him because I wanted a picture of his bumper stickers. There must have been 40 of them. It was almost a work of political art. He wanted them to be seen. I was impressed by the display, which is what he intended. I did not invade his privacy.
dianeravitch Maybe you could cover the license plate and post the picture here. But don’t connect anything said on the bumper stickers with what this guy thinks. That’ makes you “judgmental, elite.”
CBK,
I never got the photo of that political art.
Wow.
Pretentious, presumptuous and pure arrogance and conjecture.
Are you the people who teach critical thinking skills and evidence based writing?
You see someone you know nothing about and dress them down from your privileged perch to further your political agenda all the while claiming moral and intellectual superiority?
I drive a 16 year old beater with a few bumper stickers on the back.
My husband and I have worked no less than 3 jobs between us for our entire 30 year marriage while raising our 7 children.
And we voted for Trump.
Because he’s not nearly as disgusting as the people on this page or the person who writes it.
Get over yourselves.
Tilt your head down so you can see over your own stuck up noses and you’ll be able to see what people who voted for Trump look like.
They’re people who don’t want to be you.
Welcome to this blog. You’ll find that almost everyone here has a definite reason for believing why Trump is destroying the credibility of the US.
Quote: “Tilt your head down so you can see over your own stuck up noses and you’ll be able to see what people who voted for Trump look like.”
………
Just what do Trump voters look like? I’ve read a number of articles written by journalists that explain their versions.
Please elaborate on your reason for proudly voting for Trump.
Why don’t you try to taking to them instead of acting like you just want to classify them. I voted for Trump mainly because the other person on the ballot is a scheming greedy corrupt lying big govt control moron who has left a high amount of damage in her wake. Things I like about Trump- his willingness to see govt is a problem in some ways. His consistency. Him not taking crap from the media who actually lie, straight up lie, about him. His respect for the Constitution. His business acumen and work ethic. I appreciate his fair mindedness about social issues. I appreciate his respect for our nation, its history, and the many blessings it has given not only our citizens but the world. I’m not saying I agree with every policy decision he will make only that I can see he is putting the interests of our nation and it’s people ahead of the virtue signaling nonsense that is most of what happens in DC. He believes in the inherent greatness of America and its people and so do I. What makes this place great is the people, not the govt.
Jennifer Demente “His (Trump’s) respect for the Constitution. His business acumen and work ethic. I appreciate his fair mindedness about social issues. I appreciate his respect for our nation, its history, and the many blessings it has given not only our citizens but the world. . . . ”
How disheartening, especially if you are not a troll. I think Diane and the rest of us just find it difficult to understand why Trump voters cannot see that Trump is actually trying to tear the Constitution, the United States, and its hard-won public institutions apart. When we see the planned destruction occurring in increments every day, it’s difficult not to put the blame where it belongs–in a democracy, on the voters who listened to garbage and voted him in. (But I really think you are a troll.)
Jennifer is a troll. She posted about 15 comments of a similar nature. As I noted a few minutes ago, the blog is getting s deluge of comments from people who have never appeared here before, all praising Trump, most insulting me. They say I am an elitist because I support the American government. Imagine that.
Well said! So tired of the hypocrisy! People that sit and preach judgement on others have serious social and mental issues. Decades ago it was mocked and recognized now people are trying to normalize this outrageous behavior of stalking people they dont know casting judgement and then attempting to shame them on social media, blogs and other nonsense fake news sites/amateur journalism sites.
Do they do it for the attention? Evidently some people need this for their “life purpose”.
Michele and Jennifer Demente are trolls. Delete and forget.
I have deleted the most insulting of the comments. Fortunately, the worst were in moderation.
Diane If “they” could read double-speak, they could understand, for instance, that when Trump’s Trolls say that he is going to donate money from his own pocket it’s code for: someone else’s money in one of my scam organizations.
Anne I don’t care about any of that. All I want them/you to do is to learn how to read double-speak.
Ah, Catherine. I deal with the ‘deaf’ to reason, where I write at Oped News, and as Lloyd Lofthouse pointed out to me, “people willingly live in an Alt-Right Bubble and only follow FOX and sites like Breitbart, and are so brainwashed and programmed that they have cut themselves off from the world and only watch or read what they are told to watch and read by the lying, Alt-Right conspiracy theory machine.”
The very argument that Anne makes, about the fact that Diane gets paid for what she does best SPEAK (and write) defines that she does not grasp who Diane is, or why (for example) Politico would say that she was ONE OF THE 50 MOST IMPORTANT AMERICANS.
Love your intelligent commentary, by the way.
Susan Lee Schwartz Back at ya.
One truth from Trump, ” …their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs.” Then, to cement himself as THEIR accomplice, he appointed a cabinet of billionaires including Goldman Sachs’ Mnuchin, who is married to his own Marie Antoinette.
I’m astonished at this hateful and ignorant post and am sorry I ever thought you to be a person of integrity, now pathetic.
I stand beside Diane and listen carefully to her blogs that show wisdom and experience in governmental matters which are determining the direction of this country.
Winner – who the heck are you, and all the trolls who followed you? Never ever saw you here before; can’t imagine you weren’t paid to show up now and spew your nonsense.
Surely you have better things to do with your time than to stalk people.
Rob Urie
“A more perfect formula for social dissolution has rarely been conceived.
Focusing on social divisions rather than class solidarity, is a gift to the
ruling class.”
Apparently this post was reposted on a MAGA site. The blog is suddenly getting a lot of hate mail. The people writing these comments love Trump and hate the government. To me, the government is the Constitution. It is our system of laws. It is Social Security and Medicare. It is public schools. It is the military, the police, the firefighters, the emergency workers, disaster relief, public libraries, highways, national parks, and much more. I wonder which of these services and protections are “elitist” to the Trump fans.
Thanks for that clarification. I was suspecting the same. You’ve finally hit the big time!
Did you just say the United States Constitution is the government?????
And your claim to fame is education????
OMG
Greg. Of course you meant that comment in jest, but to be very clear to those who are recent followers of her work and are new readers of this blog, Diane Ravitch has for many years been the most significant force for sanity in all of U.S. K-12 education. She indefatigably calls out the charlatans and grifters on the education carnival midway, day in and day out. In addition to being our foremost historian of education, she has also become our premier muckracker–the Ambrose Bierce, Ida B. Wells, Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Nelly Bly, and Upton Sinclair of our age. God bless her. My admiration and respect for this brilliant and relentless fighter for justice in U.S. education knows no bounds.
cx: that would be muckraker. Oops.
Yes, Bob, I would put Diane in the Pantheon you listed. As one would say on the floor of the Senate, I wish to be associated with the remarks of my honorable friend.
Anne blah blah blah. Go away.
This is a disgusting, hateful post. You should be ashamed of yourself. I am a teacher, parent and Trump supporter. I am tired of the socialist, progressive agenda and the brainwashing of children. My child sat in class through the election cycle intimidated by pro- Hillary supporters. She was afraid to be bullied with the hateful words of bogot, xenophobe, sexist and transphobic. You assume that if people don’t agree with your liberal views it makes them haters and beneath you. How shameful!!!!
Veronica Someone hurt your feelings with the truth about Trump?
Amen!
My Dear Ms. Ravitch,
Here’s how Social Security works:
EmployEEs pay half
And
EmployERs pay half.
The government pays ZERO.
As a matter of fact, that’s how ALL so called “governmental benefits” work.
People who WORK (and or employ others) pay for both themselves AND the people who don’t.
The government adds NOTHING to the process.
All they do is take a cut for themselves for the “benevolent” service of taking the money from people who WORK and then giving it back to them in the form of Social Security and to everyone else under the guise of governmental charity.
They justify their existence by insisting they’re working on behalf of the people.
What they’re doing is called job preservation.
Their own.
The “job” of laundering working class people’s money for a cut.
Basically, legalized, organized crime.
Thank you. In Chile, social security was privatized and most people lost their pensions.
Anne Boy–do they have you by the gonads. (Unless you are a troll, in which case: flush.) But I’m sorry you missed out on your government classes in school. Maybe you would have understood how good government is legitimate and even essential for the maintenance of a peaceful civilization, and what taxes are for. I hate to hear what you would say if it were gone.
No one gets social security who didn’t pay into it.
Except for those who collect survivor death benefits, like spouses and children.
Considering the fact that most of us paid into Social Security for over 40 years before retiring, that’s a whole lot of money that we were not able to collect interest on for decades, while the government did, so it only makes sense that we should be getting more than what we paid.
Regardless, the average monthly Social Security check is only $1360, or $16,320 gross per year. That is not enough to live on in big cities with a high cost of living. People like me, who take home much less ($762 after deductions for Medicare), have to continue to work until we die. Consequently, we are STILL paying into Social Security and Medicare every month.
I, on the other hand, enjoyed your post.
Independent people come in all socio-economic sectors. Refusing government aid and insisting on taking care of yourself, no matter how poor you may be, is a kind of pride welfare recipients will never understand. It is a statement that says “I can be happy and content and live within my desires without the government”, as it should be. That is the kind of independence our country was founded on. We would rather be free and poor, than hostage to the government, and still poor. Government aid does make someone “un-poor”, it simply makes them still poor, but hostage to the rules set by the government.
Corporate welfare, government contracts and unneeded redundancies like many military contractors receive also make people very rich. Many of them recycle their funds to create anti-government activities to feed the misconceptions that fit your narrow world view. That way you feel better by venting illogical conclusions and scrutiny is deflected from them on to those you hate. See how that works?
Tam All said and good, to a point. That point is that at the other end, employers (without regulations or unions to protect employees) want to keep you poor and proud; and uneducated (about them especially) so you don’t know and cannot find your voice about, you know, . . . being equal and working for people who think you are a machine that doesn’t need repairs once in a while; and that you aren’t an essential part of their success, and the term “citizen” is just a far-off word.(This was Paulo Freire’s fundamental insight about the power of literacy).
And then they trash the poor as if it were all their fault–good Christians that they are . . .and some of the poor actually believe it. Of course, they are all welfare moms–the whole lot of them, greedy and only want your money. And when good health care is totally out of reach financially, or your car breaks down (if you actually have one) and you cannot afford to fix it; or the dentist is so expensive you cannot have your children’s cavities fixed, not to mention your own; and your cavity (the real one, not the metaphor) gets worse so you finally have it pulled and cannot afford new teeth, and so now you smile with a gap.
Who’d want to be poor anyway? So let them eat cake.
TAM See Albert Memmi’s “The Colonizer and the Colonized.”
Wow! Stereotype much? Any shred of respect I had for you evaporated after this.
Another badge of honor! Who knew there were so many trolls in the muck under the bridge?
Greg, none of these commenters have ever posted a comment here before.
None of them heard of you before they were alerted to this. Maybe there will be a silver lining and one of them might actually pick up (and read, never forget to read) one of your books and see the light. It is both amusing and depressing in its own way.
Thanks, Greg. The hate that’s coming through is the sign of a closed mind.
I wish the trolls would find another blog to trash. They are making me ill.
We should be caring for others, not pulling down. It is against the best government that we can have to constantly stick up for someone who bullies, threatens and wrecks havoc on our democracy. We are a peaceful people who want things to get better, not degrade into throwing rudeness at each other.
We are meant to care for each other. That means accepting those who are different. Latinos, Mexicans in particular, are not rude and killing types. There are a lot more killings and thievery that comes from the white respected class who exist here.
Do not continue to destroy immigrants, people of color, youngsters who came here and assimilated totally into this society and the poor who are struggling to exist.
We are in this country together and need to work together. The wealthy are the ones taking the most and they should be the ones giving back the most. Corporations that receive tax breaks and are making huge profits should be ‘paying their fair share’. There is a lot of work which needs to be done to make our democracy the best that it can be.
The source of All of this hatred becomes clear when you read Nancy McLean’s “Democracy in Chains.”
dianeravitch and all: “Democracy in Chains” author gives a talk on http://www.booktv.org.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find having a few trolls about an amusing thing. Keeps things lively, and their habits are so interesting to study. Brings out the amateur etymologist in me. But there I go, mixing my metaphors.
I agree with Bob. Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War, ““If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
We know where most of us on this site stand on the education issue. But having these trolls hanging around here is helping us learn about the enemy and how they think and do not reason logically and rationally. Instead, their minds operate from a shaky foundation of flawed logic.
We might not change the thinking of Trump’s shrinking support, but we will be able to do a better job educating the undecided and convincing more than half of the voters that voted for him, those who did not vote for Trump when they voted for Trump because they were voting against Hillary Clinton, to stop supporting him.
Trump’s shrinking approval ratings reveals that this is already happening.
“In a … Pew Research Center survey, 53% of Clinton supporters say they consider their vote more in support of her, while 46% say their vote is more against Trump. Negative voting is somewhat more prevalent among Trump supporters: 53% say their vote is primarily against Clinton. Fewer (44%) say their vote is in support of Trump.”
If we turn that percentage into raw numbers, we quickly discover that only 27,711,039 out of the 62,979,636 total that voted for the Kremlin’s Agent Orange were actual votes in support of Trump. That means more than 35-million votes for Trump are from people that do not belong to his core. To them, Trump was the lesser of two evils. Many of them have discovered that was a wrong assumption.
Trump’s deplorable hard core support base is about 20-percent of the adult voting population. If the Democratic Party handles this properly, the next election in 2018 could be a total train wreck for not only the GOP but Trump.
The responses to this post remind me of a psychology course I took a long time ago, Projective Techniques of Psychological Testing. Among the tests were the Rorschach and the TAT, Thematic Interpretation Test. Bumperstickers in profusion and seen as thematically related have functioned in about the same way as these tests. Just for fun I checked the internet. Sure enought there is a whole book connecting bumperstickers to philosophical concepts and this breezier look at political bumper stickers. http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-hidden-meaning-of-political-bumper-stickers
What an interesting link, Laura. It had never occurred to me that bumpers stickers are more popular here than in other countries. It’s so obvious now. I guess there’s a correlation between them and as Paul Simon wrote, we Americans “got a short little span of attention.”
Diane, I think you’ve been spammed by the 400.000 bots from the Russian troll factory that inundated social media with pro-Trump drivel just prior to the election. Reportedly, it can be difficult to discern that they are not genuine people, but I think the same self-centered, anti-government, commons hating, libertarian-like theme running in posts here is a tell.
See: https://www.usnews.com/news/at-the-edge/articles/2016-11-28/twitter-bots-from-the-us-state-of-georgia-posted-thousands-of-messages-before-the-election
Jennifer, please read Nancy McLean’s “Democracy in Chains.”
I think we are all to quick to judge and be critical. No one, not one of us, is without faults and prejudices. We are all made in the image of God. Some of us just have more mud to scrape off. Don’t be unkind and hate. It only perpetuates the hate. We must show – by our words and our actions – that being kind, respectful, helpful and cheerful is what makes living better. ❤️ PS I am an independent voter. I have observed that both the left and right have been speaking out in divisive and mean-spirited ways, and it seems to get worse every day. I don’t think that’s who we want to be as a people.
This is a bit of interesting information demonstrating exactly how much tRump cares about coal miners:
………………………………………
Trump Is a Conman in Hardhat
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Facebook Page
03 September 17
One of my responsibilities two decades ago was to oversee the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Its core objective was to keep miners safe. To run it, Trump has tapped a former coal company executive who has railed against safety protections for miners.
David G. Zatezalo, of Rhino Resources, clashed with the Department Labor over enforcement efforts aimed at curbing a spike in mining deaths. Zatezalo’s company was warned multiple times to improve mine safety, but few improvements were made. Tragedy struck in 2011 when a miner was killed during a cave-in caused by inadequate support beams. Now, Zatezalo will be in charge of protecting miners across the country.
To coal miners who voted for Trump: He is a conman in hardhat who has never had your best-interests at heart. He wants to make mines more dangerous while also cutting workforce development programs in your communities. The coal companies that donate to his campaign are profiting at your expense. America deserves a president who invests workers, not someone who sells them out.
What do you think?
I know this website is very popular, for a website dedicated to education. But it still is sort of a niche website. You’d only come here if you were interested in education policy. Diane is very accommodating, even when comments disagree with her views. If you came here because you found Diane’s post offensive, could you let us know how you came across it? Did something or someone tip off?
I hate to break your heart Einstein but Social Security and Medicare aren’t government aid; never paying a nickel in taxes and receiving free healthcare, that’s a government handout
Christine, you may have forgotten, but there was a concerted effort to privatize social security during the term of Bush 2. There has been a successful effort to eliminate defined benefit pensions. Not many people have them anymore. Social insurance and medical insurance are very important parts of our social arrangements, that is, if we don’t want to see people dying on the streets. It is true that you pay into the fund to keep these programs viable, but they are vital parts of our social safety net. Chile is proof that privatization of social security leads to disaster for the elderly. There are other programs for people who have so little income that need government assistance. That’s the price we pay to have a decent civilized nation.
So you are in favor of having poor people die rather than take Medicaid? My mother was totally broke and had to go on Medicaid to survive the last months of her life. 60% of people in nursing homes are receiving some form of Medicaid.
Do you have a suggestion as to what these destitute dying people should do? I am a hospice worker and believe they deserve this last bit of humane care. It is sad to see them wither. No amount of home care could compensate for what these people are receiving…nursing care by professionals to make their last days as comfortable as possible.
My mother paid taxes her whole life. What was she supposed to do when all of her resources were gone?
Christine Thompson writes: “Social Security and Medicare aren’t government aid; never paying a nickel in taxes and receiving free healthcare, that’s a government handout.”
Just to be clear: do you think being a citizen of the United States means pay-to-play, so to speak, or no-pay, no play? And further, do you think that being a citizen who, for instance, is a child-in-need, a disabled person, a destitute “senior,” or just in need of a better education, should receive no help from WE-the-people’s government because they haven’t paid into the system?
If so, the principles of capitalism–as not only an economic system, but also as a political principle, e.g., consumerism as end-all has seeped into your consciousness, erased your sense of not only family and community, but also the national identity you probably say you embrace, and is set about erasing your sense of humanity. (I hope you are not one of those neo-Christians who forgot all about what Jesus was about. I guess all those people who came to the Sermon on the Mount paid at the gate.)
CBK,
Since children don’t pay taxes, they must be free loaders if they go to public school
dianeravitch Yes. The children who will “people” the future are really leeches.
There’s a real dumbing-down of moral consciousness here. And I say that even though I have some in my own family who scam the system (boooooo to them). But you don’t define a bin of good apples by the few that have worms, nor a whole community by those who’ve abdicated their responsibility to and for it. That’s the thoughtless “fake” way out, as Susan Schwartz suggests in another note.
If the little ones don’t pay taxes, no school for them!
LOL!
Ah yes. “Thoughtlessness— as in ‘requiring NO reflection– no comping what you just heard to what you once knew as a FACT!
When I studied Blooms Taxonomy of Higher Level Thinking, I remember him talking about ‘prior knowledge’ –> The need to have AUTHENTIC FACTS in your brain, in order to do the next step in higher-level-thinking, which is to analyze what one hears or reads, by COMPARING the information to what ONE ALREADY KNOWS is true….PRIOR KNOWLEDGE.
We cannot teach ‘critical thinking’ without this.
The SKILL of thinking critically requires comparison of what we hear to what we know.
* Thus, those who have prior knowledge of MR Trump, cannot be surprised by his behavior.
Analysis BY COMPARISON is easy for THINKING individuals, who POSSESS an education that offers a glimpse of real history — as opposed to what THESE GUYS—> https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum
offer students in THOSE schools where LEGISLATORS (WHO desire ignorant citizens) allow curricula to be written by the guys who pay to get them elected.
Democracy dies when knowledge is not shared!
Click to access hirsch.pdf
.
The Mendacity that is afoot in our world, — the kind of lying that is daily fare, until people tune out truth as well as the lies — is what allows the Shadow Governement to do its thing.
When the head honcho… the PRESIDENT himself goes viral and DISMISSES as FAKE—anything and everything that he wants to contradict, then the people of this nation do not know what they KNOW, or what must be KNOWN.
WORDS MATTER: Truth matters! No society survives when liars make the important decisions.
In JERRY MANDER STATES in “The Absence of the Sacred” that values about truth have been lost as family neighborhood and community has been uprooted, and tv and the internet have REPLACED THE VALUES –> PUSHED into the culture—>THE VALUES of those who want to end what WE THE PEOPLE have… a working Constitution and a set of LAWS which made us the env of the world… the GO-TO PLACE.
The money that flows into our banks and businesses from around the comes here because theyTRUST THAT WE HAVE LAWS.
If you read the opening paragraphs http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/mander.html you will know that Jerry Mander predicted our present society….the one that Nichols & McChesney described on Moyers show, and the one that you so accurately observed today. http://billmoyers.com/content/media-politics-media-experts-john-nichols-robert-mcchesney-veteran-journalist-seymour-hersh-visit-carnival-bill-moyers-savage-nation/
YEARS AGO on a road-trip, I listened to Al Franken read the book he had written, after a collaboration with a Harvard team to uncover the mendacity on the news. MAY I RECOMMEND TO YOU
Lies_and_the_Lying_Liars_Who_Tell_Them
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/11/highereducation.news1
IIt is no laughting matter that LIES ARE THE NEW TRUTH
BILL MAHER JAN 29 2016
He says: “TRUTH IS DEAD AND THE INTERNET KILLED IT.”
I say, television started the process as Vance Packard described in his prescient “The Hidden Perusaders. http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1004/article_903.shtml
He exposed, when tv was barely begun, how the advertising ‘mad- men’ led the way to the subtle influences that sells everything from soap to politicians by using subliminal messages! I read this in the sixties.
YES, CATHERINE, THE WANT US TO BE THOUGHTLESS, so the stress us out, make ordinary folks have to choose between rent and medicine, disrupt us constantly with disruptions so we can hardly follow yesterday’s events about health care before Trump wants to end DACA or defund our government. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/opinion/trump-declaration-of-disruption.html?emc=edit_th_20170704&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=50637717
and then they lie to us, repeating mis-information, or half the facts, or opinion parading as truth, until no one can tell what is ‘fake’ from what is truth.
Pity the teachers who want to impart truth to young minds.
Social Security and Medicare are not government aid. Besides the lack of knowledge of government programs, there is so much wrong with this blog, I don’t know where to begin. First off, I am not a Trump voter but I do not make assumptions about Trump voters or people I know nothing about. And I teach my children not to do so either. I teach them to be open minded and tolerant of all people and to try to understand the circumstances and events that shape their lives. I am disgusted that a woman who claims to be a champion for public ed can look down on a man who is a product of that system, a system that is apparently good enough for us common folk who are not fortunate enough to go to Andover and Exeter with all the children of the elites and reformers. I am disillusioned by this whole fight which I thought was about the standardization of education and the people who I thought were fighting for a better education our children. It is apparently political and one sided. Let’s teach our children better. “Hate cannot drive out hate…
Tricia,
1. The man in question advertised himself as a Trump voter.
2. He covered the back of his truck with hateful, anti-government, anti-poor People stickers.
3. I didn’t go to an elite private school. Perhaps he did.
4. I did not express hate for him. He expressed hate for poor people.
5. If you don’t like the blog, don’t read it.
Diane -I use to like your blog when I thought you were a champion for our kids, fighting against Common Core. I am a mom who sees the stark difference from my older preCC kid to my younger in the thick of it. It has destroyed education in this country. That is why I read your blog. I was a hold out. Hoping it was not true what everyone has said, education reform is not about the kids. It is one sided and it is political. Sorry, I held you in higher esteem.
Tricia,
Thank you. For the 100thvtime, I do not support Common Core and never did
Tricia: “Diane -I use to like your blog when I thought you were a champion for our kids, fighting against Common Core… Sorry, I held you in higher esteem.”
…………..
Tricia, I have been reading Diane Ravitch’s blog for quite a long time. You are a newcomer to the scene. Wherever did you get that idea that Diane wasn’t working to support public education and the children? She has NEVER supported Common Core.
Please don’t make up ideas that have no basis in the reality of this blog. I do not like to see Diane trashed in this manner. She is an honorable, trustworthy, intelligent and knowledgeable person who should be respected for all the work she has done to support the children of this country.
Tricia,
Social Security and Medicare are government programs, even though you pay into them. Why do you think Republicans are trying to privatize Social Security and to cut Medicare? Because they are government programs. If they were private, Congress would not be trying to change them.
Our taxes fuel everything the government does. I’m not sure I understand her point.
Government programs, yes. Government aid, no.
Tricia Farmer Please enlighten me on what you mean by: “Government programs, yes. Government aid, no.” From my present view, it’s a classic statement of a distinction without a difference.
I was replying to Diane. She changed my words from government aid to government program. I am not arguing that it’s a government program. It is, however, not govt aid as she stated in her blog.
Big difference Catherine. Welfare and Medicaid are examples of government aid. Completely different than SS and Medicare.
Tricia Farmer Oh, I see. But aren’t Medicaid and Welfare government programs? Not much comes from the government at any level (state or federal) that does not get ordered around programatics. Programs are what systematize (what is named in one field’s technical language) “the good of order.”
Tricia Farmer And taxes are “taxes” because they are fungible–which means that they can be spent for the designated common good, and not only under the rule of a pay-for-play kind of “program.” You seem to want to change that idea to be pay-for-play.
So you don’t see belonging to a family/community/nation as more important than being able to pay? On that principle, criminals, who “wash” their money and can pay, belong where children; or someone unfortunate enough to fail in business, or get sick and can contribute no longer, do not?
If that’s the case either you are a selfish moron or you’ve drunk the neo-liberal poison and just don’t know it. And yes, that’s a judgment.
And while the government could do a much more efficient job of collecting, funding and disbursing SS and Medicare/Medicaid, only the very naive imagine that deregulated private companies would stick to the theory that the money belongs to everyday citizens…
The foundation of the private sector is making a profit. If Social Security and/or Medicare and/or the VA medical system was turned over to the private sector to manage, the CEOs would bend over backwards finding ways to deny people benefits or cut their benefits so the CEO’s could boost profits and make Wall Street and their share holders happy.
The majority of share holders belong to the top 1-percent and to their thinking, enough is never enough. They must always have more money and/or more power and privileges.
never mind out and out recklessly gambling with “other people’s money” — and then saying ooops, my bad when the market is so weakened it has to crash
But they don’t say, “Oops, I’m bad.”
They either say nothing and slip off to a luxurious hiding place somewhere in the world with all that cash they stole hidden in offshore accounts, or they blame it on something or someone else, probably liberals, Obama, or Clinton.
Those three are the Alt-Right fall-back options to blame whenever the far right hurts a lot of people with their agendas.
Rita,
Diane understands exactly what you imply from what you say!
We all do!
At least Diane asked a question, and you had a chance to express yourself.
What people say, the dialogue that issues from their choices, is the best way to know who they are.
What is hard to grasp is how –with the reality in front of this nation– you can be so utterly confused.
We struggle with trying to understand like good people, smart people can look at what i ongoing, and still not understand the truth, and moreover, to condemn someone like Diane who does.
it can’t be just Fox and a diet of propaganda… or could it, as one reader suggests, the the poison has been pumped into your system for so long, that truths no the antidote… or can it.
Ignorance is not bliss, Rita, it is the demolition of truth!
https://www.c-span.org/video/?293903-5/economy-retirement-security
I hate my government! 🙄
–Jernnifer Demente[d]
Jennifer,
Your government is the Constitution, the military. The police. The firefighters. The national parks. The air traffic control. The highways.
You hate all that?
–Diane Ravitch
QED
Exactly, what is the perfect Trump voter? Is that anything like a perfect Obama voter? Trump wants to drain the swamp after Obama filled the swamp.
What is the purpose of you disparaging that man who drives that pick up or his home. Did this man say anything about your home? What is your problem about weapons? I see that you were on a stereotype rampage, that according to your worldview (liberalism), only validates what I have learned long ago about people who judge, but hates to be judged by the same standards they judge others.
But, let me tell you what a perfect Trump voter is. This is a person who loves the country and willing to lay down their life for it; and I did not say Trump, I said country.
A perfect Obama voter is one who hates the Constitution for what it stands for, unless they use it to hide behind for the trash they say. They care about globalism and the UN and not the United States. They have contempt for the laws – unless it benefits them – and they take advantage of the opportunities presented to them, while taking opportunities away from others. A Liberal will not stand up and defend themselves and their beliefs when the first bullet flies, but they are the ones to initiate the conflict.
Want proof?, Look at the Antifas. They also hide their face. Some of them are school teachers, just like you, or the one who shows their class how to use a strap-on dildo.
As for school teachers of all levels, K-18, 98% believe in the precepts and edicts of Karl Marx, John Dewey and Roger Balwin. All three are based in and totally immersed in Communism.
What Trump and his deplorable, hard-core, ignorant supports think is a swamp is the government that is guided by the U.S. Constitution that the founding fathers wrote.
Lloyd Becker, I think you are a deplorable idiot and the reason I say that is because you think 98-percent of K-12 teachers believe in Communism.
Yet almost a third of public school teachers are registered Republicans because those teachers represent the country.
I was one of those teachers for thirty years. Before college, I served in the U.S. Marines and fought against Communism in Vietnam, a war that was based on a lie and one the U.S. lost after losing almost 60,000 of its own troops (not counting the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops that were maimed and injured) and killing millions of civilians by dropping more bombs on Laos, Cambodia and all of Vietnam than what was dropped in all of WWII.
I suspect you have no idea what the difference is between capitalism, communism, socialism, and the social safety net.
Learn if you can:
“Having socialist safety net programs does not mean a country is socialist or communist. For example, the United States is not a socialist country just because it has Medicare, and Social Security. The difference is that the United States has a multi-party political system and still has private ownership of property and a capitalist business system.”
Where do you come up with this? I don’t recognize myself in anything you are saying. When it comes to judging, you have made a lot of hurtful incorrect judgmental statements.
You are a newcomer to this blog. I am sickened by your words and what you think I support. I am a retired school teacher. If you want to know what I think, ask. Don’t tell me.
I taught for over 20 years in the US and 13 years overseas in Southeast Asia and South America and I can assure you that I never taught any of my children how to use a dildo. [I can’t teach what I don’t know.] I also can assure you that I don’t initiate nor support conflicts between countries. My belief is to work to help others who are in need. I do not have contempt for any laws unless they are laws that discriminate and cause hurt for innocents with no power. I have done my best to show respect, no matter what religion, beliefs or background my students have come from.
I have a number of friends who are overseas locals. I’m sure that if I was as obnoxious as you say, these foreigners would not consider me a friend.
Exactly what opportunities have I taken away from others? I have spent a lifetime doing my best to enrich the knowledge and lives of the students with whom I’ve worked. I have learned and improved throughout the years but that comes with maturity and a desire to become better.
Lloyd Becker,
You are a perfect Trump voter.
Arrogant, ignorant, assertive, filled with white rage, condescending.
If you are like your hero, you are a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe. Your hero has filled the swamp with people who want to destroy the Constitution and the government.
You are rude, crude, and vicious.
Please do not return to my blog again.
You are not welcome.
Exactly so. I write about this all the time at Oped. It is not hard to argue or disagree, but there is no need for the level of arrogance and nastiness, which shows utter disrespect for the site and the people who write or read here.
Diane, I respectfully (and this is rare) disagree with you. Mr. Becker’s post was one of the outlandishly funny things I’ve read in a long, long time. I couldn’t stop howling as I read this. I kept wondering whether his post was for real or was actually a satirical piece from, say, The Onion, it so perfectly parodied itself. Your living room, your rules. But Mr. Becker is priceless. What a hoot. 98 percent of school teachers are Communists.
LOL. Good one. Now that’s funny. One can’t make up stuff that crazy. One has to seek the rarity out in the wild.
Bob,
If that other Lloyd’s comment wasn’t a deliberate parody, where did he hear (I’m sure he doesn’t read that much) that 98-percent of public school teachers in the United States are communists?
That Lloyd’s thinking is so absurd that I understand why you howled in laughter.
But I didn’t laugh.
My first thought was that Lloyd Becker isn’t the only American that thinks like that. Those like minded people are the ones that fascists like Trump will recruit to man his prison camps as he purifies the United States of anyone that isn’t white and doesn’t think like him — if we don’t stop Trump, Pence, and Trump’s cabinet from achieving their goals to destroy the U.S. Constitution and the government it created and guides.
I don’t think many of us follow the Alt-Right media like Fox News or Breitbart or Rush Limbaugh or that conspiracy theory idiot Alex Jones that Trump loves. There are far too many of these voices on the far right with their alternative news based on alternative facts and conspiracy theories.
For instance, we had another nut-case like Lloyd Becker here recently that left a comment raging against the burden on welfare caused by illegal aliens. That rant was caused by the Alt-Right media and a conspiracy theory based on alternative facts (lies) that was reported by the Alt-Right media as if it were true.
People like Lloyd Becker are influenced by this fake news, and they want to believe it because it fits their thinking.
Maybe we do need to let the Lloyd Becker’s of the world rant here so we learn who they are.
Sun Tzu, the author of the Art of War, said to “now your enemy better than you know yourself”, and I want to know where Lloyd Becker came up with his thinking. Who planted it in his head?
And this morning, one of the Trumpistas proposed that all union pensions should be abolished.
I’m not going to say I’m sorry for my thoughts. As a former U.S. Marine and combat vet, I want to abolish the Trumpists before they get a chance to abolish us.
I know that many here follow the teaching of Gandhi and King to protest peacefully and turn the other cheek, but Gandhi was protesting the British Empire that was a parliamentary republic and the Parliament answered to the people that voted, and King was protesting in a United States that was a Constitution Republic where people vote and when the majority of voters agree with people like Gandhi and King, those methods worked.
Trump does not respect the Constitutional Republic. He doesn’t respect democracy. He only respects fascism, hate, racism, and the power of the bully. Trump doesn’t care what the majority thinks.
Trump isn’t alone. Bill Gates doesn’t respect the U.S. Constitutional Republic. He shows this by spending hundreds of millions to subvert the will of the voters and the U.S. Constitution. The same can be said for the Koch brothers (ALEC), the Walton family, the DeVos family, Richard Mercer, and too many others.
Anyone that hates labor unions wants to abolish the power of the working class.
Anyone that hates Social Security or Medicare wants to punish anyone that relies on those programs so they can eat and have medical care. To those haters, if we can’t make it on our own, we should all starve and die.
Millions of poor white Americans are angry because they can’t get a decent job. They blame the gubbbermint. A lot of folks who share Lloyd’s view are like that, but this doesn’t apply to him. He has a pension from his service, I’m sure. It is likely that he has lived for a long time on an Alt Right Internet Galapagos where a peculiar kind of speciation occurs.
That other Lloyd had/has too much time on his hands if he used that time to listen to hate, lies and conspiracy theories swallowing them whole.
Lloyd Lofthouse Just a couple of things:
First, a recent CNN group of mixed voters revealed that the Trump voters didn’t know who Mueller was; whereas the other voters did. It points to not only fake, but silo-news (a concerted absence of information), radio, TV, and cable and even in some books of late.
Second, the demonization of teachers is scary and TOTALLY uncalled for (duh). But I believe that such demoniation is a part of a bigger whole of also-demonizing not only public education, but education as such. It’s a “brand” of anti-intellectualism that’s baked-in, precisely because (a) intellectual and moral morons are in charge and (sigh . . .) also have free speech; and (b) to be involved in becoming educated is (more likely) to understand what’s been going on and, therefore, to be actively against it.
Historically, from Truman on, Presidential approval ratings tend to decline precipitously in the second half of their terms in office, however long those were.
There are a few exceptions: Clinton and Reagan left office with ratings almost as high as they started with, and Eisenhower’s decline wasn’t large. The rest of them, however–Obama, G.W. Bush, G.H.W.Bush, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, and Truman, Republicans and Democrats–all saw their job approval ratings drop significantly in the second half.
In general, most Presidents found themselves looking back wistfully on the first half, when things weren’t so bad.
Mr. Trump’s approval rating is already in the 30s. It recently hit a(n) historic low. If that job approval rating follows the general trend for Presidents, things look REALLY grim for him. His advisors must know this. So, what’s their plan?
Trump has no compassion. These DACA’s have lived here, know this culture and are contributing to society. These people are in school, have started businesses or have jobs. They and their families live in fear.
Trump only wants photo-ops and Twitter comments. His brain doesn’t go beyond the infantile. He is wearing me out.
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Video: Listen to the voices of undocumented immigrants…DACA
As President Trump moves to end the Obama-era program that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, listen to a few of the 800,000 affected by the program.
“His brain doesn’t go beyond the infantile.”
What brain?
In fact, what heart?
What compassion?
What soul?
Trump isn’t human. A rock has more brains, heart and compassion than he does.
hard to laugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1kx4UuTGj8&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs
Trump is also a coward. He didn’t have the guts to announce the end of DACA or even to stand next to AG Sessions
Agreed. Trump has a history of being a bully and bullies are cowards.
Thank you for posting this, Carol
Mr. Trump–you’re a marketing-savvy kinda guy. You know a good slogan when you hear one–something that pithily and memorably encapsulates a lotta stuff. Why don’t you just lump together your support for the Wall and for the RAISE Act and your cancelling of DACA and whatever other depredations you have planned under one catchy, memorable umbrella title like, say, “The I Fear Brown People Acts of 2017”?
Here is the reality of his savvy… by Charles Chew https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/opinion/trump-truth-wiretapping-obama.html?mcubz=0
I have chosen the salient points:
“In an article in Politico: “all presidents lie — all people lie — “but Donald Trump is in a different category. Our brains are particularly ill-equipped to deal with lies when they come not singly but in a constant stream, and Trump, we know, lies constantly, about matters as serious as the election results and as trivial as the tiles at Mar-a-Lago.”
“Trump is quite literally OVERWHELMING our human capacities with his mendacity. It is not only hard to imagine that any person could lie this much — let alone the leader of the free world — it is also impossible for us to keep pace. There is a strong impulse, in each of us struggling against fatigue, to register the pattern and manage expectations. We begin to build into our processing of politics the caveat: Yes, the “president” lies. That’s not new. That’s just what he does”
“But we must resist that impulse. It makes normal, or at least rational, something that is neither normal nor rational. Trump’s incessant lying is obscene. It is a collapse in morality; it is an ethical assault.”
“It seems odd that we have to defend the merits of truth, and yet we do. We must.”
“This notion that Trump is damaging the sanctity and purity of truth, that truth in the Trump era operates on a floating scale, that for the Trump apologists truth has become a minor inconvenience, should have us all objecting in earnest.”
“This is not simply about a flawed man, this is about the function of our democracy and American positioning in the world. How is one supposed to debate policy with someone who almost never tells the truth? How can a liar negotiate treaties or navigate international disputes? Without truth, everything falls apart, or more precisely, nothing can be established.”
“Of the statements by Trump that the fact-checking site PolitiFact has checked, just 5 percent were deemed absolutely true. Another 26 percent were just “mostly true” or “half true.” But a whopping 69 percent were found to be “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire,” the site’s worst rating.’
“Indeed, it seems that every major publication has taken a stab at trying to chronicle and explain Trump’s lying.
The Washington Post calculated that Trump made 492 false or misleading statements in his first 100 days — “That’s an average of 4.9 claims a day” — and that there were only 10 days without a single false claim. There were five days with 20 or more false claims.
“The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it.”
“Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it.”
He is out of touch with reality. His money has given him too much power for too long and he threatens anyone who doesn’t bow. All the people bowing to him have distorted his ability to reason. He can’t take criticism of any kind and has never been a kind person. Add to that a good possibility of ever growing dementia. He doesn’t read and has not grown in any meaningful direction for years.
He is a person who cannot be trusted. Nobody can debate policies with him because his ideas change depending upon whom he last visited.
carol,
he doesn’t seem to take any pleasure in anything, not even lying. look at his face. he always glowers. he takes joy in being angry. rage is his default position, and lying is his habitual response to everything. the only thing that gives him pleasure is sycophants and praise. speaking of which, Putin is quoted in the NY Times today, when asked about Trump, “he is not my bride, and I am not his husband.” Deconstruct that!
carolmalaysia Watch Trump when he’s talking to someone–he rarely if ever lets someone finish a question or statement. His hand comes out in a pressing-down gesture, actually pressing down what the person wants to say to him, as he interrupts and overwhelms–most probably because what’s being said interferes with his internal ideological-doctrinal field of self-aggrandizement. In a thoroughly dogmatic person, that field cannot be disturbed without raising internal hackles. He’s totally resistant to anything that goes against that internal stasis. He must be a mess inside–the new hurricane is a good metaphor for what’s coming down the pike for him and the US.
I just read this on The Onion. I’d say there are quite a few people who are totally upset with the Orange Idiot.
[At least he isn’t causing any world wide or domestic disturbances when in this position. “10 seconds with his own thoughts” is more than anyone could tolerate.]
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Aides Clip Toenails, Wash Hair Of Mumbling, Bedsore-Ridden Trump As President Enters 155th Straight Hour Of Watching Cable News
WASHINGTON—Carefully maneuvering to avoid blocking his view of the television, White House aides were reportedly called upon Tuesday to clip the toenails and wash the hair of the bedsore-ridden, incoherently mumbling President Trump as he entered his 155th straight hour of watching cable news. “It’s important to reposition the president every couple of hours because it keeps his blood circulating and prevents his sores from getting infected,” said White House aide Ryan Powers, one of the many staffers tending to the president during the past week of uninterrupted television viewing, performing tasks such as emptying his bedpan, sponging his clammy skin, and gently dabbing the drool off his face. “We have to make sure someone’s here at all times to change channels during commercials. Otherwise, he starts shrieking, and then it’s pretty much impossible to calm him down. But he’s generally pretty comfortable and has a call button for requesting another bowl of Fruit Loops whenever he wants them, which is a lot.” At press time, frantic aides were rushing to soothe the president, who had accidentally rolled onto the remote, shut off the television, and had to spend a full 10 seconds in a quiet room with his own thoughts.
http://www.theonion.com/article/aides-clip-toenails-wash-hair-mumbling-bedsore-rid-56852