Full-on Battle Won, As Street Fighting Persists, Recovery Process Embarked
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The political fight is never over. Recovery begins in earnest. Yet, more, and better, results than before Trump’s destruction must be achieved, and soon. Urgency, stamina, and consistency, and democracy advancing are the watch words.
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Hope. Yearning. Optimism. There are many similar words that may describe your current perspective. Such emotional components must be in wide, and deep quantities, and at a high quality to make our realities possible. Of course, the emotional battery pack cannot last very long without the sustenance of real, tangible accomplishments.
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That being said, my perspective is that the same old, same old is the wrong sustenance to place alongside our always tried and true battery packs. Continuing to hit our heads against a wall harder, faster, or in another but similar place, makes no more sense in our current predicament. We must also use our minds and energies differently.
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While abandoning our current political processes is unlikely for various practical, structural, and strategic reasons, building a parallel platform can be done. Think of it as an electoral workaround with a very sturdy scaffolding. The system would raise every progressive and liberal organization higher so they are at a level similar to all the forces arrayed against them. At the same time the system is developing workarounds that effectively disrupts and overwhelms every power structure.
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After the four year plus fight we have been in with Trump, and his captured Republicans, culminating in the Biden and Harris win, it is easy to see most anti-Trump Americans becoming too complacent even before Biden’s first 100 days are up. Yes, some relaxation must take place so we can replenish for the continued fight. Then again, many Americans are never allowed rest.
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Therefore, we must plan for the time when the urge to check out, or maybe even drop out begins. Getting worn out happens to some people less than others, for good and not-so-good reasons. Taking care of ourselves is important, but forgetting about the predicament of others in worse situations, should and must keep us from completely checking, or dropping out.
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I nearly checked out completely about a year after my 48 year-old appendix failed, and they had to cut me six inches, rather than laparoscopically pluck it out through a small hole. That six week layoff instead of a few days, greatly atrophied my stomach muscles, which released my back from some of its support structure.
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Due to a number of accidental falls, and jumps from high places in my adolescence, the 4th and 5th lumbar vertebrae in my back, unbeknownst to me, were disintegrating. While I noticed some leg numbness when I stood in one place too long, and my lower back was sore when I woke up most mornings previous to my appendicitis, I still could lift weights three times per week without any extra pain. As the docs, for almost a year, were trying to find out what was wrong with my back, they diagnosed me with multiple myeloma (cancer of the blood) at least twice.
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They also drilled out a core of bone marrow from my hipbone, CaT-scanned my head (saw I am not cat brained), and took two spinal MRIs. They found lesions on my spinal column, then confirmed in the second one they were hemangiomas, basically internal birthmarks. Exactly a year after my April 2010 appendicitis, I had my back surgery, where they removed two noncancerous cysts that were rubbing my spine causing pain from my lower back to my big toes. The leg pains mostly ended, but my back pain kept increasing, until it overwhelmed me.
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On the 2nd of January, 2012, during eight hours of unmitigated full body pain, I gave up. As to my understanding of pain, realize that in 1981 I got my left foot crushed, between a forklift and a cement wall, and was in the hospital nine days. Seven bones broken or smashed, big and adjacent toe bones fused together with two six-inch pins length of the foot, and one on the top of the foot. The injury required three casts because of much swelling.
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I laid in bed every night during the last two weeks of June, after my senior year in high school, crying myself to sleep from the infernal itch that was always out of my reach, as well as from constant mid-level pain. Much of the itch and pain was caused by my football sized, swollen foot gradually deflating.(My promising to become a priest did not end my foot pain. So, I was forced to revoke my priesthood promise. Whew! I guess sometimes accepting the pain is worth it.)
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Ironically, giving up due to my back pain was the best thing I could have done. This short term release of all life concernsincluding my inability to work for seven months due to the brain fogging pain, which led to a loss of all my clients, and business insolvency. That total mind clearing was very necessary. On the other hand, since that summer of 1981 foot injury, I knew I could work my way back from any physical trauma. The genesis of that courage arose via my oldest sister, Ann. She has had cerebral palsy her entire life.
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Though Ann has a somewhat mild form of it, there was nothing she, my parents, other sisters, or I could do to even partially remove her ailment, no matter how positively we approached her predicament. For my entire life, this has meant forever giving up, giving in, checking out, or dropping out, was never an option. Although the thought of it, or a short experience in it, can help refocus and revive us..
Of course, there are many things we can increase in, and remove or reduce from, our world that can positively improve our own lives and that of others. Unfortunately, there are other things that can be and have been set up in the past by people like us to block change, and stop improvement in certain areas. These blockages are what we must remove, or reroute around.
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There is self-inflicted pain. There is society-inflicted pain. There is family-inflicted pain. There is pain inflicted by those who hate others for being others. Pain is found in us, and all around us. Yet most of us are willing to learn to live with our pain. Unless we are shut down for no apparent reason when attempting to make changes that will relieve some, most, or all of that pain.
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If my doctors would have told me there is nothing they can do, except for ameliorating some of my worst back pains, I would have learned to live with it. I only became frustrated because the final decision was extended multiple times for another test. These extensions were as much my fault as theirs. Good doctors want to heal you; you want to be healed.This kind of reciprocal process could be extended forever in many domains.
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While that is so, very, very few Americans expect, nor want, the government to overextend itself for them. Many Americans, during parts of our lives at least, can do nearly everything on our own. However, most Americans know we are very interdependent nation as well. Those who insinuate near independence their entire lives from government, or We The People, do not live in reality.
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Even CEO Jeff Bezos needs some employees, and millions upon millions of customers. His companies need public roads, airports, and airways, product manufacturers, authors, screenwriters, drone and truck builders, and so on. No one has ever done it alone. Yet when millions of Americans fall on hard times, have no health insurance and get cancer, are brain damaged from lead in the water, get a substandard education, or something else goes wrong, we disconnect them from the interdependency, which Amazon and others abuse.
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Jeff Bezos, Walmart, other wealthy people, and huge corporations deny and absolve themselves of their interdependency with every American. Then Republicans wink, and nod at this separatist and secessionist activity by the wealthy and big business to get their campaign chests filled. By denying Americans the basics modern life can provide including healthcare, equal educational opportunities, a livable wage, and protection from discriminatory actions, we create the caldron for disunion, and the destruction of democracy.
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Every time Republicans complain about socialism, or a progressive endorses it, what is being reacted to are the cries from, or for, the people stuck in the punitive vortex of “free” market capitalism. Republicans could quickly calm these seas of life destruction and civic discontent by joining with Democrats to support those who never had a chance to fully participate, or have fallen through the cracks, that their form of laissez un-faire, crony capitalism engenders.
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The refusal by small-government conservatives to allow more democratic power is based on a misreading of history, and human nature, and a lack of constitutional imagination. They believe everyone gets enough of a chance to succeed, or lost out because of personal responsibility failure, or due to some other fish tale, philosophy fail. Republicans also give too much credit to the supernatural qualities of the “free” market.
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“Government cannot move fast enough,” Republicans say, “to effectively and consistently make things better, and will screw it up if it tries. Therefore, we must leave our future up to an invisible hand job.” Yet how society is structured, where its roads lead or do not, can kill or benefit what the current, wealth-hoarder economic theory wants.
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We can restructure things, so other things can work better, or to pay for the basic things others are not able to obtain because of “free” market misfires. Neither democracy, or an economic system is perfect, but new things can be implemented to improve it.
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More importantly, harming others merely because we have an economic theory we put too much belief in is a modern pagan worshipping cult that demands many human sacrifices.
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Our lack of historical context in decision making, and disuse of social science data means we keep repeating the same mistakes. Republicans too often seed those fallacies and misconceptions to avoid changing, or improving, our society. Instead all these statistics continue showing how we pathetically practice democracy.
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Racism, poverty, addiction, violence, and our people and planet health crisis, require something besides the sophistry of incrementalism, and an economy directed by the wanking of an invisible hand theory, and waving off its failures “as nothing to see here”. The 21st century provides advanced tools and knowledge; we must now utilize those tools for managing our nation.
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Finally, the nattering, naysayer, nabobs are wrong. We can manage our economy, society, and country better. The theorists of ancient accounting and Aryan austerity always note how it is impossible to keep track of enough things to improve on their supernatural invisible hand waving and wanking.
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“That is why government should stay out of nearly everything. Yes, the poor may never get the education needed, thousands will die prematurely due to preventable disease, and others will never get a chance because they refused to be born white, etc. But there is no way to figure out how to solve those problems. Giving up forever on democracy is the best course.” (Actor instruction: Republicans, back of palm touching forehead, feign a near faint.)
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In contrast, my mechanical engineer father, back in the early 1980s, before legacy corporations like his employer were all computer bulked up and savvy, had to closely monitor a dozen machines, each with over ten thousand parts. The plastic bag producing and printing monstrosities ran 24, 7, 365. A single machine breaking down was not an option; more than one crashing was millions lost in revenues.
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Dad narrowed the data down to where he knew how long it would be before each machine, and any part that could cause a major delay, would wear out. Each machine got maintenance a few weeks before its crash date. From then on, only one was down at a time for a quick refurbishing. That handwritten and human recorded system saved the company multiple millions. One person’s ideas can make a huge difference, and you do not need corporations to produce them.
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Our democracy should be about fully energizing more people like that, and their ideas, for civic good. And never again allowing democracy to be corrupted by the perniciously profitable. While government should not get into things willy-nilly, We The People must have control over, what we should have control over, to make society as just, livable, and succeedable as possible. We have the technology, and the people, to do so much more today.
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So I say we disinvest at least a few hours per month of our overused consumer label, and reinvest that time in our citizen-involvement hat. The WTP System is my recommendation. Rather than improving our society by working only through government entities, we can accomplish it via an advancement in democracy.
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Imagine a platform that allows us to directly influence, and encourage politicians in a direction and manner more powerful than all the corporations in the nation. We collect all our individual knowledge and skills to improve society in direct and indirect ways.
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By Richard The Chwalek.
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Learn more about the We The People System:
Notice how the movie makers regularly come up with scary systems, or A.I. that will someday, somehow control human…richard-the-chwalek.medium.com
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