The current US situation bears close attention, once you can get over the sick laughter.
None of it's real- It's all Fake News, but that doesn't mean it doesn't meticulously adhere to fact and event.
I'm remembering when this first appeared clear back in January, and President TinyHands has only exacerbated the poisoned discourse of the past, raising it to a level of cacophonous diatribe the First Fallen would have some minor difficulty equalling.
Dan Rather:
As with many of my fellow Americans, I don't consider myself partisan politically - never have. I am a registered independent voter and have been for most of my life. With that in mind, I submit the following:
Can we please get this out of the way? None of what is happening at the top of government now is normal. None of it. And no one should normalize it. No one.
We have a President who lies without a second thought. Big bold lies that are easily disproven. That is not normal.
We have serious allegations around obstruction of justice by that President. That is not normal.
We have an FBI director fired for insisting to continue pursuing a serious investigation into the sanctify of our republic. It has never happened before in our history. That is not normal.
We have a hostile foreign power attacking and undermining our electoral process. That is not normal.
We have an Attorney General under a serious shadow of association with said foreign power, with indications that there is much more to this story than we yet know. That is not normal.
We have Federal judges, our closest foreign allies, and the free press under scurrilous attack from the President and his enablers. At the same time we have despots praised. That is not normal.
We have an Administration fanning the flames of division over race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and gender. That is not normal.
We have an overhaul of our entire health care system being written in secret on a rapid time frame. That is not normal.
We have a sordid confluence of the President's business interests and his political power. That is not normal.
The list could go on and on. And feel free to add your own to the comments section.
What concerns me even more than any of these items is the fact that they are largely being met by a shrug or excuses from most Republican elected officials. Even many Democrats seem overwhelmed and are inclined to let some of this just ride. That may be how politics works. But this is bigger. It's about our nation.
We are shifting the goalposts for our democracy. We are failing to be outraged by the outrageous because there is something even more outrageous that always seems to hit the news cycle. And that is dangerous.
What gives me hope is we have had waves of abnormality in our country's history. And we've had times when what we would consider now to be not normal, like segregation, was considered normal. What has centered and saved our country time and again is civic engagement. I believe that most people in this nation don't think any of this is normal. And they could very well vote out those elected officials in both parties who are normalizing these outrages.
But I would posit, based on much historical evidence, we have not had such a capricious maniac since Andrew Jackson in such a position of power, and HE didn't have a global military with nuclear (and lots of other) WMDs capable of actually sterilizing the surface of the planet.
Me: >Watch, Comey is YET another distraction- it doesn't matter HOW traitorous Drumpf is, WHAT he does, WHO he has killed from here on out, the Republicans in the House and Senate have their path cleared to finish the job of defusing all public service capability of the federal government so it can get on with its proper work of serving corporations, global, national, and regional. They won't be deterred, and they won't remove their most valuable distraction.
The asset worth the 30 years they've worked, but couldn't fine tune their efforts back in the 1980's well enough to get GHWB that 2nd term that would have made the difference for another two generations (at least)- they can't control it, but they really don't care.
I know in my state the two Senators stands to gain little by actually addressing the rampant problems of unemployment, drug addiction, a decades-long stumbling of an economy captive to the coal industry (and now the gas industry), and a host of other modern problems, one stands to make an especially handsome return on her access to the profit from Narcan sales.
(Edit: The other senator probably has equal holdings in the same companies, I just don't know it for a fact.)
My vision is that Steemit might actually replace much of government, because it seems possible if we could only enroll about 1/3 of the population, it would be sufficient to supply the social relief and education- because WE DO CO-OPERATE.
It becomes a simple relationship of sufficient numbers, maintaining a philosophy of caring IN ACTION, and the proper management software to manage resources. I AM NOT AFRAID TO SUPPORT MY COLLEAGUES IN MUSIC AND SCIENCE< AND WILLING TO HELP SOME IN DIRE NEED. I'm not endowed with much of any wealth, but multiply my efforts by 100+ million...
Also, teaching (like music) is a buzz like few others, so I'm apt to keep doing that until I die...