The American Spring

 moonrise on pineridge, cambria ca

        A new season is upon America, and it births a time of decision. Is the nation changing and are citizens raising the expectation of government? Are we watching an historical shift in political tectonics?

the end of the Reagan revolution?

         Is Reaganism and its anti government doctrine in demise? Will America return to the belief that Federal government is not the problem, but the solution? These questions are working toward resolution at a time when the party of Reagan, and Bush I and II has become the property of Trump and insurrectionists.  

         Since Reagan first exhorted "the federal government is the problem," Republican fiscal policy, and cultural mantra has been to diminish the role of the government in a wide array of American life. Republicans embraced an economic theory that wealth would "trickle down." The conservative gospel was that government should barely exist while the economic fruits of capitalism would abound for all.  

        Before Reagan the foundational relationship of citizen to government was the legacy of Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

        The American belief in the federal government was denigrated by the Reagan gospel of a smaller federal government, cuts in programs and services, lavish defense spending, budget breaking tax cuts for corporations and the most wealthy and actions like closing mental hospitals, busting unions and running up the deficits.

 

is Biden's popularity seismic?

        Will Americans embrace the history that government is transformative, that citizens should be served by a government that fixes problems and provides ways for a better life? 

        Analysts and historians suggest Joe Biden is returning the premise that guided FDR and Lyndon Johnson during their defining years of leadership as American excellence prevailed.

    American Presidential history has a pattern. 

    Republicans trigger recession, engage military actions, and run massive deficits while social services are starved. Democrats get stuck with the clean up and the amping up of government service. 

    The wealth gap, the shrinking of the middle class, the loss of American jobs, cultural divide and isolation was rampant by the time the Republican guardianship crashed us into near depression in 2008. 

        Barrack Obama rescued the economy, and authored the affordable care act, but Republican control of the Senate doomed any sweeping return to classic Democratic policy. 

        The Biden approach offers a return to the governing principles put into place when Franklin Roosevelt was elected in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in US history after another disastrous Republican rule. Government came to the aid of US citizens in myriad ways. 

      Biden came to office in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the depression, combined with the pandemic mismanaged by a divisive, corrosive and incompetent authoritarian Trump Republican rule.

      Citizen needs, infrastructure decline, and economic injustice welled up in the 40 years since American attitudes about government were assaulted by Republicans and their propaganda media, which they do effectively. 

        After 40 years of the Republican Party calling the government broken, Americans are hearing another vision.

a new twist

        Biden's proposals for the American Family, and his Infrastructure plan are popular with most American voters of every persuasion. His personal approval rating is high, but his edge in congress is razor thin and the poison of the big lie and the insurrection infect those who feed on the mind numbing propaganda pablum of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News or the looney fringe right wing media. 

    The potential of an American Spring with sweeping reenergizing of government is there, but these times are precarious.

        

            On a personal note I applaud Biden's desire to adjust the American expectation of education to 16 years, up from the 12 established historically. My coverage of and friendship with 30 year Congressman Andy Jacobs Jr led me to appreciate how important the pre kindergarten years are to children, especially those from economic or socially challenged homes. Jacobs, a member of House Ways and Means, and the Judiciary committees, was an early advocate for the idea Biden now advocates. 

    Jacobs sighted experts and research making the case for the personal and social benefits of getting children into a stable, secure and educationally stimulating environment during the critical first 4 years of life. This is the sort of program  Democrats believe in and Republicans oppose because it requires funding. 

            The benefits of better educated generations seem obvious. Also obvious, it won't happen unless the government enables it. That is the sort of detail the Biden Presidency is trying to return to the work of government.  

        How will we have it? What will be our expectation?

          It's interesting that our season of decision comes as the most senior of all US Presidents, a working class Irishman with  a long history in and love for the Senate, is being compared to iconic Democrats who shepherded government through history making eras. It might happen again.

        Stay strong.

        See you down the trail. 

 

Peeking at Normal

 

Oak trees shadow the moonrise over the Santa Lucia Mountains in Cambria  

        The dawning success of getting jabs into enough arms so the vaccinated can now socialize, inside, sans mask, will awaken distant memories of how great it used to be.

        Another tell is what we are talking about. The "royals" have grabbed headlines after talking to our Queen of media, Oprah.

        Our local King, ruler of the polydactyls, is pleased his ridge top savanna is green again.  Hemingway shows more dignity than those in the palace who have driven yet another young woman  to the edge of despair, and displayed tone deaf racism in the process. 

        It seems if the appalling anachronism of "royalty" is to continue, they need to use CRSPR to design princesses to endure the silliness of such as thinking someone must be bowed to. Oh but we love The Crown and the cheap pleasure of royal gossip and intrigue. These people used to lop of heads and got away with it. So, you don't think history convicts us?

    New direction in Washington is helping lower American blood pressure levels. The Biden Covid Relief plan offers assistance the US needs to recover from the disaster; the disease's devastation of life, economy, normalcy and the malignant incompetence of the Trump-McConnell reign. 

    The Biden plan is a bi-partisan success, favored by a majority of US citizens, both Republicans and Democrats. It is etching itself into Presidential History. It may prove to be a  significant legislative remedy on the scale of FDR.

    The House and Senate Republicans are hopelessly trapped in a psychotic death cult where truth is a sin. Isn't it cute, that right on cue the party of run-away spending and economic recessions is putting on their budget deficit faces again, though a majority of their voters await the Biden relief.

    

    

        Overhanging the way forward is the need for a national nonpartisan investigation into the causes and facts of 1/6. This is something Republicans would like to forget. 

        Another overhang, and one where the bill is coming due is the costly undoing of the Iran nuclear deal JCPOA. Since the mistake of quitting the agreement, Iran has enriched more uranium, is using advanced centrifuges and restricting international inspections. Thank you Mr. Trump.*

        And because horror stories need a teasing ending, I hope you've watched the knife attack the Trump organization has directed to his chump party mates. Only he can raise money using his name. His political fundraising may be his best scam and con yet. 

       * The change of scenery or personnell at the State Department and White House will have impact on the looming Iran fight.

         Ali Akbar Salehi, one of Iran's Supreme Leader's most trusted advisors and the head of the Atomic Association of Iran said this week, a deal is a deal and the US walked away.

        Intelligence analysts tell us the first phase of reengaging the JCPOA will be a kind of dance and war of nerves to see who blinks first. They tell us Biden has sent his first message, letting it sink in with the Iranian people, as they face their own inner turmoil and economic trouble.

        An early Biden test is how his humanitarian instincts and the reality of refugees flooding the border will resolve. His critics are looking closely.

        

        And finally, a sailing story. This little single masted craft

has an interesting history. It was a piece of drift wood, apparently bark of some sort, found by our grand daughter Addie, who professed "this will float."

    It lead to looking up sail boat designs and making a sketch.

Nana then helped cut a sail and set the mast. It was time for a test.

    

   It proved its sea worthiness in several tide pools and was the source of pride and glee. Lessons learned, and something proven it was time to return the slightly altered bark to nature.

        When last seen it was moored in a channel between a couple of tide pools awaiting the return of the high tide. Maybe there is a sea shanty in this, but not from this writer. There is a little lass however who found her first trip down to the sea, a great adventure.

        Now, don't we all feel better these days, with hope and a new normal on the rising tide?

        Stay well. 

        See you down the trail.

                                   

INSURRECTION IN AMERICA

     The television coverage brought tears to eyes and a strange emptiness to my core. My five year old granddaughter wondered into the room, sensed I was upset, looked at the television and asked "Are those real people Poppy?"

    

    Joe Biden demonstrated Presidential leadership and character. He vented and shared the horror most US citizens feel. He affirmed the scenes on TV is not the real America.  That is a moral victory of the day.

     Our collective history struck a new low. There is this to take away from the insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol-thousands of faces were captured on security cameras, by the media and on phones. Prosecutions will follow. Members of the House and Senate are resolved to finish the process of the republic to assure the dark night of the last four years will end.

    World leaders have stated their shock. I use this space to tell my friends abroad, we are sickened, but we are resolved as well.

    Five years ago I warned that Donald Trump was evil. I have said he is at least a Russian stooge. We are damaged because of him, but he is not alone in the attempt to undermine our republic.

    Senators Hawley and Cruz are seditionists. They should be tossed out of the senate and face charges. They were instigators of the violence we witnessed. Both of them, deplorable men to begin with, undertook their roles in the insurrection simply for their own political gain, trying to lay claim to some of the Trump loyal. There were others who gave shelter to the enemy with their support; Johnson, Loeffler, Lankford, Perdue Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, and Tuberville. They should at the least be censured and stripped of rank. I would prefer to seem them tossed from the Senate.

     The fools in the House should be simply tossed out prosecuted. 

    What they all did was unAmerican, and encouraged the domestic terrorism we witnessed. 

    The Republican Party that condoned and encouraged the Trump outrages of the last 4 years will stand in shame. History will note they encouraged the lunacy that has grown under Trump.

    Trump is a traitor. He is unfit to continue in office, even in these late hours. Congressional leadership, the Chief Justice and Vice President Pence should move to preempt any more Trump madness. There are ways to move him out power and they should be executed. 

    That we can say those MAGA hatted, Trump flag waving rioters and insurrectionists acted in an illegal, and crazy manner does not undo the fact they BELIEVE the lies. They think, no, they know in their heart, that Donald Trump won the election. 

    This is the greatest poison that Trump pumped into the republic. The lies, the attack on media credibility, the dog whistles, the nod and wink to racists, the endorsement of the absolute lunacy of the Q conspiracies and his attempt to overturn the eletion were part of this evil man's game plan.

    The brain washed need action. First law enforcement and security need to find, arrest and prosecute those involved in the Capitol breech and it's planning and/or any further insurrectionist activity. They should be pursued with the full force of the law. They are domestic terrorists, even if they are brainwashed. Their actions are a threat.

    Harder to handle will be how to deal with friends, family members and those among us who believe the lies. That will take lots of attention, careful execution, prayers, love, and finding a civil way to simply no longer suffer fools easily. 

    It will take a massive public education effort.

    When my granddaughter looked at the TV, I explained quickly the people were behaving badly because they had been lied to, did not use their brains, had no respect for other people and were violating the law. Hard concepts for a 5 year old. I told her that the very bad man Trump was responsible for it, but there were more good people in America than there are like those on TV. It was then time for a walk with Nana who was also shaken by the horror of this day. 

    Stay strong. There is a democratic republic to support and rebuild. There is lunacy to expunge. There is honor, dignity and civility to lift up. We have to walk the talk.

    See you down the trail.