Browsing: Opinions

    I was listening to an interview of the author of the article “Choose Your Overlord” (Josh Tyrangiel) in the Atlantic about the Bezos versus Musk efforts to take over the colonization of space from national governments. I found the “Choose Your Overlord” title compelling. Decades ago, in law school, I submitted a proposed Independent Study project on the “Industrialization and Colonization of Space,” to a panel of three law school professors. This was in 1978.

       Even so, over the course of human history, this reliance upon national military might to defend national security has produced disaster after disaster. Although almost every country has armed itself for national defense, even those with immense military might have ended up fighting recurring wars to defend what they regard as their national security. Just look at the history of the “great powers” of recent centuries―the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan―and consider how frequently they have waged war, sometimes emerging as the victors and other times as the vanquished.

    Everyone knows that since the start of the war with Iran, Americans have been paying much more money for gas and other energy. That money has to be going somewhere and, in case we didn’t know where, Donald Trump has revealed the not so hidden secret.

VOTERS’ WRATH

        I am told that there is a great deal of voter apathy floating around. In a democratic form of government, the vote is the electoral voice. You get to have a say about what is important and which direction you want to see your community go. Candidates generally structure their campaigns around policy positions that are of interest to voters. Consider this: African Americans have not always been free in the United States. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. Elected officials had to vote to abolish it. To pass the House of Representatives, a two-thirds majority was required. A total of 175 votes were cast: 119 for the 13th Amendment and 56 against. Had the result been 116 for and 59 against (a difference of three votes), the amendment would not have passed, and freedom for African Americans would have been delayed. There were no African Americans in the House of Representatives. The measure barely passed.

       Unless you agree that Israel should massacre Palestinians (and probably all other non-Europeans) in Israel, the center of the United States’ Democratic Party basically considers you out of kilter and your misalignment at odds with the power of the Party, and American foreign policy. You are then described as a radical, and further as a leftist, and your political position classified as socialist. Such branding will kill national party financial and people support if you happen to be a Democratic Party candidate for a national office.

    What is the matter with a society that, on the one hand, seems to be waking up to the scourge of men gang-raping women, but is nearsighted, if not blind, to the gender of angry, disaffected men gunning down people praying in houses of worship, shopping in big-box stores, going to the movies, sitting in classrooms? Only in America, land of the freedom to bear arms, home of the slave to the gun lobby.

  Before a Tennessee crowd he said, “I COULD say stupid stuff and you would clap” the truth is he DOES say stupid stuff and yep, they clap cheer and laugh at his jokes and his much too often insults and lies.

       According to Smart Asset data, to live comfortably in the United States requires an income ranging between $80,000 to $187,000 depending on family size which means at least half the Black population are living very uncomfortable lives.

       But the 2026 elections could bring a remarkable change. If Angie Nixon of Florida, Julianna Stratton of Illinois and Scott Colom of Mississippi win their competitive races for the United States Senate, they would join Cory Booker of New Jersey, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Tim Scott of South Carolina for a historic total of eight African Americans simultaneously serving in the Senate.