Browsing: Unfortunately

     The rising spiral of world military spending provides a striking example of how highly national governments value armed forces. In 2024, the nations of the world spent a record $2.72 trillion on expanding their vast military strength, an increase of 9.4 percent from the previous year. It was the tenth year of consecutive spending increases and the steepest annual rise in military expenditures since the end of the Cold War.

        In April 1966, Senator J.W. Fulbright, Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave a remarkable and highly-publicized speech at Johns Hopkins University, condemning the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. Warning of “the arrogance of power,” Fulbright argued that “we are not living up to our capacity and promise as a civilized power for the world.” It turned out to be a momentous speech, enraging President Lyndon Johnson and providing a rallying point for U.S. critics of the conflict.

  There’s an age-old fable entitled “The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs.”  The story goes that a farmer had a goose that laid a golden egg each day, making the farmer very wealthy. However, the farmer’s greed for more golden eggs led him to kill the Goose, hoping to capture all the golden eggs inside. Sadly, he discovered that only organs were inside. Now, the farmer’s source of wealth was gone.

     And it reminds me of another sneak attack that may have caused lethal damage: FBI Director James Comey’s last-minute reopening of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private emails.

     One Saturday morning over 20 years ago when my son was 8 years old, he woke up with a very dry cough. He continued to cough throughout the day. It got worse in the night and his breathing became more strained. I knew then something was seriously wrong, and I decided to take him to the emergency room, although it was the middle of the night and at this time our family was without health insurance. Worryingly, I had gotten laid off from my job and was the one who had the family health insurance and my husband’s enrollment period hadn’t come around yet, so we were without health insurance for about six months.

     We’ve all heard about the disparity of quality of care in our healthcare system in certain marginalized groups. Some ways these disparities manifest is through provider discrimination, lack of adequate health insurance, high costs, and/or limited access to quality care. Numerous statistics prove this issue is valid. For example, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, high blood pressure is 56% more common in Black adults than white adults, with a direct correlation to the limited amount of dietary advice and monitoring available for that demographic.

  Former President George Washington was instrumental in the establishment of the Supreme Court in 1787. However, it was the Judiciary Act of 1789, which codified it into law thereby giving it power to force governmental officials to comply with the law. Washington, a slave owner, nominated six white men to serve as Justices. Of the six Justices, four also were slave owners. Thus, began the initial packing of the Supreme Court as well as its sordid legacy.

   Republicans recognizing that the white supremacist ideology used to controlled Democracy, just as a bit controls a horse, could no longer control the overwhelming power of Black and Brown voters. Consequently, Republicans in fear of not ever being able to win a presidential election have resorted to  tactics equally as evil and unGodly as the deeds of America’s white supremacists Founding Fathers.