I realize that there is lots of redundancy on this topic….but sadly it needs repeating over and over…..
I know….I know….everybody has an opinion these days about what is happening in this country…..some see it as a good thing to shake things up and others think we are witnessing the demise of our beloved country. I have made my thoughts on this issue quite clear.
I research and read a lot of opinions on this issue and I would like to share them with the reader and hopefully they will offer their thoughts on the direction of this country.
The first opinion is about the attacks on the democracy by political moves and games….
With all that is happening in the country and the world, it was perhaps all too easy to miss the ongoing battle for the future of US democracy. Republicans have opened up new racist offenses against voter rights and are once more pushing through corrupt gerrymandering to rig elections in their favor. They are also blocking the “Freedom to Vote Act” that would to curb systemic racist voter suppression through policies such as automatic registration at MVA, longer early voting, greater access to mail in ballots and fresh regulations for guaranteeing that people are not wrongly barred from voting and reducing partisan interference at the polls.
It is no exaggeration to say that the very survival of liberal democracy is under threat. This Republic strategy is just the latest example of a long history of repressing democracy. From its beginning, the promise of popular rule in the US has been undermined by the power of racism, capitalism, and patriarchy. Further, so much of the nation’s imperialism abroad and repression at home have been sanctioned by elected majorities.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/01/survival-democracy-under-threat
I see that party politics is more important than the country and its future.
Second is an opinion on the country by General Michael V. Hayden is a retired four-star General in the United States Air Force; he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006-2009 and as Director of the National Security Agency from 1999-2005.
I was a Brigadier General 30 years ago, assigned in Europe as the head of intelligence. Most of the time I was looking at the Balkans because there was a war going on. Yugoslavia lasted for 72 years and then it was gone; it fell apart.
These were bitter rivalries. Many people were killed. There were multiple civil wars. It lasted 10 years; it’s hard to say, but we think 130,000 to 140,000 actually died. The hardest hit was Bosnia where maybe 100,000 people died, mostly Bosniaks (Muslims). Sarajevo in Bosnia had hosted the Olympics just a few years before.
I went to Sarajevo many times. It was a modern city. It was small and picturesque, on the banks of the Miljacka river.
The First World War began in Sarajevo. And in the 1990s, war returned. Sarajevo was a war zone. And I was in Bosnia, watching it happen. What was going on? Why were they doing this?
I could see artillery pointing down from the wooded hills and I witnessed the destructive product of their work in the streets below. I wondered what manner of man could pull the lanyard to fire on his former neighbors or shoot at unarmed civilians lined up for scarce water at a shuttered brewery.
What struck me most though, when I walked through the city, was not how much Sarajevans were different from the rest of us, but how much they weren’t. This had obviously been a cultured, tolerant, even vibrant city. The veneer of civilization, I sadly concluded then, was quite thin.
Now, 30 years later, I worry about the United States, not Sarajevo. The Cato Institute and Freedom House rank every country for personal, economic and human freedom. The worst is Syria; it’s in last place. There are others: North Korea, Eritrea, China, Turkmenistan, Iran, Cuba.
How about the United States? It’s not good.
My Worry for America
I am truly worried about the future…a future that my granddaughter will have to travel….from where I sit it does not bode well for the country without some corrections.
Democracy is slowly slipping away….but does anyone truly care?
There is no doubt that democracy in the United States is at serious risk. The year began with an attack on the Capitol designed to thwart the transition of power; instead of repudiating this violence, Republicans doubled down on the lie that Trump won the election and are working, right now, to rig the system in their favor. Neither Democrats nor the general public are doing much of anything to stop them.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/12/9/22824509/summit-for-democracy-biden-america
From where I sit few could care less as long as their social media is intact and a feeder for their delusions.
Few realize how close we came to losing it all….
The first time many Americans learned that a large pro-Donald Trump protest in Washington was planned for January 6 was 18 days earlier when the 45th president tweeted about it—”Will be wild!”
But the wild things Trump and his shrinking, conspiracy-minded inner circle expected weren’t only his rabid supporters like the Proud Boys. The then-president knew his tweet would also be read by leftist counter-protesters, his increasing focus.
Team Trump—after months of violent street clashes between Trumpists and counter-protesters—obsessed on so-called “antifa” just before January 6. On January 5 alone, Trump tweeted for antifa to “stay out of Washington” and signed a memo for stepped-up monitoring of antifa, with a press release: “President Trump will not allow Antifa, or any terrorist organization, to destroy our great country.”
Any thoughts?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 