Day: September 20, 2023

Rural New Deal

For decades the quality of life in rural America has been on the decline….even much needed health services has had to close….then there is the poverty that infects rural Americans….something needs to be done to help Americans that live in rural areas.

Someone is trying to stop the bleed from rural America…..Progressives in the House have offered up what is being called a “Rural New Deal”….

“A Rural New Deal is urgently needed to build and rebuild local economies across rural America, reverse 40 years of wealth and corporate concentration, restore degraded lands, reclaim land and ownership opportunities for those whose land was taken by force or deceit, and ensure that communities and the nation can and do meet the basic needs of its people.”

That’s the opening line of a report released Tuesday by Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative (RUBI), which recognizes that “for too long, we’ve neglected, dismissed and underinvested” in rural U.S. communities, and offers “a broad policy blueprint to help steer progressive priorities” in such regions.

“Addressing the problems and concerns of rural America, isn’t just the right thing to do, it is essential for the health of our nation. Progressives have ignored rural for too long,” said PDA executive director Alan Minsky in a statement. “The Rural New Deal will change that.”

…

The RND pillars—which each include up to eight recommendations for primarily federal action—are:

  • Rebuild farm, forest, and food economies;
  • Reward work and ensure livable wages;
  • Dismantle monopolies, empower and support local business;
  • Invest in community and regional infrastructure;
  • Rebuild small town centers;
  • Cultivate self-reliance and resilience;
  • Invest in rural healthcare;
  • Fully fund rural schools;
  • Make rural and small town housing affordable; and
  • Re-localize rural and small town banks.

Policy proposals include supporting regenerative farm, forest, and fishery businesses; adopting a federal jobs guarantee with a living wage and essential benefits; making broadband access universal; expanding Medicaid and Medicare access; incentivizing installation of solar technology on buildings and non-prime farmland, over parking lots, and in vacant spaces; and enacting reforms to rein in private equity’s “unbridled power,” such as eliminating the carried interest tax loophole.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/progressive-groups-unveil-rural-new-deal-to-reverse-decades-of-economic-decline

Rural America use to be the ‘heart’ of our nation…..now it is a dilapidated dream of the past.

So yes something needs doing….the House and Senate has all the time in the world for Ukraine and the waste of taxpayer money when it could work wonders for rural America.

Get behind this and do some good for your fellow Americans.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Yet Another War Brewing?

We have Ukraine and Russia going at it tooth and nail….we have the whole South China Sea and Taiwan full of dire rhetoric…..all of which just keeps sucking taxpayer dollars away from a country that needs a much needed infusion of cash.

Let’s say these two situations are resolved what then?

Not to worry….there is another bloody conflict in the wings to keep the arms dealers happy.

Two former Soviet republics went to war less than three years ago over a disputed region, and it appears they’re on the brink of another full-scale conflict, reports the AP. The dispute is between Azerbaijan and neighboring Armenia over the region known as Nagorno-Karabakh. As the BBC explains, the latter is located entirely within the borders of Azerbaijan, but it is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians. The two nations have fought previously over the region, first in the early 1990s when Armenia took control of it after the fall of the USSR, and again in 2020, when Azerbaijan reclaimed it. Part of the convoluted mix: Azerbaijan is backed by Turkey, while Armenia is a longtime ally of Russia, though relations have soured of late over the Ukraine war.

  • Russia’s role: Moscow is supposed to be keeping the peace between the two nations, a pledge it made after the last war, but its own war with Ukraine has “distracted” from that, as the New York Times puts it.
  • Shelling: On Tuesday, Azerbaijan launched artillery fire onto Nagorno-Karabakh in what it calls an “anti-terrorist” campaign, per CNN. The de facto capital of Stepanakert was hit particularly hard, though details about casualties and damages were scant in the early going. The shelling is the culmination of months of simmering tensions.
  • Key road: A single road, called the Lachin Corridor, links Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, explains Politico. Russian peacekeepers are supposed to be keeping it open, but an “emboldened Azerbaijan” has largely taken control of it in recent months, per the Times. That leaves Nagorno-Karabakh essentially cut off from supplies of food and fuel, and it’s raising fears of ethnic cleansing.
  • Diplomacy falters: “It looks like it could be, unfortunately, terrible—war number three, something that people have been fearing but hoping to avoid with diplomacy in the last few weeks and months,” Thomas de Waal, a regional specialist at the Carnegie Europe foundation, tells the AP. Politico notes that the conflict also complicates Europe’s plan to court Azerbaijan as an alternative fuel source to Russia.

Just like Ukraine there is a disputed region….plus it is not far from the trade lanes to Europe….making it very important.  (That will be the excuse)

How will the US respond when this turns into a massive cock-up?

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about this very region….

Nagorno-Karabakh?

And ten years ago I predicted this couple happen at any time….

Looking For The Linchpin

Damn!  It’s good being insightful!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”