There is so much to say, so little time for my two fat
forefingers to type it on my keyboard, and my saying it has so little effect on
the world. At any rate, here are my
reactions to the last 24 hours.
First, a triumph. The
techies at UNC Chapel Hill have patiently explained to me how to access and use
zoom, and on Monday I shall give it a go.
How I wish my eleven year old granddaughter Athena were here. She could lead me through it.
All right, Bernie and Biden.
The race is over. Biden will be
the nominee. Bernie did something that
no other Democrat in my lifetime has done.
Almost single-handedly, while twice failing to secure the party
nomination, he has transforming the policy orientation of the Democratic
Party. But not at all surprisingly,
there has not been a majority of going-to-the-polls Democrats prepared to vote
for him. Now we must all choke back the
bile, put a smile on our faces, and work our asses off to elect good ole incipient-senile
Joe. Living as I do in a community where
one-tenth of the residents, more or less, die each year, I have no illusions
about getting out of this world alive, but there have been good moments since I
first got involved in politics in 1948. I think there is a good chance that the
election will be a Democratic blowout, and if we continue to work at the
grassroots, as Obama did not, we could make progress. Take heart.
Maybe Joe will pick a strong progressive woman as his Veep and then fail
to make it through the first term.
And then there is the virus.
I shall have to cancel my monthly Precinct meeting because the CEO of this
CCRC has cancelled all gatherings of more than 20 persons. I enjoy those meetings; they give me an
opportunity to do my impression of a Borscht Circuit tummler. But we must all
make sacrifices. The immediate economic impact
on America’s poorest workers is going to be horrendous, even if the House
Democrats manage to force Trump to accept some of what they are proposing to
ease the worst of it. The federal structure
of American politics is a boon now, as it allows Governors to do what Trump is
incapable of doing.
There are bright spots.
The stock market is plummeting.
25 comments:
"I enjoy those meetings; they give me an opportunity to do my impression of a Borscht Circuit tummler. But we must all make sacrifices."
That is perfect.
Alas, the stock market's pummeling is not a bright spot for those of us with 401(k)s and IRAs instead of pensions.
Given Biden's age, he's likely to be a one term president if elected. That would mean the VP would be an early favorite for the 2024 nomination. A minority woman?
I admire RPW’s optimism in the face of yet another defeat. My own untutored guess is that having driven back the progressive attempt to become dominant in the Democratic Party—the seemingly only way open to progressive politics and policies in a two-party system—the ‘extreme center’ will play nice until after November but will thereafter turn to quashing the progressive component of the party so that it can look to the future unafraid that anyone like Sanders will again emerge in their lifetime. Needless to say, this will incur a more or less open assault on such policy reorientation as has occurred under the impact of Sanders’ leadership of the left. I certainly won’t be too surprised to see the Paris climate agreement held up as the best that is possible, no matter its inadequacies. I won’t be too surprised to see it being proclaimed that the US has to re-install itself as the acknowledged leader and defender of its world order—look for the re-emergence in D.C. of the proponents of “humanitarian interventionism” and of neo-liberal, globalising trade deals which will shift yet more political as well as economic power to the corporations. Etc., etc.
As to David’s—tongue-in-cheek?—suggestion (perhaps prompted by RPW’s suggestion that we might get “a strong progressive woman as his Veep”) that we might get “a minority woman” VP who “would be an early favorite for the 2024 nomination,” hope springs eternal, it seems, that someone from some particular social demographic category (which is surely to opt for an identity politician rather than for progressive politics and policies) will bring us salvation. Surely the only thing one ought to hope for is that, as RPW has also suggested, the long, slow boring through hard wood will bring at least some successes.
RMcD,
I’m not enthusiastic about identity politics either, but that’s reality in today’s world. Before last night’s votes, all we heard were regrets that the race was down to two old, white-haired white guys (like me). The Democratic party’s strength lies in the groups that are not composed of white guys: African-Americans, Latinos, Women. They want to be represented too and—since the first task for a politician is to get elected—Biden would be wise to take that into account.
Bernie’s big achievement these past four years has been to move the Democratic Party to the left. When Obamacare was enacted, a public option was a non-starter. Today, everyone of the candidates supported or more, such as Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. The $15 minimum wage is another. If Biden wins, and the Democrats hold the House and win the Senate (a big “if”) there will be significant improvements in this country, improvements that will make a lot of people who are not in the economic elite a lot better off. Bernie may have lost the election. But he’s winning the ideological war.
I hope you're right, David, that Sanders is winning the ideological war. My concern--expectation--is, however, that the dominant components of the D. P. will, as I stated, as soon as it is politick to do so begin to do what they can to try to ensure that no more insurgencies are possible in the foreseeable future.
As to identity politics, I agree that that seems to be the present reality. But if we don't like it we should call it out at every opportunity, don't you think?
"Take heart. Maybe Joe will pick a strong progressive woman as his Veep and then fail to make it through the first term."
What a nasty comment.
Maybe Bernie, who is older than Biden, will be struck dead by another cardiac event and spare Joe the trouble of squishing him like a worm in the remaining primaries.
Underneath every ideologue is a baying zealot happy to sacrifice anyone to the cause.
I'm distracted by the chance to muse about 'the policy orientation of the Democratic Party', and how it may overlap with Sanders' view of the world. I juxtapose the point being made here, that 'There are bright spots. The stock market is plummeting.' Really, I take Sanders' view of the world to be defined mostly by his unyielding push to scrap private insurance with a government-run system, but either way, perhaps I have little sympathy with the best wishes of his fervent supporters.
Anyways, we get that Sanders is quickly running out of chances to prove he can win this race.
But what of this business about 'good ole incipient-senile Joe'.
I can hardly wade through all the sarcasm and contempt that gets genially offered up in all these posts, all the angry rhetoric, I'm thinking maybe your mileage with this
clever sarcasm (ooh, that itself is sarcasm, sarcasm is clever!) depends in part on whether you are angry, fine, but is this really the dementia campaign? Biden and Trump partisans will trade charges of senility, eh? I am truly surprised that age-related infirmity is considered clever around here. I'm 50, grandpa. The raucous, attack-oriented character of this kind of thing is, shall we say, clever.
But are these genuine concerns, or are they sults, jokes and self-confident pronouncements from people with no evident qualifications to be speculating publicly about other people’s neurological health? Or would that hypothetically be a bad thing?
I ask, are these genuine concerns. Well, it's not a rhetorical question. Suppose that Biden's public appearances often vary widely in crispness and command of detail. I notice how the conversation increasingly sounds something like the way family members discuss an elderly relative. I do also, know of Biden’s circuitous words. If it's relevant, Ann Coulter said that “no Republican with that level of senile dementia that Biden has” could run for president because they would be savaged by the media. I'm not proud of knowing what Ann Coulter said, but it goes to my thought that accusations that politicians may be drifting toward non compos mentis typically can’t be divorced from political differences that don’t concern age. Fine, work your ass off, like you did to teach yourself linear algebra and debunk mainstream economics, but let's be doing what we take ourselves to be doing.
Is it really an acute issue?
I just love the way you write.
Pieces of humor floating upon rivers of insight, like rivers of wine, always with undercurrents
of melancholia; your Scherzo for Viola and Cello, perhaps?
Bob, can you explain your delighted reaction to crashing stock markets? The effects of a precipitous fall in the market on employment numbers, on mid- and low-income families struggling with debt, including mortgages, for example, can be devastating. This is not theory, or some realization of Marx in the world, but a potentially tragic consequence of a worldwide health crisis. You come across as truly out of touch - stupidity wrapped up in a veil of sophistication.
In Australia, which, despite having "medicare for all" is, in many ways more "neo-liberal" than the US, the retirement of nearly all people is in what are called "superannuation funds". I have one, too. These are, as far as I can tell, more or less what the US Republicans hoped for when they wanted to privatize social security. Employers make mandatory payments into them, and individuals can add more if they want, too. They are invested in various ways. My "moderate" plan has about 1/4 invested in "foreign" stocks and 1/4 in "Australian" stocks. The stock market crash will certainly hurt my account, and those of most Australians, too. While, perhaps, there is some value in reducing the paper wealth of some very rich people, a good deal of more normal people will be harmed by the fall of the markets, too.
If the markets crash, so much the worse for Trump. (My retirement savings suffer somewhat also.) The people responsible for electing Trump will re-elect him unless they are hurt financially.
There are people who are esteemed by others. And there are people who are esteemed only by themselves.
Long time reader, first time commenter. I'm not sure of University policy, but I'm certain several of us would love the opportunity to join the "Zoom" stream if it available to the general public. Perhaps it could be recorded and distributed to a wider audience after the lecture is concluded? In any case, I was introduced to this blog through your videos on YouTube and I'd love to see new installations to the collection on that platform.
I live close to the Red Zone in Italy. This is the best info on covid 19 I've seen so far.
"From a member of the Stanford hospital board. This is their feedback for now on Corona virus: ‘The new Coronavirus may not show sign of infection for many days. How can one know if he/she is infected? By the time they have fever and/or cough and go to the hospital, the lung is usually 50% Fibrosis and it's too late. Taiwan experts provide a simple self-check that we can do every morning. Take a deep breath and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds. If you complete it successfully without coughing, without discomfort, stiffness or tightness, etc., it proves there is no Fibrosis in the lungs, basically indicates no infection. In critical time, please self-check every morning in an environment with clean air. Serious excellent advice by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases:
Everyone should ensure your mouth & throat are moist, never dry. Take a few sips of water every 15 minutes at least. Why? Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into the stomach. Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus. If you don't drink enough water more regularly, the virus can enter your windpipe and into the lungs. That's very dangerous. Please send and share this with family and friends. Take care everyone and may the world recover from this Coronavirus soon.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - CORONAVIRUS
1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold
2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose.
3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun.
4. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne.
5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap.
6. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it.
7. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice.
8. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but - a lot can happen during that time - you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on.
9. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution of salt in warm water will suffice.
10. Can't emphasis enough - drink plenty of water!
THE SYMPTOMS
1. It will first infect the throat, so you'll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days
2. The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs, causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further.
3. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing.
4. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you're drowning. It's imperative you then seek immediate attention’”
Good luck with zoom. My son has had a paid account for a year now (and been quite satisfied with it), and he says that it has pretty much stopped working in the last week as everyone and his monkey tries to switch from classroom to distance learning. Apparently zoom was caught off guard by the sudden, huge increase in demand for its services, and is struggling to increase capacity, but not very well yet. A friend whose university shut down classroom teaching this week told me that that was his experience today, as well.
@Jerry Fresia,
Thanks for your concern, Jerry. But how reliable that information really is?
I ask because of this:
5. If it [i.e. the COVID19 virus] drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap.
Anti-bacterial drugs are used against bacteria, and have no effect on virii. Indeed, doctors do not recommend the indiscriminate use of anti-bacterial drugs (antibiotics included), because bacteria develop resistance to them.
-- The AnonyMouse
As I and most Americans have nowhere near enough squirreled away in our 401(k)s or IRAs to retire (or, indeed, have any 401(k)s or IRAs), I can only afford to send my thoughts and prayers to those middle class Lefties and Rigthwing pooh-pulists jointly mourning the stock market demise.
Besides, all is not lost. Things may improve if Joe Bidet washes The Donald away. If that fails, you can always join the retirement plan most of us "prefer": work (if you are lucky) until you drop dead.
-- The AnonyMouse
Jerry Fresia,
I'm sorry to say that the information you've provided is not correct: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/theres-a-facebook-coronavirus-post-going-viral-claiming-to-be-from-stanford-dont-believe-it/
Thanks you Anonymous, I've been told the same thing.
To make amends for my "Johnny on the Spotism"... here's an information source that
is rock solid and may be of interest to you:
"If you’re looking for a short introduction to the nature and behavior of viruses, I highly recommend Carl Zimmer’s Planet of Viruses (2d ed). It’s a lucidly written book that makes complex and sometimes unsettling science comprehensible."
Jerry, thanks.
We're concerned about your health and that of your family. Please keep us posted on how you all are.
'Biden would demonstrate real political acumen if he selects Julian Castro from Texas.'
Partly just out of mischief, I offer two cents about this idea. The mischief is that I am disagreeing, and these are touchy matters. I'll proceed -- Though I guess it sounds very simple, I ponder Donald Trump, having done well in
the Midwest and Northeast, by combining hostility to trade with hostility to immigration. One may see immigration, like trade, as unwanted economic competition. I imagine that the temptation will be to blame the messenger, but I wonder what people make of it when they catch Sanders proposing to extend taxpayer-funded free health care and
free college to illegal immigrants. Of course, he supports breaking up ICE, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and placing a moratorium on deportations. I also notice,
superficially, some high-profile surrogates — most notably Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. The point being, who is popularly associated with the more radical
open-borders elements of the Democratic party? Again, maybe I will be misconstrued.
Maybe I like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. I'm in California, but my point is, that this sort of thing plays well in California and Nevada, but less well in the Midwest. And, just, the economic nationalism favored by white working-class voters. Maybe it's hard to care about that, if you also try to care about how to welcome Hispanic and other immigrants.
Thus, it occurs to me that Sanders’s effort to put away his rhetoric about competition from immigrant workers and
expand his support with Hispanics has/had been a success. And I mean, matched by a sharp decline in his support from the white working class.
So, Julian Castro. I do recall, when most of the 2020 Democratic field was on record supporting Julián Castro's call to decriminalize entry into the United States without permission. Note -- Castro used it to bludgeon Beto O'Rourke in the first debate and clashed with Joe Biden over it in the second debate.
"If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back," the former vice president said. "It's a crime."
Castro pounced.
"It looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past, and one of us hasn't," he said.
Biden didn't flinch.
"I have guts enough to say this plan doesn't make sense," he said.
Less than 24 hours later, , the way that I remember it, Castro reverted back to his party's pretext that "no one has called for open borders." He walked it back. And then he *really* got lame:
"Also, open borders is a right-wing talking point," said Castro..
"We have 654 miles of fencing. We have thousands of border personnel. We have planes. We have helicopters. We have boats. We have guns. We have security cameras. Nobody has called for open borders."
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