Keep the Faith, Miriam.
There is no reasoning with rocks. Rocks are folks who are set firmly
in their ways and cannot move or think beyond where they sit, nor can
they absorb new thoughts. We had a new client, a very sharp fellow,
about two years younger than myself. "I voted for Trump," he said,
"Boy, I sure got fooled!" But most folks we meet are like the guy on
the ACB List. He throws tons of half truths and make believe
statistics at me, demanding that I respond. I tried for a while, but
it's pointless. Some folks protect their beliefs by attacking and
sneering and putting you down. They are so insulated that it is sheer
foolishness to try to discuss anything with them. I wind up saying
something like, "Time will prove which one of us is closer to the
truth".
But it's disheartening to provide assistance to someone who sneers at
the very federal department that sends the dollars that pay for their
services.
This self-serving attitude today is a result of the Koch Brothers and
other Far Right Billionaires. They have furthered Libertarian ism.
"Look out for #1 and to Hell with everyone else", is their motto. I
can understand it, coming from the Koch's. But when poor, beaten down
folks join in that sort of thinking...well, just give me a gun and let
me shoot myself!
Carl Jarvis
On 1/19/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'll soon be tossed off the DB Review list because I can't help scolding its
right wing members for being self entitled people who defend a President and
an administration who is stealing their government and their money from
them, but who believe that somehow, their government sponsored talking book
and braille book program is sancrosanct. The idiots complain that Fire and
Fury is a left wing book and they complain that other new books weren't put
up on BARD as quickly as it was. They worry about whether they'll be able to
access BARD if there's a government shutdown. I really lost my patience and
scolded them, and asked why they thought they should be singled out for
special treatment while children are being robbed of health care. I'm having
a lot of difficulty feeling sympathy for people who never stray beyond what
their favorite Cable TV channel Is telling them.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 11:23 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: jamesjarvis98 <jamesjarvis98@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: The stable genius shutdown
With a name like Grim, Ryan is certainly in the right line of work.
It's difficult to understand how so many of working class Americans can
swallow the never ending propaganda that the USA is the most advanced, free,
democratic nation, ever. And to prove it, Donald Trump is planning to
return us to our Greatness...hmm...how do we return to something we are
already the greatest in?
Of course, working class Americans aside, we truly are the Greatest Nation
on Earth...if you are among that very small percentage of the Ruling Class
that is never affected by Market Crashes, or Foreclosures, or unemployment,
or huge medical bills, or crumbling understaffed schools, or back breaking
student loans that you pay for the privilege of obtaining an education that
graduates you into unemployment. So if a government is put in place to
defend its citizens, and to work toward economic well being, and to provide
a safe environment, and to protect the rights of all citizens through a
legal system that upholds the nation's laws, for all citizens, then the USA
has failed most of its Citizens. But it is doing a fine job for the
Oligarchy, the Ruling Class, and for the advancement of the American
Corporate Empire(ACE).
Back when I was a boy and when ten dollars was a big deal, I was walking to
school, kicking the Autumn leaves, when I saw a bit of green among the
yellow and brown and red. It was a ten dollar bill!
Imagine! When your allowance was 25 cents a week, ten dollars was like
falling over a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Add to the fact that I
was a poor child from a poor family, the fact that I was a Geeky looking
kid, tall and gangling and sporting thick bifocals. I was instant gratitude
for all the schoolyard bullies. They would line up, eager for their turn.
But this morning I had ten dollars in my pocket. Ten dollars! That money
meant power. I knew that without having to call up my congressman or any of
his Lobbyists. No, I knew just what to do. I slipped into Jacobson's
drugstore and bought ten dollars worth of candy. I told Mister Jacobson
that it was for a party. And it was, a big schoolyard party. As the
bullies began shoving one another to get a whack at me, I offered them some
candy.
They all shuffled forward with shocked looks on their mean little ten year
old faces. But they took the bait. In no time at all I was everybody's
friend. And so, in that one moment of glory, I learned the power of money.
And the next day I learned what happens when the money and the candy runs
out. This message was so basic, so fundamental that it takes constant
hammering by the Empire's propaganda machine...the mass media, to keep us
off balance and confused.
This job falls to the very people whom President Trump accuses of Fake News.
But Mister Trump, I've always known it was Fake News. The difference is
that you falsely claim the News is leaning far to the Left, even as it is
totally owned by your Billionaire Friends.
Together you play the news people for suckers, laying false charges on them
and tugging them further to the Right, through the fear of being censored if
they don't play ball. It's a cool scam.
The result is that many working class Americans have been indoctrinated into
believing that they are marching behind a leader who has their best interest
at heart. The rise of White Power, unspoken as it is, becomes a powerful
magnet "Christian Values"
bandied about but never lived up to, draw other confused Believers, while
always before us is the life lived by the privileged few, promising that if
we only work hard enough and believe strongly enough, and believe in Santa
Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, we just might come close
enough to live in a fine home just down the hill, past the gates to the
Master's Mansion.
And then we will live happily ever after...just as long as we can keep
everyone else living below us.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/18/18,
From: Ryan Grim [mailto:ryan.grim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2018 9:58 PM
To: miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: The stable genius shutdown
House Republicans celebrated this afternoon the passage of a one-month
spending bill that includes a six-year extension of the children’s
health insurance program. That latter part is a sign that Paul Ryan is
getting clever, and whenever he gets clever, his plan usually flops.
It doesn't help Ryan that Trump himself helped negotiate this deal.
The government runs out of spending authority Friday at midnight, and
the Senate plans to take up the House measure Friday. Republicans need
60 votes to get it done, and they don’t have it, so...that would mean
a shutdown, unless somebody blinks.
All of this inability to govern is having real consequences.
Republicans added CHIP to the bill thinking it would get Democratic
support without anything to help Dreamers. But they left a host of
other crucial health care programs out that also expired, like CHIP,
in September. (It’s January!)
The maternal-infant home-visiting program
<http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/IgE/ni0YAA/t.2e9/of81WqdcReKl0n
-siJBVrg/h0/3iaThca61p2tcSwqPS1jRrE2McMJ2W-2BEwW4z2Tq1gADRoxzW0eepe0uJ
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-2FfY1NtpQm6AU8czN9gSg-3D-3D> is cutting its rolls and can’t hire
staff, community health centers are in crisis, teaching hospitals are
struggling: for no reason whatsoever, Congress is letting things just
fall apart.
(Why did they extend CHIP for the odd time-frame of six years? Because
by year six, the CBO scores CHIP as saving money, so Republicans can
stuff other goodies in the bill on the back of the program.)
So after this Paul Ryan bill fails, will Mitch McConnell put a
short-term spending bill to keep the government open for a few days on
the floor? I think he probably will.
2. Speaking of Ryan’s bill, I had a scoop this morning on it: the
measure would allow the Trump administration to secretly shift money
to new intelligence projects without informing Congress. It would be a
break with
70 years of law and tradition.
3. The Trump administration has told Puerto Rico that it is too rich
to get aid money. No, really.
<http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/IgE/ni0YAA/t.2e9/of81WqdcReKl0n
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4. A new report says that Border Patrol agents, going back to at least
2012, have been vandalizing and destroying humanitarian supplies left
for people trudging through the desert. It’s hard to wrap my head
around that level of cruelty and indifference. Story is here.
5. If you’re reading this Friday morning, part two of our
investigation into the insurance firm Aflac is now published, check it out
at TheIntercept.com.
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