by Robert Fischer
January 5th, 2021, may very well be repeated for the next four years. The run-off election for the two Georgia Senate seats is possibly a bellwether for where our politics is heading, at least for the foreseeable future. Like you, I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m uncomfortable with the uncertainty.
The choice seems to be clear. Two Democrats versus two Republicans. Incumbents versus challengers. Two mega millionaires versus an up and coming young politician and a Baptist minister. Where do we stand?
The two campaigns could not be more different. The incumbents attack their opponents by calling them Marxists, socialists and charging them of conspiring with the Chinese communists. They virtually argue that electing Democrats will bring about the destruction of Western civilization. They are light on issues making one want to ask “where’s the beef?”
The challengers offer up proposals supporting better health care, protecting the environment and defending medicare and social security. They support Roe vs. Wade (1973) and criminal justice reform and speak of ending Citizens United (2010) which has arguably led to corruption in campaign financing. They offer a vision, however you feel about it, rather than simply foment division among us.
Perhaps, Armageddon is an exaggeration here, but the stakes are high for the citizenry. The question is simple: Do we go with the last four years dividing ourselves, ignoring the realities in our country or do we seek a better vision for all of us without abandoning our constitutional democracy?
New blog looks great!
Thanks to you for your work as the editor-in-chief!
OMG….I got a promotion. I hope it comes with an increase in pay.
Looks great!
So glad tomorrow is election day and Wednesday is the certification day. Looking forward to no adds, texts or e-mails. As a northern Florida resident we get all the adds. I think” where’s the beef” started it all for negative adds.
Robert . . .Happy New Year. Looks like 2021 promises to be fun. The chatter and political gossip continues at a pace making it hard to stay current. But I’ll take a few random swipes just to keep the pinball bouncing.
As to your recent worry about the loss of noblesse oblige, among the fashionably elite it has been replaced by funding one’s personal aspirations and objectives with the resources of others. The “noble” part of noblesse oblige was that one voluntarily used their own resources to help others they felt merited help. That continues at rates at least as high as they ever were. But, it’s hard to see what’s noble about taking what you want from others to suits one’s fancy.
With the noble gone that leaves only the oblige, often put forth as our shared obligation. The duty of any right minded person. To our community. To our children. Well, not our own personal children but to all the children. In the village. The world’s an ever smaller place. It’s like a village. So it’s every child everywhere in every manner. But it’s also about the trees. Not the trees replaced by my house but the trees where someone else dares to want a home. Where will the children learn about toads if we build houses where toads live? Toads look a little like old people don’t you think. Old people need things too. Lot’s of things. As do the people taking care of old people. The stress. The stress is almost unbearable. And somebody said a bad word so how can anyone even work in that environment?
The ceaseless whine is as divisive as any political rhetoric. Leveraging that din with class envy will not bring the sought after harmony. Bit of a push to contrast “Two mega millionaires” to an “up and coming young politician and a Baptist minister.”
Ossoff has been groomed by his party’s operatives to be the perfect young candidate because he has the advantage of being supported by family wealth. Not having to earn a living gives him the freedom to roam around the state to smile, be nice and parrot. Warnock is a professional racist side hustling as a minister. His history and rhetoric gets an unusual pass don’t you think?
Perdue and Loffler are not the first political elites to have money. Is it a bad thing to have money? For a quick rise, it sure helps to be a trust-fund-baby like Ossoff or to have earned a bunch like Perdue the son of school teachers. While Perdue is wealthy, his is only a fraction of that of say Pelosi, Warner, Feinstien, Blumenthal, or any number of others including Loffler. Now she is “dizzyingly rich” with assets, adjusted for inflation, approaching those of the Rockefellers, Roosevelts and Kennedys among others. Her wealth even exceeds that young community organizer turned revered statesman Obama. But, Perdue’s does not and Perdue’s was earned before becoming a politician.
I like your New Year resolutions. On the Libertarian goal, you might look first to the Declaration of Independence for the principles then to the Constitution for the threats to those principles keeping as a background that the tyranny of democracy is real.
Of course, Jack’s sarcasm, tainted by his Ayn Rand “just for myself” rhetoric, is deplorable, while his willingness to forgive Perdue and Loeffler for their corruption speaks volumes about his own values. As far as Ossoff and Warnock are concerned, there is probably some truth in his depiction of them as a “trust-fund-baby” and a “professional racist side hustling as a minister,” but then those terms have been bandied about by the conservatives for so long that they have little validity anymore. What is the major difference these days is the disparity between the basic concepts of human dignity/worth/responsibility and the willingness of some parties/people to disavow any obligations at all to those concepts. Like Caesar’s wife, politicians must be careful to avoid even the appearance of evil/corruption/shame. Some interesting reading to judge Jack’s comments by:
https://fortune.com/2020/12/17/david-perdue-stock-act-insider-trading/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/04/republican-david-perdue-georgia-senate-runoff-traded-bank-stocks
https://www.ajc.com/politics/a-timeline-of-investigations-into-perdue-loeffler-stock-trading/L6TU65WK5JBFXKDC4YWBKGGNPU/
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/georgia-senators-coronavirus-stock-trades-what-we-know
Good comments, Barney!