America as a Developing Country
Eighty-three years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt reminded America, “Let us not be afraid to help each other—let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.”
In contrast, thirty-five years ago Ronald Reagan declared, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”
[Continue Reading]While Joe’s predecessor suffers in comparison with even some autocrats.
While the quality of governance varies greatly across the globe, it’s normal for national leaders to care, or at least pretend to care, about putting in place policies that benefit their people. Even some authoritarian regimes advance their citizens’ well-being in some ways – though that does not excuse their rapaciousness, repression or human rights abuses.
In that autocratic vein, Vietnam, China, Uganda and Rwanda come to mind, given their achievements in economic growth, public health and other fields. Thus, though mainly motivated by self-interest, even certain otherwise execrable leaders try to do some good.
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If you work overseas a lot, particularly among poorly educated populations, you sometimes learn of questionable and even dangerously uninformed beliefs in some countries. One memorable one, at the height of the AIDS crisis, involved the notion that men shouldn’t wear condoms because shamans could then retrieve their sperm and do all sorts of nefarious things with it.
Not that we’re immune to such stuff. Take QAnon, the metastasizing, hydra-headed, born-in-the-USA conspiracy theory initiated in October 2017 by “Q Clearance Patriot,” an anonymous and subsequently prolific internet message board poster. Q has ridiculously claimed to be a highly placed government official privy to classified information.
[Continue Reading]Hitler, the Confederacy and today’s authoritarians show the price we could pay for not pushing back in a big way.
It’s been almost a month since Twitterless Donald Trump flounced down to Florida. Some hoped that, having lost his presidential and social media platforms, his Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen would flame out.
No such luck. In voting to acquit him at his impeachment trial, 43 out of 50 Republican senators yet again caved to his control. In the House, Arizona, Texas and Michigan, his loyalists keep pushing his party line or pushing out figures who don’t fall in line.
[Continue Reading]A Brief Democratic Kerfuffle. A Possible Republican Debacle.
That was fast. Five days after Donald Trump’s impeachment trial started, it ended on Saturday, as planned.
On Friday night, however, evidence from Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler and other sources kicked off a last-minute kerfuffle over extending the trial. In the wake of Beutler’s earlier statements at a town hall, they confirmed to news outlets that, amidst the Capitol riot, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had an expletive-laced shouting match over the phone with Trump. McCarthy urged presidential action to stop the attack; the president dismissively focused only on his political fortunes.
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