​Black-White Striped Flags

By Ed Raymond

farhogadfly@gmail.com

Why Not Pass Black-White Flag Laws to Label Who Lies, Cheats, and Stinks?

We have “red flag” laws in 19 states to keep weapons out of the hands of malcontents and the mentally unbalanced who threaten family members and others with firearms or other weapons.

The American Psychiatric Association has estimated that six percent of the population will go “bonkers” each year and need mental health treatment. That means up to 20 million of us could be red-flagged. When we see a red flag on a vehicle, trailer, wide load, snowplow, beach, or building we know there is “DANGER,” a vehicle that might stop quickly, has lumber too long for the trailer, or a shark too close to the beach.

Why don’t we present black-white striped flags to people who stink up politics in Congress, state legislatures, city commissions, or school and university boards? Skunks tend to ruin good parties when they raise their tails and let it go. We currently have politicians who kiss raised asses and lie, cheat, and “steal” while ignoring governance.

The flag could have ten stripes, one for each of the Commandments, which covers all sins and outbursts of Homo sapiens.

Tel Aviv University has discovered that adult rats have empathy for other rats in their social group and will work to rescue them when they appear to be trapped. They limit empathy to adult members of their own group. Adolescent rats have more empathy for strangers and will help rescue adolescent rats outside of their social group from traps. Can we set up clinical trials for Homo sapiens to see if we would do as well with empathy as the rats?

During discussions about the constitution, James Madison opined that the American people “must have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom” to govern the republic. “If there is no virtue among us we will be in a wretched situation.”

We have reached that “wretched situation.” Our politics has reached a point where all virtue has been dropped and replaced by cruelty and malice. Nothing matters except power to dictate and rule. We had a president for four years that lived by the “Big Lie” and 30,000 others, celebrated vice and grifting, and his slogan “Make America Great Again” is appropriate only if you are a modern Klan member who yells “Jews Will Not Replace Us!” Nor will Hispanics from Latin America, Asians, or Blacks from Africa.

James Wilson, one of the first judges on the first Supreme Court, said: “A republican government cannot survive among a citizenry that cannot or will not sacrifice private interest for the common good.”

What Will the Republican “Commitment to America” Do for Americans?

Since the Trumplicans have won a majority in the House, they have been hyping their “Commitment to America,” a Nuke Gingrich plan to fool the American people. It’s about cutting taxes for corporations and the rich—again, more money for the military to buy their planes and ships from defense contractors--again, and cutting regulations to increase the power of the “free market—again.”

There’s nothing in it for the 60% now living paycheck to paycheck (a year ago it was 40%!) with about $400 available for emergencies. That’s about 20 minutes in an emergency room. One-half of females who have a family and pay rent have a net worth of $2,000—which includes an automobile.

Every House Republican has already voted against affordable healthcare and reducing prescription drug prices. Groucho Marx described them well many years ago when he warned everybody about politicians: “Gentlemen, he may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you, he is really an idiot.”

Republicans have been lying about their economic prowess for years, particularly in the last election concerning inflation and cutting “wasteful depending” by cutting Social Security and Medicare!

Let’s take a look at critical facts about employment and growth of Gross National Product (GNP) over the last 70 years, researched by Bernard Rothkoph and David Swartz: “Of the 14 presidents since World War II, seven were Democrats and seven were Republican. Of the seven with the highest job creation rates, six were Democrats. Of the seven with the lowest job creation rates, six were Republicans.

“The U.S. lost jobs under Trump and created relatively few under George W. Bush. What about now? Biden and the current Democratic Congress have created more jobs than the past three Republicans combined.

“Republicans are just plain bad at managing the economy. They have been for as long as anyone who is alive can remember.”

Another critical fact: Biden won the vote in counties that earned 71% of the GNP in the Divided States of America.

And it certainly didn’t help that Trump screwed around with masks, business closings, social distancing, and creating anti-vaxxers. Trump and the U.S. ended up leading the world in the rate of deaths caused by COVID-19.

Another critical study of conservative and liberal policies by Plus One, an organization devoted to advancing science for the benefit of society now and in the future, shared these results: “Simulations indicate that changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019, while changing them to a fully conservative orientation light have cost 217,635 lives.” Liberal policies on the environment, gun safety, labor, economic taxes and tobacco taxes caused lower mortality rates as opposed to conservative policies.

The study also said that if the U.S. adopted the average level of social policy generosity offered in 17 other high-income countries, our life expectancy would increase by four years! It begs the question: what is a year of extra life worth?

How Did 0.000002% of Americans Gain Control of Our Government?

Money, of course. It’s estimated by Americans for Tax Fairness that $16.7 billion was spent on local, county, state, and federal elections in 2022, with 465 billionaires drowning out the one man-one vote philosophy by renting, leasing, and purchasing Congress and the Supreme Court with $881,210,000. Just the 465 represent 7.4% of all local, state, and national “contributions.”

Of the top 20 billionaires, George Soros, a constant target of Republican campaign managers, Fox News, and Donald J. Trump, who calls himself a billionaire, (Anyone want to bet he’s telling the truth?) contributed $128,373,671 to Democratic and liberal candidates and causes. Soros, a Holocaust survivor, made his billions in the money markets of London. A backer of democracies around the world, he has contributed $32 billion in supporting the Open Society Foundation. QAnonners and MAGA Cappers always try to label him as a Nazi. Groucho had a good term for them.

Of the top 20 billionaires, 14 contributed $411,467,309 to Republicans, and the six remaining contributed $231,947,774 to Democrats. Notice Soros was responsible for more than half of the contributions by Democratic supporters.

The Citizens United decision on campaign financing a dozen years ago sealed the fate of our middle class. It was made by a Republican Supreme Court with only one thing in mind: to cause a political earthquake and an irresistible tsunami of cash to power brokers. It has succeeded in destroying our democracy—weak as it is.

As an example, the Georgia senate race has spent $250 million so far. The run-off election might cost twice as much. The Pennsylvania senate race is over—but it cost $221 million. Thirty-five senators spent $970 million getting elected in 2022. Many had little opposition. Why has free speech become so expensive? Citizens United.

In a way, our country started with slavery in 1600 when 20 slaves from Africa were purchased on our shores. We have never abolished it. We have had 365 years of slavery counting 100 years of Jim Crow, a cease-fire for 45 years to 2010, and now have resurrected slavery in Washington, D.C. and state capitals by allowing billionaire masters to enslave politicians with the Almighty Dollar.

Some billionaire masters have more money. Between April of 2020 and April 2021 Elon Musk made $383 million per day, Facebook’s Zuckerberg made $28,538 a minute, and Amazon’s Bezos made $3,715 per second.

Besides the 'Commitment to America,' What Has the House 'Committed' To?

Of course, the House majority wants to cut taxes and give the results to themselves and their billionaire masters. It’s half of their bi-politics. The other half involves commitments to investigate what the Democrats have been doing wrong for a number of terms. The list of oversight hearings includes, but certainly is not limited to: (1) the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, (2) the origin and “mistakes” made during the pandemic (did Obama start it -- or was it China?), (3) the chaos of our southern border, (4) Investigate the Department of Justice and prepare to impeach Merrick Garland, and (5) Hunter Biden’s attempt to blackmail the world.

We have also had numerous Trumplican slaves in the House demand an immediate impeachment of President Biden. Some admit they don’t have reasons yet. The slaves have not mentioned governance at all, although the country and the world have dozens of major issues such as economic inequality; healthcare where billionaires live to be 95 and those in poverty fight to live to 60; climate change which has created more than 50 million refugees wandering the earth trying to escape drought, starvation, floods, and increasing heat; and the shortage of resources faced by a world that had 2.57 billion souls in 1950, now has eight billion souls in November of 2022, and will probably have 10.46 billion in 2080.

Japan is doing something about it. Adults in Japan spend more on adult diapers than parents with babies. Can anyone be optimistic?

When Aldous Huxley published his book “Brave New World” in 1937,he had his “World Controllers” limit the world’s population to two billion for a lot of reasons. His society is a benevolent autocracy: a static, efficient, totalitarian welfare-state. There is no crime, poverty, or war. Society is stratified by a genetically-predestined caste born in hatcheries. Alphas lead the castes and the oxygen-deprived brain-damaged Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons do all the physical, menial work of the society. They are happy doing the menial, boring tasks that the intellectually superior Alphas hate to do.

In order to survive on this planet, which seems to create more obstacles to survival by the minute, we may have to follow what Huxley predicted in his book about the future of Homo sapiens. Amazon has developed a robot that can collect different products in different boxes on different shelves and prepare them for distribution to different “distribution centers.” Brave new worlds are not coming around corners. They are already here.

I Have Just Three Questions for the House Majority:

1. One-half of the pregnancies in the Divided States of America are now unplanned. Will you provide $311,000 to the mother to cover the costs of raising a child to age 18? If not, what do you suggest she do about the pregnancy? Should abortion be ruled by religions or economics?

2. A Perfect God has examined the fetus in the womb, indicating it is viable, according to the Bible. If the baby becomes a member of the LBGTQ+ community, should “they” be segregated because “they” are “intrinsically disordered?”

3. Why are American teenagers shooting and killing each other over $1,000 sneakers?