Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

 Promises, promises, we are all making and breaking promises. Some of the things we promise we know we cannot keep, like having a tooth pulled won’t hurt, I promise. Then it does and the child looks at you and makes you feel about two inches tall. 

   Now promises of a different kind, like the bank saying your savings are safe, or the government telling you that you do not have to worry about your retirement. These are more than such promises; these can be deadly. Even the rich know that they have to be able to produce a certain amount of cash or credit to pay the banker or the grocery bill. 

   The thing is right now we have a Congress that is loaded with very wealthy people that are looking at the Veterans Administration and saying we are paying too much for them to be around so let’s break our promise and stop caring for attending the cannon fodder. This like so many other budget cut ideas comes from the Republican party and is just another way of saying to those that have served, thanks sucker, best of luck. I am not sure how many veterans there are in the Congress but we know that Trump was not a service member. His brag is that he was fortunate enough to bypass VD in time square and that was his contribution to the war.

   Judging by the way he thinks I believe that he contracted syphilis, and it is eating his brain. He has to have some sort of problem as no one should be that delusional and classified as sane. His idea that every agency and every agent is corrupt if they do not hand him what he wants is definitely a sickness of the tiny gray cells.

   To have the House come up with a plan that takes away benefits of those that provided most of them with the opportunity to advance to a higher calling is just sick. Making the rich richer has never benefited anyone but the rich. The idea that the nation is going to be a better place if we put more pressure on the low and middle classes while rewarding the robber barons with tax breaks and excessive profits only proves that the GOP has totally lost focus on the reality of reality.

   If you take a pig and cut it up into roasts and chops and ribs and sausage you will have something for most everyone but not all as the prices to have the variety make parts out of reach of many. If you take the entire pig and make it into sausage, then you can feed everyone and leave nothing on the scrap bin. When we consider all of humanity then no one gets the roast but then no one is relegated to the chitlins either.

    I started with promises and one that was made to this nation at founding was that there was to be a separation of church and state. Now religion has got into everything including the public pocket. It isn’t enough to have a tax-free status and to collect from the folks that feel the need to show up every week, now we have to have tax money as well. 

   It is claimed that we cannot have independence without religion being the bulwark behind it. Independence implies knowing how to do things on your own without being lead around by your nose. Not to say that the tenants of religion don’t have value as a moral code but most religious groups are referred to as flocks, that implies sheep and sheep huddling together and never seem to know which way to go until a dog shows up and shows them the way. 

   Religion has been the boon and bane of mankind. All religions were started by men and men tend to run most of them. Women are of minor importance except for the fact that if they were not here neither would the men. Above that is the elevation of all things religious, churches tended to be the most opulent buildings in a city. The higher officials of the church seemed to be the wealthy and have the most privilege. You can still see some of those tendencies today. 

   On the other side of the coin they have promoted or allowed some of the most unbelievable events the world has seen. The inquisition, the slaughter of thousands because they did not believe the way they were told. The Salem witch trials, Jim Jones and the kool aid, Waco and tomorrow there will be some other event that makes the news that is negative. Yes it is said that if we lose the leadership of the church we tend to look for a leader somewhere else. Well if current events are any indication of lose of leadership when the religious right hangs their fate on the coattails of Donald Trump then religion itself is in trouble.

   Religions say only men can lead from the pulpit yet nations have had women run things for decades with marvelous results. Many men have taken a faith based organization and turned it into a huge money making deal. One opened a university what about the rest? If religious leaders want to or hope to attract members then perhaps they should start by being the kind of human they expect everyone else to be. 

   When a person of the cloth shows up to a funeral they should be as ordinary as the people they preach to not driving a BMW. Don’t tell your congregation that you need a new car and that college tuition has gone up for your daughter so fill that collection plate. Above all else don’t ever be so busy that you cannot make time for one of your members. All this and more has been observed more than once and just like not wanting to hire a crooked cop you don’t want a lazy minister. 

   Could any of these issues be why church membership is going down. When you work two jobs and can’t make ends meet it is difficult to get to church and if you go it is embarrassing to not put something on the plate. It does not help to know that your pastor, priest, minister, or whatever title will be playing golf on Sunday afternoon while you are putting in another shift at the gas station.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

   The Fourth of July is a day of gatherings and judging by the number of and duration of the explosions of fireworks there were some quite large gatherings. The totally celebratory events get some coverage, the ones that have a shooting or multiple shootings are the ones that get the attention.

   All the world watches as we kill one another off one block party at a time. They wonder why we would choose to have laws that require school children to have to be put through live shooter exercises to prepare for the event that could come on any day in their school. They wonder why we have a former President that has caused an insurrection and continues to call upon his followers to create problems for the rest of our society, and he has not been jailed, or as in some countries, taken out and shot. 

   He has not gone to trial yet, but daily he is being tried by society and history. His legacy will not be written by him so he will not appear as the noble, brave and true leader that he fancies himself to be. Rather he will be found to be very unsavory and instead of featuring his picture to replace George Washington his image will better serve to replace Mussolini hanging upside down next to his mistress.

   The United States was founded to be a just country. We do not conduct purges as Stalin did. We do not create and environment where your belief would require you to go to elaborate measures like building priest holes as the Catholics did under King Henry VIII. We were not founded that way and yet members of our congress today would gladly pursue those tactics if they could muster enough power to put Trump back in power. 

   The raping of women’s health rights and putting it in the hands of your neighbors to spy on you and turn you in for profit if you violate one of the many punitive laws enacted. Neighbors spying on neighbors is the method that was used to keep track of the East Berliners, and the more radical in the Soviet Union. Those type of rules plus open carry laws for weapons might be a great way to reduce the surplus population, for the Red states I am sure that they are hoping that it is the folks that voted Blue that end up as the targets for this benevolent law.

 Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

 Here is a question for you. What are you going to do when they announce the end of the world? For some that will be when Trump doesn’t get reelected for others it will be because something important happened, like getting hit by a meteor.  

   If you are like the NCO I had near me in Desert Shield Desert Storm when they told us the air war had started, he sat on his cot, read his bible and cried the rest of the night. Since the air war did not require any effort from me I went back to sleep. 

   So the question is should that kind of thing be made public information or should we keep that kind of information confidential until all hope is lost in trying to stop it from happening? If the public is informed are people going to go to work and keep the lights on? Will panic occur and people go out and do things that they would not normally do? Keeping the status quo may be a terrible lie for the government to tell the public but if a last minute save happens it would not be necessary to re establish the grid, If nothing saves the situation then it will make no difference anyway.

    If you knew in advance what kind of things you would do, make sure those you love know you love them. Would go out and get drunk, get laid as often as possible, eat yourself sick or spend your time on your knees praying for some intervention. 

    We all have different ways of dealing with crises and the news of total destruction would probably bring some really outlandish reactions.  We have people that have built elaborate facilities to survive the most terrible things that man can throw at man. I don’t believe those efforts will help if total destruction is the outcome.

  Are our efforts to pollute helping to weaken the systems such as the ozone layer to offer protection of a natural type? Has our development of rockets and explosives been advanced enough to protect us from everything except the loss of our sun?  

    These are questions of total destruction not personal loss so in order to wrap your head around this problem take a much broader view of the term loss. We may have developed technologies that have a good chance of accomplishing the task of saving earth but at what cost. Will our technology work after that effort has been expended? Are enough of us versed in how to survive to make the effort to save the earth worthwhile? All valid questions and concerns the real answer is when we either do or don’t survive and prosper.

(Feel free to rely with any comments)

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

I was driving this morning and the GPS on my phone was seriously lagging behind where I actually was, and I found myself getting angry and impatient with the technology.

Why am I telling anyone reading this about my morning navigation issue… well it got me thinking about how since with advances in Technology we have become quicker to respond with anger and frustration over something that 10 years ago would not have even been a concern. In the early 2000s when it came to navigation you used a map or printed google maps directions, which usually got you lost, but we didn’t rely on technology to hold our hand all the way through the process. I can still read a map, but I have become more and more dependent on GPS technology to get me to unfamiliar destinations.

It seems that every advance has made us more impatient and ignorant of how to do things that to previous generations found to be commonplace task.

I am old enough to remember not having a microwave… In the summer when I was little, I loved Spaghetti O’s with meatballs, would go to the corner store and buy a can come home and cook them in a pot on the stove. It really wasn’t a task that I found out of the ordinary, my son if it isn’t fast food or something he can heat up in the microwave it’s too much effort. Just that little step of heating something up on the stove or pushing a few buttons has made a generation too lazy and impatient to accomplish even minor tasks.

I am all for technology and the ways it has helped make things more convenient, but I am afraid that it is also breeding complacency, ignorance and impatience.

Has anyone seen the Disney animated movie Wallie? In the film man has had to leave earth and been on board star ships for a long time and hadn’t had to use their legs for mobility, the people had become so dependent on floating chairs that they couldn’t walk on their own. I don’t see us getting to that level of dependence on technology but sadly in other aspects I do see the reliance on machines and computers becoming and global addiction.  

I am not the only person that feels that this is the direction our species is going… here is one UK study that sums it up.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/technology-is-making-us-more-impatient-says-study/

Thank again for your reading my Ted Talk (LOL)

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

There are a couple of stories in the news since July 4^th, some well one that is getting all the Red Hat press but let’s talk about the stories that are being sidelined.

One that’s not getting much mention in the press is the record amount of gun violence over the Independence Day holiday. According to CBS News; ‘Gun violence spiked over Fourth of July weekend, with shootings reported in nearly every U.S. state that killed a total of at least 220 people and wounded close to 570 others, according to the Gun Violence Archive.’ Has anyone heard about this? No, just another fucked up day of shooting in the war zone we call America.

Then there is a neglected story that is affecting the entire planet.

 Earth’s Hottest Days on Record Were July 3-5

A chart shows daily average air temperatures worldwide for each day since 1979 and ends on July 5, 2023. On Tuesday, global average temperatures rose to a new high of 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit. I can already hear it, “Big deal 63°isn’t a big deal!” But I am sure you’re not reading the entire statement (global average temperatures) that include areas in the southern hemisphere that are currently in their winter season. Regardless of whether 2023 ends up the hottest ever recorded, scientists caution that the escalating impacts of the climate crisis are now starkly evident and will not be slowed until greenhouse gas emissions are radically cut.

Again, not in the Mainstream Media headlines.

The big news is that Cocaine was found in the White House… and we all know the rumor mill is going crazy over that. I guess now the Republicons will accuse Joe Biden of being on drugs or that he is having COKE parties in the Presidential Residence with the GOPs favorite punching bag Hunter and surely Hilary will be included for good measure.

The GOP is still crying about gas stoves and decrying that EVs will destroy the American auto industry, they are trying to block the Biden administration from utilization of social media on some 1^st amendment nonsense.

After the Supreme Court slapped down affirmative action in college applications for minorities, now groups are bringing lawsuits to block scholarships for minority applicants. Sorry, that’s in the ‘not in the’ news category.

I am imploring people to wake up, check your sources, and fucking pay attention. You’re hearing that the economy is in tatters… not true. You’re being told that America is not longer respected on the world stage… NOT TRUE. You are being fed that affirmative action in is self is ‘racist’ and the there is no racism in this country… ask George Floyd, Travon Martin, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, oh you can’t because they are all dead and this a short list, NO RACISM complete bull shit and affirmative action did only a little to level to playing field.

Again I apologize for getting on my soapbox but if there is only one person that is listening and takes this to heart then I feel that I am doing something.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Let’s get into name calling about economic plans from both parties, and what they actually accomplished.

The latest slur from the GOP is Bidenomics to Republicans, “Bidenomics” is a slur they can deploy. It’s a philosophy of government spending and anti-oil policies that they say fueled a spike in inflation last summer to a four-decade high. But is the current economic plan doing all the harm that the Republicans are crying about?

Bidenomics—is rooted in the recognition that the best way to grow the economy is from the middle out and the bottom up. It’s an economic vision centered around three key pillars:

• Making smart public investments in America
• Empowering and educating workers to grow the middle class.
• Promoting competition to lower costs and help entrepreneurs and small businesses thrive.

The current administration was handed an economy that was in free fall after COVID19 and poor management of the previous administration. Many Republicans want the public to believe that the U.S. economy is a disaster although many economists agree that the U.S. is, for now, not in a recession. The most recent gross domestic product report published last week showed the U.S. economy grew by 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022, following growth of 3.2% in the quarter before. In fact, the U.S. financial picture looks far better than all other G7 nations.  The United States has, by far, the largest gross domestic product (GDP) of the G7 countries. Moreover, while the GDP of the other six countries fluctuated between 2000 and 2022, the U.S.’ grew almost constantly, reaching an estimated 25 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022.

So based on these numbers and unemployment being a record low, it appears that the GOP slur of Bidenomics is completely invalid.

For those of us that lived through the 1980’s you will remember the phrase Reaganomics. The pillars of Reagan’s economic policy included increasing defense spending, balancing the federal budget and slowing the growth of government spending, reducing the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reducing government regulation, and tightening the money supply in order to reduce inflation.

What the plan actually did was deregulate industries and cut taxes for the wealthy, “If the wealthy receive tax cuts it will benefit everyone,” was what we were all led to believe. Cutbacks in income transfers during the Reagan years helped increase both poverty and inequality. Changes in tax policy helped increase inequality but reduced poverty. These policy shifts are not the only reasons for the lack of progress against poverty and the rise in inequality.

The results of Reaganomics are still debated. Supporters point to the end of stagflation, stronger GDP growth, and an entrepreneurial revolution in the decades that followed. Critics point to the widening income gap, what they described as an atmosphere of greed, reduced economic mobility, and the national debt tripling in eight years which ultimately reversed the post-World War II trend of a shrinking national debt as percentage of GDP.

Historically the debt has gone up under Republican Administrations since after Eisenhower and no Republican President has balanced a budget. Their policy of tax cuts for the top of the economic scale has always led to budget shortfalls. The GOP solution is to cut spending on social programs at affect more people than their tax cuts benefit. They also compare the national budget to a household budget a by saying that the best way to save is to cut services while continuing to spend no thought of increasing revenue. Sorry that shit don’t work!!!

I, just like President Biden, am taking Bidenomics as a complement and moving forward with it. This administration is proving that bottom up, middle out method of economic growth actually works. Reaganomics, piss on the poor and tell them it raining, system has put us in the economic predicament we are in, time to throw it out.

Thanks for suffering through another rant.