"We can't do all that!" Actually, we can.

[seawasp]

Behind the cut...

As I mentioned previously, the large group of people opposed to the emerging fascist dictatorship of incompetence are unfortunately split down two political lines: the "Don't alienate people by being too extreme" moderate, cautious group, and the "We've tried it your way the last thirty years, it's time for a real change" more aggressive group. 

Behind the first group, though, is a MUCH more dangerous attitude which is usually expressed as something along the lines of "we can't do that quickly, you'll be lucky if we can get things back to where they were, don't push!" 

This is, put bluntly, dead wrong. 

Not only CAN we do a lot of the things that need doing quickly -- universal healthcare, kicking out all the incompetent idiots and replacing them with competent people in the agencies, addressing workers' rights, etc. -- but we SHOULD AND MUST. 

Why?

Because going back to the _status quo ante_, with "ante" being "before Trump and his sycophants were in charge" is merely taking us back to the "we're almost there" point of Project 2025. It's a holding action and one that's doomed to failure because THERE WON'T BE ANY IMPROVEMENT from the point of view of a lot of the population. Which, naturally, translates to discouraged voters who either stop voting, or switch sides, and then you're right back where you started, only worse because whatever claims you made about this being the right choice now ring ever-more-hollow. 

There are a LOT of imminent threats to human life, liberty, and dignity right now, and a lot of them synergize or are associated in various ways. All of them need to be tackled and not by a tiny incremental change every election cycle. 

We've just had a clear demonstration that ONE YEAR is enough for an administration that doesn't give a damn and has widespread support in the key points of government to perform major changes in the methods, directions, and goals of much of the government. Yes, the Heritage Foundation spent a long, long time setting this up, but the fact remains that the current set of events demonstrates that the nominally balanced design of government can be paralyzed by what might be called "out of context" actions -- actions that simply go beyond any of the expected, normal behaviors in government. Trump and company's entire approach has been to simply DO stuff -- stuff that is, on paper, forbidden, undoubtedly illegal, often likely high crimes -- and get away with it because it's just... too much.

To stop a lot of this WOULD have been easy -- again, on paper -- by simply having the cops arrest everyone involved, from Trump on down, and have that happen to anyone who was violating the law and ignoring things like court orders. That's what happens to people in the NORMAL world who get a court order and then say "eeeh, who cares"; they get arrested, they get jail time, they get big-time fines. 

But we've never encountered a situation in which the "proper response" was literally to arrest the entire sitting Administration and a lot of their appointees, so even the people who ought to know better have been situationally paralyzed. 

The important point here is that a VAST amount of what they've done is illegal. Putting it back takes SOME time, but not NEARLY as much as the naysayers want. The pessimists are looking at having to do everything by a slow process, but slow processes are not always necessary, and certainly aren't required when you're dealing with clear cases of criminal behavior. You say "no, that was wrong" and rip out all the criminal and questionable elements -- and while you're at it and in a position to do so, you  look at what might improve the overall ability of the organization to ACTUALLY accomplish the goals it's supposed to. 

There are, indeed, many things that need to be done. And if it turns out that there ISN'T a Blue Wave, we're gonna be hosed. 

But if there IS, that wave needs to be as powerful politically, needs to be surfed just as far, as Star Wars was by the entertainment industry. 

Here's just a few things that need to be DONE, not just talked about:

*Ethical Responsible Corporations. The biggest single contributor to the problem we find ourselves in is the toxic core principle of modern American corporate operations: that the PRIMARY duty of a corporation is legally held to be the stockholders. This is utterly bass-ackwards and counter to the long-term operation of not just civilization but the corporations themselves. Currently we're already seeing multiple cycles of "vulture capitalism" wherein a company is buying various other companies and organizations (most obviously healthcare), and finding ways to extract value from them short-term while actively destroying their positive functionality, then dumping the now seriously damaged goods onto the NEXT vulture, who rips out some more, etc. We're also seeing the various practical as well as environmental consequences of making a corporate decision based purely on whether you can convince (perhaps bribe) the local government into permitting it, rather than whether it makes sense either long-term for the company or for the locality; data centers are an excellent example here. 

We need to explicitly, in law, make it clear that ANY organization -- commercial, nonprofit, government -- has its FIRST responsibility to the people and region in which it exists. Its SECOND responsibility is to its CUSTOMERS -- the specific people or organizations that its products or services will be used by. Its THIRD responsibility is to its WORKERS -- the employees who do all the work. (I'm not sure if that shouldn't be the second, but I think this is the best setup). The FOURTH responsibility, then, is when we reach the investors, the stockholders. 

There are currently data centers being planned which will take up a vast amount of the water and energy resources of the area they'll be built in -- enough to seriously impact the hundreds of thousands of people living in the area, making such resources more scarce, and more expensive, perhaps even seriously restricted in availability. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN. This should be ILLEGAL. A company that wants to build something with so great an impact should FIRST have to demonstrate how they will INCREASE the carrying capacity of the region -- how they will generate more power, how they can bring in more water, etc. -- without damaging the environment OR putting the burden of their operations on the general populace. Expenses of a company should be ON the company.

There are many companies whose employees often require public assistance just to survive. This, ALSO, should NEVER happen. A company whose employees take X billion dollars in public assistance should have to pay that X billion dollars straight back to the government. Plus a penalty for making people jump through hoops just to live (see "Basic Human Value" below). 

*Universal healthcare. Every other civilized country on Earth has this. Yes, you can find horror stories of waits or mistreatment or whatever for all of those countries, but -- no surprise here -- you can find worse ones in job lots HERE. I can tell you some of ours, and ours haven't been nearly as bad as many other people have experienced. In actuality, people in comparable countries with universal healthcare are paying less for better care and are healthier. The USA's life expectancy is LOWER than that of most of the first world, because most of us are afraid to go to the doctor unless we're deathly ill or in some kind of major accident. This will NOT result in "unpaid doctors" -- the bloated healthcare costs in the USA are almost entirely due to the parasitic insurance industry. The taxes I'd have to pay for additional universal healthcare would be TRIVIAL compared to what I currently have to pay just to insure me and my wife (fortunately, NYS has programs that have generally covered my kids). You could (and probably should) double nurses' and doctors' salaries and STILL drastically reduce the costs of healthcare here. While NOT reducing the quality -- likely improving it. 

*Universal bodily autonomy. The sad thing is that this is an assumed fact in a LOT of law. It's just that there are specific areas that a relatively small, but very vocal, group of people keep insisting that bodily autonomy shouldn't apply to, and of course most of this gets put on women and other minority groups. The right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy is one of the most obvious, but this issue also applies to trans people, and also to the general ... well, shocking APATHY that seems to apply to the abuse of women and girls in general. The basic principle needs to be explicitly and universally written into law so that there's literally no BASIS for people to deny others control over their own body. 

*Universal Human Value. We have this stated in various documents, in different ways, most obviously in the Declaration of Independence ("...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."), but the LAW has been rather patchwork about this, and because of that an awful lot of people suffer who shouldn't. 

Specifically, we need to directly,  and forcibly in law, recognize that EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING has these rights that we declare above, and that these are not PASSIVE rights, but ACTIVE ones. Every human being has the right to live. Every human being as the right to liberty. Every human being has the right to be able to pursue their own happiness. AND THIS MEANS EVERY HUMAN BEING MUST HAVE THE RESOURCES TO MEET THESE RIGHTS.

There is no "right to life" if your ability to LIVE is at the mercy of someone else. If you have the right to life, you have the RIGHT to eat. You have the RIGHT to be sheltered from bad weather. You have the  RIGHT to healthcare to keep you from dying or suffering. 

There is no "right to liberty" if your existence is so constrained that you literally have no choice but to spend all of your time surviving. There is no liberty in a grinding bare existence. You have the RIGHT to a life that gives you choices beyond "suffer and live" and "suffer and die". 

There is no "right to the pursuit of happiness" if you have neither time nor resources to apply to the pursuit. You have the right to a life that allows you leisure, that allows you pleasure, that allows you, in short, to LIVE FULLY as a human being. Happiness ITSELF cannot be guaranteed -- that's partly due to our own natures and choices -- but there's a big difference between existing hand-to-mouth and actually LIVING in a way that might give you a chance to be happy.

*Explicit separation of religions and government.  We've had too much trouble from having to argue whether that provision is actually in the Constitution; it needs to be put in specifically. This includes not merely eliminating the use of religion as a justification or framework for how government should act, but also explicitly eliminating any assumptions that any one religion is superior inherently to any other and therefore able to be used as a tool to oppress others. The Heritage Foundation and their apocalyptic Evangelical associates have made it clear that this is a necessary change. 

It is absolutely possible for us to ACHIEVE ALL OF THIS, and not in decades. And we need to be TRYING to achieve it, and a number of other goals, from this very moment onward, not talking about maybe, someday, after we've slowly dragged things back to the very unsatisfactory way they used to be ten or fifteen years ago. 

We need to follow Mamdani's example, and work on changing things at the local and state, as well as the Federal, level. Local social support programs can be invaluable; my own Rensselaer County has a number of services that help a lot of people maintain their basic living dignity. This isn't something that HAS to be dumped entirely on the Federal government. It is something that can, and should, be supported from the local through county through state level up to the Federal level. 

Yes, of course, there's a lot more to write on all of the above, and a lot more to write on other important subjects we need to address, but I think for now that's more than enough to chew on!

 

Comments

[othercat]

These are all good points! I am on disability and not being able save more than 2000 dollars is a pain in the ass. (Why? Why do they do this?) I am also on Medicaid, and lost my foodstamps because apparently I was supposed to provide "proof of business expenses for bloging"

(Yes, it was misspelled.)

Random thought: I tend to support the idea of Universal Basic Income. UBI would enable people to get out of bad situations, whether from work, family, or having lost a job, or being too sick to work.

[seawasp]

UBI is pretty much a necessity especially with it looking like AI will in the near future be able to do a lot of jobs that people usually do.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>*Ethical Responsible Corporations. The biggest single contributor to the problem we find ourselves in is the toxic core principle of modern American corporate operations: that the PRIMARY duty of a corporation is legally held to be the stockholders.<<

I suggest the corporate death penalty. If a corporation causes grievous harm (e.g. selling a product found to kill people, releasing a chemical spill that wrecks a river) then it is disbanded and all assets sold to cover damages. They don't care about fines. They will care if a possible penalty makes the whole company cease to exist.

>>We need to explicitly, in law, make it clear that ANY organization -- commercial, nonprofit, government -- has its FIRST responsibility to the people and region in which it exists.<<

I would make the first responsibility safety. Don't kill people, don't destroy employee health, don't ravage the environment, etc. A corporation should produce a positive good.

>>There are currently data centers being planned which will take up a vast amount of the water and energy resources of the area they'll be built in -- enough to seriously impact the hundreds of thousands of people living in the area, making such resources more scarce, and more expensive, perhaps even seriously restricted in availability. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN. This should be ILLEGAL.<<

Bluntly put, the corporations are robbing people instead of paying all their own bills. They are going to find out the hard way that when enough people really HATE you, that makes it extremely difficult to do business.

>>There are many companies whose employees often require public assistance just to survive. This, ALSO, should NEVER happen.<<

This is a double theft. First, if you are working but not earning enough to live on, someone is cheating you of fair pay for your labor. Second, the company is robbing taxpayers to cover what it should be paying employees. Restaurants do this a lot by making a tip mandatory. If it is mandatory, it is part of the price of food and must be on the menu; a tip is voluntary.

>>*Universal healthcare. Every other civilized country on Earth has this.<<

It's a nice idea. However, I see two huge problems with this for America: 1) People hate and distrust the government for valid reasons. 2) Government does an abusive job with health care. Look up the atrocities of the Veterans Administration or reservation health care for examples. 3) If you make health care part of the government, more people will avoid health care, much as they began avoiding fire department and ambulance services after those merged with police departments. And the last stable number I found for approval of the health industry was a dismal 33%, after which I've seen scattered lower numbers but no consensus.

>>*Universal bodily autonomy. The sad thing is that this is an assumed fact in a LOT of law.<<

Someone once pointed out bluntly, "A free woman, that doesn't sell." America was founded on slavery; it shows.

>>*Universal Human Value. We have this stated in various documents, in different ways, most obviously in the Declaration of Independence ("...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."),<<

They said it but obviously didn't mean it. That was just a compromise, like freedom of religion. What they wanted was to force everyone else into their religion, but the founders were all different branches, so they had to settle.

>>AND THIS MEANS EVERY HUMAN BEING MUST HAVE THE RESOURCES TO MEET THESE RIGHTS.<<

Ideally, yes. But that would break America. It can't afford to pay for all the unpaid labor it is stealing. It can't afford to maintain the roads and bridges it has. It can't afford to supply health care, because that has been allowed to reach institutional pricing instead of being limited by what individuals can reasonably afford. And so on.

>> *Explicit separation of religions and government. <<

They're already ignoring what's there; they'll just ignore anything new.

What I want is separation of corporations and state. That union is a cornerstone of fascism.

>>It is absolutely possible for us to ACHIEVE ALL OF THIS, and not in decades. <<

In theory, yes. In practice, a lot of people just don't want to do it. Same with addressing climate change. I'm all in favor of improving society, but dragging people in a direction they don't want to go is an exercise in frustration.

Fortunately there are a lot of things that can be done on a personal or local level that don't require using a fence stretcher to try prying the government's head out of its ass.

Re: Thoughts

[seawasp]

There is nothing particularly unique about our government's operations, so I have no reason to believe that actually initiating universal healthcare will be any worse here than in other countries.

ALL the problems one sees in existing healthcare come from one single source that has a couple of separate incarnations: gatekeeping. The VA's costs and byzantine structure comes from multiple layers of people trying to prevent The Wrong Person from getting "Free Healthcare". This is also what the primary cause of expense and failure is in general healthcare here: insurance's ENTIRE JOB is gatekeeping and rationing.

The costs, and the problems with service, drastically drop when you eliminate all of the varied ways in which the system is designed to say "no" and instead replace with the default being "yes, of course" for anything other than purely elective stuff (cosmetic plastic surgery that's not part of reconstruction or other medically-important processes, for instance).

This is also true with various welfare setups, in which the terror of (mostly Republicans and American Libertarians) about one single person possibly getting money or resources they don't absolutely need has added tons of hurdles to overcome in order to get support, and a lot of stupid rules (that are also rarely updated) that have to be adhered to or you lose it entirely. (for instance, disability benefits requiring that you have no more than $2000 in assets, which might have been almost halfway reasonable in 1970 but is laughably little today).

Removing all that stuff not only makes it less frustrating and easier for the people trying to get help, it also makes it much easier for the people administering the program, and drastically reduces the costs.

To pay for it would require adding a tax -- that would be way less than what we all are paying for shitty insurance coverage. If you added a 5% tax onto someone making $100k, that would be $5k a year. I am currently paying $14,000 per year for just me and my wife. And technically, most of that is for my wife, as I am mostly covered by the company directly.

Most of these things CAN'T be done on a personal or local level. In SOME cases they could be done on a STATE level -- New York State could probably do these things, but that's because it is, like California, one of the largest economies on Earth and currently pays more to the Fed than it receives. But a lot of states couldn't do it because they're already depending on other states to prop them up and don't have extra resources to give them a breather as they change everything about their operations.

Re: Thoughts

[scott_sanford]

...dragging people in a direction they don't want to go is an exercise in frustration.

Most Americans don't want a fascist dictatorship, or an openly criminal government, or to destroy America's leadership on the world stage. Yet here we are.

Let's go do the good things.