For the Common Good
For the Common Good — Apparel and Accessories on Shopify – my new store.
Enter Donald Trump 1.0
When Donald Trump was elected the first time, a lot of people thought it was a bad idea. At the outset, I could see him for the petty, thin-skinned, narcissistic, greedy human being he was. I believed Bill Maher when he said America was in a slow-moving coup, so I started a blog on WordPress: The View from Here (it was called Against the Wind then). Then I started selling bumper magnets on Wix (Big Blue Wave) with the idea that if enough people put them on their cars, we could be nudged to “Tax the Rich.” That led to creating and selling t-shirts, opening an Etsy storefront (BlueWavePolitics) and promoting a Democrat wave in election 2018, then again in 2020.
Along the way, Robert B. Reich, through his books, introduced me to the common good – that which does the most good for the most people. The Common Good is the glue necessary to hold us together… and we have lost that.
President Biden began the process of restoring the Common Good. He started repairing our crumbling infrastructure, threw a lifeline to working Americans during the pandemic, invested in Climate Change mitigation, lowered prescription drug prices, relieved student debt, expanded over-time pay, expanded access to contraception, reduced junk fees, put a cap on senior drug prices, and created more jobs than any president in history. Biden was the most consequential president of my lifetime except, possibly, LBJ.
Then came Trump 2.0. It paralyzed the Democrat Party. The silence of our elected Democrats was deafening. This time Trump made sure to appoint people loyal to him instead of the Constitution regardless of qualifications. Democrats? Silent. The coup was underway. He immediately began dismantling the progress made by Biden. He let tax cuts for the middle class expire and made tax cuts for the rich permanent. He started a campaign to silence the free press. Started retribution campaigns against anyone he did not like. People took to the streets. Elected Democrats hid in a closet, at least in part, because a sizable portion of them had become infected with the corrupting influence of the rich surrounding us. It was now time to start promoting what we need more than political parties: The Common Good
The Great Divide
If we are to survive the remainder of the Trump 2.0 regime, we must find more Common Good with our fellow Americans or there will be blood in the streets. The American Civil War may have officially started with the 1861 attack on Fort Sumpter, but 1860 America was already rife with division. I mention that here because, right now, America’s division are wider and deeper than those in 1860. Personally, I am nearly immobilized waiting for the right spark from the right person at the right time for wholesale shooting to begin.
Standing in the middle of the great divide is Donald J Trump but, it is not Trump that divides us. Nor is it the multi-headed snake of cultural division over the attacks on women, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, DEI, patriotism, racism, antisemitism, or for that matter, war with Iran. Those are all false flags.
Endless War
The source of the Great American Divide is not left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican, liberal vs. conservative. The smoke blinding and choking us from the fires of our divisions obscures who intentionally started and stoke those fires: The Rich. The Great American Divide is the Rich vs. everyone else. This was the truth in 1860. It is true today. Class War is the war that never ends.
Post WWII
The rich so completely destroyed American Common Good in the 1920s that it caused the Great Depression that, then, allowed Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1932, to become our 32nd president. Using Keynesian economic principles, he transformed America. It produced the largest middle class in the history of the world because he invested in The Common Good. Decent paying union jobs, excellent public education, progressive income taxes, and inexpensive food and housing. By the 1950s, the rich were already hacking away at our Common Good. This is when education funding began to decline (because uneducated people are easier to dupe).
Reagan
Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. What followed can only be described as the ongoing rape of the Common Good. Reagan busted unions to lower wages. He cut the tax rate on the richest among us from 95% to 39%. The tax shortfall was taken out of education and other government programs. Each successive president continued with the destruction of the Common Good.
Bush, the first, raised taxes on the middle class. Clinton gutted welfare and changed banking rules (making the Great Recession possible). Bush, the2nd, cut taxes on the Rich three times and privatized government creating more Rich people. The cost of governing went up while the goods and services went down (paying more and getting less). Obama rescued the banks that created the Great Recession while abandoning working people who lost their homes. The Democrats lost the 2010 election (36% voter turnout) handing complete control of 32 state houses to Republicans who gerrymandered their way into permanent minority rule. The Supreme Court declared money to be free speech opening the flood gates allowing the Rich to buy elections.
Enter Donald Trump 1.0 (back where we started
New Items to support Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
Everywhere you look, there are Trump signs, t-shirts, hats, flags, and other visible signs of the election intentions of Republicans. How many signs do you see for Democrats?
Is it any wonder MAGA thinks they are the actual voting majority in America?
Visibility counts!
We are now in the last throes of the 2024 election cycle. If you have been afraid to boldly show where you stand, now is the time to stand up, stand out.
What better way to shout “Kamala and Tim” than with these unique, incredibly attractive ways to promote then for President and Vice President of the United States.
Be Bold!
Stand out in a crowd. Wear this magnificent 100% cotton unisex fit T-shirt to the park or mall. It is available, of course, in Red, or White, or Blue plus Light Blue and Pink. Let everyone know which side you are on for our November 5th election. Not a T-shirt kind of person? There are many other ways to express yourself in this critical election where the survival of our democracy is on the ballot.
Stand up!
You could fearlessly show those around you what you think is important at the supermarket, on the street, in the elevator by carrying this attractive 16” x16” 100% polyester tote bag with three different handle colors while wearing your favorite T-shirt to show why you support Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Stand out!
A more dauntless way to show your support is to display this handsome 5” x 6” magnet on your car so all you ‘followers’ (in traffic, I mean) can see where your heart lies. I chose to have magnets manufactured so there is no need to worry about the paint on your car. After the election move the magnet from your car to your refrigerator as a reminder that we beat that wannabe dictator Donald Trump.
Be a beacon in your neighborhood!
Looking to be more adventurous? Look at this unique 18” x 24” corrugated plastic yard sign with a galvanized support bracket. Imagine what it would look like at your house! The one featured here is in my front yard. No yard? Put your sign in a window facing the street.
I, for one, am looking toward a Democrat landslide victory on November 5th. If we all pitch in a little, we will have Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in Washington ready to work with a Democrat majority in the House and the Senate! Good luck to us all!
Dear Black America
I did not comment on Black History month this year. I celebrated instead by reading “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” created by Nikole Hannah-Jones. Practically none of what I read was taught in several high schools and the few colleges I attended culminating in a degree from The College of William and Mary. All that education varied little from the Nikki Haley version of an American Civil War not caused by slavery.
Apologies
I am a 76-year-old white man born and raised in Kentucky, the last state to ratify the 14th amendment… in 1976. At age 36 having been married and divorced, served in the Navy, and gotten a degree from the second oldest institution of higher education in America without looking back, I sold my meager possessions, climbed into my friend’s 1961 Chevelle with him, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend headed to California. I was moving out of the South for the first time in my life. Everything I owned was in that car.
Unbeknownst to me the trunk, the invisible cartop carrier, and every crevice of our metallic pickle colored conveyance was filled to overflowing with racial baggage, mine and theirs. Since then, I have worked to unpack and jettison the contents of those invisible bags. Along the way, just when I thought I had finally rid myself of my last valise of bigotry, I would whiff that familiar musty rancor of intolerance my family, without knowing it, so lovingly passed along to me. Again, it would be time to disconnect those prejudicial feelings from the reality where I lived. I would like to apologize to African Americans everywhere for not making more progress in erasing my bigotry.
Thank you for your service!
It has become a fashionable way to acknowledge people like me who have been in the military. My belated response to Black History month 2024, then, is to thank Black America for their service to this country and to the lofty ideals I was taught in every American history class I attended.
To our country
I learned Crispus Attucks, a Black man, was the first to die in the American Revolution. Many more African Americans would die before Independence was won. You have served in every armed conflict in American history. You even served in five major American wars before being declared citizens by the 14th Amendment ratification in 1868. You have taken up arms and died in every campaign since then even when white military personnel on the same side refused to serve with you.
To our ideals
When white soldiers, sailors, marines, and aviators returned to their families after warfare, they came home to a peacetime America filled with promise. You returned to a different America where some of you were murdered by white Americans for daring to wear our uniform.
In slavery, you were denied ‘humanity,’ then, in freedom, citizenship and the right to vote. The First and Second Amendments did not apply to you in the presence of white America. Yet you continued to believe in the promise.
When African Americans were better educated and more qualified than any white person in the room, the only jobs available to you were cleaning homes, washing clothes, and mopping floors. You were redlined into ghetto neighborhoods with inadequate schools and denied credit to make improvements on those conditions. Still, you pressed toward the freedom and equality touted in our founding documents.
You were mistreated, marginalized, and suppressed. Your homes were destroyed. Your communities and churches were bombed. You have been beaten, mutilated, dismembered, and burned alive. You, African Americans, have been lynched and left hanging from anything that could, conceivably, hold your weight. Yet, you marched on in pursuit of what our founders proclaimed for its citizens.
Without your constant striving, there would be no Constitutional Amendments 13, 14, or 15, no Civil Rights Acts of 1964, ‘72, ‘87, or ‘91. Your efforts have driven America forward toward all our ideals. Without you, the soaring words of Jefferson and Madison would be little more than propaganda for rich white men like them. By standing in lines at too few polling stations, by navigating myriad voter restriction laws, by wielding your right to vote you kept a wannabe dictator from being reelected in 2020. Amid Women’s History Month, let me be specifically clear. It was Black Women voters that preserved democracy in 2020 and it is they who will save it again in November 2024.
You, Black America, are the primary reason the world sees us as the beacon of democracy, freedom, and equality. For enduring the brutality of our past, for your present sacrifice and ongoing anguish and distress in this righteous quest, for the freedoms I enjoy today, tomorrow, and beyond, I, and all Americans, owe you a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. Please accept my deep felt thank you for your service.
Let us celebrate with action!
White America, it is time to stand up, shoulder-to-shoulder, arm-in-arm with Black America to demand financial Reparations for the horrific crime of slavery and the appalling treatment unto this day. Let us narrow and close the discriminatory wealth gap between us, ferret out and demolish all remnants of systemic racism pervading our daily lives.
We must secure commitments from those who represent us locally and nationally to act on our behalf rectifying these injustices for all time. We must return President Biden to the White House in November and elect Democrat majorities at local, state, and national levels so we all have the power and control needed to dispatch the sins of our past, to proudly declare, “Promises delivered at last!”