A new year.. a new you.. a new hope..
Considering how 2018 ended for myself, I can only hope as
2019 starts from the dregs of that previous debacle, it will get better. A new
house for the family, with all the foibles and follies associated with such a
major purchase, will certainly keep us busy as we unpack, clean up, and fix or
replace the various items which need our attention.
Just like this nation needs attention.
2018 ended with the government initiating a partial
shutdown, as the legislative branches and the president fought over a temporary
budget fix to ensure federal operations continued. Since there was no agreement
– nearly three weeks ago – the federal workers are furloughed, forced to work
without receiving pay. Also, there is no guarantee they will receive back-pay
for the time they worked without a check.
The discussions prior to this happening were all controlled
by Trump, and he proudly proclaimed his desire to shut down the government, to
own it all to himself, because he wants to build his “great wall” on the
border. The moment federal operations were shut down, the man in the Oval
Office took nearly every day to demean the system and deflect the root cause of
this process onto the Democrats. Sure, he’ll take the blame – and throw it at
anyone who doesn’t move or duck quick enough to avoid it.
All of this is over the construction of a wall, ostensibly
for border security.
Consider this…
Walls have been built in the past – whether out of concrete
(Trump’s favorite) or other materials. Yet the illegal immigration (and drug) problem
has remained. Some have tunneled under, others have found ways to go over (packages
sent over the wall with slingshot or catapult, or even just tossed over, if not
brought through the tunnels going underneath). Low flying aircraft – and now
even drones – have also been used to get through the border regions.
The wall won’t work. It is an archaic concept which has been
unsuccessful since the start of the First World War – when the French though
the Germans could never cross the Maginot Line, which was a combination of
natural and man-made obstacles thought to be impenetrable – until the Germans
introduced armored tanks into warfare.
A recent story which made it to social media caught my eye.
In Vicky Alvear Shecter’s article What
Happened When A Trump Supporter Challenged Me About the Wall the argument
for and against was brought up in a forum, and she took the time to argue
against the wall using known conservative sources. She makes eleven different
points, complete with reference links, that discuss how ineffective and costly
the building of this barrier actually is.
With the “Blue Wave” taking over in the nation’s capital, there
is hope that “saner heads will prevail” and the government might return – at least
in part – to working for The People.
Some may consider this an attack on the Republican Party, and especially the man
in the Oval Office, but considering the popular vote in this country for many
years has leaned to a more progressive, open, Liberal ideal.
Has Trump really accomplished more in the last two years
than any prior president (and especially, as often recounted, more in two years
than Obama did in eight)? By decree, especially at the outset, there were many Executive
Orders issued from the Oval Office, but most of them have been deemed illegal
in part if not wholly overturned by the courts. International agreements were
backed out of, and in only a few cases have they been renegotiated – and yet
these have had little impact on the actual economy to date. Major global
initiatives have been declined, with the noted Climate Change initiatives which
Trump has refused to agree to – and in fact has pushed to relax current EPA
standards and set this country back decades on advancing technology to improve
fuel efficiency and control pollution.
Even the Affordable Care Act, while not the best attempt at
initiating a nationwide healthcare system, has been shot down under the Trump
Administration with no proposed replacement to ensure all citizens have necessary
medical care.
The only people who have made out so far are those in the
top one percent, thanks to the changes to the tax laws which give the richest
even more of a tax break than ever before, and once again pushing the tax
burden to the lesser… I mean, lower classes.
As an “Average American” I certainly do owe it to myself to
speak out. With every word I type, every election I cast my ballot, I speak
out. We can no longer be sheep to the process, and the newly elected members of
the House of Representatives show what happens when The People take a stand.
More women than ever before have been elected to office. Some of the youngest
have been elected – I’m looking at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York –
because they saw how bad it was just in her own section of New York, and
managed to speak loud enough to get elected. She is just one of many who
represent the future of this country, and if she wants to remain in politics I
feel her path will be quite a notable one.
Someone else on these interwebs says the party in power is
under attack. Yes, the GOP is certainly being put up against the wall, because
their elected representatives have forgotten one of the basic tenets of this
great nation – that it is a government “of The People, by The People, and for The People.” While this person
might claim that Trump is not the issue, that he is duly elected and The People
need to just “get over it” – I am here to say that Trump IS the issue.
As the government progresses through the third week of the
shutdown, and even before the Dems took over in the House, proposals have been
brought up through the legislature which BOTH parties agreed upon, and yet
because there wasn’t enough wording – or funding – for Trumps Precious Wall, he
vetoed it, and forced the shutdown to continue. Now with the Dems in control of
the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing up a proposal which touches points
which both sides completely agree upon – every part of this spending bill is
what has already passed through the Legislature – and if Trump once again
rejects it, he will prove that he is the problem…
…again.
I could go on about how Trump is unfit as leader, how the
United States has become a pariah and laughingstock in nations across the
world. Countries once allied with the U.S. now look askance, countries which
once feared us now point and snicker, ridiculing Trump. He is not a good
representation of who and what We The People are.
We are NOT sheep. We are not here to just exist at the whims
of others. This country was founded on the principle of freedom and justice for
all. We cannot continue to bow down to the government machine, but instead must
remember that WE are that machine, that WE are in control of where this country
is headed, and even with the GOP and Trump with most of the control, they only
are in office because of The People.
The Blue Wave has begun, with small steps and not an overwhelming
dichotomous shift, but instead a gradual, logical shift in public thinking.
This wave needs to continue, just like a tidal change from low to high tide
takes time. But, this shift is truly indicative of how the majority of this
country feels, and in two more years the Wave can peak and regain control of
the rest of the political machine that is our nation.
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