Today was day 45 of the first 100 days….  The dump has just begun.  The perpetrators can say, “don’t blame us. You were warned”.  But the first reaction is like being dumped on by an avalanche, or mud slide, or hit by a tsunami, earthquake or wildfire.  Until it happens, you don’t really expect it, and when it hits, panic sets in and nobody knows what to do.  Those who voted for this, or didn’t vote at all, were fools.  And we’re all stuck with the results.

This is the unfortunate reality.  The fortunate part of that is that the vast majority of those in the path of this looming catastrophe are survivors thus far, and we can react and we can respond, and the only question is, will we get off our duffs and attack this head on as long as we need to.  The time for sitting back is over.

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I watched the entirety of the “show” in Congress on Mardi Gras evening, and the 10 minutes response by Michigan U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin afterwards.  Then the snow began, and we were snowed in all of Ash Wednesday, not plowed out till Wednesday night.

I have one recommendation: Give Senator Slotkin 10 minutes of your time.  Here is the YouTube link as recorded by Associated Press.  Here’s the link to two earlier posts on this topic.  [March 7, 2025: here is a crucial post received this morning, Thinking About by Timothy Snyder, “Antisemitism in the Oval Office”].

Here’s how I saw the speech, at least through the doodle on my note pad, which had scarcely any notes of the verbiage – there was nothing new.  Some psychologist can uncover some deep meaning – have at it.  Suffice to say I did not leave the speech feeling any optimism for the future, if this holds.

9-11-01 marked my entrance into the then-mysterious world of e-networks.  This post is 24 1/2 years after the first group e-mail, and over 4,000 posts at this space in this tiny corner of the internet.  I’m aware of the potential and largely unrealized ability of the 75 million of us who sought a different result on Nov. 5, 2024.

Here are the responses following the March 3 post.  Feel welcome to add yours.

from Flo: We watched the program from begining to end. Trump is a total jerk! Wish the DFL [Democrats] would have been more visible.

from Mary:  I am so in awe of those of you who had the stomach to watch from beginning to end.  24/7 TV and Radio being what they are I doubt that I will miss anything and that much exposure to highness would surely send me to a therapist.

from John:  You guys are made of sterner stuff than I am. I watched exactly 0 minutes of it – I didn’t wanna watch another campaign rally diatribe– turns out it was apparently an hour and a half of disjointed discourse.

Not sure where we as a country go from here – I’m just hoping that there are at least four Republican moderate congressman, and at least two moderate Republican senators that will somehow grow the courage to stand up to the more obvious BS -and the undoubtedly worst stuff that is going on behind the scenes

from Jeff:  “To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!” Trump said Monday on social media.

Trump, and I suspect many of his advisors  have no idea whatsoever how the markets

are structured on agri products….that a huge portion of the production of soy and corn

is exported because there isnt a market for it here. Not to mention special crops like pulses like peas for instance…..or cotton, or sorghum…..not to mention that USAID/Food for Peace also is a big market for the above and their byproducts and milled products.

how will farmers be able to change planting plans and rotations….not to mention the falling market prices for just about everything then….

Farmers, most of whom voted for Trump, are in for some big surprises if this all goes thru.   At this point even I think none of it will…except the china stuff, as the stock markets are turning bearish mainly because of the chaos and uncertainty….

I suppose he could mandate all cars be made to accept 25% ethanol in gas…but that wont make his oil donors very happy….nor will it help mpg in any car,

deep thinkers. (Trump and MAGA, and the farmer voters who went for him)

from Dick:  Am I disappointed that only a few people shared responses?  Not at all.  I’m very much aware of how numbers work, from long experience.  If you didn’t respond, you know how you feel, and how you feel can be transplanted into action, which was the essence of Senator Slatkin’s 10 minute response to Tuesday night.

I’ve had a long-time analogy about our body politic – all of us – generally, which increasingly been intentionally divided into ever more polarized appearing left and right ‘wings’.  I compare our body to a magnificent American Eagle, which to function at all has to have an entire functioning body.  An Eagle with only a right wing, is not an eagle in any sense of the word, regardless of the strength of the rest of the body and control of the head.  Eliminate or minimize the other wing or any of other parts or their effect, and the Eagle is dead.

 

Eagle at the Mississippi River near Hastings MN (at old Nininger) April 6, 2021 photo Dick Bernard

Even more important, now, is the fantasy of the bubble of, for instance, a divided Congress, executive and judicial such as we witness every day.  Using the same body analogy, let’s say the body has a serious malady of any sort invading other organs – a cancer as it were.  It is a fantasy world that, in the political example, a stronger Right (the winning body) can eliminate an apparently minority Left (cancer) (or vice versa), when there is a left wing everywhere in this nation and world.

We are all stuck in the world and country and state and town and neighborhood together.  What are we to do when faced with an endless array of issues clumped together to get a ‘shock and awe’ effect – far too much to handle?  My suggestion, which I’m trying to follow myself, pick the issues closest to you and do everything you can to make policy makers and others aware of them.  There are 75 million of us…an immense reserve of power IF we choose to exercise the power for good.

The earlier those who seek to control the other learn this, the better for all of us.  Will they learn?  The rest of us have to teach them the hard lesson by not acquiescing.

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A final thought: there is absolutely no question in my mind that the current struggle for control is between the ultra wealthy and the vast majority who are the rest of us.  The primary legislative focus is to make permanent the tax cuts for the ultra wealthy who already control most of the wealth in our country.  What they demand is what they want, not what they need, and the expectation is that we pay the bill, through cuts in services we need, or through massive increases in debt which we will have to pay for in the long run.  It is a losing proposition for everyone.

A single example: a narrative is that Social Security is at risk.  Musk called it, recently and falsely, a “Ponzi scheme”.  Social Security is financed by withholding (paying premiums, in effect) by withholding a portion of earned income for Social Security and Medicare.  There is a ceiling on the obligation to pay premiums, which is very low for the very rich.   Here is the explanation of the obligation to the benefit by the rich.

This fits in with the obsession with “Woke”,  term endlessly and worthlessly thrown around.  I had occasion to come across a brief definition of “woke” not long ago.  It is presented here.Woke from Barbara Holmes.  Dr. Holmes is a person with credentials.  Read a bit about her here.

UPDATE March 9, 2025:  Five years ago, mid-March, 2020, my ‘world’ changed: I think it was March 18, 2020, that public functions in Minnesota closed by state order.  (I had planned to meet a friend for breakfast on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, but the restaurant closed early, and unexpectedly, the previous day.)  As any of us around at that time in history know,  mid-February to mid-March, 2020, was the time of reckoning about Covid-19, for even the most skeptical.  Death was loose among us.  It wasn’t until more than a year later, about May, 2021,  that there was some confidence that we were past the worst of the pandemic and life slowly returned to normal.

This morning, March 9, 2025, I feel the same as I felt in mid-February, 2020.  Something ominous seems to be on the horizon, and slowly but surely the warning signals are being sent.  Will we listen, is the question I have.  Are we facing a self-imposed political and financial pandemic which will claim lots of victims?  I don’t know, neither do you, but I’m certainly paying attention.

Below is an opportunity to consider what we’re facing at this moment in our history.

Yesterday, a good friend of long-standing, a retired Professor, forwarded a post that came her way from Facebook about what I would call the “Musk faction” presently dominating the American government conversation.

The ‘meat’ of the post, begins at the paragraph which begins “Finally…”.  I have made it more easily readable in pdf form: Follow the Money Feb 9 2025.  I urge you to read this.  Make up your own mind.  Of course, your comments public or private are welcome.

(If you have a Facebook account the entire post from Feb 9, 2025 – one month ago – is likely still accessible here.)