I DON'T THINK WE'RE READY...

I DONT THINK WE'RE READY..

Mass media has made people, who's grasp on reality is tenuous at best, too confident in their ability. I recently saw where a post asked about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez' support if she ran for president. Naturally, one of our maga moron's contributed his two cents worth, the very penny no longer distributed by the treasury. "I don't think we're ready for AOC," he opined. And there you have it. A not very bright human who's only qualification to be a Podcaster is his affinity with maga, gives us his assessment of Alexadria Ocasio Cortez' fitness for running for public office. "I don't think we're ready for that". Perhaps he was thinking that he was thinking. Perhaps he doesn't know what qualifies as thinking. 

Funny thing, in a popular democracy, where democracy is allowed to be practiced by those not at the power centers, people who pay close attention to the discussions, and the legislative qualities of the opposing candidates, are ready for that candidate even if the maga cap moron is not. But their advocacy is not allowed to supercede the podcast claims that they listen closely to. I have witnessed in my long life-span a lot of things we were not ready for. But they happened and many times, we were ready for them. My sense of history tells us that many Americans were not ready to go to war against fascism in the 1930s. As is the case today, key fascist cells within the country were able to bribe key political leaders in the legislature to weaken our will to defend our European trade partners. They even used such words as 'globalist', as if there's something woke about globalism. Unlike today, the country became alarmed by the spread of fascism. By the time Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the cruelty spreading throughout occupied Europe became so visible it could no longer be ignored, those people were ready enough to send our treasure to free our trading partners. Some of those people at that time were not ready to think too deeply about such things as concentration camps, or the vulnerable people in them, because they weren't our responsibility, I suppose. Or maybe they weren't God's children. But many of us were by that time ready to take defensive action. Many of us weren't ready to go to war in Southeast Asia. It wasn't clear until a decade later how mistaken that action was, but we didn't get a choice because the government was not ready to admit that mistake. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, when he ran for president, was forced to proclaim that he would not allow the Vatican to run our foreign policy. There's an irony here: Pope John the XXIII inspired Catholics of that era to go into the 3rd world and help the poor and oppressed. It was called "liberation theology". JFK created the Peace Corps. There was liberation, but no theology promoted. We were ready for that.

On a more personal level, I have never been ready for a Republican president since Richard Nixon. But nobody seemed to care. More importantly, those presidents from the post-Nixon GOP set in motion the roll-back of legislation passed through both houses of Congress, and signed  by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That New Deal legislation restored the economy that collapsed after 12 years of 3 Republican presidents. It helped restore the health of the Midwest after the Dust Bowl. It not only helped win the war with fascism but even helped rebuild Europe and Japan after WWII came to a close. And it built the biggest middle-class in the world. Republicans were not ready for that. Those newly created enlightened government officials inspired by FDR, Passed through Congress the Civil Rights Acts and Voting Rights acts. There were Democrats who were not ready for that. They later became Republicans. We were not ready for that but were happy to be rid of them. Some 50 years later, the Supreme Court, who started the movement towards progressivism by passing Brown v Board of Education in 1954 completed their dismantling of the Voting Rights Act. It had become apparent by that time that the Supreme Court had been packed by conservative interest groups with justices willing to allow cash to cross their palm. We weren't ready for that. What's even worse, the Republican party, starting in about 1980, had become more and more fascist, ending with the worst human being to hold the presidency since Andrew Jackson. We weren't ready for that and they told us to "stuff it". There are indications that Republican presidents since George W Bush have tampered with the presidential vote. By the time of our 45th/47th president the stink of that vote tampering was worse than the peppergas in the streets where ICE has mobilized. We weren't ready for that. On a more recent note; Maine ran a candidate for Senate who won yesterday, Graham Platner. Many people were not ready for him, including from my side. But it is clear that Maine is no longer ready to continue Susan Collins Senatorial office. We will find out in November who is least ready.

So forgive me if I do not care what you are ready for. We are not your country! We are our country! You get to vote on that. We get to vote on that. You do not get to impose what you are ready for outside of the Constitutional process.Those of you who are not ready for a woman of color for president do not get to impose your will on the rest of us because you are not ready for that. If you can win a Congressional majority, and get your legislation through both houses of Congress and signed by a president, that becomes law, in spite of what we are ready for. But if you have poisoned the well of democracy by undemocratic means, that is where we begin the process of moving beyond what you are ready for. So far our side has played by the rules, your side has not. Many of us are not ready for your kind of political manipulation. Some of us are impatient to return to that concept of "popular democracy", but we hope never to destroy our Constitutional protections to set things right. It's up to you to decide if your side is ready for that.