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Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
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Blooming Apple Tree.
Apple tree
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Azalea
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Blossoming pomegranate
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Chili tree
Japanese red maple
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Bougainville
This bonsai is a tree that is 800 years old!
So different Wisteria.
This is a masterpiece: a 390-year-old bonsai. The tree survived even during the bombing and its aftermath in Hiroshima!
Magnolia
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Autumn maple
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Pyracantha
Coast redwood.
Lilac.
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
THERE IS REASON TO BELIEVE MOST OR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING WILL BECOME REALITY IN THE NEXT 10-20 YEARS. MANY OF US WON’T SEE THE CHANGES, BUT OUR KIDS AND GRAN - KIDS PROBABLY WILL.
1- The basic auto repair shops will disappear. Read on to know why.
2- A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.
3- Faulty electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots
4- Your electric motor malfunction light goes on, so you drive up to what looks like a car wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a new electric motor!
5- Gas pumps will go away.
6- Street corners will have meters that dispense electricity. Companies will install electrical recharging stations; in fact, they’ve already started in the developed world.
7- Smart major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that build only electric cars.
8-Coal industries will go away. Gasoline/oil companies will go away. Drilling for oil will stop. So say goodbye to OPEC! The middle-east is in trouble
9- Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispenses it to industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof?
10- A baby of today will see personal cars only in museums. The FUTURE is approaching faster than most of us can handle.
11- In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. Who would have thought of that ever happening?
12- What happened to Kodak and Polaroid will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years ... and most people don't see it coming.
13- Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today’s smart phones, who even has a camera these days?
14- Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a time, before it became way superior and became mainstream in only a few short years.
15- It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
16- Forget the book, “Future Shock”, welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.
17- Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
18- UBER is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world! Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming.
19- Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties. Ask Hilton Hotels if they saw that coming.
20- Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
21- In the USA, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM's, you can get legal advice (so far for right now, the basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future , (what a thought!) only omniscient specialists will remain.
22- Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, it’s 4 times more accurate than human nurses.
23- Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.
24- Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars are already here. In the next 2 years, the entire industry will start to be disrupted. You won’t want to own a car any ’more as you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination.
25- You will not need to park it, you will pay only for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.
26- This will change our cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars. We can transform former parking spaces into green parks.
27- About 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide including distracted or drunk driving. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles; with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles That will save a million lives plus worldwide each year.
28- Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt. They will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
29- Look at what Volvo is doing right now; no more internal combustion engines in their vehicles starting this year with the 2019 models, using all electric or hybrid only, with the intent of phasing out hybrid models.
30- Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla and they should be. Look at all the companies offering all electric vehicles. That was unheard of, only a few years ago.
31- Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the costs will become cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
32- Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will abandon their towers to move far away to more beautiful affordable locations.
33- Electric cars will become mainstream about 2030. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.
34- Cities will have much cleaner air as well.
35- Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.
36- Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact. And it’s just getting ramped up.
37- Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that simply cannot continue - technology will take care of that strategy.
38- Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it.It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any Disease. There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health
WELCOME TO TOMORROW – some of it actually arrived a few years ago.
And I'm still trying to figure out how to use my cell phone!!
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
The level of anger directed at the media from these protestors was alarming. As always, I will tell a fair and unbiased story today. pic.twitter.com/5jCR0YY9VH
— Kevin Vesey (@KevinVesey) May 14, 2020
The late-night, weekend firing of State Department IG Steve Linick is an acceleration of the President’s dangerous pattern of retaliation against the patriotic public servants charged with conducting oversight on behalf of the American people. https://t.co/VavmuJpX25
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) May 16, 2020
Another Inspector General fired by Trump in the dead of night.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 16, 2020
Another apparent act of retaliation and cover up.
To shield a loyal cabinet secretary from oversight and accountability.
And undermine the rule of law.
This surfeit of corruption must end. And soon. https://t.co/fpH28bcjWu
It feels good to unfollow @elonmusk
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) May 16, 2020
I just voted YES on the Heroes Act to:
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 16, 2020
☑️Put more money in your pocket.
☑️Extend unemployment benefits.
☑️Provide hazard pay for front line workers.
☑️Increase help to small businesses.
☑️Support states, cities, and schools.
And more.
The American people need help. Now.
SNAP has been the cornerstone in the fight against hunger and poverty for decades.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) May 15, 2020
Now, it is an essential part of the fight against the coronavirus. Democrats are committed to standing with our fellow Americans against food insecurity. #HandsOffSNAP #HeroesAct pic.twitter.com/pSpJZIcEJf
Trump took office w/ claims to “drain the swamp”....
— Ryan Chase (@GunReformRyan) May 16, 2020
He continually fires anyone who would hold him accountable. He’s now gotten rid of another watchdog, whose job is to expose waste, fraud & abuse w/ public dollars.
TEXTBOOK CORRUPTION. https://t.co/SnE8njMpkL
We deliver to many families at Rough Rock in the middle of Navajo Nation! We got amazing help from local friends and volunteers. Our truck got a bit lost! But all worked out! @WCKitchen #ChefsForAmerica pic.twitter.com/wSTowwkLu6
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) May 16, 2020
I want Donald Trump to look the American people in the eye and explain why their hard-earned dollars are bailing out his wealthy donors. https://t.co/7FItXvsZpp
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2020
We have the power to create the future we want. A future where:
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2020
- We end our gun violence epidemic
- We lead the world in combating climate change
- Everyone has access to the health care they need
- Our government works for all — not just the wealthy and well-connected
I live in Montana.
— CHARLIE (@cjohansen_MT) May 15, 2020
Home to massive amounts of MAGATS.
I went to the store today (w/ my mask on) wearing this shirt SO proudly.
Fuck Trump. pic.twitter.com/2FHKYS0Mhr
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The country is witnessing the steady, uninterrupted intellectual and psychological decomposition of Donald Trump.
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
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An informed guide to the global outbreak, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment. |
(Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up .)here |
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A ‘new normal’ that experts say looks grim |
Most of the United States has hunkered down for the past seven weeks, but the spread of the coronavirus has not stopped. It has slowed a bit in some places, including the hard-hit New York area, while accelerating in others. |
Even so, governors in state after state are easing stay-at-home orders and allowing some businesses to reopen — which public health experts say could put us right back where we were in mid-March, when the virus was raging unchecked. |
Despite optimistic talk from the White House, the Trump administration is privately projecting that 3,000 people a day will be dying from Covid-19 by the beginning of June, nearly double the current toll. And with wider testing, the new-case count will surge to 200,000 a day, eight times the present pace. |
Those figures, based on government models, are summarized in chart form in an internal document obtained by The New York Times. The charts show that the “flattened curves” of U.S. diagnoses and deaths never did turn downward — and are now likely to bend more steeply upward as restrictions are eased. |
“While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as well as we expected,” Scott Gottlieb, President Trump’s former commissioner of food and drugs, said Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that.” |
Mr. Trump, who has frequently understated the impact of the disease, said on Sunday that “we’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people” in all. That estimate is as much as twice what he was saying two weeks ago, but it is still far below what his administration now projects by the end of May, never mind the months thereafter. |
The Times is providing free access to much of our coronavirus coverage, and our Coronavirus Briefing newsletter — like all of our newsletters — is free. Please consider supporting our journalism with a subscription. |
The rise of social-distance snitching |
Some frustrated Americans have turned into citizen informants, reporting other people’s violations of social-distancing edicts or stay-at-home orders to the police, public health authorities and even their employers. |
Tips from the public have prompted officials to issue citations and have helped shutter nonessential businesses like dog groomers and massage parlors that defied closure orders. |
The vigilantism has also taken the form of anonymous public shaming, like scolding fliers left on cars at weekend destinations, or posters rebuking people who go maskless. |
Some cities and counties have set up phone numbers and websites for people to report infractions, which have attracted a flood of tips — along with complaints about encouraging citizens to inform on one another the way authoritarian regimes do. |
The problem with pictures: We’ve all seen images of jammed beaches and parks held up as evidence of heedlessness. But Vice notes that some public spaces may not really be as crowded as they seem in photos, which tend to foreshorten distances toward or away from the camera. |
Italy tiptoes out of its lockdown |
At least a dozen countries took measured steps on Monday to ease restrictions on public life and reopen their economies. Italy, an early hot spot with the second-most coronavirus deaths after the United States, had locked down much tighter than most, so its reopening carried some symbolic weight. |
Restaurants and bars could reopen, but only for takeout. Some buses and subway lines restarted, but the number of passengers was limited. Work-related travel is now allowed, but moving between regions is still tightly controlled. |
For the first time in seven weeks, the government also allowed Italians to visit congiunti, a word that can mean relatives or personal connections more broadly. The ambiguity caused some confusion, so the government tried to clear it up: Spouses, partners in civil unions and people with a “stable affectionate connection” would qualify and could see each other again, but not people who are just friends. |
As Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief for The Times, put it in a tweet: “Freedom rests between Like and Like Like.” |
Reopenings |
|
What you can do |
Celebrate milestones. Virtual events you host during the pandemic may be the easiest parties you ever throw. Here’s some advice on holding a great event online. |
Keep your children active. With schools shuttered, the inactivity and snacking typical of summer breaks put more students at risk of obesity and health problems. |
Nurture your small hobbies. A writer found that sketching his dish rack helped him cope with the loss of a job a few years ago. It’s also getting him through the pandemic. |
What else we’re following |
|
What you’re doing |
Every evening it’s Real Madrid vs. Atlético Madrid — a friendly family soccer match on our front lawn. Our two sons need an outlet after six hours of virtual schooling and over a month of “staying in place.” Occasionally, our socially distant neighbors cheer us on from across the street. |
— Cristina Perez, Coral Gables, Fla. |
Let us know how you’re dealing with the outbreak. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter. |
Lara Takenaga and Jonathan Wolfe helped write today’s newsletter. |
Email your thoughts to briefing@nytimes.com. Did a friend forward you the briefing? Sign up here. |
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The Republicans would always ignore the needs of the poor, the sick, the uninsured: the weak. The Democrats would insist on fighting for them, even if it meant a slightly higher tax burden, preferably on the wealthy. It worked this way for years—until Trump came to power.
It wasn’t so long ago that the party of George W. Bush was outraged over Terri Schiavo, a woman in a persistent vegetative state whose husband wanted to remove her from life support. It has only been a handful of years since the Republican rallying cry was “All Lives Matter.” It doesn’t surprise me how far Republicans have fallen, but it does amaze me how quickly Trump has turned them.
If you only read one article to get a clear picture, read this one:
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From a student, not an actor:
It's been two years since a gunman with a military-grade assault weapon stormed my high school and senselessly murdered 17 of my classmates and educators. I can't begin to describe the pain and hopelessness I felt. In the days after that horrific tragedy, the NRA wanted us to believe we had no power to change anything. But my peers and I didn’t buy that. Just a bunch of kids, we declared war on their deadly agenda and took on one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. At first they ignored us. Then they laughed at us. Soon enough they fought us. And now? We're going to keep fighting until we win. We know that the NRA and the politicians in their pocket will never do what it takes to stop these senseless, preventable tragedies. So we win by working around them – and I'm fighting as hard as I possibly can alongside Ban Assault Weapons NOW to do just that. The historic movement behind BAWN is the best chance we have to pass a constitutional ban on deadly assault weapons, like the kind that murdered 17 members of our Marjory Stoneman Douglas family. But honestly, we're facing an uphill battle, and we're falling way behind where we need to be. That is why this news is so amazing: A group of donors just stepped up to match every contribution – dollar for dollar – until midnight tomorrow! We set a match goal of $25,000 in honor of those we lost on 2/14/18, and I urgently need your help to meet it. Too many lives are on the line to let our movement get off track – so coming up short simply isn't an option.
But there's good news: If everyone reading this email right now chipped in even just a few dollars, we'd hit our goal in minutes. I know not everyone will, so I'm personally asking if I can count on you, Mary: Will you rush $25 or more ($25 becomes $50) right now to help us defeat the NRA and bring the lifesaving change we so desperately need?If you've saved payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
I don’t want what happened in Parkland just to be another mass shooting. I don’t want this to be something that people forget. BAWN's movement is how we make sure that they won't.
When people think of Parkland, they're going to think about how it sparked lifesaving change – and I can't thank you enough for making that possible.
David Hogg
Chief Organizing Coordinator, Ban Assault Weapons NOW
Probably because of this. pic.twitter.com/s92NbNktpO
— Aunt Granny a/k/a Kathy Schwab (@KathySchwab77) May 2, 2020
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
Power to the people
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Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
An interesting read... to remember what life was like in the past for so many!
It’s a mess out there now. Hard to discern between what’s a real threat and what is just simple panic and hysteria. For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. On your 14th birthday, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday. 22 million people perish in that war. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday. 50 million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million. On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. And don’t try to catch your breath. On your 41st birthday, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war. At 50, the Korean War starts. 5 million perish. At 55 the Vietnam War begins and doesn’t end for 20 years. 4 million people perish in that conflict. On your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, should have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening. When you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? When you were a kid in 1985 and didn’t think your 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. And how mean that kid in your class was. Yet they survived through everything listed above. Perspective is an amazing art. Refined as time goes on, and enlightening like you wouldn’t believe. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this.
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
Pay it forward and rethink the world.
http://antidote.posthaven.com/the-revolution-is-under-way-already.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pity America
An incredibly brutal analysis of the United States on April 25th, 2020. This writer for the Irish Times nails it. It is long but a very chilling and worthy read.
Read it and weep, my fellow Americans. This is not US news that is commenting.
From the Irish Times
April 25, 2020
By Fintan O’Toole
THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT
Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.
However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.
Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.
As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”
It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.
The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV.
If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated.
Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?
It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.
Abject surrender
What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety.
Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.
In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities”.
Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”
This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.
It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.
Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.
The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.
Fertile ground
But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.
There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.
Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.
And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.
That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.
And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.
As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.
Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.
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Face it: we cannot return to anything resembling ‘normal’. We are entering a challenging and terrifying new era of restructuring our world and now is the time to swipe left on corporate greed and manipulation, racism, lies, misinformation, Christian Right hypocrisies, hate, gaslighting, protective Republican political agendas, and self serving conservative values that keep the general populace down and uninformed, rather than lifting up society as a whole by giving back as much as they take.
Capitalism can’t and shouldn’t be dead, but it should not be the goal at all costs.
We all must pay it forward and our social actions will help shape the world we step into in the undetermined future, which is looking pretty bleak right now. If one could count on the better instincts of Humankind to take the ship’s helm with love and consideration, the future would not seem so dystopian, but we all know which forces have the power, money, and sheer egregious will to force their dominating outcome.
Now is the time to make a difference through all-important personal social sharing and awareness campaigns. Civilization can implode under external pressure and its own grave contradictions, or it can be reimagined and repurposed, but it requires just that: a sense of purpose. A rising tide lifts all boats....
Now that you have time to hunker down - stop wringing your hands or sticking your head in the sand- there is a lot on the line and one chance only to push the reset button.
Get fired up and woke by adding these true life Social Injustice video-on-demand films to your queue. I promise you won’t be bored, but you will be properly outraged and hopefully motivated to help shape our collective future. If the little guy does nothing, the bullies WILL STEAL ALL THE LUNCH MONEY ON THE PLAYGROUND. AGAIN.
Here are a few films to get you started, and don’t forget Michael Moore’s docs about GM and Flint.
DARK WATERS starring Mark Ruffalo - Watch corporate greed and obdurate tactics run amok at the expense of millions of lives
JUST MERCY starring Michael B Jordan - Watch bigots who run much of the western world in action as a world-renowned civil rights defense attorney works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner.
QUEEN & SLIM Watch what happens when a couple's first date takes an unexpected turn and when trigger happy police are feeling their oats
THE CORPORATION - Check out the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
See how this has played out in history: ‘The Atlantic: The Revolution is Under Way Already’
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/609463/
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