Sunday, October 16, 2022

Paying attention

 

(6 minute read)

            I appreciate those that read my missives.  You provide value.  I hope things are going well for you in your corner of the world.

Win or lose I believe that trying or doing something whether it’s voting or stating an opinion is better than doing nothing.  Even in loss I think that it’s important to have at least tried to do what’s right to make society a better place. 

There’s so much going on in the world today that the amount of information coming in is overwhelming. I write about what I believe is taking place in the world that’s important.  So, I’ll just pick an issue like the war in Ukraine, the pandemic, climate change or midterms and go with that.  I don’t write because I think that what I say will make a difference because it probably won’t.  I have a miniscule number of followers and my work doesn’t get shared.  I write because I enjoy writing. 

            It’s hard not to wonder these days if people are paying attention to what’s going on around us?  How many are paying attention when numbers count in so many tight races?  Who isn’t?  What’s the nature of people that do or don’t.  More importantly can we make a difference in what’s taking place in the society that we live in?  Is our small cog important?

            Thanks for dropping by.  Agnosco diem.  Now, onto my normal writing.

 The non-position position.

            When I was getting my eyes checked at the clinic, I asked my eye doc how the world was treating him.  He responded that there was a lot going on in the world and that we would just have to do our own research and figure things out.  Then he laughed and said that he was doing okay.

            I told him that we really didn’t have to figure things out on our own, that we had credible sources available and that they’ve been there for years.  Then I briefly explained the relationship between bias and factual information. 

Then he tried to sell me some glasses.

Midterm immune systems.

There was a PSA on social media about people needing to get their flu shot this year and a guy commented that he didn’t need to get one because he has an immune system. 

It’s a shame that all of the people that died from the black plague didn’t know that.  Millions would have been saved had they only known.  Then there all the other people that have died from diseases over the years before vaccines that didn’t know that either.  Then scientists came along and figured out that we had immune systems AND discovered that with vaccines our immune systems could be enabled to fight diseases they were ineffective against. 

In today’s world unvaccinated people are still 97 more times likely to die from Covid.[i]  Anti-vaxxers will not believe that no matter how many bodies pile up.  There aren’t any sources that they believe except for the ones that agree with them.  Science is their enemy.  They choose ignorance.  After all, they have immune systems.

This is how Trump Republicans approach the midterms.

They have been immunized against reality.

It’s the little things.

  • After winning their primaries some Trump Republicans took down their more extreme positions at their election information sites so they can give the appearance of being more reasonable to a wider segment of the population.  That’s happening all over the country.
  • We’re seeing videos of young and old Russian men talking about being conscripted to fight in Ukraine and having to buy their own equipment.  They end up dead on the front lines a few days after being conscripted.  Untrained.[ii]  Under equipped.[iii]  Lives cut short.
  • Before January 6th the Secret Service was equipping agents with riot gear to provide protection for the President when he went to the Capitol after his Stop the Steal rally.
  • At a school board meeting in Arkansas a man said that LGBTQ people deserved death.  The audience remained mute.[iv]
  • A white guy holding a Black Lives Matter sign in Harrison, Arkansas a couple of years ago was met with a torrent of racist comments.[v]  Think things have changed much since then?  More recently a white guy in Alaska addressed an Anchorage assembly meeting and told them that homeless natives should be sent back to their villages.[vi] (They weren’t from villages.)  Racist incidents like this are happening at government meetings all over America.
  • Two years into the Biden Presidency in a recent poll the majority of Trump Republicans believe America is the best country in the world.  The slogan of Trump Republicans is that we need to Make America Great Again.  Trump Republicans see no conflict with having opposing beliefs at the same time.
  • The majority of Americans believe that we’re losing our democracy.[vii]
  • We have armadillos in Missouri.[viii]  Unprecedented climate change changes have been taking place around the world.[ix]  The changes are unique to the last couple of thousand years.[x]

These are just examples of the kinds of things that catch my attention.  The question really remains though are people really paying attention to what’s happening in the very real world?  More importantly do they care?  When we vote in this country, we are in essence voting on all the issues.  You name it.  Abortion.  Climate change.  Authoritarian rule.  Democracy.  Inflation.  Debt.  Voter suppression.  Religious freedom.  Health care.  Medicare.  Social Security.  The economy.  The war in Ukraine.  Church and State.  LGBTQIA.  Christian Nationalism.  Racism.  Education.  Poverty.  Debt.  Add as many items as you like. 

            Based upon past elections, depending upon which study you go with, between 80 and 100 million Americans will choose not to vote in the midterms.[xi]  We have over 330 million adults in the United States.[xii]  In 2020 158.4 million people voted.  That’s almost 2/3rds of eligible voters.[xiii]  (Not all adults are eligible to vote.)  Is it a little thing or a big thing that that many people chose not to vote?  If they did vote, would it make a difference?  Non-voters also comes out close to an even split politically. 

            Nine out of ten of the sates with the highest poverty levels are Red states.[xiv]  That’s flipped with Blue states having the lowest poverty levels.  Missouri comes in at number 32.  There’s a lot of poverty in the area where we live and I guarantee it’s a conservative area dominated by MAGA Heads.  So, people don’t always vote their pocketbook. 

            So, we watch the races tighten as we get closer to election day.  One outcome is already assured Trump Republicans will be better positioned to control the outcome of the vote in 2024.

            Who’s paying attention to which crowd, denies that Trump lost, supported overthrowing our government, threatens civil war if they don’t get their way, opposes public education, demonizes teachers, is banning books, put forth low quality and unqualified candidates, opposes gay marriage, opposes women’s rights, opposes birth control, opposes supporting Ukraine, denies climate change, denies science, opposes our form of government, opposes teaching history, advocates a Christian government, gives assistance to the rich and wants us to be a country like Russia where one man like Putin controls what people know and do.

Who?


[ii] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-official-killed-just-days-after-joining-army-no-combat-experience/ar-AA12WNcM?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=a55612bb9e894212a2fcd97ceb352495

[iii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSeSpufDytI

[iv] LGBTQ people deserve death:  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3Yi-bckXNc0

[v] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltmlvk9GAto

[vi] At 4hr, 36min, 30 sec:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdsyXpQND60

[viii] https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/04/armadillos-are-moving-north/

[x] https://www.cnet.com/science/recent-climate-change-trends-are-unprecedented-in-the-last-2000-years/

[xii] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html

[xiii] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/28/turnout-soared-in-2020-as-nearly-two-thirds-of-eligible-u-s-voters-cast-ballots-for-president/

[xiv] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewdepietro/2021/11/04/us-poverty-rate-by-state-in-2021/

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