Please forgive me. It has been since April 27th that I have done a Saturday Political Soap Box, one of the longest gaps since I started doing these. Saturdays have been very busy lately, what with one son marrying and another son graduating. Less romantically, Saturday lawn work has come back too.
It may be just as well. As usual for the last few years, most of it would have been about Trump and his massive dump on this country and its values.
Don't get me wrong. He should be impeached, and his bad behavior needs to be continually called out. But the noise around him is causing some real dangerous issues to be ignored.
Could we solve these issues if Trump wasn't President? I don't know. There's a lot of division and intolerance in play even without Trump. But maybe they could get more attention beyond the bitter circus that Trump has created for himself.
Here are some issues that need to be focused on starting YESTERDAY:
1) Climate Change
Global warming is my preferred moniker. Whatever you call it, the central concern is this - the Earth's average global temperature is rising. Polar ice caps melt, sea levels rise, agriculture is jeopardized, swaths of the planet are becoming unlivable.
Of all the problems before us, this is the most crucial. We have already waffled to the point that damage is going to occur, even in the unlikely event that we were finally able to step up and do the drastic measures necessary. Now, every day we delay makes things worse and worse.
We all need to think about what we need to do, conservative and liberal alike. If we allow this to remain a partisan issue, there will be no hope for mankind.
The best blueprint to move forward is the Green New Deal. The best way for conservatives to handle it is to participate in shaping it rather than fighting it.
2) Nuclear Proliferation
The excellent HBO mini-series, Chernobyl, recently drove home the dangers of nuclear materials, even those in power plants. We came close to a world-changing event of destruction, and one that still left parts of the Ukraine uninhabitable.
We are dancing on the head of a very slippery pin with nuclear power and weapons, and we have a President who has asked the Pentagon questions about why we haven't used nuclear weapons and why couldn't we use them?
More and more countries are developing these weapons, and we seem to do very little to stop their growth. Trump's North Korean friend, the one he has professed being in love with, is playing Trump like a fiddle, barreling ahead towards a nuclear future. And somehow, Trump has come to believe that an Iran unchecked by an international treaty, is somehow less likely to build nuclear weapons.
The major lesson of the US invasion of Iraq (and additionally the toppling of Libya's Quaddafi) has been that the only way to protect yourself from the United States is to actually have weapons.
We also tend to ignore that one of the most likely exchanges of nuclear weapons is between Pakistan and India. Flashpoints that could alter the planet are everywhere.
There is no magic solution. Global connectivity and diplomacy are a bigger help than nationalistic movements, like America First, or religious extremism.
3) The International Rise of Fascism
It's not just Trump. The growth of nationalism and me firstism is rising around the world. Trump gleefully supports dictators from all over while bad-mouthing remaining democracies.
The fear of the other is gripping the planet, and it's scaring the hell out of me. From the brutal dictators in countries ranging from the Philippines to China, to the calls for Brexit and the angry intolerance of immigration in Europe and other places, we seem to be galloping backward rather than forwards.
4) The Concentration of Wealth
Money is concentrating in fewer and fewer hands, and more and more of us are slipping in living standards. It's challenging to balance the needs of almost 8 billion people, but we don't need to be doing as badly at it as we are now.
We don't need to have a model where a handful hold most of the world's wealth while billion starve, living on the edge of survival.
We need to have a better tax model. We need better food distribution. We need anti-trust laws. We need to update our economic model. And yes, we need to lower the birth rate, through birth control and education. The more educated and empowered women are, the more stable a country is.
5) In the USA, Universal Health Care is Way Past Due
The coupling of health care to your job needs to be done away with. Private health insurance and it's resultant profiteering and overhead needs to go to the way of the dinosaurs. Thousands die each year because of the lack of basic health care. Hundreds of thousands go medically bankrupt.
6) More Jobs Will be Lost to Automation than Immigration
Is this good or bad? I don't know. But it's going to happen, and many will be thrown out of the jobs they're familiar with. We'll need to redefine what works is, and how people define their self-worth. It's going to be a big change, but developing an economy around dead business models, like coal and other fossil fuels, is not the answer.
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There are many other issues of urgency, including environmental destruction and contamination(beyond global warming issues), women's health issues, our crumbling infrastructure, college debt, large corporations controlling our media and internet, and many more.
But hey, that's what future Saturday Political Soap Boxes are for!
Yes, there will still be plenty of Soap Boxes focused on Trump. He's too great of an evil to ignore. But I'll try to address issues more. Yes, most of my discussion will center on progressive solutions. But I welcome participation by my more conservative brethen, AS LONG AS they recognize that these issues are real and they need to be addressed. No more ostriches, please.
