Keeping Our Eyes On The Ball

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Election 2024, Environmental Issues, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary, voting rights

Of late, our attention has been turned toward the New York indictment of Trump, inflation, the sexual assault and defamation case of E. Jean Carroll vs Trump, the charges against liar extraordinaire George Santos, immigration, and CNN’s really bad decision to give Trump a voice in their “town hall” on Wednesday.  Each is important in its own way and for obvious reasons, but in aggregate, it is a major distraction from other things that we really need to be focused on …

  • Climate change
  • Guns
  • Education
  • Voting rights

Naturally, I don’t mean to imply that these are the only four important issues at the moment, for that is far from true, but they are the most critical long-term issues facing the United States and We the People today.

Climate change is not only NOT being addressed nearly as much as it needs to be, but there seems to be a demand for rolling back the regulations that are in place, in order to help big business profit more!  The future of all life on Planet Earth is at stake, but all we can worry about is profit?  Something wrong here.

The gun culture in the U.S. has gone completely off the rails!  Nearly every week I read about one state or a court lowering the age to buy a gun or removing the requirement for background checks or licensing of guns.  Just yesterday, a judge in Virginia struck down federal laws blocking handgun sales to buyers under 21 but over the age of 18.  Meanwhile, there are daily mass shootings, children are afraid to go to school, and even the local grocery store can turn into a death trap in a heartbeat.

Our system of education is under attack by those who would bar the teaching of history, civics, or even math, as in Florida numerous math textbooks were banned!  The number of banned books is jaw-dropping.  More and more states are following bigoted Florida’s lead, and just yesterday the Louisiana state House of Representatives passed a “Don’t Say Gay” bill similar to Florida’s.  We are denying the children of this nation the right to a comprehensive education, denying them the right to understand the world they live in, sheltering them from the things their parents don’t like or don’t understand.

Which brings me to voting rights.  Partly based on Trump’s ranting lies about corruption in the 2020 election, almost every state in the nation has passed new laws that will further restrict the ability to vote for numerous people.  Congress had the opportunity just last year to pass two voting rights bills that would have overridden state laws and provided the right to vote to everyone over the age of 18, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act , and the Freedom to Vote Act  .  But the Senate Republicans blocked both bills and now, between the restrictive state laws and intense gerrymandering, far too many people will find it difficult, or in many cases impossible to vote next year.  The 2024 election is 543 days away as of this writing, and many who are poor, disabled, college students, or senior citizens, will be disenfranchised, will have no voice in the government they are forced to support.

The 2024 election may well prove to be the most important in our lifetime, and it is crucial that we do not allow ourselves to be distracted and forget that we may have to take extra steps and help others, too, in order to ensure We the People do not lose our voice next year.  The 2020 federal election drew the United States’ highest voter turnout in more than a century, breaking records despite the Covid-19 pandemic.  The political party with no platform, the one whose entire structure is built around the lies, greed, and bigotry of one ‘man’, is determined not to allow that to happen again, for if everyone votes, they stand zero chance of re-taking the Oval Office.

We have many balls in the air that we must keep our eyes on these days, but please don’t lose sight of the most long-term critical ones.  If we do, then all the rest will not matter in a few short years.

51 thoughts on “Keeping Our Eyes On The Ball”

  1. Pingback: If We Cannot See It, Is It Real? | Filosofa's Word

  2. I don’t know what this is in our world. Climate change is real, is evident, and is threatening our existence. But politicians in the whole world still think we have plenty of time or don’t care at all.

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    • I think the things that people can see happening in their own small lives and immediately receive all their attention. Climate change that could devastate life on the planet in 20, 50, or 70 years pales in comparison to the price of eggs doubling to most people. It’s what is immediate, what can be seen, and what affects them directly and now that matters most. Your comment, though, made me think, and is the basis for my afternoon post later today (Saturday).

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      • I agree! Too many people on think in a very close time range. Being in the moment is so misunderstood when live that way. We need to understand what our actions cause in the long run and we need to change something today to change that inevitable outcome.

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        • And you just hit the nail on the head. Actions have consequences. EVERY action, large or small, produces some sort of an effect somewhere, somehow. How many times have I thrown away leftovers that didn’t get eaten, left lights on when nobody was in the room, or turned the thermostat up for my own comfort. Those things have a cumulative effect. WE may not pay the price just yet, but our children and grandchildren and their generation will.

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  4. You forgot one (?) item, Jill, that is still in its “infancy,” but is growing apace. More and more states are talking about lowering the age of child workers, and expanding the kinds of jobs they can do. Children get lower wages, no benefits, and harsher working conditions. They have no unions whatever. And the younger they are allowed to work the less time they are going to have to get a good education. Nothing at all good can come from lowering the age at which children can start to work. There are child labour laws for a reason. And Republicans all over want to gut those laws until it will be okay for “infants” to work. If that happens, the USA will be breaking all kinds of United Nations regulations.
    The worst part is, I am hearing no outcry on Word Press! Where have all the parents gone?

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      • I doubt it is information overload, as such. But I have no idea why this is mostly being ignoted. I just know I don’t like it, or whatit might lead to: Children locked in dead-end jobs for the rest of their lives because they don’t have the education to get out of them!

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            • take. Revolution may come in the form of a general strike, or in open warfare. There are not enough wealthy to defend themselves when their paid private soldiers decide to refuse to die for money. (Sorry, my tablet froze again, and the only way to unfreeze it seems to be to hit the SEND button. But it only happens when talking to you, Roger. Have you got serious enemies??? )

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            • That has happened before, but we cannot be sure of the the will of ‘the workers’ will be for it will not be united.
              ‘They’ voted in Hitler and ‘they’ cling to Trump ( a rich fellow?) In the UK ‘They’ ditched Labour and chose Johnson…mind you Labour could not have given more help to The Conservatives if it had been trying to.

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              • We are 15 days away from an election in Alberta. The leader of the United Conservative Party sticks her foot in her mouth every time she opens it, but still she is favoured to win. Alberta is full of rednecks, oil workers, and people who do not want separation of church and state — all the kind of people she caters to. She is promising to hand out money to Albertans if they elect her. This happens every election, and still the people believe, although the Conservatives always find a way to not deliver on campaign promIses. i cannot belIeve how gullible some people can be.?

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                • You’d be surprised my good friend.
                  In a mirror image the UK left was willing to give Putin and Putin and Assad in Syria a free ‘reign’.
                  In nations in Eastern Europe where the parents and grandparents suffered under the Soviet yoke, Putin has his supporters.
                  In the UK there is still a Boris Johnson bloc of conservatives.
                  And in France Marine Le Pen convinces folk she is nice.
                  And once more that’s only a few example of Humanity’s propensity to seek out ‘simple’ solutions or ones which appeal to their fears.

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                  • Surprised, Roger, little surprises me in this life anymore. But many things disgust me. And the desire of some people to make everyone believe as they do, to make everyone follow rules made by them but not for them, to force everyone to suffer the way they think we make them suffer, that disgusts me.
                    Life is about working together for the good of all, not just the good of some. Yet so many care only about themselves, or their beliefs and their need to make everyone believe like them. What happened to them to cut them off from their humanity! (rhetorical question) Why are we not able to demonstrate to them life is not as bad as they think it is if they would just put life ahead of greed? I’m afraid the answer to that question goes back 2,000,000 years ago when the first ape evolved into proto-man…

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                    • That’s the great problem good friend. A look at World news items will show the malaise is widespread.
                      As I have said before there is only the Hope that we can evolve before we make an extinction event of ourselves.

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                    • Written in the aftermath of WWI, and during the ‘Spanish Flu’ epidemic….

                      Turning and turning in the widening gyre
                      The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
                      Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
                      Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
                      The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
                      The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
                      The best lack all conviction, while the worst
                      Are full of passionate intensity.

                      Surely some revelation is at hand;
                      Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
                      The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
                      When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
                      Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
                      A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
                      A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
                      Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
                      Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
                      The darkness drops again; but now I know
                      That twenty centuries of stony sleep
                      Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
                      And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
                      Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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                    • It happens. Yates wrote from a European perspective.
                      Maybe it’s the European folk memories and ‘heritages’ of the two World Wars. Maybe it’s the reading of much military history and the politics involved. Maybe it’s looking back and reflecting on the almost inevitable squandering of lost opportunities and the lives of innocents.
                      Who can say, which words will find empathy and perception with which person and what time?
                      There are much admired songs and writings which pass me by or I just ‘don’t get’.
                      Times, places and outlooks mould us in various ways.

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                    • They certaonly do. Except for a minor war in 1812 which was fought only in the East, and an even earlier war between the Brits and French, again only in the east, Canada as a nation has never kn0own the raages of war.
                      Wars fought by me ancestors were not war at all in comparison. Battles9 were almost gentlemanly in comparison to Europe and places east. Humans died, definitely, but few battles lasted for maybe days, never years. Men died, women were taken slaves, but for the most part children and elders were spared as much as possible — from what I was told.
                      Which was one reason why in the Red River Rebellion and the Saskatchewan Uprising Louis Riel decided not to fight the white army, as his people may have been wiped out. He did not want that.
                      It is hard for me to fathom the horrors of war, seeing it on screen even in news reels. I can try to imagine, but I cannot nor do I want to succeed.
                      I am a pacifist. I wish the whole world was like me. Maybe in 10,000 years, if we last that long.

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                    • “I am a pacifist. I wish the whole world was like me. Maybe in 10,000 years, if we last that long.”
                      That, my good friend, is comparatively one of the more positive and almost optimistic statements I have encountered this year on the world stage.

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        • It isn’t being ignored, rg, but when a building is on fire you have to choose what to save first. The recent attempts to put children to work … first, I did cover it in one post, but second, I don’t think it will ever be widespread and certainly not soon. Yes, it’s important, but if we don’t protect the environment, it won’t matter one damn bit a century from now!

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          • I said “almost ignored.” My statement is aimed at everyone on Word Press, not just you. If we arent aboe to 3ducate our children today, they will have no idea how to save the environment when it is their turn to take over. I’m trying to sound alarm bells.

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    • Sigh … rg … I am but one person and yes, there ARE many more important issues, but I cannot be everywhere at once doing everything. That one will have its day in court, and on my blog, but for today I focused on the things that are the biggest threats as I see it. Forgive me, but I am only a human, and an old, feeble-minded one at that.

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      • I wasn’t demeaning you, Jill, I was trying to add to your rant. Going back and reading what I wrote I can see how you thought i was berating you, for which I apologize, but really I just want to build the case for another thing that we need to be concerned about. The Republicans are out to destroy our society without having any idea of whst to replace it with. Well, maybe building a wall around the country, but that’s not really helpful in the long run. Creating a theocracy is not the answer.

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        • I knew you weren’t demeaning me, but sometimes I think you want me to bite off more than I can chew. The rolling back of child labour laws is serious and I do read about it and make notes, but I just cannot cover everything. I’m so tired of EVERYTHING I see in this country today. I could name a dozen more issues, also serious, but I wanted to limit the list, because people will pay attention to a shorter list far more than they will a laundry list that stretches for a mile. But give me time … I’ll cover that, too, and already have once. LuL

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      • Entirely overly-optimistic! Oh how I wish but we simply do not possess the collective brain power OR the resolve necessary to battle the evil we are up against. And this IS a battle against evil. The conservatives are single-handedly destroying the country, the democracy, and we can’t even identify them. And “read a book”? It’s not the time they lack, it’s the proclivity to broaden their “intellectual horizons” if they even possess such a characteristic. American has plenty of time for such stultifying past times as “Dancing with the Stars”, “Family Feud”, and “The Kardashians”, but learn something? It’s simply too overwhelming for most, ergo they disconnect.

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        • Yes, I absolutely agree that it is a battle against evil, but I also know that if we don’t step back every so often and breathe, we won’t be able to effectively fight the battle and by the time we reach the front lines, we will be exhausted, if not dead. You do make a good point, though, about the really crappy sources of entertainment that the majority of people in this country go for, such as game shows, sitcoms that aren’t even funny, etc. And today, our system of education is failing even more than before, so … where does that leave us for the next generation?

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          • They (the TV shows) seem more than really crappy, they seem an intentional distraction, meant to assist in shutting down their brains for the day. Unfortunately, these are many of the very people that SHOULD be interested in government shenanigans since they are quite often the targets! My very GOP father-in-law (not a Trumpist however, that goodness) consistently votes for a party that TELLS THEM DIRECTLY that they’ll kill off the Sos Sec, Medicare, etc., when he LIVES on these very programs! That tells us a lot about the ineffectiveness of the Dumos and the need for a real third party. And even with the GOP as a fairly vast minority in the country there is a movement, this very moment, of Koch/SuperWealthy/ Corporate cabal working through state legislatures a constitutional amendment for a new convention, where they will twist and turn and change the entire constitution to suit their own greedy needs and 98% of Americans have absolutely no idea. Ignorance is not bliss, it’s dangerous and self-destructing.

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  6. And, that’s just, the problem, which all of these, more important issues that concerns the, entire planet, and, we, zooming in on something as, minute as the individual (i.e. the indictment of Trump), we lose, sight of the, big picture, and that is, what’ll, get us, eventually…

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    • Sadly, it’s human nature to focus on the most immediate threats even when larger ones are looming in the background. Sigh. Yes, human nature, or rather the flaws in human nature, will ultimately be our downfall, probably sooner than later at this point.

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