Wednesday, November 29, 2023

November 28, 29

 Nice and sunny but COLD. The predictions say we won't get out of the 20s today. Mom had her doctor's appointment and we decided to do our grocery shopping. It has been a busy day today already. I got our "pantry" sorted out. A while ago I cleared a set of shelves of books that I had room for in more convenient places and put extras up there. Then I rearranged the cabinet of canned goods in the kitchen and the shelves for bulk goods. Tomorrow I plan to sort out our dishes.

Who knew there was Trumpism before The Former Guy came down his gaudy escalator? Well, Robert Reich did. But the trends he mentioned in his speech 29 years ago were already building steam and have only intensified in the intervening years.

29*********************************************************************

Supposed to be a bit warmer and sunny today. We'll see.

Bill Astore had a cute post yesterday: Operation Ongoing Bullshit. I would make an observation: The differences between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans can be handled easily enough IF both parties are willing to agree to disagree and respect each other.

I found this article on The Free Press that tries to explain how long time political gadfly and outsider Geert Wilders pulled off a substantial win the the latest Dutch election giving him a chance to become head of the dutch government. The trends that led the two authors to leave the Netherlands afflict other democratic countries in Europe and, I would argue, the United States. Very striking was the authors' condemnation of the elites (social, political, economic, and media) who either ignored the concerns of ordinary citizens or insisted that those concerns were illusory. Reminds me of economists who tell us in the U.S. that inflation is under control (or about to be) and things are improving. And I didn't get any feeling that there is any recognition that the crises of immigration and economic stagnation have anything to do with the climate changes and violence in the parts of the world the immigrants are fleeing.

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