Solstice Reflections

 Winter Solstice Reflections

Hopeful New Year

 

Year’s end and the Winter Solstice brings time for reflection on hopes for the new year. As we gather with family round the fireplace warmth and fresh coffee in our mugs, I offer my list of hopes and things to work on. 

 

It is long past time to tackle climate change and the existential threat it has for our species’ survival. Nations around the globe are waking up and beginning to act. Ours is the richest nation on the planet and needs to take the lead and set the example for the rest. We need to end our dependence on fossil fuels and embrace the wind and sun for the power they provide.

 

It is long past time for people to be hungry. We have the capability to feed everyone on the planet and it should be so. People well nourished can accomplish untold tasks and create new and exciting discoveries. Let’s unleash that potential. 

 

It is long past time for people to be homeless. We have the capability to provide shelter for everyone. People with a roof overhead can find rest and comfort. Those rested have the energy to create and build successful futures. 

 

It is long past time for us to wage wars to resolve differences. We have the skills to resolve conflicts peacefully. We just need to use them. 

 

As we put our planetary house in order, we can collectively resolve more local national concerns. 

 

It is long past time to recommit to our democratic republic form of governance. We have made it work for almost two and a half centuries and certainly can find the way to continue to make it work in our more modern times. 

 

Part of that struggle is to hold those responsible for the recent insurrection which attempted to overthrow our democratic institution of the peaceful transfer of power. Thanks to the courageous Representatives from both parties on the House Select Committee who catalogued the evidence and presented it to the public, paving the way for our justice system to bring those responsible to account. 

 

It is long past time for us to end the pursuit of power for its own sake and the subversion of representative democracy by voter suppression and gerrymandered voting districts. Our representatives should no longer be allowed to pick their voters and pack them into safe districts for one political party. 

 

It is long past time for men to control and define women and the non-binary members of the gender spectrum. It takes all of us to make our existence safe and healthy. All of us deserve equal seats at the table and the right to make decisions about who we are and where we fit. A critical part of that is to allow each of us to control what goes on with our bodies and how we choose to reproduce the species. 

 

It is long past time for people not to have access to affordable quality health care. We know what it takes to help people live healthy productive lives. Access to that care should not depend upon individual wealth or station. All the other major nations on our planet have some form of universal healthcare for their citizens. We need to join them and help share that service to underdeveloped countries.

 

It is long past time for oligarchs to control most of our national wealth. No one creates wealth on their own. Societal structures create safety for creation of wealth. Those who labor for others are critical to creation of wealth and deserve their fair share of what they help to create. We must ensure that those who work for others have a seat at the table where decisions are made on how the wealth they create gets divided. Collective bargaining must be protected and preserved. 

 

We have much to be thankful for and much to celebrate this holiday season. Let us join together in 2023 to make next year better than years’ past. After this Winter Solstice our days will get longer and the dark of Winter will give way to a time when we all will hopefully flourish.

 

RIP GOP

 Ready to RIP GOP?

Stay the course at your peril

 

Things have gone from bad to worse for the former occupant of the White House and his party. 

 

His hand-picked challenger to defeat incumbent U.S. Senator Raphael Wornock, former football star Herschel Walker, lost the run-off race in Georgia giving Democrats a solid 51-49 majority in the Senate. That will end even membership on Senate committees and all but ensure that President Biden’s federal court appointments will be approved by a Democratic majority for the next two years at least. Wornock’s victory added to the list of defeats the former president’s candidates suffered in the recent mid-term elections. Most all of the faithful election deniers lost.

 

His oft vaunted New York business organization was convicted of multiple counts of tax fraud and conspiracy by a Manhattan jury. While none of the business’ principals were convicted, most legitimate banks will be required to stop doing business with the organization, cutting off funds it desperately needs. The evidence produced at the trial will help New York prosecutors charge and convict many of those who led the business, including some of his adult children and maybe even the former president. 

 

The special counsel appointed by the Justice Department to take over the federal criminal investigations of the former president has hit the ground running by issuing subpoenas to election officials in three states, including Wisconsin, for all of their communications with the former president and his campaign regarding the efforts to overturn the last presidential election. 

 

The grand jury proceedings in Georgia looking into efforts to “find votes” in the last presidential election have received green lights from courts requiring Senator Lindsay Graham and former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to testify. Other former campaign confidants have already testified. 

 

The Chairman of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6^th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol indicated the Committee will issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department seeking charges against those who led or enabled the breach of the Capitol and the attempt to prevent certification of the Electoral College vote that favored President Biden. 

 

Last, but not by any means least, Congress received copies of the former president’s federal tax returns and has the authority to share them publicly and with the U.S. Senate preventing the razor thin GOP majority in next year’s House from burying them once more. 

 

This list and the much-publicized comment by the former president that the Constitution should be “terminated” so he could be declared the winner of the last presidential election should be more than enough for the Republican party and GOP leaders in Congress to cut ties with him. Alas, it does not appear to be so given the eerie silence from most in the GOP when asked if they still support him. 

 

Given these mounting losses and impending criminal prosecutions, one would think that any rational political organization would look elsewhere for leadership and financial support. Not so, the current GOP. 

 

The nascent GOP civil war will break out full force in the coming weeks as the GOP in the U.S. House seeks to claim the Speaker’s gavel from the Democrats. Front runner, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, will see a challenge from the right wing in his caucus where some claim to have to votes needed to depose him. Since the whole membership in the new House of Representatives will be voting on who becomes the next speaker, a GOP plurality may open the door for a Democrat to be elected. Stranger things have happened in our political system. 

 

Locally and across the country, the GOP will see battles for control from the right wing still loyal to the former president and more moderate realists who see the handwriting on the wall. Polling clearly shows a majority of the voting public favors most of the Biden agenda and especially the Democrats adoption of reproductive freedom and full citizenship for women. Many in the GOP want a piece of that action but are held back by the election fraud conspiracy theorists and those obsessed with Hunter Biden’s laptop. 

 

While the GOP squabbles trying to get its house in order, Democrats will continue to get things done in the lame duck Congressional sessions until the first of next year and into the next two on those issues just left to the U.S. Senate. With nothing but division and debate to offer, the elections for the U.S. House in two years should easily give Democrats a House majority once more. 

 

While pronouncing the GOP in its current form dead is perhaps premature, it certainly has lost its luster for a majority of voters. Grab some popcorn, kick back and watch.