by michael | Mar 22, 2025 | news
Donald Trump’s (DT) March 4, 2025, rant-speech is an excellent opportunity to examine this assertion.
Note, also, that most of what DT said in this speech was first said in his inaugural.
1) What’s it all about? Dominance: ‘America is back’ [or is it that DT is back?]
When DT uses the word ‘unfair’ he means that America is not world-dominant over something, and he means that it should be. Toward the end of the speech, he makes this statement:
“Now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty. And it’s our turn to take America’s destiny into our own hands and begin the most thrilling days in the history of our country. This will be our greatest [golden] era; with God’s help over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth.”
While DT’s talk is punctuated with simplistic exaggeration and self-referential hero-worship, this statement is a rare moment of clarity (perhaps it was written by someone else). Its evidentiary value will be demonstrated in what follows, but first, something about the statement itself.
It echoes the claims of other, past Americans; that American liberty is different from other kinds of liberty; that that liberty is righteous (God is on America’s side); that liberty will produce a golden era of dynamic superiority, absolute freedom (of the individual), and technologically and morally the most advanced and therefore dominant nation ever. These claims can and should be challenged, but I will not do that here. Instead, the opportunity referenced above about what is below will indicate suggestions about whether the claims made in this paragraph are realistic (and what that means) or mere verbal fluff.
DT would give citizenship for cash to the highest bidders*. He values people according to how much money they have. His policies aim to give the largest single tax break (targeted socialism) to millionaires and billionaires in the history of the US. Those same policies aim to create a vast underclass of serfs. To him, words like ‘liberty‘, ‘free’, ‘destiny’ and ‘dominant’ reference some citizens; the same multi$$$$aires, not the rest.
*Will they in truth pay taxes? How much tax did Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the other 3Bs (billionaire bully boys) pay in the last 10 years? We don’t know, but Musk thinks it’s ok for he and his puppy doge tactical team to wander through other citizen’s personal data and rip up the American social contract so that some continue to win and most lose.
2) Fantasy world
’The most successful presidency (‘our’ presidency) of ‘our’ nation.’ He compares himself to George Washington and places Washington at #2. How does he calculate that? He doesn’t; which is to say that the claim to ‘most successful’ is defined by the kinds of non-reality-based beliefs below, and most of those reference wealth. Washington’s presidency was much more than just about money. And really? It is numbingly non-historical and narcissistic to claim a DT supremacy over George Washington. With respect to DT’s core belief, which defines his policies, how does his emphasis on managing American money compare with his immediate predecessors? Trump is the tyrant Washington feared.
a) The Manhattan Institute gives this summation: “During President Trump’s four years in office, he signed legislation (and issued executive orders) that cumulatively added $7,787 billion to 10-year deficits. His policies reduced tax revenues by $2,098 billion, increased spending by $4,912 billion, and added $777 billion in interest costs,” and “Under President Trump’s watch, budget deficits reached a peacetime-record 15% of the economy and pushed the debt held by the public past 100% of the economy for the first time since World War II. In nominal dollars, the debt jumped from $14 trillion to $21 trillion and was projected to reach $29 trillion by 2027.”
When taxes are reduced by any amount, let alone $2,098 billion, it must be paid for somehow. In this case, it landed on the nation’s financial statements. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows how this tax theft from the majority of citizens went to the richest people in the nation. And the rest continue to pay for it as national (that is, taxpayer) debt. And then, in good libertarian/conservative/republican manner tell the nation its debt and deficit are too high and so hard decisions need to be made to ‘preserve our way of life’. Guess who pays a high price so that others’ way of life can continue.
b) ’My very successful first term set records on ending unnecessary rules and regulations’. And this time he wants to have a policy of chopping 10 rules or regulations for every one created. This is nonsensical. Rules and regulations should be created to perform an explicit purpose, regardless of how many are created.
There is, however, nothing inherently wrong with eliminating rules and regulations that are out of date, counter-efficient for the use of resources, or harmful in some way to human beings. But this activity is the work of a trained, objective (one of those always ongoing human balancing acts) bureaucracy. Their role in working through regulations can be compared to rigorous, knowledgeable pruning by an agriculturalist. DT and company’s approach is to take axes to the growth of regulations regardless to rules, mandates or the dismissal of persons who know what they are doing. Instead, DEI hires have invaded federal offices with axes in their hands and a gleam in their eyes. In addition, alongside the numerous lawsuits against this blunt force hacking at so-called and unproven ‘waste, corruption and incompetence,’ The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out how these actions are against US law. But DT and buddies do not care if even whole agencies disappear.
c) ‘Will create a balanced budget, not seen in the past 24 years.’ This is a reference to Bill Clinton (2001). Clinton’s accomplishment is, “attributed to a combination of factors, including raising taxes, cutting military spending, and favorable economic conditions.”
Every presidency since Clinton has run a deficit. Clinton’s accomplishment points to facts about which DT and republicans do not wish to be reminded; that one man’s whim cannot make some things happen simply because he wishes it. There are always multiple realities in the real world that cannot be factored into a financial equation or even wishful thinking, let alone known beforehand. And if DT and company do balance the budget, it will create health, wealth and safety crises for millions of Americans, while others reap massive windfalls. The folks who voted to hire DT based on fake promises will become disillusioned. There is evidence that many of them are beginning to realize that when DT spoke about what he was going to do, he was telling them that they were the targets.
For a clear website that explains debt/deficit, see https://shorturl.at/aZ4fy
d) ‘Tax cuts for everybody.’
It seems his first-term tax cut did benefit most persons in America, but disproportionately the top 5% or so did much better. And if that 2017 tax cut is continued in 2025, the wealthiest will save even more tax than the rest. And the wealthiest persons have numerous ways to reduce their taxes payable that is not available to mere average citizens. As well, when taxes are cut, the immediate question must be: unless one wants to live in fantasy land, ‘how is this going to be paid for?’ Republicans don’t like that question.
e) ‘We will provide 100% expensing’. What is this and how is he going to do it? It’s not clear what he means. Expensing, and its related concept, capitalizing, is an accountancy decision. Capitalization provides long-term value of an asset while expensing is a short-term placement on the books that reduces income for that period.
Expensing in accounting does not seem to be what he means. The way he phrases the statement seems to have something to do with taxes. Either way, he means that somehow the federal government will take on the debt of anyone who, “In addition, as part of our tax cuts, we want to cut taxes on domestic production and all manufacturing. And just as we did before, we will provide 100 percent expensing. It will be retroactive to Jan. 20, 2025.” How will he (the federal government) take on expensing for the vast domestic production and manufacturing of the US and reduce taxes for ‘everyone’? The federal government cannot do this. It is a throw-away, feel-good statement to get republicans off their seats and clap; a show; a circus to keep everyone entertained.
3) Wash, rinse, repeat.
a) Persecution: he has ‘ended weaponized government’: a, “sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent like me.”
And ever since, he’s been wanting to give back to others what he imagines they have done to him. It seems that little more than half of the 62.8% of eligible citizens who voted in 2024 (roughly 1/3 or less of those eligible) voted for DT and believed him when he said the entire federal infrastructure was ‘weaponized’ against him, which led to the claim that a ‘deep state’ was wielding that weapon. For his lifetime achievement, see: https://tinyurl.com/2vp6kkws
Ponder the following. Dozens of trials, millions of dollars and thousands of hours were spent on the numerous cases in which DT was the defendant. This means governments were giving DT extraordinary opportunity to defend himself, much more than any other citizen would get. His government (in fact, he) is not giving the same respect to others whom he blames for his ‘persecution’.
This leads to a question: if the proper respect of the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is applied to the cases in which DT was the defendant are compared to those he is ‘going after’ now, which regime (Biden or Trump) most clearly respects the principle? Since DT is giving no due process to his perceived ‘enemies’, the answer seems to be that the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ was given to him, but he has not accorded that democratic privilege to ‘enemies’.
If so, then the bitter complaint that he was persecuted, that the state ‘weaponized’ the entire federal infrastructure against him,’ and that there was a ‘deep state’ or a ‘hidden cabal’ within the state, is false.
These words; ‘deep state’, ‘persecution’, ‘weaponization’, were imaginary constructs whose only reality was between DT’s ears. Once DT and fans re-gained power, they then created the actual persecution through weaponization of the state against his personal enemies. These include most republicans and MAGA true believers. Half the persons who voted in the election are, then, under a psychotic fantasy of gigantic and transferential proportions.
On a related note. Election 2024 was significant for what happened, but it is also significant for what did not happen. No democrats or their supporters stormed the WH to stop the ratification of the next president. If they were able to win the WH in 2020, why couldn’t they have done it in 2024? It didn’t happen because Biden did not steal the election in 2020, and democrats followed in 2024 the procedures from the Constitution and all the legal trailings that are bound to that venerable document. DT lied. His immediate supporters among the republicans lied. And less than a third of American eligible voters believed the lie. And now they must hang on to the first lie because if they admit to themselves that that first lie was a lie, then so were DT’s claims about all the subsequent trials, accusations, convictions and other cases awaiting DT’s attention.
b) ‘The previous administration created an economic catastrophe by driving up prices and caused the worst inflation in 48 years’. It is incendiary, and incorrect, to claim that a government creates an economic ‘catastrophe’ by ‘driving up prices.’ No one person, country, or government controls prices and inflation; they have tools by which to tweak what is happening, but they do not control it. If anything, since DT’s election, inflation has been going up. He uses statistics simplistically, so in terms of his own method: inflation has been dropping since January 2022 (9.1%). On June 1, 2023, it was 3.0 and in October 2024 it was 2.6%. It rose in January 2025 to 3%. For a month-by-month calendar of the swings of inflation, see https://tinyurl.com/2j7ptwba
c) ‘Today [March 4, 2025], interest rates took a beautiful drop’. It is not clear to which rate he refers. There is no specific interest rate drop on that day. Whichever interest rate, if any, an appropriate answer is, ‘so what’? Interest rates rise and fall for many reasons and, like inflation, no one person, government or country controls them. The US Federal Funds Effective Rate has been hovering around 4.33% for months, while the bank prime rate has been 7.5%.
d) ‘Drain the swamp’: ‘unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats’. For 100 years the bureaucracy has, “crushed our freedoms, ballooned our deficits, and held back America’s potential in every possible way.”
Think of that 100-year period and all that has happened. Besides history’s deep complexity, the achievements of the country as whole, as well as its failures (e.g. contributory to the Great Depression of the 30s, the 2018-19 crash, to say nothing of extra-territorial military intervention to keep the world secure for American business-fake capitalism), an objective bureaucracy for any democratic government is almost as important as the rule of law and the separation of powers (executive, legislative, judiciary, enforcement), none of which is perfect and each needs to counter-balance the others so that there is a maximum check on each.
Did the ‘bureaucracy’ over decades do all that he claims? Of course not; in fact, it is a nonsense statement. Bureaucrats are accountable to multiple levels of managers, executives and politicians. Of course they are not elected! If bureaucrats were elected, one would not have any chance the most competent and knowledgeable people in thousands of bureaucratic positions, people who go through a rule-based process for ability, training and knowledge. The claim that DT is focused on merit is a verbal sleight of hand. It has been pointed out by many observers that the people whom DT has appointed were not appointed through merit but by whim based on loyalty to DT, not to the constitution or rules or laws or merit-based hiring. In fact, most of these recent appointees by DT are DEI hires, a fact which points up the hypocrisy and irrational hatred of DEI policies among republicans in the agencies of government.
What is really going on in that statement about the ‘bureaucracy’? From whom must DT and fans ‘reclaim’ a lost set of powers? Of course, as usual, one must name DT first, and then ask: who then does he serve? Despite what he said in both this speech and in his inaugural about the millions of little people who voted for him, the bent of his entire life, his motives and his intent are only about getting more money. The persons from whom he wants to ‘reclaim power’ are people who he cannot turn, twist or move to obey him. He prefers fans, followers and fools. His ‘reclaim power’ reflects -not that he has likely even heard of it- the fact that the unelected, unaccountable persons who are running the world are the millionaires and billionaires around the world. These persons are the real cabal against which a third of America voted. They did not understand who the real alligators in the swamp were, behind and alongside each president and administration since Reagan. They misunderstood the target of their wrath.
Three books that speak to this identification are, in order of publication, John Pilger’s The New Rulers of the World (2016), Noam Chomsky‘s Who Rules the World?, Jane Mayer‘s Dark Money (2017) and Moises Naim’s The Revenge of Power (2022). DT incarnates the title of the last book.
3) What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.
Greenland, “We strongly support your right to determine your own future,”…but…”One way or another, we’re going to get it.” A naked threat from a weak man.
b) ‘Canada, Mexico and all other countries have been ‘unfair’ to the US’.
Let’s use Canada as an example.
Tariffs are for revenue or protection of industries. His uninformed opinion is simpler than knows. For example, Canada sells its oil and gas to the US at a cut rate which enables America to sell its products made with oil/gas to other countries at a higher rate, making a profit. In fact, if oil/gas from Canada to the US is removed from the calculation of deficits, the US has a surplus of $58 billion against Canada. Similar arguments can be made with or about other countries and the US in terms of trade deficits. If any seem ‘unfair’ to DT, that word needs to be defined from the context of how it works and then in a world where agreements are made at a table, rather than on an economic battlefield. But not for DT. Anything he sees as ‘unfair’ means America is not dominant.
c) ‘I love farmers.’ What do farmers say? They have had significant increase in costs and fewer markets. ‘Trust me’ DT says as ‘we’ (meaning, you) go through a ‘little bit of an adjustment period’. He will not bear the results and if it (likely) doesn’t work; he will come up with an excuse and blame it on someone else.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture says, with data, this:
“The U.S. only has a trade deficit with Canada when you include energy exports. While the US had a $41 billion trade deficit with Canada last year, a third of what Canada sells into the US are energy exports where prices have been high. If we remove oil from the equation, the U.S. consistently runs a steady trade surplus with Canada. In 2023, Canadians spent on average 6 times more per person on U.S. agricultural products compared to what Americans spent on Canadian products. The recent Canada-U.S. agricultural trade imbalance in Canada’s favour is due to higher import values, not increased volumes. Notably, agricultural trade includes inputs like pesticides and equipment, where the U.S. holds a trade surplus.”
d) China and $50 billion purchases. The great deal maker didn’t make a deal with China that worked. In 2019 a Reuters writer pointed out the dead end that was this ‘deal’. And then, true to form, he blamed someone else for this failed deal, Biden
e) Panama Canal. History. 1st attempt at a build was in the 1880s, by the French. In 1904-14, 6,000 West Indian or Barbadian and 300 Americans died. The latter were paid $125.00/month and Barbadians between 10 and 32 cents/hr. In 1997, a Hong Kong consortium out-bid for the two ports at each end of the canal. The US and Taiwan also have ports.
4) One datum = an argument, or reality; example of a logical fallacy.
Austin Killips– Arizona race -men and women does it in 5 hours and 14 minutes ahead of a woman’.
‘The American steel worker’. Making us rich again ‘will be a slight disturbance but we’re [as in DT, not you] ok with that’. When the economy gets rocky because of his policies, he and his billionaire friends will weather it nicely; for them, yes, it will be a ‘slight disturbance’. But for everyone else, it will be a nasty roller-coaster that threatens to run off the tracks, or out over a washed-out bridge into a ravine.
c) Deportation order. He brought into the gathering for the speech) a courageous border patrol agent, Roberto Ortiz. This was used to segue into justifying kicking thousands of people out of the US. He mentions Eisenhower in this regard, who booted 300,000 people who had families, jobs and some of whom were citizens, by the racist term, ‘Operation Wetback’. And in the 1930s 1 million people, 60% who were citizens were given the boot. People then, like DT now, didn’t want them to share in Roosevelt’s New Deal- a better version of making America great again (And in fact, did).
5) –Mendacious, cynical use of other’s tragedies as segues for set pieces in the speech.
The acts of enormous harm that happened to the people listed below who were invited as props to his speech, are harrowing. But they were used as means of justifying government assault on whole populations of people.
’Poison of critical race theory’. Payton Mcnabb. DT used this to attack the 0.6% of trans persons in the US. A side note: DT claimed that millions were being spent on creating transgender mice. This is incorrect; the HHS gave $8 million for hormone therapy experiments (transgenic), experiments that may help create better human health outcomes. So much for his and Musk’s claim about waste and corruption. Unlike the White House statement that said ‘Trump was right as usual’; no NPDs; he was wrong.
In 2016-17 approximately 1.6 million (18 yrs and older) citizens in America identify as trans, 0.6% of the entire population. In 2021 42,167 had general dysphoria-children: in 2017, 2021. 6-17. 121,882. Puberty blockers, 2017: 633, 2018: 759, 2019: 897, 2020: 1,101, 2021: 1,390. So, for what is the hard-on hatred against 0.6% of the population? The hate, like all hate, is irrational and reveals more about the persons who speak and act out of hate than it does their target.
‘Toxic ideologies.’ January Littlejohn, a mom who had emails with a teacher of her child regarding the new names of her daughter and being identified as they/them. The family seems to have disagreed with the school District Support Guide regarding not outing a child in this kind of situation.
DT used a complicated personal situation to damn a very small minority of persons. He said, “And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.” If in fact you are a christian and believe that each child is ‘made’ by God in the womb, then did the Divine dude make replication errors in DNA?
c) Two cases of murder: Laken Riley (February 2024) and Jocelyn Nungaray (June 2024) . DT ties these two brutal crimes to the, alleged, ‘millions of murderers and drug killers and rapists’ from Mexico. DT used these horrific crimes to build fear about immigration, as if all immigrants are the kind of people who do these crimes. But in fact the truth is that a very small number of immigrants, illegal or legal commit horrific crimes like these above.
Jonathan Diller. DT used the killing of this police officer to decry a ‘catch and release’ justice system; letting out people who had many priors. He used this incident to stoke fear about crime, when in fact violent crime is going down in America. See https://tinyurl.com/5n7dtvb2 and https://tinyurl.com/ms7aa9ce.
e) Segue on a segue. D.J. Daniel is a young boy who wanted to become police officer. He developed brain cancer. DT used this boy’s story of courage and resilience (and his family’s) to state that DT’s administration will ‘make America healthy again’ by doing something about chemicals and poisons in American air, land and water. He specifically mentioned autism and that the health department must find solutions to diseases like cancer and autism. Yet, like most agencies, DT and his faithful (for the moment) fan, Musk is gutting the American health department. So, any promise about studying and eradicating diseases like cancer and autism is in one word, fluff; airy, floating away as soon as the words are blown into the air. And the new head of the health department (Kennedy), denies the importance of vaccines and has exhibited a distrust of science-based research. What other research would he choose? The benefits of bloodletting?
The story of young D.J. Daniel was used to point to the necessity of stopping all these chemicals and dangerous pollutants going into the air, land and and water. DT has taken this promise so seriously that he has pulled back all of Biden’s orders and regulations about stopping companies from continuing to let these poisons escape into the air, water and land, to do what DT lies about doing.
Another example of how serious DT is about the Dept of Health is that he, under Lee Zeldin, is gutting the EPA. DT doesn’t care about these people and their stories, except as props to hide his intentions.
f) ’We have to take care of our law enforcement.’
DT and his fans and followers considered the people who attacked the WH to be ‘political prisoners’, part of the false narrative about weaponization and his ‘persecution’ and then he forgave them their crimes. Many of their crimes were against police officers. Many officers were injured, some died that day and others committed suicide (4) after the insurrection. “Participants in the civil disorder and responders had been injured in the struggle. There were 138 officers (73 Capitol Police and 65 Metropolitan Police) injured, of whom 15 were hospitalized, some with severe injuries.” So, why should anyone listening to his speeches believe he cares ‘about our law enforcement’?
g) Russia-caused war against Ukraine. ‘The US has spent $350 billion in aid. Europe spent $100 billion’ and ‘Europe has spent more money buying Russia oil and gas than they have on defense.’
Ah, no.
-Since DT splits the $$ figures into US and Europe, so do we here. combine military, humanitarian and financial aid end of dec, 2024. The Kiel Institute put together data that can be verified and certified and reviewed by anyone, where DT and his fans simply bluster or exaggerate or lie; he and the cannot produce data or facts that cannot be verified by a 3rd party.
-The US has given $114.12 billions for military aid. Of this figure, the US has given $46.6. As of January 1, 2025 the US has no support to disburse to Ukraine.
-Europe has given $135.83 billions in military aid. Of this, financial aid was $71.9 billion. As of January 1, 2025, Europe has $115.1 billion to be dispersed.
-GDP. Of 28 countries who support Ukraine with military, humanitarian and/or financial aid, the US is tied, with Croatia and Czechia. The other 15 countries are within .01%-.02% of spot #13.
-Canada’s contribution per GDP is the highest of G& countries (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US).
h) “I was saved by God to make America great again.” Cory Comparatore was the man behind DT when he was shot in Butler. Comparatore threw himself in front of his family to save them.
The phrase is in both this speech and his inaugural and repeated by MAGA and DT’s acolytes. If one believes in a divine power who intervenes in the doings of the world, this explanation by Trump is both dubious and dangerous; rather than sheer luck. Claiming God’s intervention is another manipulative ploy to raise himself up and justify what he is now doing, and of course pandering to the right-wing Christians who see him as both a proto-martyr and messiah. But in doing so, they bring the one they say they believe in and follow, Jesus Christ, down to DT’s level. Jesus’ message had nothing to do with money, human short-term power, greed or policies or actions levelled against whole populations.
In addition, that same divine intervention that ‘saved him to save America’ was not extended to Mr. Comparator or others who were wounded. The logic is: ‘God saved me…’ and these others who died or were wounded did so, so that God could save me and reveal my important, divine calling. Think of the moral, to say nothing of theological, implication of that belief. It is like arguing that a child was saved by God because a fresh heart was found for a transplant, which implies God must take the life, or take advantage of, the death of one child to save another. This is a logic framed by the very worst of anti-Christian theology; a Calvinist hell to which God directs many and from which the divine power rescues a few. And we know who those few would be.
Further about that: the politico-Christian right’s current big name, Paula White-Cain, who now inhabits the new ‘White House Faith Office’ represents no greater example of the lie that America keeps religion out of its politics and the state. There has been legitimate critique of her portrayal of Christianity as a thorough-going ‘prosperity Gospel’ preacher, for which she has been called a ‘heretic’ by other Christians. I agree with that assessment, but there is a more trenchant critique. She believes DT was raised up by God to lead the nation forward. However, the right-wing evangelicals raising up DT from proto-martyr to messiah brings the true Lord, Jesus Christ down to DT’s level. And since the latter is more ‘present’ to them, he becomes a new messiah. This is, to use an old term, idolatry. But more than that, those who espouse this view have become apostates. An apostate is one who turns from following one master or lord to another. There’s no reason that right-wing persons like White-Cain hold and state these views: please just stop calling yourselves Christians.
6) Verbose, improbable declarations.
a) ’Gold under our feet’. Globally-1.6 trillion barrels. The US is at 74,000 44.4 billion barrels, 11th in the world for reserves, 2.1% globally. Proven reserves: Canada is at #5 with 170,000 and the US is at #9 with 74,000.
b) ‘Thanks to our America first policies, we have had $1.7 trillion of new investment in the past few weeks.’ It’s not clear to what he is referring. It could be the projection of ‘Black and African American buying power by 2030’. It could be the Biden 2022 spending bill for federal agencies. It is most likely the Biden investments in AI. Oddly the deficit is also at that number. Perhaps he meant that and was confused. It’s hard to tell, because his talk is chaotic.
7) Theft (of other’s achievements)
a) ’My administration: gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska’ and ‘Japan and South Korea want to partner with millions’. This project was started by Biden, but it is not yet built. The money has not even been settled. No agreements yet.
b) ‘Expand production of critical minerals and rare earths in the US.’ Again, this was a process started by Biden. Order 14017, ‘America’s Supply chains. $120 billion. AI. Biden. 2021 bill. CHIP act to increase American semiconductor production. DT says the CHIP act is horrible, only because it’s Biden’s, but he’s willing to take credit for it.
c) ’Vehicle plants are opening ‘all over the place’. Domestic production by Ford, Rivian, Hyundai, Stelantis, in EV vehicles. All at the initiative of Biden. And yet Trump calls this the ‘green scam’. Gas vehicle plants, expensive dream.
d) ’A new Honda plant in Indiana’ has ‘taken place since our great victory.’ No. Nothing is signed. Maybe by 2028, just in time for a different administration.
e) US army recruitment. Hegseth, “In January we had the best recruiting month in 15 years. And all armed services are having the best recruiting result ever in the history of our services.” Nope: “The surge started a year before, culminating in years of work.” In 2024; 13,200 men and women chiefly for the economic and educational opportunities. Both Trump and Hegseth didn’t say how many for January.
f) Attacking federal; government agencies for alleged waste, fraud and incompetence. On May 15, 2024, the Duplication & Cost Savings GAO’s annual report on the federal government’s opportunities to reduce fragmentation, overlap, and duplication (under Biden) as well as reduce costs and increase revenue. $667 billion in financial benefits were found. Not fraud or incompetence. Didn’t need a new, private one-man axe swinger to come in and falsify what needed, and was being, done.
Social security for example. 1 person at 360-years-old. In a 2023 report, 18.9 million, 100 years old and living but not collecting $$$. More to do with computers and getting rid of defunct accounts; not fraud. Something so mundane as boring administrative trivia just doesn’t quite have the same fireworks as Theft. Waste, and fraud
9) Kingly grandiosity.
’We’. 131 times meaning ‘I’ and ‘I’ 104 times. ‘Our’…. his inaugural: ‘We’ – 74. ‘I’- 29. ‘Our’ – 67
b) Swaggering rhetoric, bellicose boasting. ‘I was saved…’ then mentions famous patriotic exemplar events and persons: Lexington, Concord, heroes of Gettysburg and Normandy, warriors who crossed the Delaware. Then DT leaped to non-war achievements; trailblazers over the Rockies, legends who soared at Kitty Hawk and astronauts who went to the moon. Ties his proto martyrdom to their bravery and achievements.
c) Ties his touted best (golden) age ever to the financial achievements of others in the past.
“American industry, massive building projects, vanquished communists, fascists and Marxists, our rights and freedoms, now its our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty, destiny. The most dominant…country on this earth. Create the wealthiest, healthiest, conquer science, gods help. From protomartyr to king. The most advanced, most dynamic most dominant….unstoppable power, fight, fight, fight….” And the republicans shouted and clapped like they were at a football game, or a real fight. Are they children?
10) “Americans have given us a mandate for bold and profound change…A mandate like you’ve not seen in decades.”
Hardly.
-The most ignored stat is that apathy was the largest voter in the election. almost 40% of eligible Americans did not vote.
-DT was able to get more of his fans out than Harris’ citizens.
-DT’s take of the popular vote was the 4th smallest since 1960 and 5th smallest since 1900. Popular vote: 72.4 million for Harris (48.3%), 75.6 million for Trump(51.3%) – not a landslide and not a mandate.
-The electoral vote: Electoral college: 6 More than Biden. Reagan-523, Johnson 523, Nixon 520 and Reagan 525. DT’s was 312 while Harris’ was 226. But this number does not tell the full story, like so many of DT’s statements. Harris lost in key swing states by a total of 1 million. E.g. Michigan, by 1.4% (80,000), Wisconsin by 30,000.
And DT’s popularity is shrinking.
11) Childishness
-English as official language of US. What else would it be? What is the fear he is here stoking?
-Renaming the Gulf and Mount Mckinley. Chest puffing. As soon as he’s gone, it will go back to what it was.
-Official policy: there are only 2 genders. Again, encouraging hatred again minorities. Are people with this reaction threatened by someone else’s sexuality they don’t understand?
12) ‘Common sense revolution, because of us around the world’; example of one trope.
‘Immigrants. Invasion, Thousands’ (last 4 years): ‘murderers, drug dealers, gang members, mental people, insane asylum escapees’.
Since 2023 the hill??, since January 2021, 8 million, since January 2022, 11 million- 1/5 the Of these came since 2010, before going back to 1980 the rest. Under Biden and Harris, a cross-aisle bill was cobbled together to tighten border entries-Trump, through his Republican acolytes, arranged to have it killed.
Law stats: 15,608 ‘encounters.’ 9,545 illegal entry, 2,545 DUI/drug possession, traffic of drugs, 1,414. DOJ report that violent crime is down over time.
77% of immigrants are legal. 89.5% pass the citizenship test on the first try. Non-citizen ‘encounters’: 2022-33% versus 2017- 2023 27% less sentenced 2018-2023- 37% immigration crimes. Homeland Security says the number is 10 million.
Biden flew illegal alines over borders to ‘overwhelm schools, hospitals and communities’ (Aurora, Colorado, Springfield). In fact, immigrants benefit the country they have come to, especially the US.
***
It seems DT was correct about 2 (minor) facts. If the reader is interested, he or she or they/them can see if them/they can find them. Two other points need to be noted.
First, DT was wrong about 95% of everything he said that speech.
Second, the Republicans and MAGA acolytes gave rounding applause for each of these, alternatively, over-heated, manipulative, factually incorrect and bellicose statements. It was applause for the destruction of democracy, due process and disingenuity.
by michael | Nov 17, 2024 | news
To my American cousins;
I understand why half of you are angry and disappointed. I understand why despite the sins, misdemeanours, criminal and subversive behaviors/actions and policy threat-statements that define Mr. T that you voted him into office again.
After the election, it’s become clear that the claim of a stolen 2020 election is false and has always been false. Otherwise, why didn’t the democrats ‘steal’ it again? If they did so once, they should have been able to do it again. I wonder why the Democrats did not claim the same thing about this election for their candidate?
Even with the curious stamina in believing that the apparatus of government (federal and state) were ‘weaponized’ against Mr. T, there must be at least one of these behaviours that is an accurate description of what kind of person he is and what he wants. People should take his explicit statements as accurate about where he will take your nation.
I understand, because the same social movements that have and are electing such persons have been and still are potent throughout the world.
The question is, why? There are many reasons. The world-wide events of the pandemic and the subsequent (yes they’re connected) massive rise in costs causing inflation are part of the dis-ease many of us feel. But these are not the work of a single person, party, administration or government. Nor are they the direct policies of some cabal that want to cause such turmoil from which they can benefit. These recent developments are world-wide phenomena, caused by world-wide actions of entire nations, the economic whirlwind of money, war and other factors. They are outside the grasp and creation of anyone. Though, when they occur, some benefit more than others. They are not you and me.
It is history that holds the key to explaining what you and many all over the world feel. Something has gone wrong, or ‘off’ for a generation or three, for at least 45 years. In that period, the drumbeat for a ‘free market’ and the attraction to thrust libertarian principles into public policy, promoted by persons outside and inside governments over the world, enabled a deeper incursion onto modern democratic ground. Those who have most benefited have run away with the ball. That was the era of Thatcher (UK) and Reagan. The latter once said, “government is not the solution to our problems; it is the problem.“
Drawing on the ideology of libertarianism and the fantasy of a “free market,” these leaders spearheaded globalization. This means getting rid of extra costs and taxes on goods traded between countries, so that all countries can compete fairly. On paper, markets, unbound from any one country (or company in a sector), having an unfair advantage -based on rules agreed to by all participants through non-coercive debate- is not a bad idea, if it were fair. What you were not told is that ‘free markets’ are never free nor fair for all parties. Someone always pays outsized costs or suffers from them. A few others benefit from outsized gains.
Globalization helped bring millions of people around the world (e.g. Vietnam, Brazil, India, China and Indonesia) out of poverty, increasing opportunities for jobs/careers and wealth.
However, the economic uplift of the many elsewhere than here (US, Europe, Canada) had a flattening effect upon our wages and jobs. Globalization energized the capitalist purpose, which is to reduce costs. Companies for whom it was cost-worthy packed up their goods and factories and went where tax rates and wages were lower than in their countries of origin. Jobs moved offshore because capitalists did what capitalists do. This, in turn, resulted in the disproportionate capture of mountains of wealth by the few against the many, all over the world.
These global elites used an updated set of techno-auto-bureau-cratic principles to create their own nation (non-country), with no loyalties to anyone but themselves. They share a narcissistic loyalty; to themselves and their money. They have a vast army of enablers who admire and want what they have. These include lawyers, accountants, bankers, the minor wealthy (like $10 million -plus perks- a year bank CEOs), sycophants, pundits, opportunists (even hair dressers and dentists!) and politicians. If the enablers cannot have mountains of money, they worship the new technocratic elite gods so they can gain hills of money.
They, in part, generated their wealth by their own cleverness in taking advantage of opportunities as they arose. However, they also continued to benefit from abundant subsidies and lower taxes from governments under the influences of admiration and/or threats to keep them from slipping away to some other country with even lower taxes, standards and subsidies.
They won’t tell you this, but capitalism has benefited from the largesse of governments (e.g., your money) for years. Two examples. Billionaire-of-the-moment, Elon Musk, acquired lucrative contracts (your money) with your federal government. The second example: in 2009-2010 governments bailed the bankers for the financial crisis that almost bottomed out the world financial structure, caused by their greed, of whom not a one went to jail for their avaricious betting on flimsy financial instruments. Others knew what was happening and cashed in by betting against the housing market.
So, yes, socialism (public money – yours- from governments around the world) saved capitalism. These economic elites maintain, and have always maintained, that they accumulated their vast fortunes on their own and see government taxation as an act of theft.
It is a persistent lie that governments steal from the wealthy. It was and is these elites and their enablers who, through subsidies and taxes (your money) who are guilty of theft. Taxes are what you pay so that you live in a civilized society. By stealing from you, the elites of every political stripe are making your society uncivilized (that is, lower on the non-egalitarian scale).
It’s understandable that you’re furious. You have been treated unfairly. The entertainer, speaking in short words and phrases, thinks of you as suckers, and you can only react with emotion, unable to articulate why you feel this way.
It is not a special group of elites whom, lemming-like, you blame because Mr. T blames them (e.g., party democrats). This set of global elites, without loyalty to a party, government, country, or religion – except their own, despises the herd, the rest of humanity.
Both republican and democrat governments have given enormous tax breaks to the few. Those breaks have to be paid for somehow. That means gutting spending for education, health care and social goods upon which some citizens below a certain income depend. It has been both types of governments who sent your children as soldiers over the world to die. And for what? To maintain their way of life.
Remember Mr. T’s ‘drain the swamp,’ comment in 2016? He was referring to the gators he didn’t like, but then he brought in his own T-brand gators and repopulated the swamp. The same sort of elites have screwed you; the minor and the ultra wealthy (plus all their hangers-on). And you are about to be re-screwed.
And Mr. T? The election is over and the people he is putting in various posts are a different gator but with the same desires: money, power and misperceived desire or revenge. Betting you wouldn’t look too close at his hands as he moved the shells, the showman had beguiled you. And if you say you are a Christian and agree with Kennedy that, ‘God has given me Trump’, then you have exchanged your trust and loyalty from He whom you call Lord for a human trickster, an idol and have therefore become apostate.
When the elite speak of ‘free’ (markets) and ‘freedom’ and ‘our way of life’, and ‘taxes’ and ‘money’, they are not talking about your freedom, taxes, money or security. They are talking about theirs. By shouting those words, you are not helping yourselves, but the very people who use your emotion behind those words to manipulate you. These are libertarians. From the 1970s to the present, their goal has been to dismantle government, democracy itself.
After the 9/11 attack, then President Bush spoke at an invitation-only banquet for the elite. He said, “some call you the ‘haves’; I call you the ‘have-mores’.” These people (not all of them), republicans and democrats, despise the middle and lower class.
The T brand is making this analysis clear in real time. Shuttering the dept of education? Punching the teeth out of the IRS? Turning the EPA into a sheep pen? Getting rid of anyone in the DOD that showed spine and opposed Mr. T’s previous regime? A new AG whose chief goal is to wreak vengeance on Mr. T’s (and his own) enemies, turning the justice system into a private concern? By ‘private’ means that you, as one of the herd, cannot depend upon absolute principles of democracy; the rule of law and the separation of powers. Even thinking the Constitution can be ‘ended’ and Mr. T ignoring the Constitution by already thinking he can run for a third term?
Whom do you think these anti-democratic, anti-legal, above all else, anti-American goals will benefit? If you are reading this, it won’t be you.
By not voting for this reality, you are already resisting. Those who voted for this reality should consider that the cult and gods of money, fame and entertainment are responsible for it. In case you wake up feeling like you have a hangover after an emotional party and doubt your actions, seek a lawful means to resist through the Constitution and the rule of law.
So, for the next four years, every six months, check your personal economic pulse. Is your wallet or purse getting lighter and you haven’t even opened them? Are you still paying too much for goods and services you cannot afford now? Have you received a reduced Social Security payment? Have your taxes come down? And by how much in comparison with the elite? Is there more violence, as there was in Mr. T’s first regime? Is there more misogyny? Do you feel more or less secure?
If not, then weep for yourselves and your children. Then, when the unpleasant and shameful truth of Mr. T’s lies is revealed, and while everyone is responsible for what they do, remember that you were deceived once more. But it was not your fault.
by michael | Oct 20, 2024 | news
The article by former premier Gordon Campbell (2001-2011) in the Victoria Times Colonist (October 8, 2024). https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/gordon-campbell-in-this-election-your-vote-will-make-a-difference-9633547 is replete with statements, not arguments. He stated, “Some will say change can’t happen, but they are wrong. Change will happen if we all demand it and vote for it!”(1) That is exactly what was said by the electorate toward his (hybrid) political entity -libertarian(2)/liberal party (‘the hybrids’)- first elected in 2001 and ruled until their defeat in 2016.(3)
In the article, he made two initial statements that are connected to his legacy. He stated that BC’s 2024 deficit (under the NDP), “…is estimated at another $8 billion. That’s more than the entire K-12 education system cost when the current government took over.” He’s comparing apples to oranges.(4) Singling out one service area and judging it according to a deficit that is related to a bigger animal is a non-sequitur (latin for ‘whopper’).(5)
This first sentence, referencing the deficit, is connected to his promise that there would be no cuts to the education sector; as soon as he got the crown in 2001 he and his party slashed funding for eduction.(6) Aside from saying one thing and doing another, cutting education funding for the next generations of a workforce is at best self-defeating; at worst, it is a sign of ideology driving policy. In fact, such decisions are not ‘common sense’, a phrase that conservatives often use to demonstrate their alleged fitness for office. This type of vague nonsense phrase is bleated without definitions, data or explanatory notes.
Mr. Campbell’s mention of a deficit raises an associated point. Government debt, deficits etc are more complex than Mr. Campbell wants to admit. It’s much simpler to state vague words and cast blame than to back vacuity up with facts. For example, the BC debt per capita (person) in 2001, (the first year the hybrid party was in power) was $8,852. By 2016, the year the hybrids were given liberty from government responsibility, the debt was $13,942. So much for consistency in remarks about deficits by another government. From 2017-2019 the debt/person was kept under $14,000. In 2020 the debt/person was $14,230. In 2024 that debt has reached $19,471.(7)
Why did this happen? Conservative pundits infer the rise in debt level cannot be ascribed alone to the pandemic. On this point they are incorrect.(8) The arrival of the pandemic in Canada was officially noted on January 25, 2020.(9) There is a direct cause and effect because of the decisions of BC’s government (and that of Canada) to help citizens with various financial packages during the crisis. These monies for citizens added to debt and deficit. So what? That is what governments are for: to protect and help their citizens in times of crisis. What would a conservative, neo-conservative or libertarian government have done?
Most restrictions related to covid were lifted around October 2022. Soon after, the world was swept by a massive upswing in prices which was part of the cause of world-wide inflation or the cost of living. Of this we write later.
The second initial whopper has to do with two statements about current health care in BC. The first is, we have to, “stop wait lists in health care from deteriorating in growing death lists”. This kind of statement serves to heighten emotion and obscure the necessity for substance. In BC’s health system people in a given category who are in worse shape than others are triaged for treatment. The notion that a government would allow a system to exist that creates ‘death lists’ is ridiculous. It is also insulting to the extraordinary health care professionals who keep the system running in a shape where most people get the care they need most of the time when they need it.
Then Mr. Campbell stated, “the [NDP] government randomly closes emergency wards”. This is false, and inflammatory. It is also hypocritical because his government made numerous cuts to the health care system,(10) and then, when the system began to develop problems, used those problems to argue that Canada’s health care was ‘in crisis’ and needed to be augmented by a ‘cheaper’ alternative; a private system.(11) This assumptive trope,(12) by libertarians certainly, and most conservatives, is that government is always, everywhere and in every jurisdiction inefficient and bloated. The only solution is to let loose the superior intellectual and managerial abilities of the private sector (capitalism without outside oversight).
***
There are three main statements that Mr. Campbell makes that need to be pulled out and apart for facts and veracity. These are crime, taxes and the cost of living.
Crime
Mr. Campbell wrote: “if we want to stop the revolving door in the justice system where dangerous people are put back on the streets; if we want to be able to walk down their streets without fear with their children; if we want to use their parks freely and enjoy their community centres with their kids — we need to vote for change.” Campbell, like most hybrids, is implying that crime is out of control, not just in BC but in Canada. Is this perception accurate? He presents no statistics or purported facts and no argument; merely an emotive, ideological statement.
What crime? Non-severe or severe? Adult or youth? In all of BC or in some towns and cities? Drugs, theft, white collar? Property and what kind? Civil or criminal? Etc. None of this is addressed by Mr. Campbell. There is a reason for such vacuity: it is easier to frighten people than to speak about facts. By frightening citizens a demagogue can get elected where someone who makes arguments is boring and unelectable.
The facts, accessible by any, especially a person who once was premier of this province, are the following. Crime as a whole in BC and in Canada is decreasing. “In 2022, BC’s police-reported crime rate (excluding traffic) decreased by 1.6%, from 74.8 to 73.7 offences per 1,000 population.”(13) Since Mr. Campbell seems most exercised by ‘dangerous persons’ and crime in BC, there are two examples to review. In 2021 there were in BC 15.3 violent crimes/1000 persons while in 2022, that rate was 15.3. The property crime rate in 2021 was 42.2/1000 and in 2022 it was 41.9.(14) So much for that conservative/libertarian trope.
Taxes
In his article he stated, “If voters want lower taxes, if they want more take-home pay, we can do that too.” He makes the statement but doesn’t ask why someone would want taxes lowered. Again, have a look at Mr. Campbell’s history on taxes as a politician.(15) There are three important questions that loom in the background of any talk of tax cuts.
Tax policy is complex: complexity includes implementation, results, and interpretation after the results. A perfect example of this complex phenomenon is Mr. Campbell’s cuts to taxes in 2001. Let’s review.
a) Which taxes are we examining, who benefits and who is most negatively affected by tax cuts?
On his first day in office, Mr. Campbell cut personal income tax by 25%, the corporate income tax and then corporate capital taxes. Personal income taxes in BC went from being at the national average to the lowest in Canada.(16) This sounds good, but the effect was to reduce services and to close certain social benefit programs, reconfigure them or hand them to private interests. The lower income a citizen has, the more they are affected by the effects of lower taxes. Higher income citizens benefit most because some social programs they would never need and their income goes up, and their taxes down, because the cuts tend to mean more for their bottom lines. The already wealthy are better off after the cuts than everyone else beneath their earning level. And they buy more exclusive stuff when blood is on the streets.(17) This process is typical of libertarian/conservative-backed political choices.(18)
- What is the purpose of taxation?
To live in a civilized state. I like to pay taxes because I know that I benefit from the services I pay for through my taxes. I also know that some of the taxes I pay for I will never use but others will need them. I am happy to pay for taxes that do both. One’s attitude to paying taxes comes down to a choice between caring about one’s neighbour, about inequity and equity. One way to judge for whom to vote in an election is to ask what is meant by reduction in taxes and get whoever is speaking to state clearly who benefits. As above, tax cuts tend to benefit persons who are already well off and affect less wealthy citizens more negatively. There are always some persons who believe that they have more of a right to build their own personal equity without responsibility and so reduce their participation in social equity.
- How is funding for government services replaced, given cuts?
It isn’t. Sometimes the services are eliminated. As noted above sometimes they are reconfigured, including eliminating unnecessary positions, and sometimes privatized. In other words, some social services are snuffed out without regard to how it affects the citizens who need them or reconfigured so that there are fewer people doing jobs that used to require more employees, thus reducing service levels (e.g. numbers of doctors, nurses or school teachers).
Cost of living
Mr. Campbell stated, “The cost of living is soaring because the government is addicted to taxes, not to performance.” This is another hybridean trope, and a confused one at that. It vaguely sounds like it is logical to put ‘taxes’ and ‘performance’ together in the same sentence, opposite to one another and have it make sense, but this is another whopper. Taxes, as we saw above, are a means for a government to create and maintain social programs that help some citizens some of the time to do more than survive, but to help them live with dignity, maybe even thrive and contribute back to society. To help some citizens in this way, governments need taxes to redistribute some monies to those social programs. Of course, some tax monies are needed for governance, the court system, education, basic maintenance on roads, civil protection, to deter outside aggression, and so on.
What has ‘performance’ to do with cost of living? Performance is the process of accomplishing an action. To be honest, I don’t understand what Mr. Campbell meant when he stated the phrase, so I can only guess. My guess is that as a neo-conservative or libertarian, he meant something like the following. If we reward the performances of (few) people in government who succeed in creating good government policies (with the fewest dollars possible) those divine beings will somehow do so without taxes.
In addition, it is argued by pundits that the recent rise in the cost of living(19)-since 2020- could not possibly have anything to do with inflation. However, the cost of living has not become high just in BC or just in Canada, but over the world, which indicates that it was not the fault of any one government, any one leader, province or country. So, blaming any of these individual entities is another whopper. BC and Canada are essentially in the same position in terms of debt to GDP as most other social democratic countries in Europe. Canada’s debt to GDP is approximately 94.1%.(20)As Eurostat, Statistics Explained (‘an official Eurostat website’) states (with stats and figures), “In the euro area the government debt to GDP ratio decreased from 90.8 % at the end of 2022 to 88.6 % at the end of 2023, and in the EU from 83.4 % to 81.7 %.”(21) It is not surprising that Canada’s debt to GDP is higher because the federal, and provincial, governments used their spending power in 2020(22) to support its citizens during the emergency. Yes, the federal government needs to address this issue, but blaming any government for a deficit in the wake of the massive economic crises is disingenuous. How will a conservative government deal with the debt/deficit? How will their inevitable cuts, if elected, help any Canadians besides the wealthy who can weather such economic storms better than anyone else?
Yes, the cost of living (COL) has become higher, but the reasons are far more complex than Mr. Campbell states. COL is associated with inflation. Conservative voices will also blame this phenomenon on the ruling party, as if any one entity controls it, bounded by no less than the world, as the events in one part of the world affects all other parts. In the last three years, aside from the pandemic, inflation and the cost of living have been affected by massive shifts in unanticipated, new, weather conditions, the regular ‘forest fire season’, higher prices due to supply chain foul ups, war (especially Russia and its war on Ukraine) consequent rises in insurance rates, gas and oil etc.(23) Yet BC has the lowest debt-to GDP ratio compared to other provinces, something of which Mr. Campbell and other hybrid pundits don’t speak.(24)
While there are many points from which to critique Mr. Campbell’s article and there are more explanations for why he made them, there is one major reason that lies behind, not just Mr. Campbell’s statements or his words and actions when he was premier but lies behind most neocon, conservative, libertarian essays, comments, actions, tropes and motivation. It is a fundamental piece of dogma that any and all taxes are bad in that they restrict ‘freedom’ and steal from the pockets of consumers.
This is an extraordinary attitude. Freedom is understood to be freedom to make money and spend it in any way I wish, without the demand for taxes. Another characteristic of the hybrids is that one should always pay for the goods or products one buys. Even at the base level of thinking about government and social policy in this way should make sense to anyone who wishes to live in a civil society. To do so means taxes, fairly divided amongst the population. This means adequate or progressive taxation. Persons who think taxes are theft are in fact stealing from others in the society in which they both exist. Otherwise, the impress of inequity, rather than the constant balancing act between the moral considerations of equity and taxes, becomes a defining characteristic of a given society.
Mr. Campbell’s rant-as-essay in the Times Colonist reveals nothing of such considerations.
Endnotes
- https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/gordon-campbell-in-this-election-your-vote-will-make-a-difference-9633547.
- Libertarians have been around for a long time but in the years of the Reagan-thatcher-Mulroney triumvirate its ideology had a new start. Its adherents are as diverse as any other group about their ideologies. However, libertarians believe that less, or even no, government is better, that taxes are theft and civil and social democratic governments are a threat to ts adherents’ ‘way of life’. Along with that phrase another is ‘freedom’. When such persons use these words, they mean their freedom, their way of life, and their money; not yours or mine.
- https://www.sightline.org/2018/11/01/2001-election-fptp-british-columbia-frustrating-story. See also, The Brief and Frustrating Story of the 2001 Election in British Columbia (sightline.org).
- https://www.langleyadvancetimes.com/opinion/editorial-blame-gordon-campbell-for-current-teachers-impasse-2476166.
- There are numerous one-liner whoppers from Mr. Campbell: ‘Our health system is in collapse’, ‘the government (NDP) proudly prohibit a BC citizen from getting the same access to health care as a Quebec resident’, ‘temporary trailers at schools for school rooms means parents and children are not welcome’, etc., but we cannot analyze all of them.
- https://thetyee.ca/News/2016/11/10/BC-Teachers-Win-SCC-Battle.
- https://www.taxtips.ca/statistics/bc-provincial-debt.htm.
- In a February 22, 2024 report, a Fraser Institute the authors claimed, by splitting the difference, that BC debt was 2016-17 was $14,275/person. They split the difference between 2016/2017 to come up with a figure of $14,275 but the accurate figures for each year was lost the same. $13,942/person and 2017, $13,885. The authors then claimed that NDP pundits cannot use the pandemic as an ‘excuse’ for the rise in debt. However, the NDP kept the debt per person under 14,000. The authors were wrong to infer that the pandemic was not in any way for the increase of debt/person. They were also wrong to infer that the next years to 2024 were not also affected by the repercussions of the pandemic and government response to it for the sake of its citizens. See https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/bc-government-projects-massive-debt-accumulation-and-british-columbians-will-pay-the-price. Authors, Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss.
- https://www.taxtips.ca/statistics/bc-provincial-debt.htm.
- How BC Is Making Fools of Past Health Spending Alarmists | The Tyee; https://thetyee.ca/News/2007/06/08/Bill29Dies/; https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/briefing-note-gordon-campbell-canadas-arch-health-care-privateer-and-author-of-the-worst-cuts-in-b-c-s-history-september-20-2018; https://www.heu.org/news/media-release/heu-statement-resignation-premier-gordon-campbell; https://www.comoxvalleyrecord.com/opinion/letter-admission-of-campbells-health-care-destruction-better-late-than-never-1588617.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3378609; https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/private-health-care-taxpayer-money-1.6777470; https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/private-health-care-taxpayer-money-1.6777470.
- https://newint.org/features/2015/12/01/private-public-sector; https://www.epsu.org/article/public-and-private-sector-efficiency; https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/mythbuster-private-sector.pdf. See also; https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publications/GCPSE_Efficiency.pdf.
- Crime Statistics in British Columbia, 2022 (gov.bc.ca).
- https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/law-crime-and-justice/criminal-justice/police/publications/statistics/bc-crime-statistics-2022.pdf; Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, police services in British Columbia (statcan.gc.ca).
- Campbell’s deficgis-https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/briefing-note-gordon-campbell-canadas-arch-health-care-privateer-and-author-of-the-worst-cuts-in-b-c-s-history-september-20-2018.
- https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/05/06/BC-Liberals-Tax-Shifts.
- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/13/ultra-rich-still-shopping-for-luxury-despite-inflation-recession-fears.html;https://visiblealpha.com/blog/luxury-goods-inflation-recession-and-defying-the-odds.
- 98 BC Liberal Falsehoods, Boondoggles and Scandals: The Campbell Era 45 | The Tyee; 117 BC Liberal Falsehoods, Boondoggles and Scandals: The Complete List | The Tyee; Gordon Campbell: The Forgotten Man | The Tyee.
- See note 6.
- Canada’s Debt to GDP Ratio | 2024 | Economic Data | World Economics
- https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php. title=Government_finance_statistics#:~:text=In%20the%20euro%20area%20the,3.4%20%25%20to%20%2D3.5%20%25.&text=In%20the%20euro%20area%20the%20government%20debt%20to%20GDP%20ratio,from%2083.4%20%25%20to%2081.7%20%25.
- Canada Government Budget (tradingeconomics.com).
- Why the price of vegetable oil has spiked more than other food items | CBC NewsA multitude of factors has pushed up food prices. Statistics Canada attributed the rapid increase in grocery prices to weather conditions, higher prices for fertilizer and natural gas and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; Rising costs, inflation creating affordability concerns for Canadians | CTV News; Inflation: Seven reasons the cost of living is going up around the world (bbc.com).
- https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024FIN0036-001472; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_public_debt.
by michael | Jun 9, 2024 | news
June 9, 2024
An open letter to members of Victoria City Council
Homelessness: A 5M Approach
The ‘action,’ of May 16, 2024, cleaning Pandora Street of tents, belongings and persons,https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/pandora-encampment-cleared-by-city-bylaw-officers-campers-told-to-pack-up-and-go-8757722 sudden and without warning, leaves one befuddled because it was not announced before-hand nor its purpose explained after.
Whatever the explanation, it was an inchoate blip in the history of attempts to address the issues related to homelessness. In fact, it was less than a blip because within a week not only were the persons who were evicted and told to move on- whatever euphemism used- were back within a week, but the encampment has grown up and down Pandora Street, past the pre-eviction boundaries.
The blip reminds one of various attempts to fully address the issue in the last thirty years. There have been multiple studies, work forces, papers, research, discussions by, among and with concerned groups of citizens, and engagement with various professionals but nothing has happened to address the underlying issues that cause people to become homeless and thereby create a coherent, long-term strategy.
There has been some specific progress on various solutions: some housing has been created and small groups patrol the city to help with food, clothing, medical issues for individuals, and so on. However, these sorts of programs have been short-term band-aid activities. Our Place Society itself is a long-term semi-permanent solution but as such it is larger band-aid. The creation of the Courtnall Society for mental Health at the Royal Jubilee Hospital is a very welcome, necessary and permanent aid to many.
There is a different approach or, rather, set of combined solutions. Bear in mind these are not impossible; they may prove to be merely improbable for a number of reasons, but not impossible.
What is necessary is the creation of a multi-disciplinary, multi-generational, multi-professional, multi-individuated and multi-economic, permanent long-term process. The basic description for this process contains an umbrella (the canopy) structure, beneath which all necessary sub-parts (the ribs) are researched and interconnected with one another to address the differentiated solutions that would come out of such a process.
The canopy can be called the permanent ‘working group’ that is held p by the ribs. Its members, ask and promulgate what the big questions are and works to develop practical means to create a robust structure that addresses the complex social concerns that are identified as homelessness, but also the hidden realities connected but not noticed, to that issue. The working group would ask for and receive information essential to address homelessness in Victoria, a process that could be replicated across the country.
A given municipality cannot address the issues alone. Engagement of both provincial and federal government partners is critical. In addition, as the process is created and grows, multiple partners would have to be engaged. Representatives from these partners would populate the ribs and have seats under the canopy.
The most important contribution of a municipality is to get it started and be the hub to gather human resources and data, pulling them together and making the argument for multiple, mutual, correlated solutions. What may be the most important role for a municipality or set of municipalities is to be resolute when the winds of negativity with slashing, cold rain try to dampen that resolve.
Again, the process itself and the results must be multi-disciplinary, multi-generational, multi-professional and multi-individuated and multi-economic.
- Multi-disciplinary. By this word I mean a group of knowledgeable persons gathered to ask the initial big questions. By ‘knowledgeable persons’ I mean ethicists, medical folk, sociologists, practical financial minds (and others, no doubt). Some questions are these: What are the key questions we need to ask? What is the data we need to uncover? Is this umbrella group and the solutions it seeks going to be political or moral? What ideological concerns need to be identified, made explicit and discussed? What are the ethical foundations for the creation of the umbrella? What are the economic implications for either going ahead or not? Why should citizens support such an ambitious process/project/set of solutions? Is the status quo working? For whom?
- Multi-individuated. It is no secret that persons living on the street are not of one kind; there are multiple explanations for why people end up on the street. In addition, the multiple reasons why persons are on the street leads to related issues; impacts on their families, the judiciary, the police, medical professionals, the public purse, etc.
- Multi-generational. Identifying and considering the various issues cannot be a one-off activity. As noted above, there has been progress, but if the purpose is to simply create another programme, why would anyone participate? The set of issues to be identified, addressed and coordinated actions implemented cannot be addressed by a single municipality in a four year election cycle. Politicians may want to move on after a few years or the will of the people may suggest that they do. Parties get elected and then defeated and a major social issue such as homelessness gets lost or rejected by the next party or set of politicians who get elected. What we need then is politicians at a given moment to agree how they can work together multi-generationally on this multi-pronged issue, regardless of what party or set of politicians, or leaders are in place in the future. Some sort of explicit covenant that states the necessary continuance of working beyond ideological interests toward solutions must be crafted and agreed to by a first set of politicians, in such a way that all future members of their parties or ideological affiliates cannot either scuttle such significant work or chip away at it until it disappears under the weight of subtle ideological influences or quiet diversion of resources to other concerns. A covenant needs to backed up with solid, scientific, data-based, peer-reviewed evidence.
- Multi-professional. Some of these are: medical personnel and resources, teachers and educational processes from K-12 and support for families with early age children, sociological studies and experts, current groups that work within the matrix of service and concern for homelessness and related issues, present and future legal matters, law enforcement, practical financial professionals and economists (see below). There are likely other professionals that would have to be brought into the work.
- Multi-economic. I have cut out for commentary this category from the others because financial issues will be less complex than them but more potentially divisive. The inevitable duelling ideological principles, especially without reliable data, could bog down the entire process and project. For example, what does it cost a single municipality in terms of dollars to address the needs and impact of a single person who is on the street? There have been a number of studies that asked and answered this question.[1] These data need to be gathered and collated, based on best peer-reviewed studies with others that are significant from a ‘soft’ perspective. Other financial studies should be gathered. For example, the notion of a ‘universal basic income’ (UBI) for either all citizens or for the most disadvantaged.[2] This is an idea that has been floating around for decades. Experiments been conducted Canada (Manitoba), the U.S. (under Nixon), Great Britain, and elsewhere. Interest in the idea has grown and has occupied the time, researches, and thinking of many more people than even a few years ago. An interesting negative response to UBIs, was from certain billionaires who have created a lobby group in the U.S. to oppose any intent to create or experiment to see how a UBI might work.[3]
How to get started? I invite each of you, first, to think of words of wisdom that keep you alive and hopeful in the face of adversity. If it is hard to think of any, one can find any number of them on the internet,[4] some of which are icky sweet (and of doubtful aid) and some of which are profound. One place to start is to read Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists.[5] Famously, Bregman was once, on air, called a ‘tiny brained moron’ and told to **** off
https://x.com/nowthisimpact/status/1098282209834950657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1098283273120350211%7Ctwgr%5Ed81e19a6c05726b789778c38ea6d9aa40eb924fe%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbc.ca%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2Fbusiness-media-fake-news-rutger-bregman-1.5027881.
by former fox employee and now Putin pundit, Tucker Carlson,[6] an altercation that demonstrates the value of Bregman and Utopia. I am happy to invest in your commitment and interest by purchasing a copy for each of you. Let me know.
But, second, the most basic question is: would you Victoria City Council members start to build the umbrella?
A related question is: is the status quo working and acceptable? If not, why not? Questions that arise from that question are; A) what is the status quo and what do we mean when we say it is ‘working’? B) if we find the status quo acceptable, what are the ethical roots that determine an answer? If there are opposite answers, which do you and we wish to live with? Perhaps we can start by asking and at least find initial answers to these questions.
Endnotes
[1]. Canada: https://csuch.ca/documents/reports/english/Canadian-Substance-Use-Costs-and-Harms-Report-2023-en.pdf; https://www.camh.ca/en/driving-change/the-crisis-is-real/mental-health-statistics; https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/costofhomelessness_paper21092012.pdf; https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/opinion-jino-distasio-homelessness-housing-first-1.4341552
U.S.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK424861/; https://kennedystreetrecovery.org/costs-of-addiction/; https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwjeuyBhBuEiwAJ3vuoRsqe8x2BZhVajtD63M042uMf26OGUBML0BIxhS04b9qHy30uXN9kBoCe0MQAvD_BwE
An interesting paper from Norway: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=65ab099ba5bbbc36d21557ac7b1a9ccdd6cc40e6.
[2]. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-deep-and-enduring-history-of-universal-basic-income/; https://newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/basic-income-project-for-pei-in-the-realm-of-the-possible-q-a-with-kourtney-koebel/; https://www.ubiworks.ca/; https://basicincomecanada.org/; https://basicincome.stanford.edu/about/what-is-ubi/. https://basicincome.stanford.edu/about/what-is-ubi/.
[3]. More or less randomly chosen comment and arguments: https://www.unifor.org/news/all-news/universal-basic-income-too-good-be-true; https://www.scottsantens.com/billionaire-fueled-lobbying-group-behind-the-state-bills-to-ban-universal-basic-income-experiments-ubi/; https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1d1x3ve/billionaire_backlash_shows_the_power_of_basic/; https://www.quora.com/What-impact-do-hyper-conservative-billionaires-like-Richard-and-Liz-Uihlein-have-on-efforts-to-ban-universal-basic-income-schemes; https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/06/14/universal-basic-income/; https://officeofsarah.com/blog/the-evils-of-universal-basic-income; https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/commentary/universal-basic-income-has-been-tried-it-didnt-work; https://thewalrus.ca/how-universal-basic-income-will-save-the-economy/.
[4]. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/02/20/15-powerful-quotes-on-success/?sh=12c1415f1c98
[5]. Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: And How We can Get There, trans., Elizabeth Manton. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2014 (The Netherlands), 2017 (Great Britain).
[6]. https://x.com/nowthisimpact/status/1098282209834950657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1098283273120350211%7Ctwgr%5Ed81e19a6c05726b789778c38ea6d9aa40eb924fe%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbc.ca%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2Fbusiness-media-fake-news-rutger-bregman-1.5027881.
