Letter to Liz Warren’s campaign:
Letter to Liz Warren’s campaign:
Liz is my Senator and I started out supporting her. Now I am leaning Bernie or frankly, any Democrat but Liz. My disenchantment started with Liz wiffle-waffling over Medicaid for All. Is she for it or against it now? Having some third system for a transition as Liz has reportedly proposed is a trillion dollar opportunity cost which can and should be avoided.
Why can Liz not say anything nice about socialism? I am a union member and DSA member, and Liz’s program is a socialist program. Why can she not acknowledge democratic socialists such as Eugene Debs, Upton Sinclair, Michael Harrington, Bayard Rustin and Victor Berger? We don’t want ‘Bernie Lite’ and we definitely do not want another entitled, neoliberal, rightist candidate like Hillary Clinton. I’m so disappointed, and looking forward to a progressive challenger from the real Democratic party of the people when Liz runs again for Senate.
I was a credentialed voting state delegate to the 2018 Democratic convention. I welcome your response.
best,
Henry Edward Hardy
Copyright © 2020 Henry Edward Hardy
Comments on Stephens article in NYT on Democratic Party issue positions
Comments on Stephens article in NYT on Democratic Party issue positions
The practical facts about immigration is that criminalizing it doesn’t stop it.
What it does is present the United States with a conundrum; imprison, intern and/or deport tens of millions of people, many or most of whom have American citizens in their immediate families, or see the rule of law trampled through non-enforcement of an unenforceable & morally reprehensible law.
The alternative to withdrawing from Afghanistan is to keep US forces there forever. How is that in US interests? The US attempt at nation building has been such a notable failure that the US has seen fit to exclude its own puppet government from the peace negotiations.
How is a state of permanent, unwinnable war preferable to peace?
The authorization for use of military force in Afghanistan was premised on the constitutional article regarding letters of marque & reprisal, an anti-pirate clause. Well, the Al Queda “pirates” have been defeated and UBL is long gone. And so should the US be from Afghanistan.
How is it that Mr. Stephens apparently believes that free, taxpayer-supported public education for all is economically unsustainable in the US, though countries such as Germany & Sweden apparently find a way to accomplish this. How bout less spending on permanent wars & dominance of the entire world through economic & military interventions?
Regarding health care, once again, how is it that Stephens believes that the US can’t do what Europe and Canada can in providing free, quality healthcare for all?
Thoughts on #DeleteFacebook
I realize that by deleting Facebook I am risking something real and valuable to me–my extraordinary Facebook friends. Facebook has been the main way I keep in touch with my extended family. I have rediscovered many friends from college, from high school, and gradeschool.
As an INTP type introvert, it has always been a challenge for me to meet new people and let them into my private sphere. Facebook has provided me with a mechanism to connect with wonderful artists, intellectuals, craftspeople, musicians, writers, journalists, political figures, and it has been a privilege to know you all there.
When Facebook did an analysis a couple of years ago of the average degrees of separation between people on their network, Sheryl Sandberg’s was 3.2, Zuck’s was 2.7, and mine was 2.2. I could reach out to a friend of a friend of a friend and reach potentially something like a billion people.
But by exposing this network to unprincipled and frankly just evil people like the Mercers, Steve Bannon, the aptly self-named Doctor Spectre, Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica and their parent company, “Strategic Communication Laboratories Group,” and ultimately Zuckerberg and Facebook itself, I feel that I have betrayed the very people I so cherish.
No more. After April 2 I am shutting down my Facebook account.
Don’t continue to be an enabler for evil greedy people as I did for so long. It is time, now.
#DeleteFacebook
Copyright © 2018 Henry Edward Hardy
On Donald Trump
Trump is fundamentally a student of his father’s, with advanced lessons from Roy Cohn. He’s learned the New York way of schmoozing, exaggerating, telling people what he thinks they want to hear, being very slippery and blatantly lying seemingly about even things there’s no reason to lie about, in order to show disrespect to people he wants to hurt. From Cohn, a strategy mix of intimidation, implicit blackmail, clandestine forbidden sex, hard partying, international intrigue, seduction, and hard-nosed threats.
And that’s worked remarkably, even unbelievably well for Trump.
Until now. The Presidency is not a real estate empire or a mafia family. The nomenklatura, or institutional bureaucracy or what Erdogan and Trump like to call “The Deep State” are notoriously entranched and hard to control. A far more proficient sociopathic President, Richard Nixon, found this out to his dismay, as did Bill Clinton to a degree. Though the latter, by his Elmer Gantry/Huey Long talents, survived.
Bill Clinton and LBJ were extroverted people persons and were great at gladhandling/manhandling people to get what they wanted from Congress and the bureaucracy. Obama, an introvert, was less successful.
But Trump as President of the USA is disastrous. He is not unintelligent within certain parameters, but his judgment seems to be impaired much of the time, he seems to have limited medium term recall which he covers for by lying and his credibility with the apparatus is less than zero. Calling them out by name to insult them doesn’t help either. And backstabbing the NRA live on TV? That was in a way delightful but at the same time I have to go whaaat is thaaat? I can’t think of a worse thing he could have done politically to undermine his base and get a lot of heavily armed people very nervous and defensive than by publicly suggesting that arms should be seized from US citizens by law enforcement. “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” I mean he actually said those words quote unquote. Is this a will to self-destruction like Hitler in his bunker? The entire world hopes not! Is it all a theatre of the absurd he simply does. not. care? Is he an agent provocateur dancing to the tune of Putin’s “chef?”
I don’t know.
But we are all going to find out.
Interesting times.
Copyright © 2018 Henry Edward Hardy
About Scanlyze
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”
John F. Kennedy, October 26, 1963
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