Baitball Blogger
Baitball Blogger's JournalNo surprise that conservatives are brazen with the law.
If there are no consequences when they break the law, the message sent is that no one is going to go after them if they proceed with their objectives. So, I'm saying it now, giving the Secret Service a pass for not protecting those texts is a huge mistake. I heard someone on MSNBC say that they may have understood it was a law, but no one ever really made an issue about it before, so they really didn't think it was a big deal. Hence, they were guilty of being lax. Not crooked.
This is how institutions and communities begin to degrade to the point where there is constant division and hostility in the air.
I saw it for myself on a local level. This was back when I was new to the community and didn't have enough of the local background to understand just how far my neighbors were involved in a fight that involved the community leaders against a developer. In those early years they were talking to each other in front of me before HOA meetings began and it might as well have been a secret code, because I didn't have the context to realize what they were saying. For example, before one meeting, the Treasurer asked a question to an individual who played a major role in that ordeal. He was the Major's good friend. I refer to him as Resident Roy in my writing of my experiences.
Treasurer: "How is everything going?"
Resident Roy: "It's a House of Cards. One goes down, they all go down."
Did not know what that meant until years later. I didn't even know what a House of Cards was. But it's an important thing to remember if you're dealing with social networks in Central Florida.
Another thing I heard at a meeting: "No judge in the State will side with a developer against a homeowner." People agreed.
You see, because they believed they were immune, they went ahead supporting strategies that also had the effect of breaching fiduciary responsibility to the rest of us. They really believed they were Top Dogs and that no one would hold them accountable.
In many respects they did get away with it. The lawyers came up with a Settlement Agreement that contained a Confidential Clause and that helped bury the facts.
And that's how communities degrade. With that kind of cover, those who could, used the freedom from consequences to abuse the rest of us as they grabbed whatever they could to compensate themselves for their troubles. In my HOA, that would involve common grounds, as well as the trust and goodwill that is part of a healthy community life.
In sum, the Secret Service's excuse that no one has ever really made a big deal of record keeping is the kind of excuse that reinforces crooked behavior. And it would be a huge mistake to let them get away with it now, because the next time there might be even higher stakes involved.
My guess to why Cipollone came clean, assuming he did.
From my experiences with bad political lawyers, they suddenly remember their ethical obligations when "word gets out on the street." That's an actual quote from a bad, good ole boy style lawyer in Central Florida. These are the kind of lawyers that work both the private and public sector. You'll find them as City or County lawyers at the same time that they represent private companies that are seeking approval from government.
It isn't uncommon for them to be members of, or even president of the Chamber of Commerce. With the connections they make working both sectors, it is easy for them to control the information that elected officials have in order to make decisions that will benefit the lawyer's clients, and their own pockets.
Because privacy is key to this process, communications are usually through phone calls. Back at the turn of the Millennium, I had a conversation with a group of ex-commissioners and they all told me the same thing. The City attorney would contact them by phone before City meetings and conversations would always be the same. He would impart the information and would say, I have already talked to so and so and they told me they're leaning in favor. Hard to argue with the lawyer when he's the one controlling the information on a subject they may know very little about. Especially when the lawyer goes out of his way to make them feel special, like telling them, "Don't worry, I've got your back." And they did feel special up until the moment they lost an election and were swiftly ghosted. He wouldn't even take their phone calls.
As you would expect, "regular" people who became part of this network believed they were suddenly bullet proof. They see another world that bends the rules to get whatever objective the government is reaching for under the guise of "public good." What happens when these people begin to weave their own personal objectives into this backwater framework? I can write that story.
Bottomline, lawyers can't control all that can go wrong when elected officials start to ad lib. This backwater world only works when there is secrecy and discretion. It is, afterall, a backwater, backroom, shadow government that they're running. Unfortunately for them, the most ethically fluid people may be the easiest ones to use, but they're also the most unpredictable. They talk, they're braggarts. And word finally gets out on the street.
I have to say that locally, they did a great job of tamping down on the public that caught on and tried to expose the group that went rogue here in the nineties, even when word got on the street. I could write that story. Fear mongering, bullying, and defamation. That's how they managed to silence everyone.
The only way out of this rabbit hole is through a formal investigation that will force the lawyers to talk. And some of them will talk because they know that it's the only way to save what's left of their professional reputation. Without it, you become a Giuliani. Someone who the public sees as a cross between a charlatan and con-man. I'm willing to bet that Cipollone is a step or two above Giuliani. He's the kind that will talk because word is now out on the street.
And for that, we have Cassidy Hutchinson and the J6 Committee to thank. You need both to break the pattern.
Miami Brooks Brother Riot: precursor for January 6th Insurrection.
This is a reflection of the things that have occurred in my lifetime, where Republicans would not rely on a fair process because they knew or feared they would lose. So they relied on the one strategy that is slowly killing this country: Division and mob incitement.
I start with the Brooks Brother Riot because I see a clear tie-in to current events. I'm sure others have seen it too, but I'm taking time to connect the dots because I don't think we give Republicans enough credit for their transparent and obtuse strategies.
What was the Brooks Brother storming about? It was a group of Washington D.C. GOP operatives flying down to Miami to storm the narrow halls of a building where election counting was taking place. So, people from outside of this State managed to interfere with the State's election count. And they succeeded.
It created a situation for a lawsuit to be filed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court did their best to hand the election over to Bush.
So, in my opinion, 2000 was just the first successful election interference by Republicans.
It's funny the things that stick in your mind. I don't know who said it, but in the early stages of the Florida voting mess, when Florida was going through its recount at the bequest of Gore, some bitter Republican said that Florida was not unique and that Republicans could do the same thing in other states to reverse the results.
I realize now, that was more a threat than a premonition.
And now we're at present day where the Jan 6th Insurrection Committee is doing a great job of connecting dots to show just how concerted and planned it was with all the pieces moving together for one desired goal. It started with the very same elements that were used for the Brooks Brother Riot. It required a mob creating chaos to stop a fair election process. Tomorrow we'll learn from the committee how they stepped it up by trying to force the votes of a fake electorate.
Here is where I throw a word of caution regarding policy by mob rule: I have seen this rallying the troops and storming the Bastille methodology since the nineties. On a local level it happened over a land dispute. The community I lived in was overrun with misinformation, forcing everyone's focus, energy and ire on a developer. And while the public supported the community leaders who most promised to achieve the desired objectives, from my pov, these leaders were opportunists. Not selfless humanitarians. They were people who would have found ways to profit from takings of the developer's property or community common grounds. Some would later find profitable positions in the government or private real estate sector.
I saw this forced policy-by-mob-rule again after 9/11. Most of us know what it was like being ridiculed and bullied by people who were more interested in the flag pin, than they were about following the truth. My husband lost his nephew in the Twin Towers attack so, afterwards, I spent a great deal of time on the online newspaper articles to try to find out what happened. I read a great many articles, especially from the Washington Post. I determined within weeks that the attack came from Saudi Arabia and I told my sister-in-law. She was so despondent that it didn't register. I again mentioned it a few years later, when I thought it was clear that Bush attacked the wrong country and her response was, "At least Bush did something." I didn't have the heart to remind her that Bush put the sons and daughters of many American mothers in harms way. Mothers who unjustifiably lost their soldier children and now shared the same pain that she did. No. I didn't say it, but I hope that others who subscribe to these faux-patriotic mob risings at least think about the possibility that they're being used as useful idiots.
I think it's important to talk about mob rule. And important to show how Republicans rely on confusing people in order to get their way. Sure, there will be people who are lost forever. But right now we're after the undecideds, the middle of the roads. And, as I see it, we're in a Civil War where the bullets are information and bandwidth. We need to keep blasting them with facts and the truth in a war that has no foreseeable end.
Things we can do NOW to protect our children in schools:
I keep harping that Democrats need to run on a safe schools program, and it keeps getting a cricket response. So, let's try again:
(1) Improve school design for public schools, where it's needed. I know some public school are built like fortresses, but not all. Some are built right off major highways where anyone can crash a barrier and run straight to a classroom. Those schools need to be fortified or redesigned. If there is no money in the school system, then it's time to get the money back from private schools. That transfer of public to private tax money is an abomination of the Constitution.
(2) Start now bringing in child psychology experts to explain that the GOP Conservative Anglo-indoctrination Camps that the Right is trying to turn our school into is going to create a lot of maladjusted kids. And with the prevalence of guns, it makes a bad mix. What a fucking right-wing quagmire. Republicans are going to create children with mental health problems, and when they go on a rampage, they'll say it was the mental health problem and not the guns.
Republicans just never think about the consequences of their policies. Or maybe they do. Maybe the reason why they want easy access to guns is because they are arming their people because they know that they can't push their policies on us without a fight? And, horrors of horrors, it never occurred to them that young men would buy those guns and storm schools?
We need to be the ones to protect our children, because Republicans are too compromised to be of any use.
So Ramos was a loner, bullied because of his poverty status. A rant.
And, I'm guessing that the demeaning environment made it too easy for him to drop out of school, making his situation worse.
Not going to defend him, but, this was foreseeable. The Columbine killer was also bullied. Ramos was a child that was left behind, and instead of getting help to rebuild his confidence and try again as an adult to find a productive place in this world, he instead did what this country does best. He purchased a military style weapon because our laws are permissive. And now we have a new massacre on the books.
I want to point out that this was not your ordinary Anglo-incel. This is something else. Maybe he was an incel, since he was aggressive to women, but not the typical White Supremacist type. And this should be a major concern for us because the American school environment is about to get worse for minority children in this country, and others who don't fit the Anglo mold.
I think the schools, in the way that Republicans are trying to change it, are creating a harsh place for non-white, non-conservative children to grow up in. The objective of the Anglo conservative culture has always been to make their perspective, the dominant one. It has confused young white men who are growing up in a world that is growing diverse and doesn't recognize their "birth-right" as the top dogs. Raised by racist parents, no surprised that they grow up believing that all their problems are due to people who do not look like them. Even if they know how absurd this is, they know that they will receive quiet approval from the people who believe like they do. The only people that matter to them.
Ramos suggest a different kind of misadaption, but with the same gruesome results. Young American men are solving identity problems by blasting away at defenseless people. It has now crossed cultural lines.
What we do now can save lives in the future. This should be enough for us to fight for our schools, and fight for our children. Subject material and topics taught in schools matter. Children are getting mixed messages from all sources, but school should no be one of them. We are a diverse country and we need to teach children how to deal with the differences of diversity in a safe school setting. And that includes the issue of poverty, which is what slowly destroyed Ramos.
And poverty isn't insurmountable. My own father was born on the floor of a migrant worker's shack and he still managed to rise up the ranks and reach his full potential. In my father's case, community was everything. The public school teachers in Ohio gave him the tools he needed at the right time in his life. When this country was faced with WWII, he answered the call and this country gave him the opportunity to serve. There was one blatant example of racism in the military, when no one offered to team up with him to put on his pack. Military packs were heavy back then, filled with equipment that today would feel like ironman material, which is why soldiers were taught to use the buddy system. My father just handled it the way he always handled these kind of things. On his own. He devised a way to prop up the pack on his bunk and sat on the ground, with his back to the pack and stood up, sliding into the straps.
The thing is, he would always end these kind of stories with such a positive spin. He would say, "learn to do things for yourself. People will respect you for it." But I don't believe that any more. This is not the kind of culture I would find when it was my turn to come to America. I see a lot of self-interested people coming together for all the wrong reasons, usually in secrecy, and it inevitably undermines the process that is supposed to protect all of us.
I guess my father lived in another time. He would find respect and strength through military service* AND through my mother's family in Panama. Most everyone that I knew in that country overcame some sort of poverty. But community and family kept everyone strong and they helped each other through it. I don't ever remember anyone mocking another for their financial status. There was lots of support for education, and recriminations for those who steered away from the straight and narrow. Family was family.
On the other hand, in America, poverty is mocked and put down, usually by those across the aisle. A double offense, because conservatives are the ones that create the obstacles that will make sure that people remain in poverty. By my observation, it is now creating mental issues in the young, who decide to take things out with guns. So, congratulations conservatives. Another assimilation hurdle conquered.
In sum, we need to go back to the lessons of Columbine and reaffirm anti-bullying programs. But we also need to create an environment in schools that doesn't mock children because they don't fit into the box that Anglo conservative are trying to define as an ideal. We are a diverse country, and the sooner we embrace this reality, the sooner we can raise well-adapted American children.
*After WWII, my father would use the GI Bill to get higher education. He would always remain close to the military, afterwards, working as a civilian for the Army and serving in the Reserves.
Taking one from Tucker who fears his vote will be diluted every time we "import a new voter."
Take into account that this fear that the demographics in this country would one day flip was a common conversation among older white Americans back when I was young. They always feared that one day they would no longer be in the majority. From there, this fear went from the older generation to present day with the replacement theory, which I gather claims that dark skinned people and Jews, are going to replace Anglo-Americans, and particularly, white conservatives.
So, let's break it down further.
Tucker pointed out that he feared that his vote would get diluted every time we "import a new voter." So what he fears is people coming from other countries who know a different way of life, a different value system. Well, we all know that immigrants to this country were once white. And they brought with them a different way of life, a different value system. Somehow, we all made room for those differences and even thrived.
Those earlier immigrants, their grandparents, made the trek across the sea because they were told the streets were lined in gold. How many people know that? But the present day immigrants are coming here because of America's promise of equality and a better way of life. Which seems reasonable. But the reason why conservative white Americans fear them is because they're bringing with them a different way of life, a different value system and most importantly, one that doesn't see White People as a superior race.
This is one of the ironies in America. White conservatives have been battling against the concept of equality for nearly two and a half centuries. It is one of the most fundamental concepts in America. The one that makes America different from all the others. What do you say about that, textualist? Oh, I know what they would say. Equality is only for white people, since the founding fathers were white. You know, if you want to expose textualism as the con-job it is, why don't you start there? If we can convince them that argument doesn't hold true, then everything about the textualist process falls apart like a jenga tower without a foundation.
Anyway, these new arrivals to America do not, or will not comply with the Anglo concept of superiority. Thus, "imported votes" means conservative white Americans are going to have to deal with "uppity" new Americans. That's where we are today.
I think it comes down to the saturation problem they have with assimilation. I am a prime example. I grew up in a very diverse American enclave. The Canal Zone. We all got along. We were all Americans in a foreign land so we were daily reminded of what made us all the same. It was a bonding experience. When I was young, I was everything American. Country girl, hippie, Twyla Tharp dancer, even a hobo on Halloween (easy costume), Emma Peel...(Okay, I admit that sometimes I mixed the British with the American). But the point is, that when you were overseas, there were no lines that divided one kind of American from another.
It was a time when America was truly great. You could just say the words, "I am an American," and it was a passport to better treatment overseas. But back then, America was a kinder, gentler nation to the countries that hosted them. Not so much today, so no one should be surprised that the only thing they see is the ugly American. You know, those kind of American tourists who are so insular in their rural lives (metaphorically speaking) that they don't have the common courtesy or common sense to be civil in a foreign land.
Well, as these things go, they raised children who double-downed, and their kids are following through with the example by not being civil to other Americans in their own land. That's where we are today.
Anyway, I don't know if you can sort out from what I revealed about myself how I formed my first identity. So I guess I'll get to it. When I was living abroad, I knew that I was different from my Panamanian relatives. Unlike them, I related to all things American, including this shameful admission that I grew up thinking that I was white. It almost made sense. I didn't have to check off a box marked "Hispanic" until I applied to go to college in the U.S. In fact, it wasn't until my Senior year in college when I realized I wasn't white, at least not in the sense that America was sorting us out. I wasn't Anglo, which was the difference that kept escaping me, because, let's face it, everything we saw and breathed during the time that I was raised, was Anglo-oriented. You know it's true. It was the time of the white savior, where only the white character had the answers or the brute force and will to change anything. It was a time when Hollywood was casting goodness in a white light as was every other form of media. And, sad to say, they were just reflecting what white American society wanted at that time.
So, maybe I can be forgiven for my early identify confusion. I put it together in my Senior year of college when I volunteered to work in the school counselor's office. I was asked to compile the stats for the student body based on race. That's when I saw on paper, what was very apparent to the eye. My college's composition of white to minority student was 98 to 2 percent. But that's not the part where the light went on. The light went on when I found that I had to put myself down in the Hispanic section. The counselor may have even said, "Don't forget to include yourself."
It was a strange swing of emotions, because that was the moment I saw myself through someone else's eyes. And it wasn't the being an Hispanic part that was the problem. After only a few years away from home, I was already discovering the gift that comes with being bi-cultured. There is a hidden strength that comes from good memories from people who loved you and expressed their kindness and goodness in a different language than English. So, no, it wasn't that. It was that I realized in that moment, that I was being viewed and judged in a way that made me feel less than what I was.
I don't think that anyone who knew me back then, could have pictured how I would turn out after my years of fumbling to find my place in America. Bottom line, I never did find that place. I know that I probably won't be alive by the time America finally meets its promise of equality. But, what's important to know now is that I began to stop assimilating to the fraudulent version of America at some point in the nineties. That's when I stopped viewing the conservative white culture as an ideal that I aspired to be a part of. I couldn't see it before because the Hispanic culture is basically conservative. And some basic conservative choices in life are cross-cultural. But, then in the nineties, the hate talk began. That's when I found myself the lone voice in the room speaking up for minorities and heard comments like, "Why do you keep defending them. You're not Hispanic!"
And that should catch in your throat, given everything we're seeing about the Right's next move. Going back to Tucker's comment, about having his vote diluted, isn't it interesting that the conservative Supreme Court provided a fix for it? Now they're going to force women to breed voters for them, to fill in the shortfall. They will have a chance to indoctrinate them into their conservative Anglo-culture. The one that I rejected. And, guys, it isn't going to matter to them if they adopt Hispanic or black babies. They are going to get the first run to indoctrinate them into respecting their white dominance. What happened to me occurred by chance. Though it was a painful education, I don't regret what I went through because I have always valued truth and I prefer living in America with my eyes wide open, than feeling like I have to whittle away at my principles in order to be accepted by people who are too afraid to make waves against a toxic environment that is taking over this country.
But, it was a transition that I could make because my basic core was established in another time, with parents and aunts and uncles who gave me a strong foundation to work from. These babies that are going to be chatteled off to conservatives who long to protect a racist way of life they've grown accustom to; and their twisted perspective of good and evil, using religion to remove the power and rights from people they don't like...those chattled babies don't stand a chance.
What the conservatives plan to do to the next generation is social engineering. It's almost in Mengele territory, without the scalpel.
So, Tucker. I hear you. But, you see, I protest this move to chattel the next generation before they're even born, because the intention to indoctrinate them into a way of life adverse to my own, well, that will dilute MY vote.
Man, it's like the South really did rise again.
So, what does everyone think of my new sig line?
Does it make my butt look too big?
Seriously though, it doesn't happen often, but I think this one is for the times.
"It's a poor academic who does not take human suffering into account. The conservative Supremes can extrapolate abstract concepts to the moon, but the flaw in their reasoning will become apparent when people start turning blue in the face from the lack of oxygen."
Is the pattern clear enough to start suing the right-wing nuts for inciting violence on
innocent people? I mean, how more clear can it be? It's like the early days when drunk drivers got away with killing people with their cars. So many got away with next to nothing. MADD arrived, the laws changed and the number of incidents just dropped.
So, why can't we have a massive campaign to stop people from killing for hate? And it should begin with getting people off platforms where they can incite others to violence.
Ha! Trump's America First program is being blamed for the baby food shortage.
His trade agreement created shortages because his deal prevents us from importing it from other countries. Our shortage was caused by a recall of Similac due to a defective product. And now Trump's deal has kept us from backfilling the shortfall from Canada, for example, who has a surplus of the baby food.
Editing to add that we all know why Trump didn't write in a stopgap measure to account for shortfalls in supplies. It's because Republicans don't believe in safety nets. LOL!
Major Rant: I'm sure someone mentioned this before, but imbalances in US income is creating
oligarchs in this country. As I see them, they're people who have the money and power to influence political decisions in this country without having to actually run for office. No wonder the young are disillusioned. Especially during this time when climate change needs our attention, and the young are sensing the futility of their situation. Now, more than ever, we need to come up with a plan that we can all agree on. If nothing else, let's come together for the sake of the young, so they can inherit a better world than the Republicans are setting them up to get stuck with.
Of course, exchanging ideas on how we're going to do it, I have no idea. I can just share observations that should make a difference.
For starters, we should agree that any policy that increases the wealth gap is putting this country in a precarious situation. I have said it in another thread when I was talking about socialism. The fear of socialism was the issue that won South Florida for the Republicans. (i.e. Don't vote for the socialist!) They exploited it with great skill. But they looked at it from the usual point of view. They saw it from the point of the stingy taxpayer.
Here's the other pov: Socialism was an idea that came about because of the huge income disparity between the very poor and the very wealthy. On top of that, the poor were in the largest percentage of the population. We'll say, 90% compared to the top 10%. So, the one quick conclusion is that Socialism occurred as an attempt to alleviate suffering.
No argument here that it was not successful when used as the only governmental relief policy/program. But that's a subject for another day. What I do want to point out is our dilemma. And that is, that income disparity eventually destabilizes a society. You can either try to alleviate the problem, or create chaos so that people can't focus on productive fixes.
People, like De Santis, have chosen to create chaos in order to distract us and obstruct the change that can improve everyone's lives. And his reasons are very simple: As long as people like him have access to cheap labor, their worlds continue at a high level of enjoyment. Cheap labor and cheap products. THAT's their real objective. And meanwhile, our country continues to get destabilized because of income inequality.
America is going to be a continual challenge for Republicans. People are getting smarter about their personal value. We can thank Covid for that. Republicans are finally forced to see that hourly wages are too low, and people have decided it wasn't worth dying over.
I know the next step is for Democrats to organize the workers, but here is the most puzzling thing about living in America. Everyone on DU knows how to fix this problem: Raise wages and provide a good health plan to the workers. But Republicans do everything they can to stop it, for one simple reason: They want access to cheap labor. It's the only way they can live in the reckless manner they have grown accustom to.
And here goes my rant as I begin a little comparative study from the experience I gathered from living in Panama. Back in the 60s-70s, most of the Panamanians still had few means to good, steady income. The US presence in the Canal Zone was helping to change that by providing a civil service and military market that had disposable income. Living side by side was an education. We Americans would drive in and off the base, each time riding along a military fence that separated the two countries. I lived in an area where you had to drive past the poorest section of Panama to get to our schools. It was a place we called Hollywood. An inside joke, which, doesn't seem so funny any more.
The poor lived in hovels made out of a patchwork of discarded trash. Pieces of zinc were valued, as was wood. But too many had walls made out of cardboard. These homes were simple one bedroom contraptions no bigger than many people's bedrooms in America. And they were built on stilts to keep the houses protected from the creek that ran through Hollywood, which would flood during the rainy season.
The water in the creek was always an opaque clay color. For drinking water someone from the family would walk across a pathway made of boards, which looked like a flimsy catwalk, to get to a potable faucet. One faucet for a community of about 75. Oh! And I remember some would repurpose kerosene cans to collect the water!
In the dry season, they would organize games on the flat area that ran up to the military fence that separated us. I saw all of this as I grew up, and for the most part, the repetition desensitized us. It was our reality. They lived in poverty on the other side of the fence. We would watch seconds of their games as our bus drove past them. They were always busy. Either playing soccer with a ball with loose threads, stick ball, or flying small kites made out of Christmas wrapping paper, string and thin stems from palm leaves. (I know, because my uncle made one for me.) Oh, and the tails were always long, made out of ripped cloth bits. It was quite a vibrant community.
But now that I'm older, I see something that I never considered before. This kind of destitution must have served a purpose, or there would have been more action, more resources to fix the social problems. And now I think that it comes down to the cost of labor. In Panama, it was incredibly cheap. And paying people pennies for their labor, does improve your own standard of living.
I did see one major change from one generation of my relatives to the other. When I was very young, my Tias and Tios were people who knew how to actually do things with their hands. Many times my Tios would join in with the laborers and lead the projects. My Tias knew everything about maintaining a ranch AND still had careers in the community. Feminists in their actions, but ultra-conservative in every other way.
The next generation, my generation, I saw a drastic change. Most of the people my age that I have had a chance to really get to know, believe manual labor is for the uneducated. If you mention gardening or building things with your hands they respond, "I get someone else to do that for me." And it's a thing of pride to them. I just have to say, it's a good thing we have youtube videos, because eventually they're going to have to learn to do something.
But, going back to the cost of labor, there was one thing in my father's generation that was an illumination about the relationship between the rich and the poor. It involved the concept of cash tips. My parent's generation never understood the concept. My Tios and Tias, especially. They would feed their workers lunch and offer drinks, and they would fill grocery bags with canned food and used clothes when the workers were ready to go home, but tipping? Nope.
One day my father and my uncle had to kill some time for an appointment. They decided to get their shoes shined by a young lad who was on the street. It was a 15 cent shoe shine. My dad gave the kid a quarter and told him to keep the change. My uncle gave him a quarter and asked for his dime back. My dad asked him why he didn't just give him the whole quarter and my uncle responded, "No, porque se acostumbren." No Because they'll expect it. (Or, they'll get accustom to it.)
See, this is how I think Republicans respond to the labor force. They talk up tip inducements, but the reality is, their employers do everything they can to get workers to work for nothing. The situation becomes so bad that the workers walk, leave; and all Republicans can do is call them lazy. But this pattern is creating an inequity in our country that can lead to the very destabilization that has occurred in third world countries.
I just wish people who are dealing with income issues would just get smart enough to realize which party is reality based, and actually on their side. And stop helping Republicans degrade everyone around them, because, disparaging people may feel like you have it all together, but we see it as a desperate attempt to deflect from the fact that the Republicans have no new ideas, except to stir up support to throw everyone else off the lifeboat. Eventually, they'll get to you.
I think we can see what comes next for Republicans. They're deep in a hostile take-over of this country. Or, at least trying to. So the next time they cry, "Socialist!" it's because they don't want you to see what they're really up to,
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