Month: June 2021

How many times must Charley Brown have the football pulled by Lucy before he gets wise and takes his football home? Apparently, this is something Sisyphean that keeps on looping forever, like a GIF. Since Peanuts is on eternal reruns, Charley Brown will never learn his lesson.

Democrats are the equivalent of Charley Brown. They keep expecting Republicans to be rational and to accept the proffered hand of bipartisanship, since getting things done is obviously more important than partisan politics. And time after time, Lucy in the form of the Republican party pulls the football away, showing where the Republican priorities are. If you can envision Mitch McConnell as Lucy, it humanizes him (slightly).

So now we are in the waning days of the greatest pandemic the world has seen since the flu epidemic of 1918. At least, waning in this country as we have rolled out vaccines early here, a byproduct of our affluence. Now all those who are freeloading off of the reduced transmission of the virus (freeloading via their refusal to get vaccinated) will feel emboldened to proclaim that the whole incident of the pandemic was an overwrought hoax, and certainly did not call for the abridgements of freedoms that wearing a mask represented. Those poor snowflakes on the right were completely undone by having to wear a flimsy cotton or paper covering on their faces.

The entire world has seen economic damages exceeding even the human toll of the disease. Billions have lost income, and it was only in those countries where it was possible to borrow money, that enough income could be replaced to keep the economy alive. Elsewhere in the world, economic disruption has been severe. Remember India, where at the onset of the crisis, millions of laborers had to walk back to their homes due to imposed restrictions? Even in the US, we heard about those who starved to death on these forced migrations.

So what we should have learned through this experience was how interdependent we have become. Our economy does not function if we do not have adequate child care enabling many to participate in the labor force. This is one of the new infrastructures we have constructed over the recent decades, and the latest legislative proposals reflect this human interdependence. Republicans, though, do not acknowledge the changes in the world they have brought forth. According to them, if you cannot build it, it is not infrastructure. And they would rather see bridges fall into the Mississippi River than even consider the need to raise taxes to prevent such occurrences.

Those who are unable to adjust to changing conditions will find themselves going extinct. We see this in the animal kingdom, where creatures who inhabit a small niche, are not able to withstand the disturbance of that niche.  It may be a small darter found in a single section of  stream, or a song bird using a specific tree species, or an insect battered by removal of its habitat and the onslaught of pesticides applied indiscriminately. Within humanity itself, groups who find it impossible to adjust to changing conditions, may also face extinction. Unfortunately, for humanity, those who are cornered often are at their most dangerous. This seems to be the fate of Republicans in the US where the knowledge of their upcoming obsolescence has led to an existential battle to retain the levers of political power. They use their power in state legislatures to rig the election process to give themselves an incremental boost in election results. Enough, perhaps, to overcome the demographic surge they fear so much. If they can retain enough power through this decade, then they may be able to elect a real capable autocrat who understands how power works, and this façade of democracy can finally be done away with.

The need to prevent this erosion of our liberties is why it is so critical to reform the electoral process. All Democratic Senators must understand that it is folly to expect Lucy to keep the football on the tee so they can kick it down the field. Instead, they say just enough good things to keep Charley Brown running forward, knowing full well they will pull the ball back and enjoy watching Charley Brown land on his butt once more. In this case, it is vital to reform the rules of the game so that one side cannot gain an insurmountable edge. If we don’t take advantage of the disruption caused by the pandemic, we will forever be falling on our butts in the future. And we will deserve it.