The Mason Missile, July 23, 2021

Greetings, Americans! The assaults on our democracy go on, with the passage of restricting voting laws going through Republican-dominated state legislatures, including Pennsylvania. I commend the Democrats of the Texas legislature, who exiled themselves to Washington to prevent a quorum from voting on the voting-restriction bills. (https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/12/texas-democrats-voting-bill-quorum/) Governor Greg Abbot has threatened to arrest these legislators if they come back to the state; but they’re national heroes, and I commend them. This was a bold action, and we must take bold action to stand for the essential right to vote; take that vote away, and we lose all the others. This is what the late, great John Lewis, congress-member from Georgia and one of the heroes of the Civil-Rights struggle meant when he said, “Get into good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” (https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/john-lewis-quotes/?template=next) The idea against popularly-based democracy in this nation has a long history-the idea that a minority must have veto power over the majority. During the drafting of the Constitution in 1797-in Philadelphia-southern states know that, as they were an agricultural society, and the northern states were more heavily populated, any popular vote would turn against them, and the northern states could end up voting against the slavery system, while-this was the real danger to the slave system-slaves could united with poor white and overturn the dominance of the planter class-and the planter class tried to model itself on the noble classes of Europe, which still dominated their societies-but their dominance was starting to slip away. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, one of the great statesmen of the period between the war of 1812 and just before the Civil War-one of the “Great Triumvirate” alongside of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Calhoun, in his posthumous book Disquisition of Government, promoted the idea of “concurrent majorities.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_majority) This is the idea that a majority of interests groups in a nation, and not the majority of the population as a whole, vote on an issue to approve it. This idea was used during the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833, when he was against the Tariff of 1828, the “Tariff of Abominations.” Calhoun used the idea of Concurrent Majorities to make any federal tariff not apply in South Carolina if the legislature did not approve of it. (https://www.ushistory.org/us/24c.asp) The opposition to democracy, once skimming around the fringe of our politics with lip service to “democracy,” is crawling out of the political woodwork and into the political mainstream. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) said of this country “We’re not a democracy,” and later, ““Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity (sic) are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.” (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-lee-democracy/democracy-isnt-the-objective-republican-u-s-senator-draws-democrats-ire-idUSKBN26T2YX And again, from Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky): “The idea of democracy and majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for,” and “The Jim Crow laws came out of democracy. That’s what you get when the majority ignores the rights of others.” (https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rand-paul-latest-gop-question-democracy-majority-rule-n1270697) (I’m dating myself here: I remember the administration of Richard Nixon, when, as he expanded the Viet Nam War into Cambodia, he asked for support from the “vast silent majority” of Americans. The Republicans right has always used the argument of “We’re the majority of Americans, and we don’t care about your issues” as a way of evading the problems of racial discrimination, LGBTQ oppression, the environment, etc. they’re for the majority when it’s convenient for them, but they know now they’re becoming less and less a majority.) Ruling elites have tried, and still try, to find some rationale for negating or vetoing any popular effort for social reform. This is the idea behind the shit-ass “fiction” and “philosophy” of Ayn Rand: The Superior Man-always a man to Rand-is a billionaire resisting his “inferiors” in telling him how he should run his business, no matter what damage he does to his workers, the local community, or the environment; and he, the Superior Man, presents himself as the person being oppressed. (It’s an old story, of a once-dominant group passing itself off as an “oppressed minority.”) Race and ethnicity enter into this mix, and further “scientific” excuse could be formulated to justify further social inequality affecting all of the lower classes, of all races and ethnicities. From what we have seen in the past several decades, from Reagan through the t---p takeover of the Republican Party, corporate moguls and their political serfs, left by themselves, do NOT have the interests of the American public at heart; by indulging them like a bratty kids they are (I have ZERO respect for them), they have turned the federal treasury into their own personal piggy bank to tap into when their “free market” turns sour on them, as with the S&L bailout of 1990 to the Federal reserve’s loans to the mortgage companies after the 2008 Crash-and the general public, us working and low-income people, and still struggling with food, mortgage payments, and medical bills. Let’s stop falling for the bullshit! We must and will come together and make our elected officials know our grievances are real and our cause is just. Along with that, we will continue to educate ourselves on the issues, formulate solutions, and communicate our beliefs. The ruling elites portray working and low-income people as racist, ignorant, and only interested in the hottest video games; let’s give them one rude awakening. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! America will be free! Bye!

The Billionaire Space Race

Another billionaire-Jeff Bezos, formerly of Amazon-has launched himself into space, with his own personal space program, Blue Origin. This is what he has stent his billions on, rather than paying his workers a decent salary or improved their oppressive working conditions. He followed Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, whose missile-plane by his space program Virgin Galactic just skimmed the Atmosphere bordering the Stratosphere. Following him will be Elon Musk of Tesla, with his program, SpaceX. The whole premise of “supply-side economics,” a reboot of the historically discredited laissez faire, is that if we, the American people through our government, give corporations and wealthy people everything they want-grants, tax breaks, the “relaxation” of rules for environmental protection, consumer protection, and workers’ safety (read, total elimination), among others- and the profits these corporations will-somehow-seep down to the lower classes; and we are expected to have faith in our capitalist class that they would take care of the rest of us. (https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax) We see the results now of this faith-based economic scheme: the wealthiest Americans sock their savings away in off-shore tax havens and continue to purchase the most outrageously expensive luxury goods-such as their own space programs-and corporations, instead of hiring more workers and investing in new equipment, move their manufacturing to impoverished countries that have scant protections for workers, and governments that are willing to repress their own citizens. Instead of trickling down, the money is going up into space, and remaining with the dominant one percent. No more, please, of this adulation of billionaires who attained their billions from gouging workers and consumers. We must continue to organize, in our workplaces and our neighborhoods, for our lives and our rights; our consciousness and our numbers are our superpower.

The Mason Moment, July 12, 2021

I speak about the upcoming Delta variant of the COVID virus, the appeasement by Republicans of the virus denialists, neo-fascists, and religious cranks, the voter-restriction laws in legislatures, and billionaires going into space.

Stand Up For Voting!

During the audit of the voting machines in Maricopa County, Arizona-to hunt for non-existent voting fraud, and to find more votes for t---p that weren’t there-a delegation of Republican legislators from Pennsylvania went to observe the whole silly (but dangerous) business of the audit, which ruined the voting machines and the county would have to get new ones. (Genius move, NOT.) State Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin County) has demanded from three Pennsylvania counties-Philadelphia, Tioga, and York-to submit to a similar “audit” of their votes, which would cost millions of dollars and raise questions as to who would do the “audit.” Attorney-General Josh Shapiro called it a “partisan fishing expedition” and urged the counties not to go along with it. (https://apnews.com/article/pa-state-wire-pennsylvania-elections-election-2020-government-and-politics-cf7cfe0566c9ef47489d7ecef88165f5?mc_cid=f8e3240d9c&mc_eid=1a031a046f) (https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/a-sham-pennsylvania-ag-torches-state-gop-s-push-for-arizona-style-election-audit/) Mastiano, by the way, is an ally of t---p, and intends to run in the republican primary in 2022 for Pennsylvania Governor, seeking the votes of t---pist MAGA crowd. This is the crowd that participated in and supported the raid on January 6 into the Capitol, with the idea of-somehow- overturning the will of the people who voted for Joe Biden. That disqualifies Mastriano right there: he believes that the MAGA freaks are the REAL American people and he must go after their votes, therefore, he’s feeding into the “voter-fraud” myth, utilizing such far-right media as Steve Bannon’s podcast and OANN. Americans, it’s past high time for us to educate ourselves on the real issues the country faces, like gun violence, workers working for poverty wages (and still requiring public assistance), universal health care (especially with the COVID still out there), and infrastructure needing serious upgrades. Then, we organize, and we get out there and vote, and never allow some gang of punks and thugs-be they armed MAGA-heads or state legislators-to intimidate us. The future of our country demands we do so.