[Photo: Michelle Obama at Harris’ Kalamazoo rally 10/26/2024. Clipped from ABC News]
By Rowan Wolf
I’ll keep this short. Please watch Michelle Obama rip open the question many have been asking – Why is this election even close?
By Rowan Wolf
There is a long-running argument that government should be run like a business, and/or a businessman would be a better President than a politician. This is based upon the (faulty) belief that business is more “efficient” than the government (or public servants). This is also what at least 50 years of efforts by Republicans (and the forces driving them) to undermine faith in all levels of government, the public sector, and voting. The goal has been to disenfranchise the public as the fewer people participating, the smaller the block they must coordinate in order to gain power and keep it. But motivation for promoting the belief in the efficacy of “business” and the “wisdom” of the leaders thereof, is not the primary issue here. My focus is to talk about the peculiarities of the public sector and government, and the lies promoting the belief in business.
[Photo: Long Road Ahead (Death Valley, Ca. by Jon Rawlinson. ]
By Rowan Wolf
I was recently given a terminal diagnosis and told that I have about 6 months to live. As you might imagine, this has set off a firestorm of emotions and a lengthy evaluation of my life and what to do with the time I have left whether that be the estimated six months or hopefully longer. But even before this, especially with the election of Trump in 2016, was the deep sadness of decades of effort by millions of people to advance the causes dear to my heart – justice, equality, and protecting our beautiful planet – was being deliberately destroyed. Now I look forward and see not only how much of my personal goals have been left incomplete, but how much has been undone by forces with a far different agenda than mine. Even worse, we are running backward and cherished gains and dreams are being ripped up and thrown aside. I wanted to save the world (or at least make it better). Instead, I’m leaving it in even worse shape.
[Photo: JD Vance by Gage Skidmore, flickr (CC-BY-SA 2.0 Gage Skidmore)]
By Rowan Wolf
This is a “must watch” by Rachel Maddow regarding JD Vance’s ideological influences and support. It will make you rethink Trump’s choice of Vance as his VP, and the plans for the country and Vance’s role in it. Talk about a Manchurian candidate.
[Photo: Kodi Lee on AGT Fantasy League 2024.]
By Rowan Wolf
In my experience, messages that uplift me most often come from unexpected places. That was no truer than when I was watching AGT Fantasy League the other night. In a previous season, a multiply disabled musician had won the show and was back in the first qualifying round of fantasy league. It is amazing enough when someone can face numerous challenges to follow their path. However, on that night he performed a song that he had written. I clipped his presentation and added the lyrics so folks can sing along if they wish. Please follow this link to the song: Kodi Lee, “Change“.
Rowan Wolf, PhD
I am a sociologist, writer and activist with life-long engagement in social justice, peace, environmental, and animal rights movements. My research and writing include issues of imperialism, oppression, global capitalism, peak resources, global warming, and environmental degradation. I taught sociology for twenty-two years, was a member of the City of Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force, and maintain my own site Uncommon Thought Journal. I may be reached by email at [email protected]. On a personal note, I am also a survivor of pulmonary hypertension by the gift of a donor’s lungs in 2011. I do my best to honor that gift by trying to be my best self and give to the world what small gifts I have. Among those is a deep passion for life, and the lives of all those with whom I share the planet.