DO YOU DREAM?

While Europe deals with a second wave and the US never left the first one, the pandemic is basically non-existent in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia, and even the country where it began. Western democracies have done a piss-poor job at addressing the pandemic and I think this is something that needs to be seriously looked at.

sometimes, often times, people in positions of vast wealth and power are complete, absolute fucking idiots

musk has decided that he likes the image of the genius scientist

but he is not responsible for the labors of his engineers

this is a man who tried to sell us all on the idea of the hyperloop, despite it being pointed out over and over and over by expert after expert after expert that it was completely and totally 100% unfeasible as a transit system because its carrying capacity is vastly too low for the size of the infrastructure commitment and its ridiculous cost

this is a man who greenlit sending a car into space without even sanitizing it first, which is standard practice for space programs around the world to avoid the potential of destroying undiscovered microorganism ecosystems on other celestial bodies

this is a man who got himself investigated by the fucking SEC because he tried to manipulate his own damn stock prices for the sake of a fucking weed joke

this is a man in his weird super long mid life crisis calling himself a fucking "meme necromancer" to try to be a cool kid

the man is a fucking idiot. buying himself the title of "chief engineer" does not magically grant him engineering ability or knowledge

buying a company with daddys blood money does not make him a competent or savvy CEO

tesla is a nightmare company for potential investors

My European Studies professor decided a few weeks ago to take a Friday and instead of following the syllabus, he spent the entire hour and a half comparing Hitler’s actions from a European perspective to that of what Trump is doing in America. He never repeated a single point, and even used video and photos like this to show the comparison.

To make things better, he had us do an in class assignment for participation points. He first played a clip on youtube of one of Hilter’s speeches, subtitled and 3 minutes long. He then played a clip of one of Trump’s rallies. Our assignment? Copy down every single sentence that matched in translation down on a sheet of paper or a word document that wasn’t repeated. The person with the closest amount to what my professor found got a candy bar.

My professor found, in just three minutes of a speech, that Trump matched 65 different phrases/sentences to that of Hitler’s translation. 

Abolish the death penalty.

End cash bail as it disproportional punishes the poor.

End cocaine sentencing disparity as racist

Eliminate mandatory minimums

Scrap past marijuana convictions

Eliminate private prisons

Raise minimum wage to 15$/hour

Supports a government mandated 12 weeks of paid family leave for all workers

Two years of college free

Expand student debt forgiveness, including 10K of forgiveness for all student loans and complete forgiveness for all undergraduate loans from 2 and 4 year public colleges and universities, and other loan forgiveness and payment reduction plans.

Eliminate funding gap for k-12 schools based on location (essentially between white and non white/poor and non poor division) with specific first steps outlined to do so.

Increase teacher pay, especially in underfunded schools (poor and POC schools)

Plan outlined to get us back in on the Paris agreement and goal of switching to clean energy by 2035 with first steps specified.

Supports voluntary gun buyback (similar programs have had huge success in reducing gun violence in other countries)

Supports firearm registry

Supports universal background checks for fire arm purchase

Supports huge expansions of medicare and the creation of a public run health insurance option that everyone is automatically enrolled in if they lose other coverage. You would also be able to use this free option if you did not want to use employer coverage. He has moved left in a huge way since the pandemic came into full swing but most people just ignore it. There is a good chance that by the time we get to the point of implementation he could just go medicare for all.

Citizenship for dreamers (DACA)

Outlined steps for increasing the quality of life, access to resources, and autonomy of disabled people, including expansion and strict enforcement of non discrimination policies

Universal hazard pay for “front line” workers during the pandemic

Specific first steps outlined for reducing systematic LGBTQ discrimination

Large increase of taxes on the wealthy, including a direct wealth tax and increasing taxes on corporations, with short term proposals in place that include undoing much of the damage done by trump.

You will notice that a lot of these positions can be described as halfway progressive. As in they move in the right direction but stop short of the ultimate goal. Sure, we didn’t win the primary and get a truly progressive candidate in, but the strong showing of progressive ideals during the primary means that we strong armed the democrat party into compromising with us. We forcibly moved the Overton window significantly left, imagine if we did this election after election! We could force real change regardless of the presidential candidate that is ultimately chosen.

We are slowly winning, but in order for it to stick we have to demonstrate that progressives will reward the shift in our direction. We absolutely need to vote Biden in, as well as support democrats in the senate, congress, and local levels. We need to prove that progressives are a powerful political group that can make promises and deliver to those who compromise with us. This is critical for the long term viability of progressive politics.

“Compass” means “this is the general direction I want to go. This is my ultimate goal.” Such as “ending the school-to-prison pipeline.” 

“Navigational” means “the steps I take to get there.” One might be “defund the police.” A different one might be “abolish private and for-profit prisons.” Another might be “universal basic income.” Or any combination of those.

You may not care for Biden’s navigational statements, but the point is the compass statements. Is he going in the right direction? Does he want basically what you want? Then you vote for him. Because you know the Orange Cockwomble IS NOT going in that direction.

“I MISSED THE FISH SHIITTTTTT”