More Bill Murray, Less Glover Cleveland
2023-11-10
Dear friend,
Happy Veterans Day!
Veterans Day is a day to thank and honor all those who served honorably in the military. That's in wartime or peacetime, both active and retired.
One way I'd like to honor those who are putting their lives on the line today is with some frank talk about politics.
Are you paying attention to the 2024 election yet? With the Republican candidates bickering and Joe Biden flickering, I can't ignore the signs in the news that Trump looks likely to return to the Oval Office.
Legal trouble? It only seems to strengthen his appeal to voters, even though the media keeps telling us that it could go the other way, any time now. The indictments didn't faze Trump voters, but a conviction will?
New York Times: "Trump Indictments Haven't Sunk His Campaign, but a Conviction Might." Better luck next time!
How do you feel about this?
I don't feel good, but I don't think it's even about the matchup and how the media talks down to us.
It feels like we're having the same election, over and over, with worse and worse polarization every time. It feels like U.S. history is playing out as a mashup of "Groundhog Day" and cable news.
"I'd like to say a prayer and drink to world peace."
National leaders are in a stalemate on the issues that matter, like immigration, energy, and climate. Neither major party has a strategy to reduce the national debt, instead skirmishing on less-important points like which global conflicts to send billions to.
Ukraine's top general recently acknowledged that their defense against the Russian invasion is at a stalemate. Yet it seems like to be faithful to Ukraine we can't even talk about diplomacy and settling for peace. Husbands and sons and wives and daughters being are being sent out as cannon fodder in Ukraine, and yet we're not supposed to talk about Zelenskyy putting off elections and throttling the press.
Why is the New York Times spinning a Russian advance as bad for Russia? Seems just like blind media allegiance to the Second Iraq War.
As a state-level Representative, I usually talk about Vermont issues, not foreign policy. But it would be irresponsible to not talk clearly about the consequences I see locally.
As much as it doesn't seem to matter with how we can print money (which disproportionately taxes the poor via inflation), our foreign policy is draining our federal coffers of money that we need here in Vermont.
Buried in a good-news article in September about $4 billion in federal aid refilling FEMA's coffers is this note about requests made by Vermont's federal delegation going unanswered:
FEMA’s disaster relief fund offers aid for public infrastructure and private property damaged by natural disasters. Shortly after this summer’s most severe floods struck Vermont in July, Biden approved a major disaster declaration for the state, which opened the door to those FEMA dollars.
In a joint statement Friday, Vermont’s congressional delegation — U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., as well as U.S. Rep. Becca Balint — said they were encouraged by Biden’s new request for another $4 billion to FEMA.
Still, replenishing FEMA’s coffers will not make Vermont whole. Numerous requests to the White House made by the delegation earlier this summer went unanswered in the president’s proposed supplemental budget.
President Biden is trying to get more billions to President Zelenskyy and to Prime Minister Netanyahu while Vermont is being told "there's not enough."
This might not show up in obvious ways. If I were FEMA, I wouldn't advertise that I was running short on money. That would harm my boss's treasured Ukraine policy.
If I were FEMA and I knew we were short on money but I didn't want to draw attention to it, one option I'd have dole out a lot of aid, while also denying as many claims as possible on technicalities.
Lo and behold, one Wilmington, Vermont farm reports being denied FEMA assistance for tens of thousands in damages. Why? A technicality -- flood maps haven't been revised since Tropical Storm Irene.
It's going to take FEMA a lot of "technicalities" like this to stay within the agency's wartime budget.
The $4 billion was good news, but the unanswered requests are not.
This is disappointing, but it's not surprising.
Big defense contractors like Bechtel and Raytheon have learned how to make money off the American taxpayer year after year. We get into wars -- they make money. We rebuild -- they make money.
We're told that prospects for world peace are hopeless, because "they've been fighting like this for generations."
True. If we continue to see the planet as a group of invading forces who aren't to be trusted, we'll continue to get headlines that confirm it.
We don't have to accept this. I believe that we can do better. We know that humans are capable of better dialogue than what we see geopolitically.
Why are we stuck with wars? One reason is that they cement the power of a certain kind of leader -- the warlord. War leaders tell us the world's a tough place -- it's a good thing we have a tough leader.
It works for the mafia and it works for a certain kind of world leader.
What never gets tried by these war-oriented leaders is to ignore the moneyed interests, and to gain strength through listening to the people and through building trust.
I forget -- how does Bill Murray escape the Groundhog Day loop in the movie? If I recall right, things start clicking for him when he starts:
-- listening to other people and really getting to know them
-- showing up for his friends
-- playing around, brightening up the world
-- controlling how he shows up while letting go of controlling outcomes
-- putting other people first before himself
-- being willing to admit a mistake, and adjust
-- being wiling to build connections with people who were previously written off
I'd love to see more of that in politics -- at any level.
Those are some of my thoughts. Thanks for reading! What are yours? How are you marking Veterans Day?
warm regards,
Tristan Roberts
Quill Nook Farm
P.S. There are 16 tickets remaining for our day-after-Thanksgiving farm tour: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/farm-history-tour-tickets-752696564687?aff=oddtdtcreator Free event with donations going to the new roof for the Halifax Historical Society.
