I seriously doubt that most voters in Georgia really, truly believe that Hillary Clinton, who has spent her adult life working to improve education for children and lifestyles for women is behind a child sex trafficking scheme accompanied by Satanic pedophiles and cannibals. I doubt that most Georgians could even identify George Soros, the world-wide philanthropist and fighter for Democratic elections in obscure and dangerous places around the world. Yet, Kelly Loeffler spends a great deal of time with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who is said to believe and promote this kind of nonsense against both grandma Clinton and Grandpa Soros. in other words, they believe in the total nonsense called QAnon. And they want your vote.
QAnon is a vile, evil, fantasy of some Pro-Right Wing Republican, pro-Trump posters on the Internet. The whole thing is a foolish, idiotic and dangerous scam designed to take the nuttiest among us to another level of absolute craziness. The problem is, however, that kooks exist in society today who believe such rot, and they act on them. One was arrested for attempting to assassinate Joe Biden last year. Another man, Edgar Maddison Welch, of North Carolina, became so mentally involved in the “conspiracy” that he traveled all the way to D.C. to enter the modest little retail location called the Comet Ping-Pong Pizzeria and used his AR-15 to spray bullets all over the place, thankfully hitting no customers or workers. He went to prison for three years.
So QAnon is not some mild little fairy tale told on an obscure part of the Internet to children and teenagers. It is a dangerously wild and illegitimate story told to ignorant citizens and sold by politicians, like Greene, who spread it around to get some of the morons in society. She callously, in my opinion uses it to promote her candidacy. And by taking Greene with her on her campaign, Kelly Loeffler is condoning and helping to promote it, just as she helps to promote the idea that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election. Her actions border on treasonous.
Unfortunately for voters, there are only two sides in Georgia. There is the side that promotes the kinds of Republican legislators who will not stand up to ridiculous, false, and dangerous stories and tactics, worse than usual political propaganda or slurs, because it is dangerous. Then there is the other side, which is the Democratic side, which spends every day fighting this rubbish fighting against “fake news” like Newsmax, and acknowledged Right Wing propaganda site, or OAN, the phony news network conjured up and put on the Internet by the billionaires of the Council for National Policy. Of course, there are dozens and dozens of other Right Wing outlets, many continuing the fantasy, the outright lie, that Trump won the election.
So, let’s stop for a minute and ask the question, what have the Democrats done for you lately? The bigger question is perhaps, what have the Republicans done–against–you lately? The point is this. For some reason, probably the power of the media owned by giant corporations, like Comcast and AT&T, Americans aren’t told the truth constantly, or they would NEVER vote Republican again. Do Americans know that Donald J TRump and Mitch McConnell and the Right Wing Republicans, paid by the billionaires and the corporations that they own, have cut $1 trillion from the 2021 health care budget? Do people know that they intend to cut Medicaid, raising the cost of medical care for everyone else? Do they know that they intend to cut Medicare by paying less to doctors–which means doctors will begin to charge non-Medicare patients more, and will mean higher costs in monthly insurance rates and co-pays for seniors who have “medigap” insurance?
Do you have private insurance? Did you know the Republicans, under Mitch McConnell increased your co-pays and that is the reason you have high insurance costs, even though your corporation pays half. (Of course, if you are laid off or lose your job, you can get COBRA, which means you pay ALL of your health insurance. And even that is only good fof 18 months. So you better get a job, any job, fast, if you have a previous medical condition of any kind. Of course this is all only if you vote Republican. If you vote Democratic, your Obamacare will gradually go down; you will keep Medicaid; your Medicare will either stay the same or go down; and your ability to find good healthcare insurance on the open market will get better and better. But that’s just health care.
What about jobs and the ability to pay the rent? Well, Nancy Pelosi and every Democratic Senator, tried to get each and every person knocked off the employment rolls by Covid-19 a check for regular unemployment plus $600. It’s a lot of money to the government, but the people who pay for the ads for Republican Senators and House members, the Right Wing billionaires and millionaires alone have 30 times that much, just sitting in the bank, in land, in homes, in property and in stocks that have been going up Trump gave them basically tax-free income.
We’ve already told you what the Republicans have in store for your health care. If they control the Senate, no matter what they say during the campaign, Loeffler and Perdue will vote the way Mitch McConnell tells them. That means more money going up the chimney to the billionaires, and less money coming back to the average American working family. Yes. Working “family.” Because Democrats realize that it takes two incomes to come up with a non-union household of over $55,000 a year, which is the average American household income. And in every state but one or two, that household income is less than the average cost of living for that state. In some states the average cost of living beats the average household income by as much as $10,000!
Raphael Warnock and Join Ossoff are both progressives. They will vote as follows, with the Democrartic Senate. 1. They will vote to distribute the vaccines for Covid-19 as fast and as widely as possible. This has been the Democratic position from the beginning–that the virus is deadly. We need to avoid contact. And we need a vaccine as fast as possible. 2. Warnock and Ossoff will vote to provide as much money as possible, borrowing a little more from the future, yes, but making sure people can pay mortgages, can stay employed at their small-business jobs, and that local governments, fire departments and educational systems can stay alive while sheltering from this deadly pandemic. 3. By voting with the Democrats, Warnock and Ossoff wil deny Mitch McConnell and the billionaires the chance to knock out Obamacare and Medicaid and reduce Medicare, just to appease the plutocrats. They will vote to strengthen health care at all levels. 4. Warnock, Ossoff and the Democratic Senate will insure that billionaires begin to pay more taxes rather than buying more yachts and jets and $250,000 automobiles. A tax increase of only 4% on the richest Americans, by Bill Clinton, a Democrat, gave us the first balanced budget virtually in our history and would have made us debt free if a Republican had not come right back with more tax breaks for billionaires.
So, why not vote for Warnock or Ossoff? Warnock is a religious man, with the same kinds of religious values as most true Christians in Georgia. Ossoff is an intellectual, a documentarian, dedicated to bringing out the truth for all to see. Is there anyone who doe not want to hear and see the truth? What about other issues? What about abortion? No one favors abortion. One can assume that Warnock, as a preacher, has seen the negative side of both unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Ossoff may be neutral on it, which would mean, being a Democrat, that he would feel it is each woman’s decision. But abortion has long been a state issue and even at the national level is a matter dealt with by the Supreme Court. So, what about defense? Both Warnock and Ossoff support President Biden’s position on defense, which was strong under President Obama and would deal with both the Middle East and the major opposing powers through restoration of our international alliances with Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia.
Many economists believe that the economy will not jump right back by late 2021. That could mean, another Republican leaving another Democrat with a bum economy. This time, however, Joe Biden, we know, worked with Barack Obama to restore several industries, like the auto industry, which was his special assignment, and reduce unemployment, which he helped to do, despite Republican obstruction for most of their eight years, bringing it down from almost 11% down to 4.3% before they left office. Only with the support of a Democratic Senate can Joe Biden bring this country out of a tailspin, against the power of the Right Wing, who want to hold down, if not totally eliminate, the working class of Americans.
So, the three main things Warnock and Ossoff could assure are: first, increase government revenues and begin to restore fiscal responsibility, second, secure health care for everyone, as it is now, but with increase numbers of people eligible to get it and the guarantee for all American citizens that they cannot lose health care coverage, and third, by asking millionaires and billionaires to pay more, make existing society more equitable. After Trump, we are (despite all his claims) the most income-unequal society of any advanced nation in the world.
Even in the days when much of the Democratic Party was in the South, many Democrats, like Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson worked hard to give African-Americans the vote, so that old Segregationist laws that were both wrong and deadly could be changed permanently, raising the status, the education and the lifestyles of more African-Americans closer to those of Whites. Georgia is a good example of what can happen when decent, working class Americans, make an effort to change their own perceptions of others, seeking to become the kinds of people about whom stories were written of their hospitality and gentility. Despite the control of one political party by thugs and mafia-like “Rich White American Men” Georgians fought back. They elected a President whom they considered more qualified and they stood on principal to prohibit any interference in fair elections.
The Supreme Court has said that fairness in many aspects of American life, with regard to minorities, is so ingrained that we no longer need Affirmative Action. African Americans are no longer discriminated against in consideration for places in public institutions of higher learning. But, whether that be the case or not, half the people in Georgia voted for a Liberal (though perhaps with a stronger than Liberal law enforcement record) and almost half voted for an African-American and a Jewish Senator. That’s not bad. We’ve come a long way, baby.
But that’s not enough. Democrats gave us the 40-hour work week, gave us weekends to barbecue and watch football. Democrats gave us Social Security, Medicare, SNAP (so vital today, for children) the G.I. bill, seat belts, air safety, equal job opportunities, OSHA, to keep us safe at work, Obamacare, Medicaid and Veterans’ Affairs. These two Senators would join in to bolster minimum wages, allow unions to organize and raise wages, help reduce wildfires, slow the advance of hurricanes, promote agriculture and healthy delivery of foodstuffs, and clean up the air and water. Republican Senators will continue to fight against these Populist measures. But true Democratic Senators, like Warnock and Ossoff will always vote for them and for the people.
Remember this. If elected Loeffler and Perdue, both already criticized in the media for showing their true colors as elites, feeling that they should be able to make money on stocks involving the coronavirus, will vote with the Republican Senators, many of whom, like Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, are former Republican state legislators and ALEC members. Many of our Senators were once paid by the corporate sponsors of ALEC to submit pre-written (by the corporations) legislation to stop environmental measures or prohibit competition by small companies against the giant Internet providers, or eliminate health insurance access for the poor, or to work with the NRA to allow automatic weapons everywhere.
It would appear that, even though Loeffler and Perdue are already rich, and seem to feel privileged by being rich, neither has any intention of working for the little man, for the average working family. A vote for either will be a vote to inhibit and obstruct the very intention of making society better that was the objective of the Biden Presidential campaign.
Perhaps the best thing about our democratic process is that we always have another election coming up. We can change things if we want. At least we can if we do not give in to people like Trump. We can if we deny those people the chance to overturn our elections. We can if we prevent a Fascist state like 1930s Germany. We all know how that turned out.
It is already clear what will happen if Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are elected. It is not complicated. The next Republican Budget has over a trillion dollars in cuts to social services, not just for the poor, but services that all Americans have paid for. That’s right. Not “free” services, but services that billionaires don’t need but the average middle class family, and the poor both rely on. We will be rid of people like Betsey DeVos, the Secretary of Education who allowed fake colleges to demand student loan payments from students who graduated from their schools but whom employers said were not qualified to get a job in their field.
Now we need to do away not merely with corrupt Cabinet officials, but it is time to elect good Senators, like Warnock and Ossoff who will get the job done for the average American family.