Burnout is the remnant of a fire

My Sunday movie was Joe Bell. The movie is based on a true story. Joe Bell, played by Mark Wahlberg who was also one of the producers. is the father of Jaden, who is gay. Jaden endures bullying at school. While Joe accepts Jaden, Joe is still concerned with how that might look. He also has a bit of an anger problem. After a bad bullying incident and after it looks like a school official thinks Jaden is much of the problem, Joe decides he needs to walk across America from their home in Idaho and talk about bullying and its harmful effects to anyone who will listen. Scenes of the walk alternate with scenes of life at home before the walk. During the walk Joe talks to high schools and church groups. He has a brief encounter with a redneck in a diner. He visits a gay bar in Salt Lake City. He talks with a sheriff in eastern Colorado whose son is gay. Part of the story is Joe coming to terms with his relationship with Jaden. A non-professional review on IMDB said a film like this that discusses bullying is very much needed. Alas, this film isn’t very good at it. Part of this is because in front of a crowd, such as school assembly, Joe tends to not say very much beyond “bullying is bad.” He is much better talking to one or two people. Big Bird of Sesame Street tweeted that he got is COVID vaccine shot. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas declared that it was “Government propaganda ... for your 5 year old!” Hunter of Daily Kos discussed all that. Cruz isn’t the first to declare Sesame Street is propaganda, though he has a high profile. Sesame Street isn’t the only children’s show targeted as propaganda (I remember the storm around Teletubbies). Big Bird advocated for vaccines back in 1972. And in 1978 Star Wars characters R2-D2 and C-3PO did too. The difference this time is Cruz and other Republicans are declaring vaccines to be bad. They didn’t do that in the 1970s. Have you looked at the propaganda Big Bird and the rest of Sesame Street are teaching kids? Hunter says that includes sharing, compassion, coping with intimidating situations (in ways not including having a fit), and learning letters and numbers.

Sesame Street has taken on subjects like death, like hunger, like homelessness—and it is all slanted, slanted maliciously against Republican lawmakers who have fought like hell to make sure death, hunger, and homelessness are meted out to whatever Americans might deserve such fates. Teach children about going hungry, and they'll grow up to support free school lunch programs. Teach children about homelessness, and they might treat their homeless peers with compassion and respect. ... Republicanism is devoted to pushing falsehoods and fictions out to their base for the sake of stoking whatever fears can be stoked. It is a movement that now rejects election results, rejects medicine, and rejects anything else that comes from “elites” whose expertise contradicts the stories fascist liars would prefer to tell. Big Bird may be taking on Republicanism’s most well-known leaders, but it’s not a fair fight. The bird has them outclassed by a wide margin.

Rebekah Sager of Kos documented the organizations, starting with the Koch group, that are promoting and funding opposition to Critical Race Theory.

These deep pocket groups used Virginia’s non-degreed Karens as the face of CRT (a curriculum that isn’t even taught in their kids’ schools) because these GOP-backed entities knew they could count on their PTA moms who’ve historically been there to fight the good fight against Black and brown people, and this was an issue they could quickly unite them around. ... The GOP has found its dupes again. This time it’s a bunch of racist suburban moms who are fighting a desperate battle against having little Johnny and Karen learn about their violent colonizer history in this nation. Of course, all of this is just smoke and mirrors; once again, the Republican party is using these people and their fear simply to gain power.

In the title for this post Sager says these billionaires who fund this anti-CRT campaign really don’t care about CRT. That may be true because their children won’t be going to these public schools. So, are these billionaires simply using the racism of their base to keep them enraged and engaged and themselves in power? Are these billionaires doing it because they are also racist and glad they can stir up their base to push for racist policies? I think it is both. Stirring up racism to gain and keep power is a supremacist action. Imposing racist policies is also supremacist. I strongly doubt racism isn’t in their thinking. Chitown Kev, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Sudhakar Nuti of STAT.

It’s not like vaunted medical institutions like the one I’m working for don’t know about burnout. They devise all sorts of ways to reverse exhaustion, like free dinner for a week, listening sessions, or a thank-you-for-working-during-the-pandemic Patagonia jacket, imagining my life can be fixed with an opportunity for reflection and another fleece. There’s an underlying assumption in burnout discussions: that it can always be remedied with some notion of self-care. What’s never spoken is that burnout is the remnant of a fire. I’ve never seen a piece of charred wood and thought that some time by itself and some water will restore it to its former state. Burning can cause irreparable damage, and I haven’t heard anyone admit that about becoming burned out.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Service Employees International Union, one of North America’s largest – has announced support for expanding the Supreme Court to restore the court’s legitimacy. The reason for their stand is the members of the union “stand in the unique position of being the targets of a long-running, coordinated, and well-funded effort to strip them of their organizing and other rights via federal-court litigation.” Many of its members are also targets of new voter suppression laws. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included the top ten highlights of the recently passed (and soon signed) infrastructure bill. $110B to repair roads and bridges, $65B to get high-speed internet to everyone, funds to upgrade and expand public transportation with cleaner vehicles, $66B for Amtrak, $7.5B for electric vehicle chargers, $55B to upgrade water service and eliminate lead service lines, $65B to upgrade electric infrastructure, $50 for adding resilience to climate change and cyber attacks, $21B to clean up the environment, and $42B to modernize airports, ports, and waterways. Georgia Logothetis, in her pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Paul Krugman of the New York Times on why the nasty guy constantly declared infrastructure week, which never happened.

It wasn’t just incompetence, although that was part of it. The bigger story is that the modern Republican Party is constitutionally incapable — or maybe, given recent behavior, that should be unconstitutionally incapable — of investing in America’s future. And, sad to say, pro-corporate Democrats, whom we really should stop calling “centrists,” have some of the same problems.

The infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better (social infrastructure) bill are no longer linked. A procedural move in the House by what’s being called the Sabotage Squad forced a vote on one while delaying the other. This squad is made up of “centrist” Democrats (the term “squad” was first used to describe a few progressive Dems). This report from before the delinking is by McCarter. There is now fear that the sabotage will continue until there is nothing left of it. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported an NBC News poll that showed in October 2020 84% of Republicans were confident that elections were counted accurately. That was about the same with Democrats. In October 2021 only 41% of Republicans were confident of an accurate tally. That’s a 43 point drop. There was a ten point drop among independents. The change in confidence among Democrats was not reported. Eleveld wrote:

Trump's success in stoking distrust of U.S. elections among his fervent base now poses a domestic terror threat to the country. Earlier this week, a PRRI poll found 30% of Republicans agreed with the idea that "true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country." The sentiment was particularly high among those who said they believed 2020 was "stolen" from Trump, with 39% of that cohort endorsing potential violence.

David Neiwert of Kos reported that before the election BuzzFeed compiled a list of 13 candidates for various levels of office around the country were present at the Capitol attack. Eight of them won their election. Their wins demonstrate the effectiveness of the conservative campaign of baldface gaslighting – such as claiming the mob were just tourists. The gaslighting campaign will continue. There will be 57 state and local officeholders who attended the attack and will be up for reelection in 2022. Marissa Higgins of Kos reported the Navy has christened a new ship, the USNS Harvey Milk. This is a tanker ship that will refuel aircraft carriers while the big ships are at sea. Yes, this is the Harvey Milk of San Francisco who pushed for LGBT rights, served in the city’s Board of Supervisors, and was murdered in 1978. Prior to that Milk was in the Navy. His career was cut short when his superiors noticed he hung out at a park frequented by gay men. He was given a less than honorable discharge. Higgins wrote:

The decision to name this ship after Milk actually dates back to 2016, when Ray Mabus (who at the time served as Navy secretary) declared that the six new oilers would be named in honor of civil rights advocates. Rep. John Lewis, Lucy Stone, Robert F. Kennedy, Earl Warren, and Sojourner Truth are the others.

Higgins also wrote about an intriguing election results. The seven member City Council of Salt Lake City now has four members who are LGBTQ. Two – Amy Fowler and Chris Wharton – won reelection. Two more – Darin Mano and Alejandro Puy – are new members. Mano is also the first LGBTQ Asian and Puy is the first LGBTQ Latin on the Council. This seems odd because Utah is so conservative. But SLC is a much more progressive place and the state is making progress. Higgins also reported that more than 80 LGBTQ candidates won last week. Once they are sworn in there will be over a thousand queer elected officials in the country. This is huge!