Still feeling the squeeze created by greedy corporations

My Sunday movie was Bros. When it came out last year it was billed as the first gay romance by a major studio given a wide release. Bobby is the director of the soon to open National Museum of LGBTQ+ History and Culture. He’s rather militant and intense (and talkative) about making sure our history is well represented and that people know about it. He also wants his independence. At a club he locks eyes with Aaron, who is super into working out. Aaron says he’s also not looking for a relationship. And it goes from there. Along the way there are a lot of references to queer culture. Debra Messing of Will & Grace plays herself. Harvey Fierstein plays a B&B host in Provincetown. There are a lot of references to Hallmark movies (though the name is changed), which is fun because Luke Macfarlane (Aaron) has made 14 Hallmark movies (thanks IMDB!). And, a plus, there is very little homophobia. I enjoyed it. While I’m glad this one was made I have doubts of another because IMDB says this one made back only about two-thirds of its budget. The straight audience stayed away. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that Biden has embraced the term Bidenomics (hmm... we also have Obamacare and thankfully nothing named after the nasty guy). Biden is out campaigning on the word. He has good reason to claim it. McCarter reported there is still public resistance to that message. So she recommends another aspect of the economy be a part of what he tells voters, “Feel their pain, and blame it on corporate greed.” McCarter wrote that many of the largest general consumer companies have admitted to raising prices beyond the inflation of their costs to increase their profits. They say they will continue the practice in future years. One example is General Mills. It’s 2022 profits are up 16.5% with 2023 doing better. They spent over $2.12 billion rewarding shareholders. That’s money they took from customers.

All of this gives Biden a fantastic opportunity. He can tout the improving economy and the jobs and infrastructure projects he’s created, while at the same time acknowledging that people aren’t feeling better about it because their own wallets are still feeling the squeeze—a squeeze created by greedy corporations that are raising prices, driving inflation to justify raising prices more, and hurting consumers. There’s nothing like having a common enemy to help bolster your own support.

Now, will he actually do that? I still don’t have direct access to Twitter without signing up. However, I can still see some tweets of cartoons, though I can’t link to them directly. In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos Denise Oliver Velez included a tweet by Richard Kadrey showing a frame from a Peanuts comic by Charles Schulz. He was reminded if it when the Supremes killed affirmative action. In this frame Linus tells Peppermint Patty, “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them.” Velez also included a cartoon by George Caballero showing a portrait of the Court. Three women wearing robes are on the left side, four on the left dressed as MAGA thugs with Barrett holding a cross, Alito holding an AR-15, and Thomas with a “Q” on his shirt. Kavanaugh is dressed in a toga with beer mugs attached to his hat. And Roberts has a robe off one shoulder showing a thug shirt underneath. Caballero added the caption, “SCOTUS just issued 200-page opinion whitesplaining why helping reverse 200 years of subjugation is unconstitutional.” And also a cartoon by Thomas Reese showing black hands holding a business card that says, “Congratulations! SCOTUS says the Constitution, written by slave owners, is colorblind! Go back 50 years...” Add in a comment by ranglinlover2 who quoted Bertolt Brecht, “Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.” The commenter explained the “bitch” is white supremacy. I mentioned in a previous post that the case that led to the Supremes declaring businesses could discriminate against LGBTQ people was full of lies. The woman who brought the case is Lorie Smith. Brian Parker of the Kos community posed the question: Why isn’t Smith being prosecuted for lying to the Supremes? Chitown Kev, In a pundit roundup for Kos quoted Jill Lepore of the New York Times. She noted the Constitution hasn’t been amended since 1971 and the derailment of the Equal Rights Amendment, sent to the states in 1972, has meant the Constitution is unamendable (the quote doesn’t explain the reason and the rest is behind a paywall). Kev pointed out that the Constitution, after the Bill of Rights, had been amended every 40-60 years in clusters of two to four amendments. So we are due. Back to Lepore. Those amendments that failed have been on the right: amendments for balanced budgets, bans on flag burning, declaring fetal-personhood, and defense of marriage. Thankfully, all failed. Now Democrats are trying, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who proposed an amendment to regulate guns ownership.

Members of Congress first began proposing environmental rights amendments in 1970. They got nowhere. Today, according to one researcher, 148 of the world’s 196 national constitutions include environmental protection provisions. But not ours. Or take democratic legitimacy. Over the last decades, and beginning even earlier, as the political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky point out in a forthcoming book, “The Tyranny of the Minority,” nearly every other established democracy has eliminated the type of antiquated, antidemocratic provisions that still hobble the United States: the Electoral College, malapportionment in the Senate and lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices. None of these problems can be fixed except by amending the Constitution, which, seemingly, can’t be done.

In a Ukraine update from last Tursday, a few days after the aborted insurrection in Russia, RO37 of the Kos community wonders if Russia might be decapitating its military. That happened once before. RO37 doesn’t name the triggering event that prompted Stalin’s Great Purge of 1936-38. By the time Stalin was done 1.2 million had died. That included many in the Russian military leadership. The purge took “4 out of 5 generals, 13 of 15 lieutenant generals, 50 of 57 major generals, and 153 out of 186 brigadier generals.” Stalin may have felt more secure – until Hitler violated the nonaggression pact he made with Stalin and invaded. And Stalin’s military, now without key leaders, was not able to protect the country from the invader. The initial battles were disastrous. Within three months Hitler’s army was outside Moscow and Leningrad – and the siege of Leningrad was horrific. Back to today. General Sergei Surovikin is believed to have known about the uprising in advance and may have participated in its planning. Though he has been the overall general in the war in Ukraine, he hasn’t had contact with his family since Sunday, the day after the uprising was halted. Will other generals now disappear? Mark Sumner of Kos reported last Friday that Russian workers and Russian military have been departing from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Russia has occupied the plant since early in the war, though Ukrainian workers continue to operate it, sometimes while being abused by the Russian guards. So are the Russians leaving because they are turning the whole plant back to Ukrainian control? Or are they getting their people out of the way before they cause a nuclear “accident”? One worrying detail – now that the dam above Kherson has blown and the reservoir is emptying the pipes that draw water to cool the reactor no longer reach the river. The plant might survive for a while without river water, but are Russians working out alternate sources of water? Or are they just leaving? I’d provide links and proper attributions to a couple cartoons posted on Twitter. The first features the Russian Matrioshka dolls. These are the wooden ones that nest one inside another. Open the biggest and another a bit smaller is inside. That one also opens revealing another even smaller. I have a set marking the first Gulf War of 1991. The biggest doll is Papi Bush, who in my opinion at the time was an OK leader until he got this huge approval rating for winning the war – and did nothing with it. Looking back now I probably wouldn’t have liked whatever he did. The next doll is Helmut Kohl of Germany, then Mitteran of France, Gorbachev of Russia, and the smallest is Saddam Hussein. The set of Matrioshka dolls in this cartoon are all of Putin. Each has a year and the doll’s size represents Putin’s power in that year. It shows over the years his strength has shrunk. The other cartoon is a reverse of Zelenskyy’s famous declaration early in the war. This one shows Putin under his long table saying, “I don’t need ammo. I need a ride.”