Nerdy Productivity Frustrations and The GOP Doesn't Mind Hurting Citizens
Today I discuss some Nerdy Productivity Task List Frustations and that the GOP Doesn't Mind Hurting Citizens because Citizens Haven't Voted. In my opinion, those who *HAVE* should humble themselves by focusing on their duties to society & those who need while the marginalized & those who *NEED* should rise & do what they need for their rights. The worthiness of our world is measured by the worse off in our world.
Nerdy Tech Productivity Frustrations Over the Last Couple Days
I've had an avoidable rough last couple of days. My productivity system of handling my to do list has hit a roadblock because months and months ago, Google decided to no longer include reminder alerts on their Task list.
I had what I guess was a pretty typical syncing system set up between Microsoft Outlook 2010 on my computer through Gsyncit, Google Calendar/Task List, and GTask on my phone. At one point, I noticed that GTask didn't have reminders, so I switched things up to have Gsyncit sync tasks to a Google Calendar. That doesn't work well, either, because even though it has a reminder set up, it doesn't cause an alarm to go off on my phone. I can make these things work if I edit al of it after syncing them, but that pretty much makes the whole system worthless.
I've figured out how to set reminders on Google Calendar. I found the Reminders app on my phone. I've spent a lot of wasted hours Friday morning and late into the night trying to figure out some way to sync things to Outlook. I even upgraded Gynscit and have ended up just e-mailing their support to see if they can add a feature to add a feature to sync with Google reminders. We'll see if that works.
I don't even know how well the phone Reminder app will sync with Google Calendar. With so many podcasts on my phone, I don't have enough space on it to do normal sync functions. Guess I'll just have to go on another podcast binge listen to make space and see if at least that part of the syncing works.
If anyone knows how to sync between Outlook 2010 and the Google Calendar Reminders (not the task list), please let me know. I really like having an offline mailing list on my laptop, so I don't have to be so dependent on the Internet and also because using an actual big keyboard makes for an easier time compared to typing on a touch screen (with this whole hang up and the physical keyboard, I find myself missing the old Blackberry).
It's been practically another day since I wrote this section. No good solution has been found. If anything, I've discovered that the Google Reminders on Google Calendar doesn't sync with anything, so there's no useful syncing happening. Who knows if that will ever happen.
Instead I've come to use a horrible workaround: Samsung SideSync. It projects the mobile phone view to my laptop and allows me navigate using the laptop. It doesn't allow for the ease of syncing and makes data in the task app vulnerable since there's no backup, but it's better than nothing. Next step: Finding a program to backup data onto the laptop.
I hate workarounds. Though I guess on positive flipside, can do texts from the laptop instead of having to flip between laptop and mobile. At least there's a bright side.
Return to Top
If you like what you see here and in the past and want to free me up for more, support my endeavors by Buying Me a Coffee!
The GOP Doesn't Mind Hurting Citizens because Citizens Haven't Been Voting
Last week a friend asked the social mind on Facebook how the GOP could get away with taking the teeth out of the ACA Individual Mandate in 2019. Doing so will increase rates because insurance companies won't expect as many health people to enroll. They have to make up for lost premiums somehow.1)
I initially responded with my standard line about they're following a perverted morality that comes to them through history from the Stoics and other influences, which has no problem for blaming the victims for their misfortunes since they follow their passions too much (don't even ask me why that means people stricken with something from birth or someone who hasn't done anything wrong has to suffer. . .). My list of explanations went on and on, some of them unjustifiable like the one above and others a little more justifiable, like how some people who don't have much money need make tough decisions about their budget and what they'll spend their money on. For example, between someone needing a car to go to work or paying their health insurance, I think they'll choose the car. After all, how will they pay for the health insurance if they can't make the money for it in the first place?
Today I had an alternative hypothesis come to mind: The GOP feels brazen enough to push through this Tax Reform Bill that takes the teeth out of the Individual Mandate (after failing at repealing the Affordable Care Act) because they don't fear the citizens that their agenda harms because until recently, they really don't vote much.
After reading and hearing enough news and rumors about some of them not running again, my argument could have some holes. Seeing no backlash to putting something through that could hurt their consituents since they know that they're leaving, they could just be pushing through something they've always wanted. At least for Paul Ryan, the Tax Bill is his wet dream and his biggest goal to becoming a Federal Representative in the House.
Please hear me out, though. Despite some signs of hope this year, The Liberal Resistance IS NOT a sure thing. Understanding our enemy of citizen/voter disenchantment and/or apathy will help us in the good fight.
The epiphany for this hypothesis came about while listening to Friday's APM Marketplace. It had an interesting piece about how the Tax Reform Bill that the GOP and [45] put through will exact a big back payment of taxes from multi-national companies that will provide a big initial boost to paying off the deficit and help some government.
These same multi-nationals, however, will get a sweeter deal over the long term. Their tax bills will end up being a lot less after awhile. I think [45] referred to this part about the Tax Bill "hurting him" because he has some multi-national business, and I have no doubt he kept money out of the country to avoid taxes. Nonetheless, this Tax Bill still doesn't lift much tax burden from the middle and upper lower classes as it does for the more upper classes and corporations.
The Tax Bill gives a trade off to these corporations: big bill now for lower costs later. These corporations, the higher ups in these corporations, and other high asset, high capital, and high income people are the donors of the GOP. These are the people who want the GOP in office and to stay in office. They pay money to keep them in and will vote to keep them in. This part I knew, but having this realization come to me in this context along with some other research I did over the past week really struck to the heart for me that the GOP doesn't care about lower income people so much because they don't fear their voting behavior.
The research earlier this week was about taxes in Wisconsin. An article about either the 10 best or 10 worst states to retire in put me down this road. I won't link to that particular article because it's behind a subscription wall (got access to it through work), but it said that Wisconsin has some of the most onerous taxes for retirees in the country. This article has the tax stats that I think the earlier article probably referred to. Considering that the first article talked about high tax burdens in Wisconsin, I thought it might have explained Paul Ryan's obsession with lowering taxes -- his state puts a big burden on his constituents, so he had better get the Federal government off their backs.
I read some other articles about taxes in Wisconsin, but the most prevalent opinion of the people came to the top: their biggest complaint about taxes comes down to the high property taxes (though they seem to quiet down when they get reminded that these taxes go to pay for a concrete service that they appreciate: their local schools).
The interesting part about all the complaining about property taxes and other taxes generally being low (though the taxing of retirement income when other states don't sucks): property owners pay taxes and generally it's higher income people and corporations who pay property taxes. Sure, middle class people and some lower class people pay them, too, especially indirectly since it gets factored into rent, but people who have more income generally have more property (include more expensive cars, which often get taxed, too).
Interesting might overstate the fact of the matter, but consider the matter more in depth and with more history.2 Back at the beginning of the United States, most states only allowed landed, real property owning men to vote. Supposedly they had a stake in the fate of town, country, state, or country because they owned a part of it.
Massachusetts, at least (I'm not too familiar with other states, but I guess New York fits here, too), extended suffrage to non-landowning men who could pay toll tax in 1821. The reason: they needed the working people AND they also needed the seats in the Federal House of Representatives and Electoral Votes to stand up against the South on the federal level.
The frontier had opened up, and it provided a lot more opportunity for wealth, land, and empowerment, even though it also held a lot of danger and may not having had voting rights on the federal level (but at least they would possibly be in a better situation). The best lure to keep the working people around was to give them the vote, as it gave them more say in the fate of their town, state, and possibly country.
Anyone without voting rights pretty much only had the power to petition elected leaders through those who might have voting rights. The only recourse they had if elected officials didn't get them what they wanted: to go off or convince their family to go off to the Frontier. Non-white freed people probably didn't have much opportunity to go that way because they would likely face bigotry, violence, and before the Civil War, capture and drafted into the enslavement of some Southern slaveowner. So the option of heading out to the Frontier didn't have much teeth for a good portion of the population.
Basically I'm pointing to the brass tacks that the GOP, at least, motivates their constituency to vote, donate, and volunteer by delivering concrete results for taxes or by trying to cut down on the impact to their wallets and pocketbooks. They also have the traditional values voters on their side, too, but it's not difficult to conflate those values into saving money, putting down the voices that really need assistance, and building up a unitary cultural story (often of bigotry) that justifies the current state of things and the victim blaming for other populations getting stuck in their ruts ("It's their fault." "If only they just. . ." "They should know better." "It's common sense." "If they were only rational.").
In other words, the GOP does a good job of getting their base to vote and vote for the GOP by convincing them that they have a stake in their country. They have something to gain and maintain, and if they don't work to keep it, they will lose that stake, that property, those values, that culture. Notice how much the GOP focuses so much on law & order, wars on this and that, and what they're consitutients have to lose (and the other side to win) if they don't support the GOP polticians.
This point doesn't have much significance, though. No one has to try hard to see these facts. They accomplished this scary task in 2016 and have many times in the past by not only pumping up their base, but by also disenfranchising those who don't fit into their base and convincable and by taking advantage and the lack of unity on the other side. Arguably similar things happen when they get full of themselves while in power and cause things to go boom without having any way to fix it.3 Historians and political commentators like to dwell on our politics following this cycle back and forth between the two parties, that essentially their ideologies and practices stay the same while the constituencies bounce between them because of the ping ponging of the constituents' everyday lives. . .at least the everyday lives of those who vote, and the fickle constituency will vote according their state as it is at the time of the election.
But the utter disregard that the GOP and [45] has shown the Left, the Middle Class, the Lower Classes, and the marginalized has gone too far. The rising anti-GOP sentiment throughout 2017, as the anti-GOP has demonstrated through the spate of Left-leaning elections in November then the Alabama Special Election that put Doug Jones into the Senate. The truly amazing thing that has occurred during the normally scheduled elections: People of Color [and Marginalization] Struck Back! Then it happened for the Alabama Special Election! These huge shifts to the Left over the last 4+ months could not have happened without marginalized people jumping in to take part in politics, not just voting but also campaigning for candidates.
And throw on top there the Women's March Movement, the Me Too Movement, and all the other women organizing out there. LIttle did I know, but a lot of the women in Federal politics, like Senator Gillibrand, are there now because they saw Anita Hill get dragged through the dirt during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings back in the '90s. In addition, women, especially black women, have done a lot of organizing and demonstrating since at least [45]'s inauguration. This organizing and demonstrating deserves commendation, too.
[45] has definitely woken up those of us on the Left and those with sense in the Center, especially those who had voted for him and thought he would do some good with the government. NOPE! I won't say that I'm happy that [45] got into office and got these sides of the country moving. The catalyst to get us moving isn't worth the damage it will do to the country. It's like saying that getting a sickness that nearly kills you to get you to adopt more healthy behaviors was worth getting.
We should have known better, especially privileged white people like me who care (though I like to think I've known better). I won't point at marginalized people and criticize them for not voting and not participating. Frankly, I will point at privileged white people like me and ask
The privileged white upper class has backed marginalized populations into a corner, and now they're fighting back in the political arena. As I've said repeatedly, back in 2016, I argued that no one on the Left could win without understanding and reaching out to marginalized populations. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton proved me right that they couldn't win. 2017 showed me that by reaching out and forming coalitions with marginalized populations, letting them know we can benefit them, the forces of Equal Rights, Civil Liberties, Love, Kindness, Appreciation, Compassion, and Progress can win.
Throughout 2017, political commentators, politicians, and Progressives argued that since the GOP won by reaching out to the White Working Class throughout the country, Democrats or some other party will win the future by reaching out to that class. I have and continue to argue that you win by reaching out to the economic and financial concerns of the White Working Class and all the other classes of people.
We all have the same concerns when it comes to economics and finances: We want to have money to put a roof over our heads, food on the table, get to our jobs where we can get money, take care of ourselves if anything occurs health-wise, environment-wise, and eventually when we retire.
Discussing those issue doesn't exclude non-White Working Class people, but marginalized people have concerns that White Working Class people don't. Just focusing on the importance of economics and finances excludes marginalized people. Providing tax deductions, grants, and other means for government funded initiatives won't fix the plights of marginalized people. The risks they face every day are different from any White Straight Cis-Male, and discussing them will only exclude white people if those white people cause those risks to arise, and those types of risks come bigotry and prejudice. In the long run, making the lives of marginalized people better will make everyone's lives better, if just for the simple fact that tensions will go down.
When Bannon was fired from the White House, he argued that if the Left kept pushing Identity Politics, [45] and the Alt-Right would win again and keep winning. If this 2017 is any indication, pushing Identity Politics will help the Left win! It can't just be talking about Identity Politics or arguing for them, though, it has be fighting for marginalized people, understanding marginalized people, appreciating marginalized people (not just tolerating them), and working to help them be a serious part of the Nation, not just additional demographics or a voting bloc. With their help, we can make the country a better place in 2018 and in 2020 (and part of me wants to do a Howard Dean yell right now). Or maybe by white men humbling ourselves, we can make the country a better place.
I want to quote a couple social media posts I've made in the last six months or so (don't remember when I made the first one, and it's cribbed):
Privilege is those who get the most pay the least for it.
I will not criticized the marginalized for not rising up enough, but I will criticize the privileged for not humbling themselves to meet their duty to the unprivileged, the marginalized, the truly needy, for helping to pull them up. To me, the the marginalized have been demoralized, punched from above, and push down to think that they can reap better benefits by working against society (which sometimes they can) because society is against them and doesn't want them. Why should they work for society when it pounds down on them every time they try to rise up and make something of themselves. . .and, even possibly, that they have to sacrifice connections to their community to rise as an individual. People, we truly rise together, or the top will become heavy and fall down on those underneath them (just look at how income inquality is crushing everyone below, how environmental change destroys the world for us all, and more than I can get into here).
And if in the next couple years, the GOP and [45] get booted out of office, the privileged on the Left and Center need to remember that marginalized people helped us out of this mess. We need to work hard to make them vital parts of our society and to enjoy being part of our society (not assimilate them).
This article gets a little into some empirical conclusions made by study about what encourages and discourages people to vote. It doesn't necessarily get into more concrete things like people being treated seriously by society, but it's a worthwhile start to reading about some ways to get a more participatory civic society going. I had hoped to get into some thoughts into this topic, which I believe that I have.
Nonetheless, I think I'll leave this entry more with feeling good about marginalized people rising up and making a difference in the latest electiosn and that they can't help bring this nation out of these dark times. Hopefully in the future I can on some more sober examination of how to promote more civic participation of citizens. Feel free to provide some ideas of your own in the comments.
If you like what you see here and in the past and want to free me up for more, support my endeavors by Buying Me a Coffee!
Return to Top
1Health Insurance ACA/Tax/Law Nerdery: the Individual Mandate will still be in place in 2019. There's just no actual penalty for violating it. Nonetheless, Large employers with a monthly average of 50+ employees in the previous calendar year will still have to offer Affordable Essential Health Benefits to all their employees working 30 hours per week after a waiting period for employees scheduled consistently or an average of 30 hours per week over a set measurement period of 3-12 months for variable hourly workers that don't necessarily work 30 hours every week. Large employers still must also submit reports of who they offer coverage to the IRS after each calendar year and forms to the employees that they have offered coverage to. Insurance companies who insure people also have to submit reports and send paperwork to insureds. Healthcare.gov must do the same for people who purchase their health insurance to them, too. The only difference is that individual people who don't get health insurance in 2019 won't be penalized for it. Return to main text
2 I want to take this opportunity to apologize, in advance, for any point where I put my foot into my mouth. Coming from my place of privilege, I might not have the best concepts and language in my understanding of things to properly express reality. Please don't hesitate to rebut me over these parts if I haven't checked my privilege on any particular topic. Intention doesn't excuse Impact, but sometimes I have to inch out there with them to have my conceptions and language corrected. Return to main text
3I'm thinking of the financial crisis at the end of George W Bush's time then Obama got to fix it, though arguably the same thing happened at the end of Bill Clinton's time, but he had just as a difficult time with the GOP dominated Congress at that time). Return to main text
If you like what you see here and in the past and want to free me up for more, support my endeavors by Buying Me a Coffee!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment