Populism

Futuristic, Utopian Paradise Of Baltimore Completely Baffled By Trump's Attacks --The Babylon Bee


Pizza at Mineo's with Chris and Allyssa

Kamala Harris has fallen to 1% support in the black community.

The California 'ethnic studies" curriculum describes subprime loans as an attack on home buyers with low incomes rather than a misguided attempt by the government to help such home buyers. Politicians—Republicans and Democrats—imposed lower underwriting standards on the home-loan industry. Republicans billed it as a way to expand the middle class, while Democrats crowed that it would aid the poor. California teaches these grandiose political errors as racist. Reminds you of the old SDS.

Pareidolia:
noun: The tendency to see a specific pattern or meaningful images in random stimulus.
ety: From German Pareidolien, from Greek para- (along) + eidolon (image), from eidos (form, idea). Ultimately from the Indo-European root weid- (to see), which also gave us wise, view, supervise, wit.
It’s human nature to see patterns where there might be none. This is the very nature of "The Narrative," where we become less the victims of random events and more participants in some process or cycle. Pareidolia allows for the creative compilations of stars as constellations, profiles of men appearing on rock faces, Rorschach inkblot tests, UFO sightings, and Jesus on toast.


There are about 1 million doctors in the U.S., and half a million health insurance employees. Plus hospital billing departments . . . plus the staff whom individual medical practices devote to billing and collection.

"Math Equity:" 
“Equity-based mathematics teaching requires more than implementing new curriculum or using specific practices because it involves taking a stand for what is right,” the website for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics states.

“It requires mathematics teachers to reflect on their own identity, positions, and beliefs in regards to racist and sorting-based mechanisms. It involves noticing students, learning about the worlds they live in, and building mathematics that comes from these worlds. And finally, it involves engaging other educators in partnerships to build equity-oriented communities.”

Three of the top ten websites on the internet are porn sites.

America’s middle class did start largely disappearing in the 1970s, but it was because they were moving up to higher-income groups, not down into a lower-income category. And that movement was so significant that between 1967 and 2017, the share of American households earning incomes above $100,000 more than tripled, from 9% to 29.2%. Many prominent people like Paul Krugman and progressive politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren claim that American’s middle class has been declining, disappearing, collapsing, losing ground, vanished, stagnated, etc. But the Census Bureau data on household income over time displayed above demonstrate conclusively that those assertions are incredibly and verifiably wrong.

On this day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon announced his intention to become the first president in American history to resign.



                      Populism


Populism is a surprisingly general term that invokes a lot of debate. It is usually described as "grass roots," with an element of antagonism toward a perceived elite. Some element feels disenfranchised by a subset in the culture and they are usually angry. There is a component of directness here, a need for the public will to be translated to action directly. Often the "translator" of this action is a single banner carrier, a single figure. The Catholic-Protestant conflicts in France and The Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century were to some degree populist movements against Catholicism.

The American experience with populism has been agricultural but that is changing. The idea of direct election, without the Electoral College, is a populism. 

“Populism is the belief in the direct translation of public impulses, public passions. Passion was the great problem for the American Founders,” Will points out. “Populism is a direct translation of popular passions into governments through a strong executive."

This is a very important point in American philosophy, The Founders were opposed to passion in government. Nor did they like direct democracy. The entire structure of the government was one which slowed decisions, prolonged debate, and set houses of government against each other to clarify debates and decisions. Conflict honed and sharpened the points.

Impatience had no outlet in their design.