I love this country

 I love this country.

 I loved it as a small-town kid in the 1940’s during the Second World War.

 I loved it in the 1950’s during the Korean War, while I was in the local high school and in college in Boston.

 I loved it as a young engineer working and living in New York City, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and verbally defending this country to foreigners.

 I continued to love this country through the years, as my political acumen matured.

 And, I love this country now, in spite of a specific, concerted effort to bring it to ruin by the current administration.

 What Joe Biden, and his handlers and his minions have done to destroy this country in three years of their inept and incompetent government is almost beyond belief.  (I cite handlers and minions because Biden himself is demonstrably incapable of effecting any sort of coherent governance himself, because of age and senility.)

 I have always considered myself a fair person, and as such, I try to understand both sides of the political spectrum.  To be honest, I find less bullshit on the libertarian and the conservative right side of politics than I find to the democrat left, which these days borders on socialism/communism.

 My origins are blue-collar, and my mother was a staunch Franklin Roosevelt democrat.  Also, as a young man, I worked on the farms and in the textile mills of New England as an integral part of the working class.  So, by background, I could be a credentialled left-wing democrat, if I chose to be.

But wait!  Education and experience did not support my left-wing origins.  It became evident to me, early on, that in the political sphere, the promises and platforms of the democrat left were much more amorphous and fleeting than those of the republican right.  Both lied and twisted things, but it seemed to me that the democrat lies and corruption were much more egregious than those of the republicans.  

 So, I voted mostly republican in the past, but sometimes “split ticket”, and I voted for a democrat for president several times. These days, I consider myself to be to the republican or conservative or libertarian right of politics.

 I have had my differences and disagreements with the various administrations through the years, probably more so with the administrations of Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama, than those of Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes or Trump.  As expected, theses differences were of a more rational political nature than the divisive, destructive type that we now have.

 We have become a divided and an uncivilized country!  Whereas once, we could debate issues (other than race), in a mostly rational, civilized manner, we now shout “aux barricades”, and take to violent actions, it seems, over the most trivial of disagreements.  It is truly sad to see hatred and divisiveness supplant the lofty ideals of our founders that sustained this country for over 200 years

 And, we have no effective governing body to stop or curtail any and all manner of egregious violent divisive infractions.  If we don’t shape up and restore some of our founding principles, we will not have much of a country left!

 Joe Biden was elected from his basement in Delaware, as the “elder statesman”, or “voice of reason”, after the controversial, in-your-face, tweeting, Trump.  Biden’s pitch was “a return to reason”, and rational government, after his nearly 50 years in Washington.  Forgotten, or swept under the rug, were the gaffes, lies, plagiarisms and rank incompetence of this man through the years.  The democrats elected Biden and an equally inept Kamala Harris, in a Covid and electoral rules tainted election.

 Some have said that what Biden and his administration have done is aimed at wrecking our country, doing away with long-standing constitutional principles, and instituting democrat party hegemony forever.  At first, this seemed incongruous and far-out.  But as this Biden government progressed, it became apparent that this is exactly what they were doing, abrogating the constitution and our two-party system for political power.

 Well, it did not take long for Biden’s true colors as a “Bernie Sanders style” socialist puppet to emerge.  We had some inkling during Biden’s first days in office when he vindictively piled on 30 plus executive orders undoing every positive thing that Trump ever accomplished, and replacing these with socialist order after socialist order.

 And that was just the start!  What are more of Joe Biden’s and his sophomoric handlers’ doings?

 We have Soros-funded, ineffective, democrat-run, city governments and defunded police that show more concern for criminals than their victims, and practice “catch and release”, even for repeat offenders.  Recidivism is rampant.

 We have massive illegal migration across our southern border.

Recent numbers of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. are as high as 11,000 per day, or 304,000 per month. There are currently 16.8 million illegals in the country, up 2.3 million since Joe Biden took office.  And; where are the media reports on this untenable migrant situation along the southern border? Were it not for Fox News and a few other news outlets, the country would have no idea what’s happening there.

Everything costs more, and inflation runs rampant.  The numbers say that inflation is abating, but we don’t see it in grocery or gas prices.  $100 of groceries, pre-Biden, now costs $120-130.  Gasoline was $1.80/gal, now is $3.80/gal.

 Biden and his minions have decimated our energy industry in their misguided, sophomoric rush to replace effective fossil fuels with unproven and ill-conceived replaceables and electric power that they think just magically appears at plug-ins across the country. 

 There is nothing wrong with using wind, hydro and other replaceable sources for part of our energy requirements, and electrical plug-ins for limited local automotive use, but relying on EV’s as primary transportation across our vast country is ludicrous, and indeed, sophomoric.  Where are the adults in this government?

 Biden’s administration has continued the racist policies started under the Obama administration that posits that racial discrimination is our greatest societal issue.  This is in spite of the substantial gains toward racial integration of our 12-13% black Americans begun in the 1960’s by Dr. Martin Luther King, and continuing for over 60 years.  This acceptance and inclusion of black Americans as a full and equal part of our society is being undone by seizing on and magnifying the tragic but anecdotal deaths of several black Americans.  This return to active racism has resulted in riots, deaths and physical destruction of our cities, to the defunding our police, and the resultant additional lawlessness as a result of this defunding.

 We have LGBTQ+++++ aberrations thrust into our faces continuously as paragons, rather than outliers of human behavior.  Equal rights for those of all sexual preference should de extant, but not the continued elevation of certain sexual proclivities to honored positions in society.

 But what has happened over roughly the last seventy years, primarily by actions of the political left,  and now most recently exacerbated by Joe Biden and his handlers and minions, is that nearly every human aberration that once was considered unlawful, illegal, out of bounds or “sinful”, has been liberalized, and not only made part of mainstream life, but elevated to the status of exemplary, behavior.  Society is inundated and bombarded with all manner of deviancy, whether the ever-expanding LGBTQ++++ cliques demanding special privileges, legalization of all manner of historically illicit drugs and other substances, catch and release of criminals in our courts, enfranchisement of people that are in the country illegally, or a myriad of other abuses that are being flaunted and thrown in law-abiding faces every day by the “politically correct”, “woke” liberal mob.

 The mainstream media is a propaganda arm of the Biden government who cover up these abuses in their blind obeisance to the left wing.  Some outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, National Review, Wall Street Journal, NY Post and a few others report the real news.  Most of the rest of the media seem to be reading from a script prepared for them by the Biden press office.

 Ray Gruszecki

September 25, 2023

Origins and Politics

 Origins and Politics

 My mother was born in Poland early in the 20^th century, and legally immigrated to Chicago to join her sister.  She travelled to the U.S.  in steerage of the ocean liner Rijndam, along with myriad other immigrants from Europe.  She became an American citizen in the 1930’s.  She had the equivalent of an eighth-grade education in Europe.  She was a Roman Catholic and a Roosevelt democrat. 

 My father came from a hard-scrabble New England farm family whose parents also originally emigrated from Poland.  He was one of five living siblings.  One other died.  He had an eighth-grade education before he went to work to help support his family.  To the best of my knowledge, my father was areligious and apolitical, and relied on himself in life.  He would quip that the WPA of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration actually stood for “We Poke Around”.

 I started doing odd jobs and farm work at age twelve, and had a full-time, eight hours a day, forty hours a week, full time job in a cotton mill while enrolled in the scientific course in high school.  In addition to work and school, I embarked on a search for the meaning of life by reading everything that I could find on theology, philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and on and on.

 I was raised as a working class Catholic, and was immersed in this life.  In the meantime, I was observing some of the hypocrisy of the conservative Polish Catholic church that my family attended, while learning about other belief systems, and in fact about the lack of a personal belief system.  I also was part of the blue-collar working world, and gained an appreciation of the working man’s view of life.

 From all of this I concluded that I personally was not able to sustain any particular belief system or religion, so I became agnostic.  As far as the working class was concerned, I appreciated and sympathized with some views, but I personally, did not want to continue as a blue-collar worker for the rest of my life.  There were two avenues out of this.  The military and college.  Since I finished third in my high school class of one hundred plus, I was directed toward college and engineering by the principle of my high school.

 Politically, early on, I was independent and self-reliant, so I trended away from the socialist camp and more toward the libertarian and conservative, where I pretty much still sit some eighty years later.

 I eventually returned to Christianity, not as a Catholic, but as a practicing Methodist.

 So, I consider myself an intellectual and an open-minded person who tries to cut through the bullshit of modern life, both right and left.  Finding more bullshit and nonsense to the left of politics, I normally find more reality to the right.

 Ray Gruszecki

September, 2023

Ancestors and Progeny

 Ancestors and Progeny

 My progeny, some of whom the still carry the unusual last name of Polish origin, have emerged as mostly high school and college-educated good citizens.  In the American melting pot tradition, some have inter-married with spouses of Lebanese, Irish, Italian and other American backgrounds. Thankfully, none of them, to my knowledge, have been afflicted by the many ills prevalent in our society.  None are drunks or drug addicts, or criminals.

 I am the patriarch of this extended family at this point, with my direct offspring in their sixties, and their adult kids in their twenties and thirties.

 I’ve done some Ancestry.com work lately, and gone back to the Ellis Island records showing when my ancestors arrived in the U.S.  My grandfather Wojciech Gruszecki, (Albert in English], was born in 1870 in what is shown as Jaslo, Galicia, Austria, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1906 at age 36.  (Remember that Poland did not exist as a country from 1795 to 1918). 

 My grandmother Anna Gruszecka, whose maiden name was Anna Kluza, is shown as emigrating to the U.S. in 1910 at age 29.   This indicates that she was married in Poland before emigrating to the U.S., but the records are unclear.  Both my grandmother and grandfather were from what now is Southeastern Poland, about 150 km from Ukraine, and 100 km from Slovakia.

 My grandparents became poor dirt farmers in Savoy, Massachusetts, like many other immigrants at that time.  Their property, close to the Windsor line, was about 100 acres of mostly wooded land.  I don’t believe that they ever became American citizens.  They just stayed and farmed as resident aliens.  Wojciech Gruszecki, 1872-1946.  Anna (Kluza) Gruszecka, 1877-1950.

 They had five children, my aunts Stacia (1904-1972), Sophie (1906-1981), and Mildred (1912-1994), my father Teddy (1909-1970), and my uncle Walter (1915-1974).  One child died at birth.  I don’t think that any of them went to high school, instead helping out on the farm, or entering the work force in their early teens.  All three of these aunts worked in local cotton mills from their mid-teens until later in life.  My aunts Stacia and Sophie did not have any children.  My Aunt Mildred had two kids.

 I remember my father being one of the last of his generation (in the 1940’s), to be able to effectively use teams of horses for plowing, harrowing and other farm work.  He was also naturally mechanically inclined, and was able to tear down, repair and rebuild all manner of automotive and other mechanical equipment.  He helped me to replace rings and bearings on some of the junk-type cars that I used for transportation in my younger days.

 My father was also comfortable “working the land”, - from farming to logging, to farm animals.  Without really any formal education, he could do pretty much anything he set his mind to do.

 My mother was also born in Southeastern Poland in 1905, in a rural area named Nieczajna Gorna.  She emigrated to Chicago in 1921 to join her sister Mary, who had preceded her.  She traveled to Western Massachusetts to visit her cousins (Tabors) in the late 1920’s, when she met my American-born father.  They both spoke English and Polish, and embarked on a 1920-30’s style courtship in the times of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

 They married in 1933, and I was born in 1936.  My sister came later, in 1943, in the middle of the second world war.  My father lived from 1909-1970, and my mother from 1905-1987.

 Moving on to my generation and later, I was born in 1936, and can remember some of the economic depression of the 1930’s, and quite a lot of the Second World War.  I could of course read quite well by the time that the war ended in 1945, but I was too young to have developed any real political beliefs.  My mother was an FDR enthusiast.  Others, at the time, called him “that bastard, Frankie”.  My father was apolitical, and probably might have qualified as a modern Libertarian.  He was independent, and very much his own man.  He did not deign to comment on politics.  If out of a job, he would create his own job, doing something connected with the land.  I remember one of his epithets when referring to Roosevelt’s Work Project Administration of the 1930’s which engaged indigent men in public works projects.  My father Teddy called it “We Poke Around”.

 I worked with my father from time to time when I was in my teens, and got to know him a bit more than his natural taciturnity allowed.  He was a hard worker who did excellent work at whatever he did.  He left that good habit with me.

 I was good in school and enjoyed it.  I chose the Scientific Course, and I got good grades in high school while working a full shift at a local cotton mill from age 16 onwards.  I finished number three in my graduating class of one hundred plus, and received several scholarships and awards.

 It was 1954, and since I was dirt poor and working for $1.15 per hour in the local cotton mill, I had intended to join the U.S. Military, and continue my education later on the G.I. Bill.  My mother, my high school principle, Mr. Grosz, and the scholarships I got, directed me toward studying Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston.  So, I left “the sticks” of Savoy and Adams, left my car, left my friends, and headed for big city Boston and academia.

 I won’t be boring with my college adventures.  Suffice it to say that I graduated and got my degree in Chemical Engineering in 1959 with a modest grade point average.  Northeastern University was a co-op school, so basically, other than the first full year, for the next four years, we went to classes for half of the year, and worked in a related field for the other half of the year.  In my case, I also worked on my own while I was attending classes, which cut in to study time, but which allowed me to eat.  Back then, you could get through college with diligence and hard work, some scholarships, and nominal financial help from family and friends.

 My son Craig also got his Chemical Engineering degree from Northeastern in 1983, and my granddaughter Alana got her PharmD from Northeastern in 2012.  Craig was pretty much able to work his way through college, (with scholarships), like I did.  He may have owed a small amount upon graduation. 

 In the modern inflationary world, my very intelligent granddaughter, Alana, with many scholarships because of her nearly 4.0 brightness, and with working co-op, still ended up owing a chunk of money to the academic bandits.

 Another granddaughter, Katie, studied medicine at Boston University, and obtained PANCE accreditation in their masters program as a Physician Assistant.  Katie is also a 4.0 type student and received many scholarships, but still generated substantial debt.

 Granddaughter Colleen got her degree in Business Administration from Fashion Institute of Manhattan.  She also generated substantial student loan debt.

 Two Grandsons, Matthew and Tommy, have Computer Science degrees.  Matthew from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY, and Tommy, just weeks ago, from SUNY Binghamton, NY.  Tommy has a job lined up with JP Morgan Chase in the New York City area starting in a few weeks.  Matthew is working locally, living at home, and still looking first his first professional job.  Matthew is on the spectrum, but then, so is the richest person in the world, Elon Musk.

 Daughter Suzanne Grimes and her three kids all have college backgrounds.  Her husband Jimmy is a retired union super who worked all over New York City in the metal lathers union all of his life, and most likely has made more money than any of us. He is now retired, and contracting as a sideline, just to keep busy.

 I believe that Suzanne has an associate degree.  Grandson Jimmy Jr. has a professional job as a Marketing consultant.  Other grandson Eric is a medical nurse at a Westchester County hospital.  Granddaughter Kristine just graduated from college.  She will be a caregiver.

 My sister and her family are primarily business owners or business oriented, and have developed their success in life along those lines. Some of their offspring are inclined toward art and other creative pursuits, and hold degrees in those areas.  All are intelligent, well-adjusted productive citizens.

 So, from peasants in Poland 150 years ago, and poor dirt farmer immigrants in New England some 120 years ago, and blue-collar workers 100 or so years ago, the extended family has evolved into an Engineering, Medical, Information Technology and Business and Art professional class.

 As the first and oldest of this panoply to go to college and get an engineering degree, I guess I’ll have to proudly take credit for being the patriarch of this extended family, and the instigator of this movement from peasantry to professional.  I have lived a long life, and like for many of us, there has been some strife and disappointment in my life.  But this has been tempered with many joys, not the least of which is seeing all the people coming up after me, who are living happy and well adjusted lives.

 Ray Gruszecki

June 7, 2023

No Government

 No Government

 It has become increasingly apparent with Joe Biden and his sophomoric handlers and minions, that we are having effectively less and less real government and leadership in our country.  That’s not to say that we don’t have a massive bureaucracy of democrats that calls itself government and tries to control every aspect of our lives in the manner that they dictate, but that is in fact a socialist dictatorship, and not a representative government.

 Crime is rife in our democrat run cities, and Soros backed prosecutors and judges are more sympathetic to criminals than to their victims.  They practice repeated “catch and release, so that perpetrators are not prevented from recidivism by incarceration, and are free to repeat their crimes at will.

 Illegal migrants with no papers, including potentially all manner of criminals and terrorists, as many as 10,000 in a day, walk or swim across our southern border with impunity.  Other than the somewhat restricted efforts by border state governors like Governor Abbott of Texas, our federal government essentially allows anyone that wants to walk across the border, enter the country.

 Our economy is a shambles, stupid, a wise democrat once said.  Well, it was never truer than under Biden, but Biden postures, pats himself on the back, and brags about his great record on job and economic growth.  Of course, Biden forgets to mention that he is starting with numbers derived from the virtual shutdown of the country during the Covid-19 epidemic.

 Biden and his minions have decimated our energy industry in their misguided, sophomoric rush to replace effective fossil fuels with unproven and ill-conceived replaceables and electric power that they think just magically appears at plug-ins across the country.  We were once self-sufficient in energy, and in fact, were net exporters of energy.  Now, we have gone from $1.80 per gallon gasoline to upwards of $5.00 per gallon, and go, hat in hand to Middle East suppliers who hate our guts.

 There is nothing wrong with using wind, hydro and other replaceable sources for part of our energy requirements, and electrical plug-ins for limited local automotive use, but relying on EV’s as primary transportation across our vast country is ludicrous, and indeed, sophomoric.  Where are the adults in this government?

 Biden’s administration has continued the racist policies started under the Obama administration that posits that racial discrimination is our greatest societal issue.  This in spite of the tremendous gains toward racial integration of our 12-13% black Americans begun in the 1960’s by Dr. Martin Luther King, and continuing for over 60 years.  This acceptance and inclusion of black Americans as a full and equal part of our society is being undone by seizing on and magnifying the tragic but anecdotal deaths of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other individual black Americans.  Not only has this return to active racism resulted in riots, deaths and physical destruction of our cities, it has resulted in defunding our police and the resultant additional lawlessness that continues to be the result of this defunding.

An egregious abuse of the Biden cabal is the undoing of societal strictures, taboos and rules of society that have been in existence for thousands of years, since the dawn of civilization, and the elevation of these previously forbidden behaviors, not only to acceptance, but to desirability and prominence.  That’s not to say that every societal rule and custom embedded in ancient writings should be incorporated into our modern world, just that all of our history should not be rejected out of hand, along with the statues of important historical figures, as is also happening.

 And of course, you would never know about this deterioration of our society if you only just followed the mainstream media, who cover up these abuses by the Biden government in their blind obeisance to the left wing.  Only outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, National Review, Wall Street Journal, NY Post and a few others report the real news.  Most of the rest of the media seem to be reading from a script prepared for them by the Biden administration, which repeats their agenda, and not the real news.

 Ray Gruszecki

September 21, 2023

Western Civilization

 Western Civilization

 Why is Western Civilization destroying its moral, ethical, cultural and historical foundations?

 Laws and rules and principles regulating human behavior that have been in existence since the beginnings of time are suddenly being washed away in a “swell” of “social justice”, “identity politics”,  “wokeness” and the self-congratulatory, misplaced, political liberalism.  In the U.S., the perpetrator of this deterioration is the Biden administration..

 Not to say that everything appearing in holy writings like the Tanakh, the Bible, the Quran, the Hindu Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred scriptures should pertain to modern life and mores, but much of our human identity is embodied in these and other spiritually based texts.  They are the starting points for civilizations, and have sustained civilizations for thousands of years. They should not be summarily cast aside in favor of a selfish and narcissistic life style because a shallow political sub group spouting loosely founded modernity, morality and ethics suddenly arises and so dictates.

 That’s not to say that the slavery of ancient times should be perpetuated, (though it still is, in a good part of the world), or that homosexuals should be stoned, or that women should be considered as unequal human chattel.  Obviously, a rescinding or liberalization of some archaic ancient customs was necessary, and has been accomplished in our civilized world.

 But what has happened over roughly the last seventy years, primarily by actions of the political left,  and now most recently exacerbated by Joe Biden and his handlers and minions, is that nearly every human aberration that once was considered unlawful, illegal, out of bounds or “sinful”, has been liberalized, and not only made part of mainstream life, but elevated to the status of exemplary, behavior.  Society is inundated and bombarded with all manner of deviancy, whether the ever-expanding LGBTQ++++ cliques demanding special privileges, legalization of all manner of historically illicit drugs and other substances, catch and release of criminals in our courts, enfranchisement of people that are in the country illegally, or a myriad of other abuses that are being flaunted and thrown in law-abiding faces every day by the “politically correct”, “woke” liberal mob.

 For example, concerning race relations, rather than a continuation of the integration and absorption of our 12-13% African-American community into the fabric of American life which was begun in the 1960’s by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, (and which was proceeding quite positively), political operators like the Obamas and others once again renewed race as a divisive and destructive political tool.  We are led to believe by those who form our opinions, and by vociferous activists, that racial discrimination is still one of our continuing and most egregious social ills.  Abrogated in this return to what is actually racism disguised as inclusiveness, is the progress in real race relations accomplished over the past 75 years.

 This return to racial division for political purposes has been exacerbated by the tragic but anecdotal deaths of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other individual black Americans.  Not only has this return to active racism resulted in riots, deaths and physical destruction of our cities, it has resulted in defunding our police and the resultant additional lawlessness that continues to be the result of this defunding.  Cancel culture, and the “woke” movement are founded here.  So is the Marxist based “Black Lives Matter”, the con perpetuated by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi, who mis-appropriated millions of dollars of collected donations.

 All of the above disruptions of a normal, well-regulated society can be attributed to the extreme left socialist/communist based party that the modern democrats have become.  Earlier democrats, such as FDR, JFK and LBJ are turning over in their graves at this leftist extremism and socialism.  The modern extreme democrats have perverted the altruistic foundations of the party into an autocratic, self-serving perversion.

We need a return to our basic and founding and historical principles.

 All citizens have equal rights, regardless of skin color, ethnic origin or gender.  A federal program and laws reiterating the equal rights of all Americans is possibly necessary to once again stress these fundamental rights. There should be no special rights or privileges as redress for historical abuses of hundreds of years ago, as proposed by some.

 There are two basic genders, male and female, with trans and LGBTQ++++ hybrids, all having equal rights, but none having special rights and privileges.

 We must establish and maintain laws defining real national borders, and the same for legal immigration, as we nearly always have in the past before the open border policies of Biden and his minions.

 We must establish and maintain effective police in our cities, and ensure and enforce the laws.  We must end “catch and release” of criminals and ensure appropriate adjudication of criminals.  We also must end any discrimination by police against minorities.

 Schools should teach true and verified American history, and not propaganda, such as Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, which are racist constructs concocted for political purposes.

 Vaccinations, wearing of face masks, social distancing and other rules relating to Covid should be reviewed, monitored and updated. Covid’s true origins should be rigorously investigated and publicized.

 The whole subject of global warming needs to be re-evaluated using sound scientific principles and not politics.  Reasonable efforts should be encouraged to clean up our planet, including land, waterways, seas and the atmosphere.  Ways must be found to encourage the major polluters, China, India and the emerging third world countries to participate in this effort. 

 The unrealistic goal of using electric power produced by renewables for most of our energy needs should be mitigated, and use of other non-polluting or low polluting sources such as low sulfur natural gas and oil should be developed or re-developed.

 We were once self-sufficient in energy, and in fact were net exporters of energy, pre-Biden.  We need to return to being net exporters of energy, accommodating what we have learned about partly supplying our energy needs from renewables and via electrical plug-ins for EV’s.

 Tremendous damage has been done to our country by the incompetence and fumbling of the doddering and corrupt old fool and party hack that the democrats elected as president.  But, unfortunately, incompetence and senility is not all.  The extreme left socialist democrats have wasted trillions of pandemic stimulus dollars on ill-conceived socialist programs, contributing to the ensuing inflation and to employment malaise.

 Biden and his sophomoric handlers strut and pat themselves on the back for “Bidenomics”, while average American families suffer and live paycheck to paycheck, with real spendable income that decreases each year.

 The country needs a strong president and a socially and fiscally responsible congress to bring us out of this morass caused by the Biden democrats.  Whether Trump, who is way ahead in early polls, with all of his legal and personal baggage can get elected and overcome (or pardon himself) of the many charges against him is debatable.  He is a fighter, but his current situation, with four indictments and 91 felony charges against him, may be too much for even the combative Trump.  DeSantis, Nikki, Ramaswamy?  Too early to tell.

 And, against whom? Seemingly not Biden or Kamala.  Even the most partisan leftists are acknowledging how incompetent Biden and Kamala are.  Gavin and RFK Jr.?  Probably too male and too white.

 It may not be enough for democrats to rely only on a platform of “keep Trump out”, as they did in 2020, or on championing unconstitutional points such as federal abortion and college debt forgiveness, as they did in 2022.  The democrats need a platform, and not empty posturing in face of their debilitating effect on the economy.

 A wiser democrat than these sophomoric socialists once said, "it's the economy, stupid".  That still pertains in 2024.

 Ray Gruszecki

September 14, 2023

Gullibility

 Gullibility

 One really has to wonder at the rank gullibility of the American public, and particularly of the roughly 50 plus percent of American voters that have voted for the extreme left “politically correct” or “socially just” or “woke” democrats in recent elections, and continue showing in the polls as backing Joe Biden and the “woke” leftists in the coming 2024 election.

 Oh, I’m not going to launch into a dialogue concerning the normal  political differences between democrats and republicans.  Each of the major political parties have deeply embedded and long-standing beliefs that define them, and these do not change with temporal political winds.  But there traditionally has been a sizable bloc of voters who call themselves “Independents”, and who can swing one way or the other in any given election.

 Pew Research, which is normally pretty reliable, has found that our country’s electorate is split roughly one-third democrat, one-third republican and one-third independent.  Quoting Pew Research, “Around a third of registered voters in the U.S. (34%) identify as independents, while 33% identify as Democrats and 29% identify as Republicans, according to a Center analysis of Americans’ partisan identification based on surveys of more than 12,000 registered voters in 2018 and 2019.”

 These “Independents”, and some of the electorate, both right and left, can be swayed by rhetoric, by their pocket books, by their societal beliefs, or by any of a myriad of other hot-button issues in any given election.

 It seems that the overriding “hot button issue” in the 2020 election, and now, leading to the 2024 election, is an out of balance hatred of Donald Trump that has been instituted by his political enemies, and embellished by a grossly unbalanced and unfair mainstream media.  This hatred has recently been exacerbated by a spate of never before contemplated criminal charges brought against Ex-President Trump by his leftist enemies, while their democrat cronies skate and scoff at similar charges.

 Trump overcame his massed political and media enemies in 2016, but even his very real actual positive results for the country were insufficient to overcome the anti-Trump media blitz, his narcissistic public persona and the effects of the Covid pandemic during the 2020 election.  He lost to Joe Biden in his Delaware basement, who cast himself as a positive elder statesman and voice of reason, but who in fact, was the empty-headed lackey of the “woke” extreme left.

 Once in power, the extreme left wing, (I do not even consider them conventional democrats), undertook to try to rule by executive fiat, abrogating the constitution, and using the Justice Department and federal law enforcement as illegal tools of the executive.  This unconstitutional cabal very quickly concocted crimes with which they charged former President Trump and their other enemies, arrested them, and proceeded with purges and persecutions reminiscent of Stalinist days in Russia.

 The 2022 mid-term elections seemed like an opportunity to stop the hemorrhaging of political rights.  Instead, the unscrupulous left and their dishonest media allies seized on and distorted two issues that were important to a young electorate.  Firstly, that the “nasty” right-wing justices in SCOTUS had taken away a basic human right by rescinding federal abortion, rather than redressing a long-standing indignity to the constitution, and secondly, by the blatantly unconstitutional attempt to bribe young voters by forgiving their college debt obligations.  Rather than a cleaning out of the extreme leftist “rot”, the mid-term elections resulted in a marginally democrat senate, and a republican house by only a few votes.

 Biden and his handlers and his minions do not seem to have an ounce of truth about their destructive administration.  They lie and lie and lie, blatantly, to our faces.  About jobs, they cite gains from during the Covid shutdown.  About the economy, they cite “Bidenomics” as a success in spite of rampant inflation, exorbitant gas prices and general economic malaise.  On the border, they lie and claim success in spite of millions of illegal, undocumented aliens walking or swimming across the border.  They lie about crime in our democrat run cities.  They lie about our energy policy.  And they pat themselves on the back for the great job that they are doing, while the country literally falls into ruin.

 Ray Gruszecki

September 6, 2023

What I Read

 What I Read

 I read when I’m travelling, when I’m waiting for appointments, and I try to read for at least an hour each day sitting on my balcony.         I normally read from a Kindle, but I am not averse to actual books.

 Several months ago, I reread the three great dystopian novels; -  George Orwell’s “1984”, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”.  I have also recently finished several non-fiction works; “World Without Mind” by Franklin Foer, “The Indestructible Jews” by Max I. Dimont, “Lebanon, A House Divided, by Sandra Mackey.

 I just finished William Kent Krueger’s novel “This Tender Land”, which is a depression era river odyssey, like “Huckleberry Finn”, on steroids. 

 I am simultaneously reading “The Travelling Cat Chronicles” by Hiro Arikawa and Philip Gabriel, “Uncivil Agreement” by Lilliana Mason, “The Misinformation Age” by Cailin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall, “1177” by Eric H. Cline, “Best Short Tales of Franz Kafka” by Franz Kafka, “Capitalism and Freedom” by Milton Friedman.

 I have pretty much a full library available on my Kindle, IPhone and computers, (427 titles currently), so I am never without something to read.  I also get an email each day with 8-10 reading suggestions that mostly cost $1.99 each, and which I review each day, and occasionally download a selection. 

 Ray Gruszecki

September 5, 2023