Republicans, if you're listening…

(from) The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

• Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.

• Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

link to source

Today I offer the words of George Santayana in the hope that those on the political right might read them and recognize the very real and imminent threat to human existence climate change poses.

Unfortunately, today's Republicans have shown that they only listen to what rattles around in the right-wing echo chamber.

The Tragedy of the Commons

link to source

"The Tragedy of the Commons" is a term used to describe what happens to common resources as a result of human greed. It was first coined in an article in Science in 1968 by Garrett Hardin. The commons dilemma was seen long before Hardin, but he brought widespread attention to it and described it in a common-sense fashion that made it easily accessible.
At its core, the Tragedy of the Commons demonstrates that, in any situation where the consequences of a course of action are shared among a collective, while the benefits are reaped by an individual or single group within the collective, people will tend to take actions that in the long term are detrimental to the group as a whole. This is a tragedy because, in seeking their own personal gain, the members of the group actually ultimately hurt themselves.

link to source

In America today, and throughout the so-called "developed" world, The Tragedy of the Commons is unfolding right before our eyes as greed drives economic, environmental, and political decisions. As a result, humanity is facing possible extinction as a species. Should this occur, it will be a suicide, and greed will be our weapon.

The GOP Card Party

Rather than attack Trump, Lindsey Graham attacks Trump critics who defend McCain

McCain's former "amigo" has become a Trump apologist, even as Trump attacks his late friend.It's an open secret as far as I'm concerned.

JOSH ISRAEL MAR 21, 2019, 9:52 AM

link to source

How does one explain Lindsey Graham's actions; or, for that matter the actions of the entire collection of Republicans in Congress when it comes to sucking up to Donald J. Trump?

As far as I'm concerned, the answer to that question is an open secret.
Graham and the rest of the Congressional elephant troupe knew that Trump was dealing with the Russians and Wikileaks during the campaign, and they kept Trump's secret for two reasons:

1. Amassing power and personal wealth are more central to their core beliefs than serving one's country.

2. They didn't think Trump would win.

Trump, of course, knew they were with him in his deception. In fact, he could never have altered the GOP's platform regarding Ukraine without help from others in the party who most likely wanted in on the action. To think otherwise is to believe that Republicans are blind and have the intelligence of a bag of bellybutton lint. Republicans may be morally bankrupt, but one should not confuse them with the MAGATS that make up the base of their party.

Now that he's President, their complicity in deceiving the voters gives Trump leverage over them. He owns them the same way Putin owns him.

As a result, today's Republican party is nothing but a house of cards; and the cards are all jokers. If any one of them had the decency and courage to fess up and provide proof of the deception perpetrated in 2016, the GOP would come crashing down. However, Graham et al. have no decency and certainly no courage. They've chosen to spread lies to glue together their house of cards in the hope that the voters won't notice come election time and blow it down.

link to source