I too, grew up in leftist L.A. But my family legally immigrated from Communist Cuba. My mom's patience with my willfully ignorant friends was mind boggling.
Imagine a woman whose boyfriend was executed on live TV (yes, Che and Castro had daily televised executions of anyone who was pro-America or pro-Freedom, or anti-communist) being polite to my Black friend whose name was Che. His parents named him Che, after a man who hated Blacks and called them lazy. Nope, my mom never told my friend anything about his namesake, she was -and still is- too honorable.
I believe that if PRESIDENT TRUMP loses the House in 2026 a black AMERICAN will never be President. It will be the Fundamental Islamists who will use the same tactics the democrats used to try and beat a white PRESIDENT.
I’m the daughter of a man who fled China in 1949, on the last boat out of Hong Kong, and certain execution by Mao, whom he knew personally. He was graciously admitted by the U.S. on a diplomat’s visa, without having to stop in Taiwan. There is insufficient understanding in America to this day of the evil that communism is. Its idealization is absolutely delusional, with Ivy League academia worst affected. For a start on understanding the fraud in academe, I recommend Paul Hollander’s Political Pilgrims, Malcolm Muggeridge’s Chronicles of Wasted Time, and Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Hope Against Hope, and Hope Abandoned. And The Burning Forest by Simon Leys. But there is so much more to know and read about it. And so much lying and falsehood about it that has been spread by addlebrained left-liberals to refute.
Teaching the truth about the actualities of communism is desperately needed in America. Imagine all those like our families who faced the horrors directly, seeing their American children and grandchildren consider communism or even socialism as legitimate forms of government? Academia is very much at fault, how is it so many students from families like ours go in knowing the truth about dangerous totalitarian regimes and come out praising socialism, communism, and even islamic radicals?
While I like your comment I'm puzzled by what makes someone honorable by keeping someone in the dark and not sharing information or different perspectives with them. Must be a cultural thing? If we don't learn from the mistakes of others how do we progress?
Has anyone spent even a minute discussing Mamdani's family wealth? He is a product of capitalism. I love how Nuevo Marxists always disparage capitalism when it is how they got their platform in the first place (father a writer; mother a Bollywood producer and director). And I don't see them living shitty lifestyles. No, they like to live BIG. AOC is a good example, with her appearance at galas around NYC dressed to the nines. Bernie has his multiple nice homes (one is just not enough for a good Marxist). No, they only want socialist poverty, like we see in Cuba, for everyone else. The plebes. They figure that as leaders they still will deserve and get the high life. Arrogant hypocrites.
Yes. Sort of like Whoopi Goldberg and Michelle Obama complaining, saying that America is so racist, that no minority can be successful. While they walk around in $2500 outfits with $5,000 purses.
....and these girls in Sasha's montage video, they all have affordable, capitalist, perfect-teeth dental work. Can't even find that in England, much much less Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
That's such a great observation. For this midwesterner with a 24 yo daughter and 23 yo son, that montage was so foreign to me. If only we could show them in real time what this will do. Then again, let them live through it to truly feel the joy of the experience or rather experiment.
There were several statements on the barn wall initially, ending with "All animals are equal." By the end of the book, these evolve to the single one above. Pournelle generalized this process (the iron law of bureaucracy). One could argue that all institutions evolve so as to benefit those in charge.
They have pyramid thinking. They are the peak of the pyramid and deserve the lifestyle while they take time out of their lives to preach to us about the greater good. Their base is the base of the pyramid, the people they want to fund their lifestyles while remaining at the bottom. Socialism is made fashionable, but it delivers nothing but misery and poverty for the base. And that's exactly how Bernie and AOC like it. They are grifters, the slithery lizard creatures who feed off the bottom.
So a foreign born communist who, only a naturalized citizen for 6 years & has never held a job wants to be mayor of one of America’s biggest cities? A no talent, wannabe rapper whose mother directed his bad videos? All media is pushing the narrative as if he already won, we’ll see if the freeloader voters who want the rest of us to pay for their lose lives, outvote the more sane ones - if enough are left.
Yep, and I noticed that trend during the ObamaBiden years....SO MANY judges, congressmen, mayors, DAs and other authorities were born elsewhere, typically 3rd world countries. That's where the LeftistDems been getting their 'talent' from.
I consider Calif Senator Alex Padilla to be America's first 'anchor baby' senator. His parents made it to Calif from Mexico, back when.
I suspect that I too was a "squishy liberal" at heart: I was a big fan of everything JFK, I backed the Freedom Riders and wanted to join them in the South. The Vietnam War changed a lot in me. I was a Marine over there and saw that we were there to help save the South Vietnamese from the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army - and yes, I stayed a squishy liberal there, too.
Where everything changed for me was when I got back and saw the Left, staging pro-enemy ("Peace") demonstrations while carrying the enemy's flags. I saw the spreading violence against anyone who opposed their agenda and the hatred they had for everyone else.
I ended my fascination with liberalism back then because it represented hatred, not love or acceptance - just the strange dogmatic destruction by the Left. Am I still for equality and justice? Absolutely. But I don't believe that the Left offers that anymore.
As my high school teacher used to say, "capitalism is the WORST economic system on earth, EXCEPT for every other system."
The Left is someone who has grown up, relatively privileged (compared to the rest of the world), unaware of how their whole standard of living has been created by capitalism!
Our civilization has gotten fat and happy. And ignorant of reality in other countries.
NO ONE would be in favor of socialism and communism, if they had to live under that system, in another country.
Let alone, some pro-Hamas-terrorist-supporting college student, having to live in Gaza, for even a few months. Queers for Palestine? Really? Kinda like Chickens for Colonel Sanders!
These people are totally detached from the real world, living in a world of illusion.
My heart goes to you. I grew up in a different circumstances and my fascination with leftism ended in a similar fashion.
One thing though, it’s not Liberalism you were fascinated with but leftism. There is nothing Liberal in leftism, just like there is no progressivism in leftism. Leftists usurp vocabulary just like they usurp everything else: baby step-by-baby step.
Don’t let them destroy the language. They are leftists and nothing else.
But I do think excessive 'liberalism' is a gateway drug for 'leftism'. It wasn't conservative standards that opened the door for Leftists, but rather the liberal squishy approach.
Better yet, learn what Liberalism is. Hint: looked what it was before leftists, the most MURDEROUS movement in history bar none, began, so to speak, muddying the water.
My mother in law grew up dirt poor one of 7 siblings. Her husband dirt poor as one of 10. He got his first dental visit during his first week as a Navy volunteer at 18 at the start of WWII. That dental visit lasted nearly an entire day. Both lived the Great Depression. She also got an A+ education in Catholic grade school and high school in a major American city. He, too. She then went to work at IBM. After spending WWII as an electricians mate on a sub in the Pacific, he came home and after a brief recovery with his vet pals and at the request of his father got a job (Western Electric) and shared his pay with his parents. He then went to university at night for his engineer degree. He was a union installer but also rose to general manager of the WE manufacturing plant in Michigan. During that career he represented both sides of union negotiations. She spent years attaining her university degree transferring from university to university as he was transferred city to city. She got her Masters at the age of 65. They worked, studied and pulled their families out of poverty. They were handed nothing for free. She often commented that McCarthy was right and uncovered the underbelly of communism here. Don’t be fooled. Socialism is communism. Progressivism is communism in disguise. They will lie to get it. Covid revealed their lies and your loss of Constitutional rights.
Islam is Socialism. I'm happy to be corrected, but my understanding is that the revolution in Iran in 79 was fueled by University kids as well as the mullahs.
And when Kockamayme got in, they started offing the uni kids and profs.
That exact process is going on in Canada as we speak.
I have similar experience; I’m 9th of 10 kids born to poor Irish Catholic family. My father, 4 brothers and I all served active duty US military. Got my undergrad and MBA via GI Bill. Career as exec in private industry for Global 50 company and paid back the government at least 10x over via income taxes.
US is eyeball deep in socialism now because over half the country depends on local/state/fed gov for funding their health, education, housing, food and income (eg teachers, cops, feds,etc). Relatively few people who pay more in taxes than subsidies they receive over their lifetime.
As someone who is oxygen dependent, I cannot accept no plastics. I would be dead without this device that delivers my oxygen (at home!) through plastic, non-collapsible, malleable tubing!
If I look around my home, I can find probably 1000 things that are plastic - and I'm glad they are (lightweight, portable, airtight).
slippery slope on where "it stops" though ;-) plastic weighs less than glass, so it is cheaper to transport, and therefore pollutes less. Likewise, plastic takes less energy to produce than glass, therefore less carbon footprint.
Plastic production consumes less energy and pollutes less than wildfires in CA by a huge magnitude.
I think it's best to spend our time and resources on what we can directly control, and not on cliches
Tell your friend that if there is garbage, then it needs to be picked up and dealt with it. My point about cliches is deciding what plastic "stays" and what plastic "goes". Who decides what is a "good" plastic? What's the criteria to be used to determine the good or bad plastic? Who appoints the plastic commissars that determine the criteria? 🤔
There’s a lot of unnecessary plastic out there. Like those little extra wrappers on jars that are already air sealed. Unnecessary! Or think about how much plastic goes into one take out meal: bag, utensils, containers… it’s unsustainable and frankly it makes me feel kinda guilty when ordering out. And of course the endless plastic water bottles. All of these are first world problems that are leading to microplastics and ocean pollution. We need to do better.
Falling on deaf ears; it is not the plastic but what is done with it. I'd compare it to guns, but you probably want to get rid of them too. Oh yes, I almost forgot. It is humans who are doing the polluting...get rid of them too?
I sold polyethylene for 46 years. Go to any hospital, food store, the tens of thousand irreplaceable products help societies. Throwing your trash out the window is not helpful.
Plastic pollution, especially microplastics, is a real problem but I agree that the most important use for plastics is in medical settings. As for those 1000 other plastic items, there are probably healthier alternatives for most of them.
Reusable fabric grocery bags were really being pushed for a while. Stanford (or another university - can't recall) did research on them and found that routinely used re-usable grocery bags had high levels of e-coli, salmonella, etc.
Cat, PE has so many good values being inert. In a lot of cases the ethylene feedstock is coming out of a hole drilled in 1964. Instead of spending $ on hare brained political money rabbit holes, more commercials of the crying Indian in the canoe to teach the dummies to recycle and collect.
From what I have read it seems that Mamdani should be in prison for conspiracy to violate Federal immigration law, not the potential NYC mayor. Only time will tell.
unfortunately we do not live in a capitalistic system right now. The game has been rigged by all those corporations "too big to fail". They've purchased our government and created regulation for their sole benefit against the US citizen.
Your loving "Obamacare" was written by the healthcare insurance industry. So who benefits? Not the US consumer.
We need to reign in all the monopolies, and force break ups of the too big to fail. Return to small regional banks, break up the Googles of the world. Create a level playing field with added competition.
Capitalism works, until the Oligarchs and donor class seize control of the system.
In NYC they are about to find out that "free" destroys actual freedom. And the collective looks out for those in control, not the general public.
Except unlike corporations, if you decide not to go along with a government edict, sooner or later an agent of the government will show up at your house with a gun.
Sasha, in our DNA MOST of us lean old left. Because old Left is the same today as center right. It is where Americans hearts and history lie. America has always been a compassionate country. It has always been a hard-working country. It has always been a creative / resourceful country. These are the values of most Americans. I think we should just drop the GOP moniker and call centrist politics MAGA. If one can not get sucked in by the disparagement of that term, it is what most Americans agree is the right course
Hope that coastal CA, OR, WA, MA, CN, NH, DE, and the denizens of NYC, Chicago, Phillie, Atlanta, and northern VA and Richmond would likewise grow up, experience the world and real life outside their cosseted over-populated, over-represented enclaves. and actually analyze and think.
I pray Trump and his influence will continue and destroy each education- and leftist-government Matrix our children and college kids, and their parents exist inside.
What am I for? I am for working and studying hard for years in order to achieve a meaningful education that allows one to get a job that is fulfilling both personally and economically, that gives one a sense of self reliance. Did I go into debt to do so? Yup. Did I pay that debt back? Yup. Do I expect anyone to give or do anything for me? Nope. Everyone of Mamdani's policies 1) have been tried before and failed. Look at the 1970s socialist response to NYCs economic downturn and social unrest. What will be different this go round? Most of the Mumdani supporters weren't even born then so they believe they are smart and embarking on a new way of urban life. 2) Each of Mamdani's policies can be addressed by personal choice and decisions: how many children one chooses to have, where one chooses to live, their drive to increase income through education and work experience in order to improve the quality of their life. Every idiot in the video montage is likely an over indulged kid, a product of baby boomers kids, who have been made to feel they are winners and uber special. A new generation of virtual signalers. Where are the low income black and Hispanic kids who voted for Mamdani? Oh, they voted for Cuomo......
Of all you said, so typically well, this line rang a gigantic bell: "America is always evolving. Businesses sprout up and die. Houses are remodeled. That’s unique to this country."
Another Substacker (Hickman's Hinterlands, https://shagbark.substack.com) wrote recently a lament for the (dying) small town he grew up in, and his Substack still echoes around in my head as I go about the day. I live in the same part of the world as he does. I've noticed the "dead" and "dying" towns all my life, some of them so far gone no one lives in them at all anymore, and lamented their loss, too.
When I visit other parts of the country, the "ghost towns" are curiosities, even tourist attractions. Some of them have taken on new lives. (When I first visited Jerome, Arizona, in 1972, it was a ghost town ... not, apparently, today? But there are lots of others, mostly forgotten, all around America, and yes, someone grew up there, has nostalgia for the way they were then, and wishes they hadn't died.
But somehow, the very fact of "ghost towns" is part of the mystique and the LIFE that exists--uniquely?--in America.
Businesses sprout up and die, houses too, and towns, as well.
It's organic, isn't it? No different from our wild forests, where the most abundant life thrives.* In "managed forests" (like we find in Europe e.g.) everything may be neat and tidy, and it's basically unchanging. I suspect that there is less life there, too. (Where do the bugs and fungi that feed on dead trees find habitat?)
So, yes, your comment woke me up to this fact: free markets are like the wild forests, and good for the same essential reasons: new and renewed life springs up all the time.
*Odd, isn't it, though, that the typical rich, white, virtue-signaling lefties seem to understand the sacred value of diversity in the environment, in the rain forests, in the Adirondack Park ... but don't make the same connection to the HUMAN ecology, i.e. the "ecology" of free markets.
Thank you, Sasha, for yet another thought-provoking piece. As Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say, "Bless you're pea-picking little heart."
Sasha, I love your writing, but this comment is unfair: “ Are there any good writers on the Left now? Not really.”
I’d say Ruy Texeira and some of the writers at The Liberal Patriot are excellent and thoughtful writers who are often critical of their own party.
Please don’t throw everyone on the other side into the same basket. That just stoops to the level of those with TDS who accuse Trump supporters of being “Maggats” and cultists.
The problem with any centrist Dem who runs for office espousing centrist ideas is that once they get into office they will vote in lockstep with the Dem Socialists and will vote for transing kids, DEI, and raising taxes. Guaranteed and proven many times over.
Pigs? Seriously? I raise and butcher pigs for my own consumption. And here's what you don't understand about pigs. Put them in a pen, provide food and water and they are happy to spend life eating and sleeping. Turn them loose to be free and happy and they will breed like rats and destroy everything in sight.
They're smarter than cows, but not by much. And nowhere near dog or horse level intelligence. And they will eat almost anything if it's a matter of survival, but well-fed pigs are actually kinda picky
I too, grew up in leftist L.A. But my family legally immigrated from Communist Cuba. My mom's patience with my willfully ignorant friends was mind boggling.
Imagine a woman whose boyfriend was executed on live TV (yes, Che and Castro had daily televised executions of anyone who was pro-America or pro-Freedom, or anti-communist) being polite to my Black friend whose name was Che. His parents named him Che, after a man who hated Blacks and called them lazy. Nope, my mom never told my friend anything about his namesake, she was -and still is- too honorable.
Your mother is a saint, man.
Don't know you, will never meet you, but...
I genuinely hope to God that you're living a wonderful, fulfilling life. Not for your sake, but so that your Mom is proud.
I have ZERO idea where this came from within me, but I'm compelled to post.
Be well.
Thanks Jim, she risked everything for freedom. I owe it to her to make good use of it. You be well too :)
I believe that if PRESIDENT TRUMP loses the House in 2026 a black AMERICAN will never be President. It will be the Fundamental Islamists who will use the same tactics the democrats used to try and beat a white PRESIDENT.
Thank you for writing this comment.
I’m the daughter of a man who fled China in 1949, on the last boat out of Hong Kong, and certain execution by Mao, whom he knew personally. He was graciously admitted by the U.S. on a diplomat’s visa, without having to stop in Taiwan. There is insufficient understanding in America to this day of the evil that communism is. Its idealization is absolutely delusional, with Ivy League academia worst affected. For a start on understanding the fraud in academe, I recommend Paul Hollander’s Political Pilgrims, Malcolm Muggeridge’s Chronicles of Wasted Time, and Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Hope Against Hope, and Hope Abandoned. And The Burning Forest by Simon Leys. But there is so much more to know and read about it. And so much lying and falsehood about it that has been spread by addlebrained left-liberals to refute.
Teaching the truth about the actualities of communism is desperately needed in America. Imagine all those like our families who faced the horrors directly, seeing their American children and grandchildren consider communism or even socialism as legitimate forms of government? Academia is very much at fault, how is it so many students from families like ours go in knowing the truth about dangerous totalitarian regimes and come out praising socialism, communism, and even islamic radicals?
Thank you for sharing Lynnux.
Maybe she could've gently educated her? I look for natural on-ramps where I can teach. Every so often, it happens.
While I like your comment I'm puzzled by what makes someone honorable by keeping someone in the dark and not sharing information or different perspectives with them. Must be a cultural thing? If we don't learn from the mistakes of others how do we progress?
Has anyone spent even a minute discussing Mamdani's family wealth? He is a product of capitalism. I love how Nuevo Marxists always disparage capitalism when it is how they got their platform in the first place (father a writer; mother a Bollywood producer and director). And I don't see them living shitty lifestyles. No, they like to live BIG. AOC is a good example, with her appearance at galas around NYC dressed to the nines. Bernie has his multiple nice homes (one is just not enough for a good Marxist). No, they only want socialist poverty, like we see in Cuba, for everyone else. The plebes. They figure that as leaders they still will deserve and get the high life. Arrogant hypocrites.
Yes. Sort of like Whoopi Goldberg and Michelle Obama complaining, saying that America is so racist, that no minority can be successful. While they walk around in $2500 outfits with $5,000 purses.
Hypocritical Leftist Democrats.
Their own succes proves that capitalism works.
They used to be called "Limousine Liberals".
....and these girls in Sasha's montage video, they all have affordable, capitalist, perfect-teeth dental work. Can't even find that in England, much much less Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
That's such a great observation. For this midwesterner with a 24 yo daughter and 23 yo son, that montage was so foreign to me. If only we could show them in real time what this will do. Then again, let them live through it to truly feel the joy of the experience or rather experiment.
Yep! Theyre renters, dont own. They dont run a bizness.
They dont have the responsibility of a spouse, much less children.
Skippity Doo Dah....
Thank God my kids live in reality! I’ll take a wee bit of credit for that!
But them living through it, could make the rest of us end up in a very bad way....
It doesn’t last. It will rebound to capitalism faster than you can say Gen Z. They really don’t know what they don’t know.
Its amazing how dumb they come off on video and you know each one of them thinks they are brilliant...Spoiled brats
...becuz they got a participation TROPHY for everything growing up. Hence, a false sense of 'importance' and value.
This is exactly what Orwell (a disaffected communist) depicts in Animal Farm and 1984.
"All animals are equal ... but some are more equal than others."
Marxism is about power, not equality.
Absolutely. Control the population and you gain all power.
There were several statements on the barn wall initially, ending with "All animals are equal." By the end of the book, these evolve to the single one above. Pournelle generalized this process (the iron law of bureaucracy). One could argue that all institutions evolve so as to benefit those in charge.
Spot on.
It's not just Marxism, though Marx puts no limits on it.
It's the point of power.
They have pyramid thinking. They are the peak of the pyramid and deserve the lifestyle while they take time out of their lives to preach to us about the greater good. Their base is the base of the pyramid, the people they want to fund their lifestyles while remaining at the bottom. Socialism is made fashionable, but it delivers nothing but misery and poverty for the base. And that's exactly how Bernie and AOC like it. They are grifters, the slithery lizard creatures who feed off the bottom.
So a foreign born communist who, only a naturalized citizen for 6 years & has never held a job wants to be mayor of one of America’s biggest cities? A no talent, wannabe rapper whose mother directed his bad videos? All media is pushing the narrative as if he already won, we’ll see if the freeloader voters who want the rest of us to pay for their lose lives, outvote the more sane ones - if enough are left.
Yep, and I noticed that trend during the ObamaBiden years....SO MANY judges, congressmen, mayors, DAs and other authorities were born elsewhere, typically 3rd world countries. That's where the LeftistDems been getting their 'talent' from.
I consider Calif Senator Alex Padilla to be America's first 'anchor baby' senator. His parents made it to Calif from Mexico, back when.
If republicans run anyone against this commie, do send him/her this your comment. I would use it in debates and every campaign event
They used to be called "Limousine Liberals".
I suspect that I too was a "squishy liberal" at heart: I was a big fan of everything JFK, I backed the Freedom Riders and wanted to join them in the South. The Vietnam War changed a lot in me. I was a Marine over there and saw that we were there to help save the South Vietnamese from the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army - and yes, I stayed a squishy liberal there, too.
Where everything changed for me was when I got back and saw the Left, staging pro-enemy ("Peace") demonstrations while carrying the enemy's flags. I saw the spreading violence against anyone who opposed their agenda and the hatred they had for everyone else.
I ended my fascination with liberalism back then because it represented hatred, not love or acceptance - just the strange dogmatic destruction by the Left. Am I still for equality and justice? Absolutely. But I don't believe that the Left offers that anymore.
As my high school teacher used to say, "capitalism is the WORST economic system on earth, EXCEPT for every other system."
The Left is someone who has grown up, relatively privileged (compared to the rest of the world), unaware of how their whole standard of living has been created by capitalism!
Our civilization has gotten fat and happy. And ignorant of reality in other countries.
NO ONE would be in favor of socialism and communism, if they had to live under that system, in another country.
Let alone, some pro-Hamas-terrorist-supporting college student, having to live in Gaza, for even a few months. Queers for Palestine? Really? Kinda like Chickens for Colonel Sanders!
These people are totally detached from the real world, living in a world of illusion.
Thank YOU for your service Marine.
Amen! #respect & #salute @USMCVet
Thanks Buddy!
Semper Fi
My heart goes to you. I grew up in a different circumstances and my fascination with leftism ended in a similar fashion.
One thing though, it’s not Liberalism you were fascinated with but leftism. There is nothing Liberal in leftism, just like there is no progressivism in leftism. Leftists usurp vocabulary just like they usurp everything else: baby step-by-baby step.
Don’t let them destroy the language. They are leftists and nothing else.
But I do think excessive 'liberalism' is a gateway drug for 'leftism'. It wasn't conservative standards that opened the door for Leftists, but rather the liberal squishy approach.
More of the leftist’s confusing language.
Define “excessive Liberalism”
Better yet, learn what Liberalism is. Hint: looked what it was before leftists, the most MURDEROUS movement in history bar none, began, so to speak, muddying the water.
There is NO crony-capitalism, etc. etc. etc.
An old friend of mine started calling herself a "classical liberal" because the way people were interchanging the names "liberal" and "leftist".
Yea, I just make the distinction every time I’m using these words. Kinda like Chevy Chase: I am Liberal and you are not!! 😁
And never did.
Read your Orwell.
Marx was an angry little maggot, furious with the plebes because they didn't revolt for his ideas.
From that point on, his work descended into the madness that inspired Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
And yes, those three did it exactly as Marx intended.
… and because plebs did not want to revolt for Marx’s ideas, Italian commi Gramschi came up with the cultural Marxism
My mother in law grew up dirt poor one of 7 siblings. Her husband dirt poor as one of 10. He got his first dental visit during his first week as a Navy volunteer at 18 at the start of WWII. That dental visit lasted nearly an entire day. Both lived the Great Depression. She also got an A+ education in Catholic grade school and high school in a major American city. He, too. She then went to work at IBM. After spending WWII as an electricians mate on a sub in the Pacific, he came home and after a brief recovery with his vet pals and at the request of his father got a job (Western Electric) and shared his pay with his parents. He then went to university at night for his engineer degree. He was a union installer but also rose to general manager of the WE manufacturing plant in Michigan. During that career he represented both sides of union negotiations. She spent years attaining her university degree transferring from university to university as he was transferred city to city. She got her Masters at the age of 65. They worked, studied and pulled their families out of poverty. They were handed nothing for free. She often commented that McCarthy was right and uncovered the underbelly of communism here. Don’t be fooled. Socialism is communism. Progressivism is communism in disguise. They will lie to get it. Covid revealed their lies and your loss of Constitutional rights.
Let's take this one level deeper, Jo...
Islam is Socialism. I'm happy to be corrected, but my understanding is that the revolution in Iran in 79 was fueled by University kids as well as the mullahs.
And when Kockamayme got in, they started offing the uni kids and profs.
That exact process is going on in Canada as we speak.
United in the recent Democrat nominee in NYC for mayor.
Canada? No way..Nothing in the news
I have similar experience; I’m 9th of 10 kids born to poor Irish Catholic family. My father, 4 brothers and I all served active duty US military. Got my undergrad and MBA via GI Bill. Career as exec in private industry for Global 50 company and paid back the government at least 10x over via income taxes.
US is eyeball deep in socialism now because over half the country depends on local/state/fed gov for funding their health, education, housing, food and income (eg teachers, cops, feds,etc). Relatively few people who pay more in taxes than subsidies they receive over their lifetime.
Great American story! Now add Islam to the Liberal/ leftist/ progressive identity.
You’ve made me smile.
As someone who is oxygen dependent, I cannot accept no plastics. I would be dead without this device that delivers my oxygen (at home!) through plastic, non-collapsible, malleable tubing!
If I look around my home, I can find probably 1000 things that are plastic - and I'm glad they are (lightweight, portable, airtight).
Hopefully, the anti-plastic commissars will allow you to keep your oxygen hose...
But thanks for reminding us that we need plastic for certain things. Two liter soda bottles? Not so much.
slippery slope on where "it stops" though ;-) plastic weighs less than glass, so it is cheaper to transport, and therefore pollutes less. Likewise, plastic takes less energy to produce than glass, therefore less carbon footprint.
Plastic production consumes less energy and pollutes less than wildfires in CA by a huge magnitude.
I think it's best to spend our time and resources on what we can directly control, and not on cliches
I want clean air, clean water, and a landscape free of trash. I couldn't care less about "carbon footprint."
Take a flight to Mexico, or another 3rd world country. We aren't perfect, but we take care of the environment a lot better than a lot of other places.
Cancun Just on the drive to the motel, from the airport, saw road shoulders, ditches, and adjacent areas COVERED with a layer of plastic bottles.
We are much cleaner here, and we take it for granted, because we haven't seen how other countries take care of the environment. Or don't.
But what about the oceanic plastic garbage gyres? Asking for a friend.
Tell your friend that if there is garbage, then it needs to be picked up and dealt with it. My point about cliches is deciding what plastic "stays" and what plastic "goes". Who decides what is a "good" plastic? What's the criteria to be used to determine the good or bad plastic? Who appoints the plastic commissars that determine the criteria? 🤔
There’s a lot of unnecessary plastic out there. Like those little extra wrappers on jars that are already air sealed. Unnecessary! Or think about how much plastic goes into one take out meal: bag, utensils, containers… it’s unsustainable and frankly it makes me feel kinda guilty when ordering out. And of course the endless plastic water bottles. All of these are first world problems that are leading to microplastics and ocean pollution. We need to do better.
All good questions!
Falling on deaf ears; it is not the plastic but what is done with it. I'd compare it to guns, but you probably want to get rid of them too. Oh yes, I almost forgot. It is humans who are doing the polluting...get rid of them too?
I sold polyethylene for 46 years. Go to any hospital, food store, the tens of thousand irreplaceable products help societies. Throwing your trash out the window is not helpful.
I think polyethylene is one of the least toxic plastics, but you'd know better than me.
Plastic pollution, especially microplastics, is a real problem but I agree that the most important use for plastics is in medical settings. As for those 1000 other plastic items, there are probably healthier alternatives for most of them.
Sensible answer. People of good will can join together to find real solutions. Remember this while watching the craziness.
Reusable fabric grocery bags were really being pushed for a while. Stanford (or another university - can't recall) did research on them and found that routinely used re-usable grocery bags had high levels of e-coli, salmonella, etc.
Cat, PE has so many good values being inert. In a lot of cases the ethylene feedstock is coming out of a hole drilled in 1964. Instead of spending $ on hare brained political money rabbit holes, more commercials of the crying Indian in the canoe to teach the dummies to recycle and collect.
Milton Friedman back in the mid-seventies said on Phil Donahue that you cannot have both immigration and a welfare state.
Milton the Great!
Immigration? Or open borders?
Sasha, you've truly learned from your experience, and do a terrific job of sharing what you've learned. Thank you.
From what I have read it seems that Mamdani should be in prison for conspiracy to violate Federal immigration law, not the potential NYC mayor. Only time will tell.
Brilliant Sasha. I would only ask if the girls in the clip also want free brunch to be provided if their guy becomes hizzoner. Keep it coming.
And does that Walz girl actually work? What exactly does she do besides post TikToks?
unfortunately we do not live in a capitalistic system right now. The game has been rigged by all those corporations "too big to fail". They've purchased our government and created regulation for their sole benefit against the US citizen.
Your loving "Obamacare" was written by the healthcare insurance industry. So who benefits? Not the US consumer.
We need to reign in all the monopolies, and force break ups of the too big to fail. Return to small regional banks, break up the Googles of the world. Create a level playing field with added competition.
Capitalism works, until the Oligarchs and donor class seize control of the system.
In NYC they are about to find out that "free" destroys actual freedom. And the collective looks out for those in control, not the general public.
The biggest monopoly is government.
Except unlike corporations, if you decide not to go along with a government edict, sooner or later an agent of the government will show up at your house with a gun.
False. We have a "capitalist system": crony capitalism.
all the "free" and rich will move to FL and will continue to vote for idealized commies...
Some of those people became oligarchs through the capitalist system.
Sasha, in our DNA MOST of us lean old left. Because old Left is the same today as center right. It is where Americans hearts and history lie. America has always been a compassionate country. It has always been a hard-working country. It has always been a creative / resourceful country. These are the values of most Americans. I think we should just drop the GOP moniker and call centrist politics MAGA. If one can not get sucked in by the disparagement of that term, it is what most Americans agree is the right course
Since the old Republican Party is dead, I would rebrand the party as the American Party.
The silver lining is that the Dems would by definition be labeled correctly as what they already are, the anti-American party.
This rebranding would be a checkmate move and a marketing tour de force for generations to come against any anti-American movement.
They also need to also get rid of the dumb elephant mascot which has zero significance and replace it with a majestic screaming eagle!
I love reading your posts as they give me hope.
Hope that coastal CA, OR, WA, MA, CN, NH, DE, and the denizens of NYC, Chicago, Phillie, Atlanta, and northern VA and Richmond would likewise grow up, experience the world and real life outside their cosseted over-populated, over-represented enclaves. and actually analyze and think.
I pray Trump and his influence will continue and destroy each education- and leftist-government Matrix our children and college kids, and their parents exist inside.
I enormously admire your “free-thinking”!
Thanks!!
Amen,,,,Pronto!!!!!!
What am I for? I am for working and studying hard for years in order to achieve a meaningful education that allows one to get a job that is fulfilling both personally and economically, that gives one a sense of self reliance. Did I go into debt to do so? Yup. Did I pay that debt back? Yup. Do I expect anyone to give or do anything for me? Nope. Everyone of Mamdani's policies 1) have been tried before and failed. Look at the 1970s socialist response to NYCs economic downturn and social unrest. What will be different this go round? Most of the Mumdani supporters weren't even born then so they believe they are smart and embarking on a new way of urban life. 2) Each of Mamdani's policies can be addressed by personal choice and decisions: how many children one chooses to have, where one chooses to live, their drive to increase income through education and work experience in order to improve the quality of their life. Every idiot in the video montage is likely an over indulged kid, a product of baby boomers kids, who have been made to feel they are winners and uber special. A new generation of virtual signalers. Where are the low income black and Hispanic kids who voted for Mamdani? Oh, they voted for Cuomo......
These young women more likely have Gen X parents, not boomers.
Yup like I said the product of baby boomers kids
Of all you said, so typically well, this line rang a gigantic bell: "America is always evolving. Businesses sprout up and die. Houses are remodeled. That’s unique to this country."
Another Substacker (Hickman's Hinterlands, https://shagbark.substack.com) wrote recently a lament for the (dying) small town he grew up in, and his Substack still echoes around in my head as I go about the day. I live in the same part of the world as he does. I've noticed the "dead" and "dying" towns all my life, some of them so far gone no one lives in them at all anymore, and lamented their loss, too.
When I visit other parts of the country, the "ghost towns" are curiosities, even tourist attractions. Some of them have taken on new lives. (When I first visited Jerome, Arizona, in 1972, it was a ghost town ... not, apparently, today? But there are lots of others, mostly forgotten, all around America, and yes, someone grew up there, has nostalgia for the way they were then, and wishes they hadn't died.
But somehow, the very fact of "ghost towns" is part of the mystique and the LIFE that exists--uniquely?--in America.
Businesses sprout up and die, houses too, and towns, as well.
It's organic, isn't it? No different from our wild forests, where the most abundant life thrives.* In "managed forests" (like we find in Europe e.g.) everything may be neat and tidy, and it's basically unchanging. I suspect that there is less life there, too. (Where do the bugs and fungi that feed on dead trees find habitat?)
So, yes, your comment woke me up to this fact: free markets are like the wild forests, and good for the same essential reasons: new and renewed life springs up all the time.
*Odd, isn't it, though, that the typical rich, white, virtue-signaling lefties seem to understand the sacred value of diversity in the environment, in the rain forests, in the Adirondack Park ... but don't make the same connection to the HUMAN ecology, i.e. the "ecology" of free markets.
Thank you, Sasha, for yet another thought-provoking piece. As Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say, "Bless you're pea-picking little heart."
Sasha, I love your writing, but this comment is unfair: “ Are there any good writers on the Left now? Not really.”
I’d say Ruy Texeira and some of the writers at The Liberal Patriot are excellent and thoughtful writers who are often critical of their own party.
Please don’t throw everyone on the other side into the same basket. That just stoops to the level of those with TDS who accuse Trump supporters of being “Maggats” and cultists.
The problem with any centrist Dem who runs for office espousing centrist ideas is that once they get into office they will vote in lockstep with the Dem Socialists and will vote for transing kids, DEI, and raising taxes. Guaranteed and proven many times over.
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Pigs? Seriously? I raise and butcher pigs for my own consumption. And here's what you don't understand about pigs. Put them in a pen, provide food and water and they are happy to spend life eating and sleeping. Turn them loose to be free and happy and they will breed like rats and destroy everything in sight.
Plus...bacon!
They will also eat anything and everything, including us. Did you ever see Deadwood? But, ham, pork, and bacon, yum. And they are intelligent.
They're smarter than cows, but not by much. And nowhere near dog or horse level intelligence. And they will eat almost anything if it's a matter of survival, but well-fed pigs are actually kinda picky
Pigs will eat anything, rats and snakes included.
They eat guts, heads, and feet from butchering chickens. After I castrated one he ate his own balls
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Yummmmmm