Day 689

Day 689 Monday November 26, 2018  902 Days to Go

Let’s talk Nancy Pelosi for a second.

Dave Brat loved to say, “the radical agenda of Nancy Pelosi and the limousine liberals.”

But let’s be clear, Nancy Pelosi grew up in Baltimore. 

Her name was D’Alesandro then.

Her father was a five term Congressman and Mayor of Baltimore.

Her brother was Mayor of Baltimore.

She grew up in Baltimore’s Little Italy.

The house was always full of people needing a meal, a job, a favor; it’s in her blood to help people.

She has been the most effective Speaker of the House in the modern era. She is the one who got the ACA through Congress. Health care is something the Democrats have been trying to provide for people since the end of WWII. She did it.

Aside from that here are the political items Wikipedia lists for her:

4 Political positions

4.1 China

4.2 Colombia

4.3 Cuba

4.4 North Korea

4.5 Iran

4.6 Turkey

4.7 Russia

4.8 Use of government aircraft

4.9 Abortion

4.10 Gun laws

4.11 Infrastructure

4.12 Fiscal/monetary policy

4.13 Civil liberties

4.14 Confederate monuments

4.15 Contraception

4.16 Disaster relief

4.17 Education

4.18 Environment

4.19 Health care

4.20 Immigration

4.21 Iraq War

4.22 Israel

4.23 First Gulf War

4.24 LGBT rights

4.25 Marijuana legalization

4.26 Military draft

4.27 PRISM

4.28 Syria

4.29 Waterboarding

4.30 Donald Trump

Yeah, she’s actually done something and she’s taken positions and expressed them. She is also the one that stopped the effort to impeach W after the Iraq War fiasco.

Would I like to see some new fresh faces? You bet. I hope Nancy will train them.

She is unpopular among conservatives because she is effective and stopped them from carrying out their more heinous agendas. She’s unpopular among progressives because they want her to go farther left, and she’s unpopular generally because the right wing media machine has been relentlessly attacking her with vague smears, much like they did Hillary.

This got me to thinking about civilization and myth. (Huh? What? Hang on.)

Civilizations are built on a set of ideas. Those ideas are grounded in myth. By that I mean, eventually you get to the point that you really can’t explain what or why, but you are asked to accept it. The western world is founded on various religious traditions and Greek/Roman ideas and science.

Our country is founded on that background and on the ideas of deists (ie people who believe in a creator), as well as men who wanted to avoid mistakes in forming a government they had seen in the past.

What makes a civilization go away? Here are a few reasons: force, disease, inferior technology, inability of the governing system to continue to work effectively under changing conditions, ideas that no longer work.

What erodes a civilization? The abandonment of a particular set of myths, ideals, ideas, and methods of governance.

I am not trying to say this is an exhaustive list, but it’s enough to illustrate my point about Nancy Pelosi.

Why is she unpopular?

Because there has been a constant drumbeat from the right and the left against her. Eventually, that becomes part of the story, part of the myth, and people believe – rightly or wrongly – in the statements that have repeatedly been made negatively about her.

But let me ask this, if you wanted to get something passed in the House of Representatives who would you want to head up that effort?

It comes down to that simple question. No one, and I mean no one, has been more effective in the modern era than Nancy Pelosi.

902 Days to Go

PS 

1 – Russia seized three Ukrainian boats. Trump has been silent.

2 – We used tear gas on migrants at the border, after we closed the border.

3 – Photo – Kite Cover  by Tiezo Hashimoto