The photo here depicts a slice of life from 1905, before fire-fighting equipment had evolved into an early version of the trucks we have today. (To skeptics, of which I was one before I looked this up: both the source of water, the fire hydrant, and the modern battery to power the headlight were developed more than 100 years earlier.)
This is a reminder of how the last 120 years, due purely to improvements in technology, has made our lives safer, longer, healthier, more productive, and more convenient than they’ve ever been in the past. But consider this, at that earlier time, was it conceivable today that:
• The leader of one of our two political parties would be a criminal conman? Does any legitimate historian regard Teddy Roosevelt as a sociopath?
• The world’s #1 automaker, Volkswagen, which led #2 Toyota by over $32 billion in revenue as of June 2023, could have possibly decided, as a corporation, to rip off 11 million customers, and another 8 billion people on Earth who use their lungs to breathe, with its scheme to defraud emissions regulations?
• Wells Fargo, 41 years old when this bicycle was made, would be ordered to pay $3.7 billion in penalties and victims’ compensation for alleged illegal practices that caused thousands of the bank’s customers to lose their homes and vehicles?
We’ve made a trade, whether we want it or not, from moral decency to creature comfort and the gross abuse of the common American consumer.
All I can say about this personally, and I’m sure my thoughts are echoed by most of my peers who made their money in the late 20th Century, is that we were lucky to live in a time in which business morality still meant something.
A friend from Texas writes: It’s been an interesting week! A lot to reflect on. And Texas seems to be the epicenter. Folks are pretty flabbergasted over the defeat of all statewide Republican candidates (including state supreme court justices) and the election of a Democratic party-controlled state house.
Yes, Texas blew everyone’s mind. I think what the GOP experienced was a double-whammy if you will.
Consumer prices are high, due at least in part to Trump’s inane and illegal war in Iran. This is impacting the lives of working class Americans.
and
I’m pleased to be able to report that many people still have a conscience, which causes them to reject the GOP’s cruelty, dishonesty, dismissal of science, and criminality.
As shown here, white men, especially uneducated white men, are still not able to see that Trump is terrible for America.
If the last two years didn’t change that, it appears that nothing will.
The vast majority of Americans are thrilled that the midterms brought us the “blue tsunami,” but there are a couple of things that don’t really add up. You may have noticed that:
The U.S. wants a random alcoholic Fox News “journalist’s” head on the plate for having orchestrated the war in Iran, when all he was doing was pursuing his loyalty to Donald Trump, the man who started this asinine and grossly illegal war.
There seems to be no effort to cause Trump, who tried to violently overthrow the U.S. federal government, to face accountability for his treasonous acts.
What’s up with the media? Is there a concerted effort to avoid the facts? What’s the problem with honesty, and telling Americans the truth? Isn’t this the clearest instance of gaslighting in our history? Are we now trying to pretend that Trump never existed?
If such a landslide victory against a would-be autocrat had happened anywhere else on Earth, that traitor would be in prison now, in most cases facing execution.
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