Céad Fáilte
Welcome to The Village Oak Tree for July 24th, 2024
My midweek podcast is here. I found this young lady through a service I use occasionally to search for guests to have on the show. It is aptly named Podmatch and it is a platform that matches potential guests with hosts who are searching.
That is as far as it goes though. The algorithms that do the matching are severely flawed and the matches I receive I end up discarding for the most part. I reject probably 98% of all matches their computer sets me up with.
I have one more guest I reached out to that has agreed to an interview and I think he will be the last one. Although the service is extremely inexpensive, it is not worth the aggravation to keep up with for only a two percent turn around.
Besides, I am starting to move in a different direction with this show now. I want to get back to focusing on current events in the news, like I used to do when I first started this adventure nearly a year ago.
Not that I am not open to other topics now and again but no more crackpots or people with agendas that I don’t care for.
The idea started with Mitch (not his real name) and I getting together to talk about current events on a couple of shows. Then we tried to include Ms. Frances Chiu but her internet is not capable nor was her old HP laptop so she opted out after the last show together.
A sign of the times when folks lack the salaries needed to keep the basics going on a daily basis. I say that as she is a writer, editor and does other related work for a living but is unable to afford things like decent internet and A/C repairs.
My guest today is a local woman who runs her own consulting company, is running for one of the local school boards here in Richmond, Virginia, where we live, and a myriad of other things, along with being a wife and mother. She is another example of young people pulling down multiple jobs to make ends meet these days.
I am pleased to introduce Mrs. Angela Fontaine of Richmond, Virginia, currently running for a spot on the local school board of District 4. Listen to her story and see if this somewhat mirrors your own as normal Americans struggle to make ends meet in these trying times.
In other news from around the country and the world at large. Just since last weekend, when I posted that live stream Sunday edition to my media channels, the world has gone through some major changes. For those who may have missed my Sunday Edition and are interested in watching or listening to my commentary, you may find it on my YouTube channel, Crann na beatha or on all major podcast apps through my distributor at RSS.com. Just search for The Village Oak Tree. This video is also available right here on my Substack page, Crann na beatha - The Tree of Life.
Unless you are living somewhere with no access to the outside world (you wouldn’t be reading this if you are), you know that the U.S. president has stepped away from his reelection campaign and endorsed his Vice President, Mrs. Kamala Harris.
You would also know that today, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is addressing a joint session of the United States congress. The American and western news media are all frothing at the mouth to get a front row seat to the biggest event of the season. This is getting more media attention than the Oscars.
Part of the frenzy is the noted absence of some very influential senators and representatives, along with V.P. Harris. Senator Bernie Sanders started the parade a few months ago when this visit was first announced and now, quite a few congressmen and women are sitting this out. Mostly democrats. I say mostly because Senator Sanders is an independent from Vermont.
On the other side of the aisle, I received a short news clip from Forbes news last night showing house speaker Johnson promising retribution for those congress people and V.P. Harris for skipping the address. This is U.S. democracy at work. I won’t offer it here as it made me ill to watch it.
I am just glad that Joe Biden finally decided to listen to people and bow out. The democrats now have a good chance to defeat the MAGA party (notice I said MAGA and not republican) and put them to rest, hopefully. Without Donald Trump, they will run out of steam and die away. Or we hope so anyway.
Will they rise up and try again someday in the future with a different name? Probably. Remember when they called themselves The Tea Party back about 2010? The same game under a different name every time.
I want to offer up a controversial idea here just because as a writer, I can. Why don’t we give them what they are asking for?
They say they want to be a Christian nation, where Christianity is the foundation of their government. They say they want more freedom with less government oversight. They want the freedom to carry guns wherever they want openly. They want a national ban on abortions of any kind. They want to restrict women in the work force. Incentivize them to stay home and take care of the children and households.
I am sure I could add more to that list but those are the most prominent items on the public demands I have read about so far.
So, here is my controversial idea. Give them their own part of the country to set up whatever style of government and culture they want for themselves. It would have to be a region that didn’t cut off the states that do not want to be a part of that new country. Such as isolating the west coast states from the east.
By allowing them to set up their own country anyway they want, it would take the pressure of the rest of us. If they were allowed to do this, they would have to agree to give up any financial aid from their former country, the old United States.
Trade agreements would be allowed, just like any other countries have amongst themselves. During the initial split up, people would be allowed to choose, without immigration papers, which country they want to live in for a designated time period.
But once that period comes to an end, citizens would have to apply for visas just like with any other country they want to visit or move to. This new Christian nationalist country would be just like any other country in the world, in that they make whatever laws they want for their citizens and visitors would have to abide.
Now, in the real world we live in, do you actually see that happening? I don’t see these greedy Christians willingly give up power like that to run a much smaller country in their image.
Using Speaker Mike Johnson as an example of how they want the United States to conform to their ideology, I don’t see them willingly give up the global power they think they have for a much smaller piece of a multipolar hegemony.
These Christian nationalists think they want to rule the world from Washington D.C. Much like the old Holy Roman Catholic church used to do in Europe hundreds of years ago.
I have news for them, that ship sailed a long, long time ago. Apparently they never got the memo or threw it out when it came without looking at it.
If anyone cares to pay attention, the old economic world order is ending. The United States is no longer the economic powerhouse it once was. You can thank a bunch of greedy republican (and some democrats) for that.
When they enacted stupid legislation for free trade agreements between Canada and Mexico forty years ago, the incentive to move the factories to cheaper labor countries was too much to pass up and the presidents and legislators watched them go. In some cases, even waved good bye.
It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to realize that the financial benefits for this type of legislation had to be huge for the politicians in on the plan, at the serious expense of the U.S. work force. What did Reagan call it? “Trickle down economics.” Yeah, right. See how that has worked out over the last forty years.
As Thom Hartmann so aptly put it in his article today, the grift has been going on for decades.
It is becoming obvious that Israel is starting to look a little desperate. Everyone across the developed world is watching to see what Mrs. Kamala Harris is going to do, or say. Especially the bad guys like the Israeli government coalition and Zelenskyy’s Ukraine.
Of course, the other so called bad guys, like Putin and others are watching but a lot less concerned. Contrary to the belief of the U.S. government and corporate billionaires, the rest of the world is starting to move on without the United States.
The billionaires, if they haven’t already, can just move their operations to more favorable countries. They can buy other politicians in other countries just as easily as they bought the American politicians. In some places, even easier.
The American politicians haven’t figured that out yet apparently and are still cozying up as much as they can with their hands out as usual.
The end of the ride is very near. I have been watching the overseas financial reports and things don’t look very good over the next six months or so, no matter who becomes president in November.
China is in big trouble over their commercial real estate debacle. Their central banks are hanging on by threads, according to one analyst. If they go under, so will the United States. Not that the U.S. is in good shape right now.
The only hope to extend the inevitable would be a massive shake up of U.S. financial and trade policies and I don’t see the war hawks in congress going along with any of that. They would stand to lose too many corporate patrons to allow any of that to happen.
And that is what will be the death knell of the United States. Corporate greed that will finish sucking up the lifeblood of the nations labor force, leaving the dead and dying in their wake.
Once the corporations have taken all they can get from the United States, leaving an empty shell behind, they will take their greed and apply it to some other hapless country.
China and Russia may not have democratic governments like some countries in the west but they do have strongmen in charge who are willing to challenge the greedy corporations and corrupt politicians to stop them from raping and pillaging their countries.
The only difference between the American MAGA party and these other strongmen leaders, is the addition of their Christian ideology into the mix of authoritarianism. China and Russia still believe that religion should be kept separate from governance. Imagine that.
No one wants to live under an authoritarian government. Some countries have lived so long under one by now, their citizens don’t know any other way anymore. Not that Russia or China ever had any kind of democracy in their histories.
It is seriously looking like the United States is heading down that road of authoritarianism. If the MAGA party gets defeated in November, the same factions will just gather steam and try again in a few years.
Let them go. Give them their own space to do as they wish and bid them farewell and good luck. I know I would sleep easier knowing I could stop looking over my shoulder when I go out once they are gone.
Please like, subscribe and reply on the YouTube videos or the audio podcasts, where available. This helps with spreading the word about what I am trying to do, like so many others, which is to shout about all of the bad things our governments are doing to us all over the world. If enough of us decide that we don’t want to take it anymore, we can force the governments to do right by us as we elected them to do.
As I say good bye this week, I wish to leave you with this Irish blessing as you go about your day. “May your hand always be stretched out in friendship and never in want” Slán go fóill.
T. Ó Domhnaill — Gaelic Seanchaí
The Village Oak Tree