applegrove
applegrove's JournalMy Dad was a lobbyist for Trucking companies and truckers in Ottawa.
When the government wanted to regulate dangerous goods his clients wanted him to stop it or at least minimize the regulations. My dad hit is limit of what he was willing to do and pushed back. They pulled the financial support for the trucking trade association he managed. He hired consultants to write booklets and put together kits on the new regulations. He then sold the kits back to truckers. They decided to keep him on. Thing is he was in the running for becoming the lobbyist for the beer industry in Ottawa when he got into lobbying. He decided to go for Trucking because he would feel guilty selling beer in a recession. Now here he was paying salaries out of his own pocket, I think, because some truckers can be MF***ers. He would have been better off working with the beer industry. We knew the people who got that job with the beer industry and they had free samples. LOL! My dad's background was with the Liberal Party where he was in charge of having teas with rich old Liberal women to fundraise. The Liberals were in power so he had his pick of where to lobby. He mentored a young environmental lobbyist who became the leader of the Green Party in Canada too.
You did a good thing. It is not easy to blow the whistle in a situation like that. Know that you have saved lives. Quite the cap to a long and principled career.
The Democrats need to do a map of all the things a great majority want or are
afraid of then come up with policy that nails that demographic. Kind of like Republicans and revived critical racial history and how they tied it to parents being unhappy at their kids not being in school these last years. Like beanie babies. When they came up with that, the concept was something that cost $5, that kids could be addicted too (and parents) and that could be placed near the checkout. The fact that they ended up being stuffed and baby and animals came later.
The good news is the MAGA populist base has to be fed red meat so neither
one will be able to tack to the middle. There base will want to be affirmed as racists/commie hating rugged individuals constantly. If the 2024 candidate for the GOP tries to quiet the feeding frenzy during the election Democrats can step in a feed the base with saucy memes. I'm thinking things like: "Barbara Streisand, Biden supporter, is a known thespian in LA" or "Trump is a sweetheart" and and him quote Bambi using Bambi's voice in a meme". Because that is what neighbours do.
The base will demand that Trump or DeSantis be nasty so they can re-affirm their toxic relationship. DeSantis nor Trump will not be able to tack center if they keep being pulled back into MAGA world.
De Santis is running as a strongman, ruthless, ***hole. Dem need
to put a deep fake video of DeSantis smelling in a cartoon bush and ending up nose to nose with Thumper from Bambi.
This is the type of thing that is common in places with lack
of good wages and exploitation instead of real liberal leadership at the top. If US goes autocratic it will be everywhere because everyone will be powerless except for the oligarchs who can buy it.
It boils down to people like Manchin getting election dollars and
pac support from outside donors, not locals. So he is beholden to them not his people who vote for him. With enough money he can win those votes by snowing them.
Whatever of BBB doesn't pass, make it a month long ad for that issue. July could be pre-k month
with all Democrats talking about what it is. August could be child tax credit month. And on and on till the midterms. Then start it again if Democrats don't win. This should be the Democrats permanent platform.
If the 71% are like those right wing nutters in Canada's latest
election they will insist on red meat being thrown to them every time the GOP nominee tacks to the center in a federal election. That is what people who follow populist want... to be constantly fed.
Dems need to teach how BBB is all paid for and will grow
the economy not increase the debt. The "socialism" trope GOP is using against Democrats is obviously winning.
Exactly. A diary is only a part of you. Maybe the parts you have no control over or your fears.
I was brought up to be pleasant and pollyannaish. My diaries were about how to see the darkness finally and be perceptive and know the whole wide world and to not be a doormat. You would not know I have so many good eggs in my life because I have ptsd send use my diary to vent. And to protect myself and others from the evil people in my life who got into it in 1988 but I did not start to figure it out till 1996. And all that I have figured out about them since or wonder about since. I don't use it to write down pleasant stuff or pleasant people or pleasant parts of my life. I am usually having an anxiety attack when I write. At least since I started getting anxiety attacks in 1996. And part of that writing is my side of the street... the things I did wrong. Which were limited. I never did anything to the guy who came after me for no reason. I've never done anything to him since.
Profile Information
Member since: Mon Feb 7, 2005, 03:14 AMNumber of posts: 118,642
