American and Canadian governments, in particular, typically maintain thinly veiled yet strong ties to large corporations, as though elected heads are meant to represent big money interests over those of the working citizenry and poor.

I believe it reflects why those powerful interests generally resist proportional representation electoral systems of governance, the latter which tends to dilute the corporate lobbyist influence on the former.
(The first-past-the-post electoral system just barely qualifies as democratic rule within the democracy spectrum, and it best serves corporate interests.)

With the momentum of the growing wealth gap and big business gaining greater advantage over the worker, I don’t see how very much can be realistically changed by ‘the little guy’, even through a social pendulum shift.

Unlike with a few social/worker revolutions of the past, notably the Bolshevik and French revolutions, it seems to me that contemporary Western world’s virtual corporate rule and superfluously wealthy essentially have the police and military ready to foremost protect big power and money interests, even over the food and shelter needs of the protesting masses.

It could be excused as busting heads to maintain law and order as a priority. Thus the absurdly unjust inequities and inequalities can persist.

There are different forms of schadenfreude, some more self-servingly shameful than others.

As for the health professionals’ shameful pleasure being reasonable, I’d ask them to imagine that the ER patient about whom they’re joking is someone they greatly care about and love.

It's hard to picture them playing their little version of The Price Is Right with their alcohol-overdosing sister, son or father.

A better question for the OP to ask would be, is there anything is Carroll's books that support or depict child sexual predation. I've never read Carroll, but I believe the answer to that is a resounding No.
_____

Not that I necessarily agree with him, but the English professor emeritus, Donald Rackin, whom I quoted in my original post would argue otherwise.

Along with other examples, he noted the book illustration, created by Carroll himself, of Alice with her neck excessively extended. To Rackin, “this is almost clearly phallic. Alice is phallus, if you will.”

I recall watching with great disappointment then-president Barack Obama capitulate—like other neo-liberal presidents before him and likely after him—to big money politics in the very worst way, with the Flint, Michigan drinking-water atrocity.

I call it an atrocity due to safe drinking water being the second most immediate, fundamental necessity of life (the first, of course, being clean air).

A then admirer of Obama, I muttered ‘Please say it isn’t so’ as he drank (at least what supposedly was) a glass of the Flint water; this signified that the health-hazardously lead-laden water is actually safe to drink, which he must have known is not.

It became clearer to me that U.S. presidents, and no less Canadian prime ministers, mostly serve as large corporate and power interest puppets.

The political system essentially involves two established conservative and (neo)liberal parties more or less alternating in governance while habitually kowtowing to the interests of the very wealthy but especially big business’s crippling threats (whether implied or explicit) of a loss of jobs, capital investment and/or economic stability, etcetera.

This of course fails to mention, amongst other things, the corporate-welfare-cheque subsidies doled out annually to already very profitable corporations and the forgiveness of huge loan debts owed to taxpayers.

(Not helping matters is that almost all of our information is still produced and/or shared with us by concentrated corporate-owned media.)

This corporate-political reality may be why so many low-income citizens have felt futility in voting at all, let alone waiting in a long line-up in the weather to do so.

I think Trump might even lose a game of checkers against a girl scout.

I seriously doubt news commentators' claims that, collectively, Donald Trump’s ardent supporters deep-down truly believe his implausible (even by many other conservatives’ standards) assertions of mass voter fraud.

Long before election day, Trump was saying he may not respect a Biden win, as though preparing his voter base for his inevitable refusal to leave office.

Post-election, just the loss itself was/is touted as sufficient proof of the unverifiable claim Trump was cheated from a victory due to atypically massive electoral-ballot fraud.

Contrary to mainstream commentators’ assertions that the Capitol Hill rioters really believe that Trump had won the election, it is possible most of the latter maintain that ‘Trump was cheated’ as an excuse for their attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s (apparently quite) legitimate electoral win—or at least make it as unpleasant as possible, as we saw on Jan. 6.

The rioters (and Trump) may have been enraged enough at his defeat by the supposedly ‘socialist’ Biden, they were now going to raise hell.

Or perhaps those supporters consciously or subconsciously believe that he has to remain in office for some perceived greater good—perhaps to save the nation or even to do ‘God’s will’—regardless of his democratically-decided election loss.

It may be a case of that perhaps most dangerous of ideologies: the end justifies the means.

I’m not equating Trump or his base support to any of history’s genocidal maniacs, but the most frightful example of that philosophical justification is/was the pogrom, the primary implementers of which know they’re committing mass murder yet still genuinely perceive it all as part of an ultimately greater good.

The following are excerpts from a September 16, 2020, Bloomberg story (by Alan Levin) headlined “Boeing Deception Alleged in Scathing Report on Max Crashes”:

… the report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said. “They were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing’s engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing’s management and grossly insufficient oversight by the” Federal Aviation Administration.

… The [report’s] conclusions were drawn by the majority staff under committee Chairman Peter DeFazio. [It] cites five main reasons for the crashes:
 Pressures to update the 737’s design swiftly and inexpensively
 Faulty assumptions about the design and performance of pilots
 What the report called a “culture of concealment” by Boeing
 Inherent conflicts of interest in the system that deputizes Boeing employees to act on behalf of the government
 The company’s sway over top FAA managers

… DeFazio said he found it “mind boggling” that Boeing and FAA officials concluded, according to the report, that the plane’s design had complied with regulations in spite of the crashes.

… While DeFazio and other lawmakers haven’t called for a permanent grounding of the jet, the father of a woman who died in the Ethiopia crash said the report raised questions about the plane’s return to service.
“The FAA should immediately halt the recertification process for the 737 Max in light of this report,” said Michael Stumo, father of Samya Stumo. He accused Boeing and the FAA of withholding information from the families of victims in an emailed statement.

... [A] Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, was … triggered erroneously by a single sensor that failed in both crashes and it continued to push the nose down repeatedly.

... Those concerns “were not properly addressed” and the company “did not inform the FAA,” the report said.

... FAA officials have said they debated whether to include MCAS in the directive, but opted not to because it wasn’t mentioned in pilot flight manuals. …

A key finding involves a long-standing practice ... to deputize Boeing employees to act in behalf of FAA while reviewing aircraft designs. According to a 2016 survey obtained by the committee, 39% of Boeing’s Authorized Representatives, senior engineers who conducted reviews for FAA, at times perceived “undue pressure” on them from management.

One such senior engineer knew that Boeing was delivering Maxes to customers without a required alert in 2017 and 2018, yet didn’t notify FAA, the report said. The lack of such an alert was cited by Indonesian investigators as a factor in the Lion Air crash.
Both House and Senate legislation is expected to seek reforms of the so-called delegation system, which the report said is riddled with “inherent conflicts of interest.”

… The manufacturer rejected adding a sophisticated safety system that might have helped in the accidents at least in part because it would have required additional training. The company also deemphasized MCAS to the FAA as a result. In a 2013 company document, Boeing said it would describe MCAS to the FAA as an add-on to an existing system. “If we emphasize MCAS is a new function there may be a greater certification and training impact,” the memo said.
The broad failure to fully explain MCAS was a critical issue because the system was made more powerful midway through its development, but many within the FAA didn’t know and the agency delegated the final safety approvals to the company, the report found. …

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-16/boeing-deception-alleged-in-scathing-house-report-on-max-crashes

Even in this day and age, there remains a mentality out there, albeit perhaps subconscious: Men can take care of themselves against sexual perpetrators, and boys are basically little men.

I've noticed over many years of news-media consumption that when the victims are girls their gender is readily reported as such; however, when they're boys, they're usually referred to gender-neutrally as children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male.

Also, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17 year old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’.

I wonder whether the above may help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted (about adverse childhood experiences or ACEs) was only able to include one man among its six interviewed adult subjects, logically presuming there were very few men willing to come forward for the book?

Could it be evidence of a continuing subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mindset? After all, that relatively so few men (a ratio of 5:1 female to male) suffered high-scoring ACE trauma is not a plausible conclusion, however low in formally recorded number they may be. For me at least, it definitely was the book’s unaddressed elephant in the room.

(I tried contacting the book's author on this matter, twice, but received no reply.)

“This is the most important job we have to do as humans and as citizens … If we offer classes in auto mechanics and civics, why not parenting? A lot of what happens to children that’s bad derives from ignorance … Parents go by folklore, or by what they’ve heard, or by their instincts, all of which can be very wrong.”
—Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

_________


I once read an ironic quote from a children’s health academic that, “You have to pass a test to drive a car or to become a … citizen, but there’s no exam required to become a parent. And yet child abuse can stem from a lack of awareness about child development.”

By not teaching child development science along with rearing to high school students, is it not as though societally we’re implying that anyone can comfortably enough go forth with unconditionally bearing children with whatever minute amount, if any at all, of such vital knowledge they happen to have acquired over time? It’s as though we’ll somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to fully understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs.

A notable number of academics would say that we don’t.

Along with their physical wellbeing, children’s sound psychological health should be the most significant aspect of a parent’s (or caregiver’s) responsibility. Perhaps foremost to consider is that during their first three to six years of life (depending on which expert one asks) children have particularly malleable minds (like a dry sponge squeezed and released under water), thus they’re exceptionally vulnerable to whatever rearing environment in which they happened to have been placed by fate.

I frequently wonder how many instances there are wherein immense long-term suffering by children of dysfunctional rearing might have been prevented had the parent(s) received some crucial parenting instruction by way of mandatory high school curriculum.

Additionally, if we’re to proactively avoid the eventual dreadingly invasive conventional reactive means of intervention due to dysfunctional familial situations as a result of flawed rearing—that of the government forced removal of children from the latter environment—we then should be willing to try an unconventional means of proactively preventing future dysfunctional family situations: Teach our young people the science of how a child’s mind develops and therefor its susceptibilities to flawed parenting.

Many people, including child development academics, would say that we owe our future generations of children this much, especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter.

Certainly, some will argue that expectant adults can easily enough access the parenting experience and advice of other parents in hardcopy and Internet literature, not to mention arranged group settings. However, such information may in itself be in error or misrelated/misinterpreted and therefor is understandably not as beneficial as knowing the actual child development science behind why the said parental practice would or would not be the wisest example to follow.

As for the likely argument that high school parenting courses would bore thus repel students from attending the classes to their passable-grade completion, could not the same reservation have been put forth in regards to other currently well-established and valued course subjects, both mandatory and elective, at the time they were originally proposed?

In addition, the flipside to that argument is, such curriculum may actually result in a novel effect on student minds, thereby stimulating interest in what otherwise can be a monotonous daily high-school routine. (Some exceptionally receptive students may even be inspired to take up post-secondary studies specializing in child psychological and behavioural disorders.)

In any case, American experience and studies indicate that such curriculum is wholly useful, regardless of whether the students themselves plan to and/or go on to procreate.

For one thing, child development and rearing curriculum would make available to students potentially valuable knowledge about their own psyches and why they’re the way they are.

Physical and mental abuse commonsensically aside, students could also be taught the potentially serious psychological repercussions of the manner in which they as parents may someday choose to discipline their children; therefore, they may be able to make a much more informed decision on the method they choose to correct misbehaviour, however suddenly clouded they may become in the angry emotion of the moment.

And being that their future children’s sound mental health and social/workplace integration are at stake, should not scientifically informed parenting decisions also include their means of chastisement?

Our young people are then at least equipped with the valuable science-based knowledge of the possible, if not likely, consequences of dysfunctional rearing thus much more capable of making an informed choice on how they inevitably correct their child’s misconduct.

It would be irresponsibly insufficient to, for example, just give students the condom-and-banana demonstration along with the address to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic (the latter in case the precautionary contraception fails) as their entire sex education curriculum; and, similarly, it’s not nearly enough to simply instruct our young people that it’s damaging to scream at or belittle one’s young children and hope the rest of proper parenting somehow comes naturally to them. Such crucial life-skills lessons need to be far more thorough.

But, however morally justified, they regardlessly will not be given such life-advantageous lessons, for what apparently are reasons of conflicting ideology or values.

In 2017, when I asked a BC Teachers’ Federation official over the phone whether there is any childrearing curriculum taught in any of B.C.’s school districts, he immediately replied there is not. When I asked the reason for its absence and whether it may be due to the subject matter being too controversial, he replied with a simple “Yes”.

This strongly suggests there are philosophical thus political obstacles to teaching students such crucial life skills as nourishingly parenting one’s children. (Is it just me, or does it not seem difficult to imagine that teaching parenting curriculum should be considered any more controversial than, say, teaching students Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum, beginning in Kindergarten, as is currently taught in B.C. schools?)

Put plainly, people generally do not want some stranger—and especially a government-arm entity, which includes grade school teachers—directly or indirectly telling them how to raise their children. (Albeit, a knowledgeable person offered me her observation on perhaps why there are no mandatory childrearing courses in high school: People with a dysfunctional family background do not particularly desire scholastically analyzing its intricacies; i.e. they simply don’t want to go there—even if it’s not being openly discussed.)

A 2007 study (its published report is titled The Science of Early Childhood Development), which was implemented to identify facets of child development science accepted broadly by the scientific community, forthrightly and accurately articulates the matter: “It is a compelling task that calls for broad, bipartisan collaboration. And yet, debate in the policy arena often highlights ideological differences and value conflicts more than it seeks common interest. In this context, the science of early childhood development can provide a values-neutral framework for informing choices among alternative priorities and for building consensus around a shared plan of action. The wellbeing of our nation’s children and the security of our collective future would be well-served by such wise choices and concerted commitment.”

_________


“It’s only after children have been discovered to be severely battered that their parents are forced to take a childrearing course as a condition of regaining custody. That’s much like requiring no license or driver’s ed[ucation] to drive a car, then waiting until drivers injure or kill someone before demanding that they learn how to drive.”
—Myriam Miedzian, Ph.D.

Although research reveals infants demonstrate a preference for caregivers of their own race, any future racial biases generally are environmentally acquired.

One way of rectifying this bias is by allowing young children to become accustomed to other races in a harmoniously positive manner.

Adult racist sentiments, however, are often cemented by a misguided yet strong sense of entitlement, perhaps also acquired from rearing.

Fortunately, at a very young age I was emphatically told by my mother about the exceptionally kind and caring nature of our black family doctor.

She never had anything disdainful to say about people of color; in fact she loves to watch/listen to the Middle Eastern and Indian subcontinental dancers and musicians on the multicultural channels.

Conversely, if she’d told me the opposite about the doctor, I could’ve aged while blindly linking his color with an unjustly cynical view of him and all black people.

When angry, my (late) father occasionally expressed displeasure with Anglo immigrants, largely due to his own experiences with bigotry as a new Canadian citizen in the 1950s and ’60s.

He, who like Mom emigrated from Eastern Europe, didn’t resent non-white immigrants, for he realized they had things at least as bad. Plus he noticed—as I also now do—in them an admirable absence of a sense of entitlement.

Thus essentially by chance I reached adulthood unstricken by uncontrolled feelings of racial contempt seeking expression.

Not as lucky, some people—who may now be in an armed authority capacity—were raised with a distrust or blind dislike of other racial groups.

Regardless, the first step towards changing our irrationally biased thinking is our awareness of it and its origin.

But until then, ugly sentiments must be either suppressed or professionally dealt with, especially when considering the mentality is easily inflamed by anger.

“The way a society functions is a reflection of the childrearing practices of that society. Today we reap what we have sown. Despite the well-documented critical nature of early life experiences, we dedicate few resources to this time of life. We do not educate our children about child development, parenting, or the impact of neglect and trauma on children.”
—Dr. Bruce D. Perry, Ph.D. & Dr. John Marcellus

_________


A 2007 study ("The Science of Early Childhood Development") has found that, “The future of any society depends on its ability to foster the health and well-being of the next generation. Stated simply, today’s children will become tomorrow’s citizens, workers, and parents. When we invest wisely in children and families, the next generation will pay that back through a lifetime of productivity and responsible citizenship. When we fail to provide children with what they need to build a strong foundation for healthy and productive lives, we put our future prosperity and security at risk … All aspects of adult human capital, from work force skills to cooperative and lawful behavior, build on capacities that are developed during childhood, beginning at birth … The basic principles of neuroscience and the process of human skill formation indicate that early intervention for the most vulnerable children will generate the greatest payback.”
file:///F:/CHILDPSYCHESScienceEarlyChildhoodDevelopment.pdf

Although I appreciate the study’s initiative, it’s still for me a disappointing revelation as to our collective humanity when the report’s author feels compelled to repeatedly refer to living, breathing and often enough suffering human beings as a well-returning “investment” and “human capital” in an attempt to convince money-minded society that it’s indeed in our best fiscal interest to fund early-life programs that result in lowered incidence of unhealthy, dysfunctional child development.

In fact, in the 13-page study-report, the term “investment(s)” was used 22 times, “return” appeared eight times, “cost(s)” five times, “capital” appeared on four occasions, and either “pay”/“payback”/“pay that back” was used five times.

While some may justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the general self-serving Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mentality (or what I acronize OIIIMOBY) can debilitate social progress, even when it’s most needed; and it seems that distinct form of societal ‘penny wisdom but pound foolishness’ is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay.

Sadly, due to the OIIIMOBY mindset, the prevailing collective attitude, however implicit or subconscious, basically follows, 'Why should I care—I’m soundly raising my kid?' or 'What’s in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support child development education and health programs for the sake of others’ bad parenting?'

I was taught in journalism and public relations college courses that a story or PR news release needed to let the reader know, if possible in the lead sentence, why he/she should care about the subject matter—and more so find it sufficiently relevant to warrant reading on.

It’s disheartening to find this vocational tool frequently utilized in the study’s published report to persuade its readers why they should care about the fundamental psychological health of their fellow human beings—but in terms of publicly funded monetary investment and collective societal ‘costs to us later’ if we do nothing to assist this (probably small) minority of young children in properly cerebrally developing.

A similarly disappointing shortsighted OIIIMOBY mindset is evident in news reporting and commentary on other serious social issues, in order to really grasp the taxpaying reader’s interest.

I’ve yet to read a story or column on homelessness, child poverty and the fentanyl overdose crisis that leaves out any mention of their monetary cost to taxpaying society, notably through lost productivity thus reduced government revenue, larger health care budgets and an increasing rate of property crime; and perhaps the most angrily attention-grabbing is the increased demand on an already constrained ambulance response and emergency room/ward waits due to repeat overdose cases.

As for society’s dysfunctionally reared thus improperly mind-developed young children, make no mistake: Regardless of whether individually we’re doing a great job rearing our own developing children, we all have some degree of vested interest in every child receiving a psychologically sound start in life, considering that communally everyone is exposed (or at least potentially so) to every other parent’s handiwork.

Our personal monetary and societal security interests are served by a socially functional fellow citizenry that otherwise could or would have been poorly reared—a goal in part probably met by at least teaching child development science to our high school students.

_________


“I remember leaving the hospital thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies! I don’t have a license to do this. We’re just amateurs’.”
—Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons

I personally would be quite willing to consistently say grace every day of every year if everyone on Earth—and not just a minority of the planet’s populace—had enough clean, safe drinking water and nutritional food to maintain a normal, healthy daily life; and I’d be pray-fully ‘thankful’ if every couple’s child would survive his or her serious illness rather than just a small portion of such sick children.

Furthermore, what makes so many of us believe that collective humanity should be able to enjoy the pleasures of free will, but cry out for and expect divine mercy and rescue when our free will ruins our figurative good day—i.e. that we should have our cake and eat it, too?

Obviously, it’s not desirable to challenge one of humanity’s greatest institutions on record—i.e. praying and saying grace to an omnipotent/omniscient entity—a pathetic fact quite evident by the total absence of this missive in virtually every newspaper on Earth.

Lastly, is it only me, or is there some truly unfortunate, bitter irony in holding faith and hope in prayer—when unanswered prayer results in an increase in skeptical atheism and/or agnosticism?

As a "culture of concealment"—and I feel the fact that that phrase was boldly used should give some additional emphasis to Boeing’s disgrace—I doubt it was a case of one or a few bad apples.

Its frightening influence over FAA decision-makers, who essentially acted as a rubber stamp for the giant corporation’s flawed 737 Max product (and who knows what else), gives credence to the truism “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

A memorable passage from Childhood Disrupted (pg.24) in part reads: “Well-meaning and loving parents can unintentionally do harm to a child if they are not well informed about human development …”

Sure, people know not to yell when baby is sleeping in the next room; but do they know about the intricacies of why not?

For example, what percentage of procreative adults specifically realize that, since it cannot fight or flight, a baby stuck in a crib on its back hearing parental discord in the next room can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a ‘freeze’ state … This freeze state is a trauma state” (pg.123).

This causes its brain to improperly develop; and if allowed to continue, it’s the helpless infant’s starting point towards a childhood, adolescence and (in particular) adulthood in which its brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammation-promoting stress hormones and chemicals, even in non-stressful daily routines.

Also, how many potential parents are aware that, since young children completely rely on their parents for protection and sustenance, they will understandably stress over having their parents angry at them for prolonged periods of time?

Yet, general society treats human reproductive rights as though we’ll somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs.

A psychologically sound as well as a physically healthy future should be all children’s foremost human right—especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter—and therefore basic child development science and rearing should be learned long before the average person has their first child.

Why shouldn’t they understand how (with curriculum examples) a seemingly-minute yet consequential flaw in rearing/environment, perhaps something commonly practiced/experienced, can have negative lasting effects on the child’s sponge-like brain/psyche?

By not teaching this to high school students, is it not as though societally we’re implying that anyone can comfortably enough go forth with unconditionally bearing children with whatever minute amount, if any at all, of such vital knowledge they happen to have acquired over time?

Perhaps foremost to consider is that during their first three to six years of life (depending on which expert one asks) children have particularly malleable minds, thus they’re exceptionally vulnerable to whatever rearing environment in which they happened to have been placed by fate.

I sometimes wonder how many instances there are wherein immense long-term suffering by children of dysfunctional rearing might have been prevented had the parent(s) received some crucial parenting instruction by way of mandatory high school curriculum.

Yes, such curriculum can sound invasive, especially to parents distrustful of the public education system, but I really believe it’s in our future generations’ best interests.

“It has been said that if child abuse and neglect were to disappear today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual would shrink to the size of a pamphlet in two generations, and the prisons would empty. Or, as Bernie Siegel, MD, puts it, quite simply, after half a century of practising medicine, ‘I have become convinced that our number-one public health problem is our childhood’.” (Childhood Disrupted, pg.228).

It seems to me to be the case. Mind you, the actors guild has yet to reply to my query (sent many times), a copy of which is included below.
That indicates to me that either I have a point, or I'm way off and not worth their time.

Dear Sir/Ms.,
Are infants/toddlers who are not aware they're in a fake environment still used in the production of negatively melodramatic or hyper-emotional small and big screen entertainment?
I'd think the practice would've been discontinued by now, due to current knowledge about the susceptibilities of the developing infant/toddler brain, but I'd like to know for sure.
Thank you for your time.
F. Sterle

Its notable flaws notwithstanding, social media has enabled far greater non-gate-keeping information freedom — particularly in regards to corporate environmental degradation — than that by what had been a news-monopoly mainstream news-media, including those of print.

The mainstream news-media have lost both information control (e.g. story parameterization) and, perhaps most problematic for them, advertisement revenue to popular social media platforms.

Though I don’t know his opinion of social media in general, renowned American author and linguistic/cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky noted that while there are stories published about man-made global warming, “It’s as if … there’s a kind of a tunnel vision — the science reporters are occasionally saying ‘look, this is a catastrophe,’ but then the regular [non-environmental pro-fossil fuel] coverage simply disregards it.”

While I feel it's a couple decades late, massive environmental movements have been made possible by social media.

As much as I’m glad Biden won, I’m not counting on a Biden/Harris governance to make a marked improvement in poor and low-income Americans’ quality of life, however much I believe the pair will try. And I have a hard time imagining anything resembling ‘Obamacare’ coming back.

The governance will, however, most likely maintain thinly veiled yet firm ties to large corporations, as though elected heads represent big money interests over those of the working citizenry.

(It may be reflective of why those powerful interests generally resist proportional representation electoral systems of governance, the latter which tends to dilute the corporate lobbyist influence on the former.)

Those doubting the powerful persuasion of huge business interests need to consider how governing officials can feel crippled by implicit or explicit corporate threats to transfer or eliminate jobs and capital investment, thus economic stability.

Also concerning is that corporate representatives actually write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and have implemented, typically word for word, supposedly to save the elected officials their time.

What I find far more disturbing than Donald Trump’s ridiculously over-stoked fan base, are the strong supporters who consider themselves to be Christian.

The Biblical Jesus was unquestionably the opposite of the president’s character; he was all about compassion, pacifism and absolute charity. He clearly would not tolerate such superfluous wealth as the hoarding of tens of billions of dollars while so many others went hungry and homeless.

While many true Christians have rejected Trump’s presidency, regardless of his tempting conservative politics (e.g. his Pro-life professions), this very vocal and politically active ‘Christian’ element lauds Trump.

Apparently, so very angered by Democratic Party social liberalism, they promote, even praise, the figurative devil.

(I know I’d dread the possibly of being looked upon by Trump’s big money corporate drivers as a useful idiot, especially if I was a supporter who's struggling to make financial ends meet.)

Their apparent blindness to Trump being contrary to Christ’s teachings makes it seem to me they’ve sacrificed Jesus’s fundamentals on the altar of unyielding hard-conservative politics.

“Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President”, Trump’s fanatic followers are chanting across America.
(Does Jonestown and the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project eerily come to mind, anyone?)

Perhaps worst of all, they make very bad examples of the faith, especially to young impressionable observers.

For the countless worldwide for whom there is/was naught to be thankful on Thanksgiving Day—nor any other day, for that matter …

GRACE
Pass me the holiday turkey, peas
and the delicious stuffing flanked
by buttered potatoes with gravy
since I’ve said grace with plenty ease,
for the good food received I’ve thanked
my Maker who’s found me worthy.
It seems that unlike the many of those
in the unlucky Third World nation,
I’ve been found by God deserving
to not have to endure the awful woes
and the stomach wrenching starvation
suffered by them with no dinner serving.
Therefore hand over to me the corn
the cranberry sauce, fresh baked bread
since for my grub I’ve praised the Lord,
yet I need not hear about those born
whose meal I’ve been granted instead,
as they receive naught of the grand hoard.

I often wonder how many potential Christians have felt repelled from the faith altogether due to the vocal angry-God-condemnation brand of the faith?
Biblical interpretations aside, perhaps God didn’t require the immense bodily suffering by God’s own incarnation in place of that sustained by a sinful humankind as justice/payment for all sin. Might God have become pacifistically turn-the-other-cheek incarnate, performed numerous unmistakable miracles before experiencing a brutal death, followed by his resurrection—all to prove there really was hope for all? Maybe Jesus—who may have had a great sense of humour—didn’t die FOR humans as payment for our sins (the greatest mostly resulting from unchecked testosterone rushes), but rather his vicious murder occurred BECAUSE of humans’ seriously flawed nature; and due to his not behaving in accordance to corrupted human conduct, particularly he was nowhere near to being the blood-thirsty vengeful behemoth so many wanted or needed—and so many Christians still do to this day—their savior to be and therefore believed he’d have to be?
Our collective human need for retributive ‘justice’—regardless of Christ (and great spiritual leaders) having emphasized unconditional forgiveness—may be intrinsically linked to the same unfortunate morally-flawed aspect of humankind that enables the most horrible acts of violent cruelty to readily occur on this planet. Thus, we may be making God’s nature in OUR own vengeful image.

Just the concept of socialists having any power anywhere on the planet causes distress to a local man here who’s vocally vehemently opposed to liberalism. On a couple occasions he became so narrow-mindedly enraged that he, with his tightened fist trembling before him, uttered to me, “I’d vote for the devil himself if that’s what it took to keep those Godless socialists out of office!”

"Terrapin Station: Mistake #1: you're assuming that some things really are more important than other things.”
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At first I thought your bold statement may hold some truth had our home planet been not only in current good natural environmental condition, but also somehow magically immune from humankind’s collective recklessness as mass polluters. But then I thought I may be missing some other qualifiers.
First, perhaps not all people find most important the fundamentals of human-life survival, those being in the order of clean air, water and food, without which all other corporeal “things” are rather imminently rendered irrelevant.
Secondly, there’s the possible scenario in which a person, for whatever reason, doesn’t care about his corporeal existence and, perhaps by extension, nor does he care about that of his fellow humans; and, also by extension, most important to him is to live some sort of finite physical existence until his lights go out (albeit not by his own hand).
Thirdly, the person may simply not believe that, for example, the polar ice caps are increasingly melting due to global warming, thus causing rising tidal levels and catastrophes like the unprecedented storm-surge effects of Hurricane Katrina upon New Orleans.
Lastly, the person may be theologically inclined, convinced that humanity is indeed in our Book of Revelations last days, with God’s judgment nigh, anyhow, so it all doesn’t really matter; or the person believes God will not allow the recklessness of humankind to have final destructive say on His Earth’s otherwise pristine natural environment, or perhaps our destructive recklessness must be His will in the first place. Evidence of this was Canada’s previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, and some of his most influential cabinet ministers (one example site: thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/03/26/Harper-Evangelical-Mission).
But even with all of the above considered, when it comes to the fundamentals of physical survival, the life-and-death needs of the vast majority of the global populace should far outweigh the important-thing needs of the figurative few and especially the one.

P.S. What might be Mistake #2, etcetera?

There are many various slippery slopes in humankind’s existence involving intensely addictive vices; and the slippery slope known as gambling and its addictiveness is a lot more like a vertical pitfall. I looked over my original post, and I cannot find any reference(s) made by me that suggests outlawing all for-profit gambling (if it’s inadvertently implied somewhere, then please disregard such a notion, for it’s simply not a plausible social agenda). Rather, my post is about the significant lack of ethics involved with promotional advertising methodology, in particular those of government lottery corporations. The multiple examples I give should trouble anyone who has a family member currently slipping down the so-called slope or (my choice of metaphor) vertical pit.

It’s overly often claimed that the vast majority of gamblers can handle the vice just fine, but such a claim at best is based upon an unreliably vague if not seriously flawed statistic that holds little meaning: First, such stats are mostly based on whether players FEEL that their rate of gambling—or more relevant, rate of gambling losses sustained—is fiscally problematic for their ‘comfort zone’ or sense of maintained well-being. Again, vague; it’s a relativistic qualification and/or quantification (i.e. dependent on the gambler’s own perceptions, etcetera). There are solid stats, of course, on how many players have been deemed by gambling-addiction professionals and/or counsellors as being certified serious-problem gamblers, as they have clearly defined formidable fiscal and even emotional difficulties, most notably bankruptcy and enforced repayment plans arranged by court-appointed accountants. Official stats may imply or even outright claim that lottery/casino gambling as a whole is basically harmless; but declaring such hardly means that such addictions are not very problematic for those people directly or indirectly involved, and they often desperately need serious addressing.
Thus, unlike with the observable absolute fact that the vast majority of users at this philosophy discussion forum websites go by (for whatever personal reasons) anonymous pseudonyms or partial names, assuming that the vast majority of gamblers can handle it just fine is, at very best, an incomplete picture.

My biggest concern with gambling entities operated as ‘publicly-owned’ corporations is the resultant virtual bottomless pockets the government has when it comes to typically manipulative advertising and the print news-media that greatly need that revenue, especially nowadays with newspaper downsizing in every respect. Specifically, though, what really bothers me is the apparent extensive lengths to which some news-media will compromise themselves in order to avoid offending such huge sources of ad revenue.

As one example, of over a dozen essays that I had posted onto The Vancouver Sun’s community forum website (since removed, less than a decade ago), all of which questioned societal norms to a reasonably non-offensive extent, only a single essay—the one critical of my home province government’s lottery corporation’s in-depth involvement with gambling revenue and the massive amount of newsprint advertising it purchases—was conveniently deleted and without any explanation; and it was re-deleted when I tried to re-post it. It took a few minutes, but it soon enough dawned on me the countless full-page ads that frequent The Vancouver Sun’s broadsheet frame; and now there are also two Greater Vancouver freebee metro-dailies that also receive large amounts of ad revenue, in particular when they on occasion publish an ad in the form of a double-paged newspaper jacket cover. Big bucks indeed!