GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Goodbye Donald Hello Joe

By
The Daily Blog
-
6
461

The day Donald Trump was elected I wrote a post that began “ What should we tell our children about Donald Trump? That to lie and cheat is the only way to get on in life?”
It was a comment that was a met with howls of complaint from the “give him a chance school “ of political naivety.

We all have our flaws and I’m sure Joe Biden has them, but I find it interesting that Trump targeted him with a smear campaign even while the Democrat candidates were still being selected. It is as if his campaign strategists had worked out at that early stage that Biden was the one they needed to eliminate .

I don’t pretend to understand American politics or why a 77 year old white male made it through the Democrat selection process and a bitter Election battle to become the President – Elect of such a diverse nation.

However the little I do know from reading something of his personal background suggests he is someone who has had life experiences that have given him the kind of empathy that may help him re-unite the divided States of America.

Shortly after he became a Senator in 1972 ( at the age of 29) his first wife Neilia and infant daughter were killed in a car accident, and his two sons were seriously injured. In 2015 his eldest son, Beau, died from brain cancer.

So when Biden speaks about the many who have died and are suffering from Covid 19 in his country, he does so with an empathy that Trump did not have, does not have, and will never have.

And in that there is some hope for a better America and a safer world.

Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

6 COMMENTS

  1. Real empathy comes from Bernie Sanders and the progressive platform he has campaigned on his entire career.
    Biden was chosen by the Democratic party that is awash with big money donors who direct who dictate the rules and conspire who should be the nominee for president and Biden was the only safe choice.
    Sure he has had personal tragedy and i respect that but it is his track record that should have been an indicator on not what he will do but what he wont in the critical areas that Bernie outlined in his campaign.
    Real empathy is understanding the injustice’s of the oligarchy that many Americans are trapped in , seeing and feeling their pain and wanting to change what is causing so much misery like denying them affordable health care and having the courage to take on the real enemies that profit from so much misery.

  3. ( I understand. People, including me, post links to things they think are worthy of attention and many of them are. But Rutger Bergman’s TED talk is particularly interesting. Please take 14 minutes of your time to listen to it.)
    @ mosa
    “Biden was chosen by the Democratic party that is awash with big money donors…”
    That’s a critically important and pivotal sentence.
    Big Money Donors…
    In a capitalist democracy taxation is hated more than the ever critical mother in law with an eye for a weakness to exploit it then does so tirelessly.
    Within a socialist democracy, however, taxes are seen as an opportunity to be involved in ones country’s evolution while retaining a real sense of individuality and freedom and in the process people never worry about their health, shelter, education, transport, peace of mind in old age etc and more tellingly, never have to be imprisoned in debt until death by manipulative bankers and money lenders and that most vile enemy to the public, the debt industry.
    The people of the current iteration of the U$A are imprisoned by the hyper wealthy the working class themselves created after succumbing to the logical fallacies that greed is good and all you have to do is work hard, save hard and you too can become a billionaire like me. Which is a jailers language really. That logic beguiles people into thinking they’re free when in reality they’re well imprisoned behind invisible walls who must then be forever on the invisible treadmill until they die. Then once literally dead their debts are simply passed down to the next generation and so on and so on.
    Rutger Bergman and Graham Norton are correct.
    Taxes, taxes, taxes. Taxation doesn’t build billionaires, you do. One hour on minimum wage after another. Taxation prevents billionaires and by doing so, our lives, the lives of normal, caring, loving human beings are protected by other normal, caring, loving, human beings from the billionaire’s emotional abnormalities, perversions and the madness of greed.
    The very chilling thing we normal, caring, loving human beings should never, ever forget is that the trump and his deviant ilk are a dime a dozen. They’re fucking everywhere where there is other people’s money. We must therefore always remain on high alert to spot their political rise from their crypts then smack them down with taxes.
    Tucker Carlson Blows Up at Rutger Bregman in Unaired Fox News Interview
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFI2Zb7qE
    TED talk/Rutger Bergman.
    “Poverty isn’t a lack of character; it’s a lack of cash | Rutger Bregman”
    https://youtu.be/ydKcaIE6O1k
    Graham Norton.
    “It’s just stupid and very short-sighted,” said Norton. “You see people who are worth a billion and they’re still doing tax dodges and you think how can you be bothered? “These people who go to incredible lengths to dodge tax would be just as rich if they paid the tax – and would be living in a much nicer country.Sep 28, 2018

  4. So when Biden speaks about the many who have died and are suffering from Covid 19 in his country, he does so with an empathy that Trump did not have, does not have, and will never have.

    And in that there is some hope for a better America and a safer world.

    Not only was Biden one of the most important Democratic supporters of the Iraq War, but that support says much about the kind of president he would be.

    There have been many tragic consequences of the war for which Biden and others should be held accountable: the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed; the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers and the tens of thousands permanently wounded; the hundreds of billions of dollars drained from our national treasury; the social, economic and environmental damage inflicted upon Iraq; the misallocation of human and material resources away from real needs at home; and the resulting growth in Islamic fundamentalist extremism.

    I wonder if Biden and co ever think empathetically about all the other human lives they have ended or destroyed. Fascinating how ones morals and ethics that they apply can be compromised when it suits.

Comments are closed.