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WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. April 13, 2024:
112 years ago this day the RMS Titanic with 2,229 crew and passengers aboard was under sunny skies and sailing a calm sea in the middle of the cold North Atlantic on the third day of its maiden voyage to America.
Aboard were the who’s who of the rich and famous of the time, immigrants in steerage all eager to enjoy then the greatest ship ever built, the fastest ship ever built, and the safest.
It was declared the safest by its owners the White Star Line because of its connected below the waterline compartments designed to close off should one be breeched or collided with.
The ship sailed from Southampton England April 10. The opulence of the ship was luxury and large. It’s four smokestacks belching black smoke, its bow cutting the ocean like butter, the speed over 20 knots as the owner Bruce Ismay pushed its Captain to pour on the coal to set a speed record from England to America.
The Titanic which 112 years ago was sailing westward and on Monday 112 years ago rested on the bottom, thousands freezing and drowning in frigid waters, has a lesson for us.
What is that message?
The voyagers enthralled with the great ship and its intoxicating smooth voyage over the sea did not know what was coming: their worst nightmare just two days from now.
I always think of the innocence and yes, hubris this ship demonstrated through no fault of its own.
The unspeakable disaster looming in the icy waters, was caused by hubris: choosing to ignore warnings of iceberg fields ahead and going full steam ahead into giant icebergs, and at top speed of 26 knots, not giving the ship’s helmsman enough turn space to avoid anything that might be ahead.
It was hubris and the Achilles’ Heel of Businessmen: cost-cutting that did not equip the RMS Titanic with enough lifeboats. Over 1,500 persons drowned.
This very bad habit of businesses cutting costs that results in killing people is still a deadly unintentional practice.
I was struck by the similarity of the Titanic situation to the state of the country today.
America is on a voyage too.
Just like the 2,029 “souls” on the Titanic.
We are all of us: white, black, Latino, immigrant, migrants all passengers on the USS TRUMPTANIC.
Our leaders in the wheelhouse, (the U.S. Congress) are controlled by small factions advocating dangerous to the country policies; delaying funds to help persons who need it,, or worse cutting them, and when brief compromises delayed for weeks to preserve controversial services, the growing problem is not resolved.
Just like the Titanic management and crew long term decisions to aid policy agendas and politicians own seats and bottom lines of caviling factions not with citizen’s health, survival, and rights in mind fail to do what any person who hears what God—(The voice in your head that warns you when you are doing wrong and you hear it and choose to ignore) decides on the path of political demands, (as Ismay the owner limited lifeboats, operated recklessly in an icefield he knew about for the sake of promotion that cost 1500 lives.
There is no difference between the political infighting nationally creating misery for women, immigrants educators, and people coming across the borders and being housed in the streets, limiting health care, not controlling guns more tightly, and judicial decisions that rely on semantics instead of humanity of their decisions.
We have two captains, two crews battling for the helm of the USS Trumptanic and where it will sail now in the sea of the world, fraught with more danger than any iceberg.
The wrangling at the helm in Washington, unfortunately now with two houses of congress and the confused Presidential administration trying to get some rational solutions through, but Senators and Congress members vacillating on which way to turn the ship, not considering the humanity of the USS Trumptanic that will suffer losses if thoughtful humane decisions are not made. Americans need more lifeboats not less. They need sensible business policies and regulation on the corrupt leadership of the captains of industry in the country today.
Should the USS Trumptanic with one Captain trying to please all, while his challenger continues to tell people what sounds good, selling slogans with without concrete plans (nothing unusual for any politician), while the opposing Captain seeking to retain the helm of USS Trumptanic and turn it into the USS Bidenomic even should he win reelection, will need a far more intelligent and responsible two houses of conference to make the legislation that helps all the passengers on the USS America of 2025 get off the sinking ship.
Right now the USS Trumptanic commanded already by the instructions over the ship’s national intercom is veering starboard to port, port to starboard inexorably avoiding safe passages to the left or the right, and are very reluctant, both parties to change their desperate pulling at the helm.
Where is the USS Trumptanic taking us?
The passengers on this great ship of a country have their chance in November to take the helm firmly.
Running the greatest country in the world, despite or present confusion of what we want to be is not a job for self-serving politicians.
It’s up to you, America to rename the ship USS My America Again
An America that helps unconditionally. That aids the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. That defends the passengers against the forces of tyranny. That respects the truth and reports the truth. Where you speak your mind and are not jailed or killed for it. That is why people come here they respect us for what we once were. Where you get a fair trial, and no one is above the law. Where the judges think and wear their robes to right wrongs and not inflict new wrongs.
Where all men and women are created equal. All have the right to the pursuit of happiness, All have the right to come here and come aboard, because you make our imperfect country stronger, free-er and as the Statue of Liberty inscription says “I hold up my torch beside the Golden Door…come on in you huddled masses”
Passengers on the USS Trumptanic, save the ship take control of the helm responsibly on November 5.
You are your own lifeboats.
Remember the crybaby politicians will get in the boats first.
Women and children will not get seats.