If you know my writing (and if you are out there reading this, I sure would appreciate a little “hello” in the comments to show me that someone looking at this isn’t a bot of some sort or another) you know that I’m long-term dissatisfied with the direction this country is headed, and have been for a while.
One of the things I’ve started exploring here is New England Secession. I think one of the possible solutions for the deep, deep well of corruption that seems to be fueling this country is to move the capitol, I think it may be the only option we have to return the people of these formerly-united States to some level of compassion, humanity, and fairness. I’m not saying it will get us there, but it will give us a chance at something better.
But that is a long term approach, and admittedly a pipe dream of mine. In the short term, in the VERY short term, what we have to do is eminently clear to me.
We need to vote as many of the corrupt bastards out as we can manage to get to today. If there is a candidate on your ballot who is not beholden to any monied interest, be they foreign or domestic, please make sure you put your mark by their name on the ballot today.
Abdul El-Sayed meeting voters. Photo by Paul Sancya for AP.
I will be voting for Ed Markey, Jim McGovern, and Maura Healey here in Franklin County. Both Markey and McGovern have taken AIPAC money in the past, but have long since sworn off. If you don’t know who you’re going to vote for yet (and you need to make that decision NOW) one place to get information you can use is TrackAIPAC.com. Look for other sources, too. Some of your local press outlets may be able to help.
For all that I wish to move the capitol by having my region secede from the larger country, the fact is that we’re here in the world as it is. Stinky Don is the president. He is surrounded by goons and sycophants, including some that have a (D) after their name on certain ballots. In general though, it seems that if you’re voting for anyone with an (R) after their name on any ballot, you’re voting for someone who supports Stinky Don. And if you’re voting for a supporter of that guy, you’re voting against a democratic society.
It’s just that simple. You’re voting for cruelty without consequences. You’re voting for someone who supports the idea of no accountability for certain Stinky people. We know this because we’ve been living through this particular Stinky chunk of history.
Stinky Don is offering all sorts of cash prizes, all conditional on a win for the (R)s in this coming election. No changes in policy, no promises to do better. Just spread the corruption to the average voter, for the one act of importance we each have the opportunity to commit every couple of years. It’s all bribes, it’s all corruption. He’s saying, “If you let me continue robbing the country blind, I’ll give you a stinking Werther’s® for your trouble.”
A screenshot I took from Google.
Please remember that his operating budget is your money anyway, and that if you let him have his way, he’s only going to pick up the pace of putting your tax dollars in his own pocket and those of his friends and allies, killing kids, putting the youth of America in harm’s way, and further destroying whatever good will and political capital this country has in the world community. It’s not a good deal. I’d go so far as to say that no deal with Stinky Don is a good deal for anybody but Stinky Don. And not even that, necessarily. Gerrymandering Texas seems not to have done him any actual favors. The five new “safe” districts he had the state legislature create there are not so safe after all.
In fact, for those who have a numbers fetish, here’s a link to Nate Silver’s FLIPR forecast for the midterms. It’s narrowing a little bit, it seems, but it’s still looking pretty good for the Democrats. Polling in the modern era is a bit less than perfect, but it’s still info.
To that end, Brazil had their elections this past Sunday, and against conventional wisdom and the best polling available, Lula da Silva won a fourth term as President of Brazil. That election day was wild. Municipalities closed down their public trans portation to keep people from being able to get to the polls. People came by boat out of the remostest areas to make their way to the polls, against everybody’s expectation. Bolsonaro tried unsuccessfully to get the polls closed early with tons of people still on line to vote. In the end, instead of the predicted loss, Lula won by about 3,000,000 votes.
And of course Flavio Bolsonaro is refusing to concede, and is asking Trump to intervene and hand him the presidency. Time will tell if Trump has the will and resources to do so. It’s worth remembering that Stinky Don has his own troubles, a host of them, all of his own making.
Jimmy Carter – Ineffectual leader, Famously criticized Americans for their lack of will while failing to address the hostage crisis in Iran, the double-whammy of unemployment and concurrent inflation, or much else, really.
Bill Clinton – tried to combat the Reagan wave in politics by becoming more Reagan-like.
Hillary Clinton – Not politically talented, managed to continue the Democratic tradition of snatching defeat from the jaws of vicotry.
Obama – Big talker on the campaign trail, didn’t do much of what he promised, continued the party’s practice of pointing at the Republicans while lying in a self-drawn chalk outline of themselves.
Zombie Joe – propped up by a party apparatus more motivated to hold on to power than to help people, as they had been since Bill Clinton. Failed to manage even that.
Fascists
Reagan – Laid the groundwork for every evil thing the Republican Party has done since. Didn’t introduce Milton Friedmann’s to the American economy (that would be Jimmy Carter) but he advanced the neoliberal cause into the inescapable plague it is to this day.
Bush – Bush 41 was the intellectual giant of the last 4 Republican presidents, but that didn’t help. Lasted 1 term. Remember Operation Desert Storm? Whoopee! Also, his opposition to “Voodoo Economics” disappeared the moment he got the job helping Reagan administer those very policies.
Bush 43 eroded the power of the constitution even farther, committed horrible atrocities across the globe, is nothing in comparison to the next Republican president in terms of destructive, greed-fueled idiocy.
Trump – Here is the air you’re breathing now. At this point the constitution is a meaningless piece of paper, human life is only as valuable as its bank account, and because of his actions on the international stage, everyone in the world rightfully hates us.
Imperialist Wars of Aggression
Genocide – An American tradition going back as far as 1619. Today our tax dollars are continuing that tradition in Gaza, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon.
Iraq War – An illegal, unprovoked war of agression that has led, by some counts, to the deaths of over 600,000 innocent Iraqis and destabilized the entire region.
Afghani War – An intentional failure and boondoggle that went on for 20 years too long. It’s trillions of dollars that were just thrown away, and that was the actual purpose of the adventure.
Iran War – continuing the American tradition of unprovoked and illegal wars of aggression against countries that didn’t attack us. We’re losing this one decisively.
Rat Bastardry™ in countries to our south – How different is Nicolás Meduro from Manuel Noriega, in the final analysis? Mainly the difference is in the even worse behavior of the American state. It must be remembered that the US has worked its evil on the countries south of us since we’ve had the ability and interest to do so. The Mexican-American War of 1848 is of a piece with the kidnapping of Meduro and the theft of Venezuela’s oil and gold.
Vietnam War – An obvious precedent for much that has happened since. No one remembers Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., but they should.
Gulf of Tonkin – the trumped up fake attack that set the precedent for many lies that followed.
Internal scandals
Watergate – A context in which an American President claimed, “If the President does it, then it’s legal.”
Corruption – This country has been set up to benefit the merchant class from the time said rich imperialist first set foot on these shores in the 17th century. At this point, all other impulses – Democracy, individual liberty, equality (hah) – have been subsumed into the weathiest among us’s greed.
Racism – Endemic and written into the script. Apart from simple prejudice, there’s endless history of legislation (Virginia’s Black Laws dating back to 1680 as an example,) suppression, and all manner inhumane treatment. The thing to remember about racism is that it’s a tool of the rich and powerful. It’s divide and conquer.
Sexism – Let’s just say “virulent patriarchy” and move on here.
Homophobia – A tool of patriarchal hegemony with the added pizzazz of being a fear of the self in many cases, and in virtually all of the most virulent cases.
Transphobia should probably get its own own bullet here, although in my perception, it’s got most if not all of the features of homophobia, with the addition of trans folk being seen as an even more direct affront to the sensibilities of the patriarchy.
White Supremacy – If we look at this as distinct from racism – which it isn’t, really – we have to point to the strange matter of how many white people think they’re being oppressed if they’re treated the same as everybody else. It’s truly weird, and that misreading of the map of the world in the social dimension is a huge source of the malaise we all endure.
The disappointing left
Bernie – Bernie gets huge credit from me for the things he’s accomplished. He’s the best spokesman for the anti-neoliberal movenent that’s burgeoning in this world that the US has, but he has also failed us all at a couple of crucial moments. He’s twice gotten to a crucial moment in his campaigns for president and just thrown in the towel without winning enough concessions from his opponents to make a difference.
The Squad – Four women in Congress, generally fighting the good fight, but they sometimes self-sabotage and therefore sabotage a country struggling to find some moral and ethical footing in this post-neoliberal era. The best of them is Ilhan Omar, in my opinion, although AOC is more charismatic. We shouldn’t expect them to change the world, but sometimes I wish they would fight harder, and sometimes it’s frustrating that they fold when they shouldn’t.
Current Liberal Leadership – When the supposed opposition acts like quislings and collaborators, and simultaneously shout down anyone who acts as true opposition. They pretend to be on our side while abjectly serving their Epstein-class masters.
New England used to be an agricultural region. There are so many small farms around our communities that it gives me the impression that if we made it a priority and funded/encouraged it, we could be an agricultural region again. It’s possible that we could grow enough to sustain ourselves, though I don’t know for sure what it would mean to try to feed all of the people here from New England’s arable land alone.
This will bear some investigation.
Crumbling mill buildings in Turners Falls. The one nearest me is still in partial use. Photo by me.
We also used to be an industrial region, at the same time as it was an agricultural region. There are abandoned mill buildings all over the area. Turners Falls, the next town over from me, has a decommissioned water turbine. That’s sustainable power. I wonder if that turbine could be brought back on line, and how much of our current power needs it could meet?
To be clear, I’m not saying “start up all the old mills again,” In most cases, that’s not possible. On the other hand, though, if there are old mill buildings and other facilities that are refurbishable, it would be better to do so than to reinvent the wheel in all cases.
It’s also true that those old mills were rife with problems. They were often terrible, dangerous work environments. They exploited workers. They were massive polluters. We could do so much better with modern humanistic labor and safety standards, and with environmental protection regulations in place and enforced. We would have to work to make sure that corruption was monitored, controlled, and eliminated.
It’s worth noting that New England’s best and most important industry is education. We would do well to open our universities to students from all around the world, as we once did. I work in this industry, and I’m proud of what the University I work for does, and glad to be able to contribute.
And I think that’s what I most like about the idea of an independent New England. We could all be part of something we’re proud of again.
Small disclaimer — I am likely being very naive. I have no real notion of what the starting of a new nation in this period in human history involves. I have some education and some mid reasoning ability and imagination. Read along with me as I investigate what such a massive change would mean. It’s an interesting subject.
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A thing I think about sometimes. Maybe you do too?
I sometimes fantasize about our northeastern states seceding from the Union (capitalized for clarity and for the sake of divorcing the word from certain specific meanings) because I no longer feel that the government as constituted in Washington DC represents the interests of its citizens. It would be easy enough to claim that the problem is Stinky Don and his minions, but the issues run deeper, and are unlikely to be resolved by replacing him as head of state.
It would be hard. Crashing out comes with damage. Along with the risks, there would be some rewards, most having to do with not having to listen to and work within the whims of the cadre of corrupt billionaires who currently run too much of our lives. As such, this might not be my last post about this. I think about national divorce a bunch.
There are a number of areas of governance we would have to consider here: economics/feeding ourselves, defending ourselves/relations with our neighbors, living by the social contract/civic policy, and the thousand unknowns of going it alone seem to me to be the basics.
This map is from the US Geological Survey.
One thing I often hear talked about is that New England states are “donor states.” In truth, three New England states qualify as donor states, and three of our number are recipient states. Massachusetts and Connecticut consistently pay more in taxes than we recieve in benefits, New Hampshire is usually a donor state, though not always because they’re close to the line between donor and recipient always. Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island are consistently recipient states.
The thing to remember here is that states don’t pay federal taxes, individuals do. Massachusetts and Connecticut (and to a lesser extent, southern New Hampshire) are where the highest concentrations of wealth are. Every possible solution to the donor/recipient state disparity that I’ve heard looks like bad policy, including some “fixes” that are pure regressive taxation.
This is not something that should be thought of in making the case for secession. Honestly, the fact that the first place I went to in thinking about this is an example of right-wing framing is surprising to me, now that I’ve investigated a little bit. To get to the goal of a free New England, there’s clearly some reflection and self-deprogramming that needs to happen.
Perhaps the main reason I want to cut away from the rest of the country is that this region, in self-rule, would be more humanist and more left-leaning. A smaller system would be more likely to support the people of that system. It would be our responsibility to realign away from sheer wealth creation to making a local system of governance that respects and supports individuals in a way that the current federal government has almost completely abdicated from.
Sorry this post is so random. There’s a ton to think about here, and I will have to do a bunch of digging to even scratch the surface of how this massive historical shift could even begin to be considered. I will make little swipes at this from time to time… more so if readers of this blog show interest, of course. Does anybody else around here sometimes imagine a social-democratic New England, standing proud and free? Let me know in the comments.
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