Tag: citizenship

We’re a Week Out From the Thing

Brazil did it. Can we?

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.”

google screenshot page showing various electoral maps of the US
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.

An Annotated List of Some Sources of My American Malaise

These are symptoms of a corrupt society.

  • Democratic Neoliberals –
    • 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.

A New England Economy

Consider these posts a brainstorming exercise.

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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Zeitgeist 8/25/26

The last week of August is always weird…

It’s that quiet time when nothing is really happening, but the whole world seems to be full of a kind of denied anticipation/dread of what comes next. We’re just under two weeks out from a delayed American Labor Day — this year it lands on the last day it can mathematically be, September 7th. It feels like we’re getting an extra week of “summer.”

Kids are waiting for school to start. The produce section at the local grocery store is still full of stone fruit and tons of obviously-local leafy greens, but the greens are a little bit leggy and the peaches are taking on that late-season sweetness that I wait for the whole year, even though it means they’re about to disappear from the farm stands.

I still haven’t seen any Hallowe’en candy® or heard anyone mention Pumpkin Spiced Everything®. That will all magically appear on September 8th, and at that point, we’ll all start wearing our fall colors and anticipatorally bringing along a sweater, just in case.

Some years, I’ve even noticed that the weather will change, as if on cue. These long-but-shortening Summer days will be and feel of the season almost past, and then that one week the feeling in the air will be different. The air will be noticeably cooler, you’ll take note of a few harbinger trees which are starting to take on their fall colors. City streets will be busier, the highways less so.

And then at the end of the month there’ll come an entire week of rain every day, and on the other side of that, those just-in-case sweaters will come out of our bags and get pulled over our shoulders. It’s all downhill from then on.

–

Speaking of downhill,

AI slop, obvi.

–

Speaking of downhill, the American Empire looks to be toast. Stinky Don and his Stupid Minions are making every destructive wrong decision they can come up with, and it’s costing us in every corner of the world. The economy is still appearing to hold up, though not well, but all of the underpinnings are being eaten away at a precipitous clip. (How are those “strategic reserves” hanging in, Donny boy?)

The cracks are beginning to appear domestically, but on the international stage, things are much worse, as evinced by the fact that we’ve just learned that 15 US military bases around the Persian Gulf have been completely obliterated. We are not welcome there. Even the Saudis aren’t defending us, having restricted access to their airspace to US armed forces in response to ongoing attacks from Iran (on US bases on Saudi soil, and due to Irans rising power.)

We continue to burn through our allyships and Pumpkinhead is trying hard to align the US with rogue pariah nations who have the authoritarian leadership style he obviously wants to instill here at home. He is more unpopular with the electorate here than he was after the January 6th, 2021 riot in DC. None of this is sustainable. If he somehow manages to eke out a win* in the midterms, I can’t imagine how this country will ever recover. Our only hope is to check his power now. A shortfall, no matter how compromised the election might be, will only encourage these morons to push all of their terrible policies into overdrive.

As it is, some revision of the world order is in progress, and this country is going to have to face up to its new reality. I hope we can find some way to minimize the damage being done, but I’m not hopeful.

–

It’s a beautiful, bright morning, I’m working on the blog I enjoy writing, I have my second cup of coffee here on the desk sitting on one of my old COVID masks which I now use as a coaster. I love my home and I’m not willing to be chased out of it.

Hope you are the same.

Zeitgeist 3/28/26

No Kings 3.0 Edition

So… we went to the thing. And did the thing.

This one seemed calmer, but I think every bit of the determination is still there. It just didn’t feel as hair-on-fire as the ones last year, especially the first one, at least here in Greenfield. I’ve looked at a little bit of the news, and I do see that there are some huge protests in the big northern cities, and our little town managed about the same turn-out as the other two, which is to say large and strong. We’ve filled the common every time.

A picture of Karen and I at No Kings in Greenfield.
photo by Jovonna Van Pelt

That’s me and the BBE. I’m holding the sign I made and Karen is holding one that Jo made. Karen knitted our red hats.

–

I’ve seen in the news that other protests — Memphis and LA had clashes with the police happen. I don’t know enough details about any of that to say with any conviction what they mean, but even though us protesters are more focused and seemingly spending less of our energy yelling our frustration out at the world, it does seem like things are heating up between protesters and the establishment.

I want to point out the level of criminality of this regime – how they don’t seem to have any compunctions about killing and mass destruction – and suggest that they might bring that level of evil nonsense home to us. Further, I want us to be prepared for it, and to continue our commitment to nonviolence. The police and DHS would like things to get violent, because that will support their wish to start killing Americans on American streets with much greater regularity than they’re managing right now.

Just generally, I see that the world is heading for something cataclysmic. I think you’d have to be blind not to see how various forces are trying to force various issues around the world as well as here at home.

Buckle up.

–

It’s a few days later, and over the last couple of days, I’ve read that some on the left think these No Kings protests are not doing what we participants expect it to do. I will concede that just showing up in the streets in our millions and millions may not be enough to overthrow this fascist regime.

I never thought that was what peaceful protests would do. As far as I know, the purpose of protest is to signify solidarity and commitment. I think we’re doing that much, at least. Each one of these events gets larger and the energy gets more focused. The thing that brings down the fascists will come out of this movement, that’s what I think. These protests give the opportunity for people to unite, to know that they have power and that power is in sharing it with others. It says to those in power that there is some level of commitment to change.

What we need is leadership that arises to focus this energy and point it towards some achievable goal. What changes the system is concerted, targeted action. I’m hungry for that. I would love to support and participate in such action. In the meantime, though, I’ll go down to Greenfield Common and wave a sign from time to time. Gimme something better to do and I’ll do that.

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