Tag: citizenship

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.

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Speaking of downhill,

AI slop, obvi.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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