Tag: us

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.

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.

Please consider liking and commenting on this post. Subscribe if you can – it costs you nothing (you no longer have to have a wordpress account to like or comment) and clicking on the buttons helps this site thrive! Also, do be a dear and share this post with those you know who might appreciate it!

Mom is dead
and my brother
inherited her dog
old herself now
at eighteen.

Hips crippled up
thick cataracts in her eyes
nearly deaf
coat that was once
richly reddish-brown enough
to inspire the name
Cinnamon
now almost entirely white.

Everybody looks at her and thinks
“It won’t be long now.”

And at Cindy’s end
Is another part of Mom gone
Another link to the old days broken
Because Cindy remembers her
And we have loving her in common.

But Cindy’s still here.
Still with us
Still gets the zoomies
(Although 18-year-old
Chihuahua zoomies are
A very different affair from
Puppy zoomies)
Still eats her kibble
With dignified spice girl entheusiasm.

And all I want
Is to keep her with us
And keep her comfortable
And wanting to be with us
until she can’t anymore.

And saying goodbye to her
Becomes another way
To say goodbye
To Mom.

More Controversial Beliefs: I am a Libertarian Socialist

If you’re going to categorize my politics, this is the stuff I believe society should be organized around.

I am a libertarian socialist. I believe that societies should be organized at as close to ground level as they can possibly be. Centralized power is anathema to human happiness.

In fact, Capitalism never considers the need for people to be whole, healthy, and happy a priority at all. One only has to look at the current state of the world to see that this is so.

Capitalism is a good servant but a poor master. Commerce and trade offer crucial support to a community, but they must be held in check, and carefully managed with the larger context of sustainability and human happiness in mind.

Large corporations should not be allowed, and capitalists should not be allowed to earn more than 50 times the basic income rate, which should be defined in relation to how much it takes to meet basic necessities such as enough good, nutritious food, adequate housing, all other basic expenses met, and enough extra money to save against emergencies and for education and amusement.

Billionaires in general should not exist. I agree with the idea that if you somehow manage to amass a billion dollars, everything over 900 million of those dollars should be taxed at a marginal rate of 100%.

Centralized power should be avoided at all costs. Large concerns should be organized by cooperating communities and/or worker’s coöps. Large concentrations of power cause suffering in the best circumstances. Power should be balanced and distributed into as many different hands as possible. People caught abusing their power should have it taken away.

Administrative tasks should be handled on the most local and small level possible, and larger projects should be organized across boundaries between communities if necessary. Once projects of a larger size are completed, the authorities that created them should be either disbanded or minimized in size to conduct reasonable maintenance of any particular ongoing project. Such authorities should be under the aegis of all impacted communities.

Communities themselves should be organized along two axes: geography and affinity. Society should be as free as it can be made to be, but people should be able to organize based on what they need, like, and want as well as where they exist on the map. Communities should have different sizes and shapes and should have porous borders in some ways and firm ones in others. The power of the collective will always outstrip the power of any individual. By the same token, the power of the collective should only be exercised out of necessity.

There is more to say on these topics, and at some point, I may come back to this.

Please consider liking and commenting on this post. Subscribe if you can – it costs you nothing and helps this site thrive – and share this post with those you know who might appreciate it.