Bon Voyage

Off to Europe and Africa.  Maybe we won't have to come back...

Sorry - Couldn't Resist

 "Boss says we can release the files."

                                                                                                              The New Yorker, today

Unfit to be the Ruler of a Free People

One of the awful consequences of the Trump Presidency is that he - and his fascist henchmen - will have complete control over the 250th anniversary celebration of the debating, writing, ratifying and approval of the Declaration of Independence.  

Very long story short, this document, its creation, its meaning and its consequences, is, and always has been, central to my lifelong interest in the American revolution in particular, and the great American Experiment in general.  There has always been something powerful - moving and inspiring - about the Founders wrestling with what it means to be free and independent, and then going and doing what needed to be done.  Thomas Jefferson - as conflicted and imperfect as any of the great names in American history  - remains a hero to me, mostly because he was able to wrap up what America meant at that time and articulate it so that, when it was read on village greens all across America, people cheered and church bells rang.  If I could transport myself through time to one historic event, I would probably choose to be on every village green in America, simultaneously, listening to the Declaration being read out loud to the assembled people of that place.  As it is, I have to content myself by listening to the NPR recording of the Declaration on July 4, as I have done since it first appeared in 1988.

And then came Donald Trump.  A great portion of my anger at him has to do with what he has done to this fundamental idea of America (and also what he has done to the world's longest-lasting set of founding principals, the US Constitution).  The Declaration, and the Constitution, define what is great about America, and he is eviscerated both.  

But this is not a post about politics - at least, not much.

Over the last few years, I've been 'taking' courses at Yale, from the comfort of my home.  Over the last 20 years or so, Yale has had video cameras in lecture halls, and put the videos online, and I'm the beneficiary.  Recently, I 'took' a course in the Revolutionary War, taught by Professor Joanne Freeman, and so was interested to see that she was one of the three lecturers who would be presenting Yale's America at 250.

During the third lecture in this series, on the Declaration, Dr. Freeman read four of the American grievances against King George III (the great bulk of the Declaration is actually the listing of these twenty seven grievances), as examples:

    

    - He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, 

    - He made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices.

    - He kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

    - He affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

I wonder why she chose those?  I could add some more:

    - For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

    - For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

    - For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments      

             

This section of the Declaration ends this way:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Indeed. 

Obligatory

OK, OK.  A post about the Epstein files.  Let me start by saying that I stand by my predictions.

Next:  You know, of course, that Trump doesn't need an act of Congress - which is an increasingly likely development - to release the files.  He's the boss.  He can release them or interdict them, whenever he wants.

And, finally (for this post, anyway) Trump has said  "...the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to..."

So when the House and Senate have finally finished their oh-so-serious deliberations, and the President has gotten around to signing the bill and releasing the files, the primary result will be (as is oh-so-often the case) a flurry of lawsuits - because the files will be incomplete, misleading, targeted, and definitely not what we expected.  The Administration will hide behind "legally entitled to" and "ongoing investigations" and "emergency powers," and it will take forever.

Do not hold your breath.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

The White House website, which you pay for, has a timeline, highlighting events and people in the history of The People's House.

The temporal parade of images include six Presidents:  William Howard Taft, Richard Nixon, and these three:

Yes, that's Monica Lewinsky.

Barak Obama engaging with the Muslim Brotherhood, which swept Egyptian elections after the Arab Spring (no mention of the ACA, which provided healthcare to millions of Americans).

I'll just leave you with the site's caption for this one:

The Biden/Harris administration hosts transexuals at the White House in 2023, and goes on to establish the "The Transgender Day of Visibility" on the same day as Easter Sunday in 2024.

Actually, Biden gets two pictures:

During Biden’s administration, a U.S. Secret Service agent discovered a small, zippered plastic bag containing cocaine in the West Wing entrance lobby. Speculation has pointed to Hunter Biden, an admitted drug user. Additional evidence includes a laptop, seized in 2019, which contains photos of frequent drug use alongside emails about foreign business dealings (Ukraine, China) involving his father, Joe, while he was Vice President.

Oh, and there's Melania's Tennis Pavilion, and a  picture of Donald in the Oval Office that he renovated, "...inspired by his Mar-A-Lago estate."  And an AI impression of the golden throne room that is replacing the East Wing.

Raise your hand if you want to be the one to pick the photos to include after Trump leaves office!  Will Stormy Daniels figure in any of them?  Jeffrey Epstein?  Bill Clinton (again)?  Ghislane Maxwell's horse?   Ooh ooh!  Pick me!

Stay tuned.

Long Live the President!

Most Americans disapprove of Donald Trump's presidency at this point.  At the same time, there's a very long Wikipedia page entitled "Age and Health Concerns About Donald Trump."  Erratic behavior and signs of worsening dementia are widely reported.  And he has been disappearing sporadically for periods of time, with no reasonable explanation, sparking concern about health issues in real time.

This is a man who, by almost any measure, should not be President.  There has been an almost constant undercurrent of talk about the 25th Amendment almost from the beginning of his first term.  He has been impeached twice, once for making an arms  deal with Ukraine dependent on action that benefited him politically, and once after the January 6th insurrection.  His extensive record of breaking the law during his second term will certainly lead to a third impeachment should the Democrats re-take the House next year.

He has caused irreparable damage to so much that so many hold dear, that there is a brisk trade in "big, beautiful obituary" memes and paraphernalia.  I've been part of many conversations that included this solution.  For so many, this seems the only route out of fascism and chaos and back into reason and democracy.  

But it won't be.  If Donald Trump is removed from the White House, by the Constitution or the coroner, JD Vance becomes the President of the United States.  If for some reason he can't serve, Mike Johnson is next in line, and next after him, God help us, is Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, president pro tempore of the Senate, who is 92 years old.  And then the line of succession leads us through the Fox News clown car which is Trump's Cabinet.  It's fascists all the way down.

JD Vance will be a much worse President than Trump, because he will be very efficient in the use of the power of the President, power that Trump has squandered in bursts of ignorance, pettiness, bizarre behavior and revenge.  The evil represented by Project 2025 will become institutionalized, because Vance, no matter what you think of him, is smarter than Trump and is much more  focused on policy - and on how to use available resources, including Steven Miller, Steve Bannon, and the whole Fox News team.  It will not be pretty, and there'll be no one to laugh at.

So, at least for now, here's to a long life for the President.  May he foil by bumbling the worst impulses of his henchmen and of his own disordered mind.  May he wander and drool all over the 2026 and 2028 elections, assuring an epic life of ignominious uselessness starting in January of 2027 - for him and the worst of his fascist colleagues.

True Things 16 - Thanksgiving Choices

In May, Donald Trump fired - by e-mail - all three Democratic Commissioners on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, leaving only Republican Commissioners to keep corporations from selling us unsafe products.

The other day, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission tweeted (or "Xed") 

Now is the time to prepare to not set your house on fire this Thanksgiving.

Good to know.  Are there any grownups left in Washington?  

Every. Single. Day

 

Loyalty

Laura Loomer has publicly described her role in the Trump administration as "loyalty enforcer."  Never in the entire history of the United States, through forty five other Presidents, has anyone felt the need to have a "loyalty enforcer."  Oh, sure, there are things that go on behind the scenes, but it's all part of the transactional nature of partisan politics.  No one felt they needed a "loyalty enforcer," at least publicly.  It makes you think of the kid who had to eat some of the king's food each meal to make sure it wasn't poisoned.

I'm reading a book about England's Henry VII, the father of the well-known Henry VIII.  He had a loyalty enforcer, Bishop Morton.  If you whispered in the Bishop's ear that someone was a secret Yorkist, that secret Yorkist either disappeared privately or was hung publicly.  That's what I think of when Laura Loomer calls herself a "loyalty enforcer."

Time for a loyalty check.  

True Things 15

On Sunday, Lindsay Graham, in a speech to a group of conservative Jewish Republicans in Las Vegas, said:

“I just want to say, I feel good about the Republican Party. I feel good about where we’re going as a nation.  We’re killing all the right people, and we’re cutting your taxes.  [Donald] Trump is my favorite president. We’ve run out of bombs, we didn’t run out of bombs in World War II.”

Lindsay Graham is a sitting US Senator.  He is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and chair of the Senate Budget Committee, among other assignments. 

True Things 14 - Beautiful Concepts

In January of 2017, a year after he had become President, Donald Trump said, about his healthcare insurance plan, "Everyone will be covered, it’ll be so easy."

During the 60 Minutes interview which aired tonight:

Q:  "So, will you put forward a health care plan?”

 A:  "No."

Later he amended his answer:  “I have concepts of a plan. Concepts. Beautiful concepts.”…

Another true thing:  This man is the President of the United States.

True Things 13 - Priorities

Every day since January 20, on average, Donald Trump has spent $215,248 of your money and mine playing golf.

Playing Through

Wondering where the debris from the destruction of the East Wing of the White House is being dumped?  Wondering if there is something unpleasantly ironic about the choice?  Wonder no longer.

The asbestos-laden debris from the East Wing (built 1902) demolition is being trucked three miles away to East Potomac Park, a part of the National Park system, which, among other things, features a public golf course.  The debris is being dumped on the golf course.

Ironic enough?  Just wait.  That particular golf course - East Potomac Golf Links - is part of the National Links Trust's "Nation's Capital Project."  The National Links Trust "is a non-profit organization dedicated to positively impacting our community and changing lives through affordable and accessible municipal golf." Here's what they have to say about the Nation's Capital Project:

Our first project - The Nation’s Capital Project -  is focused on the extraordinary opportunity to rehabilitate the municipal golf facilities in Washington, DC - Rock Creek Park Golf, Langston Golf Course, and East Potomac Golf Links. Each one of these sites has a rich and storied history, but none are currently achieving their full potential... With this investment, we can increase our impact in the community and change lives through golf by expanding the reach of our programs and providing better access to affordable recreation and greenspace.

"...better access to affordable recreation and greenspace."  "So why don't we dump hundreds of tons of toxic waste ?  It's just a municipal course for people who can't afford to play on private courses ("like mine").  No one important will care.  And if they do?  Who cares?  I'm the President and I can do whatever I want."

Of course, the President may have made contact with the National Links Trust, and they may be working together to rebuild the course using all that extra fill (notwithstanding its toxic components).  What do you think? 

True Things 12, With Some Opinions at the End

I was interested in how many of Mike Johnson's constituents receive SNAP benefits* and came across a map of House districts, which indicated the percentages of SNAP recipients in each.  In Johnson's district, Louisiana's 4th, 16.9% of the residents receive SNAP.  And won't, starting tomorrow.

Percentage ranges are differentiated by color on the map - the darker the green, the higher the percentage.  The highest range - 18% and over (ooh - Mike missed it by 1.1%!), is represented by a very dark green, indeed.  

There are only 33 Congressional Districts in which the percentage of SNAP beneficiaries is 18% and over, so I looked into it.  They range up into the high 20s, with Pennsylvania's 2nd District at 32.7%.  That's northeast Philadelphia, clearly a tough place to live.

I wondered who represented these districts, arguably the poorest in the country.  I looked it up (Wikipedia is a great help), and here is the answer:

  Democrats:    26

  Republicans     7

No wonder the Republicans are letting SNAP expire, and not using the very funds put aside for this emergency to ensure that it continues.  Although it's hard for me to understand how those seven Republican Congressmen (and Mike Johnson, who's 1.1% from being the eighth) live with themselves.   

* - Opinion:  none.  Mike Johnson has a constituency of one.

True Things 11

You probably saw this, but I just read about it:

Two days ago South Korea presented Donald Trump with a gold crown. This occurred on the sidelines of a global economic summit that Trump did not attend.

It's a replica of an ancient crown, and only gold plate, not solid, but it's not clear that Trump knows this.

Question:  Is this a brilliant dunk on Donald Trump by the South Koreans?  Even a little bit?  Trump was also awarded the ancient Kingdom's highest honor - the Grand Order of Mugunghwa.  Really?  I would be the last to poke fun at someone else's cultural artifacts, but - really?  This is the President who awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ed Meese, a bunch of sportsball players, Antonin Scalia, and Rush Limbaugh.  So... ?

True But Not True Thing

 "No more SNAP benefits for you until the Democrats let us take away your health care."

                                                                                    Speaker of the House Mike Johnson

He said it, but just not in those words.  What he actually said:

"I haven't seen that.  I don't know anything about that."

Or was that what he said about expiring Medicaid benefits?  Or about the President hijacking the appropriation process?  Or about not swearing in Adelita Grijalva?  Or about the Epstein files?  Or about Donald Trump's effectively abolishing the House of Representatives?

He did say that he "'deeply regrets' that millions of Americans will lose SNAP benefits," after working hard to pass the Big Ugly Budget Bill in July, which cut $186 billion from SNAP, and after not using his leadership position to release the $6 billion SNAP emergency fund.  

So once again, a prominent Republican is either ignorant, or lying.

Could it be that we are seeing the resurgence of the Know-Nothing Party?  

Nah.  Still the Lying Liars that Lie Party.

The Local View

 

                                                                                                   Provincetown Independent, today

That's No Ballroom...

 

                                                                                                                                - Mark Hamill

Breaking My Word

From Heather Cox Williamson this morning:

Yesterday the Trump administration said it would not use any of the approximately $6 billion the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) holds in reserve to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The government shutdown means that states have run out of funds to distribute to the more than 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP to put food on the table...

... Yesterday’s USDA memo also says that any states that tap their own resources to provide food benefits will not be reimbursed.

So even when the government is functioning (?) again, it will not allow SNAP recipients to use the food reserves they applied for and were guaranteed.

Remember:  SNAP benefits will be eliminated (Nov. 1) because the government is shut down.  The government is shut down because Congressional Republicans and the President (?) don't think that a particular segment of America should get the health insurance supports that they were promised.

This means two things:

1 - Republicans have no interest in using government to make sure we all have the bare minimum.  This pisses me off, but it's nothing new

2 - Republicans have broken America's word to Americans.  Which means they've broken my word to my friends and neighbors.  The really pisses me off.

True Things 10

"I'm the President and the Speaker."

                      President  (not Speaker) Donald J. Trump

"We don't need to pass any more bills."

                     President Donald J. Trump, to GOP Senators

“It is clear that Donald Trump has effectively abolished the House of Representatives”

                      Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Two things about these things:

1.  Trump is saying that the separation of powers, a foundation of the Constitution, is no more.

2.  Trump is saying that he is consolidating power.  This is a foundation of Fascism.

All these things are true things. 

True Things 9 - Karma

You're familiar with this response to a bizarre occurrence:  "You can't make this stuff up."  In some cases, you can't make it up because if you did, it wouldn't be realistic enough for anyone to 1) believe it or 2) enjoy it as entertainment.  Even fiction needs to comply with the unwritten rules of connection to the real world:  it needs to fit, somehow, with our notion of how the world works.  If it's just randomly bizarre, or extreme, or improbably coincidental, it's not worthy of our attention.

With that in mind, today's True Thing, and the coincidental fallout:

• President Trump today cut off tariff negotiations with Canada over a TV ad, produced and aired by the Province of Ontario, that showed Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.  (This is a whole other thing in itself).
• The first game of the World Series will be played in Toronto tonight,* watched by millions all around the world.**
• The 'Star Spangled Banner' will be played before the game.

What happens during that rendition of our national anthem - in a huge stadium populated mostly by Canadians - is anybody's guess.  My guess is it will include the word "Boo!!" and it won't be referring to Halloween.

* -  The Toronto Blue Jays are the only reason why the term "World" Series has any legitimacy at all, as flimsy as that is.

** - 15.2 million last year.

Priorities

 “Since you can no longer afford insurance that covers X-rays, I can instead show you the plans for the White House ballroom.”

                                                                                                                            The New Yorker, today

No Poetry Inside

 Can I just repeat a post I did in April?  I listen to a community radio station, where all the DJs are volunteers and they play whatever they want.  One has started his three-hour show each week, at least since April, with "Broken Truth" by Tim Grimm.  Each week, and we still hear it, reliably, at 9:30 AM on Monday.  I just finished listening to it.  Again.

Here are the lyrics that I posted in April.  Nothing's changed.    

Last verse:

 Nine years we’ve lived with sorrow, nine years we shook our heads

The Times they are a Changin’, and Honey in the Lion’s head

It’s time we lift the hammer and ring them bells instead.

It’s time we stamp these fires out and let the Peace be spread...

Chorus: 

    Don't it break your heart ? Cause it breaks my heart

    Damn that man who tears this country apart

    He's got no shame, got no soul

    Got no poetry inside to make him whole...

That's what we've been doing, isn't it?  Lifting the hammers - not to break or damage anything or anyone, but to ring them bells.  Not to set fires, but to stamp the fire out.  It's hard, though, to stay positive, constructive, hopeful.  Most revolutions were, in part, at least, violent.*

It still breaks my heart.

* - The Velvet Revolution in what was then Czechoslovakia is a notable exception.  Vaclav Havel and the Czech people created a peaceful transition from post-WWII Communist rule to a parliamentary democracy with free and fair elections.  Havel is a particular hero** of this half-Czech American.

** - No just because he was friends with Mick Jagger.

No Kings Provincetown

Outer Cape showed up.  The park wasn't nearly big enough:

It's off-season, and Oyster Fest is going on in Wellfleet, so you'd figure everyone would be there.  Nevertheless:

Abbey really wanted to use the same sign message as we did in April.  I think it's because she didn't want to have to carry the sign...

One sign in P'town said:  "Antifa won WWII."  True, that.

This is what democracy looks like.  And we need to keep showing up.

True Things 8 - No Kings Day

 During an interview last spring, this exchange took place:

Journalist:  "Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”

Trump:  “I don’t know.” 

See you in the streets. 

And A Couple of Opinions (and a fact)

The quote from Ron Suskind's article in the previous post, about those in power now determining what is real and what is not, is perhaps the most significant paragraph written in the twenty-first century about politics and policy.  The truth, evidence, facts, verification - we no longer base our political behavior and our understanding of policy on those things.  They are just tools to be manipulated.

Donald Trump was elected, both times, because the ground had been prepared.  Republican strategists - including the aide in the article - had been able to distract a large enough portion of the electorate from consideration of facts and evidence, and had helped them replace those verities with anger and outrage by replacing truth with fear.   There was no longer, as Arendt notes, a distinction between fact and fiction.  They were no longer needed.

And so we live in a post-truth world.  A fact:  The Oxford Dictionaries named "post-truth" the "Word of the Year" in - wait for it - 2016.  The Oxford Dictionaries are based in England, of course, and although America's struggle with the post-truth world could hardly have escaped their notice, you will remember that the Brexit vote was in 2016, as well.  

So, fourteen years after Suskind's conversation, the world, and its future, are fundamentally rocked twice by the truthful fact that truth and fact were over.

True Things 7 - A Compilation

This will just be true things.  A compilation, if you will, of true things.  You get to decide what they mean.  Let's go.

First:  On October 17, 2004, journalist Ron Suskind wrote, in the NY Time Magazine, about a meeting he had with a senior aide to President George W. Bush two years earlier:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Second:  Last Thursday, in a speech to executives of international news agencies belonging to MINDS International, a consortium of leading news agencies, Pope Leo XIV quoted Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism":

"...the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

Third:  Pope Leo XIV is the first American Pope.

Make of it what you will.

True Things 6 - A Two-fer

On Wednesday, at a roundtable on "Antifa," Donald Trump said "Uh, we took the freedom of speech away.”

The context was flag-burning, but really, do we care what the context was?

Today is a two-fer, because on Tuesday Senator Ted Cruz said "How 'bout we all come together and say, 'Let's stop attacking pedophiles?'"

No, He Won't (True Things 5)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said today, "The president would like to overhaul Obamacare, and give people health insurance that is higher quality and more affordable."

From January, 2017 through January 2019, 'the president' had a majority in both houses of Congress, and couldn't get enough Republicans to vote for their own version of a system of affordable healthcare for America, and it failed.

From January, 2019 through January 2021, the Democratic majority in the House passed several pieces of legislation focused on providing affordable healthcare to more Americans at lower costs (for example, H.R. 3 and H.R. 987).  The Republican majority in the Senate voted not to advance any of this legislation to the President for signature.

From January, 2025 through today, 'the president' has had a majority in both houses of Congress, and has not made any attempt to write legislation that would create a system of affordable healthcare in America, no less one that was better and cheaper than Obamacare.

Those are the true things.  As I've said, this is where I write the truth, plus things I believe.  

This is what I believe, knowing those true things:  Neither Donald Trump nor the Republican Party is interested in making the effort to create a system of affordable healthcare in America. If they were, they would have done it long ago.

I believe that John Thune is lying to us.

What do you believe?

Shutdown Blues

How's your shutdown going?  Yecch.

Republicans are acting as if they've got a high-value hostage, and are cutting off fingers (mass layoffs, no back pay) because Democrats won't  hand over the ransom.  Mike Johnson is actually using a hostage negotiation tactic - "The problem can be dealt with later, after the government reopens;" in other words, "Come out with your hands up and then we'll discuss your demands."  Yeah, sure you will.  Do I look like an idiot?  And what, I wonder, do Johnson and Thune think is "the problem:"  the elimination of Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that expire at the end of the year, or the fact that they're not getting what they want?  If the former, they're acknowledging that what they themselves did is a problem; if the latter, yecch.

This seems a good place to put down a pet peeve marker.  A recent picture of Hakeem Jeffries shows him behind a sign that says "Save Healthcare."  "Saving Healthcare" is not what this is about.  There is still, and will be, healthcare.  Any issue in that realm we can lay at the door of RFK Jr., but that's a different story.  There is still healthcare available, if you can afford it, meaning if you're rich or, like Abbey and I, incredibly lucky enough to have employment-based insurance that continues after retirement.  This issue is "Affordable Healthcare."  I know that's an awkward phrase that doesn't play well in the media, but it's the accurate truth.  Sticking to the "Save Healthcare" trope opens Democrats to criticisms about being inaccurate ("Of course there's healthcare!  What's wrong with you?"), and about downplaying the needs of the majority of Americans who put off healthcare because it's too expensive.

Republican lawmakers and their high-dollar constituents can, apparently, afford all the healthcare they need.  We need to focus on the inhuman greed represented by their refusal to let all of us help everyone be healthy.

Showing Up

A thought about the outrage that is greeting the Administration's use of ICE to terrorize people of color, and their illegal use of National Guard troops to police cities that vote blue:  the outrage is the whole point.  Once you're outraged - mission accomplished.

There is a significant proportion of right-wing Republicans who need this and only this:  overweight, heavily-armed white men in fatigues swaggering through cities they've never been to.  That's all they need:  show them that on the TV, and they've got the wish-fulfillment fantasy that they need.  In their minds, they're on it, striding with their buds, guns ready, chests out, masks on, ready to rumble.  At least in their fantasies.  In reality, they're slumped on their couches in Middle America, not doing much of anything except complaining about things they don't understand.

They don't care about crime in Chicago or Portland or LA.  They don't care about any of the complexities of immigration policy, and they don't care that American citizens are being victimized just because of the color of their skin.  They just want to piss off liberals; to show them what it's like to be a real man.  They are products of Fox News, country music, the internet, and generations of toxic masculinity, and once those righteous bros start scaring those other people, no more need be done.  It's never been about accomplishing anything; it's about showing up.  That's all they need.

Bull in a China Shop

Just a thought about the Age of Trump.  I've never really been angry at Trump.  I've pitied him, because he is a pitiful, ignorant, amoral narcissist with powerful friends and his father's money.  Trump is not who is at fault:  we are at fault.  We voted him in, twice.

I didn't, of course.  Neither did you, probably.  But that doesn't matter.  That doesn't separate us from "the American people."  It doesn't even separate us from "the American electorate."  We let him in.  We knew he was a a pitiful, ignorant, amoral narcissist with powerful friends.  Now he's just being him, in an environment which happens to be custom made for his (and his powerful handlers') particular kinks.

A bull in a China shop is going to cause an enormous amount of damage.  But it's not the bull's fault.  The bull is just being a bull in a new environment.  It's the fault of whoever let him into the shop in the first place. 

Probably Mostly Accurate

 

“. . . and then Randy Quaid yells, ‘Hello, boys, I’m back!,’ and flies his jet right into the alien ship, blowing it up, and I think you all just need to be more like that.”

                                                                                                                    The New Yorker, today

Pep Talk

Donald "Bone Spurs""Veterans are losers and suckers" Trump has said he would like to show up at Pete Hegseth's meeting of all US military command staff today and give them "a pep talk." 

 Wouldn't you love to see that? 

 Me neither.

True Things 4

Larry Ellison is, apparently, the owner of NBC, CNN, TikTok (only recently, of course), and Oracle, a company that seems to have access to an unimaginable landscape of data, including yours and mine.

During Oracle's 2024 Financial Analyst Meeting in Las Vegas this month, which he joined by video, he said, ""Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly watching & recording everything that's going on."  This was presented as a good thing.

Behave.

In Favor of Massacres (and Incompetence)

Yesterday the Pentagon's Chief Disinformation News Anchor and, apparently, Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth announced that the 20 soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor for participating in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 would get to keep their medals, after more than a century of controversy.

Wounded Knee was a massacre - so obviously so that it has not been excised or moderated in history books.  Nearly three hundred Lakota - men, women and children - were killed.  About 25 Army soldiers were also killed, almost exclusively by friendly fire (the massacre started when, deployed in a full circle around some of the Lakota, they started firing).  The Medals of Honor were handed out to disguise the rampant corruption and incompetence of the Indian Agents and the US Army officer who lead the troops, James Forsythe, and the equally corrupt Harrison Administration in Washington, which was trying to manipulate the people of South Dakota, where the massacre took place, to elect a state legislature who would send a Republican Senator to Washington to support higher tariffs.

I'm not making that up.  The Wounded Knee massacre was about higher tariffs.

But, says Peter Hegseth, the men were “brave soldiers... we’re making it clear that they deserve those medals.”  So... medals for massacres.  A chilling glimpse of the future.  Even the My Lai murderers weren't given medals, although one did go to jail.  Medals were given to the helicopter crew who finally intervened and stopped the massacre.

But we can't, I guess, expect the Secretary of Defense (soon to be Secretary of War) to know much history.  Maybe that big meeting of the entire US military command staff he's scheduled for next week is going to be about the Final Solution.  Medals all around.

More about Wounded Knee and the political context here and here.

Rubicon

 Can I say something else about the Roman Republic/Empire?  I'll be short.  Feel free to move on if you're not into it.  

The fall of the Republic and the establishment of the Empire happened over a span of many years.  Rules were bent; favors were given, political boundaries crossed.  The very structural and cultural foundations of the Republic were disassembled and discarded, little by little.  The guardrails were removed.

And then, in BC 49, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

This was the one clear, defining moment when the Republic died and the Empire was born (that's why the phrase "crossing the Rubicorn" still has significant meaning today).  Caesar was the Governor of Cisalpine Gaul, and had just finished a military campaign with a standing army.  No Governor was allowed to bring a standing army beyond the borders of his province.  Caesar did, against the orders of the Roman Senate, for a number of interesting reasons, and began his campaign to take Rome by crossing the river, the southern boundary of his province.  Once installed in Rome, he became dictator for life, appointed his adopted son Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) as the first true Emperor, and the Republic was dead.

So all of this is to ask the question:  What will be Trump's Rubicon?  His administration, like the late-stage Roman Republic, is ignoring rules and law, encouraging corruption, and dismantling the guardrails.  What will it look like when he drags the unwilling American people past the point of no return?  

I believe that he will see the river, stride cockily up to its banks, strike its surface with his staff, and declare himself the master of the river and promise that he will lay waste to the other side.  Then he'll turn around, wander off and do something else.

You heard it here first.

True Things 3

You probably know that there been at least one example - a famous one - of a republic with term-limited leaders becoming an empire with emperors for life.  This example is, of course, the decline of the Roman Republic, in the first century AD, and the rise of the Roman Empire, ruled over absolutely by emperors who were more likely than not to act in bizarre and unhinged ways.

It didn't help that the Roman Republic was rigged so that a small number of wealthy men got to make all the decisions.

Those of us who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Put Forward Without Comment

 

True Things 2

In April of this year, Republican Representative Keith Self, from Texas's 3rd Congressional District, quoted Joseph Goebbels regarding freedom of thought in America.  The quote?  Who cares.  I mean, he quoted Joseph Goebbels - chief propogandist for the Nazi Party - in public!  But here it is anyway:

It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion.

Self credited Goebbels during his statement. 

True Things 1 (a new feature of New World II)

Charlie Kirk's wife Erika competed in the 2012 Miss America pageant, a pageant owned at the time by Donald Trump.

Gary Becomes a Terrorist

Boy, I did not have this on my Golden Years bingo card.  But here it is:  I am, and I am proud to be, a terrorist.  A domestic terrorist, no less.

Yesterday, King Donald the Absurd and his Clown Car from Hell declared that Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization.  You can look elsewhere for analysis regarding the difference between an organization and an ideology, the fantastical accusations smeared all over the declaration, and the troubling manipulation involved in this kind of calling names and throwing stones at one more thing you want your ignorant followers to be afraid of.

So opposing fascism in America is now a terrorist activity.  Fine.  I am opposed to fascism, and at this point the best thing I can do to join the fight against fascism is to write the truth, plus things I believe, in this blog.  As I've said before - come at me, bro.

By the way, my father was Antifa too.  He and millions of his comrades kicked fascist butt all over Europe in the 1940s.  He didn't want to go, but he did, because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Me too.

Let's Move On

One thing that Donald Trump and I agree on - let's move on from the Epstein Files.

And that's where our agreement ends.  He is afraid of what might happen to him if the files are released.  I don't think anything substantial will happen to him if the files are released.

Possible scenarios:

1. The files are never released.  Everyone argues and is outraged for a while, and slowly, the whole thing disappears.
2. The files are released and they don't provide much more information than we have now.
3. The files are released and they exonerate everyone.
4. The files are released and they make it clear that Trump committed felony sexual abuse on minors.
5. The files include actionable evidence that Donald Trump raped minors.
6. The files are released and, no matter what they say, everyone has had so long to calcify their opinions on Trump and underaged girls that no significant changes are observed.

Given that the Trump administration has had six months or more to fiddle with these files, #s 4 and 5 are not likely.  #s 1, 2, and 3, or some combination will no doubt be what happens.  When/if the files are released, nobody with half a brain will see them as valid.  This is heartbreaking, because the women who were victimized will not find justice.

#6 will, regardless of any other outcome, be the only important thing that happens.  And it's only important because it's the final outcome of a scandal which has lasted longer than almost any one of the almost daily scandals that Trump has generated.  Nothing will change.

I happen to believe that he is guilty, and the release or non-release will not change that.   

So let's move on.  Trump's a pedophile, in addition to everything else.  Knowing that, knowing all the rest, has never made any difference.  The release of the Epstein files will not change a thing.

Three and a half years to go.

A Reminder

In October of 1415, France suffered a military defeat at the Battle of Agincourt which is legendary among the great military disasters in human history.  A large portion of the French governing elite was wiped out, by a dysentery-plagued smaller force of Englishmen under Henry V (Shakespeare's "band of brothers") who had brought along their longbows.  

The King of France, Charles VI, also known as "Charles the Mad," did not participate in the battle, staying home in Rouen, because he was afraid that he might break.  Charles was mentally ill, and thought he was made of glass.

And yet France survived, remaining a European power of the first order during the intervening six hundred years.  

We will survive Donald the Mad, who thinks he is made of beautiful gold.  

After the Bears

I got a note from a friend recently.  We write each other sporadically, and have done for most of our lives.  Right now, we're trying to help each other understand and survive the current political nightmare.   

His story astounded me, because it was so closely aligned with my new vision of that current nightmare, a vision that helped me get back on the horse here at New World II, and a vision that I tried (awkwardly, in my opinion) to lay out here.  

Here's the story:

It was many years ago, Richard and I were in Glacier National Park on one of our every two years most excellent backpacking trips, and we were anxious about bears.

We were quite anxious about bears.

The ranger was explaining to us that the huckleberries were scant that year and the bears were hungry and irritated - this was October - and he was underscoring bear safety stuff, and then spoke briefly and clearly about bear encounters, and said, "Remember, you cannot outrun a Grizzly bear" to which Richard, standing right next to me, said "I don't have to outrun a Grizzly bear - I just have to outrun Keith."

So we leave the ranger, we are excited for our trek, alert to significant danger, and we  drive a long way, both time and distance - - there is one dirt road and it goes north to Canada, and Canada isn't so far.  We were somewhere near Polebridge, Montana, woods to our left with a lot of leaf fall, and flat boggy land to our right, and that's all we were seeing for a long time, and then there was all at once a big Grizzly stepping out of the woods and onto the road, followed by a young one.  These are magnificent animals.  They stopped on the road and hung for a bit -- we were forty feet away in a car but it was intense and extraordinary and thrilling, and the bears stepped off the road and moved on into the wet lands to our right.  We sat for a while, quietly, then drove on and parked, hiked a very long way and set up basecamp, and on that hike and for the days and nights we were there we were still concerned about bears, we were careful, we were paying attention, but we were not frightened, there was no longer a short shadow of something like terror, of something dark and dangerous and unseen.  

We'd seen it.

So with Trump's troops in Washington what I hear over and over, almost dismissively, is that it's optics, it's a distraction, it's a grand photo op.

I believe they are showing us the bears.

Yes - and now that we've seen them - the whole shambling, powerful, incoherent, dangerous, flailing and damaging mess that is the current administration - we are still careful, still paying attention, but are no longer afraid.  There is danger, and outrage, and things will be destroyed, but eventually we will get it back, and rebuild, mourn and carry on.

I was missing that.  But now that I've seen the bears, I'm ready to go on. 

Six-Fingered Man

So we have to figure out how to feel about Charlie Kirk's assassination.  

I'm not going to go into the reasons why this is such a conflicted situation.  Charlie Kirk was an extreme right wing "influencer," well-known, and someone who advocated - and publicly professed - very extreme views.  You could look him up.  Hint:  He suggested mass incarceration as a fix for the housing crisis, and advocated for public, televised executions even for children to watch.  So we're not talking about one more conservative pundit, and there's certainly no room for both-sider-ism.

As I consider his brutal assassination, I will certainly rise to the level of civilization that is expected of me, as Johnathan Last has done:

So the assassination of Charlie Kirk is not just a human tragedy for his family. It is not just an affront to society. It is an attack on our civic compact. It should be confronted as such, with no qualifications or equivocations.*

But I'm also a flawed human being, and a politically active one at that, and a big part of me wants to say something like "good riddance to bad rubbish."  How can we celebrate a murder?  I guess the same way I celebrated the murder of Count Rugen.  You remember Count Rugen.  The last thing he heard before he died was Inigo Montoya saying "Hello.  My name Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die."**  No regrets.  

So how is this different?  I understand that Charlie Kirk was a real human being and Rugen was a fictional character, but that distinction doesn't carry a lot of weight.  Both were evil people, both were killed by determined people who (we would assume in re: Kirk's killer) were injured by them.

I've got no answer to this question - I'll feel the way I feel, and so will everyone else.  However, two things Kirk has said are relevant as we consider his brutal assassination:   

"It's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights". (4/23)

"I think empathy is a made up New Age term that has done a lot of damage" (10/22)

The irony is, I suppose, that we honor Kirk's humanity by expressing - in word and action - our strong opposition to what he has said. 

* - From today's Bulwark Triad e-mail newsletter; no link available

** - [Update]  I just remembered that the last thing Rugen heard before being skewered was "I want my father back, you son of a bitch!"  But you get the point.

Not Nuremburg

Yes it's been a long time.  A long river cruise across Europe, and then intense work on a demanding part in a local community theater play.  A long visit by our son, daughter and law and granddaughter, joined often by our other son who lives in town - really wonderful to have everyone together.  

But those are just excuses.  It's been a long time because I gave up again, just gave in to horror and despair with no hope - not a single spark - on the horizon.  As the catchphrase of the September 1 protests notes:  "No one is coming to save us."  Unfortunately, we ourselves have no tools whatsoever to even begin making things right.  

I'm so tired of being an American.  There's so much to cope with, to endure, and there's no end in sight.

What it took was a different perspective, which has to do with that river cruise noted above.

We traveled by river through the heart of Europe, or one of the hearts of Europe - in our case, mostly through Germany except at the beginning and end.  I was looking forward to a journey through medieval Europe, which is what I got.  But I also got another journey I wasn't expecting - a journey through the horror and devastation of World War II and the Nazi atrocities that we are so afraid of seeing again.

As I note in the trip journal, the German people have acknowledged their past, set themselves against the Nazi legacy and honored those who were victimized by the horror of the Holocaust:  "Over and over we are reminded by guides of the atrocities of the Nazis and the horror felt by the German people today. Their response... is almost always measured, solemn, authentic and intense. They do not shy away from their history; they acknowledge it head-on and in doing so, set the stage for a better future."

While preparing the post on our stop in Nuremburg the other day, I had reason to do some research on the Nuremburg Rallies, which you can read about in the post.  I was actually looking for a photo of the speaker's platform used at the rallies, that so many of us have seen (perhaps not knowing exactly where it was) in WWII documentaries, many of which used footage from Hitler's documentarian, Leni Riefenstahl.  

I looked through those pictures, of the rallies, the massed troops, the hundreds of thousands of Germans, the huge swastika, and the man at the center of it all.  I recently finished an online course - taught and recorded in 2008 - about modern Europe, and one of the lectures focused on describing Adolph Hitler and the fascists.  It was hard to avoid the parallels; in fact, it was chilling.  This lecture was a low point for me, reinforcing the despair and hopelessness that had been consuming me - with its ups and downs - since November.

But as I looked at the pictures of the rallies, and of Hitler, it struck me that we - the US in this moment - are not in a position to repeat the exceptional cruelty and destruction of 1930s and 40s in Europe under the Nazis.  We are, in fact, a pale shadow of the Third Reich.

Although the similarities between Hitler and Trump are chilling, the stark differences are, I am beginning to believe, more significant.  Although both came to power by creating widespread fear and warping a democratic infrastructure, Hitler backed all that up with brutal violence, while Trump ranted at rallies (much smaller than Nuremberg) without making any of the fears tangible.  Although both came to power primarily by appealing directly to a disaffected populace, Hitler's message was much truer than Trump's:  Germany had been demolished by the Allies, while Trump's message is to people whose disaffection has been carefully constructed over time, and is not justified.  Although each controlled a great war machine, none of Trump's goals can be accomplished by going to war with another country, while Hitler's core message was the vision of a Third Reich which stretched from France and England to Russia (Vladimir Putin is, at present, much more like Hitler on this point than is Trump).  Although both have created secret police to weed out undesirables, the SS acted quickly and ruthlessly, while ICE is harassed daily by significant resistance and Trump does not seem to know what to do about it.  And, of course, while Hitler may have had a personality disorder - which may have actually forwarded his pursuit of the Third Reich vision - Trump is uninterested in policy or vision, probably suffering from dementia, widely ignorant, and clearly - demonstrably - descending into babble, narcissism, randomness, and dissociation, as well as increasingly becoming distanced from reality.  

If the Emperor has no clothes, Hitler was clothed and armed and put words into actions.  Trump is naked, and it is getting harder and harder to ignore that every day.

So the upshot of all this is that, after steeping myself in Nazi politics, I've realized that it's not likely to happen here.  Trump is no Hitler.  And, to be fair, the US is no 1930s Germany:  here, we have a governing structure that has worked, essentially unchanged, for almost a quarter of a millennium.  And, ironically, Trump depends on the very democratic structure that he is trying to destroy (that's why he's trying to destroy it).  Court decisions still matter.  He is only a handful of Congressional seats away from a successful impeachment and, unlike Hitler when his aides exploded a bomb meant to kill him, Trump will have to go if impeached, and it would all be over.  And, unlike 1930's Germany, there is a substantial and widespread opposition movement which - and this is important - has not been suppressed.  There will be no American Tiananmen  Square.

So what I have realized, I guess, is that the Emperor really does not have any clothes.  He is the Emperor, which means that there's a system keeping him in charge.  But the system has its limits, and he's approaching those limits.  We'll see what that means.

Whatever the monster is, the monster is insane and getting careless.  

That means it's out of control, and that's our only hope.

John Lennon. 1971

Duty

Today Josh Marshall starts a conversation about how proximity to power - in this case the Trump administration - seems to constrain one's ability to speak one's mind - or even speak at all. He notes that the further you are from power, the better able you are to say what you think.  In It's a Good Life (later a Twilight Zone episode), by Jerome Bixby, if you said something that three-year-old Anthony Fremont didn't like, you found yourself under the cornfield.  Apparently, the same thing is happening in the Trump administration.

Here's how Josh concludes his piece:

But I do get the sense that the strongly inculcated assumption that you can say what you think, that you don’t need to censor yourself, is more vibrant and ingrained in people at some remove from the centers of immense power and wealth. When you’re closer you’re more practiced at rationalizing things. And if that’s true that’s a good thing.

But you and I, we're not close enough to power to be sent under the cornfield (at least, not yet).  We can speak our minds.  I have criticized the President* whenever I thought it necessary, and will continue to do so.  Millions like and unlike me are doing the same. That's what he means by the "good thing."

So I'm going to take the "good thing" and do another something.  In less than an hour, I'll be heading out to a vacant lot in Oneonta to join a lot of other people who are "at some remove from the centers of immense power and wealth" and speak my mind.  We'll stand in the rain and then march around Oneonta, with one message:  NO KINGS.  Not even - not especially - the one who has silenced the powerful.  

We'll keep our distance, take a stand, and send a message.  Here's mine:

I'm no good at making signs.  Doesn't matter.  I'll be there.  Remember these words from a terrorist's manifesto:

...when a government becomes destructive and abuses its power, the people have both the right and the duty to alter or abolish it and establish a new one. 

The terrorist was Thomas Jefferson.  The manifesto was the Declaration of Independence.

 

UPDATE:  And of course Heather Cox Richardson has made a video today that takes the point further, suggesting that the protests by those of us who have little power can influence those who do have power, and perhaps break the silence.

NO KINGS Oneonta was awesome.  Huge numbers of people doing democracy.

This is what democracy looks like

A New Language

Just passing on something wonky, but crucial and urgently true, that Heather Cox Richardson said toward the end of the Grounded video podcast (scroll down for transcript), which was one of the two I mentioned yesterday.  The host asked her, "Imagine you're helping prepare a future university history professor who will teach a class on the rise of Donald Trump to students in the year 2075.  What are the major points you would want to make sure that are not forgotten about what's happening right now?"

Here's the beginning of her answer:

Well, I don't think anyone's going to forget because it's pretty obvious, but the use of language by the radical right in the United States, beginning in the 1980s, but really taking off in the 1990s when you had people like House Speaker Newt Gingrich literally distributing lists of words to use to describe Democrats versus Republicans.  And the Democrats were words like traitor and weak and you know, poverty, and the Republicans were things like patriots, strong, powerful, really taking off in the 1990s*, and how that dovetailed with with the use of language and what became known as virtual technology in the former Soviet republics, where people who were working in politics quite deliberately created a false reality in order to get people to vote away their democracy. And I think that because I study ideas, I think that control of people's minds through the use of certain kinds of rhetoric is really the story of America in this moment.

And it has been building for a very long time. It's a mistake, I think, to look at Trump as an individual who came from nowhere. He was built by this system and took advantage of it. And that central misuse of disinformation and that concept of disinformation and its dovetailing between the U.S. and the former Soviet republics and then its amplification through social media is, I think, the story of this era. And one of the reasons I think it's so important for those of us who are grounded in reality to push back. In many ways, we are fighting a war today. 

The use of language.  Language matters.  They're good at it; us, not so much.  The 80s were nearly a half century ago, which is plenty of time to create a new reality, intentionally constructed for specific purposes.  Plenty of time to change the way people hear about and speak about the political landscape and (although for the most part they don't know it) their own lives and their own political behaviors.

We need to, somehow, make the language of both truth and compassion central to our culture.  The language is there; we need to agree to it, and use it.

* - This was also the time of the rise of AM talk radio, including Rush Limbaugh, and the rise of Fox News.

In Which We Are Surprised By The Possibility of a New World

Today I had the great pleasure of watching two video podcasts featuring Heather Cox Richardson.  I haven't even finished them (they're long), but am saving them to savor.  

Anyway, nerdy fandom aside, I heard some things that made me think, and think in a different, maybe more hopeful way.  I heard them taking about the new world.

This is exciting, of course, because it is exactly what I was writing about for three years in The New World, a blog about how the death and destruction and cultural upheaval of the COVID pandemic might allow us to reassemble and redefine our world, and the way we do things, to take advantage of the lessons we learned.  It was guided by what Peter Baker wrote in The Guardian in 2020:  "But disasters and emergencies do not just throw light on the world as it is. They also rip open the fabric of normality. Through the hole that opens up, we glimpse possibilities of other worlds."

As far as I could tell, we didn't learn anything, and I gave up.  There was no new world.

But in each of her two conversations today (one with Pete Buttigieg - a nerdy twofer!), I heard echoes of this hope:  we can upgrade the way we govern, and the way we serve Americans, if we can navigate this turning point in a way that results in the possibility of a better America.

This sounds a little crazy at this exact point in American history, but Richardson lays out what has happened before, during other turning points, and how we came out of them better than we went in.  She feels strongly that there is hope for our institutions and our people if we can do what has to be done now to survive this moment.  Her cautious optimism is built on a number of factors which I won't go into here (the inherent weakness of the Administration; the unpopularity of almost everything that is happening, etc.), and she is clear on what we need to do to achieve a new world:  we need to, pretty much, rise up.  As is noted in the previous post, this is starting in Los Angeles.

So go watch these conversations.  I would love to know whether you're hearing them the same way I am.  Is the new world possible, or is the damage permanent?  This may emerge as the single most important issue we face now and in the near future. 

The Shot Heard Round the World

I remember writing, a month or so ago, in a post about town meeting, "There's a bridge here.  It's in Concord.  Come for our democracy, and we'll be waiting on the other side."

The resistance in Los Angeles?  That's what I meant.  Will it be "the shot heard round the world?"  Probably not.  But it will be one of them, stretching over a period of time, becoming more and more significant.

Watch for it.

Not Funny

"I'm extremely confident about your case now that breaking the law doesn't carry the stigma that it used to"

Rising Up

Well, it's been a long time.  I've got excuses - actually a lot of great excuses - but they're about as useless as excuses usually are.  The truth is, I've gone numb.

It's not worth the time to even read the headlines anymore.  They arrange themselves in a few broad categories:  Outrage!  Cabinet member is stupid and incompetent!  Dems are asleep!  Illegal! Here's what's going to happen!  Constitution!  Millions affected!  And my favorite, and I'm sure your favorite too:  Trump backs off!

They all have one thing in common:  None of it matters, because nothing will be done.  It will continue for years.  The media circus will charge along happily, with another breathtaking act every day.  Elon Musk and his gazillionaire buds will have all your personal information:  all of it.  The economy will continue to be a very, very slow train wreck.  More and more people will be without healthcare.  We will continue to discover that "Oh - the Federal government does that?  I never knew" when it stops doing that and we notice.  Other people, not us, will be affected, until it is too late.  The liberal consensus (not a partisan term - look it up) will be history, something the Republicans have worked at for decades.  There is no hope in sight, at least not yet.

There's no way to know how it will end.  It could end in any number of apocalyptic disasters, which I don't want to think about.  But it also could happen when someone gets up and does... something.   Who?  I don't know.  A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker.  A housewife.  An activist.  A teenager.  God help us, maybe even an elected representative.  What?  I don't know.  A viral video.  A growing organization.  A young man with a grocery bag, standing in front of a tank.  God help us, maybe legislative action with teeth.  

Early on in this blog, I noted that "denial works only so long, and then you've got to get up and do something.  This is my something."  I made the promise, so I have to do it, however I feel.  OK.  If this guy can rise up, we can all rise up.

I had a vision, which is nothing exceptional:  just an idea that I could see.  It's a foolish idea, but this is my blog, and so here it is.  Every American who is sick of this shit - which polls tell us are a healthy majority - travels to a nearby big city - preferably in a red state, but it probably doesn't matter - and sits in the street somewhere.  This would be, like, 200 million Americans scattered among twenty or thirty cities.  Do the math.  Each of us - every one - has a small sign.  The sign says, "NO."

Like I said, a foolish vision.  But somewhere there's a foolish vision that will take root, grow, and overwhelm us with its brilliant simplicity, it's undeniable truth.  

Watch for it.