Politics – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Treading Through the Storms

Rough weather on all fronts still ahead.

Those blobs on weather radar maps that blanketed vast amounts of the U.S this past weekend felt not just predictive, but also somewhat defining. The traditional red and blue color schemes signaling rough weather almost hinted at our political and social divisions, reminding those that pay attention that Mother Nature doesn’t pick sides when she chooses to show her wrath.

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And she’s tossing a torrent in this, our winter of discontent. Weather, politics, culture and technology all seem to be conspiring to obscure our view in a swirling tempest that chills to the bone, while boiling the blood.

We’ve all seen movies where folks get lost in winter terrain during a storm and can’t find their bearings. It feels like we’re all in that movie, or maybe it’s a stultified streaming series, given how it just keeps stringing us along and clogging up the queue, long after we’ve figured out the formula.

But this is a tortuous tempest. Minneapolis murders. Booting Bovino (or not?) Now US owned TikTok being more ruthless censoring than the Chinese. The gun nuts prematurely treading all over their cherished 2nd amendment, only to retreat after the muzzle blew up in their faces with the shots they just fired. Tim Cook continuing to debase himself and Apple by attending the Melania premiere at the White House. ICE here, there, and everywhere including the Winter Olympics. Consumer confidence hitting a 12-year low. The Doomsday Clock moving closer to midnight. Greenland. Venezuela. Canada. Europe. Iran.

Billy Joel in his heyday would have a rough time chronicling all that’s currently swirling in this winter’s winds for a new version of We Didn’t Start the Fire.

I’m not sure if we’ve reached a tipping point, but it feels like we’re closer to it than we have been since these idiots started shredding all of the life preservers and poking holes in the rowboats on their version of the Titanic. (Thanks for that reference J.D. Vance.)

They wanted to flood the zone with shit so that we couldn’t keep up. By and large they’ve succeeded to this point, but you can sense that the smell may be shifting. There’s chaos all over, but there’s just as much chaos in their inner sanctums as they try to trim sails to survive the storms they’ve created. Small victories add up. Take the wins when they happen and build on that.

It’s up to us to keep the pressure on, because if you’re relying on any of those lifeboats or life preservers (Congress, media, the business community) we’re all going to freeze before we go under with them.

It’s not going to happen overnight. There will be setbacks. It’s One Battle After Another. (Talk about a prescient film release.)

No one knows how this is going to end. No one knows when it’s going to end. No one knows what will be once it does end. But certainly it will end.

Rough weather still ahead. Uncharted waters in a storm. No horizon in sight.

Bundle up. Buckle up. Trust your own compass. Follow the lead of the good folks from Minneapolis causing good trouble. As my friend, David Todd McCarty says, Stand Your Ground.

(Photo by Viktor Mogilat on Unsplash)

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Cracks In The ICE Are Showing: Keep The Pressure Up

Winter irony alert

Here’s an update to this post from earlier today. It’s being reported that Greg Bovino has been relieved of duty and sent home. He has also reportedly lost access to his social media accounts. Let’s hope the reports are accurate, and even if not they add to the pressure. Pressure works. Keep it up.

After another weekend filled with horrendous news as most of the country weathered a massive winter storm that left snow and ice everywhere, it appears that are a few cracks starting to show in the ICE. To be honest, I’m actually surprised.

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Word is that the latest murder in Minneapolis is giving quite a few so-called Republicans cold feet in Washington DC and elsewhere. The apparent leading candidate for the GOP nomination for governor of Minnesota has withdrawn his candidacy in the wake of what’s happening.

Apparently the White House is also putting on heavy socks and trying to tiptoe out from under the fallout. Or so the reporting says. The guy who passes for a president is sending in Tom Homan to try and clean up the mess, which I’m sure he’ll attempt to do for the right amount of cash in a Cava bag.

Heck, even a few GOP congressional critters are making noise. But I’m sure that will soften as the week goes on. I mean there’s a government they need to pretend to run.

And there’s the rub. The government is facing another potential partial shutdown at the end of the week. The House passed that legislation on to the Senate, with the help of seven Democrats voting for it, without whom the bill would have failed. Senators are hinting they’ll hold the line after this latest murder, but I wouldn’t count on it in the end.

I’m hoping the Senators and all of those who were out and about in horrendous weather protesting this weekend keep the pressure up to widen those cracks in the ICE were hearing before this cold snap ends and things begin melting. It would be both a positive for us all and also be quite ironic.

Will it stop things? I doubt it. There will probably be a doubling down. But in my opinion either way the heat needs to ratchet up and keep the pressure building.

I also encourage you to read this piece by Popehat called We Should Talk About The Morality of Political Violence.

I earnestly hope things pull back from the dangerous way they seem to be heading. I also earnestly hope those who can keep the pressure up will continue, so that the lives lost in Minnesota and elsewhere (there have been others less publicized) won’t have been lost in vain.

(Image from Emily Lauren on Unsplash.

Sunday Morning Reading

Thoughts tumble down on a chilling weekend

I’m going to avoid the horrific news that continues out of Minneapolis (and the rest of the U.S.) for this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. But, then I guess I didn’t avoid it by saying that. Think of it as a wound too sore to touch rather than avoiding. Anyway, onto this week’s sharing.

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I’m going to kick this off with a blog post from Mathew Ingram called Why Blogging Is Better Than Social Media. Title says a lot of what I believe. I wish more believed it also.

I love watching those younger than I live the same lives, fears, and joys I did. Nothing ever changes. But it’s always entertaining and worth reflection. Check out Alex Baia’s I Thought I Would Have Accomplished A Lot More Today And Also By The Time I was Thirty-Five.

Gray Miller suggests You Should Put A Codex In Your Pocket Instead Of Your Phone. If you don’t know what a Codex is, read the piece.

Cory Doctorow in The Guardian says AI Companies Will Fail. We Can Salvage Something From the Wreckage. Salvaging things from wreckage is what we do. Avoid wrecking things not so much.

Speaking of wreckage, AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming For Democracy says David Gilbert.

Follow that up with Brynn Tannehill’s piece ‘Trump Has Already Rigged The 2028 Presidential Election’: Us Defense Insider. You didn’t need AI to tell you that. Or insiders. All you had to do was pay attention.

We do seem to like and be drawn to adversity like so many moths. Funny how we know what happens to moths that fly too close, yet can’t predict own fate when we do the same. But if we break that cycle, there wouldn’t be anything to salvage. David Toddy McCarty says We Like It Hard.

Aaron Vegh blogs A Canadian’s Call To Arms, Being Totally Pissed Off At The State Of Computing In The 21st Century. I don’t think the Canadians are alone in their feelings. I know a number of Americans are as well.

I said I would stay away from this weekend’s events. I lied. Sota. Kinda. I admire those like Dan Sinker who are finding ways to do what they feel can in the face of this adversity. Check out his piece We Are All We Have.

(Image from Aga Putra on Unsplash

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Try

Another shooting in Minneapolis

Following the general strikes in Minnesota yesterday and in the wake of yet another horrific shooting in Minneapolis this morning, this brilliant YouTube from Ana Marie Cox filtered through my feeds. Using Nemick’s speech from Andor as a eulogy for Renee Nicole Good, it’s powerful stuff.

Watch it the video below. Share it. Do so often. Because I think we’re going to be faced with more of this in the future.

History Is Often Unkind To Comparisons

Time to call a spade a spade

History is often unkind to comparisons. That’s nobody’s fault. No one can grasp the fullness of history well enough to appreciate and/or distinguish all of the references we use to shortcut how we view and label the mistakes we seem hell bent on repeating as we promise to never forget. It’s tougher still when we see children being kidnapped or chemical irritants sprayed at point blank range into someone’s eyes by government employees.

As an example, we conveniently shortcut our descriptions of the current administration’s abhorrent behavior masquerading as immigration enforcement. We call them Nazis. We liken their tactics to the Gestapo. In the face of the murders, kidnapping of children, brutalizing protestors, and lord knows what we don’t know about, I happen to agree with the comparison. It’s not just apt. It’s spot on.

But it’s incomplete.

Those comparisons actually cover up AND reveal a deeper history of sins that is not only particularly American, it’s what Hitler and his murderous henchmen adopted from us.

White Americans, in Hitler’s words, “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now kept the modest remnant under observation in a cage”

Hitler admired America’s appetite for America’s Manifest Destiny and how it justified the slaughter and displacement of Native Americans. His lawyers studied not only our laws regarding Native Americans, but also our Jim Crow laws, using them as references to draft the Nuremberg Laws that stripped Jews of Citizenship and prohibited interracial marriage.

The forces I think are evil want to erase much of American history, but even the forces that keep trying to array against them don’t recognize the Nazi labeling lineage as history we own a piece of.

The simple point I’m making is this: As we’re coming to grips with so much in these trying days let’s not look beyond ourselves and our own history to try and turn the monsters among us, who have always been among us, into something that removes our ownership of that history. In some ways, that’s the larger fight. We’re not fighting foes adopting some foreign tactics or playbook, we’re fighting our own peculiar history that we have never wanted to come to grips with. We’ve let it fester. Fought a war amongst ourselves over it and pretended we could turn the page, only to allow it to fester again and rise back up to haunt and hurt us all. Again.

Sunday Morning Reading

Inquire and think for yourself

Whew. Regular readers here will know that since the middle of December we’ve been spending time helping my daughter and her family move into a new house, with an interim stop to an Airbnb over the holidays until the new place was ready. It’s been as chaotic as any move could be, multiplied by the antics of our two grandchildren who had their small worlds turned upside down. The chaos didn’t allow for much Sunday Morning Reading, but here we are again, playing a little catch up as well as looking ahead. As much as anybody can look ahead these days.

What Just Happened? That title for Andrea Pitzer’s piece sort of explains the look I see on most people’s faces during the events of this January. If it seems like too much to think about. That’s because it is. Think on it.

Brian Merchant’s Abolish The Senses plays on the same themes and the dismay we’re all feeling.

“Do math. Check your facts.” That’s the message from Neil Steinberg in Wrapping Our Heads Around A Trillion, Now That The Alphabet is Worth $4,000,000,000,000. Don’t let others think for you.

Dealing with much smaller numbers, NatashaMH’s Five Dollars For Catastrophe explains how a $5 book about genocide can offer much more value, should you actually inquire and think for yourself. Words have meaning folks.

And while I’m linking to posts on the numbers, let’s talk gambling. Apparently it’s reaching epidemic proportions and you can bet on when the USA is going to invade other countries, among other catastrophic outcomes these days. Especially if you’re in the know. Saahil Desai says America Is Slow-Walking Into A Polymarket Disaster. I’m not so sure about the slow-walking part.

If gambling is betting on predictions, Artificial Intelligence, with its ability to predict the next word ought to be able to figure out most outcomes ahead of time. It’s all math, right? Remember that earlier admonition to think for yourself? While doing so, check out Steven Adler’s AI Isn’t “Just Predicting The Next Word” Anymore.

Are Tech Companies Allies Or A Threat To Press Freedom? I’m not spoiling Emily Bell’s conclusions with the obvious answer, because the piece is about more than that.

Jill Lepore explores How Originalism Killed The Constitution. It’s an earlier piece that contains context that most have no idea about. I’d suggest finding out.

Speaking of killing things, Russel Berman and Elaine Godfrey ask the simple question, Does Congress Even Exist Anymore? Applying the Ian Betteridge law of headlines, that any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no, you don’t have to guess at my answer. Berman and Godrey call it a fast fade. I call it a slow self-suicide.

Closing out this week, I’m pointing to a venture from a raconteur I feature here often, David Todd McCarty. He’s gathering up his words and images from over the years on a new website. David is quite a storyteller. If you think for yourself, I suggest you pay attention. For a taste check out David Dreams Of Everything.

Go Bears!

(Image from Rey Seven on Unsplash)

When Irony Turns Historic Symbols On Their Head

Thus Always To Tyrants

Symbols, logos, insignias always have meaning. Certainly they do for their creators. For others they hold and take on meaning over time. Those that endure rarely take on a new and different significance. Often they just blend into the background unless they represent something that becomes contentious. We’ve all seen that happen in our lifetimes. But on occasion the fickle finger of irony points in a new direction.

I was born in Virginia, though I don’t live there now. The Commonwealth of Virginia’s symbol and motto Sic Semper Tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) took on a historically ironic meaning today with the swearing in of the Commonwealth’s first female governor, Abigail Spanberger. She’s taking office in what can only be called tempestuous times brought on us all by a tyrant. And it sounds like she’s up for the fight.

The seal and motto were first adopted in 1861 at the start of the American Civil War as Virginia seceded from the Union. For those, like myself, who think we’re currently living through the long delayed continuation of that conflict that’s been simmering since the fighting concluded, the twists and turns of history featuring the same female figure of virtue standing astride a fallen king symbolizing the defeat of tyranny for a state now led by a female governor is irony just too delicious to ignore.

I note that one of Governor Spanberger’s first acts was to veto the Executive Order that enabled Virginia’s participation in the program that allowed local law enforcement to act as ICE agents.

Here’s hoping there’s more of that to come from the new governor.

It’s Time To Stop Hiding From The Obvious

Too many ostriches among us

During these extended grand-parenting trips to help my daughter and her family move one of the favorite games Grandpa plays with the little ones is Hide and Seek. My granddaughter is very good at the hiding part. She plays for keeps. There were a couple of times we worried we’d lost her.

My grandson on the other hand likes to change the rules mid-game, always to his benefit whether he’s hiding or seeking.

It’s not easy to hide. Especially in plain sight. But that’s what so many have been doing in our country for far too long, pretending that they are as good at hiding as my granddaughter, but hiding the way my grandson does by shifting the rules and lowering the bar to avoid being caught.

Hiding from the reality of what’s happening bears no fruit. Hiding from what needs to happen to bring it to an end yields even less.

There are too many ostriches among us and that needs to change.

“Then No Line Exists”

Musk’s Grok has erased them all

I recently linked to Eizabeth Lopatto’s excellent and scathing article pointing fingers at Apple and Google for continuing to allow Elon Musk’s Grok AI to undress without consent adults and children. Calling Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai cowards in the headline on this issue is, in my opinion, table stakes and will be until they take public action and actually apologize for violating their own rules and the privacy of the users that pump money into their bank accounts.

Following that up I’m linking to another excellent article on the topic from Charlie Warzel and Matteo Wong, published in the Atlantic. The headline is strong, saying Elon Musk Cannot Get Away With This. The article is stronger still. Yet, the sad reality is that he already has, and even if Cook and Pichai suddenly change direction, the damage has already been done. Like the political figures they have bent knees to, they won’t be able to find a mirror to look in that won’t reflect their cowardice back at them.

Hiding under their respective rocks, both Cook and Pichai have let Musk turn this from a ruinous troubling feature into a paid premium feature, which is not only ridiculous but makes a mockery of both Apple and Google. I’ve already said that any X users who still hang onto that platform are just as culpable.

But then that’s the world we live in. We ignore the horrible nature of what’s unfolding in front of our faces. So many demons have flown out of this era’s Pandora’s Box we find ourselves it is impossible to count them, much less have any hope of banishing them. But then, that’s what the demons are counting on. As the article says:

This crisis is an outgrowth of a breakneck information ecosystem in which few stories have staying power. No one person or group has to flood the zone with shit, because the zone is overflowing constantly. People with power have learned to exploit this—to weather scandals by hunkering down and letting them pass, or by refusing to apologize and turning any problem into a culture-war issue.

As Warzel and Wong also say, “the silence says everything.”

Why It’s Worth Being Angry

The laughter of innocents

Settling in for another out of town stay to help my daughter and her husband with phase two of moving into their new house. Grandma and I got right into watching the kids as their parents are working at the new digs to prep for the movers.

It’s been a rough week. All of the news has hit me hard. Harder than I would have imagined. But I listen to the laughter of these kids (I provoke a lot of it), and I relish the cuddles, and I imagine a better time ahead, yet feel a tightening resolve to make sure that’s possible for these precious innocents. I’d sacrifice anything for this bunch.

I cringe when I think this feels selfish or cocoonish, when I know others are closer to the fire than we currently are. But I hope all across this country that those who are as blessed as our family are also taking stock of what level of sacrifice they are willing to make.

The time has come to stand and be measured accountable.