September 3, 2021

Should we interrupt them?

Nothing unifies a group composed of people with many backgrounds and varying experiences and points of view as effectively as a big, fat, menacing wall to push against.

Whatever minor differences they may have are subsumed in the consensus that the wall MUST come down.

You will see this in action in Afghanistan as without the wall of U.S. occupation to push against, the Taliban will begin splintering and forming factions and fighting among themselves, trying to grab the biggest share of any boodle available, push their specific agenda the hardest, work out vengeance on their particular enemies the fastest, etc. Take it to the bank. It may take weeks or months, but within a year or two we will see information about this Taliban faction versus that Taliban faction and the suffering that chaos continues to inflict on the Afghan people.

For decades, here in the United States, the wealthy and powerful have used the GOP and its cadre of useful idiots to push back against a looming wall of inevitable progress and change that will dilute their hold on power and limit their capacity to loot the economy. By painting the wall with layers of white supremacist, nativist, homophobic, misogynist and other fears, they've unified their useful idiots and kept them all pushing in the necessary direction to distract and dismay and delay change.

Now, at last, they have overreached themselves. Now they are becoming the wall.

The GOP, especially the Austin Taliban, is working diligently to ensure that the House will remain in Democratic hands after the 2022 election, shrewdly assisted by Speaker Pelosi who doesn't miss an opportunity to focus the outrage and demonstrate a tangible response.

They're doing their best to ensure an outright majority for Democrats in the Senate, which is looking likelier by the day.

And now the Supreme Court is publicly destroying the credibility of its own institutional structure.

If they keep going at this rate, when the dust clears in mid-November 2022, we could have:

a) A House majority
b) A Senate majority; and
c) Increasing support for Supreme Court reform.

So, should we interrupt them?

Might be a better use of our resources to spotlight that wall they're building, and make an electoral strategy of it.

speculatively,
Bright

August 29, 2021

What I learned about freedom, individual liberty, and personal choice at a VERY YOUNG AGE.

And I wonder... are we not teaching this anymore?

I learned the difference between "freedom is doing whatever I want and not having any criticism or consequences for what I do", and "freedom is me being able to do whatever I am willing to take responsibility for."

I learned that individual liberty wasn't possible without a whole community of people looking after one another and being willing to keep each other safe, even if it meant sacrificing personal preferences and pleasures for the well-being of all of us.

I learned that personal choices made with all the attention on "I want" and no attention to "what this might do to other people" weren't responsible and adult, they were narcissistic and childish. And often outright harmful.

Hell, I learned this stuff in THIRD GRADE. From the damn' NUNS, of all people. (Guess I listened after all, Sister St. Nicholas.... who knew?)

I learned it from my Mom who made sure I understood that if I was given the freedom to have a pet, *I* was the one responsible for cleaning up the poop, making sure it was fed on time, etc.

I learned it from my stepfather who enforced the rule about "you have access to the car keys IF you return the car with a full tank."

And I learned that the Constitution has not a single clause, paragraph, article, or amendment, guaranteeing my unrestricted right to be a selfish asshole.

So if I want to use the rights that ARE enshrined in the Constitution, to BE a selfish asshole, I can expect to face, at best, some serious (and likely justified) criticism, and at worst, prosecution and even prison for the harm my selfish assholery inflicts on others.

I won't say I'm never a selfish asshole. I'm a human being; it goes with the DNA to some extent. But I'm also a mostly-adult who understands that my rights and liberties have responsibilities that go with them. And consequences.

I'm not fond of rules for rules' sake. I come from a long line of oppositional people and outright rebels. But I learned from those very people that some rules are necessary, and we need to pick our fights. If you are certain a rule is doing harm, make your carefully considered choice to break it, try to get it repealed or changed. But don't expect to escape the consequences in the process.

And DON'T say "damn the consequences" if you know those consequences will fall on others who had no choice about being exposed to that harm.

When did other people stop learning this? From their teachers, parents, employers, friends....? When did "freedom" get divorced from "responsibility?" When did "liberty" build a Fortress of Solitude where no one else need be considered? When did "personal choice" acquire a "no criticism or consequences" guarantee?

bewilderedly,
Bright

August 28, 2021

I'd like to see two new national holidays.

We can trade Columbus Day for one of them.

One is a day of mourning/remembrance/commemoration for those who were lynched, burned, otherwise assassinated because they did not suffer from a melanin deficiency.

The other is a day of mourning/rememberance/commemoration for those who died in lonely pain, were killed, or committed suicide because they were victims of homophobia.

I am not sure these wounds can heal without this, and these wounds affect all of us. Especially those who believe such deaths were justified or unworthy of commemoration.

sadly,
Bright

August 18, 2021

Understanding Joe Biden (the big picture)

Here is the first and most important thing to keep in mind about Biden and his goals, strategies, and tactics:

He's fully aware he might not be alive for the 2024 election. Or if he is alive, he might not be fit enough, in his own estimation, to serve another term.

Here is the second and almost equally important thing to keep in mind:

He has NO fucks left to give in political terms. Everything about what he initiates, supports, promotes, etc., is based not on politics, but on governance. And for someone whose only governance experience is 8 years as Vice President, he has a better grasp of how governance works than many multi-term state governors and past Presidents. He THINKS in governance terms.

That doesn't mean he ignores politics altogether - where politics has an impact on the success or failure of important governance goals, he will bring an awesome reservoir of practical experience and political nous into play.

But politics - including Democratic Party politics - will never define any of his goals, initiatives, etc. They are ALL squarely rooted in restoring the capability and competence of governance to serve the American people.

This combination of factors makes him the prepotent and preeminent threat to Putin and the GOP.

It takes away a huge arsenal of normally-powerful leverage points against him in the political process. It is not possible to threaten him with not being re-elected - he has faced the reality that he may not even be running in 2024. It is not possible to threaten him with purely political factors such as "optics" and "downticket success" and other Party wheelhouse concerns unrelated to what Democrats do when they are in power.

He has only the most minimal concern for keeping the Democratic Party in power or expanding its power in terms of electoral success, per se, because:

1. He understands the timelines and workings of the biennial electoral process, as well as the timelines and the "spin factors" of his own actions and accomplishments. He also has a healthy awareness of the limits of what planned action can accomplish, and a healthy respect for the unknown factors and what hasn't happened yet and isn't on anyone's horizon.

2. He knows a lot more about how campaigns and elections work, how the Party process is underway, what the strategies are, etc., than any media pundit, GOPpie analyst, or 95% of Democratic high-level political strategists. He has confidence in how it's working so far, and he's leaving it to those who have done a pretty damn' good job already.

3. He knows that ultimately, if he has to be a scapegoat to ensure the completion and continuance of his governance agenda through future Democratic political victories, he can and will do that, with gusto and style.

He has had an up-close-and-personal view of the attempted destruction of America's government, and the ongoing subversion of our Constitution. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1973, so he also had a front-row seat to American government at its most functional: Assuring the highest possible standard of living for the greatest number of American citizens, recouping costly military errors at great sacrifice and rebuilding a functional military, rooting out corruption and criminality at the highest possible levels including the White House itself, and holding the foreign intelligence community accountable for its worst excesses and enacting checks against repeated domestic interventions.

Those were all truly spectacular accomplishments of American government. Add in the establishment of the EPA and several major initiatives to improve working conditions for Americans, etc., in spite of the sabotage by Big Finance and Fossil Fuels in the form of economic manipulation that produced runaway inflation. Had Carter been re-elected in 1980, Biden would have had a front-row seat to ongoing efforts to curb American reliance on foreign oil and fossil fuels, to continue checking the attempts of Big Finance to slip all forms of control, to continue protecting the American consumer from exploitation and impoverishment, and a whole lot more.

Instead, after 1980, Biden had a front-row seat to the sabotage and outright demolition of government's capability to serve it's non-oligarch citizenry. He had that front-row seat for THIRTY YEARS of increasing kakistocracy.

Then he had an advanced laboratory workshop in "How attempts to fix the problems can be derailed and/or sabotaged" for eight years more.

Then he had four years to watch the climactic collapse of America's role as a leader in the world and the blatant smash-and-grab raid on what remained of government.

Add this into the calculations:

He's already experienced the worst things, personally and politically, that can happen to anyone. Multiple times. And survived them. And recovered to become even stronger and more focused on public service.

He has a three-year clock running, to accomplish the maximum possible rescue, rehabilitation, and improvement of American government. Not in any big, splashy, public-relations way, but AT THE ROOTS. In the agencies, in the rule books, in the standards, in literally THOUSANDS of places that regularly fly under the radar of political and public perception - but he knows them all.

So, yeah, public excoration over the inevitable chaos ensuing from cleaning up after others' mistakes?

He has no more fucks to give about that. He'll do it again, as needed.

Buckle up, Vlad.

Buckle up, Mitch.

analytically,
Bright

August 15, 2021

Too boring to report? U.S. Journalism in free fall...

Let's start with the simple "what happened":

Senior (REALLY SENIOR - as in, 'endowed with power to discuss and approve policy-level actions based on the Administration's overall foreign policy agenda, including the Vice President', not just 'part of the traveling State Dept. and Security Agencies medicine show making an appearance for photo ops') American officials met with REALLY SENIOR (as in, 'including the head of state') Mexican officials to discuss bilateral cooperation on a number of topics.

When did it happen? This past Tuesday and Wednesday.

What were some of the results? Quoting from the White House readout:

Mexican coverage of the meetings was cautiously positive and noted that President Biden will be invited to visit Mexico in September.

AP, Reuters, and WaPo each published a brief recap of the White House readout with no analysis or commentary and very little expansion on the WH release. Props to Reuters for adding deets from the official phone call (Tuesday) transcript on the numbers of vaccine doses being supplied to Mexico by the U.S. government.

And that's it.

Several local papers published the AP and Reuters versions, but I couldn't find any of them went to the trouble of identifying WHICH aspects of economic, security or health collaboration are important and why, or any details of how these meetings might have advanced the Administration's goals in those areas. None of them provided any detail on the "Root Causes Strategy" referred to.

No backgrounders on the participants, no solicitation of direct quotes or additional questions answered by State Dept or security agency spokespeeps, as far as I can tell there were no questions on the topic at either the 8/11 or 8/12 press briefings, although the readout was available on the 11th.

No analysis of the immensely important strategic relationship between America and Mexico, or the recent history of how attempts to solve problems affecting both have succeeded or failed and why that might be. No color pieces exploring specifics of how U.S./Mexico diplomacy has had real-world, day-to-day impact in Americans' lives. (And it has - big time. And will continue to do so.)

No commentary on how the current approaches compare to other potential strategies, or what they might signal in terms of other aspects of the Administration's agenda for the relationship. Nothing about what it might mean in financial and/or security commitments, what key elements of cooperation might prove to be most challenging and why, etc.

Nothing at all, really.

And yet, in terms of this Administration doing important foreign policy things that are going to have a real effect on Americans' future, it is WAY, WAY more important than the details of our final days as a military force in Afghanistan.

But... it's not clickbait. It's not full of potential short-term controversy over ephemeral details. It doesn't allow semi-informed professional bloviators to opine endlessly on what are essentially pointless differences in framing, ideology, etc.

I am increasingly concerned that we are losing any grip at all on competent journalism in America, to a badly-structured and shrinking web of oligarchic "news" corporate profiteers run by beancounters obsessed with clicks, ad revenue, and next quarter's financial statements.

There is a reason that a free press was so highly regarded by the designers of our system of government, and why it has been called "the fourth pillar of democracy."

And it is not dying, not at all. Instead, it is morphing into a toxic, venal, bloated machine lurching through the public perception on a smash-and-grab raid, using fear and sensation and cheap effects to extract maximum cash for minimum quality of information.

disgustedly,
Bright

August 11, 2021

I hate myself for thinking this...

...but everyday I read something(s) that brings the thought back:

"Maybe if enough stupid people die, we won't have to go through this for another generation or two. Assuming we survive."

I feel like a bad person for thinking this. But it just keeps muscling into my consciousness.

exhaustedly,
Bright

July 21, 2021

A classic updated for 2021

"No one is an island entire of itself; every one
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod is washed away by the sea, the whole
is the less, just as if a promontory were, just as if
any homeplace of your friends or of your
own were; any one's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in humankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for you."

I don't want them to die.

Not even the MAGAts.

Not even the mean stupid selfish fearful people who have put us all at risk for their stubborn insistence on lies and folly.

The price of stupidity should not be death, but unfortunately it sometimes is.

When dealing with a deadly pandemic, that goes from "it sometimes is" to "it often is."

I don't even want the cynical criminals who benefit from sowing chaos and dissent and misinformation to die.

Although I do want them to be held accountable for the harm they are doing.

They're not at much risk, of course.

They did get vaccinated, before they started spouting lies to the fearful and credulous about vaccination.

Most of them have the resources to stay safe, while those they've deceived are dying in hospital corridors.

I want them held accountable.

Not dead.

Their dupes may never realize the price of that smug sense of "we're right you're wrong", even on their deathbeds.

And I don't want them to die, either.

I don't want the white supremacists to die. Or the homophobes. Or the misogynists.

Or the xenophobic fools terrified of hordes at the borders.

No, I don't want even them to die.

I want them to live. And maybe someday learn.

And if they can't learn, to at least get to the place where they are pretending not to be hateful assholes again.

Because hateful assholery is once again out of style. Frowned upon, in fact.

Live, my fellow humans. Get the vaccine.

The tolling of the bell is becoming too frequent.

And ever more painful by the lack of necessity.

You CAN live.

Those who died last summer didn't have the same choice.

But you can choose.

Sign out of the Facebook Group. Turn off the television.

Call your doctor, call your health department.

Get the vaccine, and live.

You can hate me again later.

It works better when you're alive to do it.

I promise.

lovingly,
Bright

July 20, 2021

I Want My Mom...

She is in the Twin Cities.

I am in New Mexico.

She is 91 and in good physical health but has a mild dementia and increasing loss of short-term memory.

The past 18 months have been a terrible ordeal for her as she's had to move three times.

The first move took her from her familiar home. She didn't want to leave, but she was very much at risk there.

Within weeks of the move to her first independent living apartment in a senior community it was locked down.

She was in a strange place, isolated and lonely.

My sister who lives in the Twin Cities got certified as a home care aide and did her best.

But Mom became increasingly depressed, disoriented, angry and despairing.

The facility wasn't great. Last fall we got her moved to a facility that seemed like it would be an improvement.

It was, but not much.

Mom was still lonely, isolated, increasingly bored as her resources for using a modern television evaporated and her ability to track more complex reading matter was impaired, and she could not go to her AA meetings.

We did our best, buying "Grandpad" video tablets, communicating several times a day, sending fruit, little gifts, reminding her she's loved, not forgotten.

The depression, anxiety, etc., returned and started building up again.

Finally, this Spring - some hope! An assisted living apartment opened up at a community Mom really liked.

And it looked like Covid was about to be licked. We were all vaccinated.

We moved her to the new community in June. She likes it very much.

She can attend community meals, events, exercise classes, etc., because the facility is not locked down.

Mom started doing better.

The esposo and I began discussing plans to drive to the Twin Cities over the summer for a nice long visit, as soon as the Covid new case rate dropped sufficiently along our travel route and in Minnesota.

I really want to see Mom, while she still knows me, while she's enjoying life, while we can do some fun things together, maybe go to the Arboretum or walk around Lake Nokomis.

I don't want her to be locked down again - it takes a terrible toll on her.

THOSE FUCKING ANTIVAX ASSHOLES WANTED TO MAKE A POLITICAL STATEMENT.

THEY WANTED TO "OWN THE LIBS".

THEY'D RATHER BE DEAD THAN WRONG.

SELFISH SHITHEADS DON'T GIVE A CRAP WHETHER THEIR PETTY DESTRUCTIVE STUPID ANTISOCIAL POINT-PROVING ANTICS AFFECT ANYONE ELSE.

I miss my Mom...

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever see her in person again, when she can still smile and light up and know who I am and give me a big hug.

sadly,
Bright

July 11, 2021

SF Chorus pushes ALL the wackjob buttons with hilarious video... and are getting death threats now.

As a capstone of their Pride celebration, SF Gay Men's Chorus posted a video of their funny/sad/hopeful/loving and very popular number "A Message From the Gay Community". It's about how younger generations are learning not to hate and fear, and features delicious lyrics like "even grandma likes Rupaul / And the world's getting kinder / Gen Z's gayer than Grindr" and lovely, hopeful ones like "Your children will care about / Fairness and justice for others / Your children will work to convert / All their sisters and brothers".

It's beautifully produced. And it ignited the predictable firestorm on hatewing media with the lyrics "we're coming for your children" and "we'll convert your children". But the firestorm quickly escalated to thermonuclear levels as the Qdiots and the KillerJeebus loonies got into the act, painting the song as an open declaration of pedophilic intent. Within 36 hours chorus members were subjected to death threats, doxxing, having employers contacted with accusations that they are sex offenders and pedophiles, etc.

The chorus responded by making the video private, but bootleg and altered versions accompanied by frothing violence-inciting commentary have proliferated all over social media.

SFGate may still have a working link to the original version of the song here:

Extremely Funny SF Gay Men’s Chorus Video Unleashes Torrent of Right-Wing Threats, Vitriol

The Chorus is keeping people up to date on Twitter here:

https://twitter.com/SFGMC/status/1413216353981374465

The video, and the song, moved me to tears as well as laughter. Pretty powerful stuff. So, maybe not surprising that it has terrified the hatewing extremists into a frenzy.

sadly,
Bright

July 4, 2021

We (homo sapiens) appear to be failing a major evolutionary test.

Keep in mind that in evolutionary terms everything happens very slowly over long periods of time - millennia. As a species, we have speeded up our own evolution to some extent as we have invented ever more complicated tools that have sharply accelerated many survival processes.

We don't "control" the conditions that facilitate evolution; they are too big, too complex, too slow for that. For millions of years, all we as a species could do was experiment with survival options, develop better tools, build cultures that increased our chances of passing on our DNA to new generations.

For all those millions of years, we worked with a balance of self-interest (sacrificing the survival of others to ensure my survival and that of my offspring) and altruism (sacrificing my own well-being or survival to ensure the strength of a community that could improve the survival chances of my offspring).

Over time, the tools and techniques of altruism- the development of cooperative hunting bands, the change from nomadic hunting/gathering to nomadic herding/opportunistic harvesting to sessile agriculture and husbandry, ultimately giving rise to cities and city-states, have paid the biggest dividends in the spread and survival of our species. The more we learned to work together, the more successfully we have evolved economies that support larger populations, the better tools we developed to respond to the impersonal unfocused threats of disease and natural disaster, the better we, as a species, have prospered.

Each advance has been tested, mostly by our own self-interest mechanisms: If one group gets too greedy and exploitive of others at the expense of their survival, that group ultimately is forced to change or die. Empires rise and fall. Power moves from autocracies to oligarchies. Monarchs enable an elite class to support their rule and then are forced to share power with that elite class, which enables a merchant class to support the broader distribution of wealth they require. In time the barriers between merchant and elite classes become more permeable.

Sometimes human groups that observed existential challenges closely, learned from them, experimented with changing their culture and developing new cultural survival mechanisms survived and learned the value of change. Sometimes human groups that clung stubbornly to what worked for their ancestors rode out the existential challenges and had their beliefs in the wisdom of the ancestors confirmed. On the species level the seemingly-random successes of these various strategies improved overall survival.

But over the course of history the balance has steadily shifted towards flexibility, willingness to change, and the embrace of altruism - these two strategies reinforce one another. We build a more complex world; we need a strong, diverse, curious community that values the survival of all to successfully develop and test new ways to meet existential challenges.

And as our species has ballooned in numbers and placed ever greater demands on the resources needed for survival, the frequency and intensity of the existential challenges we encounter has grown dramatically.

Plagues and natural disasters are SOCIAL tests above all - we cannot survive them by running from them. The wealthy few building their elaborate funk holes are whistling in the dark - if the species fails catastrophically, their DNA, too, will ultimately vanish.

We have all the resources of creativity, ingenuity, access to materials, etc., to survive the current crop of existential social tests. But we are failing them, because we are falling back on self-interest and fear-based conservatism to meet these challenges.

It is not too late to turn around.

But it might be, sooner than we think.

We had a good run, I guess.

diffidently,
Bright