TygrBright
TygrBright's JournalSome of us have been here before. And our memories remain vivid.
Here is what happens in America when you start killing people who are standing up for peace, justice, and the Constitution:
MORE PEOPLE come into the streets, with more candles, more signs, more noisemakers, more determination, and more willingness to pay the ultimate price, to preserve the freedoms of their neighbors, their community, their families and their children/grandchildren.
Too many of these fools were not around for Kent State.
We have officially arrived at "blood in the gutters"... from here, there is no going back. The available directions are limited, and they have chosen the direction that leads to "yet more blood in the gutters."
This will not end well for them.
prognosticatorially,
Bright
Dear Greenland... Think about this, okay?
Yes, given a choice between dealing with a central government in Copenhagen and a central government in Washington, DC, I'm totally with you - even the Danish royal family is a better option than the open sewer on the Potomac.
BUT...
Think about this:
What if you could negotiate statehood?
FULL statehood.
Okay, granted, one measly Congresscritter wouldn't tip the balance much.
Nor are the Federal handouts what they used to be.
But there are two things it might be worth thinking about:
First: Your own state Constitution, defining your own state government, laws, administration, etc. The only constraints on State constitutions are that nothing in them must be contrary to what is in the U.S. Constitution - so, no, you can't restrict speech, enter into separate treaties with other nations, impose import duties, stuff like that. But read it in detail. Check out Article IV, about "Full Faith and Credit", and another favorite, the 10th Amendment - whatever the Constitution is silent on (and it's silent about a LOT) is all yours to decide, make laws about, etc. So, that might not be so bad, especially if you arrive at the negotiating table with a draft State Constitution in your back pockets.
Second: If you're a U.S. State, you get TWO (2), count 'em, TWO Senators to represent you in the U.S. Senate, which is currently so deadlocked that your new Senators could pretty well own the joint with their votes. This, will, I guarantee, make the entire Republican Party of the United States of America publicly crap their pants and run crying for their mommies at the thought of a State with 89% Inuit population having that much say in anything about the U.S. of A.
So, anyway... just putting this out there.
I totally get your not wanting anything to do with us. I wouldn't either. (I'm kinda hoping [Redacted] will repudiate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, actually...) But it's a thing to think about, eh?
slyly,
Bright
(P.S. DUers in case you can't tell, this post is IRONY, not a serious suggestion. Sheeesh...)
She had to die, because she showed no fear.
The body cam footage shows Renee Good smiling and talking cheerfully to the pathetic loser who murdered her in the instants before his rage boiled over and he shot her in the face.
That is likely why he felt he NEEDED to kill her: She was not afraid of his macho official skeeriness.
Heavily armed pathetic losers are always terrified that others will see through the skeery appearance they assume to the sad little insecure loser underneath. They want everyone to cower before their heavily armed intimidation.
If you don't, well...
...they're heavily armed, and you just terrified them.
What do you think is going to happen?
So... yeah, she EARNED being killed. It was her fault for not cowering in terror of the Big Skeery Thug who couldn't bear anyone to know he's basically a pathetic loser.
disgustedly,
Bright
Heavily armed pathetic losers are the most dangrous thing in our world.
And to be clear, "heavily armed" refers not just to weapons, but to money, influence, and political power.
They are the most dangerous because they believe the only way to convince others (and thus themselves) that they are not pathetic losers, is to do maximum harm to those who remind them (by NOT being pathetic losers) that they are, in fact, pathetic losers.
Now, all of us are, at one time or another, pathetic losers - being human exposes us to all kinds of challenges, risks, and experiences, and it is inevitable that in some cases we will lose, and likely feel pretty pathetic about it for some period of time. This is a normal part of the human condition.
But people who are not, fundamentally and intrinsically, convinced that they are ALWAYS pathetic losers, address these experiences in various ways - learning new skills, for instance. In some cases it's becoming more mature and self-aware. In some cases, it is even demonstrating an understanding of what actually does convince other people you're not a pathetic loser - which is, to be kind, and do kindnesses even when you feel bad yourself.
But the ones who are deeply and irrevocably convinced that others see them as pathetic losers, and who are so overcome with their own rage and inadequacy that the only response that makes them feel, briefly, like not-losers is to do maximum harm to others...
...those are the ones you need keep away from weapons, money, influence, and political power. We used to do this by applying strong cultural sanctions of acknowledging that behavior focusing entirely on harming others to inflate one's own self-esteem was indeed the mark of a pathetic loser. Knowing that provided some incentive for pathetic losers to overcome the tendency or at least to indulge in their repulsive behavior in relatively private ways like family violence and cruelty to animals.
But apparently we have removed that cultural sanction, and the nation's Strategic Reserve of Pathetic Losers has been loaded for bear. And now, everyone who is not a pathetic loser is at risk of being kidnapped, renditioned, beaten, tortured, and/or killed, by pathetic losers, with impunity.
I have no idea how to undo this.
sadly,
Bright
Wow. There must be something TOTALLY, UNEQUIVOCALLY DAMNING in those Epstein files...
Plus, someone check the online gambling sites... who had big-money bets on "Maduro ousted January 3rd?"
That is all.
disgustedly,
Bright
Trudging out of 2025...
Humans do this weird thing of finding or (in the apparent absence of any to find) making patterns in just about everything. We seem evolutionarily programmed to perceive patterns, to help us survive, to solve problems, and maybe most of all to relieve anxiety in a scary and getting scarier world.
The existence of time (duration) isn't in serious doubt but there's an awful lot we don't know about it. We've been imposing patterns on time since our ancestors noticed the cycle of stellar change above us. Some made pretty good sense - identifying a cycle of seasonal patterns based (although we didn't know it initially) on the orbital cycle of our planet around our sun allowed the development of agricuture, yay for the survival of humankind.
The planet we live on orbits the star that (captured it?/threw it off?) so far back our hominid brains can't seriously grasp it. The planet we live on spins, producing dark/light cycles we call 'days'. Certain materials release subatomic particles in a decay process at various rates. Humans can measure those things and map the patterns we impose on duration to their processes.
Universe, however, doesn't actually give a shit what we call our time-patterns, how we organize them, or what we think they're useful for. Our attempts to use phenomena we observe at some point in duration, to predict anything other than the particular process of the specific observed phenomenon are particularly laughable. ("Comet portends wrathful visitation of Invisible Asshole Beings!" is an old favorite.)
Objectively, the only difference between the day we call "December 31st" and the day we call "January 1st" is a matter of a few minutes' change in light/dark duration depending on which hemisphere the observer looks from. The fact that we increase an essentially random number by one as our pathetically imprecise 24-hour clocks tick from 12:00:00 to 12:00:01 (or is it from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00? There's still a debate about that...) means nothing of significance to Universe.
We have, at various times, mapped the single-integer increase of various ongoing counts of planetary orbit cycles at other times in the cycle, for reasons that ranged from functional ( "We can pretty much start planting when the duration of light exceeds that of darkness in a day cycle, let's call it a new 'year' then." ) to egotistical ( "Big Kahuna took over telling everyone what to do and looting from our collective wealth creation on THIS day, let's date our 'years' from this day to keep Big Kahuna happy." ) Not to mention the many attempts to perceive and impose super-cycles on duration based on astronomical observations and calculations ( "Our Smart Peeps say THIS is the day the next cycle of the Really Signficant Star Movements happens so that'll be the new 'year'." )
Birds gonna migrate based on what they perceive. Bears gonna wake up, sniff around and decide whether to go back to sleep or start foraging based on what they perceive. Snowdrops gonna start pushing a flowerscape through incredibly hard frozen ground based on the information stored in their DNA. None of them give a shit about our calendars. Punxsatawney Phil is just another human nod to the reality that all our duration-slicing and pattern-finding is, objectively, unreliable as hell for any actual predictive purpose.
So here we are on another December 31st, about to advance our particular random four-digit year number by another single integer.
Objectively, big whoop. However, being a human being who functions better using patterns to organize how I think about duration and its implications, this is traditionall a time to think about how I would like to function differently in future duration than I have been able to function in past duration.
Strictly speaking, I know perfectly well that "now" - the bit of duration I am actually experiencing - is the only place I can really make any difference. But it could be helpful to reflect on any patterns I can perceive in my responses to events that remain in memory storage of 'past' duration, and think about any ways I could potentially make choices that offer some likelihood of improving how I experience the uncertain 'future' duration. If only it were as easy as modfying a few lines of code...
But here goes, anyway:
I want to be quicker to recognize the bitchy voice of my jerkbrain inside my head and firmer in shutting it down when it tells me how unworthy, inadequate, weak, selfish, undisciplined, heedless or unrealistic I am being.
I want to apply more of my creativity to accepting and finding ways to optimize changes I can't control. (The older I get, the more important this one seems. You kids will find out.)
I want to take more risks in experimenting with self-change, and be willing to step out of my comfort zone more often.
I want to learn more about things and people I don't understand, and more about events and ideas that make me uncomfortable.
I want to be willing to re-evaluate past decisions that may have been made with too little information.
I want to learn more about the kind of love I think of as 'divine' - that is, not ego-based, transactional human attachments, but the perception, appreciation, and connection to the ineffable embodiment of life and its potential here and now.
I'm going to stop there. If I can manage even one of those things as I continue accumulating duration, it will be a worthy gift back to the source of all life.
The duration of individual experience is limited, often shockingly, usually unexpectedly so. I suppose we need that mistaken sense of permanence to allow ourselves to function in the uncertainty of duration, but it does sometimes blind us to the value of the only experience we really have - this time, this place, these beings.
For me, that would be today, here on DU, with all of you. Thank you for sharing duration, place, and existence! Words are wholly inadequate to express perceptions and feelings, but they're all I got.
Love ya, DU community.
pedantically,
Bright
Two difficult things covered (so far) in Ken Burns' "American Revolution"
I get tired of Ken Burns' mannerisms and tropes and then he dazzles me again with a new docuseries. In this case, "American Revolution". I haven't finished it yet but am looking forward to it.
To be fair to my history minor and subsequent history reading, nothing so far as been entirely "new". But it has been easy to 'read past' some things, without seriously contemplating them and fitting them into the larger historical context, and considering their lasting implications. So far, Burns has done an excellent job of covering two of those things:
First, the extent to which the desire of the more powerful and wealthy colonist entrepreneurs to grab and exploit lands belonging to Indigenous nations figured into the train of events severing them psychologically from England and its rule. The way it played out made me think of some of the things today's oligarchs use to rouse the rabble and consolidate their power. As new land-hungry colonists arrived, it was easy for the propagandists of the time to stir up discontent with England's policy of "hands off" lands on the other side of the Appalachians.
England wasn't doing this 'to be nice to the natives'. They sought control over a fast-growing and diversifying colonial population, and to do that with limited military and civil authority resources, they needed to control the size of the colonist-occupied territories. The politics between the many remaining intact Indigenous nations, England, the other European powers, and the various colonies, were far more complex than I knew.
And that led to the more powerful and influential among the colonial leaders and propagandists making the most of England's other attempts to control and/or generate sufficient revenue from the colonies to support the costs of their colonial in-place military and bureaucratic infrastructure. Which, when examined objectively, were not unreasonable goals, but Lordy did the Brits ham-handedly find their way to every worst-choice scenario they could in trying to implement such things. This contributed to the long, dark root of America's "You're not the boss of me!" strain of libertarian psychosis.
The second thing, and it's odd how diametrically and conceptually opposite it is to that first thing, was the nature and ubiquity of the "Committees of Correspondence/Inspection/Safety" as things edged closer to the flashpoint. They were essentially vigilante groups enforcing approved anti-British, pro-Revolutionary rules.
The Commitees' self-appointed jurisdiction applied to almost all aspects of people's lives - whether or not they supported aid to Boston, whether they spoke kindly of English authority or insultingly of Colonial leaders and their actions, what pamphlets they read (or just had in their homes) what they ate or drank (NO boycotted English products or even local products that might resemble "British" wares), who they did business with. And whether, when publicly hauled before a forum of their neighbors, they spoke correctly about their views and agreed vigorously enough with the approved doctrines or apologized abjectly enough for some infraction.
Which sounds very Cultural Revolution, to me. Very authoritarian, even. God help the uncommitted individual going about their business and making a spot of mild tut-tuttery about the mobs forming around the taverns to revel in, shout agreement with, and get increasingly rowdy in response to fiery speeches. What must it have been like for them? While they may have been in a minority, the choice given them between fear-based compliance, and going over to the Loyalists entirely must have been a painful one.
They weren't really nice people, most of those Founding Fathers. They kept slaves, they believed in liberty for white male property owners, and what they REALLY wanted was freedom from any restraint on land-grabbing, commercial exploitation, and building their own wealth no matter the potential damage to anyone else.
And yet, they managed to define a framework for self-governance and a set of ideals for its purpose that changed everything. They set the course for a long, difficult effort to bring about a system that increasingly allowed more and more previously disenfranchised people into the big tent of self governance, checks and balances, equality under the law, and power sharing.
I sometimes wonder whether, if we could wake all those Founders up today, how many of them would find themselves cozy quarters at the Heritage Foundation and in the new White House Ballroom with the other oligarchs, and how many of them would be hollering their lungs out at the next No Kings march.
musingly,
Bright
Make no mistake: [Redacted] was on EVERY BALLOT
This is ALWAYS the case in the first election after a general election - it's a referendum on the ticket-header from the winning party of the general election. Forever and ever, AMEN.
So when [Redacted] whines that the GOP's resounding defeat happened because "he wasn't on the ballot" the bullshittery is beyond transparent denialism.
It can't even be gaslit, at this level. EVERYONE knows he was on every ballot.
And EVERYONE knows that voters turned out in record numbers to asskick fascism, and specifically, the incompetent Fascist-in-Chief.
Every ballot cast was a big, loud, "Fuck ALL THE WAY OFF" to [Redacted].
It drew blood.
And he WILL retaliate.
prognosticatorially,
Bright
Speaking of media Farthuffers.... This lot are in for a surprise, I think.
Anyone who doubts that America's corporate media organizations are lined up with their paper bags to collect every flatulent molecule emitted by the [Redacted] rectum need only look at Oligarch Bezos' shabby, shambling zombie-version of the Washington Post, talking up its breath-stoppingly stupid and immoral attempt to undermine the Veterans Affairs administration of Veterans benefits:
VA’s disability program is an ‘honor system.’ These veterans are defrauding it.
and
How some veterans exploit $193 billion VA program, due to lax controls
Warning: You may need a shower after reading the above wallows into a chainsaw abbatoir of destruction. To assist in decompressing from the painfully grotesque down-punching, here is a deconstruction of the transparently ghoulish self-serving target drawing by a billionaire who can never, ever steal enough of everyone else's money:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/04/washington-post-report-veterans-benefits
The trouble with US veterans benefits isn’t ‘rampant’ fraud – it’s bureaucratic roadblocks, advocates say]
Why the VA? Why now?
I can't necessarily answer the second part of that query pair, but the first part is obvious AF: If you're looting something, you focus on the greatest concentrations of loot-worthy swag, right? The VA's annual budget in FY 2024 was $307.31 billion, 57 percent of which is in mandatory spending and 43 percent is in discretionary spending.
Oligarch Bezos and his crew of Farthuffers (I doubt there are many actual journalists remaining at the stumbling hulk of the once-great news organization) clearly believe that they can holler "FRAUD!" while pointing to yet another group of "those people" who are some kind of minority, and the American majority of non-veterans will shrug and murmur "Go to it, then valiant Defenders of the Federal Budget Being Funneled into the Pockets of Worthy Oligarchs..."
Ummmm.... no.
Granted, the majority of Americans are themselves not veterans. Since the ending of the draft the percentage of Americans who choose active military service hovers around 1% - but except for those killed in action, every one of them becomes a veteran, meaning that the number of veterans has steadily grown and now hovers around 6%. And almost ALL of them have family members, making the 'greater' veterans community somewhere around 18-20% of Americans. Add to that those of us who do not choose to serve, but who honor and respect the service of those who do. An incalculable but substantial number. Then add to that total those politicians and public figures who may or may not, in their heart of hearts, give a shit about actual veterans but who know damn' well that veterans' issues are almost as potent a 'third rail' as Social Security.
Oh, yeah, Oligarch Bezos. Hear that loud whining sound? That's the buzz saw your zombie farthuffers wandered into, shredding them to bits.
Granted, being soulless undead, they'll reassemble and shamble on, fueled by the potent and abundant gaseous emissions of [Redacted]'s burgerprocessing system, but not even farthuffing zombies have an unlimited capacity to challenge buzz saws and survive.
Pop the popcorn, boys and girls, the show's starting.
prognosticatorially,
Bright
"The imaging looked like a field of stars - a Milky Way of tiny cancers..."
In 2011 my ex, whom I still care about and stay in touch with, was diagnosed with mesothelioma. Her lungs, abdominal cavity, and the pericardium around her heart were riddled with thousands of tiny tumors.
We were all gobsmacked. What the actual FUCK? The doctor said the commonest cause of this (relatively rare) type of cancer was asbestos exposure. But at first we couldn't imagine where it had come from. The places she worked, her home, etc. were all relatively recently built and asbestos-free. Dig deeper, go back further, the doctor urged. It can take 20 years or more for exposure to manifest in the form of the cancer.
Eventually, we figured it out almost by accident, based on a conversation with a friend whose parent had been a co-worker of my ex's back in the early 1990s, when together they worked for Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The parent had recently died of a "rare cancer" and that was the clue - BC/BS had been remodeling their office building, and was later adjudicated to have taken inadequate measures to protect employees working in the building from exposure to the insidious dust. A cluster of cases was identified, my ex was one of them. The settlement from BC/BS helped somewhat with a grueling regimen of surgeries, chemo treatments, and experimental therapies that helped her beat the odds for 14 years.
But now, at the relatively young age of 74, she's had enough of the treatments, and is going into hospice. Our daughter and her family live nearby, they spend time with her almost daily. She is still pretty strong, and I'm hoping she'll last until I'm free to travel back to Minnesota in the Spring. I'd like to spend just a little more time with her, if possible.
She more than beat the odds, she was a soldier in the war on this disease, participating in multiple treatment trials and being part of several studies to learn more about the cancer, its progression, effects, and vulnerabilities. Because of those trials and studies the survival rate has definitely been extended, although there is still no cure.
They couldn't have known that they were being exposed to asbestos. The building they worked in wasn't THAT old, it was built in the 1960s. By the time the company decided to remodel it the risks of asbestos exposure were known, but the degree to which abatement protocols were necessary wasn't fully regulated. So of course they "abated" on the cheap. There were plastic sheeting barriers everywhere, interior traffic was rerouted away from the construction areas, and demo workers wore respirators.
THAT ISN'T ENOUGH.
Asbestos fibers are microscopically tiny, tiny enough to hang in the air for hours, days, even weeks, and to travel on the tiniest of air currents through the finest of openings. And many old asbestos materials disintegrate with even the slightest movement or disturbance. Abatement is incredibly difficult, challenging and requires experienced professionals and considerable time, expense, and effort.
The East Wing of the White House was built in 1902 and extensively renovated in the 1940s, a time when asbestos was widely used in construction of all types.
You can bet your ass the class action lawyers who have won suit after suit on asbestos exposure are already collecting names, addresses, and contact information for everyone who's anywhere near the White House these days. And there will be people suffering and dying from a horrible, horrible kind of cancer popping up all over the Potomac basin the next two decades. And taxpayers paying a vast settlement bill for that suffering and death.
Enjoy your Dancing Chamber of Death, assholes.
disgustedly,
Bright
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