Tag: fascism

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

jono55

Well, we’re three days away from the already infamous upcoming demonstration called No Kings. I’ve learned from listening to the Speaker of the House of Representatives that it’s going to be nothing but a collection of Antifa traitors, paid demonstrators, and people who hate America.

Funny, I thought it was more a collection of people who were opposed to tyranny and to being governed by spitwads. But, I have been wrong before …

I guess we’ll just have to wait until the weekend comes and determine for ourselves what the truth is. For my part, I’ve got my signs made, my buttons in order, and an umbrella in the car just in case our present monsoon season carries through to Saturday. Looking forward to a brisk walk along a line of middle fingers being extended from pickup windows.

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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, by Gil Scott-Heron

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There is no good news today for those who have clung to the belief that a little bit of poison was somehow still a good thing. A very large and well-done recent study came to the conclusion that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Even sporadic usage increases the drinker’s risk of developing a host of disorders.

For myself, of course, I found out quite a while ago that alcohol dramatically increased my chances of making a fool of myself, bumping into walls and doorknobs, and finding that I’d parked my car in a stranger’s garage with me in it. Magically, all of those things improved when I switched beverages.

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What’s Going On?, by Marvin Gaye

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Robin and I drove to Grand Junction to see a three-hour long movie about authoritarianism and an ongoing revolt against it. Kind of cinema verité, non? But the film was quite a ride, and the hours flew by. Near the end, there was a car chase unlike any I’d ever seen, the cameras turning the road into something akin to a roller coaster track.

Let’s see, what was the theme? Oligarchs versus the oppressed? Fascism versus freedom? Sobriety versus soddenness? Old powerful white men versus everybody else? Hard to pin it down.

But there are heroes, ferocity aplenty, and even small doses of humor.

We were glad we made the trip. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 95%. The only downer, and one that is still smarting hours to a cheapskate like myself long after we’d returned home, is that the Regal Theater charged us $6.99 for a small Diet Pepsi. Unbelievable. They should be flying the Jolly Roger at the concession stand, and the concession workers outfitted in buckle and swash.

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The Wheel, by the Grateful Dead (Live at Fox Theater)

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A very long time ago my friend Rich and I were attending an Academy of Pediatrics meeting in New York City. We shared a room, went to lectures and presentations together, walked about the area near our hotel together, and took most of our meals together.

One evening we decided to attend an off-Broadway production, and selected Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. It was a mildly outrageous production and truthfully all these years later I couldn’t tell you one song or line of dialogue.

What I do remember is that while we were joking to ourselves about how much time we were spending in each other’s company we looked around at the audience, which we now realized was composed entirely of same-sex couples. We did not stand out at all.

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Some “No Kings” items. More than 2500 demonstrations are now planned for October 18 across the 50 states. Here’s a map.

What is just as interesting to me is that demonstrations are being planned in at least 18 countries around the world in solidarity with U.S. citizens. They include Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Japan. Like the man said, we have friends everywhere.

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Burning the Marigolds

jono55

Those of us living in Paradise are a long, long way from the turmoil in Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles, but we do have television sets and newspapers and while all of us are alarmed at the indiscriminate violence being unleashed by the Cluck administration, some are frightened enough to be rethinking their involvement in resistance movements. The realities of being involved in protest against lawless regimes are becoming more real. The more successful these movements become, the more they will be targeted. It is not to be expected that thugs with power will relinquish or restrain that power with good grace.

Having already been schooled in Nonviolent Protest 101 (civil rights movement) and Nonviolent Protest 102 (anti-Viet Nam-war protests), I have been aware since the beginning that there were risks, so while I can’t claim to be unconcerned, I am not at all surprised. The next large national demonstration (No Kings 2) is only six days away, on October 18, and the members of our small-town chapter of Indivisible will be out there doing our thing. Indivisible, of course, is not the only group involved in this movement, it is one part of a large and growing network of organizations who share a repulsion at what the Cluck gang is doing, and who come together to work at limiting the damage they can do.

We have been very much encouraged by the neutrality and professionalism of our local police department. The presence of their black and white cruisers seems to cool the ardor of the occupants of the flagged-up pickup trucks who roar past shouting obscenities and extending middle fingers.

Thus far there have been no episodes of direct confrontation, no scuffling or punches traded. Our plan is always to keep that number at zero if possible. Those of us who are involved in the planning of the demonstrations are getting quite a lot of training in the de-escalation of threats and in what we can do to stay safe.

On a lighter side, one of the aims of our local leadership is to gently discourage the carrying of signs prominently displaying the “F” word. Of course there is no censorship, but guidance is definitely provided.

But if you come to Paradise on the 18th and want to carry a banner that says Eff The Effing Fascists you will be warmly welcomed. Your presence is more important than the precise language you choose to express yourself.

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Chicago, by Crosby, Still, Nash, and Young

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This week Robin and I re-watched the movie Ghandi. What an excellent and inspiring story, revealing what change a single determined man or woman might achieve if their motives and objectives were clear. The film won seven Oscars in 1983, and deserved every one of them.

It’s available for viewing on Prime for the princely sum of 354 rupees.

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One of the sure signs of impending cold weather is the death of the marigolds. At 33 degrees Fahrenheit they are fine, at 32 they all die. Back during the several-year-period between my divorce and meeting Robin, my friend (who will remain unnamed to protect his exemplary reputation) and I would celebrate the changing of the seasons by gathering all those dead flowers after that first hard frost, open several bottles of Pilsner Urquell, and sit around a ceremonial campfire in my backyard. I think we were trying to work out what it all means … you know … meaning of life and that sort of stuff.

It wasn’t Burning Man by any means, but the Burning of the Marigolds was a short-lived tradition that did not survive the two of us going off and starting new marriages and new lives.

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For What It’s Worth, by Buffalo Springfield

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The calling out of the National Guard is not a new thing at all. What is new is that this time it isn’t needed at all, but is instead part of a traveling roadshow being staged by the present regime. There are hazards in calling up the Guard, and especially when they are armed. These are not combat-ready, steel-nerved and battle-hardened troops. They are younger servicemen and women, weekend warriors and summer soldiers from down the street.

One fine day in May of 1970 a group of such National Guardsmen faced a large group of protesters at a rally at Kent State University, in Kent, Ohio. Some of these protesters threw stones at the Guardsmen. Things went very wrong and suddenly there were four dead students, victims of rifle fire of frightened young men in uniform. Nine other students were also wounded in the volley.

Within a very short time, this next song was on the charts.

Ohio, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

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Yesterday being a dreary day, with clouds and damp and all, we betook ourselves to the town of Delta, a 20 mile drive from home. Our aim was to find a new spot to eat lunch, and voila! – there it was, the Taqueria Master. The food was good enough to merit a return visit on another day. I had my first chorizo taco and it was tasty.

One of the menu items was a taco where the meat source was labeled “cabeza.” That gave me pause, and I asked myself: “On this day, the 10th of October in the year of our lord 2025 do you really want to find out what goes into a cabeza taco?” And my answer to myself was “No.”

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This cartoon came across my computer/desk this week, and for me it is one of those haunting images that I cannot shake. I don’t know exactly what its author meant to tell us, and a search for that person’s identity ended when I ran into only Arabic language resources. But what I see is a father returning to a ruined city in Gaza where the ghosts of his children play.

The children’s names below appear on a list of victims of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, maintained by health authorities in the territory. As of the end of July it ran to 60,199 names, of whom 18,457 were under 18s. Far from comprehensive, the list does not include the thousands still buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings, as well as the war’s many indirect victims.

The Guardian

If one child is killed during a military offensive it is a tragedy, the euphemism “collateral damage” is often applied to such deaths. But on this scale … it is a crime that goes beyond anything that can be so categorized. Hamas bears responsibility for the ugliness and horrific violence of October 7 two years ago. But the Israeli government, its leadership, and its army committed this crime against humanity. You do not kill this many children unless you make no distinction between combatants and civilians. I believe that the briefest glance at the article in The Guardian from which the above quote was taken will sicken most readers, as it did me.

The murderers on both sides should be exposed and brought to judgment. We must speak for the silenced children.

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Hand-sitting

jono55

Memo to “Normal” Republicans: if you are silent, sitting on your hands and waiting for the storm to blow over, you are complicit in and partially to blame for whatever Cluck is thus able to send our way.

Memo to Democrats: if you are silent, sitting on your hands and waiting for the storm to blow over, you are complicit in and partially to blame for whatever Cluck is thus able to send our way.

Memo to Independents: if you are silent, sitting on your hands and waiting for the storm to blow over, you are complicit in and partially to blame for whatever Cluck is thus able to send our way.

Memo to those who consider themselves above the political fray: if you are silent, sitting on your hands and waiting for the storm to blow over, you are complicit in and partially to blame for whatever Cluck is thus able to send our way.

This is no time for silence. Silence is complicity. Silence is collaboration. Silence is capitulation.

There, got it off my chest. Now I can blather on to other matters.

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Living Well Is The Best Revenge, by R.E.M.

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The header photograph today is of author Alexander Solzhenitsyn and it was taken on the day of his liberation from the Soviet gulag in 1953, after eight years of imprisonment. He went on to write several books, and the one that is considered his masterwork is The Gulag Archipelago, where he describes the system of forced labor camps that existed in Stalinist Russia and continued until it was officially abolished in 1960.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to see parallels between that system and the camps that the Cluck administration is establishing around the United States to house immigrants who are being deported. The most glaring example being perhaps “Alligator Alcatraz,” in Florida.

Cluck’s Visit to Alligator Alcatraz, July 2025

In effect, they can be considered our political prisoners. They are being transported and incarcerated in these places at the whim of the Cluck regime. No habeas corpus. No due process. No recourse to the protections of our justice system. It is ugly and it is illegal.

To add to the rottenness, these people are being rounded up by our very own newly-minted secret police squads, which we euphemistically call Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

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I subscribe to the “Cooking” section of the New York Times, and I’m not quite sure why. I rarely use their recipes for a number of reasons, the most common is that so many of them call for ingredients that are simply not available in our corner of the world. Another is that some authors are almost unbearably precious and full of themselves. Where a more straightforward person might write “and then simmer for two hours,” their instruction might be paraphrased as “and then simper for two hours.”

But we’ve just been enjoying a NYT recipe, a superior vegetable chili that stars black beans and mushrooms and that is very tasty indeed. It is not difficult to make, does not involve using a single word of a foreign language, and is ready in only an hour. It is economical and nutritious to boot, unless you go too crazy in the variety of mushrooms that you use.

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I think that if my last name were Epstein I would change it ASAP. Perhaps to something lighter, like de Sade or Dahmer.

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The Internationale, by Ani di Franco and Utah Philips

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A gallery from Scotland. Makes the signs I’ve carried so far look a bit wimpy. There were others that were even more colorful, but there are words a gentleman like myself does not employ.

Not that they weren’t correct, mind you.

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A One-line Curriculum Vitae Created For He Who Will Not Be Named

Cheatliardelusionalrapistabuser
whorermongerbigotbankruptfelon
traitornarcissistdraftdodger
pedophileimmoraldisloyalhypocrite
fascistdementedbullyscoundrel
adulterersoullesspeckerwood.

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No breaks from the plus-90 heat here in Paradise. But my kids and friends living in Minnesota and South Dakota recently had to deal with heat and then some. There were tornadoes, thunderstorms, Biblical-style rains, and a by-god derecho. (These pix are not mine, but no matter. The view is the same)

Now, I make absolutely no claims to meteorological expertise beyond phrases like “When the rain is from the East then the fishing is the least.” But if I should ever look up and see something like in these photos, I’m pretty sure it would be quick-step to the root cellar for me. Even if I couldn’t explain what I saw, I would take it as a direct message from the Almighty that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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There are blogs that I follow that from time to time provide absolute gems for me to read and thing about. One of those came along this week. It included this poem, which I found quite beautiful and provocative (that is, it provoked me to actually think). The author is Mick Canning and he lives in the UK. He is a real writer, as opposed to a trafficker in poppycock and dither like myself.

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La Marseillaise, by Isla St. Clair

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The Wolves Survive

jono55

It’s around midnight and we’re headed for a possible freeze tonight. There’s a small rain falling … turning to snow … not enough to do much good in a parched countryside but more than enough to dampen a cat’s spirits, and they are complaining.

Of our two cats, Poco is the one who grouses loudly. Willow is much more the stoic. Her attitude is to silently shrug her shoulders and take on a look that says quite clearly “Whatever.”

As for me, I take a sip of my tea and thank the gods that be for central heating and a good roof.

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Hard Times, by Gangstagrass with Kaia Kater

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I dunno, there are days when I think that president Cluck is giving billionaires a bad name, don’t you? Most of the oligarchs that I know personally* are not showoffs at all, but much prefer to do their work behind doors or Chinese screens or on yachts well beyond the reach of landlubbing paparazzi and their telephoto lenses. But Cluck can’t stand it if the attention wanders even for an instant from his ever-enlarging corpus.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I can sympathize with many of the sayings that have accumulated over the centuries about the ultra wealthy. Let’s examine just a few of them:

  • The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs. Karl Marx
  • When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die. Jean-Paul Sartre
  • It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ
  • Behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Honore Balzac

There is one saying that goes all the way back to a guy named Plutarch, and that is: “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” That’s one we are dealing with right now. The amount of the world’s wealth that is today in the hands of a very few men and women reliably excites emotions like jealousy and envy among the not-so-fortunate, as it creates a class of people who feel they have little to lose by resorting to theft or violence.

Innately we know that such a situation cannot long endure, but eventually is likely to end in some form of high unpleasantness.

*Actually, I don’t know a single oligarch personally. My family of origin is 100% oligarch-free.

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It’s not too hard to see how this Los Lobos song from 1984 can be applied to the confusion and disorder of today. The lyrics have become less a metaphor and more a documentary.

Through the chill of winter
Running across a frozen lake
Hunters are out on his trail
All odds are against him
With a family to provide for
The one thing he must keep alive
Will the wolf survive?


Driftin’ by the roadside
Lines etched on an aging face
Wants to make some honest pay
Losing to the range war
He’s got two strong legs to guide him
Two strong arms keep him alive
Will the wolf survive?


Standing in the pouring rain
All alone in a world that’s changed
Running scared, now forced to hide
In a land where he once stood with pride
But he’ll find his way by the morning light


Sounds across the nation
Coming from young hearts and minds
Battered drums and old guitars
Singing songs of passion
It’s the truth that they all look for
Something they must keep alive
Will the wolf survive?
Will the wolf survive?

Will The Wolf Survive, by Los Lobos

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While we’re on the subject of wolves, one of my photographer heroes died on April 4 of this year. Jim Brandenburg was his name and most Minnesotans have seen his work, even if they didn’t always know his name. He had two galleries, one located in Luverne MN, where he grew up. The other was in Ely MN, one of my favorite places in the world.

One of his recurring subjects was the wolf, and perhaps his best known photograph was this one, “Brother Wolf.”

Brandenburg’s work was published many times in National Geographic magazine, giving him a following well beyond the borders of my old home state. Every one of the photographs in every one of those books he published is so good it makes me want to just throw away my camera. Truly extraordinary.

Here’s the briefest of galleries of his work. Want to make someone who loves the natural world happy? … give them one of his books, or perhaps a print. Or, even better, a print and a book.

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David Brooks is my favorite kind of conservative. One with a functioning cerebrum. His op-ed piece in Friday’s Times is spot on, and quite different from his usual take-it-easy approach. The title of the piece gave me a chuckle.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IS NOT NORMAL. AMERICA NEEDS AN UPRISING THAT IS NOT NORMAL.

What he is saying is what a growing number of grassroots organizations have been telling us for a while now, and having only relatively recently waked from my own personal stupor I am glad to see Brooks join the movement.

So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade. But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.

David Brooks: What’s Happening Is Not Normal, New York TImes of April 18, 2025.

So David is thinking about hitting the streets, and that will be good for his soul and the causes he believes in. He will attract others more cautious than he is. If enough Brookses and like-minded folks get out there together under the same banner the right will prevail. History has shown the way.

I remember the day when, after years of scattered protests and much impassioned rhetoric that I watched the news and saw a very large parade of mothers marching against the war in Viet Nam. It was at that moment that I knew the war was finally over, and President Nixon was going to have to wind it down the best he could. Such a broad and passionate political force could not be withstood, and he was smart enough to know it.

Cluck’s lust for power has already created an effluvium that now touches the life of every single person in this country, mostly for ill. When enough people wake up and realize what is happening to them, there won’t be a parking place to be found anywhere near the rallies that will erupt around the US. At that point, this “war,” too, will be over.

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(Migra or La migra is an informal Spanish language term for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), United States Border Patrol, and related institutions. It has negative connotations)

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Wicked

jono55

I liked Chris Isaak, even before his video “Wicked Game” came out on VH1 in 1989. He seemed like a good guy, played beautiful guitar and worked with good material. And then Wicked Game came along, and my appreciation of the dramatic possibilities of sand sticking to skin rose to new heights. The video also showed how good a pair of men’s white skivvies could look when worn by the right woman.

Moments like that are why I look back on the MTV era fondly. MTV didn’t invent the music video, but they knew what to do with them and made them the background music for our lives for a few years. And then they stopped showing them and nobody picked up the concept and ran with it after that.

Everything changes. Things arise and things fall. This is the way of the universe. However … I wasn’t done with MTV yet when they quit the scene. It left me with a musicus interruptus sort of feeling.

(Don’t bother looking up that last phrase. It only looks like Latin).

But these creative short films are still out there. You just have to look for them. Being passive and spoon-fed (my favorite approach) doesn’t work as it did in the past. We have to do a little work.

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Note: the dramatic header photograph is not my own, but weakling that I am it was so striking
that I simply couldn’t avoid borrowing it.

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Finally broke out the electric bike. Many, many others with more fortitude than myself have been seen cycling around town since early March, so I am rather late to the party. It’s those chilly breezes that hold me back. But the machine itself needed no encouragement, all I had to do was turn it on and off we went.

Each summer I put about 600 miles on the bike just going to the grocery store and running errands. It replaces the missing second car very nicely. Especially in a country where rain falleth on many fewer days than it did back in South Dakota. Robin and I have panniers to carry stuff on the lighter errands and a Burley Nomad trailer for bigger loads.

We’ve had our Burley trailer for sixteen years now, so I haven’t looked at that market for a long time. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many brands and styles there are to choose from these days. When we picked up ours back in 2009 there might have been three or four brands to choose from, but that limited selection is history.

There are trailers for hauling kids, cargo, dogs, and even stand-up paddleboards. Teensy camper trailers . One-wheelers, two-wheelers, homemade ones … it’s a brave new world out there.

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The presidents of the United States and El Salvador have told us that there is nothing they can do about the innocent man now incarcerated in an El Salvadorean prison.

Do they think that the matter is thus closed? That we will accept this Alice in Wonderland brand of insanity? Are they so dangerously removed from reality?

Who would have thought that we would now have our own version of Los Desaparecidos here in America? If this man is not returned to the United States and freed, we are none of us safe. None of us.

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Mothers of the Disappeared, by U2

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I count myself a lucky man. To have had delivered to my door a problem I can sink my teeth into at this stage of my life. And I have Donald Cluck to thank for it. He has brought fascism home to us, with all of its colorful horrors intact. It is possible that most of the people who voted for him still think he’s a good guy and when the dust settles all will be well. But they are daily being disabused of that quaint notion, because this particular “good guy” has used them to get what he wanted and doesn’t need them any more.

He has taken a functioning economy and thrown it into the Vitamix. Of course there will be a little pain for awhile, he admits, but eventually this will pass and there will be endless possibilities of getting richer ahead of us. What he leaves out is that the pain is to be borne by the 99%, and the increased wealth will go to the 1%. Not a good sound bite, that ending, so he leaves it off.

Like all fascist leaders before him he has employed the tactic of providing us with enemies who are at our doors and who are reaching for our throats. And what an abundance he provides. People of any color other than white. People of any faith other than Christian Nationalism (which isn’t a faith at all). People who won’t do what he tells them when he tells them to do it. People who don’t lick boots or kiss behinds with enough fervor. Facts and truth being inconvenient, he has dispensed with them completely.

So what is my new job? To join with others who see clearly the tragedy unfolding in front of us. To work for the removal of Cluck from office. To work with others to address the injustices and inequalities that allowed someone as unworthy as Cluck to get power in the first place.

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Find the Cost of Freedom, by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

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It was a blue sky day. The temperature was around seventy degrees. The road through the Black Canyon National Park was still closed to automobiles two days ago, while open to bike and foot traffic. Sooooo … I loaded our machines on the rack and off we went.

When we reached the park, we found the road had unfortunately just been opened to cars, but we decided to head out anyway. Shortly thereafter a wind came up, the blue sky disappeared, the temperature dropped 15 degrees, and a light rain set in. When we finally reached the end of the road and our halfway point, we went into the only shelter, an outdoor privy, and stood there for a while to warm up a bit.

The rain finally quit and we returned to the bikes to finish the trip. But, oh what a ride this few miles of highway provides! It’s a narrow two-lane road that twists its way along, with the lip of the dramatic Black Canyon of the Gunnison River just a few yards away much of the time.

Well worth a bit of damp and shiver.

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Ridin’ the Storm Out, by REO Speedwagon

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Did I Ever Tell You … ?

jono55

The problem with being a garrulous old gent like myself is getting your victim to stand still long enough to unload your priceless cargo of stories on them. At first they get that cornered look in their rapidly shifting eyes and when they decide that more desperate measures are called for:

  • They take out their phones and pretend to receive important calls.
  • They develop abdominal pain that they are sure is appendicitis.
  • They remember a doctor’s appointment for that brain tumor they just learned they have.
  • They hear their mother calling.

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The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism.

Henry Wallace (1888-1965)

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There is an informative article in the local paper on the birthing pains of our Black Canyon National Park, which was established 25 years ago. It was that famous philanderer Bill Clinton who signed the bill creating the park, at a moment between dalliances.

One thing I didn’t know before reading the article is that while a national monument can be created by the president alone, it takes Congress to make a national park. Good article. Short. Non-taxing.

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Moonlight In Vermont, by the Ahmad Jamal Trio

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Fascism is capitalism plus murder.

Upton Sinclair

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I am presently reading a book by Craig Childs which is about animal encounters in the wild. In the first couple of tales I had been put off by what I thought was a too-frequent use of metaphors. But then I came to the story about a meetup with a mountain lion, one he had been observing for awhile from afar, and which had then wandered off out of sight.

A bit later he realized that it had circled around until it was behind him, and was very close indeed. It is a really gripping short tale, well enough written to make me sense the nakedness of standing by a desert waterhole thirty feet from a lion who is walking toward you, and you with nothing in your hand but a folding knife.

No metaphors here. Straight up, no ice.

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Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born.

Aneurin Bevan

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Ai Ga Bani, by Ali Farka Touré

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Saturday I attended a birthday party for Archer, who lives next door. We barely know each other and have almost nothing in common. His tastes in music are deplorable and at least half the time he smells more than a little off. But he and Robin have become friends, so when she attended I went with her.

Anyway, Archer had his one-year old party on a lovely Fall day and he seemed to enjoy the whole thing. But he completely ignored the fact that it was also my birthday and monopolized the group’s attention. Rude child. Spiteful.

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After one of the most beautiful autumns I’ve ever experienced, it looks like our weather is finally going into the crapper. Ah well, October 31 is nearly here and what’s Halloween without hypothermic children out gathering things to eat that are not good for them?

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