Tag: indivisible

Rise Up, Me Buckos

jono55

Okay, for some folks I guess it comes down to “Have you had enough, yet?” when dealing with the oleaginous monstrosity that is our present national government. We have incompetence throughout the executive branch, only half of the Senate with their wits about them, and a House of Representatives where the ability to tie one’s own shoelaces sets one apart from the herd. Add to this a corrupted Supreme Court and you have the full picture. Dismal, but full.

But we, the much-disrespected electorate, don’t have the sense to roll over and collaborate, as have some colleges and universities, CBS, ABC, and a distasteful number of our national institutions. Armed with our eighth grade civics lessons, a copy of the Constitution, a shred of decency, and a great deal of stubbornness, we persist in resisting. Go figure. There will be a nationwide rally on October 18 that calls itself NO KINGS 2.0.

It will be yet another chance to get together and see that you are not the only one who thinks our present situation is unsustainable madness. The first NO KINGS protest was massive, with more than 5 million people participating. This included 2500 souls who gathered here in Paradise, a small red town in a red corner of the state. It was peaceful protesting all the way. I have to give credit to the Cluck administration and Republican Party for doing so abysmally that it is easy to find a repellent situation to protest against. Too many to count, really. An embarrassment of riches.

My readership is spread around the globe, but if any of you are going to be in the US on October 18 you might want to drop over to Paradise and see small-town democracy at work. You can get more information at the national website for NO KINGS. Stop by, we’d love to have the opportunity to shake your hand and harangue the very beJesus out of you. (If you don’t have a place to stay we have more than a thousand square feet of floor space at our home and enough sleeping bags for six.)

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Watching the movie Out of Africa the other night at our own personal Robert Redford Film Festival, we were struck by how young and handsome Redford and Meryl Streep were in 1985. She was almost luminous at times. And then I thought … hey … forty years ago I was, if not luminous, doing okay as well. I could still run, leap without creaking, and I teetered very little.

I also owned a Honda Gold Wing at that time as did my friend Bill, and the two of us would take our motorcycles out to the wilds of a Nebraska two-lane highway and see how fast they would go. Mine topped out at 116 mph, and I have to confess that this was way past fast enough for this armchair cowboy. All it would have taken was a rabbit in the road and I would not be typing this deathless prose.

But Redford and Streep and the superstar of the show – Africa – what a trifecta that was! If you haven’t seen the film, it’s available on Prime and will cost you $3.99. Worth every penny.

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No One Is Watching You Now, by “Til Tuesday

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For those who are still silently waiting for our shared nightmare to be over, it’s time to wake up. Right now. A coup is under way. This time there is no cavalry coming to save us if we can just hold out. I keep seeing a phrase that goes with the spot we’re in very well, I think, and it is Silence is Complicity.

A quote from Elie Wiesel: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented”. 

Another, from Leonard Peltier: “Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is the message, just as doing nothing is an act. Let who you are ring out and resonate in every word and deed. Yes, become who you are. There’s no sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility. What you do is who you are.“

And finally, one from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.“

I could go on, as I too frequently do. But if I have a point, my friends, it is that it is an illusion to think that there are sidelines for any of us to stand on.

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Friday we traveled with friend Rod to Telluride, looking for fall color. It was a good day for such an outing, but the only problem was that we anticipated the leaves really looking good by perhaps a week or two. So, the trip was a failure, right?

Wrong. What we did find was a beautiful herd of elk in the valley leading into Telluride, a village that was surprisingly crowded with people who seemed as pleased as we were to be there, and a lunch consisting of the best pizza on earth (IMHO) at the Brown Dog. Not too shabby, I’d say, not too shabby at all.

I tend to malign Telluride too often, I think. To be sure, it is an easy target due to being overpopulated by the very wealthy oozing with their tiresome self-importance. But I have to grudgingly admit that not every zillionaire is a pompous ass. Some of them obviously came from modest beginnings and have managed to hang onto their souls as their treasure grew.

It all makes me wonder what would become of my ragged personality should I become rich through some windfall. I already have an overdeveloped sense of superiority in my present economic circumstances, and I suspect that there is at least an even chance that I would join the ranks of the insufferable. Saying things like “Oh, look there, Robin, a peasant. Be careful not to touch it, I’ve heard that they carry germs.”

Maybe not. Maybe I wouldn’t forget from whence I came. Not every one of my character traits is of the gold star variety, but maybe I’d still find a way to keep it real. Quien sabe?

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The Beautiful Lie, by the Amazing Rhythm Aces

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As a closer, I have not one but two day brighteners for you. The first is a piece from the Colbert show: https://substack.com/@demwinsmedia/note/c-157661556

The second is from CNN’s article on this manga pirate flag that is showing up in protests all over Asia. It is taken from a popular Japanese comic strip and flying it indicates dissatisfaction with the government. ‘Nuff said? Methinks I might need one of these. Maybe two of them.

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Occupy Main Street

jono55

I have a new part-time occupation. I am the official button maker for our chapter of Indivisible, which is a politically progressive and activist organization with thousands of chapters throughout the United States. It is not affiliated with any political party.

Some say that it is primarily anti-Cluck, but it is more complicated than that. If tomorrow Mr. Cluck were to lose his footing and be washed away by the tsunami of bad karma he has accumulated, we would still have a problem, because he is far from the only Ugly American.

So here is what Indivisible is for:

  • Democracy Reform: Advocating for policies that enhance democratic processes, such as voting rights protections and reducing the influence of money in politics.
  • Social Justice: Supporting initiatives that address systemic inequalities, including racial justice, immigrant rights, and LGBTQ+ rights.
  • Healthcare and Economic Equity: Promoting access to affordable healthcare and policies that aim to reduce economic disparities.
  • Climate Action: Pushing for environmental policies that address climate change and promote sustainability.

Now it happens that Cluck is today’s poster boy for opposition to these worthy goals, but one day he will be gone and many of those other less visible bad boys will still be there.

(BTW, Indivisible takes its name from our Pledge of Allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”)

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I thought that making pinback buttons would be a lark, a mere bagatelle. Turns out that there are several predictable mistakes that button-making newbies commit. I have made all of those and added a brand-new one of my own to the list.

But those pins that didn’t end up in the trash can are beginning to resemble something that a person might actually wear. Who knew? We’re getting these ready for the June 14th national “No Kings” celebration.

Robin and I bought the button press as our contribution to the presently cash-strapped local group. The hope is that there are at least a handful of progressives out there who have not lost everything yet in the tariff wars and who can make a small donation to a good cause, thereupon receiving a button as an expression of gratitude.

Bootstraps, you know.

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Slouching Toward the Millennium, by Kris Kristofferson

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From The New Yorker

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I am confident that the Cluckian attempt at a dictatorship will eventually fail. He’s just so bad at it. What I can’t predict is how much blood, both metaphoric and real, will be shed en route to that good and necessary goal.

A man who will snatch up innocent people and transport them to hellish prisons in another country is certainly capable of violence if threats to his power become something he can no longer ignore.

Someone asked me the other day if she should worry about some of her posts on Facebook that were negative re: Cluck. She was serious. Her question took me by surprise. Here … in America … to worry about posting on social media being a dangerous thing to do? To me it showed how far we’ve come along a very bad road. When good people are starting to practice self- censorship lest they find themselves on a midnight flight to El Salvador. Unfreakingbelievable!

I told the lady that I thought we were such small potatoes that we would not be picked up on Cluckian radar, unless they were looking for some random schmo to use as an example of how powerful and all- seeing they were. That may not have been reassuring to her.

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Friend Neil has introduced me to something amazing. the world of Raspberry Pi. It is a world of computers that you can hold in your hand. What caught my attention was a setup that would use microphones to record birdsongs, and then identify the birds for you. Easily transported to woodlands, prairies, wetlands – wherever birds are, the device records the calls and then feeds them to Birdnet at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology which makes the identification. If you record all night, It can generate a list of every bird that had sounded off while you slept.

This video has more information than you might need, and certainly more than I completely understood. But what came through was the relative ease of doing something truly remarkable.

S.w.e.e.t!

Should you find yourself sniffed at by true-blue birders deriding the use of technology to find and identify birds, just point out those binoculars they have hanging around their neck. Ask them what tree they plucked those from?

BTW, you can get Birdnet as a free app for your phone, and anytime you are listening to a birdsong you don’t recognize just bring up the app and it will start making a recording and eventually tell you what it is.

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From The New Yorker

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This next offering is in the nature of a Public Service Announcement. There was a piece written a couple of weeks ago by Timothy Snyder, a historian who is an expert on tyranny and terrorism. The piece is a longish one, but it’s worth taking the time to read it. Its title: The Next Terrorist Attack.

The people who have pointed out the menace that the Cluck administration represents are already out there writing, marching, giving speeches, telephoning, doing whatever is in their power to do to limit the damage that Cluck and his band are causing. They want and need all of our out-of-tune voices, our inexperience, our sore and tramping feet.

Read the column and then seriously consider joining one of the organizations that are working to preserve our democracy. It is a powerful thing to be part of, this saving one’s country.

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Bullet the Blue Sky, by U2 (live)

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When Resistance Becomes Duty

jono55

On Friday Robin and I drove to Ridgway to join in a rally being held there against some of Cluck’s policies. I was going to say “”more reprehensible” policies but stopped myself – they are nearly all reprehensible.

It was a breezy day and sometimes two hands were required to keep the signs under control. Ridgway is a smaller village so there was not a huge crowd, but it was an enthusiastic one. A local grocer brought out two cases of bottled water as his contribution to the event.

Just that day I had learned about yet another man who had been whisked away by ICE and this time for a while there was no record to be found anywhere of what had happened to him. He had become the latest of our Desaparecidos. After several days had passed our government confessed that he was in prison in El Salvador. He has not been accused of any crime.

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Across the Borderline, by Ry Cooder with Harry Dean Stanton

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On Saturday I attended a meeting of the local Indivisible group that was held at a church in Montrose. This chapter of Indivisible had been dormant since the end of the first Cluck administration, but new governance has resuscitated it.

Robin and I had lunch with the leader a couple of weeks ago to get more information and to volunteer our services in whatever capacity is needed.

Brought together by a practical guide to resist the Trump agenda, Indivisible is a movement of thousands of group leaders and more than a million members taking regular, iterative, and increasingly complex actions to resist the GOPs agenda, elect local champions, and fight for progressive policies.

From the Indivisible.org website

The group is just getting up and running, and Robin and I are excited at being part of something positive in this era of routine and rampant negativity.

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Robin is ecstatic, and when Momma is happy, it’s ditto for moi. While we were watching one program on PBS there appeared a “commercial” for another. It seems that the Earth was short at least one more season of “Call the Midwife,” so the gods mercifully have come up with the fix. Season 14 is now available for your viewing pleasure. There are only 8 episodes, and no assurances that a Season 15 is to come, so to treasure them and watch them s-l-o-w-l-y would be my advice, savoring each wholesome morsel.

I say “wholesome” not because the program is something bland and fluffy straight out of la la land, which it is not. But because it is based on realities, rather than something wholly imaginary. The problems that the characters deal with are sometimes harsh ones, are not always solvable, and are presented in a way that leaves the viewer smarter than they were when they started.

Someone is giving good medical advice to the writers of the series, and as a result I have almost no negative criticisms of the science presented, which is a rarity for me. Usually I am leaping from my chair, fists raised, and exclaiming: “That never happens like that, you jumble of blooming idiots!”

(At present we are watching the PBS series Marie Antionette. It is only two seasons long, and we pretty much know there won’t be a third group of episodes. That’s the problem with the baked-in spoiler that comes with a historical program like this one.)

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Uncle John’s Band, by the Grateful Dead

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The song Uncle John’s Band is my favorite cut from the first Grateful Dead album I ever purchased, which was Workingman’s Dead. Bought it in 1970, right after the album’s release. Loved it then, love it now.

Here’s a link to the lyrics.

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Yesterday in a supermarket parking lot, I saw this sticker in a car window. It did not please me. Especially not at a time when we are experiencing a major measles outbreak here in the U.S. The largest in decades and it shows no signs of slowing.

I know that this is an example of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. And I know that this means that people who say the most awful and stupid things have exactly the same rights as I do when I utter my unassailable truths and scientific verities in the most beautiful and mellifluous tones.

But the sticker is stupid and untrue and dangerous and children will die. Completely unnecessarily.

What I want now is a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution that would allow me to take a propane torch to stickers like that and give them a good frying. Now I grant that this would also be stupid and dangerous, because if the owner saw me do it and took offense (how could they not?) the ensuing melee would end unpleasantly for me, I am pretty sure.

But there is a difference between children suffering and dying and an ancient dude getting what he deserved for vandalism. While this sticker may be protected speech, it is the sort of ignorant discourse that kills. Today it is measles … I wonder what will be the next preventable disease that we all get to learn about because like a vampire it has risen in its un-deadness to once again stalk our streets?

Forget that propane torch … what I really want is a stout cudgel. I feel the need to administer some vigorous corrections, and there is a particular group of students who have shown themselves unreachable by ordinary instructional methods.

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How It Ends, by Goose

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It is a good time to speak out. This is not a drill.

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First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemoller

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