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Saturday, November 30, 2019

TO PRESERVE, RENEW AND EXPAND DEMOCRACY

What I now write is not new. Nor am I anywhere near the only one saying it, thanks be to God. Indeed, more and more voices are saying basically the same thing as I am (for which I’m also thankful). However, I haven’t seen anyone say it in this particular way, and here it is.
If we want our governments and our societies around the globe to gain and/or retain more of democracy than is currently the case, private stores of wealth (which are always privately held political and economic power) can be tolerated only up to a point. There has to be a ceiling for private wealth as well as a floor below which we allow no one to sink. Private wealth can never be allowed to the point that one fortune, or a few fortunes, can effectively ‘buy out’ the voices of those of middling and/or little or no means from the government by blatant or ‘legal’ bribery — that is to say, such ‘bribes’ as campaign contributions and/or a ‘revolving door’ whereby the paymasters keep the money flowing to their present or former political slaves!
This is what has happened in the USA over the last forty years or so and it must be reversed if we are to save not only our democracy but, indeed, the very planet itself! It is a ‘given’ that there will be rich, middle and lower in any human society but the rich should not be so wealthy as to be able to both ‘opt out’ of the common wealth and/or privatize it for their own benefit. Nor is there any need for the ‘poor’ to be abjectly so. The market is not doing the job for either; we, through our elected representatives and/or directly as citizens, must do this.
As I said before, many have said much the same thing at greater length and with more particularity than before. I believe my gift to be more like taking in the big picture and paring it down to its essentials. I hope I do that effectively in this post and in others as well.
I hope and pray we can start to put more than one Green New Deal in place even as we renew democracy to include more different voices than ever before, as democracy will always be a work in progress. And we badly need some serious progress on that work right now!

Saturday, November 23, 2019

A SORT OF A CAMPAIGN

Today I re-state my unofficial and highly unorthodox campaign for President of the United States. This is not something I particularly want to do, but I think someone needs to have a campaign this out of the ordinary and be as ‘unbound’ by political orthodoxy as I like to think I am.
First, let me clarify something. ‘Politically unorthodox’, for me, includes serious respect for our Constitution, the rule of law and even, where it’s not being used to stifle voting rights, the right to protest or other guaranteed-to-all Constitutional rights, political precedents. The unorthodoxy kicks in with this particular way of sort-of campaigning which is geared in part to those with wisdom enough to realize that the persons most worth electing to political office can often be the ones who want it the least. P. J., I’d say you have a serious point there.
It also kicks in with more realization that what has become custom or precedent should not be allowed to forestall the urgent needs of both the present and the future, such as racial justice coupled with a far-reaching Green New Deal. Finally (and in some circles, this is actually pretty orthodox) the realization that a lot of necessary things need to be built, rebuilt or refurbished from the ground up, not from the top down! Although putting in honest government may have to be top down; many of us still remember the saying ‘a fish rots from the head down’. Get it?
Bernie has the right idea when he says, “It’s not about me. It’s about us.”
I couldn’t agree more. Indeed, this sort-of campaign takes his ideas a couple more steps further as follows: I do not intend to do any traditional campaigning (at least while primary season lasts and maybe even thereafter).
No speeches, no rallies and above all, no constant begging for money for TV and radio spots. I figure if my platform https://nopartyline.blogspot.com/2011/06/to-all-my-fellow-americans-especially.html gets you moving in the right direction, then you can 1) share it with everyone you think will be receptive and even some who may not be and 2) collect signatures to put me on the ballot in your state.
In any case, as I’m not at all sure I really want this nutty job, it will be up to you, my readers and the people at large, to put me there. And let me say that my mixed feelings about having the job does not mean in the least that I won’t do my level best for all of us and the planet itself. I will do my best as God strengthens me. And I have no private interests for which I would or even could use the office, unless getting my songs recorded and produced is involved somewhere in this.
Finally and most importantly, I was always be open to questions about my platform and about other political matters and some personal ones too. If I think something’s no one’s business but my own, I’ll say so and say why I think that. If I’m asked what I consider a downright loony question, the questioner can expect a ROFL, but I’ll try and say why the question comes across to me as pretty wacko. That’s mostly how I mean to campaign: answering your questions about what I would do as POTUS and how I would push it along!
I hope this gets more people going, especially considering how many of us are pretty tired of politics as currently practiced. I’m pioneering what looks to me like a new way of doing that. Let’s hope it at least takes off.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

THE 'WHITE HEAT' EPOCH?

“Look Ma — top o’ the world!!”
Then, ka-BOOM! A deafening and blinding explosion at the top of an oil derrick in Los Angeles back when there were working oil wells within the city limits!
That scene from the film White Heat has been on my mind for a while. I’ve been asking myself, how much might the current rulers of today’s politics and economics (especially the fossil-fuel barons and all their boughten political and media slaves) have in common with Cody Jarrett? The answer coming through to me right now is, too dam’ much!
I’m serious. Just think about it.
Where are the fossil-fuel barons who are ready to turn their coats to a ‘greener’ side, start to divorce their companies, either quietly or with more publicity, from their original functions and begin to seriously power a ‘greening’ of the energy and agricultural spheres of the world’s economy?
There are commercials on TV which show them doing just that, true, but how much is really behind those ads? Considering these corporations’ abysmal record in doing the right thing (remember, they knew what was going on as early as the early 1970s!) give me leave to doubt that there’s really that much change!
One political party is officially denying the existence of climate change at the behest of its fossil-fuel masters. But those masters know the reality of what’s happening; I’m willing to bet few know that reality better than they! Which means, the subtext bears a very uncomfortable resemblance to Cody Jarrett’s death scene from White Heat. These obscenely greedy, and mentally lazy, 21st century barons mean to go on pumping until either they are stopped by the preponderance of humans who actually want to live (how dare they!)on an actually living planet or until it’s literally impossible to maintain any semblance of civilized life and both the human and animal population plunge off an apocalyptic cliff at whose base will be a barely livable planet, if at all.
It’s up to all of us to STOP this death-march before we reach that cliff! People like the Extinction Rebellion are working towards this end and we need to join in and/or support those efforts however we can. First thing is, don’t let the fossil-fuel media deceive you further: there is a climate crisis and the news of natural disasters the world over is making that clearer all. the . time!
Second, get news from organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, EcoWatch, the Rocky Mountain Institute and other ‘greener’ sources of news. These are also good organizations to contact when you’re not sure what you can do in your situation. Third, join up with politically ‘green’ organizations and don’t vote for anyone who tries to pretend that there is either no crisis or that we still have plenty of time. WE DON”T!!!! Fourth, and maybe most important, connect with other local groups and form regional ‘hubs’ and keep organizing and educating. Both Bernie and Elizabeth are doing this; join with either campaign depending on what you feel the market/utility balance needs to be.
To return to the White Heat analogy, we — yes, we — are the cops in hot pursuit of this psychopath with a ‘mother’ fixation, and we need to move fast! So — let’s roll! Now!