Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Usually I do not remember my dreams well  enough to write about  them but I took  a nap this  afternoon and actually dreamed I was  writing my blog, so it seems it would be wrong not to actually write that blog, it would be like refusing a gift, and one should never refuse a gift.

In the dream I was writing about what a pain in the ass the internet (specifically Facebook) is with all of the pop up notifications, always right on top of  whatever  you’re typing at the moment so you can either carry on blind  and go back  later to see if there are typos or stop, scroll up or down, or close it, but it’s all an irritation and, as happens in dreams, someone responded  immediately and suddenly I was watching a video which compared  it to driving, or learning to drive.  The idea was not to get  stressed and panicked by the person behind you, it’s O.K. to take your time, it’s O.K to stop, think about whatever it is, and logically solve the problem.
Then I  was in a village, it looked sort of medieval and Game of Thrones like.  I was the king but our survival  strategy, the secret of our success, was the mountains we lived in.  Generally the power grabbing families left us alone because mountains are inherently difficult for armies, but also because we posed no threat.  We had no army of our own.  Well, news came that an invading force was on the way and we all just evacuated the town and went, with our pigs and chickens, off into the hills to hide until they were gone.  But we left a welcome sign on the main road, a banner stretched across it which we knew they would toss down but there were bouncing Betty land mines under each pole.  Not a strategy designed to win, just to mess with them a little bit.
That’s about it.  Nothing earth-shattering, but today’s blog came to you directly from my sub-consciousness, and that is something right there.

Texas residents applying for government aid after Hurricane Harvey turned their town into a lake are being made to fill  out a statement swearing that they don’t  support the BDS movement.  BDS stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions, and what  that means is we believe in boycotting Israel until they learn to behave a little  bit  more  like human beings, vis a vis the Palestinians.

It should not even be a controversial  opinion.

But, even  if it were controversial, it is totally unAmerican to deny people services based on  their political opinion.  Next thing you know they’ll be able to  deny you service if you hate football, if you are not a Republican, if you like Nickelback, or the Eagles, if your middle name is Luther, if you don’t own an American flag, if  you shop at trader Joe’s, if you are following more than 2 iterations of  the Star Trek franchise simultaneously, or if you make your own banana bread.

My question  is why.  The U.S. would never do this with regards to any  other country.  Can you imagine if they passed a law saying it was illegal to protest against Russia, or China, or Cuba?  Well, I guess you can imagine it, with the craziness of the current administration, but I can’t remember it ever happening.  Usually, the U.S. government is happy to see people  protesting against other countries.
So, what does Israel have  that forces the U.S. to do their bidding?  That makes the U.S. give them billions of dollars of aid every year?  The makes the U.S. delegation  to the U.N. block  any move to censure them, no matter what heinous war crimes or civil rights abuses they commit?
I don’t know, but it must be huge.

The Czech election went well for corporatists and xenophobes.  On the bright side the Pirate Party, which I don’t know too much  about except they have a cool name and are pro-EU, which is something, did well and seem poised to be a major party in future.  The communists did poorly, but I find it kind of surprising that there’s a communist party  here at all.  The Greens were crushed, they got less  than  5%.
I don’t understand that.  In every country, the Greens seem to wind up being the joke party, and yet, what more pressing  issue is there?  And they are clearly on the right side of it.
It makes me think of the scene in Percy Jackson (book.  Never seen the film straight through, so don’t know if this scene was included) where Percy’s cloven hoofed friend was out enjoying the  beauty  of the night sky and lamenting the garbage all around and Percy says something like “Oh, yeah, I forgot you’re kind of a crazy environmentalist” and Grover (I think his name was Grover) said “Only a human wouldn’t be.”

As a political issue, it seems like a total no-brainer to me.  Everybody would like cleaner air.  Cleaner air is healthy.  Everybody would  like  to save the elephants, and the orangutan, and the dolphin, and the polar bear.  It wouldn’t cost much to convert, and most of what it would cost it would  cost in wages, meaning people would get good jobs and everybody would be happy.
I’m an optimist, despite all.  I believe we will save the world and develop clean energy before we all choke to death, but I think the change will come about because of inventors, and scientists, and over the battered bodies of politicians.  Politics, it seems, is where good  ideas go to die.

This is bad, this is depressing.  Not only  does the United States have Donald Trump, and Britain Theresa  May, now the Czech Republic is going to have its very own blatantly corrupt, extreme right wing president.
Of course, it’s a  multi-party system, and there will have to be some coalition building, but Andre Babiš (pronounced Bah beesh, the little hook (that’s what it’s actually called in Czech, little hook) makes the s into an sh, and over a c it makes a ch, and over  an r it makes a sound no foreigner can pronounce, which Czechs are perversely proud of) is apparently going to be our next president.
He is a one man proof that it doesn’t matter what system you  have, the power  structure remains the same, and the average folks are not  a part of  it.

When Czechoslovakia was Communist, Babiš was a Communist.  Not just a go along to get along Communist, but a member of the State Security, which was like the KGB.  Once it became capitalist in 1989, Babiš became a capitalist, and has somehow (corruption) managed to accumulate a 4.1 billion dollars (according to Forbes).
I love this country, but I am extremely nervous about the future right now.   Dark days ahead.  I  mostly just hope he doesn’t try to take us out  of the EU.

I must confess, I  miscalculated.  I thought after  losing the most winnable election in modern history, the Democrats would try to figure out what they did wrong (as is done after every airline crash) and take steps to see it wouldn’t happen again.

But, they’re going in  the other direction and it  seems nothing will dissuade them.   The recent purge of Sanders supporters from any position of authority within the Democratic (oh, how hollow that sounds now) party was a power play as definitive as (although admittedly less bloody than) the Tien An Men massacre or the October 14th, 1307 massacre of  the Knights Templar by Philip the 4th.

It was, for the Democrats, what Kristallnacht was for the Nazis.  So, the question is, what are we going to do about it?  Trying to form a 3rd party historically doesn’t work.  The last successful new party in the U.S. was the Republican party back in the 1850s, and both parties have completely changed ideologies since then, but the power structure remains.  It’s tempting, because the Democrats, it has become obvious, would rather lose than fight for single payer healthcare and a more equitable tax structure.  But it won’t work.

So, should we stay and slug it out, try to take over the party  from the inside out, like the wasp larvae that feed on ants, knocking their heads off from the inside when they’re ready  to hatch?

Actually, I think we should.  We’ve just won mayorships of two two southern cities (Jackson, Mississippi and Birmingham, Alabama) and have a reasonable shot at getting  a Berniecrat, Vincent Fort, elected mayor of Atlanta.  David Hildebrand has got the DNC worried, so to protect the millionairess Dianne Feinstein they are introducing a couple of ‘leftist’ (heavy on the quote marks) candidates to muddy the waters.  Stephen Jaffe  could knock old we’re-taking-impeachment-off-the-table Pelosi, and Randy Bryce is taking a sledge  hammer to Eddie-Munster-look-alike Paul Ryan.
The fight continues.  The lawsuit continues.  The idea continues.  The idea that universal health care is worth fighting for.  The idea that private prisons are bad.   The idea that we need to get money out of politics, make rich people pay their fair share of taxes, start regulating the banks again, and give everybody jobs setting up solar  panels  and windmills  so we can save the  planet, clean the air, and stop fracking.

If we have to destroy the Democratic party from the inside out to accomplish  that goal, then that is what we must do.