Losing Our Job

The Roches singing Terre Roche's Losing Our Job with Terre on lead and Maggie on keyboard* at McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ April 14, 1990.

(Video credit Jonathan Bernstein)

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* Not to mention Suzzy on harmony.

Primary Concern

 

 You could play "One of these things is not like the others" with the above until your head explodes.

When I hear Joe Biden's voice my skin wants to crawl up into a tiny ball detach itself and roll under the couch with a blender blasting near its earholes until it's over.  But I sympathize with Bernie Sanders' position of support for Biden's re-election in light of the refusal of the toxic cloud of smog that is Biden's interminable public service to dissipate before the 2024 election.  I don't share the support at this juncture but I sympathize both because I can relate to having a preference for Biden's brand of disappointment assuming he is the Democratic nominee than nearly any likely alternative with a realistic chance to win in November (given the well established workings of the American political machinery); and because I am grateful to Bernie Sanders for everything he has done to relieve my sense of doom however temporarily and is doing to mitigate the relentlessness of proceedings in Washington, and consequently-- call me a softie-- he gets a lifetime pass from me on everything.

Bernie is not running.  This represents a passage and it is cause for grieving.  But life is a process of loss and gain.  It is a season for renewal.  In the absence of choice, it is time to choose a preference for 2024.*  Unfortunately for the country, but fortunately for my attention span, it's a short menu.

RFK, Jr - I can think of no reason to want RFK to be the Democratic nominee other than that he's not Joe Biden.  This is not reason enough.  What's more, he has a demonstrated unyielding adherence to the wrong side of a scientific question (the efficacy of vaccines) on political principle (an understandable skepticism of the profit motive of the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them) that is really troubling.  Wrong for the right reason is still wrong, no matter how steadfast you are in your righteousness.  (And his voice...?  I mean, C'mon man!)

Marianne Williamson.  You could do so much worse.  Like Bernie, she represents an opportunity and an occasion for people to come together in the project of building a better future for all.  In December, when Joe Biden was threatening striking rail workers over their right to have co-workers on their mega-trains and to be granted even one sick day let alone a week's worth, Marianne Williamson wrote:

The idea that the Democrats are the party of the working class has been taking a hit for decades; with Biden’s latest hypocritical move supporting management in the railroad dispute, it’s pretty much smashed to bits. In this situation at least, the president who has called himself “pro-labor” would be called by FDR an “economic royalist.”

She comes by her labor support and her FDR scholarship honestly-- she has said she intends a Williamson presidency to cut through 50 plus years of retreat from government that works for people to revive FDR's never fully realized Economic Bill of Rights.   In her video announcing her candidacy, she said that in order to combat the seductive lies that will be thrown at voters from the candidates of the right, "we need to submit to the American People an agenda of fundamental economic reform: Universal healthcare; tuition free college at state colleges and universities;  higher education including tech schools; paternity and maternity leave; free child care; and a guaranteed living wage."  She's right.  She is a passionate advocate for Reparations for American Descendants of Slavery and if you listen to her on the subject, you are liable to become one yourself.  She is an exponent of what she calls a "Politics of Love."  Having not yet read her book of the name, I don't know what exactly that is, but I like the sound of it and am looking forward to having my imagination expanded in discovering for myself what she means by it.  She is often mocked for her spiritual approach to politics -- those who ridicule her would like you to think it's because she's full of shit.  The more I look at her though it's the absolute absence of shit in her discourse that appeals to me most about her.  Experiencing her as an outsider and something of a political beginner,  I find her outlook, her mission and her style to be refreshingly honest, heartfelt and wholly original.  She's the only candidate who acknowledges the epidemic of trauma and anxiety due to economic precarity among ordinary people and its impact on crime, mental health, and well being; and the only one who promises to make addressing it a priority of her presidency.

I don't at this stage† have any delusion that she will win the democratic nomination from Joe Biden who has indicated he will play it safe and not debate any democratic challengers.   Moreover she will have a media stacked up against her.  However, in challenging Joe Biden (or whoever among the anointed is around next year) to carry the flag of the democratic nomination to deliver for the people, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that her campaign could build enough momentum to achieve a measure of success.  

If Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee anyway, why waste a primary vote on him if you can freely vote your own preferences? Regardless of how anxious you are about November, spring is the time to plant seeds for a better future.  If the seed planters lose but in a big way, the canned candidate will get the message.  (And if the seed planters win...  fill in your own blanks)

In the absence of Bernie, I endorse Marianne.  What I felt for Bernie was passion.  What I feel for Marianne is gratitude for just being there.

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* Other than a different political system.  If Bernie were in the running I would be completely in, but it’s not like I think people should care about the presidency rather than say about where to start in on tearing this shit down, but as long as we're stuck with the current system,  there’s something appealing about the simplicity of a presidential campaign. People get it. It gets attention.  It raises passions.  Even people who swear it’s unimportant and counterproductive can’t tune it out.  That’s powerful stuff. 

† At this stage I wouldn’t think of my involvement in any campaign as anything other than therapy for myself.  Perhaps it’s from reading Bernie's new book, It's OK to be Angry About Capitalism, but I recognize that there is a huge gulf between me in late fall 2019 and me in mid spring 2023. I think I’m actually close to what 2019 me might have observed as despair.  2019 me might have thought that having the level of despair I have in 2023 would not be possible because there are several notches below this level that I would surely be unable to survive.  But 2023 me can see because it’s in front of my face that a person can live with a shit ton more despair than a hopeful person might imagine.  Why they do is a mystery but on a tiny bit of examination it might be because it’s hard to rise out of laziness when there is only despair where motivation might be. 

This might sound rather bleak, and on some level it is, but I think what surprises me is that bleak doesn’t have to mean instant death—it can also be a survivable wallpaper to one’s existence.  (Don’t freak out—the news to take from this is I’m not going anywhere and also that I have a bit of a dearth of hope.)  Anyway!1  My point is, I possibly have enough hope to scrape together to see if pretending to be involved in the next presidential election might provide some temporary relief from the despair.  The trick would be doing all this with full knowledge that nothing I do will prevent things from continuing to get worse in the meantime.  ^_^

Happy Mother's Day!

The states of Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia*  would like to wish you all -- all of you with fertile wombs (regardless of age, of how you self-identify, or how you got pregnant)-- Happy Mother's Day!   

North Dakota and Wisconsin** have made it convenient for you to enjoy your first Mother's Day by chasing abortion providers to other states.  

Iowa and Montana*** and Indiana, Wyoming and Ohio**** hopefully wish you Happy Mother's Day while awaiting court decisions or the right legislation.  

Utah, Arizona, Florida and Georgia**** extend Mother's Day greetings to those whose zygotes are past their gestational cutoffs, whether they know they are pregnant or not.

And counting!

Mandatory Mother's Day to fertile wombs on behalf of the State!

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* Near total abortion bans

**  Abortion unavailable: "North Dakota (last clinic moved to Minnesota); Wisconsin (clinics are not performing abortions while enforcement status of the state's pre-Roe v Wade law is decided.)"

*** Bans currently blocked by courts

**** Bans are in the works - "Iowa's Supreme Court has ruled the state constitution no longer protects a woman's right to abortion; Montana - state courts committed to protection of abortion rights while legislature and governor plan bans; Nebraska has not yet succeeded at passing a ban."

**** Gestational Bans (Utah - 18 weeks; Arizona -15 weeks, Florida, Georgia - 6 weeks.)

If I were king

King eight I

If I  were absolute monarch of the US:

I would declare education, child care, healthcare, welfare, mass transportation and journalism (for starters) free and universal.  I would forgive all debt and use the national treasury -- which would be fixed instantly by selective retroactive restoration of fairness in the tax system to Eisenhower era levels-- to fill in shortfalls for all of my subjects. Free quality housing would be constructed for all who need it.  Free fast unfettered internet access would be available for everyone. I would bring back public access radio and television.  Free hamsters would be available upon request. 

I would nationalize most essential industries and unfairly destroy any existing competition with rock bottom prices.  The management of the industries would make the same salaries as the workers.  Workers would be part of management.  Labor saving measures would result in shorter workdays and workweeks for workers with no reduction in pay.  Syndicates, guilds and unions would have a comeback.  Jobs would be guaranteed for all who want them when they want them.  Corporate Boards? Stockholders? The C-suite?... meh.

Environmental restoration would be a priority -- a sector would be decreed into existence to address it.  There is an added benefit: with corporate profit a dying priority and a decreasing motivation for paltry exploitive "job creation", displaced workers from the corporate sector would find a thriving job market-- of jobs that actually matter-- in the new public environmental sector.  Real estate and wealth formerly enclosed by a capitalist class would be reincorporated into the commons.

Science, industry, economics and AI would be oriented to serving everybody not just a self-selected "meritocracy".  

I would declare a new standard unit of measurement: the squench.  This would be the distance from Jeff Bezos's lips to my ass.

If I were king, corporate malfeasance and lying, pillaging and murder in the name of military adventurism would no longer be the only crimes that go unpunished.  I would de-criminalize everything, abolish police, prisons, criminal courts and lawyers.  Intellectual property would no longer be a thing. And incidentally, I would put an end to lying, pillaging and murder in the name of state military adventurism.

I would reserve a wait and see attitude on public executions of the malfeasant.

For my own amusement, I would decree that the balance of the bank accounts of every citizen (including those who now have a bank account only because of the free public banking that I would decree into existence) would be filled to match the wealth of the wealthiest person.  I don't know what would happen but I would very much enjoy the spectacle of money being suddenly abundant for all but valueless.

I would abolish political parties and elections and put in their place a system of sortition to select members of the legislature, executive and judicial branches randomly from among the entire population for short, non-consecutive terms.   Sortition would also be the manner of selecting individuals for certain essential functions of the state such as diplomacy, defense, the assurance of met needs, and the auditing of governmental functions.

I would stay in power to ease the new system into being until it is functioning smoothly.  I would gradually take my fingers out of the pie and at the right time, abdicate my throne abolishing monarchy with my exit.

Then I would retire to my public housing unit where I would live out my days signing autographs for the children and raising my hamsters.