Wednesday, April 8, 2020

The reality of political economics

Last night and early this morning, the April full moon looked a lot like the (several year old) photo below. Broken cloud cover slightly diminished the effect of a super moon, but the overall portrait was impressive.

a full moon in April
a full moon in April
Photo by J. Harrington

Easter is this  coming Sunday. That means it's time for the Easter Bunny to make the rounds. In light of the overall state of the world, I find I'm reverting Easter Bunny memories only back as far as Grace Slick and the Great Society's White Rabbit. (Yes, as a matter of fact I do still have the original vinyl LP.) It creates a strong sense of deja vu. We haven't yet reached a state in which protesters in Harvard Square hurl tear gas canisters back at riot police nor national guardsmen shoot unarmed college students, as happened at the Kent State massacre. We do have voter suppression in Wisconsin next door to the extent that two separate Republican dominated supreme courts (state and national) essentially mandated that voters must risk their lives to cast a vote in person during a pandemic in the midst of a presidential primary. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side Bernie Sanders has withdrawn from the contest for the party's presidential candidate nomination, leaving us faced with a choice between greater and lesser evils come November. Shades of 2016! That strongly suggests to me that it has become necessary to engage in a total reset of our corporate dominated political economy. Fortunately, there are a number of efforts underway to assist in that effort.

a rabbit in white is NOT A WHITE RABBIT
a rabbit in white is NOT A WHITE RABBIT
Photo by J. Harrington

We've previously mentioned this state's growing interest in Regenerative Agriculture. Minnesota also has a corporate-founded circular economy organization known as the Minnesota Sustainable Growth Coalition. The name is unfortunate since, as we all know, perpetual growth is unsustainable. Perhaps, though, it can help serve as a transition to enable Minnesota to create a new economy based on the concepts in doughnut economics. To our way of thinking, that would pair up nicely with the premise of One Minnesota brought to us by the Walz administration. It also aligns with the work being done by OneMN.org.

Take a look around. Our citizens are succumbing to a new out of control virus in dismaying numbers. Our economies are in as much trouble as our public health. We cannot afford to go back to things as they were and create more of the same. It's time to climb out of the rabbit hole we've fallen into through not paying as much attention to our civic responsibilities as we do to our individual conveniences. There are a number of better ways available to us but we must choose them and we would do well in making those choices to have evidence more telling than

The White Rabbit's Evidence


by Lewis Carroll


They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.

He sent them word I had not gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?

I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.

My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between him, and ourselves, and it.

Don't let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be a secret,
Kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.



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