Then and now, what's the difference?

Choice more than Chance

Photo by J. Harrington

The Martin Niemöller quote below is reported to be a version he used after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out because I was not a Communist

Then 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 by then there was no one left to speak out for me

The annotated version below has been updated with references to the contemporary United States. Please draw your own conclusions.

First Now, they came come for the Communists [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-team-tests-anti-communist-message-midterms-rhetoric-intensifies-2026-07-08/]
And I did not speak out because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Democratic Socialists
And I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
[union membership now ~50% of 1983's]
And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews Palestinians
And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew Palestinian 

Then they came for me
And by then there was no one left to speak out for me

If I were female, the last phrase would refer to me and SCOTUS' 2022 decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade.

Please consider printing today's posting and taping it on your refrigerator until after November's elections. Let's hope we can settle this with ballots, not bullets.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

by Joy Harjo

I am the holy being of my mother's prayer and my father's song
—Norman Patrick Brown, Dineh Poet and Speaker

1. SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES:

Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.
Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane.
Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill.
The land is a being who remembers everything.
You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs—
The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding.
As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard:
By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
Do not parade, pleased with yourself.
You must speak in the language of justice.

2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT:

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing.

A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice.

If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it.

At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers.

There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. "It feels like wartime," said a child welfare worker in South Dakota.

If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them.

We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us.

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one.

We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise.

The sun rose over the Potomac this morning, over the city surrounding the white house.
It blazed scarlet, a fire opening truth.
White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice.
We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times
Since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance.
These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees.

3. GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:

We speak together with this trade language of English. This trade language enables us to speak across many language boundaries. These languages have given us the poets:

Ortiz, Silko, Momaday, Alexie, Diaz, Bird, Woody, Kane, Bitsui, Long Soldier, White, Erdrich, Tapahonso, Howe, Louis, Brings Plenty, okpik, Hill, Wood, Maracle, Cisneros, Trask, Hogan, Dunn, Welch, Gould...

The 1957 Chevy is unbeatable in style. My broken-down one-eyed Ford will have to do. It holds everyone: Grandma and grandpa, aunties and uncles, the children and the babies, and all my boyfriends. That's what she said, anyway, as she drove off for the Forty-Nine with all of us in that shimmying wreck.

This would be no place to be without blues, jazz—Thank you/mvto to the Africans, the Europeans sitting in, especially Adolphe Sax with his saxophones... Don't forget that at the center is the Mvskoke ceremonial circles. We know how to swing. We keep the heartbeat of the earth in our stomp dance feet.

You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.

4. REDUCE DEFENSIVENESS AND BREAK THE DEFENSIVENESS CHAIN:

I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing.

We are here dancing, they said. There was no there.

There was no "I" or "you."

There was us; there was "we."

There we were as if we were the music.

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries—

—Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other.

We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together.

5. ELIMINATE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES DURING CONFLICT:

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.

The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions.

The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away.

He hears the death song of his approaching prey:

I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.

6. AND, USE WHAT YOU LEARN TO RESOLVE YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AND TO MEDIATE OTHERS' CONFLICTS:

When we made it back home, back over those curved roads
that wind through the city of peace, we stopped at the
doorway of dusk as it opened to our homelands.
We gave thanks for the story, for all parts of the story
because it was by the light of those challenges we knew
ourselves—
We asked for forgiveness.
We laid down our burdens next to each other.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

This is a taxing season!

One week from today, March 1, is the start of meteorological Spring. Astronomical Spring follows about three weeks later. Then, here in the North Country, we enjoy several months of false spring with intermittent periods of snow and melting. Then, usually in late May or early June, the temperature jumps from the 60's to the upper 80's within a week, and it's Summer. I find it distressingly rare for Minnesota to produce a gradual, progressive, temperature increase between winter and summer. The clothes hooks in the front hall are crowded with three seasons of coats and hats, but it's an improvement over single digit temperatures and freezing rain. Thanks for letting me me get that off my chest!

Spring will slog her way to Summer

Photo by J. Harrington

This past week SCOTUS announced a decision that partially clips FOTUS' wings on tariffs. A recent study indicates that almost all of the cost of tariffs is paid by American households and businesses. Other analyses indicate that tariffs cost the average household $1,000 or more last year. In skimming through the reports, I could find no indication of a compounding effect on household budgets caused by local and state sales taxes. In a nearby city where we do much of our shopping, the sales taxes we pay are listed as follows:

State    6.875%
Special 0.75%
Special 0.25%
Special 0.50%

The cumulative 8.375% state and local sales taxes would add $83.75 (approaching 10%) to the household cost if the goods on which tariffs were imposed are also subject to local taxes. Something to think about between now and midterm elections.

I don't know about you but I haven't seen any indication of receiving any kind of actual offset to the increases imposed by the current regime, have you? It sure llooks to me as though only billionaires and large corporations benefit from getting US to vote Republican.

The Tax Poem by Author Unknown

Tax his land, tax his wage, Tax his bed in which he lays. Tax his tractor, tax his mule, Teach him taxes is the rule. Tax his cow, tax his goat, Tax his pants, tax his coat. Tax his ties, tax his shirts, Tax his work, tax his dirt. Tax his chew, tax his smoke, Teach him taxes are no joke. Tax his car, tax his grass, Tax the roads he must pass. Tax his food, tax his drink, Tax him if he tries to think. Tax his sodas, tax his beers, If he cries, tax his tears. Tax his bills, tax his gas, Tax his notes, tax his cash. Tax him good and let him know That after taxes, he has no dough. If he hollers, tax him more, Tax him until he’s good and sore. Tax his coffin, tax his grave, Tax the sod in which he lays. Put these words upon his tomb, "Taxes drove me to my doom!" And when he’s gone, we won’t relax, We’ll still be after the inheritance tax.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

January brings too much ICE

I have a technical issue for your consideration this week. It has to do with equipment for Constitutional Observers. (If you missed the news, Minnesota is now the base for almost 2,500 ICE and Border Patrol enforcers.) To be most useful, Observer digital recordings should identify both the location where and the date and time when recorded. As far as I know, my iPhone captures both items automatically. My non-phone digital cameras record the date and time but not the location. Cautionary guidance suggests leaving cell phones at home if at a protest so the federal government can't track you to your home or work place. So the question becomes, how to best incorporate accurate locational information into digital videos or photos? I don't have a good answer at the moment. Please feel free to offer suggestions in the comments.

January brings snow jobs and ICE coverups

Photo by J. Harrington

Please, if you haven't already, mark your calendar for the Free America Walkout on January 20, a week from this coming Tuesday. According to the 50501 web site:

A walkout is a form of nonviolent noncooperation. That sounds academic, but the idea is that modern power depends on people showing up, complying, producing, and buying as if everything is fine. Noncooperation is what it looks like when people stop doing that together, on purpose, without violence.

 Because the Better Half and I are aware that our adult son is deeply concerned about what's been going on, and going wrong, in the world and this country, and not just because several of the regime's attacks may affect and reduce the supports he relies on as a person with disabilities, I started to look for ways he might be able to participate in the Walkout from his wheelchair. In the process of poking around the internet, I came across a book that may be relevant to him. Here's a link to the Kirkus review of Disability Visibility, Alice Wong, editor. It may be relevant to some of you in these troubled times since "The editor notes that, according to the most recent U.S. census, 20% of citizens in the country live with a disability."

Our troubled times are making me think about the history I learned in school about the capitalists siccing their hired guns (Pinkertons) on union organizers, much like ICE attacks on the persons in Minnesota and the rest of US. That made me think of today's "poem," the lyrics of a song by Pete Seeger, who's been known to speak truth to power a number of times.

Which Side Are You On 

[Verse 1]
Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how the good ol' union
Has come in here to dwell

[Chorus]
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

[Verse 2]
My daddy was a miner
And I'm a miner's son
And I'll stick with the union
'Til every battle's won

[Chorus]
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

[Verse 3]
They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J. H. Blair

See upcoming rock shows

Get tickets for your favorite artists

[Chorus]
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

[Verse 4]
Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?

[Chorus]
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

[Verse 5]
Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize

[Chorus]
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Make America Great Again, Vote, but NOT for Felons!

I may have known, but forgot, or maybe I missed the announcement when it was made, but today I (re?)learned that there’s no incumbent in our Legislative District in this year’s election. I’m doubtful that will lead to being represented by a Democrat in our area, although that was the case when we first moved in. According to Ballotpedia, our district has leaned more and more Republican for the past decade or so. Since I have neither aspirations to nor any probability of becoming a billionaire, I lean heavily toward the left and find few, if any, uses for Republicans and even fewer for MAGAts. I truly never thought I’d live to see the day when a major political party would nominated a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist as its presidential candidate. So much for American exceptionalism. How about Make America Great Again, Don’t Vote for Felons!

Then again, the contrarian in me (yes, me) raises the question: If Joe Biden were more like Mitch McConnell, would we have Clarence Thomas, aided and abetted by Gini, on the SCOTUS? And why, when they had their trifecta, didn’t the Democrats incorporate Roe V. Wade in legislation? As long as I’m at it, the country would be better served, in my opinion, if we had a mandatory retirement age of 70 or so for all those elected or appointed folx who are on the federal payroll.

If you’d like to gain some insight into why I’m negative on both major parties and both elected and appointed officials, pick up a copy of Andrea Wulf's The Founding Gardners and read it. Those who first served as POTUS seemed to have a preference for the real life of the plantation and/or garden more so than a life of politics. We should be wise enough these days to realize that anyone’s strong aspiration to be elected nationally should disqualify them from office. If major sports leagues can have a draft, why not politics? As a former Speaker of the House from Massachusetts, Tip O’Neill, noted “All politics is local.” If you haven’t played on farm teams, you shouldn’t be allowed to buy your way into the big leagues. That would also help the bench strength of booth parties, but we shouldn’t be limited to two. Can you imagine if there were only two banks, two sports leagues, two tv networks, two internet providers? Why are there only two major political parties who are more indebted to a few corporations than to millions of taxpayers?

Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket

By Vachel Lindsay

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.

My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.

I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.

I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—

Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.

So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,

Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature,

Crying to God in all the polling places

To heal our everlasting sinfulness

And make us sages with transfigured faces.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Return to first principles

Today is one of those days when I get especially homesick for my home state of Massachusetts and my home town of Boston, site of the Cradle of Liberty. Boston is also the location of the Old North Church, from which colonists were warned by lantern, and Paul Revere’s ride, that the British army was on its way to confiscate arms and supplies.

Boston Common and Statehouse

Photo by J. Harrington

We have fallen quite a distance from the time and values of the original Declaration of Independence. The depths to which we continue to fall are revealed in the declaration of servitude offered by one of the presumed candidates for POTUS this year, someone already a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist. Compare the character of this year's presumed Republican candidate with those of any of our founding fathers to further understand the crassness of our times. Then read the Project 2025 playbook and compare those ideas with the original Declaration of Independence. And remember, without the Declaration, there would have been no Constitution and where would that leave US today, recovering from Brexit?

The Landlord's Tale. Paul Revere's Ride

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend, "If the British march 

By land or sea from the town to-night, 

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 

Of the North Church tower as a signal light,— 

One, if by land, and two, if by sea; 

And I on the opposite shore will be, 

Ready to ride and spread the alarm 

Through every Middlesex village and farm, 

For the country folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar 

Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 

Just as the moon rose over the bay, 

Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 

The Somerset, British man-of-war; 

A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 

Across the moon like a prison bar, 

And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 

By its own reflection in the tide. 

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street, 

Wanders and watches with eager ears, 

Till in the silence around him he hears 

The muster of men at the barrack door, 

The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, 

And the measured tread of the grenadiers, 

Marching down to their boats on the shore. 

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church, 

By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 

To the belfry-chamber overhead, 

And startled the pigeons from their perch 

On the sombre rafters, that round him made 

Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 

By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, 

To the highest window in the wall, 

Where he paused to listen and look down 

A moment on the roofs of the town, 

And the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, 

In their night-encampment on the hill, 

Wrapped in silence so deep and still 

That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, 

The watchful night-wind, as it went 

Creeping along from tent to tent, 

And seeming to whisper, "All is well!" 

A moment only he feels the spell 

Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread 

Of the lonely belfry and the dead; 

For suddenly all his thoughts are bent 

On a shadowy something far away, 

Where the river widens to meet the bay, — 

A line of black that bends and floats 

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 

Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 

On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 

Now he patted his horse's side, 

Now gazed at the landscape far and near, 

Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, 

And turned and tightened his saddle girth; 

But mostly he watched with eager search 

The belfry-tower of the Old North Church, 

As it rose above the graves on the hill, 

Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height 

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! 

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 

A second lamp in the belfry burns! 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 

And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: 

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, 

The fate of a nation was riding that night; 

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, 

Kindled the land into flame with its heat. 

He has left the village and mounted the steep, 

And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, 

Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; 

And under the alders, that skirt its edge, 

Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, 

Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. 

It was twelve by the village clock, 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 

He heard the crowing of the cock, 

And the barking of the farmer's dog, 

And felt the damp of the river fog, 

That rises after the sun goes down. 

It was one by the village clock, 

When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 

Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 

Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 

As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock, 

When he came to the bridge in Concord town. 

He heard the bleating of the flock, 

And the twitter of birds among the trees, 

And felt the breath of the morning breeze 

Blowing over the meadows brown. 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 

Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 

Who that day would be lying dead, 

Pierced by a British musket-ball. 

You know the rest. In the books you have read, 

How the British Regulars fired and fled, — 

How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 

From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 

Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 

Then crossing the fields to emerge again 

Under the trees at the turn of the road, 

And only pausing to fire and load. 

So through the night rode Paul Revere; 

And so through the night went his cry of alarm 

To every Middlesex village and farm, — 

A cry of defiance and not of fear, 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 

And a word that shall echo forevermore! 

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 

Through all our history, to the last, 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need, 

The people will waken and listen to hear 

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 

And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Happy Interdependence Day

As we approach yet another Independence Day, it may be wise to recall a wonderful quotation that Bill McKibben offered about 25 years ago:

The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.

Bill McKibben

I offer his quotation because this morning I read an assessment that purports to explain why so much of the world is turning toward the right. A link is offered below in hopes you’ll consider following it and reading the article, not because I believe it’s entirely explanatory, but because so far it’s the only attempt I’ve seen that even tries to provide an explanation of what’s going on in our world. (I’m not including my theory of Martians hiding behind the moon with a ray that makes people even more stupid.) Here’s the link, courtesy of the good folks at Centre for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy: Democracy Trumped at the Limits to Growth. Our society is, and has been for a long time, based on the premise of perpetual growth to make things better. That’s inconsistent with living on a finite planet, as we’ve been experiencing the past few decades. Not only is there No Planet B, there is no “away” to which we can throw things. Perhaps it’s time for independence to be realized as interdependence day?

I am the People, the Mob

Carl Sandburg
1878 – 1967

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

All Hands: On Deck or Be Decked

1. Please find me in contempt of the Roberts’ SCOTUS.
2. Also, dismayed by POTUS performance at the recent “debate.”
3. Disgusted that our political parties have put our democracy in this position and condition.
4. Frustrated by the lack of a clear course of action to make things better.
5. Absolutely refusing to throw up (my hands) in despair.

Where does that leave US?

1. Make sure you’re registered to vote and mark November 5 on your calendar.
2. If you haven’t yet, please read Sarah Kendzior’s Hiding in Plain Sight and The View from Flyover Country.
3. Also read Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America and subscribe (free or paid) to her Letters from an American.
4. Remember that it won’t be enough for Democrats to have a trifecta if they don’t make necessary systemic changes to our systems of governance. The operative phrase is “No more Mr./Ms./Whatever Nice Guy/Gal/Other"
5. If you’re not worn out by the preceding, take a look at the idea of being a Solutionary and see if you can get your local school and government to include it.
6. Remember Kris Kristofferson’s great lyrics:

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose
 Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free"

If you have additional suggestions on how we can and should fix our longstanding governance problems, please feel free to leave a message.

Freedom

By Jill McDonough

I talk to the students in jail about freedom, how in America

we obsess over it, write it over flags on T-shirts, spread

it around under eagles. It has something to do with guns

and fireworks, Harley-Davidsons, New Hampshire, living free

until you’re dead. I tell the students I think the people

fetishizing freedom don’t mean it. That they really mean

look over here, away from all the slavery

we did, away from all the jail! I tell them they

are the experts, ask them to write what freedom means:

privacy is freedom and if  you feel held back, afraid

to do something, you’re not completely free.   No fear

of  loss. No fear of  hunger, no fear of  pain.   A body

to call my own, a voice driven by my own mind.

The security of a dry, warm place to sleep.   To own

my own time left here.   Being able to hold my son

at night.   Showering in private.   Freedom to me

is having the choice to walk away from a fight. Freedom

a work in progress. Everyday freedom, the real work for us all.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

All the Me, Me, Me! is killing US!!!

SCOTUS recently announced that it’s legitimate for cities to fine and incarcerate homeless people who have nowhere to sleep. It appears the GOP is hell-bent to nominate an adjudicated rapist and convicted felon as their presidential candidate. Several members of SCOTUS were, at best, misleading in their testimony to US Senators. We now appear to be living in a combination patriarchy, oligarchy, corporatocracy, inside a sham democracy. And the colonists just had to focus on King George III ! We have to deal with a free press that puts clicks and ads ahead of emphasizing the truth, even during a “presidential debate.” The America I grew up in would not knowingly elect a sociopathetic prevaricating misogynist as its leader. What happened to US?

In the last Civil War, geographically the conflict broke down to the North against the South. This time it’s likely to be a lot more messy with quite a bit of neighbor against neighbor. Is this really the best we can do after some 250 years of trying? Somewhere in my college sociology courses I seem to remember that a group lacking external enemies often turns on itself. That seems to fit US only too well these days.

I find comparable fault with both major political parties, focused more on winning than governing. Corporations who act as though profits and dividends are the cause of success rather than the result of successfully producing items of value. Anyone looking forward to flying in a Boeing product these days? Has Microsoft become an enemy of the state by failing to provide secure software to the government? Have ordinary folks like you and I decided we can “go it alone” better than we can live responsibly and cooperatively in a community? (Home owners associations don’t count.)

When was the last time any of US or our current or potential leaders looked at a book such as Anna Bernasek’s The Economics of Integrity? As I find more and more these days, a Native American has some worthwhile guidance to offer.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

I am the holy being of my mother's prayer and my father's song

                                              —Norman Patrick Brown, Dineh Poet and Speaker

1. SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES:

Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.
Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane.
Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill.
The land is a being who remembers everything.
You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs—
The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding.
As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard:
By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
Do not parade, pleased with yourself.
You must speak in the language of justice.


2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT:

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing.

A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice.

If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it.

At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers.

There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. "It feels like wartime," said a child welfare worker in South Dakota.

If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them.

We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us.

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one.

We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise.

The sun rose over the Potomac this morning, over the city surrounding the white house.
It blazed scarlet, a fire opening truth.
White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice.
We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times
Since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance.
These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees.
 

3. GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:

We speak together with this trade language of English. This trade language enables us to speak across many language boundaries. These languages have given us the poets:

Ortiz, Silko, Momaday, Alexie, Diaz, Bird, Woody, Kane, Bitsui, Long Soldier, White, Erdrich, Tapahonso, Howe, Louis, Brings Plenty, okpik, Hill, Wood, Maracle, Cisneros, Trask, Hogan, Dunn, Welch, Gould...

The 1957 Chevy is unbeatable in style. My broken-down one-eyed Ford will have to do. It holds everyone: Grandma and grandpa, aunties and uncles, the children and the babies, and all my boyfriends. That's what she said, anyway, as she drove off for the Forty-Nine with all of us in that shimmying wreck.

This would be no place to be without blues, jazz—Thank you/mvto to the Africans, the Europeans sitting in, especially Adolphe Sax with his saxophones... Don't forget that at the center is the Mvskoke ceremonial circles. We know how to swing. We keep the heartbeat of the earth in our stomp dance feet.

You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.


4. REDUCE DEFENSIVENESS AND BREAK THE DEFENSIVENESS CHAIN:

I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing.

We are here dancing, they said. There was no there.

There was no  "I"  or "you."

There was us; there was "we."

There we were as if we were the music.

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries—

—Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other.

We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together.


5. ELIMINATE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES DURING CONFLICT:

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.

The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions.

The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away.

He hears the death song of his approaching prey:

I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.


6. AND, USE WHAT YOU LEARN TO RESOLVE YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AND TO MEDIATE OTHERS' CONFLICTS:

When we made it back home, back over those curved roads
that wind through the city of peace, we stopped at the
doorway of dusk as it opened to our homelands.
We gave thanks for the story, for all parts of the story
because it was by the light of those challenges we knew
ourselves—
We asked for forgiveness.
We laid down our burdens next to each other.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

We need a better system

Today’s posting is going to be short and not so sweet. Sorry!

Many pundits are commenting on the problems associated with the recent SCOTUS decision resulting in the demise of the Chevron deference. I would note that the Chevron deference has been in place for 40 years during which time the definition of Waters of the United States has been kicked from pillar to post and up and down many stairs in Washington, D.C.’s august buildings, without resolution. Meanwhile, our sources of “clean” water continue to be diminished as the effects of climate weirding continue to disrupt historic hydrologic cycles. Legal decisions, whether from legislative bodies and/or courts, with or without experts, have real world consequences, as does any lack of wisdom in such decisions. Perhaps it’s time to reflect on Shakespeare’s assessment:

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Is it possible that we have corrupted our application of some of the fundamental premises of federalism as practiced by the Iroquois? As things stand today, I can see fatal flaws in decisions by all three sectors and at the federal, state and local levels. Should we see what ChatGPT has to say? Are algorithms the equivalent of consensus? When does SCOTUS have to have a supermajority, like the Senate to overcome a filibuster?

My Wisdom

By Naomi Shihab Nye

When people have a lot

they want more

 

When people have nothing

they will happily share it

 

*

 

Some people say

never getting your way

builds character

By now our character must be

deep and wide as a continent

Africa, Australia

giant cascade of stars

spilling over our huge night

 

*

 

Where did the power go?

Did it enjoy its break?

Is power exhausted?

What is real power?

Who really has power?

Did the generator break?

Do we imagine silence

more powerful because

it might contain everything?

Quiet always lives

inside noise.

But does it get much done?

 

*

 

Silence waits

for truth to break it

 

*

 

Calendars can weep too

They want us to have better days

 

*

 

Welcome to every minute

Feel lucky you’re still in it

 

*

 

No bird builds a wall

 

*

 

Sky purse

     jingling

           change

 

*

 

Won’t give up

our hopes

            for anything!

 

*

 

Not your fault

You didn’t make the world

 

*

 

How dare this go on and on?

cried the person who believed in praying

God willing     God willing        God willing

There were others who prayed

   to ruins & stumps

 

*

 

Open palms

     hold more

 

*

 

Refuse to give

   mistakes

      too much power

 

 

*

Annoying person?

Person who told me to stay home

and do what other girls do?

If you disappeared

I still might miss you

 

*

 

Babies want to help us

They laugh

for no reason

 

*

 

Pay close attention to

a drop of water

on the kitchen table

 

*

 

You cannot say one word about religion

and exclude Ahmad

We’re now the National Lampoon of politics

It was many years ago (1973) that the National Lampoon used the famous demand on the cover. These days, it seems to me that both political parties are using a similar demand to get support from their base (how appropriate a term) and to use it as a fundraising tool, through fear of the opposition’s accession to power. Is it time to call these bluffs? Why don’t we, the voters and taxpayers, demand that political campaigns be publicly funded with spending caps for each type of position? We end up paying for it one way or another so let’s demand more and better transparency and accountability. Maybe in the process we can also kill Citizens’ United. That’s all for today. I’m still fed up from last night’s “debate.”

Politics

By William Meredith

Tonight Hazard’s father and stepmother are having

jazz for McGovern. In the old game-room

the old liberals listen as the quintet builds

crazy houses out of skin and brass, crumbling

the house of decorum, everybody likes that.

For decades they have paid for the refurbishing

of America and they have not got their money’s worth.

Now they listen, hopeful,

to the hard rock for McGovern.

The ceiling in this palace needs fixing,

the chalky blue paint is like an old heaven

but there are holes and flaking.

They had movies here when grandpa was solvent.

Hazard desires his wife, the way people

on the trains to the death camps were seized

by irrational lust. She is the youngest woman

in the room, he would like to be in bed

with her now, he would like to be president.

He has not been to his studio

in four days, he asks the bartender,

a college boy with a ponytail, for more gin.

He stands in the doorway. Forsythia and lilac

have overgrown the porch, there is the rich

smell of wood-rot. What twenty years will do

to untended shrubbery and America and Hazard.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

When will we ever learn?*

Many decades ago, when I was in college, a sociology professor teaching one of the courses I took noted that technology changes much faster than the ability of humans to adapt to those changes. It seems to me the times we are living in confirm the validity of that sociological assessment, scaled almost to global dimensions. I also remember, from somewhere or other, encountering the concept of running faster (and faster) to remain in place. Does that feel about right to you?

how vulnerable is our infrastructure?

Photo by J. Harrington

We arrived home yesterday evening after visiting the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter, to discover there had been a power outage (the garage door was unresponsive to the remote opener signal) plus our internet service was down. The power had been restored just before we returned home and our internet connection was restored mid-morning today. This all makes me wonder if electric and internet service are so essential to contemporary life, and getting made more so by the powers that be, why they aren’t made more reliable. Both the power and the Frontier phone and DSL have been down a couple of times in the past month or so. All of this reminds me of yet another saying from my younger days: “We have created a world with no one in charge.” If internet service is important enough to be subsidized as infrastructure and for those with limited incomes, why isn’t it important enough to be better regulated by local, state and/or federal government entities?

If child care costs and availability have become essential to support our labor force, why not extend and expand child care services as part of the school systems. Isn’t economy of scale supposed too be one of the benefits of a capitalist-industrial economy? At least so far, I’ve not seen any proposals to outsource child care overseas to take advantage of lower labor rates.

Forgive me (or don’t) for yet another rant. Today is George Orwell’s birthday and, it appears to me, we’ve been busy creating a society that incorporates the worst aspects of both Animal Farm and 1984. Someone seems to have failed to realize both books were intended as fiction, not as operating manuals.

*with apologies to Pete Seeger and Where have all the flowers gone?

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry


Original Language English

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Time to stop clowning around

June is almost gone, taking the first half of 2024 with her. My favorite season, autumn, lies ahead. I need to work harder to keep politics from spoiling what should be the better half of the year. (It would be the best half but it doesn’t include spring’s snow melt, Father’s Day, nor my birthday.) My inbox keeps refilling with messages from democrats informing me that the world will end if tRUMP and the GOP win in November. I don’t necessarily disagree with them but would much prefer to learn what wonderful things will happen to make the world a better place if democrats prevail. I’m not holding my breath.

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” ― Gaylord Nelson

Photo by J. Harrington

Most years I make a contribution to our local DFL senate district committee. This year I’m hesitating because of stuff like this: Environmental groups call for hearings over MPCA issues. Even with democrats controlling the executive and legislative branches, the environment, and therefore the public, keeps losing to “business" interests. As an aside, has anyone seen any studies about how much peoples’ health could improve, and health costs drop, if environmental regulations were rigorously enforced? Instead, we get reports such as: Research reveals toxic PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ accumulate in testes.

Does anyone really expect the presidential debate to engage in a substantive debate of significant issues? I think it would be a totally unexpected and therefore a very pleasant surprise. Speaking of presidents and debates, have we yet reached agreement on “what the meaning of is is?” My expectations for the debate between the sitting president and a convicted felon who once pretended to fill that office is about what I would expect of a debate between Buffalo Bob and Clarabell. I’ll probably watch some just to see if it’s as bad as I fear, but I doubt very much I’ll enjoy it and it certainly isn’t likely to affect my vote. Now I think it’s time to go listen to one of my favorite Judy Collins’ recordings, Stephen Sondheim's Send in the Clowns.

Send in the Clowns

Judy Collins version

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can't move
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns

Just when I'd stopped opening doors
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one is there

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer
Losing my timing this late
In my career?

But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year...

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.