A Manifesto at Lunchtime

(I'll likely revisit and revise this one ere' I am done with it...)

Only democracies can regenerate themselves.

Tyranny has a terrible width and depth, it may last too long for anyone oppressed by it, but the historic phenomenon of tyrannical governance is always on the wrong side of history and as such is on the thin edge of decline at any single moment.

Democracies self regenerate because the people govern themselves, they can do this because they act upon their inalienable rights as catalogued by Thomas Jefferson.  In this country, the preferred form by which we live and act on those rights is our current imperiled constitutional order.  We have thus "self sovereignty" a literal bequest from generations that have gone before fighting within and without this nation on behalf of those rights.
It is self evident that those rights and that constitutional order is imperilled by certain rampant personalities within the US Government.  They have "nothing to declare but their bad intentions", a full catalogue of the dangers they embrace will have to bide awhile.
Suffice to say for the moment that in the last eight months the USA has acculumulated a vast reserve of frightening challenges, and yet one of our most important initial tasks is to decline fearfulness & embrace "being equal to our times".
The goal of this manifesto is a frank appeal to the citizenry and the people of the United States on behalf of those rights and that precious constitution, a statement of what we want to do and more importantly why we want to do it.
Because if we wish to regenerate, then we can only do it as a free people aware of their inalienable rights and in the name and spirit of our constitutional order.  We seek unity, order, freedom, honesty transparency, the rule of law & equality before that law.
We ask for nothing more, we will accept nothing less.
The crisis is acute and the challenges complicated, I ask the American People But One Thing did they truly believe that their alloted portion of American History would pass thru their lives without incident or crisis or fearsomeness?
If you answer that yes, read no further and depart in peace, the rest of us have work to do under the harsh light of a sobering realization, that democracy and our right are imperiled and only we ourselves may correct these problems.
25% of the electorate may not rule the other 75% unless that majority says and does nothing whatsoever...and if docility becomes a habit then the outrages will increase in scope and frequency.
Our opponents the malovent and misguided love to threaten violence, we should take pains to separate the mere threat from the actuality, we will as much as is possible pursue a constitutional and lawful line of resistance but it should be stated plainly that our antagonists will not be allowed to allocate violence sans recourse.
We will permit no delays or cancellations of elections under any circumstances whatsoever.
We will not allow the voting lists to be "examined, reviewed or purged", the fear of voting fraud is nothing but an attempt to subvert democracy in the name of a despotic minority.
We will resist any attempt legal or otherwise to abrogate our constitutional rights.
Organized violence will be met with mass resistance, we will not be ruled by fear in any way.
We will make our decisions based on facts and the paramount need to protect our democratic inheritance and pass it along unsullied to our progeny.
The power of wealth to "vote" in elections will be ended, either thru legislation, constitutional amendment or the light of transparency and the vigilance of a free press.
This is not a platform is a cause and indeed a veritable requirement for survival. We are a free people who chose their own fate, our choice to continuing being proud and free and to pass all this along to posterity. THAT is our sacred duty in these troubled times.

I'm not gonna get too deep into the whole "Taking the Knee" controversy

the argument over police brutality has predicatably and swifty generated into a race to grab off the shaming power of the "moral equivalence" baton ...nothing new from that perspective.
Moreover this is the NFL we are talking about, not the smartest people in their world with little in common with the polity when push cometh to shove. I strongly suspect that the whole thing blew up yesterday largely because the President was tweeting away the usual threats and the players (who are themselves acutely sensitive to "domination politics") simply responded in kind lest they look like punks by their own estimation.
That having been said, this is about police violence aimed at young black men, the counter argument that no one protests when cops get killed in the line of duty...but then protests aren't necessary in that case, cop killers generally get hunted down and face a jury for their crimes.  What do those dead young black men have? A couple of NFL players....just sayin' thass all.

Thought Experiment...

If the PRC really wanted to resolve this current Korean Krisis....all they'd have to do is find some pretext by which to summon Comrade Kim to a summit in Beijing and simply place him under arrest on a charge of "right deviationism" or whatever tattered Marxist rubbish they can dredge up.  I doubt anyone in Pyongyang would blink an eye or raise a hand to defend him once he was safely sequestered in a allied socialist state.
Now...in order for this to work, the PRC needs a candidate lined up for the succession one who can keep North Korea viable as buffer state which is that nation's sole value to Beijing at this point. I doubt they have anyone that deeply imbedded in the Korean Leadership, but ya never know....

I wonder who is tasked

in the White House Situation Room to update either Messr's Mattis, McMaster or Kelly if any "unusual" military orders are issued by the President? Whatever the set up is, given the military caste of the President's current advisory regime it's likely a simple set up.  Allegedly in the run up to August 1974, then SecDef Schlesinger told the JCS to accept no orders from Richard Nixon unless countered by the Defense Secretary...mind you, I used the a-word as the historic record is sketchy on this point.
This is worth contemplating as we swing from sanctions to bluster with respect to North Korea....

Paul Sagan Has Got to Go!

If that sneaky bastard has a half million to spend on charter schools and other Putinistic Fantasies of Privatization then he CANNOT be a good faith advocate for The Commonwealth's Public School Students in any way. As such he owes it to the polity (assuming he thinks said polity even exists) to resign and lobby on bahalf of his crackpot privatization cult as a private citizen.  He has demonstrated a crippling and blatant bias in public office.  The state board of education requires a willingness to stand above politics...and Sagan can't do that, he is an infiltrator not an administrator. The fact that he still has a job is proof positive that Charlie Baker is himself a privatization cultist and no moderate by any means.

Boy not since the Fabled Days of Nikita Khrushchev

and the "Shoe Incident" has the UN seen a more degrading spectacle than Donald Trumps' heralded speech yesterday...nothing but threats animated by a childish need for dominance or else a definite "yer on yer own" vibe.  Keep in mind over the short term this is what Pyongyang wants, the more Trump threatens the less chance he'll back it up...so far most of his threats have proven hollow.  That having been said, the President is systematically backing himself into a corner where he'll need at some point to either lash out or cave in...nothing else seems to be in the pipeline. Oh and He is back threatening Iran as well....the pro nuke faction in that country must be high-fiving itself, Trump is gonna eighty-six the nuclear deal give them a free hand....
If I was Netanyahu I'd reconsider all that clapping and nodding...Trump has three Generals at his elbow telling him how tough a nut to crack is North Korea to say nothing of Iran.

As Trump rants and raves at the U.N. Today...

Its important to remember some context, its the U.N. Security Council that in the summer of 1950 sanctioned the use of armed force against North Korea (and by extension her patrons in Moscow and Peking) clearing the way for a half dozen or so member nations to participate on the battlefield.
"Make the U.N. Great"...Indeed.

Likely all this is a historic fact lost on the President, he can of course ignore history to his heart's content, but that doesn't mean history is gonna ignore the rest of us one bit.

In response to North Korea's Latest Missile Test

The President tweeted out this weekend a video inflicting some humiliation on Hillary Clinton, today at the UN that same President opened a major speech on North Korea's continued intransigence with a virtual commercial for a nearby Trump Property.
Seriously is this any way to win a war? Even a cold war??
I wonder who Trump will send to Pyongyang to Get The Best Deal They Can for the American People? My money is on Tillerson....it seems like it'll be his turn by then.

Its important to remember

that North Korea is fecklessly testing ICBMs over the South Pacific in part because President Trump has such a sketchy commitment to the USA 's Military Alliance Structure....so the question might need now to be asked "Are South Korea and Japan Paid Up?"
Keep in mind, North Korea only knows "what it reads in the papers", they know nukes "work good" at deterring overwhelming conventional challenges. They also know they are all but bereft of serious allies internationally, at best they can be described as the PRC's nuclear armed mendicant. So if the President of the United States can't decide if "NATO has a right to exist" then just possible a small nuclear power can deter intervention with enough threats and bluster....because rationally speaking that is whats on the table for them, regardless of their twitchy bloated Supreme Leader Komrade Kim.
Its a problem that requires caution, patience, cunning and resolution none of which is present in the Oval Office at the moment, which puts Pyongyang in the Driver's Seat Policy Wise. Komrade Kim keeps testing strategic weapons, we keep threatening and doing nothing, he concludes that his policy is working and then keeping testing and pushing the envelope.
I'm not Stephen Kinzer I'm not a "peace at any price" man by any means, at best in this situation we need to keep our powder dry, lines of communication open and make sure all and sundry understand that our word is good. If we draw a line we have to honor it sans bluster or dithering...

Granted...

This is an indifferent likeness of Nathan Bedford Forrest (to say nothing of Braxton Bragg)....but surely even this lot Have First Amendment Rights Yes?

One of the few bright spots on election night 2016

was that the charter school expansion ballot question went down to defeat in Massachusetts. Now today we find out that two of Charlie Baker's Cabinet Secretary's donated well north of a half million dollars to some shady dark money "privatize education" outfit that spent big bucks in this state in favor of said initiative.  Let this be an object lesson to all those democrats & Boston Globe Columnists out there who still think Charlie Baker is some sort of Kumbayah singing GOP Moderate.  Nope the man is a libertarian sky-grifter, granted he is passive aggressive about it, but his collaborators and his big political projects all inevitable revolve around some species of dubious privatization of public functions. This is simply another case in point, and let me further assert that unaccountable privatization is no way compatible with Jeffersonian Principles of Local Governance and Small Government...it simply seeks to create an nice new shiny autocracy for the few and the many can go to hell in a handbasket.
This is the eschaton that Charlie Baker is always trying to immanentize...its utopian unworkable and thoroughly dangerous in every way and the fact that the electorate said no to it loudly and definitely won't register with his passive aggressive temperment one damn bit, we'll get more of this sneaky ideological nonsense going forward unless of course Charlie gets turned out of office next year...and that depends in part on democrats waking up.
Everyone awake yet?

Memorials Amidst Disasters...

Its a beautiful day today in Boston, skies clear, warm sans oppressiveness....just a perfect "kiss of a day". Of course I recall, 9-11-2001 was a beautiful day as well...Like all Fraught Anniversaries on Social Media the range of commentary will careen from Wise to Wanton...my main taeaway these days is that shocks and surprises and all, we have to adapt to history, history shows no sign of adapting to us.

For The Love of God

Everyone in Hurricane Irma's Path please stay safe this weekend and beyond.  Down the line we need to have a discussion in this country (insofar as we can have a discussion anyone) about rethinking what constitutes good civil defense preparations in an era of superstorms and sundry catastrophic weather events.  Maybe we need a sort of "Domestic Rescue Division" something than can be airlifted in to start up on a moment notice or the like.  We can always couch it as a national security issue, its what got federal monies freed up for highways and education in the 1950's...Congress loves its national security issues after all.
But for the moment, everyone stay safe as best you can!

I see in the paper that

Charles "The Bell Curve" Murray managed to get thru a personal appearance at Harvard without the Riot Squad Getting Called Out.  Props to Harvard for standing by the First Amendment Rights of a Primitive Eugenics Obsessed Weirdo...Big Red enacted my long spouted dictum when it comes to provocative on campus speakers, "Politely Received, Fully Engaged, Peacefully Protested".

Make no mistake about it, ending DACA

Is tantamount to conducting ethnic cleansing on cohorts least capable of resistance, it is bullying by way of presidential executive order and largely to satiate the Base of the GOP's lust for reprisal.
Dumping it in congress' lap is simply Trump's Way of Evading Responsibility for the inevitable news footage to come depicting weeping children being forcibly expelled to countries they don't know from a cord of wood.
This is disgraceful, its Dred Scott all over again, and I'll stand by Abe Lincoln in this Dark Hour and assert that I'd just as soon move to some outright despotism like China where vileness isn't alloyed with passive aggressive hypocrisy.
And as for local resistance a'la the UnderGround Railroad, Bring It, I can think of no other more Patriotic Tradition than standing by our own Inalienable Rights.
Oh if someone wants to ask Charlie Baker what he thinks of all this, be sure to get the video footage of him hiding under his desk with a weak scream of fear.....

President Trump donated

one million dollars of what is alleged to be his own money to Hurricane Harvey Relief. Given however, the deliberately murky and tangled nature of Trump Inc.'s finances, whatever charity is the recipent of the President's alleged generosity is advised to check the exchange rate on Russian Rubles...and watch Trump's hands as they used to say in East Texas.