Global
We start with a wonderful offering (as always) from our Poet Laureate MIMI GERMAN.
For an excursion into the wonders of grassroots organizing we are led by the great ANDREA MILLER through the wilds of Wisconsin and Virginia.
“Despair is not a strategy,” she says, & shows us how to use elections as an instrument of freedom.
We’re joined with critical input by long-timer activists MARION EDEY and MYLA RESON.
Santa Monica solar homeowner PAUL NEWMAN chimes in with his usual brilliance, as does NICOLE UNG.
The burning issue of DC HOME RULE comes to us with co-convenor MIKE HERSH & DC's former SENATOR MICHAEL BROWN.
Georgia voting rights activist RAY MCCLENDON tells us of an upcoming march in Selma, in Atlanta & beyond.
Long-time organizer FATIMA ARGUN gives us the word from Arlington, across the water from DC.
Our expectations are challenged by MELISSA HALL, RONALD HALL, and LYNN FEINERMAN.
We then take a deep dive into the life-&-death issue of Electronic Magnetic Frequency from CAMILLA REES.
As much of the American public reflexively freaks out over Trump's sudden capitulation in it's proxy war against Russia, one must consider the options, as I have written before. The three choices are to capitulate, to drag the war on for an indefinite period of time, or to escalate.
The idea of escalating this war, with the intention of militarily driving the Russian army back to it's border, is terrifying. American's have been programed to believe that Vladimir Putin is an unhinged lunatic who intends to attacking the NATO military alliance as soon as he defeats Ukraine, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
The “old days” are more alive than ever – by which I mean my old days, when I was a kid. My life pushed forward on its own, more or less. This is called growing up. I wasn’t paying much attention until, at a certain point, a.k.a., adolescence, I started noticing the world I was a part of in ways beyond what I was taught. The world itself was changing and nobody, including my teachers, really understood it.
Existence wasn’t a bunch of bricks-and-mortar certainties. It was a vast unknown. Knowing this was alarming; it was also the meaning of freedom.
Today, as I move through the dark, stumbling uncertainty known as old age (I’m 78), I find myself looking backwards a lot, mulling over how I got here, often in amazement. For some reason it seems to matter. Can I learn from myself?
This year marks twenty years since one of the most consequential meetings of my time in Washington, D.C. Stephen Zarlenga, a man I would come to recognize as a scholar and a legend in monetary policy, walked into my Longworth Building office with his assistant, Elizabeth Harper.
In just a seven-minute discussion of US monetary policy, they set me on a course which changed my life, and how I looked at the world. I began a deep inquiry into the nature of money, and why is our government always in debt, in this, the wealthiest country in the world?
Today, in the face of misguided austerity measures proposed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Zarlenga’s message is more urgent than ever. While the push to eliminate wasteful government spending is laudable, it is a distraction from fundamental questions:
How is money created?
Who creates it?
Why are we locked into perpetual debt?
You voted for Trump and are being deported, or losing your job, or paying more for eggs. Now you’re the subject of so-called journalism about your “buyer’s remorse.” This is an extremely weak version of the sort of transformation that is needed — the sort of Saul-to-Paul awakening, forehead-slapping, I’ve-been-an-idiot, redemption-seeking metamorphosizing needed from millions of people, Trump voters and otherwise. For one thing it’s all still selfish and short-sighted. For another thing, you weren’t offered a decent alternative. You picked the sociopath who was worse in many ways than the other sociopath. You didn’t fail to pick someone good, as that option wasn’t offered — not on many ballots, not in the corporate media that you rely on probably far more than you realize. Plus you were right to pick the person proposing to change things. Unfortunately, he wanted to change most things for the worse. Regretting your Trump vote is like the captain of the Titanic regretting he’s put on dirty underwear and socks. It’s gross, but it misses the point.
