A leapfrog thought: as we look to rip apart these systems of oppression and inequity, it's also important to look at the interrelated ecosystems that they exist in. For example, the fight for universal, tax-funded healthcare (which should be a human right in this resource-rich country) is welded to the fight for tax-funded and equitable public school and university systems (which (1) have been under strategic attack since desegregation started and (2) is a part of the student loan forgiveness fight) because in addition to making access to healthcare universal, you have to remove the other artificial, socially-constructed gatekeeping mechanisms to becoming a healthcare provider (i.e. the money it takes to become a doctor).
Also, I'm very empathetic to the small business owner who doesn't have the margins or volume to absorb an increase in payroll (and even more so the people who work there), and it seems to me that these are very solvable problems. Hell, it makes no sense that Walmart and McDonald's can subsidize their employees to the government by paying them so little that the employee is dependant on Medicaid, SNAP, etc., but the idea of subsidizing small businesses with cash is a non-starter.
One thing I've found striking about the reaction to Sen Tester re Keystone is that nearly all accounts omit that organized labor in Montana supports the project. It's a problem that organized labor is taking the wrong side on this, but that's not Tester's fault; it's a fact that he is reacting to. Organized labor is on the right side of the minimum wage debate, and I think that's the channel with the highest likelihood of moving people like Tester and Manchin. People yelling on twitter about primaries (when they clearly don't have a viable alternative candidate) aren't going to get it done, but the afl-cio just might. Unionizing Amazon will do wonders to help small bookstores too: there's clearly room for Amazon to pay everyone a living wage.
Well, workers in Bessemer, OK are trying to unionize an Amazon facility. In response Biden made a video reaffirming their right to organize. I found that refreshing. There's also H.R.1, the bill to expand voting rights (imagine that). I'm usually pretty pessimistic about these things but for whatever reason think Dems will find a way to wiggle around the filibuster sufficiently to get corporate Dems on board. If that became law, that'd be pretty huge. Of course, they'll need to follow it up with meaningful (i.e. actual) campaign finance reform and find a way to pack the Supreme Court so all of the above can't be dismantled one equivocation at a time. Otherwise there's always puppy dog videos on YouTube and dreams of giant robots that run on hope and can suck the carbon out of the air.
Obviously, it's not at all for me to say what citizenship criteria for an Indigenous nation ought to look like, but you're self-evidently correct about the flaws in the current set-up: what's your vision for an alternative to BQ?
(I'm guessing that this will be addressed in the book, so I can wait to read it there if you don't feel like going into it here.)
I've been listening to Chris Pierce. New album American Silence (I believe in buying music, over streaming.) His song "How Can Anybody Be OK with This?" is an anthem for these times.
I totally agree with what you said, Chris, and that was my first thought reading your post. Concerning the COVID bill with its attached rider: massive amounts of people do not pay attention nor do they understand. That is why it is so easy to deceivingly attach-and-slide, which seems to be the MO of Big Self-Important Politicians. Do we Little People not read close enough?.....do we trust too much?.....
And, yeah, what another reader wrote — every time I read your work I love you more and more.
The aid money will never be repaid, it's unrepayable at this point, so it's really not a good thing for anyone in the longer term. It's basically being borrowed against future collateral that will never be produced. It will interesting to see how long this last-ditch effort - this conjuring of 'money' out of thin air divorced of any larger reality of production - in order to buoy the appearance of general affluence in developed nations takes to serve as the final coup-de-grace to a global economy in terminal decline. As for what we are willing to give up to make the lives of others better, there's only one larger answer to this in world of near 8 billion dogs vying for a steadily declining number of bones. And no one, understandably, is gonna opt for that willingly. The entire name of the game the day you're born being survival after-all. Nonetheless, the fact remains, there is one and only one solution to vast human overshoot, and that's vast human "undershoot." Which is almost upon us now.
A leapfrog thought: as we look to rip apart these systems of oppression and inequity, it's also important to look at the interrelated ecosystems that they exist in. For example, the fight for universal, tax-funded healthcare (which should be a human right in this resource-rich country) is welded to the fight for tax-funded and equitable public school and university systems (which (1) have been under strategic attack since desegregation started and (2) is a part of the student loan forgiveness fight) because in addition to making access to healthcare universal, you have to remove the other artificial, socially-constructed gatekeeping mechanisms to becoming a healthcare provider (i.e. the money it takes to become a doctor).
Also, I'm very empathetic to the small business owner who doesn't have the margins or volume to absorb an increase in payroll (and even more so the people who work there), and it seems to me that these are very solvable problems. Hell, it makes no sense that Walmart and McDonald's can subsidize their employees to the government by paying them so little that the employee is dependant on Medicaid, SNAP, etc., but the idea of subsidizing small businesses with cash is a non-starter.
Every time I read your work I just love you more and more.
I have no solutions to offer, nor do I know what the fight looks like, but I agree that we need to fight. And I absolutely hate Amazon.
One thing I've found striking about the reaction to Sen Tester re Keystone is that nearly all accounts omit that organized labor in Montana supports the project. It's a problem that organized labor is taking the wrong side on this, but that's not Tester's fault; it's a fact that he is reacting to. Organized labor is on the right side of the minimum wage debate, and I think that's the channel with the highest likelihood of moving people like Tester and Manchin. People yelling on twitter about primaries (when they clearly don't have a viable alternative candidate) aren't going to get it done, but the afl-cio just might. Unionizing Amazon will do wonders to help small bookstores too: there's clearly room for Amazon to pay everyone a living wage.
Well, workers in Bessemer, OK are trying to unionize an Amazon facility. In response Biden made a video reaffirming their right to organize. I found that refreshing. There's also H.R.1, the bill to expand voting rights (imagine that). I'm usually pretty pessimistic about these things but for whatever reason think Dems will find a way to wiggle around the filibuster sufficiently to get corporate Dems on board. If that became law, that'd be pretty huge. Of course, they'll need to follow it up with meaningful (i.e. actual) campaign finance reform and find a way to pack the Supreme Court so all of the above can't be dismantled one equivocation at a time. Otherwise there's always puppy dog videos on YouTube and dreams of giant robots that run on hope and can suck the carbon out of the air.
Obviously, it's not at all for me to say what citizenship criteria for an Indigenous nation ought to look like, but you're self-evidently correct about the flaws in the current set-up: what's your vision for an alternative to BQ?
(I'm guessing that this will be addressed in the book, so I can wait to read it there if you don't feel like going into it here.)
I've been listening to Chris Pierce. New album American Silence (I believe in buying music, over streaming.) His song "How Can Anybody Be OK with This?" is an anthem for these times.
I totally agree with what you said, Chris, and that was my first thought reading your post. Concerning the COVID bill with its attached rider: massive amounts of people do not pay attention nor do they understand. That is why it is so easy to deceivingly attach-and-slide, which seems to be the MO of Big Self-Important Politicians. Do we Little People not read close enough?.....do we trust too much?.....
And, yeah, what another reader wrote — every time I read your work I love you more and more.
Min Wage in MA is $13.50, not $12
The aid money will never be repaid, it's unrepayable at this point, so it's really not a good thing for anyone in the longer term. It's basically being borrowed against future collateral that will never be produced. It will interesting to see how long this last-ditch effort - this conjuring of 'money' out of thin air divorced of any larger reality of production - in order to buoy the appearance of general affluence in developed nations takes to serve as the final coup-de-grace to a global economy in terminal decline. As for what we are willing to give up to make the lives of others better, there's only one larger answer to this in world of near 8 billion dogs vying for a steadily declining number of bones. And no one, understandably, is gonna opt for that willingly. The entire name of the game the day you're born being survival after-all. Nonetheless, the fact remains, there is one and only one solution to vast human overshoot, and that's vast human "undershoot." Which is almost upon us now.