I planned to do a weekend post about how the insatiable (and thus insane) top oligarchs are sparking a world wide revival of the moribund works of Karl Marx. (Alas.) And thusly they seem determined to reserve their rides on Uber Tumbrels.
But that will have to await another time. After I issue the next update of my book on AI... AILIEN MINDS.
Meanwhile, I have to address an even more dire phenomenon that's pervading across the liberal-o-sphere. Something so silly and unjustified that it plays into the very hands of those seeking to wreck Enlightenment Civilization.
Despair.
== The Role of the Courts ==
This essay (not one of mine) makes a strong argument that the Roberts Supreme Court has been betraying the American Republic in many ways, but above all… Two Supreme Court Decisions and the Dismembering of Madison’s Republic, by Earl R. Smith II, PhD.
...and they were, alas! By a Republican Party that is now the most tightly disciplined partisan machine in the history of the republic.
Still, I won't deny that the American Republic -- indeed the entire Enlightenment Experiment that let us escape 6000 years of dreary feudalism -- is in deadly danger! Hence I have tried hard to fulfill my own task in all of this. To imagine possible ways to make things better.
Seriously, If you want to see 35 pragmatic and quickly actionable measures to repair the damage, see my full list of proposed Newer Deal tactics and reforms. And pass them on to folks who might act on them!
== In despair? Go to a mirror and... ==
On this blog's comment thread, some are expressing despair. Especially now that the Roberts Supreme Court has stopped pretending to be anything other than a Confederate/Kremlin shill, led by our generation's Roger Taney. And sure, 1859 looked pretty dire, too. As did 1776, when the American Revolution was saved from the pit of despond by Thomas Paine, whose pamphlets - Common Sense and The American Crisis - girded the resolve of brave, shivering patriots to keep fighting for a dimly-perceived better world.
How can I reject despair? Especially when few of you - certainly not even one of the sanctimonious despair wallowers - will actually go and read the epochally stirring words that Paine wrote? As if speaking specifically to you?
Perhaps it is a matter of personality. Wherein I deem despair to be grotesque and somewhat inhuman. But also a kind of pathetically ingrate laziness. So unjustified, when we are typing or narrating into miraculous devices, in comfort with nearby snacks, breathing air that (in urban areas) is vastly better than it had been, when I was young, with a self-repairing Ozone layer and yearly INCREASES in the number of trees on Earth...
... and (for now at least) freedom to research anything, and speak as we wish. For now, at least.
And sure, I read Jared Diamond's COLLAPSE about past civilization fails, more-often-then-not due to environmental negligence, and I know what's at stake. Criminy, do YOU know anyone who has fought this fight harder and longer than I have? From EARTH to The Transparent Society and so on? (Maybe Kim Stanley Robinson.) So,I got some cred.
When solar/wind/tidal+batteries are plunging in price and rocketing in emplacement, it would seem the only thing saving carbon-based electricity is the dam data centers. Which I discuss in Ailien Minds, by the way.
The news is dire, yes. and so is the blatant desperation of the Putinist/Foxites, who can see that a vast majority of citizens are growing aware and angry, as in 1859, and no amount of gerrymandered cheating will save the Kremlin shills from an approaching political comeuppance .
.
== What the traitors will attempt ==
And so it is their villainous desperation that I fear! Because the Project 2025 SOBs will certainly - by now - have concocted a plan for some dire event - perhaps on a 9/11 scale or bigger - to 'justify' an emergency declaration of martial law. Why else would they have already - via Trump - fired or distracted a majority of counter-terror officials, agents and officers and JAGs?
The coming 'event' will only be prevented if they KNOW that we are ready and wary. That we will all hit the streets shouting "Reichstag Fire!"
... and "Appomattox!" And then do much more, to prove the stupidity of proto-feudalists who wage war on all the folks who know law and cyber... along with bio, chem, nuclear and every other potential recourse. And who know where every single prepper bunker lies, and how to crack them open. (Yes, we know, boys.)
Alas, did I mention "stupid"? As they surround themselves with flatterers who croon them into believing they will be immortal lords? That they can terrorize and terrify us into submission. Or coax the masses to blame all the fact professions, as in A Canticle for Leibowitz, instead of the delusional oligarchs who are doing all this?
So no, I am not a Pollyanna. I am shouting warnings!
But those who despair over some despicably partisan, election-cheat court rulings are staring at epiphenomena, not at the real danger.
No, those who despair are historical ignoramuses, too lazy to look at how past Hero Generations girded themselves for a fight that's worth grit and courage and pain, to win. Tom Paine, especially. But also Lincoln, FDR. The soaring words of Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt... getting us on a path that might lead to the stars.
If I could, I would slap you glowering gloom-addicts silly! Till you get up off the couch and shout:
"Okay! Okay! I'll FIGHT instead of wallowing in desolate grumpiness! Now stop that or I'll slap you back! Let's go."
