A Note or Two on The Election

I confess I did not vote this time around. Went to the MVD to get a handicapped parking permit -- finally; it's taken a month to do the paperwork -- and then across the street to the polling place at the community center. Well, I didn't see a line out the building, but once we got inside, it was packed and there was a long line snaking through the lobby. Man came in after we got in and said it was worse than when he tried to vote earlier. Election worker came out and said there would be a delay; they only had four booths, and there were so many in line, it would be a while... the line had stopped moving. I had to sit down on my walker -- as did a few other elders -- and so we waited.

Man who came in after me left. Others kept coming and the line didn't move. After a while, election worker came out and said that the lines were much shorter at other polling places, one about seven miles away, another about 20 miles.Some left to go to these other polling places. Most stayed and others arrived. 

After another 20 minutes or so with no movement in the line -- except it kept getting longer -- that was it. I said let's go. Not gonna vote this time.

I voted absentee last election, but didn't apply for an absentee ballot this time. Other things took priority. This is a heavily Republican county. I usually vote Democrat, but sometimes vote for alternative candidates if there are any on the ballot, and I'm still getting to know local candidates and will vote for Republicans if they're sane and competent. So far, that's been OK. 

This time around, the county results were interesting. They're usually about 70/30 Republican, but this time the results were closer to 74/22 with 4% going to the alternative candidate for governor, a Navajo woman who was running as an independent though she said she's Republican. I thought she'd take votes from the Republican candidate, but she didn't in this county. Nope. She took Democratic votes instead. Indeed, Republicans out performed their usual votes. Hmm. Makes me wonder. Is this county getting more Republican? Are Dems moving out? Possible I guess. I see people moving in all the time. Don't see people moving out.

One thing that bothers me. Trumpists have adopted displays of the US flag as their emblem after their displays of the Stars and Bars didn't go over so well. I don't consider the Trumpists patriotic. And their display of the flag is nothing if not hypocritical. That aside, the problem is that there is no counter to it. Nothing comparable on the so-called "left" that says "I'm a Patriot."

Patriotism exclusivity by one political faction is dangerous for it can easily lead to outrages like we have seen in our own history (genocide, lynchings, various "scares") and to horrors like the Nazi Holocaust during the mid 20th Century -- and has happened in other countries much closer to our own time.

What do we do about it? So far, nothing. It's as if this fragmentation, fracturing, is being allowed -- required? -- to happen as prelude to a "reset" or catastrophic failure of society.

Why? To whose benefit? We all need to think about these things, and I don't see much thought being applied to our broken political and institutional processes. I don't know where it leads in the end, but right now, it's not looking good.

"The Police Just Went Nuts"

I've been reviewing some of the stories of police abuse coming out of literally everywhere since the start of the George Floyd protests. I thought I had been shocked to the core by police misconduct years and years ago and that nothing would come close to events I'd witnessed in person or virtually in years gone by. Little did I know.

The George Floyd murder-by-cop in Minneapolis triggered mass demonstrations in the streets all over the country and all over the world. It was an egregious -- and very deliberate -- act of police power over the black body of a man pleading for his life while that life was being crushed out of him by one officer whose knee on his neck wouldn't be removed until George Floyd was good and dead. Three other officers either participated in the murder or idled nearby doing nothing to intervene. All captured on video taken by bystanders, some of whom attempted to intervene but were blocked by officers.

I've seen similar scenes before, many times, but nothing quite as appalling in its tortuousness and murderous intent. Second and third degree murder charges have been laid against the officer whose knee eventually killed George Floyd and the other officers have been charged as accessories aiding and abetting, but the calls for first degree intentional murder charges have only increased as the anger against police brutality has led to massive demonstrations that continue to this day.

The police response in many cities has been grotesquely out of control. That lack of discipline and control is the essence of what is being protested, the reason why so many people are marching against police brutality, and over and over and over again, day in and day out, police are showing themselves to be unworthy of public trust or support.

One of numerous incidents in Philadelphia involved police firing chemical weapons and rubber bullets at thousands of protesters, many trapped on an embankment with nowhere to retreat, injuring hundreds, and arresting "dozens." The fourteen minute overhead video captures much of the scene, but doesn't really show the affect on so many.



This was perhaps the worst of what I've seen so far, but it's by no means unique. The police in many cities have adopted a hostile and deliberately cruel attitude toward protesters leading to constant abuse of the public, much of it documented on video, far too much of it defended by police chiefs and elected officials because somebody did something somewhere at some point, and order must be maintained.

We see this justification from the White House practically daily as the blowback from the "clearance" of protesters from DC's Lafayette Square on Monday using tear gas, munitions, mounted officers and brutality intensifies. All so Trump could pose in front of St. John's Church, holding aloft a book he claimed was a bible and then assemble his sycophants for more pictures before shambling back to the White House bunkers.

Damn,

There have been a few contrasting scenes of police trying to show solidarity with the protesters by marching with them, kneeling with them, expressing outrage at the murder of George Floyd, etc. But those are rare compared to the violence and yes, murder by police committed too often in too many places as unrest continues.

Our rulers like to try to shame China for the treatment of demonstrators in Hong Kong, but truly, Chinese police and troops in Hong Kong have been utterly restrained compared to the US. The world looks on in bemused horror.

I don't know how this episode of police outrage will be resolved, if it will. But many see it as the death rattle of a failed regime -- not simply the Trump regime, but the general apparatus of neoliberal rule. Maybe. We'll see.

In the meantime, given everything that's going on -- pandemic disease, economic collapse, wilding by police, looting by the overclass -- the next few months will be somewhat more than "interesting."

Stay well and safe.

The Riots This Time

They say it's different this time. The uprisings in the cities over the last few days show no signs of abating any time soon. Much damage and destruction so far, but observers say it's just the beginning. The rage has been building for years, the outlets are few, and a lot of people aren't going to take it any more. Well...

Those of us who have been down this road a few times aren't convinced yet that these uprisings will accomplish much in the end, at least not much that we could call positive. You never know, though. We live in interesting times. And chaos has reigned in this country for years. The riots are inevitable given the conditions and situation so many Americans endure. I think our rulers knew, too, that any spark could set off a conflagration.

Well the spark came in Minneapolis with the police murder on video of yet another black man, George Floyd. It was so egregious, I sometimes thought it was a deliberate provocation. The officer knew his actions were being recorded. He knew the video(s) would go viral. He knew he was killing his captive as he witnessed George Floyd's life slipping away beneath his crushing knee. He should have known, and I believe he did know, that his actions would trigger outrage and likely insurrection and riots.

Add in the widespread burden of the virus and economic collapse on marginal communities -- young people, non-white people, poor and near poor people especially in cities, etc -- and the wonder is that it hasn't happened before now.

But it is happening now.

Where and how it will end is anyone's guess.

I could speculate but for now, no. There will be time enough for that.

Things Fall Apart; the Centre Cannot Hold

The Second Coming

W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Looking at the political trainwreck of the last few weeks, one can't help but think the paradigm shift under way is coming close to a climax. Of course, one has thought that before and one has been wrong, so we'll see, won't we?

It's not just the gold-plated turd that is Trump, though he is certainly the Shiny Object keeping attention away from More Important Things. His constant ravings have fully captivated the media, and they hold more sway than they should over the public attention.

Yet many are beginning -- finally -- to see that Trump isn't an outlier of his class; he is a representative of these insensitive pricks who've ruled us for doG knows how long. He is them, they are him. The entrance of one prickish billionaire after another into the political fray demonstrates clearly that these people, mostly privileged white men, are appallingly dense, vicious, stupid and cruel. Well, yes. That it wasn't obvious before is the peculiar thing.

The whole "populist" act that Trump has been putting on is failing -- the Foxconn Debacle being a case in point -- but he keeps trying, so I'll grant him that. He's also methodically putting together a War Upon War finale to his reign that might just pull the popular will right along with him into the Abyss.

Yeats wrote his dirge post-Easter Rising, post-WWI. He could see -- how could he not? -- that what Used to Be was no more, and wasn't coming back, either.

We're not at that point yet, but we're getting closer.

So I'll go make some coffee in my ancient MidCentury Universal percolator. Sit and contemplate with Siddarth Gautam Buddha, nag champa incense wafting through our dusty, drafty house in the middle of nowhere. Wondering what today's new cycle will bring.

Freaks

We're pretty upset in the Ché household over what's been going on at the #NoDAPL actions in North Dakota, and we're glad that our friends who went up there on a supply run over the weekend are not only OK but appear to be stronger for their experience so far. They plan to spend the week in spirit, prayer and solidarity with their brothers and sisters and their allies fighting the good fight nonviolently against the marshaled might of the state and its corporate owners.

Freaks these paramilitaries fighting the People are.

And yet, that's America today. That's where we are, and that's where we've been for quite a long time. It's upsetting to me in part because it evokes the same sort of militarized violence used against Occupy and the Ferguson protests, and many others during the last half-decade and more. It's become a ritual, wherein the People in their multitudes rise up over this or that injustice, they discommode the powerful -- by loudly protesting, massing in large numbers or sometimes not so large, marching and carrying signs, blocking roads and highways, subjecting themselves to police brutality and mass arrest, being covered by police snipers (I've seen that too many times to count now) and being subjected to military tactics and use of military equipment designed to intimidate and to inspire fear. And always being lied about. Always.

Somehow I doubt it'll get better any time soon.

What's happening at Standing Rock is a microcosm of what's been happening to The People around the world, but particularly in the Euro-American Imperial sphere, when they confront injustice perpetrated by the global corpro-state. It's the same everywhere you look, sometimes a bit more violence by the police, sometimes with a bit more return violence from the protesters (I'm thinking specifically of the protests against Euro-austerity in Greece, but there have been others like them). It's a ritual which so far the corpro-state has been winning handily. Though their moral suasion fails every time.

Of course. They have the Power. They are still learning how to use it. I've seen the Standing Rock situation, which has been going on for months in a so-called stand off, as a practice run for use of force against the People wherever and whenever they arise for the purpose of protecting the state and the corporations that own it.

Law enforcement agencies from far and wide have been sending their personnel to North Dakota in "mutual aid" of their brothers and sisters in blue (and brown) who are engaged in "riot control" -- good god, the lies never stop -- against the tribes and their allies. They are getting on the job training in what to do and how to do it to suppress nonviolent uprisings. Out there on the cold and windy prairie beside the Great Missouri River, they confront the savage horde once again.

Protecting their white women, are they?

Imagining themselves getting revenge for Custer? Who knows. They're simply freaks. Mercenary freaks for the corpro-state against the People and against their own better nature.

I've heard tell that dozens of these freaks have woken up to the wrong they're doing and have turned in their badges saying, "No, we won't hurt these people any more." Good for them, but there are said to be thousands of other freaks, goons, and badge carriers on scene. More arrive all the time. On the other hand, some of the mutual aid paramilitaries have been withdrawn because the people of the states and cities they come from say "No! No more. We did not approve and we do not approve of what you are doing." Well. That's brave.

It's practice, though. These situations keep arising, and the People require beat downs if they don't obey. That's America as it has been for most of its history. It's hardwired.

And so now a cabal of White Supremacist and White Nationalist freaks is set to grab the levers of power concentrated in Washington DC, the national corprostate, and run it for their own profit, pleasure and amusement. Ah, the mighty-mighty! Some individual corpro-states of the nation are contemplating secession, much as Texas and some of the rest of the Old Confederacy did when That Nigra was put in the White House as president and not shoe shine boy. Which is about all a Nigra is good for in the White Supremacist conception of what's right and what's not.

"America" did not choose this fate, "America" did not elect these freaks. It's happening as a fluke, not  an inevitable consequence of Hillary's bad campaign or whatever.

It's happening because it can, not because it must.

And what of the resistance? The resistance is focused on Standing Rock because these are our Braves, standing up and in some ways standing in for all of us who confront the corpro-state.

They are the focus of world wide attention, world wide support, too, because the People of the world see the Standing Rock activists as standing up for them. And so it is. The actions at Standing Rock are not that large compared to many others. They're taking place on the open prairie in the middle of nowhere, but they are having an emotional and spiritual effect that resonates around the world.

In the now immortal words of Assata Shakur:

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

That goes for everyone who stands up to the Power.

There's been a tendency to dismiss and denounce the protests that arise against injustice at home and abroad. At the same time, we are being assured by not-so-radical observers and thinkers that we have entered the Twilight period of neoLibCon rule, ie: the corprostate is shuddering and shall soon -- how soon? -- collapse. According to them, what we're facing is something like the end of the British Empire, perhaps c. 1913. We could see the signs long ago, but now the end is in sight.

Himself, the New Boss, is supposed to be the harbinger of the coming disintegration of neoLibCon authority and rule.

Well, maybe.

Personally, I don't see it. He is surrounding himself with some of the freakiest of neoLibCon freaks and they seem more than interested in pursuing their goals to the max, come what may, full speed ahead.

The Power is there to fulfill practically any dream the freaks have had for decades; the freakiest freaks are being assembled as we read and write and wonder, and there is really very little, maybe nothing, to stand in their way. They will be able to use the Power as they see fit; why shouldn't they use it to fulfill their mad dreams of glory?

No moral suasion works in the face of these madmen and freaks. They see no reason to consider the interests of those who are not loyal and do not obey. Their ideal is simply to crush disobedience and punish disloyalty. It's been done before, but it hasn't been done nearly enough since That Nigra got into the White House --- where he obviously doesn't belong, at least not as President.

I've wondered, of course, about Obama's apparent pledges of loyalty and offers of help and guidance for the New Boss. Oh dear, what fuckery is this? It's not a surprise, no, but it is nevertheless disconcerting. One can maintain the dignity and integrity of the Office without becoming complicit in the fuckery to come, but it  seems that Obama has some other idea in mind, I don't know what. He's got a bolt hole or two on tap, so it is not as if he would necessarily be at risk if he didn't pledge loyalty but remained above the fray as it were. But then he's a careful and calculated player. He's always aware of which side of his bread is buttered.

The Clintons on the other hand had better watch their backs. The long knives are out, and I wouldn't be surprised if they become the political sacrifices to the gods of chaos let loose by events.

They've already been scapegoated for everything under the sun, and there is no sign of their scapegoaters relenting. "Clintoooooons!!!!!!1111" Feh.

Freaks. All of them freaks. And we need to point that out, without let up.

Strength and Solidarity.

The Democratic Party Is Irrelevant

I saw Bernie on Charlie Rose last night. As he always does, he made a strong case for his policies and programs that he believes would control Wall Street greed and uplift the working class, curb the police state, and inspire confidence in America around the world. All well and good, but by pleading with Trump to do the right thing, he's essentially declared the Democratic Party irrelevant.

Of course.

Democrats have been yielding power to the Rs for decades, truly since Reagan, but they weren't so savvy about wielding power after Nixon defeated Humphrey either. Nixon was practically a Communist compared to Trump, and the Republicans in Congress in Nixon's day weren't anything like today's radical reactionaries who call themselves Republicans. But Nixon's election signaled the end of the New Deal/Great Society coalition headed by Democrats and progressives, and the coming reversion to prior theories of what it was appropriate for government to do.

As things have devolved from that point, the Democratic Party has reverted more and more to its roots as an aristocratic and deeply conservative party not particularly intent on rule so much as it is on influence. Democrats have adopted populist and/or progressive positions periodically throughout the long history of the Party, but they've also been perfectly willing to throw them away.

During the most recent campaign for president, it appeared that Hillary was attempting to pull off something Democrats have long yearned for -- the union of the Democratic Party with top level Republican "moderates," those Republicans who had rejected Trump.

I think she thought she had achieved her objective, but lo and behold, she hadn't. The R "moderates" went right back to the fold once Trump was declared the victor. The power that Rs can wield by holding the White House and both houses of congress is truly intoxicating,  They won't let this moment pass unexploited. Oh no.

Trump's apparent EC victory was stunning because it wasn't expected or planned for. The shock waves ran through the Ruling Clique, just as they did through the media and the public; it was in its own way an even greater shock than the Supreme Court's lawless interference in 2000 to give the presidency to GW and his bloodthirsty cohort. It makes no sense, and it is "illegitimate" from the get. Just as GW's elevation was. GW was forced upon an unwilling but also largely unresistant public and he caused the very horrors his opponents warned he would. Wars and economic collapse being the highlights -- or lowlights as the case may be.

Democrats, to their undying shame, did not serve as an opposition party but were instead enablers, co-conspirators, and willing victims. Even when they were given back Congress in 2006 they sat on their hands and essentially pretended that everything was OK, and Bush and Company would not be more than ritually challenged. For some, it was a shocking revelation: Democrats were useless.

And in 2008 when Obama was elected in a landslide and congress had a filibuster proof Democratic majority, guess what? Obama's prime objective was rehabilitating the Rs, resuscitating them from their near-death experience, and carrying on the Republican lite programs and policies the Ds had been notorious for since the victory-debacle of 2006.

To say the public was disappointed is to put it gently, and the Ds were given their punishment in 2010. The interesting thing to me is that the Ds didn't even try to reverse the trend. They essentially conceded state houses all over the country without a fight, knowing full well that by doing so, Republican gerrymandering would ensure R political dominance for at least ten years and possibly much longer than that. The Ds knew what would happen and they let it, if they didn't actually help engineer it.

They lost most of their Congressional majority as well.

As long as they had the White House, apparently the Ds didn't care. Of course the policies which essentially favored Rs, Wall Street, and the financial elites were enacted right and left (intentional pun) to the horror of many Americans who simply wanted fairness and justice from their government and got something else entirely. Disappointment? Ha.

Government obviously was totally out of the hands of the public, governing contrary to the public interest was the operating theory of both parties, and for all intents and purposes, there was no alternative. NeoLibCon capture was complete.

There was nothing We the Rabble could do about it. Elections in 2012, 2014 and now 2016 confirmed the People's powerlessness.

But this time, instead of the stability and continuity that would have been Hillary's direction in office, we get another shock to the system, equivalent to, maybe even greater than that of 2000, and literally nobody knows for sure where we go from here. I'm convinced that's designed and deliberate, not an accident of the voters' unexpected preference. I think the voters had very little to do with it. And it is obvious from Hillary's increasing, indeed unprecedented, lead in the popular vote (now up above 1,000,000 it seems and headed toward 2,000,000 maybe even 3,000,000 or more) that the voters chose stability and continuity -- even if they didn't like Hillary -- not whatever radical upheaval is in the works.

But it doesn't matter. What the voters want in any given election is of no interest or consequence to the Ruling Clique. They want what they want, and they will get it by hook or crook. The trouble is, until the outcome was announced, they obviously wanted stability and continuity, though not for the same reasons the public did.

So what happened?

Somebody or some faction which could do so pulled the plug.

Given the tiny margins in some of the battleground states that switched the outcome, and given the exit polls showing a substantial Hillary victory in those same states -- much like Gore's exit poll victory in Florida which was conveniently overruled -- it's pretty obvious that the count was interfered with (somehow) by a faction that wanted shock and destabilization rather than stability and continuity.

Crisis-opportunity, right?

Crisis=Opportunity.

We've been through this so many times, we should understand it by now. And we should have some way to counter it. But no.

Every time is like the first time. "Whut?!" And the cycle repeats over and over.

That is one of the ways Our Rulers keep their grip on power no matter the wishes of the public.

But it's a factional rulership, not a monolith, and the factions are constantly contending for the upper hand.

The fact that Hillary, Obama, and nearly all the Democratic hierarchy went along with the... odd... outcome without question and rank and file Democratic office holders are stunningly mute about it indicates to me -- having observed these things over the years and having had an inside view of DP operations for a while in California -- that the Dems really don't care, never did, and as far as they're concerned, it's no problem -- for them. In other words, they're useless and irrelevant as a political opposition, for they do not oppose; they enable.

Of course I and many others have known that for years, but seeing it so obviously presented in this case is still a shock.

But that's the intention.

Shock the public and get away with god knows what while they're fighting among themselves.

Works every time.

So far anyway. This time it may run into a few speed bumps, but what needs to happen are spike strips at least.

That can happen if the results in the battleground states are investigated thoroughly enough to discover the kind of jiggering I suspect went on. But I don't see that on any agenda. I don't think anybody wants to do it for fear of what they'll find. This is essentially complicity in fraud but that's hardly unusual in American politics and elections.

If it were discovered that the results actually were jiggered in Trump's favor just enough to clinch the EC, that would essentially cancel the election. The whole thing, the vote in its entirety would have to be reviewed (which wouldn't bother me) and the transition schedule would be thrown into chaos. What would be found would likely be appalling to everyone. One shock would follow another. Our Rulers would find that unacceptable because the whole system would shudder and potentially collapse. A crisis indeed, but one which the Wrong People could use as an Opportunity. The Wrong People being the Rabble.

The Rabble want fairness, justice, economic comfort/prosperity for themselves, and a sense of self-worth. Our Rulers do not want the Rabble to have those things because if they do, they can't be exploited to the extent they must be to please and pleasure their Betters.

What the Trump cabal appears to be preparing to do is to restore White Supremacy pretty much as it was in the 1950s and before, as a sop to some of the Rabble to make them think they're getting what they want while exploiting and robbing them to the hilt.

It's a nasty tactic, but it worked back in the day, so I suspect the Trumpists think it will work again. Why not?

The rest of the Rabble, the ones who will suffer the most under this scheme, "deserve their punishment" according to the principles of White Supremacy. They are inferior. Period. End of discussion. Some of them are Good Mexicans, Good Darkies and such, and so they can be rewarded, but the rest? They're lucky to be alive, they can bow down and shut up. Or leave. Or die. Their choice.

No, this isn't Nazi-ism or straight on Fascism. This is the way the US was ruled and operated from its origin until the mid Sixties and LBJ's Great Society when many of the disabilities imposed on Out Groups began to be removed.

The Trumpists want to restore America's Greatness by reverting to the white supremacist principles that they believe made America "great" in the first place.

Whether the Ruling Clique is down with that, I don't know. Some of the factions aren't, but some are.

The Democrats, in the end, though, will go along with whatever faction wins.

The Rabble can have a say, if they take the reins and force the issue, but in the meantime, the Trump cabal can get away with a lot of mischief while the issue of White Supremacy is serving to distract the masses.

Oh, these people know how to run cons all right, and they know most people are marks. Breaking free of this crap is what the People need to do. Whether they or we can, I dunno....

More later. I'm tired.

1964?

While the Bernie folks are not giving up -- and they shouldn't -- it's looking more and more like the presidential contest will come down to Hillary on the one side and Trump on the other. Who ya gonna choose, huh?

How sane is the American electorate?

We might even see another Daisy Ad that is never aired but everyone knows and talks about.



I wasn't old enough to vote in 1964, but I was very aware of the presidential campaign that year. You couldn't very well miss it. The nation had been on an emotional and political roller coaster since the assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963; that singular but by no means unprecedented event had changed everything. The assassination was such a shattering event that it was almost as if the earth's spin axis had been reversed.

The elevation of Lyndon Johnson to the presidency was widely met with contempt and derision -- he was considered a bumpkin at best, a corrupt and dangerous  good ol' boy, and he was considered a stone racist not much better than the big-bellied sheriffs keeping the Negroes down throughout the South.

We forget from this distance how disliked Johnson was in those days, a dislike that crossed political party lines.

Came then, however, the Republican nominee for president, an Arizona senator, one Barry Goldwater, a dyed in the wool conservative-reactionary. My god in heaven.

Goldwater was far more polished than the Arizona senator who ran for president recently -- "Gramps" McCain. He was erudite, calm, with a well developed ideology that had elements of appeal even to some of the more rigid progressives and liberals of the era. His book, "Conscience of a Conservative", had sold millions of copies and was something of a bible to true believers. Goldwater was a known quantity. His intransigence in the Senate on behalf of the conservative-reactionary cause was legendary.

Johnson, too, was a known quantity, and while he might have been widely disliked, Goldwater was feared. Saber-ratting was only the half of it. Goldwater wanted to end the progressive-liberal era in American politics once and for all and restore what he and his partisans saw as the "correct" and constitutional relationship between government and the people. Which meant, then and now, a government that served the interests of the wealthy and powerful and ignored the interests of the people most of the time.


Goldwater -- like many conservative-reactionaries today -- called that "freedom" and "liberty." For whom, though? And to do what?

I've written previously and fairly extensively on how progressivism originated as the Republican response to Democratic populism which was sweeping the country in the late 1800s. While Republicans originated progressivism as a means to stop the spread of populism, the ideas of the Progressive Movement were widely adopted by Democrats by the mid-teens of the twentieth century. Progressivism became the standard governmental operating system under FDR, and there was no looking back.

Well, that is, until Reagan. But we're not there yet. We're still in 1964, and that means that progressivism was still the standard governmental operating system. And Barry Goldwater wanted to dismantle it and substitute... what? What went before? Cronyism? Benign neglect? Wild-west shootouts? What? It was never entirely clear what Goldwater wanted to do, but whatever it was, it would mean harm to many millions of Americans, who -- according to conservative-reactionary thinking -- could just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps the way Goldwater's people had done in the long-before.

By contrast, Johnson was a progressive with a strong Southern populist aura. He may have been considered a bumpkin, but he was a bumpkin in the mold of FDR, and that was familiar and comfortable to many Americans. They may not have liked him, but that didn't matter so much as a kind of continuity that Johnson represented, continuity that was deeply important following the trauma of the assassination.

Those were different times, of course. The present era is not much like it, but many of the same political dynamics are at work.

The continuity candidate is Hillary. Bernie is not likely to win the nomination, but if he did, he would be seen as a wild card to be "stopped." Trump, however, against Hillary is the wild card, darned near a mad man. The likeliest outcome in that contest is a landslide victory for Hillary -- not because anybody likes her, though some do. Not because they think she's the best of the best or what have you. Not even because she's a woman -- though that matters.

It's because she's not crazy and she has shown no inclination to overturn the entire governing apparatus to suit her proclivities the way Trump has.

So is this going to be a replay of 1964? In some ways, I think so, yes. It's not an exact parallel because times and conditions are so much different. President Hillary will not be likely to have a Democratic majority in either house of Congress (yes, I predict the Rs keep the senate, though their margin will be cut). LBJ had an overwhelming Democratic majority -- and so he was able to do practically anything he wanted.

Yet he was undone in the end. Two factors contributed to his undoing: the unending war in Vietnam -- which he expanded exponentially at the behest of his generals -- and the Civil Rights Act which
essentially split the Democratic Party irreparably leading to the eventual triumph of the conservative-reactionaries who hold the reins of power to this day.

Hillary won't mess with that power relation much, anymore than Obama would. Thus continuity.

But what will come of continuity may not be what anyone anticipates.

Dan Hicks -- Dead, Dead, Dead

"I Scare Myself" at the Warfield, San Francisco, December 9, 2001

Musicians from the Old Days have been dropping dead left and right lately, but this is a hard one for us. I would almost go so far as to say Dan was a friend, but that's going too far. He had lots of fan-friends who he wouldn't know from Adam or Eve, they were just folks who wandered into -- and out of -- his long and storied life.

When we lived in San Francisco in the mid-Seventies, Ms Ché and I would go out to the Sweetwater in Mill Valley practically every weekend when Dan Hicks and whatever assembly of Hot Licks, Lickettes and Acoustic Warriors he could get together were playing. The Sweetwater was a smallish bar with a stage at one end, and we'd stay for hours drinking and carousing, and Dan and the band would sometimes play quite long into the night beween their own bouts of drinking and carousing among the fans and patrons. One time I remember it was very late, probably closing time, and he invited the remaining bar patrons out to his house for a jam session with Sid and Mary Ann and Naomi, and so we went to where he said he lived, and sat on the glassed-in porch, waiting. But Dan never showed up. It may have been somebody else's house for all we knew, or just as likely he got way-laid along the way -- and forgot.

His persona was ever casual and laid-back, utterly imperturbable. A friend to everyone, a master of none. He was Just Dan, Plain Ol' Dan, an easy-going country boy, or so it seemed, yet he burst on to the counterculture music scene in the '60s and never looked back.

He was never a huge star, no, for Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks was a novelty act by category. They were throwbacks to another era, but just what era was never quite clear, sometime in the '40s maybe, maybe not. They accessorized in a Victorian manner, in fact they were one of the first San Francisco bands that I remember which used the then-plentiful remains of Bay Area Victoriana in costumes, on stage visuals, and seemingly their lifestyles.

Their evocation of times past was part of their appeal.

We first saw them in San Francisco around 1969 as second billing to another group, probably British, at the Fillmore. I think. Well, one's memories of those times are always hazy at the best -- "if you remember the '60s you weren't really there" and all that. I remember being quite taken with them in person. I'd heard them on the radio and was familiar with some of their music, but seeing them live was a treat. I don't remember who the headliners were.

We still have most of their albums from that era, but don't ask me where they are, because I don't know. I know where a couple of the CDs are because we bought them at a performance maybe ten years ago in Sacramento -- "Last Train to Hicksville" and a couple of others -- and had them signed by the always-gracious Mr. Hicks (by this time he was old and courtly enough to be a Mister) and his then-current line up.

That was a funny show. There wasn't a large audience (maybe 150 or so) and some were calling out "Where's the Money! Do Where's the Money!" Or "I Scare Myself!" and he refused to play them, at least for the longest time. "Nope, nope. You've heard them before. Many, many times. We're doing our new music now."

Eventually they were persuaded to do "Where's the Money," but I don't think they ever did do "I Scare Myself" that time.

Dan Hicks and the various incarnations of the Hot Licks and Lickettes was one of the few Bay Area bands that wasn't so full of itself that they wouldn't come to the Central Valley to play a show now and again.  For so many artists in every field in California, the Valley is Terra Incognita, a country that is filled with monsters and otherwise bewilderingly foreign. Even as close as San Francisco was, the Valley was way too far away for comfort. But Dan didn't seem to have any qualms at all about venturing forth into the Darkness of Davis and Sacramento and even Roseville, omg.

So we saw them as often as we could, the last time in Sacramento at Harlow's, an intimate bar not unlike the Sweetwater. At least I think we might have seen them there. Memories fade. It was about a year before we moved to New Mexico.

Guess what? We get to New Mexico in the fall of 2012 -- we have not been back to California since -- and the next December (2013), who shows up in Albuquerque but Dan Hicks doing his Christmas Show at the South Broadway Cultural Center. Of course we had to go.

He said he'd never played Albuquerque before; he didn't know why. Or maybe he did play Albuquerque, forty years ago, and he didn't remember. He'd played Santa Fe plenty of times, but never Albuquerque -- that he remembered.  The house was full, and not everyone was a geezer, though there were plenty of geezers in attendance. Some of them remembered more than he did, more than I did too.

It was nice to know that not everyone who remembered him was pushing a walker around, though.

Not yet, anyway.

It was a memorable evening, Christmas or not, and yes, they did do "I Scare Myself" without hesitation, but this time they didn't do "Canned Music" despite the pleas from the crowd.

Afterwards, we chatted a bit, and I mentioned those weekends at the Sweetwater, and he chuckled at the memory, if he remembered. Turned out there were several others in attendance who had Sweetwater memories, and we got to wondering how we'd wound up in the Land of Enchantment rather than sticking around in California, particularly the Bay Area. Well, some of us thought California was becoming uninhabitable, but Dan still lived in Mill Valley, and he said he couldn't imagine living anywhere else. It was his home-place, and no matter the changes -- there have been so many -- he wouldn't want to up and leave for, say, Albuquerque or even Santa Fe for that matter.

Dan was looking thin. I wouldn't say he didn't look well, because for a man of his advanced age he looked pretty fine, and the show was solid and close to two hours. He came back a couple of more times, the last time just a year ago, February 6, 2015. He looked even thinner, and this time he didn't stay for meet and greet. It was the last time we saw him. According to what I read today about his death, he was already quite ill with throat and liver cancer, but you wouldn't know it from his performance. Not even a hint.

Sorry to see him go, but as Ms Ché said when she heard the news this morning, "That's life. I'm glad we got to see him before the end."

Here's a link to an interview in Local IQ that may expand a bit on what I've written:

Local IQ

Something from the Sacramento Press about the Harlow's performance in 2011 together with a whole lot of history, too.

Sacramento Press

One of the underappreciated songs from Striking it Rich:

It's Not Over Till It's Over

As the Bundy Bunch dwindles in Oregon (are there any still at the Wildlife Refuge? I haven't checked this morning....) their "cause" continues.

It would be bizarre if it weren't so commonplace.

Everyone has the right to their own interpretation of the Constitution, I suppose, but we don't have the authority to act on our special belief regarding what the Constitution says and means. The Bundy Bunch has been acting out a fantasy of their political and religious beliefs, and they have been claiming authority they don't have to force government to abide by their claims. The Bundy Bunch would engage in armed insurrection if government did not meet their demands, demands which they insisted were Constitutionally based.

The problem is fundamental. Individuals have no authority to assert the Constitution -- or the Bible or the Book of Mormon -- in opposition to the government and to compel the government to abide by their assertions.

Apparently the Bundy Bunch never got that message, or if they did, they never understood it.

I listened to their arguments about Federal ownership of land, and they were just silly. And yet they repeated a passage from the Constitution over and over again, regardless. This matter has been adjudicated and legislated quite thoroughly, and they have not a legal or Constitutional leg to stand on. There is no question whatsoever that the Federal government can own and control land outside the District of Columbia. There is no legal requirement that such land must be turned over to the states for disposition. It's absurd to claim otherwise.

These people believe in this absurdity in part because their God tells them to. Yes, it is tied in with their Mormon beliefs -- beliefs which have frequently been in direct conflict with the government of the states and the United States, and occasionally, this conflict has led to bloodshed. Some Mormons continue to insist on their authority over (secular) government. They are theocrats, as are many other religious believers in this country and around the world.

I wouldn't call them terrorists. That's going too far. They use some terrorist tactics, but they haven't actually engaged in violent actions -- not yet anyway. Their threats have so far proved hollow. But then, this appears to be a long-term project. They're not done yet.

Part of the problem is the Constitution itself. Because it seems to authorize its own overthrow. This apparent authorization was a big part of the rationale for the unpleasantness between 1861 and 1865.

The resolution to that conflict actually didn't resolve all that much, though. The conflict continued, and many thousands died, lynched and otherwise murdered in the ongoing pursuit of power.

What the Bundy Bunch did can become a trigger for armed revolt/revolution, and we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing otherwise. As I've long said, if there is another armed revolution in this country, it will come from the Right, and an attempt at that rightist (and religious) revolution has just been made in Oregon. It won't be the last one.

Nope. This sort of thing will keep happening.

It ain't over till

Random Notes

A lot of the commentary over the remarkable statements by Israeli PM Netanyahu that suggested that Hitler got the idea for the Final Solution from "a Palestinian" -- ie: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem -- focused on the idea that "he's delusional," and/or "he's insane."

To the contrary, I think he knows exactly what he is doing, and it's not delusional or insane at all. He's making a spectacle of himself in order to draw attention away from the disaster of his rule on the one hand -- the rash of stabbings by Palestinians in Israel has apparently deeply unnerved the population, and the response by Israeli civilians and security forces is way over the to as demonstrated by numerous viral videos of Israelis committing acts of summary execution in the streets, sometimes of "their own people."

It's yet another domestic catastrophe  brought on by a man who apparently lacks any conscience whatever. This is not insanity. This is not delusion. It is pathological in my view, but it isn't an "illness." It is character. Or lack thereof.

It's pathological because a lack of conscience is destructive in the character of anyone who is in a position to wield power over others or to utilize the power of a nation state to accomplish political objectives.

We see this in the political class all the time, this utter lack of conscience, empathy, or even interest in the well-being of anyone outside their own circle, or even beyond themselves. It's not limited to politics, either. We see it in business and finance (especially finance), in the administrative realm generally, in policing theory and practice, and on and on, and I wonder...

Do people in these and so many other fields learn these traits or are they born that way? Is there some kind of eugenic experiment under way that is breeding out the genes for compassion, conscience, and empathy? Truly, I wouldn't be surprised.

In Netanyahu's case, it's been clear for decades that the man sees himself as a Warrior-King on a mission. That mission will not be thwarted by lowly Palestinians (I doubt he considers them to be human) or by anyone else -- who he also seems to doubt are truly human. His mission appears to be the reconstitution of Eretz Israel or its modern equivalent for his own Power and Glory.

If anyone gets crushed in his pursuit of this project, it's their own fault.

And Israelis love him for it.

It's not insanity or delusion. It's purpose and will -- ultimately antithetical to humanity.

It is commonplace in the his realm. While it seems to make no sense to those on the outside,  most of those on the inside share his perspective more or less fully. It's dangerous and destructive and deeply immoral,

One of the aspects of its immorality in the Israeli case is that their argument regarding the Nazis seems to accept everything they did -- up to the Final Solution itself. Israelis can therefore justify what they have long been doing to the Palestinians -- which is very closely patterned on Nazi practice toward Jews and other minorities in Germany. That means that the camps were OK, the roundups, deportations, the ghettoization, the prohibitions on actions, employment, travel, etc., the restrictions and/or elimination of civil rights, the confiscations and demolitions, the summary executions, the lynchings, the lootings, the general destruction levied against Jews and other minorities were all perhaps unpleasant, but they were not the Final Solution and therefore were "OK."

Well, no. They weren't "OK." Or justified. Nor has Israel any right to impose similar conditions on Palestinians. But they do it just the same.

They criticize the Nazis for the mass executions, the gas chambers, and the ovens. Not really for anything else. All the rest of it up to that point was... OK.

Jeeze.

Netanyahu is flailing for attention, and he's getting it.

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The Clinton Drama continues, and if Hillary is elected, we'll have no end of drama in the nation's capital. What did I see the other day? The radicals will be offering articles of impeachment the day she's sworn in to the presidency? Well, yes. Of course they will. It's what they do. And she'll happily do battle against them. And the attempts to impeach her will be a spectacle to feed the ravenous maw of the media -- which will love it -- for (probably) her entire term in office.

Meanwhile, of course, the nefarious and conscience-free policies of Our Betters will have free rein.

Isn't that the point, after all? Positioning Paul Ryan in the #3 slot -- ie: Speaker of the House -- is a kind of preparatory master-stroke, on the thought that however the drama plays out (she could be assassinated, after all...) there will be a dynamic conscience-free back up at the ready.

Jeebus, no matter how cynical you become, it's really impossible to keep up these days.

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Sanders has yet to impress me. He seems to be a sacrificial shepherd leading his devoted flock into a cul-de-sac. No, he will not be allowed to become the president, not on a bet, and if somehow he manages to become the Democratic Party nominee (he won't) he will be left to flounder and fade away. With him go the remnants of a "progressive" Democratic Party. That seems to be the point in any case.

The Democratic Party isn't the same as the Tories of Anglo politics, but it is in many respects the rightful conservative party of the United States. It has always been conservative whereas the Republicans are rightist radicals.

There is no political left in this country with any pretense to power -- perhaps there never has been one.  (FDR was not an exception). Without a functioning "left" in this country, it's impossible to move the governing apparatus away from or beyond its nearly exclusive devotion to the interests and demands of the Oligarchy.

The answer is withdrawal of presence and attention and consent. It happens organically, but it takes a long-long time to come to fruition. It doesn't happen in the political realm, it happens in the social realm, and eventually, the established political elements become irrelevant. "All of that" happens almost in another universe, affecting "real life" less and less, until nobody cares.

It's been happening in this country, this withdrawal, for several decades, but it's been fairly marginal in most respects. "Hippies" and such have been doing it since the 1960s, but there are many-many more elements than merely the unreconstructed hippies in the current withdrawals. "Alternatives" are everywhere, and those who pursue them find it's quite possible -- and sometimes a great deal more rewarding -- to simply let go of the necessity to serve the system as it is.

Thus I can't get too excited about the current political hoo-hah.

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Police whining has reached a crescendo. The recent incident of road rage in Albuquerque leading to the death of a 4 year old girl seems to have triggered a reaction in the media. That reaction is apparently focused on a restoration of the status quo ante -- prior to the consent decree and all the police reforms that went with it, including a steep reduction in police killings of civilians. The local media seems to want to restore previous police practices -- and the death rates that went with them -- as a means of curbing the "current crime wave."

Well, I call bullshit. There is no "current crime wave." Crime in general, and violent crime in particular, is at or below previous levels, prior to the consent decree and police "reforms." Restoration merely means adding more violence to the mix, not curbing it at all. But Warrior Cops can't help themselves, can they? They want to mix it up, they have to, it's an identity thing. If they aren't out there killing and brutalizing with impunity, what it the point of having police, right?

So they whine and whine and whine, like dogs chained up in the back yard, wanting to kill, kill, and kill some more, to be who they are.

And the media in Albuquerque is clamoring to unchain them. To root out all those criminals running wild.

Bleah.

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Enough.

What's the Matter With Vallejo, and How Do You Fix It?

When I saw this story from March the other day while checking out Twit feeds from DeRay or Shaun King, I was gobsmacked. A single police officer has shot and killed three people under less than stellar circumstances and said officer is promoted to detective.

There have been demonstrations, quite a few of them, but the city on San Pablo Bay is not exactly up in arms about the rash of killings by this one officer, and the city administration is content to simply pull the veil over its actions and the actions of police in the hopes that soon enough passions will die down and business as usual will continue.

It's a mess, one of those typical messes that were once completely routine, and the reason why in so many cases, absolutely nothing was done to correct a system of policing that relied on brutality, violence and random lethal acts to maintain "order."

Since the protests began in Albuquerque last year and spread nationwide after the execution of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO in August, "business as usual" has been more and more difficult to maintain, but at the same time, police brutality, violence, and random killing seems to have increased rather than decreaed, and more and more, the media is focusing with utter horror on the very rare incidents of police encountering lethal force.

In other words, from a media perspective, it's still OK for civilians to be mowed down in their multitudes -- so long as it can be shown that they "deserve it" -- but it's horrific whenever a police officer meets a mortal fate in an encounter with a civilian.

Sigh. Plus ça change....

After all, a police officer's primary responsibility -- his job as it were -- is to go home to his family  each night,  right? 

If a few no-account scum have to die in order for that to happen, so. be. it.

End of story.

People believe this. They repeat it all the time. They seem to have no idea at all that people do not have to die at the hands of the police, that the officer's job is not to "go home to his family each night," or the killing has to stop -- and it can stop.

I've said before that sometimes the daily stories of police killings become ends in themselves, a kind of cop-porn/death-porn, with no suggestion at all that there might be alternatives to the constant killing. It's like there is a heavy investment in keeping the police killing spree going -- because it sells. 

Almost glee at each and every new atrocity; nary a hint that it doesn't have to be that way.

Vallejo is a strange, smallish Bay Area town on the edge of California's San Pablo Bay -- which connects with San Francisco Bay. It once hosted the workers at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. My grandfather (actually, my mother's step-father) worked there during WWII as a machinist helping to build ships sent to the Pacific Theatre. He and my grandmother lived in Vallejo. Both of them died before I was born, so I never had family in Vallejo.

My connection with the town is as a pass-thru place on the way to San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley or wherever the destination may have been in the Bay Area. I did some work there but not much, and I came away from it with an odd sense of disconnection.

The only claim to fame Vallejo has had since the shipyard closed in 1999 (or whenever it was) is an amusement park on the north side of town, one I've never been to, never had an urge to stop at -- though the roller coaster is visible from the freeway, and the highway to Napa and such passes right by the entrance.

I have been to the Solano County Fair at least once, maybe twice. I remember a knot of young cowboys spitting and cussing at the Fair while we enjoyed the livestock exhibits and the musical entertainment. Solano County is one of the areas of California which still can boast some real cowboys...

What I remember from working there briefly in the late-90s/early 2000s is that it was pretty rough edged, and the people tended to be as rough as the town. This was partly because it was one of the few places in the Bay Area where ordinary people could still afford to live, but that was changing fast. Living costs were going up fast, but with the closure of Mare Island, the opportunities to make a living were shrinking for many residents.

This transition was happening in many places in California at the time, and dislocated people were being left to fend for themselves. This led to a contemptuous police attitude toward people who might be on the edge of survival.

And so it seems to have been in Vallejo, where one police officer, Sean Kenny, has shot and killed time after time, in murky circumstances at best, and earned a promotion. Some have speculated that his promotion to detective was a clever way to get him off the street, but who knows?

As the death toll from police killings rises inexorably, it's been noticed that a relative handful of police are responsible for the the bulk of the killing, and in many cases the officers involved are repeat offenders. A pattern is beginning to emerge.

In Albuquerque, we noticed for example that a few officers appeared to be the delegated killers, snipers whose job  it was to kill suspects/subjects like James Boyd who refused to comply, or who otherwise complicated policing. Surprisingly -- or maybe not -- their names are often... "Sean."

Apparently this Sean Kenny in Vallejo was the delegated killer sent on calls where lethal force might be called for.

And so he killed, time after time.

And the police department did everything in their power to make sure the public had as little information as possible after the fact -- apparently to tamp down any likelihood of protest.

There were protests nonetheless, but they were (apparently) ineffective. Despite changes in staffing, the police, DA and the city manager's office are still in stonewall mode, simply refusing to provide the public with more than the sketchiest information, much of which is directly contradicted by eyewitnesses -- some of whom were never interviewed by investigators.

When police, DAs, and city managers collude to ensure the public has as little information as possible, it's not accidental. It happens because that's the policy decision made at the top. That decision is often made cynically -- because the "people" are viewed with condescension and contempt -- or it may be because of old-line traditions, "it's always been this way and we see no reason to change things...".

It may be due to a combination of factors. What seemed to have happened in Vallejo is that there was a culture clash between a largely white-rightist police force and city administration on the one hand and a shifting racial and economic demographic on the other made for tensions that authorities believed could only be relieved through use of force.

And so force was used, often and sometimes lethally.

So far as I can tell, it's still being used, frequently and inappropriately. The point being to keep those no-accounts in line.

When the economy of Vallejo collapsed after the closure of Mare Island, the city declared bankruptcy. It was traumatic for the city administration, and that trauma seemed to filter throughout the city's employees, including the police. But I somehow doubt the Vallejo police were ever measurably less violent prior to the trauma of bankruptcy.

Violent policing is a matter of policy. It is what is expected and demanded of officers in the field -- so as to maintain "order," don't you know.

You fix it by changing the policy.

In order to change the policy, you have to convince the Powers That Be that police policies MUST change.

To do that, you have to be a voice the police and the city administration (ie: city manager, not so much elected officials) believe they MUST listen to.

And who would that be? In most cities, it is the city's wealthiest and most financially potent individuals and interests.

They are the ones who tell the city manager what kind of policing they want.

The city manager tells the police chief who tells the rank and file.

And for the most part, they make it so.

The complication is that the wealthy and powerful talk to one another, city managers talk to one another, and police chiefs talk to one another. Sometimes a consensus is formed within each of these circles, and every now and then a consensus forms between them. Suddenly, "change happens." The public doesn't have to force anything into being, it just... is. Nor usually is the public consulted.

Policing policies are changing slowly, city by city, a process that is likely to take a generation or more, but there are also signs that consensus is being sought within the circles and then between them to -- potentially -- radically change policing from its current violent and deadly model to something more socially responsible and culturally sensitive.

Whether that will be any quicker than the city-by-city approach now under way is an open question.

Fixing policing policy in Vallejo is one of hundreds of "fixes" that need to be made. Resistance is certain. Yet overcoming that resistance is necessary.

Once the people at the top are convinced that further resistance is futile, the policies that enable violent policing and over-use of lethal force will change. Often the change comes overnight.

Hopeful Signs -- Maybe -- On the Violent Policing Front

Never let it be said I'm a total pessimist. I'm not. I'd rather think of myself as an optimist, but as the year plus since James Boyd's killing in Albuquerque and the rate of police killings nationwide has increased not decreased, and politicians keep running away from the basic demand: "Stop Killing Us!" I've got to wonder whether this violent policing emergency is even being addressed by the High and the Mighty -- let alone being anywhere near a solution.

The problem with violent  policing is the violence, mayhem and death that results.

It's not racism or classism. Though both are factors. The immediate problem -- and the emergency -- is the violence.

So far as there is any statistical evidence at all, the police are becoming more violent and deadly not less since nationwide highlighting and protesting of police violence and murder got underway last year.

More violent and deadly, not less.

OK, what can be done about it?

The protests and all the activism obviously haven't done the job; just the opposite. When something you're doing has the opposite result of your intentions, it's usually a good idea to consider alternatives or consider not doing what you're doing and try something else.

While I've never had a problem with the protests nor with the activist cadres who have taken the risk to intervene and interrupt business as usual in all manner of ways, that alone has never struck me as sufficient to change things. Protests and demonstrations are necessary to highlight the problem and move the media and public sufficiently to demand action on the part of politicians and their appointees.

All right, we've had LOTS of demonstrations since James Boyd was killed a year ago in March (as I've said many times, the protests in Albuquerque over his killing were what triggered the nationwide protests over police killings that began in the summer of 2014 after the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO.)  So many in fact that one can almost expect to run into one almost anywhere, almost any time.

Supposedly, the political class has heard the people's outrage and outcry and are on it, the evidence being the tidal wave of indictments for murder and manslaughter which have come forth from DAs in the aftermath of so many police killings, starting with the charges against Keith Sandy and Dominque Perez who killed... James Boyd. They've had their extended preliminary hearing (finally) and they are facing trial for murder 2. Whether they will be convicted is another question altogether (I think not), but at least they and a surprising number of others are going to trial for the homicides they have committed, so at least there's that.

But that hasn't seemed to stop the killing or even reduce it -- except in a handful of places, one of which happens to be Albuquerque where the rate of police killing has plummeted since the aftermath of the James Boyd killing, after spiking outrageously following the "scathing" DoJ report which found that most of the killings by APD were unjustified and that the department routinely engaged in unconstitutional policing.

Many other police departments have faced similar "scathing" reports from the DoJ and many did nothing about it at all, except perhaps to defy and resist any and all attempts at "reform."

"Scathing" reports and resulting consent decrees do not necessarily lead to police department "reform." Far from it. 

What does -- and this goes back to my initial foray into the issue of violent policing and brutality in Sacramento in 1996-97 -- are orders coming from the top. And the "top" means the police chief and/or sheriff and the city manager and/or county executive.

In most cities elected officials do not have direct authority over the police. Consequently, elections and voting rarely affect police behavior. That is an intentional part of the political structure set up during the Progressive Era to insulate police and city administration from the supposed passions of the electorate. In that structure, police officers are accountable to their chief, the chief is accountable to the city manager, and the city manager is (theoretically) accountable to the Mayor and City Council -- but he or she will often make an ostentatious display of ignoring or defying elected officials. In most cases, it is so difficult (and expensive) to fire or discipline city managers that they can usually get away with pretty much anything they want.

City managers as a rule are obedient to the demands of the financial elites of their cities. Them that have, gets, in other words. Everyone else, for the most part, doesn't exist.

Consequently, a city manager will ignore the protests of the people -- people who often don't even know who the city manager is or that he or she is the actual supervisor of the police -- unless the money-people in the civic jurisdiction say "change things."

That's how police and other reform happens. It doesn't happen because people march in the streets and hold vigils at the police department. It happens because somebody "who matters" -- and has the power to make things happen -- says so. No other way. (Well barring that Revolution that never seems to come...)

So far, it doesn't appear that city managers have collectively decided that doing something about violent policing is necessary. If that's so, it's because the people they listen to (which in most cases are not the elected officials) haven't said they want something done about it.  Doing something about it can have lots of unintended consequences after all, one of which is destabilizing structures of power. That's one thing city managers and the people they listen to seek to avoid. Stable structures of power are what keep the system functioning through thick and thin, after all.

However, a bright sign, a hopeful sign, is that police chiefs have begun to recognize that the current structure and practice of violent policing is unsustainable. That's a huge step, it seems to me. A few months ago, I wouldn't have thought it possible, but last May, the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank that considers issues important to policing in this country (and abroad) held a meeting attended by what seems to have been hundreds of police chiefs, deputies, federal law enforcers and DoJ execs, and even police representatives from England and Scotland. Recently, they issued a report from that meeting (84 pg pdf).

I read it and was really stunned at what the chiefs and their deputies were saying.

In a nutshell: they agree with the protesters. Police in America are way too violent, too many of them are stone racists, and the system as it is is unsustainable.

While they primarily blame politicians for this state of affairs, they are also aware that there's a whole lot of culpability within police departments as well.

It's got to change.

They seem to realize there is a problem with American police culture and practice, and it's not just one of "optics." It's a problem of attitude and behavior, and it has discredited policing all over the country.

It's a problem of killing. It's a problem of brutality. It's a problem of disrespect of the public. It's a problem of ignoring the whole idea of public service.

Police chiefs recognize this -- or so it seems -- and they know the situation cannot continue the way it is. Things have got to change, and behold, they come up with ways to change things, in order to reestablish mutual respect with the communities they are supposed to be serving but clearly aren't.

Re-engineering how police are trained is a big part of the program, but it goes much deeper. Values are also a factor, perhaps the major factor, in the reform the police chiefs were talking about in May, starting with the extraordinary concept of valuing all human life, including that of the suspects/perpetrators police so often kill or maim.

The killing stops when the orders go out to stop it. Not before. But the killing stays stopped when police are convinced to value all human life, no matter what. In other words, when the police on the street don't even think of using lethal force against someone they suspect of a crime -- or who is disrespectful or otherwise obstreperous or obnoxious -- then the real reform has taken place.

That's one hopeful sign. Another is the report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, (116 pg pdf). The central point of this report is a fundamental value and behavior change by police: from "warrior" cop to "guardian." I have issues with that terminology and ideal but I will leave them aside for now. The key point is that there is a deeper understanding within the policing community that things have gone wrong and have got to change at the root, not simply the optics of policing. The president's task force was heavily skewed toward police and federal law enforcement representatives and interests and yet they still came up with a pretty solid set of reforms that could -- if implemented -- begin to overcome some of the worst aspects of the current fashion for violent policing and routine use of lethal force. If, for example, SWAT teams were used appropriately instead of routinely, there could be some very positive effects. If police departments demilitarized, there could be some other positive effects. If police officers stopped acting like an occupying army, who knows what sort of benefits would accrue? This report goes on like that, getting into many of the aspects and behaviors of police which have caused so much distrust and destruction of lives and families and whole communities over the years. It doesn't, however, call for an end to the killing. That's perhaps a bridge too far for the task force members.

Another hopeful sign -- which also, unfortunately doesn't directly call for an end to the killing by police -- is the recently released 10 point plan by CampaignZero, an offshoot of the #BLM movement. While it doesn't directly call for an end to the killing, nor does the president's task force (the chiefs were discussing how to end the killing or at least reduce it to very low levels) it does set out a roadmap for police reform that can over time ratchet down the level of force -- particularly lethal force -- used by police in the USA. The focus is on racial disparities in policing, however.

Once the problem of police killing civilians in such ridiculously high numbers and inappropriate circumstances is addressed and the numbers fall, the other problems of policing in America and the grossly unjust aspects of the so-called justice system and its many parts can begin to be tackled realistically.

But in my view, the killing has to stop first. That hasn't happened -- except in certain locations under very specific circumstances where the order went out to stop it. Overall, the rate of police killing has increased, not decreased in the past year, and somehow those in power have got to get a handle on it.

I'm not sure what it will take. But at least there are signs that the current bloody and intolerable situation is not sustainable. Change will come.
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"Hell You Talmbout" live in New York

 

Tired-Energized. What a Week

I haven't written a whole lot about what we've been up to -- indeed, I haven't written a whole lot about much of anything -- in a while now. It's partly been a slow-down for the summer, partly physical/health issues, partly a slow transition from one phase to another as we get older and our lives in New Mexico become fuller.

This last week has been astonishing in many ways, and it represents some of the changes we're going through. It's been extremely busy, especially for Ms Ché as she returns to college to (finally) get her degree, a BFA in Creative Writing from IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts) after decades of doing other things in other places. That change in her life means I get to take up a lot of the domestic chores that were once her bailiwick, including looking after the feral cat colony which she's been wrangling and supervising. Given the fact that I don't get around as well as I used to, this domesticity on my part is probably for the best. At least I can make my way around most of our modest spread here and take care of it relatively well -- for the time being anyway.

One of the challenges we're facing is that IAIA is about 50 miles away, a good hour's commute if she drives herself, an almost 3 hour commute if she takes transit. There is a free bus to Santa Fe that picks up passengers at the Park and Ride not too far from our place (maybe three-four miles) -- at 6am. It gets to Santa Fe around 8am; there she has to catch a city bus to another transit center at a mall south of town where she can catch yet another bus to the IAIA campus where she arrives just before 9am. She's done it once. She says it's grueling, basically because of the early start and the bus changes. She can use the time to do her studies, so there is that. But it makes for a very long day, close to 14 hours on the road, in study and in classes. For the time being, at any rate, she's decided it's better for her to drive herself. It's still a long day, but doing so cuts 4 hours off the commute, though it adds considerably to expenses for the car.

When the weather changes, we'll reassess the situation. Snow can be heavy at times, and the road to Santa Fe, while well-maintained, is a rural two-lane highway, and the spur she takes from Galisteo to Highway 14 and then to the campus is tricky even in good weather.

We have some friends in Santa Fe who say she can stay with them if the weather is too severe to travel from there to our place, so that's a plus.

This last week has included activities that are more social than educational, though they overlap in various ways.

On Tuesday evening, we went to the Allan Houser Scholarship announcement/reception at the Compound restaurant in Santa Fe. This was one of the periodic social/fundraising events IAIA engages in throughout the year to raise and distribute money for the college and its students. In this case, the proprietors of the Compound established a scholarship fund in honor of Native American Sculptor, IAIA founding instructor, and artist mentor Allan Houser last year during celebrations for his 100th birthday. They gave out their first scholarship last Tuesday evening at a gala event that included a lot of Santa Fe's swells, plus a number of others, including some we talked to who had no idea why they were invited! The scholarship recipient, Maria Fairbanks(? -- not sure of her last name, actually) is a wonderful individual studying studio arts with a minor in performing arts, and there is little doubt in our minds that she's going to go far, as far as she wants to doing pretty much whatever she pleases. Interestingly, I was chatting with Allan Houser's widow, Anna Maria, at the event, and she pointed out that this is not the first "Allan Houser Scholarship" as the family has been giving scholarships and money for scholarships for years. But it was the first scholarship from this specific fund, and so...

On Wednesday evening, we attended the annual Scholarship Dinner and Auction at La Fonda in Santa Fe, an event that raises money for general scholarships that we've attended three times now since moving to New Mexico. Tuesday night's event was gala, the Wednesday Scholarship benefit event was gala-squared. The main ballroom at La Fonda was packed with Santa Fe's and some of the rest of New Mexico's swellest of swells, and money flowed like water. These events have been raising about $150,000 for scholarships each year, but I suspect this year's event raised quite a bit more. There is a silent auction of items -- mostly art -- many of which are produced by IAIA students, faculty and alums. There's also a live auction during the dinner which can raise large amounts of money, as many of the items auctioned are works by some of the country's major Native American artists, IAIA alums or faculty, including Dale Chihuly, Preston Singletary, Virgil Ortiz, Tony Abeyta, Rose Simpson and others... oh, so many others. Some of the works this year and in past years have been remarkable. We usually can't afford to bid on them, but quite a few of those in attendance can and do. Last year, we bid on some plates by Virgil Ortiz but we were outbid almost immediately by the governor of Pojoaque Pueblo (who's also an artist) who pushed the price into the stratosphere and well out of our budget range. (The pueblo has considerable casino money and has used a lot of it on purchasing art and establishing some rather stunning art exhibitions and funding arts education.)

This year, we didn't bid in the live auction at all, but we did bid on and win a number of items in the silent auction, including a large painting by Tyrone Headman (IAIA alum) entitled "Geronimo Sipping Latte." I may photograph it and post it at some point. Our house is already full of paintings, so it took some juggling to find a place for it. But it got hung. Hopefully to the amusement of a guest one night.

We purchased more items in the silent auction than we have in the past because we attended the dinner as guests of a friend who has a Native American art appraisal business and so we did not have to pay for the dinner -- meaning we could spend more for other things, and so we did... Ms Ché's favorite item from the silent auction is a lapis wolf fetish carved by Ray Tsalate of Zuni Pueblo that she almost didn't get because another woman wanted it and kept outbidding her. But in the end Ms bid the full "buy it now" price and so, it is now hers.

Ms Ché has received several scholarships to attend IAIA, so it seems only fitting that we do our part to return the favor. Since we've been contributing to the scholarship fund for years, we're happy to do a bit more this year if we can.

The event also featured a performance-art piece by created by Virgil Ortiz and Rose Simpson that seemed to enthrall, stun and puzzle the audience. I've mentioned Virgil a number of times in these pages as he was one of the artists we became immediately attracted to when we moved here. He's a well-known fashion designer, but there's much -- much -- more to his work than "just" fashion. His focus is on a futuristic version of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, set in 2180, with a whole elaborate cast of characters, a series of pottery figures depicting some of those characters (and others), film and video of those characters and their adventures, and many other items of art and fashion that relate to his theme. The performance art at the Scholarship Dinner was puzzling to those who were not familiar with that theme of the Pueblo Revolt and its futuristic counterpart, but for those who knew it, the piece was relatively clear. A god-like illuminated musician (he wore electric lights and played an amplified violin) accompanied a young man and young woman who find items in a trunk which they learn to wear as a kind of cloaking element, protection in a way, as they contemplate and prepare for the Revolt to come. At least that is how I interpreted the piece. It seemed obvious to me!

Rose Simpson is the daughter of Roxanne Swentzell, a very well known Native American sculptor -- whose exhibit at the Pojoaque Pueblo is stunning. Rose has been collaborating with her mother and with other Native American artists in a flurry of creativity which we were also privileged to encounter and enjoy yesterday at a "Breakfast With the Curator" event at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

The curator in this case was Leticia Chambers who I think we can fairly say has become a friend in the past year or so since we met her at an event at her house held to introduce the New Mexico Film Foundation to a wider public.

Leticia is from Oklahoma and believes she is of Cherokee descent though she is not a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her interest in Native American art goes way back to her childhood when her family visited Taos for the first time, and she spent the small allowance she had on a pot created by a Taoseno. She's been collecting, she said, ever since. She claimed, modestly, that she doesn't have a very large collection, but having seen it myself, I'd say she has one of the most important collections of Native American contemporary art in private hands in Santa Fe -- and perhaps in the nation. It is nothing short of amazing. I think a word I used when I saw it was "breathtaking."

When she and Ms Ché met that evening, they seemed to bond almost immediately, as if they were long-lost sisters or cousins (which they might be, who knows!) and they've remained bonded ever since though they're not in particularly constant or close contact.

Yesterday at breakfast and afterwards we heard Leticia explain about the sculptures and the sculptors she chose for the Museum's exhibit of monumental pieces by Native women about Native women. It was remarkable and very moving. We'd seen the exhibit before, but not in this way, not as intimately, not as fully elucidated, not as touchingly personal. The works are remarkable for themselves but the stories behind them -- how and why they came to be, and who created them -- added depth and dimension that otherwise we wouldn't have known. Leticia happens to be an excellent story-teller to boot, so the morning was extraordinary. Ms Ché became overcome with emotion at one point and Native staff members recognized what had happened immediately and offered her their comfort and understanding -- because it had happened to them, too.

Leticia herself knew and saw and empathized with Ms Ché and said she often found herself choked up when she contemplated the works and the women who made them. Indeed.

We left the museum a little after ten and went to Santa Fe's Railyard district to attend the Indigenous Fine Arts Market, the rebel-alternative to the immense SWAIA Indian Market in Santa Fe's historic plaza and surrounding areas. We went to the SWAIA market once and I doubt we'll return simply because it is too big. The IFAM market is smaller, more intimate, more comprehensible in fact, and I think it's fair to say it's edgier with a more contemporary feel on the one hand, and a wider variety of Native arts and artists on the other.

We were delighted to see so many artists from the East, from the Northwest and Alaska, and from Oklahoma. While the SWIA market does include artists from these areas, Pueblo and Navajo artists predominate to such an extent it can be difficult to locate the "others." At IFAM, it was not a problem. Though there were many top-notch artists from Navajo and Pueblo areas, there were also many from other areas mixed among them, which helped make for some very interesting/exciting juxtapositions.

At the Scholarship Dinner on Wednesday, America Meridith, publisher of First American Art Magazine, shared our table and she insisted that we had to go see the pottery by Karin Walkingstick, a Cherokee potter from Oklahoma. She said Karin would be at both markets -- and we had to see her work. Had to.

So we made it a point to find and check out her booth at the IFAM. Sure enough, her pottery was extraordinary and compelling. More amazing still was that she had only been potting for two years, but there was nothing at all raw or tentative about her work. It is all fully and beautifully realized, remarkable in fact, and we were very glad to have seen it for ourselves. Unfortunately, we couldn't purchase anything from her as our budget for art is exhausted for the year.

We had some other stops to make in Albuquerque later in the day which meant the long, boring drive down the hill from Santa Fe. Smoke from the fires in California and Washington has made its way to central and northern New Mexico and so casts a pall on the scenery. The mountains practically disappear in the murk, but there were also rain squalls mixed in with the smoke, so the usually boring drive down to Albuquerque had moments of interest as cloud bursts and rain-spattering periodically interrupted our boredom.

We got our business done in Albuquerque and headed home late in the afternoon. It was a heady day after a very heavy and heady week, and we were both exhausted -- but remarkably energized and elated.

One of the booths where we spent quite a bit of time at the IFAM was that of Leonard Peltier, wrongly convicted of crimes he didn't commit and wrongly held in Federal prison for those crimes -- and smeared and slandered by the FBI for decades. Dozens of Peltier's paintings were on exhibit -- and for sale -- along with posters, prints and minor items all to help fund his legal challenges to his continued imprisonment.

I had never seen so many of his paintings before. He's a highly talented artist in a more or less traditional style. Again, we couldn't afford any of them, but just to see so many was a remarkable experience. Among the minor items on display, Ms Ché found a patch with the combined figures of a wolf and a raven (both spirit animals for her) around which was the motto: "Do right and fear no one," and "Free Leonard Peltier." Well, that was something we could afford, and that patch now has a place of honor in the library here at the house (which is also her study.)  Peltier has been a symbol of Native oppression and resistance for decades. His continued incarceration is an injustice -- among so many injustices that typify the American system of injustice these days. To find his work in the "rebel" Indian market seemed just right somehow, and we felt privileged at that moment.

As Ms Ché has said, after spending a lifetime in the white world and learning how to survive and succeed in it while preserving something of her Indian heritage, she's now "becoming" what she's always been -- a strong and purposeful Native American woman. She's coming into her own in ways that simply weren't possible before. Exhaustion is part of the process of transformation they say!...

[I haven't put links in this post but will try to include them within the next day or two.]

As Part of the Record -- This

"Hell You Talmbout"

https://soundcloud.com/wondalandarts/hell-you-talmbout

An Update of Sorts -- or What You Will

I've been engaged elsewhere and otherwise for the past few weeks. It's been sort of a hiatus, and also not so much of one.

There are a number of moving parts:

1) Joint inflammation issues. I've been experiencing some severe joint inflammation issues lately that can make it difficult for me to type -- or walk or raise my arms or do any number of normal activities. I thought it was "just" arthritis, but my doctor thinks it might be some kind of auto-immune issue depending on how it progresses. For a couple of months it was an episodic thing, but now it seems to be chronic. So far, Motrin controls the pain fairly well, but even now, I'm experiencing pretty bad pain in my right hand even with the Motrin. So, there's that.

2) I've been doing a lot of sketching lately, something I haven't done for years and years. I think the urge to sketch -- eventually to paint -- is driven partly by those joint issues ("better do it now before you're not able to!") and partly by a desire to make an artistic record of phenomena we see in our little valley here in New Mexico that I have not seen anywhere else, and which I have not seen depicted by any other artist. I call them "glories" but they're actually segments of rainbows, sometimes very short segments that hang in the air almost magically and then fade away. Sometimes they return much brighter than before, too. There have been occasions when segments of double rainbows have occurred as well.

Full rainbows are relatively rare here, I think it because of the mountains that limit sunlight falling on rain squalls, but I could be wrong.

I've also been doing "icon-like" images of St. Francis. I've long had an interest in St. Francis and have considered him to be my patron saint, though in reality St. Ambrose is, but that's another issue.

Francis appeals to me for a whole range of reasons, including his rebelliousness and his devotion to a version of Christianity that is almost Buddhist. At any rate, I discovered some time  back that finding images of St. Francis, especially retablos, in New Mexico was difficult, indeed almost impossible at various times and places. One finds images of San Isidro and San Pasquale far more often than San Francisco. San Antonio and San Jose are depicted more frequently than San Francisco. And I thought it was odd because the Cathedral in Santa Fe is dedicated to St. Francis; it's on San Francisco St., the Franciscans were the initial missionaries in New Mexico; their martyrdom (so to speak) in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is commemorated annually, and yet it can be very difficult to find images of St. Francis in New Mexico. I don't know why.

A couple of Sundays ago, we went to Spanish Market in Santa Fe. One of the artists there was Nick Otero, a very highly regarded santero and a casual acquaintance/friend of ours. He said he had brought a couple of dozen items to market and sold almost all of them within an hour or so of opening on Saturday. I was there on Sunday, and he had only a few items left, so I looked through his photo albums and found a couple of St. Francis retablos he'd done in previous years. He said he he didn't bring any St. Francis santos this year, though he usually does. Well, I had already decided that if he had any this year -- and he had any left on Sunday -- I'd be willing to pay a pretty penny for one. But no, he didn't, so that was not an option. I could commission a St. Francis retablo from him and might do so in the by and bye, but that day, I decided to look through the market and see what I could find.

As usual, St. Francis was rarely depicted by the santeros displaying their works, San Pasquale and San Isidro far outnumbering the St. Francis santos. Then I came upon Adam M. Romero's booth. He's a santero from Espanola, and his work was very appealing, though it is much simpler than Nick Otero's. He had perhaps three St. Francis retablos among the dozens on his table, and one of them (with blue birds) appealed to me greatly, but I wanted to look around a little more and asked that he hold on to that one until my return. He agreed, and I went on through the market -- finding no other St. Francis that was so appealing.

When I got back to his booth, that St. Francis was still there, though he said a couple of people had wanted to buy it in my absence, but he'd held it for me. I thought that was awfully nice, whether it was true or not. We chatted for a bit, and I found him to be quite an interesting santero whose work I will be paying much more attention to in the future.

So now that St. Francis retablo graces our entry hall,

along with all sorts of Native American, Anglo and "other" art. He seems right at home. We have perhaps a half dozen or so St. Francis images in the shrine in the Jesus Room and two statues out front, one in the pyracantha (which I believe is a plant associated with St. Francis) and one by the front door as a protector of sorts. He scares away the Mormons and Witnesses (heh.)

But the overall rarity of St. Francis images in New Mexico is still striking (it was not always so; at one time, he was the third most often depicted devotional image, but no more). I thought if there were so few St. Francis images, maybe I should try to create some of my own. It's something I've been approaching gradually, trying out various methods and imagery so far without reaching the kind of imagery I'm looking for, but experimenting with a variety of "looks" if you will. My own sense of St. Francis includes images of the sun and the moon, birds, the San Damiano Cross and what I call a "stairway to heaven." In some of the images I've done, there are also skulls, though I'm not sure I'll keep them in later images.

An artist I greatly admire, Harry Fonseca, did a whole series of St. Francis images that were essentially silhouettes of the saint together with the "attributes" he found important/intriguing, and Fonseca's approach, though not that of a santero, is one I really like. So I did one silhouette version that may turn into the basis of future images. Except for being a silhouette, it's not like Fonseca's at all. For example, all of my St. Francis images so far are in the tau pose, something very rarely depicted by artists, but according to the stories and some of the Church's iconography, very important to understanding St. Francis and his mission. Fonseca never used it that I know of, and I've never seen a retablo with that pose, though bultos (small sculptures, often out of willow or other tree branches) are often in tau-like poses.

We'll see where it goes...

3) Ms Ché has decided to return to college at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe to get a BFA degree in Creative Writing. In fact, she just left for orientation (a little late as it happened, so I'm sure she'll make an entrance when she gets there!) She'll probably have to do two years of regular classes. She has an AA acquired long ago and a paralegal certificate, but she never got a BA or BFA -- because at the time she might have gone to UC Berkeley where she was accepted, she couldn't afford it, and a BA or higher degree wasn't needed either for her theater work or for the legal work she later did.

But now she says she wants a degree in Creative Writing and she wants it from IAIA, the institute she was encouraged to apply to -- but didn't -- decades ago. We've been supporters and donors to IAIA since we moved to New Mexico in 2012, and we've become quite close to the institution and some of its students and faculty since then. So it seemed natural for her to apply this past spring. She was accepted and applied for scholarships. Lo and behold, yesterday she was informed that she's been approved for three scholarships which will essentially provide her with a full-ride, tuition and most fees paid. Wow. She had no idea and didn't expect it.

So, she's been preparing since her acceptance, and left a few minutes ago for her initial orientation. The campus is about 50 miles away, and it will be an interesting commute -- especially in the winter. She's been looking forward to it -- to say the least.

She will be an "elder." Quite likely the oldest student in the Creative Writing program, if not the oldest student on campus, and by the time she graduates in a couple of years will be one of the oldest graduates the Institute has ever had, certainly older than the oldest graduate this past spring.

That event -- the May IAIA graduation ceremony we attended that started in a snow-storm! -- was the trigger for her determination to go back to college. It was an inspirational event, and she felt strongly that it was a call to her to return for her own degree. So. There it is.

[It turns out that a lot of the college credits Ms Ché has earned over the years aren't transferable to the  Creative Writing BFA program, so she's not able to start IAIA as a Junior. They are anticipating that she'll have to attend three years rather than two years of classes. So... she's applying for another scholarship "just in case."]

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In the meantime, the killing spree the police have been on in this country seems to have increased alarmingly. The rate is now around 4 a day, far too often for any civilized society, and given the details of many killings, the police appear to be out of control, determined simply to kill at will with no accountability or consequence, defying the calls from protesters and much of the public to desist.

I'm hopeful that the spike is temporary and is the prelude to a significant reduction in police killings, but I can't be sure. There are so many forces at work to enable rather than restrict police killings.

So far, no politician with a national presence has made the simple call to stop the killing. Not one. Not Bernie, not Hillary, not Martin, and not one of the many Rs in the contest for the White House. No Senator has said stop the killing. Nor has any House member I'm aware of. The DoJ has not done so, either.

To me, this is a shameful indictment of the so-called System.

It's time to change it.