Let's Make it REAL SIMPLE for the Deplorables, okay?

To them, "Repealing Obamacare" sounds GOOD! It means they won't have to pay a penalty if they keep not having insurance, they won't see more rate hikes (heck, they expect their premiums to go DOWN,) their taxes will go down because those "undeserving" people will stop getting freebies, they won't have to scratch their heads trying to figure out all the complicated implications of the "silver" versus "gold" plans and what the different kinds of deductibles are, and they won't have to worry about whether the doctor they like will stop taking their insurance, and a whole lot more delusional bullshit.

Yes, it's delusional bullshit, but they believe it.

Because, let's face it, the ACA is COMPLICATED. It does have some downsides (mostly as a result of GOP whining and compromises and court cases and so on, but they're there and they do hurt.)

So when they hear "repeal Obamacare" they jump for joy because a) That will "fix" everything that's wrong with their current health care and b) it'll stick it to that uppity Kenyan who stole the WHITE House for the last 8 years.

::sigh::

We have to stop saying that repealing the ACA is bad, repealing Obamacare is going to hurt people, they'll be sorry, blah-blah-blah, and reduce it to simple, easy-to-grasp one-liners:

Repeal is the GOP giving your insurance company permission to drop you if you get sick.

Repeal brings back the prescription drug "donut hole" for seniors on Medicare.

Repeal will allow your insurance company to stop offering any plans you might qualify for.

Repeal will remove rate hike caps and make your next rate increase BIGGER.

Repeal will let insurance companies stop covering anyone with a "pre-existing condition."

Repeal will let many health care providers "balance bill" you for whatever insurance refuses to pay.

Repeal will crowd the hospital emergency rooms with uninsured people seeking care.

Repeal will kick your children off your policy when they turn eighteen, leaving them uncovered.

Repeal restores lifetime limits on insurance benefits, when you hit them, you're uncovered.

Repeal takes away your free preventive care.

I prefer pounding ONE of these one-liners at a time, but they could also be bullet-pointed under "10 Ways the GOP Congress Wants to Screw You by Repealing ACA/Obamacare"

The main thing is to KEEP IT SIMPLE.

They don't have much cognitive capability, your average Deplorable.

wearily,
Bright

On participation by Democrats, 1/20/2017. In a nutshell:

Congress vs the Septic Sphincter: BONANZA for Kabuki Fans!

I can just imagine Pravda Spice meeting with some of his Congressional opposite numbers:

"Comrade Vlad says we must look INDEPENDENT of one another!"

"Yes, yes! Comrade Vlad is WISE... he knows... about our Swiss bank accounts and the rent boys..."

"So we must do something that makes us look INDEPENDENT! We must not always be agreeing and appearing to coordinate our actions."

"But... isn't that what our base of deplorables WANTS?"

"Maybe so, and we will give it to them, but we can't LOOK as though we're acting together. The non-deplorables and the media we don't have completely in our pockets yet will suspect something."

"Suspect how?"

"Don't be more foolish than you can help. Have Congress and the Executive Branch EVER worked together in recent memory? Even when they are controlled by the same party, it is always a power struggle. That is how the people know we are INDEPENDENT. Not being coordinated from Moscow."

"Oh. Okay. How will we do this?"

"Easy. First you do something that looks "extreme" and we criticize, and you walk it back."

"Why do we have to go first?"

:: Pravda Spice sighs:: "We have not been Inaugurated yet..."

"Oh, right. And then, when you are, YOU'LL do something "extreme" and WE'LL criticize, and you'll walk it back."

::long pause:: "Oh, sure."

"And then when the media has praised us all for acting INDEPENDENTLY, we just quietly get on with doing whatever it was we were criticizing each other for."

"Comrade Vlad will approve."

ironically,
Bright

2017: Year of Liberation for Democrats/Progressives/Lefties- IF we want it.

"Do not interrupt your enemies when they are in the process of defeating themselves." ~variously attributed to Sun Tzu, Napoleon, etc.

Let's start here: The GOP has majorities in the House and Senate. A GOP-branded circus is about to take over the Executive branch. The Clown-in-Chief will appoint the a new Supreme Court justice, which will be approved by the GOP Senate.

Let's add another reality check: Mass communications/entertainment media are completely free of any regulated obligation to do anything other than pursue the splashiest short-term profit margins possible, in order to make their chief executives and major shareholders even wealthier.

And another: A network of right-wing funded organizations has effectively seized control of the most popular social media channels for the past few years, resulting in yeast-like growth of fake news, hate-mongering, and RW propaganda spin on every conceivable issue.

And a final one: The GOP's goal of turning the education system over to its capitalist Oligarch owners for privatization is almost achieved, through decades of degradation of the public education system, leaving large numbers of poorly-educated (at best) voters vulnerable to the propaganda of the Right.

Put all of these facts together, and to me they read like this:

There is NO conventional political or ideological strategy that can be applied within the context of any branch of the Federal Government that will effectively "stop" them from doing whatever the fuck they want to do, and there is NO conventional media-based educational, hearts-and-minds-focused strategy that is likely to change the minds of those who believed it was a good idea to vote for Trump, for any reason.

Got that? a) We can't stop the GOPpies in the Federal government from turning the U.S. into a fourth-rate world power and a complete laughingstock and/or catastrophic threat to everyone else in the world. And b) We can't "get the Trump voters to see sense/face facts/perceive reality."

This is, in the weirdest possible bass-ackwards way, GREAT NEWS!

Because here's what it means, if we accept those two things: We can stop being distracted, divided, and disabled by our attempts to accomplish the un-accomplishable.

'But Bright,' I hear some of you saying, 'isn't it our obligation as decent human beings to at least make the attempt to stop the GOP from trashing democracy and dismantling the Constitution and maybe fucking up the whole WORLD? And shouldn't we, as compassionate individuals, at least try to throw at least those Trump voters whose reasons seem marginally less horrific than outright apocalyptic hatred a lifering of accommodating understanding?'

No.

We shouldn't.

It is, repeat after me:

A

WASTE

OF

VALUABLE

TIME

AND

RESOURCES.

Here's why:

We don't HAVE to try and take down the GOP. They are already well on the road to total self-annihilation as it is. Think about this. There are so many built-in conflicts of interest, greedy self-aggrandizing assholes with wildly differing agendas, foreign powers that hate each other backing their own horses in various branches of government, and apocalyptically incompetent buffoons about to be set loose in complicated, interlocking arenas of influence, that even something with an inertial drag as massive as the Federal bureaucracy can't save their asses.

We STAND BACK, and let them do it. We attempt to stop them, we give them someone to blame for their own failures: us.

(Someone out there right now is whining about how "But if we do nothing to try and stop them people won't love us, either!" Take a deep breath, and THINK. First, "people" don't love us already, and second, getting blamed by the massive RW propaganda machine for messing up the GOP's Magic Pony Delivery Schedule isn't going to win us any new friends, either.)

We will find the leaders we need to unite around (and I assure you, it will be leaderS, plural,) not in the halls of power and the smoke-filled rooms, plotting strategies in Committee meetings and court challenges and duelling press releases, but in the streets. In the places where we least expect them. In states, and cities. On school boards, in churches, in art and literature and entertainment. In the places where conscience resides, in the small-scale laboratories of compassion and hope and progressive change.

And as the GOP crumbles, without help or opposition from us, the pain they will unleash, especially if we've given them no scapegoats to portion out the blame to, will make the case we cannot make to those Trump voters who are salvageable.

And if, in the mean time, we stop bickering among ourselves and pretending we have "A Plan" or "An Answer", and simply demonstrate by who we are, and what we do, that we care about our neighbors, our neighborhoods, our town and cities, our communities, our states, our country, and our ideals, then they will find their way into the discussion with us.

And not "A Plan" will emerge, but many plans, many efforts, many attempts, a blizzard of push-back and change-pressure and hope and determination and focus on the basic principles of liberal and progressive self-government and participatory democracy. It will power the swing of the pendulum, again, away from the Randian greed, self-aggrandizing ego, zero-sum-game school of politics.

If we seize this opportunity, and walk this path, we will be ready for that swing back, and be able to rebuild an America that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can sustain and balance in a sadder and wiser world.

So, think about it.

The easy paths of expediency and laziness got us here. The big guns of hate and fear, manipulation and gamesmanship are on the other side.

I believe commitment, compassion, vision, and participation will lead us out, if we are strong enough to take that road.

determinedly,
Bright

Someone Please Take the Methamphetamine Away From the Grim Reaper

It seems like all I read about these days is people who shouldn't be dying, dying.

I can't sign on to the fucking Internet without some headline about someone I admire, someone who's brought Light into the world, flickering out.

I can't open my fucking email inbox without some email from someone helpfully passing along a link to an article about an icon from my youth or childhood passing from experience into memory.

For fuck's sake, I can't even open a god damn HOLIDAY CARD without getting news of the death of some friend's family member (my god, imagine outliving your own child, I can't even contemplate that level of pain without sharing the tearing void...) or even a close friend I didn't know was ailing, passing on.

Everywhere I look, everything I read, hell, it seems like every phone call I answer that isn't from a robot or a telemarketer includes yet another Death Notice.

They say that Bhutan is one of the happiest countries on earth, and the people there attribute their happiness to daily awareness and contemplation of death.

So what is this, a fucking crash course in happiness?

Well, that's not what I'm learning. Provide a goddamn syllabus or some interpretation or enrichment or something, Universe. This isn't so much a "learning experience" as an exercise in pain and endurance.

Yippee-skippee for that.

I would love to believe that what's going on is some kind of Universe-level Event of Balancing, some Earth-human-Western-date-related Conspiracy related to the year 2016. So that the tick of the clock between 23:59 on December 31st and 00:00 on January 1st would constitute a Cosmic Signal to Stand the Fuck DOWN, to the Grim Reaper.

But I don't think so.

I do not fucking think so. Whatever's in store beginning 00:01 on January 1st, I don't think it's the resumption of a less-painful pace of loss.

I'd love to be wrong.

Sorry to be Debbie Downer but, sometimes, y'all are my safety valve, yanno? So, thank you for that.



wearily,
Bright

Internalized concepts of "success" may explain voting patterns. And analyses.

I've been listening to the various "explanations" for "why it could even get close enough to enable the voter suppression, Russian intervention, and general mopery and dopery to swing just enough votes in key Electoral College states."

And it appears to me that they all devolve to one key semantic insight: How the various explainers, analysts, and even how the individual voters, have internalized a concept of "success."

Not a context-specific definition, as in "what constitutes success in carrying out this particular activity focused on this particular goal," but a more globalized concept of success. As a person. As someone participating in a culture, a society, an economy, etc.

What makes an individual feel a sense of 'success' or contributes to their estimation that their time is well-spent, their efforts are worthwhile, their life is/was well-lived?

There's a sharp dichotomy.

Some of us have internalized a concept of "success" in the answers to these questions:

How many people do you love/are you loved by?

How many other lives are better for your life and how you choose to live it?

How much pain have you eased, beauty have you created, joy have you shared?

Others have internalized a concept of "success" in the answers to these questions:

How many games have you played and won?

How much stuff have you accumulated?

How much power have you wielded?

If you are in the first group, you are overwhelmingly likely to have voted for Hillary, but you're also likely to identify and find explanations for the election outcome that are congruent with your concept of success.

If you are in the second group, you probably voted for Trump, and your explanations for the election outcome will be congruent with your concept of success.

And unless/until we understand the fundamental disconnect between the two, we're unlikely to do more than affirm confirmation bias.

wearily,
Bright

"I'm really important, so I should be able to monetize that"...

...is an unethical, unconstitutional, and effectively criminal mindset for an elected leader in a democracy.

It seems simple to me.

That is all.

disgustedly,
Bright

The Road From Here

There will be no divine intervention.

The train wreck continues.

Now what?

Before we can be effective in altering the future, we have to view the present reality with clarity, accept it, and disband the circular firing squad.

Right now, while the train is still plunging over the abyss in slow motion, with the first few cars just beginning to be engulfed in flames, is not the time to spend arguing about causation and apportioning blame. Keep records wherever possible. History will sort it out. Move on.

No one is going to ride to the rescue.

There is no 11th-hour-and-59th-minute hero.

The Putsch is an accomplished fact.

Some hard realities:

No matter how much we'd like to believe there's a way to stop the wreck, turn it back, there isn't. The laws of sociopolitical physics are in charge and it WILL continue getting worse before there's any realistic hope of it getting better.

If we let that immobilize us, however, it will get a WHOLE LOT worse, and maybe not much better.

So, move past denial, anger, bargaining, and even depression. This is our reality, and we can't change it until we accept its existence.

And until we're willing to inventory what we have, including creativity, to pull the tide of fascism and devolution back out.

One thing we have is experience. Look particularly to the Reagan years. While it wasn't on anything like the scale and acuity of what we face now, Reagan swung a pretty heavy wrecking ball, and we learned a lot about dodging, camouflage, and reconstitution out of range.

Another thing we have is diversity. Which is good. We're accustomed to thinking in terms of the power of "unity" and the added punch of a clear focus on one or two priorities. Exhortations like "if we ALL get behind >preferred priority here< we'll be so much more effective!"

No, we won't. Read your Sun Tzu, read your Miyamoto Musashi. Where forces are gathered, the opponent with the weight of infrastructure and weaponry will concentrate the blow. The principles of guerilla conflict apply.

Diversity, and creativity.

The Putsch has all of the institutional power in its grip. All the infrastructure. All the fixed positions to defend, now. Control of the mass media, control of the bureaucracy (insofar as any bureaucracy is 'controllable'...) control of the existent, established tools for catapulting their own propaganda and enforcing their will, within the fixed emplacements and expectations of a status quo they must defend. And there is considerable dissension in their ranks.

What have we always had (but not necessarily used very effectively?) Greater creativity. Better understanding of science, technology, and the principles of matter and energy. Willingness to change. Willingness to extend risk in unexpected directions.

We need to use all of that.

A lot of our communication, and such organization as we may allow ourselves, will have to go off the grid, out of the spotlight. Many of us can continue to operate in the spotlight-- the idea of the "counter-inaugural" concert, for instance, is a good one and can't be organized from behind the scenes.

But those are one-off efforts. What we need are the small holding actions, the tossing of sand in the gears. Deflection, ridicule, exposure. End runs around, undermining of expectations. Of which there must be hundreds, thousands, constantly. Uncoordinated, from all directions and all kinds of sources. None, perhaps, much more effective than gnat-bites. But collectively they WILL have an effect.

And quietly, we must also use such infrastructure as we do have left-- our nonprofits, advocacy groups, local governments where possible, churches that have embraced the ideal of equity and compassion, entertainment and the arts-- to support one another.

To be there for one another. To keep alive the values of humanity. To tell the stories of courage and hope.

While we cannot, and should not, strive for a flashy 'unified front,' we can quietly unify in purpose and spirit, if not in efforts.

There are no easy answers. No single stroke of action, no single figure of leadership, that will restore a vanished (and substantially illusory, anyway) "normalcy" and let us "get on with our day to day lives."

The ability of our children and grandchildren to survive, to live sustainably on a planet that will support them and their descendents, depends on us giving up on that past-based vision of "normalcy."

We can do this.

determinedly,
Bright

I fear Democrats are being nose-led into all the wrong priorities

It's very simple.

The train wreck is in progress. It's a very long train. The wreck is happening in very slow motion. Nevertheless, it is a train wreck, and it's already happening.

We have three choices about how we can spend the scarce and valuable resources of time and effort available to us.

Attempting to stop a train wreck in progress is futile.

Attempting to figure out how it happened and who is to blame isn't futile- and that information will be needed, as many point out, to help prevent it from happening again. Nevertheless, investigating the wreck WHILE IT IS HAPPENING subjects us to an awful lot of noise and confusion and potentially bad calls about causation versus correlation. Not to mention that there is something much more important we can only be doing now, while the train wreck is happening, and that is:

TRYING TO SALVAGE EVERYTHING WE CAN, and GET THE HELL OFF THE TRAIN.

"Trying to salvage" is always a challenge, because of course everything is important. But the discussions we should be having are about what we can save, who can be most effective doing what, and how we can support each others' efforts to save those things.

How can we use the personnel codes of the Federal Civil Service to enable Federal employees to retain their jobs, protect their rights to do those jobs properly, and support one another against the attempts of Putsch appointees to destroy them?

How can we use local and state legislative and regulatory bodies to protect key elements of human rights and freedom, and resist the Putsch apparatchiks?

How can we use available communications, connections, and creativity to build the network of the Resistance, and work against the Putsch at every turn?

"Getting the hell off the train" is related to that last-- what can we take out from under Federal control, off the grid, out of sight. What can we hide or protect from the Putsch shock troops, and how?

Those are the priorities I will be focusing on.

Down the road, time and perspective will reveal a lot more about the chain of causation, the "how the fuck did this happen and how do we keep it from happening again?" We'll be able to use that information, with the cooler perspective of distance and the confidence of analytical testing, to rebuild the railway and ensure this type of train wreck never happens again.

For now, I will be looking to salvage what I can. And to get the people and things I value off the goddamn train before the cars we're in are pulled off to plunge down the abyss in flames.

determinedly,
Bright

The Kremlin: Plus a Change, Plus C'est la Mme Chose

Questions about exactly what Russian sources have been doing to America, what their goals and objectives are, the tools and means they are using, and the possible upshot, in terms of how knowing more about that might change the course of events here, are a continuing focus, both for us here at DU, and for the larger media world.

So, my nickel's worth, based on history and experience:

What have the Russians been up to? What have they been/are they DOING?

Very simple: They are manipulating America. With the exception of a nuclear arsenal, which is useful only for a level of war that would be as disastrous to them as to everyone else, Russia's been largely a busted flush as far as geopolitical influence goes, for a couple of decades at least.

Sure, they have a huge army-- ill-equipped, dependent on a devastated economy for supply, and facing considerable morale issues. Sure, they have the bare and battered skeleton of an oil-based economy, but geopolitical events over the same period, manipulated by those Russia regards as definitely NOT allies, have conspired to render it largely inert in terms of power and influence.

What remains to Russia is what Russia has had clear back to the "Great Game" days when they sat across the geopolitical chessboard from the British Empire: A well-honed talent and capacity for covert operations designed to move the pieces in the directions they want, without overt agency on their part.

What are their goals/objectives?

Again, history answers: Russia has always been (essentially) an oligarchy, structured with an authoritarian leader and their cabal at the top, and masses of powerless people below. It simply modulated from an Imperial oligarchy to a Communist oligarchy to a Capitalist oligarchy. Therefore, their goals and objectives relate to maintaining the power, wealth, and influence of the leader and their cabal.

And because that structure has an authoritarian leader at its center, always, those goals and objectives are also colored by that leader's personal history, experience, and character.

So, we are seeing Putin's need to maintain his power, through the lens of his experience, which goes back to KGB days, and colored by his character, which is a pathological mix of subtlety and grandiosity. He's playing us. He's always been part of playing us, even when he was an ambitious cabal member making moves on Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the other leaders.

So... tools, means?

The tools and means are those the KGB has always used, updated by the current Russian intell machine to apply them to modern technological methods. They include:

Blackmail and extortion- gathering compromising information on individuals and using it to make others do their bidding while they remain covert.

Entrapment- leading key individuals into positions where they become vulnerable to blackmail and/or extortion, via financial, sexual, criminal or other activities.

Information theft- Via their own operatives or those individuals they have subverted.

Covert Assassination- Very covert. The ones you hear about are considered failed operations. Because you heard about them.

Propaganda- Expert and subtle use of mass media to influence populations to make it easier for their operatives to achieve their goals.

And the upshot?

No matter how much hue and cry arises, the actual effect will be unlikely to 'reverse' the train wreck in progress. It may make it easier to clean up the mess.

pessimistically,
Bright