Month: January 2017

by William Skink

If the “resistance” can avoid outrage fatigue, there is going to be another problem to figure out: what do they stand for?

Moving nearly as fast as the waves of surging anger, the co-opters quickly position themselves to redirect this emotional currency into the political graveyard where the anti-war movement and equality camps of the 99% are buried.

So what do you stand for? Will you stand for Cory Booker sucking up some oxygen for the resistance?

Leave it to Cory Booker to find a way to anger both liberals and conservatives within just a few hours.

The New Jersey senator’s unprecedented decision to testify against attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions earlier this month infuriated the right. That evening, it was the left’s turn to rip him after he joined mostly Republicans to vote down a symbolic amendment aimed at importing prescription drugs.

To Booker’s critics, the high-wire moves are all part of his positioning for 2020, when there’s likely to be a crowded Democratic primary. His emergence as a face of the Democratic resistance to Donald Trump while the party is desperately searching for new leadership is not lost on his fellow senators, party strategists or Washington’s chattering classes, even if Booker himself insists he’s not itching to take on Trump in 2020.

If the resistance doesn’t define itself, others will. Do you stand for letting politicians like Cory Booker and Jon Tester send their little signals of fealty to Big Pharma?

Resistance to the hatchet Trump is aiming at the ACA is another problematic area. I’ve been reading a lot about what losing insurance will mean, lots of personal stories tugging at your heart strings. And while these are important stories, it’s not the whole story.

The ACA is failing, but stories highlighting this reality are politically inconvenient for Democrats. It’s not perfect, they’ll say, but THOUSANDS WILL DIE BECAUSE TRUMP!!!

Medicaid in Montana is a perfect example. Democrats worked hard to get Medicaid expanded in Montana, and it’s had a positive impact for thousands who gained access. So what is there to complain about?

I’ve been learning a lot recently about Medicaid, and what I’ve learned is this: if you’re not poor enough to be eligible, the desperate need to become eligible for Medicaid will make you poor, fast. This reality is impacting older Montanans significantly every day.

Here’s the deal: Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term, in-home services that keep people living in their home instead of throwing in the towel and entering a nursing home. If a person can’t afford to pay out of pocket, then Medicaid is one of the few options available.

And here’s the problem: if you make more than around $640 dollars a month, and/or have more than 2,000 in savings, you aren’t eligible for Medicaid. To become eligible, you must do what’s called a Medicaid “spend down” which essentially means making yourself poor enough to qualify.

What does the resistance have to say about this? I hear murmurs of Medicare for all, but it’s not loud enough to keep the Cory Bookers and Jon Testers from acting like Pharma dollars are more important than American victims of the legal drug cartel paying these corrupt politicians off.

Finally, the wars. What does the resistance have to say about the wars? About drone strikes? Of course The Intercept isn’t going to be shy about pointing out that Trump has taken on Obama’s legacy of murdering the children of a US citizen also executed without due process, but I don’t consider The Intercept part of the resistance.

The wars are a big blind spot for the resistance because there is no way for them to swim through the dark sea of cognitive dissonance to the realization that if Hillary had been elected, wars wouldn’t be that big of an issue (until we all died from the third and final installment). It will be, of course, an immense issue when Trump’s Twitter tirades spark trade wars and probably a hot war or three.

Will anti-war resistance resurrect itself from the graveyard? Or will inconvenient Democrat complicity in a war machine that works overtime to make obscene profits and lots of refugees keep the issue of war largely off the table of resistance-worthy outrages?

I know, it’s a lot to absorb. Might as well just wait for the next Trump tweet to dominate the next 24hr news cycle.

by William Skink

While more marches and protests are launched, and social media activity explodes, the first week of Trump’s reign makes one thing clear: Trump is putting his rhetoric into action.

The fear and rage manifesting in opposition to Trump’s executive actions seem to approach Trump as a unique threat. The problem with this approach is it ignores the incremental continuum that pre-dates Trump.

The outrage directed at Trump is a blinding outrage that can’t encompass the 8 years of finishing touches the Obama administration put on this long-term project, building on the 8 years of fascist groundwork pushed through, post-9/11, by Bush Junior.

It’s just not realistic to expect the passionate reaction to the first week of Trump to include a broad, all-encompassing outrage capable of seeing this culmination of fascist potential as part of a process that goes all the way back to when we absorbed fascism after “defeating” the Nazis during WWII.

The travel ban issued by the Trump regime capped off a disturbing week of executive action that is suddenly ok to those who cried fowl when Obama was doing it. Something else Obama did, which didn’t inspire protests at airports at the time, was restrict the movement of people from certain countries.

To get to that story, one must delve into Russian-occupied alternative media, like Moon of Alabama–one of 200 sites smeared by the Washington Post in a brazen attack later walked back due to shitty anonymous sourcing that blew up in the Post’s face.  Here is how b puts it in his latest post:

The current “librul” outrage about Trump’s announced policies is somewhat amusing. Yes, these policies are bad. Very bad. But wherever you look, those Trump policies are building directly on or simply repeat Obama policies. The now outraged people swallowed those without a word of protest.

A Trump order yesterday introduced a temporary ban on visa holders and visa issuing to citizens of seven Middle East countries. These countries are: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Outcries on social media and in various papers ensued. People went to airports to protest. TV was there to spread the news.

But it is nothing new that the citizens of these countries are targeted with U.S. visa restrictions. It was Obama who had introduced such in 2015 and 2016. The Trump order links directly to them. It does not name any country but refers to them as “countries designated in Division O, Title II, Section 203 of the 2016 consolidated appropriations act.”

Those opposed to what Trump represents need to take a fucking breath, step back, and commit to being more strategic and less reactionary–because y’all are being professionally trolled by Steve Bannon and he’s winning.

In the flurry of activity this past week, Trump’s official kick to the corpse of the TPP hasn’t received much attention. That action, though, solidified the loyalty of significant sectors of the labor movement.

Ignoring the death of the TPP is a huge missed opportunity for a decimated political party that needs to be coalition building right now instead of letting a privileged white woman like Madonna make headlines about day-dreaming of blowing up the White House.

I know protests feel good. I remember turning out for the historic global outcry against the impending Iraq war in February of 2003. The following year Bush stole the 2004 election, then the tide started shifting in 2006.

But the tide never really shifted at all. While the anti-war sentiment helped elect Jon Tester in 2006, then Barack Obama in 2008, once in power they hopped off the wave as it hit the shoreline and disappeared. Here is b again making an observation too many Americans are incapable of seeing:

Yesterday people were protesting at airports against Trump’s new immigration restriction. Lots of outrage against Trump ensued on social media over this and the other issues. The hypocrisy here stinks to high heaven. Where were the protest when Obama did similar?

Where are the protests demanding the repeal of the Patriot Act? Where are the anti-war protests? These died as soon as Obama came into office. They never came back even as Obama pursued polices that were, at best, Republican light and far from any progressive ideal. Only fake liberals, aka “libruls”, could agree with these.

Many of the people coming out now against Trump would likely have jubilated had Hilliary Clinton won the election and introduced the exactly same policies. How can they expect to be taken serious?

I bite my virtual tongue on Facebook and won’t be turning out to the streets because I can’t take this deluge of outrage seriously. I know the psychological distress is real and the growing threat people fear is real, but where were they for the last 8 years as Obama codified indefinite detention with the National Defense Authorization Act and established the capacity to bypass due process in order to execute US citizens with flying robots?

Placing the building blocks of American Fascism has been a long, bipartisan process. I think we are at the terminal phase of this project, so conventional forms of opposition aren’t going to be effective.

Instead of street protests and trying to elect better candidates for political office, I think it’s time to start preparing for the day when food trucks stop delivering food products to grocery stores.

I hope I’m wrong.

by William Skink

Here is the New Year Poem I wrote a few weeks ago with music and images. Enjoy!

by William Skink

Well, it’s official:  Missoula’s gun ordinance is toast.

This was the predictable outcome to a symbolic waste of time that would not have had the intended impact supporters of this municipal move hoped for.

I would say more, but I really don’t like writing posts on my phone.

Have at it in the comments.

by William Skink

I have multiple posts I would like to be writing, but I’m in data restriction, so I’m thumbing this on my phone.  Usually when this happens, streaming video is the main thing impacted, but this month I can’t do shit, so expect light posting as fascism comes to full fruition in America.

When I used the F word pre-Trump it was dismissed as outlandish hyperbole.  Now that the perks of the presidency, like drone killing and executive orders, have been bestowed on oompa Adolf, the F word will be taken more seriously.

This is the nightmare those of us without partisan blinders on were worried about.  This is the horror show made possible  by Neoliberals assuming identity politics would install their Queen.

Saturday marches with pink pussy hats won’t stop this dark decline.  Letting Chuck fucking Schumer frame the opposition is utter idiocy.  

We are only days into this new era, with Trump backed by the US military during the inauguration like a symbolic warning to the other faction of the deep state trying to take him out.

Buckle up, peeps, the turbulence is going to be severe.