Month: March 2020

by William Skink

If you think you have the fortitude to grapple with what’s coming, give yourself a gut check, then watch this:

by William Skink

While the information realm known as “alternative media” is comprised of lots of unhelpful noise and garbage, I’ve found value in wading in with an open mind to think differently about the events shaping our lives.

Two of the most helpful sites I’ve been regularly visiting as this global pandemic has been rolled out have been Moon of Alabama and The Last American Vagabond.

UPDATE: I need to add Liberty Blitzkrieg as a great site to check out.

One of the things that most concerns me is the types of solutions that will be put into action in response to the threat of this global pandemic. If you’ve never heard of the term “continuity of government”, I suggest checking out Whitney Webb’s new piece at The Last American Vagabond where she landed after leaving Mint Press. Here’s a peak:

Last week, Newsweek published a report entitled “Inside The Military’s Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government,” which offers vague descriptions of different military plans that could be put into effect if the civilian government were to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the potential of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to result in such a scenario.

The article’s author, William Arkin, largely frames these plans as new, though — buried deep within the article — he eventually mentions that such contingency plans can be traced back to the Eisenhower administration (though they were in place before) and have since been developed and updated by most subsequent administrations, largely through the issuance of executive orders. Arkin also points out that some of these “Continuity of Government”, or COG, plans include the “devolution” of leadership and Constitutional authority, which he notes “could circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders could be placed in control around America.”

Yet, there are key aspects of COG and its development that Arkin leaves out. For instance, in his timeline on how such plans have developed in the post-World War II era, he conveniently fails to mention any of the Reagan administration’s major changes to COG, including the Reagan-era Executive Order on which all current COG programs are based. Indeed, many of the “extra-Constitutional” aspects of COG that Arkin mentions began during the Reagan administration, when these plans were redrafted to largely exclude members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House, from succession plans and even moved to essentially eliminate Congress in the event of COG being implemented, with near total power instead being given to the executive branch and the military. It was also during this time that the “devolution” aspect of COG was hammered out, as it created three president-cabinet “teams” to be stationed in different parts of the country outside of the nation’s capital. Arkin’s decision to not mention how COG was a major focus of the Reagan administration is striking given that that administration poured hundreds of millions of dollars annually into COG planning and development and also conducted COG drills on a regular basis.

Continuity of government planning is one of those “solutions” we should be paying close attention to because it’s an actual plan, refined over the decades, to remove the constitutional protections we naively assume we will retain in a national emergency.

Other solutions that authoritarians won’t be able to resist implementing will be going cashless and ramping up surveillance. Can’t let an amazing opportunity like this go to waste, right?

On the garbage end of alternative media exist the everything hoaxers, people like former Montana blogger Mark Tokarski who claim this whole CoVid 19 virus doesn’t exist. I still check in at his website to see how his followers maintain their fierce denialism. It is actually quite impressive.

I should be more charitable. We are all experiencing disorientation and anxiety over what is happening. I’d say more, but I hear trouble brewing in the kitchen. Gotta go for now…

by William Skink

If there is a conflict between business interests and public interests who do you think comes out on top?

This whole social distancing thing is really getting worrisome for CEOs and investors. These addicts of Fed liquidity crack are realizing that all the liquidity crack in the world (conjured out of thin air) can’t tame the quadrillion dollar derivative black hole they created.

I’m not kidding when I say a quadrillion dollars. This is from Investopedia:

The derivatives market is, in a word, gigantic – often estimated at more than $1.2 quadrillion on the high end. How can that be? Largely because there are numerous derivatives in existence, available on virtually every possible type of investment asset, including equities, commodities, bonds and foreign currency exchange. Some market analysts even place the size of the market at more than 10 times that of the total world gross domestic product (GDP).

Yesterday our crony capitalist system reached an important benchmark when Trump articulated the importance of getting back to work ASAP. Trump’s lips may have been moving, but they were being animated by the hand of people like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who are claiming that vulnerable populations should sacrifice themselves to save the economy.

But save the economy for who?

Here in Missoula, the need to keep business deals going is the reason cited by City Council to justify their unanimous vote last night to bestow Herr Engen with more power:

On a 7-0 vote, the council approved Monday granting Engen the temporary power to approve contracts and agreements that normally require council approval. Councilors Mirtha Becerra, Bryan von Lossberg, Amber Sherrill, John Contos and Julie Merritt were absent.

“I think this is a real common-sense approach to eliminate a lot of the housekeeping business that … we do,” said Councilor Gwen Jones. “But a bigger issue for me also is that we’re getting these contracts out the door so that we’re lining up business for the summer so we can keep people employed.”

These temporary powers are being handed over to Engen because Council members are afraid to be in the same room with each other, and if they can’t legally meet then business contracts could be stalled. Why not meet remotely? It’s difficult, says Jordan Hess, who wants us to know they aren’t abdicating their duty:

Councilor Jordan Hess also emphasized that he takes the council’s role as a check on power very seriously, but felt this was a smart decision.

Hess said the city is looking at ways for the council to potentially move meetings online, but said that is difficult legally. He said Missoula is looking to other cities around the state to see how they are doing remote meetings and finding ways to engage the public that “might actually make us better after this crisis passes in terms of ways of engaging.”

So, as Council tries to figure out a tech-fix, our Mayor will have extended powers until April 30th.

Remember, this is the Mayor who thought a hand shake with the Carlyle Group was sufficient to make a deal. The same Mayor who is an alcoholic and turned a serious intervention about his behavior into a reelection campaign. The same Mayor who sneakily moved up a vote on Lord Checota’s Big D(rift) to avoid public scrutiny. The same Mayor who appears to be involved in some ethically dubious real estate deals.

I could go on.

Maybe in a few weeks our elected leaders will begin to realize that there is no going back to business as usual. Maybe they will realize that there are actual, real life consequences to kicking a quadrillion dollar can down the road for a decade while Herr Engen tossed out TIF money to developers and encouraged voters to pass tens of millions of dollars in bonds for parks and libraries and schools because 3% annual growth was going to keep happening forever and ever.

The quicker they realize this the quicker we can get to work on remaking a system that actually puts public interest ahead of CEOs and investors who contributed to a financial house of cards that is now crashing all around us.

by William Skink

This post is for all you parents out there: what the fuck are we going to do?

I try to frequently remind myself of how lucky my family is. The kids have a big yard to play in, my parents live here and help us out tremendously, and we have savings to fall back on.

That said, the kids are already driving us insane.

Last week was spring break, so we were prepared for the kids to be around and demanding our attention from the second they wake up to the end of the day, when we finally get a reprieve. But this week? And the next week? And the next after that?

My wife and I have already resigned ourselves to the likelihood our kids won’t be going back to school for the rest of the year. We are trying to download apps and are awaiting emails from teachers either today or tomorrow to give us further instruction.

We haven’t even begun to do this “distance learning” thing, but our first stabs of getting things set up online has me already deeply sympathizing with this Israeli mom and her rapid-fire rant about distance learning with her four kids:

There are so many huge sections of the population already being significantly impacted by the Coronavirus who need help, but if parents don’t get the support they need then the impacts on an entire generation of kids will be much more traumatizing.

A few days ago my little girl was telling me that it makes her sad she can’t see her friends, and she can’t go to gymnastics, and she can’t go to school, so we do our best to explain what is going on.

But I’m not going to bullshit my kids, they are too smart for that, so if I don’t know that answer to something, I say so. If I am worried about something, I explain what exactly is worrying me.

Obviously I maintain a filter. I’m not going to describe all my worries to my kids because they still need the space to be kids. It’s a difficult balance that I don’t always do a good job of maintaining, just ask my wife.

That’s all for now. The little beasts have finished their breakfast, so it’s all hands on deck.

by William Skink

Adaptation is something that organisms do in order to survive. It is defined thusly:

An adaptation is a mutation, or genetic change, that helps an organism, such as a plant or animal, survive in its environment. Due to the helpful nature of the mutation, it is passed down from one generation to the next.

Here is another term worth considering in light of what is happening, normalcy bias. It is described at Wikipedia as

a tendency for people to believe that things will function in the future the way they normally have functioned in the past and therefore to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects. This may result in situations where people fail to adequately prepare themselves for disasters, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations.

With these concepts in mind, let’s take a look at good old Pete Talbot and his latest post, titled Coronavirus decisions: guns or generosity.

In this post Talbot is using a global pandemic to set up a false binary because he hates guns and conservatives that much. It begins with this:

The choices we make during the COVID-19 pandemic say a lot about society as a whole.

We can strip the grocery store shelves bare, leaving little for those who don’t have the resources to stockpile. We can load up on guns and ammo.

Or we can volunteer to deliver meals to the elderly and disabled. We can buy gift cards at our local restaurants and retail businesses. We can donate to the community food bank.

I am so goddamn tired of this sanctimonious bullshit coming from the likes of Pete Talbot, a supposed progressive here in Missoula who pretends to stand up for the poor and vulnerable, yet remains conspicuously silent as critics like me point out actual public policies that exacerbate inequality, like Tax Increment Financing.

After 10 years of working in the non-profit sector with the very populations Talbot uses to forward his anti-gun agenda, I know a thing or two about the systems coming under immense pressure from the coronavirus, and that is a BIG reason I stocked up on things like emergency food rations and ammunition years ago.

Pete Talbot and the other partisans pretending to be reporters at the Montana Post are hopelessly stuck in a normalcy bias that prevents them from understanding how the world is changing. They are not alone. There are many people trapped in a mindset that will lessen their chances of survival as the scope of what is coming takes shape.

The economic depression that will result from the popping of the everything bubble is now fast approaching. Does Pete Talbot really think the benevolent billionaires who run public policy will allow the system that has created their wealth to be radically changed in order to benefit the broader public without a fight?

Anyone who thinks there is value in clinging to things like a two party political system is allowing normalcy bias to prevent their imagination from envisioning a different world.

Instead of fretting about gun sales, how about we identify the real threats we are facing, like the consolidation of wealth under neoliberalism and the globalization that has been implemented by those who seek to centralize more power and control for themselves.

We are all panicking to some degree as the world around us rapidly changes, and while we are feeling anxious about our own personal lives, you better believe those with power are positioning themselves to protect what they have and to get more of it.

If you want to expose yourself to sanctimonious lectures and preparation shaming, please, go read the Montana Post.

If you want non-partisan assessments of current events and a poem every now and then, keep checking in here.