Optimism hits the wall
I’m very late posting this week. I’ve been struggling with cognitive dissonance. I want to write about the great advances in software, how we can best direct this innovation, and the great opportunities, etc.
But then, our government is shooting people in the street. After some struggle, I have to be a citizen first.
Do you remember America before Trump?
This video hits hard — Don Winslow Films — Do You Remember America Before Trump? (The original is on X, but I don’t care to send traffic there). You can quibble with details, but the main point is dead on — Trump came down that escalator and dragged us all down with him.
Or listen to Ilhan Omar — who receives the most death threats of anyone in Congress, driven by Trump rhetoric.
The lack of character, the amorality, the pervasive lying throughout his administration – even mainstream conservatives assert that we cannot trust the administration any more — via Robert Peterson on Threads:
Conservative George Will: “Today, it is more than prudent, it is good citizenship to assume that everything ICE says, and everything the administration says in support of its deportation mania, is untrue until proved to be otherwise” — Wa Post opinion column ($)
In some fantasy world, our civic and business leaders would rise up, defend us from the encroachments of this administration, and turn our country back around. But Tad Stoermer explains very well why this is not going to happen — history shows us that it is naive and absurd to think that established opposition leaders will fight to overturn the system for many reasons:
- Establishment democrats and civic leaders are personally invested in the system — they are well compensated and won’t fight for dramatic change.
- They start small and ask for small improvements, and those requests get further watered down in the political process. We need a big, bold change.
Democratic party leadership is going to be feckless. And our technology industry leadership? At a minimum, none of them should be selling products to ICE. But they are too busy appeasing Trump. Here is John Gruber on Tim Cook:
Cook’s call for “deescalation” is meaningless without specifying which side he’s calling upon to change course, and there’s no weaker sauce than the weak sauce of “both sides”. Using words, not to make a point, but to avoid making a point while creating the illusion of having made one, is the true sin.
Or read about Amazon fawning over Trump and Melania and spending stupid amounts doing so — all while laying off another 16,000 people.
No one is going to save us without grassroots pressure, without all of us standing up for our rights and demanding the society and government we deserve.
Minnesota
Friends on the ground suggest the following grass-roots organizations if you are looking for a place to help:
The Bill of Rights
Ramez Naam says the Constitution needs an upgrade — certainly, we are seeing our fundamental rights trampled in the streets of Minneapolis and all over the country. His list is great. I suspect the entire Bill of Rights could use a refresh.
He discusses changes to encourage more proportional representation, which is fundamentally a free speech issue. Gerrymandering of House seats is an attack on citizens' free speech rights; it is an attempt to silence the voices of certain groups. Disproportionate representation in the Senate also suppresses the speech of citizens in more populous states.
These are not the only ways free speech has been attacked. Citizens United has permitted money to corrupt speech — some citizens can use their money to drown out the speech of many others. And disinformation in the media has degraded trust in speech — actors with bad intent can flood the zone with nonsense. We need to remove money from political speech and hold people accountable for the spread of disinformation.
The Second Amendment was intended to prevent a tyrannical government from forcing its will on us. The amendment has been sorely misread, but is completely inadequate to the original intent. A citizen carrying a gun, even an automatic rifle, cannot defend against the firepower of modern military weapons or squads of militarized police. We need greater constraints placed on the police (local, state, federal) and the weaponry they are permitted to deploy against us.
Every part of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution should be looked at again. It is clear that current laws and their enforcement cannot stop a rogue Administration from harming us all.