Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
The only reason I can think of to leave is that it could be seen as
voting with my feet. I have a history of walking out of classes, off
jobs, etc., in protest. But who would I be protesting *to*? The
fascists would say good riddance. This *is* my country, alien as it
seems right now. I can't see going anywhere else.
  

    
I guess I don't feel any more that it's my country. It's like that
ancient sketch about the apartment house that only stood as long as
the tenants believed in it. I believed in the potential for a better
country. I believed the arc of the moral universe bent toward
justice. I thought more people cared about justice than didn't. I
thought our education system could be repaired, bent and broken as
it was.

I don't believe any of that now. How is the country going to get
better now for the people for whom it was never very good to begin
with? For anyone, actually, other than those worth ten figures and
up? Where is justice, where is the majority who care about it? Who's
going to give a shit about fixing the public schools now, since
they're not a profit center?

As long as those things at least seemed possible, this was my
country. It never will be again; this SCOTUS will outlive me. The
oligarchy will remain untouchable. Crooks and rapists will pay no
price.

As of today I'm a resident alien. 
  

    
Yeah, that makes total sense to me.
  

    
I'm not leaving to protest. I'm leaving for the same reason most
refugees leave; to escape a toxic, dangerous, and oppressive
government and hostile society in pursuit of freedom and
opportunity. I'm leaving because I'm on the far side of three score
and ten, and don't want to live in a shithole country with corrupt
rulers and random bullies enforcing a morality code I don't respect
in my remaining years.

I'm fairly well traveled, and I've found lots of places I could live
quite happily, all over the world. I've never been very fond of this
nation, although I've found some pleasant enough corners of it. I
had no interest in fighting for it in Vietnam, and I have even less
interest in fighting for it in Lane County. Not when there is a
gorgeous natural paradise I can enjoy peaceably.

This nation was founded by propertied white males for the comfort,
safety and convenience of the same, forcing the prior inhabitants
off the land at gunpoint, and developing it through the private
ownership of human  beings. However noble their intentions might
have been in opposing the monarchy, this country is still stolen
property, soaked in blood, and still run for the benefit of
propertied white males. The fact that I am a propertied white male
doesn't really alter the calculus a bit. I have no sentiment or
pride in its origin narrative. It is a criminal enterprise at
national scale.

The truth is that we could stay here and very likely never suffer
any of the malignant mayhem promised by the party of pallor. But it
would be depressing, and that's not how I want to spend my golden
years. I have agency, and resources, and I'm going to exercise both
for the highest quality of life I can find.

It is not without costs and sacrifices, however, and I resent that I
must undertake them because a defective political system threw a rod
right through the crankcase, but it's like the rain; complaining
doesn't make it any drier. Revolution is a younger man's game.
  

    
<As of today I'm a resident alien.>

I feel the same, but have felt something like that most of my life
(since Nixon, at least).
  

    
And this:

<...a shithole country with corrupt rulers and random bullies
enforcing a morality code I don't respect...founded by propertied
white males for the comfort, safety and convenience of the same,
forcing the prior inhabitants off the land at gunpoint, and
developing it through the private ownership of human beings...stolen
property, soaked in blood, and still run for the benefit of
propertied white males.>

Truer words have never been typed.
  

    
Can't argue with a single word. 

Just posted this over in <news.>. And I'm so sorry for the Twitter
link, but I can't find this anywhere else. The cover of the New
European is a stunner. 

<https://x.com/TheNewEuropean/status/1854129503263502361>
  

    
Vivid.
  

    
Maybe it’s time to wake up expat.ind. 

Being able to leave the US is a privilege many don’t have, but
staying in the US is also a privilege that not everyone has, not if
they want to survive.
  

    
I don’t want to leave. If there were an easy way to do it I might. 

I might become more politically active. I haven’t been because I
work for a company that is regulated by the SEC, and there are a lot
of things I can’t do because of that. But I think I’m going to
figure out how I’d like to be involved and then have a talk with our
compliance officer.
  

    
There's important work to do here in the US.

A peaceful but determined resistance to Trump must start now
Robert Reich

<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/06/election-trump-president
-resistance-america>
  

    
<As long as those things at least seemed possible, this was my
country>

I think those things are still possible; the chances of them
happening over the next four years, however, have probably gone down
a bit. 

Trump is going to try and tear apart the social fabric, corrupt the
government, incite violence, and end democracy. He's going to be
successful, at least to some degree.

The resistance will help determine to what degree, and who'll
rebuild our country after whatever he manages to do finally comes to
an end. 

I hope to be a part of that, however small. 
  

    
I think you've hit on the important difference, Ron - those of us
who look ahead and see no hope, and the opposite. Both viewpoints
are legit, to me. 
  

    
For people who say they want to fight and engage in activism, I’m
genuinely curious how much risk you’d be willing to take. This time
around we’ve seen that all the letter writing, phone calls, peaceful
protests, and monetary donations didn’t make enough difference. 

So under the new regime would you be willing to, for instance, risk
being arrested for driving women across borders so they can obtain
abortions? Or learn how to conduct safe abortions in your own
kitchen? Would you be willing to hide and shelter fugitive
immigrants or trans people or other “outlaws” in your attic? Would
you be willing to attend a protest if there’s a high probability
you’ll be tazed, teargassed, shot at, beaten by cops, and arrested? 

If not, then what sorts of effective acts of resistance are you
considering? I’m not asking this as a hostile challenge, I’m
genuinely curious. 
  

    
I’d be willing to do all of that; there are many worse ways to die.
  

    
slip

I'm not considering any acts of resistance right now. I'm still
waiting to see what's going to happen before I decide how my time,
money, and/or energy is best spent. 

Hopefully, we'll be able to defeat fascism peacefully. But if the
circumstances seem to call for it, I'll do whatever needs to be
done. 
  

    
I don't know I would advertise my intentions in a publicly available
forum such as this one.
  

    
Point taken.
  

    
A little context. 

It looks like Harris lost Pennsylvania's 19 Electoral Votes to Trump
by about 133,000 votes out of 6.8M votes.

Nikki Haley got 157,000 protest votes against Trump in the
Pennsylvania Republican Primary last April. She had dropped out of
the race 5 weeks before the primary. 
  

    

For now, I like John Moe's take:

Applied to foster a dog today. Already have two permanent dogs.
It occurs to me that when I walk two dogs, I look like a dog owner. 
If I walk three, I’ll look like a professional dog walker at work.

Jill asked what kind of dog I’d like to foster. I said ideally a
small dog with good bathroom habits and social skills who is
disappointed with how the world has worked out thus far. I could
vibe with a dog like that.

<https://bsky.app/profile/johnmoe.bsky.social/post/3lacxwjkaox2z>
  

    <scribbled by druid Wed 6 Nov 24 23:04>
  

    
Look who else didn't vote in 2024 -- dems in blue PA cities.

<https://www.publicsource.org/election-2024-map-results-trump-pa-allegheny-coun
ty-voter-turnout/>

(Allegheny County is where Pittsburgh is located.)

"[...]
Overall, about 710,000 of Allegheny County’s 952,539 registered voters
participated, or 74.6% with a small amount of votes left to
tally. Turnout in 2020 was 77.1%.

And the precincts with turnout below the county’s average were
clustered in liberal areas: Pittsburgh, McKeesport, Penn Hills,
Wilkinsburg and other nearby suburbs were among the lowest
participating municipalities in the county.
[...]"
  

    
I posted <346> without thinking that this was a publicly readable
discussion.

Here is a bowdlerized version:

Angie your <327> really speaks to me. For my whole adult life I've
clung to a belief in the possibility of progress. And it has long
seemed that humanity's best hope of progress lay in the United
States, with its liberal democratic traditions. Yes, it has a
blood-soaked history and it's far from stain-free now. And it has
been drifting in a clearly retrograde direction since at least 1980.
But still there was always hope. We elected a black man, for
Christ's sake! And with Joe Biden it was starting to look like we
might be pointing federal economic and environmental policy in the
right direction again. And then -- this.

I don't know how much hope I have. Maybe not much. But I am not
prepared to cede this land to the mob that has just grabbed power by
shameless prevarication and appeals to the worst of human nature.

I might feel differently if I belonged to a despised minority. But
the very fact that I don't makes me feel that much more obligated to
stay and resist. How? I don't know yet. But surely we can figure out
how to solve this problem. I'm willing to die trying, anyway.
  

    
Those low vote totals suggest two possibilities to me (not mutually
exclusive): (1) Abstentions over Palestine, and (2) successful
efforts to flood the zone with so much disinformation that some blue
voters were frozen with indecision. I've seen some reports
suggesting that a lot of voters were so confused by the talking
points being thrown at them that they may have been unable to decide
how to vote. Which in turn speaks to the pernicious effects of
social media, plus way way way too much money in our electoral
process.
  

    
Good morning once again, friends. Not sure how I'm feeling today.
Not running, that's for sure, but not full of hope either. I guess
I'm going to settle into what will be a long slog to try and save
what we can.