Inherited Delusion

Inherited delusion,

Children mindlessly duking it out in front of me.

Parent's delusion animating a circular conversation....

spoken with tears and fists.

 

What an ugly fight,

But somewhere there is light

And maybe there is fertile soil

Surviving all that dark oil.

 

The father lost his fight.

He wandered away in defeat

and sleeps in an unmarked grave.

 

The Mother lost her fight.

She drowned her pain in poppy oil and alcohol

and now she sleeps alone.

 

But their ghosts possess their children in the night!

 

Somewhere there is light

Some kind of flower is growing in the night.

Ready to warm the day.

 

Who would think that you can beat someone you love?

Or label them with poison and save them?

But a person possessed?

 

Monkey see, monkey say,

our children do what they saw their parents play

And these sad children are acting that way.

Echoing parents, grandparents, present and ancient wars.

And a sad reenactment of hate.

 

Break that spell

Let's talk about our feelings

Without ever saying an unkind word

Or touching without permission.

Let's do what our parents couldn't do

And help these ghosts step into the light.

 

Christopher H. Holte, 8/16/2016

A Child's Universe

The Universe narrows to you and me.

My fathers eyes are all I see.

I orbit around his voices sound.

and all is right with the world….

 

A cave of warmth and strength.

A circle that narrows and expands.

My world a warm place safe from cold.

My fears can calm and subside.

 

In his Arms so strong and brave:

Refuge from pain and fears,

he dabs a cloth upon my tears,

and heals my sense of time.

This version is for my Dad, whose Birthday is August 19 1933

Original: http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2012/02/27/a-childs-universe/

Economic, Democratic Subsidiarity and local democracy

Greece in 2015, Puerto Rico Now, What to do?

Almost a year ago I blogged a series on the Eurozone and what was happening to the Greeks and what that means for us:

"The privateers give a Broadside to the Greeks",

Privateering through Banks and the EuroZone and

Going Greek on the Whole World

And I showed that neo-liberalism is not Bill Clinton, us Democrats and Company. It is our Republican movement:

Neoliberalism versus Economic Policy that Really works

I want Unicorns

I want Unicorns, I said!

They gave me donkey's instead!

I must have Unicorns!

Donkeys are no fun!

Unicorns smell nice,

They dance above reality

and fly up into the clouds!

Donkeys stink. They get dirty totally

And you have to shovel up behind them!

Give me Unicorns instead!

 

I want unicorns!

Reality is smelly and messy!

People have to work together

and clean up each other's messes!

We have to fight real enemies

Who think they are Elephant's

Or Ganesh taken form on Earth!

I want Unicorns!

I don't want to have to convince anyone!

Do what I say or I'll walk away!

Darn Donkeys need a carrot,

Or they won't walk my way!

 

Christopher H. Holte, watching the Berners, 7/26/2016

Two Strategies

Good Bye Representative Schultz:

I imagine you have mixed feelings about your role as Democratic National Chair. On the one hand, you've been trashed and subject to contradictory expectations. At the same time the job you've been doing as Chair was one of two full time jobs with built in conflict of interests between doing both excellently at the same time. You are also a Representative from Florida. The DNC chair should go to someone not holding a current elective office. One of your jobs is protecting the competitiveness and integrity of Democratic primaries. That means making sure that the party is not an "incumbent protection machine." As an incumbent your wearing those two particular hats looked bad all along.

Nevertheless, Up until the 2014 election I made donations to the DNC when I had the funds, and supported you 100%. After the election I with-held support for you. I think you could have done more to vigorously elect a house and senate for Obama. And you did things that didn't help him.

There are two DNC strategies. One involves trying to use scientific calculations to pick which folks are going to win and support them; while writing off "losers." The other involves using a different kind of strategy, long term propaganda and is known as the 50 state strategy.

You gave lip service to the 50 state strategy while pursuing the "invest where one is most likely to succeed" strategy. I thought that was and is counterproductive as we humans are fickle and if we write off populations we guarantee losses. But we can never guarantee wins. So the long term strategy will get us solid majorities and the short term thinking so prevalent now will guarantee us minority status.

I also didn't like the way you took your time with some IT projects and similar. Those also are related to the 50 state strategy. So I'm glad you are stepping down and wish you'd done so on Nov 10 2014.

Your conflictive relationship with the Bernie campaign just illustrates the feckless way you've done your job at times. In some areas you've done well. But you didn't seem to even get the importance of managing party functions in a way that brings people in, give an appearance of openness, and let us Democrats have a say in how our party is run. I don't agree with the Bernie campaign's efforts to make our primaries open, but we do need to improve our primary process and make our party more open to participation.

Open primaries as Bernie envisions them would just lead to mischief from Libertarians, Republicans, the far left and big money. Democracy is in participation. Not simply the forms. And our role as democrats isn't only to vote for you and send you money. This is our party too. This is also how we defeat the corrupt Citizens United Decision. If the party provides a neutral vehicle for candidate selection and a powerful tool for the general election, we can't be beat. That tool is two way communication and quality reporting. It can be provided by volunteers if the party provides the resources.

We win elections when we have consensus. And we get consensus by getting involved. So I can't blame you for the Bernie-bots or Russian infiltration of our system. But we can do much better! We need a two way system and more participation. We get that through involving people in the internal operations of the party, by electronic voting and polling. We don't get there by being treated as subjects.

Northern Summers

In the far north summers

are sweet and intense

They come on too fast

and leave even quicker

But what a glorious time they are!

 

If you don't mind mosquitoes and midges

You can grow things if the soil will melt.

Flowers and sedges,

tundra up north,

and forested taiga down south

Green everywhere, so brief, so delicate!

 

And then winter will return,

sometimes suddenly in a day.

Summer is short, it never will last.

But it leaves a sweet taste anyway.

The Paranoid Left's Insane Demonology

I never could figure out why my leftie friends were so anti-Hillary and so anti-Democratic until I started really listening with my mind, and not just my heart, to what they were saying. Then one day I figured it out! They think we are possessed by demons! They are as fictional, demagogic and delusional as the Right wing! They sound like the preacher in a tent revival! You can see the exaggerated and strident rhetoric on display right now as Bernie endorses Hillary and the "Busters"/far lefties, start bashing him just as they turned on Elizabeth Warren and most of the Democratic "establishment" during this election cycle.

Christopher Hedges is the ???Best??? example of this. He wrote in Truthdig back in February:

"The Democrats, like the Republicans, have no interest in genuine reform. They are wedded to corporate power." [Truthdig]

If he said "some Democrats" or "some of the Democratic leadership", or similar I probably would have agreed with him. I probably read this article around then and didn't take it too seriously because of my partial agreement. But this was around the time I was experiencing the "Bernie or Bust phenomena" and starting to realize I was dealing with something broader than simple "Hillary derangement Syndrome", which I'd often seen on the right but hadn't experienced much on the left. Naivety I suppose.