What is to be done? Autumn Equinox 2017

    There's not much time. There's a lot to do. That much should be obvious to anyone with a pulse and a little compassion.  Everything I'm talking about has to be understood within and emerging from a realization that humans are committing ecocide.  This self-destructive pattern has opposing forces, communities and networks devoted to extinguishing those disastrous ideologies that have brought us to this precipice.  In the long run of history, it is my hope to see an end to capitalism, imperialism and male supremacy, the breeders of war and misery.

    In the short run, this could be a moment of rare opportunity.
    After eight months in office, there are more public calls for the impeachment of the President.  This will not happen as long as the GOP holds majorities in both houses of Congress.  With the mid-term elections next year, there is a serious possibility that the Republicans could lose that control.
    The other party, the Democrats, is in perpetual confusion.  Without dissecting the factions, let's allow that Sanders' campaign disproved the "conventional wisdom" governing the DNC & DLC campaign strategies.  Fortunately, the Sanders team has continued to work inside and outside the official party, pushing the conversation to the left, supporting local action committees, identifying and promoting progressive candidates to challenge the Wall Street Democrats.  For example, Every Voice http://www.everyvoice.org/  is a spin-off that's getting good results.
    This is a chance to challenge the old guard.  We need to find a lot of good, qualified people to get into races up and down the ticket, from school boards to Senators.  School boards?  We need to defend our schools from privatization as "charter" schools, don't we?  City council?  We want decent housing, fair wages, safe streets and clean water, don't we?  We know this if we studied "Civics."  These are abiding concerns for many of us on the local level.
    The unusual circumstances right now will require an enormous, coordinated effort to succeed.  I believe it would be possible to impeach the president and vice-president and choose a new Speaker of the House, who would ascend to the White House.  To do this, we would have to challenge and defeat many Democrats and Republicans currently sitting in the House.  With a progressive-tilted House, a new Speaker could be installed as the 46th President.  Think about that.

    Where do candidates come from? 
    Honestly, I don't know, but I have some ideas that suggest an historical trajectory we should take advantage of. 

   (At this point in composition I stopped to see what was causing Lambert's distress... )

    It's difficult to say how many authentic grassroots political action groups are functioning today. All the well-known and established non-profits have their spin-offs and astro-turf fronts competing for attention and dollars as well. (Check your Inbox if you doubt me. ) There are reports now, in the wake of the Democrats' purge of progressives, that the field of challengers the GOP will face comes from the Democrats' loyal donor class & "bundlers."
    If you participate in a group that has taken a stand to resist the GOP and Trump/Pence regime, look around and think about who might be a serious candidate for a local or district campaign. Who are the "spark plugs" and who are the stalwarts? What is the passion that drives them?
    Every day my email box is full of appeals for money, reports and alerts, projections and analysis, frequently above or below a name that's become familiar from repetition. Do any of these people aspire to public service, representing the folks they live with and advocate for? They are well up on current events and their public record should be readily available.
    Maybe you are the person to step up? Or a family member? A friend among your circle? It seems so remote, I know, and yet this is the essence of civic life and citizen democracy. As a democracy, we must insist upon respecting both "majority rule" and "minority rights" lest we perpetuate the present plutocratic hierarchy of power into the future.
    Last, here is a short list of groups from my inbox. You might recognize some of them. Just to repeat myself, "Who are these activists and could they be successful candidates who win elections?"

Rachel Warino   CA Labor Fed

Sabrina Joy Stevens   National Women's Law Center

Lucia, Candace, & Dutch   freepress.net

Emily Heffling  Western States Outreach Coordinator, Union of Concerned Scientists—       
    Oakland Office

Shaun O’Brien  AFL-CIO

Good Jobs Nation

Our Revolution

Sum Of Us

Avaaz

Ben Wikler  MoveOn

Brandy Doyle  CREDO Action 

Lena Moffitt  Sierra Club

Jay Henderson   Democracy for America

Reuben Hayslett   Demand Progress

     There are a handful of special elections coming up. It will be interesting to see what happens. In Alabama for example.

Observations in mid-summer, 2017

     The recently installed, but illegitimate, forty-fifth resident of the nation's capital has continued his demolition of 'life as we know it' for millions of people. The axe of presidential authority falls primarily on the necks of people who are poor, speak English as a second or third language, or belong to a 'Middle-Eastern faith community.'
     My friends have an old eucalyptus on the hillside above the street that needs to come down before it falls down. They called the crew that's been trimming their trees forever. The crew is down to the boss, one guy and a trainee. The rest of his guys had to leave, or stay home while their wives went to work. My friends tried another tree trimmer, but he said the tree was too big for his crew.
     Almost every day now people are in the streets for immigrants' rights, protesting the round-ups and deportations, the travel bans. Civil rights groups are raising funds to challenge the executive orders in the courts. The government is confident it will prevail. With the confirmation of the White House's choice for the Supreme Court, this seems likely in the end. Meanwhile, on the streets, ICE, the new Migra, is working overtime to fill those buses.
     The new crew in the White House, a collection of billionaires and vulture capitalists like 45, has cleaned house, giving pink slips to everyone left, scrubbed department websites, and ruthlessly rolled back as much of the previous administration's regulatory protections as it can reach, with help from the Republican controlled Congress. Privacy and net neutrality are about gone. Environmental protections: gone. School lunches and women's health: gone. Voting rights: going. Police reviews: on hold. Pipelines: green light. Arctic drilling: green light. And these "executive actions" have yet to be complemented by the Congress' legislative agenda, including repeal of ACA, tax reform, energy policy, immigration reform, trade agreements and another shot at privatizing Social Security.
     And there's the war business, the engine that drives the the imperial juggernaut across borders, the endless struggle for domination of markets and resources. By some experts' figuring, more than half of all Federal tax revenue goes to "defense" (which also includes veterans' benefits, pensions, etc.), a fact that validates the assertion that the US spends more on its military than the next seven nations combined. If we spent less on defense, we could divert our tax dollars to do all kinds of things that need doing! That's not going to happen with the current regime in control.