Day 531 Wednesday July 4, 2018 1,047 Days to Go
Happy 4th!
We are in Maine. The family house overlooks the Western Bay with Mount Desert Island, Cadilac Mountain, and Acadia National Park as our view. It’s a special place. My parents bought the place in the 1970s. It was a small cabin close to the water, which they expanded. Dad had the idea that solar would make sense one day. I had solar panels put on the roof last year thus fulfilling that idea.
It’s a special place. I got up this morning at 5:30 as the sun was beginning to come up. The water on the bay was so still that the reflection showed a the mountains bathed in an orange pink. As I said, it’s a special place. Tradition seems to come with being in Maine. We went to the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound, where I introduced all four of “Peggy Kinnaird’s grandkids” to the woman who rings up the sales. She’s the daughter of the old guy who used to sit behind the counter. (He’s is featured on a large picture at the Bangor Airport) It brought tears to her eyes to see those kids. Alex at six foot five (or is it six?) almost touching the rafter standing behind the other three.
Today we’ll go to the baseball diamond in Bar Harbor for the blueberry pancakes and then watch the parade, complete no doubt with the tow trucks with clowns seated in tires hanging from the tow hook. (Then there was the year the local head shop rented a flatbed put a bale of hay on it and had a few long haired folks sitting around as Jimmy Hendrix’x Star Spangled Banner played on an endless loop.)
The old green general store, Butterfield’s, has been converted into a tee-shirt shop. I understand the great grandson is still alive, lives out on Route 3. I hope to go over and record the story of how the family got to Bar Harbor from Boston. His great grandfather at the personal request of Teddy Roosevelt helped Mr. Roosevelt get Boston behind the Rough Rider and as a reward he got a trip out west where he was dropped off by the train in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota. (I suspect that’s where Teddy Roosevelt Park is now.) He also somehow made enough money to leave Boston and sail “down east” (that’s where the term comes from – leaving Boston to go to Maine you sail down wind and to the east.) He set up his butcher shop in Bar Harbor. If you go into that old green building you can still see the overhead track where they brought the side of beef in to be butchered and put in the ice locker behind.
Last night I heard that Trump’s Supreme Court picks are between “hard-right” and “insane right.” Not a good choice for the country. Also, the intelligence analysts are saying that Trump is a spymaster’s dream as an asset. Easily manipulated by flattery or personal enrichment, knows nothing; what’s not to like? Big business, conservatives, and the Christian right have also realized that this is their chance to push their extreme agendas on the rest of us. The Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision giving women the right to choose for themselves when it comes to reproductive rights is being talked about as if it had already been overturned, which given that all the jurists Trump is looking at are hand picked by the Federalist Society, a group dedicated to pushing right wing ideologues onto every open bench seat in the country is not a surprise. But that is only where the agenda of these people begin. It is the total enslavement of the general population by changing the rules. It is the curtailing of personal freedom and choice. It is the grabbing of power and keeping it.
The Federalist Society are “originalists.” They say they want to look at the Constitution as it was originally intended. If you take them at their word that would mean women would not have the right to vote, white men would rule, and the 2nd Amendment would be used as originally intended – to allow slave owners to chase down and keep enslaved black people. The only question in my mind is how far will they be able to go? Part of this overall strategy is to weaken the Federal government and to take control of as many state houses as possible. At the state level is the easiest place to wield power because most people don’t pay attention to what the state government is doing. This allows those powerful interests to keep local government in check (look at Michigan and Flint) and to stop the Federal government from doing much. Why are they dismantling the Interior Department, the EPA, The FTC? Because they get in the way of allowing them, the powerful, to have their way. They hide their motives behind phrases and slogans. “Freedom” is a favorite. My own congressman, the nutty right winger and phony economist, Dave Brat is part of the “Freedom Caucus.” He was going on about getting rid of Obamacare so everyone could have “freedom to choose.” To choose between one price gouging health care plan and another is what he means. Or there’s the Supreme Court ruling saying that a person should be free to not have to pay union dues. It’s okay to get the benefit, but you don’t have to aid financially. This guts the unions; a key goal of the powerful interests. Unions, like true democracy, can be a pain in the butt. However, no one has come up with better ways to deal with these situations. Ever since Reagan went after the air traffic controller’s union membership in unions has been dropping, and they are now becoming inconsequential in the U.S. economy and surprise surprise so have the good paying jobs that they used to garner.
This is not an accident. When Hillary Clinton said “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” she was correct. I don’t think most of us, including her, realized how big and evil it was or is today.
If you want to see what this cabal can do, look at Chile, where when Pinochet was dictator there, he managed to push through a new constitution, aided, abetted, and guided by some of these folks from the U.S. Their goal was to hamstring the federal government of Chile because as the old saying goes, “Some politicians won’t stay bought.” A new progressive candidate for president won in Chile a few years ago, and she discovered that a lot of the things she promised in her campaign couldn’t be done unless and until the constitution was changed. What are the Koch brothers pushing for? A constitutional convention.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t be cajoled into believing “that it will all work out.” There are evil people determined to bend our country’s system of government to their will, and they are succeeding. A friend of mine said that his grandparents were living in Germany when Hitler was coming to power. He said everyone knew Hitler was crazy, but by the time they decided to act; it was too late.
Our country and our way of life is being threatened like never before. We must stand up. We must fight. We must vote and get others to vote. For those who believe in the cult of Trump, I am afraid they are hopeless, or it will be “too late” before they realize.
1,047 Days to Go
PS The Western Bay, Maine, July 4th 5:30am.
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