1. What should Progressives do Next?

2. Why was the Google Walkout so important?

3. America's problem isn't Tribalism, it is Racism?

4. Why do we still have institutionalized injustice

Let us take these one by one, but let's do it in reverse order, now that we've placed the list placed before us.

I want to take the last first for two reasons: First because it is as personal for me, as it is for the author of the fourth story, but also because it is my firm belief that Institutionalized Injustice is precisely what killed that poor young women. Only now it is far worse because we gave commercial entities all the rights, but none of the responsibilities, of citizenship.

It is personal for me because a drunk doctor back in the sixties, too inebriated to be able to do anything, and a hospital full of professionals, not certified for delivery, and not wanting to be sued, killed my younger brother (the delivery was delayed and he got caught up in his umbilical cord), even though it took six years for his "birth defect" to actually do him in -- and me having to hold him convulsing while mom drove, in a total panic, to another ER, just to have him die a few minutes later. And now, years later, a totally bankrupted healthcare system almost dumped, literally, my older brother, a veteran of Nam, back on the streets of Graham Washington, with obvious mental illness, because none of the providers wanted to take the fiscal responsibility (and were it not for the dogged efforts of my younger sister Becky, they might have gotten away with it).

Sadly, "Institutionalized Injustice" is getting noticed more now precisely because it affects more and more of what used to be middle class whites. And that happened because of both the globalization of production (brought on by both great advances in containerized, very large scale, commercial logistics), as well as the electrification of skill, and capital itself, so that anything can be made virtually anywhere; and that because of all of these, and the trade deals that dropped so many trade barriers, have we seen the destruction of much of the middle class, which was just beginning to include minorities. And because of that we have lost the ability to afford healthcare at all as a nation (as delivered as a commercialized commodity anyway). Well... That and the new insatiability for profit that has become of all aspects of commercial endeavor these days (let alone for the drug industries, or capital formation industries -- which is what insurance companies really started out as).

What we are talking about here, really, is "marginalization," and the really unfortunate way that both Capitalism, and Racism, have to have it; something that should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone; assuming, of course, that you've been paying attention at all. As such, Mr. Serwer's article for the Atlantic is well put, for in a very important sense, the trivialization of Racism by calling it "Tribalism," as convenient euphemism, is to certainly be deplored. But there is an exception to be made here I think, in one important distinction: and that is to separate "tribalism" in that political sense, and look instead at it from the perspective of "The Economics of Scarcity" that Capitalism really is, and how that relates back to our primitive beginnings as ignorant, superstitious to a dangerous degree, and just plain vulnerable, animals in a cruel world; animals however who were given the anomaly of significantly increased mental capacity; capacity built atop the lower brain, and the extensive nervous system of the rest of the body, outside of the brain.

Capitalism made sense in its day, hundreds of years ago, because it represented an effective way, at least for us to start with, to organize skill, capital, and the markets, for the interplay of the first two, to start the process of raising both our general, and individual, levels of material well being; as well as our knowledge levels. Humanity, and the rest of life in general, paid a dear price for that advancement, as things actually developed, but the advancement did come.

Now that our instrumentality has changed so radically, however, over the centuries, and now most especially in the advancements of information processing, and automation, that old system has come to a very sorry pass indeed. And the really tragic thing is, with these new instrumentalities we could redefine how we do both work, and the equitable distribution of the fruits of any particular community's ability to do coordinated, and necessary, social production of goods and services, so that it need no longer be nearly so much a thing of enforced scarcity; that denial by default (usually by a powerful few that enjoy controlling things) that Capitalism must have in order to survive at all (because if it isn't dear in some way, or made to be appreciated as so, what value can it have in Capitalism).

Which brings us to the last two items.

People walking out as a matter of conscience now, from where they work is an amazing step of worker empowerment, from people who otherwise might not be so enthused of "Union Solidarity" as it used to be expressed; back in the days when the companies owned the towns, and every institution in them, including the police, and most of the local courts; as in the old mining towns. Timber Towns, or steel towns. Even the car towns after Henry Ford. Whatever kind of big production you might want to talk about. And back then they didn't just marginalize you, they beat you, hung you, or run you out of town tarred and feathered. Just like they would do with "Uppity Blacks" down south. Whatever the case, though, it is to be celebrated, and encouraged, but we must also acknowledge that there is more to this than meets the eye.

That first step is, and this is very important, only just one further step away from taking what "walking out" really signifies here: that simply stepping away from "business as usual," for a brief moment, is only the half of the full walk of what it takes to justify real commitment to a moral outrage. Outrage that cannot end with lip service to the commoditization of women, as well as their continual humiliation before people who think economic power gives them the right to behave as they damn well please. No, that horrible marginalization is only one aspect of the whole picture here, and you absolutely have to understand how it all integrates; because it is now just stacks and stacks of complex systems, social and otherwise, that must integrate in a completely new way, or we will all perish.

It will be up to Progressives now to find a way to forge a new alliance between the Libertarian Right, minorities, and their own base, so as to show everyone else that not only should there be an alternative, there can be an alternative; an alternative that empowers working people, no matter who they are, or what other fool thing they might believe in, so that we can get rid of the thing that pits working people against each other. And then we can begin to do what's right, because we are going to need everyone working on this. To not only save the environment by doing what it takes to both get the carbon out of the atmosphere, but also do the things that will shade Ice flows, and glaciers where needed, and maybe even eventually shading cities themselves. And beyond that to do the things that will let us construct the next great isthmus to full world participation in a migration to new habitats on the moon, in orbit around our sun, as well as onward to new solar systems. Something else we must do if we are to keep the planet habitable at all.

Progressives' plan for victory just took a gut-punch. Now what do they do?

Why the Google Walkout Was a Watershed Moment in Tech

America's Problem Isn't Tribalism—It's Racism

Losing Laura

See Also:
[Post Note: The wall your wave has hit is the fact that Liberals, who ought to be a great deal more open this this, don't want to recognize, any more than most any Republicans do, where true Progressivism should be right now; and that is at the forefront of accepting the inescapable conclusion that Capitalism is obsolete. Utterly. Completely, and without much further need of deliberative argument. It is past its use-by date by at least a century now, and if you were actually listening to Marshall McLuhan, or Harold Innis, back in the day, you would realize this implicitly.

If we argue our point from the position that we will get rid of Capitalism, and create a better, actually human oriented, as well technically, and practically, integrated operating system, into the new environment of systems complexity, and information moving at the speed of light, we can take economic issues away from the Right; arguing from the fact that this very expansion of our faculties demands a new kind of involvement in depth, redefining work, so as to blend living, and providing, into a balanced, and seamless whole; or to at least present this as a new ideal, worthy of working towards.

In my opinion, only thus can we also take on the new responsibility of repairing the damage we have done to this planet, even as we work to repair so many centuries of terrible marginalization, of so many, either by ethnicity, or gender; the very marginalization you would expect from an old system that has to have the "economics of scarcity" in order to maintain itself at all. J.V.]

Where the Blue Wave Hit a Red Wall

[Post Note: And here's an example of just how far they are willing to go to lie to you inside of their propaganda. J.V.]

The big lie Republicans are telling this election

[Post Note: When are Progressives, or anybody else, for that matter, going to learn that we will never be able to outspend them on interest group political issues (the Seattle Carbon measure group was way outspent by outside energy interest groups). And for that reason alone will our message be diluted as it is drowned out by the saturation propaganda of the vastly more well financed, "Big Money," side. We must unite all minorities, and the Progressive Left, and The Libertarian Right, to take direct, massive, across the boards, peaceful work walkouts of as much of what makes America go as we can, for week long periods at a go, if necessary. And once every month if necessary. In my view, it is the only way we get real action on anything important for our survival. J.V.]