I don’t generally work without the buttress of other people’s research and observations because, as a pseudonymous author on the Internet, you have no more reason to trust my opinion than your own.
Less in fact.
As I look out on the developments of this summer I have a few observations and predictions that I’ll just share, naked, my bias should already be apparent in the things I’ve chosen to bring to your attention.
That’s called Editorial decision making.
The National Security State is just as pervasive as the worst imaginations of the most tin foil wearing conspiracy theorist. My only surprise is that after 7 years of personal advocacy and stony indifference it has suddenly captured the public’s attention. I believe Glenn Greenwald when he says this is the tip of the iceberg and I hope Ed Snowden stole enough secrets to keep him safe.
Nobody likes to be spied on. We all have a private movie of the shameful things we have done, or did not do, that we wish to keep from the world. “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear”, is a crock and the hypocrites who parrot it deserve full exposure. This will only happen if we maintain the pressure, if they didn’t know it was wrong they wouldn’t be scrambling like roaches to avoid the light.
Barack Obama is not as popular among African Americans as you think. The erosion of his polling has as much to do with the decline of his favorables in that demographic from 98% to 70% as anything else. The only group where his ratings have increased? White college+ males making more than $70,000 annually.
Guess they know which side of the bread substitute the icky wax is on. Obama has performed shamefully for the economic interests of the 99%. Expect big battles over the budget and debt ceiling with Obama pushing his “Grand Bargain” of chained CPI earned benefit cuts at every opportunity. Pray for the Tea Party to refuse to provide him a scant fig leaf of revenue.
I’d like to be optimistic about the environment. It’s a good thing we’ve been able to keep the Alberta Tar Sands bottled up so far, but the sad fact of the matter is we have 50x the amount of carbon we need to produce a global extinction, Epoch changing, methane hydrate explosion in already proven reserves.
If we pump what we already got, we’re all dead.
There is absolutely no indication that any of the Very Serious People are taking that seriously at all, even though Solar and Wind technology are economically competitive with carbon fuels (one of the reasons Alberta might go bust economically and why they are so frantic), much less Nuclear which is just about the most expensive power there is.
I could go on, but I’ll save it. I’m actually a cheerful guy and I’d hate for you to think I don’t have a plan to improve things when actually, I do.
Rebel. Rebel in the small things. Don’t watch the Idiots on TV, say mean things about them (they are notoriously thin skinned, vanity driven, narcissists). Don’t give Politicians your time or money, you need them more than they do (unless they are worthy), bad mouth them vocally when they deserve it which is most of the time. They are not your friend, they are your servant. Punish bad corporations by refusing to patronize them, again they care about your money, not you.
These are but a few ephemeral examples, I’m sure you can think of more and better. Above all stay informed and active. No one can take your freedom away, you have to let them.
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Throughout the late 1850s, treaty violations by the United States and late or unfair annuity payments by Indian agents caused increasing hunger and hardship among the Dakota. Traders with the Dakota previously had demanded that the government give the annuity payments directly to them (introducing the possibility of unfair dealing between the agents and the traders to the exclusion of the Dakota). In mid-1862 the Dakota demanded the annuities directly from their agent, Thomas J. Galbraith. The traders refused to provide any more supplies on credit under those conditions, and negotiations reached an impasse.
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