Some days, the smashing of the State will just have to wait.
… very, very slowly.
Yesterday was one of them.
The high temp was 83°, which can be something of a shock to the system in April. But we’ve eased into it, starting with 50-something on Monday and jumping up 10 degrees each day.
Shoot, I’ve managed nearly 100 miles so far this week and it ain’t over yet.
Oh, yeah: And in case you think I’ve gone soft on fascism, I’ll have you know that I struck a blow for The People on yesterday’s ride. The gate to La Cueva Picnic Site was closed and locked, but I snuck around it and rode to the top anyway.
Herself and I were part of a crowd guesstimated in the thousands that piled into Civic Plaza for our local Hands Off! rally, taking a raucous stand against fascism.
We carpooled with two friends to the thing, and met up with a few others at the plaza. Frankly, I was not expecting a big turnout — the “high” temperature of 43° just missed the record low, set in 1983, by a single degree — but I was delighted to be proven unsmart as per usual.
In Bibleburg it was easy to think we were the only libtards in town, though we knew better; it just felt that way sometimes. As in almost always, especially during election years.
In Duck!Burg, we’re surrounded by fellow travelers — but even here, with the endless cascade of caca pouring out of DeeCee, some days it seems that no umbrella, no matter how all-encompassing, can keep the stink off you.
So, yeah — even I, Captain Cynicism, was moved to see the throng hooting and hollering along with emcee Robert Luke, legendary activist Dolores Huerta, Mayor Tim Keller, former Interior Secretary turned gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez, former Albuquerque poet laureate Mary Oishi, and others.
Better than nothing, but only barely.
There were so many excellent, creative, handmade signs in evidence that I regretted dogging it and downloading prefabs from the Hands Off! people. My faves included “Shut Your Heil Hole,” the ever-popular “Elect a Clown, Expect a Circus,” and “Deport This Pendejo,” with an image of everyone’s favorite Swasticar salesman. There was even an excellent “Chingatumaga” placard, which we praised to its grinning creator.
So, props to Hands Off! and their partners for pulling off this nationwide dance party, which grabbed a whole lot of headlines. Now, the question is … where do we go from here? Or as that old troublemaker V.I. Lenin put it, “What is to be done?”
Hoo-lawd. Anybody’s portfolio turn into a postcard yet?
In case you’ve missed Paul Krugman, he’s speculating over at Substack that Elon’s Hitler Youth may have cobbled together the tariff scheme using ChatGPT and/or other A.I. models.
In my post immediately following the Trump announcement I speculated that Elon Musk’s Dunning-Kruger kids might be responsible for those tariff numbers. That now looks like a distinct possibility.
Who makes policy this way? The key point is that Trump isn’t really trying to accomplish economic goals. This should all be seen as a dominance display, intended to shock and awe people and make them grovel, rather than policy in the normal sense.
Again, I’m not being snobbish here. When the fate of the world economy is on the line, the malignant stupidity of the policy process is arguably as important as the policies themselves. How can anyone, whether they’re businesspeople or foreign governments, trust anything coming out of an administration that behaves like this?
Good time to be heavily invested in the knee- and elbow-pad markets.
“Is this how you’re spending your retirement money?” asks my old velo-comrade Charles Pelkey. “Check the sponsor at the bottom of the sign. Bwah ha ha ha.”
Apparently it’s a billboard in Michigan, though it looks like a Photoshop/A.I. kind of thing to me. Wasn’t my doing. Hmm, lemme think here … who do we know in Michigan?
Mad Blog Media 