48 days until the November 3 presidential election and I have some concerns.

The problem as I see it will be the eruption of organized violence against expectations of normality. It isn't difficult to imagine mayhem beyond the capacities of police and national guard units to contain. Individual acts with fatal intent continue to pop up  around the country and are routinely noted in the media. That's bad enough but more to my point are the emergences of armed militia groups and what amount to mercenary armies being contemplated in the hard right. Sabotage by domestic terrorists is certainly on the menu. Military bases may not easily be compromised but large civilian urban areas are in jeopardy and the collapse of federal order - the attempted extinction of the American rule of law - is all too apparent and all the more significant in the midst of environmental disasters beyond human control.

An orderly process in the context of the November 3 election and its aftermath seems unlikely given the furious Republican attempts to disrupt and denigrate our national electorate and to crash through the necessary preparations for transition from the current mess to something de facto capable of governing wisely and adequately for the next few months. I do expect that the new Senate will dismiss the filibuster as a matter of governance necessity. The low population States won't have the votes to stop this from happening and the Democratic majority in the House will increase with deliberate intentions regarding the Trump cabal at the national level.

And it wants a Democrat regime and cadre in the Executive Branch. If McConnell et al. dare to tinker with the composition of the Supreme Court, there are institutional remedies that can be brought to bear. You will surely have noticed how Trump appointees to the appellate courts have been showing their political muscle but are being legally emasculated by rulings en banc and Supreme Court reversals. This will drag on for a long time, well past the beginnings of the next administration. I have no doubt that the people around Biden have understood this conflict and won't be caught unaware.

I watched a couple of lengthy discussions yesterday and one of particular note featured Beto O'Rouke and his entourage who seek to achieve a Democratic majority in the Texas House of Representatives (they are nine votes shy of this). This contemplates the oncoming mechanics of adding additional congressional seats and orderly redistricting despite truly odorous Republican leadership in the Texas state-level offices. A similar ground game is transpiring in Georgia. Florida remains an expensive battleground where a Latino strategist estimates it will take $60-$70 million of Bloomberg's $100 million just to penetrate that potential target market.

Trump's callous indifference to the pandemic exposure generated by his rally in Nevada is also noteworthy. The man has no conscience. He dismisses the wildfires in California by suggesting that they will just cool down in due course. Hurricane and related damage in the Gulf states and along the eastern seaboard will not be so easily set aside by a FEMA whose resources have been raided via partisan political intent. As also attempts to manipulate the purposes of the CDC and the USPS. These spurious activities impact voter intent whatever the propaganda broadsides meant to distract both media and nascent considerations in the national electorate.

Less than two weeks remain before the first of the Presidential debates and I wonder about that. Trump himself is acting irrationally and a minor agreement between Israel, the UAR and Bahrain can't eclipse the larger geopolitical distress emanating from the Saudis, Turkey, and Iran. The increasingly dubious attempts to prop up the American stock market as a sine qua non is beginning to experience a flight of capital from both technology and fossil fuel enterprises. Not a good sign because such institutional gestures inevitably impact much larger financial systems. Presidential stuff for sure and Trump and his cadre are simply inept in these matters.

I'm not just a worrywort. Plenty of commentary online and in the print media. The Scientific American has endorsed Biden - a first in the 175-year history of this intellectual presence in our lives. It becomes the mob versus the cognoscenti and these days, information is power. All the global players know this and Trump stands out as a dangerous fool at best. Our own military leadership are also "in the know" and have to live with their global counterparts whatever mischief is attempted

in our "civilian" life. Power brokers par excellence and U.S. Senators are not exempt from this unforgiving scrutiny.

So it goes. I have continuing unwelcome visitors in my upper respiratory system and that means irregular sleep and a need to stay abreast of my personal medical environment. That may well be affecting my judgment in these weighty matters, but my mind is clear enough for everyday use.

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy

In reverse! Originally descriptive of a factitious illness feigned by others upon demand becomes an unwillingness to admit that an actual illness is afoot.

Of course debilitating illness and possible death trump this charade.

As some wag suggests, "Will the Jacksonville, Florida event actually happen?" Two months is an eternity during which time cries of dismay may come to drown out any conceivable crowd of admirers.

We now know that the Trump campaign made the Tulsa people remove the spacing signs and any other signage related to the hazard of viral infection - by order of the Republican mayor of that city apropos of the Republican Governor's removal of any strictures about propinquity.

Death takes no prisoners. See also widespread economic collapse.

How many buses does it take to achieve appropriate spacing for young schoolchildren? How achieve physical spacing in school settings? How suitably expand the number of adults necessary for safe pedagogy, counseling, nursing, and food delivery? Whence come those resources? Assuming the continued good health of all concerned.

Heh.

And that's just at the end of August. All of September and October lie ahead before we get to count the surviving adults who choose to exercise their franchise.

The Supreme Court ruling regarding discrimination.

Not surprisingly, I am relieved to see the legal casuistry moving beyond outmoded and vicious stereotyping regarding sex and gender diversity. Religious shrieks and moans don't reach my ears.
I grew into a hellish landscape in the 1950s and it took many years and misadventures beyond telling before I was able to bring relatively dispassionate attention to my own situation.

What is now indisputable is that there are many gradations and complex nuances surrounding some simple personal realities that are akin to handedness, body height, and understandings about somatotype designations. I am who I have always been and I will be me until I pass from this mortal realm. Others may prefer their versions of such realities but no one - no one - has the right to define for me what I know I am.

There is no room for religious orthodoxy in such statements as these. This is about knowledge, not belief. Hypocrisy is commonplace in many belief systems and there are readily avaiable aphorisms
to bring to bear: "Physician heal thyself", "suum quique", caution about throwing a first stone ...
mere language fails to convey the utter terror victims experience when their very essence is castigated by ignorant and hateful people. Religion is a distraction, weaponized to assert power and hegemony.

It almost killed me and it continues to slash and burn innocence, to torture and murder with impunity.

Trump holding a bible would be risible were it not for the brutal attacks he brought with him on his walk of infamy. Now he and his handlers are subscribing to the meme of "acceptable levels of mega death" that we haven't heard in public discourse since the time of John F. Kennedy. The mindless adoration Trump  requires is creating a death cult and its members will expire in a multitude of lives cut short before their time. Do not expect religion to stand in the way of this brute. Death will put an end to him and his ilk.

Regarding institutional movements afoot, bear in mind that the Republicans have a one-vote majority in the Minnesota Senate. The more this fragile majority drags its feet, the more stentorian the voices can be around the state urging voters to think about the larger issues involved. If police misconduct in Minneapolis is not restrained because a handful of outstate Republicans want to "stick it" to the urban areas that sustain the economic viability of the entire State of Minnesota, they will richly deserve contumely from their more savvy constituents.

The citizens of Minneapolis will also have the opportunity to remove the .017 headcount requirement from the Minneapolis City Charter and such an amendment can be brought forward by existing entities like the City Council itself and/or the action of the City Charter Commission. I think the headwind is there for these possible initiatives to move forward without having to resort to a petition process. If the Mayor drags his feet for whatever reason, 2021 municipal elections aren't all that far way.

It is also first-rate that the Police Federation has been removed as a negotiating agent. Never forget that only 5% of the force actually lives in the City they are sworn "To Protect and Serve". Also never forget that more often than not, the outsiders depend on military hardware to force their opinions into reality against unarmed citizens who now appear in opposition in an aggregate of tens of thousands.

It is axiomatic that rule cannot be maintained at the point of a gun and without doubt divesting the Force of heavy weapons and overblown responsibilities will have to happen no matter what that one-vote Republican majority in the Minnesota Senate might prefer to see. Just as the extortionate behavior of the Police Federation is being sidetracked, so also the opinions of the State Senators who do not live in the core cities of this State will have to set aside their pretensions of supremacy and get real about solutions that can be sustained.

Some remedies are beyond the reach of the State of Minnesota and its subdivisions. The qualified immunity from prosecution profile of the United States Supreme Court has been abused to a fault and should membership in that Court of Last Resort need to be expanded, that can be achieved by a blue wave sweep through the Congress of the United States and the Office of the Presidency - a future prospectus that's looking increasingly real. The tail of the low-population States has been wagging the dog quite long enough and we are likely to see that eliminated in the time ahead. So also the benefit of adding Washington D. C. as a 51st State of the Union and a renewed effort to make a similar offer to much maligned and neglected Puerto Rico. The Electoral College is profoundly undemocratic as matters stand.

I also believe that the use of the filibuster in the United States Senate has surely reached its "sell by" date. It  ought not be possible for a rump group of cynical Senators to bring that Upper House to a standstill. The corrupt practices of the current Majority Leader in that body demeans the good name of the State of Kentucky and it would not be good practice to let such malfeasance continue compliments of the use of the filibuster. Nor ought the Republican Senators who insist on "going down with the ship" as President Trump is given a red slip by the national electorate this fall be immune from the harsh consequences they are bringing into their careers.

The implications for the national economy remain quite daunting no matter what initiatives and decisions are reached in the remaining months of 2020. Speculation in the stock market is as flimsy now as it was in 1929 and the outwash of impending economic collapse compliments of the pandemic is both incomprehensible and inevitable. "Buckle up", as they say, because there's a very rough ride ahead.

Many voices are now raised as we move into June, 2020. In Minnesota, attention is now emerging on the need for long overdue structural reform of the Minneapolis police department. The state's leadership is now determined to undo a long history of offenses against humanity. The city's leadership is very much on task and no scenarios of rage from both the police themselves or from within the ranks of those protesting harsh practices will bring sustainable solutions into being.

That is a horizon filled with compromise because no one camp has a monopoly on power and all are now confronted by both the viral pandemic and the increasing collapse of the economy beyond the strokes of anyone's pen.

Changing demographics is a part of this mix - Minnesota's largest city is becoming a minority majority city of the first class. The economic well-being of ever expanding circles of settlement  - suburbs, exurbs, and the great extent of Minnesota itself  - now depend on a new vocabulary of political will that can embrace and celebrate the diversity that is our strength. The history of settlement in this part of the United States has more than a passing similarity to the growing pains that preceded what we now observe in larger regions around the globe and now the imperatives of consumerism and imperial pretension are lost in clouds of tear gas and increasing desperation.

We must have a new social contract that simply replaces the abuses of previous erstwhile winners with more humane understandings of values we hold in common. As mere newcomers to the only planet we know of that can sustain our species, exploitation and furious conflict destroy more than mere governance systems and threaten the survival of homo sapiens as participants in the global ecology that sustains life in general.

Mass extinctions are occurring with increasing regularity and the planet's inevitable adjustments in climate and more prosaic habitability are seemingly lost in the minutiae of human conflict. If future generations are to prosper, quite the changes in direction must occur and bravura performances in the survival of the fittest meme will have to countenance the likelihood of failure before even this current century passes by. Spiritual growth has been lost lately and there are no magic remedies short of retooling fundamental beliefs beyond mere physical symbols of value.

One must look to more stable cultures than what we presume we understand in the melange we now experience and our newest neighbors bring a wealth of insight that we all must come to embrace if we are to grow and prosper. This has nothing to do with violence and outmoded power struggles.

I can certainly howl at the moon as our American cultural practices succumb to inanity, or I can look to strengths that start with familial loyalties and expand to far greater acceptances of diversity than we have previously shown in my lifetime. 80-odd years on this earth and I'm only beginning to grasp  what is important and what is delusion. Go figure.

Chaos doesn't bring hope

The ongoing tragedy here is that the white power structure likes that 800-person occupying army that lives far from the people they oppress. Republicans in the State Legislature followed Stanek's advice and gave leave to the Minneapolis police to live outside the city limits. Apparently only 5% of the force lives within the city they "protect and serve".

Reality now intrudes on that preference and we now have 500 National Guard troops protecting the Fire Department as Lake St. blazes away and protests accumulate around the country and abroad.
We also have an aberrant personality in the White House bad-mouthing the Mayor of Minneapolis and threatening to federalize the troops and their law enforcement peers.

This is beyond disgusting. Turning Minneapolis into an armed camp as a political opportunity is what now conceivably emerges and this does a grave disservice to an open wound in civil society.

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Lao Tsu has many philosophical moments to admire, but I rather like the one that states "Govern a nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it." and also "By letting it go, all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning."

Another general premise from Lao Tsu that I've long admired is the notion that one cannot rule successfully at the point of a gun. In another language, one may ask "Who guards the guards?".

Hannah Arendt is another seminal figure in philosophical thought as she deconstructs the fascist episode in 20th century Germany, leading me to notice that all the firepower in our governing institutions is not achieving success in a society that doesn't spend much time contemplating the ineffable.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Hennepin County Attorney is at the heart of the current problem and the longer he delays the worse the chaos will become. This isn't rocket science. This isn't even prudent jurisprudence.
When barbarians are at the gate, an aroused citizenry can come to defend themselves and that is indeed what's on the political horizon. The questions remain, to what end and with what means?

Bring that to the Republican Majority leader in the Minnesota Senate and see how that goes down.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

Read more https://www.focusfied.com/lao-tzu-quotes/

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it. Lao Tzu

Read more https://www.focusfied.com/lao-tzu-quotes/

Warm to the Touch

A little purple prose in the morning - Fred Markus

While the big picture events are rolling by – the pandemic, economic collapse, and severe weather systems – it is not enough to be deeply concerned about complacency hereabouts.

Now there is the horrific event where a police officer basically committed deliberate murder of a restrained individual in nearby South Minneapolis. The details are widely known, given rapid news reporting grounded in an unforgiving video that left no doubt that this officer had malicious intent and was watched without comment by three other officers witnessing the crime. There were also a number of first-hand civilian witnesses who pled in vain for the wanton cruelty to stop before the victim died of this clearly intentional murder being committed by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Soon hundreds and then likely thousands of citizens hit the streets, eventually bearing down on the headquarters of the Third Precinct. The four perpetrators of the crime were ensconced in the precinct building. They were soon fired by the Mayor of Minneapolis with the approbation of the Chief of Police. A great many police officers came to the defense of the precinct building and the adjacent police cars that routinely park there, assaulting the crowd with flash bags, tear gas, and rubber bullets fired point-blank into the crowd.

It is not exactly rocket science to note that the assassination of uniformed police officers may emerge from this latest episode of wanton official behavior – if there is no swift justice in this matter, there will be individuals who may well be more deliberate than the kids who shot and killed the officer whose name is remembered by a downtown parking ramp. This is not the first time a victim of police barbarity has been killed with apparent relish but now the blow-back may be less juvenile.

What possesses the both the hierarchy of the police establishment and the police union to brush off these destructive behaviors? Why are ancillary governance and institutional responsibilities not brought to bear in remediation of these actions by incredibly bad apples that jeopardize the entire cadre of uniformed officers?

Pandemic, economic collapse, and harsh weather aside, there are no law enforcement capacities equal to the task of keeping their visible personnel from harm's way short of martial law and a huge military presence. I remember the chaos that erupted in Madison, Wisconsin in the 1960s. I know from the nation's history that there come times when populations rise up and engage in destructive behaviors.

I also know that we now have the most heavily armed urban civilian population anywhere on the planet. This is not Hong Kong, where the Communist regime willingly slaughters protesters via superior force of arms. We are not likely so supine when agents of the government become monsters.

Nor do I believe that our organized military will be quiescent if government devolves into rank hypocrisy, lying propaganda, and greedy abuse of power. That's a description more suited to the national scene these days and hopefully not a disease immobilizing our state and local authorities when armed thugs would have their way with us.

The price of liberty, as has been said, requires eternal vigilance.