Living under occupation 1

 The Berkeley Barb was one of those alternate newspapers that flourished in the heady days of the counterculture, less peace and love than most of them and mostly calling for revolution and disorder.  It came of the presses on Thursday night and we vendors would line up on the stairway up to the offices waiting on it.  When it arrived we would spend all our ready cash on a bundle and take it out on the streets where we would sell it for twice what we paid for it.

It sold well on Thursday nights but most of the business would be on Friday morning.  Late Thursday night and the wee hours of Friday morning would find every corner of south campus town occupied by a vendor waiting for the sun.

And then something happened.  A couple blocks down the cops (pigs) were busting one of us.  Well not a vendor, but a young long-haired guy.  The word that went out was that they were busting him for selling dope which was certainly not wrong to us people who lived along Telegraph Avenue.  If you walked down The Ave midday on a weekday you would hear the soft refrain, "Pot, LSD, Uppers, Downers." all down the street.  It was no big deal.

So why were the pigs busting one of us right on our territory?  It was outrageous.  We should do something to protect our surf.  We muttered among ourselves but in the end of course we didn't do anything.  Nobody wanted to get cracked with a night stick or get jammed into the squad car and taken to the station.

But we were pissed.  We were oppressed.  We were occupied.  We didn't like it one fucking bit.

I was dodging the draft by skipping out on physicals by moving around.  I returned to Champaign and discovered that my buddies had rented out this cool big old house where we could drink beer and smoke dope, and listen to music all day long.  I decided to make my stand and take my physical.  How hard could it be to flunk a physical?  Too hard for me it turned out.

But then I got a CO and was sent down to Herrin in southern Illinois, a town of about 10,000 folks who I assumed to be those angry rednecks of hippie lore.  But you know they weren't, they were barely aware that a war was going on.  I remember overhearing one of them tell his companions that he hadn't been out of Williamson county in twenty years and they all nodded approvingly.

Their congressman was Kenny Gray, a democrat who proudly wore the moniker of many other proud politicians, The King of Pork.  Mining was in a slump and the land was south of the glacier and didn't grow corn near as well as it did up north.  But Kenny Gray brough a shitload of projects to the area and they all loved him.  

Now that whole are is ruby red.

And there were young people like me working in the hospital and they all liked to drink beer and smoke dope and listen to music, so we carried on the revolution in the trailer I rented.  

OOOOPS

 That prior post, five more, was meant for my watercolor class blog, put it up by mistake, but I think I will leave it there because what the fuck, also it might spark a few new posts.

five more

 That tree is way too dark, the petals of the flower are way too heavy.  Those three cone flowers are, well I call it whimsical, and the hedge is lively.

the week

 Election day 2016 I settled in with beer and chips and a jaunty attitude to watch the returns come in and went away muttering "The horror, the horror."  2020 it was just beer and I was full of trepidation and came away wiping sweat from my brow and muttering, "Well I'll be doggone."  2024 I reeled from that terrible debate, but when Kamala stepped in my heart soared like a hawk as did her polls soon afterwards.  But as the days wore on that lead steadily faded away.  Just before election though Kamala picked up and Trump was ranting increasingly wild and I sat down in front of the tube assessing my mood as cautiously optimistic.  The blue wall held until about ten when it was swamped over.  The horror, the horror.

Tonight it will be a week.  I have recovered to a state where I can get back to my routine, but I don't always tune into CNN and I gloss over the newspapers afraid of burning my fingers.  They are full of dems pointing their fingers at each other.  What the fuck difference does it make?  And they are full of those rubber tongued reps, the Trump Whisperers, explaining what Trump really meant when he issued his latest screed.

I heard one of the pundits say there was a republican theory going around during the last days that there are lots of voters who had never voted in their lives who were marginal people who would be susceptible to crazy talk.  Note how Trump got crazier than average at the end.  Anyway a lot of them showed up at the polls and a large majority of them voted for Trump.  

I haven't heard that theory again though.  The one I most commonly hear was that it the economy and immigration, but I dunno, if it's hot and sweaty on the beach do you head for the shark infested water?

I agree with Beagles that if Trump got in it would break the country to the extent that there might not be any more elections, and he shows no signs of pausing for sweet reason.

My only hope is that he hires a crazy crew that can't get much done and that his appointees are so busy fighting each other and again can't get much done.  In his last term there were thankfully some decent men in the deep state that stood up to him, this time he will be getting rid of all of them he can.

I guess that is as cautiously optimistic that I can be these days.

Early November, a week later

Yikes!  Didn't see the big numbers going the way they did, not a close one at all.  I anticipate a lot of agonizing reappraisal and gnashing of teeth but say what you will, a certain party looks like a bunch of chumps.

...I'll be glad when it's over and we enter a new phase of conspiracy theories.

Did I say that?  Huh.  Let me make another prediction: the time has come for the creation of a viable third party.  Conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans are going to come together in some way, maybe unofficially, but they need to form some kind of coalition.  The Judicial and Executive branches of government are beyond redemption; Congress is our last, best hope.  Or not.   Keep your powder dry!

Who'd-a-thunk it?

 One of the interesting things about being old is, every time you think you've seen it all, you find out that you ain't seen nothing yet.  "Too close to call" they said.  "Razor thin margin" they said.  Experts! What do they know?  You know what I think?  I'll tell you what I think.  I think I should have voted for him.  You know why I think that?  I voted against him in 2016, and he won.  I voted for him in 2020, and he lost.  I, therefore, have no reason to doubt that he would have lost this time if I had voted for him.  My vote is the kiss of death for presidential candidates.  It's the only explanation that makes sense.  Okay, I did vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, but that's just the exception that proves the rule.  

Well, the people have spoken, and it's all over now but the shouting.  So be it.  I think one of my old paper mill colleagues said it best back in 1972:  "The trouble with majority rule is that the majority is stupid."

I am adding this to yesterday's post because I thought it would be of interest.  

Trump’s win and why shy voters still won't speak up

Early November

A fine tale about your uncles, Mr. Beagles, and easy to visualize a couple of kids hiding in the mud after their little stunt.  I think Ah-nuld did the same thing in the movie Predator and he got away with it too.  I doubt that the .22 caused any damage to the plane but the pilot didn't know that; maybe all he saw were a couple of figures and some smoke from a long gun.  But at a distance a couple of kids with a .22 could be mistaken for adults with a 30-06, hence the immediate response.  Better safe than sorry.  Think those boys needed a change of underwear?

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Tomorrow is a big day for some and I'll be glad when it's over and we enter a new phase of conspiracy theories.  This is the first time that I've seen such a large amount of early votes, more than 75 million so far; that's got to mean something.  And I wonder if some folks are taking a longer view in case something would happen to the new president.  The notion of a President Vance does not give me comfort.  There is a bright side to all of this political darkness, though.  I don't think I'm the only person looking forward to the sentencing of a certain individual with 34 felony convictions.