First of all, I have received a few off line questions about my well being due to the absence of posts recently. I assure you, I am fine. I am really busy with a variety of projects, most of which cannot be blogged about due to restrictions from station owners.
Secondly, I hope that all are staying safe in this current heat wave, which is effecting a large part of the country.
Finally, my country is celebrating its 250th birthday. In my youth, I was lucky to have traveled around many areas in Asia. It was an eye opening experience because I was not visiting tourist destinations. It made me thoroughly understand how important our constitution is. That experience also taught me how important it is to take action and participate in governance.
How?
Vote.
Voter apathy has lead to some of the worst election outcomes in history. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani received 573,000 votes in the primary and 1,114,184 votes in the general election. In the 2025 New York City Mayoral election 2,174,547 people cast a vote. There are 4,960,233 active registered voters in New York City. That means that 43% of registered voters showed up and 22% of registered voters elected Mamdani the Commie. That is a problem; 22% is not a mandate under any system, yet here we are.
If you think your vote doesn’t count, you are wrong. If you do not like the candidates, register for a party and vote in the primary. If you think you can do a better job, run for office. There are many ways to become meaningfully engaged in the election process. Go (or watch on line) town board meetings. Ask questions, call your local representatives and so forth.
socialism is fine, everyone’s freaking out over nothing, and also obama, before he became reagan lite, well people thought he was a commie too, but he’s every bit as pro-capital as anyone we’ve put in that office. unrestrained capitalism won, we’re all soaking in it, and the results are being felt quite hard by people a few generations younger.
Now at the federal level, well… I mean I have trouble understanding how picking people up off the streets in incredibly unconstitutional ways is not the most troubling thing in this country next to our unending spending on wars for other countries and propping up an obsolete arms industry that is bankrupting us and has such deep ties into politics that you’ll never vote a Raytheon Republican or a Lockheed Democrat out of office (well, sometimes you get to swap the two).
Fear not though, voting has no consequences – it’s all uniparty. Musk, Thiel, Zuck, banks, defense contractors, P.E. and pretty much all the most awful people that see empathy as a danger run things and will continue to, regardless of what bread and circus stuff is going on during election season!
I agree with you about the uniparty. That is the problem which is leading to elections were radical factions from either side win. People understand that they are not represented and vote for the “non-establishment” types. I also agree with your statement about the military industrial complex. That is the problem with “corporate personhood” (thanks to Citizens United) and the ability for corporations to donate huge sums of money to re-election campaigns for both candidates thus are assured a winner. Hence the uniparty.
Regarding Obama, I liked candidate Obama. He seemed like a great guy and I voted for him. Unfortunately President Obama did almost nothing for eight years. He certainly did not live up to his promise to end unconstitutional wire taping and extra judicial executions. He is a handsome, smooth talking fellow, however.
Regarding socialism; my wife, who was born in the Soviet Union has something to say about that: “Socialism is a good system for unintelligent, lazy slobs who lack any type of motivation and want to do the minimum. It crushes creativity, punishes those who try to make changes and creates despotic dictatorships run by psychopaths.” Also, “Those who advocate for the violent overthrow or participate in it will be the first to be killed after it happens.”
You had me until you lazily called Zohran a “commie.” He’s doing right by his city so far. People were hurting and looked to someone to address their needs. Cuomo ran a second-rate campaign and Adams crashed out in his last months. Voter apathy is, in part, a skill issue. Our electeds still have to improve across the board for the more the non-22% to vote.
People are waking up against candidates funded by corporate PACs. “I will put profits over people,” is not an encouraging message even when it’s not explicitly stated.
I’m looking forward to electeds who also don’t support regime change conflicts, which seem to be all the rage in the 21st century of our highest offices.
Well said all around. Glad you’re also doing well.
Peter; Regarding Zorhan, when I am listening to what he is saying, quite a bit of is sounds Marxian. I work in Manhattan once or twice per week, and honestly I do not see any difference between 2025 and 2026, better or worse. I agree that people are getting squeezed and pretty much everything else you said. I just don’t think collectivism is a way out.
Brian, always nice to hear from you, hope you are well!