cryptonaut-in-exile

Thoughts on Strategic Voting / Lesser-of-Two-Evilism

2026-10-19T14:52:19.667-04:00

The main content of this post has been sitting unfinished in my 'drafts' since 2018. I'm going to bracket it off unchanged and try to wrap it up below.

Apropos of ...

Here is Hillary Clinton (the same Hillary Clinton who is endorsing Cuomo over Nixon) when Madeline Albright said: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” pic.twitter.com/QZlnhVdhCF
— Progress Of A Kind (@ProgressOfAKind) May 21, 2018

... and having recently finished Global Discontents, wherein Chomsky argues a vote for anyone other than Hillary in the 2016 general was "obviously" the moral equivalent of a vote for Trump, I can't help coming back to the moral justifications for voting your conscience when that vote could be seen as imperiling the chances of a lesser-evil candidate.

So, yeah, I voted for Sanders in the 2016 Dem primary, and for Stein in the general. Let's just get that out of the way. If you dismiss the rest of this as rationalization of that, I guess I can't blame you; however, let me assure you, I was fully aware Trump is a greater danger to life on Earth than Hillary was, and that his administration would be be more corrupt, venal, and authoritarian than a Clinton administration -- and that terrified me. Still, I voted for the candidate that best reflected my values, despite knowing she would not win. I would have voted for Elizabeth Warren had she run. I would have voted for Bernie Sanders had he run. (I also believe he would have won had the Democrats nominated him.) Tell you what, if I lived in NYC, bet your ass I'd vote for Cynthia Nixon over Cuomo, too.

Here's where I differ from Chomsky, and virtually everyone else, apparently, on what constitutes moral vs. immoral voting: aligning yourself with wealthy elites and voting for their approved candidate, despite that candidate not representing your interests as well as another candidate on the ballot because wealthy elite determinations of a candidate's seriousness, or viability (I feel like putting scare quotes on those terms) is an act of immoral voting. It supports the status quo against your individual interests, and the interests of people who share your values. (Your comrades, if you will.)

Voting against your class interests is, in my mind, a sort of treachery. In the internet age -- and perhaps I should qualify that with something like "the open internet age" -- there is no excuse for assuming only major party candidates backed by wealthy elites (the donor class) are viable candidates. I'm in a small North Carolina town and I'm both keenly interested in, and getting several daily updates about, the NYC mayoral race. I get Ms. Nixon's positions directly from her twitter. I can read New York media, and get perspective on her positions from multiple sources. So can everyone with an internet connection. It's no longer the case that public perception of a race is largely set by a few minutes of coverage on the network evening news. (In fact, the only reason to watch ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/Fox news is to gauge what the spectrum of elite opinion is, from the reactionary white supremacist to centrist liberal poles that fit within corporate media's Overton window.)

Jill Stein, I freely admit, was an imperfect candidate. Quite apart from her sneering dismissal by corporate media, she had some dippy ideas about entertaining anti-vaxxers, for one thing, but even with her flaws, she at least wasn't beholden to corporate interests content to burn off our atmosphere for short-term profits, she opposed torture & military interventionism, and she supported a number of policies meant to alleviate poverty and address the inequalities stemming from increased concentration of wealth in the hands of a few powerful families. I've been accused of throwing my vote away and facilitating the rise of Trump by not voting for Clinton; but from where I'm sitting any of you who knew Stein's positions, found them closer to your own than Clinton's, and voted for Clinton anyway betrayed the rest of us who want a more just, peaceful, sustainable world. You sold out to woman who thought invading Iraq was the right thing to do, when nobody with a shred of conscience did, and who then doubled down on her cruel devotion to capitalist war mongering to destabilize Libya, and who would almost certainly have spent the last year and a half punishing Syrian citizens for their government, and cheerfully supporting Netanyahu's apartheid state, not to mention the bloody Saudi regime and its funding of terrorism.

Those who argue that at least there'd still be an Iran deal in place, and the Supreme Court wouldn't have that fucker Gorsuch on it, and LGBT protections would be less imperiled, and maybe immigrants wouldn't have it quite so bad (though the pass Obama got on that issue probably would have applied to her as well), and we'd still be in the Paris Accords (such as they are), and Nazism would at least be opposed from the White House, and we wouldn't be the laughing stock of the world because we elected an ignorant buffoon ... yes, those are fair points, but ones I've already conceded. Clinton would no doubt be better than Trump on several fronts, but to make that argument without considering how a Stein administration would have approached those same issues is to fall right back to conceding the authority to decide who is a viable candidate to the oligarchy and betray our society's, and the world's, most vulnerable people.

I could be wrong, but I'd bet Stein would be endorsing Nixon over Cuomo. Do you think Clinton would be doing anything to address mass incarceration? Do you think Clinton would be better on environmental issues than Stein? That she'd be as inclined to support policies that might anger oil companies for valuing ecological sustainability over corporate profits as Stein would have been? You're a fool if you do. And, frankly, if you don't see how important it is to try to reverse our mad dash to the logical endpoint of the Capitalocene/Anthropocene, your priorities are whack.

The arguments by centrist liberals for voting Clinton in the 2016 general were weak, but I've also got it coming from the left:

Marx on strategic voting. pic.twitter.com/tg5aR2zBNz
— Aimee Terese (@aimeeterese) June 15, 2018

"Pick your battles," is generally sound advice. Problem is: we'll never win the war if we always concede battles to the center. The center is the status quo; the status quo is capitalism; capitalism will burn the world before it values humanity over greed. It just will. We're watching it happen in real time. Besides, the passage Ms. Terese highlights describes the relationship between the revolutionary workers' party and the bourgeois democrats (might as well equate them with our Democratic Party) and, folks, in 2018 America I'd like you show me the revolutionary workers' party. Wish the DSA were more than a strong twitter presence, but they've got, what, a few local offices across the country? We're on our fucking own right now. Oligarchy has successfully broken the back of the unions and atomised the poor and working classes.

That's where I trailed off about eight and half years ago. Nothing has fucking changed. Wil Wheaton, a nice guy who I generally like, was blasting the guy from Rage Against the Machine not too long ago over failure to vote (in California!) for centrist hack Kamala Harris over Trump in 2024. I've already forgotten the specifics and can't bring myself to dig back through the Threads or Stories or whatever it was I saw ... but it was more of the self-righteous Centrist liberal Dem left-punching that infuriates me.

Last night it was Matthew McConaughey apparently asking voters to consider voting independent that set liberal social media into paroxysms of rage for being so white privileged to refuse to do the (allegedly) obviously necessary harm reduction acceptance of the Vote Blue No Matter Who mandate.

Want to be careful here because I suspect McConaughey may well be a priviledged celebrity dipshit, but for fuck's sake how can you look at a mountain of corpses and casualties in Gaza and the thousand or so Americans a year killed by police, at the numbers showing Democratic administrations are virtually the same (when they're not worse!) at doing deportations and supporting the industrial-scale carceral state, and get fucking self-righteous over the very slight difference voting Democratic vs. Republican has made? Would maybe a thousand less people have died as a result of our nation's support for Israel and the militarized police and ICE thugs operating domestically had Harris won? Maybe, but I doubt it would've been that much, probably less or ... gasp ... would Harris have gone just as hard or harder to try to win over the billionaires?

I have a red line over which I will not cross, and any politician who says they'll throw more money into human caging operations or genocide are way the fuck over that line. I hate Trump and I think he is worse for my queer and trans comrades than Harris probably would have been. That doesn't mean they get thrown under the bus, it only means regardless of who is in office we stand up for their freedom and right to live happy, fulfilling lives same as anybody else.

You can't vote for genocide and shame me for not voting for it. Want me to vote for the next Democrat to run for President? It better not be Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom or Cory Booker, I'll tell you that right now. I would've voted for Bernie Sanders twice. Seems like I probably would've been ashamed of it after based on how worthless he's been when it comes to mounting real opposition to Israel's genocidal war on Gaza but that's how the Democrats could have made me hold my nose and vote for one for President again.

We can't vote our way out of this. We can't legislate our way out of this. That's not how capitalism and oligarchy work. They give us monsters who are proud to be monsters, and monsters who wear a mask and promise to be slightly less monstrous than the other monster from which to choose. Pedal to the metal or ratcheting towards fascism. Those are the choices in the voting booth.

We could learn, and build on, a thing or two from the French.

We Gotta Protect Ilhan Omar

2026-10-12T17:58:00.000-04:00

Seriously.

Fucking spineless Democrats won't do anything but send Cory Booker to shed crocodile tears for the cameras and talk about how important it is to vote for center right Dems in the next election. (And that's probably beyond the outer limit of the extremes to which they'll go.)

Don't doubt Trump'll seize any pretext to sic ICE thugs on her.

Spitballing a New and Improved Constitution

2026-10-08T16:00:21.070-04:00

The Constitution is trash. It's not fit-for-purpose. Promising start with the Preamble; but the dog's breakfast when it comes to laying out the means to accomplish those lofty goals.

We should probably be skeptical of constitutionalism and I wouldn't blame anyone for saying it's a waste of time to think in terms of what a better one would like. Still, I'd be surprised if many haven't imagined how we could do better about having it all written out. Writing an alt-history or near-future novel, the author'd have to figure out where the break happens and how the transition from the society we live in now based on that white supremacist, oligarchic document to the this utopian fantasy would look. None of that here though.

This isn't something I'm going to package up and send to congressperson as a suggestion or anything; it's a different sort of exercise. My scrivener is filled with fragments of novels: character sketches, rough outlines, chapters of first drafts, and ideas that felt like something but never became anything. This is one of those fragments, a bit of world building for a text that's as unlikely to be produced as anything like this new constitution coming into being.

Preamble to the Constitution of the Commonwealth

We, the People, in equal partnership with one another and as stewards of the living Earth,

Recognizing that the dignity and flourishing of every human life are inextricably tied to the health of our natural environment, do establish this Constitution to guide our collective purpose. We affirm that the Earth, its ecosystems, lands, waters, and non-human life, is not a commodity for unrestricted exploitation, but a vital web of existence that we must protect, honor, and sustain.

The purpose of our commonwealth is to ensure that every person may live a safe, free, healthy, and fulfilling life. We recognize that true liberty is bound to mutual responsibility, and that every right we claim implies a paired obligation to care for one another, our communities, and our shared planet.

To fulfill this promise, the established commonwealth shall guarantee to all people, as an unalienable baseline of human existence, the necessary foundations for wellbeing:

Physiological Foundations:

Clean water, sustainable energy, and nourishing food;
A healthy, unpolluted natural environment protected from ecological collapse and exploitation;
Safety, Stability, & Basic Security:
Safe, dignified, and energy-efficient housing;
Comprehensive healthcare including physical, mental, reproductive, and bodily autonomy across the full span of life;
Restorative, non-punitive community safety, free from mass incarceration and state violence;

Love, Belonging, & Social Care:

Loving, secure care for our youth, our elders, and all who require support;
Absolute equal protection, social dignity, and structural accessibility for every person regardless of identity, background, or capability;

Self-Actualization, Growth, & Democratic Participation:

Universal, lifelong education from early childhood through higher learning and vocational mastery;
Universal, open access to accurate information through an independent public press and information commons; and
The right to meaningful work, creative enterprise, leisure, culture, and full participation in self-governance.

Because access to these essentials is a fundamental right, the infrastructure, resources, and institutions that provide housing, health, water, energy, agriculture, and public goods shall exist solely for the common welfare and shall never be operated for private profit. Within this shared foundation, we honor the value of human labor, creativity, and enterprise. We champion the right of every individual to engage in meaningful work that contributes to society, offering fair reward for dedication and skill, and providing the opportunity for comfort, rest, leisure, and personal discovery.

We commit ourselves to true democracy, wherein power rests with the people never with wealth, privilege, or unaccountable institutions. We reject oligarchic rule and ensure that our laws and governance remain transparent, participatory, and responsive to the collective will.

In our pursuit of justice, we reject violence, mass incarceration, and punitive harm. We establish a system of justice rooted in compassion, healing, accountability, and restoration, dedicated to repairing harm, transforming communities, and addressing the root causes of conflict without prisons or jails.

Acknowledging the deep wounds of our history including the legacies of slavery, indigenous displacement, aggressive warfare, broken treaties, and economic exploitation we pledge to undertake the ongoing work of truth, reconciliation, and reparations. We recognize that past injustices demand continuous material aid, structural repair, and active solidarity with those who have been harmed.

In our relation to the wider world, we pledge to be a force for peace, cooperation, and ecological stewardship. We commit to a foreign policy defined by fair dealing, the free movement of people, the prevention of war, and global trade that honors human labor over the concentration of capital.

To these ends grounded in care, responsibility, justice, and solidarity we ordain and establish this Constitution.

Constitution of the Commonwealth

(A proposed framework replacing "The United States of America")

Article I: System of Governance & Regional Architecture

Establish a two-tier democracy where local, ecologically and socially coherent districts [1] govern immediate needs and directly aggregate into a single, proportional federal legislature.

Section 1: The Commonwealth & Unicameral People’s Congress

Supreme Legislative & Administrative Authority: Vests all federal legislative, administrative oversight, and supreme democratic authority in a single body: The People’s Congress.

Abolition of Separate Branches & Tiers: Abolishes the standalone Executive Branch (President and Vice President), the Senate, the Electoral College, the Judiciary, and traditional state-level legislative divisions.

Proportional Population Baseline: Establishes a target representation standard of approximately one representative per 100,000 constituents, ensuring that congress remains deeply rooted in local communities and immune to regional land-area or wealth bias.

Locally Determined Selection Methods: Rejects single-format national elections as the sole metric of democratic legitimacy. Leaves the precise mechanism for selecting delegates to each local Primary District, encouraging methodologies that prevent oligarchic capture, such as:

Sortition with Civic Preparation: Random citizen selection paired with comprehensive, non-partisan training and deliberation periods;
Ranked-Choice & Proportional Voting: Multi-member proportional voting or instant-runoff systems; or
Delegated Assemblies: Direct recallable delegation from local community councils.
Short Terms & Mandatory Rotation: Imposes strict term limits and rotation requirements to prevent the formation of a permanent political class, professional politicians, or party monopolies.

Section 2: Primary Local Districts (Municipalities, Watersheds, & Rural Prefectures)

Replaces traditional "States" with self-defined Primary Districts based on natural geographic, ecological (e.g., watersheds), or community boundaries (urban boroughs, suburban zones, rural prefectures).

Establishes the principle of Subsidiarity: local districts handle immediate land use, local transit, public spaces, and community care, provided they align with federal constitutional guarantees.

Section 3: Democratic Administration & Rejection of Unaccountable Power

Mandates open-source, transparent government processes, participatory budgeting at local levels, and strict limits on executive or administrative agency autonomy.

Bans private money, corporate lobbying, and capital concentration from political campaigns.

Section 4: Inter-District Dispute Resolution & Commonwealth Tribunals

Abolition of Standing Appellate & Supreme Courts: Reaffirms the total abolition of traditional standing federal courts, permanent lifetime judgeships, and judicial review bodies that overrule legislative decisions. Judicial authority is strictly limited to arbitration, fact-finding, and restorative adjudication.

Inter-District Arbitration Panels: Disputes arising between Primary Local Districts—including water rights, watershed stewardship, shared transit corridors, land boundary adjustments, and resource allocation—shall be resolved through temporary, specialized Arbitration Panels:

Panels shall be composed of randomly selected representatives from neutral Primary Districts alongside subject-matter experts (e.g., hydrologists, ecologists, urban planners).
Proceedings must prioritize restorative resource-sharing, ecological baseline protection, and mutual consensus over adversarial rulings.

Commonwealth High Tribunals for Systemic Harms: Offenses against the Commonwealth as a whole including treason, sabotage of vital public infrastructure, intentional facilitation of foreign cyberattacks, systemic public corruption, or large-scale ecological destruction shall be adjudicated by temporary Commonwealth High Tribunals:

Empaneled by Sortition: Jurors are selected via citizen sortition from across the Commonwealth to prevent political bias or institutional capture.
Restorative & Protective Mandate: Guarantees all protections of due process and legal advocacy. In alignment with the abolition of punitive incarceration, tribunal verdicts focus strictly on neutralizing ongoing threats, disabling harmful infrastructure access, requiring material restoration, and removing offenders from public responsibility, rather than punitive imprisonment.

Binding Restorative Accord: Rulings by Arbitration Panels and High Tribunals take the form of Binding Restorative Accords, subject to transparent public review and legislative audit by the People’s Congress.

Section 5: Parliamentary Administration & Executive Oversight

Vest all administrative oversight directly within the Unicameral People’s Congress through standing administrative commissions, sortition-selected public oversight boards, and recallable civil directors, ensuring public departments function as transparent, non-partisan utilities dedicated solely to carrying out legislative mandates.

Administrative Governance Model

1. Standing Up Departments (Legislative Charters)

Statutory Enabling Charters: The People’s Congress creates public agencies, utilities, and development boards strictly through explicit legislative charters passed by a simple majority.

Narrow Operational Mandate: Every charter must define a specific operational objective (e.g., Department of Rail Transit Infrastructure, Clean Energy Transition Board), its sunset conditions, its total budget ceiling, and its strict adherence to public baseline guarantees.

No Unitary Executive Power: Agencies hold zero independent policy-making authority; their role is purely technical execution and service delivery according to legislative directives.

2. Staffing & Leadership (Commissioners & Civil Service)

Civil Directorates (No Cabinet Secretaries): Rather than appointing political cabinet secretaries, each department is headed by a Chief Civil Administrator (a non-partisan expert hired through competitive merit) paired with a Congressional Oversight Commission made up of delegates from the People's Congress.

10x Salary Cap Integration: Executive administrators are public workers and are strictly bound by the Commonwealth's maximum pay ratio (no administrator may make more than 10x the lowest-paid worker in that agency).

Direct Worker Governance: Operational management within departments is shared with worker councils elected by the agency's own employees, ensuring democratic workplace input and preventing top-down bureaucratic abuse.

3. Funding & Financial Control (Participatory & Direct Allocation)

Direct Treasury Disbursement: Because there is no President or OMB (Office of Management and Budget) to manage spending, the People’s Congress’s Finance & Budgetary Committee disburses funds directly to agency accounts according to approved legislative line items.

Participatory Audit & Public Ledger: All agency expenditures are published in real-time on an open public ledger. Primary Local Districts conduct periodic participatory audits to verify that federal funds are reaching communities without bureaucratic overhead or leakage.

4. Oversight & Accountability (Sortition Boards & Open Whistleblowing)

Citizens' Oversight Assemblies (Sortition): Each major federal department (e.g., Public Health, Infrastructure, Ecology) is paired with a permanent Public Oversight Board composed of randomly selected citizens chosen by sortition from across the Primary Districts.

These boards hold full subpoena power, inspect agency operations, and can vote to initiate a legislative audit or remove an administrator.

Direct Recall of Department Heads: The People’s Congress (or a citizen petition supported by a threshold of Primary Districts) may recall and remove any Chief Civil Administrator or commissioner at any time for incompetence, corruption, or failure to fulfill baseline guarantees.

Absolute Whistleblower Sanctuary: Any agency worker who exposes administrative waste, illegal activity, or corporate interference is constitutionally protected from retaliation or job loss.

5. Winding Down & Sunsetting Departments

Mandatory Sunset Provisions: Every legislative charter creating an administrative agency must contain an automatic 5-year or 10-year sunset clause.

Dissolution Criteria: To renew an agency, the People’s Congress must formally audit its performance and pass a re-authorization bill. If the agency's primary mandate has been achieved (e.g., completing a nationwide high-speed rail network or remediating a specific ecological disaster), the department automatically winds down, and its remaining personnel and equipment are reallocated to the local public job guarantee pools.

Article II: Civic Membership, Universal Rights, & Reciprocal Obligations

Redefine civic identity around active residency rather than birthright or ancestry, guaranteeing equal representation and paired obligations for everyone living under the Commonwealth's domain. Any member of the Commonwealth, whether by birth or any period of residency, who so desires may return if they ever choose to emigrate or are forced to migrate due to natural disaster or adverse circumstance.

Section 1: Residency-Based Civic Membership

Establishes that any person living within the borders of the Commonwealth is a full civic member with complete access to representation, social guarantees, and local/federal voting rights.

Abolishes "undocumented" status—residency grants automatic protection, tax responsibility, and civil participation.

Section 2: Bill of Reciprocal Rights and Duties

Explicitly pairs every guaranteed right with a civic responsibility:

Freedom of Expression & Belief ↔ Duty of Mutual Respect

Right: Absolute liberty of speech, thought, press, assembly, and conscience.
Duty: To respect the safety, dignity, and equal rights of others, refraining from violence or coercion.

Inviolable Privacy & Sanctuary ↔ Duty of Civic Honesty & Transparency

Right: Complete immunity from unwarranted surveillance whether physical, biological, or digital. Every resident is secure in their person, home, communications, personal data, and digital footprint. Mass surveillance, bulk data collection, facial recognition tracking, and warrantless searches or wiretaps are strictly prohibited.
Duty: To act in good faith within public affairs, avoiding deceptive practices or fraud that undermine public safety or the shared economic foundation.

Fundamental Due Process & Fair Hearing ↔ Duty of Restorative Engagement

Right: Unconditional entitlement to due process of law before any rights, property, or liberty can be limited. Includes the right to prompt notification of grievances, a speedy and public hearing before a community restorative board, impartial arbitration, access to legal advocacy at no cost, and protection against self-incrimination.
Duty: To participate in good faith in restorative processes when harm occurs, working collaboratively to repair damage to victims and the community. [3]

Bodily Autonomy & Freedom of Movement ↔ Duty to Community Health & Safety

Right: Absolute sovereignty over one’s body, health choices, movement, and personal life, free from state coercion, unwarranted detention, or forced medical intervention.
Duty: To uphold reasonable, democratically established public health measures during emergencies and contribute to community care.

Democratic Participation & Universal Representation ↔ Duty of Informed Engagement

Right: Equal voice, direct vote, and full access to all civic processes, local assemblies, and federal elections.
Duty: To engage in civic life, stay informed through the public press, and participate in local governance and community deliberation.

Social Baseline Security ↔ Duty of Fair Contribution

Right: Unconditional access to the guaranteed baseline of housing, healthcare, nutrition, and lifelong education.
Duty: To contribute fairly to society according to capacity whether through labor, carework, civic service, or tax obligations.

Sanctuary of the Home & Essential Self-Defense ↔ Duty of Non-Violence & Proportionality

Right: Absolute sanctuary in one’s home and person. In the rare event of an immediate, unprovoked threat of violence or illegal intrusion, every individual retains the natural right to use proportional, non-lethal force to defend themselves, their family, and their dwelling from harm.
Duty: To exhaust non-violent de-escalation whenever possible, to employ force only as a last resort of strict necessity and proportionality, and to submit all incidents of defensive force to community restorative review.

Prohibition: Guarantees of self-defense do not create or imply a right to own, possess, or proliferate firearms or lethal weapons of mass violence.

Section 3: Enshrine an absolute guarantee of equal legal protection, social dignity, and structural inclusion, ensuring that no individual or group faces marginalization, bias, or legal disadvantage based on personal identity, physical or mental status, background, or expression.

Absolute Equal Protection: Guarantees that all persons—regardless of sex, gender identity, gender expression (or lack thereof), sexual orientation, intersex status, race, ethnicity, national origin, language, health status, physical or cognitive disability, or neurodivergence—stand entirely equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection, rights, and responsibilities.

Prohibition of Structural & Private Discrimination: Prohibits public institutions, local districts, public utilities, workplace cooperatives, and commercial entities from engaging in discrimination, exclusion, or harassment against any individual based on any protected status.

Universal Accessibility & Accommodations: Mandates that all public infrastructure, housing, transit, educational spaces, digital communications, civic processes, and workplaces be constructed and maintained according to universal design principles, guaranteeing full access and reasonable accommodations for neurodivergent individuals and persons with disabilities.

Bodily Autonomy & Healthcare Self-Determination: Secures the absolute right to bodily autonomy and self-determination for all persons, guaranteeing equal access to gender-affirming care, reproductive healthcare including abortion, disability support, and neurodiversity-affirming care without state interference or coercive treatment.

Linguistic Rights & Cultural Pluralism: Guarantees the absolute right of all people to speak, preserve, write, and communicate in their native or preferred languages—including English, Spanish, Indigenous languages, Sign languages, and all global tongues.

Universal Multilingual Accommodation: Mandates that all public services, legal proceedings, government documents, ballots, emergency services, and healthcare facilities provide free, comprehensive translation and interpretation services to ensure language is never a barrier to civil participation or human needs.

Protection Against Linguistic Discrimination: Prohibits public institutions and commercial enterprises from discriminating based on primary language, accent, or dialect.

Section 4: Public Finance & Two-Tier Taxation

Exclusive Two-Tier System: Direct and indirect taxation authority is strictly limited to two levels: the Federal Commonwealth and Primary Local Districts. State, regional, or intermediate taxing entities are prohibited.

Federal Tax Scope: Federal taxation powers are strictly restricted to funding:

Cross-jurisdictional infrastructure projects that span multiple Primary Districts;
Federal equalization and baseline grants to support local districts facing projects too financially onerous for their immediate tax base;
Common defense and security of the Commonwealth from external threats;
Foreign aid, international solidarity, and global climate relief; and
Administrative costs required to deliver universal social baselines and federal programs.

Local Revenue Autonomy: Primary Local Districts retain full local authority to levy and collect local taxes necessary to finance local public services, community infrastructure, and district-level projects.

Mandatory Progressive Taxation: Taxation at all levels must adhere to strict principles of progressive equity. No tax levied on income, wealth, capital assets, or economic activity shall be regressive in design or effect.

Article III: The Public Foundation & Non-Profit Public Goods

De-commodify essential human needs to guarantee a universal baseline of health, shelter, and education, ensuring these are managed strictly for public welfare rather than private profit.

Section 1: Guarantee of Housing, Energy, & Infrastructure

Mandates state provision or guarantee of safe, dignified, energy-efficient housing for all residents.

Outlaws private, for-profit ownership of vital public utilities: energy grids, water/sewer networks, public transit, and communications infrastructure to include telecommunications, high-speed internet, and information distribution networks.

Right to Independent Unionization & Collective Action: Guarantees all workers—whether employed in the public sector, local enterprises, or cooperative enterprises—the absolute right to freely form, join, and operate independent labor unions, worker councils, and guild associations. Workers maintain the unrestricted right to engage in collective bargaining, workplace democracy, strike, and solidarity actions without retaliation, coercion, or state interference.

Section 2: Public Health & Lifelong Care

Establishes a single-payer, non-profit universal healthcare system covering medical, mental, dental, and preventive care.

Guarantees state-funded, dignified care systems for orphaned youth, elders, and individuals requiring full or partial independent-living support.

Section 3: Universal Education

Universal Public Guarantee: Guarantees fully funded, non-segregated, high-quality public education from early childhood through college/university or vocational mastery as an absolute right for every resident.

Abolition of Private & Charter Schools: Expressly prohibits the operation of private primary and secondary schools, charter schools, private tutoring corporations, and private colleges or universities. All educational infrastructure, learning spaces, and academic resources shall be integrated into a unified, publicly owned system.

Prohibition of Educational Profiteering: Bans the use of public funds or tax subsidies for non-public educational initiatives, ensuring that wealth cannot be leveraged to purchase unequal educational access, tracking, or elite credentialing.

Democratic & Integrated Governance: Mandates that curriculum design, school administration, and educational priorities be governed democratically by educators, students, and local community representatives to foster critical thinking, civic engagement, and social integration across all social backgrounds.

Multilingual & Immersion Education: Protects and supports heritage languages while promoting bilingual and multilingual education across all primary and secondary schools. Ensures that non-English speaking students receive equitable instruction without forced assimilation or cultural erasure.

Section 4: Agricultural Stewardship, Food Sovereignty & Animal Welfare

Food as a Public Baseline: Treats food production, distribution, and agrarian land stewardship as strategic public goods, guaranteeing that every community has direct, affordable access to fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate food.

Promotion of Plant-Forward Nutrition: Directs public agricultural research, public school meal programs, community food initiatives, and production incentives toward prioritizing sustainable, plant-based, and vegetarian food systems to optimize human health, land efficiency, and carbon sequestration.

Abolition of Industrial Factory Farming: Prohibits intensive confinement livestock operations, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), feedlots, industrial slaughterhouses, and corporate agro-chemical monopolies.

Strict Standards of Animal Dignity: Ensures that animals integrated into the food system are never caged, tethered, or subjected to cruel, crowded, or unnatural living conditions. All food production involving animals must guarantee humane treatment, open pasture or natural habitat living, access to proper care, and the complete elimination of unnecessary suffering.

Regenerative & Ecological Agriculture: Transions all agricultural land to regenerative, organic, and ecologically balanced practices that restore soil health, protect pollinators, and safeguard local ecosystems.

Article IV: Labor, Market Economy, & Creative Enterprise

Protect space for dynamic markets, individual creativity, and personal reward, while preventing market mechanisms from controlling essential human needs or political power.

Section 1: The Public Guarantee of Work, Incentivized Labor, & Pay Parity

Universal Public Employment Guarantee: Every civic member is guaranteed the opportunity for meaningful, dignified employment provided directly through Primary Local Districts or Federal Commonwealth agencies. Public employment programs shall ensure that anyone who desires work can access a job matching their skills, passions, or civic contribution goals.

Valuation & Incentive for Essential, High-Strain Work: Explicitly recognizes that essential societal roles including those involving physical risk, hazard, unpleasant conditions (e.g., sanitation, sewer maintenance), or heavy emotional labor (e.g., emergency crisis intervention, end-of-life care) are vital to the Commonwealth's survival. These roles shall be actively incentivized through higher baseline compensation, reduced working hours, expanded paid sabbatical leave, and enhanced health and retirement benefits, reflecting their true societal worth.

Specialized & Highly Skilled Labor: Acknowledges that specialized roles requiring advanced technical, scientific, mathematical, or medical training shall be supported through public funding, free specialized education, and appropriate compensation structures that honor the investment of effort and mastery required.

Public Sector Maximum Pay Ratio: Extends the mandatory maximum pay ratio across all government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and public service entities: total compensation for the highest-paid public administrator, specialist, or official shall not exceed ten times (10x) that of the lowest-paid full-time public worker.

Section 2: Enterprise, Commerce, & Broad Ownership

Right to Enterprise & Collective Ownership: Guarantees the right of individuals and groups of individuals to establish, own, and operate private businesses, cooperatives, and commercial ventures in non-essential consumer goods and services.

Democratic Enterprise Governance: Demands that all commercial enterprises operate under democratic governance principles, ensuring that surplus value, profits, and major operational decisions are democratically controlled by the workers and active participants within the enterprise.

Anti-Monopoly & Anti-Concentration: Strictly prohibits market practices, corporate structures, or asset consolidation designed to aggregate excessive personal wealth or create monopolistic control over any sector.

Section 3: Equity in Compensation & Wealth Limits

Maximum Pay Ratio: Enforces a mandatory maximum compensation ratio within any business or enterprise, establishing that total compensation (including salaries, bonuses, profit distributions, and capital gains) for the highest-paid individual shall not exceed ten times (10x) that of the lowest-compensated full-time worker in the same enterprise.

Worker Surplus Sovereignty: Capital investment alone shall not confer permanent extraction rights over enterprise revenue; net profits belong to and shall be allocated according to the democratic decision of the workforce.

Limits on Personal Wealth Accumulation: Imposes progressive structural limits and caps on individual asset accumulation across all holdings to prevent private capital from dominating labor, undermining democratic equality, or re-establishing oligarchic power.

Section 4: The Right to Leisure, Culture, & Life Insurance

Recreation & Cultural Access: Guarantees universal access to public parks, wilderness areas, cultural facilities, athletic spaces, and the arts as essential components of human wellbeing, free from commercial exploitation.

Comprehensive Social Security: Establishes automatic income and support protections against economic distress caused by disability, injury, bereavement, or temporary inability to work, removing the threat of poverty from all life disruptions.

Section 5: The Innovation Commons, Physical Equipment Libraries, & Enterprise Support

Public Capital Equipment Libraries & Tool Commons: Mandates that Primary Local Districts establish and maintain public, shared equipment repositories ("Tool and Machinery Commons"). These facilities shall offer free or low-cost access, leasing, and borrowing of specialized capital equipment such as textile manufacturing machinery, artisanal craft tools, commercial brewing and fermentation equipment, 3D/advanced fabrication tools, and agricultural machinery enabling individuals and small collectives to produce goods without high upfront capital barriers. [2]

Public Property & Incubator Site Leasing: Primary Local Districts shall maintain dedicated inventories of public land, commercial storefronts, studio spaces, and light-industrial facilities. Entrepreneurs and worker collectives with approved business proposals may lease or borrow these premises under fair, non-speculative, public-stewardship agreements.

Public Capital Grants & Enterprise Incubators: Establishes dual-tier public enterprise grant programs administered through District and Federal Economic Development Boards:

Local District Grants: Small-to-medium seed grants for community-focused businesses, local artisans, services, and cooperative ventures.

Federal Commonwealth Grants: Large-scale capital grants and interest-free public development loans for high-resource, high-tech, or infrastructure-intensive business plans requiring significant initial capital.

Public Commons Investment Platform: Establishes a transparent, publicly hosted digital media platform where emerging entrepreneurs, worker-owned ventures, and creative cooperatives can publish their business plans, pitch designs, and open-source models to attract non-controlling private micro-investments, community crowdfunding, and public grant funding under the Commonwealth's term-limited equity guidelines.

Section 6: Creative Rights, Innovation Commons, & Utility Transition

Personal Creative Ownership & Anti-Piracy Protections:

Guarantees creators, artists, authors, musicians, and inventors exclusive economic rights to control, license, and profit from their original creative works, designs, and product innovations within the non-essential economy.
Strict protections shall prevent corporate knock-offs, unauthorized commercial reproduction, and predatory piracy that undercut creators or dilute their work.
Commercial protection terms shall be tied to reasonable, non-monopolistic timelines that ensure creators fully realize the fruits of their success while eventually enriching the public domain.

Protected Right to Iterative Innovation & Open Competition:

Prevents broad, anti-competitive patent squatting or frivolous IP litigation.
Patents and copyrights shall not be used to block independent creators or entrepreneurs who develop a unique "twist," improvement, or distinct variation on an existing concept.
Fair-use and open-source exemptions are constitutionally protected to encourage research, artistic remixing, educational adaptation, and collaborative technological advancement.

Essential Transition to Public Utility Status:

Establishes a constitutional mechanism for when a private product, technology, or service evolves from a discretionary commercial good into a vital, life-sustaining, or infrastructure-level essential (e.g., a breakthrough medical cure, critical software protocol, or essential utility component):

Public Acquisition with Just Fair-Share Compensation: The Commonwealth or District level may designate the innovation as an Essential Public Utility.
Upon designation, the enterprise and its underlying IP shall transition to non-profit public stewardship or open public access.
The original creators and founders shall receive fair-share public compensation and royalties recognizing their contribution, ensuring they are generously rewarded without holding a private monopoly over a public need.

Public Innovation Commons:

All expired IP, publicly funded research, and transition-designated inventions shall enter a shared, open-access Public Innovation Commons, ensuring future generations of creators and cooperative businesses can build upon humanity's collective knowledge.

Article V: Rights of Nature & Ecological Stewardship

Elevate ecosystems and non-human life from objects of resource extraction to subjects with legal protections, preserving the biosphere for all life.

Section 1: Rights of Ecosystems & Non-Human Life

Recognizes the intrinsic right of ecosystems, watersheds, flora, and fauna to exist, persist, and regenerate.

Grants legal standing to natural entities (represented by community stewards) to seek protection or remedies through the restorative justice boards.

Section 2: Sustainable Resource Use & Climate Limits

Bans practices causing irreversible ecological destruction or mass extinction.

Mandates that all production and energy systems transition to circular, zero-emission, ecologically balanced models.

Article VI: Restorative Justice & Transformation

Dismantle punitive, incarceration-focused penal systems in favor of community-based, restorative, and rehabilitative justice frameworks.

Section 1: Abolition of Prisons & Mass Incarceration

Prohibits commercial or punitive prisons, jails, and forced labor institutions.

Phases out existing correctional institutions in favor of open, supportive rehabilitation and mental health sanctuaries.

Section 2: Restorative Process & Community Safety

Complete Police & Prison Abolition: Permanently abolishes traditional, militarized, and armed police forces, as well as commercial, punitive, or incarceration-based institutions.

Unarmed Emergency Response Teams: Replaces armed police with specialized, unarmed community safety teams trained in conflict resolution, mental health crisis intervention, physical de-escalation, and emergency medical response.

Community-Led Neighborhood Watch & Defense: Empowers local Primary Districts to organize voluntary, unarmed neighborhood safety networks focused on community presence, mutual aid, and preventing harm through social solidarity rather than force or surveillance.

Restorative Justice Boards: Mandates that all interpersonal harms and conflicts be resolved through community restorative boards focused on victim healing, offender accountability, structural repair, and transformation without confinement.

Article VII: Historic Reparations, Truth, & Reconciliation

Create permanent structural mechanisms to acknowledge, repair, and compensate for historical atrocities and systemic exploitation.

Section 1: Acknowledgment & Truth Commissions

Establishes an ongoing national Truth & Reparations Tribunal to investigate historical wrongs (slavery, Indigenous displacement and genocide, treaty violations, aggressive military actions, and economic subjugation).

Section 2: Material Reparations & Land Back Frameworks

Directs federal wealth and resources toward dedicated funds for impacted peoples and sovereign Indigenous communities.

Enacts land return protocols and targeted community development grants to heal systemic economic disparities.

Article VIII: Foreign Relations, Peace, & Global Solidarity

Reorient international relations away from hegemony and economic extraction toward global peace, climate cooperation, fair trade, and human mobility.

Section 1: Peace Promotion & Anti-Aggression

Prohibits unilateral wars of aggression, regime-change interventions, and economic sanctions regimes that harm civilian populations.

Requires foreign policy decisions to focus on multilateral diplomacy, disarmament, and conflict prevention.

Section 2: Global Fair Trade & Freedom of Movement

Mandates that international trade agreements prioritize labor rights, environmental standards, and human wellbeing over global corporate capital expansion.

Supports global freedom of movement, asylum guarantees, and climate-refugee aid in solidarity with international human rights.

Article IX: The Public Financial System & Economic Sovereignty

Reclaim money, banking, and investment as public utilities rather than engines of private extraction. Enshrine a moral, life-affirming budget framework that channels collective wealth toward human health, environmental resilience, public infrastructure, and perpetual innovation.

Section 1: Public Banking & Nationalization of Systemic Finance

Public Utility Status: Reclassifies core banking services—savings, checking, payment processing, and essential credit—as public utilities guaranteed to every resident without predatory fees or exploitative interest.

Postal Banking Utility: Mandates that the national postal service and its local district branches function as the primary physical retail network for the Commonwealth Public Reserve System.

Essential Financial Services as a Public Right: Every postal facility shall provide free, non-profit baseline financial services to all residents regardless of income or background—including personal savings and checking accounts, instant electronic payments, zero-fee check cashing, low-interest micro-loans, and fee-free ATM access.

Elimination of Predatory Finance: Prohibits commercial overdraft fees, predatory payday lending, check-cashing markups, and remittance exploitation, guaranteeing that every community—especially rural prefectures and underserved urban boroughs—has direct, local access to safe public capital.

Nationalization of Systemic Financial Institutions: Consolidates major commercial banks, investment institutions, and systemically important financial entities under a publicly accountable federal network: the Commonwealth Public Reserve System.

Abolition of Speculative Extraction: Outlaws high-frequency trading, predatory lending, private equity asset-stripping, and complex financial derivatives that do not directly fund tangible, productive social or ecological goods.

Non-Controlling Private Investment Framework: Permits private, non-governmental risk investment in non-essential commercial enterprises, strictly subject to non-controlling conditions:

External investors and share-holders shall hold no voting, governance, or managerial rights over the operations, workplace decisions, or labor of any enterprise.

Governance and strategic direction of every enterprise belong exclusively to its active workforce on a strict one-worker, one-vote democratic basis.Mandatory Cooperative Buyout & Capital Sunset: Mandates that all private equity issues, startup stock offerings, and investor shares be structured under a finite equity-redemption agreement:

Dividend returns to external private investors shall be strictly capped at a predefined multiple of the initial invested capital.

A statutory percentage of net operational earnings shall be directed into an internal Worker Buyout Reserve to systematically repurchase and retire external shares.

Upon the redemption or maturation of external shares—or after a maximum statutory time horizon—the enterprise shall automatically convert into a fully worker-owned, self-governed cooperative entity.

Section 2: Moral Budgeting & Moral Priority Mandates

Moral Budgeting Principle: Mandates that the federal budget serve as an explicit reflection of community values, placing human dignity, ecological health, and safety ahead of profit or private capital accumulation.

Priority Allocation: Requires that primary revenues and public credit be directed first toward universal guarantees: housing, healthcare, clean energy, universal education, and restorative justice.

Prohibition of Extraction-Driven Debt: Eliminates sovereign debt mechanisms that impose austerity on communities; money creation and credit issuance are managed dynamically by the People’s Congress to meet public needs without artificial scarcity.

Section 3: Direct Investment in Infrastructure & Public Works

Direct Public Credit: Empowers the Commonwealth Public Reserve to issue low- or zero-interest credit directly to local Primary Districts for local public works, transit, housing, clean water, and regional energy grids.

Continuous Improvement & Modernization: Institutes permanent, ongoing capital improvement funds dedicated to upgrading, innovating, and maintaining physical and digital infrastructure to the highest ecological and efficiency standards.

Democratized Regional Boards: Establishes local investment boards composed of community members, infrastructure workers, and technical experts to evaluate and prioritize local projects based on social utility rather than financial yield.

Section 4: Commonwealth Sovereign Wealth & Innovation Fund

Establishment of the Commonwealth Fund: Creates a perpetually managed Sovereign Wealth Fund held in trust for current and future generations, funded through natural resource levies, common property royalties, and captured surplus from public industrial initiatives.

R&D and Public Innovation: Directs fund dividends toward open-source scientific research, medical breakthroughs, renewable energy technology, green manufacturing, and creative arts.

No Private Patenting of Publicly Funded Research: Ensures that any technological, medical, or scientific advance financed by the Sovereign Wealth Fund remains in the public domain and freely accessible to all humanity.

Article X: Peace, Shared Defense, & Civic Service

Reconcile the reality of international threats including rogue states, oligarchic cartels, and imperial aggressors with a fundamental commitment to peace. Eliminate the military-industrial complex and global garrison state, replacing them with a strictly defensive force and a universal civil service devoted to human aid, ecological resilience, and global solidarity.

Section 1: Strict Defensive Posture & Prohibition of Empire

Strictly Defensive Mandate: Limits the mission of the Commonwealth Armed Forces exclusively to defending the Commonwealth against invasion, repelling armed aggression, and participating in internationally sanctioned peacekeeping or collective defense operations.

Abolition of Foreign Basing: Prohibiting the establishment, maintenance, or operation of permanent military bases on foreign soil outside of active, democratically authorized, time-limited international peacekeeping missions.

Ban on Arms Trading & Profiteering: Outlaws the private manufacture, export, or sale of weapons and military hardware for profit. All defense production shall be strictly state-owned, non-profit, and limited in scale to necessary domestic defense and international treaty obligations.

Section 2: Total Civilian Control & Democratic Authorization

Exclusive Congressional Authority: Grants the People’s Congress sole authority to declare war, deploy force abroad, or authorize international defense operations. The executive branch or military command may not conduct unapproved engagements, covert actions, or unilateral strikes.

Civilian Leadership: Mandates that all military administrative departments remain headed strictly by non-military civilians. Active-duty military personnel are barred from holding political office.

Transparency & War Resistance: Guarantees protection for whistleblowers and service members who refuse unlawful, non-defensive, or unconstitutional orders involving offensive aggression.

Section 3: Universal Civic & Reconstruction Service

Service Obligation: Establishes a mandatory two year period of civic service for every resident, to be completed between the ages of 18 and 26 (integrated with higher education or vocational apprenticeship).

Flexible Civilian Pathways: Options shall heavily prioritize non-military tracks, including:

Domestic Climate & Disaster Response: Emergency relief, ecosystem restoration, public infrastructure rebuilding, and wildfire/flood mitigation.
Global Solidarity & Humanitarian Aid: Assisting foreign nations with infrastructure projects, public health initiatives, disaster recovery, and agricultural resilience.
Defensive Service Option: Allows residents to fulfill their service requirement through non-offensive, homeland defense training.

Section 4: Protection Against Oligarchic Aggression & Global Subversion

Defense Against Transnational Cartels: Authorizes specialized, civilian-led intelligence and law enforcement units to combat global financial syndicates, armed oligarchic networks, and private mercenary corporations attempting to sabotage democratic governance or exploit global resources.

Support for Global Self-Determination: Commits the Commonwealth to offering material, non-aggressive assistance to nations defending their sovereignty, human rights, and democratic self-determination against imperial conquest or foreign corporate subversion.

Article XI: The Public Information and Cultural Commons & Free Press

Guarantee that news, culture, educational content, sports, and entertainment are public goods freely accessible to all. Permanently insulate public media from corporate sponsorship, billionaire patronage, and market pressures, while enshrining uncompromising standards of journalistic integrity, factual accuracy, and editorial independence as vital pillars of democratic self-governance. [4]

Section 1: The Public Press Utility & Commercial-Free Expansion

Public Utility Status: Reclassifies public media entities including news agencies, broadcasting networks (e.g., PBS, NPR), and digital platforms— the Commonwealth Information & Cultural Commons, operated strictly as non-profit public utilities.

Prohibition of Corporate & Private Influence: Outlaws corporate underwriting, commercial advertising, sponsored content, matching grants, and billionaire philanthropic patronage across all public media.

Universal, Multi-Channel Access: Requires all content spanning news, educational programming, arts, drama, science, local community coverage, sports, and international broadcasts to be 100% commercial-free and accessible to every resident without paywalls or subscription fees.

Guaranteed Statutory Funding: Automatically finances the Commons through an insulated, fixed percentage of federal revenue and Sovereign Wealth Fund dividends, preventing legislative bodies from using budget cuts to coerce or censor the press.

Section 2: Rigorous Journalistic Standards & Fact-Opinion Distinction

Mandatory Structural Separation: Requires absolute, unambiguous structural and visual distinction between factual news reporting, analytical context, and opinion or editorial commentary across all broadcast, print, and digital media.

Verifiable Standards of Accuracy: Mandates that all factual reporting adhere to rigorous, verifiable standards of evidence, sourcing, thorough investigation, and contextual accuracy.

Transparent Peer-Reviewed Ethics Boards: Establishes independent, peer-reviewed Journalism Ethics Boards—composed of working journalists, media ethicists, and public representatives—to investigate complaints, enforce journalistic integrity, and mandate prominent, timely corrections of equal prominence for any factual errors.

Multilingual Information Dissemination: Mandates that all critical news, civic proceedings, and emergency alerts be broadcast across multiple languages including English, Spanish, Indigenous tongues, and local regional languages without sacrificing accuracy or editorial rigor.

Section 3: Independence & Protection Against Censorship

Shield Against State & Corporate Control: Expressly prohibits elected officials, administrative agencies, military authorities, or private commercial entities from directing coverage, interfering with editorial decisions, or censoring reporting.

Democratic & Worker Governance: Newsroom leadership and editorial management shall be governed democratically by journalists, newsroom workers, and community representatives rather than state appointees or commercial executives.

Absolute Whistleblower & Source Protection: Enshrines total constitutional protection for journalists’ sources, whistleblowers, and investigative materials against government subpoena, seizure, or prosecution..

Article XII: Decolonization, Self-Determination, & Territorial Sovereignty

Dismantle all forms of imperial administration, territorial subjection, and colonial dependency. Guarantee that every community, island, and nation currently under United States jurisdiction possesses the absolute right to self-determination.

Section 1: Renunciation of Colonial Authority & Territorial Status

Abolition of Territorial Classifications: Formally abolishes all non-sovereign classifications, including "unincorporated territories," "commonwealths," and "possessions" (e.g., Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands).

Repudiation of Imperial Doctrine: Formally repudiates historical legal doctrines of territorial subjugation (such as the Insular Cases) and asserts that no community shall exist under Commonwealth jurisdiction without full, equal democratic governance and constitutional guarantees.

Section 2: Universally Supervised Plebiscites & Binding Options

Mandatory Binding Self-Determination: Mandates internationally observed, democratically conducted plebiscites in every current territory within two years of this Constitution’s ratification.

Equal Binding Choices: Voters in each territory shall choose between:

Full Sovereignty & Independence: Transitioning to a fully independent, sovereign nation with complete self-governance.
Commonwealth Integration: Entering the Commonwealth as a self-governing Primary District (or network of districts), possessing full representation in the People’s Congress and complete access to all social, economic, and constitutional guarantees on an equal footing with all other districts.
Free Association: Establishing a mutually agreed, sovereign treaty of Free Association defining specific cooperative arrangements without federal jurisdiction. [5]

Section 3: Transition Assistance & Reparative Support

Decolonization Fund: Allocates guaranteed financial, technical, and ecological remediation resources through the Sovereign Wealth Fund to support infrastructure, economic independence, and environmental restoration in all former territories regardless of their chosen path.

Environmental & Military Remediation: Requires the Commonwealth to clean up, restore, and return all land previously appropriated for foreign military bases or federal testing sites prior to any political transition.

Reciprocal Citizenship Protection: Guarantees that residents of former territories who choose independence retain full rights of movement, residency, and civic participation within the Commonwealth should they choose to reside within its domain.

Section 4: Non-Aggression with Neighboring Sovereignties, Territorial Integrity, & Voluntary Accretion

Explicit Non-Aggression & Non-Interference: The Commonwealth formally pledges permanent non-aggression, peaceful coexistence, and absolute non-interference regarding the sovereign territories, national structures, and domestic self-governance of neighboring sovereign nations—including Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and all regional neighbors.

Prohibition of Unilateral Territorial Expansion: The Commonwealth shall never attempt to annex, incorporate, or subsume any part of a neighboring nation's territory or population without the explicit, formal authorization and diplomatic consent of that nation's recognized sovereign government and its people.

Open Refuge & Reciprocal Civic Respect: The Commonwealth maintains a permanent commitment to sanctuary, welcoming all migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers fleeing harm, persecution, or economic distress. In accordance with civic membership principles, all incoming residents are integrated with full rights and protection upon entry, accompanied by the reciprocal obligation to honor the peaceful, non-violent, and democratic baseline of the Commonwealth.

Conditions for Voluntary Union & Secession/Land Preservation: Should a neighboring sovereign state or external territory seek integration or voluntary union with the Commonwealth, such accession requires the democratic, verified consent of its people. Furthermore, to protect political self-determination and minority rights:

Any population or locality within the acceding entity that dissents from joining the Commonwealth retains the absolute right to peacefully opt out.

Dissenting communities shall be guaranteed the right to either establish/maintain an independent sovereign enclave on a designated portion of their former land, retain allegiance to their previous national framework, or emigrate with full transition assistance provided by the Commonwealth.

Article XIII: Constitutional Adaptation, Amendment, & The Living Commons

Ensure the Constitution remains a dynamic, living instrument capable of evolving alongside technological breakthroughs, ecological shifts, and unprecedented societal or planetary developments, while safeguarding its core commitments to human dignity, ecological balance, and non-exploitative governance.

Section 1: The Principle of Evolutionary Governance

Living Document Mandate: Rejects the doctrine of originalism or rigid constitutional permanence. This Constitution is explicitly designed as an evolving blueprint, subject to periodic democratic re-evaluation and amendment to address unforeseen circumstances, emerging technologies, ecological transformations, or novel existential paradigms (e.g., radical life extension, sapient non-human entities, synthetic biology, or extraterrestrial first contact).

Core Coherence Standard: No proposed amendment, legislative addition, or structural revision shall be valid if it dismantles, undermines, or contradicts the core foundational principles set forth in the Preamble and Article II specifically the de-commodification of human needs, the guarantee of universal rights, the non-carceral framework, and the commitment to ecological stewardship. Every amendment must demonstrate a transparent, logical integration with these core values.

Section 2: Democratic Amendment Mechanisms

An amendment to this Constitution may be formally proposed and ratified through one of three transparent, participatory pathways:

1. Citizen Initiative via Popular Petition:

Proposal: Any civic member or group of members may draft a proposed amendment. Upon securing the verified support of a statutory percentage of Primary Local Districts across the Commonwealth, the proposal enters the Constitutional Assembly pipeline.
Ratification: Requires a supermajority approval in a direct national referendum following a mandatory six-month public deliberation period facilitated through the Commons Media.

2. People's Congress Recommendation:

Proposal: The Unicameral People’s Congress may draft an amendment upon a two-thirds supermajority vote of its delegates.
Ratification: Must be submitted to the Primary Local Districts for local assembly debates and confirmed by a supermajority of District Assemblies.

3. Decennial Citizens’ Constitutional Assembly (Sortition):

Automatic Assembly: Every ten years, the Commonwealth shall automatically convene a Citizens’ Constitutional Assembly composed of representatives selected at random via sortition from across all Primary Local Districts.
Mandate: The Assembly shall review the Constitution's real-world performance, audit technological and ecological impacts, evaluate emerging needs, and propose necessary adaptations, modernizations, or structural refinements directly to the populace for democratic vote.

Section 3: Protocol for Unprecedented & Emergent Paradigms

Emergency Deliberative Protocol: Should an event occur that fundamentally alters the human condition, global ecology, or interstellar posture -- such as impending extinction-level event, verified contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, or (the even less likely) emergence of autonomous sapient non-human consciousness -- the People’s Congress shall immediately convene an open-access, science-informed, and ethically grounded Constitutional Summit.

Baseline Principles for First Contact & Emergent Entities: Any subsequent legal or constitutional framework governing relations with non-human intelligences, extraterrestrial civilizations, or synthetic entities shall strictly extend the Commonwealth’s core tenets: peaceful diplomacy, non-aggression, mutual respect, anti-exploitation, and ecological harmony.

Bioregionalsim, watershed political regions to be considered as new organizational units at the local level. Pretty sure my initial exposure to this line of thought is from some interview on This Is Hell podcast hosted by Chuck Mertz. Other influences here include Kim Stanley Robinson on urban concentration and rewilding, but also his earlier utopian novel Pacific Edge. (As I'm going over this to add footnotes, the realization has hit that this may end up looking quite a bit like the Mars Constitution in Blue Mars.)
I'm probably mangling the Srsly Wrong podcast concept of library socialism here by pushing it into the commercial sector, but it should be understood as a key to how localities in my envisioned future state would provision many personal needs as well a cultural artifacts, and this usage for folks with ideas for how to build products or supply services simply one piece of that overall library expanded function within society. Also, I should be reading more Cory Doctorow but I think his interviews on a number of podcasts inform my thoughts here around how to have innovation without enshittifying everything.
Alec Karakatsanis’s analysis and I'm sure Angela Davis more indirectly should be seen as the primary touchstones guiding all my thoughts on prison abolition and restorative justice.
Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi of Citations Needed are among my biggest influences here. Chomsky, of course. Nathan J. Robinson and the Current Affairs podcast are also good on media criticism.
Struggled here with how to not make decolonization a burden on the societies, Puerto Rico especially. Join or go it alone doesn't seem fair, and I want to leave room for a path that allows independence for former colonies/territories to choose independence without it meaning a complete break. The idea is to say you can go it alone if you want, but the new state is open to mutually agreed upon ways to smooth that transition. My personal hope would be that under this new framework Puerto Ricans could see a future where they retain their cultural identity, all the autonomy they might want, and that would fit into being part of the Commonwealth. The COFA framework stripped of imperial leverage is probably the short hand way to understand this.

Dead and Mostly Dead

2026-07-13T08:03:50.633-04:00

At the gym yesterday morning I saw on Fox News and CNN that Lindsey Graham had died. Good riddance. He was bloodthirsty monster and the Senate, not to mention the world generally, is a better place without him actively trying to get children murdered in it.

However, what I couldn't help but notice was that in the 10 minutes or so of coverage that I watched there was nothing about Mitch McConnell. Now, since yesterday morning a hilarious proof-of-life photo showing McConnell with that day's newspaper positioned under hand while his wife seemed to be helping him stay upright has been released. So the speculation that he had died back on June 14th has been addressed.

Still, it is insane to me that the media coverage of Lindsey Graham's death minimally danced around there being questions about Mitch McConnell. And that for all the talk of him taking calls and discussing Senate business with leadership and one MAGA troll from CNN none of their stories could be verified. They didn't release a video of him picking up a newspaper, reading, and turning to discuss the news with his wife or a staffer. Nope, a still photo of him with a prop newspaper positioned under his hand so it could be identified. For nearly a month the corporate media gave him a pass and did no reporting, except to note that there were questions. Useless.

CBS News

Keep it Real Spooky

2026-07-09T17:41:15.270-04:00

Beyond Folk Marxism: Mind, Metaphysics, and Spooky Materialism | Salva☭e

China Miéville’s prose is a specific kind of joy: dense, academic, fascinating, and incredibly enriching. But if you're not in the mood for it and -- like me -- need to be willing to do some look-ups while reading, I can see it being off-putting. No shame ... I found myself looking up tout court, au fond, au fait as I was reading -- not to mention the actual philosophical terms. (Could he have just used the word "simply" instead of tout court? Maybe. Probably? But some measure of richness and nuance would've been lost.)

So, if you aren't eager to read Miéville's prose to begin with, why read his essay and the responses to it at all? What are the stakes here? I'm not convinced they're as high as all involved seem to think, but I was intrigued enough to do the reading anyways.

The concluding paragraphs read:

[O]ne thing is undeniable. Once you’ve argued your way out of an ontologically materialist universe, of the many varieties of metaphysical idealism on offer, theism is probably not the most unlikely.
Of course, it also raises its own manifold problems, not least that of theodicy – evil. But of all Richard’s ‘alarming things’ perhaps the most so is that theism also, in fact, solves an awful lot of problems ...

are you going to figure if that's where all this is going, why bother? Because theism is a dead-end and no amount of poking at materialist, dualist, and idealist answers to questions about what consciousness even is are going lead us to appeal to the divine. Asserted undeniability of theism's greater than least unlikeliness notwithstanding.

My hot take: Miéville isn't trying to sneak spirituality or a "ghost in the machine" back into left-wing thought -- but I do think he's being a bit of a provocateur and deliberately inviting speculation that this feint towards theism is a precursor to a reactionary turn. What I haven't got a bead on is how that move advances his diagnosing of a profound theoretical failure that directly leads to deep political frustrations.

I was looking for Miéville while dismantling the watery weak emergence metaphor as sufficient basis for understanding consciousness to theorize some kind Weird Emergence strong enough give Marxists an actionable understanding of consciousness. Not a project I'm capable of taking on. Just a blogger here who took some 100s and 200s level philosophy classes decades ago. Fluss and Frim have an informed, thoughtful response that advances the discussion in ways I'm not equipped to, so I recommend taking in both sides of the exchange of ideas as well as Breht and Alyson's discussion on Rev Left / Red Menace. (Finding the youtube link for this post and letting it start playing, I realize what I called "my hot take," may actually have been implanted by Alyson in her prefatory remarks when I first listened and decided to check out the essay. Ah well, everything's a remix anyways.)

Doctorow's Nuremberg Caucus Makes Sense to Me

2026-06-29T14:40:15.687-04:00

Pluralistic: The Nuremberg Caucus

The Nuremberg Caucus could vow to repurpose ICE's $75b budget to pursue Trump's crimes, from corruption to civil rights violations to labor violations to environmental violations. It could announce its intent to fully fund the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division to undertake scrutiny of all mergers approved under Trump, and put corporations on notice that they should expect lengthy, probing inquiries into any mergers they undertake between now and the fall of Trumpism. Who knows, perhaps some shareholders will demand that management hold off on mergers in anticipation of this lookback scrutiny, and if not, perhaps they will sue executives after the FTC and DoJ go to work.
While they're at it, the Nuremberg Caucus could publish a plan to hire thousands of IRS agents (paid for by taxing billionaires and zeroing out ICE's budget) who will focus exclusively on the ultra-wealthy and especially any supernormal wealth gains coinciding with the second Trump presidency.
Money talks. ICE agents are signing up with the promise of $50k hiring bonuses and $60k in student debt cancellation. That's peanuts. The Nuremberg Caucus could announce a Crimestoppers-style program with $1m bounties for any ICE officer who a) is themselves innocent of any human rights violations, and; b) provides evidence leading to the conviction of another ICE officer for committing human rights violations.

Who will be the first elected Democrat to even acknowledge Mr. Doctorow's proposal?

Back to the Wilderness

2026-06-15T14:10:47.120-04:00

About five years ago, I expressed my reservations about RTD returning to run DW.

There were moments I really enjoyed in RTD's second run, and every so often I saw reason to hope the show might find its footing, but those moments were far too few. The moments where I cringed and groaned far outnumbered them. So much wasted talent and potential there.

When it comes back -- and I trust it will someday -- I hope the trans-inclusion, and all the wokeness the reactionary faction of fandom railed against comes back with it. There was a wholesomeness to the series that I truly loved. And yet, if you ever say to me, "there's a twist at the end" of something I may faint dead away. I blame RTD for the structural mess, the misuse of old baddies, the dead-ends and thudding disappointments, and I think my instinct that this would not end well was well-founded.

And five years later, I see that JMS is still lobbying for a crack at it. I feel like I did five years ago about that, only more so. I want to see someone new take the show in a new direction. Could JMS do that? Maybe? It would definitely mollify some faction of fandom, and I think at least in terms of crafting a story JMS could not make as much of a hash of it as RTD did, but I don't know that I could muster up any excitement to see what he brings to the Whoniverse. As much as I loved the Moffat era, I don't want more of that either. I've seen JMS make great TV and write brilliantly. But -- I've already seen it. Paradoxically, I don't want something I've already seen, though I'm about to argue I actually do; I want to see the show go somewhere new that reminds me why I loved the classic series, and why I loved the new series, too, without getting bogged down in the past.

TV has changed so much, I'm just not sure what I want is something there's any real market for. I miss the old pre-return format. Give me twenty episodes in a season, low-budget scrappiness, and a Doctor who walks in eternity -- while Sarah Jane clowns him. (But, don't make the old mistakes either, keep the recent eras' big-hearted inclusiveness and don't make me twist myself into terrible contortions to try to find a way to make "Talons" acceptable.)

But, just as with RTD himself, I fear there's no going back, only finding a new way forward. I want stories about a character who seeks to remedy injustices, to help the oppressed, and -- with the help of companions who are learning as they go -- works with the people who were already trying to do the right thing find the levers to pull that will win over those who seek to dominate. I want a Doctor who can help find those levers based on a long history of helping others, understanding that Marx was as important to understanding the world and our place in it as Darwin, careful study and observation, and the strength of right convictions which gives them distinctive insight.

Charlie Jane Anders has written thoughtfully about what the show should look like when it comes back and I reckon she's pretty much nailed it.

I'd say I'm sorry to see Doctor Who end again, but I don't know that I was very sorry to see it end the first time around either. Then, as now, it had become almost unwatchable, incompetently produced television that needed a shut down and restart to clear the cache.

Doomscrolling

2022-05-03T10:06:00.003-04:00

Alito's majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade leaks

As we’ve warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming for abortion - they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights.

Manchin is blocking Congress codifying Roe. House has seemingly forgotten about Clarence Thomas. These 2 points must change https://t.co/5Isec0osV0
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 3, 2022

The scenario that opens Ministry for the Future inches closer to reality

Watching vote suppression intersect with the inception of a proto-Gestapo

All the ways the media salts the earth to facilitate the roll out of even more repressive state apparatus

For people casually consuming "the news," here is a thread asking some basic questions about how reporters, editors, and news outlets determine which stories to tell and which stories to ignore. Those decisions shape what society treats as urgent. https://t.co/5VGRHIje82
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) April 28, 2022

Rest in Power Mark

2022-04-11T16:36:00.001-04:00

Mark Desrosiers Obituary | Star Tribune

He was "very kind, compassionate, and he cared deeply for equality for all," said one U of M Libraries co-worker. Others described him as a "great advocate for students," and someone who "knew how to use his voice for things that mattered." Said another: "I will miss his sense of humor and the care and concern he had for everyone. He was a huge advocate and not afraid to fight the good fight, even if it caused a bit of conflict."

" ... [E]ven if it caused a bit of conflict." I chuckled through tears at that bit. Mark could get under your skin, for sure. My experience though was that when he caused conflict, when he made us gnash our teeth and take umbrage, if we sat with it for minute, it was because he was right and the brutal self-examination required to see that he was right hurt. And, if we blamed him for that hurt, he was big-hearted enough to take the blame and love us anyways. (Look, I'm not saying it was necessarily always that way, but even once was enough to make it so that when a position he took on something came with arguments like cutting barbs, even if it wasn't readily apparent, one grudgingly gave him the benefit of the doubt expecting he might be right in a way we just weren't ready to see yet.)

Mark was hard to keep up with. Not the least when trying to go shot-for-shot with him. Know some history? I don't know if there was a single topic I wouldn't have had to read, and re-read, volumes on to be prepared to argue with him about. He wasn't merely one of these trivia memorizers with a trove of names, dates, and data points filed away to no purpose other than the ability to put someone else in their place, though he certainly had that sort of knowledge, but it was all in service of a defiant worldview encompassing a fierce insistence on justice for the downtrodden.

Know your music and pop culture pretty well? There's a better than fair chance Mark knew more by and about your favorite band than you ever did and could place their music in a context that, by introducing you to the work of other artists that presaged it, or contemporaneously exceeded it, blow your mind open. For me, it's The Fall -- the manifestation of Mark E. Smith's demons -- that he taught me to appreciate; breaking through the relatively narrow band of musical styles I could take in and groove on before my head was expanded.

Think you know about the Supreme Court? Well, let me tell you Mark could school you about the biographies of the justices and critique their jurisprudence as well as -- or even more effectively than -- a professor of the philosophy of law could, in my experience.

There's a litany of topics I could plug into the, "You think you know about x? Well, let me tell you Mark would ..." format and we'd still not have talked about how his dancing would make you laugh and also want to dance shamelessly yourself. That may not be the most important thing ... but it was a thing ... and perhaps weirdly it mattered a lot to me.

We grew up in different neighborhoods, didn't meet until high school, didn't become close friends until college, but there the fact we were both bookish, nerdy, obsessives cynical about the world in general in a way probably common to kids raised, if not poor, then close to it, in a certain type of family common to unspectacular suburbs of lesser cities in the hardscrabble 1970s probably made our friendship all but inevitable, despite some incompatibilities and points of contention. We were shaped in different ways by our parents' experience of the 1960s culture wars and our own coming of age during the Reagan years, the way everyone's experience is different and plays out on different bundle of neuroses and insecurities, I reckon. For both better and worse those experiences helped us bond once on campus, then off-campus, and for many years of being housemates after college.

Frankly, I doubt I helped sharpen Mark's analytical framework the way he helped me dodge any number ideological holes I might have fallen down, nor that I was able to help him find those almost spiritual experiences of art he helped me discover. (I think he respected my appreciation of Yo La Tengo more than he shared it, and was happy to let me go on about Kim Stanley Robinson novels and stories so he didn't have to pay them as much mind.) But we went to a bunch of great shows, did a lot of drinking and talking and talking and drinking, and while we went down some negative spirals together I'm sure I'm better for all of it in the end.

It breaks my heart that I let so much time pass since the last time time we talked. I can't believe he's gone so soon and that we'll never have another drink together, work on a mixtape, discuss what we're reading, or just reminisce. But we were Hornets, Highflowns, and Cryptonauts once upon a time and that'll have to be enough.

Yo La Tengo - Hanukkah 2021

2021-12-07T19:33:00.000-05:00

While I don't have a formal "bucket list," if I did, attending the annual run of Yo La Tengo Hanukkah shows would certainly have been near the top of it. That box is ticked! It was amazing. (A bit of an endurance test for this old, tender-footed man ... but well worth the barking dogs.)

Consciously decided to not try to over-document the experience, so just one video snip from Night Two captured and no photos (apart from one of the last night's poster) but there are ones probably better than any I would've taken in the BrooklynVegan and jambands posts I'll be linking below.

First Night:

Whatever trepidation I felt about having to navigate the subway to get to the venue dissipated as the whole process of getting from JFK to my lodgings, to Neilalien HQ, then to the Bowery Ballroom, and finally making way back to the room went as smooth as could be hoped. Walking for miles during the day to take in the atmosphere of Brooklyn was not my smartest idea though.

This was my first time in a very crowded setting since the pandemic started and, as Ira acknowledged from the stage, it was both exciting and somewhat terrifying to be in that milieu. Over the course of the week we'd be hearing more and more about the Omicron variant emerging so the crowd's almost universal compliance with the plea to wear a mask was comforting. As was the vaccination card check at the door.

Opening night was a terrific start to the week. Enjoyed Amy Rigby well enough (in retrospect, my reaction when describing her set the next day was more along the lines of, "Meh"), David Sedaris was funny, and Yo La Tengo delivered an outstanding set. I wasn't familiar with Steve Gunn but came away a fan of his jamming with Ira.

Jambands write-up

BrooklynVegan write-up

SETLIST: Yo La Tengo @ Bowery Ballroom 11/28/2021 (Hanukkah Night 1)

Back in the New York Groove (KISS) (sung “Back With the New York Jews”)

Today Is The Day (fast)

For You Too

Let’s Do It Wrong (acoustic)

Serpentine

Shadows (with CJ Camerieri on French horn & trumpet)

Beanbag Chair (with CJC)

Eight Candles (Sam Elwitt) (with CJC & Kevin Micka on drums)

Walking Away From You (with CJC)

1-2-3 (Len Barry) (with CJC)

Before We Run (with CJC)

Sudden Organ

Artificial Heart

Decora

I Heard You Looking (with Steve Gunn on guitar)

*(encore)*

At the Well (Last Roundup) (with CJC & Amy Rigby on guitar/vocals)

She’s My Best Friend (Velvet Underground)

It’s All Right (The Way That You Live) (Velvet Underground)

I Heard Her Call My Name (Velvet Underground)

Always and Forever (Heatwave) (with DJ Time Traveler on vocals)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Second Night:

I don't recall what my shortest turnaround between attending Yo La Tengo shows was prior to this week, but it was definitely a heck of a lot longer than 24 hours. Was delighted to find upon arriving that Sun Ra would be opening. Hadn't seen them since a Central Park summer series concert some time in the 90s. Still wild. And you know "Nuclear War" is going to get played at some point in the night so there's that to look forward to.

BrooklynVegan write-up

SETLIST: Yo La Tengo @ Bowery Ballroom 11/29/2021 (Hanukkah Night 2)

Stupid Things

Ashes

Awhileaway

Tiny Birds

Madeline

Paul Is Dead

I Was the Fool Beside You For Too Long

86-Second Blowout

Here You Are

My Heart’s Reflection (with Sun Ra Arkestra horns)

Dreaming (Sun Ra) (with Arkestra horns)

Principal Punishes Students With Bad Impressions (Jad Fair) (with Arkestra horns)

Emulsified (Rex Garvin & the Mighty Cravers) (with Arkestra horns)

More Stars Than There Are In Heaven (boogie version) (with Arkestra horns)

Nuclear War (Sun Ra) (with Arkestra horns)

*(encore)*

This Ain’t the Summer of Love (Blue Oyster Cult) (with Todd Barry on drums)

Can’t Make It On Time (The Ramones)

TV Set (The Cramps)

Heaven Only Knows (Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Third Night:

Third and Fourth Night enjoyment factor dipped a bit first half of each set as they went a little slower a little longer than I was in the mood for, but more than enough highlights to keep my spirits up. Wasn't a fan of the opening act's set, although they were great support while playing with Yo La Tengo.

Jambands write-up

Setlist: Yo La Tengo @ Bowery Ballroom 11/30/2021 (Hanukkah Night 3)

You Are Here

The Fireside

Damage

The Point Of It

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

The Ballad of Red Buckets

Shades of Blue

Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)

Satellite

Tears Are In Your Eyes (instrumental)

Shaker

She Cracked

Double Dare

Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind

Blues Stay Away From Me Entire set with Marisa Anderson and William TylerE:

The Kid With the Replaceable Head (w/ Ivan Julian on guitar/vocals)

Going, Going, Gone (w/ Ivan Julian on guitar/vocals)

Blank Generation (w/ Ivan Julian on guitar/vocals)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Fourth Night:

I was late to this one, missed the opening act and comedian but caught all of YLT.

BrooklynVegan write-up

SETLIST: YO LA TENGO @ BOWERY BALLROOM 12/1/2021

Out of the Pool

Little Eyes

One PM Again (without YH)

Can’t Forget (without YH)

Lewis (without YH)

Tears Are In Your Eyes

The Race Is On Again (without YH)

Above the Sound

I Found A Reason w/ John Cameron Mitchell(Velvet Underground)

Waves of Fear w/ John Cameron Mitchell (Lou Reed)

Clumsy Grandmother Serves Delicious Desert By Mistake (Jad Fair)

Out the Window

Styles of the Times

Tom Courtenay

Little Honda (The Hondells)

*(encore)*

Wasn’t Born To Follow (Carole King/Gerry Goffin)

Cool Metro (David Johanson/Syl Sylvain)

Hanky Panky Nohow (John Cale) (without YH & NC)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Fifth Night:

Well, all I can say is I was trying to do pain management, I knew I couldn't do another full night on my feet so arrived during Low's set and sat out Fred Armisen downstairs just listening.

BrooklynVegan write-up

SETLIST: YO LA TENGO @ BOWERY BALLROOM 12/2/2021 (HANUKKAH NIGHT 5)

Surfin’ With the Shah (The Urinals)

Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck)

Forever

Detouring America With Horns

Center of Gravity

Black Flowers

Fog Over Frisco

Don’t Have To Be So Sad

Nowhere Near

Baby Strange (T-Rex)

I Should Have Known Better

Big Day Coming (fast version)

Sugarcube

Ohm

The Story of Yo La Tango

*(encore)*

Sorrow (The McCoys)

Orange Song (Antietam) (with Tara Key on guitar/vocals)

(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais (The Clash) (FA on guitar/vocals, Joe Puleo on harmonica)

I Am, I Said (Neil Diamond) (with Alan Sparhawk & Mimi Parker of Low on guitar/vocals)

Keep It Warm (Flo & Eddie) (with AS & MP)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Sixth Night:

Best night to this point thanks to context of hot pot dinner with friends at 99 Favor and having one of them join me for the first time in the run. My buddy and I struggled with the opening act but, mercifully, they were more enjoyable when they played with YLT during the main set. This was the night I splurged on merch grabbing the soup can t-shirt and Ira's mix tape.

BrooklynVegan write-up

SETLIST: Yo La Tengo @ Bowery Ballroom 12/3/2021 (Hanukkah Night 6)

Cherry Chapstick

Nothing To Hide

She May, She Might

Ack Ack Ack Ack (The Urinals)

She May, She Might

Pablo and Andrea

Have You Seen My Baby (Randy Newman)

Tired Hippo

I’m On My Way

I’ll Be Around

As the Hour Grows Late (with Jaimie Branch/trumpet, Jason Ajemian/bass, Lester St. Louis/cello)

Let’s Be Still (with JB/JA/LSL)

The Summer (with JB/JA/LSL)

Moby Octopad (with JB/JA/LSL)

Right Side of My Mind (Angry Samoans)

From A Motel 6

Mushroom Cloud of Hiss

*(encore)* with the Dream Syndicate

Definitely Clean (Dream Syndicate)

Too Little, Too Late (Dream Syndicate) (without Ira & James)

Hero Takes A Fall (The Bangles)

Some Kinda Itch (Dream Syndicate)

Tell Me When It’s Over (Dream Syndicate)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Seventh Night:

Natural Information Society were punishing. Show was great once done with them. Figures this was the night I had a group of friends with me and wanted them to have the best experience possible. Oh well, rest of the show was great at least. Jon Langford and Sally Timms were the rumored possible guests I was most hoping to see; even in my debilitated barely able to stand condition I hopped up and down and hooted when they came out. One could quibble with Ira about setlist & doubling down on Dan Dare – Out of Space (It’s A Really Nice Place) rather than hitting some other Mekons or Timms classic but that's just nitpicking, I suppose.

SETLIST: Yo La Tengo @ Bowery Ballroom 12/4/2021 (Hanukkah Night 7)

Green Arrow (with Natural Information Society)

I Can’t Stand It (Velvet Underground)

Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House

Mr. Tough

Did I Tell You

Is That Enough

Swing For Life (with Natural Information Society)

The Last Days of Disco (with Natural Information Society)

The Room Got Heavy (with Natural Information Society)

False Alarm

Too Animalistic (Angry Samoans) (with Dutch Worthington)

Drug Test

Upside Down

We’re An American Band

Blue Ling Swinger

*(encore)*

I Threw It All Away (Bob Dylan)

I Don’t Care (The Ramones) (with Jon Langford & Sally Timms)

Dan Dare – Out of Space (It’s A Really Nice Place) (The Mekons) (with JL & ST)

Keep on Hoppin’ (The Mekons) (with JL & ST)

Dan Dare – Out of Space (It’s A Really Nice Place) (The Mekons) [take 2] (with JL & ST)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Eighth Night:

Final night. Eleventh Dream Day opened and Joe Pera was hilarious. (Started checking out his show on Adult Swim after getting home. It's not exactly what I expected based on this act but it's growing on me.) This may have been the strongest YLT set of the run? I don't want to get in the business of ranking them, and the night with Sugar Cube and Ohm might have been the pinnacle, but I was riding so high and had such a great time, the fact it was coming to an end had me trying to really soak it in as much as possible.

BrooklynVegan write-up

SETLIST: Yo La Tengo @ Bowery Ballroom 12/5/2021 (Hanukkah Night 8)

From Me To You (The Beatles, sung as “From Me to Jews”)

Today Is The Day (slow version) (with Janet Beveridge Bean/drums, Mark Greenberg/keyboards, James Elkington/guitar, Doug McCombs/bass)

Stockholm Sydrome (with Rick Rizzo/guitar, JBB, MG, DM)

The Crying of Lot G (with JE, DM, JBB, MG)

Avalon or Someone Similar (with RR, JBB, MG, DM)

Season of the Shark (with JE, JBB)

Two Trains (with JE, JBB, DM)

When It’s Dark (with JE, JBB, DM, MG)

Goin’ Back (Carole King & Gerry Goffin) (with JE, RR, JBB, MG)

Group Grope (The Fugs) (with JE, RR, JBB, MG, DM)

Some Kinda Fatigue (with RR, JB)

Autumn Sweater

Deeper Into Movies (with JB)

Sister Ray (with MG, RR, JB, DM)

Our Way To Fall

*(encore)*

The Whole of the Law (The Only Ones)

Dum Dum (Bush Tetras) (with Cynthia Sley and Pat Place)

Run Run Run (Velvet Underground (with CS & PP)

Too Many Creeps (Bush Tetras) (with CS & PP)

Here Comes My Baby (Cat Stevens) (with Marilyn Kaplan/vocals & Mark Luecke/whistling)

My Little Corner of the World (Bob Hilliard, Lee Pockriss) (with MK)

[If reposting, kindly credit Frank & Earthy: http://www.jessejarnow.com/category/ylt / @bourgwick ]

Wish I'd been able to start going to these Hanukkah shows years ago. Great time, great band. So glad I finally got to see what I'd only had clips and downloads of from past years. Yo La Tengo fans, it was Mecca ... you should do it once in your life if you're able.

RTD Redux

2021-09-24T19:14:00.001-04:00

Legit confused and not sure how I feel about RTD returning to Who.

Never stopped watching even though the weird pro-Amazon episode basically killed my will to keep writing about it. Jodie is great but Chibnall has been an almost entirely unmitigated disaster.

This news doesn't change the fact I was going to keep watching every new episode anyways. However, if I were going to go back and re-write my early reviews of his first run there's no avoiding the fact he ran a show where two recurring cast members were allowed to create a toxic environment that, in retrospect, probably explain why Chris Eccleston left and never looked back.

I guess the JMS campaign never really had a shot, and may not have been that great an idea anyways, but I'm curious if the BBC considered any showrunners who could've come in with a new approach -- without any baggage.

This Jobs Guarantee Policy Debate Got Me Thinking

2020-11-05T08:43:00.000-05:00

Compare and contrast with the presidential debates this past cycle. Now, imagine Biden and Trump even trying to participate in this particular debate with anything like even one useful idea.

That's blog post; what follows is a super high-level pie-in-the-sky daydreaming I don't have time right now to flesh out with supporting links or anything to tether the dream to an actionable program.

It looks, as I write this, that Biden will win the election and Trump's legal challenges are baseless, so the threat to the outcome is primarily the fascist mobs trying to prevent the counting of ballots. Assuming our broken society can follow the process we can indulge ourselves by starting to look ahead to what a Biden administration will actually do when it owns the pandemic response and economic crisis.

Knowing that the Biden response will be a disaster, I'd like to think about what I would do in his shoes. The immediate, pressing need is to stop the bleeding and address our economic woes and so the debate between Matt and Mark that heads this post, I think, is a useful starting point for deciding what big, bold policy we could be starting with straightaway. A robust unemployment benefits program is where I would start. Matt's proposal makes the most sense to me, though I appreciate some of Mark's points and may be suffering from some lingering Protestant work ethic brainwashing.

Universal basic housing, basic income, M4A, and food/water security is where I'd go from there. Free public education should be expanded from K-12 to pre-K - 16. A massive infrastructure program to phase out the fossil fuel industry and replace our energy grid with a Green alternative (Green New Deal, but better) would essentially fill the role of the JG, without being a JG, and would go hand-in-hand with a program to nationalize the utilities and the banks.

Further, a set of initiatives to modernize and democratize our government by undoing Citizens United, addressing the EC, fixing our antiquated election system, and packing the SCOTUS to make it possible to start the larger process of undoing the damage done by the GOP over the last decades also have to start immediately. Much of what needs to be done involves amending the Constitution, but a piecemeal process of patching fixing seems inadequate, so we're talking about the laying the groundwork for a new Constitutional Convention to wholesale repeal and replace.

Now these aren't goals that could be accomplished by a president alone, nor could they be done to completion in a single term. But, these are the needful things, as I see it, and every action I'd take as president would be to make progress on those fronts as the first priorities. (It goes without saying, I hope, that there's much more to be done, not the least of which is ending our wars, but also a complete overhaul of our foreign policy and addressing the legacies of American imperialism from Puerto Rico to Guam, and beyond, and reparations for slavery and the genocide of the First Nations ... )

Remain in Love

2020-08-01T10:02:00.000-04:00

Chris Frantz on Sound Opinions

Haven't listened to the Talking Heads much last several years but only because they are sort of like Squeeze, for me, in that I listened to them so much when young, I didn't really have to listen to them to hear them any longer. But listening to this episode brought back memories of borrowing and wearing out my library's VHS copy of Demme's Stop Making Sense.

Related: Remain in Love

The Final ... Frontier?

2020-07-31T10:09:00.001-04:00

OOAC on Indigenous Futurism

"Did we really say that?"

We sure did, and do. Sometimes it just takes hearing someone point something out and you realize, again, how growing up in a settler colonial state bakes in some messed up shit.

The connection this episode made for me was with Stan Robinson's Aurora, where the dark side of Roddenberry's vision of the space exploration, and how closely we need to scrutinize how that vision informs our collective ideas about, and implementation of, the space program.

The Battle of Blair Mountain

2020-07-29T09:30:00.000-04:00

cryptonaut-in-exile: History we can ill afford to forget: The Battle of Blair Mountain

Still disheartened that I learned about the Battle of Blair Mountain about 10 years ago. Not in high school, not in college. There's a new podcast on Rev Left that prompted be circle back to the post above and to accelerate re-blogging it ahead of the "ten years later" string of re-blogs I periodically engage in.

Have a mind to eventually build this post out to a page but, for now, it's a bit of a link dump to more about the largest armed insurrection in America since the Civil War.

Thunder in the Mountains

Matewan

Funny how we hear more about protecting Confederate statues than we ever did about the struggle to preserve the site of the Battle of Blair Mountain.

The Mine Wars on PBS

Things Can Get Better

2020-02-18T20:34:00.000-05:00

"Dystopias Now" by Kim Stanley Robinson | Commune

It’s crucial to keep imagining that things could get better, and furthermore to imagine how they might get better. Here no doubt one has to avoid Berlant’s “cruel optimism,” which is perhaps thinking and saying that things will get better without doing the work of imagining how. In avoiding that, it may be best to recall the Romain Rolland quote so often attributed to Gramsci, “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Or maybe we should just give up entirely on optimism or pessimism—we have to do this work no matter how we feel about it. So by force of will or the sheer default of emergency we make ourselves have utopian thoughts and ideas. This is the necessary next step following the dystopian moment, without which dystopia is stuck at a level of political quietism that can make it just another tool of control and of things-as-they-are. The situation is bad, yes, okay, enough of that; we know that already. Dystopia has done its job, it’s old news now, perhaps it’s self-indulgence to stay stuck in that place any more. Next thought: utopia. Realistic or not, and perhaps especially if not.

I'll be surprised if I haven't linked this previously, but hearing Hilary and Matt discuss it today in their preface to taking up Aurora brought it back to mind.

Ideological State Apparatuses

2020-02-18T20:15:00.000-05:00

One way of understanding how the groundwork for the current Republican party and Administration was laid: Faith, Family and America's Future

Burn the Democratic Party to the Ground FCOL

2020-02-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

It’s not a “conspiracy theory” to be mildly curious about why the Iowa caucuses failed to produce results for the 1st time ever due to an app from a company whose CEO is a Pete supporter and whose board is packed with Dem establishment figures, after which Pete declared victory
— David Klion🔥 (@DavidKlion) February 4, 2020

Look, by the standards we employ for the rest of the world, the 2020 Iowa caucus should have triggered a CIA-backed coup.

Or, *dramatic chipmunk* is that what we are witnessing?

I kid. But, c'mon.

Enjoy This Picture of River Song (the Chihuahua) Until Posting Resumes

2019-12-26T10:22:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays, y'all.

River Song, Xmas 2019

Do 60 Next

2019-03-19T20:50:00.001-04:00

The 40 Best Yo La Tengo Songs :: Music :: Lists :: Yo La Tengo :: Paste

Not bad as lists go. No "The Evil That Men Do (Pablo's Version)" though? Listen closer.

Only "Detouring America With Horns" off May I Sing With Me felt wrong, I was struck by the absence of "Upside-Down," but maybe the problem was trying to pick only 40 songs ...

KSR on The Antifada Podcast

2019-02-28T15:22:00.001-05:00

Currently listening ... Antifada ft. Will Menaker: Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism w/ Kim Stanley Robinson

The Politics of Health Care, or M4A Now!

2019-02-27T11:08:00.001-05:00

RIP Carrie Ann Lucas

Put simply, our expensive and failing health care and health insurance systems are not amenable to incremental reforms. Radical changes are needed, and needed now. So-called moderate, centrist tweaks that don't fundamentally change our approach to health care amount to little more than whistling past the graveyard.

It's past time we recognized as a society that politics are not a horse race, a low-consequence game where we cheer for Team Blue or Team Red. Politics are a life and death struggle to meet the material needs of an entire population. We're battling for basic human rights against capital. And, we're losing. The bodies continue to pile up while we tolerate mendacious politicians betraying their constituencies, betraying us all.

Carrie Ann Lucas deserved better. Every person getting priced out of their insulin deserves better. Kids shouldn't be dying because their families can't afford inhalers.

Ten Years Later: "All-Star Day Daydreaming"

2018-07-17T16:36:00.000-04:00

cryptonaut-in-exile: All-Star Day Daydreaming

I'd like nothing more than for Blake and Amelia's first big league game to be at Fenway one summer between 2011 and 2013 ... that first site of a ballpark in the sunshine after coming out of a dark tunnel, while holding their dad's hand -- that's a feeling I can't wait to give them.

Haven't done one of these Ten Years Later posts in a while, so flipped back to July, 2008 and it turns out I only posted once that month and it was about baseball and fatherhood, two things still very much on my mind. The latter all the time, the former reaching a fever pitch here at the All Star break with the Sox looking like they're going to battle the Yankees down to wire, with both built to make deep playoff runs this year.

We didn't make it to Fenway with the kids until this summer, about six years behind schedule, but it was worth the wait. We saw a terrific game -- the Sox won 6-0 behind homers by J.D. Martinez and Bogaerts -- and had the added bonus of being able to go with my brother's family.

This may be the last photo taken where I'm still taller than my son :P

The kids got to go with their aunt, uncle, and cousins to their first game at Fenway.

Baseball-wise, it's been a heck of a summer. The Red Sox are raking and have a 4.5 game lead at the All Star break. Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez have been electric, and I've seen more grand slams this year than I can remember seeing in a while. Mookie and Bogaerts in the week leading up to the break, no less. I always have an excuse why I'm behind on my Doctor Who blogging and my reading; for a while it's been the fact I run pretty much everyday, and that's a big chunk of my free time, but we've also got the MLB season pass so I only miss the Sox games when they play Baltimore and Washington due to the ludicrous blackout situation here in North Carolina, a state without a big league team.

Speaking of the DW blogging, I've got a bunch of skeleton posts for classic and new series stories in my drafts folder that'll get another pass and get published eventually, but it's likely the next to go live will be a reaction post when the new series starts up in the fall.

2018 Keep RLGH Independent 4 Miler

2018-07-12T14:49:00.000-04:00

2018 Keep RLGH Independent 4 Miler

Too slow. Your man is too slow and needs to pick up the pace. These Runologie races are much more competitive than the ones I'd been running, so instead of being in or near the top 3 for my age group, I'm now the back of the middle of the pack. As the competition is getting stiffer, my mins/km needs to be getting better. I feel like I should be running under 5 minutes per km, at least in these 5Ks and 4-milers. I can do 15K averaging 5:20/km in the heat, and I've done a 5K under 25 mins. once when it was cool, so it's a matter of being able to do it when it's hot and humid.

I've started working jump-ups and hill repeats into my routine and have about a month and a half before the Labor Day 8K to shave some seconds off. If I can push the pace and the heat backs off a bit, here's hoping I can be a bit braggadocious after race 13.

Race 1 - "Decem-burrrrr Dash" - 12/3/16 - 29:10
Race 2 - "SPCA Hot Chocolate Run" - 1/15/17 - 28:25
Race 3 - "I Heart 5K" - 2/11/17 - 26:58
Race 4 - "Running Over Cancer 5K" [official results] - 3/12/2017 - 25:32
Race 5 - "Racing for Rescues" - 5/7/2017 - 25:03 [official results]
Race 6 - "Run the Quay" - 6/3/2017 - 25:11 [official results]
Race 7 - "Decem-burrrr Dash" - 12/2/17 - 24:43 [official results]
Race 8 - "SPCA Mutts & Marshmallows Hot Chocolate Run" - 1/13/18 - 26:27 [official results]
Race 9 - "Cary Greenways 10K" - 4/24/18 - 55:48 [official results]
Race 10 - "Racing for Rescues" - 5/6/2018 - 26:19 [official results]
Race 11 - "Raleigh Beach 5k" - 5/27/2018 - 26:49 [official results]
Race 12 - "Keep RLGH Independent 4 Miler" - 7/4/2018 - 36:42 [official results]

Raleigh Beach 5k – 2018

2018-05-29T13:23:00.001-04:00

Raleigh Beach 5k – Runologie

This was at Dorothea Dix, same park as last race, but a different course through the park. Middle of the pack for dudes of my age group but I don't feel too bad. The times of the top finishers were under 23 minutes -- faster, I think, than the other races I've run. This Runologie series looks like it's a cut above the races I've done up 'til now, competiveness-wise.

I felt like I ran well for me, considering the weather (hot) and course (bit on the hilly side). Still, I had a goal of getting at least one kilometer under 5 minutes, and my best was 5:12. I made an effort to watch my heart rate during this one to see if staying around 165-170 bpm made a difference. (Going to want to start monitoring earlier next time and try to get to 170 faster. Based on average bpm for the race, I must have kept a lower rate for the first few klicks.)

Posting just the participation medal, the post-race selfie was a horrorshow.

Next race is a 4-miler, first of that distance, at same park Fourth of July weekend.

Race 1 - "Decem-burrrrr Dash" - 12/3/16 - 29:10
Race 2 - "SPCA Hot Chocolate Run" - 1/15/17 - 28:25
Race 3 - "I Heart 5K" - 2/11/17 - 26:58
Race 4 - "Running Over Cancer 5K" [official results] - 3/12/2017 - 25:32
Race 5 - "Racing for Rescues" - 5/7/2017 - 25:03 [official results]
Race 6 - "Run the Quay" - 6/3/2017 - 25:11 [official results]
Race 7 - "Decem-burrrr Dash" - 12/2/17 - 24:43 [official results]
Race 8 - "SPCA Mutts & Marshmallows Hot Chocolate Run" - 1/13/18 - 26:27 [official results]
Race 9 - "Cary Greenways 10K" - 4/24/18 - 55:48 [official results]
Race 10 - "Racing for Rescues" - 5/6/2018 - 26:19 [official results]
Race 11 - "Raleigh Beach 5k" - 5/27/2018 - 26:49 [official results]