#310 / Platner

 

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The guy pictured above, should you not immediately recognize him, is Graham Platner, an oyster farmer from the State of Maine. That's Maine in the background! 

Platner is running for the United States Senate, as a "progressive" candidate, and as a Democrat, and is seeking to replace Maine's current Senator, Susan Collins, who is a Republican. Platner has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders (who votes with the Democrats, but who is not, actually, a Democrat himself). Platner has also been endorsed by by the UAW.

Ousting Collins, in next year's election, is a very high priority for the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party leadership, in Washington, D.C., is not too keen on Platner. I think it might be that "progressive" stuff. Instead of backing Platner, high-ranking Democrats from D.C. have prevailed upon the current Governor of Maine, Democrat Janet Mills, to enter the race.

Most of what I have read about Platner has centered on the tattoo he previously had on his chest (which tattoo has since been removed, after controversy erupted). The tattoo contained Nazi imagery, but Platner says he didn't realize the origin of the image that was placed upon his body, some years ago, in Croatia, when Platner was out having a good time with some buddies, and was, admittedly, intoxicated. 

New York Times' columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote about Platner in a column dated on Halloween. Goldberg was, she writes, disinclined to travel up to Maine to meet with Platner, because she figured that his campaign was on the verge of collapse. Some of Platner's past posts on Reddit, along with the now-removed tattoo, were going to knock him out of any serious consideration, the way Goldberg figured it, so why waste the trip?

People "on the ground" in Maine convinced Goldberg that maybe Platner has a chance, after all, and so she did travel north to meet with him. That personal visit changed her mind. Goldberg's column, which you should try to read in its entirety, was titled "Graham Platner Isn't Finished," and it gives Platner a pretty good review. Here are two excerpts from the column, both of which caught my attention (emphasis added): 

For all his criticisms of our amoral, billionaire-dominated system, [Platner] said, “Americans are fundamentally good people. People that I disagree with politically are fundamentally good people. They show up for each other. They care about each other.”

Platner has been heavily influenced by the work of Jane McAlevey, a labor organizer who wrote extensively about building community power. McAlevey was deeply critical of the professionalization of the left. “Advocacy doesn’t involve ordinary people in any real way; lawyers, pollsters, researchers and communications firms are engaged to wage the battle,” she wrote in her 2016 book “No Shortcuts.” The purpose of organizing, as she saw it, was not to mobilize those who are already activists, but to do the difficult, methodical work of bringing new people in. That’s the project Platner tried to enlist the crowd in. 

“I am asking you for your time,” he said. “I am asking you for your labor. I am asking you for your discomfort.” To organize effectively, he added, “you have to have conversations with people you know you disagree with, and you need to remain open and compassionate and empathetic.”

I very much agree with both McAlevey and Platner. I, too, think that Americans are "fundamentally good people," and I agree that to organize effectively "you have to have conversations with people you know you disagree with...."

Waiting for "political leaders" to solve our political problems for us is not a winning electoral strategy, and it certainly won't solve the real economic, social, environmental, and political challenges we face. 

So, I'm with Goldberg. Let's see if Graham Platner, and the people of Maine, can give us a lesson in what real politics demands. Let's see if the upcoming Senate battle, in Maine, can help us understand what kind of politics is required of us at this time in our history. My claim, repeatedly made, is that only a politics premised on "self-government" - in which ordinary people themselves get involved, and in which they organize without primary reference to "party" - is the only kind of politics that can produce the kind of real changes that we really need!

Just as a brief "footnote," ordinary people getting involved, in order to change some basic economic and social realities, is what got Zohran Mamdani elected last Tuesday, as the next Mayor of New York City.

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Image Credit:

https://uaw.org/uaw-endorses-graham-platner-for-u-s-senate-in-maine/

#309 / Why We Should All Carry Cash

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According to the Houston Herald, paying with cash can cost you extra. What? How could that be? Well, it was news to me, but it turns out that there are some places that simply won't take cash. If you want to buy something in a place with that kind of a rule, you will have to convert your cash to "plastic," and it will cost you some money to do that. Take Yankee Stadium! Apparently, that's an example! Click that link in the first line to find out all about it. As the Houston Herald tells us, there aren't any federal laws that require businesses to accept cash, and while bills were introduced in Congress to change that, those bills haven't passed. 

Personally, I like paying for things in cash, and if you can believe a book recently reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, there are some very good reasons for us to carry cash. Jay Zagorsky's book, The Power of Cash, argues that cash still matters, with his argument falling into three broad categories:

First, there is a national security issue. Mr. Zagorsky notes that “a cashless society stands on three legs: a continuous and stable supply of electricity, communication networks working all the time, and secure computers.” If an earthquake strikes, or a foreign enemy takes down the communication and banking systems, you might be in big trouble, if you don't have any cash at hand. Solar flares might have the same impact. 

Second, Mr. Zagorsky says that "when people spend cash, they tend to feel the cost of their purchase more acutely than when they pay electronically. Handing over notes triggers a different set of reactions in the brain than merely swiping a card. We feel the loss more, and become more attached to what we buy when we pay in cash. Banks and credit-card companies know this, and encourage us to swipe because we are likely to spend less carefully."

Third, according to Zagorsky, there is a social-justice issue. The unbanked poor still depend on cash, as do people who beg for money on the street. Cash does not require an immigrant or tourist to read transaction documents in a foreign language. It also cannot be arbitrarily cut off by autocratic governments.

I think that the third point I have listed is important, and I agree with Zagorsky on the "social justice" argument in favor of cash. Point number one, though, also seems important to me. What Zagorsky is saying about the possibility of various kinds of "system failures" is "right on the money." A society that relies on "technology," with no non-technology backup available, is almost certain to get into trouble. There really is a big difference between our world "online" and what we still, at least sometimes, call the "real world." 

I have commented before on the "precarity" of our "online" reality, and conservative commentator Ross Douthat has even suggested that the transfer online of normal, "human" activities, including everthing from food purchases to sex, may be the slippery first step on our way to "extinction." 

My advice? I'm with Zagorsky. Let's not allow ourselves to slip into a "cashless" world!

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Image Credit:

https://houstonherald.com/2024/06/paying-with-cash-will-cost-you-extra/

#308 / I'm Personally Asking

  

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That's Kathy Hochul, pictured. She is the Governor of the State of New York. Not long ago, I got a nice email from Governor Hochul, which I reproduce below. The "subject" line on the email read this way: "I'm personally asking."

 

Gary, I wanted to share a bit of my personal story with you:

I grew up in Buffalo as one of six kids.

 

Just before I was born, my parents started married life living in a trailer park in Lackawanna, not far from the steel plant where my dad worked. 

My dad worked long shifts at that steel mill. I watched my mother — who raised six kids — stretch every dollar by buying used clothes and serving fried spam sandwiches for dinner. 

My parents instilled the values of hard work and grit as they worked tirelessly to provide for us. 

My parents’ sense of service is what inspired me to run for office. 

Gary, for far too long, I’ve watched families just like mine struggle to make ends meet while Donald Trump and his Republican loyalists prosper off the backs of families getting squeezed — and I’ve had enough. Unlike these D.C. Republicans, I’m fighting to make the lives of all New Yorkers easier — teachers, students, farmers, small business owners, and more. But I can’t continue this work without your support. So, Gary: Can I count on you to chip in $15 in the next 11 hours before midnight? 

D.C. Republicans only care about their special interest donors — not us. 

Meanwhile, as Governor:

→ I took Trump to court over his illegal tariffs — and won twice.

→ I delivered inflation refund checks to put money straight back into New Yorkers’ pockets. 

→ I tripled the Child Tax Credit to help families juggling childcare costs.

But now, D.C. Republicans want to buy their way into power here in our state and unravel all the work we’ve done - and I won’t stand for it.

 

So I’m personally asking: Will you pitch in $15 before midnight to help me compete with the millions D.C. Republicans will spend on this race, fight off their extremism, and bring home a massive victory for New Yorkers? 

I read The New York Times every morning, and I follow national politics pretty closely. I tend to have a rather positive impression of Hochul, and was pleased when she endorsed Zohran Mamdani in his race to become the Mayor of New York City. I tend to have a positive impression of Mamdani, too. Let's see what happens in today's election!

I must say, however, that New York State and New York City politics seem a long ways away. I live in California. It's unlikely that either Hochul or Mamdani will ever represent me. I don't think they're likely to move here, and while I did live in New York City for almost a year, and really wouldn't mind living there again, I don't think there is actually much chance of that happening.

So, why would Hochul, with whom I have had no personal contact whatsoever, send me this nice email, asking me, as a California resident and voter, to give her money to address issues of key importance to residents of New York? 

Well, many readers of this blog posting know exactly why. They probably got an email from Hochul, too, and everyone reading this posting has almost certainly gotten some similar communication from other politicians, from distant parts of the country, asking for their financial support. I got the nice email because Hochul is a Democrat, and I am, too. Hochul's "party," in other words, is what is supposed to motivate a person like me to contribute to her, even though I will never be able to call upon her to vote or take action on anything that directly affects my life. 

Our governmental system is based on the idea that "we, the people" are "running the place." I always like to put it that way, to remind people that we are supposed to be in charge of the government, not the other way around. To the degree that we do "run the place," though, we do so through our "representative" democracy - in other words, by way of our "elected representatives." We vote for people who will be legally entitled to vote on measures that will directly affect our lives and future, in the states and in the cities where we live. If our elected representatives don't do what we want them to do, we can then vote for someone else in the next election, whom we think will do a better job in voting the way we want them to. In California, we can also "recall" our elected representatives, if they're not voting the way they promised to, or the way we want them to. 

That's a quick description of how our political system is, or was, designed to work, ably summarized by Tip O'Neill, who put it this way: "All politics is local." 

Is this still true? Maybe not! Kathy Hochul certainly doesn't think so. In fact, as The Atlantic has recently opined, it seems that the days of Tip O'Neill have come and gone. Check out The Atlantic's article making the claim that "No Politics Is Local." Without a doubt, our politics, today, has absolutely become more "national" than "local," and is more and more based on party, not on the "representative" relationship between the voter-resident and the elected official-officeholder. 

While Hochul is trying to raise money from Democrats all over the country, whom she will never actually represent, our political parties, of course, are also seeking to raise money. And the parties are raising money not only from those who can be motivated to give $15, but also from those who can give $1,500 dollars, or $15,000 dollars, or even $15 million dollars. The "party" ends up "representing" those with the most dollars, while our idea of representative and democratic government is intended to produce elected officials who are beholden not to "money" but to the majority of the voters whom they "represent," voters who can vote to elect them - or not.

If we want actually to "run the place," we can't let ourselves be deceived into thinking that we can be represented effectively by national political parties. We need to elect representatives who respond not to some party hierarchy, mostly funded by the "billionaire class," as Bernie Sanders calls them. We need, each one of us, to make sure that we are truly being "represented" by persons elected by a majority of the people who live in their "district" (their congressional district, or their state Assembly or Senatorial district, or by city or county officials who live in the same city or county as those whom they represent). We need to make sure that our "representatives" truly understand that their ability to continue in office, or to advance to some "higher" office, is dependent on doing not what the party leadership wants, but what the majority who actually voted to elect that representative want.

The system just described is sometimes called "democracy," but is better described as "self-government," because we, ourselves, are in charge of our government when ordinary people elect "representatives" who are loyal to and dependent upon the people who can vote for them, in the geographic area in which they live. 

Of course, for this system of representative democracy to work, "we, the people" need to be personally involved in the process. Shipping out our $15 contribution to some far-off politician who has the same party label that we do isn't going to do it!

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Image Credit:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/14/kathy-hochul-endorses-zohran-mamdanis-bid-for-mayor-00563501

#307 / Tomorrow Is An Election Day

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Tomorrow is an election day in California. A special election has been scheduled, throughout the state, to consider what is billed as a "temporary" set of changes to Congressional Districts in the State of California. A special election is also scheduled within the City of Santa Cruz, to allow City voters to decide on two different (and competing) initiative measures related to proposed tax increases to support affordable housing. 

Both the State and the City of Santa Cruz measures are consequential. Hopefully, those voters who may be reading this blog posting already know that, and have not forgotten about these elections, and have either already voted, or will do so by 8:00 p.m. tomorrow, which is the deadline. 

It is fair to say that the statewide election, which will determine the fate of Proposition 50, is absolutely "partisan" in its intentions. The purpose of Proposition 50 is to redraw Congressional District lines in California, to favor the election of more Democratic Party candidates to the United States Congress, and to replace with Democrats a number of current Members of Congress who are members of the Republican Party. While there are no "guarantees," if Proposition 50 passes, the so-called "midterm" Congressional elections, to be held next year, are expected to send five more Democratic Party candidates to Congress than would be the case if the district boundaries were not modified by the passage of Proposition 50. 

In the City election, there is a choice is between Measure B (sponsored by the Santa Cruz County Association of Realtors) and Measure C, supported by the Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, Fred Keeley, and a number of different community leaders, all in favor of raising money, through a real estate transfer tax, to support affordable housing projects. 

Measures B and C speak to the same issue - and though they are very significantly different, each one would impose a real estate transfer tax to support affordable housing (and other non-housing-related initiatives, in the case of Measure B). Since both measures address the same subject, a vote for one is necessarily a vote against the other. If both were to get a majority vote, and thus pass, the measure with the most votes would be enacted, and the other measure would be defeated. Of course, it is possible that both Measures B and C might fail to get a majority vote, in which case neither measure would be enacted.

Consequential decisions? Absolutely. Don't miss your chance to vote. The deadline is 8:00 p.m. tomorrow.

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Image Credit:

https://www.pa.gov/agencies/vote

#306 / In The Fury Of The Moment

  

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In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand

In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

oooOOOooo

Dear Reader,

It may seem to you (as it seems to me) that our moments, now, are all too often filled with fury. Actions taken in my name (and yours) are the very opposite of all that I hope for, and want. All that you hope for and want, too. That's my bet. 

Is there any consolation in this music? You can hear Bob Dylan sing this song by clicking on the title. Dylan's song is, I think, a deeply-felt statement of faith, hope, and love.

Every Grain of Sand

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music

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Image Credit:

https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/every-grain-sand/

#305 / Roadmap Toward A Techno-Optimist Future?

 

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Well, we can always dream, can't we? The book shown above, which I have not read, was reviewed in the September 11, 2025, edition of The Wall Street Journal. The book review takes seriously the idea that a technological uptopia may soon be coming down the line, and forecasts that computers implanted in our brains will be part of the utopian package. The Wall Street Journal explored that theme in an earlier article, too. 

We can, as The Journal seems to be doing, "dream on," but the line that pops for me is from Bob Dylan's "Talkin' World War III Blues." You may remember the exchange that Bob had with his doctor: 

Some time ago a crazy dream came to me
I dreamt I was walkin’ into World War Three
I went to the doctor the very next day
To see what kinda words he could say
He said it was a bad dream

I am definitely of the opinion that the "techno-optimist" future described by Amir Hussain, in his recent book, and in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, is one of those "bad dreams." Maybe it's just me, but how does this sound to you?

If predictions about the impact of artificial intelligence pan out, the world of 100 or even 50 years hence may prove beyond our comprehension. AI systems will have taken over many or most of the functions currently performed by humans. Companies will be led by AI chief executives. New cities will fuse “human cognition and ingenuity with the power of artificial intelligence.” Wired with an internal “neural lace,” our brains will telepathically connect us to AI supersystems, creating a synthesis in which the line between human and machine is “blurred beyond recognition.”

Some may be questing after a future in which we will transform ourselves into appendages to our own, human-created machinery. Personally, I am running in the opposite direction. 

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Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-cybernetic-society-review-the-brain-and-the-machine-ecf1837f

 

#304 / Empathy Is Not A Sin

  

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The May 2025 edition of Sojourners Magazine had a discussion about "empathy," and considered whether or not empathy might be a "sin." Online, as you will see if you click the following link, the headline on the discussion about empathy read this way: "If Empathy Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right." In the hard copy version of the magazine, the title was more direct: "Empathy Isn't A Sin."

The article I am talking about was written by the editor of Sojourners, in response to a "tweet" by a Utah church deacon and "self-described Christian husband and father" named Ben Garrett. Garrett's "tweet" was responding to a sermon preached by the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C., the Reverend Marianne Edgar Budde." The Bishop's sermon, given the day after the inauguration of our current president and vice president, urged them to "have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now” — specifically naming transgender and undocumented children who feared what the new administration would mean for them.

Here is the tweet by Ben Garrett, written in response to Bishop Budde's appeal, with Garrett's tweet accompanied by a picture of the Bishop:

Do not commit the sin of empathy. This snake is God’s enemy and yours too. She hates God and His people. You need to properly hate in response. She is not merely deceived but a deceiver. Your eye shall not pity.

I have fallen far behind in reading all the magazines to which I subscribe. I just recently read the May 2025 edition of Sojourners. I was stunned by this appeal to hate. 

I hope that anyone reading this blog posting of mine will be stunned by Garrett's statement, as well, and will think about the kind of corrosive hatred that has so profoundly infected our political life - and of which this is such a profoundly powerful example.

We can only live together if we have love and empathy for those with whom we may profoundly disagree. 

Empathy is not a sin!

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2025/if-empathy-wrong-i-don-t-want-be-right 

(2) - https://churchleaders.com/christianity/507521-mariann-edgar-budde-facts.html

#303 / AI Risks Choking Off New Knowledge

 

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On September 7, 2025, The Wall Street Journal ran a column by Greg Ip. Here's a link to the column, which was headlined, "AI Risks Choking Off New Knowledge." That title is the "hard copy" version, with the online title phrased as a "question," not as a "statement." Full disclosure: If you are not a subscriber to The Wall Street Journal, you may well face a paywall when you click the link. My apologies if that is true, but even if you can't read the column yourself, you can read what I have to say about it right here. Probably, that is pretty close to the same thing. 

Ip correctly points out that Artificial Intelligence (or "AI") does not end up adding to our stock of human knowledge. AI, like a "Google Search" on steroids, roams through the entirety of human knowledge already out there, and responds to our inquiries by mobilizing that knowledge, "already known," and then presenting us with a response to whatever inquiry we might have made to our AI agent, or to whatever assignment we may have given to that AI agent.

Aside from the fact that AI, currently, sometimes "hallucinates," it is true that AI tells us what we (collectively) "already know," and that it responds to our inquiries about the world by accessing knowledge already "out there." When you or I make an inquiry, or assign a task to ChatGPT, or to whatever our favorite AI agent may be, we will often have no idea or information about the topic. However, the AI response to our questions and directives, whatever they are, will be formulated from information and knowledge that is already known, and upon which the AI agent or program has been "trained." 

Greg Ip's article suggests that this fact about how AI actually works will, essentially, mean that using AI will never generate any "new" idea or new "knowledge." AI doesn't "think," itself. It is just a super-effective search engine. Were we to pose a question to ourself, we would have to do the research individually, and we might come up with some completely new idea, something never ever thought about before. 

Since I do think that this is a fair way to describe what "AI" does for us, if we use it, the "question" or the "statement" addressed by Ip is truly on target. We know that people are more and more relying on AI agents, not human beings, to respond to inquiries, and to formulate ideas, and to take action to achieve a particular result. And AI is pretty good at doing that, too, or so I am told, and because that's true, AI is putting a lot of people out of work - and that phenomenon is just beginning. 

Also just beginning is the impact of AI on "education" and "student learning." There is no need for any student to research and think about any topic, whatsoever, when comprehensive knowledge is already available, and can be dispensed in minutes.

Ip's basic point is that AI will never add to the stock of human knowledge. All of its efforts will be based on the human knowledge to which it already has access. 

Is this a good thing? 

Not the way I see it!!

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Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/will-ai-choke-off-the-supply-of-knowledge-8a71cbcd

#302 / Cryptocurrency Is A Financial-Political Scam

  

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I have been writing blog postings about cryptocurrency for some time. Who needs another diatribe against "crypto"? Maybe nobody does - and I actually hope that's true. I have definitely made my own views available to anyone who regularly reads what I have to say, and here is a link that provides access to many of my prior postings (though this is probably not an exhaustive listing of my commentaries). 

Admitting, as I do, that my past writings are more than ample to provide a warning against investing in cryptocurrency, the main reason that I am once again posting about this topic is that I want those who regularly read my blog postings to know that that there is more involved in "crypto" than individual speculation. "Don't bite" is good advice, but we need to go beyond that, as we think about the world of cryptocurrency, so that we understand that "crypto" is now at the heart of a new and profoundly concerning arena of political corruption.

On October 26, 2025, a major article in The Times' "Opinion" section was titled this way: "Cryptocurrency Promised Us Freedom - and Brought Tyranny." That's the "hardcopy" version. Online, the article I am talking about, by Finn Brunton, was titled this way: "How a Fringe Movement of Gun Nuts, Backwoodsmen and Free Marketers Paved the Way for Autocracy." 

By the way, our current president should be added to that listing of "gun nuts, backwoodsmen, and free marketers," the way Brunton sees it. Below, are some quotes from his article. Read those, and you won't need any further commentary from me. If you do want my views, use that link I provided in the first paragraph. Here's Brunton in The New York Times (emphasis added): 

It was pitched as the world’s most exclusive invitation. Hundreds gathered at President Trump’s private country club in Virginia in May for a gala evening. Guests included Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency billionaire who, in the Biden administration, was under investigation for suspected financial crimes. He and the other attendees had won their seats by being the top buyers of $TRUMP memecoin, a form of crypto that benefits Mr. Trump’s family. 

“There is a lot of common sense in crypto,” said Mr. Trump, as the room was served a meal accompanied by Trump-branded wine and water. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.” Mr. Sun later expressed gratitude and received an 18-karat-gold Trump Victory Tourbillon watch. And with that, cryptocurrency elided its dark past and ascended to the apex of American power.

Cryptocurrency has found its hero in Mr. Trump. And in this unlikely moment of triumph, its most powerful proponent has laid bare the paradox at the heart of this brave new world of “new money.” Crypto was supposed to free us from the chains of government control, but now it is finally revealing what that freedom really means: removing all checks on the power of the wealthy to do what they want, discharged at last from law, supervision and civic obligation — even if the result is autocracy. Mr. Trump, with his thirst for money and power, has in one fell swoop both exposed and embraced the corruption at the heart of digital currencies — a corruption inherited from the libertarian ideals that created them....

In the 1990s, the internet revolution birthed an obscure technology that seemed almost purpose-built to fulfill a libertarian extremist’s visions: the blockchain. Originally proposed as a way to help authenticate and time-stamp digital data, it offered a way for strangers to maintain a shared digital ledger over the internet. With the blockchain, people could prove ownership of property, transfer or receive online assets and even set up contracts without filing any paperwork, dealing with auditors, banks or regulators, or paying taxes.

The technology soon attracted a following of libertarians, the most extreme of whom had long dreamed of replacing government-regulated banks with a parallel financial infrastructure for untaxable, untraceable, borderless online-only cash. They used the technology to develop cryptocurrencies, the first of which was Bitcoin.... 

Crypto also attracted criminals. Libertarian projects seem to invariably attract both. By definition, a libertarian tool is a tool to skirt conventional legality, a challenge to existing laws and their legitimacy.... 

Then crypto attracted the attention of a few major Silicon Valley investors. Early to the party was Peter Thiel, an extreme libertarian who has long championed a belief in the limits and failings of democratic institutions. He is almost better known for his wild positions — city-state “seastead” tax havens in international waters, and lamenting women’s suffrage — than for his investing acumen.... 

Then came Covid, which led the Federal Reserve to sharply cut interest rates. Venture capitalists took that effectively free money and poured it into the hot new thing. And the more capital that went to funding crypto start-ups, the more that followed — a classic case of “fear of missing out” that can transform a few high-risk investments into a frenzy. The result was a vicious cycle of cash, hype and increasingly unrealistic valuations. A single Bitcoin went from being effectively worthless in 2010 to briefly reaching $69,000 in November of 2021. The valuations ballooned, as did the promises about crypto.... 

In 2021, $33 billion in venture capital was plowed into crypto start-ups, or more than in all previous years combined. Crypto.com paid $700 million to rename Staples Center in Los Angeles and cut an ad with Matt Damon that compared crypto investors to explorers and astronauts. 

Criminality continued apace, but millions of Americans also found another use for crypto. “They want to gamble,” says Molly White, an industry researcher and critic, with users rapidly trading various cryptocurrencies to try to gain from their fluctuating values. The pandemic, which spurred an explosion in online speculation of all sorts, rendered currencies so volatile that they couldn’t fulfill Mr. Andreessen’s goal of serving as the financial backbone of developing nations. There was also essentially nobody to hold anyone accountable for falsifying results, for Ponzi schemes, for money laundering or for “rug pulls” — hyping a new crypto to naïve investors, only to disappear with the cash once enough people had bought in. 

By the end of 2022, FTX, an industry leader, was bankrupt and its founder and chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, arrested, with a conviction and prison sentence coming later. Changpeng Zhao, then the chief executive of the rival Binance, was also sent to prison. His firm was fined $4 billion for profiting from countless scams and crimes — helping ransomware hackers and child abuse sites handle their payments, for example — and enabling financial transactions and money laundering for sanctioned entities like the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and North Korea....

Mr. Trump chose Senator JD Vance of Ohio — Mr. Thiel’s longtime protégé — as his running mate and headlined the Bitcoin conference in Nashville two weeks later. “The rules,” Mr. Trump announced, “will be written by people who love your industry.” Mr. Andreessen, who supported Democratic candidates in prior election cycles, backed Mr. Trump’s campaign. In all, the crypto industry would become the dominant corporate donor in 2024, putting in over $130 million; a vast majority of all industry donations to the presidential race were to the Trump-Vance ticket.... 

Mr. Trump won. Almost immediately after taking office, he ushered crypto’s biggest backers into the highest echelons of power. David Sacks, a close associate of Mr. Thiel, was appointed “A.I. and crypto czar,” tasked with designing the new regulatory framework for the industry. Associates of Mr. Thiel and Mr. Andreessen are now peppered throughout the administration....

Many regulations, investigations and enforcement cases against the industry have been rolled back or dropped. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had sought oversight of crypto payments to address scam and fraud complaints, was ordered to halt activities. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Crypto Assets and Cyber unit was rebranded into a smaller and more industry-friendly team. 

Mr. Trump pardoned crypto executives and even a corporation — a first. When he made good on a campaign promise and pardoned Mr. Ulbricht, the black market platform chief, the moment was hailed by the Libertarian Party as “an incredible moment in Libertarian history.” 

With regulators defanged and oversight gone, Mr. Trump and a handful of tech backers have been able to seize power and merge their interests with the country’s resources as they see fit. 

Over the past nine months, Mr. Trump has turned crypto into an efficient and powerful cash-in machine to grow the family fortune. Remember Mr. Sun, the gala attendee? In addition to the roughly $15 million he spent on $TRUMP, which secured that gala ticket, he has spent at least $75 million on tokens and investments tied to World Liberty Financial, a crypto-finance company mostly owned by the Trump family. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s suit against Mr. Sun has been dropped, and the S.E.C. ceased its investigation into a set of businesses connected with him. And on Thursday, Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Zhao, the ex-Binance chief. He and Binance have, like Mr. Sun, been highly supportive of World Liberty. If the Trumps are willing to make deals, there is little to stop crypto’s biggest backers from getting anything they want. 

Flush with money from the now-powerful crypto lobby, Congress and the administration have already passed one law allowing private companies to issue their own crypto and are considering another that would forever bar the government from issuing digital currency itself, ensuring there would be no free government alternative to the for-profit platforms and the tokens Silicon Valley controls. The result could well be a permanent private replacement of the existing financial system — the ideal outcome for a crypto venture investor. If price is any indicator, confidence in crypto is near an all-time high: a single Bitcoin is now worth nearly $110,000. 

President Trump has always approached politics as a branch of business, a way to capture wealth, status and power. But it took someone with his instincts to fulfill the darkest potential of the libertarian project. Mr. Trump seems to have understood something that escaped generations of libertarian politicians and philosophers: Rather than dissolving the power of the state totally, he could do so selectively, to put himself and his allies above the law, while using the full force of the state to punish his adversaries; to promote crypto, while also insisting he be in charge of the Fed; to pardon allies, while having his enemies charged.

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Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/opinion/crypto-trump-libertarianism-corruption.html

#301 / Take A Look At These Pictures!

 

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Above, I am presenting you with a picture of Dr. Ibrahim Adam Somow, director general of the state health ministry in Somalia. You can see more pictures below. The pictures in this edition of my blog come from an article in the October 25, 2025, edition of The New York Times, "America’s Retreat From Aid Is Devastating Somalia’s Health System." 

Before our current president took office, the United States of America, operating through the United States Agency for International Development, was providing monies to provide health care in Somalia (and, of course, in other places, too). That aid was abruptly terminated right after our current president took office. As The Times' article puts it: "The Trump administration dismantled the agency and ended vast swaths of foreign assistance to the world’s poorest countries, [and] much of the food aid and health care for children across Somalia were abruptly cut off (emphasis added)."

Did you, or any of our elected representatives in Congress, vote to terminate aid to Somalia, and to cut off help for poor children, so that they would die?

The answer is, "no." The elimination of aid was ordered, on a unilateral basis, by our current president. The termination of aid to the poorest of the poor, throughout the world, was immediate, and the effects of the elimination of this aid have been drastic, as The Times correctly says. Thousands upon thousands of young children have died, and they would have lived, except for our current president's individual action.

The aid and assistance programs terminated by our current president were voted upon by the United States Congress, with funding provided in the nation's budget. Our current president is in contempt of the United States Constitution, which gives him the role of "executing" the programs that our representatives in Congress establish, and doesn't give him the power to make unilateral decisions about what our nation will do, with very few and very narrow exceptions. Despite what the Constitution says, our current president took unilateral action to impose his own, personal ideas about what should be a priority for our nation. Helping poor children, in Somalia and elsewhere, is definitely NOT a priority for our current president. 

If the action our current president took with respect to aid to Somalia reminds you of our current president's action in bulldozing down a part of the White House (as mentioned in this blog yesterday), you are  "getting" the picture of what's happening. A majority of our elected representatives in Congress have, in essence, abdicated their office and have stood aside as one person imposess his personal priorities on the nation. Does he feel like blowing fishing boats out of the sea, perhaps to prevent some drug smuggling? Well, U.S. armed forces blast away, killing people who are not given a chance to show that they are not, in fact, drug smugglers. That's the president's personal decision, just like his personal decision to let poor children die in Somalia (and elsewhere).

Let's not forget that when our president decides that poor children in Somalia should die, WE get blamed. Yes, the United States of America gets blamed for what the nation does, since we claim, and the world has come to believe, that we have a "representative government," which truly represents what the citizens of this nation want. 

If we do have such a government, then it is "America" that has voted to let those children die. 

Take a look at the pictures below. If we want to present ourselves as having a "representative" government, then we need to start working to make sure that our government actually represents us (represents "we, the people," I mean). 

Take a look at these pictures:

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Image Credits:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/health/somalia-children-malnutrition-usaid.html

#300 / Can We Keep It?

 

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That's Peggy Noonan, pictured. She is currently best known, I think, as a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Click the link to her name for more information about her background and accomplishments. 

The title affixed to Noonan's recent column, published in the Saturday/Sunday, October 25-26 edition of The Journal, referenced one of the most famous observations of Benjamin Franklin. Here is the title to Noonan's column:

A Republic, But Can We Keep It?

Franklin, when responding to a question about whether our 1787 Constitutional Convention had provided the nation with a monarchy, or with a republic, told his interrogator, Elizabeth Willing Powel, that the Constitution provided us with "a republic, if you can keep it." Note the "you." Franklin was properly letting Powel, and all of us, know that what kind of government we have will depend upon our own, personal, involvement, and our own, personal, actions. 

Noonan discussed the destruction of the East Wing of the White House in her column, pretty much bemoaning its loss along the lines of my own observations, as posted in my blog entry published on October 24th. Noonan is a Republican, and was a speechwriter for former president Ronald Reagan. Patti Davis, the daughter of former president Reagan, has also lamented what our current president has done, unilaterally, to destroy a beloved part of one of our nation's most historic buildings, a building that belongs to us all. 

I don't like to highlight the "partisan" nature of our government, because it is pretty easy to start thinking that a representative's party affiliation is more important than the representative's personal qualities, and more important than his personal relationship to those who can vote that representative in or out of office. I do not think that a government based on "party" is kind of government we either want or need, and I also think that it is particularly dangerous when our elected "representatives" begin to believe that their primary allegiance is to the "party" to which they belong, and not to the people who elected them, and who have the right to, and might, cast them out of office. An elected representative's primary allegiance must always be to those whom they (are supposed to) "represent."

The only real solution to the abuses of the Trump presidency must come either from the replacement of Republicans in the House of Representatives with person allied with the Democratic Party (which is how things are most commonly portrayed in the press, reflecting what I think is a mistaken idea that "party" is the key to our government), or by the effective use of the power of the people, in the districts in which they live, making current Republican (and other) officeholders pay attention to what their constituents actually want and need (affordable medical care, as one example). 

The current House Majority Leader and Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has been helping to protect the president from actions by the people, by keeping the House of Representatives shut down. But, to be honest, are the people represented by Republican members of the House ready to throw those representatives out if they keep allowing our current president and his accomplices in the Executive Branch to do the opposite of what they want and need (providing affordable medical care, as one example)?

I hope the answer to that last quetion is, "yes," because if we want to "keep" a government that allows us - "we, the people" - to be in charge, we need to demand, and insist, that our elected "representatives" actually represent what we want and need. Allegience by our elected representatives to the people they represent is what our system depends upon. Let us hope that those people who are currently represented by those supporting the president on the basis of "party" loyalty come to understand that the president is not their boss, and that our elected representatives in Congress are actually the boss of the president (the boss of the president on behalf of the people who elected those representatives to "represent" them).

I do not believe for a moment that a majority of those citizens who elected each and every member of the Republican Party in the Congress really, in every case, want their representatives to cut back their health care benefits, and to allow the current president to bulldoze down the White House for a ballroom, without debate, and without an opportunity of the people to be heard.

Am I wrong about that? Well, as Benjamin Franklin let us know how to answer the question. We have a "republic," not a "monarchy," if WE can keep it. 

It's up to us, and if we don't reallocate how we spend our time, and start taking back our own power over the representatives who are supposed to represent US ("US," and not the "party" or the "party leader"), then we will end up with what amounts to a modern day "monarchy." 

Take it from Ben! That "No Kings" slogan would make sense to him!

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Image Credit:

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/peggy-noonan-reflects-on-a-troubled-frayed-america/