Update

Just a brief update on my personal situation, plus...

Artist’s Sketch of Evil Stove.

Yesterday my gas stove broke down, in a way that was scary as hell. I was going to cook something in the oven and the rheostat (I think that’s what it is) disintegrated, leaving the knob in my hand, and giving me a nasty little shock when I probed for the other end through the hole where it used to be. But worse, the oven was on full blast! At first I didn’t realize it was on, and I went to my computer to see how to open up the cook top on these (never had a gas stove before we moved into this place). When I got back to the stove with some tools, I got the cover to open (crimping some gas lines in the process). Electrocuted myself again messing with the damaged rheostat, and then realized the oven was getting warm!

To make a long story short, I managed to get the now running stove away from the wall, squeezed in and unplugged the electricity, and shut the gas cut-off valve. Crisis averted. If the stove was much hotter - I guess I would have grabbed some oven mitts. Looking behind the stove, I could see it probably hadn’t been moved since 1969, when the house was built. Among the highly flammable dust bunnies, congealed cooking oil, and shards of broken glass, I found some small Allen wrenches, a toy boomerang (I guess it didn’t return on its last voyage), and a small placard: “Danger Gas etc etc…” Upon consultation with my partner, we decided to give the thing “the ol’ heave-ho!”

Today we took the stove and some other metal junk we accumulated to the recycling and salvage center. We got a grand total of $18 for the whole lot. With that and some money we made doing a church bazaar, we had $70 - enough for our first month of fiber connectivity; we are back on the high speed internet, and don’t have to tether our phones to get online.

If you’re worried about our ability to cook; we are not without cooking appliances, between the microwave, air fryer, an induction cook top, an InstantPot, and an electric skillet, we can do some damage in the kitchen. We have to change how we do things - but that’s life for you. I have found that change is forced upon you whether you are ready for it, or not.

Today I was also notified that my first and only payment from Substack was processed; nearly enough to cover our second month of internet access (thank you Satori!). We plan to sell our car next week (we have a second car that is broken down - unable to repair due to costs of $3000 - $5000) - we might get $200 for scrap. The publication is still moving down the road, albeit on a spare tire, and borrowed gas. We could use an upgrade, in the form of paying subscribers:

I think this might be relatable to the Democratic Party. They are in crisis. The old neoliberal ‘New Democrats’ are trying to continue down the same old road they’ve been down, with little success to show for it, and much to blame for the demise of the middle class (ironically considering their messaging in the 1990s). As they decline, a young and energized group of Progressives are rising and winning seats in the House, and demanding change. If you look at each caucus’ news from their website the difference is plain to see. Here is the New Democrats Coalition website:

Note, the last time they published anything was in 2023. Now take a look at the Progressive Caucus’ news page:

I’ll give you a moment to absorb that… Now, who do you think actually fights for you, and who is putting their donor class above the needs of people?

As the saying goes, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” A corollary to that might be, “If your tools are broken, maybe it’s time to throw them out and get some new ones.”

“Trickle Down Economics” doesn’t work, and the neoliberal New Democrats selling you Reagan’s bill of goods was ultimately treason, because no one other than the corporations and billionaires benefited from that through corporate welfare and these same corporations then cut benefits and salaries and gutted the middle class, the same group the New Democrats purported to be helping. Their knee-jerk reaction is to denigrate the old ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ ideas - to pile on along with MAGA in 'pwning the libs’.

We saw this when Bernie Sanders’ run for President was smeared by the New Democrats, and then progressives were sidelined in the Big Tent during the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. All that does is divide us and play into the hands of corporations and billionaires. It looks like the New Democrats are working with the GOP and MAGA considering the outcomes, either actively supporting, or through inaction in opposition. Even as they shift ever so slightly to the left, and throw progressives a bone or two, we the people know what they’ve been up to. Why do you think so many people were not energized to vote - even against Trump? Because they saw no difference in how the two parties treated the little guy. It was about raw power, and not helping ‘we the people.’

With Trump in office, the masks off, it is clear what battle lines have been drawn: the GOP is intent on capturing government for a new oligarchy - to create a new ‘Gilded Age’ for their massively rich donors. They want to perpetuate this by ensuring an ongoing ‘slave’ class through further stratification of education (school vouchers that subsidize private education for the rich, while preventing poor and middle class families from getting a good education, on top of massive debt in college education that will flow from even the educated middle class), continued erosion of benefits and salaries of workers through suppression of unions, and continued criminalization of minorities to perpetuate incarceration for the benefit of prison industrial complex who uses their labor for pennies on the dollar. They also want to give the rich elite tax cuts - corporate welfare - while the rest of us are left working multiple jobs and paying more than our fair share of taxes, and they have the nerve to say workers are lazy and ungrateful.

As I’ve stated before, these ideas aren’t new. They are the culmination of the United States’ failure to hold the South fully accountable for slavery and the Civil War, and their failure to stamp out the plantation system that morphed into the sharecropper system. With the Compromise of 1877, the South was free to reinstate white control through Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised black people, and ensured wealth and political power was re-consolidated by the white elites. The same greed that drove development of slavery and the plantation system spread into the thinking of corporations that tried once before to establish an oligarchy at the beginning of the last century. Progressives stepped forward to fight against this evil then.

One hundred years later, we are back at the same place. This time around, we must end it. This country was founded on the ideals that all people are created equal - not that we hold kings above us; not monarchies and not kings of industry either. How can we the people continue to allow ourselves to be fleeced for the enrichment of the obese monied class?

Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty…The flames of the new economic evolution run around us, and we turn to find that competition has killed competition, that corporations are grown greater than the State…and that the naked issue of our time is with property becoming master, instead of servant.

• Henry Demarest Lloyd - (1894) Wealth Against Commonwealth

I think progressive policies and progressive candidates are the way to end this war with wealth, once and for all. If we do this right, it will have the added benefit of collectively growing our rights rather than diminishing them. It is unacceptable to allow white supremacy to take over again in the 21st century. It is unacceptable to allow any form of slavery to exist in the United States of America, be it wage slavery, or abuse of people in jails who need mental health and education to combat recidivism. It is unacceptable to allow people to die out of disinterest, when we have the means of saving them. It is unacceptable to allow our children to have substandard education, in the interests of subsidizing the wealthy.

The oven is broken, and the kitchen is burning up. It’s time to fight the fires, throw it out, and build new tools based on the rule of law, the Constitution, and our shared progressive values. This time, we have to prevent it from ever happening again.