Make It So in 2024

"It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”*

The above bit of wisdom about predictions is often attributed to baseball legend Yogi Berra, though there’s no proof he said it and a handful of other humans supposedly said it first. It certainly applies to much of the prattle being advertised as what 2024 will bring.

We have a democracy to save in the year ahead. In the US, the fork in the road is the November elections. Voters will be asked to endorse the fevered dreams of a few with false promises about economic salvation and security in return for a winnowing down of rights and privileges as enumerated in the Constitution.

Democracy will triumph, not by simply defeating Donald Trump’s campaign, but by also prevailing in hundreds of the ginned up campaigns associated with reversing social and environmental progress.  

There will be no purity in these efforts; we will have to take some bad with the good, with the primary standard being opposing the class war currently manifesting itself as Trumpism. Racism, patriarchy, and corporate hegemony are the fronts where efforts need to be focused. Smart politics will be to go after what’s attainable in 2024.

We must overcome the nihilism that has become the dominant flavor of the firehose of falsehoods coming at us from all sides. A few small minds are making stuff up about everything from Taylor Swift to the moon landing. 

Taken at face value, they’re all absurd. I mean, does anybody really believe that the Kansas City Chiefs tanked because the person of the year started dating a player? The short answer is no; the long answer is that lots of people feel bad when they read that sort of ridiculousness. Feeling bad is the point.

A sense of despair is the goal, alongside a promise that only one perfect person can make it better. The tools in his arsenal are enabled by fear of the future. Ascendant aspects of contemporary society are being cast as evil, so evil that practitioners and participants are called out as demons.

Extremists true to the intentions (subjugation of a gender) fundamentalist 21st century morality police are staying the course in the post Dobbs era, with cynical manipulation of electoral processes and cruel charges designed to punish women seeking reproductive care. Next up on their agenda are birth control, no-fault divorce, and a frontal attack on sex outside the “traditional” marriage obligation to breed new vassals for their lord. 

Equality and equity are now portrayed as villainous pursuits, with the underlying histories of those who would benefit from such ventures being overridden in a quest to make the downtrodden seem unworthy as humans. The worst people have come out of the shadows, vying for a seat at the table. Hate language and actions aim to dehumanize minority groups.

The world has entered what United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres calls an “age of global boiling.” Even as awareness over the dangers of climate change rises, people are encouraged to take actions exacerbating the problem. How we live must change. Or else.

The servants of dirty energy dispense worthless and conflicting advice following each disaster. This is an area where there is so much bullshit standing in the way that civil disobedience is required to make progress.

Immigration, crime, and reconsideration of the privileges granted to people who are supposed to be protectors are all so twisted as issues to make changes seem impossible. The fact is that just about everything bad in these areas exists because a few people want it that way. 

Let’s smartly pick our battles to rid (or block) ourselves of those advancing those agendas; an autocrat in the White House would be a formidable force capable of squashing all dissent.

Does anybody think that any immigration reform will ever be supported by Republican legislators? Do people know that crime has steadily become less of a problem; that murders are rapidly declining? Or that the foundation for official angst over retail theft is based on made up figures?  Or that most governmental entities increased spending on law enforcement post the publicized murders of black men? Or that authority figures are more likely to be pedophiles as opposed to entertainers? And that more people than ever are being killed by police? 

Fact checking in the face of overwhelming repetition of falsehoods simply won’t be enough; overwhelming solidarity based on saving democracy can save the day. 

As far as the economy is concerned, the premature notion that President Joe Biden is (politically speaking) a dead man walking is tied to the realization that the American Dream promised after the mid-century world war is dead. 

The latest and greatest fraud perpetrated in the name of keeping hope alive –crypto scams– has passed. The shelf for magic wands to make things better is empty, so we’re being asked to settle for authoritarian rule to keep us safe from the hordes of the “other.”

Biden’s incremental changes –many of which are good things– haven’t changed the sense of a bleak future. His administration is arguably the first in fifty years to adjust its focus to include demand over supply. For that, they are branded as ‘communists,’ even as GOP legislators claim credit for things they voted against. Recent economic news is tangible proof that a government serving the majority, rather than a wealthy few, works.

Economic arguments alone will not rebuff the full spectrum of attacks coming from the right, and thus fall short at moving voters in a partisan context. Messages that speak to personal, social and economic concerns — under the banner of a better life — animate swing and surge voters, while helping inoculate against fear-based rhetoric.

In San Diego, housing and homelessness will be the only issues that matter in the 2024 election. 

Blame Mayor Todd Gloria all you want for whack-a-mole tactics currently in progress, the fact is that the city government lacks the resources to quickly deliver on demands to ‘make it go away‘ and/or create social service inclusive housing. 

His sin lies in failing to do more to acknowledge the economic and political forces at the root of this issue and demanding their participation. Our city’s school district is utilizing their resources to provide workforce housing. The NIMBY movement mostly stands in the way of progress. The means to resolving our unhoused crisis exists right under our noses.

Right now the overextended non-profits charged with servicing city-sanctioned camps are feeding their “guests” pop tarts and beans for nourishment. Just think how bad things will get for the unhoused by those unwilling to accept them as humans.

Republicans are arguing for the opportunity to herd and incarcerate those offending the sensibilities of the local would-be landed gentry. Homeless humans are considered by these types to be moral failures, either as addicts or with poor mental health as proof of their weaknesses. The results of this incarceration  -whatever it’s called-- will ultimately mean cruel punishments along with sanctioning of sadism as a policy choice because those caged up will be regarded as lesser beings.

In California, law enforcement officials are once again leading an effort to get voters to reconsider Proposition 47 — the 2014 ballot initiative that downgraded some drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Walmart has funneled $500,000 to the effort and some legislators are behind a committee promising to examine retail crime.

This un-reform effort exists as a vehicle to keep Californians fearful in an era where crime is declining. Statistics, whether made up or one-off, will be shouted from the rooftops, not because cops actually care but because alarming claims serve as a vehicle for selling authoritarianism.

Finally, there are the legal messes of  Donald J Trump. He’s a mean Grinch, Mr Trump is, and he lives for self-aggrandizement above all else. Chances are 50-50 that he’ll get bad news from a jury prior to the GOP convention, and even then the party will have no choice but to back him. Trust me, a convicted Donald Trump will be the most dangerous political beast we’ve ever seen.

Regardless if he is defeated at the ballot box or in the courtroom, there will be another version of that man on the political stage in no time. And those that have sold their souls to the current devil will line up to do his/her bidding.

There are a host of figures rooting against American Democracy, ranging from autocrats overseas to bros in Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, Republicans are busy introducing legislation and lawsuits that demand our own government stop tracking foreign election interference efforts.

Via the Associated Press:

• “Election 2024 may be the first presidential election during which multiple authoritarian actors simultaneously attempt to interfere with and influence an election outcome,” Microsoft warned in a November threat assessment.

• The company said it was unlikely that Russia, China and Iran would sit out next year’s contest because the “stakes are simply too high.” The report said Russia remains “the most committed and capable threat to the 2024 election,” with the Kremlin seeing next year’s vote as a “must-win political warfare battle” that could determine the outcome of its war against Ukraine.

The undeniable rise of union power should serve as a template for opposing authoritarianism, whereby politicians are defined by economic matters and embrace the concerns of the citizenry. 

Common sense-based solidarity is what can triumph, fueled by empathy as the antidote to hate and oppression. An unrelenting energetic optimism needs to frame this movement for democracy, a descriptor that should be repeated early and often. 

For 2024, it’s all or nothing for a brighter future. Do your part. I’ll have plenty of ideas as the days move forward.

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Lead image via ProtectDemocracy.org

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New Year’s News Snips

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RFK Jr.’s campaign of conspiracy theories is PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year Via KFF News

• Kennedy’s movement exemplifies the resonance of conspiratorial views. Misinformers with organized efforts are rewarded with money and loyalty. But that doesn’t make the claims true.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign based on false theories is PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year.

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The global elections Washington should be watching in 2024 Via Politico

• Dubbed the biggest election year in history, more than 60 countries representing half the world population — some 4 billion people — will hold regional, legislative and presidential elections that look set to shake up political institutions and ramp up geopolitical tensions.

• As the United States looks inward, bracing for a likely showdown between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, other countries are also preparing for possible incumbent oustings, raucous public protests and populist movements with the potential to destabilize larger regions.

• “We will know whether democracy lives or dies by the end of 2024,” said Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, founder of the investigative news site Rappler in the Philippines and author of “How to Stand Up to a Dictator.”

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Nasa’s Parker mission poised for solar ‘landing’ in 2024 Via France24

• The mission’s aim is to gain a better understanding of solar activity and to shed light on the many mysteries surrounding the corona, where temperatures can reach a million degrees Celsius and above – compared with just 6,000C at the sun's surface. Scientists hope data collected by Parker will help understand why the sun’s outer atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface.

• The corona is also where the solar wind is generated and sometimes whipped up into solar “flares” and “storms”, potentially disrupting our planet’s magnetic field, degrading communications and posing health risks to astronauts. Ultimately, Parker’s findings could pave the way for a space weather service capable of forecasting and tracking such events.

• The probe’s end-of-year voyage will mark its best chance of acquiring a greater understanding of key solar processes. It will also be its last: beyond December, the probe’s orbit will no longer allow it to swing around Venus, effectively precluding an even closer encounter with the sun.