the mellow tigger's musings

As the USA is added to an international watchlist for its rapidly declining civic freedoms (by an organization that has been doing its work since at least 1996), as we're seeing the first videos of government taking people without stating any cause during the apprehension, as this administration shuts down oversight that would give us trustworthy data on metrics from healthcare to economics, I thought that a word of hope might be in order.

I've queued this YouTube video at the relevant section. Just watch 4 minutes of it, until he moves on to another quote to lead the next section of his speech. This is Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, delivering a commencement speech in 2023 to graduates at Northwestern University.

The whole speech is good, but please just watch those 4 minutes. They are even more relevant now than in 2023. As I've said too often in recent years, "the cruelty is the point" for some people in positions of authority. I expect that we'll see more sadopopulism in the next 4 years.

I just finished watching the premier of "The Farmer-Labor Movement: A Minnesota Story" on a local Public Broadcasting station. It was fascinating and uplifting history about "the most successful third party in U.S. political history".

I've written before about our state's DFL (not merely Democrat) party and its relation to the Wizard Of Oz story. This video finally explains in detail how and why this history came to be. It's such a wonderful story that gives me hope. Technically, Minnesota is a "purple" state (mixture of conservative "red" and liberal "blue" voters), but even so it has a long history of progressive politics. I didn't know until tonight that a Minnesota governor once deployed troops to protect the workers against the businesses!

I've written before that people should move away from the conservative states that have become so dangerous. Honestly, why wouldn't everyone move here, where the water is plentiful and the societal fabric is stronger than elsewhere?

Watch this film, if you get an opportunity. Please consider moving to Minnesota, where many people loudly proclaim the failures of monopolies, capitalism, and McCarthy-style fear-mongering, while simultaneously promoting farmer cooperatives, labor unions, and creative thinking for sustainable futures for all. As I've said more than once, Minnesota politics offers exactly my kind of crazy.