All posts by JKF

The Long Blog

December 16, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

“We have to pivot at the inflection point of intersectionality.” Chairman John

A few years ago I was trying to think of the most cliché statement one could make using the favorite buzzwords of the day. After further reflection it was more than a little startling to realize that those ten words adequately summarized the tactical changes that the historical moment required. President Abraham Lincoln stated it more elegantly when he said “we must think anew and act anew . . . we must disenthrall ourselves”.

“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” ~ Abraham Lincoln.

This was his state of mind as he was setting the course to remove slavery from the country’s legal structure ‘forevermore’. I’ve quoted Lincoln in that context many times, and have not been hesitant to add Bob Marley’s, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery none but ourselves can free our minds”. The unique situation of having the worldwide SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the economic consequences of extreme stress to all countries and populations, and the political problems arising from vast wealth inequality and uncontrolled new technologies present a battery of difficulties that humankind doesn’t yet seem to have the skill set to deal with. Perhaps “We all need to grow up a bit,” is a better conclusion and that, with an added dose of humility, might set the table for the massive re-ordering of priorities and actions that climate change and worldwide war will require of all of the citizens of our planet. We need to make epic adjustments even as we discipline ourselves to save as much of the biosphere as we possibly can. There is no Planet B is more than a placard at many street demonstrations; it is the bald truth as to the fundamental injunction that should underline any order of the day.

Although my political career has been adequately composted by the results of nine elections, I will continue to testify and ‘preach to the choir’ from this pulpit. While working on my papers and writing some concluding remarks I will use this platform to, as Frederick Douglass urged us years ago, “Agitate, agitate, agitate”, (while he additionally reminded us that the oppressor never willingly abandons their oppression and must be forced to yield). I think of the famous trek of the Peoples Liberation Army from Jiangxi to Shaanxi Provinces in the middle of the 1930’s and the many rivers and mountains that needed to be crossed while taking fire from all sides and the steady growing of their numbers that year and over the next dozen years as a good example of the resolve that the non-violent movement will need to succeed; and I can assure you that we will need no less from American patriots than the Chinese needed from theirs in their drive “To Stand Up”.

That heroic episode that came to be known as The Long March was essential to creating the Chinese Peoples Republic in October, 1949. We will in all probability need no less of an effort now if we wish to create a democratic republic here in the United States by 2032 and to succeed at even part of our hopes for stabilizing and sustaining the progress that humankind has already made in this world.

Letters

Thank You Voters !

December 11, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

Dear Good Friends & Fellow Citizens:

I want to take the opportunity at this time to thank all of you who have supported me and The Cause that I have pursued over the last 50 years of political action, but especially in the races for the House of Representatives and this year’s Presidential election as those contests were particularly focused on the issues of the nation’s misplaced priorities of military might and expanding economic advantage for those who are already privileged at the expense of those in real need. One central feature in that battle has been the fight against the hegemonic power of the two major political parties in the United States, the Democrats & Republicans. The central elite of both those groups are continually willing to sacrifice the many in exchange for power for the few, and while doing that demean the promise of equality and justice upon which the nation is predicated. I continue to maintain that unless we fix that, our current form of government from the Constitution of1787 will no longer obtain and a new manner of governing will be required of us. The essence of non-violent political struggle is the ballot box, and unless security of the vote can be protected and enhanced, and the cash spent by big economic syndicates and individuals can be limited, people will out of frustration give up in believing that non-violent engagement can change the world and will walk a different path. That would be a dangerous distraction from our real problems.

This is not rabble rousing or alarmist conjecture but a measured opinion based on calculating the gap between our present performance and the magnitude of need to change the way we do things. The national government must legislate in many areas; to improve authorization and appropriation procedures, to honor treaty arrangements, especially in regard to control of nuclear weapons and other genocidal armaments, and to bring to heel outright criminal behavior by the entrenched oligarchy which will entail joining the International Criminal Court so as to allow for US citizens to be arraigned there. The way in which corporate control has penetrated the media since the abandonment of the Equal Time and Fairness Doctrine has impoverished public discussion of all of these pressing issues and vitiated the public forum so that propaganda and infotainment flourish with little appeal to fact or reason. The AGYHOOYA battle cry was specifically designed to get in the face of the pharaonic press and challenge every citizen to rethink their facile assumptions. Truth of the matter is, I’m not very good at politics, a fact to which nine election losses adequately testifies. I can therefore say with unequivocal enthusiasm how much I truly appreciate those of you who have stood with me during my political campaigns. I thank you from the bottom of my heart . . . and the top and the center as well for that matter . . .

Sincerely, John Karl Fredrich May Grace, Peace & Love be with you always, JKF — 30 —

Letters

The Biggest Loser

December 3, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

Now that it’s pretty clear that Joe Biden has garnered the Electoral College vote, and also won the popular vote with the greatest tally ever, over 80 million votes to the Republican candidate’s 74 million, I can safely say that I lost this Presidential election by more than 150,000,000 votes. In fact, I can find no reports that I received any votes at all !

What does that mean for the greater picture about the direction of the country and the welfare of its people ? The pandemic rages on, as do wars from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Durand Line, and it doesn’t look good for my central platform planks; less military spending, more health care and housing, women’s rights and voting rights, higher taxes on the plutocrats and corporations, and clear votes in Congress on all the issues of our day put forward in clean bills so the people know where their representatives stand. The lack of regulation of money in elections and the routine denial of the principles of one person/one vote and equal protection under the law mean that our invalid democracy that denies the majority its right to govern and the minorities their claims to equal justice will continue unabated. In short, an awful lot has been heaped on the plate of President-elect Joseph Robert Biden and the administration that he will direct and the Congress and the nation that he will attempt to lead. Deeply divided, critically under-informed, and in some cases clinically depressed, the American public needs both reassurance and action if it is once again to become a force for national and global improvement, ‘an Earth restored’ to use the Society of Friend’s stated goal.

It has been a month now since the polls closed across the nation in one of the most fateful elections in United States history. There are still two Senate seats in Georgia to be determined, and the Electoral College will not certify its decision until December 14th. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump continues to cry foul and fraud in what has to be one of the most transparent swindles in American history by preying upon the credulity of his more benighted supporters to send him money in his struggle to overturn what impartial observers call a free and fair election. Some accounts have him already taking in over $200M with only the vaguest restrictions over for what the funds can be used. We can only hope that that is his final gift/grift to the country.

Imagine my surprise then when after the election and catching up on reading the pile of magazines at my disposal I read some articles in The New Yorker that I felt beautifully examined the troubled conflicts and thwarted promise of our national experiment with creating a new form of government. For those of you trying to run your classes over the internet, they are worth a read for no other reason as to inform the context for your teaching of United States history. The first two were in the November 2 issue and the last in the November 23 issue: from The Critics section, book reviews written by Philip Deloria and Maya Jasanoff , the first on a new book about Tecumseh, the great American Indian political leader who fought against white incursions into Indian country in the early 19th century, and the second reviewing a number of literary approaches to the blinkered understanding of Britain’s imperial past. The article from the issue dated November 23, 2020, is by Andrew Marantz on The Anti-Coup, “How civil resistance works and wins”. It beautifully summarizes the inclination that direct action is taking and will need to continue along if we are ever to have real democracy in the United States. I do not personally envision any way that the United States can continue without an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and also an amendment voiding The Electoral College and establishing election of the President directly by a majority of the nation’s voters. The end of the American empire will need to be prefaced by the elimination of those Constitutional artifices that reflect the pro-slavery and patriarchal, chauvinistic prejudices of its authors. Just muddling along is not going to cut it since government that is not responsive to the imperatives for human survival cannot in itself survive.

Politics

Transition

November 16, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

The Transition has/has not begun . . . you select the appropriate choice. It is crystal clear that I lost badly and that President Trump, while taking a drubbing, was not repudiated to the degree that he so justly deserved after such an in-adequate performance over the last 4 years. That he could garner nearly 50% of the vote after neglecting to do his job shows us the low level of competency that our society is operating under and the severe cognitive limitations of the voters. We have to hope that if the millions of people who did not participate had joined in, we could enjoy a higher degree of confidence that our political system shows a better degree of potential for transforming itself into an actual democracy than we have seen so far. Furthermore, the need for national management of elections and elimination of the Electoral College will be required for the Presidency and Congress to be transformed into effective instruments of majority rule. Currently, our system of elections cannot provide for “the equal protection of the laws” as guaranteed in Section I of the 14^th Amendment.

With Donald J. Trump over 5 million votes behind Joseph R. Biden in the popular count, and with Joe Biden in possession of over 300 Electoral votes, the nation and the world note that the election isn’t really over and we have in all probability another two months of sorting to do before we reach January 20, 2021; chiefly because Mr. Trump is as unprepared to relinquish power as he has been unable to wield it. Meanwhile as the ravages from the coronavirus pandemic expand here in the United States, and equity markets in New York party on, it’s increasingly likely that by the end of the first quarter of next year, the world economy will see its worst shocks since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. There are simply too many people who have been cut out of the cash flow for late-stage capitalism to meet the needs of a planet in extreme economic, political and environmental stress. With the amount of borrowing going on to keep governments solvent, and for speculators to play the markets, the situation is custom-designed for a liquidity crisis of shocking dimensions. If, in the face of these challenges, we as a people can come to terms with our paralyzing fears and rise to a new level of self-sacrifice, popular government may rise above the morass of corruption and in-effectiveness into which it has sunk. If we cannot, a terrible reckoning awaits us.

Uncategorized

Closing Argument

November 1, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

Marx famously once said about sincerity in politics, “Once you learn how to fake sincerity, you’ve got it made” . . . that would be Groucho Marx, not Karl Marx. I must admit I never really mastered the faking of much of anything; and the only other advice from Groucho that I remember offhand is that outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend, and inside a dog it’s too dark to read. Some of my analyses are informed by dialectic materialism and the concept of class conflict, and there is no reason why we should not put to use European ideas that have been in circulation for nearly 200 years if they help us to straighten our paths to political success.

The more extensive rendering of my concept of socialism with republican values as its backbone is stated in the book I wrote under the pen-name of Jean Valjean, titled Delusion and Abandonment, and the 2nd Edition published last year includes a postscript delineating the strategy for my campaign that has been referenced in these posts at this site. Specifics as to the direction that the 117th Congress will need to take are there as is some philosophical background to bolster my attack on binary thinking and the danger we face from reducing complex problems to a false dichotomy by getting muddled up and tied down in oversimplifications. I believe what you have read at this site is not over-simplified; and, yes, it’s a description of the monopoly in the political arena of United States government through the bifurcation of political alliances into only two groups in such a fashion as to be injurious to our future as a country and more broadly to the survival of our species and planet.

If we are not able to stage an advance on those issues that I referred to as ‘low hanging fruit’, progress on the life and death challenges related to managing climate change will escape us through lost time. We know the basic facts about increasing global temperature and what that indicates about the adjustments that we need to make in a world economy that runs on fossil fuel. The evidence, of course, is more broadly registered in worldwide occurrences such as melting glaciers and ice shelves, collapsing species counts for creatures as diverse as large mammals and amphibians, and catastrophic events such as wildfires, hurricanes and floods. But putting actual numbers to the phenomenon is not hard. We are already over 400ppm in carbon dioxide and we do not seem to be gaining ground on stopping temperature increases. Limiting an increase to 1.5 degrees C above the pre-industrial levels between now and end of the century seems out of reach as we could double that barrier over the next 20 years unless we do better than the 2015 Paris Agreement from which we have conspicuously withdrawn. With world population over seven billion the impacts to peoples all over the world will be such that we need to craft worldwide approaches to public health, education and statecraft that are not based on permanent warfare and economic exploitation and extraction of natural resources. In other words, we need to act even as we talk and plan if we wish to survive as societies that enjoy the benefits that civilization has brought to many all over the world over the last 500 years of history.

It would appear that the Age of Trump has run it’s course as the man himself has been totally unequal to the job. While playing to the cameras the heavy lifting has not been done. In addition, things like logging the Tongass National Forest, opening the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and destroying Alaska’s Bristol Bay are suicidal miscalculations. We need to leave all of the man and his approach behind. I always liked Billy Connolly’s take on the old saying, “Don’t criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes”. He adds, “and then after you have, what’s the point ? . . . he’s a mile behind you and you have his shoes”.

In a very real sense the corona virus pandemic has given the world opportunities of time, space and focus to recalibrate and to alter significantly the way that the world has organized itself in the modern age. For me this tempers the pain of my defeat in this election and leaves me optimistic over what we can next do to address our problems. But act we must, and with some urgency.

Politics

A National Election

October 28, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

One of the fortunate side effects of this year’s Presidential election is the demonstration of the inability of the national government to manage the actual mechanics of an election in 50 diverse states and territories. I say, ‘fortunate’ intentionally because by now our denial of the facts is painfully obvious concerning hundreds of law suits over ballot counting, the reasonable number of precincts for voting, and even matters as apparently trivial as that the receptacles for deposit of completed ballots all appear to be running with no ordaining national standards. As I have quoted earlier and elsewhere Section 4 of Article I of the Constitution;

The Time, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislatures thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to Places and chusing of Senators. (bold emphasis added )

This broad authority which is intentionally reserved for Congress needs to be asserted to begin to create a system that is less porous to fraud and abuse. This, or course does not get at the scandal that is the Electoral College and the chicanery over Presidential elections and the role of political parties and money bundling that assures that only a candidate approved by one of the two main political parties can rise to office of President, but it does allow the national government to insure the rights of the people to vote and have their votes counted and the tally verified. Paper ballots remain the gold standard still in that regard; and democracy itself is only a dream if these weaknesses are not corrected.

The little pocket Constitution from which I gathered the above quote is one that the government prints for free distribution (Twenty-Fifth Edition). On the back of the cover is a quote from John Marshall, who first put real power behind the idea of judicial review by the Supreme Court; “a constitution, intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.” This would appear to be a very early summary of the argument against originalism and textualism. We shall soon see if the United States government is capable of saving itself from some of its worst habits, and if the as yet unmet promise of ‘consent of the governed’ and ‘majority rule with full minority rights’ will be honored in fact.

History

A Week to Go . . .

October 27, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

The 2020 election cycle is drawing to a close, ending what some have called an exhausting exercise in the marketing of politicians, and about which Tom Tomorrow declared a week ago, “the longest two weeks in human history”. While my write-in efforts have been active for over a year, I first decided to get more involved in electoral politics 49 years ago and in this, and the eight other elections in which my name was actually on the ballot, remained committed to the proposition of not seeking contributions or endorsements, or pandering to people for their vote. I tell the voters what I think and that I would represent them as best I could within the confines of my conscience. Hence, things like the social contract foretold in the Preamble to the Constitution, those matters concerning “Justice, the common defence, and the general Welfare” are not aspirational and fungible, but commitments and promises that must be kept. You may not know that when you run for office you swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution in the same manner as you do when sworn in if you are elected. This makes a lot of the questionable comments and behaviors of many candidates all the more strange. If they are not offering the real goods, they are deviant in an injurious way from the outset, and no good can come of their fraudulent contentions. You, as the heirs to our now over 200+ year old system, are the ones ultimately responsible for our destiny and survival as a society.

Therefore, when I say, similar to what President Eisenhower said in 1952 about Korea, “I shall go to Afghanistan,” I mean exactly that. There will be a ceasefire and with that the withdrawal of our troops.

When I pledge to sign immediately a Proclamation for the Equal Rights of Women, as Lincoln did over slavery in his Emancipation Proclamation, I will do it and let the Congress and the Courts decide on its validity and specifics.

My promise to end the United States’ reliance on nuclear terrorism and Executive Branch military operations is sacrosanct as well, and I will demand that Congress repeal authorizations for the use of military force and the authority for Presidential use of nuclear force by a factor well beyond the flexible response proposals of Kennedy in the period before the Vietnam/United States War.

And, as for The Great Society, and all of the many programs to advance economic equality and the well-being of every citizen that began in the Progressive era and started to achieve massive popular support from the period of FDR through Carter, I will work on a daily level, while granted the breath to so, to see to it that we do not abandon those on the battlefield of life who have not had a chance.

So now we can all conclude that there is an alternative to the way that we are currently conducting our public affairs, and that popular government ‘of, by, and for the people’ isn’t a hollow offer, but a reality that we do not yet have the will and courage to claim. There will be pain and challenges unending in our fight to save the planet, the environment, and our government, but with the help of God and in cooperation with one another, We Shall Overcome.

Politics

Fredrich for President

October 24, 2020 JKF Leave a comment

This poster originally from the Fredrich for Congress campaign of 1974 has been Sharpied-Up for reuse in the Fredrich for President race. The idea then was to focus the voters on my opposition to the Alaska Pipeline as I was an early advocate for leaving fossil fuel resources in the ground. Many people commented on how it was a nice picture except for the rusting Volkswagen. I had to reassure them that that was precisely the point.

Religion and Philosophy

Speaking Truth to . . .

October 15, 2020 JKF 2 Comments

‘Speaking truth to power‘, a slogan much in play these days, has always struck me as a bit curious for its implication that the truth is different for those in power as opposed to those who are not. I was schooled in the understanding that the truth was the truth, if indeed, it was the truth at all, so I imagined that the suggestion of it being directed to the powerful was something of an effort to make the fact of stating it more heroic or meaningful. No embellishment is needed, really, for Truth, with a capital ‘T’, shines forth in all its splendor if true, and is, of course, in rare supply these days, and in politics as rare as a shrunken head hanging in the orchard. I recall a recent cartoon that had a white-bearded ancient sage, complete with robe, lantern and walking stick sitting at a bar with his printer and a drink before him saying, “I used to be looking for the Truth, but now I’m just searching for a new cartridge for my printer”. So it is in the modern world; it can wear down the best of us.

The point here is that in this election cycle with all the billions being spent and all the froth being generated and all of the quite obvious avoidance of glaring, screaming facts, it is remarkable that the truth does manage to wiggle into our conversations, to get its ‘foot in the door’, so to speak. That Truth is that our political system is failing and that it is doing so at a level that imperils our planet and all of the multitudinous life forms on it. Profound changes are required to add integrity and efficiency to all that we do and if we can’t discuss, deliberate and come to some agreement about some basic truths, we will fail abysmally; that is to say, as if falling into the abyss. The happy, pat utterance of The Covid moment, that “We’re all in this together”, must give way to the reality of acting as if that were the actual, factual case . Because . . . just, ‘because’

Economics, Politics

The Impediment

October 12, 2020 JKF 1 Comment

Those barriers which hinder or obstruct our progress can be called the primary impediments to creating a republican form of socialism. By republican socialism I mean a version of popular government that has impartial, open elections with results that can be verified as the actual will of the people, not a gerry-rigged farce that has excluded many of the countervailing forces that democracy encourages. The socialist element comes from the fact that socialist leaning voters of many strips see the redistribution of the benefits and amenities of a complex modern economy as pieces in the negotiable social contract that determines who our representatives are and how the fruits of our labors are apportioned through taxes and programs that are created to benefit everyone. The cant and lie of the current formula is that ‘the job creators’ or the investment and banking elements deserve the bulk of society’s wealth as they are, to use the old rubric of the Chinese imperial dynasties, ‘the masters of the earth’. Under that system those arrangements would continue to apply as long as the leadership enjoyed ‘The Mandate of Heaven’, which usually came to mean that as long as there was stability and the sense of forward progress and social order, the group in charge should continue to rule. In the United States today it’s apparent our masters have lost their mandate. It is our task to replace them by way of the ballot box.

Toward that end and purpose we need to be more clear as to the program that we wish to see enacted. The basics, which as I stated in my last post, include safety of ones’ person, healthcare, food and housing, education and a means of work or livelihood; in short, both survival and a meaningful existence are all valuable and doable as social goals and should not be too big of a burden for the political system to engineer. They are low hanging fruit if we have the will to do it. They are prerequisites to achieving the next absolute levels of necessities, such as dealing with climate change and species die-off, war and nuclear proliferation, authoritarian usurpation at home and imperial adventures abroad. How in the world can we Americans be able to do the great things that history at this moment is asking of us if we cannot even discuss these matters in the public forum and then put them to a vote in our elections and by our representatives in our legislatures and by our justices in our courts ? We have been resting on our laurels and enjoying the successes of our forbearers . . . we need to guarantee equality for women, insure the peoples’ right to vote, create and repair great public works, and, as Rev. ML King noted in his most famous speech, honor the promissory note that our founders put forth in The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, that of equality, opportunity, and the rule of law.