The nonvoilent, nationwide National General Strike has been called for one week from tomorrow, with rallies up and down the country. The strikers have two demands for elected lawmakers: 1. Reaffirm your oath of office and unbounded compliance with the Constitution of the United States of America; and 2. Actively oppose any governmental language or action that violates any tenent of our Constitution.

Since everybody has their own vision of what violates the Constitution, this effort is doomed to failure from the start. If there is an entire institution dedicated to interpreting the Constitution in accordance with the demands of the moment and the current political climate, pretending that there are some immutable “tenents” (probably a mix between tenets and tenants) is a waste of time. 

Since the American people have decided* to plunge head on into the most hard-core form of the market state (a.k.a. whatever happens after the nation-state is demolished), the question is: what does it make sense to invest in intellectually? What subjects does it make sense to ponder and discuss?

Here is the list I came up with but feel free to add to it:

1. Personal productivity.

2. Time management. 

3. Body and health management. 

4. Local politics. 

5. Psychological health. 

6. Personal relationships in the age of fluidity.

7. How best to eradicate the remains of nation-state mentality from one’s way of seeing the world. 

The fight for resources and opportunities in the new state form is on. Those who entertain us on TV are very aware of it and are fighting for their share. 

Opportunities are massive but they are different and for different things than the ones we are used to. 

* What you decide is not about your rhetoric on the subject but about the result. Whatever Trump says, for instance, about wanting to strengthen the nation-state is useless if his actual actions lead in the opposite direction. 

Page 1 of a scholarly volume I’m beginning to read:

Diseases from Eurasia devastated the native population of America and Oceania. Syphilis moved from the New World to the Old. Europeans and their plants and animals invaded the Americas; the American potato, maize plant, and maniac spread throughout the New World. 

It’s funny how things going in one direction always devastate and invade. But the same kind of things going in the opposite direction innocuously move and spread. 

I have no idea why I was so shocked that Trump won. 

I don’t care to follow the news right now. All I will see is a replay of November 9. Democrats are getting clobbered on DeVos, on Sessions, on the SCOTUS pick. And as always, I’m sure they have fantastic excuses for all this losing. Not that I care to hear them again. 

We have a party of unhinged crazies and a party of pathetic losers. Of course, losers are more palatable than deranged maniacs. But as for mustering any enthusiasm for them, that’s beyond me. 

I did an activity today where students broke up into 4 groups: Christians, Muslims, Jews, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. They created the story of each group based on what we’ve learned in our course Cultures of Spain. 

Then they formed new groups with one Christian, one Jew, one Muslim and one indigenous person. Each had to tell their story in the first person. For instance: “In 711 we crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and arrived at the Iberian Peninsula, etc.”

I wanted to see who would start speaking first in each group, or whose perspective is the privileged one. And what do you think? Every group started with the narrative of the indigenous Americans. 

This is really interesting to me because, to be honest, I would have automatically started with the Christians, even though I am well aware that it makes no sense even from a Euro-centric perspective. 

This was a really cool activity. 

“I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.

Shocked, I asked him what he meant.

“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

It can’t possibly be any clearer. Bannon’s – and by extension Trump’s – goal is to destroy the nation-state  (because there is no other state form right now) in the service of liquid capital. It slaughters me that people don’t understand this and call them nationalists when they are the exact opposite. 

… it was Spicer’s portrayal by a woman that was most problematic in the president’s eyes, according to sources close to him….

Hey, remember the colleague who likes Trump because he’s “strong”? Maybe we need a bunch of very dainty actresses or very gay actors to portray Trump if that’s the kind of thing this type of voter responds to. 

“Winning’s everything,” he said. “If you don’t win, you can’t make the public policy. I say that because it is hard for people in our party to accept that principle. Sometimes, you’ve just got to win, OK? Our party likes to be right, even if they lose.”

Eew, Rahm Emanuel. But if he was right about something a single time in his life, this is that time. 

If you don’t define your own narrative, others will define it for you, and you’ll probably not like it. Democrats don’t have a coherent narrative on immigration. Obama deported like there was no tomorrow but his party ended up being labeled a party of open borders globalists. 

Voters care about immigration. It’s a fact of objective reality that one might not like but has to accept. One has to come up with a short, clear statement that people will understand. “No ban, no wall, no Trump” is, once again, about what you don’t want. There is zero in it about what one does want instead. And the recent election was already lost on the strategy of “vote against this.” 

I’m not a citizen but I’ve already won an election in this country. I’m going to be a union rep. That’s the best kind of political engagement I can think of right now.