Dimensionally Barrett

Every so often I get a response to something I’ve written that I would normally out out hand dismiss. This is from a person I follow on Bluesky (and who follows me) in response to my post about boycotting Starbucks until the strike is over. I don’t want to “out” them, so I’m leaving off identifiers, but I believe the post is well-intended, if not necessarily well-informed. Over decades, I’ve found many people find strikes, boycotts, and other public displays of holding power to account to be more painful or self-defeating, when they don’t sound merely inconvenienced.  Reply to my post on Bluesky about supporting Starbucks’ union strike In this case, I believe the goodwill of the respondent is obvious in citing how at the “rate [I’m] going, there will be no Starbucks & no jobs at all.” This is hyperbole, of course, but it shows misunderstanding of several points that I’m addressing here. The poster continues with a doomsday end of “starvation bc real when there are no jobs” and...

Remember these as the faces of the party that sold us out. A number of pundits have weighed in on the Roll Over Strategy of the Democrats. There’s quite literally nothing I can add to that except to call each of the dinks who thought caving to the Republicans was a stellar idea. Save special bile for Chuck Schumer and let them all know just how badly they have truly screwed us.  I don’t have words. I share Ezra Klein’s “incandescent rage”, though. To piggyback on his conversation with Jen Rubin, the demands of the Democrats were hugely popular with Dems and Independents, but also, a growing number of Republicans. The permanents extension of the ACA tax subsidies, the restoration of Medicaid funding, and no more “blank checks to the regime”: no rescissions, no impoundments, etc. They dropped the Medicaid piece, and the “no blank checks” demands, but they maintained support for the ACA tax subsidies. Even here, you see the erosion of the Democrats: the demand went from “permanent ext...