Dimensionally Barrett

Black Voters Matter speakers at the Wyndham Houston, August 16, 2025. I was planning on attending a rally earlier in the week at the SHAPE Center on Almeda off Wheeler in Houston. I envisioned a significant crowd of people chanting, rallying and marching. Then, checking back online to verify links, I found the venue had changed to the Wyndham Houston near NRG stadium and to a conference room, at that. The sponsors were listed as Black Voters Matter which seemed to have switched, as well, but my thinking was that even if the rally out on Almeda was cancelled, I owed it to myself to check out this new development. The schedule had changed from 2 to 4 in the afternoon to 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Again, I figured this must be okay; likely a good couple of hours of speakers and ideas for moving forward. Unfortunately, I was running late, almost by an hour, and arrived at the venue around ten till noon.  I was given a swag bag and once inside the conference room, realized this was a good bit sm...

Photo: John Barrett This is a post I put up on Facebook recently. I've made some adjustments for this platform. Admittedly, I've not been on Facebook, except to drop off notices of new blog posts.  I’m mostly on Bluesky (@reactionshots.bsky.social), where there’s a tremendous amount of information-sharing and organizing. I’ve written about a number of events and demonstrations and there is a fair amount of mobilization going on in Houston and Harris County. It’s heartening to hear horns honking in support of preserving Social Security and in support of fighting the Regime’s draconian measures to silence those who disagree.  I would like to see more people step up and get involved and I’m sure everyone is doing something in their own way. Even doing small things with a community is worthwhile. If I post about this or that demonstration, it’s less about me than it is about pointing out that there’s plenty to do.  Protest works. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s merely per...

Candidate for Chair of the Texas Democratic Party Lillian "Lillie" Schecter Source: lillieforchair.com To say that Texas is full of strong women is a gross understatement. Barbara Jordon, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, my mother, the list could go on. In Houston, we’ve had Kathy Whitmire and Annalise Parker, both remarkable mayors and groundbreakers. We lost a great woman when Sheila  Jackson  Lee passed and currently we have Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County Commissioner Leslie Briones , Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher , and Lillian "Lillie" Schecter , who spoke yesterday at the monthly ROADwoman meeting.  A longtime and incredibly successful political fundraiser and strategist, she has worked on campaigns at all levels of government up to the national, on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. As chairwoman, she raised five million dollars for the Harris Country Democratic Party (HCDP), more than the state Democratic Party. She knows the machine, she know fundraising, and s...

Before I begin, it’s newsworthy that a group of Democratic representatives have been blocked from entering USAID headquarters and the White House just announced that Elon Musk is “a special government employee.” Over the weekend, thousands protested the Regime en masse. I’m leading with this, because this is what defending the constitution and the institutions of governance looks like and what we are all likely going to be called on to do in the months to come. I also want to point out that these protests haven’t been well-reported by legacy media. This is adjacent to what we’re seeing play out in real time as our institutions, including the fourth estate, are under attack or under the thumb of oligarchs.  In some ways, none of this surprises me. The country has been on track for something like this for decades, if not a full century. Nesrine Malim at the Guardian has a strong piece (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/donald-trump-american-exceptionalism-guantan...

Smokey, the fur ball of my heart. He has no politics, just cuddles! Last year, I had the idea to produce a series on what to keep our eyes on with the coming administration, but I realized a few things. One is that plenty of other people were doing similar and better work than I. The other is that this is not just a passing from now administration to another, it’s the passage from one era into another. We have now officially entered the U.S. Era of the Oligarchs.  Comparatively little of what we’re going to encounter has to do with Trump. He’s a babbling front for a fairly well-organized coalition of righ-wing evangelicals, billionaires, and the usual gang of Fox News grifters and adjacent hangers-on. Attention should be focused on matters of substance, not what Trump says, regardless of how outrageous or absurd.  By now, people should be aware of the smokescreen tactics, the feints, and the utter bullshit that is his stock in trade.  In the coming days, weeks, months, an...