Go pound sand: Indiana Supreme Court rules against Team Gahan v.v. the frivolous City County Building lawsuit.

The link: City of New Albany v. Board of Commissioners of the County of Floyd

Let's begin with excellent words suitable for you-know-who.

Pounding sand, Shane?

There are two takes on go pound sand. The more recent, seemingly a product of World War II, and often euphemised, is go pound sand up one's (rear end). It is used to dismiss and deride, and is ultimately a vehement way of saying: "go away"...A variant meaning is to suffer or to act in a pointless manner ... the late 19th century phrase "pound sand in a rathole" originated on campus and meant to be reasonably intelligent. It was usually found in the negative phrase, "not enough sense to pound sand in a rat hole."

Pounding sand used to be a good thing -- a sensible task undertaken by a person wise in the ways of rodent control -- until it became a bad thing -- a painful act of self-abasement -- and then morphed into a simple act of futility.

I'm obviously not an attorney, and the joy I'm deriving from this court decision derives from the stinging rebuke to Gahanism.

The lease expired in September 2008, and thereafter, the City and the County continued to occupy the Center, splitting the costs proportionally, based on the amount of space each occupied. In 2015, the County began negotiations with Building Authority for renovations of the Center. In 2018, the County requested that the Building Authority transfer title of the Center to the County pursuant to the Turn-Over Provision in the parties’ lease.

The Building Authority declined to transfer title and the County filed suit in April of 2018, seeking declaratory judgment and specific performance, among other things. At the county’s request, the trial court expedited the proceedings. In May 2018, the trial court granted the City of New Albany’s request to intervene. In June 2018, the trial court entered declaratory judgment in favor of the County, concluding that the Turn-Over Provision in the lease was valid pursuant to Indiana Code section 36-9-13-22(a)(6). It ordered that the title be given to the County and dismissed all other pending claims.

The City appealed arguing that under Indiana Code section 36-9-13, the Turn-Over Provision was not valid. The Court of Appeals agreed and Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 19S-MI-674 | March 23, 2020 Page 4 of 7 further held, sua sponte, that the County, as a holdover tenant could still exercise the purchase option in the lease. City of New Albany v. Bd. of Comm’rs of Cty. of Floyd, 125 N.E.3d 636, 641 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), adhered to on reh'g, 130 N.E.3d 660 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), and trans. granted, opinion vacated, 138 N.E.3d 961 (Ind. 2019). Both parties petitioned for transfer, which we granted. Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).

In short, the Indiana Supreme Court found in favor of the original trial court ruling, and all you really need to know is the defeat constitutes egg on Dear Leader's face.

Actually it isn't the only thing.

How much did this frivolous lawsuit cost city and county? Anyone for an on-line petition demanding the mayor pay court costs?

On Gahan's $10,000,000 City-County Building escape plan as a tactic to disrupt his ancestral enemies in county government.

"The establishment fears having a democratic socialist in the White House."

There's an interesting article at Vox: Bernie Sanders leads Donald Trump in polls, even when you remind people he’s a socialist.

This doesn't seem to be troubling Republicans as much as it makes Democrats absolutely frantic. Maybe this has something to do with following their money.

Why, yes.

I think it does.

The “Stop Sanders” Movement Is Worried That Bernie Can Actually Win, Not That He’ll Lose, by Luke Savage (Jacobin)

“Electability” is the public rallying cry of the Stop Bernie campaign. But look a little closer, and the real issue becomes clear: the establishment fears having a democratic socialist in the White House.

Bernie Sanders’s recent rise in the polls has elicited an entirely predictable reaction from all the usual suspects who make up America’s op-ed pages. But, personally offended as the chatterati are, there are signs that the prospect of a Sanders victory in the Democratic primary contest is awakening an altogether more vicious beast that’s long been in the Vermont senator’s crosshairs.

This week, NBC, the Associated Press, and Politico all reported on the emerging anxiety within elite Democratic circles about Sanders’s ascent in the polls and nascent efforts by operatives to arrest his momentum. As journalist Andrew Perez noted, all three reports cited one Matt Bennett, cofounder of the organization Third Way, who issued boilerplate warnings about the supposed dangers of a Sanders nomination. In a pattern that is almost certain to be repeated in the coming weeks and months, Bennett’s intervention was framed as an earnest expression of concern by a moderate Democrat mindful of taking what he believes to be a major political risk.

But it was actually something else, given Bennett’s job at a self-identified “think tank” that has received extensive contributions from corporate patrons, including health insurance company Humana and Koch Industries. Washington is packed with groups like Third Way and others in the same mold, the function of which is to provide a layer of institutional sediment separating corporate interests from the mouthpieces they fund to advance their interests. In the gelatinous mass of lobbyists, megadonors, corporate spokespeople, and political operatives resulting from this arrangement, it can often be difficult to tell where the private sector ends and the public sector or party apparatus begins.

Nonetheless, Bennett’s anguished intervention is a telltale sign that panic about Sanders is starting to spill outside the op-ed pages and into the boardrooms of corporate interests — from pharmaceutical companies to Wall Street investment firms — who have an immediate pecuniary interest in opposing his program. If Sanders’s performance in the first round of primaries and caucuses matches current expectations, big business will undoubtedly intensify its efforts to stop him — likely aided, as in this case, by centrist Democrat operatives who sit at the noxious juncture of party politics and corporate agitprop ...

Editor, Heal Thyself: The NewsBune's management gets all touchy with me, and it's hilariously revealing.

Newspapermen and women can be relied upon to down a few shots of Old Self Righteous, and then remind the remainder of us on the "outside" about the absolutely vital and valiant role their publications play in holding influential interests accountable to the people, whether these are governments, oligarchs or any other human contrivance that finds secrecy helpful in perpetuating connivance and preserving power.

But if you're looking for some really cheap laughs, lay off the hootch and ask the newspaper itself to be accountable to its own purported mission of accountability. You'll notice the walls against scrutiny going up faster than you can say "Look, is that investigative journalism's corpse floating over there in Silver Creek?"

To me, it's not at all an unreasonable question to ask: How many reporter salaries are made possible by municipal advertising purchases?

I raised this and a few other points in a letter to the News and Tribune, and someone -- the editor, the publisher, or maybe the guy delivering sandwiches from Jimmy Johns -- couldn't help but append a visibly annoyed answer, seeking to attack me as a hypocrite while predictably refusing to address my concerns.

This is displacement and evasion, and rhetorical weakness of this degree probably isn't deserving of comment, but because I'm transparent, here goes: I no longer own a business, but when I did, I'd have had absolutely no issue whatever with releasing our financial records, because there wasn't anything in them to hide. In fact, we always thought it would be quite informative for folks to see just how much money we weren't making in the food and drink business.

Of course the newspaper's situation is far different. We claimed only to be serving food and drink. The newspaper depicts itself in heroic terms, willing at the drop of a hat to stress its own critical importance as a quasi-ombudsman (supposedly) comforting the afflicted and affilcting the comfortable.

Neither will that dog hunt, nor is the escape clause to avoid self-accountability convincing: "Wait, we're a private, for-profit, non-locally-owned business, and you'll receive no answers from us."

Phooey.

Given the amount of ads run by New Albany and Jeffersonville alone, both from classified placements that cities are compelled to make (the rates for which ALL newspapers continue to raise extortionately) and the discretionary self-glorification memes preferred by Jeff Gahan and Mike Moore (read: political ads in all except the fudged invoice descriptions), this money is a potential conflict of interest, plain and simple.

Deflect all you wish, Susan, Bill and the gang. The light's pointed at you, not me.

---

Reader expected records editorial

Mike Moore kicked off the year in a blatant fit of sheer greed, and it wasn’t very pretty.

The Jeffersonville mayor’s inelegantly stage-managed bid for a 30 percent raise was so egregious that even our local chain newspaper took note, and rightly mounted the soapbox in protest.

Naturally, later this year at the annual shill ceremony concocted by its corporate master, the News and Tribune will win an award for best coverage of municipal events occurring just outside the office door, before adjourning to attend mocktail party for Alabama pensioners.

Just as predictably, in New Albany our City Hall expended six full months in a coordinated effort to rebuff “sunshine law” public information requests before being called on the carpet and fined by a judge.

Nope, not a peep from the principled editorial team at the News and Tribune.

It’s worth repeating that one of the information requests spurned by New Albany’s spigot-smothering city functionaries sought clarity about the amount of money spent each year by City Hall via its contract with ProMedia for purely discretionary advertisements, often thinly-veiled mayoral campaign ads, with this money flowing to places exactly like the News and Tribune.

Not one of the three links in this chain of taxpayer cash — city, contractor or newspaper — will tell us the answer to a simple question: Exactly how much money is involved?

Where’s the transparency in this situation, exalted newspaper editorialists?

Thankfully one of these links, city government, is subject to Indiana state law pertaining to the necessity of honoring information requests, and yet instead of obeying the law, it threw a tantrum and delayed compliance until after the election, and only when forced to do so by the judiciary.

If the newspaper won’t call out this sort of behavior, who will?

— ROGER A. BAYLOR

New Albany

EDITOR’S NOTE: There is no statute of limitations on encouraging office holders to be transparent in their dealings, including allowing access to public records. New Albany erred and was compelled by a judge to provide the requested records. We are encouraged that city officials — finally — did the right thing and urge them to comply with records requests more expediently in the future. Their misstep will no doubt be fodder for future editorials dealing with transparency in government.

We aren’t aware of any business, though — including yours, Mr. Baylor — that opens its financial records to the public. We do not discriminate against people or entities — including cities and politicians — who want to advertise with us.

Just a damn rant about "democracy grief."

It's a bit confounding to watch as Americans like Ms. Goldberg mourn something that barely ever existed. I've no use whatever for Donald Trump, and yet Trump has done nothing "to" America apart from accurately divining the obliviousness of its occupants as to eager culpability in their own oppression, which has far more to do with refusing to follow the money than visiting a therapist.

Democracy Grief Is Real, by Michelle Goldberg (New York Times)

Seeing what Trump is doing to America, many find it hard to fight off despair.

Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief. For anyone who was, like me, born after the civil rights movement finally made democracy in America real, liberal democracy has always been part of the climate, as easy to take for granted as clean air or the changing of the seasons. When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term, the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it.

Trump grasps the efficacy of following institutional weakness and native American anti-intellectualism to their logical conclusions, because that's where the money is.

But what if those "universal ideals" were little more than a chimera to begin with, mere window dressing to keep the inmates passive as they buy more articles they don't need and worship the palpably untrue?

Obviously, this is hardly the first time that America has failed to live up to its ideals. But the ideals themselves used to be a nearly universal lodestar. The civil rights movement, and freedom movements that came after it, succeeded because the country could be shamed by the distance between its democratic promises and its reality. That is no longer true.

Was it true even then?

There is nothing more authoritarian and oligarchic than all-encompassing consumerism -- and this is our national religious. It's who we are and what we do.

We make choices as consumers every day that buttress capital accumulation and income inequality far more efficiently than Trump's ability (itself questionable) to enhance further injustice.

We do it to ourselves, don't we? It's the economic system, and the ability of some to position themselves within it to the exclusion of others. We keep paying them, and they keep getting more powerful ... and it's not trickling down, is it?

But Trump’s political movement is pro-authoritarian and pro-oligarch.

Look, if you want to repel the nasty bully, why are you handing the nasty bully most of your money every single day? It might be a better idea to take away the money from the oligarchs. Hit the oligarchs with your wallet for a change.

Since when are "democratic ideals" even measured by the amount of debt you've accumulated on your credit cards?

“The only other option is to quit and accept it, and I’m not ready to go there yet,” she said. Democracy grief isn’t like regular grief. Acceptance isn’t how you move on from it. Acceptance is itself a kind of death.

Generally speaking, didn't we accept it long before Trump became a factor? Conceding that to quote Thomas Jefferson puts one at great hazard, I persist in thinking that he had one indisputably great insight.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Yep; the Declaration of Independence (except for the enslaved).

Imperfect, but there it is. Move past this facile notion of "democracy grief" and ask yourself the pertinent questions: Are these evils sufferable? Are the forms to which you are accustomed still adequate?

If yes, then buy another car and head to the multiplex for another dose of Marvel comic movies.

If no, then you just might have some thinking to do. Lots of you keep talking about resisting the part of the iceberg that's visible. Maybe it's the system beneath the surface that needs alteration.

CFA-4 Follies: OMG, just look at Gahan's huge pile of special interest donor cash flowing to out-of-towners.

"Don't forget that Gahan is legally entitled to convert those campaign funds into personal funds. All he must do is pay the income taxes on them. He can make charitable donations, political donations, or buy groceries with that money. In other words, the excess monies are bribes. That's not his fault. It's the way campaign finance works in Indiana."

So far in 2019, Jeff Gahan has raised $147,000 (on top of roughly $128,000 cash on hand) and spent $204,800 to remain mayor.

$140,000 of these expenditures has gone to companies and individuals outside New Albany's city limits.

That's 68%.

Gleaned from the expenditures side of the October 18 CFA-4 filing -- remember, Cherished Leader isn't done yet; this accounts for only the first three quarters -- here are a few highlights, restricted to expenditures of $2,000 or more, year-to-date.

* To establish context, I've appended a few statistics from the US Census Bureau.

In NA's history, no candidate for mayor has raised this much money (I'll be chipping away at donor numbers during the coming days), and no one has spent this much money. Gahan says he's moving the city forward, but the numbers don't lie even if he's prone to doing so.

Jeff Gahan is moving himself forward by means of the most pervasive pay-to-play political patronage system ever seen in this city during modern times. It is one built to benefit donors from far and wide, political cronies and his own family. Gahan's vision? It's New Albany as a Banana Republic -- with Gahan himself remaining Top Banana.

Now for the numbers, in ascending amounts -- and boy, do they ascend.

---

$2,195.38 La Catrina for the Sherman Minton Dinner "after party."

$2,950 to Susie Gahan (wife of the mayor) for "operating expenses"; these are recurring expenditures and literally thousands of dollars have been itemized this way during the past eight years.

$3,500 Ryan Media LLC for radio.

$3,744.52 to Warren Nash for rent. The former failed mayor and exalted Democratic Party grandee is charging Gahan only $600 monthly for use of his dilapidated building on Bank Street, presumably including utilities (which his previous Floyd County Democratic Party tenant was seldom able to keep up to date).

$4,480 to Meyer Consulting LLC for advertising (there are several businesses with this name and it isn't clear which this is).

$4,482.80 to the Floyd County Democratic Party for ... basic life support? Interestingly, the only other Democratic candidate whose name appears on the expenditures ledger of the 2nd and 3rd quarter CFA-4 is none other than Matt Nash ($250 from the Genius of the Floodplain), who is Warren Nash's son. Perhaps the NAHA job wasn't enough.

$4,810.98 to Grace by Design for signs, stickers, shirts, bags and dog bandannas. Grace by Design is located in Louisville, and the owner appears to be Andrew Delahanty, who might even be a genuine "progressive," which is surprising given the way Gahan works assiduously to avoid being viewed as one, probably because he isn't.

Grace by Design's Facebook page hasn't been active in a while, but circa 2012 the company donated signs to the Occupy movement in Louisville.

Very interesting. Maybe Delahanty's credentials are why Team Gahan didn't Buy Local.

$5,878.97 to Linda Moeller (city controller) for label, postage, printing and magnet reimbursement.

$5.918.13 to Christopher Gardner for printing, postage, invitations reimbursement and "operating expenses" (also a city employee and son-in-law of the mayor). It's fascinating how "operating expenses" appear nowhere else except  itemized by family members.

$6,000 to Kristen Self for "fundraising." Self lives in the Indianapolis area and was the finance director for the Liz Watson congressional campaign, billing herself as a "campaign consultant."

$6,825 to ProMedia for videos and billboards. During 2019 ProMedia also has donated $3,000 to Gahan4Life for "in-kind" professional services. That's a lot of money; this is campaign-related, so wouldn't you love to see the contract for no-bid "professional services" between the city of New Albany and ProMedia?

$8,678.52 to Valley View Golf Club for ... new balls? There is no explanation for this expenditure.

Now for the heaviest hitters.

$15,000 to 76 Words (Washington DC): "We craft campaign strategy -- and turn that strategy into television, radio and online communications to elect Democrats and support progressive causes."

$40,000 to Media Fortitude Partners (Jersey City NJ) for this: "Media Fortitude Partners — a revolutionary media buying agency — will combine traditional and evolving digital platforms to efficiently and effectively win political campaigns from local to national levels. MFP uses the next generation of media buying solutions and targeting technology to achieve each of our clients’ goals, particularly in the political realm."

$57,746.05 to Terris Barnes & Walters (San Francisco, California): "Founded in 1988, Terris, Barnes & Walters is a full-service campaign firm, specializing in general consulting and direct mail. Our mail philosophy is simple: we believe any campaign has a maximum of five seconds from mailbox to recycling to make a voter decide to open your mail and keep reading — and you’re competing for readers’ attention not just with other political media, but commercial appeals as well. Since 1988, we have created high-impact mail that grabs and holds voters’ attention — and has helped win over 350 successful campaigns nationwide."

Allow me to observe that Jeff Gahan is not publicly listed as a client at TB&W. Is he shy, or does this imply that while $57,000 is substantially more than the median household income in Nawbany, it's chump change for a major national slush spewer in the Bay Area.

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* A few statistics from the US Census Bureau.

Population estimates, July 1, 2018, (V2018) ... 36,604
Population estimates base, April 1, 2010, (V2018) ... 36,349
Population, percent change - April 1, 2010 (estimates base) to July 1, 2018, (V2018) ... 0.7%
Population, Census, April 1, 2010 ... 36,372
Median gross rent, 2013-2017 ... $753
Households, 2013-2017 ... 15,232
Bachelor's degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2013-2017 ...  20.6%
Median household income (in 2017 dollars), 2013-2017 ... $43,914
Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2017 dollars), 2013-2017 ... $25,266
Persons in poverty, percent  ... 18.3%

Not a Tom May topic: "Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values."

As The Economist noted in 2017 (photo credit above), the secret of evangelical support for Donald Trump lies in the prosperity gospel.

The idiocy of the "pastorpreneurs" -- or, the prosperity gospel, as lifted straight from the corporate capitalist playbook.

Money, power.

Is anyone detecting a trend?

The Immoral Majority review: how evangelicals backed Trump – and how they might atone, by John S Gardner (The Guardian)

As a scandal-ridden presidency lurches towards impeachment, Ben Howe offers valuable insight into how it came to this

In his new book, Ben Howe attempts to explain something that should never have occurred: why most white evangelicals voting in 2016 chose Donald Trump.

Many observers thought Trump could not win because evangelical Christians could not support someone whose life (and tweeting) was so at odds with their beliefs and practices. Indeed, Trump failed to win a majority of evangelicals in any Super Tuesday primary.

Howe’s subtitle tells the tale: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values.

snip

As Howe notes, “Trump evangelicals are very fond of binary choices”, many of which are in essence “false dilemmas” in which a supposed “greater moral consideration takes precedence”. This “whataboutism” was key. Could one have opposed Trump and Clinton? Of course – and Trump would have lost. Yet, as Howe reminds us, “putting God in one compartment” and politics in another “is clearly out of step with Christian tradition”.

This provides a further clue. Howe writes extensively about the impact of social media and cable news in deepening the political divide in America and intensifying it to fresh levels of vitriol and “hyperbolic outrage”, largely based on the idea of victimization. This had dramatic effects: a spirit of bitterness and a “persecution complex” on the right meant that “ [a]s the clicks came, and the ideas were reinforced through group dynamics, they became even more pronounced. Anger had become a currency.”

snip

Trump promised power. “In the end,” Howe writes, “It’s what many absolutely believe Trump as president has given them.”

Power was one of the temptations the devil offered Jesus. He refused.

This is a deeply introspective, at times anguished book ...

"David Koch was a rich man who used his fortune to influence our politics with an eye toward further enriching himself."

One malign influencer has gone, and of course that's for the greater good, but Koch's passing does nothing to alter the rot because his money remains right here, undoubtedly to be used for the same nefarious ends as before. 

David Koch Got What He Paid For, by John Nichols (The Nation)

The late Koch brother bought influence using PACs and other proxies. A prank call to Scott Walker revealed the truth about how the Kochs had their way with Republican politicians.

 ... Enter Scott Walker, a struggling Wisconsin politician who was angling for a governorship. The Kochs threw their support behind Walker, with David Koch declaring: “We’re helping him, as we should. We’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years. We’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We’re going to spend more.” According to The Palm Beach Post, where the quote originally appeared, Koch used “we” to refer to Americans for Prosperity, the group that he and his brother used as one of their vehicles for manipulating our politics.

Even before he knew the Kochs personally, Walker recognized what the brothers had done for him, and for ambitious young men like him. Spending by the Kochs, via direct donations and independent expenditures, played a definitional role in generating the “Republican wave” of 2010, the year Walker was elected.

Walker’s understanding of this debt led to an incident that revealed much of what Americans will remember about David Koch, even though he was not an actual participant. In February 2011, as tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, librarians, and their allies marched in opposition to Walker’s attack on unions and collective-bargaining rights for public employees, the phone rang in the governor’s office. The caller identified himself as David Koch and was put through to Walker.

The caller—a brilliant prankster (the late Ian Murphy) who was pretending to be Koch—was soon trading notes with the governor about the “vested interest” that Koch Industries had in Walker’s assault on unions. The 20-minute conversation revealed the obsequious deference of an elected Republican governor to the benefactors of his 2010 race—and, as it would turn out, of the campaigns that followed for Walker, who faced a citizen-demanded recall and tough reelection fights before he was finally defeated in 2018.

Here’s the critical exchange from 2011:

Koch caller: “Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.”

Walker: “All right, that would be outstanding. Thanks for all the support in helping us move the cause forward…”

Koch caller: “Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. ”

Walker: “Well, that’s just it.”

Yes, that is just it.

The manipulations of democracy that David Koch and his brother funded—extreme gerrymandering, defenses of an Electoral College that has prevented popular-vote winners from becoming president, voter suppression schemes, and assaults on unions—did much to elect Republicans like Walker. But the most recent Republican president has turned the movement David and Charles Koch envisioned toward extremes that more closely mirror the fever dreams of their father. And if Democrats ever get their act together, they will, for the sake of not just their party but the future of society and the planet, be required to upend what the Kochs have done.

So the full measure of David Koch’s influence has yet to be made.

ON THE AVENUES: Unless you open your eyes, “resistance” is an empty gesture.

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

British politician Winston Churchill and economist John Maynard Keynes both have been credited with this phrase or variants of it, although their attribution does not survive scrutiny. Probably it dates to a 1970 interview with an economist named Paul Samuelson, who may or may not have thought he was quoting Keynes:

Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?

Rest easy, dear reader. I’m not about to endorse Slick Jeffie for a third term. Actually the phrase came to mind this morning when I caught myself saying, “Well, I used to think that … “

There’s no need to complete the sentence because I say it at least once daily, as pertaining to a wide range of topics. It fits nicely with “there was a time when” and “I was absolutely clueless back then,” emphasizing a never-ending learning curve as a planetary inhabitant.

I suspect the vast majority of human beings are readily capable of acknowledging the need to adjust their thinking to changing circumstances, so long as doing so constitutes perceived material benefit. If not, millions of smart phones would be packed away in Asian warehouses, untouched. Doctors would be treating broken legs with leeches, and instant Ramen noodles might never have been invented.

However far fewer are willing to hold the same yardstick to what they’d undoubtedly refer to as their core “beliefs.” This word alone should tell us something.

Tangible, tactile reality is infinitely swappable, whether mutating from horse-drawn carts to automobiles or insipid Lite beer to an inspired Bavarian Kellerbier. Those only vaguely verifiable (if at all) “beliefs” are tantamount to the enduring human stain, as writer Philip Roth tagged it. Religion, race relations, the role of the sexes; occasionally we’ll permit experiential evidence to erode our pre-conceived notions, but far less often than we “upgrade” our redundant devices for communicating – ironically, a task that renders us increasingly isolated from human all direct contact.

Rock music radio commentator Eddie Trunk was talking about this a few days ago in response to a question about the future of rock as we know it. Trunk offered pros and cons in response, and in my view he correctly identified the digitalization of music in the internet era as a double-edged sword.

It makes all music available at any time, thus theoretically broadening exposure to different types of music and educating listeners about it. Maybe they’ll stop listening to hip hop after hearing Ten Years After or Ratt – or so this notion goes.

At the same time, according to Trunk, the digital revolution has deprived listeners of the joy of waiting anxiously for new music to be released, then rushing to the mall (his reference) to be the first in line for an album or CD, before hurrying back home with friends to crack the cellophane and listen while enjoying a microwaved pizza roll.

Trunk previously has lamented the evolution of outdoor music fests, observing that young attendees seldom are riveted to the music; instead, they’re wandering the grounds consuming gourmet food, craft cocktails and multimedia experiences – if not spending every moment documenting the scene for “live” transmission.

Why don’t they care about the music? I’d say they do, albeit in a different way than during my own youth. The problem is that no one these days wants to pay for it (see journalism, death of), including me, even though I know better.

It occurs to me that while Trunk’s perspective is as dated as my own (he’s in his early 50s), he’s also missing the central element that ties together his case: the communal joy of pre-digital listening.

For better or worse, rock and roll -- the post-WWII cultural phenomenon that morphed into the voice of the Vietnam and Cold War generations worldwide --- became the musical equivalent of a mass political rally, perhaps reaching its apogee in 1985 with the global transmission of Live Aid by means of just then emerging satellite technology.

It is said Freddie Mercury was reluctant for Queen to appear until Bob Geldof reminded the singer that the gig was what he’d always sought: the whole world as attentive audience.

So it was, and one’s like or dislike of Queen aside, Live Aid made possible the band’s subsequent career, before and after Mercury’s untimely death in 1991. By then the baby boomers were well along their way toward rejecting the political and economic lessons of the 1960s, maintaining cultural bona fides with an attachment to increasingly corporate rock while otherwise subscribing to fascism, or Live Aid with swastikas.

But I digress.

All of Trunk’s lamentations point to the same phenomenon, beginning in the 1990s with the availability of home computers and expanding exponentially in the 2000s with smart phones and the like: Progress is isolating us from the communal, shrinking our sense of the collective, and diminishing human contact.

It’s an isolation born of the digital revolution, but it is sadly abetted each time an angry white male (and yes, that’s what they tend to be) sprays a crowd with gunfire. Of course your fear of shooters, Muslims, diseases, dark people and gays cannot be completely dispelled in the comfort and safety of your home, where statistically most accidents continue to happen, with or without purposefully discharged weapons.

Rather, we seek to be reinforced by those of like mind, which in turn means cocooning with Netflix and the Imbecile Supremacy Channel of the moment, handily closing ourselves off from facts capable of changing our minds.

As for me, well, when the facts change, I change my mind.

What do you do?

---

It shocked me at first that Donald Trump had been elected president, although in time the accumulated evidence convinced me to change my mind because Trumpism is not shocking at all. It isn’t an exception, a mutation or an aberration.

Trump as a poster child for capital accumulation, and consequently as the best available conduit for every evasive maneuver in history deployed by the oligarchy to maintain its pre-eminence, is in fact the fruition of American history to the present age, a sum total of founding hypocrisies about race, money and power, as supported full-throat by the GOP, the political party singularly better suited to elites, and only nominally “opposed” by the second of two monopolist political parties, which suckles the very same teats but has grown damningly adept at pretending it doesn’t.

It sucks, and loudly, yet it’s exactly who and what we are.

This brings me to the notion of “resistance,” a word I’ve heard less often as Trumpism has become normalized – and don’t kid yourselves; it has.

To repeat, Trumpism is a natural consequence of our survival-of-the-fittest variant of capitalism. You see, one needn’t have studied botany to know that tomato seeds seldom produce asparagus. Systemic conditions presupposing the manifestations to which one objects cannot logically be altered by any single presidential election cycle.

Most of us, myself ruefully included, have spent the past few decades accepting a default way of living which supports the superstructure of oppression with virtually every transaction. How exactly does one resist a system while continuing to live according to the system’s dictates – with which we otherwise remain in full cooperation?

If you’re in full cooperation with the purely intentional exploitation engendered by robber baron capitalism in its current form, exactly how can you resist it?

You’re accepting and opposing at the same time, but your compromises invariably result in acceptance, not resistance. So, while you’re prattling about your rights, perhaps it might be time to pause and consider whether Americans possess an inalienable right to be entertained around the clock to the exclusion of consciousness about the real nature of things outside, beyond reach of your streaming device?

“Trumps sucks! Oh, by the way, I’ll be holed up for the next 18 hours gaming, screwing and binge-watching pure fiction, and I simply can’t make time to toss a Molotov cocktail at yonder one-percenter.”

Please.

In many places and at various times in history, those undertaking to resist, dissent or rebel have gone into the fight with a clear understanding of the sacrifice involved – often although not always the “supreme” sacrifice, but at the very least grasping the potential price of non-conformity. They’d be giving up comfort, security and much else in order to bring about necessary change and secure a future for their kids.

Returning to social media to make yet another slam-dunk of a riposte visible only to the denizens of our hand-elected silo didn’t free the slaves or bring down the Berlin Wall, yet for today’s “resistance” it’s the risk-free strategy for … what?

You can color me skeptical.

---

Here in New Albany our self-styled local “progressives” surrendered any notion of “resistance” to The Donald when they refused to acknowledge that one of their own is just as capable of being foul as one of “theirs.”

Local “progressives” surrendered the moral high ground as fast as their minivans would carry them by refusing to get involved in Jeff Gahan’s public housing takeover … and David Duggins giggling about TASER jokes … and more recently, the demolition of the homeless camp by Silver Creek as ephemeral beautification projects everywhere are endowed with fat cat funding … and yet again by looking the other way at Gahan’s cash-stuffed political patronage machine … and seriously, the list of Dear Leader’s undemocratic transgressions stretches from Rustic Frog to the loading docks at Mejier’s, and while just about every component of Gahan’s reign has included set pieces borrowed from right-wingers, these so-called “progressive” Democrats can’t move themselves an inch to see how ridiculously little their snarling darling has done when it comes to supposedly core Democratic platform values like seeing to the betterment of the community’s most vulnerable citizens.

Of course, these purportedly “Democratic” platform planks guaranteeing the right to luxury are tethered just as tightly to moneyed elites as the GOP’s. At the end of the day I suppose the cognitive dissonance is just too much for otherwise well-meaning folks who have no intention of negotiating their privileges, irrespective of imagined party affiliation, because after all, the two aisles share common roots by regarding as inevitability of the well-off confiscating value from the underprivileged (capitalism) rather than the other way around (socialism).

As a wee lad, I bought into the bilge. I’ve been changing my mind ever since, not because the facts have changed all that much, but because eyes wide open are capable of seeing far more than when they're glued shut.

Consequently, when it comes to the approaching round of municipal elections, I'll be voting for ... nah, let's wait another week or two for that.

---

Recent columns:

August 1: ON THE AVENUES: The whys and wherefores can drive a man to drink; our lives just ARE, and that's that.

July 25: ON THE AVENUES: Until philosophers become kings, beer and food work just fine.

July 18: ON THE AVENUES: I'm a citizen of the universe, but I can't take a photo to save my life.

July 11: ON THE AVENUES: Trieste, New Albany and the meaning of nowhere.

Rails, trails, holy grails: "That's why we're here," babbles Gahan about yet another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to economically develop others at his own city's expense.

This one is bizarre even by News and Tribune standards: New Albany mayor, redevelopment official debate benefits of Rails to Trails project (see excerpt below).

The header suggests an actual debate between public officials, but it isn't really a debate, which as we know Jeff Gahan avoids like the proverbial plague, and seeing as Gahan and Scott Stewart weren't actually in the same room.

Can you even begin imagining how intimidated the small town huckster Gahan is by Stewart's career and life experience? The mayor probably keeps a voodoo doll of Stewart in his municipal-issue SUV.

Stewart patiently makes actual arguments about costs, benefits, wants and needs, while Gahan repeats his painstakingly memorized "gotta act fast right now" mantra, over and over, which reminds me of a story about Joe Stalin's parrot.

Stalin was so paranoid he suspected his pet parrot of deviant tendencies when it imitated his crude spitting; he purged it with a death blow from his pipe.

Morris' piece comes off as a reluctant cut 'n' paste job, with the critical question yet again going unasked:

Why these pyrotechnics about a vague rails-to-trails pointed at Bedford when job one for New Albany should be connecting the Greenway to the North Side, which would be a project benefiting city residents and not outsiders?

Fortunately the article includes inadvertent hilarity.

Ever diligent when it comes to preserving his lifetime sinecure, John "Pinocchio" Rosenbarger falls over himself to effusively agree with the mayor, and yet it is Rosenbarger himself who has spent years making n excellent case for the potential usefulness of a link from downtown to IU Southeast using the CSX rail line -- which interests Dear Leader not one jot.

For Rosenbarger to be absolutely right about anything occurs once "every three or four lifetimes," and yet his long-term point about connecting downtown and the north side is spot on. Now he has abandoned it, tossed right down the toilet in his eagerness to bow in the general direction of whomever signs his paychecks.

We mustn't forget: Whenever the mayor opens his mouth, follow the money -- and, perhaps in this instance, his ambition. If we are to take the most optimistic scenario, Gahan's rails-to-trails fetish would leave the city of New Albany with 2-3 miles of a campaign talking point in the form of a pathway to elsewhere, with elsewhere and others paying most of the costs. 

Thus far, Gahan has expended more hyperbole on the rails-to-trail's benefit to the region than his own city, as if he is playing to a larger audience, seeking to be the Mayor of Southern Indiana.

Cash and ego? That's why he's here. We can do something about that.

#FireGahan2019

New Albany mayor, redevelopment official debate benefits of Rails to Trails project, by Chris Morris (Tom May Biblical Odyssey)

NEW ALBANY — Scott Stewart said the Rails to Trails proposal sounds intriguing, and admits the idea looks good on paper.

However, as a member of the New Albany Redevelopment Commission, Stewart voted no on hiring Indianapolis law firm Faegre Baker Daniels (FBD) to assist with advancing the Rails to Trails project. The measure passed 4-1 recently with FBD being paid $125,000 for its services.

The Rails to Trails initiative would replace abandoned CSX train tracks that run 63 miles — starting just north of the new Sazerac facility (at the former Pillsbury Plant) in New Albany and ending near Bedford.

Stewart said there are only so many redevelopment dollars available, and he would like to see the money used to benefit New Albany residents. He said connecting neighborhoods and making them more walkable is something he supports.

"When you look at New Albany, we have wonderful neighborhoods and downtown, there is the Greenway .... there is a lot to build on," he said. "I would like to see safe pathways for cyclists and walkers."

Stewart said developing Rails to Trails would cost millions and while FBD may help secure some state funding, those dollars will be capped leaving the city and other communities along the trail responsible to foot the bill.

"It faces immeasurable challenges. The financial commitment is significant," Stewart said of the idea. "It just didn't makes sense to me.

"Where does it go from here? There is a much bigger potential to distract scarce resources from our neighborhoods and business districts. I am interested in taking care of New Albany first. This is a discussion of a difference in priorities."

"Death to Chain Restaurants!!" -- in which Lew Bryson's pioneering essay is joyfully reprised.

Civilizations in decline are consistently characterized by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.
--Arnold Toynbee, historian (1889-1975)

There was a time when I'd always point to Lew Bryson's pioneering essay as my inspiration for the "Death to Chains" mantra.  It's been more than a decade since Lew wrote this stirring call to arms, and at some point I stopped giving him a bow, but let's give credit where credit's due.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lew Bryson breaks it down: Follow. The. Money. -- and reject monoculture.

---

Death to Chain Restaurants!!

Applebee's: A sign that the End Times are near.

I used to grab a burger lunch at McDonald's frequently, two or three times a week. That's frequently for me; I like to cook and I'm too cheap to go out much. I'd take the family to Chi Chi's and Red Lobster and Pizza Hut and never think twice about it.

Then I interviewed Don Feinberg, half of the brains behind Brewery Ommegang and beer importers Vanberg & De Wulf. Don walked me all over Ommegang's territory by the Susquehanna River in upstate New York, took me on a wild brewery tour, and fed me local apples and cheese sliced with a pocketknife while we sampled his delicious beers outside in a beautiful summer's day. Then he gave me a ride into Cooperstown and started talking about monoculture.

Monoculture

"The real problem," he said, "and this is politics, not just beer, it’s monoculture versus diversity. That's what we are fighting the fight for, for good beer and for better food against McDonald’s and Monsanto.

"Look, monoculture actually means two things," he said, waving one arm wildly as he navigated the small road. "It means a lack of diversity. We’re only here for 60, 70, 80 years, I’d like to try as many things as I can, with as many peoples’ input, creativity, and fulfillment expressed as possible. The other thing: 99 times out of 100, you’re not giving me one choice because it’s better for me. It’s because it’s better for you.

"Having said that," he said, calming a bit, "the reason monoculture is so successful in the world is because it’s predictable, and predictability leads to efficiency, and efficiency leads to profitability, and that leads people to get involved in it.

The Seductive Key: It's Easier

"Why did everyone in America in the 1950s want to have a franchise for McDonald’s?" He posed the question, and here was the nut that would knock my noggin and make me realize exactly why chain restaurants are a blight upon our land.

"Because the chances of you coming up with an idea for a restaurant that would be that successful… there aren’t that many creative people. It was easier for you to take this person’s formula and make money off of it, and most of us have to pay the rent and put the kids through college. So it’s easier to adapt things, especially if what you’re adapting has proven to be successful.

"Monoculture is very powerful," he said in conclusion. "But powerful and better are not always the same thing."

No Chains On Me

I stepped out of that car a changed man. Today I shun McDonald's and chain restaurants -- not entirely, because sometimes it's all you got -- and go out of my way to try new local places, wherever I am. It's one of the reasons I love upstate PA and NY; lots of local eateries and stores left up there, and out on Long Island, too.

I get questions about that, and I've got some answers.

Do all chains suck?
No! John Harvard's Brew House doesn't suck, Rock Bottom (despite what beer snobs say) emphatically doesn't suck. Regional chains like Quaker Steak & Lube don't suck. Why? Because they all allow their local operations a lot of flexibility. They don't always impose a menu, a beer list, or (most importantly) suppliers. Besides, when does an expansion become a chain? When the second place opens? The fourth? The tenth? It's like pornography: I know it when I see it.

If local people own a franchise restaurant, isn't that a local business?
Yeah, like a Toyota made in Indiana is an American car. Follow the money. Money's leaving the area, and what comes in? Orders, ideas, and supplies. Headquarters doesn't care about supporting local suppliers, or serving local beers, or making allowances for regional tastes.

Why is a successful chain restaurant bad for my town?
Because it sucks up loan money that local, unique businesses could be using. A banker will always loan money to a guy with a chain restaurant franchise over a guy with a new idea: the chain idea is safe, proven, and bankable. It's also boring, leveling, and is never going to make your town a destination. Sure, it's convenient, it's popular, it's reliable. But what kind of great new food is going to come from a place that gets its potatoes pre-peeled and pre-sliced in 100 lb. plastic bags from a depot 500 miles away? Will people from far away come to your town, shop in the other stores in your town, and tell other people where they live to go to your town...because of your local Ruby Tuesday's? No, but I've done all of that for the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, NY, and it's worth the trip.

Eat Local

So the next time you're away from home, don't do that stupid, cow-consistent thing and go to Applebee's, Shoney's, Denny's, or Wendy's! Take just a little more time and ask around till you find a place, a local place, a one of a kind place. Chances are good that you'll get lucky and find a place like the Academy Dinor in Erie, and you won't find bumbleberry pie at Applebee's!

Needless to say, this goes for beer, too. Chains hardly ever carry any decent beer, and when they do, they don't know a damned thing about it. Local chains are often exceptions, of course, like The Winking Lizard's outstanding beer program in Cleveland. I'd still stack Augusta's Winking Judge in Hamilton, ON up against the Winking Lizard, though! (And you can find some outstandingly fantastic local foods at the Hamilton Farmer's Market.)

It never ends, the quest for the rare, the local, the different, the best. "Powerful and better are not always the same thing." Reject the chains, and make your life more exciting at every turn.

Long read, necessary read: "Systemic, collaborative localization is ultimately the most effective antidote to authoritarianism."

James Dean Bradfield sings Nicky Wire's lyrics in the opening track of Resistance is Futile, the Manics' new album: "There is no theory of everything," or in other words, no comprehensive equation to describe the entire universe.

(I've just now realized The Theory of Everything is the title of a Stephen Hawking biopic; as noted previously, I'm good for a handful of movies a year at best.)

I think Nicky's just being poetic. For my money, this article is about as close as we'll get to a theory of everything as it pertains to globalization. It's long, it's deadly, and we mustn't forget to follow the money.

Localization: A Strategic Alternative to Globalized Authoritarianism, by Helena Norberg-Hodge (Transnational Institute via Common Dreams)

In order to see how corporate deregulation has led to a breakdown of democracy, to increasing fundamentalism and violence, and to the rise of far-right political leaders, it is vitally important that we see the broader connections that mainstream analyses generally ignore.

For those who care about peace, equality and the future of the planet, the global political swing to the right over the past few years is deeply worrying. It has us asking ourselves, how did this happen? How did populism turn into such a divisive and destructive force? How did authoritarianism take over the political scene once again?

From my 40 years of experience working in both industrialized and land-based cultures, I believe the primary reason is globalization. When I say globalization, I mean the global economic system in which most of us now live – a system driven by continual corporate deregulation and shaped by neoliberal, capitalist ideologies. But globalization goes deeper than politics and the economy. It has profoundly personal impacts.

Under globalization, competition has increased dramatically, job security has become a thing of the past, and most people find it increasingly difficult to earn a livable wage. At the same time, identity is under threat as cultural diversity is replaced by a consumer monoculture worldwide. Under these conditions it’s not surprising that people become increasingly insecure. As advertisers know from nearly a century of experience, insecurity leaves people easier to exploit. But people today are targeted by more than just marketing campaigns for deodorants and tooth polish: insecurity leaves them highly vulnerable to propaganda that encourages them to blame the cultural “other” for their plight ...

On Gahan's $10,000,000 City-County Building escape plan as a tactic to disrupt his ancestral enemies in county government.

The middle medallion is the Building Authority.

The New Albany-Floyd County Building Authority might just be the least transparent governmental organization in Floyd County.

It's almost impossible to find any information about the NA-FC Building Authority, on-line or otherwise.

However, this description of the Indianapolis-Marion County Building Authority conveys a sense of the beast in question -- and the era 1959-1962 is a close match for the construction of our building, which was the first such composite office to open in the state.

The Building Authority is an independent municipal corporation whose purpose is to serve the needs of local government in acquiring, financing, constructing, and managing building projects of a substantial nature. The Indianapolis-Marion County Building Authority is an independent body corporate and politic organized under Chapter 54 of the Acts of the Indiana General Assembly for 1953, now cited as Indiana Code §36-9-13-1, et. seq.

In the early 1950’s, various civic and governmental leaders in Marion County determined that an independent municipal corporation was needed to finance and construct a new city-county building to replace the then-obsolete and deteriorating Marion County Court House and the old City Hall on Alabama Street. The new structure would house City and County government, the police department and the Marion County courts. Previous experience had indicated that an independent, professionally-managed entity would best serve the long-term needs of local government for a first-class government office building.

Utilizing the 1953 legislation, the then-Marion County Board of Commissioners, the Marion County Council and the Common Council of Indianapolis in joint action in May, 1953, organized the Indianapolis-Marion County Building Authority (“Building Authority”). The Building Authority has the statutory power to construct, acquire, finance, operate and maintain land and government buildings for the use of eligible government entities in Marion County.

The first project of the Building Authority was to finance and construct the City-County Building on the site of the old County Court House. Construction was started in 1959 and completed in 1962. The City-County Building, under the management of the Building Authority, has provided space for the joint use of the City and the County since 1962. All bonds issued by the Authority for the construction of the City-County Building have been repaid. There is no outstanding debt on the building.

Since the construction of the City-County Building, the Building Authority has built and/or managed many properties for the City of Indianapolis and Marion County. The Building Authority has maintained a non-political operation since its inception in 1953.

Lately the NA-FC Building Authority is back in the news.

Judge's ruling may pave way for Floyd County jail renovations, by Chris Morris (All Tom May, All of the Time)

NEW ALBANY — Special Judge Vicki Carmichael's ruling late Tuesday may have opened the door for the proposed renovation to the Floyd County Jail to move forward.

The New Albany-Floyd County Building Authority and City of New Albany disputed the agreement signed in 1992 calling for the county to receive ownership of the jail once bonding was paid off. But Carmichael ruled the lease giving Floyd County deed to the property was valid.

With the deed, Floyd County can now bond the jail renovation, which with soft costs will be around $15 million. The plan is to add 110 beds to the current facility along with other renovations. Instead of having to pay $10 million in construction costs up front with funds from hospital sale proceeds, the Floyd County Council can now finance the project for up to 20 years.

The majority of the council has been reluctant to move forward with the plan due to concerns over costs and what it will do to the county's cash flow. "Can the county afford the project," is the question most asked by council members. Floyd County is staring at a $4.9 million budget deficit in 2018. By a 4-3 vote, the council rejected a recent proposal to fund the renovations with hospital proceeds.

But one of those members who voted no, Denise Konkle, said she would be prepared to move forward with the plan now if it can be bonded.

"Absolutely. It definitely changes my ability to move forward," Konkle said after hearing of Carmichael's ruling. "Now we have the ability to bond and not put such a strain on the county's cash flow."

This situation may or may not be settled.

Observing the situation from afar, it seems obvious that the city has joined with the Building Authority in pushing back against Floyd County government in the matter of jail improvements, by feeding the following conditions into the whirling maw of the Jeff M. Gahan Random Chaos Generator and Campaign Finance Divining Rod.

• Maggie Ridge, Myron Huth, Victor Megenity and Steve Bonifer are the four current Building Authority board members. A fifth one recently quit.
• Bonifer is Jeff Gahan's brother-in law, and the father of our local Democratic Party's vice president.
• At the council meeting of June 21, municipal corporate attorney Shane Gibson twice mentioned the figure of $9,000,000 as the city's investment in the current jail, which dates from 1992.
• The county says no, this isn't correct, and it owns the jail outright because Indiana statute says so. 
• The jail is completely separate from the City-County Building.
• The New Albany Police Department shares space with the Sheriff's Department, and would be staying put if the city departs for the Reisz Elephant panacea.
• In a 40-year contract dating to 1959, which since 2001 apparently is "year by year," the city agrees to pay the Building Authority not exactly rent as such, but half the yearly expenses and upkeep for the City-County Building. Currently the city's share comes to around $190K per annum.   
• Gibson believes the county would be happy to use the vacated space, but at present the city won't negotiate with the county about anything.
• The city says it needs more space, but has not considered options like remodeling the space it has. 
• The county says the city owns half the building, and would continue to owe for half the yearly expenses and upkeep even if Gahan evacuates for a new city hall at Reisz.
• The city says no, but reiterates that it owns half the jail.  
• County replies no ... and so on. 

Then there's this one:

• At a time when Sheriff Frank Loop's proposal for jail improvements is being hashed out by Floyd County's commissioners and county council, former sheriff Darrell Mills (D) is staging an electoral comeback in November.

I've probably left a few points out, but the gist should be clear.

All these feints, jabs, maneuverings and lawsuits are politically-motivated delaying tactics. The chess board might look different in January, allowing Gahan an advantage in negotiations with incoming sheriff Mills for the NAPD's co-habitation arrangement.

It also appears that Team Gahan might be building a case, in effect, that City Hall would owe nothing toward the City-County Building upon fleeing to Reisz, but rather the county would owe the city a buyout for the city's share.

You know, maybe $9 million or so.

It's perfectly clear that one of Gahan's chief goals with the Reisz Elephant office transfer is to disrupt city-county relations, both as prelude to this year's county elections and next year's city elections, when a centerpiece of his re-election campaign will be to depict county government as the "enemy" and himself as the only one who can save the city from dastardly uni-gov.

Most ranking Democrats already have consumed copious amounts of this Kool-Aid. It's impossible to have a chat with a single one of them without perfidious county government entering the conversation.

I'll describe Gahan's corruption: "Well, Seabrook's worse." 

I'll explain the idiotic Reisz expenditure: "Well, the county's worse."

I'll suggest that negotiations are a good thing: "Not with county. I'd trust a North Korean first."

It's amazing.

Surely the 800-lb gorilla perched nearby is the City-County Building's future disposition. Insiders have told me to expect lawsuits, and I see no reason to doubt this; Gahan's theory of disruption might well result in considerable acrimony and expense.

Politics in any size of pond is about power, and power is money, and so I submit that we're seeing a similar strategy of disruption in New Albany, as directed by Gahan. He intends to disrupt county government, but also New Albany's city council.

It doesn't require a PhD to see that since taking office, Gahan has seized every available opportunity to sever ties with county government. That's because Democrats are toast in the county, and at best, capable only of rearguard actions. To preserve the party's municipal system of patronage and keep the money flowing, the city power base must be fortified and walled off.

Let's summarize.

Moving city hall to a renovated 19th-century warehouse is about Gahan's colossal ego, first and foremost.

Next comes Reisz's unique utility to disrupt county governance.

Dead last is historic preservation, about which Gahan cares not one jot -- but the backroom Reisz deal yields Dear Leader permanent control of David Barksdale, who hasn't even put up a fight about it. If you're a sincere historic preservationist, there's nothing in any of this for you apart from being manipulated, and when it's over, discarded.

Meanwhile, speaking of historic preservation, here's an interesting article about the origins of the City-County Building, from which this post's introductory photo is drawn.

All of these elements, including columns from the old courthouse, combined to create a building that was respected enough to be listed among Indiana’s best new building architecture in 1963 ... the courthouse is undoubtedly modern, but at 57 years old it’s actually eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Meanwhile in California: "Will Buffy the Bernie Slayer Win in Pro-Sanders District?"

While not directly applicable in our antebellum neck of the woods, this essay remains instructive. There are swamps, there are jungles, and there's the AdamBot.

Flush With Cash: Will Buffy the Bernie Slayer Win in Pro-Sanders District?, by Steve Early (CounterPunch)

In a political culture shaped by big money, entrepreneurial candidacies, single-issue campaigning, and union dis-unity, you can run but not hide from crowded fields of Democrats. In many current primary races, they are all claiming to be “progressive,” even as they raise and spend millions of dollars competing against each other—money that might have been better spent on actual movement building?

snip

Our East Bay constituency has one of highest levels of Democratic Party voter registration in the state. Two years ago, residents of Berkeley, a slice of Oakland, Richmond, and several adjoining communities chose Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in AD 15, while Clinton won the statewide presidential primary.

These local results may not herald a permanent Sanders-inspired “revolution,” however. When the first stage of an election to replace our current Assembly member is completed next month, one of the top finishers could be someone who was nicknamed “Buffy the Bernie Slayer,” when she directed Clinton’s 2016 California primary campaign.

In our state’s “jungle primary” system, legislative candidates are lumped together—regardless of party affiliation– in the first round of voting. Buffy Wicks’ first-time run for office benefits from a crowded field of twelve (which includes a single token Republican) and, most importantly, national Democratic Party donor networks. Wicks is a newcomer to AD 15. She had little local name recognition and no track record of service on any city board, council, or commission before announcing her candidacy.

But she did direct the pro-Hillary Super-PAC, Priorities USA Action, serve in the Obama Administration, and work on both Obama presidential campaigns. Her past experience as a high-powered political operative makes her a magnet for the wrong kind of money in politics today.

snip

In Hillary Clinton fashion, Buffy markets herself as the candidate of “Progressive Values, Real Results.” (Hillary, not surprisingly, hasn’t appeared in any Buffy material so far.) In a just released video, Wicks instead boasts of her “100 organizing meetings in living rooms across the district” and legion of volunteers. She explains how she is “trying to run [her campaign] like a real grassroots movement” because that’s the only way to bring about “sustained change in the community.” If you go out and build such a movement, she says, “that lives far beyond any election cycle and far beyond election day,” citing as examples, the 2004 presidential primary campaign of Howard Dean and Obama’s more successful effort four years later.

Of course, with regards to two of the most important grassroots movements in California at the moment—for single payer healthcare and expanded tenant protection—Wicks is MIA or worse.

snip

 ... I’ve put my time and/or money into the “corporate free” AD 15 campaign by Jovanka Beckles. This two-term Richmond city councilor is a black Latino Lesbian Teamster county worker, with a real track record of movement building and little inclination to become part of “business as usual” in Sacramento.

As I reported in Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of An American City, Beckles and her Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) allies overcame heavy corporate spending against them in 2014 and 2016, because they championed refinery safety, rent control, campaign finance reform, and independent politics in Richmond.

snip

Draining the political swamp in Sacramento is no easy task, under any circumstances. The costly left-liberal free-for-all in the East Bay may end up adding to that challenge, instead of helping networks like Our Revolution overcome it. But the AD 15 race does demonstrate what too much candidate-driven campaigning and independent spending—combined with not enough real organization building—can produce, even in Sanders country, when municipal reformers all try to move up at the same time.

Trump? He's a symptom -- and he's not reading your tweets.

Come to think of it, it's also been just about a year since Dan Coffey demanded city council attorney Matt Lorch's head on a platter -- and both Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey replied, "How'd you like it cooked, SIR?"

ON THE AVENUES: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

It’s where Gahan’s and Dickey’s creation, the Good Ship Democratic Lollipop, currently rests, and taken together, these two narcissistic beached whales in a child’s overmatched wading pool are managing against all imaginable odds to make the buffoonish serial liar Donald Trump look precisely like George Washington.

And it's been 367 days since I mentioned that I can handle only one resistance at a time.

---

If you intend to “resist” Trumpism by doubling down on behalf of the Democratic Party as it currently exists and operates on a daily basis right here in the real world, as opposed to Disney World, then you’re in for yet another apocalyptic shock, because the party requires gutting down to the foundations, and probably beyond.

Speaking personally, I don’t care. Both major parties can go to hell, and the Democrats might as well go first. If the Democratic Party disappears, perhaps something better can be built in its place. How can it be worse?

Our gutless right-wing local version of pretend-Democrats is on life support, and the chairman’s delusional cluelessness seems to have become institutionalized. The humane thing to do would be to euthanize the party, and start all over again.

It’s also time to consider a point that almost none of us are prepared for, including me. This is the element of risk sustained by the resistance during the course of the opposition.

Or, if you will, an occupation.

If you’ve studied history at all, you know that when the going gets tough, the majority usually remains seated atop its collective hands. Meanwhile, the minority resolving to openly act finds that standing up for what they believe requires some skin in the game.

It’s risky, and isn't always pretty, either. Demonstrators are beaten and jailed. Dissidents are harassed and lose their jobs. Neo-Nazis attack people in the street, and Soviets ship them off to the gulag. It’s precisely the sort of retaliation that blacks, union members and Native American pipeline opponents experience as a matter of course, although whites like me tend to think that we’re exempted – because “law.”

Yeah, right.

I’m guessing that precious few Americans have a clue about how painful this “resistance” might become. We’ve taken for granted inalienable rights and freedoms, and when these pipe dreams actually have existed outside our idealized and addled imaginations (again, mostly white), they have been gained through direct action -- agitation, peaceful protest, civil disobedience and at times, regrettably, bloody violence.

That’s history, plain and simple, and a better appreciation of history would at least be helpful, although you may or may not discover the most relevant bits on your iPhone.

Finally, it won’t be enough for the left-of-center resistance to be solely predicated on identity politics and social justice issues of the precise sort that Mayor Gahan routinely and insincerely barters to local Democrats who are sufficiently gullible to accept toothless Potemkin human rights lean-tos in exchange for looking the other way as Gahan’s increasingly self-serving and megalomaniacal “luxury” expenditures exit the rails.

Up and down the line, Democrats have fiddled past the carnage of neoliberal economic orthodoxy for far too long, and it helped bring us to this lamentably idiocratic juncture. Understand that what’s coming over the horizon is very much about economics, too. Capitalism didn’t “win,” and all those –ism frictions have never left us, although we may have left them.

Earlier today, I remarked to friends that there’s nothing like a room filled with annoyed citizens to produce remarkable levels of concentration on the part of local elected officials. Everything changes when humans act together, in concert, as opposed to separately, isolated from each other. I'm a cynic, but I haven't abandoned hope.

Resistance?

I’m trying my best here in Anchor Flats. If there is any time left over, I’ll help you with Trump.

Deal?

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Now, that was a vintage rant, and I'm sticking with it. Granted, I didn't foresee the Dan Canon candidacy, or the delightfully concurrent way the civil rights attorney's campaign for 9th district congressman has held a mirror up to toxic Gahanism during a time of Lorch purge, Speck grid botch, NAHA putsch and Mt. Tabor subjugation.

By the way, here's some truth from Bernie Sanders. Friends, look past the diversions and shell games ... and follow the money.

Let’s wrench power back from the billionaires, by Bernie Sanders (The Guardian)

If we stand together against powerful special interests we can eliminate poverty, increase life expectancy and tackle climate change

Here is where we are as a planet in 2018: after all of the wars, revolutions and international summits of the past 100 years, we live in a world where a tiny handful of incredibly wealthy individuals exercise disproportionate levels of control over the economic and political life of the global community.

Difficult as it is to comprehend, the fact is that the six richest people on Earth now own more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people. Further, the top 1% now have more money than the bottom 99%. Meanwhile, as the billionaires flaunt their opulence, nearly one in seven people struggle to survive on less than $1.25 (90p) a day and – horrifyingly – some 29,000 children die daily from entirely preventable causes such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia ...