David Bruce Collins—the Official Site
  • Index
  • Blog
  • Biography
  • Writing
    • Novels in Print
    • Eastern Daylight (1997) >
      • Eastern Daylight: April
      • Eastern Daylight: May
      • Eastern Daylight: June
      • Eastern Daylight: July
      • Eastern Daylight: August
      • Eastern Daylight: September
      • Eastern Daylight: October
    • Bite-Size Hungarian
  • Politics
    • Life As a Green
    • Ten Key Values of GPUS (English)
    • Issues for 2020
  • Web Links

Hunter's Accusations of Impropriety

30/6/2020

 
The late, legendary Barbara Jordan was the first-ever Congressmember from Texas District 18, which she helped create as a state senator, and which I have inhabited for the past nine years. From the very beginning of her tenure, she admonished staff that not only must there be no impropriety in the office, but there must not even be the appearance of impropriety. She knew better than to give ammunition to colleagues or press who might seize any opportunity to bring down an outspoken black liberal woman from the old Confederacy's largest city.

Have the insiders in the Green Party of the United States engaged in enough appearance of impropriety that attorney and rabbi Dario Hunter can build a case against them?

Here’s tonight’s special announcement. Thank you for your patience and for your support for Green values.https://t.co/oIdbP61yas

— Dario Hunter (@dario4america) June 30, 2020

Read More

Irish Greens Quadruple Dáil Seats, Join Ruling Coalition

29/6/2020

 
Sometimes, after wading through the stories of natural and man-made disasters in remote corners of the globe, one can actually find good news in the World and Nation subsections of one's local daily newspaper. Yesterday's Houston Chronicle had a brief wire service article about the Republic of Ireland's new coalition government, in which the Green Party will be a partner. (Couldn't find the article in the Chronicle's online edition.)

It's not unadulterated good news. As too often happens when the Greens are invited into a ruling coalition, they will govern alongside two centrist to center-right parties: in this instance, the two most major of the nation's major parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

The main angle of the article is that, on Saturday, the Daíl Éireann (Irish parliament) officially elected Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin to be the new Taoiseach (prime minister), succeeding Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar. But from another angle, in particular from the left, this is not only burying the lede but straight-up omitting it.

The article does not mention that, following February's Daíl (parliamentary) elections, the Green delegation jumped from three seats to twelve of the 160 total. GP will be the fourth-largest in the 33rd Daíl. Other parliaments in Europe have recently experienced a Green surge.

Apart from that, it also misses the point of why the two major parties must coalesce in the first place: Sinn Fein's leap from 22 seats to 37. Sinn Fein, a center-left party that was once the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, has more seats that Finn Gael and nearly as many as Fianna Fáil. Unlike some other parliamentary democracies in Europe, where disenchantment with mainstream parties has led to right-populist victories, the Irish electorate has veered left.

This Guardian article from two weeks ago hints that SF might end up at the head of a governing coalition for the first time in the Republic's 100-year history; the GP's acceptance of Fáil & Gael's invitation to join them thwarted that.

Also worth noting while we're here is that Ireland elects its parliament from multi-member districts of three to five seats each, with proportional representation, via a single-transferrable preferential voting system. This assures that "minor" parties are represented in the nation's law-making body. And it's not some recent innovation: It dates back to the first general election following independence from Great Britain in 1922.

GP Keeps on Truckin': We Have a Presumptive Nominee

21/6/2020

 
Head-on portrait photo of Green presidential candidate Howie HawkinsBy GreenIn2010 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87716286
Nothing will be official until 11 July, but Howie Hawkins of New York has amassed a simple majority of the 350 delegates apportioned for the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention. There are fewer than 50 delegates still to be selected.

This news is hardly unexpected given how the quest for the nomination has played out. Hawkins entered the race with an actual track record of running for high offices in New York State, and he is considered a co-founder of the Party. (Second-place candidate Dario Hunter has actually been elected to a school board in Youngstown, Ohio.) The Green New Deal on which Dr. Jill Stein ran in 2012 and 2016 started with Hawkins, whether or not he actually coined the term.

In case you haven't caught the news, Teamster activist Hawkins has selected long-haul truck driver and activist Angela N. Walker as his running mate. For those of you keeping identity politics scoresheets, Walker checks off not only the African American and Woman boxes, but also the LGBT+ box. An Armed Forces veteran like Hawkins, Walker also has electoral experience, including a run for sheriff of Milwaukee County (Wisconsin) in 2014. They have also both worked with Socialist Party USA, which has endorsed their ticket; Hawkins-Walker will likely appear on the ballot lines for SPUSA and GPUS in New York, which allows fusion candidacies.

On a personal note, I have donated to the Hawkins and Hunter campaigns, and I did not have a stated preference between them. My habit is never to presume anyone's nomination until it's signed, sealed, and delivered; I'm not happy about the way he has acted in public appearances as if his nomination was in the bag, appearing on programs such as Redacted Tonight VIP without more than an indirect reference to the other Green presidential candidates. However, I will be glad to be able to answer the inevitable question from the mis- and underinformed, "Who's your (y'all's) candidate?" without saying, "Well, the nomination hasn't been determined yet, and we have about six candidates contesting for it..." by which the asker has fallen asleep.

Juneteenth on Two Wheels

20/6/2020

 
Juneteenth cyclists stop the ride to gather at the George Floyd mural in EaDo, next to a mural of Selena Quintanilla.
Juneteenth cyclists stop the ride to gather at the George Floyd mural in EaDo, next to a mural of Selena Quintanilla.
Remnants of the pedestal in Hermann Park that formerly supported the bronze statue of Major Dick Dowling.The City of Houston's Juneteenth presents to the people include the mothballing of Maj. Dick Dowling and the "Spirit of the Confederacy" statue.
In terms of participation, it wasn't as big as a typical Critical Mass ride. But it was still pretty big: a rolling rainbow of 400-500 riders, I would venture to guess.

We totally Juneteenthed last night, two of my World Naked Bike Ride comrades and some other friends who showed up to ride for black lives.

​Sites along the way included George Floyd's old neighborhood at Holman and Nalle Streets, Emancipation Park, and the George Floyd mural off Chartres Street in East Downtown. We stopped for about a half hour by the mural, which occupies a place of honor next to one of Selena, and were treated to some music from a samba drum corps (I'll post a short video when I can) and some inspiring speakers. Critical Mass co-facilitator Mutulu Kafele, who has served on the board of BikeHouston, wrote a typical 'Tulu brilliant-angry poem for the occasion and spat it for us.

I don't know what happened after the gathering at the mural, because I had to break off and head for home. Up to then, the ride was noisily peaceful, with plenty of goodwill and encouragement from those we passed by. Organizers of the ride encouraged people to keep their sound systems' volume down so that the organizers could communicate better and get some chanting started; that wasn't going to happen. I'd like to have been able to talk to my friends without yelling, but as it turned out, the music communicated just as effectively as any chanting, if not more so. Beyond that, one cold wish that riders would stay off the sidewalks and on the prescribed side of the street, but I didn't see anyone get hurt from their unorthodox approach to urban cycling.

After my last post, I saw some items in the Chronicle about 1) how the statue of Christopher Columbus in Bell Park, across from the Italian-American Heritage Society, has been the target of some recent vandalism (aw, poor Chris) and 2) how the City of Port Arthur didn't really want the Dick Dowling statue for the Sabine Pass monument, so the City of Houston is having to put ol' Dick in storage. So this morning I strayed again from the path of  my errands to see if indeed the Dowling statue was gone.

​Look Ma! No Dick! ​(Sorry, once again couldn't resist.)

My Bloomsday Dick Pic

16/6/2020

 
State of Maj. Richard W. Dowling at North MacGregor Way and Cambridge Street in Hermann Park, Houston.Dick Dowling's days in Hermann Park are numbered.
Hope y'all had a Blessed Bloomsday.

Yeah, I know, a candidate for public office shouldn't debase himself with a blog headline featuring an anatomical giggle that would make a 12-year-old boy roll his eyes. Sometimes the headlines just write themselves, and the blogger's brain stays out of the way.

Under the COVID regime, I'm the one who runs errands in our household. My wife Molly—oops, I mean Kayleen—is none too sure that her immune system is a match for the 'Rona.

This beautiful Bloomsday morning, I did a wee bit of out-and-abouting, but nothing that turned into a 20-hour sojourn with a stop at a bawdy house. I picked up a package at the Palm Center Post Office, grabbed a half-dozen Shipley's Donuts, and took a circuitous route home via Hermann Park. Unlike Jimmy Joyce's fictional friend Leopold Bloom in 1904, I had access to a motor vehicle.

I wanted to see whether the statue of Confederate Army Major Richard W. Dowling was still in place. This is a statue that thousands of Medical Center employees and students pass every day en route to work or school. Dowling, an Irish immigrant from Tuam, is the former namesake of a street that was once the commercial heart of black Third Ward, the street recently rechristened Emancipation Avenue. Kayleen now refers to the major as "Richard Emancipation." A middle school in far southwest Houston also had his name taken off it in HISD's Great Confederate Purge of 2015. (There is still a Tuam Street that cross Emancipation Avenue near Emancipation Park.)

The Chronicle recently reported that Mayor Sylvester Turner is arranging to have the statue transferred to an exhibit at Sabine Pass, site of Dowling's famous victory over Union forces invading from the Gulf of Mexico. I took the photo to serve as the "Before" picture. In light of recent events, I am eagerly looking forward to a chance to take the "After" shot, so that Houston can wash its hands of Dowling and all monuments to the Lost Cause.

UPDATE: From today's Chronicle (paywall), an item about the relocation of the "Spirit of the Confederacy" statue from Sam Houston Park near downtown (and uncomfortably close to what used to be the eastern edge of Freedmans Town). The city managed to get the "Spirit" taken down just before Juneteenth; it doesn't appear that Dick Dowling will disappear by then.

I made another errand this evening to my sister's place in the Heights to deliver my niece a birthday present. (Her birthday was a few days ago; she's not a Bloomsday Baby.) By strange and happy coincidence, a fellow sporting a Celtic FC jersey and a slight Irish accent came by to pick up a pair of barstools that he had purchased from my sister and brother-in-law on Facebook Marketplace or whatever site. From my spot on the front porch, I got to wish him a happy Bloomsday; he looked at me for a few seconds as if I were speaking a foreign language, but then smiled as he apparently got the reference.

Green Platform Amendment Proposals for 2020

12/6/2020

 
Two demonstrators holding up hand-made signs saying A portion of a photograph at the head of Chapter IV of the GPUS Platform.
The Annual National Meeting and Presidential Nominating Convention of the Green Party of the United States is scheduled for the weekend of 11-12 July. Thanks to COVID-19, we're not going to Detroit for the convention; Detroit is coming to us via teleconferencing platforms.

Speaking of platforms, I am grateful to California Green mover & shaker Diana C. Brown for alerting tout le monde vert on Facebook regarding this year's proposed amendments to the GPUS national platform. The Platform Committee will consider 15 changes—submitted by several different committees, caucuses, and state parties—which I'll list in summary form below the Read More.

​Keep in mind that the Platform is more about desired outcomes than processes for achieving them. It can include a call for abolition of the Electoral College without presenting the nuts and bolts of how to rescind the provisions in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution and the Twelfth Amendment.


Read More

Valarie Kaur and the Mission of Moral Revival

8/6/2020

 

Watch live now: https://t.co/ibHavduBVx pic.twitter.com/8PZVJJjRhl

— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@RevDrBarber) June 7, 2020
This is a sermon, perhaps the best I've heard in years (taking nothing away from the ministers at First UU). This is also ten minutes of sheer beauty from civil rights activist and author Valarie Kaur.

It is not, strictly speaking a promotional video for the Poor People's Campaign's National Call for Moral Revival, scheduled for 20 June, even though it appears on their Facebook page.

I wish I could find and embed my recent tweet in which I referred to PPC's Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, Jr., as the most important leader of our time. In the midst of all the voices crying for justice, Rev. Barber hasn't (yet) achieved the notoriety that MLK and Malcolm X did during their lives, and he may not have their rhetorical gifts, but he is carrying on Martin's work visibly and effectively.

Valarie Kaur reminds us that we are collectively grieving, and that grieving is a launching pad for revolution. It helps to know that, despite the possibility (or the inevitability) of peaceful revolution that should motivate me to purposeful action, I am still grieving. On top of that, there are so many things I could and should be doing, I don't really know where to begin.

There will be yet more grief even as we rise. There will be backlash, too much of it violent, as reactionary America grieves for what it perceives it is losing. But the work of this revolution must continue and draw new resolve from that grief.

As Arundathi Roy famously said, "Another world is not only possible; she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." We are that new world, if we choose to be. We are George Floyd's breath.

Finally FIgured Out What to Say (Other Than #BLM)

6/6/2020

 
Last week I thought I might follow up my previous post, "Just As Every Cop Is a Criminal," with one entitled "I Went Down to the Demonstration," but a week or so later I've changed my mind. I've never been a huge Stones fan anyway. I mean, I like and respect their musical output, especially after hearing a lot of their early work via Little Steven's Underground Garage (sorry, can't find a way to link to it directly).

I did go to the demonstration, the Black Lives Matter Houston march from Discovery Green to City Hall back on 29 May. They didn't have a PA, so the speakers took turns with the one bullhorn, and the crowd couldn't safely cluster together by the Hermann Plaza steps close enough to hear the speeches. So I spent an hour or so out on the periphery by McKinney Avenue, chatting with newly minted attorney Remington Alessi. I also witnessed two groups marching in the streets, apparently without permits because the cops looked to be following them rather than escorting them. Good.

The challenge is not-so-simply this: Millions of people in Left America are talking and tweeting about George Floyd the continuing use of lethal force against People of Color by US police and self-appointed neighborhood watchpersons, and that they're mostly saying a lot of the same things about the need for wholesale systemic change in law enforcement. I absolutely agree with their prescriptions for change, and for the first time in a while I feel optimistic that this change is coming. Popular protests in dozens of US cities have started the conversation, and that conversation has reached some media outlets that reach millions. What could I possibly add to it?

Read More

    DBC Sez...

    Here you will find political campaign-related entries, as well as some about my literature, Houston underground arts, peace & justice, urban cycling, soccer, alt-religion, and other topics.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    2018
    Abby Martin
    Abortion Laws
    ACORN
    Affordable Care Act
    Ahmad Hassan
    Air Alliance Houston
    Ajamu Baraka
    Alabama
    Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
    Al Gore
    Amanda Palmer
    Amazon
    Angela Walker
    Angie Schmitt
    ANM 2020
    Annual Meeting
    Approval Voting
    Art Car Parade
    Astroworld
    Ballot Access
    Bernie Sanders
    Beto O'Rourke
    BikeHouston
    Binary Thinking
    Black Agenda Report
    #BlackLivesMatter
    Bloomsday
    B&N
    Book Review
    Borders
    Brains And Eggs
    Breast Cancer
    Brody Mulligan
    Burning Man
    Bylaws
    Caitlin Johnstone
    Caleb Alexander
    Campaign
    Campaign 2018
    Candidates' Forum
    Candidate Workshop
    Captcha
    Catastrophic Theatre
    Cenk Uygur
    Censorship
    Chelsea Manning
    Cheri Honkala
    Chicago
    Choir
    Chris Hedges
    Chris Tomlinson
    Chuck Kuffner
    City Council
    Climate Change
    Climate March
    Climate Strike
    CODEPINK
    Colin Kaepernick
    Convention
    Corporatocracy
    County Clerk
    County Convention
    County Judge
    Cover Design
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Cycling
    Dallas Morning News
    Dan Monahan
    Dario Hunter
    Darryl Cherney
    David Cobb
    David Rovics
    Death By Cop
    Death Penalty
    Debates
    Deep State
    Delilah For Texas
    #DemEnter
    Demexit
    #DemExit
    Democrat Primary
    Depression
    Detroit 2020
    Dichotomism
    Dick Dowling
    Disaffiliation
    District Conventions
    Donald Trump
    #DownticketGreens
    DSA
    Duopoly
    Dwight Boykins
    Early Voting
    Earth Day
    Earthworm
    Eastern Daylight
    Ecological Wisdom
    Economic Justice
    Ed Emmett
    Edie
    Egberto WIllies
    Eleanor Goldfield
    Election 2015
    Election 2016
    Election 2017
    Election 2018
    Election 2019
    Election 2020
    Election 2022
    Electoral College
    Elvis Costello
    Emancipation Park
    Emily Sanchez
    Emily Sanchez
    Endorsements
    Energy
    Environment
    Erika Martinez
    Extinction Rebellion
    Fascism
    Fauxcialism
    Fiction
    Film Review
    For The People Act
    Fourth Turning
    Francesca Fiorentini
    Fremont Solstice Parade
    Full Frontal
    Fundraising
    Gary Johnson
    Gary Stuard
    George Floyd
    George HW Bush
    George Lakoff
    George Reiter
    Georgia
    Gerrymandering
    Glenn Greenwald
    GPTX
    Gray Matters
    Green Convention
    #GreenEnter
    Green Maps
    Green New Deal
    Green Party
    Green Party Houston
    Greenwatch TV
    Gun Violence
    Hallucinogens
    Hal Ridley Jr.
    Harris County
    Harry Hamid
    HAUS
    HAUS Project
    HB 2504
    HCGP
    Higher Education
    Hillary Clinton
    HMS
    Homelessness
    Houston
    Houston Area Progressives
    Houston Astros
    Houston Chronicle
    Houston Dash
    Houston Dynamo
    Houston Fringe Festival
    Houston Press
    Howie Hawkins
    Hurricane Harvey
    Identity Politics
    Immigration
    Instant Runoff Voting
    Insurrection At The Capitol
    International Affairs
    Inverted Totalitarianism
    Iran
    Ireland
    IRV
    IUniverse
    James Joyce
    Janis RIchards
    Jennifer Mathieu
    Jesse Ventura
    Jill Stein
    Jimmy Dore
    Jonathan Franzen
    Jordan Chariton
    JosH Darr
    Julian Assange
    Juneteenth
    Justice
    Kenneth Kendrick
    Kenneth Mejia
    Kent Mesplay
    Keystone XL
    Key Values
    KPFT
    Krystal Ball
    Laredo
    Last Week Tonight
    Late Stage Capitalism
    Late-Stage Capitalism
    League Of Women Voters
    Lee Camp
    Legal Challenge
    Libertarian Party
    Lina Hidalgo
    Lisa Savage
    Local Democracy
    Mail-In Ballots
    Maine
    Maps Project
    #MarchForOurLives
    March For Science
    March On The Pentagon
    Marc Lamont Hill
    Margaret Flowers
    Marijuana
    Martina Salinas
    Mass Shootings
    Matching Funds
    Mayor
    MD Anderson Cancer Center
    Media
    Medicare For All
    Mental Health
    Metro
    Michael Moore
    Michael Pollan
    MJ Hegar
    Movement For A People's Party
    Mudslinging
    Music
    Naomi Klein
    NationBuilder
    Net Neutrality
    New Orleans
    New Zealand
    Nick Cooper
    NORML
    North Carolina
    Our Revolution
    Outlander
    Outreach
    Overdevelopment
    Pacifica
    Parkland FL
    Partisan Realignment
    Paul Ingmundson
    PDiddie
    Peace
    Pennsylvania
    People's Party Convention
    Platform
    Plutocracy
    PNC
    Police
    Police Brutality
    Politics Done Right
    Polls
    Poor People's Campaign
    Poverty
    Progressivism
    Proofreading
    ProPublica
    Puerto Rico
    Radicalism
    Ranked Choice Voting
    Ray Hill
    Recount 2016
    Remington Alessi
    #Resistance
    Rev. Barber
    Revolution
    Right-wing Terrorism
    Rosa Clemente
    Russiagate
    Samantha Bee
    San Antonio
    SB 2093
    School Shootings
    Scotland
    Scottish National Party
    Scott McLarty
    Sema Hernandez
    Sheila Jackson Lee
    Single Payer
    SKCM Curry
    Smart Growth
    Socialism
    Socialist Alternative
    Spoiler Effect
    Straight Party Voting
    Strauss & Howe
    Sunrise Movement
    Sylvester Turner
    Syria
    Tax Policy
    Ted Cruz
    Texas House
    Texas Leftist
    Texas Legislature
    Texas Progressive
    Texas Public Radio
    Texas Supreme Court
    Texoblogosphere
    Texpatriate
    The Intercept
    The North Star
    Third Parties
    Thom Hartmann
    Traffic
    Transit
    Transportation
    Trans Rights
    Travel
    Treason
    Trump Derangement Syndrome
    Tulsi Gabbard
    Turnout
    Ulysses
    Unitarian Universalism
    Urbanism
    US Senate
    UU
    Valarie Kaur
    Van Cliburn
    Vanessa Edwards Foster
    Vanessa Guillén
    Venezuela
    Vish
    Vision Zero
    War On Drugs
    Website
    Women's March On Pentagon
    World Beyond War
    World Cup
    World Naked Bike Ride
    Zeitgeist Movement
    Zendik

    Archives

    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014

Proudly powered by Weebly