Dismembering the Alamo: Victor Orban’s Fascist Plagarism

The View From Rattlesnake Ridge

Ruminations from an Unabashed Optimist, an Environmental Patriot and a Radical Centrist

Lone Steer in a Painted Landscape

Dismembering the Alamo

Victor Orban’s Fascist Plagarism

Orban Desecrates the memory of a real freedom fighter in his Texas Speech to CPAC as he highlights the Republican lurch to the authoritarian right.

Having just made what I hope is our final move in four years, Kodi and I find ourselves looking out from our porch at the confluence of two great rivers - appropriately bearing the names given to them by the earliest Americans to ply their waters: the Connecticut and the Ammonoosuc. 

In the few short weeks we have lived here, we have watched Bald Eagles follow the river’s meandering curves from on high and Osprey and Perigrine Falcons scan the sky and soar high above the trees in search of fish. 

Though we are officially residents of Bath, NH, our modest “Sears and Roebuck” bungalow, built in the early 1900s, transported to NH on a railroad car and then borne to the land by teams of horses, is closest to the town of Haverhill and more specifically the Township village of Woodsville. Just over the recently built Raymond Burton bridge, honoring one of New Hampshire’s greatest political leaders of the last century, our home sits on a knoll facing the west. 

In just a few weeks I’ve come to love this spot. Neighbors greet us on our walks with “welcome to the neighborhood” and other similar remarks. Never have I felt so welcome in a new place.

Connecticut is an Algonquin language word meaning the “land on the long tidal river”. The river forms the western boundary between New Hampshire and Vermont. 

Ammonoosuc is Abenaki for "small, narrow fishing place” though by the time it joins the Connecticut in Woodsville the river is wide and rather lugubrious. 

Under normal circumstances, all this natural wonder and neighborliness would be enough to keep my attention from straying to almost anything else, certainly not the uber-crazy world of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. But these are not normal circumstances.

As if the recent news about what the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago has turned up and the firehose of news around the January 6th committee were not evidence enough that the right’s road to authoritarianism has removed its speed limits, both the presence of Orban at CPAC as well as the ideologic makeup of the general audience reveals how far the right has gone off the rails of democracy. 

Only two short years ago CPAC actually took steps to prevent overt white supremacists and other extremists from participating in the conference. This year, no such efforts were made. The extremists were welcomed with open arms, and they came in droves. 

When Ronald Reagan was president, he was a bit too moderate for the general audience. Back then CPAC represented the fringes of the Republican party, today it iS the Republican party.    

Orban’s biggest applause line came toward the end of his speech when he said “The globalists can go to hell, I’m going to Texas.” almost word for word plagiarism of a famous quote from American hero and congressman Davy Crockett when he resigned from Congress and headed for Texas to his final fate at the Alamo. But the context of these stolen words was a complete and utter reversal of the intent of Crockett’s statement and a betrayal of the spirit of liberty inherent in the words of the storied Congressman. 

When Davy Crockett resigned from the US Congress he had just been through a soul-crushing battle against President Andrew Jackson and Jackson’s “Indian Removal Act”. Jackson and Crockett were both Democrats and both had been elected on the same ticket but soon found themselves in a fight, the outcome of which would live in infamy. 

Crockett opposed the act that would ultimately end in the Trail of Tears - believing that we could find a way for anglos and native people to live with one another and because he believed that we had a moral obligation to honor our treaty agreements. 

You may recall that even the US Supreme Court, under John Marshall’s leadership, sided with the Cherokee people on the Indian Removal Act but President Jackson defied their ruling and proceeded to move forward with the removal of Indian people from their rightful homes and lands. Crockett, knowing that Jackson was already taking steps to deny him an additional term in Congress decided that he would deny Jackson the opportunity and he announced his resignation, saying: “You can all go to hell, I’m going to Texas.”

Shame on the attendees of CPAC for dishonoring the memory of Davy Crockett and allowing Orban to appropriate his words - the words of a real freedom fighter - spoken, instead, by a self-absorbed fascist who has led his own once-democratic country down the path of authoritarianism and tyranny and has the unmitigated gall to presume that his example would inspire Americans to follow. 

Donald Trump himself served as the other bookend for that day’s parade of crazies at CPAC, a fitting ending to a gathering of even those who once seemed reasonable. Senator Chuck Grassley has recently taken to suggesting that IRS agents armed with AR-15’s were coming for average folks. Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul suggested that the FBI might plant evidence during the search of Mar-a-Lago. Dr. Oz has taken to talking about the second amendment as a protection from the government, mirroring the Black Panthers of the 60s and 70s, who at least had historical context for their actions.  

Like the view from my porch, the mainstream of the Republican party has flowed into the gathering, rushing tributary of authoritarianism making the confluence indistinguishable. 

Ironically, it is only a small rushing tributary, representing no more than 20% of the party - and a still smaller portion of the populace. These people have always been there, hidden, self-marginalized by their own behavior and views but Victor Orban and Donald Trump have given voice to their conspiracies and inane views. Only the voices and views of the mainstream can overcome them but will they? Attrition - the flood of people abandoning the party - and fear have become powerful forces in this historic moment. Is this the death rattle of the Republican Party - The Grand Old Party - or can patriots like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Michael Steele prevail in the long run?   

Wayne King is an author, podcaster, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives in Bath, NH at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers and proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing 

Panted Skies over Lake Umbagog

Dancing Onesies

Squam Waterlilies

Wind on the Rail Trail

A Glow of Lilies

Reflection of a Chapel in Autumn Water

Chapel of the Woods, Camp Mowglis

Chapel in the Blue Lupine

My Own Private Lupine Festival

 

My Own Private Lupine Festival

The pandemic may have canceled the Sugar Hill festival, but no one told the flowers.

I love spring in the White Mountains.

Witnessing the landscape come to life is spiritually transformative. Given the state of the world between Russia’s heartless invasion of Ukraine to mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas we could all use some spiritual transformation.

This past weekend, while Kodi and I were on an early morning walk I had the urge to head for Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. 

Before the pandemic, Sugar Hill and Franconia joined, annually, with their surrounding towns to hold a month-long festival celebrating the blooming of the lupine. While the range of lupine on the continent is quite broad, for some reason the area around these small towns in New Hampshire’s Northcountry is legendary for the fields of lupine that dominate the scenery in June. In some cases they are naturally occurring, in others, they are cultivated or simply encouraged by the aesthetics who choose to call these towns home.

One of those aesthetics back in the last century was Robert Frost whose storied walks were surely through June fields of lupine. Frost lived for several years in Franconia, the geographic center of these small towns. His home, and mailbox are preserved in a small museum appropriately hidden off the more traveled way.  I can’t walk these woods, roadsides, and fields without my thoughts turning to Frost and how these vistas must have fired his imagination, though he only seems to mention the lupine by name in a few of his poems. Throughout a life lived during equally difficult times, Frost, like the lupines through which he walked, helped to lead us toward a more peaceful place in our hearts. 

So we still turn to his poetry to find solace and hope - though more recent crises portend even greater challenges than those faced in Frost’s day.

Highland Storm 4 - Glow in the Lupine

Lost in all of the seemingly more immediate crises is the existential Climate Emergency, even though if we were smart enough to tie it to the various challenges we could take active steps to address the emergency. A few months ago Bill McKibben suggested that President Biden should use the Defense Production Act to help Americans and Europeans convert their heating systems to carbon-neutral heat pump technology combined with solar to dramatically reduce the cost of heat and the use of fossil fuels that complicate our ability to increase the pressure on Russia after its incursion into Ukraine. It was a brilliant suggestion that would have dramatically reduced the burning of carbon but his suggestion was swallowed up by Jamie Dimon’s self-dealing call to drill more oil so that JPMorgan Chase could buy a few more fat years for the oil industry and exacerbate the Climate Emergency. McKibben’s suggestion is still out there but it’s just too easy for Biden to go with the folks who own congress. 

Meanwhile, the Climate Crisis accelerates. The far right ignores and denies the crisis and the naive left implores us to save the planet. 

But the lupines growing in June along the roads of Sugar Hill, Franconia, Bethlehem, Littleton, Bath, Benton, Easton, and Lisbon send us a different message. Deny all you want, your presence is not required. The planet is NOT in peril. Come war, pandemic, global warming, the planet will be just fine. 

We are the ones in trouble, along with several hundred thousand other species that we may take down with us.

Mother earth, Esheheman, or grandmother to my Cheyenne brothers and sisters, will go on whether we inhabit the planet or not. She will purify herself, she will still send the lupine every spring - a sign that beauty abides despite the evil, famine and pestilence that comes with the presence of humans. 

As Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson wrote in their timeless classic Where Have All the Flowers Gone?:  “When will we ever learn?”

In the darkest moments, there is a light toward which we can still walk: A place of hope, a place of peace, a place of beauty, a place of wisdom, if only we open our hearts and minds to it. 

Chapel in the Blue Lupine

Notes & Links

The Lupine Festival will surely return in years to come but the good folks at the festival have placed a self-guiding tour map on their Web page here: https://www.lupinefestival.com/

Frost Museum: The Museum remains closed - probably until the fall of 2022 but here is their website:  https://frostplace.org/index.php/museum/

A Celebration of the Lupine: https://www.waynedking.com/collections/143534

Wayne King is an author, podcaster, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives in Thornton, between Rattlesnake Ridge and the Waterville Range. He proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing

The Corner of the Lupine Field

Storm Over Lupine

An Island of Lupine in a Sea of Gold

A Firestorm is Brewing: The Supreme Court Prepares to Pull the Pin on Democracy

The View from Rattlesnake Ridge Wayne D. King

A Firestorm is Brewing

The Supreme Court Prepares to Pull the Pin on Democracy

Flying into a Gathering Storm

If it wasn’t bad enough that Russia has attacked the peaceful, democratic country of Ukraine and now threatens the world with the deployment of chemical and nuclear weapons, here in the good ol’ USA the Supreme Court is threatening a pseudo-nuclear attack of its own on our democracy.

The Right, having unleashed one attack on our democracy on January 6 of 2021 is now watching in an almost giddy state for their Supreme Court to foment the same response from the other side. There is nothing they would love more than all-out holy war.

If you think that watching them lose their minds over mask mandates in the middle of the pandemic was bad, think of what they would be doing if this were directed toward them.  Let's face it: if this were being done to men in this country, they’d be blowing shit up.  

Fortunately, women and the men who support them in their bodily autonomy are far more rational. But do not mistake this for complacency. It would not take a lot for things to turn very ugly.

Now I am not advocating violence. I am saying that the Supreme Court is about to invite it. Furthermore, the broader they cast the net, the more they invite it.  What happens when they broaden their target to birth control - as some are already proposing. What happens when marriage equality is undone and LGBTQ rights are undone because that is surely on the agenda of the religious right.  

Don’t tell me that there is precedent for this and then go back to Brown vs. Kansas (Board of Ed) or Plessy. When the Supreme Court ruled on these things and overturned precedent, each time it was to grant greater freedom and equality to citizens, consistent with the vision of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Overturning Roe will have exactly the opposite effect. It would be a statist powerplay against half the population, but we would all pay for it in the long run because when we allow such basic control over our bodies to be dictated by the state it will not be long before they cast the net wider and wider. 

Leave aside the fact that as many as 80% of Americans believe women should control their own reproductive choices, and the theft of at least one member of the Supreme Court has placed us in the path of this oncoming train.

Leave aside that the majority on the Supreme Court has sprung from two elections where the conservative, anti-choice, candidate lost the popular vote, only to become president because of an arcane electoral college system.

Leave aside the fact that most of these judges who are poised to overturn Roe outright lied - under oath -when they testified before the Senate in their confirmation hearings.

Trashing the fundamental right to privacy reinforced by the Roe decision is the final nail in the coffin for the personal privacy of American citizens, male or female, black, brown, white, and native. All of this led by a cabal of lawyers at the Federalist Society, spending hundreds of millions of dark money dollars to remake the Supreme Court with the specific intent of  “transforming the foundational understanding of rights in America”.

Yet, as bad as the attack on privacy is, Americans should also be aware that the First Amendment, the most basic freedom granted by our constitution, is also be on the chopping block. In a nation where religious freedom is considered a hallmark, a handfull of fundamentalist christians are now intent on deciding what freedoms are to be accorded to which Americans. They have decided that their chosen religious dictates give them the right to tell every other American, irrespective of religious beliefs, or non-beliefs, how to live their lives. If they are allowed to do this freedom of and from religion will become a thing of the past and Americans will no longer be bound together by a grand idea, still unfolding, but by the celestial dictator concocted by a small minority and we will be no better than Iran or North Korea.

Why am I - a male with all of the privileges already attached to that - speaking out about this?. My Alice, who was my north star, would never forgive me if I stayed silent. Alice and I endured the heartache of 5 miscarriages. Each one a long personal journey into darkness and grief. The thought of us having to also endure an authoritarian-driven government investigation into the question of whether it was actually a miscarriage is unthinkable. Alice is no longer with us to speak for herself, I feel compelled to speak for her and for my sisters, and for every woman in America, including those who oppose abortion. Freedom is only found in the right to search our hearts and minds to determine what decision is best for ourselves and our families and to exercise our own bodily autonomy. The fight for Choice is the only position that respects the rights of all religions including atheists and agnostics, by allowing that choice to be made by those most directly affected, individuals.    

Notes and links:

Frank Schaeffer once produced propaganda films that helped launch the Christian right. Now he feels regret for what he calls an 'anti-family' movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25JyC5Whhvc

Schaeffer interview with Terry Gross

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/97998654

Wayne King is an author, podcaster, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives in Thornton, between Rattlesnake Ridge and the Waterville Range. He proudly flies both the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing

Highland Storm 4 - Glow in the Lupine

Winter Clouds Over Cannon 

Clouds Over Crawford

Reflection of a Chapel in Autumn Water

Chapel of the Woods, Camp Mowglis

Chapel in the Blue Lupine

Carry On

Bending Light

Golden Calves

Tom Wessels and Wayne King, noted environmentalists, speak out for “Scenic” Protection of Lake Tarleton Watershed

News Release
For Immediate Release
For more information: 603-530-4460




Tom Wessels and Wayne King, noted environmentalists, speak out for “Scenic” Protection of Lake Tarleton Watershed

In Mid-2000, after years of fundraising work, a gathering of political leaders, community leaders, environmental activists, and citizens came together to celebrate what they believed was the final step in protecting Lake Tarleton and its surrounding watershed from threatened development and logging. Together they had raised more than 7.5 million dollars to protect more than 5000 acres in perpetuity. Today they find themselves fighting to protect that public investment once again.

Lake Tarleton is the largest and purest lake in the White Mountain National Forest. It is one of a very few lakes that local activists have succeeded in protecting from the scourge of aquatic invasive species such as Eurasian Milfoil. Its largely-forested watershed is also a rich cultural resource containing an early colonial settlement, Charleston, and two other unnamed settlement areas as well as evidence of active and regular Abenaki presence dating back thousands of years - most of which still remains shrouded in mystery because it has yet to undergo any serious study.

Tom Wessels, an internationally celebrated environmental educator, terrestrial ecologist and author of 6 ecology books, whose ability to read the natural landscape is legendary, has joined together with former White Mountain guide, State Senator and Gubernatorial nominee, author and columnist, Wayne King who represented the area that includes Tarleton in the Senate.

Wessels is a long-time professor, now emeritus, at Antioch University New England in the Department of Environmental Studies, where he founded their Master's program in conservation biology. He is often compared with such national environmental leaders as John Muir, and Edward Abbey. King, who has Abenaki and Iroquois roots, has written extensively on environmental issues and is considered a leader in the Climate Emergency movement.

Both concur that the Lake Tarleton watershed deserves special status as a Scenic Area, providing it with additional protective measures that recognize the early colonial and indigenous cultural history as well as the particularly pristine natural environment of Tarleton and its sister lakes in the area.

Wessels and King urge interested citizens to make their voices heard by contacting Pemigewasset District Brooke Brown at the address below before the May 11 deadline of adding their names to the letter and sending it to Ms Brooke Brown Pemigewasset District Ranger before a May 11 deadline..

More information can be found at the website of the Lake Tarleton Coalition:

https://www.laketarletoncoalition.org/






Brooke M. Brown
Pemigewasset District Ranger
71 White Mountain Drive Campton, NH 03223
brooke.brown@usda.gov

RE: Tarleton Integrated Resource Project
56394


Tom Wessels is an acclaimed American terrestrial ecologist, now emeritus professor at Antioch University New England in the Department of Environmental Studies. He founded the Master's program in conservation biology. He is the author of five books and is an active environmentalist.

Wayne King was District 2 Senator in NH which includes the Lake Tarleton area. He was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor of New Hampshire. King was a guide in the White Mountains as a young man and today is an author, columnist, podcaster, artist, and active environmentalist.









Professor Emeritus Tom Wessels
The Honorable Wayne D. King


To: 

Brooke M. Brown
Pemigewasset District Ranger
71 White Mountain Drive Campton, NH 03223
brooke.brown@usda.gov

RE: Tarleton Integrated Resource Project
56394

Dear Ms. Brown:

We write this letter to express our concern over the Pemigewasset District’s recommendations for the Lake Tarleton region.

We fully understand the general multi-use mission of the White Mountain National Forest and the National Forest generally. Furthermore, while we are in agreement with the recent Presidential Executive order calling for a more accurate inventory of “Old Growth” forests to help address the Climate Emergency, we are not opposed to responsible and carefully managed logging within the national forest generally.

However, there is a well-established tradition within the National Forest of identifying certain areas that have significant cultural and environmental value and protecting them with a higher level “Scenic Area” status. We believe that the area around Lakes Tarleton, Armington, Katherine stretching along the Appalachian Trail corridor north to Webster Slide, and Wachipauka Pond warrant such treatment. Furthermore, any logging in this region may pose a threat to important, and still unexamined, cultural resources including Abenaki hunting villages and the early colonial settlement of the now-extinct town of Charleston, as well as the unspoiled and pristine nature of its lakes.

In keeping with the intent of the original land acquisition, the White Mountain National Forest should remove this and all future threats to Lake Tarleton’s surrounding forest by amending the 2005 White Mountain National Forest Plan and designating a Scenic Area in the landscape surrounding Lake Tarleton, Lake Katherine, Lake Armington, and stretching along the Appalachian Trail corridor north to Webster Slide, and Wachipauka Pond. This contiguous landscape is among the most scenic in the Granite State. And yet, despite designating nine (9) unique Scenic Areas in the eastern portion of the WMNF, the White Mountain National Forest has not designated any Scenic Areas west of I-93. For the benefit of the local tourism and recreation economy, and for the integrity of this treasured landscape, including Abenaki and early colonial historical resources, it would be both environmentally and culturally short-sighted to allow logging in these areas - which only constitute a very small portion of the western WMNF and less than ¼ of the land protected through the millions of dollars invested in the Tarleton watershed area in 2000. We respectfully request that you amend the White Mountain National Forest management plan and designate this area a Scenic Area to permanently remove the threat of logging and development.

This designation would satisfy the concerns of the donors who helped purchase the land and those who have been advocating for its protection and avoid the need for a costly Environmental Impact Assessment that, arguably, should be engaged if the current plan is to move forward.

Given the environmental and cultural uniqueness of the Lake Tarleton watershed, issuing a DRAFT “Finding of No Significant Impact“ (FONSI) may avoid the need to do a full EIS but leaves the communities who contributed more than 7.5 million dollars to preserve the land feeling that their investment expectations have been ignored. It may also open the WMNF to litigation over the DRAFT FONSI finding in favor of a full-blown Environmental Impact Analysis.

All this could be avoided with a Scenic Designation allowing for better protection of the cultural resources and conservative management of the apple orchards and areas where invasive species require control without logging and clearcutting in the immediate Lake Tarleton Watershed. We urge you to take this route.


Sincerely,


Tom Wessels

Wayne King





CC

Derek Ibarguen

Forest Supervisor

Pemigewasset District Ranger Station

71 White Mountain Drive Campton, NH 03223

Derek.Ibarguen@usda.gov




Honorable Jeanne Shaheen

506 Hart Senate Office Bldg, Washington, DC 20510




Honorable Maggie Hassan- United States Senator

330 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC




Honorable Ann McLane Kuster - United States Congresswoman

320 Cannon HOB

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: (202) 225-5206




Honorable Chris Pappas

319 Cannon HOB

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: (202) 225-5456




Chief of the Forest Service: Randy Moore

1400 Independence Ave., SW

Washington, D.C.

20250-0003 (202) 205-8439




Honorable Thomas Vilsack



Secretary of Agriculture

Checking our Democracy - The Lunatics Have Overtaken the Asylum

 

“ The New Hampshire legislature has been captured by the voluntary crazies, the tribal, the entitled, the aggrieved. None of whom can muster a coalition that represents the best interests and will of the people of New Hampshire. In short, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.”

The View from Rattlesnake Ridge

Checking our Democracy - The Lunatics Have Overtaken the Asylum

We are finally getting the first signs of spring here in the north country. Morning brings the sounds of the chickadees, the jays, and the red squirrels - preceded by the haunting sounds of the various owls that inhabit our woods. 

Kodi and I wander along on our walks. Daily lately, we have been walking up to the beaver pond on Orris Road, checking to see if we have ice out yet. Expecting to see Bucky and Beatrice as I have unimaginatively named the most recent pair of beavers to inhabit the pond. The ice this year has been stubborn about melting. There is a small open water area where the main stream enters the pond but the beavers are clearly waiting until there is smoother sailing.

Kodi and I wander, stopping regularly at a shrub or a rock outcrop to pee. For him it's about his nature, for me it's age. The net result seems about the same, except there’s no sniffing involved on my end. 

When my boy Zach was young and he wandered with Boof and me,  he would delightedly say that Boof was checking and sending his p-mail. I don’t know which of us came up with that silly idea - probably him -  but it still brings a smile to my face when I remember.

Those walks with Zach were a great bonding opportunity. Sometimes he’d ask me about government or politics but just as often we would try to identify every interesting tree or plant we came across, pick fiddleheads, or dig Indian Cucumber and wild leeks for the evening's dinner. 

It wasn’t so hard in those days to explain the behavior of one party or the other because they were well within the range of rational behavior. At risk of sounding like an old man romanticizing the past, it's fair to say that those were sweeter times politically. Democrats and Republicans saw one another as the loyal opposition - not as the enemy or the evil empire. Today the picture is quite different.  

Often I write in this space about national issues but the divisions that have affected the national body politic have bled down to the state and local levels in the past few years and this is very troubling. 

Tom Robbins, in his decidedly un-PC book “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” wrote:

“There are two kinds of crazy people. There are those whose primitive instincts, sexual and aggressive, have been misdirected, blunted, confused, or shattered at an early age by environmental and/or biological factors beyond their control. Not many of these people can completely regain that balance we call sanity, but many can to the degree that they can adjust to meet most social requirements without painful difficulty. 

But there are other people, people who choose to be crazy in order to cope with what they regard as a crazy world. They have adopted craziness as a lifestyle. The only way you can get them to give up their craziness is to convince them that the world is actually sane. I have found such a conviction almost impossible to support.”

In past columns, I’ve speculated on how all this began with Newt Gingrich in 1994. Midas Newt, thinking he was spinning political gold instead spun our sweet but fragile democracy into a vile witch's brew of antagonism and recrimination. Yet, how it happened is only instructive to us if we have the wisdom to see it when it is repeated in the future. Right now we need to find ways to overcome what is: an infection of our democracy that has festered and spread from the national to the regional to the states.

If you think that this creeping pathogen has infected only one party, disabuse yourself of the fantasy. Like any pathogen, it has threaded its way into the hearts and minds of others, particularly those who feel most aggrieved.  

With very few exceptions on the state level, the elected Republicans have already taken the train to crazy town; years of gerrymandering and tampering with voting rights have created a system where citizens no longer choose their representatives but instead, legislators manipulate the electoral system and its boundaries so that they may choose their district and the citizens get what they get . . . screwed. 

Among the Democrats, well, they have their own special brand of crazy too. Sensing the opportunity, the aggrieved crowd competes with one another to prove their PC credentials and tribalism replaces communitarian values.  

Lest you think this is a column advocating for the mushy middle, stop right there. I’m a radical centrist, this is a plea for innovation, democratic values, inclusion, nuance and most of all for listening to one another.

My old friend Bob Crowley, late of Plymouth, was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. Back when we Democrats were a rare breed in the north country Bob had an answering machine for his home and business with a message that began “you’ve reached Bob Crowley - still proud to be a Democrat.”  

Bob was a cherished mentor and just about the finest human being I have ever known. When any of our communities faced a challenge from fire and flood to human tragedy, Bob Crowley’s name was the first on our lips when we sought out help from those we could always count on. None would have ever dared to ask about politics, race, gender, sexual preference. When a fellow human being needed help, Crowley Moving and Storage was the first to show up, with Alex Ray and the Common Man family and Ray Burton right behind. 

Bob gave me a piece of advice early on in my years of elected service. He had a particular disdain for certain members of his own party and he wanted to make sure that I didn’t go down that particular rabbit hole. He would describe certain individuals as the sort of person who “would do anything for the working stiff except sit down and have dinner with them.” Even then he was aware that there were those among the Democrats who would talk a good game about working folks but silo them in a place where they were easy to ignore.

The New Hampshire legislature has been captured by the voluntary crazies, the tribal, the entitled, the aggrieved. None of whom can muster a coalition that represents the best interests and will of the people of New Hampshire. In short, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

It’s time for the people of New Hampshire to take back their government with a healthy dose of direct democracy. We can’t completely wrest the process from the crazies but we can take on 

the most egregious cases.  We can start with a movement for initiative petition and referendum. Allowing the people themselves to place legislative initiatives on the ballot and repeal stupid laws passed by the legislature by referendum. There is not a state in these (dis) United States that would not benefit from allowing the people to propose and dispose of some of the crazy stuff that is coming out of our state legislatures. 

It may be that some swing of the pendulum will return us to a semblance of normalcy but we can’t count on that. We can, however, set a course for normalcy by moving to ranked choice voting. 

In our current broken system people can be elected with far less than a majority of votes. Ranked choice permits the voter to rank the candidates in order of preference. When no candidate receives a majority the votes are tallied using the ranking system until someone achieves a majority. You can easily imagine where candidates who have conducted a campaign based on hate, mudslinging and unproven allegations would rank in a voters choices.  Ranked Choice Voting assures that a simple majority becomes the rule. It would also put the crazies on notice that if they intend to run a campaign of mudslinging and fake news they will pay with their seat because experience shows us that voters do not favor candidates who fight dirty.

Our experience with Ranked Choice Voting, where it has been employed, is that candidates who see the world as most normal folks do, with nuance and hope, have a distinct advantage and the outcomes of elections are far more normalized. 

While we are at it, let’s add term limits to the mix - at every level of government. 

I realize that this is an about face for me. For years I was convinced that knowledge and experience were a paramount virtue when electing our representatives. I was wrong. During my elected years it was self interest, then it was self righteousness. Both were pure hubris. 

Finally, the gravest danger to our democracy can be found in the demise and the siloing of news. Unfortunately, for this there are no easy answers, but we damn well better find them and soon. According to Dan Kennedy, professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism in Boston in the last 15 years 2100 newspapers have closed and 6,000 journalists have sought work elsewhere. Just as “food deserts” threaten the health of marginalized communities,”news deserts” are emerging threatening the fabric of our democracy, especially at the local level. It’s already a lot easier for local officials to act in a corrupt manner because there are fewer gatekeepers watching over their activities. News Deserts threaten to make such corruption far easier. 

Wayne King is an author, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and a founder of the Electronic Community Project, working in West Africa to enhance the reach and effectiveness of the civil society community. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story", His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline is available on Amazon.com as are the photographic books. He lives in Thornton, between Rattlesnake Ridge and the Waterville Range. He proudly flies both the American and Iroquois Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing

PoplarWind

Milan Paper Birch Monochrome

Flowering of Hope at the Pow Wow

Our Moment

 

Winter Revelation on Smart's Brook

 

Our Moment

The dramatic changing weather here in the valley between Rattlesnake Ridge and the Waterville Range has produced days and nights well below zero interspersed with a few calm and pleasant ones. One warmer night seemed to summon forth the Barred Owls with their enchanting calls whoooo, who cooks for youuuu. It was on that night that I donned the headlamp and set off with my new companion Kodi - a white shepherd recently adopted. 

Unlike my late friend Boof, the Siberian Huskey, who could not be trusted to stay close because the wolf in him summoned him constantly toward adventure and the wild, Kodi is velcro dog. He only requires a leash for show alone, because he wants to be friends with every human and dog he encounters along the way. Fortunately, hiking at night doesn’t require even that constraint. I have rarely bumped into a nighttime adventurer on my evening forays, with the exception of the four legs who’s territory I am encroaching on in the dark hours. Kodi stays with me, cheerfully laps at the snow, and stops only occasionally to listen for the Barred Owls. 

On this night we had a very specific mission in addition to enjoying the Barred owl symphony we were destined for the icefalls of Smart’s Brook.   

Blue Iceflow Mindscape

Iceflow Rainbow

If you have ever driven Route 49 toward Waterville Valley in the winter you may have noticed the parking area for the Smart’s Brook Trail chock full of vehicles in even the most challenging weather and even on the most unlikely days. 

The most recent snowfall created a magical journey - despite the turmoil imposed upon us by the world. In the chill of our late night walk even these seemed to fade to grey momentarily.

The parking area was empty, reflective of the hour and we were soon padding up the trail. 

Recalling the full parking area only a few hours earlier I wondered about all of the people - many joined by their own four-legged companions. A more astute observer of culture might have been capable of matching personalities and even ideologies with the cars and their assortment of bumper stickers, parking passes, and telltale clues to the leanings of the hikers but in the end, this was not important. They had all come for the gift of quiet and beauty in the midst of the cascading crises. . . some knowing what awaited them on the trail, others curious or teased along by the rumors they had heard of this magical spot.

Left at the parking lot was the firehose of tragedy, of crisis piled upon crisis: 50 years of growing income disparity, the climate crisis, the pandemic, racism, sexism, and now a war in Ukraine threatening to entangle the entire world.

Left behind, if only for a few moments: Trump and Putin - locked in their “Last Tango in Tyranny”; Josh Hawley, Mike Pompeo, Tucker Carlson, joining arms and dancing around them. The savage cruelty being inflicted on innocent children and men and women who want nothing more than the chance to live their lives with some sense of dignity, security, and freedom. 

For a brief time each, in their own way, would escape the fears that they felt for the future - for their own personal challenges or for the world. 

Irrespective of their ideologies, penchants or prejudices, they would leave behind the stories to which we have become prisoners. 

Every one of us who walks along the brook until they come upon the gorge with mind-blowing colorful iceflows, is left breathless by the beauty of the moment.  

Drawing their range of colors from the minerals in the ground, the ice flows in gold and blue and teal against rock outcroppings of red, black and brown, an amalgam of color worthy of a reflection of the tears of our world. 

Could it be that if the stories we told ourselves about this world blended together with a beauty reflected in these outcroppings that we could recreate a world where the reds, blacks, yellows and whites formed a beautiful tapestry of life, drawing us together in the story instead of apart?

Tonight, as I look back upon that hike only a few nights ago, I pause and hear the unexpected sound of Canada Geese in flight overhead, piercing the night’s quiet. Evening chevaliers, unexpectedly forging their way north despite the hour and against the impending storm.  So too must we.

Dawn Paints the Roaring Fork River

Storm at Cottonwood End

Path to Present on Long Pond

Dusk on the Town Common, Rumney

Day Lilies in Fog

The Field Trip

Autumn on the Squam River