Thank you, Mike, as always for your clear and incisive moral direction.
Not to quibble to fine a point, as altogether I agree with you, but all over Europe there are what might be called government run grocery stores. They are called markets. They are large covered structures, government owned, and run, open summer and winter, where small farmers and purveyors can sell real estate fresh food directly to the public. Although they may not bear label saying organic, they are often grown by the people who sell them which allows small farms to stay in business. It also allows ordinary people to buy real food at an affordable price without the middleman of corporations.
It also allows for a relationship between the small shops and the customers which humanizes food shopping and helps keep us human instead of commodifying everything.
I spent a month in Spain, starting and ending my journey in Barcelona. Spain is a wonderful country, and I would move there in a heartbeat. I visited and bought items at the local markets. I was unaware that these were government-run. I traveled to the Northern provinces, then South into Andalusia. The people I met were terrific, the food was outstanding, the culture was magnificent, and the public transportation was excellent. Now, if I could convince my wife to make this move, I would be happy to extricate myself from a country of too many fools.
My wife was born in Pusan, S. Korea. She is an American citizen and feels that I could not get the healthcare I receive here in the US. I assured her that my quality of life and quantity of life would be superior moving to Spain than being stuck in a country run by lunatics. She is an RN, and I am a cancer doc (medical oncologist). I am 19 years older, and another concern of hers is that she would be alone after my expiration. I assured her that she would make many friends in Spain, as she is so personable. That apparently was not convincing to her. It would have been nice to have known you back in 2010, because I am pretty sure the chance of convincing her would have been far greater then. This time last year, I was in Barcelona with my son and thoroughly enjoying my life. Too bad we can't share photos on this website. Please let me know if you're interested in communicating via email. I am fairly certain that my email address can be easily found through a Google search. Sincere regards,
Bravo Mike ! This is a powerful essay and one I’m going to translate to share in my activism overseas. All the monstrosities have to be identified and strongly addressed so they don’t become normalized. Your incisive comments are important.
I am the 1st physician in my family. Neither of my parents had more than a high school education. I started working in my father's gas station as soon as I had the strength to squeeze the handle of a gas pump. I used a wooden crate to reach the windows to clean them. I turned out to be an incredibly excellent MD, combining intelligence with technical skills and compassion to the point of empathy. My choice of specialty became cancer medicine (oncology). I will be 83 in 10 days and am the sharpest mentally I have ever been. With that said, I cannot fathom what has happened to America and the quality of Its People. By the latter, I mean the many millions who voted for and remain loyal to Trump. I am beyond being shocked at the vacuum of intelligence in this disconnected-from-reality population.
To me, it is easy to identify ALL of Trump's actions. They have three (3) screaming-out-loud characteristics:
1. Destroy America as it was. Whatever good there was in this country, Trump and his coterie of incompetents are hell-bent on destroying it. Steve Bannon even stated this openly. What happened with Elon Musk and DOGE was precisely that. But instead of DOGE being the Department of Government Efficiency, it really was DOGE (Destroy Our Great Experiment).
2. Emulate Vladimir Putin- Trump's role model. Trump idolizes the power possessed by Putin. Trump's burning desire is to replicate what Putin has accomplished in Russia and his tactics. What Putin has done in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, and now all of Ukraine, Trump will emulate in his aggressions towards (a) the immigrant, (b) those who challenge him sufficiently to create a threat in his paranoid mind, and (c) governments and institutions that oppose his actions as they relate to items 1-3. I predict that Trump will eventually invade Greenland a la Putin by planting Trump proxies in Greenland and stirring unrest.
3. Amass humongous wealth. Trump is all about greed (aka gold). He and his father have a long genealogy pockmarked by fraudulent business transactions, all poised to amass great wealth. If Trump does something, ask, "Is this about Trump's self-aggrandizement?" or is this related to emulating Putin? If those two caveats are absent, ask if the event or action will help erase another facet of what once made America great. The MAGA acronym is the exact opposite of what Trump and friends want. Truth Social is another 180° open-faced lie.
The best description of Trump is by Kornetzke:
“Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul-all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn't but has always been-arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America's shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn't just lose its soul-it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.” Oliver Kornetzke 9/3/25
But as cathartic as this cascade of expletives is, it is action by the people that will remove him from office, along with his feckless crew, and displace the GOP from Congress.
Moral collapse indeed. But it’s a byproduct, that’s not their goal. The goal is an engineered economic collapse in order to implement full-on shock doctrine disaster capitalism right here in America. A big fire to touch off a big fire sale. It’s morally bankrupt, but they’ll make all the money. At least that’s where I see this going. Politically, we’ll be living under a klepto-oligarchy of an unimaginable scale.
You are of course correct that it is unacceptable to criticise well-intentioned policies proposed in a democratic context one considers deleterious while downplaying the threat of authoritarian replacement of democratic governance, as then there is no way to meaningfully dissent from any policy, well-intentioned or ill-intentioned, one considers deleterious. (I would submit that this is fish hook theory in action, the tendency of centrists to embrace fascism when under threat from leftists.)
However, on the specific example you chose, I would first bring up that government-run grocery stores have a long history, one that persists even to this day in places like Kansas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iu1AisArQE At one time, food distribution was seen as being too important to be left to the private sector and the whims of the profit motive.
For another, up here provinces have central liquor purchasing (Ontario's purchaser is, to my knowledge, the single largest wholesale purchaser of alcohol in the world), often with some or all of the liquor stores specifically being government-run, and in this moment this has served as a way for us to pressure parts of the US economy in response to the unjustified and unconscionable threats and acts of war the current US administration has conducted against us: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/brown-forman-jack-daniels-quarterly-sales-american-alcohol-boycott-canada-1.7619950 So in this moment I believe this policy has served us well, as it has given us this economic lever.
(I would of course be remiss not to bring up Premier Wab Kinew staging a "signing ceremony" to mock the current President de facto of the United States when announcing the order-in-council directing the LGCA of Manitoba to remove US alcohol from its inventory: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l6WFdnipcH8 )
EDIT: It sometimes seems like the reaction from centrists to leftist policies they dislike is "we must end democracy to ensure that these policies I think are bad can never be implemented", in which case I ask, what are you afraid of, if the policies are bad they will be repealed in the ordinary course of democratic processes and if they are good then they will stay in effect and you will have a bit of egg on your face. Is being slightly embarrassed really that bad?
So very well said. The imaginary horrors of a brown person advocating for humane public policy to help the most vulnerable versus the unimaginable horrors of wealthy white people advocating for inhumane and dehumanizing public policy to further enrich themselves.
True words. But how do we fight back! All through these last few months I’ve seen intelligent, compassionate, logical and reasonable people make the same arguments. But the “idiots” will not listen. What will it take to make the poor and unfortunate of this world (wherever they may be since the US condition is unfortunately not limited to the US) realize that when somebody tells them ,openly and repeatedly, that “we will favor the rich and we will punish the poor”, they actually mean it?? Brexit didn’t favor the needy; it destroyed them. Trump MAGA’d for the rich. Le Pen wants to take France back to the Middle Ages. And I could go on, and on, and on….. and yet the idiots believe them! Why doesn’t anybody realize that the core reason for all of this is that fewer and fewer people are pocketing an increasing percentage of the fruits of everyone’s work?? Simple as that!! When you destroy the middle class, shit happens. Upheavals, revolutions, cutting the heads off the ruling class. We’re getting there. Again. So much for learning from history. 😂
"Whenever free governments anywhere fail to solve their basic economic and social problems, there is always the danger that a native brand of fascism will arise to exploit the situation and the people."
For Christs sake dude why the hell are you taking swipes at Mamdani in New York? There are hundreds of state run liquor stores in this country. The military runs grocery stores for all the veterans and active service members. WTF?
Well, one might consider that my purpose in exposing my disagreement with him, is to demonstrate that it's morally indefensible for any centrist to suggest that the Trump regime and these fascists could ever be seen as legitimate alternatives, no matter what one thinks of government-run liquor stores.
I think Zohran Mamdani’s idea for government-run grocery stores is an absolutely terrible policy, and that anti-poverty measures should focus on other approaches. But in the grand scheme of things, it is—at least—well-intentioned policy. And in this moment of moral collapse, intention counts for something.
I agree, Mike, that in this moment of moral collapse, intention counts for something. The world is crashing and burning around us, and this young man, Mamdani, is bringing us a semblance of hope in a dismal forecast of bombs and dystopian times ahead. We need this hope to fight the most formidable enemy will face in our lifetime. And, I have no doubt that we will organize and fight this fascist horror. Whatever it takes.
Yes, good intentions can give hope and solace in very troubled times.
Mamdani will be anything but an oligarch and I think the European democratic socialism will be a real philosophy to reverse the nation’s growing inequality and even food insecurity.
It is telling that in the end you consider both Zuckerberg, who is almost certainly a narcissist/sociopath with Mamdani, who most certainly is not, and who cares deeply about other humans, simply because you can’t get your head around cooperative markets.
Thank you, Mike, as always for your clear and incisive moral direction.
Not to quibble to fine a point, as altogether I agree with you, but all over Europe there are what might be called government run grocery stores. They are called markets. They are large covered structures, government owned, and run, open summer and winter, where small farmers and purveyors can sell real estate fresh food directly to the public. Although they may not bear label saying organic, they are often grown by the people who sell them which allows small farms to stay in business. It also allows ordinary people to buy real food at an affordable price without the middleman of corporations.
It also allows for a relationship between the small shops and the customers which humanizes food shopping and helps keep us human instead of commodifying everything.
I live in Barcelona, which is a small city with probably at least a half a dozen of these markets in different neighborhoods that everyone can walk to
I spent a month in Spain, starting and ending my journey in Barcelona. Spain is a wonderful country, and I would move there in a heartbeat. I visited and bought items at the local markets. I was unaware that these were government-run. I traveled to the Northern provinces, then South into Andalusia. The people I met were terrific, the food was outstanding, the culture was magnificent, and the public transportation was excellent. Now, if I could convince my wife to make this move, I would be happy to extricate myself from a country of too many fools.
I left the United States in 2010, and never looked back or regretted the move. There is a lot to love about here. Every region is different.
What is your wife’s hesitation?
My wife was born in Pusan, S. Korea. She is an American citizen and feels that I could not get the healthcare I receive here in the US. I assured her that my quality of life and quantity of life would be superior moving to Spain than being stuck in a country run by lunatics. She is an RN, and I am a cancer doc (medical oncologist). I am 19 years older, and another concern of hers is that she would be alone after my expiration. I assured her that she would make many friends in Spain, as she is so personable. That apparently was not convincing to her. It would have been nice to have known you back in 2010, because I am pretty sure the chance of convincing her would have been far greater then. This time last year, I was in Barcelona with my son and thoroughly enjoying my life. Too bad we can't share photos on this website. Please let me know if you're interested in communicating via email. I am fairly certain that my email address can be easily found through a Google search. Sincere regards,
Stephen
Stephen B. Strum, MD, FACP
Bravo Mike ! This is a powerful essay and one I’m going to translate to share in my activism overseas. All the monstrosities have to be identified and strongly addressed so they don’t become normalized. Your incisive comments are important.
I am the 1st physician in my family. Neither of my parents had more than a high school education. I started working in my father's gas station as soon as I had the strength to squeeze the handle of a gas pump. I used a wooden crate to reach the windows to clean them. I turned out to be an incredibly excellent MD, combining intelligence with technical skills and compassion to the point of empathy. My choice of specialty became cancer medicine (oncology). I will be 83 in 10 days and am the sharpest mentally I have ever been. With that said, I cannot fathom what has happened to America and the quality of Its People. By the latter, I mean the many millions who voted for and remain loyal to Trump. I am beyond being shocked at the vacuum of intelligence in this disconnected-from-reality population.
To me, it is easy to identify ALL of Trump's actions. They have three (3) screaming-out-loud characteristics:
1. Destroy America as it was. Whatever good there was in this country, Trump and his coterie of incompetents are hell-bent on destroying it. Steve Bannon even stated this openly. What happened with Elon Musk and DOGE was precisely that. But instead of DOGE being the Department of Government Efficiency, it really was DOGE (Destroy Our Great Experiment).
2. Emulate Vladimir Putin- Trump's role model. Trump idolizes the power possessed by Putin. Trump's burning desire is to replicate what Putin has accomplished in Russia and his tactics. What Putin has done in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, and now all of Ukraine, Trump will emulate in his aggressions towards (a) the immigrant, (b) those who challenge him sufficiently to create a threat in his paranoid mind, and (c) governments and institutions that oppose his actions as they relate to items 1-3. I predict that Trump will eventually invade Greenland a la Putin by planting Trump proxies in Greenland and stirring unrest.
3. Amass humongous wealth. Trump is all about greed (aka gold). He and his father have a long genealogy pockmarked by fraudulent business transactions, all poised to amass great wealth. If Trump does something, ask, "Is this about Trump's self-aggrandizement?" or is this related to emulating Putin? If those two caveats are absent, ask if the event or action will help erase another facet of what once made America great. The MAGA acronym is the exact opposite of what Trump and friends want. Truth Social is another 180° open-faced lie.
The best description of Trump is by Kornetzke:
“Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul-all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn't but has always been-arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America's shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn't just lose its soul-it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.” Oliver Kornetzke 9/3/25
But as cathartic as this cascade of expletives is, it is action by the people that will remove him from office, along with his feckless crew, and displace the GOP from Congress.
Moral collapse indeed. But it’s a byproduct, that’s not their goal. The goal is an engineered economic collapse in order to implement full-on shock doctrine disaster capitalism right here in America. A big fire to touch off a big fire sale. It’s morally bankrupt, but they’ll make all the money. At least that’s where I see this going. Politically, we’ll be living under a klepto-oligarchy of an unimaginable scale.
That was a dinner party for and of Epstein’s pedophiles, circling the wagons, planning ways to disappear the brave survivors. IMHO, of course.
No. You’re not beating a dead horse. You are beating a drum. Please Keep beating it so that more will hear you and follow the rhythm.
You are of course correct that it is unacceptable to criticise well-intentioned policies proposed in a democratic context one considers deleterious while downplaying the threat of authoritarian replacement of democratic governance, as then there is no way to meaningfully dissent from any policy, well-intentioned or ill-intentioned, one considers deleterious. (I would submit that this is fish hook theory in action, the tendency of centrists to embrace fascism when under threat from leftists.)
However, on the specific example you chose, I would first bring up that government-run grocery stores have a long history, one that persists even to this day in places like Kansas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iu1AisArQE At one time, food distribution was seen as being too important to be left to the private sector and the whims of the profit motive.
For another, up here provinces have central liquor purchasing (Ontario's purchaser is, to my knowledge, the single largest wholesale purchaser of alcohol in the world), often with some or all of the liquor stores specifically being government-run, and in this moment this has served as a way for us to pressure parts of the US economy in response to the unjustified and unconscionable threats and acts of war the current US administration has conducted against us: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/brown-forman-jack-daniels-quarterly-sales-american-alcohol-boycott-canada-1.7619950 So in this moment I believe this policy has served us well, as it has given us this economic lever.
(I would of course be remiss not to bring up Premier Wab Kinew staging a "signing ceremony" to mock the current President de facto of the United States when announcing the order-in-council directing the LGCA of Manitoba to remove US alcohol from its inventory: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l6WFdnipcH8 )
EDIT: It sometimes seems like the reaction from centrists to leftist policies they dislike is "we must end democracy to ensure that these policies I think are bad can never be implemented", in which case I ask, what are you afraid of, if the policies are bad they will be repealed in the ordinary course of democratic processes and if they are good then they will stay in effect and you will have a bit of egg on your face. Is being slightly embarrassed really that bad?
So very well said. The imaginary horrors of a brown person advocating for humane public policy to help the most vulnerable versus the unimaginable horrors of wealthy white people advocating for inhumane and dehumanizing public policy to further enrich themselves.
True words. But how do we fight back! All through these last few months I’ve seen intelligent, compassionate, logical and reasonable people make the same arguments. But the “idiots” will not listen. What will it take to make the poor and unfortunate of this world (wherever they may be since the US condition is unfortunately not limited to the US) realize that when somebody tells them ,openly and repeatedly, that “we will favor the rich and we will punish the poor”, they actually mean it?? Brexit didn’t favor the needy; it destroyed them. Trump MAGA’d for the rich. Le Pen wants to take France back to the Middle Ages. And I could go on, and on, and on….. and yet the idiots believe them! Why doesn’t anybody realize that the core reason for all of this is that fewer and fewer people are pocketing an increasing percentage of the fruits of everyone’s work?? Simple as that!! When you destroy the middle class, shit happens. Upheavals, revolutions, cutting the heads off the ruling class. We’re getting there. Again. So much for learning from history. 😂
"Whenever free governments anywhere fail to solve their basic economic and social problems, there is always the danger that a native brand of fascism will arise to exploit the situation and the people."
(Army Talk No. 64, 24 March 1945, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Army_Talk_Orientation_Fact_Sheet/Number_64 )
For Christs sake dude why the hell are you taking swipes at Mamdani in New York? There are hundreds of state run liquor stores in this country. The military runs grocery stores for all the veterans and active service members. WTF?
Not sure where you are going with this.
Well, one might consider that my purpose in exposing my disagreement with him, is to demonstrate that it's morally indefensible for any centrist to suggest that the Trump regime and these fascists could ever be seen as legitimate alternatives, no matter what one thinks of government-run liquor stores.
I’d consider myself plugged in and had not even heard of the hot mic. That’s says something in itself.
Wicked piece of writing Mike in a good way! The Gramsci quote is a dire warning, let’s get out there and slay some monsters 👿
This⬇️
I think Zohran Mamdani’s idea for government-run grocery stores is an absolutely terrible policy, and that anti-poverty measures should focus on other approaches. But in the grand scheme of things, it is—at least—well-intentioned policy. And in this moment of moral collapse, intention counts for something.
I agree, Mike, that in this moment of moral collapse, intention counts for something. The world is crashing and burning around us, and this young man, Mamdani, is bringing us a semblance of hope in a dismal forecast of bombs and dystopian times ahead. We need this hope to fight the most formidable enemy will face in our lifetime. And, I have no doubt that we will organize and fight this fascist horror. Whatever it takes.
Yes, good intentions can give hope and solace in very troubled times.
Mamdani will be anything but an oligarch and I think the European democratic socialism will be a real philosophy to reverse the nation’s growing inequality and even food insecurity.
I totally agree, Ken! That would be a change in the right direction. I’m all for it!
Suddenly, out of thin air, Trump invented narrative alignment with oligarchs. Funny. Must have been a slow news day.
It is telling that in the end you consider both Zuckerberg, who is almost certainly a narcissist/sociopath with Mamdani, who most certainly is not, and who cares deeply about other humans, simply because you can’t get your head around cooperative markets.
Well-intentioned people can unintentionally create some very bad and dangerous policies indeed. Don't give someone a pass just for good intentions.