Prefatory remark: While I am from the 20th century, I am familiar enough with 21st jargon to know that a website in considerable disarray is said to be “under reconstruction”. So be it. If there is someone out there from the 21st who would like to help put this in better order, please contact john@sendnomoney.org.
Elect an Idea ~ 2026
If I have my wits about me, I begin speeches with an apology to younger folks (55 and under from my near 80) for the mess that my generation leaves you.
The 2026 New Hampshire US Senate campaign: Elect an Idea . . . dark money out. I serve as ballot line for the idea. Dark money out is not the only thing that matters, just that it is in the way of everything that does. The website is replete with notions about what I have been up to and what the lot of us need to get up to: We, the people. Is it Bernie? “Not me, us.” Etc., etc. From oligarchy to democracy. You will no doubt recognize the idea’s brilliance as your own. Accomplish this one thing and many other things will fall into place. Say, Medicare For All; what stands in that way is an insurance industry that sits atop medicine’s bill and pay system, takes an over-size and medically useless share of the money, and leaves us with some of the most expensive and ineffective health care in the civilized world. Or say, the environment where one asks “By what factor do corporations outspend advocates for ecologic sanity?” Blah, blah, blah. We all get the drift. DO this one thing, and we move on, say, to Martin King’s mountaintop.
Arise people; all you have to lose are your chains. Well, perhaps “chains” is language too strong, but you are likely to agree that things are quite ugly, grim. Polling about dark money has majorities of 70 - 80% in strong favor of it out. Imagine New Hampshire showing up on election day with such numbers having voted to Elect an Idea. The notion certainly has the potential to catch fire. I am keen on voting to Elect WHAT not WHO, my wee bit of actual citizen power devoted to acknowledging that our government is shut down even when it isn’t and that the persistent D.C. nod to Wall Street’s deepest desires is fully bi-partisan. Having dived here into electoral politics, I am struck in some new way about the problem: If you send me a check for a million dollars, you can be damn sure that I will answer all of your phone calls, as well as asking if there is something I can help you with . . . just good form.
If you are halfway clever, you’ve already got that I am not stepping forward to lead the way here. I am ill-equipped to do so, particularly as to anything invented since Pac Man. In other context, I offered that I will be one of the effort’s most committed volunteers. ‘Grass roots’ and ‘word of mouth’ shall be touchstones. Leadership needs be diffuse and collaborative. If you have some wad of disposable cash, do not send it to me, rather ask around to figure how to spend it. I’d be delighted to have a driver, especially at night; though can muddle through. I am willing to speak wherever; though could require lodging depending on hours. Though also, know that most of us have good facility with making good general rap on this, the rationale, the sense of it; other speakers will likely be more eloquent and elegant, as well as necessary to cover the ground needing cover. I have bought several web domains: electanidea.org and electanidea.com. A question arises about whether there is any traction for this idea of electing an idea to put dark money out. There is . . .slow gathering; and you are invited to be more of that traction.
A sensible, if grumpy couple confronted me at a local gathering about something ugly in how all this plays out as a US Senate campaign. Withering, they were. 1- Being pointedly geared to gathering that 70 - 80% of voters in strong favor of getting dark money out, the campaign avoids taking stance on all other issues altogether . . . Do this one thing!!! And also keep in mind here that the dark money out agenda has wide appeal, including to many who lie across significant other divides. “I will go to the US Senate and vote for nothing but the dark money out agenda. Other than that, I will not vote for the things I hold dear and I will not vote against the things I abhor”. 2- Serving in the Senate, I’d stick to the promise and expect to gag on it daily. [Full disclosure: My retirement arrangements lie betwixt sufficient and OK; though I would be delighted to add a senator’s salary and other perks to my resources in these old years.]
The following two blogs are recent and perhaps relevant to what needs to be accomplished and the directions we need to take: A Question about the 10% and The Problem of the Bright Whites.
A Question about the 10%
February 5th and beyond
To my knowledge “the ten percent” came into usage during NY City’s Occupy Wall Street demonstrations; and I think, more specifically, was coined somewhere in that crowd to name a phenomenon that kept arising in discussions of the demonstrations’ objectives. Basically, the ten percent are those who do the bidding of the one percent and live off the bounty sloughed off into the wake of their mega yachts. No surprise, they tend to be very well compensated. . . unrich only in comparison to their employers and benefactors. NPR blab radio had remarks about billionaires hiring executive assistants at a 1/2 million or so, someone who might put dinner reservations in order, as well as doing or reviewing business proposals and the like. [Elsewhere see my fitting in as one of the “bright whites” . . . great-great-grandfather John D who did splendidly as John I Blair’s right hand man, Blair being one of the 10 richest of his era.)
With Elon Musk’s recent $1 trillion contract, one assumes that adjustments will be made to address the now ridiculous, obscene, absurd, unwarranted, heinous, unearned, atrocious, deplorable, grotesque, ludicrous, criminal, immoral, sad, felonious, blasphemous, preposterous, iniquitous inequities in our distribution of wealth here and around the world, . . . We speak here of very serious redistributions directed downscale.
No need to be belligerent about the matter. Call them taxes. Target luxury of all sorts. Profits. Wealth taxes . . . a percentage wad of the whole taken every year. 2nd homes shall get a very large whack, perhaps with some provision for reduction or complete abatement wherever that 2nd home is occupied by full time servants who live rent free and with sensible compensation for their work. Do note the hysterical leftie types out here who insist that capitalism is beyond all redemption. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater; a 100% tax on profits should serve, at least to begin. Whatever the case, know that these taxes shall be enough to uplift the downtrodden . . . well, at least enough to stop them being squashed. Enough that even such as I will call them confiscatory.
I preached a bar graph years ago, 2014 or so. . . Jeff Bezos that day’s kingpin at $110 billion, me at 1 inch near the US median net worth of $350,000, the top of the page about 3.3 million, and Bezos at the altitude of a cruising airliner. That seemed enough to call out absurdity. Musk is approaching the edge of space.
The question arises: Where is the dividing line between the losers and the winners? Truth to tell, I am Christian and so love the “last shall be first” notion here. While the specific answer is beyond my remit; it does seem obvious that fairness will put the ten percent into the donor class. Multi-millions is more than enough.
I can relate to the impulse to hold on to all that I consider mine, maybe even to the extent that the taking might need be a bit ugly. So the Question About the 10%: How will they respond to reduction of their excess? Again, I am Christian, including being a literalist on some important pieces of scripture, particularly here Jesus making reference to Isaiah and proclaiming a mission “to bring good news to the poor”, Note that Isaiah’s call for getting good news to the poor is central to Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faith. . . common ground.
Very sweet phrasing here, also suggesting an easy standard for knowing that what must be accomplished has been accomplished: The poor’s grim visage shall be transformed into a broad contented smile of comfort, relief, and safety, maybe some quiet tears. Elsewhere, diction has a confusion among “good”, “better”, and “best”, the mistaken inclination to think of “lesser evils” as rising into the realm of the good. Here good is good, a clear step into something that is not only ‘better’ than some lesser preferred state, but all the way into the good. These will be faces that impel us to irresistible looks of deep inquiry; we shall search, find, and rescue our own piece of the common humanity that we all have lost along the way.
“Bull shit. This is my shit.” perhaps along with Charlton Heston’s old meme insisting that all will come “out of my cold dead hands”. We might imagine such sentiment coming from those disturbed by both guns and money; though we ought be better prepared for the bright white ten percenter who is adept at shifting value from column A to column B. I know a good number of those folks; some will pay up as is fair and required. Others, well . . . a problem to be figured. One hopes to succeed without resort to cold, dead hands.
Does it make sense to look at a feature of capitalistic acquisitiveness? . . . climbing ladders. Those of us anxious / determined to ascend, as well as those well up already and set on more, we look ahead, upscale. We are forever looking up the shorts of someone directly ahead of us. . . as I say “doing the bidding.” You will perhaps forgive that I seem utterly hung up in this Christian faith . . . I am. Turn around to look down far enough down and you will be looking into the face of God.
In full disclosure, may I note the profound error of so-called God & Mammon Christians who somehow have figured how to worship both God and mammon, despite scriptural prohibitions against doing so. The prohibitions can be found in both Testaments as well as Islam’s Koran. They have stripped Jesus of Nazareth from the faith. Not much to say beyond that. It is an embarrassment. You who live outside the faith, without the faith will have to stack this up in your own way; though you cannot help but see that adding morality to the mix introduces fairness. . . blah, blah, blah.
Again in full disclosure, I flunked Economics 101-102. I might even have called the flunker “a jackass” and that would have been very bad form. On text book page 14 or so, I did get that axiomatic bit about every man’s work in the micro world done in his own self-interest will wind up creating a macro world of the highest quality goods at the lowest price. A couple of things: ONE, we see that such micro- motivations can indeed tend things toward that macro- end, but that there are innumerable other inputs that yield a market of expensive crap, along with a range of broader social problems. TWO, we’re talking “manly” here (new connotation . . . men are a mess); start with “every woman’s work done to her own self-interest”, the scheme becomes a bit wobbly. There are way more than THREE facts on our current and present ground that indicate decided wobbliness. And FOUR, a discussion of altruism can be found on page 367 of every basic economics textbook, which of course begs the question of what happens when you start with that on page 14 and leave that entry door to greed for consideration until page 367. We are in tailspin.
There are sensible economists out there writing about late stage capitalism, about fascism being the culmination of long commitment to capitalistic dealing, and less dramatic stuff about how capitalism requires (for obvious reasons) all sorts of regulation such that the decent are not forced to shift to the low life dealings of the lowest common denominator.
History is not kind in its answers to this question. The German industrialists sided with Adolph Hitler in his rise to full lunacy, choosing to make commitments to pocketbook issues rather than moral compass. They made a lot of money, and kept a lot after the war. The allure of wealth’s comforts and privileges is great. One hopes for an enlightened ruling class; I know some who are and who will make the transition.
The Problem of the Bright Whites ~ Feb 1
*** ~ That’s signal for the footnote that ought be read before proceeding, though putting it to bottom . . . well, leaves a problem. So here, a headnote: Over many decades, the bright whites have been heavily infiltrated by POC’s, gender benders, immigrants, ethnics, native peoples, and so forth ……(those factions and interest groups which the MAGA sort would call avatars of political correctness, woke, the DEI crowd, something like). All this is presumably and mostly to the good.
Our problem is that we are insufferable. But other than that, who are we? A number of factors might add (or subtract) from one’s qualification to enter the class. My own: boarding school heading the list, more than halfway intelligent, old money now gone, toppish notch liberal arts B.A. from Hartford’s Trinity College, several advanced degrees. Being Episcopalian puts another cap feather. Not the first of family off to college and not likely the last. Family tree is branched with “professional” sorts, . . . accomplished, successful, a few notables. I’m not only white; I am WASP.
I have gone far enough downscale financially that one might maintain that I no longer fit enough criteria. And my employment has been a sketchy affair, enough maybe to put me out also.
Others are more easily herded into this fold: The wealthy, the managerial, the salaried, the investment classes. People who employ the hoi polloi. So, the hoity-toity. And many more less uppity sorts who have the discipline, the good fortune, or perhaps a lack of scruples, to make their way into a safe, well-fed, elegantly sheltered existence. . . which is to say that they are well-heeled. For those living in precarity, those well-cobbled heels are also a bone to pick, something stuck in the craw, a rage best better left lie. Money. I do not aim to be definitive here, only to move on. If you are inclined, add; those are likely to be your pet peeves. But surely you see that some folks are definitely in and some definitely out.
See that the lines are some fuzzy: There are poseurs; if you can fake it; you can make it. And some are cast out, say Donald Trump whom New York City society considered a bore, a boar, and a boor. Well, he sure has shown those jackasses. And I noted the incremental addition of the outcast, the oppressed over decades; in only vaguely similar fashion, downscale whites become up & comers or make their way in as poseurs. . . say, J D Vance’s hillbilly elegy to what the harder hitters among us call his white trash roots. The book recounts his mother’s dissolution and is not too kindly in the doing.
Education is a key qualifier, though only something done at a level aimed at critical thinking skills. as opposed to vocational training. As per our capitalistic norms, the former sort will get you a job if you are willing to toe its line; the latter is apt to grant you an unsaleable credential and put you to penury.
One feature of the critical thinking task is to make a case, to be clear and affirmative. . . to convince. The insufferableness arises somewhere here. Entering presentation, I am advantaged to be convinced myself, or to take advantage by bull-shitting, perhaps a medley of both. Whatever the case, it is a matter of saying and doing so confidently. I do some carpentry. I like being confident that my fingers aren’t heading into the blade; some things go into assuring that confidence. Case-making, being an interpersonal thing, that confidence tends toward domination: “I’d just like to let you know that I have some things to say here, an obvious additional input being that I am of enough consequence that you ought be listening” I can strut myself up a bit to make the point. It gets to be a habit, easily heading to obnoxious. And why it is insufferable is that it is an erasure of the other.
Other lines of investigation on what is pointed at:
1- Early Christian Gnostics were the 2nd century equivalent of the Bright Whites, imagining that they had special spiritual knowledge such that they could see the true light where regular folk were limited to only the dimmest view of the faith’s essentials. I’d be interested to know from what class they tended to come.
2- At John Roberts’ nomination by W. Bush, a dear friend offered assurance that the man at least had integrity. So much for that friend’s wisdom and foresight; tho the court had long since been in profound befuddlement. Consider the notion of corporate personhood. First off, notice the common man’s plain sense: “Does it eat, does it shit? Does it laugh; does it weep? No? That is no person.” The issue is arcane, not entirely within my remit. The US Constitution laid some problematic groundwork; and the courts went on to make a mess. The fundamental misstep (not unlike the document’s accommodations to slavery) is grant of something that is clearly all privilege and allowing it to be considered a right.
Incorporation has social value in that it allows limited liability for incorporated investments, a key incentive to encouraging investment at all. You and I throw a pile of dough into some hare-brained idea that turns out badly; what is lost is the invested money, what is not lost is our homes, our other assets, and whatever piles of dough we’ve withdrawn into our own pockets from corporate accounts under whatever pretext we can get away with. . . . The multitudinous privileges, now enshrined as rights by an increasingly nefarious court, the passage into this absurdity framed as high thinking by the few and abetted by the lesser many who are battered down in sufficient submission that they have taken leave of their own senses and the plain wisdom to be found there.
3- One should not ignore the effective substitution of brow-beating and the like for decent quality reasoning. Such is generally offered with a sharp tongue, disparagement perhaps even humiliation of the beaten brow, and blowfish puffery masking hot air.
New Year’s Day ~ 2026
I’d be churlish to begin without offering apology to younger generations for the mess mine will leave them. Ah, New Year’s. Resolves.
So ELECT AN IDEA?? A good idea, put so far left in but two hands of a man who hasn’t a clue how to make it happen. Oh yes, the QUESTION IS WHAT NOT WHO, that true in 2023 & 4 during my quixotic presidential primary run and probably more true now. The WHAT, of course, is getting dark money out of politics . . . whatever it takes.
The punch lines from the maiden speech of my US Senate run: “There are two truths in American politics. The first is that you cannot get dark money out (both elections and government). . . . it’s baked in, get used to it, suck it up. The 2nd is that, if we do not get dark money out, we are fucked.” I go on to make second apology about my coarse diction, asking anyone to offer alternate word choice that still adequately covers the base. I still await on that score. I also note that forsaking the first truth has left me half nuts.
I spoke from script. The second speech had me off the cuff, which left me stumbling and omitting key points. I did appreciate that mention of Zohran Mandami’s fundamental decency and sound politics was met with wide approval among my Democratic audience. Maybe working off notes?
So me driveling on here, you should be coming to realize that, if the question were WHO, I’m clearly not the guy. However, I shall serve as ballot line on the WHAT problem in the US Senate primary and then the general election, . . . if enough New Hampshire citizens come to their senses, if enough Granite Staters take seriously their own thoughts and observations about the dark money problem. Yes, some problems about how to frame it all, how to make the notion palatable to many . . . It needs to be boiled down, especially that the WHO of me becomes irrelevant.
My pledge, my goal, my plan, my commitment is as follows: I will go to the United States Senate and I will vote for nothing but the dark money out agenda. That aside, I will not vote for the things I hold dear. And I will not vote against the things I abhor.
The website here is replete with definition of the dark money out agenda; though I am confident that many are already in possession of their very own very good analysis of the basic problems. Briefly, corporations are not persons; money is not speech; political action committees are designed to serve as work-arounds to sensible campaign finance law; all dealings related to law, elections, and government shall be thoroughly transparent, especially as to distributions of money; etc. The country has numerous organizations dedicated to achieving these goals. The Movement to Amend is geared to whatever it takes, including constitutional amendment; its website has informational materials discussing all sorts of relevant and related matters.
AGAIN, I WILL VOTE FOR NOTHING BUT THE DARK MONEY OUT AGENDA. I can be emailed at john@sendnomoney.org. I am half nuts, but believe I am doing decent job of keeping the other half in order.
A problem of us humans: We write . . . our views, our opinions, and analyses. I’m apt to blather on as things go; NONE of that is the point. . . only to vote WHAT. . . ask others to do so too.
The blather. One thinks analogically. The house on fire? . . . we’re not out in the yard talking about where we’ll plant the vegetable garden. Lost in a dark wood? . . . one is wise to step into the light (and foolish to keep bumping around in the dark). Martin King’s mountaintop? . . . a new horizon, things beyond our ken, a promised land below, probably new facts too. It’s not that nothing else matters; it’s that this problem interferes with attending to the things that do matter. There’s a blurb just below on why I’d skip the other Senate business. If you think me hysterical, what do you make of folks out here wondering if fascism is to be our destiny?
The Question is asked about my plan, goal, idea, commitment to not vote on any other US Senate business than the dark money out agenda. The answer:
1- We the People have a very great amount of common ground here and we have sensible action plans, this US Senate campaign among them. Implement. Do. Go to the mountaintop. All other issues take us out of action and put us back into study / debate / discussion / difference / inaction..
2- Speaking analogously, the dark money out agenda is the water brought to bear on the house fire . . . Does one see that the house is on fire? Are we lost in a dark wood? The dark money out agenda amounts to walking into the light . . . clarity, vision, movement beyond the muck that muddies all of our effort, process, discussion. Accomplishment of the dark money out agenda puts us at a new threshold, say Martin King’s mountaintop. The territory beyond is new ground, new breath, probably new facts.
3- Can one say that what is now routinely accomplished out of the other Senate business is indeed an “accomplishment”? Forget the absurdity of the fall’s government shutdown. Forget Donald Trump. Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act passed with the blessing of the insurance industry which is now raking in enormous profits, making our health care system the most expensive in the world and the poorest as to the care given. The key feature of most federal legislation is its creation of a gravy train for some set of wealthy folks. . . . Wall Street.
4- And, then of course, there is that problem of putting us back into discussion. What does it take to reach common ground on other matters? Say, what does it take to reach other common ground with me? I am a fairly easy-going fellow. Read down the following; at some point you are likely to conclude that I and what I insist on are ridiculous, perhaps even abhorrent to you, but definitely contrary to your own agenda. No need to read beyond the point having been made . . . Let’s act on this one point of agreement and see where that leaves us.
A- A return to the military draft. We will not have all these wars; mothers everywhere will be out insisting that their boys will not be sent to fight overseas in senseless wars aimed at extending US hegemony. And now their daughters too, because our current inclusion ideas require that girls, not yet women, also be eligible for draft and premature deaths. Note that draft cards are not yet required of young women.
B- Reestablishment of a Sabbath day. No business, no commerce, let us set aside time to be busy with matters of the heart and spirit. Must we live every day as peddlers of what may not be necessary and be daily gobblers of often useless junk? I do not care what it is called; only that we have this freshness and quiet. Clearly good. All to the good. A no-brainer.
C- The new sabbath will be instituted to fall on Saturday. The day is now shared as the holy day of both Muslims and Jews. . . a good thing that these troubled, warring peoples share together a day of looking inward that they might look outward toward transformation of their hostilities. And Christians have the generosity, the open-heartedness to shift their holy day. . . maybe that’s not quite true. It would be absurd to also advocate for the day being spent off video screens; we humans have a ways to go on that.
D- The internet, web, ether, was developed largely with funds from US taxpayers. It is past time for the citizenry to collect its royalties, residuals, etc. Much as every community has commercial and residential zones, a separate internet will be established that is entirely free of commercial activity, especially advertising.
E- Genocide. Gaza and Palestine are . . .
F- Abortion: As to the Law. . . Repeat, as to the Law, abortion is a matter for the expectant mother . . . up to the moment of birth. Any intended abortion resulting in live birth shall result in outplacement of the child into adoption. Unwanted children tend to be costly (clearly not just in lucre); many of them bear the greatest of these costs in lives that are at best disordered and often very much worse.
G- Capitalism??!! I’m a Christian, which pretty much makes me a socialist. Need I say more? I also see that many so-called Christians and socialists are not keen to embrace each other.
H- I am a Christian. Five of the ten things that come to mind do not apply to me.
I- Male rapists (Are there others??), at some point in their repeated encounters with the law, shall be castrated . . . perhaps chemical at first, physical later. Hell, . . .
J- . . . it’s not a death penalty. . . to which I am unalterably opposed.
K- What passes in Gaza is “genocide”. Lamentably, the people called to be “ a light unto the nations” have slipped into making of themselves a pariah nation. Those of you who have not yet concluded this are to be congratulated on the good moral fiber that will eventually bring you around.
L- In my best accord with the Me Too Movement, all Non-Disclosure Agreements shall be void. Perpetrators protected by such, along with others who engage in sexual abuse and harrassment, shall be fully outed. Egregious and repeated violation shall warrant forehead tattoo indicating the problem. Note: My UCC denomination is in significant part a legacy of the settler colonial, witch-burning Massachusetts Puritans . . . who were anything but. May I further note that this note is about the usefulness of embarrassment and humiliation as correctives to various forms of malfeasance and misdeed. I suppose I’d also consider bringing the stocks out of museum display and putting them back to good use.
M- Universal health care . . . a right. Right?
N- Donald Trump is mentally ill. . . narcissism way out on the Bell Curve brim, probably sociopathy as well. His rationale on everything is entirely self-referential. However, do note that many who vote for him have legitimate cause for doing so.
O- Men are a mess. I do not exclude myself. Perhaps something unfair here, lots of men I have not met. I just figure that 100% of a sample would be reasonably conclusive on the point.
P- The question of reparations for slavery. Forget it. The problem’s magnitude is beyond accounting, beyond all available resources, indeed beyond our very imaginations. Fully confessed, the enslavement of black Africans in the Americas might leave a mass suicide of the white races.
Q- Trump is hard to get off the plate. His opposition is made up of two conflicting parties, those who see the man as an aberration, something out of the blue, a one-off, a freak of nature and then those who see his ascendance as the culmination of decades of Democratic mis-, mal- and non-feasance. Very much of the latter, I was delighted to have avoided NOT voting for Joe Biden, though making aforehand acknowledgement of that intention has cost me friends. I came to be somewhat enchanted by Kamala Harris; though, lamentably, she failed to break free of capture by the Democratic central committee. Aside from my policy and moral objections to the directions these folk habitually take (Wall Street), may I note that these bright bulbs have lost 2 elections to an absolute moron.
R- I am making habit of apologizing to younger generations for the mess my own is leaving.
S- If you do not yet find me off-putting, please come for dinner or something. I’m looking for new friends.
. . . . Let’s get dark money out and see where that leaves us. The fresh air will be tonic for our ills. WHAT WHAT WHAT
Peace, John
Convention Speech
verbatim ~ October 18th, 2025
Good afternoon. A preface: To the younger folks here, I apologize for the mess that my generation will leave you.
I am John Vail. I am running for the United States Senate. As I proceed, think of me more as a ballot line than as a candidate. The aim here is to elect an idea not a person. Elect an idea.
There are two truths in American politics. The first is that dark money cannot be got out. It is baked into both our elections and our government. Get used to it. Suck it up folks. A 2nd truth: If we do not get dark money out, we are fucked. Pardon my diction. Is there another word that covers the gravity of our situation? For myself, I have abandoned the first truth, all of which Is leaving me half nuts these days. I invite you to join me on this journey.
The question for 2026 is WHAT not Who. The WHAT is getting dark money out; and who gives a damn WHO does the deed? The time is long past due for getting this job done. Ridding ourselves of the dark money problem will be transformative: a welcome shift from private interests to public good, from oligarchy to democracy, from us & them to We, the people. Electing this idea is doable. It Is by far the largest piece of common ground among this sad, angry, and troubled electorate. Democrats, Republicans, and otherwise.
We are not in a struggle between left and right. It is a struggle between those up and those down, between the have-a-lots and the scraping by. We will not be led out of this quagmire. The American people must arise together to reclaim our rightful place in setting the course of our government and our nation. Step up New Hampshire. Step up America.
And me in this scheme?? Send me to D.C. I will vote in the United States Senate for nothing but pieces of the dark money out agenda. Other than that, I will not vote for the things I hold dear. And I will not vote against the things I abhor. This problem is not the only thing that matters, but it does stand in the way of accomplishing most of the things that do matter. Good deeds and good works are opposed and vastly outspent by corporate entities and those who feed off that bounty.
I ask for your help on this. I am an old man, another old fool making his way into an overcrowded gerontocracy. I am from the 1st half of the 20th century, so am lacking the tech and social media skills to pull this off. The campaign slogan is SEND NO MONEY; I shall not be taking campaign donations. I’m not well-heeled enough to afford much travel and lodging around the state. I could use a driver, my night vision is flawed.
The question here is whether enough of you will arise on behalf of yourselves, the nation, and those who follow in our footsteps. Many of you, most of you, are fully capable of speaking as well as me. We need a wide conversation: speak to others, word of mouth, face to face, neighbor to neighbor. Conversations with fellow Americans are useful, often rewarding, plenty agreeable on the dark money theme, and sometimes actually fun.
Step up New Hampshire. What I ask here is not that you think out of the box, but that we get out of the box altogether. Elon Musk is now at ½ trillion dollars. Wall Street is humming right along. Yet the federal government, presumably something to do with We, the people, is shut down, leaving millions in financial jeopardy. And, of course, Donald Trump’s mental illness remains rabid and untreated. Are we not obliged to our children and to their children to pass along a nation recovered of its democratic process?
I repeat: In the US Senate, I will vote only for pieces of the dark money out agenda. I will not vote for the things I hold dear; I will not vote against the things I abhor.
The website is sendnomoney.org. More sense to the idea is to be found there; though you likely have plenty of your own.
I wish you peace, John Vail (Easton, NH)
Go out into the No Kings demonstrations. We will prevail
. . . .END OF CONVENTION SPEECH. . . .
. . . . And A FOLLOW-UP QUESTION. . . .
The Question is asked about my plan, goal, idea, commitment to not vote on any other US Senate business other than the dark money out agenda. The answer:
1- We have a very great amount of common ground and sensible action plans, this US Senate campaign among them. Implement. Do. Go to the mountaintop. All other issues take us out of action and put us back into discussion.
2- Speaking analogously, the dark money out agenda is the water brought to bear on the house fire . . . Does one see that the house is on fire? Are we lost in a dark wood? The dark money out agenda amounts to walking into the light . . . clarity, vision, movement beyond the muck that muddies all of our effort, process, discussion. Accomplishment of the dark money out agenda puts us at a new threshold, say Martin King’s mountaintop. The territory beyond is new ground, new breath, probably new facts.
3- Can one say with even a bit of good sense that what is now routinely accomplished out of the other Senate business is indeed an “accomplishment”? Forget the absurdity of the current government shutdown. Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act passed with the blessing of the insurance industry which is now raking in enormous profits, making our health care system the most expensive in the world and the poorest as to the care given. The key feature of most federal legislation is its creation of a gravy train for some set of wealthy folks. . . . Wall Street.
4- And, then of course, there is that problem of putting us back into discussion. What does it take to reach common ground on other matters? Say, what does it take to reach other common ground with me? While also blessed with a significant ornery streak, I am a fairly easy-going fellow. Read down the following; at some point you are likely to conclude that I and what I insist on are ridiculous, perhaps even abhorrent to you, but definitely contrary to your own agenda. No need to read beyond the point having been made . . . Let’s act on this one point of agreement and see where that leaves us.
A- A return to the military draft. We will not have all these wars; mothers everywhere will be out insisting that their boys will not be sent to fight overseas in senseless wars aimed at extending US hegemony. And now their daughters too, because our current inclusion ideas require that girls, not yet women, also be eligible for draft and premature deaths.
B- Reestablishment of a Sabbath day. No business, let us set aside time to be busy with matters of the heart and spirit. Must we live everyday as peddlers of mostly useless junk and as gobblers of all that. I do not care what it is called, just that it not be another day of our culture’s relentless consumption.
C- The new sabbath will be instituted to fall on Saturday. The day is now shared as the holy day of both Muslims and Jews. . . a good thing that these troubled, warring peoples share together a day of looking inward that they might look outward toward transformation of their hostilities. And Christians have the generosity, the open-heartedness to shift their holy day. . . maybe that’s not quite true. It would be absurd to also advocate for the day being spent off video screens; we humans have a ways to go on that.
D- The internet, web, ether, was developed largely with funds from US taxpayers. It is past time for the citizenry to collect its royalties, residuals, etc. Much as every community has commercial and residential zones, a separate internet will be established that is entirely free of commercial activity, especially advertising.
E- Genocide. Gaza and Palestine are . . .
F- Abortion: As to the Law. . . Repeat, as to the Law, abortion is a matter for the expectant mother . . . up to the moment of birth. Any intended abortion resulting in live birth shall result in outplacement of the child into adoption. Unwanted children tend to be costly (clearly not just in lucre); many of them bear the greatest of these costs in lives that are at best disordered and often very much worse.
G- Capitalism??!! I’m a Christian, which pretty much makes me a socialist. Need I say more? I also see that many so-called Christians and socialists are not keen to embrace each other.
H- I am a Christian. Five of the ten things that come to mind do not apply to me.
I- Male rapists (Are there others??), at some point in their repeated encounters with the law, shall be castrated . . . perhaps chemical at first, physical later. Hell, . . .
J- . . . it’s not a death penalty. . . to which I am unalterably opposed.
K- What passes in Gaza is “genocide”. Lamentably, the people called to be “ a light unto the nations” have slipped into making of themselves a pariah nation. Those of you who have not yet concluded this are to be congratulated on the good moral fiber that will eventually bring you around.
L- In my best accord with the Me Too Movement, all Non-Disclosure Agrements shall be void. Perpetrators protected by such, along with others who engage in sexual abuse and harrassment, shall be fully outed. Egregious and repeated violation shall warrant forehead tattoo indicating the problem. Note: My UCC denomination is in significant part a legacy of the settler colonial, witch-burning Massachusetts Puritans . . . who were anything but. May I further note that this note is about the usefulness of embarrassment and humiliation as correctives to various forms of malfeasance and misdeed. I suppose I’d also consider bringing the stocks out of museum display and putting them back to good use.
M- Universal health care . . . a right. Right?
N- Donald Trump is mentally ill. . . narcissism way out on the Bell Curve brim, probably sociopathy as well. His rationale on everything is entirely self-referential. However, do note that many who vote for him have legitimate cause for doing so.
O- Men are a mess. I do not exclude myself. Perhaps something unfair here, lots of men I have not met. I just figured that 100% of a sample would be reasonably conclusive on the point.
P- The question of reparations for slavery. Forget it. The problem’s magnitude is beyond accounting, beyond all available resources, indeed beyond our very imaginations. Fully confessed, the enslavement of black Africans in the Americas might leave a mass suicide of the white races.
Q- Trump is hard to get off the plate. His opposition is made up of two conflicting parties, those who see the man as an aberration, something out of the blue, a one-off, a freak of nature and those who see his ascendance as the culmination of decades of Democratic mis-, mal- and non-feasance. Very much of the latter, I was delighted to have avoided NOT voting for Joe Biden, though making aforehand acknowledgement of that intention has cost me friends. I came to be somewhat enchanted by Kamala Harris; though, lamentably, she failed to break free of capture by the Democratic central committee. Aside from my policy and moral objections to the directions these folk habitually take (Wall Street), may I note that these bright bulbs have lost 2 elections to an absolute moron.
R- I am making habit of apologizing to younger generations for the mess my own is leaving.
S- If you do not yet find me off-putting, please come for dinner or something. I’m looking for new friends.
. . . . Let’s do dark money out and see where that leaves us.
It’s 2025 and the question is still WHAT not Who
An Apology: Sorry about creating this as computer image. Early 20th century fellow here, not so adept at cell phone, etc. Maybe someone out there would like to step forward and straighten me out on tech stuff?
The WHAT is getting dark money out of politics; and the only WHO who will accomplish this is the gathered citizenry of this now very sad and troubled republic.
I am running for New Hampshire’s soon to be open US Senate seat. My platform, my pledge, my performance in the US Senate shall consist of nothing but to vote for the dark money out agenda. As to any other business of the US Senate, I will not vote for the things I hold dear; and I will not vote against the things I abhor. Again, I will vote only for pieces of the dark money out agenda until that agenda is fully accomplished. See below and throughout, if you are not clear about what that agenda consists of. My primary observation on all this is that the money out agenda is by far the largest piece of common ground among the U.S. electorate, therefore an achievable goal IF we gather on this common ground. Accomplishing this will require us to put aside our other interests, our pet peeves, and for some of us our very needs. Look to our world today; those interests, peeves and needs divide us, leave us competing for the few available dollars and resources that have not been scooped up by the wealthy.
You know of what I speak; if not, check out below to see 2024 presidential primary run screeds. The following is a draft of a speech to be delivered Saturday at the NH Democrats mid-term convention; it needs improvement for the actual event:
Convention Speech ~ 2nd draft
Good Morning. I preface my remarks by apologizing to the younger generations represented here for the mess that my generation will leave you. I’m sure some of my peers will join me in this.I am John Vail. I am running for the US Senate. As I proceed here, it will be useful for you to think of me more as a ballot line than as a candidate; we aim to elect an idea rather than a person.
There are two truths in American politics. The first is that dark money cannot be got out. It is baked into both our elections and our government. Get used to it. Suck it up folks. A 2nd truth: If we do not get dark money out, we are fucked. Excuse my diction here, I do not know another word that quite covers the gravity of our situation. Personally, I have abandoned the first truth, all of which is leaving me half nuts these days. I invite you to come along on this journey.
The question for 2026 is WHAT not WHO; that WHAT is getting dark money out of politics and who really cares WHO gets that job done. I do not think our elected officials are remotely capable of even opening a sensible discussion. Instead, this job will get done by way of an uprising of the American people, and I am hopeful that we in New Hampshire can spearhead such a movement. Note that this issue is the largest piece of common ground in our battered polity. . . See Maine’s recent campaign finance referendum passing at 75%. Remember the January 6th Capital stormers’ complaint about elite capture of government policy and process. And you yourself may be one of the many who are in regular complaint or rant about this problem.
A number of organizations have outlined some key legal changes that will rid us of the problem. Alexandria Octavia Cortez and Bernie Sanders have been traipsing about the country offering diatribes about oligarchy and the corrupting influence of excessive wealth. The Movement to Amend has proposed the We the People Amendment which addresses the first two of the following generally agreed ideas about what needs to be accomplished:
A- Corporations are not persons.
B- Money is not speech.
C- Political Action Committees are designed and function as a work around to sensible campaign finance laws.
D- All transactions between private individuals and government employees, officials, especially elected and aspiring office holders shall be transparent in all respect.
These issues are not the only things that matter, but they do stand in the way of accomplishing many of the things that do matter. All sorts of people work tirelessly at non-profit or public service work at low or modest wage and with minimal resources. But their efforts are opposed by corporate entities, the elites who live off that bounty, and their very well compensated minions, all of them having agendas inconsistent with and usually contrary to the public good.
I’m not telling you anything you do not already know. Here is my pledge: I will vote in the US Senate for nothing but pieces of the dark money out agenda. I will not vote for the things I hold dear. And I will not vote against the things I abhor. To repeat, I will vote in the US Senate for nothing but pieces of the dark money out agenda. I will not vote for the things I hold dear; I will not vote against the things I abhor. Accomplishing the dark money out agenda puts us on higher and more solid ground. Think with analogy. Our house being on fire, we are foolish to be designing a new garden shed. Lost in a dark wood; we shall be wise to step out into the bright light of day.
You may have your own stump speech on all this. We are not in a struggle between left and right, but rather a struggle between those up and those down, between the have-a-lots and the scraping by. We will not be led out of this quagmire. Our own leadership hasn’t the necessary vision and they are further hampered by being bound to relentless begging for their own campaign donations. The citizenry must arise to reclaim our rightful place and role in setting the course of our government and our country. We, the people are indeed the ones who do ordain and establish this our constitution. Dark money out is an idea whose time is come. Step up New Hampshire; step up America.
I ask for your help on this. I am an old man, another old fool inveigling himself into an already crowded gerontocracy caucus. I am from the 1st half of the 20th century, so am lacking the tech and social media skills to pull this off. The campaign slogan and guiding light is SEND NO MONEY and I shall not be seeking or taking campaign donations. I’m hardly well-heeled enough to pay costs for much travel and lodging around the state. I could use a driver, as my vision is flawed enough to not serve well at night. Many, probably most of you, are capable of speaking as effectively as me. We need to speak to others, word of mouth, neighbor to neighbor. I have found the conversations with fellow citizens to be useful and fun.
What I ask here is not that you think out of the box, but that we get out of the box altogether. This citizenry is already well aware of the absurdity of the current wealth distribution, the unfairness of concentrated power among the few, and the obscenity of the corporate personhood that now pollutes human life and discourse. Opposed to the mumbo-jumbo that is passed off as jurisprudence, the common man or women asks “Does it eat, does it shit? Does it laugh, does it weep? No?? That is no person.” We are obliged to our children and to their children to pass along a world that has the possibility of recovering the country’s democratic process.
The website is sendnomoney.org. More sense to the idea is to be had there; though you likely have enough of your own.. I can be contacted by email at john@sendnomoney.org
I wish you peace, John Vail (Easton, NH)
END Convention Speech draft
Is it not clear that the common ground of which I speak is fertile soil in which to plant seeds of renewal? Is it clear that I am no pro on any of this? Is it clear that my own resources are utterly insufficient to the task of making this happen? Is it clear that an uprising of the American people is the only way out of our current mess? Is it clear that such an uprising can be non-violent, bringing a peace that is now barely imaginable? Is it clear that my stepping forward in this way is more than vaguely terrifying? Is it clear that many, perhaps most of us are fully capable of stepping forward through our worst fears to act, especially as we do so together? Is it clear that we are long since clear enough on what passes hereabouts to be also clear that we are called away from our rants and ruminations to concerted and unified ACTION? If it is not clear, let me be also clear in noting that the simple clarity outlined here, in addition to bringing forth those reservations and fears, this simple clarity also leaves me with hopes and a very tentative joy. Stop reading, go talk with your neighbors, your friends, your acquaintances, that jackass at the feed store. You are likely to find them on the same page.
A pre-Question added post
A pre-question?? What the hell would that be? Bear with me, complete novice here, still trying to make sense. Does a citizen have the right to do with their vote what they want to do with their vote? Does this need to be asked? Is a vociferous “YES” obvious. a complete no-brainer? Maybe I missed something in 8th grade civics, I was a distracted student. Does a citizen have the right to vote with other citizens to demand a thing be done? Man, you tangle with these over-educated folks; what the hell is he asking? It starts sounding like something where you might expect some answer other than “YES”, like a trick question. Is this exercise really necessary? Seems like taking a spider web apart strand by strand, instead of just swatting through. Does a citizen have the right to go on voting for a fellow who ain’t gettin’ the job done? Well that seems about the stupidest thing, but I suppose the answer is “YES”. Is this all something I’m supposed to be muddling over? Man, it’s already way more than A question, whether pre, post, or middle. Maybe moving along, see if you can nail it in THE question.
The Question for 2024 is
WHAT? . . . not who?
The What is money out of politics.
(elections, corporate influence, lobbying, rule by monied elites, Citizens United, etc., etc., etc.)
As Potter Stewart said about pornography, we (or most of us) know it when we see it.
$end No MoneySentiments around political money may be far the greatest piece of common ground we have in this battered polity. Eliminating it holds the key to putting ourselves on track to becoming an authentic democracy, as well as evicting Mr and Ms Moneybags from our problem-solving process.
I aim to be a candidate in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Uh, what about the rest of the country? As follows: 49 candidates in 49 primaries or caucuses, all running on this What? and nothing else. Get delegates to the convention and play our hand.
As I move forward in this effort, I am struck with the difficulty some have getting their minds around this notion. My only aim is to be a stand-in for an idea. I am not running in order to be president; I am running to provide a ballot line on which fellow citizens can vote for getting money out of politics, because they think ridding ourselves of this corruption is more important than saving ourselves from Donald Trump or, for that matter, saving ourselves from Joe Biden. There is no reason that a citizen in a democracy cannot cast a vote in favor of a job to be done rather than casting one for someone to do that job. [That is, ultimately to get delegates and play our hand at the convention.] I invite all to step up with me to DO something with their vote that is dramatically different from the usual spirit-breaking casting between lesser evils. The greatest bit of salvation available to our cantankerous country lies in creating a genuine We, the People. The buyers of access and the bought in government must be pushed aside.
There is more rationale in the press release
/ candidacy announcement
buttoned here below.
As you may not press the button, it need be said here that I am not well suited to serve as president. Some dear friends might say, fairly reasonably, that I am spectacularly unsuited; though they are much amiss on other important matters. My only aim is to provide a ballot line on which a voter can vote for getting money out of politics, that they recognize that accomplishing that yields vital gains for the country that far exceed anything to be gained by choosing who serves. I am a stand-in for an idea, for a worthy goal that may well save our collected asses.
It is a nutty idea; it is an excellent idea.
Notice that its excellence arises only as we rise together to claim the collective birthright endowed to most of us by our founding documents, and to the lot of us in the post Civil War constitutional amendments.
The problems we face as a nation, as a culture, as a civilization, and as a planet all have large amounts of money devoted to preventing their solutions. We who volunteer our time in evenings and on weekends are competing with people who are paid lucrative salaries to confound our efforts.
Not me, Us
The expression is in the wind. Perhaps something coined by Bernie? A clear echo of “We, the people”. We are faced with a dismal and utter failure of leadership in this country, made near useless because of political money. Let us step up together to secure Abraham Lincoln’s government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
We speak of dark money. And indeed it is. Our work and cherishing, our debate and struggle, our views of each to the other, are all done in fog and darkness. This campaign amounts to little more than an idiot in the corner suggesting that we turn on the lights.
What, not who, is the point. . . . as I’ve said. Nothing else. The goal is to reclaim our government out of the hands of wealthy elites and the corporations they control. So everything said here aims to propel enough of us into actions that head that way. It is a direct, non-violent approach to putting the citizenry back in charge of government and creating a legacy those who follow deserve.
Six site pages plus a blog page, vaguely organized in keeping with the categories of ancient rhetoric: Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, et al. Customarily, ‘who’ does come first; but as to import and focus, let the first be last. The What. The What. The What is the key;. Keep your eye on that ball. Postings will be made on the blog page, organized chronologically, latest first and then assigned / copied to the most suitable of the site pages.
The Story of
$end No Money:
#1 - I’m just fed up. Need I say more??
#2 - Fifty Nobodies. Fifty states. I assume we’d take some somebodies too; I certainly would.
#3 - One cause, one goal, many people.
R Cobb ~ a graphic voice
coming soon to this block
In the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, the work of cartoonist R Cobb was probably ripped off more than that of any other cartoonist. (Well, maybe the ‘Keep on Truckin” guy) His work was spot on for use in the many free press newspapers being published at the time. Collections of his work are not available on inter-library loan around here. They can be bought on line for $100 or so. Boy, campaigning on the cheap is expensive. I’ll bite this bullet.
As best I know, in the day neither he nor his agents ever made complaint over the misuse or resorted to ‘cease and desist’ orders. We always imagined his sensibilities being such that he was delighted to be published in these rags. Whatever the case and needing graphics here, I will rip him off again in the hopes that those managing his estate have similar sensibilities and will be gracious to this low-budget operation. He died in 2020.
