ATDTDA Before another fizzling out warning

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Ya Sam prognosticated:
> Subject: Before another fizzling out warning
> 
> is issued I predict (without casting runes or doing I Ching) that ATDTDA 
> will be occupying most of the traffic when we reach The Jeshimon episode. 
> Does anybody doubt this?
> 

I will be glad to settle down a little then, as it's so sad & gloomy
there...but the (red-) checkered (-demon) past of Webb while he's still
alive, the glimpses of his struggle, and trying to piece it into
the history of Colorado is fascinating to me.

"They had maybe a year when it wasn't too bad" then boom, repeal.
This is dealt with so quietly and calmly, but it's a lot like those
Shakespearean nuances in the article Dave cited: the bywords of the
time deepen the meaning.

"Didt'n" all thru Vineland may have caused some people to flinch,
but not if you knew and loved people who really did say it that way,
like all the time.... (for example) 

Zooming out like a balloon-boy, I see a man whose politics could have
been gentled by prosperity...this happened to
union radicalism where management was willing to work with them...

this was beginning to happen: Webb mentions they got rid of piecework
by union action.  He just tosses it off,
but that is fairly huge.  Modern day "libertarians" can argue against
that all they like, but in a piecework environment, it's all too
easy for co-operation and safety to become secondary considerations. 
Easy for the Koch brothers to pay the Cato Institute to perpetrate
Ayn Randian distortions of the data such as calling for the
elimination of school lunch subsidies, while they chisel the
Native Americans on their mineral royalties; easy for Bush to
call for sacrifice when he isn't sacrificing _anything_; and
easy for some kiss-butt to show big numbers by doing crappy work -
this is true in any field...causing lots of grief...

ultramontane (literally) corporate ownership by big banks in New York; 
through political machinations they manage to undercut the new wealth
and keep it from gaining influence; 

Chicago enforcers who enabled their ruthlessness;

yup, the Colorado parts are rich rich rich with political resonance,
and the natural sympathy/aversion to Webb for his virtues and faults,
there but for the grace of God go I and bunches of guys I know
 
not to mention the Henry Adams connexion