I didn’t vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976. In fact, I didn’t vote at all that year.
I’m not proud of that, but there it is. It happened mostly because I was away from home on election day, and because I wasn’t scared.
That autumn I was trying to write a novel about Quakers on Nantucket island off Massachusetts, who were caught in the riptides of the American Revolution.
The novel was a good idea. Still is, if I had an extra ten years or so to put into it.
[NOTE: I recall a year ago when Gwynne Dyer confidently predicted that Vladimir Putin would not be so irrational and foolish as to launch a war against Ukraine. Dyer was right about the war’s folly, but not alone in badly misjudging Putin’s state of mind and resolve. Still, I respect Dyer’s experience, breadth of strategic/historic knowledge, perspicacity and independence. So his list of predictions for another longtime item on his news “beat”, namely Israel in the Netanyahu era, is included here. We’ll see how he does with this rather gloomy set of forecasts, and compare it to work by another noted “seer.” Continue reading Dyer & Friedman on Netanyahu’s Impending Victory & Israel’s Loss of Democracy
Want to hear the Christmas story told from a non-supernatural, anti-colonial perspective? Here it is, by Friend Helena Cobban, from Charlottesville VA, and her justworld educational site.
Then to follow up is another one, from me. It happened in Brooklyn New York, in 1967. I call it, How I Got So Lucky.
Previous pre-holiday stories:
More to Follow; watch this space.
From The Portugal News
By Gwynne Dyer, in Opinion · Oct. 27, 2022
Israeli voters are indefatigable. The election on November 1st will be the fifth in just three-and-a-half years, and yet the turnout is still likely to be around 70%. That’s especially remarkable because all five elections have really been about the same question: should Binyamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu go to jail, or should he be prime minister?
He is on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, the evidence against him is strong, and his peril is real. The court system is one of the few aspects of Israeli public life that have not been politicised: former prime minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced to six years in jail (reduced to 18 months on appeal) on exactly the same charges Netanyahu now faces. Continue reading Gwynne Dyer on Possible Bibi Comeback & What’s Next