The Short Discussion Over DC Becoming a State

 After a lot of thought on the idea, the process, and the 'script'....I will suggest three things to occur as DC prepares for this summer effort to obtain state-status:

1.  At some point, the fact will be put up that it's the first ever creation within the US of a city-state...meaning that the mayor/governor title will exist.  A number of intellectual types will try to grasp this model, and how it can work in real life.  For example, there's typical a legislative background....will the city council of DC (13 members) just equate itself to be a legislative group, with thirteen members?

This drags out the really stupid question....mayors and city council folks usually worry about pot-holes, snow removal, and street names.  This is something that most governors and legislative members don't do.  Can the governor and legislative group act like such a creation, or will this be a long-term problem?

2.  All Democratic senators locked onto this DC entry?  Well....no.  This got brought up this week....four Democrats are not hyped-up or showing a willing nature to vote for this

The two Democrats from Arizona (Kelly and Sinema) haven't said anything in public and have avoided the topic entirely.  The Maine independent (who typically votes with them)....King?  He has avoided the topic entirely.  The West Virginia guy? Manchin?  He hasn't made a comment since this whole thing popped up.

Without those four votes, the DC application won't pass.

3.  Finally, this debate comes up over federal government control of the District.  As a state, the Feds would no longer have a say in the running or operational control of the District (flipped to state-status).  

The inauguration process?  Well....the DC state apparatus could be unhappy over the pick of the President, and engage strict limits on the inauguration ceremony, the crowd, and the events of the day.  

There are a hundred different ways that the state of Columbia could be this 'Frankenstein' with no way of fixing the mess....except for moving the Federal apparatus out of Columbia entirely and re-inventing another District elsewhere (out of thin air). 

So, I come to my judgement here....once you see that Puerto Rico and Guam won't be offered the same path to statehood....the discussion will disintegrate over the last half of 2021, and become another zero-subject by Christmas.  DC will stay DC.  

(I should suggest this....Georgetown (the neighborhood to the far NW of DC)....ought to go out and demand it's own state-status, and split this entire effort into two states applying)

What is Samizdat?

 It's originally a term invented in Russia (1940s), and it revolves around fake news created in the old Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries who were tightly controlled by the Soviets.  

So folks reached a level where the highly promoted news was viewed as fake, and they started to create real news-letters.  They'd be printed out.....quietly handed to friends, and passed on.  In simple terms....an underground network of publications not authorized by the state apparatus.

It eventually reached a stage where even music was considered 'too controlled' and samizdat editions of records were created (bootleg records so to speak).

Are we living in a samizdat era now?  I sat and pondered over this.  Up until the 1990s....I would have said no.  In the past twenty years?  You have to assemble each story you read.....take the red-marker, and then determine the amount of facts, speculation or BS.

So out of this decline in news story facts....yes, we've had a US effort to create a samizdat 'wave'.  For a while....Fox News served that role.  Lately, Newsmax and OANN fit the samizdat model.

Twitter and Facebook?  They both try to tightly control the news pattern and factual analysis.  But in doing so....they open the door for samizdat type creations to occur.  

Samizdat likely to be involved in the 2022/2024 elections?  More than likely.

What you really need to take out of this 'creation'?  Well....once you reach a level where trust is gone with news or state (enforced) facts....there's not much of a reason to go back or accepting the fake news.  You can call it a decline of the empire....but the decline started with the fake/biased news in the first place.