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REMINDER: Portland, MAINE Meetup Today, July 14 (Bastille Day), 6:00PM (with Lambert)

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After the original announcement, it remained only to pick the venue; I think the logic of holding it outside the downtown area, to avoid crowds and parking problems, is sound.

Therefore the venue (hat tip, Dan) is The Great Lost Bear, because it’s not in the Port area (crowded, pricey, parking problems) but it also looks very Maine.

Address: 540 Forest Ave, Portland, ME 04101
Phone: (207) 772-0300
Website: greatlostbear.com

Here is a map:

How to spot me: I am tall, not overly thin, wear glasses, have short grey hair, and will be wearing a red shirt and carrying a black computer shoulder bag (or have it with me). Hope to see you there at 6:00PM today.

To the craft beer, citoyens!

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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6 comments

  1. lyman alpha blob

    Glad I just got back from vacation to see this after being offline all week. See you there (hopefully) if I can get my wife to reschedule a girl’s night out.

    So is Al Diamon coming too? ;) I owe that guy an apology after giving him some crap in a letter to the editor several years back regarding a column he wrote critical of the local Greens. I’ve since seen the error of my ways.

  2. MDBill

    And it has a Webcam that shows the bar area, so those of us unable to attend may be able to catch a fleeting glimpse of Lambert. The “cam” is buried two levels down from the “home” page.

  3. chuck roast

    Hey…I just caught this.
    See you there.
    Oh, and pack a lunch…the food sucks.
    But the beer is good!

  4. John B

    Sorry, I expected an email and just saw this article as you are getting started so would be rather late.

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