PEASANTS UNITED
What the Establishment fears most
As a self-appointed Grassroots Whisperer(™), I have up till now been immersed in & in fellowship with my fellow SD citizens who occupy the right wing of the political spectrum, primarily. But this latest dustup - the Sioux Falls petition drive to bring the data center city zoning approval to a public vote - of which I threw myself into with gusto, allowed me the uncomfortable privilege of taking up arms (clipboards) with people that on any other political issue I would find myself shield-to-spear with. To be honest, it was not that uncomfortable for me, as the reality I find myself in is that I feel downright at-ease with the common folk, of which I count myself one. The “common” folk make up the grassroots. We work, spend, recreate, pay our taxes, and generally just want to be left alone to pursue our interests in peace in the communities we live. We have no power over our neighbors, nor want any. The common folk are who came together in this petition drive uniting in beautiful harmony, lifting our voices into a cacophony of what is best summarized as “HEY WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE!?!”
It was gratifying to be involved in this, and I shall never forget it.
Some of the organizers of this drive are people that I had fought tooth & nail against just 14 months ago in the ballot initiative campaigns. These folks, like this guy-
Jordan Deffenbaugh (right) & myself, with the queerdo flag comically landing right between us
are not what I would normally consider allies. Rather, they & we are co-belligerents, fighting a common enemy that is bigger & more acute than our battles of the past. There was some blowback, on both sides. I had people express concern that Jordan was having an undue “influence” on me, as I’m sure he also had about me. While I can’t speak for Jordan, I will make the same statement I once made to Jaime Smith, whom I have enjoyed a few arguments over coffee with: “I am the covid, you are the cloth facemask”. Maybe that explains why the SF mayor won’t meet with me…
This 3 week adventure was probably the LEAST CONTROVERSIAL political project I have ever been involved in. I met and visited with over 300 people, in person, which offerred me a complete cross section of my fellow citizens of Sioux Falls. All were at a minimum very concerned about what this project will do to our city. Very few were of the opinion that Sioux Falls is a city on the improve. Quality of life can be tricky to measure accurately, so I find the best way to find out is by talking to lots of people and getting their view. Perhaps the “elite” who rule over us could try the same. Get out of the country club circular massage parlor, and get out into the streets with us peasants.
There were a few people who gave me negative feedback about the petition drive, but they all live on fakebook, where snarky condescension is a favored currency. One guy by the name of Travis Duffy in Pierre called me a COMMUNIST, and went on a rampage against some of my fellow petition gatherers. Funny enough, I once took a cooking class hosted by this same Travis Duffy, who happens to be a world champion BBQ master. Maybe someone should do a welfare check on him, see what kind of afflictions he is going through right now.
Sadly, a day after turning in our petitions, we got word from the City that our effort only amounted to a little over 5,000 signatures, short of the minimum 6,700 needed. This should not be considered a defeat, my friends, despite what celebrations theChamber Bros may have had over the news. While I was very surprised that we came short, I am not discouraged. Yes, we had over 100 petition circulators working the streets. Yes, the local media did a fair job of helping to promote the effort. But, the requirement of getting 6,700 people to sign a petition, on an issue that most people have been caught completely flat-footed on, in 20 days IN THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY - the most murderous time to be outside in SD - is virtually an impossible task. I seriously cannot imagine an issue that would ignite the Normie Sleepers more than this one that has fallen into our lives, unbidden & unnecessary as it is.
If this petition drive would have happened in May, or September, it would have been a cakewalk.
I mean, come on……
If the SF City councilors, the mayor & all of the other pro-DC politicians in SD are feeling encouraged from this shortfall, I would caution them to check themselves before they wreck themselves. Much like the mega prison vote this past September, the vast majority of SF residents are coccooned in blissful ignorance over the consequences of putting multiple hyperscale data centers in our city limits.
Believe me when I tell you that I personally spoke with over 300 locals over the past 3+ weeks, and their mindsets ranged from confusion to rage over the prospect of this one Gemini DC. Every single one of them said “Thank you for doing this!”
Many of them had no clue that a megaprison is also coming to our corpulent city. When they learned of it, a nearly universal facial expression emerged, one best described as “You saw my WIFE doing WHAT with a man!?”
Most folks don’t know about the new prison, & most folks don’t know about the new hyperscale data pigs that are coming. This is what scared me into devoting so much of my time & energy into this fight: The fear of what could be a very bleak future. And look, I am not implying here that 95% of Sioux Falls residents are stupid. While it is reasonable to admit that a greater than zero % are actually FOR these data pigs, and a certain % simply don’t care either way, I would wager that - based on my wide sampling of people groups - around 85% have no clue what is happening. For example, I made an effort one day to visit 4 different assisted living centers in SF, the largest of them. Not one administrator would allow me to educate their residents on this petition, or give them an opportunity to sign. How sad is that, that we are treating a sizeable portion of our population as if they DO NOT MATTER in the future planning of a city that most of them probably grew up in, & still care about. I think that is very sad, & should be addressed. To those employees who decided to completely blow me off & block these people from the chance to engage in their civic community, I say shame on you!
This data center fight is far from over. In fact, HB1005 is looming into view, rumored to be coming to vote in committee this Wednesday (tomorrow!), and it is a big one. If passed, this bill will give data centers 50 years of sales tax exemption on all equipment purchases. Must be nice! I know that this year my company will be purchasing multiple delivery trucks, among other things, and I sure would love not having to pay sales taxes. But no, we lowly peasants don’t get that kind of special treatment that Crabtree & Roe are so gung ho to extend to these mysterious out-of-state business owners who will be shipping all of their profits off to destinations unkown.
LINGERING QUESTIONS
After all of our efforts in this petition drive, all of the conversations had with politicians, journalists and peasants, all of the concerns that The People had at that SF City Council meeting are left unaswered:
Who will own & operate this DC?
How many more DC’s are in the works?
What exactly will this DC be doing?
How can anyone guarantee that our utility rates won’t keep increasing?
What do our politicians like the Mayor & the city councilos know that we don’t? Did they sign an NDA with Gemini?
What are the environmental & health hazards that may result from this project?
What exactly is Kyle Peters’ role in this?
WHAT WE LEARNED
One of the developing stories that surround these data centers is the rising awareness by the genral peasant public just how corrupt our various governments here in SD have become in their pursuit of "Economic Development”.
These E.D. schemes are 100% about profiteering, and 0% about meeting a need in the community, and the People are starting to ask some uncomfortable questions. We can tell we are getting their attention, because heavyweights like Dana Dykehouse have lowered themselves to address the issue in the form of op-eds & TV commercials. We’ve also heard from Tyler Tordsen & Matt Paulsen (who you will see on the list of “elites” in the graphic below) trumpeting the wonderful glories of our government choosing winners in the business world. Many peasants have asked me “Why did the city council TOTALLY IGNORE those 300 people who showed up to protest the data centers last month?”. While I cannot read motives, I can attest that something changes a person when they join a council or commision or what have you. They get all giddy and drunk at the thought of raking in more dough that they can then go spend on baubles & buildings such as the $50 million Big Beautiful Indoor Rec Center, and the $650 million Big Beautiful Prison.
If you are really interested in finding out more about how these deals get done to us “for our own good”, do a little research into the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. I would wager that none of the names on this list will ever come our publicly against hyperscale data centers, or really any E.D. boondoggle project that gets foisted upon us.
Don’t you just love how politicians on this list are referred to as “HONORABLE”? Just perfect.
A.G.I.
One last word about the hyper growth of “artificial general intelligence” that is undergirding all of the data centers being built in America, supposedly. I have to say that I’m not impressed. For the past 6 years, there has been an obvious trend of nearly everything getting worse. Have you noticed it? It presents itself as a general degradation & retardation in quality of products and services, at nearly every level. It is quite frustrating. It seemed to start during the covid panic, when a huge percentage of the world acted like they were on an extended Snow Day, stayed home from work, “worked” from home but actually just goofed off for extended weeks at a time. America seemed to lose it’s work ethic overnight. Apathy became the new norm. And now Big Tech is firing 10’s of thousands of humans because they can so easily be replaced by A.G.I, apparently. I will predict right here that this development that so many are cheering along with only further erode our ability to think, to build, to figure out solutions to problems, to be human even. The lines between reality and fantasy will continue to blur.
And one day we will look backwards and wonder, “How did this happen to our world, and why didn’t anyone stop it?”
Yes, good article Chris, and that AGI line being crossed between reality & fantasy has now been named - in fact it made the 2025 word of the Year - it's called AIslop. And that slop is coming like a freight train. About 8% of 48,000 people surveyed trust AI searches! What kind of future is this? And what if the content of the data bases are biased, incorrect and support a particular narrative? What kinda of future is this for anyone desiring reality? We peasants must resist!
When the majority of the peasants realize that we have all been used as pawns in the game of life by the elites, beauracrats and politicians we can overcome and take back our country.
The majority of the corporations and CEO’s who used to support the Republican Party have changed their minds. Covid taught them that more regulations are not a bad thing because they can afford to pay attorneys large retainer fees to get around the regulations. Remember who got to keep their doors open during Covid? Small businesses can not afford the attorneys. The large corporations see this as a way to get rid of their competition. When all the small businesses are gone you think Amazon and Walmart are gonna keep prices low?
Healthcare industry has record costs and profits and get away with being non-profits???
We think the cost of food is high now? Wait and see what happens when it becomes like healthcare. Go to the store needing 6 things and come out with 20 cause you don’t have to pay for it directly? If you owned the grocery store what would you do? Might as well raise prices even more as no one is concerned because they don’t think they are having to pay for it.
Only good news is the elites really don’t want to get rid of a large percentage of us because we are very useful in laundering the money right back to them over and over again.