Day 51, going on Day 52 of this nightmare of Putin holding center stage as if he was the leader of the Ringling Bros. Circus. The Ukrainians had a victory of sinking the death ship and bravo to them! They deserve many more victories as they are fighting with all of their might and soul to hold onto what they have.
I want our government to guide the Ukrainians in hunting down Putin and his allies until they do not breathe another breath. Biden was in the room when Osama bin Laden suffered that defeat by our brilliant soldiers. It can happen again. I want to see Trump scrambling up a tree as the indictments come after him and his allies. I want to see the Senate of seditionists shivering with fear that information of their whereabouts on Jan. 6th and before, reveal their evil plot. We were a bleeding nation for 4 god-awful years. Now we are looked upon as savior of other nations. Finland and Sweden should be immediately let into NATO. I pray they receive entry.
Hehehe right? Just one shining moment of sheer glee. Then back to thinking about ways to get out the vote here in this country. We’ve got autocrats of our own to “sink.”
sheer glee,huh? Like when your team's winning? people dead in that ship. while nuclear bombs sit on the table. tomorrow's children getting to chew on the worsened climate disaster thanks to this war, people dead, children dead, ship sunk, corpses on the streets, no video game, no football game, people dead, children dead, war profiteers like you filled with glee, money in their pockets, more more more! no game here, people, children dead. pets dead.....is war a time for glee? death?
Sheila is speaking of the people defending against the perpetrators of what you have described. And there is rejoicing when right makes an inroad against evil. I wish people would be as heartfelt in defending Democracy in the United States as you are today. We are in serious trouble here. Sheila knows that.
Ahh, "when right makes an inroad against evil"...I wonder when that "right" will make an "inroad against evil" here at home.....such purity has a big feast for it to devour right here at home with corporations - many subsidized and non-tax paying- running the legislative show making it look like you and I have a say in our democracy-appearing oligarchy (see Gilens & Page; Also, Wollin "managed democracy") Might this war be an obscene bit of performance art arranged to ultimately cut off China at their knees in a desperate attempt to ward off the USA empire being replaced by China? Talk about evil.
You come off as judgmental and 1 dimensional. But I doubt that is accurate is it. The other people here are also multi-dimensional in their thinking. You assume you know everyone's total thinking on war, evil and Democracy etc. You don't. None of us do.
In your anti war zeal you are in fact waging a kind of war against the good people commenting here. You are invalidating your passion for peace stance. Now here is your choice today. You can keep running all over this comments section today waging war or you can spread some much needed peace. As for me I am finished responding to your rants.
The reports I read said there were no casualties in the sinking of the Moskva. Russian media said it sank because of "a fire that spread to munitions, which detonated", or words to that effect. Yeah. I believe even they reported there were no casualties. I rejoice at any loss of Russian materiel, materiel used, BTW, to kill innocent men, women, and children.
Very hard to believe that there would not be casualties even if the Russian reports were accurate. And the fact that Russian ships moved away from the shores of Ukraine after the incident speaks volumes. If, in fact, Ukrainian missiles hit the ship, then it seems almost certain that at least some Russian sailors were killed and wounded.
Bruce, we can assume that, despite Russian propaganda, there were many casualties. A ship that size could not be sunk without catastrophic human toll. Sadly, they were victims of Putin's insanity. I'm thrilled that they have moved other deadly ships further out to sea, where their threat will be somewhat diminished.
So far, every account of what happened (NYT, WaPo, Axios) has said the crew had been evacuated when the blows struck that sank him (apparently the Russian navy refers to ships in the masculine). Until I hear otherwise I have to take this as fact. The ship was attacked and sank as it was being towed.
“War profiteers like you?” Do you know something about Sheila that the rest of us don’t, or are you just carried away by your own righteousness? There is much truth in what you say, but the certainty of your truth spoils it.
War is hell, Selina. People are dying and maimed. What suggestions do you have to end this uncalled for genocide of Ukraine? I doubt there were children on the death warship which is what has contributed mightily to the horrible destructions you mention on land and of two cities that are wiped out. Who are you speaking to here and calling them "war profiteers?"
I just learned the ship was being towed so no deaths then, that's a relief. I'm for our citizenry to be massed in the streets insisting on our efforts be for a negotiated peace. War profiteers - Goldman Sachs; Lockheed Martin, Raytheon; Facebook ...(see CBS.com "How Goldman Sachs profits from war in Ukraine, loophole in sanctions" Also:....As The Hill reported, the extra support for Ukraine "comes on top of more than $1 billion the U.S. has already spent in the past year to arm Ukrainian soldiers with modern weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, and Raytheon's anti-aircraft Stinger missiles."....Also....The Weapons Industry Sees the War in Ukraine as a Goldmine Arms companies are exploiting Russia’s invasion to push a military spending frenzy.....and more....just google Who profits from Ukraine War).
Selina, This is not a regional disagreement - this is WW3, stage 1. Putin made abundantly clear from the beginning it’s NATO who he is starting the war with, he doesn’t want a peace deal and you can’t make him take it with negotiation even if you give him all Ukraine (not that it is yours to give). Whatever the US is spending on it now is a great investment into preventing us (or delaying us) from having to actually fight that war. Ukrainians are covering the entire world’s collective butt.
Yes, weapon makers profit from war, but this is an unjust war perpetuated by the Russian and specifically Putin. This is the sad reality and yes, they will take advantage because certain entities take advantage of every situation where they see profit. What kind of negotiated peace do you think Putin will accept.
The ship was evacuated, so no one was on board. It was being towed to a port. When the Ukrainians score a hit against the Russians, it does make people happy although all of us would rather this war and the climate disaster were not happening.
I posted that the "crew" had abandoned ship yesterday 4/14./22 approximately 500 crew members. Difficult to get valid data when the Moskva itself was a source of regional disinformation. I posted NYT's 4/14 citation to a named Ukranian military Commander near Odessa the likely area where a mobile Neptune Ukranian team launched the shore to ship missles. I do not think we can underestimate the full impact of this military clash given the full situational & historical context.
Bryan, for whatever it's worth, I heard an NPR broadcast around 4:00 EDT today that said that there was a crew abord when the Ukranian missiles hit. There was no verifiable information regarding casualties, but the assumption was that it was likely that there were some killed and injured. The ship was subsequently towed into port, where it sank. The fog of war, and the reliability that the Russians will spread misinformation. As you pointed out, we can't underestimate the impact of this strike, either militarily nor morale-wise.
I can feel your helplessness and horror but this is WAR. Unprovoked. Do I feel sorry for those poor Russian soldiers told they are being sent for "exercises" who are shocked to learn they're supposed to kill their brothers? Yes, it's heart-wrenching, but I'm not feeling sorry for Goliath. What's the alternative to defending your people? The ship that was sunk was the flagship in the region, in other words, it was where naval commands came from. Its obliteration is thrilling not for having killed more Russian military personnel, but for serving as a stumbling block against an attack on the very fibers of democracy....
"Unprovoked"? Please take a look at Consortium News ....the essay "NYT Smears Journalist, Calls 2014 Ukraine Coup ‘Conspiracy Theory’" by Ed Norton. And if you are intrepid enough to investigate that , then take a look also at Hedges "The Pimps of War"
and lastly, the piece entitled "Corporate Media's War Industry Pundits." Please note too, Consortium News has a reputation for clean fact checks.
YES. Unprovoked. Woman, a population is being systematically slaughtered at the hands of a madman. So they asked for that??? Military industrial complex reservations aside, this is an attempt to entirely obliterate a population (look at some of Putin's most recent unhinged statements...it's chilling) The stated rationale makes no sense to any sentient being. It's brutal, barbaric, senseless, and yes, unprovoked. NOBODY deserves what these people are suffering. The rest of the world is going to have to do something to stop this or, literally, millions could die. You'd be okay with that??? We've not seen such brutality on this scale since WW 2. I don't rejoice when people are killed, but I also rejoice when right triumphs over wrong. Sorry, but your sanctimoniousness is pissing me off. Putin would LOVE you...
We celebrate a moment of glory for “the good guys” amidst the horror of war. Helps give strength to those fighting and dying. Hopefully moves the hearts and minds of national leaders to help more.
Something about this brings "The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident" and Dubya Bush's insistence that "WMDs" necessitated our invasion of, was it, Iraq.? It seems Truth has become a chronic casualty of our reliance on WAR to meet our, usually disguised, and otherwise distorted greedy goals. What would "happen" if we literally invested in ALTERNATE ENERGY, rather than trying to capture other nation's poisonous resources by Military means? And lie about it.
I hope the Ukrainians painted “For the Children” on the rockets that sank the Moskva, it would be fitting after what Russia has done to that peaceful country. I keep wondering when the Russian military will turn on Putin, just how much do they have to lose before they send the tanks after him, the length of his table will be meaningless if a couple pilots decide they have had enough and obliterate the building he is hiding in just like they did to that theater hundreds were hiding in, in Mariupol. You have to be very careful what you ask for, especially when you unleash the dogs of war.
Total incompetence. Can’t park your flagship where it’s vulnerable right? Same as stringing out a convoy parked 40 miles long. I think the Russians have learned this lesson and are regrouping. May 9th has significance to them from WW2. Then this from Zelensky and CIA director warning of tactical nukes. Pretty scary world today.
At moments like these I often think of the Capt. Tom Phillip of the USS Texas, at the Battle of Santiago Bay. When the Texas’ big guns set one of the Spanish ships afire, the American sailors began to exult. Capt. Phillip leaned out of the pilot house and called out, “Don’t cheer,boys, the poor devils are dying.” The simple humanity of that cry, in the heat of battle, has always struck me. (At least on observer insisted that Capt. Phillip called the Spaniards “the poor fellows,” because he was a God-fearing Christian.)
Talk about irony, keep in mind that this was reported to have happened near Snake Island, where about a dozen Ukranian marines responded similarly when the Russians told them to surrender or be killed. Initially, the marines were reported to have been killed, but they were later revealed to be very much alive. As with Zelenskyy, a lawyer/actor, these underrated Ukranians have a way with words (and appropriate gestures).
I share TC’s glee. The Moskva was a powerful symbol for both sides, from its name and flagship status on the Russian side, to its being the recipient of the heroic “Russian warship, go F yourself” on the Ukrainian side. Glee, because the good guys managed something symbolic and extraordinary that day. I’m not blind to the risks on the table, but I think the only good outcome here is for Ukraine to win, so when they score a victory, I think it’s good. Very good.
glee? how can death, carnage, blood red running on the streets, evoke "Exultant or playful exhilaration; demonstrative joy or delight; merriment; mirth; gaiety."? Death - whose ever it is - is for keeps, no more a bright dawn, a lovers arms, a soothing quiet rain....tears....astonishment..
What do you propose instead of bombs, Selina? What's your solution? No one likes the bombs and killing. The glee is not for that. I'm sure you understand that, right?
Would you stand on a street and let someone shoot you point blank or would you shoot them in self defense first? Glee, because with the sinking of the Moscow we are that much closer to preventing the annihilation of the innocent people (mothers, great grandparents, children and infants) of Ukraine. The men on the Moscow are murders and would continue murdering until every last child was dead or pirated away to Russia for who knows what kind of life.
Yes, glee. No, this is not a video game. The sinking of the Muskova, who was the pride and joy of the Russian Navy, and his sinking showcases the lack of adequate response by the personnel aboard and lack of proper maintenance by the government. To read the Russian reports that he developed a fire and sank in heavy seas while under tow underscores how much that ship meant to Russia, and how unwilling they are to acknowledge the effective missile fire of the Ukranians.
Ally House - Glee? ship down? people dead? Glee - because the ship, a favored "toy" of Putin is destroyed? A real ego-trip, huh. Like at a football game when your side scores a point. Only your team gets to wake up the next morning and kiss their babes and see the scarlet tanager sitting on the branch outside their window, and pet their golden's soft head. I fear for us when we feel "delight" at "winning" when the win means death.
Selina Sweet, ARE YOU A RUSSIAN ‘BOT? Your first response got a pass because I can understand anti-war sentiments concerned by the deaths “on both sides.” But, this war was unnecessary and only occurred because the Russian Barbarian throwbacks to WWII INVADED A PEACEFUL NATION. From that point on it became a war of DEFENSE AGAINST A BRUTAL ENEMY. How dare you chastise a nation that has taken so much loss of life and destruction defending their sovereignty to live in peace. Yes, we have glee when an oppressor's prized ship which had the capability to inflict more death & destruction is lost. Had it gone down with all Russian hands on board, it still would not diminish the thousands of innocent civilians and children who have been murdered by the perpetrators. So, again I srsly ask are you a Russian ‘bot, or a real life sympathizer with a murdering aggressive enemy of democracy, who BTW is the one threatening nukes.
Then you need to toughen up, this world is not getting prettier. And we have our own evil autocracy on our shores wanting to genocide us. They fought against preparing for a pandemic where 1 million people died on our shores these past two years. We were powerless except to wear masks whilst they propagandized the whole pandemic is a hoax. I lost people because of this travesty of republican propaganda. We are at a critical moment to stand up and be part of the Resistance, or let them take over and create a worse slave state than we already are, and face the earth's destruction. Sounds a bit dramatic, but that front of us. Wish you could provide some solutions while we face some incredibly to tough decisions. It is not a game. It is life and death. That seems to be the "theatre" of the absurd on earth.
Right on Pensa....Join the Sunrise Movement...organize fellow citizens between elections to vote in progressives from local to national.....take a band of like minded into the offices of your state/national congressional reps to insist on spine in service of progressive agenda....please note: no visceral outcry yet from the citizenry on Biden's campaign promises: to wit student debt forgiveness, $15 minimum wage, etc).
I guess that as a practitioner of violence for most of my adult life, I am not as refined as you are in being able to see that perspective. There are enemies in this world. Sadly, those "sailors" on that ship were in harm's way because of their actions taken against a democracy.
Sailors is in quotes, because I do no believe that either their training or experience were up to the task of combat.
Selina Sweet, I feel glee that the Moskva will no longer rain death on Ukrainians. So, an instrument of death is destroyed with no loss of life—I’d call that a victory.
We have lived with that threat for decades. It is real, but so is the counter threat. Not everyone in some position of power in Russia is a complete fool - even Putin and his toadies are not in total control.
MaryPat, thank you for this. Prior to hearing this exchange, I believed that Ukraine was badly outnumbered, but am happy to hear that they're almost evenly matched. While it would be foolish to think that this is nearly finished, I feel more hopeful.
While I am so pleased to see our country leading the sanctions movement against Putin's evil regime my joy is diminished by remembering that we promised Ukraine that we would guarantee their security if they gave up nuclear weapons. What is the message Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and other autocracies take home about nuclear disarmament from the current catastrophe in Ukraine?
Marlene, it appears that Ukraine is doing a bang-up job of tracking down Russian generals, and "neutralizing" them, and using drones to distract their flagship's sensors so that missiles could sink it was sheer genius. Understanding the danger, I wish there was a way to supply them with even more military hardware, including aircraft, and send in NATO troops, regardless of the fact that they aren't members, to squash Russia's advances before they flatten every building in Ukraine.
For those of us who believe that we're mired in corruption and hamstrung by cynicism, I hope we can take heart that we can perform miracles here in our own "war."
"Trump hates debates not least because his knowledge of political topics is weak"
That's being charitable; I'd say "non-existent" rather than "weak."
However, I'm fairly sure the ReThugly-cans and ultra-wealthy don't care as long as they can "continue to pocket disproportionate shares of the national wealth" and impose their morally bankrupt, racist and inhumane policies on the rest of us. (Speaking as a female POC myself)
Sadly, tfg is so illiterate in all aspects of politics and leadership, that we will return to pre-civil war days should he be placed on his imaginary throne in the WH. I, for one, will not be able to abide it -- but where to go?!!!!
My exact thoughts of late. I try to remain hopeful and positive in the fight to right our capsizing democracy, but it becomes more difficult by the day. Sadly, not only is tfg illiterate on politics and leadership, his worshiping followers are blissfully ignorant on civic society.
Nobody chasing me out of my country. Here to the end, making noise until I can't.
But I do think we are headed towards some sort of "Two Americas" to quote the ill fated John Edwards. No idea how it will look. But I suspect there will be authoritarian states and democratic/progressive states. I feel pretty safe in MA. But I see a time when I won't even consider traveling to certain states. The list is obvious.
Hi Ashley - I wish I had your confidence. Look at our Senators. Blackburn (my favorite punching bag) won going away. That speaks worlds to me. Like Tuberville in AL - wasn't even close. A giant thumb in the eye of progressive thinking people in those states.
Jay, it’s not confidence as much as a glass half full mindset. In this Blue corner, I’m doing my part to keep the cerulean waves rolling for my children and their generation of leaders.
They foolishly think his power is helping them and making there lives better. You only need to lol at where we rank (healthcare, literacy, education, etc) and that will tell you all you need to know. Unfortunately blue Lexington & Louisville can’t carry the rest of the red state.
You can’t expect a person that is beyond mentally deficient, way below the level of a moronic simpleton, to be able to present intelligent arguments in a political debate. That’s what we were treated to in the last presidential debates, no wonder they don’t want to demonstrate his ignorance to the world, it makes him look like the imbecilic clown that he is.
I wish Trump was stupid. He was clever enough to manipulate a large portion of this country into voting for his hateful nativist rhetoric and overlooking his corrupt cabinet. Underestimating the enemies of our great democracy is counterproductive. And don't think only one party is to blame just because it is the lesser of two evils.
True. Nevertheless, he's the front man giving the final ok. That said, I hold his enablers more responsible b/c at one time they were responsible people; they've given that up now. But he's always been irresponsible and totally narcissistic.
He is evil, but no genius. Neither is he intelligent, but woefully ignorant. He has a native cunning and is manipulative, magnified by his father's harping. I am still of the belief that along the way he was chosen by authoritarians who knew that if they massaged him correctly he could be utilized as a useful idiot. He is very dangerous, despite his pea-sized brain.
"Trump hates debates not least because his knowledge of political topics is weak...." For Trump to conflate NATO with the UN after having spent four years as POTUS is beyond imagination. That HALF of self identified Republicans still view the idiot in a favorable light is .... beyond description. So my question is this: Should these people be allowed to vote? We requite a written test before even allowing a person to drive a car. How about imposing an IQ test on voters? I would think 85 would be a good cutoff point!
Mary do you remember at the Summit when he said that Germany owes the US money because "they haven't paid up". He thought, somehow in his demented mind that NATO was a business for the US. I'll never forget the look on Merkels face. What a buffoon.
Yes! And the look on Merkel's face was priceless (also her grimace when Dubya rubbed her shoulders). She couldn't contain her astonishment. I loved that about her.
"So my question is this: Should these people be allowed to vote?" George - I have thought long and hard on this very thing over the years. And I have concluded that, at the risk of being accused of "both-siderism", many folks who vote progressive also are essentially illiterate on important issues, although they are not as dangerous to democracy. So I think they tend to cancel each other out. Instead, we must focus on free and fair elections, no gerrymandering or voter restriction measures, or other ways to misrepresent the will of the voters. In other words a fair fight. Let's see who comes out on top. I am pretty confident the good guys (progressives) will win every time. And the battle lines will move left, where there is actually sanity on either side.
I know it's tempting to set some kind of "information" standard. But I think there is too much risk of abuse (poll taxes, literacy tests etc used by southern states to get around the 15th ammendment.) When I spoke to a friend of mine from Pakistan about the test he had to take for citizenship, I remember seeing some questions that I wasn't sure I could answer! So for me the work should be around free and fair elections and civics education. And better messaging against the lies and "mis" information! Blessings and Happy Easter, Happy Passover.
THIS! It is soooo disconcerting that both some of my kindest but not bright friends and other, very intelligent friends voted for 45, and still believe "he's not that bad, all politicians are corrupt." They disbelieve the FACTS of his cruel and immoral actions, policies, and words!!
Very frustrating to me, so I've had to step back from those former friends for my own sanity.
No. That requirement has been misused before and should not be used again. Just WHO decides what someone should know before voting? I know very educated people with frightening ideas. And I know people who, for various reasons, can barely read, but who pay attention and have good insight on issues. IQ is a poorly defined and badly designed construct for almost anything. And 85 is a number right out of the eugenics movement. Think on THAT for a minute.
If " IQ is a poorly defined and badly designed construct for almost anything", how would you characterize an individual's capacity to cast an "intelligent", which is to say "well informed" vote? Within the context of their own logic, of course, unless they don't do "logic". Eugenics? You think I'm a Nazi for dropping a number like "85". OK, you pick one. I think you're playing word games here. My only point was that we are are doing ourselves no favor by allowing people who won't be bothered to vote on the basis of anything more than a warm fuzzy feeling (wherever they experience it) when they hear a catchy phrase like "Make America Great Again".
IQ is a number standing in for a wide range of possible definitions of intelligence, George. There are many kinds of intelligence, and the number assigned from assessments or tests are limited in their ability to judge a person's capacity in even the areas they are designed for. No, I am not playing word games. I am pointing out that your understanding of what IQ stands for seems to derive from the 1940s. As for "85", you might understand that better if you undertook to read the history of IQ testing and their purpose. You read something into what I said that wasn't there.
Remember, we used to have "tests," especially in the South, where to qualify to vote you'd have to answer convoluted questions, look at a jar of jellybeans and guess the number, or provide other "proof of intelligence." That these hoops were required for Black people to jump through is immaterial in this instance. It would be a slippery slope to reinstate these qualification requirements.
Your point's well taken, Nancy. However, how about a very fundamental test that might be multiple choice? Not so much about intelligence test per se as basic literacy and civics knowledge? It might consist of questions like "How many Supreme Court Justices are there usually sitting on the US Supreme Court? A) 3, B) 6 C) 9 D) 12 or How many states are there currently in the USA? A) 48, B) 49 C) 50 D) the number varies with the census each ten years. OK, offer the test in Spanish as an option. From what I've read, most adults in this country couldn't score 80% on such a test, which is pitiful. Should these people be voting? Or do we accept the current situation in which a sizeable portion of the electorate is unequipped to understand the most basic issues facing our nation, so incurious that they couldn't state even the most fundamental facts about their government, so incapable of any level of critical thinking that their vote can be secured with the most catchy sound bite, or all of the above?
George, while you're correct that many voters are woefully ignorant, I believe the real threat is that even more informed voters choose their "tribe" based on emotion and mis/disinformation. Even intelligent people can sometimes fall prey to that. Consider that Ginni Thomas was a member of a cult in her youth, and is now "deprogrammed" but colluded in an attempt to overthrow a legitimate elected government! If any kind of "test" were proposed as a prerequisite to voting, we would add another layer to voter suppression. Even if I despise those who apparently wish for an authoritarian government, regardless of their intellect or lack thereof, giving government permission to decide on a voter's qualifications is dangerous and open to abuse. Imagine what Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, Bryan Kemp, et al. would do with that opportunity.
Nancy, While I have to acknowledge your concerns regarding potential voter suppression I think of the issue in terms of sheer numbers. I have no data on this, but I see people like Ginnie Thomas as outliers. Certainly people like her would have no trouble passing the basic test I've described. And to folks like us, they are dangerous, but you can't deny them the vote. I also have a favorite nephew who hasn't spoken to me in two years due to our differences over Donald Trump. My nephew is extremely bright but I've come to think of him as a paranoid schizophrenic. In his mind, anything including Trump, is preferable to "the deep state". But I live in a deep red state. Perhaps my perception of this issue has been influenced by that experience. Most of the people you interact with here seem to be less interested in discussing real issues than clinging to the last outrageous and inflammatory statement issued by Tucker Carlson on Fox. I grow weary of it. Anyhow, I do appreciate your well expressed points. Take care.
George, yes, Idaho is a deep red state (why my folks left as very young adults). So perhaps your take has indeed been influenced by that exposure. But I know people who live there who seek out a wider lens (there are several here whose posts are beacons of clarity for the rest of us. I can't see that you think things through any more clearly than the people you think should be tested. That frightens me more than anything. I hope you keep coming and keep reading, especially when folks write about things like empathy and finding ways to reach across the breach. That really is the only way to get to where we need to go. Looking down on people will not change anything; it just makes us like Trump.
Thank you, George. Having been raised in suburban Boston, then moving to suburban Atlanta years ago, I've seen both liberals in Boston (with a fair number of racists and now Trumpies) and now slowly emerging, more liberals here in Georgia but still some recalcitrant Marjorie Taylor Greenes in very conservative areas. At times, I've severed ties with those who I consider to be wrong-headed and unreasonable.
I think the problem is largely with folks who blindly follow without bothering to read and research our history, and rely on false narratives. One would think that people would understand that the Biden administration is offering to help everyone, regardless of political persuasion, but even the mainstream news is trashing him. Contrasted with 4 years of Trump and his cohorts, one should be able to see the improvement. A local newscaster was talking about inflation last night, and commented that mortgage interest rates had risen to a "very high 5%." When we built our house 30 years ago, interest rates were above 9%, but we were able to refinance less than a year later at a lower rate, then again when we could get 4% a few years later. How ignorant can information-dispersers be? Regardless of this person's age (under 40), he is the anchor. He should be better informed, and Biden is having to deal with this trash, and worse, daily. As you say, it is wearisome.
Beau of the Fifth Column today suggested since the Republicans are refusing a debate that the Democrats should invite the Libertarians to the debate. I love this idea!
The GOP quitting the debates and claiming media bias is more evidence that they can't articulate a policy plan to help the country and its people. Because they don't have a plan.
The GOP will not make any kind of move without thinking it through. To them regaining power (or remaining in power) is the only thing. The only thing. All things, in their eyes, are fair in support of it. Even they will admit that. The question to ask is "why do they think this will work?". Because it might just work. I believe a large block of Americans believe the progressive agenda is evil and bad for the country in one way or another. So much so as to spawn true hatred, and to counter that at the ballot box is the most important thing to do. It's been there for a long time; Trump helped bring it out into the open. It is an ugly and embarrassing part of the American psyche that needs to go away for good. So the GOP apparently thinks this sentiment is so strong that they can use it to take back power, without a platform other than stop the progressives. So instead of ridiculing the GOP for such a revealing move, I'd like to see action taken to eliminate the cause for such a move. Somehow convince more people that the progressive cause is a good one, not just for progressives but for everyone save the 1%'ers. We need a cushion badly. Having 52% or so on our side isn't good enough. It fails to account for little things not going our way.
We are on the same page Janice. The position Republicans have taken demonstrates to all that their formula for winning is to refuse to debate the issues. It is an authoritarian position, similar to the "shadow docket" being used by the SCOTUS more and more. It is ominous. Very telling that the Republicans do not even have a platform anymore - they somehow think that they will get enough votes just be being Rethuglican, and enacting strict voter suppression laws. That is pure authoritarianism. And alarmingly they might be right. It is beyond me that such a large part of our electorate is falling for this, such that voter restrictions can tilt the balance. There was a time I was proud to be an American....
From what I know the Koch brothers are still in business in Russia, on a large scale, and in oil and gas. Clean energy is surely an existential threat to a lot of rich people.
“Clean energy is surely an existential threat to a lot of rich people.” So so absolutely true. We’ve had decades to become environmentally responsible and independent of fossil fuels that are destroying our planet. But thanks to the big money party, the “rich people “ we’re in a possibly irreversible climate crisis. So Fascism and climate change threaten us.
"The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries." Wikipedia
Edited:,What’s unfortunate is the “legacy” of fascists and demons. Even when all the Koch family is gone, their greed and corruption will live on through what they have created, supported, influenced and owned. I’m editing my comment and adding this link of the worlds richest families. https://www.familyminded.com/s/richest-families-world-edf3c38fa224422e
Koch family is the third richest and Walton Family, Walmart etc. first. Even living off the land or on a remote island, not buying anything, we would likely come in contact with a product or the influence of the world’s billionaires. A friend of mine tries to buy only used or bartered items but still can’t avoid at least making one of these wealthier. Another reason to pay attention.
Koch family will live on forever. Along with the other wealthiest families. Koch number three of thirty according to this detailed list of 30 richest families in world. https://www.familyminded.com/s/richest-families-world-edf3c38fa224422e. Courtesy of the internet so I can’t vouch for accuracy. But one of these wealthy families can.
And there's another list of all the Brands that Koch owns. I would boycott them but I already have. Environmentally unconscious paper goods and 'foods'.
My sister just sent me a copy of "Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America" by Christopher Leonard. For some reason my fingers kept typing the title as Kock Industries.
Ah, friend MaryPat is back. Nothing keeps her down or quells the laughter that she brings. On we go to the rescue of Democracy as Spring kisses us with nature's bounty.
I made the argument elsewhere earlier this week that all authoritarians are ultimately losers because of their incompetence. One cannot find an authoritarian system in history that did not ultimately fail, due to the collective weight of incompetence. The incompetent leader - who may have the savvy to take power but has no understanding of the way the system he has conquered operates, attracts first opportunists and then sycophants. None of these will promote an actual competent person to a position of responsibility, for fear of their incompetence being exposed (a good example is noted incompetent Hermann Goring's promotion of actually-competent fighter pilot Adolf Galland to command the German air defense force. Every decision Galland made only exposed Goring's incompetence, while Goring's sycophancy to Hitler - who had no real understanding of how a war machine operates despite his claims of military genius - undermined Galland's attempts to implement sound strategy and tactics and adoption of technology that would aid the defense. The German defense continued to crumble and in the end Goring fired Galland and tried to assign him where he would be killed, because he could no longer stand being shown up. The rest of the German war machine was similar; their greatest success was momentary in the summer of 1940 when they defeated France, but the incompetence of the Nazi leadership undermined everything else afterwards.
The same can be seen with Putin's Russia, which is about as incompetent as the last 50 years of the Romanovs, during which they were defeated by the Turks in 1877, the Japanese in 1904 and the Germans in all battles between 1914-1917, with the rot extending to the point the regime fell easily and was then overthrown by the Bolsheviks. Putin, the failed mid-level Chekist, really has no idea how things actually work, and the people he surrounds himself with are incompetent sychophants who are afraid of him. He has no chance of attracting any competent person who might help him, since he couldn't accept their help if he did bring them on.
Unfortunately, TC, many Western Democracies are often no more able to attract the most competent than the autocratic states. The systems needed a bludgeoning war launched by Putin to get their act together externally and collectively, but many are still stuck in democratic paralysis at home as the very necessary checks and balances are either tentatively set aside in their system to thwart democracy or indeed stop anything at all happening through their "over thorough" and highly legalistic application. One result has been the growth of judicial power either to impose policy or to stop "innovative" action. The risks to the private life and livelihood from diving into the political arena for any new, non-party individual or group or indeed for anyone in the existing parties with a refreshingly new vision of how to serve the people and lead the nation and with the charisma and intelligence to impose themselves, have increased logarythmically. The good people are going elsewhere and are doing other things with their lives as the colective good loses out in its continual historic battle with individual freedom.
It seems to me just as Oligarchs found loop holes to launder money through shell companies, Republicans found loopholes and cracks in our government to abuse and sidestep former precedents and norms. During TFG’s administration I was horrified by all the ways they got around rules and regulations, by just refusing to comply, by having acting directors and just not filling positions at all. But nothing has been done to prevent it all happening again. Nothing to prevent another, smarter grifter to do even more damage. So many checks and balances seem to have just been gentleman’s agreements and not anything enforceable.
And Congress seems to have no enforceable rules at all. People with no understanding of our government can be elected, those who openly hate and want to destroy our country can stay in office. Conflict of interest is becoming more of a given for members of Congress and they make huge personal profit from their entitled position.
Members of Congress have no duty for their sworn oath of office and can hold the country hostage for their political stunts and tantrums. McConnell can let bills just sit because he doesn’t like them, no discussions, no votes. How can our country possibly be fixed when those who govern and set our rules and laws also write themselves a free ticket for personal profit, power and party politics? Dark money, no transparency, and being bought by hostile foreign countries is destroying us from the inside.
Good faith indeed. It is also dependent on acceptance of the rules, and abiding by them. Why have an "emoluments clause" at all if it is not enforced (see, 45th President of the US and his violations of said clause).
Good faith in this context means exactly that. It means following precedent, the rules, acting in the best interests of the whole, and not attempting the undermine the system or play it to pursue individual gain. Stuart Stevens meant there is no enforcement in place to insure that public servants serve in good faith, as most presidents did before Trump. Trump and his ilk found every loophole right up until and past their campaign to steal the 2020 election. We don't have protections in place for a party that is proudly and blatantly anti-democratic, a party that wants to destroy the government rather than make it function.
A democracy requires trust, and educated populace and honor system of rules. If you have a seditious group of bullies with no consequences for bad behavior, democracy is shattered.
Ally, I agree. I was disgusted when the lawsuits alleging that TFG broke the emoluments clause were dismissed as soon as he left office. So, does that mean any politician or government employee can break a law that applies to their position and then, if caught, evade retribution by resigning their post? I hope not.
Good faith, of which there is little. It was assumed that those powerful enough to govern possessed good character, while the poor and minorities possessed neither. We're beginning to reap that harvest.
They have been infiltrating and setting this up since Reagan. White men do not like where our country is going with true freedoms and diversity, and aspiring towards more equality. That ain't the kind of America they want. This is about power, money and tint. I think is really good that trump was the monkey with a mirror in front, instead the quiet one on Ronnie's lap. The current chimp was/is so crass, so vulgar, so uneducated and self-absorbed but knows how propaganda works in reality shows. His followers and kowtowers became a belligerent but dangerous cult. Their shady souls and filthy tactics are abhorrent enough to make us all pay attention as they wish to squeeze darker tints of skin and/or gender/s, and immigrants. So, we should be thankful they are so blatant and light is being shed upon them. Much easier to resist an enemy you can see. Unfortunately, people of tinted skins have seen and felt this oppression and suppression far longer than the light skin privileged.
True, but I think we’re seeing a new wave of competent visionaries coming into politics (like A.O.C.) and they will be bringing lots of competent visionaries to work with them.
We don’t yet know if AOC & Co have the grit and stomach to go the distance. AOC’s candidates aren’t winning many elections. She refused to vote for “compromise bills”—all or nothing; Bernie or Bust. TBD
Stuart, I could not follow the point of your comment. It defeated my solid and much practiced skill of reading comprehension.
a) Which 'Western Democracies are you talking about that are unable to attract the most competent -- most competent at what?
b) 'The systems needed a bludgeoning war launched by Putin to get their act together externally and collectively, but many are still stuck in democratic....' and on and on you went.
DEMOCRACIES NEEDED PUTIN TO GO TO WAR AGAINST UKRAINE - this war represents one of the solutions for weakened and 'disappeared' Democracies? Is that what you think? Have you computed. Stuart. the risks associated with the use of tactical nuclear weapons and the U.S. going to war with Russia?
'Ukraine war is economic catastrophe, warns World Bank
By Jonathan Josephs
Business reporter, BBC News (The following are snippets from BBC's report)
'David Malpass says "it's too early to say" if the war in Ukraine will lead to a global recession'
'The war in Ukraine is "a catastrophe" for the world which will cut global economic growth, the president of the World Bank has told the BBC.'
"The war in Ukraine comes at a bad time for the world because inflation was already rising," said David Malpass.
'He stressed his biggest concern is "about the pure human loss of lives" that is occurring.'
Mr Malpass said the economic impact of the war stretches beyond Ukraine's borders, and the rises in global energy prices in particular "hit the poor the most, as does inflation".
'Food prices have also been pushed up by the war, and "are a very real consideration and problem for people in poor countries".
'Mr Malpass points out that both Russia and Ukraine are big food producers. Ukraine is the world's biggest producer of sunflower oil, with Russia number two, according to S&P Global Platts. Between them they account for 60% of global production.'
'The two countries also account for 28.9% of global wheat exports according to JP Morgan. Wheat prices on the Chicago future exchange have been trading at 14-year highs'.
'Ukraine is the world's biggest producer of sunflower oil but the war has stopped exports'
'Russian supplies of these commodities are being restricted because of the widespread sanctions which make it hard for the rest of the world to buy its products. Ukrainian supplies have been stopped because fighting has closed the country's ports.'
"There's no way to adjust quickly enough to the loss of supply from Ukraine and from Russia, and so that adds to prices," said Mr Malpass.
'About 39% of the EU's electricity comes from power stations that burn fossil fuels, and Russia is the biggest source of that oil and gas.' And from my readings the effects on Tunisia, Egypt... and what about plant earth?
Please correct me, if your comment addressed the major point made it today's letter about a major flaw in democracies leading to their downfall.
'Democracies are at risk from authoritarianism today in large part because centralizing power in a few wealthy people permits those people to continue to pocket disproportionate shares of the national wealth.'
'A study released yesterday by ProPublica of leaked tax documents from the Internal Revenue Service revealed how our current laws permit the very wealthy to sidestep taxes and amass greater and greater wealth. According to Forbes, the wealth of the richest 25 Americans rose more than $400 billion from 2014 to 2018, giving them a combined wealth of $1.1 trillion. It would take the wealth of 14.3 million ordinary American wage earners to get to that number. During those years, those 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes, a true tax rate of 3.4%.'
'Those with virtually unlimited money can buy the tools to spread propaganda in favor of their position. That concern is behind the fight over “free speech” that right-wing leaders have launched against social media platforms that have excluded their lies and calls for violence.' (Letter)
When this war is over, hopefully sooner than later, and hopefully Putin is defeated and charged with war crimes, I hope they make sure and take away Nuclear options for him. Obviously can't be trusted if he can hold NATO off with such deadly threats to the world.
Sorry Fern but I'm not really in the mood for intellectual jousting. Many people seem to have understood my point, perhaps with a little thought but perhaps not. Perhaps they just had a look around our world and saw for themselves, perhaps not. I'll content myself with that for today.
Good morning, Stuart. My interest was not, to use your term, 'intellectual jousting'. Instead of answering whether you really believed as you wrote that 'The systems needed a bludgeoning war launched by Putin to get their act together externally and collectively, …' you replied with a snarky word game, a joust of your own.
Indeed Fern. Mille excuses! I don't believe that the Nato countries were looking for a war in order to unite but that it was a somewhat unexpected result of their reaction to an external force. The most surprised was perhaps not Putin but the member countries themselves. I don't think the alliances recent behaviour would have led to predictions of such a result. However thank goodness for unexpected benefits.
You are sitting still in missile range in NYC but not in "tank range" ...I am. Putin has to be stopped once and for all without direct conflict with the West if at all possible. If Putin is not stopped there...or by his own cronies...he'll keep coming. Here we are in the midst of an election tussle between Macron ...who would employ Tidewater Planters' (see works of Colin Woodard) aristocratic view of Republicanism enslaving the people for their own good and with the best of intentions all with the security of his own certainty of a natural and total intellectual superiority...and Le Pen...and a mediocre lawyer, who has some good and some unacceptable notions but who is not up to the job even in the simplest and calmest circumstances. Thus my mind is somewhat preoccupied with these local difficulties. Have a good day.
You are sometimes a riddle, Stuart. Why were you insulting when queried and then having received another clear response from me, finally wrote an impressive clarification of your initial comment?
All bureaucracies attract the second-rate (at best) in the majority. They self-perpetuate because nobody knowingly promotes someone who will outshine them in comparison and contrast. This is what makes the better ones so obvious, by their singularity..
But there is the opportunity for self-correction in leadership in a non-authoritarian system, with the possibility of someone outstanding arriving in the position of authority (these are the ones who end up in the history books with positive coverage).
Now let me get this straight: We can't tax Musk because his money isn't actually "money", but actually tied up in stocks and investments and whatever else. His billions are actually in property and whatnot, so he can't be expected to use his money towards fixing infrastructure or the environment. But he can just buy Twitter.
You do have a way with words, TC. I have to admit that I am sitting here with a grin on my face. You do express my feelings of frustration in a most creative way.
He probably can’t just buy Twitter, because he likely lacks the liquidity to do so. What he can do is manipulate the stock price to make more billions, while trying to evade the SEC’s rules (which he already violated re Twitter) by pretending to want to buy it. What a scumbag he is.
Think you got it. Some econ analysts are talking about that too, while wanna-be pundits are still talking about the changes he might make to Twitter, as if that were the point.
When we talk about the Commission on Presidential Debate, it is anything but nonpartisan. It is purely bipartisan. There is a big difference. Ask Gary Johnson. All its key members are former Republican and Democrat party leaders. The two party system continues to give us the choice of the lessor of two evils. It is now driving the two parties to the far left and far right leaving the huge middle unrepresented. The two party system is not part of the Constitution which does not mention parties at all. We need something better. A way to start is to support ranked choice voting which actually gives women and minorities better representation. We, the People, ALL of us this time!
Goat roper is a term applied to wannabe ranchers or hicks - it isn't gender-specific. Goat tying is a school competition and is generally considered a women's sport. Easy to make the mistake.
Hello R. Dooley, You appear to be a person who is interested in language usage. I looked up 'Goat Roping' given your difference with Pat. I found the following:
Are you involved in a confusing situation with a possible dire outcome? If that’s the case, you’re “goat roping” yourself towards disaster. “Goat roping” is a slang term typically used in military and tactical situations to describe setting yourself up for failure. You can goat rope yourself or others, and you can also use it as an insult to someone that doesn’t know what they are doing in a situation.
Goat roping can refer to physical or verbal exchanges. However, the common theme with the phrase is to make lite of something going wrong with a task or action. This post also looks at how to use this idiom correctly, its meaning, and its origin.
Goat Roping Meaning
If you’re goat roping someone, it means you are herding them towards an ill fate. Someone else could “goat rope” you into a problematic situation where you may risk injury or death or an unfavorable outcome. The term could describe physical events of danger, or it could refer to someone leading you into a problematic workplace scenario where your boss might fire you for a transgression.
Goat roping also refers to manipulating someone else, referring to them misleading you to danger or an unfavorable outcome.
Goat Roping Origin
This idiom originates from the US military, where operators, particularly in the navy or in air force transport, would use it to describe them leading the teams into a dangerous situation. The term also applies to enemies leading the team into a situation that could result in danger or death to the operators.
The phrase would also appear in situations where a large number of people would add nothing to an operation other than placing service members in danger.
The phrase was common in Flightline operations where the top officials would make their presence known, impeding operations and the crew’s duties. The top brass might make suggestions that had no value or might add danger to the situation to assert authority over the operators.
Phrases Similar to Goat Roping
Similar phrases and idioms to “goat roping” include the following.
Goat rope.
SNAFU.
FUBAR.
Leading on.
Goat rodeo.
Phrases Opposite to Goat Roping
Phrases opposite to goat roping would refer to adding value to a situation or removing the danger.
Help us out.
To aid and abet.
To pitch in.
To chip in.
What is the Correct Saying?
Goat roping.
Goat rope.
Goat rodeo.
Ways People May Say Goat Roping Incorrectly
Some people may use the idiom to describe situations that present no danger, harm, or threat. The phrase does not suit use in a description of a casual situation.
Yeah for you. We don’t have wanna bee cow people here. That would be shameful. We have 6 cattle ranches within the family here around Salmon. The ladies rope anything that moves. They don’t run around on foot chasing anything. They saddle up and rope everything. Goat roping is the popular coinage, goat tying is acceptable. In your world where you ride and rope is how you do it and I’m plumb sure your lingo has its own stretch. I do accept your correction and I’ll let the ladies know they need to change their talk in a New York Minute. I’ll keep that little finger straight when I hold my teacup just as soon as we loose all our coffee pots
"...1828 became the modern Democratic Party. It formally adopted the name “Democratic Party” at its convention in 1844.
However, some Republican leaders have made a habit of referring to their opposition incorrectly and discourteously as the “Democrat Party.” The reason isn’t entirely clear; it may be meant to imply that the party isn’t sufficiently “democratic” in the general sense, or may just be meant as a petty insult. In August 2006, Hendrik Hertzberg traced this Republican usage, which he termed a “slur” on his party, back to the 1940s. He says it was used by opponents to needle the powerful Pendergast organization in Kansas City, which backed Harry Truman. He also says it was used often by the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy..."
In this country’s earliest presidential elections, there were numerous parties. The lack of majorities in the Electoral College threw them into the House of Representatives. Parties learned it was, like it or not, a binary structure.
I have to say, as a student of American history, I am not aware of multiple parties in the earliest elections. There was only one candidate who didn't run on a party platform, and that was Washington. By the end of his second term, the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans were it. Adams ran as a Federalist, Jefferson as a Democratic-Republican. The only change was the 11th amendment so that the president and vice president came from the same party after 4 years of the Adams-Jefferson war.
in 1796, Aaron Burr ran as an Anti-Federalist candidate, John Henry ran as an Independent, and there were several Independent-Federalist candidates, in addition to the Federalists (John Adams) and the Democratic-Republicans (Thomas Jefferson). The Whigs were created in the 1830s to oppose Andrew Jackson and included members of the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic Party and Democrats. Andrew Jackson lost his first Presidential election in the House of Representatives.
Does Ranked Choice mean there could be several elections until a winner is secured? I like the idea but worry about many voters not seeing it to the end.
How do we convince our fellow Americans that it’s important that our President know the difference between NATO and the EU? One would think that the church leaders would condemn not only Putin’s actions but also those politicians who refuse to condemn them.
Luckily the real and current president, Joe Biden, knows the difference between NATO and the EU. Too bad the title “President” is still valid for tfg who likely had Putin’s help in his first election and would gratefully accept Russian help in 2024. Is it possible Truth and accountability will win over the corruption and conspiracy that elected and supported tfg and continues to wash over the GOP?
We’re getting a first hand picture of what fascism and authoritarianism look like and better worry that those Americans supporting Putin and Russia could be altering our future, too. I hate, detest, the violence. And to be so negative. Yet, how can we continue to watch one man, one country destroy another without helping with weapons and funding. And will there be Americans fighting too? We saw how Hitler spent years destroying countries and people before USA committed troops and entered the war. World democratic values and future are threatened in real time. And we need to pay attention to our own inequality and racism and divisions while we help other countries. Our world will never be the same, not as we have known it. We have been at a turning point for a long time.
My opinion, Japan saved us from fascism in 1941. Pearl Harbor shut the fascist-leaning idiots down in a flash. They were more powerful than many remember, history having been tweaked a bit.
Irenie, how is it that Americans supporting Putin and Russia in this conflagration also criticize Biden for insufficient support to Ukraine? Are they playing both ends against the middle to encourage further conflict (and more profit for war supporting industries?)
Paul Stamets was one of my neighbors long ago when I was still in WA state, when he was first developing advanced research and still at the Farmer's Market selling his mushrooms. Amazing how far his research has taken the field, and the influence he has had on our understanding of the our relationship with fungi. He's an amazing man with a remarkable capacity to think beyond the conventional assumptions. One of my prizes is his first book, autographed, given me by a mushroom growing friend who also knew him. Sorry, I know this is way off topic, but couldn't resist. It's a little like running into an old friend in an unlikely place far off the usual path.
Kathleen, you have the “answers”. War industries wreak havoc on our budget and democratic system. Those players are the same trumpee followers who parrot what any Repub leader says. They are so far ”right” they are destroying our two party system. We need to stop them now. But how? I don’t have real answers.
... i hear you Judith. I'm trying to avoid the partisan glitch ... far as I know (which isn't far) nothing in the constitution endorses partisanship or bipartisanship in the first place ... I wonder what would happen if they dissolve the parties ... how would people identify their interests - would thst bring us a step closer to "we are all Americans?"
Not all evangelicals. Evangelical Lutheran Church for example very progressive. Need to make common cause and use strong church networks to bring down common evil (authoritarianism).
Christian Churches have accrued great wealth and power for centuries. Heather’s Thursday lesson had me wonder if there is a connection in America, between the Puritan view of Christianity to present day evangelicals?
Oh, yes, I think there definitely is. I hope I'm remembering correctly that it was the NYTimes that had a long piece about basically the history of evangelism in this country. Religion is always a complex subject but the way in which the whole ethic of this country is informed by a strand of virulent Protestantism has always been a detriment, I think. There is an incredible book about the polarization of certain groups of evangelicals. The Power Worshippers.
STOP IT! Letters From an American is no place for religious debate! I don't care about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. I believe certain things and choose not to believe other things. We all have that right guaranteed by the First Amendment's words, "Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise." Now, let's get on with what is important to us today!
Perhaps. I have not joined this religion debate because I would lose. My successful intonations to The Great Irish Tea Party In The Sky (whose formation preceeded the alt-right one) will have me excommunicated from my religion of birth, and outcast by the one I desire (Wiccan: I am drawn to their spell since it would allow me to become a priestess. Cool!). But after listening to HCR's History chat yesterday (Puritans 7- Pilgrims 0), I see the power in knowing, and debating, our religious history. Amen.
Jack, you quoted the Constitution, and I will simply repeat your quote as written: "Congress [shall] make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise." I might point out that we are not Congress. We are citizens discussing our history.
The influence of religion is such a part of our history that it can be appropriately included, and should be. This is different from arguing about religion or attempting to proselytize. Or going down rabbit holes.
Letters From An American has included the role of religion where it applied to the topic of the day since its inception, and the discussion has for the most part been respectful of individual beliefs. However, religion, as all human enterprises, has its toxic elements, and that is a fair subject to address as we explore the history of certain institutions and patterns in the development of this nation.
I do see that MaryPat has used the word "debate," but the rest of her comment doesn't carry any of the qualities of argument or ill-feeling. Certainly my conversation with Sarah about the book she read on the History of the Jews was a discussion where interesting information was shared. Looks to me like the three of us all know some stuff the others don't and are enjoying tossing it around.
p.s. Sarah and MaryPat, please correct me if I'm totally off base on this.
Dean, I'm going to put that book on my list to read to help me understand how this kind of evangelism developed. I like that you specified "...a strand of virulent Protestantism..." Couldn't heart you, but I think that the way you phrased your post is important to note, more important than just an indication that I liked it. The distinction you drew is critical, I think. We need to stop lumping people into one undifferentiated group so we can find the commonalities that can become bridges to working together with people who really are not our opponants.
There is a connection, Catherine, but it's good to keep in mind that that is just one of the many manifestations of Christianity in the Americas. Evangelism is not limited to Christianity or event to protestantism. And not all evangelicals are "in bed" with politicians or believe what many call "prosperity gospel" (talk about an oxymoron!).
Remember, MLK was and Dr Wm Barber is evangelical, and both are genuinely of the people. Fannie Lou Hamer was an evangelical, and so are many women active in the movement today. Jimmy Carter is an evangelical. These and many others are as far from authoritarian as you can get.
My favorite Quaker pastor, Philip Gulley, weighs in (from Palm Sunday):
"The belief that eventually developed within Christianity—that God created Jesus so he could die for our sins, that Jesus was born knowing he would be crucified as atonement for our sins, and began marching headlong toward that from the very start…well, I’m not so sure about that. Early Christians were so accustomed to a theological culture of sacrifice and blood atonement, it was the only lens through which they saw God. But Jesus knew his history, knew what happened to prophets, knew how quickly passions could turn, knew he wouldn’t be killed because of some divine plan of atonement, but because of simple and ageless human hatred.
Jesus is wary. He sees where things are headed, though is hopeful history won’t repeat itself, that maybe, just this once, religion and politics will bring out the best in people, not the worst. He hopes that might be the case, but he’s not sure, so he’s waiting to see how things will turn out, waiting to see what direction the crowd will go. As for his disciples, they are clueless and exhilarated. So he brings them down to earth. For the plant to grow, the seed must die, he tells them. Don’t forget that. He’s getting them ready. They can’t see Golgotha, can’t see the cross from where they are, but Jesus suspects it might be just over the hill. It’s like the ocean. You can sense it before you can see it. So maybe Jesus senses something, and he’s just waiting to see. In a way, we might say he’s still waiting. Waiting to see how we handle things, waiting to see whether we’ll do the right thing, whether we will be motivated by decency or anger, waiting to see whether we’ll heed our better angels or worst demons.
Hope has been hard to come by these past several years, hasn’t it? Let’s be honest, and let’s be clear, American Christianity has not comported itself well. 78% of white, evangelical Christians, many of them our neighbors and friends, studied the political landscape and cast their lot with a man who separated children from parents, who maligned our southern neighbors, who lied, who cheated, who abused women, and then, when his vanity was injured, strove to overthrow democracy itself.
78% of white, evangelical Christians believed that man was God’s anointed savior, and still do. If they no longer did, I would not speak of it. I would dismiss it as an aberration. But they still believe. I thought of leaving the church, rather than be associated with that 78%. I thought of divorcing the church, writing books, and spending more time with my family, like a disgraced politician, but then I remembered my church, and your church, and other churches who faithfully embody the priorities of Jesus and I decided to stay. But I’m staying as one who has changed.
I was raised by parents who taught me tactfulness. I was mentored by pastors who advised me never to address political matters from the pulpit, all of which guaranteed my silence in times of evil. Eventually, I realized tact and silence were never attributes of Jesus. After all, he mentioned Herod by name. Diplomacy is useful, but not a heralded Christian virtue. Remember what the author of Ecclesiastes would have said if he’d only had time. “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time for diplomacy, and a time to put the hay down where the goats can get it.” Let’s not mince words, or drape the gospel in flowery, inoffensive language. Neither let us be silent when the Church is weaponized, when the gospel of justice is dismantled by tyranny, fascism, and greed. For silence implies both approval and support. We must choose this day, and every day, whom and what we will serve."
Alas, too many so-called Christian leaders, in every denomination, behave just like the Jewish religious authorities of Jesus’s time - the very ones who orchestrated his execution. What a wretched come to Jesus meeting they have to look forward to.
Absolutely, Talia. Jesus was a radical, revolutionary Jew who was a threat to the Romans because of his substantial following. Yes, he was executed by the Romans with a Roman execution article. The antisemetic "the Jews killed Jesus" line no longer holds water in modern Christian scholarship.
He may have offended his fellow Jews by his “violation” of various laws, and some may have worked with the Roman authorities, but it was the Romans who crucified Jesus. Interesting we’re having this discussion today, Good Friday.
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
Judith, that claim is historic and the continuing cause of antisemitism. So long ago, impossible for us to make that claim with any true evidence. There is much story and myth in our beliefs and our arguments. In all faiths. If you go beyond Wikipedia there are multiple sources that argue otherwise, academic and “researched” sources and sites. Here’s one to refute Mel Gibson’s claim from Washington University St. Louis:
“The soon to be released Mel Gibson movie “The Passion of The Christ” is creating quite a stir among religious experts, as well as lay people. Many say the movie has anti-Semitic overtones. But according to Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis, the Jews had nothing to do with killing Jesus — the Romans are actually to blame.”
There are endless sources from there onward.
Happy Easter and Happy Passover. May we meet together to celebrate Peace and Justice and end violence on this planet.
Jean-Pierre I am highly distressed about your blatant misconception that “Jewish religious authorities” executed one of their own. Jesus was, after all, Jewish, but was killed upon a cross. For some reason, he was named the son of God. Jews have never recognized him that way and I surely take offense to your statement.
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
Oh, dear. Is this nugget of misinformation--that the Jews killed Jesus--never going away? Of course it is not. It is based in a misinterpretation of the Gospels and a woeful lack of any knowledge of the culture of the time or the composition of the texts themselves.
Your qualification that the Jews "orchestrated his execution" suggests some knowledge of the history but for the many people who read that comment, I'd say not many make that distinction and will use it as the basis for anti-Semitism.
As a cradle Episcopalian, I'll say that the first sin and the real root of the problem is the insufferable presumption of those terms "Old" and New" Testaments. How we've gotten away with that, I can't say. What we call the Old Testament was the Bible Jesus knew. The only one. It is not prologue to anything.
Recommend Paul Johnson’s “History of the Jews”. Interesting perspective of their history and literature. They were the only ethical monotheism operating in a world of polytheism.
Thanks, Catherine.I actually think that book is buried somewhere in all my zillion books on the subject. When the woman who taught me a course in grad school called The Hebrew Bible as Literature retired, she shipped me ten boxes full of her theology library. I spent a year putting together my own class and the next thirty years teaching it as a senior elective in the classrooms of independent secondary schools. Now I talk about it in adult education groups in a variety of churches. It is a bottomless text and, regardless of anyone's religious beliefs, or lack of, there's nothing I've taught that quite equals it. We live in a bible illiterate society and that's a shame. Anyway, endlessly fascinating. At the moment I'm doing a Torah Study online two days a week and am in heaven.
I am not the scholar you are, but I enjoyed the book, especially where Johnson asks, why does Hebrew literature need us to know that Sarah laughed as she hid behind a tent curtain, eavesdropping on angelic visitors telling Abraham, that he (with Sarah) would be the progenitors of a nation of God’s chosen. I could visualize that moment and understood that scripture wanted us to know that Sarah laughed because we too would have laughed, thinking we could finally bear a child at an advanced age. It was the humanity of Hebrew literature, which shared both the triumphs and frailties of God’s people.
This is so interesting and I’m glad to be discussing this on Good Friday. Is there a difference between monotheism and ethical monotheism? What I read was Hebrews practiced the first “ethical” monotheism.
Sadly, you're correct that the "Jews killed Jesus" belief will never go away. However, there's a nugget of truth of that belief to be found in the Bible. It has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
It is particularly disturbing to see this slander that the Jews killed Jesus repeated at the beginning of Easter weekend. For many hundreds of years, exactly that claim at exactly this time stirred up Europeans to attack, beat, rape and murder their Jewish neighbors.
Factually, the Roman rulers killed Jesus because they saw him as a political threat. Theologically, as my Evangelical sister in law told me, if you believe Jesus is divine and died for your sins, then his death was a gift from Gd not caused by the humans who performed it.
Even though your focus was imagined divine retribution against so-called Christian leaders abusing their authority, in repeating this ancient slander you have joined in attacks that caused millions of people to be incinerated within living memory.
My great grandparents were immigrants to the US from what were then Poland and Russia in the 1880s. My mother's mother once told me brief stories of my grandparents' relatives who had stayed in Europe - for each person, who they were, if and who they married, what jobs the men did, what children they had, who they (the children) were, etc. It was a lot of people, maybe a hundred or so. Every story ended the same way: "they perished in the holocaust."
The slander that Jews killed Jesus is not solely responsible for the Holocaust. It was directly responsible for the masses of pogroms - murderous riots against the Jews - that plagued Europe, and before that for murders of Jews by Crusaders on their way east. It was a significant part of the history of hatred and murder that created a foundation for the industrialized mass murder of Jews(and Roma, gays, disabled people and more) by the Nazis.
A related strand is the history of hatred of immigrants in the US. In the 1920s, white supremacists were very upset about "those people" becoming too numerous. At the time, "those people" were the poor immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, especially but not only Italians and Jews. Congress passed laws to limit immigration and cap the size of the House of Representatives (immigrants were mainly in coastal cities, so the cap held power to more rural states where whites ruled). When Jews tried to flee from the Nazis in the 1930s, the gates to the US (and many other countries) were closed. Many died who would have lived if they had had somewhere to go.
At the same time that I am glad that the US is welcoming refugees from Ukraine, I wish we as a country would show the same welcome and generosity to people fleeing horrible conditions in central America.
This is important context to todays letter. He who controls media can steer the ship of public opinion, through persuasion, popularity ( true or not, driven by binary likes from a few people but millions of bots) and through manipulation, can change history. Truth becomes lies, and the lies become truth. What used to take demagogues a generation, now can happen almost over night. Patriotism can morph into ultra nationalism in a few short months, and once normal people can be standing over mass graves with a smoking machine gun and clear conscious. This is happening now in Mauripol. Don’t think that it can’t happen here. One Billionaire can not own a mass media titan like Twitter.
Wondering if your sister-in-law’s belief is that the death of Jesus was prophesied and predestined to occur? That, the mechanics of that death were part of the process? Is this an evangelical belief?
I don't know about prophesied, which implies telling humans in advance. Would you like me to ask her?
I do know that she believes that Jesus chose to die painfully to atone for the sins of humanity, that this was decided in advance by Gd so the Romans who did the deed were simply instruments of this decision. Forgive me if I get the Christian Gd references wrong, Christian theology is not something that I understand.
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
Even taking this account at face value, it was also true that Jesus and his disciples were Jews and that the Roman rulers ordered Jesus killed in Roman fashion by their soldiers.
There’s a very big difference between “Jesus, his followers, his opponents, and lots of people not part of this story were Jews; this is what happened when his opponents brought in the Roman rulers” and “the Jews killed Jesus.” The second effectively demonizes all Jews as evil murderers of Christians’ Gd. It stirs up hatred and has caused centuries of brutality and murder. If you don’t want to be a party to more of that, be careful how you frame the story.
I will add here that I am stunned and upset that on Easter weekend of 2022, in a pro-democracy newsletter community, I am repeatedly in the position of defending my people against an ancient hate meme particularly associated with Easter that set off thousands of murders through the centuries and made it easy for Hitler to target and kill 6 million Jews within living memory. If there are any Christians of good will reading this, now would be a good time to speak out.
Per usual, I have to add my two cents. Here's what disturbs me most about the Jews killed Jesus argument. If Jesus had not died for his beliefs Christianity would not exist. Scapegoating the Jews from 30+/- ad forward for the death of Jesus totally negates the reasons for his birth. Big Bird, Mickey Mouse, the Ayatollah of wherever could have crucified Jesus, and, voila, Christianity would have emerged. Had Jesus not been martyred, Christianity would not exist. Period. And frankly, would that be a bad thing? Probably not, given the history of Christianity.
After 2000 of years saying the Jews killed Jesus (and people in the 21st century maintaining that claptrap and relying on a Wikipedia page as source material is unfortunate and shows a deep misunderstanding of the tenets of "Jesus's words" - which most so called Christians are apparently ignorant). The thread that runs through both books of the Bible is this: do unto others, charity is one's obligation. By and large, Christians threw charity, humility, and care for others out the window many, many centuries ago and, instead, decided to spend their efforts on keeping people ignorant and raising money all the while killing Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who stood in their way of acquiring wealth. Honestly, how can you respect a belief system that sold shreds of chicken bones and fire wood as relics, castrated males to maintain a soprano range and, to this day, sees no problem abusing children and women institutionally? And no, Protestants don't get a pass for good behavior because they have their own "sins" to atone for, including the rampant bigotry and racism being promoted from evangelical pulpits in the 21st century.
Joan is right. It is disheartening and disappointing that members of a pro-democracy page should buy into rabid anti-Semitism. Jesus would be ashamed.
Crusades, Knights Templars, the spread of Christianity hand in hand with the spread of imperialism, and the slavers, witch hunts of the European inquisition , Salem witch trials, yeah but lets point out the Jews killed Christ behaved badly.
The New Testament of the Christian Bible was “written” by followers of a Jew trying to establish a different religion from His. You nor I know the facts.
Hello, Citizen60, I hesitate to jump in. because I really don't want a debate, but if you read only what's in the gospels (and you're 100% right that we don't know anything outside the words on those pages and those aren't necessarily facts at all),there's nothing in the text that suggests Jesus was trying to start a new religion. In all that tangle of stories, his apparent mission is to reform the temple in Jerusalem which has gotten corrupt with too much money and power. I realize all this talk of religion might seem far from the corruption and violence we are facing today but, in reality, I don't think it is. Catherine pointed out earlier today that these bible stories show us, as much as anything, the nature of our own humanity.
Agreed, Jesus was not trying to start a new religion. Jesus was a Jew. Those who came after him who wanted to keep Jesus and his preachings alive, and wanted to create something unique with the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and his preachings divine.
The history of the first 100 years AD is fascinating: early followers of Jesus met in Jewish temples. Slowly the Jesus followers wanted to differentiate themselves from the Jews. Baptism ritual replaced bris, so the followers of Christ were "inducted" into the tribe, but not in the same way and in a way not physically obvious to the Greeks & Romans at the public baths, etc.
Some of "The New Testament" (The Muratorian Cannon) is believed to be compiled around 200AD--the oral stories told about Jesus and his life and preachings codified into text. While attributed to the Apostles, they were obviously not written by them. Oral traditions allow for variations to become incorporated into the stories.
There were many forms of Jesus followers in the first 1-200 years AD; one female only. That was the purpose of the Council of Nicea in 325 AD; to bring together the various "Christian sects" to decide what Christianity would be defined as (Jesus as Deity/Son of God, the Trinity) and establish some of "the basics" of how it would be practiced (rituals and symbols).
I'm a Unitarian--who came out of the Council of Nicea staying with the Jewish tradition of a single Deity. PBS did a series on Christianity: The First 100 Years many years ago (or was it the History Channel when it actually did history?). Worth trying to find.
I think there must be a law against having this much fun on a Friday afternoon! Well, of course, there was Paul who designated himself the Apostle to the Gentiles and who only knew what an Episcopal priest friend calls the post-Easter Jesus. Paul was the guy who traipsed all over the area, bending requirements (like circumcision) to let in more Gentiles and Paul whose letters are older than the Gospels and which they think the Gospel writers had access to. Whether they did or they didn't,, I agree that Christianity was largely created at Nicea. And you've introduced me to a new term, Muratorian Cannon. I love the tradition of attributing a piece of your own writing to someone well-known. I'd like my memoir published under the name of Leonard Cohen (speaking of crazy Jews). I think the history of religion in general is fascinating. One religion, say Judaism, borrows what it wants/needs from the one before, tweaks it, and the world is changed. Every bit of the imagery and symbolism (tree at the center of the Garden, four rivers, fruit bearing tree, serpent, all straight out of nature religions, the message changed completely. We are always so quick to claim uniqueness, to want to be the first, the best, the only. Anyway, a lovely book about the parables is by a wonderful theologian, Amy-Jill Levine, and--believe it or not--it's called "Short Stories by Jesus." Happy Pesach and a good Good Friday to all.
If only we knew for certain those were Jesus's words. If someone was attempting to establish a difference between Judaism and a new religion, that would be a useful sentence to try to facilitate a smooth transition.
That’s a good historical analogy and might become a strategy! ( but please replace With “Romans who killed Jesus”). Jesus was Jewish and a critic of ALL Corruption and Oppression, of all people, by anyone in power, that abandoned their ethics and morals in their craving for material wealth. That’s a lesson and a prayer for Elon Musk today.
Ted, please read the comments to the post to which you wrote this reply. "Jews killed Jesus" is not history, it is a false trope has caused prejudice, mayhem and murder for centuries. Invoking it even in passing is problematic.
Oh, I see. to clarify, I mean how do u reach Evangelicals to consider the Authoritarian rise in the gop? What will they say to St Peter when he asks them why they voted for a dictator like TFG? Can questions like that or other convince them to think beyond the abortion issue?I’m not falling for original Who killed Jesus antisemitism. To claim that the Jews killed Jesus is the original antisemitism.
Former president….Joe very well knows the difference. It is largely due to his administration’s foresight and determination that NATO is as strong as it is again. trump, the failed businessman only understands…like the bully in the back of the classroom…that power comes from intimidation, lies and brutality. Church leaders were behind the crucifixion of Jesus, because they believed their power was being threatened by Him. Ironic isn’t it? That is the real lesson of Jesus.
Majority of Church leaders have only 1 issue they care about. All other sins and shortcomings of a dear leader are besides the point. Remember over 44% of Americans believe in Creation as a world view. Such bible literalists are easy to manipulate politically, taking the Constitution as “originalists. While evangelicals are not the financial base of the GOP, it is simply a reservoir of certain votes.
Today is my 80th birthday. Thanks to HCR I am finally comprehending the hows and whys of contemporary power plays, political philosophies, and all the (semi-)human people who have been tearing my heart apart. I pray that HCR, her coterie of practical intellectuals and teachers, and all of YOU will continue in strength and love to make the workings of powers clear, to guide and influence public thought and action.
1. That word AU-THOR-IT-AR-I-AN-ISM may suit scholars but political action can't use such top-heavy terms. Can't someone here come up with better?
2. While it is true that democratic institutions provide many safeguards against ill-judged and unjust wars and the general abuse of military power, everything that President Eisenhower, in WW2 Supreme Allied Commander Europe, had to say about the dangers inherent to the power of America's "military-industrial complex" in the message he left the country on leaving the presidency has been shown to be true ten thousand times over.
Vietnam, the second Gulf War, the decades-long occupation of Afghanistan are only prime examples of American military hubris, promoting military action and hardware for their own sake.
I and friends used the words "rats living in a big cheese" in another context, but I can't help feeling that it fits the Pentagon bureaucracy perfectly... As for the ironclad doctrine of American exceptionalism, which places the US military above international law while everyone else is subject to it... that has amounted to an incitement to crime and has spawned would-be titans and their vile adventures everywhere.
Maybe democracies don't go to war against each other, but being a democracy, sadly, has not prevented the US from joining or initiating pointless and devasting wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
... nor First Nations of this continent ... acknowledging the idealism of so many in this country - not to discount good intentions - is America really a 'democracy' in more than name only ... is it not more of an exercise in social hypocrisy - a breeding ground for schizophrenic disassociation ...?
Sadly true, LBJ regretted Vietnam and tried to end it but Trickie Dickie interfered. W/Dickie never regretted a dollar made or a life lost that I recall.
Peter, my thirty-something year old son and his friends call this "the orphan crushing machine". They recognize that the need to raise money for food banks, etc is a problem that does not need to exist. If Elon Musk wants to make a difference, $43b could end hunger in North America, or put a huge dent in our housing crisis.
I just posted a message that failed to come through:
If Musk and his ilk genuinely cared for more than infinite expansion of ego, wealth and personal power, they could create and endow free and totally independent foundations devoted to the public good.
Hi Peter! I have been thinking that I need to stir up protests locally and hopefully nationwide...but there are so many things to protest about I get overwhelmed and just stop thinking for a few days. I guess the resistance against autocracy vs a form of Democracy covers most things...but it is really overwhelming. I want to wear a resistance beret and armband and cannot think of the color/s. Black? White? Green? Something not representative of one thing but of things fair. Symbols that would stand for Democracy, Truth, Justice and Love for our brothers and sisters on this beautiful, little spinning planet.
I lived in Switzerland for a period of time. One morning, I walked the cobbled streets of Zurich very early. There was the most beautiful silent march with white balloons floating above them as the quietly marched up a narrow street into a common square. It was breathtaking in the dawn. It was about Yugoslavia back then. These early morning Swiss risers, burned a powerful image into my heart. I followed them as they silently progressed through the streets as Zurich began to wake up. I would love to do something like that. But helium balloons appear to be very bad for our environment these days. We need ideas and we need to march... We need to speak in images. A thousand words and all that.
It is a Quaker custom to dress in white while we stand or walk silently in protest. We welcome all who wish to join us, as it is the visual symbol that is important. I imagine a huge crowd of silent people in white as a massive symbol that cannot be hidden by denial or pushed aside with violence, in these days of many cameras.
Thanks, Annie! That would be a powerful sight! It links my mind to the powerful Bread & Puppet Festival in Groton, VT. You have sparked some ideas for me to share with my friends at The Sandglass Theatre down the street! More later...
Let me know what comes out of it. One of my goals is to make a list of simple things people can do to stay visible and our message recognized to share and spark more ideas. List is for website if we ever get it actually functioning the way it needs to be, and to be sent to every town and county committee. So far VT Dems seem to be pretty much in a silo. I want to try to get them out of that silo and connected with the public.
If DJT runs in 2024, and if he wins, it will bring disaster to America and our allies around the world. He has no regard for treaties or the rule of law. He is already a stain on America's image, and considering our history; we don't need any more stains.
My fear exactly. I would like to think that McConnell would take a hard look a the mess of a POTUS tfg was and work his slimey hoodoo to stop him from running, but I fear that there is not a shred of humanity left in the turtle.
Thank you Professor, for sharing that “Grauer and Tierney also note that the ability of people in a democracy to protest means leaders cannot fight unpopular wars and stay in power, and that democratic countries do not tend to go to war with other democracies. Grauer and Tierney argue that the need to gain public support for wars makes it hard for democratic leaders to fight other democracies toward which their people might have good feelings, or that can put up strong resistance.” Friends, how many of you marched and held signs and protested wars? I’m honored to be counted as the resistance against the Vietnam and Iraq wars. However I was protesting the Wars, not our young soldiers who were either drafted or believed the lies leading up to combat. I can’t hold a “no war” sign for this war and I’m grateful there is a NATO and that USA has returned to alliances after TFG tried to destroy our Democracy.
Exactly. My younger son was born Aug 2001 and never knew a country not at war throughout his childhood. My fellow moms were often too busy to protest and if I hadn't been to plagued by survivor guilt (9/11 "official victim" was in debris of wtc) that young Americans were signing up in droves to defend us/US only to be churned into our imperialist immoral Iraq/Aghan wars I'd have stayed in more too. WE HAD NO PUBLIC SUPPORT for that farce of a two decade long war, only a docile, dumb (on purpose w poor public ed), monolingual, disinterested population that barely noticed the years ticking by and cash hemorrhage to warpigs like Halliburton and scarcely moved an index finger to sign a slacktivist petition.
When I was a kid, we had a World Book encyclopedia (easier for adolescents than the erudite Britannia). Being a nerd even then, I would sometimes come home from school and leaf through it. I remember that the article on Hitler had a photo of him with a caption that read, “His slogan was ‘Divide and conquer.’ He was defeated by nations that learned to unite and conquer.” How true. And today, right here in USA we are confronted by those who would divide and conquer. And like the Allies in WWII, we shall conquer if we unite—not on particular issues, but in defense of debate and democracy. (How ironic that Republicans would walk away from presidential debates.). We shall conquer because of debate. In disagreement over particular issues we can find our strength, while the authoritarians go off on false paths once again. So let’s stop bemoaning our fate or trembling at the power of our adversaries, but go forward to a better and brighter day.
Whatever spending bill the Biden administration has any chance of passing, says someone "familiar with the thinking" of Senator Manchin, "is a matter of Joe Manchin coming up with a bill that he's comfortable with. He is the way he is."
Back when Reggie Jackson was hitting huge home runs for the Yankees and saying outrageously non-team-spirited things like "I am the straw that stirs the drink," a teammate shook his head and said, "That's just Reggie being Reggie." Within thirty years, that concession had degenerated into "Let Trump be Trump."
Manchin isn't even colorful.
Of course these days, even ordinary run-of-the-mill people go around telling each other, "You do you."
Take me back to the old days, when the unassuming but surreally hard-hitting cartoon hero Popeye sang in his sailor song, "I yam what I yam (and that's all that I yam)."
Not to mention, even further back, the mystifying Yahweh intoning from the burning bush, "I am that I am." Or, depending on the interpretation (if you Google), "I am who I was," "I was who I am," "I was who I shall be, "I shall be who I am," "I shall be who I shall be." "I will be whatsoever I will be," "I shall prove to be whatever I shall prove to be," "I am the I am that said 'I am.'"
What it boils down to is, "I am he who is who he says he is" (or in today's pronouns, "I am they who is who they says they is"), "and you figure it out."
It's a pretty good position to be in, I guess. Here's some dialogue from the old Broadway musical Li'l Abner:
"Say, Abner, if you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?"
"Me."
"Just you?"
"Just me."
"What's so special about you?"
"Ain't nothing special about it. It's just so handy."
' And if you work it, it's powerful. After all, a key piece of the Declaration of Independence is "We hold these truths to be self-evident." And remember what the old boy said when asked whether he believed in infant baptism: "Believe in it? Hell, I've seen it done."
I can feel your strain and stress through your writing about the stuggle for Democracy. I hope you keep writing and I use your writing far and wide (with unknown effect).
But, one thing I would offer is this: IF the USA swings so that the rich, white, spoiled party boys are in total control instead of just mostly in control (like now), then, that's just the way it is.
The good thing about hearing the weather forecast as sunny, then, cutting the hayfield, then, watching it rain on it the very next day, ruining feed for the winter for the cattle?
You realize that a LOT of things are out of your control and that the fastest way to keeping going effectively is to accept the existing reality without too much angst and .....
...keep moving. With as little angst and emotion as possible. Keep moving and doing....
So, once in while, think about what you will do once we DO swing to a dictatorship by spoiled, rich, often drunk, white boys who have no morals and no boundaries on behavior and actions. What will we do assuming they don't get us all killed in the first two weeks through nuclear war.
What will you do? Just make sure you have a plan.
Because, the probability is very far from zero that those "boyz" will soon be running the US Government completely in the near future.
And, it won't be the first time the boyz have been in control of the US government either.
Mike, I'm glad you wrote this - you echo my sentiments entirely. I have spent the last several days discussing, with my husband, the fact that Democrats/liberals/progressives seem to have lost the capacity for outrage, the ability to grab the attention of the "anti-right" AND the ability to mobilize and protest vocally. I'm equally convinced that this inaction by Democrats/liberals/progressives will be a significant factor in the Republican's ability to regain power.
I'm not discounting the efforts of the tens of thousands of people who write letters, postcards, and make phone calls, but those actions are not enough to change the hearts and minds of the politicians who are willing to kill our democracy. Nor are they making a dent on the tens of millions of people who need to open their eyes and ears and get angry enough to speak out, en masse.
Where is our collective anger? Why are we so reticent to speak out forcefully while Republicans manipulate and stir their base to more and more vehement outcry. Are we really willing to roll over, play dead and watch as more and more of our civil and human rights are devoured bit by bit by bit? It seems we are, and that scares me. And it makes me sad.
As another subscriber, Kathleen, frequently points out, most of the basic civil liberties and rights wealthy, white US Americans enjoy are already in the process of being further severely truncated for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Christians, the elderly, the differently abled and sick, women and children. Why aren't we screaming our hearts and lungs out against this? Do we really not care enough to show our outrage publicly?
Mike, we've been having that conversation in our household recently. It boils down to "cut and run" or "fight like hell". The problem that I see with staying and fighting is that while I have two of five the "gimmies" (white, cisgendered) the others fall out (female, LGBTQ, non theist) and I don't see any future for anyone who is not (w/c male, , heterosexual, Christian) except as chattel.
You are a force. We needed everyone. There was one old boy who pushed a wheelbarrow up and down the cow paths but when it came time to keep the branding fire going he did it. We really were so short handed we kept everyone and every one had value we could not do without. So it goes.
Day 51, going on Day 52 of this nightmare of Putin holding center stage as if he was the leader of the Ringling Bros. Circus. The Ukrainians had a victory of sinking the death ship and bravo to them! They deserve many more victories as they are fighting with all of their might and soul to hold onto what they have.
I want our government to guide the Ukrainians in hunting down Putin and his allies until they do not breathe another breath. Biden was in the room when Osama bin Laden suffered that defeat by our brilliant soldiers. It can happen again. I want to see Trump scrambling up a tree as the indictments come after him and his allies. I want to see the Senate of seditionists shivering with fear that information of their whereabouts on Jan. 6th and before, reveal their evil plot. We were a bleeding nation for 4 god-awful years. Now we are looked upon as savior of other nations. Finland and Sweden should be immediately let into NATO. I pray they receive entry.
Barry McCaffery couldn't hide his glee over the sinking of the Moskva, and neither can I.
Hehehe right? Just one shining moment of sheer glee. Then back to thinking about ways to get out the vote here in this country. We’ve got autocrats of our own to “sink.”
sheer glee,huh? Like when your team's winning? people dead in that ship. while nuclear bombs sit on the table. tomorrow's children getting to chew on the worsened climate disaster thanks to this war, people dead, children dead, ship sunk, corpses on the streets, no video game, no football game, people dead, children dead, war profiteers like you filled with glee, money in their pockets, more more more! no game here, people, children dead. pets dead.....is war a time for glee? death?
Sheila is speaking of the people defending against the perpetrators of what you have described. And there is rejoicing when right makes an inroad against evil. I wish people would be as heartfelt in defending Democracy in the United States as you are today. We are in serious trouble here. Sheila knows that.
Can’t ❤️ this enough!
Ahh, "when right makes an inroad against evil"...I wonder when that "right" will make an "inroad against evil" here at home.....such purity has a big feast for it to devour right here at home with corporations - many subsidized and non-tax paying- running the legislative show making it look like you and I have a say in our democracy-appearing oligarchy (see Gilens & Page; Also, Wollin "managed democracy") Might this war be an obscene bit of performance art arranged to ultimately cut off China at their knees in a desperate attempt to ward off the USA empire being replaced by China? Talk about evil.
You come off as judgmental and 1 dimensional. But I doubt that is accurate is it. The other people here are also multi-dimensional in their thinking. You assume you know everyone's total thinking on war, evil and Democracy etc. You don't. None of us do.
In your anti war zeal you are in fact waging a kind of war against the good people commenting here. You are invalidating your passion for peace stance. Now here is your choice today. You can keep running all over this comments section today waging war or you can spread some much needed peace. As for me I am finished responding to your rants.
Peace.
The reports I read said there were no casualties in the sinking of the Moskva. Russian media said it sank because of "a fire that spread to munitions, which detonated", or words to that effect. Yeah. I believe even they reported there were no casualties. I rejoice at any loss of Russian materiel, materiel used, BTW, to kill innocent men, women, and children.
Very hard to believe that there would not be casualties even if the Russian reports were accurate. And the fact that Russian ships moved away from the shores of Ukraine after the incident speaks volumes. If, in fact, Ukrainian missiles hit the ship, then it seems almost certain that at least some Russian sailors were killed and wounded.
No “Russian casualties because Russia isn’t at war in Ukraine”. Same thing in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine since 2014.
See below...
Bruce, we can assume that, despite Russian propaganda, there were many casualties. A ship that size could not be sunk without catastrophic human toll. Sadly, they were victims of Putin's insanity. I'm thrilled that they have moved other deadly ships further out to sea, where their threat will be somewhat diminished.
So far, every account of what happened (NYT, WaPo, Axios) has said the crew had been evacuated when the blows struck that sank him (apparently the Russian navy refers to ships in the masculine). Until I hear otherwise I have to take this as fact. The ship was attacked and sank as it was being towed.
“War profiteers like you?” Do you know something about Sheila that the rest of us don’t, or are you just carried away by your own righteousness? There is much truth in what you say, but the certainty of your truth spoils it.
Possible she meant it with commas in there. "war profiteers, like you, filled with glee..."
My printing teacher used to say, "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."
War is hell, Selina. People are dying and maimed. What suggestions do you have to end this uncalled for genocide of Ukraine? I doubt there were children on the death warship which is what has contributed mightily to the horrible destructions you mention on land and of two cities that are wiped out. Who are you speaking to here and calling them "war profiteers?"
I just learned the ship was being towed so no deaths then, that's a relief. I'm for our citizenry to be massed in the streets insisting on our efforts be for a negotiated peace. War profiteers - Goldman Sachs; Lockheed Martin, Raytheon; Facebook ...(see CBS.com "How Goldman Sachs profits from war in Ukraine, loophole in sanctions" Also:....As The Hill reported, the extra support for Ukraine "comes on top of more than $1 billion the U.S. has already spent in the past year to arm Ukrainian soldiers with modern weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, and Raytheon's anti-aircraft Stinger missiles."....Also....The Weapons Industry Sees the War in Ukraine as a Goldmine Arms companies are exploiting Russia’s invasion to push a military spending frenzy.....and more....just google Who profits from Ukraine War).
Selina, This is not a regional disagreement - this is WW3, stage 1. Putin made abundantly clear from the beginning it’s NATO who he is starting the war with, he doesn’t want a peace deal and you can’t make him take it with negotiation even if you give him all Ukraine (not that it is yours to give). Whatever the US is spending on it now is a great investment into preventing us (or delaying us) from having to actually fight that war. Ukrainians are covering the entire world’s collective butt.
Misinformation abounds. There are differing reports. “Lithuanian Minister of National Defense Arvydas
Anuauskas stated on the social network that the
cruiser "Moskva" had drowned.
"An SOS signal was given from the Russian cruiser
Moscow at 1:05. 1:14 The cruiser lay on its side and
after half an hour all the electricity went out. From
2 p.m., the Turkish ship evacuated 54 sailors from
the cruiser, and at about 3 p.m., Turkey and
Romania reported that the ship was completely
sunk. The related losses of Russian personnel are
not yet known, although there were 485 people on
board (66 of them officers), "A. AnuSauskas wrote
on Facebook” it will likely be awhile before truth is revealed. Plus there’s a report from Georgia that the initial hit took out the Captain. 🤷🏻♀️
Yes, weapon makers profit from war, but this is an unjust war perpetuated by the Russian and specifically Putin. This is the sad reality and yes, they will take advantage because certain entities take advantage of every situation where they see profit. What kind of negotiated peace do you think Putin will accept.
Oh, shucks. I thought you were targeting us in this community as war profiteers. Glad to know you are aware who the profiteers are.
The ship was evacuated, so no one was on board. It was being towed to a port. When the Ukrainians score a hit against the Russians, it does make people happy although all of us would rather this war and the climate disaster were not happening.
I posted that the "crew" had abandoned ship yesterday 4/14./22 approximately 500 crew members. Difficult to get valid data when the Moskva itself was a source of regional disinformation. I posted NYT's 4/14 citation to a named Ukranian military Commander near Odessa the likely area where a mobile Neptune Ukranian team launched the shore to ship missles. I do not think we can underestimate the full impact of this military clash given the full situational & historical context.
Bryan, for whatever it's worth, I heard an NPR broadcast around 4:00 EDT today that said that there was a crew abord when the Ukranian missiles hit. There was no verifiable information regarding casualties, but the assumption was that it was likely that there were some killed and injured. The ship was subsequently towed into port, where it sank. The fog of war, and the reliability that the Russians will spread misinformation. As you pointed out, we can't underestimate the impact of this strike, either militarily nor morale-wise.
Thank you for that piece of information!
I can feel your helplessness and horror but this is WAR. Unprovoked. Do I feel sorry for those poor Russian soldiers told they are being sent for "exercises" who are shocked to learn they're supposed to kill their brothers? Yes, it's heart-wrenching, but I'm not feeling sorry for Goliath. What's the alternative to defending your people? The ship that was sunk was the flagship in the region, in other words, it was where naval commands came from. Its obliteration is thrilling not for having killed more Russian military personnel, but for serving as a stumbling block against an attack on the very fibers of democracy....
"Unprovoked"? Please take a look at Consortium News ....the essay "NYT Smears Journalist, Calls 2014 Ukraine Coup ‘Conspiracy Theory’" by Ed Norton. And if you are intrepid enough to investigate that , then take a look also at Hedges "The Pimps of War"
and lastly, the piece entitled "Corporate Media's War Industry Pundits." Please note too, Consortium News has a reputation for clean fact checks.
YES. Unprovoked. Woman, a population is being systematically slaughtered at the hands of a madman. So they asked for that??? Military industrial complex reservations aside, this is an attempt to entirely obliterate a population (look at some of Putin's most recent unhinged statements...it's chilling) The stated rationale makes no sense to any sentient being. It's brutal, barbaric, senseless, and yes, unprovoked. NOBODY deserves what these people are suffering. The rest of the world is going to have to do something to stop this or, literally, millions could die. You'd be okay with that??? We've not seen such brutality on this scale since WW 2. I don't rejoice when people are killed, but I also rejoice when right triumphs over wrong. Sorry, but your sanctimoniousness is pissing me off. Putin would LOVE you...
We celebrate a moment of glory for “the good guys” amidst the horror of war. Helps give strength to those fighting and dying. Hopefully moves the hearts and minds of national leaders to help more.
Something about this brings "The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident" and Dubya Bush's insistence that "WMDs" necessitated our invasion of, was it, Iraq.? It seems Truth has become a chronic casualty of our reliance on WAR to meet our, usually disguised, and otherwise distorted greedy goals. What would "happen" if we literally invested in ALTERNATE ENERGY, rather than trying to capture other nation's poisonous resources by Military means? And lie about it.
Yes indeed Sheila, we've got another "Bismark" to sink right here at home. "Deja Vu All Over Again"! VOTE!!
I hope the Ukrainians painted “For the Children” on the rockets that sank the Moskva, it would be fitting after what Russia has done to that peaceful country. I keep wondering when the Russian military will turn on Putin, just how much do they have to lose before they send the tanks after him, the length of his table will be meaningless if a couple pilots decide they have had enough and obliterate the building he is hiding in just like they did to that theater hundreds were hiding in, in Mariupol. You have to be very careful what you ask for, especially when you unleash the dogs of war.
Exactly so. I'd love to see a large scale mutiny.
The Russians knew how to get rid of their last Tsar in 1918.
But not Stalin though, no one has figured out how to take out one of those. :(
From within, as what happened to Julius Caesar.
Saw that, too. Bravo to the Ukrainians. I imagine the news of the sinking has given Ukrainian forces new determination.
“What’s the first thing they teach us at the Naval Academy?”
“Don’t ever loose the Flag ship!” -Retired Four Star Navy Admiral James Stavridis
ESPECIALLY when the flagship is named after the national capital.
Total incompetence. Can’t park your flagship where it’s vulnerable right? Same as stringing out a convoy parked 40 miles long. I think the Russians have learned this lesson and are regrouping. May 9th has significance to them from WW2. Then this from Zelensky and CIA director warning of tactical nukes. Pretty scary world today.
https://apple.news/AcmvL6IrwQ-atVYY9WrgHXg
😧
Hubby is class of 84’
At moments like these I often think of the Capt. Tom Phillip of the USS Texas, at the Battle of Santiago Bay. When the Texas’ big guns set one of the Spanish ships afire, the American sailors began to exult. Capt. Phillip leaned out of the pilot house and called out, “Don’t cheer,boys, the poor devils are dying.” The simple humanity of that cry, in the heat of battle, has always struck me. (At least on observer insisted that Capt. Phillip called the Spaniards “the poor fellows,” because he was a God-fearing Christian.)
“Russian warship, go fuck your self.”
Talk about irony, keep in mind that this was reported to have happened near Snake Island, where about a dozen Ukranian marines responded similarly when the Russians told them to surrender or be killed. Initially, the marines were reported to have been killed, but they were later revealed to be very much alive. As with Zelenskyy, a lawyer/actor, these underrated Ukranians have a way with words (and appropriate gestures).
Nancy, even better, the Moskva was that same ship.
Oh, I didn't know that! Talk about sweet revenge. 😆 Thanks for this.
TC, do you suppose there's a chance that Zelenskyy bought those pesky little drones from Amazon?
I actually Laughed Out Loud on this.
Considering your flair for humor, I'm flattered, TC.
😂
Glee? With nuclear weapons sitting on the table? Glee? Is this a video game?
I share TC’s glee. The Moskva was a powerful symbol for both sides, from its name and flagship status on the Russian side, to its being the recipient of the heroic “Russian warship, go F yourself” on the Ukrainian side. Glee, because the good guys managed something symbolic and extraordinary that day. I’m not blind to the risks on the table, but I think the only good outcome here is for Ukraine to win, so when they score a victory, I think it’s good. Very good.
We are all Ukrainians!
glee? how can death, carnage, blood red running on the streets, evoke "Exultant or playful exhilaration; demonstrative joy or delight; merriment; mirth; gaiety."? Death - whose ever it is - is for keeps, no more a bright dawn, a lovers arms, a soothing quiet rain....tears....astonishment..
Tell that to the warmongers who started this war, Selina.
What do you propose instead of bombs, Selina? What's your solution? No one likes the bombs and killing. The glee is not for that. I'm sure you understand that, right?
Would you stand on a street and let someone shoot you point blank or would you shoot them in self defense first? Glee, because with the sinking of the Moscow we are that much closer to preventing the annihilation of the innocent people (mothers, great grandparents, children and infants) of Ukraine. The men on the Moscow are murders and would continue murdering until every last child was dead or pirated away to Russia for who knows what kind of life.
Yes, glee. No, this is not a video game. The sinking of the Muskova, who was the pride and joy of the Russian Navy, and his sinking showcases the lack of adequate response by the personnel aboard and lack of proper maintenance by the government. To read the Russian reports that he developed a fire and sank in heavy seas while under tow underscores how much that ship meant to Russia, and how unwilling they are to acknowledge the effective missile fire of the Ukranians.
Ally House - Glee? ship down? people dead? Glee - because the ship, a favored "toy" of Putin is destroyed? A real ego-trip, huh. Like at a football game when your side scores a point. Only your team gets to wake up the next morning and kiss their babes and see the scarlet tanager sitting on the branch outside their window, and pet their golden's soft head. I fear for us when we feel "delight" at "winning" when the win means death.
Selina Sweet, ARE YOU A RUSSIAN ‘BOT? Your first response got a pass because I can understand anti-war sentiments concerned by the deaths “on both sides.” But, this war was unnecessary and only occurred because the Russian Barbarian throwbacks to WWII INVADED A PEACEFUL NATION. From that point on it became a war of DEFENSE AGAINST A BRUTAL ENEMY. How dare you chastise a nation that has taken so much loss of life and destruction defending their sovereignty to live in peace. Yes, we have glee when an oppressor's prized ship which had the capability to inflict more death & destruction is lost. Had it gone down with all Russian hands on board, it still would not diminish the thousands of innocent civilians and children who have been murdered by the perpetrators. So, again I srsly ask are you a Russian ‘bot, or a real life sympathizer with a murdering aggressive enemy of democracy, who BTW is the one threatening nukes.
She may well be Russian.
Then you need to toughen up, this world is not getting prettier. And we have our own evil autocracy on our shores wanting to genocide us. They fought against preparing for a pandemic where 1 million people died on our shores these past two years. We were powerless except to wear masks whilst they propagandized the whole pandemic is a hoax. I lost people because of this travesty of republican propaganda. We are at a critical moment to stand up and be part of the Resistance, or let them take over and create a worse slave state than we already are, and face the earth's destruction. Sounds a bit dramatic, but that front of us. Wish you could provide some solutions while we face some incredibly to tough decisions. It is not a game. It is life and death. That seems to be the "theatre" of the absurd on earth.
Right on Pensa....Join the Sunrise Movement...organize fellow citizens between elections to vote in progressives from local to national.....take a band of like minded into the offices of your state/national congressional reps to insist on spine in service of progressive agenda....please note: no visceral outcry yet from the citizenry on Biden's campaign promises: to wit student debt forgiveness, $15 minimum wage, etc).
I guess that as a practitioner of violence for most of my adult life, I am not as refined as you are in being able to see that perspective. There are enemies in this world. Sadly, those "sailors" on that ship were in harm's way because of their actions taken against a democracy.
Sailors is in quotes, because I do no believe that either their training or experience were up to the task of combat.
No reported loss of life when ship sank.
Selina Sweet, I feel glee that the Moskva will no longer rain death on Ukrainians. So, an instrument of death is destroyed with no loss of life—I’d call that a victory.
We have lived with that threat for decades. It is real, but so is the counter threat. Not everyone in some position of power in Russia is a complete fool - even Putin and his toadies are not in total control.
https://youtu.be/PRBOqZ1Ap8c
MaryPat, thank you for this. Prior to hearing this exchange, I believed that Ukraine was badly outnumbered, but am happy to hear that they're almost evenly matched. While it would be foolish to think that this is nearly finished, I feel more hopeful.
It's so difficult watching our country being torn apart by those who have been put in office to protect it.
Those put in office there by non tax paying subsidized corporations -big money all lathering for a piece of the money war pie....
Did you note Dr. Richardson's comment on global corporation tax?
Just the idea of T___p scrambling up a tree, or trying to, has made my day.
While I am so pleased to see our country leading the sanctions movement against Putin's evil regime my joy is diminished by remembering that we promised Ukraine that we would guarantee their security if they gave up nuclear weapons. What is the message Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and other autocracies take home about nuclear disarmament from the current catastrophe in Ukraine?
What a vision, I’ll sign on
Marlene, it appears that Ukraine is doing a bang-up job of tracking down Russian generals, and "neutralizing" them, and using drones to distract their flagship's sensors so that missiles could sink it was sheer genius. Understanding the danger, I wish there was a way to supply them with even more military hardware, including aircraft, and send in NATO troops, regardless of the fact that they aren't members, to squash Russia's advances before they flatten every building in Ukraine.
For those of us who believe that we're mired in corruption and hamstrung by cynicism, I hope we can take heart that we can perform miracles here in our own "war."
I am with you 100%! I’m praying that Ukraine’s nightmare has opened eyes to the dangers of strongman government models.
Amen! Preach!
"Trump hates debates not least because his knowledge of political topics is weak"
That's being charitable; I'd say "non-existent" rather than "weak."
However, I'm fairly sure the ReThugly-cans and ultra-wealthy don't care as long as they can "continue to pocket disproportionate shares of the national wealth" and impose their morally bankrupt, racist and inhumane policies on the rest of us. (Speaking as a female POC myself)
Sadly, tfg is so illiterate in all aspects of politics and leadership, that we will return to pre-civil war days should he be placed on his imaginary throne in the WH. I, for one, will not be able to abide it -- but where to go?!!!!
My exact thoughts of late. I try to remain hopeful and positive in the fight to right our capsizing democracy, but it becomes more difficult by the day. Sadly, not only is tfg illiterate on politics and leadership, his worshiping followers are blissfully ignorant on civic society.
Nobody chasing me out of my country. Here to the end, making noise until I can't.
But I do think we are headed towards some sort of "Two Americas" to quote the ill fated John Edwards. No idea how it will look. But I suspect there will be authoritarian states and democratic/progressive states. I feel pretty safe in MA. But I see a time when I won't even consider traveling to certain states. The list is obvious.
Outside of lack of winters and low taxes, there is no reason for anyone to live in Florida!
❤️. Icon won’t light up.
Actually, it's a beautiful state where the people aren't...
Like TN, where unfortunately I live.
Jay, we have several, blue, major cities. I’m not ready to give up hope of continued “purpling.”
Hi Ashley - I wish I had your confidence. Look at our Senators. Blackburn (my favorite punching bag) won going away. That speaks worlds to me. Like Tuberville in AL - wasn't even close. A giant thumb in the eye of progressive thinking people in those states.
Jay, it’s not confidence as much as a glass half full mindset. In this Blue corner, I’m doing my part to keep the cerulean waves rolling for my children and their generation of leaders.
If we give up, they win. 💙
KY is sadly following in the footsteps of our sister/rival state to the south.
The people of KY are responsible for much of the political anguish in our country - by continuing to vote in McConnell.
They foolishly think his power is helping them and making there lives better. You only need to lol at where we rank (healthcare, literacy, education, etc) and that will tell you all you need to know. Unfortunately blue Lexington & Louisville can’t carry the rest of the red state.
Nothing wrong with respecful Digital Communities Rowshan, no borders.
We have proven that here for several years with folks from around the world. It is true, Bryan.
Underground.
You can’t expect a person that is beyond mentally deficient, way below the level of a moronic simpleton, to be able to present intelligent arguments in a political debate. That’s what we were treated to in the last presidential debates, no wonder they don’t want to demonstrate his ignorance to the world, it makes him look like the imbecilic clown that he is.
I wish Trump was stupid. He was clever enough to manipulate a large portion of this country into voting for his hateful nativist rhetoric and overlooking his corrupt cabinet. Underestimating the enemies of our great democracy is counterproductive. And don't think only one party is to blame just because it is the lesser of two evils.
Barry as we are seeing now, he had alot of help.
So much help.
Attempted like
True. Nevertheless, he's the front man giving the final ok. That said, I hold his enablers more responsible b/c at one time they were responsible people; they've given that up now. But he's always been irresponsible and totally narcissistic.
Unfortunately, he’s an evil genius.
He is evil, but no genius. Neither is he intelligent, but woefully ignorant. He has a native cunning and is manipulative, magnified by his father's harping. I am still of the belief that along the way he was chosen by authoritarians who knew that if they massaged him correctly he could be utilized as a useful idiot. He is very dangerous, despite his pea-sized brain.
With learning disabilities which must have ticked him off and helped him develop his deep narcissism.
Sun Tzu pointed out the necessity of knowing one's enemies.
"Trump hates debates not least because his knowledge of political topics is weak...." For Trump to conflate NATO with the UN after having spent four years as POTUS is beyond imagination. That HALF of self identified Republicans still view the idiot in a favorable light is .... beyond description. So my question is this: Should these people be allowed to vote? We requite a written test before even allowing a person to drive a car. How about imposing an IQ test on voters? I would think 85 would be a good cutoff point!
I think his confusion is NATO and the EU, not the UN.
I'll bet he couldn't define what either is or does
Mary do you remember at the Summit when he said that Germany owes the US money because "they haven't paid up". He thought, somehow in his demented mind that NATO was a business for the US. I'll never forget the look on Merkels face. What a buffoon.
Yes! And the look on Merkel's face was priceless (also her grimace when Dubya rubbed her shoulders). She couldn't contain her astonishment. I loved that about her.
Yes, that too. 😆. I do miss her.
"So my question is this: Should these people be allowed to vote?" George - I have thought long and hard on this very thing over the years. And I have concluded that, at the risk of being accused of "both-siderism", many folks who vote progressive also are essentially illiterate on important issues, although they are not as dangerous to democracy. So I think they tend to cancel each other out. Instead, we must focus on free and fair elections, no gerrymandering or voter restriction measures, or other ways to misrepresent the will of the voters. In other words a fair fight. Let's see who comes out on top. I am pretty confident the good guys (progressives) will win every time. And the battle lines will move left, where there is actually sanity on either side.
I know it's tempting to set some kind of "information" standard. But I think there is too much risk of abuse (poll taxes, literacy tests etc used by southern states to get around the 15th ammendment.) When I spoke to a friend of mine from Pakistan about the test he had to take for citizenship, I remember seeing some questions that I wasn't sure I could answer! So for me the work should be around free and fair elections and civics education. And better messaging against the lies and "mis" information! Blessings and Happy Easter, Happy Passover.
And some of my smartest friends are tRumpers. They are allowed to vote.
THIS! It is soooo disconcerting that both some of my kindest but not bright friends and other, very intelligent friends voted for 45, and still believe "he's not that bad, all politicians are corrupt." They disbelieve the FACTS of his cruel and immoral actions, policies, and words!!
Very frustrating to me, so I've had to step back from those former friends for my own sanity.
Yup.
No. That requirement has been misused before and should not be used again. Just WHO decides what someone should know before voting? I know very educated people with frightening ideas. And I know people who, for various reasons, can barely read, but who pay attention and have good insight on issues. IQ is a poorly defined and badly designed construct for almost anything. And 85 is a number right out of the eugenics movement. Think on THAT for a minute.
Annie,
If " IQ is a poorly defined and badly designed construct for almost anything", how would you characterize an individual's capacity to cast an "intelligent", which is to say "well informed" vote? Within the context of their own logic, of course, unless they don't do "logic". Eugenics? You think I'm a Nazi for dropping a number like "85". OK, you pick one. I think you're playing word games here. My only point was that we are are doing ourselves no favor by allowing people who won't be bothered to vote on the basis of anything more than a warm fuzzy feeling (wherever they experience it) when they hear a catchy phrase like "Make America Great Again".
IQ is a number standing in for a wide range of possible definitions of intelligence, George. There are many kinds of intelligence, and the number assigned from assessments or tests are limited in their ability to judge a person's capacity in even the areas they are designed for. No, I am not playing word games. I am pointing out that your understanding of what IQ stands for seems to derive from the 1940s. As for "85", you might understand that better if you undertook to read the history of IQ testing and their purpose. You read something into what I said that wasn't there.
I’m afraid, to be fair, we do have to allow them to vote. It’s a pity, though, that we have to allow them to breathe.
Thanks for the levity. Actually, most of the "voter fraud" was committed by dead Republicans.
Or Mark Meadows in a couple of states no less.
Remember, we used to have "tests," especially in the South, where to qualify to vote you'd have to answer convoluted questions, look at a jar of jellybeans and guess the number, or provide other "proof of intelligence." That these hoops were required for Black people to jump through is immaterial in this instance. It would be a slippery slope to reinstate these qualification requirements.
Your point's well taken, Nancy. However, how about a very fundamental test that might be multiple choice? Not so much about intelligence test per se as basic literacy and civics knowledge? It might consist of questions like "How many Supreme Court Justices are there usually sitting on the US Supreme Court? A) 3, B) 6 C) 9 D) 12 or How many states are there currently in the USA? A) 48, B) 49 C) 50 D) the number varies with the census each ten years. OK, offer the test in Spanish as an option. From what I've read, most adults in this country couldn't score 80% on such a test, which is pitiful. Should these people be voting? Or do we accept the current situation in which a sizeable portion of the electorate is unequipped to understand the most basic issues facing our nation, so incurious that they couldn't state even the most fundamental facts about their government, so incapable of any level of critical thinking that their vote can be secured with the most catchy sound bite, or all of the above?
George, while you're correct that many voters are woefully ignorant, I believe the real threat is that even more informed voters choose their "tribe" based on emotion and mis/disinformation. Even intelligent people can sometimes fall prey to that. Consider that Ginni Thomas was a member of a cult in her youth, and is now "deprogrammed" but colluded in an attempt to overthrow a legitimate elected government! If any kind of "test" were proposed as a prerequisite to voting, we would add another layer to voter suppression. Even if I despise those who apparently wish for an authoritarian government, regardless of their intellect or lack thereof, giving government permission to decide on a voter's qualifications is dangerous and open to abuse. Imagine what Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, Bryan Kemp, et al. would do with that opportunity.
Nancy, While I have to acknowledge your concerns regarding potential voter suppression I think of the issue in terms of sheer numbers. I have no data on this, but I see people like Ginnie Thomas as outliers. Certainly people like her would have no trouble passing the basic test I've described. And to folks like us, they are dangerous, but you can't deny them the vote. I also have a favorite nephew who hasn't spoken to me in two years due to our differences over Donald Trump. My nephew is extremely bright but I've come to think of him as a paranoid schizophrenic. In his mind, anything including Trump, is preferable to "the deep state". But I live in a deep red state. Perhaps my perception of this issue has been influenced by that experience. Most of the people you interact with here seem to be less interested in discussing real issues than clinging to the last outrageous and inflammatory statement issued by Tucker Carlson on Fox. I grow weary of it. Anyhow, I do appreciate your well expressed points. Take care.
George, yes, Idaho is a deep red state (why my folks left as very young adults). So perhaps your take has indeed been influenced by that exposure. But I know people who live there who seek out a wider lens (there are several here whose posts are beacons of clarity for the rest of us. I can't see that you think things through any more clearly than the people you think should be tested. That frightens me more than anything. I hope you keep coming and keep reading, especially when folks write about things like empathy and finding ways to reach across the breach. That really is the only way to get to where we need to go. Looking down on people will not change anything; it just makes us like Trump.
Thank you, George. Having been raised in suburban Boston, then moving to suburban Atlanta years ago, I've seen both liberals in Boston (with a fair number of racists and now Trumpies) and now slowly emerging, more liberals here in Georgia but still some recalcitrant Marjorie Taylor Greenes in very conservative areas. At times, I've severed ties with those who I consider to be wrong-headed and unreasonable.
I think the problem is largely with folks who blindly follow without bothering to read and research our history, and rely on false narratives. One would think that people would understand that the Biden administration is offering to help everyone, regardless of political persuasion, but even the mainstream news is trashing him. Contrasted with 4 years of Trump and his cohorts, one should be able to see the improvement. A local newscaster was talking about inflation last night, and commented that mortgage interest rates had risen to a "very high 5%." When we built our house 30 years ago, interest rates were above 9%, but we were able to refinance less than a year later at a lower rate, then again when we could get 4% a few years later. How ignorant can information-dispersers be? Regardless of this person's age (under 40), he is the anchor. He should be better informed, and Biden is having to deal with this trash, and worse, daily. As you say, it is wearisome.
Beau of the Fifth Column today suggested since the Republicans are refusing a debate that the Democrats should invite the Libertarians to the debate. I love this idea!
https://youtu.be/MXt8D6N8WyQ
The GOP quitting the debates and claiming media bias is more evidence that they can't articulate a policy plan to help the country and its people. Because they don't have a plan.
The GOP will not make any kind of move without thinking it through. To them regaining power (or remaining in power) is the only thing. The only thing. All things, in their eyes, are fair in support of it. Even they will admit that. The question to ask is "why do they think this will work?". Because it might just work. I believe a large block of Americans believe the progressive agenda is evil and bad for the country in one way or another. So much so as to spawn true hatred, and to counter that at the ballot box is the most important thing to do. It's been there for a long time; Trump helped bring it out into the open. It is an ugly and embarrassing part of the American psyche that needs to go away for good. So the GOP apparently thinks this sentiment is so strong that they can use it to take back power, without a platform other than stop the progressives. So instead of ridiculing the GOP for such a revealing move, I'd like to see action taken to eliminate the cause for such a move. Somehow convince more people that the progressive cause is a good one, not just for progressives but for everyone save the 1%'ers. We need a cushion badly. Having 52% or so on our side isn't good enough. It fails to account for little things not going our way.
Absolutely, Michael. Their plan is "no".
We are on the same page Janice. The position Republicans have taken demonstrates to all that their formula for winning is to refuse to debate the issues. It is an authoritarian position, similar to the "shadow docket" being used by the SCOTUS more and more. It is ominous. Very telling that the Republicans do not even have a platform anymore - they somehow think that they will get enough votes just be being Rethuglican, and enacting strict voter suppression laws. That is pure authoritarianism. And alarmingly they might be right. It is beyond me that such a large part of our electorate is falling for this, such that voter restrictions can tilt the balance. There was a time I was proud to be an American....
Remain proud. And resistant.
He's just a moron with little much between his ears.
From what I know the Koch brothers are still in business in Russia, on a large scale, and in oil and gas. Clean energy is surely an existential threat to a lot of rich people.
“Clean energy is surely an existential threat to a lot of rich people.” So so absolutely true. We’ve had decades to become environmentally responsible and independent of fossil fuels that are destroying our planet. But thanks to the big money party, the “rich people “ we’re in a possibly irreversible climate crisis. So Fascism and climate change threaten us.
One brother left and he is Charles Koch, Chief Executive Officer of Koch Industries.
May Charles join David soon but I fear that evil always finds a home…
I think, the Cato,Institute was formerly the Charles Koch Foundation. Seek verification.
"The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries." Wikipedia
David Koch died on August 23, 2019, coincidentally, my wedding anniversary. Thoughtful gift. . . .
Nancy, do you think of him on your anniversary? A weird combination, but we remember our loved ones and enemies as well.
I avoid it at all costs - would ruin the mood! 🤢🤢
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbMI4imWFzY
Now that's more like it! Thanks, Fern. 😘
Edited:,What’s unfortunate is the “legacy” of fascists and demons. Even when all the Koch family is gone, their greed and corruption will live on through what they have created, supported, influenced and owned. I’m editing my comment and adding this link of the worlds richest families. https://www.familyminded.com/s/richest-families-world-edf3c38fa224422e
Koch family is the third richest and Walton Family, Walmart etc. first. Even living off the land or on a remote island, not buying anything, we would likely come in contact with a product or the influence of the world’s billionaires. A friend of mine tries to buy only used or bartered items but still can’t avoid at least making one of these wealthier. Another reason to pay attention.
David Koch died in 2019.
Koch family will live on forever. Along with the other wealthiest families. Koch number three of thirty according to this detailed list of 30 richest families in world. https://www.familyminded.com/s/richest-families-world-edf3c38fa224422e. Courtesy of the internet so I can’t vouch for accuracy. But one of these wealthy families can.
😠
Yep.
Yale’s SOM, Barry Sonnenfeld compiled the list of major companies who continue to operate in Russia today; Koch’s companies head that list.
And there's another list of all the Brands that Koch owns. I would boycott them but I already have. Environmentally unconscious paper goods and 'foods'.
My sister just sent me a copy of "Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America" by Christopher Leonard. For some reason my fingers kept typing the title as Kock Industries.
An ALL BODY experience! The curse of those that would own us and destroy the planet. Good morning, MaryPat.
Good Morning Fern!!
Ah, friend MaryPat is back. Nothing keeps her down or quells the laughter that she brings. On we go to the rescue of Democracy as Spring kisses us with nature's bounty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcfqNqKayS0
Maybe what Democrats need is not just a powerful message, but powerful music. Let's Rock & Roll!!
I'm ready to Rock'n'roll!
Rick & Roll!! Thanks Fern!
ELVIS! At a time like this - memories of youth (for many of us) and a sunny side of America.
They’re still in the business of making the US in their John Bircher father’s image, too. More deadbeat billionaires
Correct. Koch has not left Russia.
I made the argument elsewhere earlier this week that all authoritarians are ultimately losers because of their incompetence. One cannot find an authoritarian system in history that did not ultimately fail, due to the collective weight of incompetence. The incompetent leader - who may have the savvy to take power but has no understanding of the way the system he has conquered operates, attracts first opportunists and then sycophants. None of these will promote an actual competent person to a position of responsibility, for fear of their incompetence being exposed (a good example is noted incompetent Hermann Goring's promotion of actually-competent fighter pilot Adolf Galland to command the German air defense force. Every decision Galland made only exposed Goring's incompetence, while Goring's sycophancy to Hitler - who had no real understanding of how a war machine operates despite his claims of military genius - undermined Galland's attempts to implement sound strategy and tactics and adoption of technology that would aid the defense. The German defense continued to crumble and in the end Goring fired Galland and tried to assign him where he would be killed, because he could no longer stand being shown up. The rest of the German war machine was similar; their greatest success was momentary in the summer of 1940 when they defeated France, but the incompetence of the Nazi leadership undermined everything else afterwards.
The same can be seen with Putin's Russia, which is about as incompetent as the last 50 years of the Romanovs, during which they were defeated by the Turks in 1877, the Japanese in 1904 and the Germans in all battles between 1914-1917, with the rot extending to the point the regime fell easily and was then overthrown by the Bolsheviks. Putin, the failed mid-level Chekist, really has no idea how things actually work, and the people he surrounds himself with are incompetent sychophants who are afraid of him. He has no chance of attracting any competent person who might help him, since he couldn't accept their help if he did bring them on.
Unfortunately, TC, many Western Democracies are often no more able to attract the most competent than the autocratic states. The systems needed a bludgeoning war launched by Putin to get their act together externally and collectively, but many are still stuck in democratic paralysis at home as the very necessary checks and balances are either tentatively set aside in their system to thwart democracy or indeed stop anything at all happening through their "over thorough" and highly legalistic application. One result has been the growth of judicial power either to impose policy or to stop "innovative" action. The risks to the private life and livelihood from diving into the political arena for any new, non-party individual or group or indeed for anyone in the existing parties with a refreshingly new vision of how to serve the people and lead the nation and with the charisma and intelligence to impose themselves, have increased logarythmically. The good people are going elsewhere and are doing other things with their lives as the colective good loses out in its continual historic battle with individual freedom.
It seems to me just as Oligarchs found loop holes to launder money through shell companies, Republicans found loopholes and cracks in our government to abuse and sidestep former precedents and norms. During TFG’s administration I was horrified by all the ways they got around rules and regulations, by just refusing to comply, by having acting directors and just not filling positions at all. But nothing has been done to prevent it all happening again. Nothing to prevent another, smarter grifter to do even more damage. So many checks and balances seem to have just been gentleman’s agreements and not anything enforceable.
And Congress seems to have no enforceable rules at all. People with no understanding of our government can be elected, those who openly hate and want to destroy our country can stay in office. Conflict of interest is becoming more of a given for members of Congress and they make huge personal profit from their entitled position.
Members of Congress have no duty for their sworn oath of office and can hold the country hostage for their political stunts and tantrums. McConnell can let bills just sit because he doesn’t like them, no discussions, no votes. How can our country possibly be fixed when those who govern and set our rules and laws also write themselves a free ticket for personal profit, power and party politics? Dark money, no transparency, and being bought by hostile foreign countries is destroying us from the inside.
As Stuart Stevens said last night on Lawrence O’Donnell, we have been discovering how much a democracy is dependent on good faith.
Good faith indeed. It is also dependent on acceptance of the rules, and abiding by them. Why have an "emoluments clause" at all if it is not enforced (see, 45th President of the US and his violations of said clause).
Good faith in this context means exactly that. It means following precedent, the rules, acting in the best interests of the whole, and not attempting the undermine the system or play it to pursue individual gain. Stuart Stevens meant there is no enforcement in place to insure that public servants serve in good faith, as most presidents did before Trump. Trump and his ilk found every loophole right up until and past their campaign to steal the 2020 election. We don't have protections in place for a party that is proudly and blatantly anti-democratic, a party that wants to destroy the government rather than make it function.
A democracy requires trust, and educated populace and honor system of rules. If you have a seditious group of bullies with no consequences for bad behavior, democracy is shattered.
Ally, I agree. I was disgusted when the lawsuits alleging that TFG broke the emoluments clause were dismissed as soon as he left office. So, does that mean any politician or government employee can break a law that applies to their position and then, if caught, evade retribution by resigning their post? I hope not.
Seems like Good Faith needs some legal back up these days! Also include with Emoulments Clause, The Hatch Act with no consequences.
Good faith, of which there is little. It was assumed that those powerful enough to govern possessed good character, while the poor and minorities possessed neither. We're beginning to reap that harvest.
They have been infiltrating and setting this up since Reagan. White men do not like where our country is going with true freedoms and diversity, and aspiring towards more equality. That ain't the kind of America they want. This is about power, money and tint. I think is really good that trump was the monkey with a mirror in front, instead the quiet one on Ronnie's lap. The current chimp was/is so crass, so vulgar, so uneducated and self-absorbed but knows how propaganda works in reality shows. His followers and kowtowers became a belligerent but dangerous cult. Their shady souls and filthy tactics are abhorrent enough to make us all pay attention as they wish to squeeze darker tints of skin and/or gender/s, and immigrants. So, we should be thankful they are so blatant and light is being shed upon them. Much easier to resist an enemy you can see. Unfortunately, people of tinted skins have seen and felt this oppression and suppression far longer than the light skin privileged.
Excellent analysis.
So, we end up with oligarchs too! Many of them live in Palm Beach, at least part time, where Florida's usual corruption makes them less conspicuous.
Yes.
❤️
Yep, our potholed path
True, but I think we’re seeing a new wave of competent visionaries coming into politics (like A.O.C.) and they will be bringing lots of competent visionaries to work with them.
Part of the extreme polarisation of politics which is emptying out the center around which most people sit.
We don’t yet know if AOC & Co have the grit and stomach to go the distance. AOC’s candidates aren’t winning many elections. She refused to vote for “compromise bills”—all or nothing; Bernie or Bust. TBD
Stuart, I could not follow the point of your comment. It defeated my solid and much practiced skill of reading comprehension.
a) Which 'Western Democracies are you talking about that are unable to attract the most competent -- most competent at what?
b) 'The systems needed a bludgeoning war launched by Putin to get their act together externally and collectively, but many are still stuck in democratic....' and on and on you went.
DEMOCRACIES NEEDED PUTIN TO GO TO WAR AGAINST UKRAINE - this war represents one of the solutions for weakened and 'disappeared' Democracies? Is that what you think? Have you computed. Stuart. the risks associated with the use of tactical nuclear weapons and the U.S. going to war with Russia?
'Ukraine war is economic catastrophe, warns World Bank
By Jonathan Josephs
Business reporter, BBC News (The following are snippets from BBC's report)
'David Malpass says "it's too early to say" if the war in Ukraine will lead to a global recession'
'The war in Ukraine is "a catastrophe" for the world which will cut global economic growth, the president of the World Bank has told the BBC.'
"The war in Ukraine comes at a bad time for the world because inflation was already rising," said David Malpass.
'He stressed his biggest concern is "about the pure human loss of lives" that is occurring.'
Mr Malpass said the economic impact of the war stretches beyond Ukraine's borders, and the rises in global energy prices in particular "hit the poor the most, as does inflation".
'Food prices have also been pushed up by the war, and "are a very real consideration and problem for people in poor countries".
'Mr Malpass points out that both Russia and Ukraine are big food producers. Ukraine is the world's biggest producer of sunflower oil, with Russia number two, according to S&P Global Platts. Between them they account for 60% of global production.'
'The two countries also account for 28.9% of global wheat exports according to JP Morgan. Wheat prices on the Chicago future exchange have been trading at 14-year highs'.
'Ukraine is the world's biggest producer of sunflower oil but the war has stopped exports'
'Russian supplies of these commodities are being restricted because of the widespread sanctions which make it hard for the rest of the world to buy its products. Ukrainian supplies have been stopped because fighting has closed the country's ports.'
"There's no way to adjust quickly enough to the loss of supply from Ukraine and from Russia, and so that adds to prices," said Mr Malpass.
'About 39% of the EU's electricity comes from power stations that burn fossil fuels, and Russia is the biggest source of that oil and gas.' And from my readings the effects on Tunisia, Egypt... and what about plant earth?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/science/war-environmental-impact-ukraine.html
***
Please correct me, if your comment addressed the major point made it today's letter about a major flaw in democracies leading to their downfall.
'Democracies are at risk from authoritarianism today in large part because centralizing power in a few wealthy people permits those people to continue to pocket disproportionate shares of the national wealth.'
'A study released yesterday by ProPublica of leaked tax documents from the Internal Revenue Service revealed how our current laws permit the very wealthy to sidestep taxes and amass greater and greater wealth. According to Forbes, the wealth of the richest 25 Americans rose more than $400 billion from 2014 to 2018, giving them a combined wealth of $1.1 trillion. It would take the wealth of 14.3 million ordinary American wage earners to get to that number. During those years, those 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes, a true tax rate of 3.4%.'
'Those with virtually unlimited money can buy the tools to spread propaganda in favor of their position. That concern is behind the fight over “free speech” that right-wing leaders have launched against social media platforms that have excluded their lies and calls for violence.' (Letter)
***
When this war is over, hopefully sooner than later, and hopefully Putin is defeated and charged with war crimes, I hope they make sure and take away Nuclear options for him. Obviously can't be trusted if he can hold NATO off with such deadly threats to the world.
Sorry Fern but I'm not really in the mood for intellectual jousting. Many people seem to have understood my point, perhaps with a little thought but perhaps not. Perhaps they just had a look around our world and saw for themselves, perhaps not. I'll content myself with that for today.
Good morning, Stuart. My interest was not, to use your term, 'intellectual jousting'. Instead of answering whether you really believed as you wrote that 'The systems needed a bludgeoning war launched by Putin to get their act together externally and collectively, …' you replied with a snarky word game, a joust of your own.
Indeed Fern. Mille excuses! I don't believe that the Nato countries were looking for a war in order to unite but that it was a somewhat unexpected result of their reaction to an external force. The most surprised was perhaps not Putin but the member countries themselves. I don't think the alliances recent behaviour would have led to predictions of such a result. However thank goodness for unexpected benefits.
You are sitting still in missile range in NYC but not in "tank range" ...I am. Putin has to be stopped once and for all without direct conflict with the West if at all possible. If Putin is not stopped there...or by his own cronies...he'll keep coming. Here we are in the midst of an election tussle between Macron ...who would employ Tidewater Planters' (see works of Colin Woodard) aristocratic view of Republicanism enslaving the people for their own good and with the best of intentions all with the security of his own certainty of a natural and total intellectual superiority...and Le Pen...and a mediocre lawyer, who has some good and some unacceptable notions but who is not up to the job even in the simplest and calmest circumstances. Thus my mind is somewhat preoccupied with these local difficulties. Have a good day.
You are sometimes a riddle, Stuart. Why were you insulting when queried and then having received another clear response from me, finally wrote an impressive clarification of your initial comment?
All bureaucracies attract the second-rate (at best) in the majority. They self-perpetuate because nobody knowingly promotes someone who will outshine them in comparison and contrast. This is what makes the better ones so obvious, by their singularity..
But there is the opportunity for self-correction in leadership in a non-authoritarian system, with the possibility of someone outstanding arriving in the position of authority (these are the ones who end up in the history books with positive coverage).
It seems you have provided a vivid description of the Peter Principle on a grand scale whereby people rise in an organization until they reach their level of incompetence where they tend to remain (until removed or die). Dr Peter may have died but his organizational principle lives on in force surrounding us every day! <https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/15/obituaries/laurence-j-peter-is-dead-at-70-his-principle-satirized-business.html>
Brilliant insight, beautifully articulated.
Now let me get this straight: We can't tax Musk because his money isn't actually "money", but actually tied up in stocks and investments and whatever else. His billions are actually in property and whatnot, so he can't be expected to use his money towards fixing infrastructure or the environment. But he can just buy Twitter.
Goddammit, bring out the guillotines.
I just want to stuff the little Afrikaner goon in one of his rockets and fire it into the sun.
Yeetlon Musk 😂 sun might be disgusted by our using it as garbage disposal but c'est la vie
🤣🤣
He actually hopes to live on Mars, his backup planet. Send him there. He might learn something.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
You do have a way with words, TC. I have to admit that I am sitting here with a grin on my face. You do express my feelings of frustration in a most creative way.
He probably can’t just buy Twitter, because he likely lacks the liquidity to do so. What he can do is manipulate the stock price to make more billions, while trying to evade the SEC’s rules (which he already violated re Twitter) by pretending to want to buy it. What a scumbag he is.
Think you got it. Some econ analysts are talking about that too, while wanna-be pundits are still talking about the changes he might make to Twitter, as if that were the point.
Too messy. I would prefer he lived to be properly taxed, bankrupted, and rendered invisible.
He champions "free speech," so we have to assume that he'd remove the Trump ban.
When we talk about the Commission on Presidential Debate, it is anything but nonpartisan. It is purely bipartisan. There is a big difference. Ask Gary Johnson. All its key members are former Republican and Democrat party leaders. The two party system continues to give us the choice of the lessor of two evils. It is now driving the two parties to the far left and far right leaving the huge middle unrepresented. The two party system is not part of the Constitution which does not mention parties at all. We need something better. A way to start is to support ranked choice voting which actually gives women and minorities better representation. We, the People, ALL of us this time!
Not a complaint Ms. Learoyd, but "Democrat party" is actually a far right slur. It's "DemocratIC Party." It's an easy mistake to make.
Glad you clarified that for me.I did not know why the ic had been dropped. I do prefer Democratic Party.
Like I said, it's an easy mistake. Particularly in a place like Texas, where you have all the GOP goatropers using the slur.
I can vouch that Ms. Learoyd's error was from writing too fast and not catching the edit, as opposed to being habituated to the GOP slur. :)
That was my guess - hence the manner of my comment.
Very gracious, TC!
Ditto that.
Nuts, I guess I ran out of hearts, so can't heart this whole thread. And all the posts from Cathy on down deserve them. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
You are aware that goat ropers are women? Your comment can be miss-construed but is an easy mistake to make.
Goat roper is a term applied to wannabe ranchers or hicks - it isn't gender-specific. Goat tying is a school competition and is generally considered a women's sport. Easy to make the mistake.
Hello R. Dooley, You appear to be a person who is interested in language usage. I looked up 'Goat Roping' given your difference with Pat. I found the following:
'English-Grammar-Lessons.com'
Your trusted English language resource
Goat Roping – Meaning, Origin and Usage
Are you involved in a confusing situation with a possible dire outcome? If that’s the case, you’re “goat roping” yourself towards disaster. “Goat roping” is a slang term typically used in military and tactical situations to describe setting yourself up for failure. You can goat rope yourself or others, and you can also use it as an insult to someone that doesn’t know what they are doing in a situation.
Goat roping can refer to physical or verbal exchanges. However, the common theme with the phrase is to make lite of something going wrong with a task or action. This post also looks at how to use this idiom correctly, its meaning, and its origin.
Goat Roping Meaning
If you’re goat roping someone, it means you are herding them towards an ill fate. Someone else could “goat rope” you into a problematic situation where you may risk injury or death or an unfavorable outcome. The term could describe physical events of danger, or it could refer to someone leading you into a problematic workplace scenario where your boss might fire you for a transgression.
Goat roping also refers to manipulating someone else, referring to them misleading you to danger or an unfavorable outcome.
Goat Roping Origin
This idiom originates from the US military, where operators, particularly in the navy or in air force transport, would use it to describe them leading the teams into a dangerous situation. The term also applies to enemies leading the team into a situation that could result in danger or death to the operators.
The phrase would also appear in situations where a large number of people would add nothing to an operation other than placing service members in danger.
The phrase was common in Flightline operations where the top officials would make their presence known, impeding operations and the crew’s duties. The top brass might make suggestions that had no value or might add danger to the situation to assert authority over the operators.
Phrases Similar to Goat Roping
Similar phrases and idioms to “goat roping” include the following.
Goat rope.
SNAFU.
FUBAR.
Leading on.
Goat rodeo.
Phrases Opposite to Goat Roping
Phrases opposite to goat roping would refer to adding value to a situation or removing the danger.
Help us out.
To aid and abet.
To pitch in.
To chip in.
What is the Correct Saying?
Goat roping.
Goat rope.
Goat rodeo.
Ways People May Say Goat Roping Incorrectly
Some people may use the idiom to describe situations that present no danger, harm, or threat. The phrase does not suit use in a description of a casual situation.
https://english-grammar-lessons.com/
Yeah for you. We don’t have wanna bee cow people here. That would be shameful. We have 6 cattle ranches within the family here around Salmon. The ladies rope anything that moves. They don’t run around on foot chasing anything. They saddle up and rope everything. Goat roping is the popular coinage, goat tying is acceptable. In your world where you ride and rope is how you do it and I’m plumb sure your lingo has its own stretch. I do accept your correction and I’ll let the ladies know they need to change their talk in a New York Minute. I’ll keep that little finger straight when I hold my teacup just as soon as we loose all our coffee pots
Democratic or Democrat? There's an app for that!
https://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/the-democratic-or-democrat-party/
Oh! Thanks Lynell!
"...1828 became the modern Democratic Party. It formally adopted the name “Democratic Party” at its convention in 1844.
However, some Republican leaders have made a habit of referring to their opposition incorrectly and discourteously as the “Democrat Party.” The reason isn’t entirely clear; it may be meant to imply that the party isn’t sufficiently “democratic” in the general sense, or may just be meant as a petty insult. In August 2006, Hendrik Hertzberg traced this Republican usage, which he termed a “slur” on his party, back to the 1940s. He says it was used by opponents to needle the powerful Pendergast organization in Kansas City, which backed Harry Truman. He also says it was used often by the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy..."
The plot thickens! Thanks, MaryPat!
I needed that clarification as well!
I have no problem with Ranked Choice voting.
In this country’s earliest presidential elections, there were numerous parties. The lack of majorities in the Electoral College threw them into the House of Representatives. Parties learned it was, like it or not, a binary structure.
I have to say, as a student of American history, I am not aware of multiple parties in the earliest elections. There was only one candidate who didn't run on a party platform, and that was Washington. By the end of his second term, the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans were it. Adams ran as a Federalist, Jefferson as a Democratic-Republican. The only change was the 11th amendment so that the president and vice president came from the same party after 4 years of the Adams-Jefferson war.
in 1796, Aaron Burr ran as an Anti-Federalist candidate, John Henry ran as an Independent, and there were several Independent-Federalist candidates, in addition to the Federalists (John Adams) and the Democratic-Republicans (Thomas Jefferson). The Whigs were created in the 1830s to oppose Andrew Jackson and included members of the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic Party and Democrats. Andrew Jackson lost his first Presidential election in the House of Representatives.
Does Ranked Choice mean there could be several elections until a winner is secured? I like the idea but worry about many voters not seeing it to the end.
Lynell see this for a good explanation of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV):
https://www.fairvote.org/rcv#where_is_ranked_choice_voting_used
Thanks so much, Karen. Will read with anticipation!
How do we convince our fellow Americans that it’s important that our President know the difference between NATO and the EU? One would think that the church leaders would condemn not only Putin’s actions but also those politicians who refuse to condemn them.
Luckily the real and current president, Joe Biden, knows the difference between NATO and the EU. Too bad the title “President” is still valid for tfg who likely had Putin’s help in his first election and would gratefully accept Russian help in 2024. Is it possible Truth and accountability will win over the corruption and conspiracy that elected and supported tfg and continues to wash over the GOP?
We’re getting a first hand picture of what fascism and authoritarianism look like and better worry that those Americans supporting Putin and Russia could be altering our future, too. I hate, detest, the violence. And to be so negative. Yet, how can we continue to watch one man, one country destroy another without helping with weapons and funding. And will there be Americans fighting too? We saw how Hitler spent years destroying countries and people before USA committed troops and entered the war. World democratic values and future are threatened in real time. And we need to pay attention to our own inequality and racism and divisions while we help other countries. Our world will never be the same, not as we have known it. We have been at a turning point for a long time.
My opinion, Japan saved us from fascism in 1941. Pearl Harbor shut the fascist-leaning idiots down in a flash. They were more powerful than many remember, history having been tweaked a bit.
Agreed
❤️
Irenie, how is it that Americans supporting Putin and Russia in this conflagration also criticize Biden for insufficient support to Ukraine? Are they playing both ends against the middle to encourage further conflict (and more profit for war supporting industries?)
Yes, looking for logic in all the wrong places.
... some kinda serious disconnect ... I wonder if Mycelia could neutralize the toxicity of these soiled souls ...
6 ways mushrooms can save the world | Paul Stamets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY
*****
Evidence for Mycelial intelligence
http://paulstamets.com/news/evidence-for-mycelial-intelligence
*****
Hyphal and mycelial consciousness: the concept of the fungal mind
Nicholas P. Money
Hyphae and mycelia show decision-making capabilities.
Mycelia exhibit spatial recognition, learning, and short-term memory.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878614621000246#!
*****
How Mushrooms Can Save the World: Q&A with Paul Stamets and Dr. Pamela Kryskow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00yeGOAoORU
Thank you for the links! Wonderful!
Paul Stamets was one of my neighbors long ago when I was still in WA state, when he was first developing advanced research and still at the Farmer's Market selling his mushrooms. Amazing how far his research has taken the field, and the influence he has had on our understanding of the our relationship with fungi. He's an amazing man with a remarkable capacity to think beyond the conventional assumptions. One of my prizes is his first book, autographed, given me by a mushroom growing friend who also knew him. Sorry, I know this is way off topic, but couldn't resist. It's a little like running into an old friend in an unlikely place far off the usual path.
Not off topic at all, Annie D. ... so much of the mycelial network is unseen!!
Kathleen, you have the “answers”. War industries wreak havoc on our budget and democratic system. Those players are the same trumpee followers who parrot what any Repub leader says. They are so far ”right” they are destroying our two party system. We need to stop them now. But how? I don’t have real answers.
Yes, that sounds about right. Arguing from both sides so at least they have a 50% chance of being right.
Yes. And I wouldn't say "Americans" but "Republicans" playing both ends against the middle.
... i hear you Judith. I'm trying to avoid the partisan glitch ... far as I know (which isn't far) nothing in the constitution endorses partisanship or bipartisanship in the first place ... I wonder what would happen if they dissolve the parties ... how would people identify their interests - would thst bring us a step closer to "we are all Americans?"
Amen, Irenie, amen!
Nope, because they are in bed with those politicians. The evangelicals only think of themselves while they hide behind a cloak and a pulpit.
Not all evangelicals. Evangelical Lutheran Church for example very progressive. Need to make common cause and use strong church networks to bring down common evil (authoritarianism).
Christian Churches have accrued great wealth and power for centuries. Heather’s Thursday lesson had me wonder if there is a connection in America, between the Puritan view of Christianity to present day evangelicals?
Oh, yes, I think there definitely is. I hope I'm remembering correctly that it was the NYTimes that had a long piece about basically the history of evangelism in this country. Religion is always a complex subject but the way in which the whole ethic of this country is informed by a strand of virulent Protestantism has always been a detriment, I think. There is an incredible book about the polarization of certain groups of evangelicals. The Power Worshippers.
STOP IT! Letters From an American is no place for religious debate! I don't care about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. I believe certain things and choose not to believe other things. We all have that right guaranteed by the First Amendment's words, "Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise." Now, let's get on with what is important to us today!
Perhaps. I have not joined this religion debate because I would lose. My successful intonations to The Great Irish Tea Party In The Sky (whose formation preceeded the alt-right one) will have me excommunicated from my religion of birth, and outcast by the one I desire (Wiccan: I am drawn to their spell since it would allow me to become a priestess. Cool!). But after listening to HCR's History chat yesterday (Puritans 7- Pilgrims 0), I see the power in knowing, and debating, our religious history. Amen.
Jack, you quoted the Constitution, and I will simply repeat your quote as written: "Congress [shall] make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise." I might point out that we are not Congress. We are citizens discussing our history.
The influence of religion is such a part of our history that it can be appropriately included, and should be. This is different from arguing about religion or attempting to proselytize. Or going down rabbit holes.
Letters From An American has included the role of religion where it applied to the topic of the day since its inception, and the discussion has for the most part been respectful of individual beliefs. However, religion, as all human enterprises, has its toxic elements, and that is a fair subject to address as we explore the history of certain institutions and patterns in the development of this nation.
Or as my Jewish grandmother would say, Amen.
I do see that MaryPat has used the word "debate," but the rest of her comment doesn't carry any of the qualities of argument or ill-feeling. Certainly my conversation with Sarah about the book she read on the History of the Jews was a discussion where interesting information was shared. Looks to me like the three of us all know some stuff the others don't and are enjoying tossing it around.
p.s. Sarah and MaryPat, please correct me if I'm totally off base on this.
First, Sarah has to let me know I'm off base on her name, which is actually Catherine.
Dean, I'm going to put that book on my list to read to help me understand how this kind of evangelism developed. I like that you specified "...a strand of virulent Protestantism..." Couldn't heart you, but I think that the way you phrased your post is important to note, more important than just an indication that I liked it. The distinction you drew is critical, I think. We need to stop lumping people into one undifferentiated group so we can find the commonalities that can become bridges to working together with people who really are not our opponants.
There is a connection, Catherine, but it's good to keep in mind that that is just one of the many manifestations of Christianity in the Americas. Evangelism is not limited to Christianity or event to protestantism. And not all evangelicals are "in bed" with politicians or believe what many call "prosperity gospel" (talk about an oxymoron!).
Remember, MLK was and Dr Wm Barber is evangelical, and both are genuinely of the people. Fannie Lou Hamer was an evangelical, and so are many women active in the movement today. Jimmy Carter is an evangelical. These and many others are as far from authoritarian as you can get.
My favorite Quaker pastor, Philip Gulley, weighs in (from Palm Sunday):
"The belief that eventually developed within Christianity—that God created Jesus so he could die for our sins, that Jesus was born knowing he would be crucified as atonement for our sins, and began marching headlong toward that from the very start…well, I’m not so sure about that. Early Christians were so accustomed to a theological culture of sacrifice and blood atonement, it was the only lens through which they saw God. But Jesus knew his history, knew what happened to prophets, knew how quickly passions could turn, knew he wouldn’t be killed because of some divine plan of atonement, but because of simple and ageless human hatred.
Jesus is wary. He sees where things are headed, though is hopeful history won’t repeat itself, that maybe, just this once, religion and politics will bring out the best in people, not the worst. He hopes that might be the case, but he’s not sure, so he’s waiting to see how things will turn out, waiting to see what direction the crowd will go. As for his disciples, they are clueless and exhilarated. So he brings them down to earth. For the plant to grow, the seed must die, he tells them. Don’t forget that. He’s getting them ready. They can’t see Golgotha, can’t see the cross from where they are, but Jesus suspects it might be just over the hill. It’s like the ocean. You can sense it before you can see it. So maybe Jesus senses something, and he’s just waiting to see. In a way, we might say he’s still waiting. Waiting to see how we handle things, waiting to see whether we’ll do the right thing, whether we will be motivated by decency or anger, waiting to see whether we’ll heed our better angels or worst demons.
Hope has been hard to come by these past several years, hasn’t it? Let’s be honest, and let’s be clear, American Christianity has not comported itself well. 78% of white, evangelical Christians, many of them our neighbors and friends, studied the political landscape and cast their lot with a man who separated children from parents, who maligned our southern neighbors, who lied, who cheated, who abused women, and then, when his vanity was injured, strove to overthrow democracy itself.
78% of white, evangelical Christians believed that man was God’s anointed savior, and still do. If they no longer did, I would not speak of it. I would dismiss it as an aberration. But they still believe. I thought of leaving the church, rather than be associated with that 78%. I thought of divorcing the church, writing books, and spending more time with my family, like a disgraced politician, but then I remembered my church, and your church, and other churches who faithfully embody the priorities of Jesus and I decided to stay. But I’m staying as one who has changed.
I was raised by parents who taught me tactfulness. I was mentored by pastors who advised me never to address political matters from the pulpit, all of which guaranteed my silence in times of evil. Eventually, I realized tact and silence were never attributes of Jesus. After all, he mentioned Herod by name. Diplomacy is useful, but not a heralded Christian virtue. Remember what the author of Ecclesiastes would have said if he’d only had time. “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time for diplomacy, and a time to put the hay down where the goats can get it.” Let’s not mince words, or drape the gospel in flowery, inoffensive language. Neither let us be silent when the Church is weaponized, when the gospel of justice is dismantled by tyranny, fascism, and greed. For silence implies both approval and support. We must choose this day, and every day, whom and what we will serve."
https://www.philipgulley.com/palm-sunday-2022-john-1212-26/
This seems an apt occasion to repost what someone posted a few weeks ago about "Christian Nationalism" and the role played in the January 6 insurrection & invasion of the U.S. Capitol. https://www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/jan6report
Thank You. Most apt. Sadly.
Recommend reading on the matter of USA and religion: Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland, How America got Heywire, 500-years…
Dropping in on your recommendation to Catherine. Thanks. It sounds like a rich history.
100%. Fantasy Land is a necessary read.
Thanks.
Ur welcome. And since todays letter is about Twitter, Russia, Ukraine, and America, I’d recommend “There is nothing for you here”-Fiona Hill
Her perspective from growing up in Forgotten Northern England to the WH, a Russian Historian, is that TFG is both a symptom and a warning.
Alas, too many so-called Christian leaders, in every denomination, behave just like the Jewish religious authorities of Jesus’s time - the very ones who orchestrated his execution. What a wretched come to Jesus meeting they have to look forward to.
Jesus (assuming there actually was a historical Jesus) was executed by the Romans. Jews did not practise crucifixion.
Absolutely, Talia. Jesus was a radical, revolutionary Jew who was a threat to the Romans because of his substantial following. Yes, he was executed by the Romans with a Roman execution article. The antisemetic "the Jews killed Jesus" line no longer holds water in modern Christian scholarship.
Jesus was a critic of corruption and oppression.
And professor of love and equality, if I understand the writings correctly. Perhaps of the disciple of The Golden Rule.
But they have suffered the lie for centuries
They have been the world's scapegoat.
Disinformation. Destabilization. Annexation. -Alexander Dugin
Lies. Division. Theft.
It’s an old strategy used throughout history, today it’s Mauripol, Ukraine.
at the hands of 'Christians' who clearly haven't read much (maybe any?) of the Testament they thump.
The Roman historian, Josephus, refers to Jesus in his writings. I think most historians agree that he lived and taught.
Exactly, Catherine.
Your comment is disturbing. Jesus was Jewish. The statement that Jews killed Jesus is one I’ve heard since I was a kid and leads to antisemitism.
He may have offended his fellow Jews by his “violation” of various laws, and some may have worked with the Roman authorities, but it was the Romans who crucified Jesus. Interesting we’re having this discussion today, Good Friday.
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
Judith, that claim is historic and the continuing cause of antisemitism. So long ago, impossible for us to make that claim with any true evidence. There is much story and myth in our beliefs and our arguments. In all faiths. If you go beyond Wikipedia there are multiple sources that argue otherwise, academic and “researched” sources and sites. Here’s one to refute Mel Gibson’s claim from Washington University St. Louis:
https://source.wustl.edu/2004/02/romans-are-to-blame-for-death-of-jesus/
“The soon to be released Mel Gibson movie “The Passion of The Christ” is creating quite a stir among religious experts, as well as lay people. Many say the movie has anti-Semitic overtones. But according to Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis, the Jews had nothing to do with killing Jesus — the Romans are actually to blame.”
There are endless sources from there onward.
Happy Easter and Happy Passover. May we meet together to celebrate Peace and Justice and end violence on this planet.
Jean-Pierre I am highly distressed about your blatant misconception that “Jewish religious authorities” executed one of their own. Jesus was, after all, Jewish, but was killed upon a cross. For some reason, he was named the son of God. Jews have never recognized him that way and I surely take offense to your statement.
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
Oh, dear. Is this nugget of misinformation--that the Jews killed Jesus--never going away? Of course it is not. It is based in a misinterpretation of the Gospels and a woeful lack of any knowledge of the culture of the time or the composition of the texts themselves.
Your qualification that the Jews "orchestrated his execution" suggests some knowledge of the history but for the many people who read that comment, I'd say not many make that distinction and will use it as the basis for anti-Semitism.
As a cradle Episcopalian, I'll say that the first sin and the real root of the problem is the insufferable presumption of those terms "Old" and New" Testaments. How we've gotten away with that, I can't say. What we call the Old Testament was the Bible Jesus knew. The only one. It is not prologue to anything.
Recommend Paul Johnson’s “History of the Jews”. Interesting perspective of their history and literature. They were the only ethical monotheism operating in a world of polytheism.
Thanks, Catherine.I actually think that book is buried somewhere in all my zillion books on the subject. When the woman who taught me a course in grad school called The Hebrew Bible as Literature retired, she shipped me ten boxes full of her theology library. I spent a year putting together my own class and the next thirty years teaching it as a senior elective in the classrooms of independent secondary schools. Now I talk about it in adult education groups in a variety of churches. It is a bottomless text and, regardless of anyone's religious beliefs, or lack of, there's nothing I've taught that quite equals it. We live in a bible illiterate society and that's a shame. Anyway, endlessly fascinating. At the moment I'm doing a Torah Study online two days a week and am in heaven.
I am not the scholar you are, but I enjoyed the book, especially where Johnson asks, why does Hebrew literature need us to know that Sarah laughed as she hid behind a tent curtain, eavesdropping on angelic visitors telling Abraham, that he (with Sarah) would be the progenitors of a nation of God’s chosen. I could visualize that moment and understood that scripture wanted us to know that Sarah laughed because we too would have laughed, thinking we could finally bear a child at an advanced age. It was the humanity of Hebrew literature, which shared both the triumphs and frailties of God’s people.
The Zoasterians were the first monotheistic religion.
This is so interesting and I’m glad to be discussing this on Good Friday. Is there a difference between monotheism and ethical monotheism? What I read was Hebrews practiced the first “ethical” monotheism.
yep
Sadly, you're correct that the "Jews killed Jesus" belief will never go away. However, there's a nugget of truth of that belief to be found in the Bible. It has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
It is particularly disturbing to see this slander that the Jews killed Jesus repeated at the beginning of Easter weekend. For many hundreds of years, exactly that claim at exactly this time stirred up Europeans to attack, beat, rape and murder their Jewish neighbors.
Factually, the Roman rulers killed Jesus because they saw him as a political threat. Theologically, as my Evangelical sister in law told me, if you believe Jesus is divine and died for your sins, then his death was a gift from Gd not caused by the humans who performed it.
Even though your focus was imagined divine retribution against so-called Christian leaders abusing their authority, in repeating this ancient slander you have joined in attacks that caused millions of people to be incinerated within living memory.
My great grandparents were immigrants to the US from what were then Poland and Russia in the 1880s. My mother's mother once told me brief stories of my grandparents' relatives who had stayed in Europe - for each person, who they were, if and who they married, what jobs the men did, what children they had, who they (the children) were, etc. It was a lot of people, maybe a hundred or so. Every story ended the same way: "they perished in the holocaust."
The slander that Jews killed Jesus is not solely responsible for the Holocaust. It was directly responsible for the masses of pogroms - murderous riots against the Jews - that plagued Europe, and before that for murders of Jews by Crusaders on their way east. It was a significant part of the history of hatred and murder that created a foundation for the industrialized mass murder of Jews(and Roma, gays, disabled people and more) by the Nazis.
A related strand is the history of hatred of immigrants in the US. In the 1920s, white supremacists were very upset about "those people" becoming too numerous. At the time, "those people" were the poor immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, especially but not only Italians and Jews. Congress passed laws to limit immigration and cap the size of the House of Representatives (immigrants were mainly in coastal cities, so the cap held power to more rural states where whites ruled). When Jews tried to flee from the Nazis in the 1930s, the gates to the US (and many other countries) were closed. Many died who would have lived if they had had somewhere to go.
At the same time that I am glad that the US is welcoming refugees from Ukraine, I wish we as a country would show the same welcome and generosity to people fleeing horrible conditions in central America.
This is important context to todays letter. He who controls media can steer the ship of public opinion, through persuasion, popularity ( true or not, driven by binary likes from a few people but millions of bots) and through manipulation, can change history. Truth becomes lies, and the lies become truth. What used to take demagogues a generation, now can happen almost over night. Patriotism can morph into ultra nationalism in a few short months, and once normal people can be standing over mass graves with a smoking machine gun and clear conscious. This is happening now in Mauripol. Don’t think that it can’t happen here. One Billionaire can not own a mass media titan like Twitter.
Thank you, again, Joan.
Attempted like
Oh my God.
Joan, thank you for saying this.
Wondering if your sister-in-law’s belief is that the death of Jesus was prophesied and predestined to occur? That, the mechanics of that death were part of the process? Is this an evangelical belief?
I don't know about prophesied, which implies telling humans in advance. Would you like me to ask her?
I do know that she believes that Jesus chose to die painfully to atone for the sins of humanity, that this was decided in advance by Gd so the Romans who did the deed were simply instruments of this decision. Forgive me if I get the Christian Gd references wrong, Christian theology is not something that I understand.
However, it has been my understanding that it was Jewish religious leaders, members of the Sanhedrin (council of Jewish Court Elders), who reported Jesus to Pontius Pilate as a dangerous rebel who claimed to be King. So, yes, Jews played a key role leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_Herod%27s_court#Biblical_narrative
Even taking this account at face value, it was also true that Jesus and his disciples were Jews and that the Roman rulers ordered Jesus killed in Roman fashion by their soldiers.
There’s a very big difference between “Jesus, his followers, his opponents, and lots of people not part of this story were Jews; this is what happened when his opponents brought in the Roman rulers” and “the Jews killed Jesus.” The second effectively demonizes all Jews as evil murderers of Christians’ Gd. It stirs up hatred and has caused centuries of brutality and murder. If you don’t want to be a party to more of that, be careful how you frame the story.
Understood.
I will add here that I am stunned and upset that on Easter weekend of 2022, in a pro-democracy newsletter community, I am repeatedly in the position of defending my people against an ancient hate meme particularly associated with Easter that set off thousands of murders through the centuries and made it easy for Hitler to target and kill 6 million Jews within living memory. If there are any Christians of good will reading this, now would be a good time to speak out.
Per usual, I have to add my two cents. Here's what disturbs me most about the Jews killed Jesus argument. If Jesus had not died for his beliefs Christianity would not exist. Scapegoating the Jews from 30+/- ad forward for the death of Jesus totally negates the reasons for his birth. Big Bird, Mickey Mouse, the Ayatollah of wherever could have crucified Jesus, and, voila, Christianity would have emerged. Had Jesus not been martyred, Christianity would not exist. Period. And frankly, would that be a bad thing? Probably not, given the history of Christianity.
After 2000 of years saying the Jews killed Jesus (and people in the 21st century maintaining that claptrap and relying on a Wikipedia page as source material is unfortunate and shows a deep misunderstanding of the tenets of "Jesus's words" - which most so called Christians are apparently ignorant). The thread that runs through both books of the Bible is this: do unto others, charity is one's obligation. By and large, Christians threw charity, humility, and care for others out the window many, many centuries ago and, instead, decided to spend their efforts on keeping people ignorant and raising money all the while killing Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who stood in their way of acquiring wealth. Honestly, how can you respect a belief system that sold shreds of chicken bones and fire wood as relics, castrated males to maintain a soprano range and, to this day, sees no problem abusing children and women institutionally? And no, Protestants don't get a pass for good behavior because they have their own "sins" to atone for, including the rampant bigotry and racism being promoted from evangelical pulpits in the 21st century.
Joan is right. It is disheartening and disappointing that members of a pro-democracy page should buy into rabid anti-Semitism. Jesus would be ashamed.
Crusades, Knights Templars, the spread of Christianity hand in hand with the spread of imperialism, and the slavers, witch hunts of the European inquisition , Salem witch trials, yeah but lets point out the Jews killed Christ behaved badly.
I would add the long history of Christian Protestants and Catholics killing each other.
The New Testament of the Christian Bible was “written” by followers of a Jew trying to establish a different religion from His. You nor I know the facts.
Hello, Citizen60, I hesitate to jump in. because I really don't want a debate, but if you read only what's in the gospels (and you're 100% right that we don't know anything outside the words on those pages and those aren't necessarily facts at all),there's nothing in the text that suggests Jesus was trying to start a new religion. In all that tangle of stories, his apparent mission is to reform the temple in Jerusalem which has gotten corrupt with too much money and power. I realize all this talk of religion might seem far from the corruption and violence we are facing today but, in reality, I don't think it is. Catherine pointed out earlier today that these bible stories show us, as much as anything, the nature of our own humanity.
Agreed, Jesus was not trying to start a new religion. Jesus was a Jew. Those who came after him who wanted to keep Jesus and his preachings alive, and wanted to create something unique with the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and his preachings divine.
The history of the first 100 years AD is fascinating: early followers of Jesus met in Jewish temples. Slowly the Jesus followers wanted to differentiate themselves from the Jews. Baptism ritual replaced bris, so the followers of Christ were "inducted" into the tribe, but not in the same way and in a way not physically obvious to the Greeks & Romans at the public baths, etc.
Some of "The New Testament" (The Muratorian Cannon) is believed to be compiled around 200AD--the oral stories told about Jesus and his life and preachings codified into text. While attributed to the Apostles, they were obviously not written by them. Oral traditions allow for variations to become incorporated into the stories.
There were many forms of Jesus followers in the first 1-200 years AD; one female only. That was the purpose of the Council of Nicea in 325 AD; to bring together the various "Christian sects" to decide what Christianity would be defined as (Jesus as Deity/Son of God, the Trinity) and establish some of "the basics" of how it would be practiced (rituals and symbols).
I'm a Unitarian--who came out of the Council of Nicea staying with the Jewish tradition of a single Deity. PBS did a series on Christianity: The First 100 Years many years ago (or was it the History Channel when it actually did history?). Worth trying to find.
I think there must be a law against having this much fun on a Friday afternoon! Well, of course, there was Paul who designated himself the Apostle to the Gentiles and who only knew what an Episcopal priest friend calls the post-Easter Jesus. Paul was the guy who traipsed all over the area, bending requirements (like circumcision) to let in more Gentiles and Paul whose letters are older than the Gospels and which they think the Gospel writers had access to. Whether they did or they didn't,, I agree that Christianity was largely created at Nicea. And you've introduced me to a new term, Muratorian Cannon. I love the tradition of attributing a piece of your own writing to someone well-known. I'd like my memoir published under the name of Leonard Cohen (speaking of crazy Jews). I think the history of religion in general is fascinating. One religion, say Judaism, borrows what it wants/needs from the one before, tweaks it, and the world is changed. Every bit of the imagery and symbolism (tree at the center of the Garden, four rivers, fruit bearing tree, serpent, all straight out of nature religions, the message changed completely. We are always so quick to claim uniqueness, to want to be the first, the best, the only. Anyway, a lovely book about the parables is by a wonderful theologian, Amy-Jill Levine, and--believe it or not--it's called "Short Stories by Jesus." Happy Pesach and a good Good Friday to all.
Yes.
“I come not to change the law, but to fulfill them”
Yes, but what exactly does he mean by that? I can't say I'm sure.
If only we knew for certain those were Jesus's words. If someone was attempting to establish a difference between Judaism and a new religion, that would be a useful sentence to try to facilitate a smooth transition.
That’s a good historical analogy and might become a strategy! ( but please replace With “Romans who killed Jesus”). Jesus was Jewish and a critic of ALL Corruption and Oppression, of all people, by anyone in power, that abandoned their ethics and morals in their craving for material wealth. That’s a lesson and a prayer for Elon Musk today.
Ted, please read the comments to the post to which you wrote this reply. "Jews killed Jesus" is not history, it is a false trope has caused prejudice, mayhem and murder for centuries. Invoking it even in passing is problematic.
Oh, I see. to clarify, I mean how do u reach Evangelicals to consider the Authoritarian rise in the gop? What will they say to St Peter when he asks them why they voted for a dictator like TFG? Can questions like that or other convince them to think beyond the abortion issue?I’m not falling for original Who killed Jesus antisemitism. To claim that the Jews killed Jesus is the original antisemitism.
Former president….Joe very well knows the difference. It is largely due to his administration’s foresight and determination that NATO is as strong as it is again. trump, the failed businessman only understands…like the bully in the back of the classroom…that power comes from intimidation, lies and brutality. Church leaders were behind the crucifixion of Jesus, because they believed their power was being threatened by Him. Ironic isn’t it? That is the real lesson of Jesus.
That, Peter, sums up the lesson that still proves the same hold on church leaders today.
Salud.
One would think.
Majority of Church leaders have only 1 issue they care about. All other sins and shortcomings of a dear leader are besides the point. Remember over 44% of Americans believe in Creation as a world view. Such bible literalists are easy to manipulate politically, taking the Constitution as “originalists. While evangelicals are not the financial base of the GOP, it is simply a reservoir of certain votes.
And we all know, we can't challenge someone's sacred "beliefs". Ugh. How did we get here?
I do not know. But I would start with the L’s. Love. Leadership. Law.
Only when our fellow Americans care to know the difference
Today is my 80th birthday. Thanks to HCR I am finally comprehending the hows and whys of contemporary power plays, political philosophies, and all the (semi-)human people who have been tearing my heart apart. I pray that HCR, her coterie of practical intellectuals and teachers, and all of YOU will continue in strength and love to make the workings of powers clear, to guide and influence public thought and action.
A fabulous happy birthday to you Anne. Celebrate life!
A very happy birthday, Anne, and many returns of the day!🌷🌷🌷
Happy Birthday, Anne! May your 80's be the best chapter yet!! All good things to you!.
Thanks, Carol-- and everyone else! Wow! so far!!
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday, Anne.
I will ride for your brand, you beautiful woman you!
Happy Birthday Anne! I hope you have a day filled with joy💐
Happy Birthday and many, many more!🎂🎈
Happy birthday, Anne!
Amen and Happy Birthday Annie Slater!
Oh happy day, Anne!🎉🌸🌺🪅
Happy Birthday, Anne. I am happy to know you are here.
A couple of cavils.
1. That word AU-THOR-IT-AR-I-AN-ISM may suit scholars but political action can't use such top-heavy terms. Can't someone here come up with better?
2. While it is true that democratic institutions provide many safeguards against ill-judged and unjust wars and the general abuse of military power, everything that President Eisenhower, in WW2 Supreme Allied Commander Europe, had to say about the dangers inherent to the power of America's "military-industrial complex" in the message he left the country on leaving the presidency has been shown to be true ten thousand times over.
Vietnam, the second Gulf War, the decades-long occupation of Afghanistan are only prime examples of American military hubris, promoting military action and hardware for their own sake.
I and friends used the words "rats living in a big cheese" in another context, but I can't help feeling that it fits the Pentagon bureaucracy perfectly... As for the ironclad doctrine of American exceptionalism, which places the US military above international law while everyone else is subject to it... that has amounted to an incitement to crime and has spawned would-be titans and their vile adventures everywhere.
BEWARE, beware of oversimplification!
W/Dickie experts
Maybe democracies don't go to war against each other, but being a democracy, sadly, has not prevented the US from joining or initiating pointless and devasting wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Or violating the sovereignty of Latin American countries repeatedly over the course of US history.
... nor First Nations of this continent ... acknowledging the idealism of so many in this country - not to discount good intentions - is America really a 'democracy' in more than name only ... is it not more of an exercise in social hypocrisy - a breeding ground for schizophrenic disassociation ...?
I’ve wondered that
You ask a very good question, Kathleen.
Sadly true, LBJ regretted Vietnam and tried to end it but Trickie Dickie interfered. W/Dickie never regretted a dollar made or a life lost that I recall.
Americans have almost continuously been at war—inside and outside the physical geography. Just ask the Native Americans and previous residents.
Thank you Heather.
“Yellen said, “we ought not wait for a new normal. We should begin to shape a better future today.”
Yup.
"Sometimes furious swarms of coin
Skewer and devour abandoned children."
I just warned against oversimplification. Yet those terrible lines from Lorca's Poet in New York say it all.
Flesh and blood against the total tyranny of money and inhuman power.
Flesh and blood cry out for protection.
Today Pandora has too many boxes -- look, look at the satanic tide that has gushed forth from that opened onto Ukraine.
Don't let Elon Musk open more.
Don't let ANYONE open more -- resist, RESIST!
Peter, my thirty-something year old son and his friends call this "the orphan crushing machine". They recognize that the need to raise money for food banks, etc is a problem that does not need to exist. If Elon Musk wants to make a difference, $43b could end hunger in North America, or put a huge dent in our housing crisis.
I just posted a message that failed to come through:
If Musk and his ilk genuinely cared for more than infinite expansion of ego, wealth and personal power, they could create and endow free and totally independent foundations devoted to the public good.
These might even yield some lasting satisfaction.
Doing one huge good deed wouldn’t satisfy his tremendous need for attention.
The foundations Peter Burnett suggested could yield ongoing praise for their efforts. Attention is not the issue.
Attention is of utmost importance if you are a narcissist.
It is for Elon Musk.
"Sometimes furious swarms of coin
Skewer and devour abandoned children."
These lines can also apply to the future of our planet, and the legacy we leave the world's children.
True, we shouldn't oversimplify, as you say, Peter. But these short lines can be useful when trying to reach a not-so-erudite population. Just sayin'
At my age -- but it should be at any adult age -- it's the kids who count. They and those to come.
Hi Peter! I have been thinking that I need to stir up protests locally and hopefully nationwide...but there are so many things to protest about I get overwhelmed and just stop thinking for a few days. I guess the resistance against autocracy vs a form of Democracy covers most things...but it is really overwhelming. I want to wear a resistance beret and armband and cannot think of the color/s. Black? White? Green? Something not representative of one thing but of things fair. Symbols that would stand for Democracy, Truth, Justice and Love for our brothers and sisters on this beautiful, little spinning planet.
I lived in Switzerland for a period of time. One morning, I walked the cobbled streets of Zurich very early. There was the most beautiful silent march with white balloons floating above them as the quietly marched up a narrow street into a common square. It was breathtaking in the dawn. It was about Yugoslavia back then. These early morning Swiss risers, burned a powerful image into my heart. I followed them as they silently progressed through the streets as Zurich began to wake up. I would love to do something like that. But helium balloons appear to be very bad for our environment these days. We need ideas and we need to march... We need to speak in images. A thousand words and all that.
It is a Quaker custom to dress in white while we stand or walk silently in protest. We welcome all who wish to join us, as it is the visual symbol that is important. I imagine a huge crowd of silent people in white as a massive symbol that cannot be hidden by denial or pushed aside with violence, in these days of many cameras.
Thanks, Annie! That would be a powerful sight! It links my mind to the powerful Bread & Puppet Festival in Groton, VT. You have sparked some ideas for me to share with my friends at The Sandglass Theatre down the street! More later...
Let me know what comes out of it. One of my goals is to make a list of simple things people can do to stay visible and our message recognized to share and spark more ideas. List is for website if we ever get it actually functioning the way it needs to be, and to be sent to every town and county committee. So far VT Dems seem to be pretty much in a silo. I want to try to get them out of that silo and connected with the public.
Let me know what you are up to. My private eddress is pensapia@gmail.com
If DJT runs in 2024, and if he wins, it will bring disaster to America and our allies around the world. He has no regard for treaties or the rule of law. He is already a stain on America's image, and considering our history; we don't need any more stains.
And, he’s learned there are no consequences for his bad behavior, so it he is re-elected, he’ll be uncontrolled.
My fear exactly. I would like to think that McConnell would take a hard look a the mess of a POTUS tfg was and work his slimey hoodoo to stop him from running, but I fear that there is not a shred of humanity left in the turtle.
Thank you Professor, for sharing that “Grauer and Tierney also note that the ability of people in a democracy to protest means leaders cannot fight unpopular wars and stay in power, and that democratic countries do not tend to go to war with other democracies. Grauer and Tierney argue that the need to gain public support for wars makes it hard for democratic leaders to fight other democracies toward which their people might have good feelings, or that can put up strong resistance.” Friends, how many of you marched and held signs and protested wars? I’m honored to be counted as the resistance against the Vietnam and Iraq wars. However I was protesting the Wars, not our young soldiers who were either drafted or believed the lies leading up to combat. I can’t hold a “no war” sign for this war and I’m grateful there is a NATO and that USA has returned to alliances after TFG tried to destroy our Democracy.
Exactly. My younger son was born Aug 2001 and never knew a country not at war throughout his childhood. My fellow moms were often too busy to protest and if I hadn't been to plagued by survivor guilt (9/11 "official victim" was in debris of wtc) that young Americans were signing up in droves to defend us/US only to be churned into our imperialist immoral Iraq/Aghan wars I'd have stayed in more too. WE HAD NO PUBLIC SUPPORT for that farce of a two decade long war, only a docile, dumb (on purpose w poor public ed), monolingual, disinterested population that barely noticed the years ticking by and cash hemorrhage to warpigs like Halliburton and scarcely moved an index finger to sign a slacktivist petition.
When I was a kid, we had a World Book encyclopedia (easier for adolescents than the erudite Britannia). Being a nerd even then, I would sometimes come home from school and leaf through it. I remember that the article on Hitler had a photo of him with a caption that read, “His slogan was ‘Divide and conquer.’ He was defeated by nations that learned to unite and conquer.” How true. And today, right here in USA we are confronted by those who would divide and conquer. And like the Allies in WWII, we shall conquer if we unite—not on particular issues, but in defense of debate and democracy. (How ironic that Republicans would walk away from presidential debates.). We shall conquer because of debate. In disagreement over particular issues we can find our strength, while the authoritarians go off on false paths once again. So let’s stop bemoaning our fate or trembling at the power of our adversaries, but go forward to a better and brighter day.
I absolutely love your optimism ❤️, I need to soak it in today.
Book of knowledge
by Roy Blount Jr
Nice Work If You Can Get It
The Way Some of Us Are
Whatever spending bill the Biden administration has any chance of passing, says someone "familiar with the thinking" of Senator Manchin, "is a matter of Joe Manchin coming up with a bill that he's comfortable with. He is the way he is."
Back when Reggie Jackson was hitting huge home runs for the Yankees and saying outrageously non-team-spirited things like "I am the straw that stirs the drink," a teammate shook his head and said, "That's just Reggie being Reggie." Within thirty years, that concession had degenerated into "Let Trump be Trump."
Manchin isn't even colorful.
Of course these days, even ordinary run-of-the-mill people go around telling each other, "You do you."
Take me back to the old days, when the unassuming but surreally hard-hitting cartoon hero Popeye sang in his sailor song, "I yam what I yam (and that's all that I yam)."
Not to mention, even further back, the mystifying Yahweh intoning from the burning bush, "I am that I am." Or, depending on the interpretation (if you Google), "I am who I was," "I was who I am," "I was who I shall be, "I shall be who I am," "I shall be who I shall be." "I will be whatsoever I will be," "I shall prove to be whatever I shall prove to be," "I am the I am that said 'I am.'"
What it boils down to is, "I am he who is who he says he is" (or in today's pronouns, "I am they who is who they says they is"), "and you figure it out."
It's a pretty good position to be in, I guess. Here's some dialogue from the old Broadway musical Li'l Abner:
"Say, Abner, if you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?"
"Me."
"Just you?"
"Just me."
"What's so special about you?"
"Ain't nothing special about it. It's just so handy."
' And if you work it, it's powerful. After all, a key piece of the Declaration of Independence is "We hold these truths to be self-evident." And remember what the old boy said when asked whether he believed in infant baptism: "Believe in it? Hell, I've seen it done."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsep-_M03AA
Dr. Richardson,
I can feel your strain and stress through your writing about the stuggle for Democracy. I hope you keep writing and I use your writing far and wide (with unknown effect).
But, one thing I would offer is this: IF the USA swings so that the rich, white, spoiled party boys are in total control instead of just mostly in control (like now), then, that's just the way it is.
The good thing about hearing the weather forecast as sunny, then, cutting the hayfield, then, watching it rain on it the very next day, ruining feed for the winter for the cattle?
You realize that a LOT of things are out of your control and that the fastest way to keeping going effectively is to accept the existing reality without too much angst and .....
...keep moving. With as little angst and emotion as possible. Keep moving and doing....
So, once in while, think about what you will do once we DO swing to a dictatorship by spoiled, rich, often drunk, white boys who have no morals and no boundaries on behavior and actions. What will we do assuming they don't get us all killed in the first two weeks through nuclear war.
What will you do? Just make sure you have a plan.
Because, the probability is very far from zero that those "boyz" will soon be running the US Government completely in the near future.
And, it won't be the first time the boyz have been in control of the US government either.
Mike, I'm glad you wrote this - you echo my sentiments entirely. I have spent the last several days discussing, with my husband, the fact that Democrats/liberals/progressives seem to have lost the capacity for outrage, the ability to grab the attention of the "anti-right" AND the ability to mobilize and protest vocally. I'm equally convinced that this inaction by Democrats/liberals/progressives will be a significant factor in the Republican's ability to regain power.
I'm not discounting the efforts of the tens of thousands of people who write letters, postcards, and make phone calls, but those actions are not enough to change the hearts and minds of the politicians who are willing to kill our democracy. Nor are they making a dent on the tens of millions of people who need to open their eyes and ears and get angry enough to speak out, en masse.
Where is our collective anger? Why are we so reticent to speak out forcefully while Republicans manipulate and stir their base to more and more vehement outcry. Are we really willing to roll over, play dead and watch as more and more of our civil and human rights are devoured bit by bit by bit? It seems we are, and that scares me. And it makes me sad.
As another subscriber, Kathleen, frequently points out, most of the basic civil liberties and rights wealthy, white US Americans enjoy are already in the process of being further severely truncated for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Christians, the elderly, the differently abled and sick, women and children. Why aren't we screaming our hearts and lungs out against this? Do we really not care enough to show our outrage publicly?
Mike, we've been having that conversation in our household recently. It boils down to "cut and run" or "fight like hell". The problem that I see with staying and fighting is that while I have two of five the "gimmies" (white, cisgendered) the others fall out (female, LGBTQ, non theist) and I don't see any future for anyone who is not (w/c male, , heterosexual, Christian) except as chattel.
Ally, you posted while I was writing. Well said.
You are a force. We needed everyone. There was one old boy who pushed a wheelbarrow up and down the cow paths but when it came time to keep the branding fire going he did it. We really were so short handed we kept everyone and every one had value we could not do without. So it goes.
Agree. We will lose our hay. We will regroup. We do keep going. We have to feed those cows.