I have stated earlier-We still have time to avert the” massacre” of 2024.Thank-you,Heather, once again for illuminating the past and to tie it to our today and tomorrow.
Victoria, you’re right. Once again, there are power hungry people willing to do anything to keep power and afraid of those who are different. We need to get out the vote and spread the truth.
We also have to make sure everyone gets to vote and districts are not rigged. So many humans have been cast aside and their vote taken away by all kinds of tricks the republicons use.
Yes, every state needs to make sure that voters are automatically registered and it is easy to cast a vote. It is our right and those who mess with it should be legally held to account. We need voter posses in every to assure no republicans do what they have been doing for years. We need one person, one vote and gets rid of the EC.
I don't think, Victoria, there'll be any "massacre" in 2024.
The diaper-wearing, orange fat guy is, instead, I think, turning off many every day with his upped, out-of-control spewing of hatreds and vulgarity.
Americans know better.
If anything, Republicans for all their cowardice and enabling will experience massacre thanks to the large numbers of decent Americans who, come November, can put the miserables out of their misery.
With the incredibly high numbers of citizens willing to follow the former president in spite of all that he's shown himself to be, I don't share your optimism that "Americans know better."
Thanks, Leslie, but my gambit doesn't come just from optimism.
I turn 77 in a few days. In all these years I've read hundreds, maybe thousands, of novels and other books by Americans, on all parts of our landscape, our history, or varying levels of class and privilege. Seen hundreds of American movies. Ditto our songs and poems. In my youth I hitch-hiked everywhere, entered, enjoyed communities across the land. (And abroad.)
Just too much resilience across America, openness, decency -- in spite of the corruptions of the rich, and the venal history the rich repeatedly foist.
If you -- if we -- access our deeper, broader, finer culture, we don't get optimistic, but aware of how much greater cultural decencies interact with and surmount the co-inhabiting vulgarities.
I'll be 70 in January. This is the first time in my long life that I fear for my children's and grandchildren's futures. I'm of German descent and grew up in a Navy family where my Dad was an aviator who enlisted at the age of 17 in WWII. From the get-go I never found the former president funny nor charismatic. I knew what I was seeing was dangerous and I've seen nothing to the contrary. Do I believe in our better angels? Yes, I do. But this point in time is precarious. I'm just glad I find myself in this amazing group of people, like you, who remind me of the good.
I share the cautious optimism expressed. That there are so many who still support the malignant narcissist, knowing full well that he is a complete racist and always has been, causes me concern that their racism trumps their regard for fairness. I saw a van parked in a Walmart store yesterday that had this: The Florida license plate has "In God we trust." One bumper sticker says "F**k Biden" and the other bumper sticker has "Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President." In my view, there is zero chance of "getting through" to someone like this. The only solution is to out vote them in November, 2024.
As much as I don’t like tofg I would never put a bumper sticker on my car that spews hate or in my opinion tells others how low one would go and how indecent you are, low life! And children know how to read!
Any ideas of unifiers out there? Remember many republicans voted for Bernie. He attracted both sides. We need a new Bernie, a voice of reason that can overcome the hate.
Even worse, the RV campground we stayed in last December in FL had flags flying that announced the orange one was their “Savior 2024”. I couldn’t even walk my dog by without feeling sickened...
I refuse to drop a penny in Florida. Even though there are good people in Florida, there are too many of the wrong kind of people there and it messes with my hope for the future.
My dad also was a soldier in WWII—drafted right out of high school. I saw a dangerous narcissist in tfg from the start and he proved to be everything I thought. He has only gotten more dangerous. We must all work to defeat him. (Also he’s a disgusting human being.)
I'll be 70 in May. You and I and others our age KNOW for a FACT exactly what is at stake and how people can blindly follow and evil idea. I need to hunt for a book my mom had be read in H.S. called "Time of Peace" by Ben Ames Williams - about HOW the world was led for a second war. (It's around here SOMEWHERE!)
I wonder though...after the dust has settled, do you think the christo-fascist republican party will be banned and declared unlawful as the naziis were?
That was only possible after a very complete, total, military defeat. A political defeat, no matter how big, is not the same thing for totally destroying the losing party's reputation.
Trump turned me off from the get go, and his subsequent unconscionable, sexist, ignorant, rude, arrogant, nasty, racist and vindictive behavior didn’t cause me to like him any better. If anything, I found it more likely that it made me detest him more.
We are age peers and lived through the same overall experiences. I do not share your optimism. Never in our history has one party worked so hard to wrestle the levers of democracy from the American people. Republicans have created laws that suppress votes. If that doesn't work, they've enacted laws that allow them to nullify votes. They've created districts that are gerrymandered to a fair-thee-well. The Supreme Court has been corrupted, literally or figuratively. The elegant system of checks and balances created by the Founders is floundering. It's like a three-legged stool on which all three legs have been unevenly cut. Their playbook is available for all to see: Project 2025 will dismantle the civil service and can only keep their jobs if they swear fealty to Trump. Many of the people who are okay with all of the above would be seen as "nice guys," but they are committed to a false god for irrational reasons.
Yes, on all accounts you cite as to the darkness, the cabals, the power of cohered money, and incoherent but festering racism, misogyny, and fear of differences threatening us.
I just trust the "us" even more.
Those poisoned, abandoned by the offshoring of their jobs (for the billionaires), those embittered by the dehumanizing of schools (by the billionaire standardized testers), and those locked into silos of hate (by the social media billionaires) all got into those plights for specific -- but remediable -- reasons.
We've many decent, capable public officials across the land who can remedy all of that.
You're further correct as to the depth of challenge in Project 2025, and in the extent of bribery, corruption, and bullying ideology in the Supreme Court
I wonder sometimes if we are so inundated daily with Trump news, always accompanied by his photo, that we are getting a skewed idea of how many Trump followers there REALLY are. He did lose in 2020.
I like and admire your outlook. I share your trust in "us" but not your optimism. Not, at least, in the short and medium term. Beyond that, my confidence runs deep.
Just now, I cannot find my pessimistic response to your first, excellent comment. I hope that you are right but, such is the immense, untrammeled power of money and the greed and fear induced stupidity that go with that power, that the victory of the good can only come at a high price.
I don’t disagree with any of the fear and anger. I’m not sure every TFFG supporter is motivated by hate. There is an incredible level of ignorance and laziness out there. There are FB postings asking people to call their representatives to oppose a Bill because it would “take away your airline points.” That is the only information given about the Bill, which is actually intended to break up the Vida/Mastercard monopoly. Without any effort to fact-check this ad, many many people have indicated “I called,” “I want my points!” Etc.
Two years before we lost our freedom of choice, I spoke to a group of Planned Parenthood volunteers, telling them we actually could lose choice. There were few questions, lots of people on their phones. Afterward, one young woman who looked suitably alarmed said “How do we know what to believe?”
Maybe it’s not just ignorance and laziness. Maybe the deluge of social media information has caused sufficient stress that their prefrontal cortex is overloaded. They can’t think clearly?
. . . and committed to the false god of genocide in Gaza. All of these horrors are related, and all are the result of Americans' inability to understand the difference between freedom and power.
Phil Balla, you are SUCH a lift today, thank you! While I well understand and often experience the fears of other posters arguing with you, my own committed study of US history reminds me and bolsters my belief in progress, even if it's the three steps forward, two steps back kind.
Study after study and poll after poll show Gen Z and Gen Alpha have far fewer of Republican prejudices. The Christofascists are blatantly targeting education to suppress what you beautifully call our "deeper broader, finer culture" to indoctrinate those generations —but they're never going to accomplish that by November 2024. We have to keep strong and fighting for another year.
Regrettably, we have again seen the re-emergence of political gangsterism and the surfacing of totalitarian aspirations in many places throughout the world, this time, to be sure, with changed symbols, with different words and slogans, with a new face. It is as if human beings were condemned to experience such things as a phase in an ever-recurring cycle. There is a task for the genuinely critical intellectual—to break that cycle, to assure a more human course for human affairs. (from: Who Voted for Hitler? by Richard F. Hamilton, as quoted by Don Simon, The Nation, Jan.15, 2021)
Are we those people? I fear not, if we only focus on November 2024 and Trump. The focus of those who support Democracy (I do include many of the GOP) must be longer term. The Christo-Fascist-Maga crowd (70,000,000 voters or so) are not here by chance. When Richie Havens sang his simple hit "Freedom" to the crowd at Woodstock, he was singing to those people who held their personal choices above any constitution or other social compact. Many of them have become MAGA and/or even more radicalized. They transcend all economic and age strata in the USA and Europe (as they did in 1933).
In the USA, they equate "freedom" with removal from government oversight and overreach ever since the Kent State massacre ("...four dead in Ohio...") and the shooting/maiming of Rudi Dutschke in Europe. My own daughter is one even though she is too young to have lived through the 60's and 70's. "It's about my personal freedom, Dad! Don't you get it!"
We will have to fight this a lot longer than most of us think. Do we have the staying power, and are we prepared?
Well said! Have you read Herman Meyer's "They Thought they were Free?". Written in 1956, a very thoughtful insight on the average Nazi citizen leading up to WWII and its conclusion.
A question for you here, Bruce: Do you feel that the MAGAt restrictions on abortion are a slap in the face to the freedom of women to have control over their own bodies? Do you think that the desire to outlaw contraception is in any way an expression of freedom? When you mention "...personal choices above any constitution or social contract" are you saying that the LGBTQ+ community is wrong in wanting to have the same rights to marry, or to express their gender as they are?
Phil, I fervently hope you are right. Two things focus my worry: 1. The idiotic Electoral College gives the win to a handful of swing-state voters rather that the broad American electorate. and 2. Our fatally flawed one-choice-only, plurality voting system creates the "voter's dilemma" (Do I vote for whom I prefer or vote for a candidate with a chance of winning?) leading to the "spoiler effect" that might throw yet another election.
Phil, I share your realism. It's just one of those facts of human nature that bad news forms the facade of most of our lives. I also spent several years crisscrossing the country via my right thumb, and discovered the deep, solid, foundation our culture is built on.
Only acknowledging bad news is much less than half the picture. Imagine trying to run a business while only looking at its debts. There are two numbers from the 2020 election that give me real comfort - 81,000,000 and 320. The pollsters didn't predict either of them. Thank-you Phil, for this dose of realism :)
Openness and decency in our absolute commitment to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine? If we stopped being hypocrites and saying all people are created equal - except Palestinians, of course - we might have a chance of remaining free and equal ourselves.
LeslieN, on the other hand we must never forget that TFFG never, not once, won the most votes….lost by millions each time! [Dang Electoral College!] His stalwart supporters—a minority of voters—bought into his schtick & gleefully drink all the cult-ade he can provide. They (and he) are loud and make a ruckus, but they are still the minority. If at least as many who voted in 2020 vote again in 2024–and hopefully many more will, given the clear and present danger he & his backers represent—he will be left in the dustbin of history. AND I want him held legally and financially accountable for all his misdeeds via our legal system.
Unfortunately. like Bruce stated above, this is going to be a very long haul. trump is only one of many fascists rising in America and around the world.
We need to look at all those who back the Federalist Society, the Heritage Society, the Mercers, the Kochs, on and on. They fuel the propaganda machines (including Bannon and K. Conway) and are responsible behind the scenes. I wonder who fuels Stephen Miller, our very own Goebbels.
Yes, I’ve been telling family, friends & neighbors about these efforts that have once again sprung up in the USA (and providing them with factual, vetted information sources) and this time we have to grapple with social media & online fakery as well. My fervent hope is that folks are paying attention and ready to strain at the wheel to move our democracy forward. There is dialog in a old movie starring Goldie Hawn where she is testifying before Congress and she ends her statement by looking them square in the eyes and says “I’ll be watching you like a hawk”. Now is no time to look away.
We still have the same issues with the electoral college. And we must never forget the Supreme Farce's decision in Bush v Gore. They stopped the vote count and I will never find it anything but mind boggling that Gore conceded under those circumstances.
On November 8, 2016, I discovered that Americans in great numbers did not know shit and a destructive cult took over our government. When we corrected that tragic travesty 4 years later, we discovered the destructive force of this ignorant American Cult that never learned better.
Some of us do, obviously. How many, we won’t know until election results come in. Realism suggests we work very, very hard to get those who do know better to cast their ballots.
And the current danger is not that enough people will vote for him. The current danger is that Catch-22 situations like the Palestinians and Ukraine will make many people not vote at all. His plurality will come from Democrats on the fence about the Israeli war
...especially young people who get their "news" only from social media. I understand their concerns about what's happening in Gaza, but electing tfg is definitely NOT going to help the situation.
Have we learned...we the people? Be ever vigilant, vote -a hard fought for responsibility of free people- there’s much to right this ship yet, this world needs strong American support , smart leadership, and HOPE. Our own history should suffice , guided by a brilliant constitution , to hold equality up for the worldly example IT CAN WORK . The many peoples suffering under their own country’s autocratic takeovers ,leanings, and corruption , they are looking for peace , looking to America for their own dream too.
People leave their homeland carrying regret, fearing for their lives. How familiar this scenario is across the world...war is NOT the answer..killing ‘the enemy’ is NOT the end of ‘it’...compromise, steady support spreads stability .
Takers have one goal -to take more ..their drives are insatiable ,selfish and addicting. It isn’t criticism or smug smurfing.
Leadership requires considerably more time because they are holding the hand of another , carrying some of their weight so to speak to both ( all) get to the top of the hill and see together , NOT be ‘king of the mountain’...
WE can be that leader , holding our neighbors from afar and widen the safety net ..THATS contagious ..friends . It’s what selfish small sycophants and fear follow folly for. Period.
How to stay the UNION? Join the caravan of those wanting to serve .
In 2016, I expected said orange fat guy to win, a view ridiculed by friends far better informed than I.
They never spoke to me again after he did win the election.
I have quite often seen what was coming but now I am making no predictions as to the outcome of the 2024 election.
I am, however, afraid and shall continue to fear for America, for the world, as long as that orange guy walks free.
Reflecting on the fear and foreboding that his freedom and that of his main henchmen arouse in me, I fully expect danger. This election will bring trouble whoever wins it. Unless that man's health fails -- and even then, as long as he is alive and free. Such is his power over those who follow him that his freedom is incompatible with everyone else's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
I seem not to have been mistaken on September 10th 2001 when I wrote that our democracies were in imminent danger. Above all, when I expressed doubt about our survival instincts.
I also predicted Trump would win. It was summer 2015 and I made my friends listen. I told them, if Trump runs he will win. They have never forgotten my prediction. At the time I thought it was because he was a reality TV star and just like Ronald Reagan people believed the fiction he portrayed--in Trump’s case the role was successful businessman. I was hoping at the time he would not run but given the way people lap up what they see on reality shows as being real, unscripted and undirected I figured they would. I have met adults who do not know the suburb they are living in is a separate entity from the big city next door. I have met first time voters in their 50s and 60s who we poll workers would congratulate (for finally finally getting around to their civic duty). For all I know they finally came In to especially vote for their businessman hero Trump. At the time I was naive about how Trump would be backed by big money interests (who want to avoid regulation at any cost) and be a boon for big media and a comfort to other countries waiting for us to get our comeuppance. Now we can’t shake the guy. Lots of Americans believe all the stuff they see on TV and in the movies so they can be bamboozled. Meanwhile otherwise good people watch reality TV Fox as though it is real, unscripted and undirected. Then there’s our corrupted SCOTUS packed with believers in the reality show version of the Bible and also believers of the racist reality show of our country’s founding. It is all so crazy.
Well, let's be thankful if we've eyes to see, ears to hear and a mind that perceives and understands.
In the mid-80's, observing that businessmen can be intuitive, while too many politicians are like generals whose solid mindset was molded by the last war, so they're set to lose the next one, I wondered how a gifted tycoon would fare in politics.
Berlusconi showed us all. He could serve only himself, not the country.
Agent Orange isn't even a serious businessman, just a conman who has bankrupted everything he touches and everyone with whom he had dealings. His book should have been called The Art of the Steal.
Educated New Yorkers all know. Others don't. And they follow this barker from a Coney Island sideshow, useful only to himself... and to his boss in the Kremlin
The orange guy is a medical time bomb, the best MD support notwithstanding. I've no doubt conservative societies are feverishly casting about for a replacement. Agree this election will bring trouble-before and after, no matter what any conviction (or lack of) brings.
These aren't just 'interesting' times, but chaotic ,on a level unprecedented.
Yeah, it scares me, but I'm ornery enough to push back.
"A medical time bomb". Yes, but only his body can read the timer, and power, resentment and a thirst for vengeance are all powerful drugs. The kind that can keep him walking even when, like a Tex Avery villain, he's walked right over the edge of a cliff.
Talking of time bombs, in a short poem, I once described him as one... strapped to the back of the nation.
*
As for pushing back -- great! That is what everyone with an ounce of sanity, a minimal sense of responsibility, has to do.
It's only heroic because there are so many anti-heroes around, so many couch potatoes and complacent "can't-happen-here" folks. But it already has happened. And even after the January 6th show, we still haven't seen the full dress rehearsal, let alone the premiere...
What I find fascinating is the resonance of his “American Carnage” message. We are in the convergence of many lines of economic history: the conclusion of the Corporate-Power march towards capturing the working cogs of the Legislative/Judicial Systems, the rise of Psy-Ops level social media messaging and Nation-State cyber warfare targeting misinformation/disinformation precisely as never before , the huge expanse between Worker Pay and Corporate Compensation. There is a lot of rightful disgruntlement out there. We were asleep at the wheel to stop it because it felt like “Democracy Won” after the Fall of the Wall. We now wake up to a present that pits two ways of thinking against each other: Do we crash the whole system and rebuild? Do we fix what we’ve sleepily / foolishly inherited? I do not care for the leader of the gop, but he needs to be taken down / disempowered by his own people. Besides, trump is just a willing puppet for paymasters with very deep pockets. Once he’s yesterday’s news, there will be another, and another, and another. This song doesn’t end with one verse.
Very, very well stated, MLRGRMI. Trump must have seemed ideal to those paying for the demolition of the Federal State, given his crude human wreckers' ball cum bulldozer functioning.
And, of course, there will be others. Where elections can't be fixed for the rump of what once was the Republican Party, using time-sanctioned forms of cheating and gerrymandering, there are always Democratic Party politicians and/or party officials to be bribed or bought, and wonders have been achieved by parachuting judges with Identikit political profiles into key posts throughout the judiciary. If we take a few pages from the Putin playbook, a peppering of third parties that are no parties at all and of independent leaders who are in the pocket of the same paymasters will do the trick nicely. Divide and Rule... For a start, DT is nothing if not marvelously divisive.
I assume that DT will be watching Moscow attentively in early 2024 to see how his mentor stage-manages presidential elections. And here too, though the all hang onto Putin's coat tails (oldie expression) there are monsters more ferocious waiting in the wings...
Plus cela change... Changes to ensure that nothing changes.
Let's hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. By doing everything in our power, now and till november, to convince those who still think "republican" stands for conservative values rather than fascism.
i remember generally believing that about *voting* Americans ... right up until I observed what appeared to be a Generation-Y woman overjoyed to be at a 2016 Trump rally.
The year 1835 saw the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota, "surrendering" the Cherokee lands in Georgia and Tennessee and bringing on the Trail of Tears when the U.S. Army was called in to support the naked fraud.
The Cherokee never gave up sovereignty over their land, a sovereignty that was famously recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court.
This means that, in Marjorie Taylor Greene's congressional district, all the county courts lack territorial jurisdiction to hear any case whatsoever. Somebody could bring a test case with a parking ticket...
On a related useless-representative note, Boebert is moving to a new district in CO since her opponent in her current district is likely to beat her this time. Like George Santos, Congress is the best gig she’ll ever get in her uninspiring lifetime.
Nothing like a bit of schadenfreude to start Friday on a positive note is there? And the fact that she wants to represent Ken Buck’s old district? Wonder if the residents of the 4th really want someone who has done literally nothing to create legislation that serves any of them. Should be interesting!
Form a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, Insure domestic tranquility, Provide national defense, Promote general welfare, and Secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
New Echota was the name of the capital city of the Cherokee. Their government refused to negotiate when the U.S. government asked them to leave their homeland, so the U.S. got a Cherokee faction to pretend to be their government and sign the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota giving up all the Cherokee land in Georgia and Tennessee.
Brilliant Gloria! I was just puzzling over that as I scrolled through the comments. I think you must be on target there! Even if HCR was not aiming for that analogy it seems remarkably apt, especially the parts about bunches of wary and frightened soldiers and their leaders seeking vengeance for having been so totally caught off guard!
The massacre of 2023-2024 is already in progress. In Gaza. Americans are so wrapped up in themselves that they refuse to see the MASSACRE which we are paying for and supporting with every ounce of political strength we have. If I were a fundamentalist Christian, I would predict that our freedom will end in November, 2024, as punishment for our massacre of 2,000,000 Gazans.
Your post is neither true nor accurate. The barbaric slaughter occurred on 10/7/24. Gazans are being used to shield criminals from justice while US aid is stolen by the criminals.
On what planet do you see that occurring? It's neither happening nor going to happen on this one. That thousands of noncombatant Gazans are dying in the war is sad beyond measure, but also inevitable, because Hamas loves to hide among them.
All Hamas needs to do to end this war is utter two words: 'We surrender." Perhaps aim your ire at the proper target, not Americans or Israelis.
The 1st 5 minutes confirms my opinion that this is yet another history of atrocities that cannot justify acts like what just happened on 10/7.
Hamas should have surrendered on 10/8 rather than turn their people into martyrs. That's what's appalling. Israel has an obligation to the world to force Hamas surrender and no one should expect Isreal to lose any more soldiers to do it, as the murderers hide among the population of willing martyrs. May they enjoy their f-king virgins.
What a load of hooey. There was ZERO "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians in Gaza. None. The only "ethnic cleansing" in Gaza was of Jews, who were unilaterally pulled out of Gaza years ago BY ISRAEL to make Gaza entirely Palestinian. Israel said to Palestinians when the Jewish population transfer was complete, "You said you wanted us gone. We are. The place is all yours now, entirely Palestinian. Enjoy."
Gazans promptly wrecked the thriving commercial base Israel left behind, depriving Gaza of critical revenue generators. Gazans elected the terror group Hamas as its government. Gazans cheered as Hamas launched more than 50,000 rockets at Israel. Gazans stood by without comment as Hamas raped, tortured, dismembered, and murdered more than 1,000 innocent Israelis on Oct. 7--baking a baby in an oven a particularly Hamasian touch.
Hundreds of non-Hamas Gazans joined the murder spree that day, after hundreds of other Gazans, whom Israel had granted permission to work in Israel, provided Hamas critical intelligence on where to attack, kidnap, and kill their employers and coworkers. A new poll by a respected Palestinian polling organization shows that 70+ percent of Gazans approved of Hamas's slaughter, think it should happen again, and that Israel must disappear because Palestine cannot live next to a Jewish state.
Yet you have the gall to paint Israel's response as "mass murder" and "genocide." Did you praise Osame bin Laden as a heroic freedom fighter for 9-11, too?
HCR's state of MAINE took a step forward today to help us all create a new future by disqualifying tfg from the ME ballot in a well reasoned 34:page opinion coupled with Maine state law findings that are very difficult to overturn on appeal.
In 1884, for the first time since before the Civil War, a President from a Party other than the Republicans was elected President, albeit narrowly. Grover Cleveland, not from Cleveland, but a former Governor of the Empire State, became President for the first but not the last time. He would run for reelection in 1888, losing controversially to both the Electoral College and Benjamin Harrison in 1888, but return to win re-election in 1892, becoming the first and only man to be elected President twice, in non-successive terms.
Famous for his handlebar mustache, Sultan-esque girth, and his much younger Gibson Girl wife he married in a White House ceremony, he defeated a former Speaker of the House in 1884, one James G. Blaine, who had he been elected President would have been the first President from the State of Maine.
Blaine was derided by his detractors as "The Continental Liar from the State of Maine".
It is only fitting, is it not, that the Inter-Continental Liar and Seditionist Sociopath is foiled at least for now, by the very same State of Maine
Well reasoned or not, throwing candidates off of ballots absent criminal convictions for crimes seems to me a slippery slope that could be used as precedent for nefarious purposes in the future. I realize our elections system is rife with all sorts of undue influence/corruption, but we’ve seen how the ‘activist judges’ cudgel can be brought to bear to propagandize and inflame a population. Flirting with questionable tactics to counter a threat seems eerily similar to our response to 9/11, in which the courts often aligned with the national security state to curtail civil liberties.
I can see your point, and i believe you could be right. However, the world and I saw him commit the crimes with our own eyes. There are times to tip toe and there are times to stomp - this is stomping time. Democrats need to be less fearful, IMO. It's a risk/benefit analysis, and it seems to me that in this instance the benefit of action outweighs the risk of inaction. If Donald is not stopped it's going to be incredibly difficult to ever have real elections or a democracy here again. He and his mob are like a moving freight train. You have to get ahead of it and move the tracks because there are no brakes on this train.
Yes; and that's exactly the thing; We all saw with our eyes and heard with our ears what happened. There is no denying 'facts in evidence' that all the world saw and heard. As well, the wording of the Amendment is clear and simple and 'does not' require conviction; Only those that want to 'kick responsibility down the road' read 'more' into it than exists.
1. As Sarah said, we all saw the insurrection and its leader on TV. After how many hours?..."Stand down and stand by...we love you" to the fascist militias and their sucker followers. Dump him off any ballot possible.
2. Work with all our energy and smarts to get as many people into the voting booth as possible. Work on traditional "non-voters". Appeal to the young people who are turned off by an old guy - tell them about the Republican/Heritage Foundation Project 2025.
3. This part is just sort of spiritual (not my usual thing). Send whatever positive energy/vibes/light (blah.blah) to Willis and Smith and James - and to the judges who will decide history. Visualize "Orange is the New Prisoner". I have no idea.... if millions of people did that.... would it help? Can't hurt.
I was referring specifically to the states that are working to keep him off the ballot. If he cannot be on ballots he cannot be a candidate. It's a risky but builds tactic, but not fabricated. It's totally legit and necessary.
Tom, that statement violates Amendment 14, Section 3 of our Federal Constitution. I believe there have been 8 disqualified person post Civil War. HCR is the 19th Century expert.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is DQ'd as well because he is not a "natural born citizen".
Obama is DQ'd also because he has held the presidency twice.
Candidates are not 'thrown off" they are simply not qualified to be ON state ballots subject to all other procedural rules of law.
"Rule of law" is not a throw away line. All legal rules of law are subject Due Process.
Rule of law is not a throw away line; until it is. Slavery was legal, and subject to ‘due process. I’m not arguing the legal issues here, except as pertains setting a precedent, rather the political. Hillary Clinton spent a good bit of time hinting the ‘16 election was fraudulent (because, you know, Russians); had some of her supporters called in a bomb threat to the Capitol during the certification, would she have been an insurrectionist? Trump enjoyed the 1/6 mayhem. Clinton could have responded similarly; see Libya.
Your disqualification examples, Arnold, Obama, are much more cut and dried than whether Trump is an insurrectionist, imo. I think we are already seeing the legal ‘divide’ manifest itself post-Colorado, just like our tribal political one. The public will remain in silos because the legal ‘experts’ can’t agree on what the ‘law’ is/says, and the approval/legitimacy of the SCOTUS and the judicial system is approaching the bottom feeder levels of the Congress and the media.
Commenters here are sick of Trump ‘getting away’ with …. Pretty much everything his whole life without being held accountable. I share that sentiment. He should have been impeached under the Emoluments Clause within the first two months of his presidency, imo. But the national security state, the Dems, and the media overstepped with Russiagate, and took the lazy path to discrediting Trump when there was plenty of legitimate critique to be had.
Better to beat the guy at the ballot box; but the feckless Dems can’t seem to figure out how to peel away enough of his support to landslide his sorry ass, which should be the case. Gaza, Gaza, Gaza.
The bottom line reality is that Trump, through his own unconditional actions, threw himself off the ballot! Leading an insurrection to overthrow our government isn’t something to be swept under the rug!
Sure, but if he is consistent in anything, he will never take responsibility. He will hide behind everything he can, while playing the victim. We must dump the cretin at the ballot box if it comes to that. And even that will not stop his lust for power.
And yet, we know that is possible. We will see what our courts and prosecutors get done. If facts and the law don't prevail then it will be up us to dump the trump.
Conviction by the legal system is not the end all or be all. Too many guilty people have been freed by the legal system and too many innocent people have been found guilty. His guilt is not a technical issue for lawyers (especially SCOTUS) to decide.
The Constitution spells
out some qualifications for president (e.g age). As I read the language in the 14th amendment inciting, aiding and abetting insurrection is a disqualification.
Remember there was no television when the Constitution was written. We saw the whole thing with our own eyes. Anyone who says Trump didn’t incite the insurrection is dishonest.
Inviting people to D.C. on January 6th-it will be wild-telling them to fight like hell, march to the capitol and take our country back is indeed “incitement”.
We don’t need the legal system to tell us he’s guilty. We saw it all happen in real time. Given the ways Trump manipulates the legal system and public, it’s about time he takes some of his own medicine-using the Constitution against him makes sense.
When John Brown endeavored to start an insurrection at the Harper's Ferry armory in 1859 it took the state of Virginia just six weeks to hang him. Donald Trump tried to start an insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 and 3 years later he is still lying about it. I say he's getting off pretty light if he just gets removed from the ballot.
He should have been tried and convicted for treason a LONG time ago for aiding and abetting the Russian influence in the 2016 campaign and for everything That Effing Guy (TFG) has done since!
Hasn't he already challenged national security multiple times? Jared Kushner's denied clearance magically overturned, Lavrov in the oval office, zero witnesses to his Helsinki meeting with Putin (is that interpreter still alive?), top secret documents burned, flushed, stored willy-nilly all over the damn place...what's the CIA waiting for?
For him to threaten to defund/reform the CIA. All the things you mentioned are low totem pole items. The CIA has no interest in defeating Russia, nor China, for that matter. They are useful tools to keep the American populace distracted from the corporate (read MIC) control of our government, and in fear of ‘the other’. The only reason the intelligence services went after Trump was due to his continual ranting about ‘the deep state’. That’s why they went all in on Russiagate; make both Trump and Russia into evil entities. Worked like a charm.
Agreed. I just hate to see the legal system used to ‘get’ a target, be it a terrorist or a Trump, by setting a legal precedent that could be used on innocent targets other than terrorists, or Trumps, that get swept up in a hit job because a powerful entity decides that would solidify a grip on power, or kill the legitimate messaging from a whistleblower. Blowback is a real thing.
When I was about 11 I obsessed about how I I could have killed Hitler before he did what he did, I would have. We’re not talking about extrajudicial killings, just stopping him with legal processes. He could be that dangerous.
He could be, but I seriously doubt it. The CIA will make sure he has an ‘accident’ before he’s allowed to challenge the national security state in a meaningful way.
I’m much more concerned about corporate state totalitarianism, which we already live under, and a future technocracy in which every data facet of our ‘privacy’ is under the purview/ownership of government and big tech, which are joined at the hip.
I predict we’ll have a cyberattack before 2026, and the U.S. will blame Russia/China/Iran, without evidence, and institute an assault on civil liberties that will make the post-9/11 decade loss of privacy look quaint by comparison, all in the name of ‘security’. If the past is any indicator, the American public will let it happen without much fuss, preferring to focus on tribal and identity politics, and the latest version of the iPhone.
I think you raise a good point in the implications of it being misused in future. That is why I think we are seeing different responses in different states including also close reading of decisions relating to those states’ election procedures.
It is hard to disconnect the two when your observations are based upon a field of study and experience. Technically, there are no "laws" in the constitution. It is not a "law" against cruel and unusual punishment, it is a prohibition on that conduct. I believe the same is true of the 14th Amendment; it grants a right, and does not make a law.
And part of changing the future is to enforce the 14th Amendment, if for no other reason than to prevent the next insurrectionist from holding office under the United States. If the Supreme Court fails in their duty, it will make it clear for all time that they failed. That, too, will change the future.
James, I fully agree that the authors of Section 3 of the 14th intended to inscribe into law assurances that no one who had taken an oath to the United States Government and then engaged in insurrection, or aided and abetted an insurrection against that government, would ever again hold office without both U.S. Chambers voting two-thirds in their favor. That said, I fear, by caving to those who would view efforts to enforce the 14th as political, we run the risk, as we speak, of a current confirmed insurrectionist returning to power, rendering laws inscribed in the 14th to prevent it irrelevant.
Barb, it's written in plain simple english and 'not' legalese. If more was required, such as a conviction, I believe it would plainly say so, like so many other prescribed actions therein. I have half a notion that's why the SCrOTUS decided to sit on the fence instead of taking the issue Smith put in front of them; the fence riders want to "gage the wind direction."
@D4N, I agree that the text of the 14th is undeniably transparent. As for SCOTUS, the justices likely are motivated by several factors, one of them likely being delay. Accordingly, I hope the 3-panel D.C. Court of Appeals rules unanimously in favor of Smith on the immunity issue and also lifts the stay on the 1/6 trial, thus forcing Trump promptly to file an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Barb, No matter what the SCrOTUS does or does not do, there does exist a remedy or three. I'm not gonna' fret myself into an early grave over symantics re-constructors of plain English; I'm "done" with that bs, and 'everyone' here and throughout the country of any modicom of a grade school education should be just as P.O.'d as I am ! Simple english is simple english quite clearly 'unless' there is a transparently obvious alternative agenda; And I am perfectly willing take up arms or whatever is required of me to defend the obvious ! I will use words first, I'll talk myself blue in the face as calmly and firmly as I can - until I can't. There is nothing in the text to parse; No obscure early english, misspellings, or hidden intents in that plain language, and with no test of guilt, jurisprudence, etc., spelled out as it is in so many other instances therein - quite clearly. What we 'do' have is a very clearly radical, activist SCrOTUS that may yet prove itself to be insurrectionist as well ! They proved that in plain sight when, without urgent, compelling reason, they flagrantly disregarded 50 years of 'settled practice of law' overturning Roe; that is arbitrary activism ! Are women, 3/5ths - or less of a whole person ? Are women, other ethnicities and gender identities merely doormats and 'permit' it ? If your inalienable rights are so cheaply malleable, mine are surely next. I say "break out the torches and pitch forks" in great and sustained masses !
Yes, and republican Constitutionalist scholars have studied it thoroughly and agree that it stands for Anyone in public office to be ineligible to hold office ever again.
Sounds like rebelling against the Constitution to me. The Orange Oath-Breaker disqualified himself and has continued to do so by his speech and his actions from the night of the 2020 election and every day since.
Barbara, they are already being pumped up by the 91 counts. Other than the usual death threats (which happens whenever TFFG throws a tantrum), we are not seeing Orange Shirts marching through the streets. There is a risk to taking this action and to not taking it. While people still come to his pep rallies, they are looking less angry and more entertained. IMHO, kicking him off the ballot in a few states will only ramp up his incoherent ramblings, which may do more to depress his votes than the ballot issue. Stress this man out and he will become more and more obviously unbalanced. He’s self-destructing. His prefrontal cortex is barely functioning.
Marge, While I expect we’ll continue to hear good faith arguments on both sides of the issue, my principal concern rests with a court that would politicize text painstakingly drafted in 1866 (here I am referring to all four sections of the 14th), wherein in Section 3 the intent was to use law to ensure that insurrection could never happen again.
I am so proud of our Secretary of State in ME. She has done a wonderful job. I take to the people at the DMV and they really like what she is doing. They have a difficult job but most of them have a really good attitude.
She made a tough call knowing the MAGANAZIs are going to come after her and her family.
Each reading of this story saddens me anew. If only foresight could have averted this ugly tragedy. Ugly because of how cavalierly the soldiers behaved, how little they regarded the lives of Native Americans.
I wrote a college term paper about displacement and massacre of local indigenous people. Drunken troops played a role in that saga as well. Guns and alcohol are always an invitation for tragedy.
I met with seven Sioux elders for a high school sociology project/paper in 1973 in Omaha shortly after they returned from DC where they took over the BIA.
Here I was a 18 year old kid and they treated me with patience and respect that I had not earned. I am still grateful to them for what they taught me that afternoon.
1960’s, My indigenous family in Sweden was being mistreated while Sweden liked to criticize Americans for treatment of African Americans. We can always see the mote in the other country’s eye…
about it... it was expected by many that American indigenous would be more or less exterminated as European immigrants flooded the continent, dispossessing the lands and natural economies of the "savages" when they fought back. Not just the Americans with this in mind.
But as we know, they were not all exterminated, and many live today both on reservations, in pueblos, and in our towns and cities. Witness Deb Haaland, secretary of the interior, and Joy Harjo, once our poet laureate and still a voice to be heard.
Check out Little Bird. The series on PBS about the Sixties Scoop in Canada. I didn't know this was happening right up until the nineties. Policies in North America still support the make them go away or they might want their land back platform. These are crimes against Nations without accountability or consequences for their oppressors.
Carmen, in the reading of HCR's text it seems to me the soldiers were not cavalier but frightened of those warriors and angry over past defeat. The analogy to Israel and Hamas is quite striking!
We hope it is never too late to change the future, but if it changes to reduce hate, destruction, increase in uninhabitable areas, and increase loving care to all, it rests on gen z and millennials to make changes. Go, fight, win is a football cheer that produces desire for domination. Instead, go and tell others who need your help that you will support them, suffer with them, do all you can to lift them up, even though they don't look like you, think like you, worship like you, and so forth. When we can lift the "other" instead of denigrating them, then the future will be better.
'Nevada tribe says coalitions, not lawsuits, will protect sacred sites'
'A Nevada tribe is gearing up for a different kind of fight against the U.S. government as it tries to build more public support for protecting Native American sacred sites'
BySCOTT SONNER Associated Press
December 24, 2023, 12:01 AM
'RENO, Nev. -- The room was packed with Native American leaders from across the United States, all invited to Washington to hear from federal officials about President Joe Biden's accomplishments and new policy directives aimed at improving relationships and protecting sacred sites.'
'Arlan Melendez was not among them.'
'The longtime chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony convened his own meeting 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) away. He wanted to show his community would find another way to fight the U.S. government's approval of a massive lithium mine at the site where more than two dozen of their Paiute and Shoshone ancestors were massacred in 1865.'
'Opposed by government lawyers at every legal turn, Melendez said another arduous appeal would not save sacred sites from being desecrated.'
“We’re not giving up the fight, but we are changing our strategy,” Melendez said.
'That shift for the Nevada tribe comes as Biden and other top federal officials double down on their vows to do a better job of working with Native American leaders on everything from making federal funding more accessible to incorporating tribal voices into land preservation efforts and resource management planning.'
'The administration also has touted more spending on infrastructure and health care across Indian Country.'
'Many tribes have benefited, including those who led campaigns to establish new national monuments in Utah and Arizona. In New Mexico, pueblos have succeeded in getting the Interior Department to ban new oil and natural gas development on hundreds of square miles of federal land for 20 years to protect culturally significant areas.'
'But the colony in Reno and others like the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona say promises of more cooperation ring hollow when it comes to high-stakes battles over multibillion-dollar “green energy” projects. Some tribal leaders have said consultation resulted in little more than listening sessions, with federal officials not incorporating tribal comments into the decision making.'
'Rather than pursue its claims in court that the federal government failed to engage in meaningful consultation regarding the lithium mine at Thacker Pass, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony will focus on organizing a broad coalition to build public support for sacred places.'
'Tribal members are concerned other culturally significant areas will end up in the path of a modern day Gold Rush that has companies scouting for lithium and other materials needed to meet Biden's clean energy agenda.' (AP) See link below.
Thank you, Betsy. You are providing the kind of support that the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and other Native American Tribes are seeking. Now, I will follow your lead and sign the two petitions against the lithium mines that you have posted.
This is actually a real conundrum. We have a massive need for more lithium supplies, and the McDermitt Caldera on the Nevada/Oregon border may actually hold double the amount of lithium than in the Bolivian salt flats.
Alternative lithium supplies in the US are in the Salton Sea area in California. There you have projects drilling for geothermal energy, and it turns out the water/brine they bring up for thermal exchange contains a high concentration of lithium. The best of both worlds, if it can be done.
I would venture that many of those reading this site need to support transitioning to a fully renewable-powered world ASAP. How many of us are still driving infernal combustion engine vehicles, as Steve Hanley over at cleantechnica.com likes to say. Personally we drive a PHEV Honda Clarity (still fossil fuel powered some of the time), and an aging Toyota Prius (efficient but still burns fossil fuels). Then we also have to figure out how to get off of burning natural gas in our home for heating, which is the most common form of heating here in Minnesota. So there is much work to be done here, and I'm guessing that I'm not alone among HCR readers in the need to make further progress!
Also, if we do not mine in the US and only mine elsewhere, because screw the rest of the world, what does that make us? Hypocrites at best, and probably worse. We have the same NIMBY (not in my back yard) regarding building wind turbines and solar farms. That has to stop.
To make matters worse, we need lithium not only for EVs but also for battery backup for solar and wind powered grid (or ones home). I don't think ignoring the world's largest known deposit of lithium (by a factor of 2x) is the answer here. Rather, I think some accommodation could reasonably be made that marks off the surrounding area where the killings actually occurred from mining and constructs a memorial therein.
I know this is not going to be a popular opinion, but it needed to be stated. I'm as ashamed of Wounded Knee as anyone, but we also have a global warming / climate emergency on our hands. Sadly that is something like 10th on the list of important issues here in the US. The extinction of many Earth critters and plants are at stake, as well as the needless death and/or suffering of a significant fraction of the human race. Hence the conundrum :-).
You could also compensate the affected Reno-Sparks peoples with some percentage of the project revenue, which could then be put to good charitable use.
Has anyone thought about asking them to make the decisions and receive a very high percentage of the profits they fully deserve? They could be the controllers or controlling partners of their lands and resources. Then again, how many treaties have been brokered and then broken?
How would you like someone to take land from you just because they found something valuabe in that soil.....they care not for your children or your family or even that you have a place to live, We have done this to Indian people and to others. When are we going to check our greed!!!!!
I understand your point of view, but I don't think this Native American tribe actually owns the land. I could be wrong, and if I am, I stand corrected! To properly address your point, we should all go back to Europe and give the entire US back to Native Americans. I'd actually be ok with that, but I don't think Europe and my fellow USians would.
Sorry, I cut my comment short....CURRENTLY land was assigned to Indians whereas before we arrived they could go anywhere to hunt...it was a way of life....their identity was also represented by their language. There were some tribes who established permanent homes. They were here before we arrived.
We pushed them into places....many places we did not want for ourselves.
My point is that suddenly we want to take from areas that may have been assigned to others, land they were pushed into, for our personal gain.
The Indian people...as far as I know....I am not an expert.....fought among themselves for hunting rights . We assigned places for them to settle....we took away their lifestyle....often their language which deeply represented who they were as humans....their tribal identities. We pushed them into poverty. We tried to destroy them so we could take what we wanted.
Matt, I am saying WE HAVE NOT CHANGED OUR CHARACTER AS GREEDY, CRUEL, SELF-CENTERED PEOPLE.
And yet the Indian people within the US have served as guides, they have used their language as code during our World Wars to transmit information to our troops.
They and all persons of color have fought beside the whites...as I am...in every war we have engaged in. And yet we treat the Indian people with disrespect by using land assigned to them for personal profit and gain. I have not heard if there have been negotiations...if the Indian people will receive some personal benefit for lithium found on "their lands"...not the land they chose but the land we chose for them...that we now want for financial gain.
We came into this vast and beautiful country, not respecting those who were here before us. We have not changed very much.
That's what I don't know. Are the proposed lithium mining sites on Native American lands currently? If so then they can't be mined without permission from the tribes involved.
But my understanding (I could be wrong) is that the land is held as sacred by the tribe in question but owned by others. That's where we are in this murky area of what to do. Not defiling land in general is important, but so is combating global warming.
Before foreigners (we) came to America, many Indian tribes wandered over large areas to find game....women usually remaining at home caring for children and farming and attending to other necessary chores. Some tribes built permanent dwellings....built irrigation systems to sustain
This is in some ways similar to the debate about copper nickel mining near the Boundary Waters. Not a sacred site, but ecologically fragile and irreplaceable if remnants of mining overflow and pollute. Research is ongoing for better battery solutions and I think we need to think long and hard before desecrating a place so special. Also, living near a large coal plant, I am looking forward to it soon coming offline as I install more solar in my house. I much prefer the rows of wind generators to the plumes of current power plants.
We ought to be more diligent about recycling the copper that has already been mined and we ought to expect new mining to cost more, taking into account the inevitable environmental damage. I do not know of any mine that has not wrecked the natural world in some way despite assurances from mining companies. Settlement ponds crack, dams break, wide swaths of land are sacrificed, and ground water goes everywhere. Any enterprise we humans undertake is rife with the potential for creating something both useful and destructive.
With reference to lithium mining, the following was taken from earth.org, 'Earth.Org is a leading environmental news website dedicated to providing comprehensive coverage of crucial issues affecting our planet through independent, high-quality journalism.'
'There is no doubt that lithium and cobalt play a huge role in modern societies, as both elements are essential components of many renewable energy sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars. Demand for electric vehicles is likely to continue to increase in the coming decades, as the apparatus to switch to more sustainable forms of transportation becomes clearer and clearer. Not only for EVs, but the battery demand for consumer electronics will continue to increase as well, up to 2.5 terawatt hours by 2030. However, we cannot talk about the green transition without taking the environmental impacts of lithium and cobalt mining into account. Though emissions deriving from mining these two elements are lower than those deriving from fossil fuels production, the extraction methods for lithium and cobalt can be very energy intensive – leading to air and water pollution, land degradation, and potential for groundwater contamination.'
'Despite the importance of EV markets and growing battery technology in controlling the world’s emissions, it is up to society to figure out a more practical and efficient way of extracting these resources. It is important to note that fossil fuel mining, including lithium and cobalt mining, is estimated to be responsible for the emission of around 34 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) worldwide annually. About 45% of it is from coal, 35% from oil, and 20% from gas. '
'Relative to fossil fuels, Cobalt mining is only responsible for around 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2e) equivalent. For Lithium mining, it is estimated to be in a similar range at around 1.3+ million tonnes of carbon annually, with every tonne of mined lithium equating to 15 tonnes of CO2 into the air. Thus, the amount of carbon emitted is significantly less than fossil fuels, and a necessary middle ground should be considered in society’s transition to further renewables technologies. '
'The Environmental Impact of Lithium'
'Lithium is typically mined through a process called brine mining, which involves extracting lithium from underground saltwater reserves. The risks in polluting local water sources arise here, with examples in Salar de Uyuni and Salar de Atacama. This process involves pumping saltwater to the surface, where it is evaporated to remove the lithium and other minerals. Despite being relatively energy-intensive, this remains one of the most cost effective ways to mine lithium nowadays. Unfortunately, these toxic metals can contaminate water sources, threatening not only humans but also animal biodiversity.'
'Furthermore, some of the metals contained in EV batteries are highly damaging even in small quantities. Since a large majority of them are disposed of in landfills, leaks of environmental contaminants are quite frequent. Often, these leaks lead to underground fires, which release even more pollutants into the atmosphere. When particles of hazardous metals contained in batteries – like arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, and copper – enter the human respiratory system, they can cause a variety of health problems.'
'In a paper published in the journal Nature, Gleb Yushin, a professor at the School of Materials and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology with co-author Kostiantyn Turchenius argued that new battery technology needs to be developed using more common, environmentally-friendly materials. As reserves of lithium and cobalt will not meet future demand, suggested elements to focus on instead include iron and silicon.' (earth.org: 'To learn more, read our Mission Statement or click here to learn more about our viewership.') For more about this subject and earth.org, see the link below.
We really don't need cobalt. Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are good enough, and contain no cobalt or nickel. But we do need lithium so far. Alternatives such as sodium ion batteries are interesting and could end up replacing lithium ion for storage applications if not for EVs.
You didn't know the effects of lithium mining, Matt Fulkerson, or if you did, chose to ignore them in your initial comment. My response to you was not about cobalt mining, so I don't understand why you started off mentioning that in your reply, without any response to the very harmful effects of lithium mining to the environment.
I do not deny that lithium mining does environmental damage. Nearly all mining does of course. But I'm just stating the obvious that lithium is essential for moving humanity away from fossil fuels. At least so far. Do you not think that is important?
If sodium ion batteries make enough progress we can avoid the use of lithium, at least for stationary storage purposes, and maybe eventually EVs.
Thank you for your thoughtful attention, Matt, to what is of great importance to our lives. I look forward to more exchanges with you in the coming year; may it be rich in discovery and fellowship.
Respectfully, I was replying to your quotes about Cobalt mining. Cobalt is known to be historically sourced from Congo, using child labor, and so use of cobalt should be avoided.
It's complicated, isn't it? I suspect that there IS a way to achieve the harvesting of an essential mineral AND respect the interests and history of the American Indians. How that happens is above our pay grade. But if this is handled with a balanced approach, it won't be perfect, but goals can be met.
Very good points. Re: getting off heating with natural gas - we live in Wisconsin and installed a cold weather climate heat pump system in May. It works fantastic. You could definitely do this in Minnesota. It also cools gloriously in the summer. Additionally, our utility bills are 30% less, and we will get a $2,000 fed tax credit via the Inflation Reduction Act. We have a Bryant system (Carrier), and there are also others.
Yours is the traditional argument that we need to take something from Reno-Sparks people for the progress of humankind. But perhaps lithium batteries will not save us.Not all carmakers seem to think so (or seem to care). There's the question of where these batteries will go when they are no longer useful. More pollution? Is there no other way to reduce our dependence on oil and gas? Maybe the broader society needs to reorganize so that there is less automobile traffic; having driven cross country twice in the last year, I can tell you that it is really dangerous no matter how your vehicle is fueled. (We have a 2010 Prius that we love, but it is not safe on major highways because it is so low, and we've already had one very scary accident caused by the remnant of a truck tire that took a week to repair.) And the number of trucks on the highways which no one seems to be vested in fueling via batteries is staggering. We could build more rails for safe train travel. Or we could travel less. My point is that our society is quick to grab at solutions that will not disrupt the dominant groups at the expense of people who have very little. I don't hear any plans for granting them hospitable lands in exchange for taking their homeland. No, there is too much profit to be made, and it must be taken right away for the "public good."
The lithium deposits are over a hundred miles away from Reno-Sparks land. So we can't really call this taking something away from them. Or maybe better said, mining this land represents no additional taking.
Sorry I didn't know that. Spending time in the West has made me super aware of the many travesties of the extraction industries, which have taken a huge toll on Native peoples and others. The common practice is to mine and abandon the site through bankruptcy to avoid clean-up. Of course the people left behind suffer from high rates of disease caused by the residue.
I just posted this on Clean Technica in response to an article on respecting indigenous peoples' in Europe rights to have their voices heard regarding sourcing critical materials in Europe. I think it might be more thoughtful than my original post here.
"I had to search about Europe's indigenous peoples and this wikipedia article has some info under the "Europe" heading:
As a recent conversation I started (or at least enflamed) on a Heather Cox Richardson article, it becomes a conundrum when the rights of indigenous people clashes with the need to fight off global warming. It may be an over-generalization, but I think it is safe to say that most indigenous people hold the natural state of land and water as sacred, and for good reason since their very lives have historically depended on that.
My comments on the Heather Cox Richardson article brought up this conundrum in regards to Thacker Pass and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (a union of three different Native American tribes), which holds land in Nevada over a hundred miles away from Thacker Pass. The problem is that Thacker Pass was part of their homeland, and even if they do not "own" it, seeing it not despoiled by mining is really important to Reno-Sparks members. And of course the conundrum is the McDermitt Caldera being by far the largest discovery of accessible lithium on the planet, and said lithium is of great value for battery build out for EVs and storing renewable energy in general.
In the modern "non-woke" world, whether you are indigenous or not doesn't increase your say regarding whether public land (as Thacker Pass is) is mined or not. However, "woke" folks would perhaps be willing to join forces with native peoples, thus amplifying their voices. Sorry to use "woke", as I really hate that term."
Agree and debated over signing because it’s not simple. What needs to be done is to follow international standards and achieve free prior informed consent with the native peoples, respecting their cultural heritage. A solution should be sought that respects the Paiute and other indigenous people
Let's learn from the mistakes of the past, and use them to change the future for the better! It's our responsibility. Thank you for always reminding us of the past and the present, and make us think of the future.
I've read this book so many times. My other favorite book is Victor Frankel's Man Search For Meaning. Here's a story I heard a while back. A Holocaust survivor was telling another Holocaust survivor that when he gets to heaven he has a Holocaust joke for God. He dies and meets God. He then tells him his joke. God says, 'that's not funny". The man says, 'right, I guess you had to be there'.
Genocide hasn't stopped as a tool of war. And those who should be held accountable never are. We as a country will always have blood on our hands. We gave the playbook to other countries to follow. And they have.
As a child, I always wondered where God was during things as heinous as a holocaust...and so many other human and animal atrocities (like white men slaughtering vast numbers of buffalo and letting them rot so the natives would starve). I truly appreciate the sentiment of that very sad, but poignant joke.
Man’s Search for Meaning is my favorite book too! It’s how Frankel the father of Logostherapy ‘got through’ the camps….ones last choice in the worst of times is to preserve one’s attitude! God willing we don’t need that very desperate choice….
Ally…I think you are Oregon based….a few years ago I had the privilege of attending a week long ‘From the Coast to the Crest’ deal sponsored by the Sweet Home Ranger District and the Willamette National Forest and at least 4 Indian Confederations…it was an amazing week..Tony Farquay (sp?) from Sweet Home put it together and we LITERALLY traced the US Indian history in Oregon…promises made and broken, the ‘costs’ and you probably know the territory from that lovely lighthouse to the top of my favorite picnic site off highway on 126 near Belnap Hot Springs! It put “Wounded Knee’ in very clear context…
I am, and Belknap Hot Springs are a favorite area of mine. I've been there a bunch, both personally and professionally (it is in Lane County's jurisdiction). I wish I'd known about that "Coast to the Crest" event. I will keep my eyes open to see if they do it again.
My family home is in McKenzie Bridge….im not sure if Tony is still doing these excursions..may well be retired…he was/is an anthropologist with amazing skills in theater..brings to life whatever the historical issue is…(also he handled a rare set of trees in the Sweet Home District that the neighboring tribes had a specific interest in and he had the warmest of relationships with the tribes…which is how I think the Coast to Crest deal got put together….
And so goes another night of unexpected learning yet more about our nation’s disgraceful past. The treatment of the Lakota fits into a long pattern of deceit and death that white people have never atoned for.
Atonement for white supremacy in general is much needed. There’s no such thing as “racial superiority” based on skin color. The murder of indigenous people was justified based on skin color and culture.
Racism was invented to keep us divided so the masses (labor) can be conquered for the benefit of wealthy people who want to maintain power and control.
Unfortunately we still blindly aCelt and follow America’s racist practices. The half hasn’t been told about this nation’s history when it comes to the invention of whiteness..
Remember, you didn't murder them. You could be grateful that the current modern era is about the first in history where the descendents of technologically advanced descendents felt any need to apologize for their ancestors misdeeds. Eg check out the Spanish, the Portuguese, the British, Canadian, Arab and African slavers.
Maria, the tragic, horrific thing is you can take what happened then and apply it to events happening in the world right now…..circumstances may vary, but intent & outcomes are so similar. As lyrics sing…”when will we ever learn?”…..indeed when?
Maria, I understand your response of feeling shame about this historic tragedy, but maybe "hanging one's head" in sorrow and compassion rather than shame would be more appropriate. When I taught NA college courses, many white students who didn't know this kind of history, expressed feelings of guilt/shame when they learned of it. I tried to help them see that while they held no responsibility for what happened in the past, they DO hold responsibility for what happens in the present. The sympathetic response they were feeling about the violence in history is a good sign that they could turn toward learning, not only more history, but what the current issues are in Indian country, seeing how ignorance about native peoples allows stereotypes and injustice to continue. With insight gained, that is something they can do something about.
I agree, but we have to become more honest about human nature, both the horrifying side of it and and also the beauty and compassion also in the mix. We already know the formulas for collective sociopathy, and that one can ride the cosmic force of entropy as it's home court advantage. We have also seen barriers crumble when we enough of us are of a like mind and shared passion. The struggle continues.
An Atlantic article several years back outlined published theories of how our species might have, to a degree, self-selected for fewer violent males. I learned about Bonobos, one branch of our lineage, some years ago & only wish we carried more of their DNA. Seems like we didn’t clean up our act as thoroughly as we might have…. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-humans-tamed-themselves/580447/#
Barbara, I think Gen Z and Gen Alpha's broader and ever-increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ is part of that evolution away from violent males. If only the rest of us would get more conscious about calling out male violence and legislating against it, we'd be evolving a whole hell of a lot faster.
We and many other societies celebrate violence in ways that come back to bite us. I think that violence (such as the Allies defeat of the fascist Axis) can be necessary but it's never "good" violence, only necessary. I think human societies, along with packs, flocks, hives, of other animals are an extension of family. Some are shaped by a domineering male or even female figure that rules by force. You couple that preference for force with human intelligence and agency and the result is a very dangerous animal indeed, even to its own persistence as a species. Yet, we are not without the capacity, as a species, to grasp our own circumstances, and to do things differently, should we choose to do so; and many have tried, with varying degrees of success, to accomplish this in the past.
Comment tangential to today's post, sorry, just wanting to share this thought with this community--I've read some commentary that enacting Art. 3 of Amendment 14 against Trump is somehow undemocratic. However, if we think of democracy as a living thing, then 14.3 is like part of democracy's immune system. Just as someone who has the flu gains antibodies that will help to resist the next exposure to the same strain of flu, so this part of the constitution is like an antibody which has now become activated because presented with the same threats as in the past.
Worrying about political repercussions because an honest, intelligent set of judges have assessed TFG as having participated in/fomented an insurrection seems quite undemocratic to me.
And Richard, since I’m here, I just discovered and appreciate your Buddhist Thought substack. Don’t know if it’s ok to ask it here, but assuming you’re not solidly in the “Pragmatic/secular” Buddhist camp, does anyone in the “From An American” community ever question the materialist/reductionist view, or is that not a thing to bother to bring up here?
Hi again - just looked you up. Sounds like we have worked in the same field. I thought I saw an article (yes, from quite awhile ago!!) that you co-authored on the Adaptive Behavior Scale. If my memory serves, I used that a great deal in the late 90s when I worked as a psychologist for a day treatment center in upper Manhattan for intellectually delayed adults. Profoundly moving job, truly a blessing to be with those folks.
Lord, you go back a ways. Didn’t know that Google dug that deep. Yes, it was a revelation and helped shape me as an empathetic human. Thanks for that trip down memory lane.
Of course. I hope my little trip into philosophy land was not too weird:>)) I occasionally indulge in such things in the NY Times comments sections. About 90% of reactions are I'm nuts, but there's often someone who is astounded to meet a trained scientist who thinks like they do, so it's worth it:>))
Yes, sorry - probably not the place to go into this too much. I did see HCR recently say she herself took a thoroughly "humanist" view, which generally means something close to a physicalist/naturalist/materialist view. I think she may have used "naturalist."
It's basically a nihilist view (I know - that doesn't help; let's see if I can do better)
The almost universal underlying belief system of humanity in the modern age - even among professed religious fundamentalists (in fact, oddly enough, modern fundamentalist is a form of this nihilistic view as well) "believes" in a particular interpretation of science:
1. The sensory aspects of our experience (which are wrongly called purely "physical") are essentially non conscious, non living, and non intelligent. While scientific methodology (I'm speaking as one trained in research science) has no technology or method for determining the presence of life, consciousness or intelligence apart from "observing" behavior, this is thought to be something established scientifically - it's not.
2. The universe has no meaning, purpose or direction - and it is also thought this has been proven scientifically. It hasn't.
3. You truly have no free will, there is no objective basis for ethics and morality, "good" art is a purely subjective thing; history has no meaning or purpose. Again, scientific methodology has no means to establish this but it is generally thought this is a scientific view.
4. Even when people try to claim otherwise by citing things like quantum fields, the general "feel" of the world to most people is that it consists of essentially unrelated objects, and the best we can do is be nice to people (with no scientific justification for it except crude, unscientific evolutionary psychology assumptions) and above that, "follow our bliss" and hope things like climate change, war, authoritarian power plays, will be solved.
Except climate change, war, etc are founded on the sense of profound, nihilistic alienation and meaninglessness that is the experience of the most dogmatic religious fundamentalist as well as those claiming to hold no fundamental views.
Is there hope? I've seen, in the last 10 years, having waited 40 years for it and assuming it would never occur in my life time, a revolution among the top scientists on the planet in terms of throwing in the towel on their commitment to this horrific, nihilistic materialistic/reductionist view.
Part of Woke needs to be awareness of the profound injustice done to indigenous peoples. This country was not founded just on chattel slavery, but on the genocide, physical and cultural, of the people who lived on this land for thousands of years before the Europeans invaded.
MAGA encompasses the same outlook and attitude that murdered the people at Wounded Knee.
Many of us thought we had put that part of our national character behind us. The 2016 election was a frightening reminder that we haven’t.
Thank you, HCR, again and again and again for the history lesson that shines a light on today.
Spot on, Ralph. Until we, as a county, acknowledge that our "success as a nation" was based on the extermination of Indigenous People and on the backs of Blacks held in chattel slavery, we are forever stained by that foundation.
I remember well the spectacular and out of the blue best seller success of Dee Brown's "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee". Even without reading the book at such a young age, I remember seeing it in bookstores and hearing of its text, being stunned by the tales of brutality and ugliness that jarred my young self. After all, at ten years old, I had only learned of the vaunted nature of the Louisiana Purchase, and the inevitable expansion of America, of the Civil War period jumping directly to the WWI period. I couldn't grasp what I realized later was a vast dichotomy between the conventional history and the actual, more complex history. I couldn't then, and can still not now fully grasp the fact that in our great Nation, there are other Nations, Indigenous Nations, that still exist within our geographical borders.
The Cowboys and Indians ethos, fully suffusing our collective culture at everyone's neighborhood movie house and infused with strongly subliminal Manifest Destiny, was so powerful that it took decades to even begin the process of removing the mote from our collective eyes.
Even today, there are most likely many of our fellow Americans who do not blink an eye upon hearing Phil Sheridan's infamous statement---"The only good Indian is a dead Indian".
Our Nation, born in the mixed fiery baptism of brilliant Enlightenment thinking and hard focused Revolution was a small Country of 3 million, clinging to the Atlantic seaboard within 13 states. In perhaps the most glaring example of "be careful for what you wish for" in history, within a quarter century we had expanded westward three times over due to the mutual interests of our burgeoning population's ambitions, and those of a Corsican warrior with short man's syndrome to garner funds for his ceaseless wars in Europe. Napoleon gave us the entire modern Midwest and eastern portion of the Mountain States, even though none of it was his to give.
A Nation that once honored the Iroquois for their political organizing and whose principles we adopted, and whose first national holiday of Thanksgiving honors the generosity of the Powhatan and others, gradually turned to the darkest of rationalizations for taking the lands of those similarly indigenous North American peoples who just happened to be in our way.
Treaty upon innumerable treaty broken, promise upon innumerable promise forgotten, ethnic cleansing begun with Jackson in Florida and Georgia, repeated over and over again upon far more Trails of Tears than just those trod by the Cherokees and Creeks.
We took their land, their sustenance and even tried to take their pride.
And this isn't just "history".
It was only recently that the professional football team in our Nation's Capital finally found the grace to change their name from the disgraceful epithet, "Redskins". It was only recently that the team that has long played in the great industrial City on the shores of Lake Erie changed their name from "Indians". Even now, the Atlanta Braves and their horrifically racist tomahawk chop, and the Kansas City "Chiefs", with their fabulous defending champion team and their top notch celebrity follower refuses to make the simple changes necessary to return just a bit of dignity to those who have suffered so long.
And finally, as at least one other contributor has commented, still sits Leonard Peltier in a federal prison, all these near half century of years later, like "Buddha in a ten foot cell, an innocent man in a living hell."
Or as was otherwise sung,
"Good Morning America, how are ya?! Say don't you know me, I'm your NATIVE SON?"
Riding on the 'City of New Orleans'? I like the Willie Nelson version very much as well as the Johnny Cash version.
But about Leonard Peltier it really is a travesty of justice. Or just more injustice heaped upon the Lakota, one man in particular. He has always said that he's innocent and if he is then he's been wrongfully imprisoned for nearly 50 years. Peltier has endured much suffering and poor health for decades now. I read his memoir, written from his cell at Fort Leavenworth, about ten years ago. The title is Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance published in 2000.
Hi Daniel. If you search Lakota People's Law Project you will find links to the site. They're doing important work. Let's spread the word on their behalf. Thanks.
It's so sad and wrong that Leonard Peltier still languishes in a prison cell but by writing this book he could finally tell his story, in his own voice and words. Wounded Knee and Pine Ridge reservation were once again under siege by government agents during the 1970s and Peltier was blamed for the killing of 2 FBI agents during that reign of terror.
No I didn't get this one at Powell's I just wanted to support them with that link instead of promoting the Amazon juggernaut. But Powell's is a must for me whenever I visit Portland. Love that place!
Actually I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I got that book at a little Native American owned shop, Gathering Tribes, on Solano Avenue in Berkeley. The owner, Penny, shut down after many years due to the pandemic. She still sells a lot of native crafted jewelry online but I miss the amazing amount of books and information that was available there and to physically look through the obscure stuff that you were not likely to see anywhere else.
Daniel, the story about how Steve pitched it to Arlo Guthrie is even better. John Prine had his hands all over that one. Steve is ine of THE Great American Songsters
I have stated earlier-We still have time to avert the” massacre” of 2024.Thank-you,Heather, once again for illuminating the past and to tie it to our today and tomorrow.
Victoria, you’re right. Once again, there are power hungry people willing to do anything to keep power and afraid of those who are different. We need to get out the vote and spread the truth.
We also have to make sure everyone gets to vote and districts are not rigged. So many humans have been cast aside and their vote taken away by all kinds of tricks the republicons use.
Yes, every state needs to make sure that voters are automatically registered and it is easy to cast a vote. It is our right and those who mess with it should be legally held to account. We need voter posses in every to assure no republicans do what they have been doing for years. We need one person, one vote and gets rid of the EC.
I don't think, Victoria, there'll be any "massacre" in 2024.
The diaper-wearing, orange fat guy is, instead, I think, turning off many every day with his upped, out-of-control spewing of hatreds and vulgarity.
Americans know better.
If anything, Republicans for all their cowardice and enabling will experience massacre thanks to the large numbers of decent Americans who, come November, can put the miserables out of their misery.
Happy New Year.
With the incredibly high numbers of citizens willing to follow the former president in spite of all that he's shown himself to be, I don't share your optimism that "Americans know better."
Thanks, Leslie, but my gambit doesn't come just from optimism.
I turn 77 in a few days. In all these years I've read hundreds, maybe thousands, of novels and other books by Americans, on all parts of our landscape, our history, or varying levels of class and privilege. Seen hundreds of American movies. Ditto our songs and poems. In my youth I hitch-hiked everywhere, entered, enjoyed communities across the land. (And abroad.)
Just too much resilience across America, openness, decency -- in spite of the corruptions of the rich, and the venal history the rich repeatedly foist.
If you -- if we -- access our deeper, broader, finer culture, we don't get optimistic, but aware of how much greater cultural decencies interact with and surmount the co-inhabiting vulgarities.
I'll be 70 in January. This is the first time in my long life that I fear for my children's and grandchildren's futures. I'm of German descent and grew up in a Navy family where my Dad was an aviator who enlisted at the age of 17 in WWII. From the get-go I never found the former president funny nor charismatic. I knew what I was seeing was dangerous and I've seen nothing to the contrary. Do I believe in our better angels? Yes, I do. But this point in time is precarious. I'm just glad I find myself in this amazing group of people, like you, who remind me of the good.
I share the cautious optimism expressed. That there are so many who still support the malignant narcissist, knowing full well that he is a complete racist and always has been, causes me concern that their racism trumps their regard for fairness. I saw a van parked in a Walmart store yesterday that had this: The Florida license plate has "In God we trust." One bumper sticker says "F**k Biden" and the other bumper sticker has "Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President." In my view, there is zero chance of "getting through" to someone like this. The only solution is to out vote them in November, 2024.
As much as I don’t like tofg I would never put a bumper sticker on my car that spews hate or in my opinion tells others how low one would go and how indecent you are, low life! And children know how to read!
Any ideas of unifiers out there? Remember many republicans voted for Bernie. He attracted both sides. We need a new Bernie, a voice of reason that can overcome the hate.
Even worse, the RV campground we stayed in last December in FL had flags flying that announced the orange one was their “Savior 2024”. I couldn’t even walk my dog by without feeling sickened...
Maybe waterboarding?
I refuse to drop a penny in Florida. Even though there are good people in Florida, there are too many of the wrong kind of people there and it messes with my hope for the future.
My dad also was a soldier in WWII—drafted right out of high school. I saw a dangerous narcissist in tfg from the start and he proved to be everything I thought. He has only gotten more dangerous. We must all work to defeat him. (Also he’s a disgusting human being.)
I knew also even before he started to run for office what a horrible human he is😬
I'll be 70 in May. You and I and others our age KNOW for a FACT exactly what is at stake and how people can blindly follow and evil idea. I need to hunt for a book my mom had be read in H.S. called "Time of Peace" by Ben Ames Williams - about HOW the world was led for a second war. (It's around here SOMEWHERE!)
I wonder though...after the dust has settled, do you think the christo-fascist republican party will be banned and declared unlawful as the naziis were?
That was only possible after a very complete, total, military defeat. A political defeat, no matter how big, is not the same thing for totally destroying the losing party's reputation.
No; but our ideals, codified but not yet completely realized, are far stronger.
I'm 74 - my kids voted for Ralph Nader and got George Bush. They are in their 40s now, we can count on them to remember.
I share many of your thoughts. I hope Phil is correct.
Trump turned me off from the get go, and his subsequent unconscionable, sexist, ignorant, rude, arrogant, nasty, racist and vindictive behavior didn’t cause me to like him any better. If anything, I found it more likely that it made me detest him more.
We are age peers and lived through the same overall experiences. I do not share your optimism. Never in our history has one party worked so hard to wrestle the levers of democracy from the American people. Republicans have created laws that suppress votes. If that doesn't work, they've enacted laws that allow them to nullify votes. They've created districts that are gerrymandered to a fair-thee-well. The Supreme Court has been corrupted, literally or figuratively. The elegant system of checks and balances created by the Founders is floundering. It's like a three-legged stool on which all three legs have been unevenly cut. Their playbook is available for all to see: Project 2025 will dismantle the civil service and can only keep their jobs if they swear fealty to Trump. Many of the people who are okay with all of the above would be seen as "nice guys," but they are committed to a false god for irrational reasons.
For the sake all of us, I dearly hope I'm wrong.
Eloquently apt, MisTBlu, truly spoken.
Yes, on all accounts you cite as to the darkness, the cabals, the power of cohered money, and incoherent but festering racism, misogyny, and fear of differences threatening us.
I just trust the "us" even more.
Those poisoned, abandoned by the offshoring of their jobs (for the billionaires), those embittered by the dehumanizing of schools (by the billionaire standardized testers), and those locked into silos of hate (by the social media billionaires) all got into those plights for specific -- but remediable -- reasons.
We've many decent, capable public officials across the land who can remedy all of that.
You're further correct as to the depth of challenge in Project 2025, and in the extent of bribery, corruption, and bullying ideology in the Supreme Court
I just trust the "us" even more.
I wonder sometimes if we are so inundated daily with Trump news, always accompanied by his photo, that we are getting a skewed idea of how many Trump followers there REALLY are. He did lose in 2020.
I like and admire your outlook. I share your trust in "us" but not your optimism. Not, at least, in the short and medium term. Beyond that, my confidence runs deep.
Just now, I cannot find my pessimistic response to your first, excellent comment. I hope that you are right but, such is the immense, untrammeled power of money and the greed and fear induced stupidity that go with that power, that the victory of the good can only come at a high price.
I don’t disagree with any of the fear and anger. I’m not sure every TFFG supporter is motivated by hate. There is an incredible level of ignorance and laziness out there. There are FB postings asking people to call their representatives to oppose a Bill because it would “take away your airline points.” That is the only information given about the Bill, which is actually intended to break up the Vida/Mastercard monopoly. Without any effort to fact-check this ad, many many people have indicated “I called,” “I want my points!” Etc.
Two years before we lost our freedom of choice, I spoke to a group of Planned Parenthood volunteers, telling them we actually could lose choice. There were few questions, lots of people on their phones. Afterward, one young woman who looked suitably alarmed said “How do we know what to believe?”
Maybe it’s not just ignorance and laziness. Maybe the deluge of social media information has caused sufficient stress that their prefrontal cortex is overloaded. They can’t think clearly?
And when the time comes we will all know what to do.
. . . and committed to the false god of genocide in Gaza. All of these horrors are related, and all are the result of Americans' inability to understand the difference between freedom and power.
Phil Balla, you are SUCH a lift today, thank you! While I well understand and often experience the fears of other posters arguing with you, my own committed study of US history reminds me and bolsters my belief in progress, even if it's the three steps forward, two steps back kind.
Study after study and poll after poll show Gen Z and Gen Alpha have far fewer of Republican prejudices. The Christofascists are blatantly targeting education to suppress what you beautifully call our "deeper broader, finer culture" to indoctrinate those generations —but they're never going to accomplish that by November 2024. We have to keep strong and fighting for another year.
Regrettably, we have again seen the re-emergence of political gangsterism and the surfacing of totalitarian aspirations in many places throughout the world, this time, to be sure, with changed symbols, with different words and slogans, with a new face. It is as if human beings were condemned to experience such things as a phase in an ever-recurring cycle. There is a task for the genuinely critical intellectual—to break that cycle, to assure a more human course for human affairs. (from: Who Voted for Hitler? by Richard F. Hamilton, as quoted by Don Simon, The Nation, Jan.15, 2021)
Are we those people? I fear not, if we only focus on November 2024 and Trump. The focus of those who support Democracy (I do include many of the GOP) must be longer term. The Christo-Fascist-Maga crowd (70,000,000 voters or so) are not here by chance. When Richie Havens sang his simple hit "Freedom" to the crowd at Woodstock, he was singing to those people who held their personal choices above any constitution or other social compact. Many of them have become MAGA and/or even more radicalized. They transcend all economic and age strata in the USA and Europe (as they did in 1933).
In the USA, they equate "freedom" with removal from government oversight and overreach ever since the Kent State massacre ("...four dead in Ohio...") and the shooting/maiming of Rudi Dutschke in Europe. My own daughter is one even though she is too young to have lived through the 60's and 70's. "It's about my personal freedom, Dad! Don't you get it!"
We will have to fight this a lot longer than most of us think. Do we have the staying power, and are we prepared?
Well said! Have you read Herman Meyer's "They Thought they were Free?". Written in 1956, a very thoughtful insight on the average Nazi citizen leading up to WWII and its conclusion.
A question for you here, Bruce: Do you feel that the MAGAt restrictions on abortion are a slap in the face to the freedom of women to have control over their own bodies? Do you think that the desire to outlaw contraception is in any way an expression of freedom? When you mention "...personal choices above any constitution or social contract" are you saying that the LGBTQ+ community is wrong in wanting to have the same rights to marry, or to express their gender as they are?
Phil, I fervently hope you are right. Two things focus my worry: 1. The idiotic Electoral College gives the win to a handful of swing-state voters rather that the broad American electorate. and 2. Our fatally flawed one-choice-only, plurality voting system creates the "voter's dilemma" (Do I vote for whom I prefer or vote for a candidate with a chance of winning?) leading to the "spoiler effect" that might throw yet another election.
Phil, I share your realism. It's just one of those facts of human nature that bad news forms the facade of most of our lives. I also spent several years crisscrossing the country via my right thumb, and discovered the deep, solid, foundation our culture is built on.
Only acknowledging bad news is much less than half the picture. Imagine trying to run a business while only looking at its debts. There are two numbers from the 2020 election that give me real comfort - 81,000,000 and 320. The pollsters didn't predict either of them. Thank-you Phil, for this dose of realism :)
Openness and decency in our absolute commitment to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine? If we stopped being hypocrites and saying all people are created equal - except Palestinians, of course - we might have a chance of remaining free and equal ourselves.
LeslieN, on the other hand we must never forget that TFFG never, not once, won the most votes….lost by millions each time! [Dang Electoral College!] His stalwart supporters—a minority of voters—bought into his schtick & gleefully drink all the cult-ade he can provide. They (and he) are loud and make a ruckus, but they are still the minority. If at least as many who voted in 2020 vote again in 2024–and hopefully many more will, given the clear and present danger he & his backers represent—he will be left in the dustbin of history. AND I want him held legally and financially accountable for all his misdeeds via our legal system.
Unfortunately. like Bruce stated above, this is going to be a very long haul. trump is only one of many fascists rising in America and around the world.
We need to look at all those who back the Federalist Society, the Heritage Society, the Mercers, the Kochs, on and on. They fuel the propaganda machines (including Bannon and K. Conway) and are responsible behind the scenes. I wonder who fuels Stephen Miller, our very own Goebbels.
Madmen must not unwatched go.
Yes, I’ve been telling family, friends & neighbors about these efforts that have once again sprung up in the USA (and providing them with factual, vetted information sources) and this time we have to grapple with social media & online fakery as well. My fervent hope is that folks are paying attention and ready to strain at the wheel to move our democracy forward. There is dialog in a old movie starring Goldie Hawn where she is testifying before Congress and she ends her statement by looking them square in the eyes and says “I’ll be watching you like a hawk”. Now is no time to look away.
Absolutely, Barbara! Eyes wide open and focused. Expansive focus.
We still have the same issues with the electoral college. And we must never forget the Supreme Farce's decision in Bush v Gore. They stopped the vote count and I will never find it anything but mind boggling that Gore conceded under those circumstances.
On November 8, 2016, I discovered that Americans in great numbers did not know shit and a destructive cult took over our government. When we corrected that tragic travesty 4 years later, we discovered the destructive force of this ignorant American Cult that never learned better.
Some of us do, obviously. How many, we won’t know until election results come in. Realism suggests we work very, very hard to get those who do know better to cast their ballots.
And the current danger is not that enough people will vote for him. The current danger is that Catch-22 situations like the Palestinians and Ukraine will make many people not vote at all. His plurality will come from Democrats on the fence about the Israeli war
...especially young people who get their "news" only from social media. I understand their concerns about what's happening in Gaza, but electing tfg is definitely NOT going to help the situation.
Have we learned...we the people? Be ever vigilant, vote -a hard fought for responsibility of free people- there’s much to right this ship yet, this world needs strong American support , smart leadership, and HOPE. Our own history should suffice , guided by a brilliant constitution , to hold equality up for the worldly example IT CAN WORK . The many peoples suffering under their own country’s autocratic takeovers ,leanings, and corruption , they are looking for peace , looking to America for their own dream too.
People leave their homeland carrying regret, fearing for their lives. How familiar this scenario is across the world...war is NOT the answer..killing ‘the enemy’ is NOT the end of ‘it’...compromise, steady support spreads stability .
Takers have one goal -to take more ..their drives are insatiable ,selfish and addicting. It isn’t criticism or smug smurfing.
Leadership requires considerably more time because they are holding the hand of another , carrying some of their weight so to speak to both ( all) get to the top of the hill and see together , NOT be ‘king of the mountain’...
WE can be that leader , holding our neighbors from afar and widen the safety net ..THATS contagious ..friends . It’s what selfish small sycophants and fear follow folly for. Period.
How to stay the UNION? Join the caravan of those wanting to serve .
💙💙 AND VOTE ALL THE COMPLICIT TAKERS OUT💙💙
Sadly with you, LeslieN.
I hope you are right, Phil.
In 2016, I expected said orange fat guy to win, a view ridiculed by friends far better informed than I.
They never spoke to me again after he did win the election.
I have quite often seen what was coming but now I am making no predictions as to the outcome of the 2024 election.
I am, however, afraid and shall continue to fear for America, for the world, as long as that orange guy walks free.
Reflecting on the fear and foreboding that his freedom and that of his main henchmen arouse in me, I fully expect danger. This election will bring trouble whoever wins it. Unless that man's health fails -- and even then, as long as he is alive and free. Such is his power over those who follow him that his freedom is incompatible with everyone else's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
I seem not to have been mistaken on September 10th 2001 when I wrote that our democracies were in imminent danger. Above all, when I expressed doubt about our survival instincts.
I also predicted Trump would win. It was summer 2015 and I made my friends listen. I told them, if Trump runs he will win. They have never forgotten my prediction. At the time I thought it was because he was a reality TV star and just like Ronald Reagan people believed the fiction he portrayed--in Trump’s case the role was successful businessman. I was hoping at the time he would not run but given the way people lap up what they see on reality shows as being real, unscripted and undirected I figured they would. I have met adults who do not know the suburb they are living in is a separate entity from the big city next door. I have met first time voters in their 50s and 60s who we poll workers would congratulate (for finally finally getting around to their civic duty). For all I know they finally came In to especially vote for their businessman hero Trump. At the time I was naive about how Trump would be backed by big money interests (who want to avoid regulation at any cost) and be a boon for big media and a comfort to other countries waiting for us to get our comeuppance. Now we can’t shake the guy. Lots of Americans believe all the stuff they see on TV and in the movies so they can be bamboozled. Meanwhile otherwise good people watch reality TV Fox as though it is real, unscripted and undirected. Then there’s our corrupted SCOTUS packed with believers in the reality show version of the Bible and also believers of the racist reality show of our country’s founding. It is all so crazy.
Well, let's be thankful if we've eyes to see, ears to hear and a mind that perceives and understands.
In the mid-80's, observing that businessmen can be intuitive, while too many politicians are like generals whose solid mindset was molded by the last war, so they're set to lose the next one, I wondered how a gifted tycoon would fare in politics.
Berlusconi showed us all. He could serve only himself, not the country.
Agent Orange isn't even a serious businessman, just a conman who has bankrupted everything he touches and everyone with whom he had dealings. His book should have been called The Art of the Steal.
Educated New Yorkers all know. Others don't. And they follow this barker from a Coney Island sideshow, useful only to himself... and to his boss in the Kremlin
The orange guy is a medical time bomb, the best MD support notwithstanding. I've no doubt conservative societies are feverishly casting about for a replacement. Agree this election will bring trouble-before and after, no matter what any conviction (or lack of) brings.
These aren't just 'interesting' times, but chaotic ,on a level unprecedented.
Yeah, it scares me, but I'm ornery enough to push back.
"A medical time bomb". Yes, but only his body can read the timer, and power, resentment and a thirst for vengeance are all powerful drugs. The kind that can keep him walking even when, like a Tex Avery villain, he's walked right over the edge of a cliff.
Talking of time bombs, in a short poem, I once described him as one... strapped to the back of the nation.
*
As for pushing back -- great! That is what everyone with an ounce of sanity, a minimal sense of responsibility, has to do.
It's only heroic because there are so many anti-heroes around, so many couch potatoes and complacent "can't-happen-here" folks. But it already has happened. And even after the January 6th show, we still haven't seen the full dress rehearsal, let alone the premiere...
What I find fascinating is the resonance of his “American Carnage” message. We are in the convergence of many lines of economic history: the conclusion of the Corporate-Power march towards capturing the working cogs of the Legislative/Judicial Systems, the rise of Psy-Ops level social media messaging and Nation-State cyber warfare targeting misinformation/disinformation precisely as never before , the huge expanse between Worker Pay and Corporate Compensation. There is a lot of rightful disgruntlement out there. We were asleep at the wheel to stop it because it felt like “Democracy Won” after the Fall of the Wall. We now wake up to a present that pits two ways of thinking against each other: Do we crash the whole system and rebuild? Do we fix what we’ve sleepily / foolishly inherited? I do not care for the leader of the gop, but he needs to be taken down / disempowered by his own people. Besides, trump is just a willing puppet for paymasters with very deep pockets. Once he’s yesterday’s news, there will be another, and another, and another. This song doesn’t end with one verse.
Very, very well stated, MLRGRMI. Trump must have seemed ideal to those paying for the demolition of the Federal State, given his crude human wreckers' ball cum bulldozer functioning.
And, of course, there will be others. Where elections can't be fixed for the rump of what once was the Republican Party, using time-sanctioned forms of cheating and gerrymandering, there are always Democratic Party politicians and/or party officials to be bribed or bought, and wonders have been achieved by parachuting judges with Identikit political profiles into key posts throughout the judiciary. If we take a few pages from the Putin playbook, a peppering of third parties that are no parties at all and of independent leaders who are in the pocket of the same paymasters will do the trick nicely. Divide and Rule... For a start, DT is nothing if not marvelously divisive.
I assume that DT will be watching Moscow attentively in early 2024 to see how his mentor stage-manages presidential elections. And here too, though the all hang onto Putin's coat tails (oldie expression) there are monsters more ferocious waiting in the wings...
Plus cela change... Changes to ensure that nothing changes.
And fear; I don't believe he's felt this level before.
"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing.”
Edmund Burke:
Let's hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. By doing everything in our power, now and till november, to convince those who still think "republican" stands for conservative values rather than fascism.
And remember, "Hitler was elected".
I wonder if he is building his private militia of Orange Shirts?
Desantis built his already.
Please Phil be right!
Everyone should if possible watch Netflix “World War Two”
I was born in 1946. From then on we ( new borns) were given many wonderful opportunities . Many still available.
When vulgarity and stupidity and self-haters rule all of us suffer! May we truly take note and not repeat history.
Happy re-newal to ALL!🌈🎶👏🏻🦋🥰
I hope you’re right, but I don’t feel it here in deep red Texas.
May your assessment, Phil Balla, be the correct one!
"Americans know better."
i remember generally believing that about *voting* Americans ... right up until I observed what appeared to be a Generation-Y woman overjoyed to be at a 2016 Trump rally.
U really think she is speaking about Trump
I truly hope you are right. And I truly fear you are wrong.
We wish.
The year 1835 saw the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota, "surrendering" the Cherokee lands in Georgia and Tennessee and bringing on the Trail of Tears when the U.S. Army was called in to support the naked fraud.
The Cherokee never gave up sovereignty over their land, a sovereignty that was famously recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court.
This means that, in Marjorie Taylor Greene's congressional district, all the county courts lack territorial jurisdiction to hear any case whatsoever. Somebody could bring a test case with a parking ticket...
On a related useless-representative note, Boebert is moving to a new district in CO since her opponent in her current district is likely to beat her this time. Like George Santos, Congress is the best gig she’ll ever get in her uninspiring lifetime.
Nothing like a bit of schadenfreude to start Friday on a positive note is there? And the fact that she wants to represent Ken Buck’s old district? Wonder if the residents of the 4th really want someone who has done literally nothing to create legislation that serves any of them. Should be interesting!
Whattaya know, little Schmeeckle brings forth a good point!
I was like, “Is this the same guy?”...
Apparently. If so, a nice surprise.
I'm going to have a look behind that duck blind...
It's nothing I haven't said before. "Corporate Joe" Biden is worse than Trump, and HCR is a dishonest Biden shill.
History - indeed we've experienced atrocities and still are. But there is evidence that they are becoming less frequent. Hang in there, be patient.
Imagines there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too"
John Lennon
https://g.co/kgs/r1UbLj
We have a goal!
Form a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, Insure domestic tranquility, Provide national defense, Promote general welfare, and Secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
I thought SCOTUS ruled that Indians were sovereign over the old "Indian Country" of Oklahoma. Was the New Echota ruling a separate one?
New Echota was the name of the capital city of the Cherokee. Their government refused to negotiate when the U.S. government asked them to leave their homeland, so the U.S. got a Cherokee faction to pretend to be their government and sign the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota giving up all the Cherokee land in Georgia and Tennessee.
Thanks for this, John, fascinating stuff.
I was thinking of the civilians in Gaza while reading this letter. I thought that was HCR's reason for reminding us of the massacre at this time.
Brilliant Gloria! I was just puzzling over that as I scrolled through the comments. I think you must be on target there! Even if HCR was not aiming for that analogy it seems remarkably apt, especially the parts about bunches of wary and frightened soldiers and their leaders seeking vengeance for having been so totally caught off guard!
The massacre of 2023-2024 is already in progress. In Gaza. Americans are so wrapped up in themselves that they refuse to see the MASSACRE which we are paying for and supporting with every ounce of political strength we have. If I were a fundamentalist Christian, I would predict that our freedom will end in November, 2024, as punishment for our massacre of 2,000,000 Gazans.
Your post is neither true nor accurate. The barbaric slaughter occurred on 10/7/24. Gazans are being used to shield criminals from justice while US aid is stolen by the criminals.
So the probable slaughter of 2,000,000 Gazans is not barbaric?
No ,it is how the Muslim world makes a living while resisting any and all challenges to their tyrannical religious governments.
I can't Imagine any so called government paying their citizens to terrorize their neighbors, especially with US taxpayers money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund?wprov=sfti1
"Our massacre of 2,000,000 Gazans."
On what planet do you see that occurring? It's neither happening nor going to happen on this one. That thousands of noncombatant Gazans are dying in the war is sad beyond measure, but also inevitable, because Hamas loves to hide among them.
All Hamas needs to do to end this war is utter two words: 'We surrender." Perhaps aim your ire at the proper target, not Americans or Israelis.
This wars has dragged out for 75 years. I see the solution for Palestine under the Abraham accords. https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/#:~:text=We%20support%20science%2C%20art%2C%20medicine,East%20and%20around%20the%20world.
Unless the US support of genocide ends, there is NO solution. See "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine" by Rashid Khalidi.
As respect to you I am watching Khalid's https://youtu.be/wH8Ip1cvlRY?si=ccMal8IrVMw-f1qy
The 1st 5 minutes confirms my opinion that this is yet another history of atrocities that cannot justify acts like what just happened on 10/7.
Hamas should have surrendered on 10/8 rather than turn their people into martyrs. That's what's appalling. Israel has an obligation to the world to force Hamas surrender and no one should expect Isreal to lose any more soldiers to do it, as the murderers hide among the population of willing martyrs. May they enjoy their f-king virgins.
And so it goes. A people defening themselves against ethnic cleansing are the bad guys while the people doing the mass murder are the good guys.
What a load of hooey. There was ZERO "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians in Gaza. None. The only "ethnic cleansing" in Gaza was of Jews, who were unilaterally pulled out of Gaza years ago BY ISRAEL to make Gaza entirely Palestinian. Israel said to Palestinians when the Jewish population transfer was complete, "You said you wanted us gone. We are. The place is all yours now, entirely Palestinian. Enjoy."
Gazans promptly wrecked the thriving commercial base Israel left behind, depriving Gaza of critical revenue generators. Gazans elected the terror group Hamas as its government. Gazans cheered as Hamas launched more than 50,000 rockets at Israel. Gazans stood by without comment as Hamas raped, tortured, dismembered, and murdered more than 1,000 innocent Israelis on Oct. 7--baking a baby in an oven a particularly Hamasian touch.
Hundreds of non-Hamas Gazans joined the murder spree that day, after hundreds of other Gazans, whom Israel had granted permission to work in Israel, provided Hamas critical intelligence on where to attack, kidnap, and kill their employers and coworkers. A new poll by a respected Palestinian polling organization shows that 70+ percent of Gazans approved of Hamas's slaughter, think it should happen again, and that Israel must disappear because Palestine cannot live next to a Jewish state.
Yet you have the gall to paint Israel's response as "mass murder" and "genocide." Did you praise Osame bin Laden as a heroic freedom fighter for 9-11, too?
Do you accuse the accuser in all your self serving arguments? Did you pick that trick up from Trump?
Palestine uses donations from UN to pay terrorists. It's how they support themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund?wprov=sfti1
Don't forget the US alone supported Kosovo from ethnic cleansing and genocide. Maybe your characterization needs adjustment.
No good guys here
Wow! Once again,EXCELLENT post with a key conclusion. We must do all we can to create the future we want and need. Forward all.
HCR's state of MAINE took a step forward today to help us all create a new future by disqualifying tfg from the ME ballot in a well reasoned 34:page opinion coupled with Maine state law findings that are very difficult to overturn on appeal.
In 1884, for the first time since before the Civil War, a President from a Party other than the Republicans was elected President, albeit narrowly. Grover Cleveland, not from Cleveland, but a former Governor of the Empire State, became President for the first but not the last time. He would run for reelection in 1888, losing controversially to both the Electoral College and Benjamin Harrison in 1888, but return to win re-election in 1892, becoming the first and only man to be elected President twice, in non-successive terms.
Famous for his handlebar mustache, Sultan-esque girth, and his much younger Gibson Girl wife he married in a White House ceremony, he defeated a former Speaker of the House in 1884, one James G. Blaine, who had he been elected President would have been the first President from the State of Maine.
Blaine was derided by his detractors as "The Continental Liar from the State of Maine".
It is only fitting, is it not, that the Inter-Continental Liar and Seditionist Sociopath is foiled at least for now, by the very same State of Maine
Well reasoned or not, throwing candidates off of ballots absent criminal convictions for crimes seems to me a slippery slope that could be used as precedent for nefarious purposes in the future. I realize our elections system is rife with all sorts of undue influence/corruption, but we’ve seen how the ‘activist judges’ cudgel can be brought to bear to propagandize and inflame a population. Flirting with questionable tactics to counter a threat seems eerily similar to our response to 9/11, in which the courts often aligned with the national security state to curtail civil liberties.
I can see your point, and i believe you could be right. However, the world and I saw him commit the crimes with our own eyes. There are times to tip toe and there are times to stomp - this is stomping time. Democrats need to be less fearful, IMO. It's a risk/benefit analysis, and it seems to me that in this instance the benefit of action outweighs the risk of inaction. If Donald is not stopped it's going to be incredibly difficult to ever have real elections or a democracy here again. He and his mob are like a moving freight train. You have to get ahead of it and move the tracks because there are no brakes on this train.
Yes; and that's exactly the thing; We all saw with our eyes and heard with our ears what happened. There is no denying 'facts in evidence' that all the world saw and heard. As well, the wording of the Amendment is clear and simple and 'does not' require conviction; Only those that want to 'kick responsibility down the road' read 'more' into it than exists.
Yes, but how do you suggest that we stomp and move the tracks?
Fight in every way possible.
1. As Sarah said, we all saw the insurrection and its leader on TV. After how many hours?..."Stand down and stand by...we love you" to the fascist militias and their sucker followers. Dump him off any ballot possible.
2. Work with all our energy and smarts to get as many people into the voting booth as possible. Work on traditional "non-voters". Appeal to the young people who are turned off by an old guy - tell them about the Republican/Heritage Foundation Project 2025.
3. This part is just sort of spiritual (not my usual thing). Send whatever positive energy/vibes/light (blah.blah) to Willis and Smith and James - and to the judges who will decide history. Visualize "Orange is the New Prisoner". I have no idea.... if millions of people did that.... would it help? Can't hurt.
Mostly, number 2.
A resounding yes to all three!
And if those, and all else fails:
4. Vote the S.O.B. out!
I was referring specifically to the states that are working to keep him off the ballot. If he cannot be on ballots he cannot be a candidate. It's a risky but builds tactic, but not fabricated. It's totally legit and necessary.
Oh I agree. The fewer ballots he's on the better. He's all about revenge and chaos.
Tom, that statement violates Amendment 14, Section 3 of our Federal Constitution. I believe there have been 8 disqualified person post Civil War. HCR is the 19th Century expert.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is DQ'd as well because he is not a "natural born citizen".
Obama is DQ'd also because he has held the presidency twice.
Candidates are not 'thrown off" they are simply not qualified to be ON state ballots subject to all other procedural rules of law.
"Rule of law" is not a throw away line. All legal rules of law are subject Due Process.
Rule of law is not a throw away line; until it is. Slavery was legal, and subject to ‘due process. I’m not arguing the legal issues here, except as pertains setting a precedent, rather the political. Hillary Clinton spent a good bit of time hinting the ‘16 election was fraudulent (because, you know, Russians); had some of her supporters called in a bomb threat to the Capitol during the certification, would she have been an insurrectionist? Trump enjoyed the 1/6 mayhem. Clinton could have responded similarly; see Libya.
Your disqualification examples, Arnold, Obama, are much more cut and dried than whether Trump is an insurrectionist, imo. I think we are already seeing the legal ‘divide’ manifest itself post-Colorado, just like our tribal political one. The public will remain in silos because the legal ‘experts’ can’t agree on what the ‘law’ is/says, and the approval/legitimacy of the SCOTUS and the judicial system is approaching the bottom feeder levels of the Congress and the media.
Commenters here are sick of Trump ‘getting away’ with …. Pretty much everything his whole life without being held accountable. I share that sentiment. He should have been impeached under the Emoluments Clause within the first two months of his presidency, imo. But the national security state, the Dems, and the media overstepped with Russiagate, and took the lazy path to discrediting Trump when there was plenty of legitimate critique to be had.
Better to beat the guy at the ballot box; but the feckless Dems can’t seem to figure out how to peel away enough of his support to landslide his sorry ass, which should be the case. Gaza, Gaza, Gaza.
No criminal conviction required by the amendment. It is clear english just like the age requirement. Some things are just that simple.
I agree.
The bottom line reality is that Trump, through his own unconditional actions, threw himself off the ballot! Leading an insurrection to overthrow our government isn’t something to be swept under the rug!
And if he is so damned innocent, he should stand up on those fake bone spurs in all court cases and stop appealing like the coward.
Sure, but if he is consistent in anything, he will never take responsibility. He will hide behind everything he can, while playing the victim. We must dump the cretin at the ballot box if it comes to that. And even that will not stop his lust for power.
I agree 100% If in fact he is innocent, as he professes, stand trial and prove it!!!
And yet, we know that is possible. We will see what our courts and prosecutors get done. If facts and the law don't prevail then it will be up us to dump the trump.
Love the “Dump Trump” slogan!
As a Blues lover, I suggest this video from Rick Estrin and The Nightcats: "Dump That Trump"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOo1nQo2KYc&pp=ygUZZHVtcCB0aGF0IHRydW1wIG5pZ2h0Y2F0cw%3D%3D
Skillfully recorded during the height of the Covid lockdown....
It's a retread, but thanks for the compliment.
Conviction by the legal system is not the end all or be all. Too many guilty people have been freed by the legal system and too many innocent people have been found guilty. His guilt is not a technical issue for lawyers (especially SCOTUS) to decide.
The Constitution spells
out some qualifications for president (e.g age). As I read the language in the 14th amendment inciting, aiding and abetting insurrection is a disqualification.
Remember there was no television when the Constitution was written. We saw the whole thing with our own eyes. Anyone who says Trump didn’t incite the insurrection is dishonest.
Inviting people to D.C. on January 6th-it will be wild-telling them to fight like hell, march to the capitol and take our country back is indeed “incitement”.
We don’t need the legal system to tell us he’s guilty. We saw it all happen in real time. Given the ways Trump manipulates the legal system and public, it’s about time he takes some of his own medicine-using the Constitution against him makes sense.
We all saw what Trump did on 1/6/21.
When John Brown endeavored to start an insurrection at the Harper's Ferry armory in 1859 it took the state of Virginia just six weeks to hang him. Donald Trump tried to start an insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 and 3 years later he is still lying about it. I say he's getting off pretty light if he just gets removed from the ballot.
He should have been tried and convicted for treason a LONG time ago for aiding and abetting the Russian influence in the 2016 campaign and for everything That Effing Guy (TFG) has done since!
Hasn't he already challenged national security multiple times? Jared Kushner's denied clearance magically overturned, Lavrov in the oval office, zero witnesses to his Helsinki meeting with Putin (is that interpreter still alive?), top secret documents burned, flushed, stored willy-nilly all over the damn place...what's the CIA waiting for?
For him to threaten to defund/reform the CIA. All the things you mentioned are low totem pole items. The CIA has no interest in defeating Russia, nor China, for that matter. They are useful tools to keep the American populace distracted from the corporate (read MIC) control of our government, and in fear of ‘the other’. The only reason the intelligence services went after Trump was due to his continual ranting about ‘the deep state’. That’s why they went all in on Russiagate; make both Trump and Russia into evil entities. Worked like a charm.
what does 'MIC' stand for?
Military Industrial Complex. Scroll down to section IV in Ike’s farewell address linked below.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp
Tom, I think there will be nefarious schemes no matter what we do or don’t do. Nefariousness has been escalating no matter how nice we play.
Agreed. I just hate to see the legal system used to ‘get’ a target, be it a terrorist or a Trump, by setting a legal precedent that could be used on innocent targets other than terrorists, or Trumps, that get swept up in a hit job because a powerful entity decides that would solidify a grip on power, or kill the legitimate messaging from a whistleblower. Blowback is a real thing.
When I was about 11 I obsessed about how I I could have killed Hitler before he did what he did, I would have. We’re not talking about extrajudicial killings, just stopping him with legal processes. He could be that dangerous.
He could be, but I seriously doubt it. The CIA will make sure he has an ‘accident’ before he’s allowed to challenge the national security state in a meaningful way.
I’m much more concerned about corporate state totalitarianism, which we already live under, and a future technocracy in which every data facet of our ‘privacy’ is under the purview/ownership of government and big tech, which are joined at the hip.
I predict we’ll have a cyberattack before 2026, and the U.S. will blame Russia/China/Iran, without evidence, and institute an assault on civil liberties that will make the post-9/11 decade loss of privacy look quaint by comparison, all in the name of ‘security’. If the past is any indicator, the American public will let it happen without much fuss, preferring to focus on tribal and identity politics, and the latest version of the iPhone.
I think you raise a good point in the implications of it being misused in future. That is why I think we are seeing different responses in different states including also close reading of decisions relating to those states’ election procedures.
Bryan, Do you say that as a lawyer or just as an observer?
It is hard to disconnect the two when your observations are based upon a field of study and experience. Technically, there are no "laws" in the constitution. It is not a "law" against cruel and unusual punishment, it is a prohibition on that conduct. I believe the same is true of the 14th Amendment; it grants a right, and does not make a law.
And part of changing the future is to enforce the 14th Amendment, if for no other reason than to prevent the next insurrectionist from holding office under the United States. If the Supreme Court fails in their duty, it will make it clear for all time that they failed. That, too, will change the future.
I think you’re right James, no matter what they do, things are going to change. 🙏
James, I fully agree that the authors of Section 3 of the 14th intended to inscribe into law assurances that no one who had taken an oath to the United States Government and then engaged in insurrection, or aided and abetted an insurrection against that government, would ever again hold office without both U.S. Chambers voting two-thirds in their favor. That said, I fear, by caving to those who would view efforts to enforce the 14th as political, we run the risk, as we speak, of a current confirmed insurrectionist returning to power, rendering laws inscribed in the 14th to prevent it irrelevant.
I'm waiting for the congressional insurrectionists to be held accountable.
Ally, If Republicans, in 2024, are dealt a crushing defeat, we likely won’t have to wait much longer.
Barb, it's written in plain simple english and 'not' legalese. If more was required, such as a conviction, I believe it would plainly say so, like so many other prescribed actions therein. I have half a notion that's why the SCrOTUS decided to sit on the fence instead of taking the issue Smith put in front of them; the fence riders want to "gage the wind direction."
@D4N, I agree that the text of the 14th is undeniably transparent. As for SCOTUS, the justices likely are motivated by several factors, one of them likely being delay. Accordingly, I hope the 3-panel D.C. Court of Appeals rules unanimously in favor of Smith on the immunity issue and also lifts the stay on the 1/6 trial, thus forcing Trump promptly to file an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Barb, No matter what the SCrOTUS does or does not do, there does exist a remedy or three. I'm not gonna' fret myself into an early grave over symantics re-constructors of plain English; I'm "done" with that bs, and 'everyone' here and throughout the country of any modicom of a grade school education should be just as P.O.'d as I am ! Simple english is simple english quite clearly 'unless' there is a transparently obvious alternative agenda; And I am perfectly willing take up arms or whatever is required of me to defend the obvious ! I will use words first, I'll talk myself blue in the face as calmly and firmly as I can - until I can't. There is nothing in the text to parse; No obscure early english, misspellings, or hidden intents in that plain language, and with no test of guilt, jurisprudence, etc., spelled out as it is in so many other instances therein - quite clearly. What we 'do' have is a very clearly radical, activist SCrOTUS that may yet prove itself to be insurrectionist as well ! They proved that in plain sight when, without urgent, compelling reason, they flagrantly disregarded 50 years of 'settled practice of law' overturning Roe; that is arbitrary activism ! Are women, 3/5ths - or less of a whole person ? Are women, other ethnicities and gender identities merely doormats and 'permit' it ? If your inalienable rights are so cheaply malleable, mine are surely next. I say "break out the torches and pitch forks" in great and sustained masses !
Yes, and republican Constitutionalist scholars have studied it thoroughly and agree that it stands for Anyone in public office to be ineligible to hold office ever again.
TFFG swore an oath to uphold the laws of the US. He started violating his oath the same day.
And he's told us what he'll do on day one of his next presidency: throw out the laws entirely.
Sounds like rebelling against the Constitution to me. The Orange Oath-Breaker disqualified himself and has continued to do so by his speech and his actions from the night of the 2020 election and every day since.
Barbara, they are already being pumped up by the 91 counts. Other than the usual death threats (which happens whenever TFFG throws a tantrum), we are not seeing Orange Shirts marching through the streets. There is a risk to taking this action and to not taking it. While people still come to his pep rallies, they are looking less angry and more entertained. IMHO, kicking him off the ballot in a few states will only ramp up his incoherent ramblings, which may do more to depress his votes than the ballot issue. Stress this man out and he will become more and more obviously unbalanced. He’s self-destructing. His prefrontal cortex is barely functioning.
Marge, While I expect we’ll continue to hear good faith arguments on both sides of the issue, my principal concern rests with a court that would politicize text painstakingly drafted in 1866 (here I am referring to all four sections of the 14th), wherein in Section 3 the intent was to use law to ensure that insurrection could never happen again.
I am so proud of our Secretary of State in ME. She has done a wonderful job. I take to the people at the DMV and they really like what she is doing. They have a difficult job but most of them have a really good attitude.
She made a tough call knowing the MAGANAZIs are going to come after her and her family.
Now, if only the SCOTUS can be as brave and bold.
Supreme Court?... Duty?
I can see a problem there.
Indeed.
...And correcting mistakes that were clearly fumbled in the past to make it crystal clear for the future.
Each reading of this story saddens me anew. If only foresight could have averted this ugly tragedy. Ugly because of how cavalierly the soldiers behaved, how little they regarded the lives of Native Americans.
I wrote a college term paper about displacement and massacre of local indigenous people. Drunken troops played a role in that saga as well. Guns and alcohol are always an invitation for tragedy.
I met with seven Sioux elders for a high school sociology project/paper in 1973 in Omaha shortly after they returned from DC where they took over the BIA.
Here I was a 18 year old kid and they treated me with patience and respect that I had not earned. I am still grateful to them for what they taught me that afternoon.
J L, your last statement remains true still today.
Guns and alcohol are NEVER a good combination. Ever, ever, ever.
J L, YEAH, guns and alcohol ESPECIALLY when combined with fear and anger seem a REALLY bad combination!
Indigenous peoples everywhere have been treated like animals, they were in the way of the new people.
And it will often be on the wisdom of these people and their sound relationship with Earth that our very survival will depend.
Meanwhile, limitless "must-have-it-all-NOW" corporate greed endangers them and, consequently, us and the planet that sustains us.
1960’s, My indigenous family in Sweden was being mistreated while Sweden liked to criticize Americans for treatment of African Americans. We can always see the mote in the other country’s eye…
Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Old Abe really had his finger on the pulse of real humans, the good, the bad and all the gradations in between.
How lucky we are that he was the president when the country needed him.
Thank you for your wisdom
Thank you, Molly, but when you speak of wisdom and call it "mine", I'll speak of Love. Our groundwater... if we only knew it.
So now, wishing joy to all in 2024 -- come what may!
May the citizens of America love her democracy and protect it.
Those "new people" referred to are actually "immigrants." How do you think our indigenous people feel about these white immigrants today??
about it... it was expected by many that American indigenous would be more or less exterminated as European immigrants flooded the continent, dispossessing the lands and natural economies of the "savages" when they fought back. Not just the Americans with this in mind.
But as we know, they were not all exterminated, and many live today both on reservations, in pueblos, and in our towns and cities. Witness Deb Haaland, secretary of the interior, and Joy Harjo, once our poet laureate and still a voice to be heard.
And my husband, who flies home tonight to be sworn in for a new term on his tribal council. The tribe gained Federal recognition in 2018.
Indeed!
Check out Little Bird. The series on PBS about the Sixties Scoop in Canada. I didn't know this was happening right up until the nineties. Policies in North America still support the make them go away or they might want their land back platform. These are crimes against Nations without accountability or consequences for their oppressors.
Carmen, in the reading of HCR's text it seems to me the soldiers were not cavalier but frightened of those warriors and angry over past defeat. The analogy to Israel and Hamas is quite striking!
We hope it is never too late to change the future, but if it changes to reduce hate, destruction, increase in uninhabitable areas, and increase loving care to all, it rests on gen z and millennials to make changes. Go, fight, win is a football cheer that produces desire for domination. Instead, go and tell others who need your help that you will support them, suffer with them, do all you can to lift them up, even though they don't look like you, think like you, worship like you, and so forth. When we can lift the "other" instead of denigrating them, then the future will be better.
the better natures of our angels
'Nevada tribe says coalitions, not lawsuits, will protect sacred sites'
'A Nevada tribe is gearing up for a different kind of fight against the U.S. government as it tries to build more public support for protecting Native American sacred sites'
BySCOTT SONNER Associated Press
December 24, 2023, 12:01 AM
'RENO, Nev. -- The room was packed with Native American leaders from across the United States, all invited to Washington to hear from federal officials about President Joe Biden's accomplishments and new policy directives aimed at improving relationships and protecting sacred sites.'
'Arlan Melendez was not among them.'
'The longtime chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony convened his own meeting 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) away. He wanted to show his community would find another way to fight the U.S. government's approval of a massive lithium mine at the site where more than two dozen of their Paiute and Shoshone ancestors were massacred in 1865.'
'Opposed by government lawyers at every legal turn, Melendez said another arduous appeal would not save sacred sites from being desecrated.'
“We’re not giving up the fight, but we are changing our strategy,” Melendez said.
'That shift for the Nevada tribe comes as Biden and other top federal officials double down on their vows to do a better job of working with Native American leaders on everything from making federal funding more accessible to incorporating tribal voices into land preservation efforts and resource management planning.'
'The administration also has touted more spending on infrastructure and health care across Indian Country.'
'Many tribes have benefited, including those who led campaigns to establish new national monuments in Utah and Arizona. In New Mexico, pueblos have succeeded in getting the Interior Department to ban new oil and natural gas development on hundreds of square miles of federal land for 20 years to protect culturally significant areas.'
'But the colony in Reno and others like the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona say promises of more cooperation ring hollow when it comes to high-stakes battles over multibillion-dollar “green energy” projects. Some tribal leaders have said consultation resulted in little more than listening sessions, with federal officials not incorporating tribal comments into the decision making.'
'Rather than pursue its claims in court that the federal government failed to engage in meaningful consultation regarding the lithium mine at Thacker Pass, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony will focus on organizing a broad coalition to build public support for sacred places.'
'Tribal members are concerned other culturally significant areas will end up in the path of a modern day Gold Rush that has companies scouting for lithium and other materials needed to meet Biden's clean energy agenda.' (AP) See link below.
https://apnews.com/article/tribes-mine-energy-environment-sacred-sites-biden-f08e1c42e81982fea32b0baaa9b46106
Two petitions to sign against the lithium mines: https://www.protectthackerpass.org/sign-our-petition/ and https://www.change.org/p/bureau-of-land-management-stop-the-lithium-mine-at-thacker-pass-nevada. I just signed them both. It may not seem like much, but every voice and every signature helps.
Thank you, Betsy. You are providing the kind of support that the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and other Native American Tribes are seeking. Now, I will follow your lead and sign the two petitions against the lithium mines that you have posted.
Signed both.
Aware of the strategic implications...
Signed both.
Just did.
Me too.
Me as well.
I just signed both and posted them on my Facebook page. Thank you for doing this.
Done.
Signed.
Done.
This is actually a real conundrum. We have a massive need for more lithium supplies, and the McDermitt Caldera on the Nevada/Oregon border may actually hold double the amount of lithium than in the Bolivian salt flats.
Alternative lithium supplies in the US are in the Salton Sea area in California. There you have projects drilling for geothermal energy, and it turns out the water/brine they bring up for thermal exchange contains a high concentration of lithium. The best of both worlds, if it can be done.
I would venture that many of those reading this site need to support transitioning to a fully renewable-powered world ASAP. How many of us are still driving infernal combustion engine vehicles, as Steve Hanley over at cleantechnica.com likes to say. Personally we drive a PHEV Honda Clarity (still fossil fuel powered some of the time), and an aging Toyota Prius (efficient but still burns fossil fuels). Then we also have to figure out how to get off of burning natural gas in our home for heating, which is the most common form of heating here in Minnesota. So there is much work to be done here, and I'm guessing that I'm not alone among HCR readers in the need to make further progress!
Also, if we do not mine in the US and only mine elsewhere, because screw the rest of the world, what does that make us? Hypocrites at best, and probably worse. We have the same NIMBY (not in my back yard) regarding building wind turbines and solar farms. That has to stop.
To make matters worse, we need lithium not only for EVs but also for battery backup for solar and wind powered grid (or ones home). I don't think ignoring the world's largest known deposit of lithium (by a factor of 2x) is the answer here. Rather, I think some accommodation could reasonably be made that marks off the surrounding area where the killings actually occurred from mining and constructs a memorial therein.
I know this is not going to be a popular opinion, but it needed to be stated. I'm as ashamed of Wounded Knee as anyone, but we also have a global warming / climate emergency on our hands. Sadly that is something like 10th on the list of important issues here in the US. The extinction of many Earth critters and plants are at stake, as well as the needless death and/or suffering of a significant fraction of the human race. Hence the conundrum :-).
You could also compensate the affected Reno-Sparks peoples with some percentage of the project revenue, which could then be put to good charitable use.
Compensate them very well, 'if' they want to agree. No more 'taking'.
Has anyone thought about asking them to make the decisions and receive a very high percentage of the profits they fully deserve? They could be the controllers or controlling partners of their lands and resources. Then again, how many treaties have been brokered and then broken?
Well, the proposed mines are not on Reno-Sparks land at all. It is only sacred to them. So its not really a taking in any legal sense.
Thanks Matt.
How would you like someone to take land from you just because they found something valuabe in that soil.....they care not for your children or your family or even that you have a place to live, We have done this to Indian people and to others. When are we going to check our greed!!!!!
I understand your point of view, but I don't think this Native American tribe actually owns the land. I could be wrong, and if I am, I stand corrected! To properly address your point, we should all go back to Europe and give the entire US back to Native Americans. I'd actually be ok with that, but I don't think Europe and my fellow USians would.
Matt Fulkerson,
Sorry, I cut my comment short....CURRENTLY land was assigned to Indians whereas before we arrived they could go anywhere to hunt...it was a way of life....their identity was also represented by their language. There were some tribes who established permanent homes. They were here before we arrived.
We pushed them into places....many places we did not want for ourselves.
My point is that suddenly we want to take from areas that may have been assigned to others, land they were pushed into, for our personal gain.
The Indian people...as far as I know....I am not an expert.....fought among themselves for hunting rights . We assigned places for them to settle....we took away their lifestyle....often their language which deeply represented who they were as humans....their tribal identities. We pushed them into poverty. We tried to destroy them so we could take what we wanted.
Matt, I am saying WE HAVE NOT CHANGED OUR CHARACTER AS GREEDY, CRUEL, SELF-CENTERED PEOPLE.
And yet the Indian people within the US have served as guides, they have used their language as code during our World Wars to transmit information to our troops.
They and all persons of color have fought beside the whites...as I am...in every war we have engaged in. And yet we treat the Indian people with disrespect by using land assigned to them for personal profit and gain. I have not heard if there have been negotiations...if the Indian people will receive some personal benefit for lithium found on "their lands"...not the land they chose but the land we chose for them...that we now want for financial gain.
We came into this vast and beautiful country, not respecting those who were here before us. We have not changed very much.
That's what I don't know. Are the proposed lithium mining sites on Native American lands currently? If so then they can't be mined without permission from the tribes involved.
But my understanding (I could be wrong) is that the land is held as sacred by the tribe in question but owned by others. That's where we are in this murky area of what to do. Not defiling land in general is important, but so is combating global warming.
We’ll said!
Yes, this whole issue of "ownership"...
Was it not Emerson who wrote (though not in so many words) that the land owns us?
Read HAMATREYA.
Before foreigners (we) came to America, many Indian tribes wandered over large areas to find game....women usually remaining at home caring for children and farming and attending to other necessary chores. Some tribes built permanent dwellings....built irrigation systems to sustain
This is in some ways similar to the debate about copper nickel mining near the Boundary Waters. Not a sacred site, but ecologically fragile and irreplaceable if remnants of mining overflow and pollute. Research is ongoing for better battery solutions and I think we need to think long and hard before desecrating a place so special. Also, living near a large coal plant, I am looking forward to it soon coming offline as I install more solar in my house. I much prefer the rows of wind generators to the plumes of current power plants.
We ought to be more diligent about recycling the copper that has already been mined and we ought to expect new mining to cost more, taking into account the inevitable environmental damage. I do not know of any mine that has not wrecked the natural world in some way despite assurances from mining companies. Settlement ponds crack, dams break, wide swaths of land are sacrificed, and ground water goes everywhere. Any enterprise we humans undertake is rife with the potential for creating something both useful and destructive.
With reference to lithium mining, the following was taken from earth.org, 'Earth.Org is a leading environmental news website dedicated to providing comprehensive coverage of crucial issues affecting our planet through independent, high-quality journalism.'
'There is no doubt that lithium and cobalt play a huge role in modern societies, as both elements are essential components of many renewable energy sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars. Demand for electric vehicles is likely to continue to increase in the coming decades, as the apparatus to switch to more sustainable forms of transportation becomes clearer and clearer. Not only for EVs, but the battery demand for consumer electronics will continue to increase as well, up to 2.5 terawatt hours by 2030. However, we cannot talk about the green transition without taking the environmental impacts of lithium and cobalt mining into account. Though emissions deriving from mining these two elements are lower than those deriving from fossil fuels production, the extraction methods for lithium and cobalt can be very energy intensive – leading to air and water pollution, land degradation, and potential for groundwater contamination.'
'Despite the importance of EV markets and growing battery technology in controlling the world’s emissions, it is up to society to figure out a more practical and efficient way of extracting these resources. It is important to note that fossil fuel mining, including lithium and cobalt mining, is estimated to be responsible for the emission of around 34 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) worldwide annually. About 45% of it is from coal, 35% from oil, and 20% from gas. '
'Relative to fossil fuels, Cobalt mining is only responsible for around 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2e) equivalent. For Lithium mining, it is estimated to be in a similar range at around 1.3+ million tonnes of carbon annually, with every tonne of mined lithium equating to 15 tonnes of CO2 into the air. Thus, the amount of carbon emitted is significantly less than fossil fuels, and a necessary middle ground should be considered in society’s transition to further renewables technologies. '
'The Environmental Impact of Lithium'
'Lithium is typically mined through a process called brine mining, which involves extracting lithium from underground saltwater reserves. The risks in polluting local water sources arise here, with examples in Salar de Uyuni and Salar de Atacama. This process involves pumping saltwater to the surface, where it is evaporated to remove the lithium and other minerals. Despite being relatively energy-intensive, this remains one of the most cost effective ways to mine lithium nowadays. Unfortunately, these toxic metals can contaminate water sources, threatening not only humans but also animal biodiversity.'
'Furthermore, some of the metals contained in EV batteries are highly damaging even in small quantities. Since a large majority of them are disposed of in landfills, leaks of environmental contaminants are quite frequent. Often, these leaks lead to underground fires, which release even more pollutants into the atmosphere. When particles of hazardous metals contained in batteries – like arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, and copper – enter the human respiratory system, they can cause a variety of health problems.'
'In a paper published in the journal Nature, Gleb Yushin, a professor at the School of Materials and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology with co-author Kostiantyn Turchenius argued that new battery technology needs to be developed using more common, environmentally-friendly materials. As reserves of lithium and cobalt will not meet future demand, suggested elements to focus on instead include iron and silicon.' (earth.org: 'To learn more, read our Mission Statement or click here to learn more about our viewership.') For more about this subject and earth.org, see the link below.
https://earth.org/lithium-and-cobalt-mining/#:~:text=
We really don't need cobalt. Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are good enough, and contain no cobalt or nickel. But we do need lithium so far. Alternatives such as sodium ion batteries are interesting and could end up replacing lithium ion for storage applications if not for EVs.
You didn't know the effects of lithium mining, Matt Fulkerson, or if you did, chose to ignore them in your initial comment. My response to you was not about cobalt mining, so I don't understand why you started off mentioning that in your reply, without any response to the very harmful effects of lithium mining to the environment.
I do not deny that lithium mining does environmental damage. Nearly all mining does of course. But I'm just stating the obvious that lithium is essential for moving humanity away from fossil fuels. At least so far. Do you not think that is important?
If sodium ion batteries make enough progress we can avoid the use of lithium, at least for stationary storage purposes, and maybe eventually EVs.
Thank you for your thoughtful attention, Matt, to what is of great importance to our lives. I look forward to more exchanges with you in the coming year; may it be rich in discovery and fellowship.
Respectfully, I was replying to your quotes about Cobalt mining. Cobalt is known to be historically sourced from Congo, using child labor, and so use of cobalt should be avoided.
It's complicated, isn't it? I suspect that there IS a way to achieve the harvesting of an essential mineral AND respect the interests and history of the American Indians. How that happens is above our pay grade. But if this is handled with a balanced approach, it won't be perfect, but goals can be met.
Very good points. Re: getting off heating with natural gas - we live in Wisconsin and installed a cold weather climate heat pump system in May. It works fantastic. You could definitely do this in Minnesota. It also cools gloriously in the summer. Additionally, our utility bills are 30% less, and we will get a $2,000 fed tax credit via the Inflation Reduction Act. We have a Bryant system (Carrier), and there are also others.
Scientists around the world are making great progress with solid state batteries, iron oxide batteries and many other technologies. Pumped storage dams https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/02/climate/hydroelectric-power-energy.html
and run of the river dams are much more eco-friendly than the traditional gorge dams.
There is a huge lithium deposit in Maine that will likely never be mined.
Yours is the traditional argument that we need to take something from Reno-Sparks people for the progress of humankind. But perhaps lithium batteries will not save us.Not all carmakers seem to think so (or seem to care). There's the question of where these batteries will go when they are no longer useful. More pollution? Is there no other way to reduce our dependence on oil and gas? Maybe the broader society needs to reorganize so that there is less automobile traffic; having driven cross country twice in the last year, I can tell you that it is really dangerous no matter how your vehicle is fueled. (We have a 2010 Prius that we love, but it is not safe on major highways because it is so low, and we've already had one very scary accident caused by the remnant of a truck tire that took a week to repair.) And the number of trucks on the highways which no one seems to be vested in fueling via batteries is staggering. We could build more rails for safe train travel. Or we could travel less. My point is that our society is quick to grab at solutions that will not disrupt the dominant groups at the expense of people who have very little. I don't hear any plans for granting them hospitable lands in exchange for taking their homeland. No, there is too much profit to be made, and it must be taken right away for the "public good."
The lithium deposits are over a hundred miles away from Reno-Sparks land. So we can't really call this taking something away from them. Or maybe better said, mining this land represents no additional taking.
Sorry I didn't know that. Spending time in the West has made me super aware of the many travesties of the extraction industries, which have taken a huge toll on Native peoples and others. The common practice is to mine and abandon the site through bankruptcy to avoid clean-up. Of course the people left behind suffer from high rates of disease caused by the residue.
I just posted this on Clean Technica in response to an article on respecting indigenous peoples' in Europe rights to have their voices heard regarding sourcing critical materials in Europe. I think it might be more thoughtful than my original post here.
"I had to search about Europe's indigenous peoples and this wikipedia article has some info under the "Europe" heading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples
As a recent conversation I started (or at least enflamed) on a Heather Cox Richardson article, it becomes a conundrum when the rights of indigenous people clashes with the need to fight off global warming. It may be an over-generalization, but I think it is safe to say that most indigenous people hold the natural state of land and water as sacred, and for good reason since their very lives have historically depended on that.
My comments on the Heather Cox Richardson article brought up this conundrum in regards to Thacker Pass and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (a union of three different Native American tribes), which holds land in Nevada over a hundred miles away from Thacker Pass. The problem is that Thacker Pass was part of their homeland, and even if they do not "own" it, seeing it not despoiled by mining is really important to Reno-Sparks members. And of course the conundrum is the McDermitt Caldera being by far the largest discovery of accessible lithium on the planet, and said lithium is of great value for battery build out for EVs and storing renewable energy in general.
In the modern "non-woke" world, whether you are indigenous or not doesn't increase your say regarding whether public land (as Thacker Pass is) is mined or not. However, "woke" folks would perhaps be willing to join forces with native peoples, thus amplifying their voices. Sorry to use "woke", as I really hate that term."
I hope the lithium from my deceased Prius has been recycled.
🚙 https://www.axios.com/2023/11/16/toyota-prius-batteries-recycled-redwood-materials
Agree and debated over signing because it’s not simple. What needs to be done is to follow international standards and achieve free prior informed consent with the native peoples, respecting their cultural heritage. A solution should be sought that respects the Paiute and other indigenous people
Let's learn from the mistakes of the past, and use them to change the future for the better! It's our responsibility. Thank you for always reminding us of the past and the present, and make us think of the future.
I read the book when it came out. I have been hanging my head ever since. Thank you, Professor.
I've read this book so many times. My other favorite book is Victor Frankel's Man Search For Meaning. Here's a story I heard a while back. A Holocaust survivor was telling another Holocaust survivor that when he gets to heaven he has a Holocaust joke for God. He dies and meets God. He then tells him his joke. God says, 'that's not funny". The man says, 'right, I guess you had to be there'.
Genocide hasn't stopped as a tool of war. And those who should be held accountable never are. We as a country will always have blood on our hands. We gave the playbook to other countries to follow. And they have.
As a child, I always wondered where God was during things as heinous as a holocaust...and so many other human and animal atrocities (like white men slaughtering vast numbers of buffalo and letting them rot so the natives would starve). I truly appreciate the sentiment of that very sad, but poignant joke.
Man’s Search for Meaning is my favorite book too! It’s how Frankel the father of Logostherapy ‘got through’ the camps….ones last choice in the worst of times is to preserve one’s attitude! God willing we don’t need that very desperate choice….
I have never forgotten his words. Attitude adjustment can change one's perspective. I think about his words often.
There are, I fear, some very current potential ‘parallel's’ …..as usual Heather, serious thanks.
Many many years ago I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
I have never forgotten it, and it has to be more than 50 years ago
I think it was the 1970s ….i had to do the ‘report’ on it in my ‘then’ book group….
Published in 1970
That was Dee Brown’s book. HCR’s book, which was specifically on the massacre rather than being a broader history, came later.
HCR's book on Wounded Knee is next on my list after today.
I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee in 1972. I was in the 8th grade that spring. I reread it in college. I think it is time for a reread.
Ally…I think you are Oregon based….a few years ago I had the privilege of attending a week long ‘From the Coast to the Crest’ deal sponsored by the Sweet Home Ranger District and the Willamette National Forest and at least 4 Indian Confederations…it was an amazing week..Tony Farquay (sp?) from Sweet Home put it together and we LITERALLY traced the US Indian history in Oregon…promises made and broken, the ‘costs’ and you probably know the territory from that lovely lighthouse to the top of my favorite picnic site off highway on 126 near Belnap Hot Springs! It put “Wounded Knee’ in very clear context…
I am, and Belknap Hot Springs are a favorite area of mine. I've been there a bunch, both personally and professionally (it is in Lane County's jurisdiction). I wish I'd known about that "Coast to the Crest" event. I will keep my eyes open to see if they do it again.
My family home is in McKenzie Bridge….im not sure if Tony is still doing these excursions..may well be retired…he was/is an anthropologist with amazing skills in theater..brings to life whatever the historical issue is…(also he handled a rare set of trees in the Sweet Home District that the neighboring tribes had a specific interest in and he had the warmest of relationships with the tribes…which is how I think the Coast to Crest deal got put together….
I’ve probably been by the family home once or twice. I was never an up river resident, but handled a lot of calls up there on graveyard shift!
North Bank road
And so goes another night of unexpected learning yet more about our nation’s disgraceful past. The treatment of the Lakota fits into a long pattern of deceit and death that white people have never atoned for.
Atonement for white supremacy in general is much needed. There’s no such thing as “racial superiority” based on skin color. The murder of indigenous people was justified based on skin color and culture.
Racism was invented to keep us divided so the masses (labor) can be conquered for the benefit of wealthy people who want to maintain power and control.
Unfortunately we still blindly aCelt and follow America’s racist practices. The half hasn’t been told about this nation’s history when it comes to the invention of whiteness..
Our ancestors fled the chains of their former repressive lands and cultures, yet some snuck some chains with them.
Heartwrenching. I’m hanging my head in shame as I learn more about this massacre.
Remember, you didn't murder them. You could be grateful that the current modern era is about the first in history where the descendents of technologically advanced descendents felt any need to apologize for their ancestors misdeeds. Eg check out the Spanish, the Portuguese, the British, Canadian, Arab and African slavers.
Maria, the tragic, horrific thing is you can take what happened then and apply it to events happening in the world right now…..circumstances may vary, but intent & outcomes are so similar. As lyrics sing…”when will we ever learn?”…..indeed when?
Maria, I understand your response of feeling shame about this historic tragedy, but maybe "hanging one's head" in sorrow and compassion rather than shame would be more appropriate. When I taught NA college courses, many white students who didn't know this kind of history, expressed feelings of guilt/shame when they learned of it. I tried to help them see that while they held no responsibility for what happened in the past, they DO hold responsibility for what happens in the present. The sympathetic response they were feeling about the violence in history is a good sign that they could turn toward learning, not only more history, but what the current issues are in Indian country, seeing how ignorance about native peoples allows stereotypes and injustice to continue. With insight gained, that is something they can do something about.
"But it is never too late to change the future."
I agree, but we have to become more honest about human nature, both the horrifying side of it and and also the beauty and compassion also in the mix. We already know the formulas for collective sociopathy, and that one can ride the cosmic force of entropy as it's home court advantage. We have also seen barriers crumble when we enough of us are of a like mind and shared passion. The struggle continues.
An Atlantic article several years back outlined published theories of how our species might have, to a degree, self-selected for fewer violent males. I learned about Bonobos, one branch of our lineage, some years ago & only wish we carried more of their DNA. Seems like we didn’t clean up our act as thoroughly as we might have…. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-humans-tamed-themselves/580447/#
Barbara, I think Gen Z and Gen Alpha's broader and ever-increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ is part of that evolution away from violent males. If only the rest of us would get more conscious about calling out male violence and legislating against it, we'd be evolving a whole hell of a lot faster.
We and many other societies celebrate violence in ways that come back to bite us. I think that violence (such as the Allies defeat of the fascist Axis) can be necessary but it's never "good" violence, only necessary. I think human societies, along with packs, flocks, hives, of other animals are an extension of family. Some are shaped by a domineering male or even female figure that rules by force. You couple that preference for force with human intelligence and agency and the result is a very dangerous animal indeed, even to its own persistence as a species. Yet, we are not without the capacity, as a species, to grasp our own circumstances, and to do things differently, should we choose to do so; and many have tried, with varying degrees of success, to accomplish this in the past.
I love the story about the bonobos
Comment tangential to today's post, sorry, just wanting to share this thought with this community--I've read some commentary that enacting Art. 3 of Amendment 14 against Trump is somehow undemocratic. However, if we think of democracy as a living thing, then 14.3 is like part of democracy's immune system. Just as someone who has the flu gains antibodies that will help to resist the next exposure to the same strain of flu, so this part of the constitution is like an antibody which has now become activated because presented with the same threats as in the past.
I like that metaphor - Democracy’s immune system.
Worrying about political repercussions because an honest, intelligent set of judges have assessed TFG as having participated in/fomented an insurrection seems quite undemocratic to me.
And Richard, since I’m here, I just discovered and appreciate your Buddhist Thought substack. Don’t know if it’s ok to ask it here, but assuming you’re not solidly in the “Pragmatic/secular” Buddhist camp, does anyone in the “From An American” community ever question the materialist/reductionist view, or is that not a thing to bother to bring up here?
Materialist/reductionist view?
Hi again - just looked you up. Sounds like we have worked in the same field. I thought I saw an article (yes, from quite awhile ago!!) that you co-authored on the Adaptive Behavior Scale. If my memory serves, I used that a great deal in the late 90s when I worked as a psychologist for a day treatment center in upper Manhattan for intellectually delayed adults. Profoundly moving job, truly a blessing to be with those folks.
Lord, you go back a ways. Didn’t know that Google dug that deep. Yes, it was a revelation and helped shape me as an empathetic human. Thanks for that trip down memory lane.
Of course. I hope my little trip into philosophy land was not too weird:>)) I occasionally indulge in such things in the NY Times comments sections. About 90% of reactions are I'm nuts, but there's often someone who is astounded to meet a trained scientist who thinks like they do, so it's worth it:>))
Yes, sorry - probably not the place to go into this too much. I did see HCR recently say she herself took a thoroughly "humanist" view, which generally means something close to a physicalist/naturalist/materialist view. I think she may have used "naturalist."
It's basically a nihilist view (I know - that doesn't help; let's see if I can do better)
The almost universal underlying belief system of humanity in the modern age - even among professed religious fundamentalists (in fact, oddly enough, modern fundamentalist is a form of this nihilistic view as well) "believes" in a particular interpretation of science:
1. The sensory aspects of our experience (which are wrongly called purely "physical") are essentially non conscious, non living, and non intelligent. While scientific methodology (I'm speaking as one trained in research science) has no technology or method for determining the presence of life, consciousness or intelligence apart from "observing" behavior, this is thought to be something established scientifically - it's not.
2. The universe has no meaning, purpose or direction - and it is also thought this has been proven scientifically. It hasn't.
3. You truly have no free will, there is no objective basis for ethics and morality, "good" art is a purely subjective thing; history has no meaning or purpose. Again, scientific methodology has no means to establish this but it is generally thought this is a scientific view.
4. Even when people try to claim otherwise by citing things like quantum fields, the general "feel" of the world to most people is that it consists of essentially unrelated objects, and the best we can do is be nice to people (with no scientific justification for it except crude, unscientific evolutionary psychology assumptions) and above that, "follow our bliss" and hope things like climate change, war, authoritarian power plays, will be solved.
Except climate change, war, etc are founded on the sense of profound, nihilistic alienation and meaninglessness that is the experience of the most dogmatic religious fundamentalist as well as those claiming to hold no fundamental views.
Is there hope? I've seen, in the last 10 years, having waited 40 years for it and assuming it would never occur in my life time, a revolution among the top scientists on the planet in terms of throwing in the towel on their commitment to this horrific, nihilistic materialistic/reductionist view.
Just in time, too!
Entropy will answer all our questions unless were are impatient and get a jump on the natural process
Elsewhere, I have expressed doubts about America's and the world's immune system.
I hope I am wrong.
Part of Woke needs to be awareness of the profound injustice done to indigenous peoples. This country was not founded just on chattel slavery, but on the genocide, physical and cultural, of the people who lived on this land for thousands of years before the Europeans invaded.
MAGA encompasses the same outlook and attitude that murdered the people at Wounded Knee.
Many of us thought we had put that part of our national character behind us. The 2016 election was a frightening reminder that we haven’t.
Thank you, HCR, again and again and again for the history lesson that shines a light on today.
Spot on, Ralph. Until we, as a county, acknowledge that our "success as a nation" was based on the extermination of Indigenous People and on the backs of Blacks held in chattel slavery, we are forever stained by that foundation.
So well said, so beautifully seen.Thank you as always.
Evening to All!
I remember well the spectacular and out of the blue best seller success of Dee Brown's "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee". Even without reading the book at such a young age, I remember seeing it in bookstores and hearing of its text, being stunned by the tales of brutality and ugliness that jarred my young self. After all, at ten years old, I had only learned of the vaunted nature of the Louisiana Purchase, and the inevitable expansion of America, of the Civil War period jumping directly to the WWI period. I couldn't grasp what I realized later was a vast dichotomy between the conventional history and the actual, more complex history. I couldn't then, and can still not now fully grasp the fact that in our great Nation, there are other Nations, Indigenous Nations, that still exist within our geographical borders.
The Cowboys and Indians ethos, fully suffusing our collective culture at everyone's neighborhood movie house and infused with strongly subliminal Manifest Destiny, was so powerful that it took decades to even begin the process of removing the mote from our collective eyes.
Even today, there are most likely many of our fellow Americans who do not blink an eye upon hearing Phil Sheridan's infamous statement---"The only good Indian is a dead Indian".
Our Nation, born in the mixed fiery baptism of brilliant Enlightenment thinking and hard focused Revolution was a small Country of 3 million, clinging to the Atlantic seaboard within 13 states. In perhaps the most glaring example of "be careful for what you wish for" in history, within a quarter century we had expanded westward three times over due to the mutual interests of our burgeoning population's ambitions, and those of a Corsican warrior with short man's syndrome to garner funds for his ceaseless wars in Europe. Napoleon gave us the entire modern Midwest and eastern portion of the Mountain States, even though none of it was his to give.
A Nation that once honored the Iroquois for their political organizing and whose principles we adopted, and whose first national holiday of Thanksgiving honors the generosity of the Powhatan and others, gradually turned to the darkest of rationalizations for taking the lands of those similarly indigenous North American peoples who just happened to be in our way.
Treaty upon innumerable treaty broken, promise upon innumerable promise forgotten, ethnic cleansing begun with Jackson in Florida and Georgia, repeated over and over again upon far more Trails of Tears than just those trod by the Cherokees and Creeks.
We took their land, their sustenance and even tried to take their pride.
And this isn't just "history".
It was only recently that the professional football team in our Nation's Capital finally found the grace to change their name from the disgraceful epithet, "Redskins". It was only recently that the team that has long played in the great industrial City on the shores of Lake Erie changed their name from "Indians". Even now, the Atlanta Braves and their horrifically racist tomahawk chop, and the Kansas City "Chiefs", with their fabulous defending champion team and their top notch celebrity follower refuses to make the simple changes necessary to return just a bit of dignity to those who have suffered so long.
And finally, as at least one other contributor has commented, still sits Leonard Peltier in a federal prison, all these near half century of years later, like "Buddha in a ten foot cell, an innocent man in a living hell."
Or as was otherwise sung,
"Good Morning America, how are ya?! Say don't you know me, I'm your NATIVE SON?"
Riding on the 'City of New Orleans'? I like the Willie Nelson version very much as well as the Johnny Cash version.
But about Leonard Peltier it really is a travesty of justice. Or just more injustice heaped upon the Lakota, one man in particular. He has always said that he's innocent and if he is then he's been wrongfully imprisoned for nearly 50 years. Peltier has endured much suffering and poor health for decades now. I read his memoir, written from his cell at Fort Leavenworth, about ten years ago. The title is Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance published in 2000.
https://www.powells.com/book/prison-writings-my-life-is-my-sundance-9780312263805
It is just too heartbreaking to "like." Why can't we stand up for Leonhard and been for his release as a country??
Supporting the Lakota People's Law Project is a great place to start.
Amen to that, Pensa, and thank you Kamila as well. Can you give me a bit more on the Lakota People's Law Project?
Hi Daniel. If you search Lakota People's Law Project you will find links to the site. They're doing important work. Let's spread the word on their behalf. Thanks.
Thanks for that, Horhai. I'll check that out. Did I see that you picked that up at the famous Powell's bookstore?
It's so sad and wrong that Leonard Peltier still languishes in a prison cell but by writing this book he could finally tell his story, in his own voice and words. Wounded Knee and Pine Ridge reservation were once again under siege by government agents during the 1970s and Peltier was blamed for the killing of 2 FBI agents during that reign of terror.
No I didn't get this one at Powell's I just wanted to support them with that link instead of promoting the Amazon juggernaut. But Powell's is a must for me whenever I visit Portland. Love that place!
Actually I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I got that book at a little Native American owned shop, Gathering Tribes, on Solano Avenue in Berkeley. The owner, Penny, shut down after many years due to the pandemic. She still sells a lot of native crafted jewelry online but I miss the amazing amount of books and information that was available there and to physically look through the obscure stuff that you were not likely to see anywhere else.
Daniel, closing with Steve Goodman!!!
I always wondered who wrote that song, Dave, but never inquired. Thanks for the 4-1-1.
https://youtu.be/yZx7xCK6yfo?si=mAtS8EcPkYR-GRD1
Daniel, the story about how Steve pitched it to Arlo Guthrie is even better. John Prine had his hands all over that one. Steve is ine of THE Great American Songsters
Thanks for that, Dave. I will check out the link. Why am I not surprised that John Prine's fingerprints are on that one?
Funny, just the other day I found myself listening to "In spite of Ourselves" and cracking up yet again.
My favorite singer/songwriter is probably another dearly departed one, Warren Zevon.
Ah Warren
Me too
https://youtu.be/Y5j45w7QE8A?si=79-hvx3SmK9mFmZI