After World War II, the vast majority of Americans—Democrats and Republicans alike—agreed that the federal government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights.
I am not, per se, a "religious" person but I am possessed of a deep faith of my own concoction....it means a great deal to me.
Having said that, it repulses/gags/sickens me to hear trump (especially) and so many of his base claim to worship God/Jesus and yet blatantly ignore and debase the Golden Rule.......Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
I cannot reconcile anybody who actively supports or condones this administration AND claims to be a Christian. I call BS on you.........
p.s. back on here to share a great Substack that very recently found me - definitely check it out: The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlowitz. As he describes it himself: A longtime pastor and current author, speaker, activist and storyteller, hoping to write words to make the world a more compassionate and beautiful place.
As a writer I keep this quote from Isak Dinesen on my desk: "Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.”
This is how I'm approaching working to push back against what is happening. Do a little bit each day to help turn the ship around. Don't get too wrapped up in the emotional unfairness, at least, to the degree that your hopes get dashed and you want to give up or you think it's pointless and you don't even want to try. Just do the work.
We also plant seeds not expecting to reap the harvest. Who wants to wait for an oak to be tall enough to provide shade? We do, because the shade is not for us. It is for generations to come.
The 24 Hour Economic Blackout - FRIDAY February 28th
For one day we show them who really holds the power. Do not make any purchases. Do not shop online, or in-store. Nowhere! Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending
My father was a forester. The morning before he died of a heart attack he was out in the forest planting trees. That's how i've always seen my life, too...it is for generations to come.
Thank you! I worry far less about "us" than I do about my children and grandchildren. I worry about *every* person with a disability and *every* person who has experienced life with a foot on their neck.
Betsy, I agree with you in spirit, but want to recommend choosing a different tree species. Oaks have an undeserved reputation as big, strong trees, when in fact, they the first to fall in a strong wind storm. This is because they have ridiculously small root balls that can't resist the stresses of wind pushing on the enormous branch structures above. Live oaks are the exception.
Wind-resistant shade trees are American beech, American sweetgum, American holly, most varieties of maples, tulip poplar and Southern magnolia. Most evergreens stand up to wind, but provide less shade.
We also plant seeds because it is good for us to do good things. It is healthy. It helps make us happy. It is acting out love and loyalty and care for life. It lifts our spirits, or helps keep them lifted. It helps us internalize that we are not alone, helps us believe that we are not alone.
That quote could not be more perfect. Isn’t that what the continuum of life is? We receive, we give, others receive . . . And the acorn and the oak tree, and Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia . . .
The other quote I have in my soul that is an echo of this thinking is from an Audre Lorde poem and the one line is … they did not expect us to survive…
I saw this on a post. It was attributed there to a thinker in Mexico, but whoever first spoke these words was a wise person. And maybe a female person, as females invented agriculture and probably were the first to plant flowers deliberately.
Ellie, I do not know where to start with my thanks. I know the quote, but until your comment I had forgotten its daily importance. But then reading all the replies reminded me, it is a powerful mantra to quote now and everyday share.
Professor concludes: Forty years of ideology is under pressure now from reality, and the outcome remains uncertain." I think we are beginning to find out that a snake (Trump supporters) thought his tail is too long and start eating it from the end.
Sometimes it takes a long time, but you have to keep on keeping on. I believe we will win out, but I haven’t the faintest idea when. I going to keep on believing and working for the sake of my children and especially my grandchildren.
Sometimes you plant an apple tree, or a plum, and in just a few years you enjoy fruit. Sometimes there is a little worm in the plums so you just cut that part off and eat the rest. Sometimes you plant an oak, a linden or a walnut - you enjoy watching it gain vigor, welcome small birds, its twigs hold little walls of snow. And you walk under the grand beeches and oaks, centuries old, thinking about how they came to grow in that place and what it looked like there when they were young.
The whole Earth is an incredible jewel with seemingly endless variety and sweet fruits that just grow on trees. We never left Eden; we just get to (and have to) grow up and die. What incredible good fortune in the mean time, though. Yet we so often waste our tenure (and the planet) with our nasty games of domination. The etymology of the word "paradise" refers to a garden.
This resonated with me. When we lived upstate we planted many oaks and beeches - as we had that house for 30 years and were able to watch them grow into magnificent trees and seek shaded air under their boughs on hot summer days.
What do you do if it seems that your work is for nothing? If you believe strongly in what you are doing, you keep right on. In the end, you might not succeed, but if you stop working you know you will fail.
Believe you are doing good. Don't concede that magnificent power within you to do so, to them. Viktor Frankl , read Man's Search For Meaning for a powerful tutorial.
Jill we must remember that what we are seeing didn't happen in just the three weeks that this administration has been in charge. This has been in the works for over 40 years!!! We can't expect to stop it over night, but we MUST keep fighting. We The People have NEVER backed down from our attempt to make this a MORE PERFECT UNION. Yes, we have bent, but never broken. We need to keep up the fight!!
Don’t focus on what is out of your control. You can only do so much. There is no predicting what might happen. So you do what seems useful and doable for you. Your work might be at the local level. Even a neighborhood or your local school. Just do the work. And give it time.
That reasoning is probably based at least in part on how depressing all the news seems. But please remember, friend Jill, that the news never has included, and perhaps can never entirely represent what lives in our hearts. Don't despair. There's a lot going on that we're only partly aware of.
Lending any power to what I have not played a part in …I will not claim ownership of, which I actively tried to warn against, which I many decades ago saw coming and prepared for…has arrived . It saddens me. The challenge ahead is humungous, other countries succeeded though and so can America.
Thank you Heather for your passion and eloquence . Stay safe .
I take no glory in those who will eventually admit the part they played in this mess.
Revenge has no place in a loving servant’s heart .
And yet, it's just so much 'easier' to be cynical, hopeless, to give-in, give-up, despair, lose faith, subordinate...Unless you really believe in the good fight. Maybe the magats think they're doing just that, when in fact their worldview is blinded by their fear of knowing the truth...their own history.
Thank you for posting this quote by Isak Dinesen, one of my favorite authors. Given her life experiences, it does not surprise me that she penned these words to live by, especially during these troubled times.
Thank you, Doug. I used I.S.I.S. because the students I taught were Muslims who are peace-minded and good citizens. They feel about I.S.I.S. the way we do about the "Xian Taliban".
ISIS with a cross, I like it! I understand the analogy in the term “Christian Taliban,” but these people are so far from being followers of Jesus. My dog is more Christian than these hard right heretics. “Anything that is not good news for the poor is heresy. Period.” Jim Wallis
Many, many are owed our fervent thanks for service that is infrequently acknowledged. even noticed. Like the air that fills our living space, we all would miss it greatly were it gone.
Like public servants who keep our water clean (mentioned above), My state is going to be deeply affected by what Musk is doing; maybe this catastrophe is what is necessary to wake up the somnolent and cult members. That’s my hope anyway.
First off, great poem. As someone who was in public service for 35 years, I thank you. I stood many a watch, including on 12/31/1999.
I know that it is deeply painful for Christians to see and hear what is being done by the Christian Nationalists in the name of your Christ. For those of us outside that sphere of Christianity, it looks like you have to take the good with the bad. When someone beats me with a Christian Bible in the name of Christ for who I am, I am calling them a Christian.
I do understand your position that Christofascism, or Christian Nationalism, is not Christian. They are. As a retired cop who taught use of force documentation and justification, I shudder when I see people like Derek Chauvin, Timothy Loehmann, Daniel Pantaleo, Sean Grayson, Brett Hankinson, and Jeronimo Yanez, and want to say "not all cops"; I cannot because there are far, far too many cops who are just like them.
Their victims, in order: George Floyd, Tamier Rice, Eric Gardner, Sonya Massey, Breona Taylor, and Philando Castile.
Ally House, I worked hard with understanding the psychological dynamics of police brutality. It appears to be by design, in such a manner as to create confusion and rift between the marginalized and the authorities. You may have seen the FBI investigation that explains what is going on: http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/402521/doc-26-white-supremacist-infiltration.pdf
"Not All Cops" is correct. Like with Roe v Wade and other long term strategies, the police have been infiltrated by supremacists. If you look at the units uncovered in the news, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Las Angeles to name a few, it appears there were targeted cities. Sadly, the police unions seem to be the backers, preventing the uprooting.
James Burnham yesterday speculated on what might be possible if only seven Republican senators had the principles of the Federal attorneys who resigned rather than drop the prosecutors' righteous pursuit of Mayor Adams. It is not just principles, but also manifest skills. My concern in recent days has been over what our Democratic Reps and Senators are actually doing, as legislators -- not merely orators -- to fight against the Constitutional Coup enveloping the Federal establishment.
It put me in mind of an experience I had as a very young Fed closely observing Republican Senator Jim Allen from Alabama who almost daily displayed how important it was for at least one legislator in each body to have and be able to apply deep knowledge of the rules and procedures to achieve legislative aims. The Dems had the majority then; the Republicans aimed to block the Democrats civil rights aims in the 1960's. And Senator Allen had a lot of help. His constituent service responsibilities to Alabamans, for example, were picked up by other Republican Senators allowing him to hire and work with experts and specialists who could help him keep abreast of the intricacies of established procedure to achieve the Republican caucus aims.
I found myself deeply conflicted by his performance. While I objected to his aims, I marveled at his demonstrable success at what he brought to the table. Using his specialized knowledge, he worked his butt off; I could not but respect that aspect of his performance. Who, pray tell, will step forward to such preparation and such tasks now in defense of a Republic in profound jeopardy??
All Heather does is tell the truth. Trump, Musk and company must hate it. We now clearly live in a kakastocracy. An "Appeal to Heaven" is now appropriate: god help us!
I don't think we should get in the habit of arbitrating who is and who isn't Christian. Or Muslim. Or Jewish. Or Hindu. Or Buddhist. Etc.
I think each religious community must own their own religious excess/extremism/ extremists.
The Trump administration is fueled by the resentment of Christians who believe they are persecuted. It is politically useful to right wing religious extremists like Opus Dei acolyte Leonard Leo. Now it is a catechism of Republicans to loudly profess persecution of Catholics.
Oddly, once Christianity was established as a dominant and often state religion, Christians focussed on the early and brief history of persecution. Now this historical resentment is amplified by grievance at the recent drop in numbers of people identifying as Christian. Hence, false assertions being persecuted and endangered in the U. S.
The "Trump Administration" is daily revealed as a huge mistake, a miscarriage of what was intended under the law of the land, and it must be corrected, swiftly. (Have you SEEN the spectacle presented by those two unprepared and unqualified men in Europe?) The uprising of the judiciary is of the utmost importance - this is wrong, don't obey, there is a Constitution, it's being ignored and trodden underfoot. Every lawyer in the land has a place in this revolutionary force. They are showing us the path.
Why, Anne-Louise, is the orange felon's criminal admin such "a huge mistake, a miscarriage"?
We might better answer this if we tie your good Q to one of Heather's, when she asks here what, decades ago, made white Americans "hate the government even more, as they . . . were convinced it benefited only nonwhite Americans and women."
I blame fellow libs and progressives for their lack of using the resources rich in American culture which, had Dems prominently used them, could have sold most whites, most everyone, on the U.S. government keeping to its democratic, inclusive course.
Trouble is, schools following the 1971 Powell memo began shedding these resources, and took up instead the elites' wonk options of testing's mass quantifying of everyone -- of its abstractions, cold logical schemes, neutered language, and depersonalized packaging of all life.
Couple this with other elites' cold, rapacious mass offshoring of U.S. working-class jobs, and we have the pathos, the stewing discontent Arlie Russell Hockschild recorded in "Stolen Pride" and George Packed in "The Unwinding."
Phil, you need to define elites. Elites in education that believe in the Socratic method are fine with me. They don't teach in sound bites or to the test. Teaching to the test was the result of 'Leave no Child Behind'. It was in the works since Reagan introduced 'A Nation at Risk.' These programs were not supported by elites like Obama or Arne Duncan. George Bush signed onto it. These program names are all distractions from what lies beneath them. Follow the money and you'll find it has nothing to do with elites. The republicans wanted block grants to the states, so they could control who got the money. School Choice, challenger schools and the like were favored by them, because they eliminated those low functioning minorities. Teaching to the test came about because a school had to meet certain benchmarks. If they didn't, a parent could remove their child and the money they represented, and move to a private school of their choice. the names of the education program changes, in order to qualify for the money that follows. I taught under that system.
Elites used to mean well educated - and when I was young, well-educated people were admired - and parents strove to send their kids to college. The cost of college and the competition to get in has made this out of reach for many. I'm old - 74 - my public schools taught humanities, languages, music and art - and opened my eyes to those things and that helped chart the course of my life (art historian, graphic designer, lawyer and now fiber artist). In 1968 I started college at the University of Michigan - which had just brought in affirmative action - requiring that a percentage of students be of color - to better represent the population of Michigan. The standards for graduation were the same for everyone though. Black and White. Having grown up in a lily-white WASPy suburb of Detroit, this was the first time I interacted with people who were black, Jewish and from different countries. It was fabulous. Over time some of the highly educated looked down on people with blue collar jobs and trade schools were seen as 'less than' Huge mistake -- both literally as trades are essential to us all, and in the sense that it increased the divide. The far right hates academia because when their children go off to college, they meet people of different backgrounds and with different ideas and that tends up uproot some conservative family beliefs and create a more liberal populace.
I was U of M undergrad 1965-69. Then off to a certain war. Then grad student through mid-'70s. Also from lily-white Detroit suburbs.
I'm not so sure as you, however, as to the "because" for why "the far right hates academia."
I think it has to do more with the ways standardized testing forced all schools -- all -- to see college as the only way forward for all. And any not joining the army of wonk -- all those "deplorables" -- just deserve whatever the bankers, financiers, standardized tester, and related dark money elites have done to all our fellow working classes in decades since.
lauriemcf, I can guess where you grew up. I agree that looking down on blue collar people, etc.was/is a mistake. People have many different skills and I have always respected that. Incidentally, the electrician across the street has a degree in rhetoric. The R pain across from out back yard is an excellent craftsman and for I respect that and that only. He also makes guns, nice huh.
Since the Powell memo (1971), however, it's come more to mean the dehumanized -- the wonk, the quantifiers, the packagers who only see life as units, numbers for them, the new elites, to control, manage, dictate to, but otherwise ignore, never see as individual people with their own stories.
Finally, Eadie, the new elites never, never, never cite any stories. No novels, no memoirs, no biographies, no histories -- no other arts.
Phil, I appreciate the definition of elites, but I believe it describes what is happening today, which is a result of poor teacher training on the college level,
IMHO, blaming the libs and progressives is misdirected. Teacher training standards
Phil, I appreciate your definition of elites, but IMHO, it doesn't track with the history.
Poor teacher training on the college level, the elimination of civics in the curriculum, and yes not enough devotion to the humanities as taught during the Renaissance
period. Your definition of elites doesn't connect with the history you're referring to. The elites you are referring to are more the result of children being raised on social media, computer games & online courses. The result is short attention spans and as you say, they see life as units and numbers. This definition you give for elites is a more recent phenomenon going back two decades, where the 4 r's are emphasized or in modern lingo computer science and coding. The progressives and Libs did not subscribe to what began after the Powell memo in 1971. Carter will be remembered for establishing the Dep't of Education in 1979. By doing this, it became a Federal program that could cater to the poor and disadvantaged. The Reagan administration in the 1980's, the George H, W. Bush and the George W. Bush administration that followed subscribed to 'Leave No Child Behind.' Widespread cheating was discovered in Texas during this period. I taught under it. Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan inherited that program and tried to moderate it or really weaken it. Clinton appointed Riley as his education Czar.. Riley won national recognition for his highly successful effort to improve education in South Carolina. During the President's first term, Riley helped launch historic initiatives to raise academic standards; to improve instruction for the poor and disadvantaged; to expand grants and loan programs to help more Americans go to college; to prepare young people for the world of work; and to improve teaching. As I said before, it wasn't the coders and numbers guys that devised this program which required teaching to the test and you describe as elites. It was the same old racists that wanted to deny minorities an education and pocket
the money they saved from Block Grants for themselves.
I think it's because the elites turned out not to be that elite. One had hoped that those successful and lucky in life would feel some sort of obligation to share their luck with others, because - let's face it - a good part of our life is just potluck - being at the right time at the right place sort of thing.
But it turned out that the elites, quite often after convincing themselves that their fortune is only due to their own extraordinary abilities and unrivaled hard work, were not so prepared to share and give others a leg up.
I blame a lot of that on our economic system which turned into coldhearted ruthless capitalism.
Now the time has come that there is not much more to squeeze out of the masses. It will get interesting what the next steps will be.
This is of course not everybody who is/was part of the elite, but those who are have determined the direction.
You are right. They do not possess any negotiated connections with their imaginations or its corollary, an emotional hinterland. They are all appetite and reaction and shallow sentimentality. MAGA are a political sect of collective memory loss.
Thank you for the correction. Testing kids ability isn't the problem, it's uncritical, ie religion-based lack of ability to reason, that's the issue. Sorry I'm on my hobby horse again, but organized religion is nothing but Santa Claus for grown ups.
Our governor, a HUGE tfg supporter, just rammed through vouchers, even rolling over members of his own party. BUCKETS of outside money. He even threatened to w/hold hurricane aid to upper E TN (devastated last fall) is they didn’t support vouchers.
This mass impulse of hatreds, Jill, isn't spontaneously going to dissolve.
As Heather traces in hers today, it's not just one guy, or even one or two, or a few guys. It's a mass hatred. Hatred of government. Hatred of blacks. Of immigrants. Of democracy.
It's an old history, as Heather follows it. And we'll stay mired in it until some among us see and begin centrally to call on the cultural resources that got betrayed, just as (by plan) schools got betrayed, U.S. working classes got betrayed.
My husband was once in ag so he understands farmers, their very real challenges and their thinking. I just asked him if farmers realized they were receiving “welfare” in gov subsidies, esp since Heather says they are 3-to-1 tfg supporters. He thinks probably not in the sense of “welfare queens.” They are hard workers and I would argue are proper recipients for gov assistance (farmers support national security)bc of weather and other factors not in their control. Part of the problem is right-wing radio is in their ears constantly.
George Bush through his “No Child Left Behind” act, which led to all that unnecessary testing, in public schools. I was still teaching then and we lost about a month of instructional time due to unnecessary testing. This is his legacy not the “liberal elites” as you suggest.
It was necessary, Carol -- the standardized testing.
It established all the rapists of the financial sector as imaginatively the same as all the libs, wonks, also dehumanized, incapable of ever citing any novels, memoirs, biographies, histories, or other arts indebting them to any fellow humans anywhere.
Hate in a disease and was/is feed by many toxic forces…and the excuse of hating affirmative action comes to mind. There is no rational reason why if the percentage of the population is 10% something then that group should be about 10% of students in higher education. And so helping to bringing up those students who qualify as a priority is fairness for the cultural costs of racism. This is the idea that some things can be changed by laws and some require awareness and action to help overcome past wrongs. Simple, Christian, fair, right. And yes this is the actual definition of Woke, by the way.
I would just like to say here is one place we are mostly in agreement. Then why do we disagree so much here? I’m gonna start calling it the Trump factor, the more chaos Trump creates or the more we get off topic, Trump wins. I challenge all that post here to take it to social media and hold your elected officials accountable to take it to social media
While I would agree up to a point, I have no problem calling out hypocrites no matter what they profess religiously, politically, or whatever. I often say talk don't wash. Now I am thinking of Susie Q I am concerned Collins. It is also perfectly OK to call out cruelty which this bunch has in spades. Firing someone when they are midair coming back from some kind of conference for example. Letting food and medicine expire overseas and cutting off important disease research is another. And the House budget--how many of them claim to be Christians--hurts the poor and needy to give tax breaks to the rich.
Senator Collin’s is always concerned, but almost never enough to actually take a stand. Can’t the Republicans figure out that Trump, Musk, and the Cabinet nominees lie?
I have an image, Susan, of Collin’s carved visage, or maybe a cast bronze…perhaps it will be titled “She of Furrowed Brow”. “Concerned” indeed…to the point of becoming a meme.
They know they lie, but it’s convenient, despicable cover for their own asses to pretend they don’t know it. Susan Collins and that republican senator who is a physician who broke his Hippocratic oath voting for RFKjr are two prime examples.
Collins and her fellow GOP colleagues in thr Senate are very, very attached to thr perks that come with being Senators- thrir government pensions and healthcare. Susan's main concerns are her wealth and her scrawny ass.
Of course they know. They don’t care. It’s a power grab, pure and simple. Not sure exactly what koolaid is being served at Mar-a-lago but we know it’s a combination of domestic and imported brew that is highly addictive. Power is truly intoxicating. The root word is ‘toxic.’
Please remember that cruelty has been a feature of America since it was founded. Genocide and slavery based on skin color are about as cruel as you can get. America’s brand of capitalism depends on racism, misogyny, exploitation and cruelty.
The nation’s systems were established to benefit men with white skin-that’s what they’re fighting to maintain in the midst of more and more people becoming “woke”.
Attacking and undermining education is a successful strategy. As T said, they “love the uneducated”. In a lot of ways Brown v Board opened up a Pandora’s box.
We’re struggling now to deal with the effects of cruel actions designed to keep us hopeless, divided and desperate. We can not escape our history. We should learn from it instead so we can “perfect our union”.
Thank you, Ricardo. I am looking for the post which disagrees with something I said. I have also been subject here to replies that I would have to describe as incandescent rage. One person later admitted to having a mental breakdown and apologized. As for the others....??
I appreciate the urge for caution when evaluating anyone else's core beliefs, and yet the narcissisticly pious are chastised even in Christian scripture. I am don't claim to be Christian, but doubt that Jesus would endorse what Trump and his coterie of billionaires are doing to immigrants, to truth, and the enrichment of themselves at the public's expense. Just for starters.
Trump claims to be Christian yet, so too did Martin Luther King. How many values and actions do they share in common? Which is more consistent with what presumably remains of Jesus' teachings?
From my perspective MAGA is closer to an 'antichrist" than the picture painted by the New Testament of Jesus' thoughts and works. Hate, lies and cruelty just don't seem to fit. Jesus rather ignored wealth and the state. Power politics murdered him.
He’s,IMHO, a “suckers and losers” and “what’s in it for me” kinda Christian (preferably those with TV mega church shows). Passes the collection plate and pockets the tithe.
Definitely that, Barbara, but even more insidious than that. He's swept up all the sadistic christians, the descendants of the slave powers who used the Bible to justify slavery. I recently came across this stunning and perfect quote from Frederick Douglass:
“I hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land... I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.”
Never was there a clearer case of 'stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.' I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. . . .
The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.”
It is strange how much sociopathic horror has been dress up as "Christian" or one religion or another. Torture, genocide, etc. I recall hearing a story about Desmond Tutu under Apartheid was preaching to a large crowd when he noticed a white Afrikaner policeman being beaten. He left the stage and threw himself over that beaten man to protect him. What would Jesus do? What would Trump?
Alexandra-Your mention of “descendants of the slave power” is so insightful. Much of our written history tells the story. Douglass’ observations and experiences are valuable for us today.
It’s also worth looking at the pictures of how mobs of White people burned, lynched and murdered indigenous and enslaved people. Look at the pictures of mobs threatening Black children after Brown v Board was decided.
The hate that has been stirred up for centuries has been intentional and purposeful. The 2024 election was not about the price of eggs. It was about the Haitians eating pets and T’s “beautiful white skin”.
As HCR writes the resistance to including “undeserving” Americans in this democratic experiment is longstanding.
Wow! I particularly like the part about “stealing the livery of the court of heaven,” which Douglass then expounds on. What a way with words he had! Thank you for sharing this piece.
Where are the stories in the media about all of the greedy billionaires like the entire Walton family, giving back to the hard hit rural communities. Or Jeff Bezos giving raises to his workers so they can live in dignity.
There are literally hundreds of foundations set up across the US and tens of thousands of churches that need to be helping people that Trump and Musk are abandoning.
Stalin and his cronies in their fur coats up on a stage reviewing the military parade is the image that comes when the American archbishops are mentioned.
That's why professional science has peer review, and proven bias can be career killing. It's why trials are randomized to reduce unknowing bias. Everybody is human, but there are regimens that reduce the chance we will fool ourselves. As individuals, we compare notes, seek others' perspectives. We bear in mind that while human understanding can be awesome, it's always a work in progress, and is always in some way subject to limitations. Even physics and even math.
Socrates is said to have claimed the the unexamined life is not worth living. I would not go that far, but think that an unexamined life is greatly impoverished; and potentially hazardous, to one's self and to others.
I do think that when we give tax breaks to people who claim a religion we have some say in their actions…non-profit, services but no politics. And certainly, no real political power…
You know churches pay no property tax. They pay no income tax and then they buy and sell real estate they pay no capital gains tax Their employees often have mega salaries. But in the end that is not what is at hand. What is at hand is our democracy
Yes, I am OK with tax breaks for some very specific functions and with limitations. If churches are running significant businesses, it's still a business. They can get deductions for what is charitable, as anyone would. Tax help to a point for a meeting facility.
It might be a good time to eliminate tax deductions for all 501c3s like Catholic hospitals that refuse to treat patients or provide women's health services. Or the churches that give NOTHING back to their communities.
Dozens of states are looking for ways to cut property taxes. Let the 501c3s pay their fair share especially the mega white Christian Nationalist churches that preach hate.
I will remind you’all that as a manager of a non-profit we can not advocate for political, no activity that involves voting and money. We can share values and thoughts, just not tell people how to vote. Churches have too often crossed, grotesquely, this line! I was in a church and they had a suggested voter sheet at the door, in a church building, who knows who created or printed it. The perfect example of what churches, and their leaders, can legally do is set a standards for policy, as did the Episcopal Bishop who tried to remind the President that striking fear in children was wrong! Donny whiffed, so did JD.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends;
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV.
Dealing for dollars is trying to find me.
I wait for delivery each day until three.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town.
I'm counting on you, Lord, please don't let me down.
Prove that you love me and buy the next round.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends;
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
The song was recorded in one take during a recording session on October 1, 1970. These were the last tracks Joplin ever recorded as she died three days later, on October 4.
I disagree, lin. I can't speak for the other religions, but as someone who was raised in conservative Christianity, I reserve the right to criticize. Conservative Christians have no tolerance for others unlike themselves, despite what is in the gospels describing what Jesus thought about such things. So even those of us now outside of the faith have the right to call out the current crop of so-called Christians in their bigoted views, just as much as anyone.
Good luck to the rest of us if we have to rely on religious communities self policing! I can't think of a more ridiculous notion.
Absolutely - Full stop. Separation of church.., and state. Freedom from religion and those who would impose it upon us. It's what this country is about, but unfortunately not what it is fast becoming.
lin, I recently finished a detailed book about Opus Dei. There are actually members in high places in the government. As someone raised Catholic and until recently a practicing one, I will state unequivocally we are not persecuted. Instead, some are exceedingly rich(Tim Busch) and others (Alito & Thomas, Bill Barr) highly placed. This is about power and control, just like for Musk, CNs, etc., pure and simple. (Pope Francis just met with a delegation of American bishops and scolded them bc they are not representing the church’s position on social teaching—why is another issue).
But if we met on the sidewalk, and I said, "Look at my adorable duck. Feel how soft his fur is, and look at how cute he is with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth when he pants. Isn't it funny when his floppy ears make a slapping noise as he shakes his head? And he always wags his tail when he's happy."
I think you'd be justified in saying, "That's not a duck."
I have been pleased by the humanitarian orientation of the present Pope, but I am saddened that he chose to wade into the US election, declaring a vote for Harris was as bad as a vote for Trump. It seems to me that, as opposed to silence on the matter, it would aid Trump's cause. The age of Trump is pretty terrible.
I see the thought behind this, but one thing I've experienced in being in/recovering from an extremist cult is that they cannot be policed by their own faith. They reject the authority of their own leaders and peers and all that criticism basically boils into "you just aren't as chosen/holy/pious". I think it's more than fair to point out hypocrisy when we see it.
I yearn for churches that are not into hating the poor and abused and canonizing the very rich to distance themselves from such ideologies. Jesus did.
It is my expectation that the following of all nominally Christian US churches might be diminished by allowing arrogant and cruel MAGA ideology to hog the picture.
The history of religion in the United States and now at times bloodcurdling. Though the seeds of the founders were not filled with hate and fear. Actually the opposite. And yes all religions need to tell and accept their truth of history. They are like all humans flawed and done way way more flawed then others in dine if they’re actions. But one needs ti research who is in power now and hat their game plans are fur now and the future. At times Gilead looks more likely than not. And I think back to Paul Robeson’s lovely rendering of There is a Balm in Gilead.
We get so tangled in words, particularly broadly categorical ones. Is religion responsible for horrors, such as 9/11, or is that just nasty power politics wrapped in invented piety? Reagan claimed that "Government" was "the problem", but isn't "government of the people, by the people, for the people" supposed to be a good thing, and the "Third Reich" government of Germany used as a terrible example?
There sure has been a history of horrors connected to religion, but like the crude pretense of righteousness of Trump, it fake. That said, I am aware of some self-declared religious people who, overall, try to live a life of love. Was that not what Jesus (and Buddha) seemed to be driving at?
Growing up Catholic, the people who opposed my Church the most were evangelicals- now the strange bedfellows of the Opus Dei crowd. Both are using each other to gain power. At the same time I know plenty of good non-MAGA evangelicals and Catholics. #wearenotthesame
Peter, I too have my own “concoction” of spirituality that I draw on in my daily life. And, I too am deeply offended by trump and his supporters, who display everything from idolatry to blasphemy…two words I’ve never used in conversation in my life!
There is absolutely nothing about trumps behavior that is even remotely Christian-like. And don’t get me started on the white Christian nationalists/christofascists who are his supporters. They are all fake, and their behavior is antithetical to every religion, and other forms of spirituality, that exists.
I never call on God directly, but I do find myself adding #GodHelpUs to just about every post that I share these days…
One of my ex-students is a pastor and he spoke out early against death star and is adamant he is not a Christofascist. I would describe him as conservative, but he works right now mainly with men to help them be better fathers, husbands, etc. My favorite picture that he has posted is a bunch of regular guys giving their daughters a pedicure. As for those who are loudly praying in the Temple and money changing there, they are hypocrites of the worst kind and do not follow what Jesus commanded in the first three Gospels. I think, and I am not a Bible expert, that he said that people should give up all that they have and follow him. He was against the rich and for the stranger and the less fortunate. He preached substance and not grandstanding and talk. In my view, it is deeds and not talk about faith or claiming faith that measures how Christian a person is and yes, I know this is a theological debate of long standing.
Michele, I agree with all you said, except for, I don't think Jesus was against the rich. He, I believe, was trying to point those of great wealth away from the greed, cruelty, neglect, and violence of their runaway egos. And awaken humility, awareness, and compassion in them because they held all the political power to decrease societal suffering.
Jesus seemed not so much against anyone, but chastised selfish behavior. He took offense to money-changers, but did not commit violence (maybe a bit of mild vandalism). Timothy was fairly blunt about the "love of money" which I take to be greed. A movie villain popularized the phrase "Greed is good", but Republicans and Wall Street seized it as a motto (until in the public distaste for the Subprime Crisis, it seemed to sputter out). Note that ambition per se can be morally neutral, but greed involves depriving others. That gets complicated, but there most be something morally wrong with the wealthiest man on the planet wanting to poorest and most desperate to get less.
“ 'Homeless is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little bit behind on their mortgage, and if you just gave them a job, they’d be back on their feet,” he told former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson in October. “What you actually have are violent drug zombies with dead eyes, and needles and human feces on the street.'
The more money spent combating homelessness, “the worse it gets”, according to Musk."
J L Graham, egos run amok are not a pretty sight. Funny how they all seem to say no, no, no money won't help fix education, homelessness, hungry children, etc. etc., but they compete ruthlessly to get more and more of it.
Are you ignoring the verse about a rich man getting into heaven being as difficult as a camel moving through the eye of a needle? Unless they are willing to give it all away?
Matt, I believe Jesus was referring to our heaven on earth, to our freedom from the chains of ego. I think he was saying, we become free and so enter heaven on earth when we stop beleiving that the more we have the more we are. Because the wealthy were ready and commonly known examples of human's faulty runaway egos, they were used as such by Jesus.
Anything written down in the bible and/or our interpretation of it, that makes us conclude that Jesus was against the rich, I believe is wrong. Jesus to me seemed keenly aware of his ego and so operated mostly, if not always (if that's possible) from love and compasson. I'm not against the rich and certainly am not as egoless as Jesus. So, coming back to my main point, how could Jesus be against the rich?
I am no Biblical scholar as I hope I clearly stated. I did read Zealot (by a Muslim scholar) which I liked a lot. Personally, I see Jesus as a radical against the elites of the day including those who managed the Temple where they were using their positions to feather their nests. I also took a course in the Synoptic Gospels where we compared the three and discussed Biblical scholarship. I realize that the Gospels were written after the fact by several years and have lines subject to misinterpretation by us. Elites of his time were those in power and those most likely to be wealthy. It is difficult to operate from love and compassion if your main goal in life in prestige, power, and wealth which leads to lots of exploitation including using religion to further these goals. I believe Jesus was trying to get at substance and not surface things.
Michele, I agree Jesus was trying to point us deeper than what we see on the surface. I think he pointed to the elites because they were common examples of human egos run amok. Everyone could easily see the insanity of the ego. But we can disagree on whether he was against the elites or not. I don't think he was. I realize that some stories, words, and interpretations can seem to point to him being against the wealthy/elites. I reject those as being inaccurate, contrary to his beliefs. I think Jesus was trying to point us to the suffering our egos create and juxapositioning it beside love and compassion that do not create suffering, but can diminish and heal it.
One of my favorite words of Jesus, are those he spoke on the cross. He told the crowd, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." He was speaking of the criminals hanging beside him on crosses and the elites who had condemned him to death. For me, he was saying, because these people are being controled by their egos, they don't know what they're doing. They are irrational, only operating at the surface level. They are unaware. These words of his tell me that he was never against anyone, not even the elites/wealthy, because Jesus wasn't operating from ego. He wasn't operating from fear or anger. What made Jesus special was that he operated from the deeper place where unconditional love and compassion dwells.
But that's just my opinion. And I respect that your opinion may diverge from mine on this one characteristic of Jesus.
There is a kind of conservative I respect. I don't equate that sense of it with narrow minded, in fact just the opposite. To me conservative means allowing for the likelihood of error, and examining things carefully. Some who claim "conservatism" just seem arrogant. My sense of Jesus was that he was very inclusive. Faux-conservatism is very exclusive.
Oh yes; To them all opposed are godless heathens that must be brought to heel. The problem remains that those opposed, such as Dem, you, or I, is that we've allowed them to define us. Just like they redefined the word 'liberal'. *And, just like now, they're being allowed to define 'woke.'
D4N, excellent! We keep using their frames, which are always BS. Like looking for fraud and abuse, no it was about their looting and criming, but we kept saying, oh yes we are against fraud and abuse first in our responses. We used their frame, as we always do. We legitimize their lies. We need to stop that.
Both I think, since words can be deeds (contrast MLK speeches with Trump and Vance falsely claiming Haitians are eating people's pets). "Their fruits" of any consequence. We are not always able to know the truth, but we know when we are lying. It is a deliberate choice. We may innocently pass on a lie that fooled us, assuming decent diligence. Sometimes we should know better than just repeat what we want to be true or fear might be true, but to err is human. A lot depends on what we do next.
FROM Mark 10: As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
NOTICE: Jesus looked at him and loved him.
Other than Francis of Assissi and some like him, very few people have the ability to give everything away and live on what others give them. This inability of ours isn't cause for our God to hate us but rather to feel compassion and love.
Michele, you'd probably want rephrase the "against the rich" comment if you thought about it. If we are to believe the biblical account of Jesus' ministry, he was able to be a homeless, itinerant preacher thanks to the sponsorship of several wealthy women, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna. He surely must have looked kindly on the wealthy since they were funding his ministry.
Christians have an unfortunate habit of extrapolating God's or Jesus' words to one individual or small group as commands to everyone who ever lived. Worst example: the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Scriptures was a set of guidelines for a sect of Jewish clergy in ancient Israel. It was never meant as a daily how-to for all believers (which evangelicals heavily cherry-pick anyway).
When Jesus invited the fishermen to join his ministry, he advised them that they'd have to quit fishing and pack lightly, which made sense because the women mentioned above were funding the venture. This was a verbal contract strictly between the fishermen and Jesus, not a command to every follower.
The so-called "Early Church" was a group of believers who sold their properties and lived in a community, bartering amongst themselves, a primitive version of communism, but this was their decision, not a command from Jesus.
Moreover, modern bible scholars have concluded that Jesus never made the "eye of the needle" statement.
As i stated, I am no Biblical scholar and i do not keep track of the latest scholarship. Nor do I follow the history of early Christianity. That being said, I do think that Jesus was attempting to raise concerns about how the elite of the Temple operated. Some people doubt that Jesus even existed which I do disagree with. I am also aware that the Gospels were written much later and have a source that has been lost..Q. And even if Jesus did not say certain things, they have been interpreted through the centuries as guidelines. Unfortunately, the uber wealthy have often demonstrated that they think themselves entitled and that it is OK to exploit and trample on ordinary people.
My understanding is that the existence of Jesus is supported by some non Biblical sources, but of course the Bible is an anthology, and accounts of Jesus life and thoughts are second hand. I recall a preacher claiming that every word of the Bible is the "Word of God"; but where is the evidence? Whatever the source, I think there is wisdom in the Bible, and a whole lot of other stuff.
A small mention in Josephus. All the Gospels were written later with Mark being the earliest. There is a source Q that we don't have which was used by both Matthew and Luke. One of my fav books recently is God: An Anatomy about mostly the OT It would offend a lot of people, but I enjoyed it. Also I have been hooked on Sumer and ancient Mesopotamia recently thanks to reading some of the Temple hymns to various Sumerian gods.
Michele, I infer from your "like" that you know I wasn't arguing or trying to pick a fight. I agree that there was likely an itinerant Jewish preacher who taught a revolutionary theology and was certainly not named "Jesus."
Weirdly, but not surprisingly, evangelicals have divided themselves into two schools of thought about wealth. One group believes rich people can't get into heaven. "Love of money is the root of all evils" and all that.
The other group believes that one's wealth is in direct proportion to how good they've been, thus being "blessed" by God.
My interpretation of the spotty record* of Jesus' life and ministry is that neither poverty nor posterity characterize his views. I suspect his thinking was, the amount of money one has or doesn't have isn't the issue; virtue comes in making the world a better place with what one has, whether a little or a lot. Further, that no one acquires wealth all by himself.
Funny thing is, we don't need an ancient Jewish prophet to tell us this.
*It amazes me that so many christians think they have complete knowledge of Jesus' thinking, considering that 33 years of the man's life are condensed onto a stack of pages about a quarter-inch thick and many of those are redundant. Cliffs Notes would be more informative!
No, I accepted what you said is what Biblical scholarship has said. I have been thinking a lot about oral tradition and that perhaps what we see was what was circulating orally and somebody wrote it down or certain oral traditions were circulating and nobody wrote them down. As I said, I think he, or whoever he was, had problems with the Jewish elite running the Temple. The author of Zealot says that there were a lot of people running around in first century Palestine who were considered messiahs. I can well imagine it was difficult being under the thumb of the Romans and seeing leaders cooperating with them. LOL. What else is new. I did a long paper many years ago about antisemitism from Roman times to the First Crusade. According to my research (which may have changed since then) Romans were baffled by Jewish resistance since they granted to Jews some privileges not granted to others. My take is that the Romans were fine with what people believed as long as they did not revolt. And there was a revolt and in AD 70 Titus ended that. I agree totally with your last statement. Unless someone has uncovered some huge stash of written sources, we are stuck with very little. Right now I am reading a book on the cosmos by an astrophysicist who is reminding us that despite all the recent discoveries, there are fundamentals about the universe that we don't know and maybe don't know what we don't know.
I think, when we think about it, we know that we don't know, and have no clue about what we have, as yet, if ever, no clue about. My dog knows quite a lot, but has limitations, and so do I. I can also detect that my dog knows a lot that I don't know, judging from her behavior, such as responding to scents. There is no shortage of more stuff to know. One persons brief footnote is another's life-work, and the unexpected continues to occur. It's amazing what goes on in a human nervous system, or even a bird brain. Even a slime mold.
My sense is that while there may be "eternal truths", our understandings evolve with ongoing observation and study. So want to believe that it was all figured out long ago, and some early thought proves to be remarkably insightful. That said, the only way forward is forward.
Ditto Peter; On all counts. My belief is that most of the 'lambs' in that somewhat apparent following are mostly different levels of stooges. That is that they are being misled. My belief, perhaps for the sake of my own sanity, is that 'most people are good.' I do however verify. * I must add this also. I do have a degree of spirituality. What I find is that most folks do also to one degree or another, and whatever they do or exercise is personal / individual as it should be to my way of thinking.
D4N, I have my own view of spirituality and try to be a "good" person. I am afraid that older I get, the more I become a misanthrope. I am a history person and my general view of humankind is not good. Still the same animals that fell out of trees or walked out of caves, but now with much more lethal technology. That being said, I know lots of people who on a regular basis are kind and thoughtful.
Yes I like the early American deists who saw good in beauty, intelligence, hard work…no mythology, not like modern Christian’s for the most part…of course the Puritans were quite crazed! No joy, no sex, no love…
For decades I've had fun watching "conservatives" take uncomfortable affront at my claiming to be one by arguing that what I sought to conserve are the liberal themes espoused by our founding documents as further refined by those who followed, notably, Lincoln, TR, and FDR. (My honors essay at Amherst in 1958 addressed that same idea as an alternative interpretation of Edmund Burke's pre-French Revolution intellectual persona.)
Those who place a central value and respect for the Golden Rule and treating others well are labeled "Woke" and singled out for persecution. Well, I guess I'm woke. And woke has no place for being in a party that persecutes others and justifies it by stereotyping.
Before clicking any "like" buttons, realize that I believe being "woke" offers no place for being in a party in which cheer leading for a genocide is a litmus test of party "solidarity" either.
I am thinking that people in the US need to get used to the idea of no longer being a great power in the world. As Trump steps back from traditional allies to embrace illiberal leaders like his most beloved Papa Putin, one should understand that what he is doing to the US to win Papa Putin's approval is not going to be reversible, but might end up making Americans just appreciate being in a country that takes care of its people, which it currently is not doing at all.
Well, I'm not sure I have much more original to say....but I will add that we will know less and less what it means to be human, as we witness the horrible crimes the monsters in our government are committing against decent Americans. I never imagined anything like this. We see no solid, logical or coherent plan. Instead their preferred weapons are intimidation, bribery (I guess Adams of NY would fit here) and lawlessness. The combination of great power and great stupidity is terrifying. And, Peter, I think belief in God has maybe led societal dysfunction.
This is certainly not the Christianity I was raised in - just the verbiage and the costumes with a large side of fire and brimstone. I am a decades long atheist - but the tenet of 'do unto others' remains one of my beliefs. Cruelty in the name of religion has been with us for centuries and caused so much of the fighting, discord and hate in the world. I think of what the Dali Lama said: "my religion is kindness"
Yes. Who is the better person? The one who gives out of fear of supernatural punishment? Or the one who gives because it's the right thing to do? I maintain it's the second.
I was baptized ( mama was Italian-American) and educated in a catholic grade school until they expelled me before graduating. Thank God. lol. One thing the nuns, the Sisters of Merciless Mercy taught us was to use reason as a guide in our lives and I soon reasoned that there was no God. Oh and I refused to get a hair cut so they kicked me out of that cute little school. Today I find religious people to have no sense of humor.
No. We should not call today's Republicans Nazis. Yes, there is certainly shared ancestry and defining characteristics. But conflating German National Socialism with American Christian Nationalism elides significant differences which we want to spotlight, such as Christian extremism.
The movement self-identifies as Christian Nationalism. To understand it you have to understand the history of Christianity. Specifically Christians' focus on the Crucifixion and the brief period when early followers of Christ were a persecuted sect. And how they use that to justify their Crusades, Inquisitions, et al. The fact that among Christian Nationalism's supporters are such as the Jewish Stephen Miller, the Hindu Kash Patel, and the Muslim Mayor Amir Ghalib does not change the fact that it is a Christian movement.
I’ll deny that right now. There are bad people from every religion in the MAGA/Musk camp. To generalize like that, to call out one group like that, what are you doing? It’s ignorant. It fuels antisemitism, it divides, and its wrong.
Why is it Ok to say there are extreme Christians in the MAGA camp, but anti-semitic to say there are extreme Jews? I think whatever your religion it doesn't make you an a...hole, but also no religion prevents you from being one, not even Judaism.
Thanks, Lin!! "Racist right wing religious extremism" is the phrase I've been looking for - I use christian nationalism, small-c because it's not Christian - but I feel like a lot of people just don't know what christian nationalism is. Yours is longer but more understandable.
Alexandra, a word for against women, feeling superior to, wanting to control, harm, and exploit women must be included also. This is equal to being racist.
Alexandra, true, to us it is obvious, but not too all. Something I've learned in this challenging time, it that I/we must speak it all. Including female oppression in you label reminds us of it, but more importantly, it expresses a truth, an awareness, that can create an opening for people in those belief systems to question the system. Thanks, Alexandra for your grace in letting me express my reasoning, It's something I feel strongly and so wanted to offer as food for thought.
I am very worried by the idea that Judges/Courts have no power to enforce their respective judgements. Trump and Mosk are ignoring the judiciary. My heart goes out to al those Federal workers who have been terminated. How are they going to pay their bills and buy food for their families? This is the 2025-2028 plan to break apart our county into 2 camps – THE RICH and THE POOR - The middle class will be a thing of the past and long forgotten.
Almost everyone knows someone that works for the Federal government. Trump destroyed the USPS his first term and DeJoy continues to tear it apart. It seems every post office has a help wanted sign on the door.
I've been working to get my wife signed up for SS retirement since the middle of December. They are so short staffed that they have taken almost 2 months, so far to determine how much her benefit will be. Everyone in the local office has been very nice and helpful, but they are swamped. Their voice message says that the wait time for SS disability benefits is 200 days because they don't have the resources to process the claims.
And this is a department that processes over 10,000 new retirement claims every month. Imagine how the service will be once Musk and Trump start firing people that work for SSA.
The female human gender has had a special place in life since the beginning of human time.Today, more than ever before exists the time for making some badly needed adjustments with their male counterparts. I'm not sure we're ready for that. But, it's needed.
Linda, Republicans don't exist any more, no links or resemblance to their past old or recent. They are the maga party horde. We should call them by their name and no more republicans.
I try very hard to stick to “republican.” Although there may be one or two who are not MAGA, there are zero with the courage to protect our country from the scourge. McConnell is no hero because he missed the political courage ship a long time ago.
“In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.”
— On Self-Respect, Joan Didion
Danielle Sassoon has something very few people in society of any era possess: self-respect. It is not negotiable, not a currency for trading with the corrupt. I don’t care about her politics, because her principles are on public display. My hope is that her one brave act becomes the impetus for a quorum sensing throughout the U.S. legal community.
That woman should not even be assigned to pick up dung in the 4th of July parade. No intelligence service is going to share anything with us nor should they.
Well, even if they haven't looked into her background, there are two advertisements for the calibre of the Trump appointees at large in Europe right now.
No shit! Imagine a human being who cares about people, the least of these and food and shelter, and had work and your oath…and them imagine the inverse.
There are more like Ms Sassoon, out there, but they're not so sure who amongst them they can trust. This NYC debacle is a signal that the lamp may be lit.
There is often a reason why they are billionaires. Most of us if we made "just" millions of dollars, would quit or sell whatever made us the money (if we were lucky enough to be one of those very rare rag to riches stories), raise our kids or pets, and work on our painting or fishing or whatever. Not the billionaires! The addicted little piggies have a hole inside them so large that it will never be filled even if they owned everything and were King of the Universe. As they say, poverty exist not because we cannot feed the poor but because we can never satisfy the rich.
They are dis-eased. Where healthy people have a conscience , sense of connectedness, empathy, and a sense of shame, they do not. The rich compulsively, accumulate wealth like an unfillable Black Hole. Elon is a sick man.
One wealthy person, born into wealth and privilege, seemingly came here from another country illegallly to build an empire on it. And now seemingly holds almost absolute power over the entire government to the point where the nominal "President" lets his kid insult him in public inside the Oval Office. And he is trying to influence european politics as well. Power corrupts even the best souls and he is not that!
Starvation is their fundamental strategy. It's a simple, stupid approach by self centered fools who think the only way to save our planet is their population reduction scheme.
Some other smaller nations have found better ways to reduce human impact on our planet's environment. But this approach can only be sustainable when the small nation is part of a defense and economic partnership that is strong enough to defend the whole of its numbers. (EU/NATO). A small nation alone in a "sea" of savage dictatorships and selfish mobs is left with a lonely and expensive to defend position. (Africa).
This seems at odds with the christofascists who want to increase the country’s birthrate. Of course, it’s white women they want procreating. My view can be distorted, but I see a return to eugenics if this regime continues on its current trajectory. 😡
Greed can never be satisfied. People like us (gestures) who are lucky enough to gain a small fortune have something the billionaires will never have. Enough.
(With apologies to Kurt Vonnegut - RIP) Wealth isn't owned. It owns the holder. (The Diamond As Big As The Ritz - Jimmy Buffett - RIP)
Excellent comment Dana. I had the same conversation with my wife often. To us, what they are doing is incomprehensible and guaranteed they are not happy and they'll never will.
And I've been alive for all of it. Never thought my generation would produce this century's Adolf Hitler. But here we are. And no FDR or Churchill in sight.
Ruined, IMHO, “red” hats forever….I’ll betcha many red caps have been retired from use because of the connotation. Perhaps, someday, there will be a movement to “take them back” and they will be, well, just a hat that’s red.
Our local red hat/purple shirt group mentioned they were going to reverse; purple hat, red shirt.
If you're unaware, these groups are mostly women who are 50+ and get together socially. Their float used to be ahead of our tie-dyed marching band in one of our local parades.
Cripes Marlo, he's totally oblivious to the word. He's so proud of himself, he's stuck his mugshot photo in a frame and has it on the hallway wall for all to see. I saw one just like it on an outhouse door while sno-mobiling up in Jackman last week.
The Big Lie began in the 1950s and accelerated under Reagan. The MAGA are truly a circular firing squad with their policies shooting at themselves in the Red States, and finally, Donald Trump is basically a bar stool racist with nuclear weapons.
I saw a tidbit on the news. That King Charles of the UK gave big support to Canadians to resist Trump’s 51st State idea. Can someone out there refresh my memory?
It was yesterday in a statement on the anniversary of the Canadian flag.The King said :
“Today my wife and I join with Canadians across Canada, and around the world, to commemorate an important milestone -
the 60th anniversary of the Canadian flag. On February 15, 1965, the red and white maple leaf was first flown on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Since that time, it has become internationally recognised as a symbol of a
proud, resilient and compassionate country. For my own part, it is a symbol that never fails to elicit a sense of pride and admiration, as I recall with the deepest affection my many
There we go. I have not read that, and at the moment, I'm not sure I want to. I can't even bring myself to read 1984 again, but then I don't have to: it's here.
I have read Mein Kampf. Definitely not great writing, but considering that it was written by a naive twentysomething in prison, you'd have have to categorise it as competent.
Mexico’s President Tells Trump to Shove It: No Military Flights Allowed Without Permission
Mexico's President Puts the U.S. Military in its Place
In a stunning display of backbone and common sense, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivered a well-deserved middle finger to Trump's harebrained deportation plans. According to NBC, Mexico outright refused to allow a U.S. military flight carrying deported migrants to land in their country yesterday. Yep, you read that right—before the damn flight even took off!
Sheinbaum didn’t just say no; she made it clear she isn’t here to play fetch for Trump’s xenophobic circus. The president called out Trump's pathetic attempts to unilaterally dump migrants into Mexico without so much as a heads-up. Her message? Not on my watch, you orange-tinted egomaniac.
In her statement, Sheinbaum straight-up torched Trump’s lack of diplomacy, saying she would not allow U.S. flights to land unless the deportations are properly coordinated with her government. She’s essentially telling Trump: Learn some damn manners and stop acting like you own the place.
What makes this even funnier is how Trump’s team got caught with their pants down. They assumed Mexico would roll over and take it, but Sheinbaum just showed them that real leadership involves, you know, defending your country’s sovereignty. Maybe Trump should take notes, but who are we kidding—he’d probably just use them as a napkin for his Big Mac.
Yes, all that would be left of the United States would be the country of Texas and any of the French folks left over. Might have been a cool country if it was more like New Orleans. Wasn’t there a country of Texas at one point? What happened? Didn’t;t you ;decide’ to join up? Did we really fight a war to bring you’all in? It’s a bit like thinking about the Civil war and wondering what would have happened if the north had said fine…and without industry, banking, money and trade the South would have floundered and then perhaps began the process of coming back…would we have welcomed them but still required the re-entering states to ban slavery? It was dying out as a practice world-wide on moral/Christian grounds, although I see DOGE and Musky as a form of its return. Control by cruel rich people controlling everything is in fact salary slavery, wage slaves, do ‘own’ themselves for sure so very different yet similar in some practices…fear, power, all to control the labor. And stealing our community land and money. But we love Texas! The second largest state!
That lady has got some nuts. I don't think she has much use for jerkwad. or his rich protege'. If he keeps it up the price of Dodge trucks is gonna double. They're made down there in Mexico. They'll sell em to third-world countries along with all the spare parts.
It will take a lot of concentration camps to house many millions of immigrants with no place to go. It will be expensive to buy the Canadian lumber we will need.
Do you have a link to verify a source for this, please? I have tried NBC without any items confirming this action. I would really like it to be true, but at the moment cannot find anything to support. :/
I've been saying for a while that this is what Trump voters need to experience -- the destruction of social and economic safety nets in real time -- in order for them to see the light. They must lose jobs, health care, educational benefits, homes, businesses, and all the rest of what is threatened. Unfortunately we all get to experience it along with them. Hopefully there will be more than wet and cold embers left to rebuild our country once the poisonous red tide ebbs.
I'm about as far from a MAGAist as you can get, but I rely largely on disbursements from Treasury in the form of Social Security payments and Medicare, as well as a modest pension as a retired Fed. I have counted on that to support the modest lifestyle I have, confident that it will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
I have little problem with Trump voters getting large holes in their safety nets for their electoral stupidity, but why should I be made to join them, too?
Bob, you shouldn't. None of us should. And my wife and I are also on SS and Medicare. All I'm saying is this is going to hurt most folks across the board and this is what they voted for, whether they trumpists realized it or not. Perhaps they'll see their error and realize that government isn't necessarily the bad guy (unless it's a bad guy in charge.) And if they say “this is great! More pain, please!” then they're more stupid than I thought.
Thanks, Doug. Of course, we don't know what cuts, if any, they will propose to make to disbursements to current recipients. But the uncertainty of it all is very unsettling and undermines the sense of security those programs were meant to provide for everyone.
Time for more letters to my elected representatives. I live in a blue state, so at least I know they will receive a sympathetic reading.
I, too, rely on SS, Medicare, and a modest government pension (state not federal). So do many of my MAGA-affiliated retired cop cohort. I'm not sure they will ever come around.
I've been trying to have little conversations about what's coming with a young-ish woman who is the manager in the office of the apartment building where I live who I come in contact with quite a bit and we often have very friendly chats. I'm sure she voted for T. So far I've told her about the elimination of the head of household filing status that will hit her hard as a single mother of two and about the wish-listed halving of the child tax credit for those two darlings. She listened with interest, said she heard things were getting bad but that she wasn't listening to or watching any politics at all anymore and that, "prices are all so high". So, I'm not holding out a lot of hope that she or the others she works with will actually correlate the bad situation to anything T is doing but instead might just think they'd be even worse off if Dems were in charge. (sigh) I'm not sure if I'll warn her anymore but maybe just for the sake of those kids.
Rebel, given what you're saying here, maybe she's one of the 90 million who didn't vote at all, and not a T voter. It's unfortunate that people don't see the power they have (or had), the power of a single vote aggregated to propel the candidates they most believe will be looking out for them and their interests.
True, she might not have voted, but considering she's worked with the same group of highly, highly MAGAs for nearly 20 years, two family members work here, the owner is religious MAGA, and with some comments she's made (i.e. doesn't like California people), if she's not a voter, she's nonetheless a member of the clan.
Rebel it's quite possible that she might think that under a democrat, a bad situation would be worse and I'm quite sure, the masters of deflection, would implant that though by masterfully manipulate disinformation. We need to start planting the seeds of really and reason ASAP with laud and clear messages. Not an easy task.
The MAGA echo chamber where I live, and in the office especially, is strong indeed. I've been taking peeks at how other societies mended such rifts after their stints with authoritarianism. Took decades... Can't push more cuz it's my housing at stake but seeds planted.
What you described might explain why former East Germany,with few years of experience in democracy, tend to still vote authoritarian parties as in the next, all important election. I have a feeling that the future of Europe depends on the results of this election. Thanks for your reply Rebel.
Truth is I've actually been taking a risk saying anything at all because this is my housing I'm monkeying with and their MAGA cohesion is strong. The owner of the building is very MAGA of the religious type and she's worked for him for almost 20 years... so for now I've determined I've done what I can there and now I gotta focus on what I'm gonna do to get ready for what's coming and fight in other ways.
Doug, the sad part is that so many innocent folks, have to experience the destruction too. I grew up in a house of 5 kids. When one did wrong, we all suffered. Hardly just, It hurt more of us …
Nancy, I agree completely -- none of this is just, and I fear those with the least already suffer enough. Just wait until the SNAP benefits get cut. But suffering is coming to us all, one way or the other. Perhaps that will cause the fever to break, as I don't know what else will.
Apologies if you have seen this before, but one way to fight back was promoted on Timothy Snyder's (On Tyranny) substack a while back. The Democrats must get louder and respond as a team to the blitz. They can form form a Democratic People's Cabinet, our best folks fighting, calling out illegalities, and presenting an alternative vision. Please >repost< and sign this petition. Over 7K signers so far!
This is a wonderful idea, but everyone in the shadow cabinet will be subject to persecution, investigation, and prosecution by the Trump injustice department,, which is why it will take incredible courage and fortitude for such a group to form.
I don't think there is any uncertainty about the immediate outcome. Every person in America who is not a multimillionaire is going to face years of financial hardship, and the damage to our educational systems are going to provide a legacy of ignorance for our kids. The damage to the healthcare systems will shorten our lives, The damage to our planet will be exacerbated.
Thank you for posting this. One thing I would also point out is that many full-time, long-term, embedded contractors (like me, within HHS) were cut this week, so the cuts and impact on unemployment and families are bigger than what you see beyond the number of employees cut.
Contractors are counted as an expense that's been cut, not a human being that has been "terminated". But you will still show up in the unemployment statistics...
Yes, it is an easy tool to save money, so not totally unexpected with everything going on. (Although nothing seems to be actually based on informed decisions) We were pulled into a meeting and terminated immediately. Obviously there's no severance or anything for us. We aren't the fat cats in the machinery, just your neighbors.
Margaret, that is just awful. I think that for every "federal employee" fired, there are probably between 3-5 individuals falling into other categories that will be impacted but not acknowledged.
Thank you, Professor Richardson for not using the term “Department of Governmental Efficiency” (DOGE) to describe Elon Musk’s attack on democracy. DOGE is not a federal department. “Departments” are part of a larger whole. At best DOGE is a one man consultancy to Trump. A strange consultancy because, unlike real consultants, Musk paid his “client” $200+ million for the privilege of dismantling a government that at least had the trappings of a rational republic before Trump 2.0 and Musk -1.0. So, the media need to simply call Musk’s endeavor “Musk” or “eGOD”, “DOGE” spelled backward and a clear reference to Musk’s sociopathic sense of importance.
Maybe this is extreme thinking but I have to wonder if Elmo can just get in and change the codes so that he's the only one that has them and then claim his takeover...like extortion...so he can make demands of drumpf.
Dee, nothing you can come up with is extreme any more. If you’re not thinking like this, you’re behind the curve. Yes, it’s entirely plausible that musk’s flying monkeys are in there rewriting code to his benefit. And it’s entirely plausible that given who has been installed in the Cabinet and high-level agencies, it will take extreme action to turn this thing back around, even after the dictator is gone.
That is a fact that needs to be broad cast at every opportunity! Those are the dots that need to be connected for the citizens of this country. Plain and simple language!
Hmmmm, Ryan, seems there is enough to help power our energy sector….OMG!….have we just discovered an actual practical use for far-right republicans????
Hmmmm, thinking it should be the “DODGE”—Dept of Dodging Government Efficiency….since they are NOT being transparent, as they indicated they would be. Don’t know who could have thought that a Wreck-It-Ralph in control of taking a hatchet to our gov’t would turn out to be a good thing…perhaps it could alternatively be Delusional Oligarchs Destroying Government Efficiency????
Doggie!, DOGE Shit more likely! Done and Gone Donny ‘DGDE’, stealing our taxes that we paid for specific services! Breakin’ it to Make it! I keep thinking of the destroy the village to save it…pretty much their tribe!
Wonder if the Republicans and red states will actually realize what Trump is doing to them and start protesting. Or will they just see it as “government doesn’t work for us!” and not put the blame on Trump where it belongs? I think I know… sadly.
FOR SURE Obama-Hilary-Biden caused the problems...Steve Bannon et al are working out the details of the hit job. Remember Covid pathetic response was because 'Obama left the cupboard bare' though Trump had been in office for 3 years and Obama warned them that a pandemic is a high risk event for which he needed to prepare.
Who knows what they'll do...but trump wants loyalty from all because he wishes to be royal. Loyal = Royal to don-old. General Washington is turning over in his grave!
Think about how many years she has pulled the same scam! Impeachment: 'Trump learned his lesson'. Brett 'The Grope' Cavanaugh: 'I was worried but he assured me'. Same scam over and over! She must be laughing thinking 'unbelievable the public keeps buying this caca.' Hey, if you live in Maine-this is on YOU!
To answer what are (I believe) more than rhetorical questions, the ffotus is allowed to rape the country because of the 34% of the voting population who voted for him have been fed and willingly consumed an unbelievable amount of false, mis, and dis information and taken it as gospel while those of his party are scared spitless to do anything to confront his illegal and unconstitutional actions. We might become an internal Ukraine, but there could be a substantial difference in how that plays out.
Question: Are you asking "where is the Calvary (def: the hill near Jerusalem (see also Jerusalem ) on which Jesus was crucified") or cavalry (def) "source of help or rescue in an emergency, especially as a last resort"?
As someone who is dyslexic, I understand that there is confusion in those terms. Answering what I believe is the question using cavalry, it is us. All of the us in our various places. Some from the real cavalry (US military personnel) some from the civilian groups that are in full protest mode.
My proposal which I have voiced to Indivisible and other groups and people is the County Extension Agency which is in every county. It was created by the LandGrant Acts and for indigenous peoples horrific however they are here with a long history of 4 H Clubs. More rural than not but I was in a so called urban club as a child and loved it. The organization with big push from people could create new clubs not focusing on sewing or gardening or animal husbandry but civil and grassroots organizing and social action in all areas of concern. They could be inter generational and we Enders could be part of a new way of supporting social justice and our offspring. I have yet to hear back from the Illinois people but I think at this point it’s worth a try. Anyone who wants to help let me know. My old club was called Helping Hands of Cleveland , Ohio.
I am not, per se, a "religious" person but I am possessed of a deep faith of my own concoction....it means a great deal to me.
Having said that, it repulses/gags/sickens me to hear trump (especially) and so many of his base claim to worship God/Jesus and yet blatantly ignore and debase the Golden Rule.......Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
I cannot reconcile anybody who actively supports or condones this administration AND claims to be a Christian. I call BS on you.........
p.s. back on here to share a great Substack that very recently found me - definitely check it out: The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlowitz. As he describes it himself: A longtime pastor and current author, speaker, activist and storyteller, hoping to write words to make the world a more compassionate and beautiful place.
Christofascism is not Christian. I wrote a poem about how public servants defend democracy. Hope it inspires all of you to keep fighting fascism like Heather: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/public-servant-poem-guardians-of-the-flame
As a writer I keep this quote from Isak Dinesen on my desk: "Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.”
This is how I'm approaching working to push back against what is happening. Do a little bit each day to help turn the ship around. Don't get too wrapped up in the emotional unfairness, at least, to the degree that your hopes get dashed and you want to give up or you think it's pointless and you don't even want to try. Just do the work.
What if you are doing the work and it's doing no good?
We often cannot predict or see the outcome, the fruits of our actions.
“They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds.”
~ Greek Poet Dinos Christianopoulos
(h/t Dr. Beverly Falls)
We also plant seeds not expecting to reap the harvest. Who wants to wait for an oak to be tall enough to provide shade? We do, because the shade is not for us. It is for generations to come.
Here's a seed .... join me in planting!
The 24 Hour Economic Blackout - FRIDAY February 28th
For one day we show them who really holds the power. Do not make any purchases. Do not shop online, or in-store. Nowhere! Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending
My father was a forester. The morning before he died of a heart attack he was out in the forest planting trees. That's how i've always seen my life, too...it is for generations to come.
Thank you! I worry far less about "us" than I do about my children and grandchildren. I worry about *every* person with a disability and *every* person who has experienced life with a foot on their neck.
Betsy, I agree with you in spirit, but want to recommend choosing a different tree species. Oaks have an undeserved reputation as big, strong trees, when in fact, they the first to fall in a strong wind storm. This is because they have ridiculously small root balls that can't resist the stresses of wind pushing on the enormous branch structures above. Live oaks are the exception.
Wind-resistant shade trees are American beech, American sweetgum, American holly, most varieties of maples, tulip poplar and Southern magnolia. Most evergreens stand up to wind, but provide less shade.
(From a hurricane and tornado survivor)
We also plant seeds because it is good for us to do good things. It is healthy. It helps make us happy. It is acting out love and loyalty and care for life. It lifts our spirits, or helps keep them lifted. It helps us internalize that we are not alone, helps us believe that we are not alone.
There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, "The best first time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is now."
Spot on!!
That quote could not be more perfect. Isn’t that what the continuum of life is? We receive, we give, others receive . . . And the acorn and the oak tree, and Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia . . .
The other quote I have in my soul that is an echo of this thinking is from an Audre Lorde poem and the one line is … they did not expect us to survive…
Love this, Ellie!
WHAT A GREAT LIINE!!!!: “They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds.” ~ Greek Poet Dinos Christianopoulos
I saw this on a post. It was attributed there to a thinker in Mexico, but whoever first spoke these words was a wise person. And maybe a female person, as females invented agriculture and probably were the first to plant flowers deliberately.
Ellie, I do not know where to start with my thanks. I know the quote, but until your comment I had forgotten its daily importance. But then reading all the replies reminded me, it is a powerful mantra to quote now and everyday share.
Professor concludes: Forty years of ideology is under pressure now from reality, and the outcome remains uncertain." I think we are beginning to find out that a snake (Trump supporters) thought his tail is too long and start eating it from the end.
Sometimes it takes a long time, but you have to keep on keeping on. I believe we will win out, but I haven’t the faintest idea when. I going to keep on believing and working for the sake of my children and especially my grandchildren.
Same here.
Sometimes you plant an apple tree, or a plum, and in just a few years you enjoy fruit. Sometimes there is a little worm in the plums so you just cut that part off and eat the rest. Sometimes you plant an oak, a linden or a walnut - you enjoy watching it gain vigor, welcome small birds, its twigs hold little walls of snow. And you walk under the grand beeches and oaks, centuries old, thinking about how they came to grow in that place and what it looked like there when they were young.
The whole Earth is an incredible jewel with seemingly endless variety and sweet fruits that just grow on trees. We never left Eden; we just get to (and have to) grow up and die. What incredible good fortune in the mean time, though. Yet we so often waste our tenure (and the planet) with our nasty games of domination. The etymology of the word "paradise" refers to a garden.
And J L, I read long ago that earth, yard and garden are all etymologically related. (Sound them out.)
This resonated with me. When we lived upstate we planted many oaks and beeches - as we had that house for 30 years and were able to watch them grow into magnificent trees and seek shaded air under their boughs on hot summer days.
Jill, maybe the work is good…just not effective YET…we must keep trying, maybe falling, but always getting back up and keeping on.
What do you do if it seems that your work is for nothing? If you believe strongly in what you are doing, you keep right on. In the end, you might not succeed, but if you stop working you know you will fail.
Believe you are doing good. Don't concede that magnificent power within you to do so, to them. Viktor Frankl , read Man's Search For Meaning for a powerful tutorial.
Jill we must remember that what we are seeing didn't happen in just the three weeks that this administration has been in charge. This has been in the works for over 40 years!!! We can't expect to stop it over night, but we MUST keep fighting. We The People have NEVER backed down from our attempt to make this a MORE PERFECT UNION. Yes, we have bent, but never broken. We need to keep up the fight!!
Together we do make a difference, though individually those changes may be imperceptible.
https://yadontknow.blogspot.com/2021/01/by-people.html
Don’t focus on what is out of your control. You can only do so much. There is no predicting what might happen. So you do what seems useful and doable for you. Your work might be at the local level. Even a neighborhood or your local school. Just do the work. And give it time.
That reasoning is probably based at least in part on how depressing all the news seems. But please remember, friend Jill, that the news never has included, and perhaps can never entirely represent what lives in our hearts. Don't despair. There's a lot going on that we're only partly aware of.
When we fight injustice, we fail, we fail, we fail, and then we win. Cecile Richards.
It will do some good. Have faith, the real United States citizens speak.
I love to read Count of Monte Cristo. His advice is "Wait and Hope."
We need to be anchored in Hope. ❣️
HOPE! You are so right! Hope keeps me calling my Representatives every day . Hope makes me talk to people about ACTION.
Absolutely! Hope gives us the strength we need for action.
Lending any power to what I have not played a part in …I will not claim ownership of, which I actively tried to warn against, which I many decades ago saw coming and prepared for…has arrived . It saddens me. The challenge ahead is humungous, other countries succeeded though and so can America.
Thank you Heather for your passion and eloquence . Stay safe .
I take no glory in those who will eventually admit the part they played in this mess.
Revenge has no place in a loving servant’s heart .
Stay the course 💙 the lesson is not over…yet.
And yet, it's just so much 'easier' to be cynical, hopeless, to give-in, give-up, despair, lose faith, subordinate...Unless you really believe in the good fight. Maybe the magats think they're doing just that, when in fact their worldview is blinded by their fear of knowing the truth...their own history.
Thanks Bonny. That's good, helpful advice for when my emotions get out in front of my intentions.
Just do the work
Without hope
Without despair
That would make a good tee-shirt.
Thank you. Every little bit of encouragement like yours helps. People are more important than things. :-)
Thank you for posting this quote by Isak Dinesen, one of my favorite authors. Given her life experiences, it does not surprise me that she penned these words to live by, especially during these troubled times.
I described hard-right Xianity to students in Tunisia as "I.S.l.S. with a cross."
Ned, I use "Christian Taliban". It really irritates the Christian Nationalists...
Always can count on you to shove it right back at them, Ally. Nicely done, good and faithful savante!
<curtsies>
Perfect
I love that, Ned, and will remember to repeat it.
Thank you, Doug. I used I.S.I.S. because the students I taught were Muslims who are peace-minded and good citizens. They feel about I.S.I.S. the way we do about the "Xian Taliban".
They want a Christian Iran.
Good point, there, Gregg.
ISIS with a cross, I like it! I understand the analogy in the term “Christian Taliban,” but these people are so far from being followers of Jesus. My dog is more Christian than these hard right heretics. “Anything that is not good news for the poor is heresy. Period.” Jim Wallis
Many, many are owed our fervent thanks for service that is infrequently acknowledged. even noticed. Like the air that fills our living space, we all would miss it greatly were it gone.
Like public servants who keep our water clean (mentioned above), My state is going to be deeply affected by what Musk is doing; maybe this catastrophe is what is necessary to wake up the somnolent and cult members. That’s my hope anyway.
We wouldn't notice. We'd be dead.
We would notice keenly, but not for long.
The poem is beautiful!
Hear, here!
Yes it is. I tried to send it to a friend through email it kept booting me out but the forth time it worked. Don’t know if that’s because of google??
First off, great poem. As someone who was in public service for 35 years, I thank you. I stood many a watch, including on 12/31/1999.
I know that it is deeply painful for Christians to see and hear what is being done by the Christian Nationalists in the name of your Christ. For those of us outside that sphere of Christianity, it looks like you have to take the good with the bad. When someone beats me with a Christian Bible in the name of Christ for who I am, I am calling them a Christian.
I do understand your position that Christofascism, or Christian Nationalism, is not Christian. They are. As a retired cop who taught use of force documentation and justification, I shudder when I see people like Derek Chauvin, Timothy Loehmann, Daniel Pantaleo, Sean Grayson, Brett Hankinson, and Jeronimo Yanez, and want to say "not all cops"; I cannot because there are far, far too many cops who are just like them.
Their victims, in order: George Floyd, Tamier Rice, Eric Gardner, Sonya Massey, Breona Taylor, and Philando Castile.
Ally House, I worked hard with understanding the psychological dynamics of police brutality. It appears to be by design, in such a manner as to create confusion and rift between the marginalized and the authorities. You may have seen the FBI investigation that explains what is going on: http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/402521/doc-26-white-supremacist-infiltration.pdf
"Not All Cops" is correct. Like with Roe v Wade and other long term strategies, the police have been infiltrated by supremacists. If you look at the units uncovered in the news, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Las Angeles to name a few, it appears there were targeted cities. Sadly, the police unions seem to be the backers, preventing the uprooting.
Beautiful, important poem. Thank you for defending democracy!
Beautiful poem!
Read it, and I think everyone who does will love it!
James Burnham yesterday speculated on what might be possible if only seven Republican senators had the principles of the Federal attorneys who resigned rather than drop the prosecutors' righteous pursuit of Mayor Adams. It is not just principles, but also manifest skills. My concern in recent days has been over what our Democratic Reps and Senators are actually doing, as legislators -- not merely orators -- to fight against the Constitutional Coup enveloping the Federal establishment.
It put me in mind of an experience I had as a very young Fed closely observing Republican Senator Jim Allen from Alabama who almost daily displayed how important it was for at least one legislator in each body to have and be able to apply deep knowledge of the rules and procedures to achieve legislative aims. The Dems had the majority then; the Republicans aimed to block the Democrats civil rights aims in the 1960's. And Senator Allen had a lot of help. His constituent service responsibilities to Alabamans, for example, were picked up by other Republican Senators allowing him to hire and work with experts and specialists who could help him keep abreast of the intricacies of established procedure to achieve the Republican caucus aims.
I found myself deeply conflicted by his performance. While I objected to his aims, I marveled at his demonstrable success at what he brought to the table. Using his specialized knowledge, he worked his butt off; I could not but respect that aspect of his performance. Who, pray tell, will step forward to such preparation and such tasks now in defense of a Republic in profound jeopardy??
I believe
Eve Hillary Clinton did this back when she was a Senator!
Excellent poem that I will share with many others. Thank you & all our for your dedication to public service.
A beautiful poem. Thank you, PS.
Did you send it to your elected officials
All Heather does is tell the truth. Trump, Musk and company must hate it. We now clearly live in a kakastocracy. An "Appeal to Heaven" is now appropriate: god help us!
Beautiful!
I don't know what being a Christian is anymore 😕
Please have this published in newspapers and magazines. Beautiful!!!
I don't think we should get in the habit of arbitrating who is and who isn't Christian. Or Muslim. Or Jewish. Or Hindu. Or Buddhist. Etc.
I think each religious community must own their own religious excess/extremism/ extremists.
The Trump administration is fueled by the resentment of Christians who believe they are persecuted. It is politically useful to right wing religious extremists like Opus Dei acolyte Leonard Leo. Now it is a catechism of Republicans to loudly profess persecution of Catholics.
Oddly, once Christianity was established as a dominant and often state religion, Christians focussed on the early and brief history of persecution. Now this historical resentment is amplified by grievance at the recent drop in numbers of people identifying as Christian. Hence, false assertions being persecuted and endangered in the U. S.
The "Trump Administration" is daily revealed as a huge mistake, a miscarriage of what was intended under the law of the land, and it must be corrected, swiftly. (Have you SEEN the spectacle presented by those two unprepared and unqualified men in Europe?) The uprising of the judiciary is of the utmost importance - this is wrong, don't obey, there is a Constitution, it's being ignored and trodden underfoot. Every lawyer in the land has a place in this revolutionary force. They are showing us the path.
Why, Anne-Louise, is the orange felon's criminal admin such "a huge mistake, a miscarriage"?
We might better answer this if we tie your good Q to one of Heather's, when she asks here what, decades ago, made white Americans "hate the government even more, as they . . . were convinced it benefited only nonwhite Americans and women."
I blame fellow libs and progressives for their lack of using the resources rich in American culture which, had Dems prominently used them, could have sold most whites, most everyone, on the U.S. government keeping to its democratic, inclusive course.
Trouble is, schools following the 1971 Powell memo began shedding these resources, and took up instead the elites' wonk options of testing's mass quantifying of everyone -- of its abstractions, cold logical schemes, neutered language, and depersonalized packaging of all life.
Couple this with other elites' cold, rapacious mass offshoring of U.S. working-class jobs, and we have the pathos, the stewing discontent Arlie Russell Hockschild recorded in "Stolen Pride" and George Packed in "The Unwinding."
Phil, you need to define elites. Elites in education that believe in the Socratic method are fine with me. They don't teach in sound bites or to the test. Teaching to the test was the result of 'Leave no Child Behind'. It was in the works since Reagan introduced 'A Nation at Risk.' These programs were not supported by elites like Obama or Arne Duncan. George Bush signed onto it. These program names are all distractions from what lies beneath them. Follow the money and you'll find it has nothing to do with elites. The republicans wanted block grants to the states, so they could control who got the money. School Choice, challenger schools and the like were favored by them, because they eliminated those low functioning minorities. Teaching to the test came about because a school had to meet certain benchmarks. If they didn't, a parent could remove their child and the money they represented, and move to a private school of their choice. the names of the education program changes, in order to qualify for the money that follows. I taught under that system.
Elites used to mean well educated - and when I was young, well-educated people were admired - and parents strove to send their kids to college. The cost of college and the competition to get in has made this out of reach for many. I'm old - 74 - my public schools taught humanities, languages, music and art - and opened my eyes to those things and that helped chart the course of my life (art historian, graphic designer, lawyer and now fiber artist). In 1968 I started college at the University of Michigan - which had just brought in affirmative action - requiring that a percentage of students be of color - to better represent the population of Michigan. The standards for graduation were the same for everyone though. Black and White. Having grown up in a lily-white WASPy suburb of Detroit, this was the first time I interacted with people who were black, Jewish and from different countries. It was fabulous. Over time some of the highly educated looked down on people with blue collar jobs and trade schools were seen as 'less than' Huge mistake -- both literally as trades are essential to us all, and in the sense that it increased the divide. The far right hates academia because when their children go off to college, they meet people of different backgrounds and with different ideas and that tends up uproot some conservative family beliefs and create a more liberal populace.
Hey, Laurie, me, too.
I was U of M undergrad 1965-69. Then off to a certain war. Then grad student through mid-'70s. Also from lily-white Detroit suburbs.
I'm not so sure as you, however, as to the "because" for why "the far right hates academia."
I think it has to do more with the ways standardized testing forced all schools -- all -- to see college as the only way forward for all. And any not joining the army of wonk -- all those "deplorables" -- just deserve whatever the bankers, financiers, standardized tester, and related dark money elites have done to all our fellow working classes in decades since.
IU grad here. Though I grew up between Gary & Chicago, our community was very white. Life is more fun w different people.
lauriemcf, I can guess where you grew up. I agree that looking down on blue collar people, etc.was/is a mistake. People have many different skills and I have always respected that. Incidentally, the electrician across the street has a degree in rhetoric. The R pain across from out back yard is an excellent craftsman and for I respect that and that only. He also makes guns, nice huh.
Elites, slippery, Eadie.
I recall when that was a positive term.
Since the Powell memo (1971), however, it's come more to mean the dehumanized -- the wonk, the quantifiers, the packagers who only see life as units, numbers for them, the new elites, to control, manage, dictate to, but otherwise ignore, never see as individual people with their own stories.
Finally, Eadie, the new elites never, never, never cite any stories. No novels, no memoirs, no biographies, no histories -- no other arts.
Phil, I appreciate the definition of elites, but I believe it describes what is happening today, which is a result of poor teacher training on the college level,
IMHO, blaming the libs and progressives is misdirected. Teacher training standards
Phil, I appreciate your definition of elites, but IMHO, it doesn't track with the history.
Poor teacher training on the college level, the elimination of civics in the curriculum, and yes not enough devotion to the humanities as taught during the Renaissance
period. Your definition of elites doesn't connect with the history you're referring to. The elites you are referring to are more the result of children being raised on social media, computer games & online courses. The result is short attention spans and as you say, they see life as units and numbers. This definition you give for elites is a more recent phenomenon going back two decades, where the 4 r's are emphasized or in modern lingo computer science and coding. The progressives and Libs did not subscribe to what began after the Powell memo in 1971. Carter will be remembered for establishing the Dep't of Education in 1979. By doing this, it became a Federal program that could cater to the poor and disadvantaged. The Reagan administration in the 1980's, the George H, W. Bush and the George W. Bush administration that followed subscribed to 'Leave No Child Behind.' Widespread cheating was discovered in Texas during this period. I taught under it. Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan inherited that program and tried to moderate it or really weaken it. Clinton appointed Riley as his education Czar.. Riley won national recognition for his highly successful effort to improve education in South Carolina. During the President's first term, Riley helped launch historic initiatives to raise academic standards; to improve instruction for the poor and disadvantaged; to expand grants and loan programs to help more Americans go to college; to prepare young people for the world of work; and to improve teaching. As I said before, it wasn't the coders and numbers guys that devised this program which required teaching to the test and you describe as elites. It was the same old racists that wanted to deny minorities an education and pocket
the money they saved from Block Grants for themselves.
I think it's because the elites turned out not to be that elite. One had hoped that those successful and lucky in life would feel some sort of obligation to share their luck with others, because - let's face it - a good part of our life is just potluck - being at the right time at the right place sort of thing.
But it turned out that the elites, quite often after convincing themselves that their fortune is only due to their own extraordinary abilities and unrivaled hard work, were not so prepared to share and give others a leg up.
I blame a lot of that on our economic system which turned into coldhearted ruthless capitalism.
Now the time has come that there is not much more to squeeze out of the masses. It will get interesting what the next steps will be.
This is of course not everybody who is/was part of the elite, but those who are have determined the direction.
Are y’all fiddling while Rome burns…
You are right. They do not possess any negotiated connections with their imaginations or its corollary, an emotional hinterland. They are all appetite and reaction and shallow sentimentality. MAGA are a political sect of collective memory loss.
You're describing Elon and the tech bros!
Thank you for the correction. Testing kids ability isn't the problem, it's uncritical, ie religion-based lack of ability to reason, that's the issue. Sorry I'm on my hobby horse again, but organized religion is nothing but Santa Claus for grown ups.
Our governor, a HUGE tfg supporter, just rammed through vouchers, even rolling over members of his own party. BUCKETS of outside money. He even threatened to w/hold hurricane aid to upper E TN (devastated last fall) is they didn’t support vouchers.
DISLIKE
Really glad to see this explanation here. Thanks.
What the heck are you talking about? All of that would be lovely except that Donald Trump just hired Elon effing Musk to destroy America.
This mass impulse of hatreds, Jill, isn't spontaneously going to dissolve.
As Heather traces in hers today, it's not just one guy, or even one or two, or a few guys. It's a mass hatred. Hatred of government. Hatred of blacks. Of immigrants. Of democracy.
It's an old history, as Heather follows it. And we'll stay mired in it until some among us see and begin centrally to call on the cultural resources that got betrayed, just as (by plan) schools got betrayed, U.S. working classes got betrayed.
Phil, you left off "hatred of women."
My husband was once in ag so he understands farmers, their very real challenges and their thinking. I just asked him if farmers realized they were receiving “welfare” in gov subsidies, esp since Heather says they are 3-to-1 tfg supporters. He thinks probably not in the sense of “welfare queens.” They are hard workers and I would argue are proper recipients for gov assistance (farmers support national security)bc of weather and other factors not in their control. Part of the problem is right-wing radio is in their ears constantly.
And unless our elected officials get out there what Heather reports all is lost
Jill Musk with an F is Felon.
George Bush through his “No Child Left Behind” act, which led to all that unnecessary testing, in public schools. I was still teaching then and we lost about a month of instructional time due to unnecessary testing. This is his legacy not the “liberal elites” as you suggest.
It was necessary, Carol -- the standardized testing.
It established all the rapists of the financial sector as imaginatively the same as all the libs, wonks, also dehumanized, incapable of ever citing any novels, memoirs, biographies, histories, or other arts indebting them to any fellow humans anywhere.
Hate in a disease and was/is feed by many toxic forces…and the excuse of hating affirmative action comes to mind. There is no rational reason why if the percentage of the population is 10% something then that group should be about 10% of students in higher education. And so helping to bringing up those students who qualify as a priority is fairness for the cultural costs of racism. This is the idea that some things can be changed by laws and some require awareness and action to help overcome past wrongs. Simple, Christian, fair, right. And yes this is the actual definition of Woke, by the way.
I think, Ryan, you meant "no rational reason why . . . the percentage . . . should not be 10% of students in higher education."
We need our own news channel. A counter to Fox News.
MSNBC is pretty much the balance but not the viewership nor just the propaganda. Glad Rachel I’d back more often..watch and share.
Try Meidas Touch Network.
I would just like to say here is one place we are mostly in agreement. Then why do we disagree so much here? I’m gonna start calling it the Trump factor, the more chaos Trump creates or the more we get off topic, Trump wins. I challenge all that post here to take it to social media and hold your elected officials accountable to take it to social media
I don’t think we can rely on attorneys. How about we hold our democratic congress accountable for getting Heathers truths out
While I would agree up to a point, I have no problem calling out hypocrites no matter what they profess religiously, politically, or whatever. I often say talk don't wash. Now I am thinking of Susie Q I am concerned Collins. It is also perfectly OK to call out cruelty which this bunch has in spades. Firing someone when they are midair coming back from some kind of conference for example. Letting food and medicine expire overseas and cutting off important disease research is another. And the House budget--how many of them claim to be Christians--hurts the poor and needy to give tax breaks to the rich.
Senator Collin’s is always concerned, but almost never enough to actually take a stand. Can’t the Republicans figure out that Trump, Musk, and the Cabinet nominees lie?
I have an image, Susan, of Collin’s carved visage, or maybe a cast bronze…perhaps it will be titled “She of Furrowed Brow”. “Concerned” indeed…to the point of becoming a meme.
Sitting on a fence, raising a wet finger into the wind is not a stand Susan.
They know they lie, but it’s convenient, despicable cover for their own asses to pretend they don’t know it. Susan Collins and that republican senator who is a physician who broke his Hippocratic oath voting for RFKjr are two prime examples.
Collins and her fellow GOP colleagues in thr Senate are very, very attached to thr perks that come with being Senators- thrir government pensions and healthcare. Susan's main concerns are her wealth and her scrawny ass.
They have to know—they’re not stupid—on the other hand, thinking that we don’t notice what they’re doing is pretty dumb!
Of course they know. They don’t care. It’s a power grab, pure and simple. Not sure exactly what koolaid is being served at Mar-a-lago but we know it’s a combination of domestic and imported brew that is highly addictive. Power is truly intoxicating. The root word is ‘toxic.’
Are their lips moving. Fox shows them how to become experts…
Please remember that cruelty has been a feature of America since it was founded. Genocide and slavery based on skin color are about as cruel as you can get. America’s brand of capitalism depends on racism, misogyny, exploitation and cruelty.
The nation’s systems were established to benefit men with white skin-that’s what they’re fighting to maintain in the midst of more and more people becoming “woke”.
Attacking and undermining education is a successful strategy. As T said, they “love the uneducated”. In a lot of ways Brown v Board opened up a Pandora’s box.
We’re struggling now to deal with the effects of cruel actions designed to keep us hopeless, divided and desperate. We can not escape our history. We should learn from it instead so we can “perfect our union”.
Ohhh I like that Michele. "Talk don't wash" Though I've said the same in other words, I really like that. Brava ~
Excellent many points Michele!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn't want you comment to end...😄
Thanks, Ricardo....many people just want me shut up. I often just listen because i learn a lot more that way.
Don't be selfish Michele....share what you have learned. I'm sure you'll have thousands of likes 😜
Thank you, Ricardo. I am looking for the post which disagrees with something I said. I have also been subject here to replies that I would have to describe as incandescent rage. One person later admitted to having a mental breakdown and apologized. As for the others....??
I appreciate the urge for caution when evaluating anyone else's core beliefs, and yet the narcissisticly pious are chastised even in Christian scripture. I am don't claim to be Christian, but doubt that Jesus would endorse what Trump and his coterie of billionaires are doing to immigrants, to truth, and the enrichment of themselves at the public's expense. Just for starters.
Trump claims to be Christian yet, so too did Martin Luther King. How many values and actions do they share in common? Which is more consistent with what presumably remains of Jesus' teachings?
From my perspective MAGA is closer to an 'antichrist" than the picture painted by the New Testament of Jesus' thoughts and works. Hate, lies and cruelty just don't seem to fit. Jesus rather ignored wealth and the state. Power politics murdered him.
Anyone who thinks Trump is Christian is so deluded I don't know how to even begin undoing the madness.
He’s,IMHO, a “suckers and losers” and “what’s in it for me” kinda Christian (preferably those with TV mega church shows). Passes the collection plate and pockets the tithe.
Definitely that, Barbara, but even more insidious than that. He's swept up all the sadistic christians, the descendants of the slave powers who used the Bible to justify slavery. I recently came across this stunning and perfect quote from Frederick Douglass:
“I hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land... I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.”
Never was there a clearer case of 'stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.' I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. . . .
The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.”
― Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass
Alexandra, thank you for sharing this.
It is strange how much sociopathic horror has been dress up as "Christian" or one religion or another. Torture, genocide, etc. I recall hearing a story about Desmond Tutu under Apartheid was preaching to a large crowd when he noticed a white Afrikaner policeman being beaten. He left the stage and threw himself over that beaten man to protect him. What would Jesus do? What would Trump?
Alexandra, powerful. --- from the depths of being. Douglass's provocations provoke resolve in me. Thank you for displaying his words here.
Alexandra-Your mention of “descendants of the slave power” is so insightful. Much of our written history tells the story. Douglass’ observations and experiences are valuable for us today.
It’s also worth looking at the pictures of how mobs of White people burned, lynched and murdered indigenous and enslaved people. Look at the pictures of mobs threatening Black children after Brown v Board was decided.
The hate that has been stirred up for centuries has been intentional and purposeful. The 2024 election was not about the price of eggs. It was about the Haitians eating pets and T’s “beautiful white skin”.
As HCR writes the resistance to including “undeserving” Americans in this democratic experiment is longstanding.
Thank you for posting this…
Wow! I particularly like the part about “stealing the livery of the court of heaven,” which Douglass then expounds on. What a way with words he had! Thank you for sharing this piece.
Dead on, as he usually was.
New down and feathers for his bed come from the collection plate.
Where are the stories in the media about all of the greedy billionaires like the entire Walton family, giving back to the hard hit rural communities. Or Jeff Bezos giving raises to his workers so they can live in dignity.
There are literally hundreds of foundations set up across the US and tens of thousands of churches that need to be helping people that Trump and Musk are abandoning.
Conservative faux Christians are very hapoy to judge, ao I will return the favor: they are morally bankrupt hypocrites.
As an example, Pope Francis is pushing back hard on Trumps immigration policies and cruelty. Last week he sent a letter to all American Archbishops.
Stalin and his cronies in their fur coats up on a stage reviewing the military parade is the image that comes when the American archbishops are mentioned.
You doubt that Jesus would endorse chump….ye think.
Well said JL
Trump's "fruits of the spirit" are rotten lemons.
COVID virus, pretty literally.
As well, humans have a tendency to believe their own BS. Hell, I'd love to 'grade my own tests.' I know better though, and challenge myself.
That's why professional science has peer review, and proven bias can be career killing. It's why trials are randomized to reduce unknowing bias. Everybody is human, but there are regimens that reduce the chance we will fool ourselves. As individuals, we compare notes, seek others' perspectives. We bear in mind that while human understanding can be awesome, it's always a work in progress, and is always in some way subject to limitations. Even physics and even math.
Socrates is said to have claimed the the unexamined life is not worth living. I would not go that far, but think that an unexamined life is greatly impoverished; and potentially hazardous, to one's self and to others.
Since you brought it up:
https://www.google.com/search?q=orvieto+cathedral+paintings&sca_esv=3d793fae6bd1316f&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS1130US1130&hl=en-US&udm=2&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjO-JS61ciLAxWFv4kEHROXHwMQ7Al6BAgOEAM&biw=375&bih=616&dpr=2#vhid=rt74qOk_FjaofM&vssid=mosaic
Wow !
J L you said it all so well. Thank you 😊
I do think that when we give tax breaks to people who claim a religion we have some say in their actions…non-profit, services but no politics. And certainly, no real political power…
You know churches pay no property tax. They pay no income tax and then they buy and sell real estate they pay no capital gains tax Their employees often have mega salaries. But in the end that is not what is at hand. What is at hand is our democracy
Yes, I am OK with tax breaks for some very specific functions and with limitations. If churches are running significant businesses, it's still a business. They can get deductions for what is charitable, as anyone would. Tax help to a point for a meeting facility.
It might be a good time to eliminate tax deductions for all 501c3s like Catholic hospitals that refuse to treat patients or provide women's health services. Or the churches that give NOTHING back to their communities.
Dozens of states are looking for ways to cut property taxes. Let the 501c3s pay their fair share especially the mega white Christian Nationalist churches that preach hate.
I will remind you’all that as a manager of a non-profit we can not advocate for political, no activity that involves voting and money. We can share values and thoughts, just not tell people how to vote. Churches have too often crossed, grotesquely, this line! I was in a church and they had a suggested voter sheet at the door, in a church building, who knows who created or printed it. The perfect example of what churches, and their leaders, can legally do is set a standards for policy, as did the Episcopal Bishop who tried to remind the President that striking fear in children was wrong! Donny whiffed, so did JD.
I know some Christian’s who apparently think Jesus preached the prosperity gospel. I will mock them til the cows come home.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends;
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV.
Dealing for dollars is trying to find me.
I wait for delivery each day until three.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town.
I'm counting on you, Lord, please don't let me down.
Prove that you love me and buy the next round.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends;
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
The song was recorded in one take during a recording session on October 1, 1970. These were the last tracks Joplin ever recorded as she died three days later, on October 4.
One of my fave Janis songs.
Lol...
I disagree, lin. I can't speak for the other religions, but as someone who was raised in conservative Christianity, I reserve the right to criticize. Conservative Christians have no tolerance for others unlike themselves, despite what is in the gospels describing what Jesus thought about such things. So even those of us now outside of the faith have the right to call out the current crop of so-called Christians in their bigoted views, just as much as anyone.
Good luck to the rest of us if we have to rely on religious communities self policing! I can't think of a more ridiculous notion.
Absolutely - Full stop. Separation of church.., and state. Freedom from religion and those who would impose it upon us. It's what this country is about, but unfortunately not what it is fast becoming.
lin, I recently finished a detailed book about Opus Dei. There are actually members in high places in the government. As someone raised Catholic and until recently a practicing one, I will state unequivocally we are not persecuted. Instead, some are exceedingly rich(Tim Busch) and others (Alito & Thomas, Bill Barr) highly placed. This is about power and control, just like for Musk, CNs, etc., pure and simple. (Pope Francis just met with a delegation of American bishops and scolded them bc they are not representing the church’s position on social teaching—why is another issue).
But if we met on the sidewalk, and I said, "Look at my adorable duck. Feel how soft his fur is, and look at how cute he is with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth when he pants. Isn't it funny when his floppy ears make a slapping noise as he shakes his head? And he always wags his tail when he's happy."
I think you'd be justified in saying, "That's not a duck."
And the Pope denounces Vance’s stands
I have been pleased by the humanitarian orientation of the present Pope, but I am saddened that he chose to wade into the US election, declaring a vote for Harris was as bad as a vote for Trump. It seems to me that, as opposed to silence on the matter, it would aid Trump's cause. The age of Trump is pretty terrible.
I see the thought behind this, but one thing I've experienced in being in/recovering from an extremist cult is that they cannot be policed by their own faith. They reject the authority of their own leaders and peers and all that criticism basically boils into "you just aren't as chosen/holy/pious". I think it's more than fair to point out hypocrisy when we see it.
numbers are dropping because people can't abide the extreme rhetoric and the cruelty - I think anyway.
I yearn for churches that are not into hating the poor and abused and canonizing the very rich to distance themselves from such ideologies. Jesus did.
It is my expectation that the following of all nominally Christian US churches might be diminished by allowing arrogant and cruel MAGA ideology to hog the picture.
Calling out hypocrisy is necessary, especially since so many are low information & need assistance
to understand the difference between labels & actions.
Lin, I think this is another case of 'sloppy language' ; use of catch-all words for complicated things. jmho
The history of religion in the United States and now at times bloodcurdling. Though the seeds of the founders were not filled with hate and fear. Actually the opposite. And yes all religions need to tell and accept their truth of history. They are like all humans flawed and done way way more flawed then others in dine if they’re actions. But one needs ti research who is in power now and hat their game plans are fur now and the future. At times Gilead looks more likely than not. And I think back to Paul Robeson’s lovely rendering of There is a Balm in Gilead.
We get so tangled in words, particularly broadly categorical ones. Is religion responsible for horrors, such as 9/11, or is that just nasty power politics wrapped in invented piety? Reagan claimed that "Government" was "the problem", but isn't "government of the people, by the people, for the people" supposed to be a good thing, and the "Third Reich" government of Germany used as a terrible example?
There sure has been a history of horrors connected to religion, but like the crude pretense of righteousness of Trump, it fake. That said, I am aware of some self-declared religious people who, overall, try to live a life of love. Was that not what Jesus (and Buddha) seemed to be driving at?
Voice to text can really mangle a post. But you can edit it. Use the 3 dots and select Edit.
Growing up Catholic, the people who opposed my Church the most were evangelicals- now the strange bedfellows of the Opus Dei crowd. Both are using each other to gain power. At the same time I know plenty of good non-MAGA evangelicals and Catholics. #wearenotthesame
Well said, lin•
Peter, I too have my own “concoction” of spirituality that I draw on in my daily life. And, I too am deeply offended by trump and his supporters, who display everything from idolatry to blasphemy…two words I’ve never used in conversation in my life!
There is absolutely nothing about trumps behavior that is even remotely Christian-like. And don’t get me started on the white Christian nationalists/christofascists who are his supporters. They are all fake, and their behavior is antithetical to every religion, and other forms of spirituality, that exists.
I never call on God directly, but I do find myself adding #GodHelpUs to just about every post that I share these days…
"Religious" figures who are open hearted earn my deep respect. Those that are arrogant, aggressive, and full of hate do not.
I'm not Christian, but Trump sometimes feels as if he rapes Christianity.
A rat in sheep's clothing.
Sabine, I would substitute the word "sometimes" that you used to describe trump actions for a more realistic one.
Sabine. I on the other hand believe he rapes true Christianity ALL THE TIME.
Ditto
Julie. I’m with you!
One of my ex-students is a pastor and he spoke out early against death star and is adamant he is not a Christofascist. I would describe him as conservative, but he works right now mainly with men to help them be better fathers, husbands, etc. My favorite picture that he has posted is a bunch of regular guys giving their daughters a pedicure. As for those who are loudly praying in the Temple and money changing there, they are hypocrites of the worst kind and do not follow what Jesus commanded in the first three Gospels. I think, and I am not a Bible expert, that he said that people should give up all that they have and follow him. He was against the rich and for the stranger and the less fortunate. He preached substance and not grandstanding and talk. In my view, it is deeds and not talk about faith or claiming faith that measures how Christian a person is and yes, I know this is a theological debate of long standing.
Michele, I agree with all you said, except for, I don't think Jesus was against the rich. He, I believe, was trying to point those of great wealth away from the greed, cruelty, neglect, and violence of their runaway egos. And awaken humility, awareness, and compassion in them because they held all the political power to decrease societal suffering.
Jesus seemed not so much against anyone, but chastised selfish behavior. He took offense to money-changers, but did not commit violence (maybe a bit of mild vandalism). Timothy was fairly blunt about the "love of money" which I take to be greed. A movie villain popularized the phrase "Greed is good", but Republicans and Wall Street seized it as a motto (until in the public distaste for the Subprime Crisis, it seemed to sputter out). Note that ambition per se can be morally neutral, but greed involves depriving others. That gets complicated, but there most be something morally wrong with the wealthiest man on the planet wanting to poorest and most desperate to get less.
“ 'Homeless is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little bit behind on their mortgage, and if you just gave them a job, they’d be back on their feet,” he told former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson in October. “What you actually have are violent drug zombies with dead eyes, and needles and human feces on the street.'
The more money spent combating homelessness, “the worse it gets”, according to Musk."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-homeless-trump-vivek-ramaswamy-b2663740.html
J L Graham, egos run amok are not a pretty sight. Funny how they all seem to say no, no, no money won't help fix education, homelessness, hungry children, etc. etc., but they compete ruthlessly to get more and more of it.
Are you ignoring the verse about a rich man getting into heaven being as difficult as a camel moving through the eye of a needle? Unless they are willing to give it all away?
Matt, I believe Jesus was referring to our heaven on earth, to our freedom from the chains of ego. I think he was saying, we become free and so enter heaven on earth when we stop beleiving that the more we have the more we are. Because the wealthy were ready and commonly known examples of human's faulty runaway egos, they were used as such by Jesus.
Anything written down in the bible and/or our interpretation of it, that makes us conclude that Jesus was against the rich, I believe is wrong. Jesus to me seemed keenly aware of his ego and so operated mostly, if not always (if that's possible) from love and compasson. I'm not against the rich and certainly am not as egoless as Jesus. So, coming back to my main point, how could Jesus be against the rich?
I am no Biblical scholar as I hope I clearly stated. I did read Zealot (by a Muslim scholar) which I liked a lot. Personally, I see Jesus as a radical against the elites of the day including those who managed the Temple where they were using their positions to feather their nests. I also took a course in the Synoptic Gospels where we compared the three and discussed Biblical scholarship. I realize that the Gospels were written after the fact by several years and have lines subject to misinterpretation by us. Elites of his time were those in power and those most likely to be wealthy. It is difficult to operate from love and compassion if your main goal in life in prestige, power, and wealth which leads to lots of exploitation including using religion to further these goals. I believe Jesus was trying to get at substance and not surface things.
Michele, I agree Jesus was trying to point us deeper than what we see on the surface. I think he pointed to the elites because they were common examples of human egos run amok. Everyone could easily see the insanity of the ego. But we can disagree on whether he was against the elites or not. I don't think he was. I realize that some stories, words, and interpretations can seem to point to him being against the wealthy/elites. I reject those as being inaccurate, contrary to his beliefs. I think Jesus was trying to point us to the suffering our egos create and juxapositioning it beside love and compassion that do not create suffering, but can diminish and heal it.
One of my favorite words of Jesus, are those he spoke on the cross. He told the crowd, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." He was speaking of the criminals hanging beside him on crosses and the elites who had condemned him to death. For me, he was saying, because these people are being controled by their egos, they don't know what they're doing. They are irrational, only operating at the surface level. They are unaware. These words of his tell me that he was never against anyone, not even the elites/wealthy, because Jesus wasn't operating from ego. He wasn't operating from fear or anger. What made Jesus special was that he operated from the deeper place where unconditional love and compassion dwells.
But that's just my opinion. And I respect that your opinion may diverge from mine on this one characteristic of Jesus.
There is a kind of conservative I respect. I don't equate that sense of it with narrow minded, in fact just the opposite. To me conservative means allowing for the likelihood of error, and examining things carefully. Some who claim "conservatism" just seem arrogant. My sense of Jesus was that he was very inclusive. Faux-conservatism is very exclusive.
Oh yes; To them all opposed are godless heathens that must be brought to heel. The problem remains that those opposed, such as Dem, you, or I, is that we've allowed them to define us. Just like they redefined the word 'liberal'. *And, just like now, they're being allowed to define 'woke.'
D4N, excellent! We keep using their frames, which are always BS. Like looking for fraud and abuse, no it was about their looting and criming, but we kept saying, oh yes we are against fraud and abuse first in our responses. We used their frame, as we always do. We legitimize their lies. We need to stop that.
I see way too much of that in the press; even here. Be honest,but be blunt with evil. Even folly.
I believe all of our values and therefore character (whether religiously motivated or not) are demonstrated by deeds, not words.
Both I think, since words can be deeds (contrast MLK speeches with Trump and Vance falsely claiming Haitians are eating people's pets). "Their fruits" of any consequence. We are not always able to know the truth, but we know when we are lying. It is a deliberate choice. We may innocently pass on a lie that fooled us, assuming decent diligence. Sometimes we should know better than just repeat what we want to be true or fear might be true, but to err is human. A lot depends on what we do next.
I agree.
FROM Mark 10: As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
NOTICE: Jesus looked at him and loved him.
Other than Francis of Assissi and some like him, very few people have the ability to give everything away and live on what others give them. This inability of ours isn't cause for our God to hate us but rather to feel compassion and love.
But that's what they are called to do, but so few do it. "It's not practical," they say. Jesus didn't tell you to be practical. He told you to do it.
Michele, you'd probably want rephrase the "against the rich" comment if you thought about it. If we are to believe the biblical account of Jesus' ministry, he was able to be a homeless, itinerant preacher thanks to the sponsorship of several wealthy women, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna. He surely must have looked kindly on the wealthy since they were funding his ministry.
Christians have an unfortunate habit of extrapolating God's or Jesus' words to one individual or small group as commands to everyone who ever lived. Worst example: the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Scriptures was a set of guidelines for a sect of Jewish clergy in ancient Israel. It was never meant as a daily how-to for all believers (which evangelicals heavily cherry-pick anyway).
When Jesus invited the fishermen to join his ministry, he advised them that they'd have to quit fishing and pack lightly, which made sense because the women mentioned above were funding the venture. This was a verbal contract strictly between the fishermen and Jesus, not a command to every follower.
The so-called "Early Church" was a group of believers who sold their properties and lived in a community, bartering amongst themselves, a primitive version of communism, but this was their decision, not a command from Jesus.
Moreover, modern bible scholars have concluded that Jesus never made the "eye of the needle" statement.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/origin-of-the-needles-eye-gate-myth-theophylact-or-anselm/51F6B1FD504C36C42D6201F6D87F83C3
As i stated, I am no Biblical scholar and i do not keep track of the latest scholarship. Nor do I follow the history of early Christianity. That being said, I do think that Jesus was attempting to raise concerns about how the elite of the Temple operated. Some people doubt that Jesus even existed which I do disagree with. I am also aware that the Gospels were written much later and have a source that has been lost..Q. And even if Jesus did not say certain things, they have been interpreted through the centuries as guidelines. Unfortunately, the uber wealthy have often demonstrated that they think themselves entitled and that it is OK to exploit and trample on ordinary people.
My understanding is that the existence of Jesus is supported by some non Biblical sources, but of course the Bible is an anthology, and accounts of Jesus life and thoughts are second hand. I recall a preacher claiming that every word of the Bible is the "Word of God"; but where is the evidence? Whatever the source, I think there is wisdom in the Bible, and a whole lot of other stuff.
A small mention in Josephus. All the Gospels were written later with Mark being the earliest. There is a source Q that we don't have which was used by both Matthew and Luke. One of my fav books recently is God: An Anatomy about mostly the OT It would offend a lot of people, but I enjoyed it. Also I have been hooked on Sumer and ancient Mesopotamia recently thanks to reading some of the Temple hymns to various Sumerian gods.
Michele, I infer from your "like" that you know I wasn't arguing or trying to pick a fight. I agree that there was likely an itinerant Jewish preacher who taught a revolutionary theology and was certainly not named "Jesus."
Weirdly, but not surprisingly, evangelicals have divided themselves into two schools of thought about wealth. One group believes rich people can't get into heaven. "Love of money is the root of all evils" and all that.
The other group believes that one's wealth is in direct proportion to how good they've been, thus being "blessed" by God.
My interpretation of the spotty record* of Jesus' life and ministry is that neither poverty nor posterity characterize his views. I suspect his thinking was, the amount of money one has or doesn't have isn't the issue; virtue comes in making the world a better place with what one has, whether a little or a lot. Further, that no one acquires wealth all by himself.
Funny thing is, we don't need an ancient Jewish prophet to tell us this.
*It amazes me that so many christians think they have complete knowledge of Jesus' thinking, considering that 33 years of the man's life are condensed onto a stack of pages about a quarter-inch thick and many of those are redundant. Cliffs Notes would be more informative!
No, I accepted what you said is what Biblical scholarship has said. I have been thinking a lot about oral tradition and that perhaps what we see was what was circulating orally and somebody wrote it down or certain oral traditions were circulating and nobody wrote them down. As I said, I think he, or whoever he was, had problems with the Jewish elite running the Temple. The author of Zealot says that there were a lot of people running around in first century Palestine who were considered messiahs. I can well imagine it was difficult being under the thumb of the Romans and seeing leaders cooperating with them. LOL. What else is new. I did a long paper many years ago about antisemitism from Roman times to the First Crusade. According to my research (which may have changed since then) Romans were baffled by Jewish resistance since they granted to Jews some privileges not granted to others. My take is that the Romans were fine with what people believed as long as they did not revolt. And there was a revolt and in AD 70 Titus ended that. I agree totally with your last statement. Unless someone has uncovered some huge stash of written sources, we are stuck with very little. Right now I am reading a book on the cosmos by an astrophysicist who is reminding us that despite all the recent discoveries, there are fundamentals about the universe that we don't know and maybe don't know what we don't know.
I think, when we think about it, we know that we don't know, and have no clue about what we have, as yet, if ever, no clue about. My dog knows quite a lot, but has limitations, and so do I. I can also detect that my dog knows a lot that I don't know, judging from her behavior, such as responding to scents. There is no shortage of more stuff to know. One persons brief footnote is another's life-work, and the unexpected continues to occur. It's amazing what goes on in a human nervous system, or even a bird brain. Even a slime mold.
My sense is that while there may be "eternal truths", our understandings evolve with ongoing observation and study. So want to believe that it was all figured out long ago, and some early thought proves to be remarkably insightful. That said, the only way forward is forward.
Michele. Exactly 👍
Ditto Peter; On all counts. My belief is that most of the 'lambs' in that somewhat apparent following are mostly different levels of stooges. That is that they are being misled. My belief, perhaps for the sake of my own sanity, is that 'most people are good.' I do however verify. * I must add this also. I do have a degree of spirituality. What I find is that most folks do also to one degree or another, and whatever they do or exercise is personal / individual as it should be to my way of thinking.
D4N, I have my own view of spirituality and try to be a "good" person. I am afraid that older I get, the more I become a misanthrope. I am a history person and my general view of humankind is not good. Still the same animals that fell out of trees or walked out of caves, but now with much more lethal technology. That being said, I know lots of people who on a regular basis are kind and thoughtful.
"The world is my God; to do good is my religion." Possibly attributable in whole or in part) to Thomas Paine. Makes sense to me.
Yes I like the early American deists who saw good in beauty, intelligence, hard work…no mythology, not like modern Christian’s for the most part…of course the Puritans were quite crazed! No joy, no sex, no love…
I have a complaint Michele, your comments are too short....🫠
I hope you have noted those who disagree with me.
For decades I've had fun watching "conservatives" take uncomfortable affront at my claiming to be one by arguing that what I sought to conserve are the liberal themes espoused by our founding documents as further refined by those who followed, notably, Lincoln, TR, and FDR. (My honors essay at Amherst in 1958 addressed that same idea as an alternative interpretation of Edmund Burke's pre-French Revolution intellectual persona.)
Golden Rule, Categorical Imperative, Great Commandment. "Christian Nationalism" (a contradiction in terms) has nothing to do with it.
Those who place a central value and respect for the Golden Rule and treating others well are labeled "Woke" and singled out for persecution. Well, I guess I'm woke. And woke has no place for being in a party that persecutes others and justifies it by stereotyping.
Before clicking any "like" buttons, realize that I believe being "woke" offers no place for being in a party in which cheer leading for a genocide is a litmus test of party "solidarity" either.
Sleepers awake.
I am thinking that people in the US need to get used to the idea of no longer being a great power in the world. As Trump steps back from traditional allies to embrace illiberal leaders like his most beloved Papa Putin, one should understand that what he is doing to the US to win Papa Putin's approval is not going to be reversible, but might end up making Americans just appreciate being in a country that takes care of its people, which it currently is not doing at all.
Well, I'm not sure I have much more original to say....but I will add that we will know less and less what it means to be human, as we witness the horrible crimes the monsters in our government are committing against decent Americans. I never imagined anything like this. We see no solid, logical or coherent plan. Instead their preferred weapons are intimidation, bribery (I guess Adams of NY would fit here) and lawlessness. The combination of great power and great stupidity is terrifying. And, Peter, I think belief in God has maybe led societal dysfunction.
These pseudo Christians prefer the Old Testament, with all its smiting of your enemies.
They always ignore Jesus's actual words: Matthew 25- "Feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the afflicted, and welcome the stranger."
BRAVO PETER !!!
THE TALMUD
On ENCOURAGEMENT
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the earths grief.
Love merely now.
Do justly now.
Walk humbly now.
You are not obligated to complete the work.
Neither are you free to abandon it.
This is certainly not the Christianity I was raised in - just the verbiage and the costumes with a large side of fire and brimstone. I am a decades long atheist - but the tenet of 'do unto others' remains one of my beliefs. Cruelty in the name of religion has been with us for centuries and caused so much of the fighting, discord and hate in the world. I think of what the Dali Lama said: "my religion is kindness"
Yes. Who is the better person? The one who gives out of fear of supernatural punishment? Or the one who gives because it's the right thing to do? I maintain it's the second.
Here’s a link to a recent posting from John Pavlovitz:
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnpavlovitz/p/trump-voters-is-this-what-you-wanted?r=apy04&utm_medium=ios
I was baptized ( mama was Italian-American) and educated in a catholic grade school until they expelled me before graduating. Thank God. lol. One thing the nuns, the Sisters of Merciless Mercy taught us was to use reason as a guide in our lives and I soon reasoned that there was no God. Oh and I refused to get a hair cut so they kicked me out of that cute little school. Today I find religious people to have no sense of humor.
Catholicism and Protestantism were large parts of what made me walk away. In my opinion, it's all about power over others and wealth.
Pavlovitz is someone I have been reading for several years. As a non-theist, he speaks to me very well.
Peter, Trump and Musk believe deeply in the Golden Rule as espoused in The Wizard of Id: Who has the gold makes the rules.
Peter, I couldn’t agree with you more.
Exactly what Noam Chomsky predicted 10 years ago, that Trump would destroy everything until there’s nothing left.
I wish that instead of saying Trump
as shorthand for 'racist right wing religious extremism', we'd get in the habit of saying 'Republicans.'
Let’s just cut to the chase, Lin, and call them Nazis.
No. We should not call today's Republicans Nazis. Yes, there is certainly shared ancestry and defining characteristics. But conflating German National Socialism with American Christian Nationalism elides significant differences which we want to spotlight, such as Christian extremism.
I get it, but there are Jewish extremists mixed in with these groups and we can’t deny that.
The movement self-identifies as Christian Nationalism. To understand it you have to understand the history of Christianity. Specifically Christians' focus on the Crucifixion and the brief period when early followers of Christ were a persecuted sect. And how they use that to justify their Crusades, Inquisitions, et al. The fact that among Christian Nationalism's supporters are such as the Jewish Stephen Miller, the Hindu Kash Patel, and the Muslim Mayor Amir Ghalib does not change the fact that it is a Christian movement.
I have always said here and elsewhere, that the whole movement is not just tfg the cfg; It's a coalition.
I’ll deny that right now. There are bad people from every religion in the MAGA/Musk camp. To generalize like that, to call out one group like that, what are you doing? It’s ignorant. It fuels antisemitism, it divides, and its wrong.
Why is it Ok to say there are extreme Christians in the MAGA camp, but anti-semitic to say there are extreme Jews? I think whatever your religion it doesn't make you an a...hole, but also no religion prevents you from being one, not even Judaism.
Ted are you talking to me? I AM Jewish and I feel it is a right to call people out no matter what or who they are.
In each case, Germany then, the US now, you have politicians more than willing to take a fascist advantage. You can't deny that.
I think that we insist that they define themselves - out loud.
Yep. Not even neo-Nazis. There's nothing neo- about them.
GOP = gang of predators
Thanks, Lin!! "Racist right wing religious extremism" is the phrase I've been looking for - I use christian nationalism, small-c because it's not Christian - but I feel like a lot of people just don't know what christian nationalism is. Yours is longer but more understandable.
Alexandra, a word for against women, feeling superior to, wanting to control, harm, and exploit women must be included also. This is equal to being racist.
M Tree, I think the subjugation of women is explicit in religious extremism.
Alexandra, true, to us it is obvious, but not too all. Something I've learned in this challenging time, it that I/we must speak it all. Including female oppression in you label reminds us of it, but more importantly, it expresses a truth, an awareness, that can create an opening for people in those belief systems to question the system. Thanks, Alexandra for your grace in letting me express my reasoning, It's something I feel strongly and so wanted to offer as food for thought.
M Tree, you're completely right. Especially older women in the system deny they're oppressed. I wish I had your patience more often!
Doesn't misogynistic about cover it?
Carolyn, that wou!d work.
RRWRE's doesn't slip off the tongue though. We need a better acronym.
I feel where you're coming from lin. There must be a better reference... When it comes to me, I promise to share with you.
I prefer "traitors." They have thrown the Constitution, the values it embodies, one "man", one vote, and the rule of law under the bus.
I am very worried by the idea that Judges/Courts have no power to enforce their respective judgements. Trump and Mosk are ignoring the judiciary. My heart goes out to al those Federal workers who have been terminated. How are they going to pay their bills and buy food for their families? This is the 2025-2028 plan to break apart our county into 2 camps – THE RICH and THE POOR - The middle class will be a thing of the past and long forgotten.
Almost everyone knows someone that works for the Federal government. Trump destroyed the USPS his first term and DeJoy continues to tear it apart. It seems every post office has a help wanted sign on the door.
I've been working to get my wife signed up for SS retirement since the middle of December. They are so short staffed that they have taken almost 2 months, so far to determine how much her benefit will be. Everyone in the local office has been very nice and helpful, but they are swamped. Their voice message says that the wait time for SS disability benefits is 200 days because they don't have the resources to process the claims.
And this is a department that processes over 10,000 new retirement claims every month. Imagine how the service will be once Musk and Trump start firing people that work for SSA.
Just had an acquaintance of ours, USFS employee for 12 years, who closed on a house the day before she was fired from USFS.
The plan on steroids…. Because chump wants all government people subservient to him. Then other groups, but do the shock (and awe) first.
The female human gender has had a special place in life since the beginning of human time.Today, more than ever before exists the time for making some badly needed adjustments with their male counterparts. I'm not sure we're ready for that. But, it's needed.
Pls D4N, read my reply to lin. It goes to your point.
I will dig back.
Linda, Republicans don't exist any more, no links or resemblance to their past old or recent. They are the maga party horde. We should call them by their name and no more republicans.
I try very hard to stick to “republican.” Although there may be one or two who are not MAGA, there are zero with the courage to protect our country from the scourge. McConnell is no hero because he missed the political courage ship a long time ago.
Except AI. And Noam warned about that too I think.
And I used to think that Noam was a little “out there.” He probably says “I told you so a lot.” He has a right.
? Really ? Not familiar with that Mike...
I’ve been reminded of that every day since then.
I miss Noam. Wish he was 20 years younger.
“In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.”
— On Self-Respect, Joan Didion
Danielle Sassoon has something very few people in society of any era possess: self-respect. It is not negotiable, not a currency for trading with the corrupt. I don’t care about her politics, because her principles are on public display. My hope is that her one brave act becomes the impetus for a quorum sensing throughout the U.S. legal community.
John, Brava to her. I was amazed given her background and she was very explicit in how she refused.
The reverse of Tulsi Gabbard...
That woman should not even be assigned to pick up dung in the 4th of July parade. No intelligence service is going to share anything with us nor should they.
Well, even if they haven't looked into her background, there are two advertisements for the calibre of the Trump appointees at large in Europe right now.
I am assuming you mean Pete the drunk and that git, Vance.
Why, yes! that's exactly who I meant!
And to think that the (R)ss-holes consider her 2028 presidential material.
The puke emoji.
No shit! Imagine a human being who cares about people, the least of these and food and shelter, and had work and your oath…and them imagine the inverse.
There are more like Ms Sassoon, out there, but they're not so sure who amongst them they can trust. This NYC debacle is a signal that the lamp may be lit.
And not just for the legal community John.
There is often a reason why they are billionaires. Most of us if we made "just" millions of dollars, would quit or sell whatever made us the money (if we were lucky enough to be one of those very rare rag to riches stories), raise our kids or pets, and work on our painting or fishing or whatever. Not the billionaires! The addicted little piggies have a hole inside them so large that it will never be filled even if they owned everything and were King of the Universe. As they say, poverty exist not because we cannot feed the poor but because we can never satisfy the rich.
They are dis-eased. Where healthy people have a conscience , sense of connectedness, empathy, and a sense of shame, they do not. The rich compulsively, accumulate wealth like an unfillable Black Hole. Elon is a sick man.
Interesting the studies of impact of wealth on psyche and wellbeing, here is one example: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_money_changes_the_way_you_think_and_feel
Isn’t it interesting too that many wealthy people built their status by relying on government contracts, subsidies, tax breaks etc?
One wealthy person, born into wealth and privilege, seemingly came here from another country illegallly to build an empire on it. And now seemingly holds almost absolute power over the entire government to the point where the nominal "President" lets his kid insult him in public inside the Oval Office. And he is trying to influence european politics as well. Power corrupts even the best souls and he is not that!
Huh? A "sick man"?. Howz-a-bout he's one brok-dik som-beech. Since we're throwin names around.
It is apparent that this administration won't be bothered by watching starvation break out more extremely all over the world.
Starvation is their fundamental strategy. It's a simple, stupid approach by self centered fools who think the only way to save our planet is their population reduction scheme.
Some other smaller nations have found better ways to reduce human impact on our planet's environment. But this approach can only be sustainable when the small nation is part of a defense and economic partnership that is strong enough to defend the whole of its numbers. (EU/NATO). A small nation alone in a "sea" of savage dictatorships and selfish mobs is left with a lonely and expensive to defend position. (Africa).
This seems at odds with the christofascists who want to increase the country’s birthrate. Of course, it’s white women they want procreating. My view can be distorted, but I see a return to eugenics if this regime continues on its current trajectory. 😡
Wealth is the fuel for corruption. Selfishness is the starting flame.
Corruption is a destroyer of collected human endeavors.
Whereas selflessness grows around poverty and great need in the human spirit and condition.
Greed can never be satisfied. People like us (gestures) who are lucky enough to gain a small fortune have something the billionaires will never have. Enough.
(With apologies to Kurt Vonnegut - RIP) Wealth isn't owned. It owns the holder. (The Diamond As Big As The Ritz - Jimmy Buffett - RIP)
Excellent comment Dana. I had the same conversation with my wife often. To us, what they are doing is incomprehensible and guaranteed they are not happy and they'll never will.
And I've been alive for all of it. Never thought my generation would produce this century's Adolf Hitler. But here we are. And no FDR or Churchill in sight.
Yep - it was much more fun being 20 in the 70ies than it is being 70 in the 20ies, that's for sure.
Looks like many others agree with this statement, as do I. Honestly, I would love to wear my Levi bell bottoms again. (I didn’t turn 20 til 81)
I can relate to that Sabrine 😊
Hang in there James, sooner or later a Hip-Hop FDR or Churchill will arrive. Otherwise I'll buy ya a drink in Canada.
Hatred = Hat Red. What a coincidence. What if a meme had been used in Democratic campaigns…🤔
Red Hats = the new White Hoods and Brown Shirts.
Of course, Hitler used American race based segregation as a model for systemic government discrimination.
GOPhadists!
Ruined, IMHO, “red” hats forever….I’ll betcha many red caps have been retired from use because of the connotation. Perhaps, someday, there will be a movement to “take them back” and they will be, well, just a hat that’s red.
Our local red hat/purple shirt group mentioned they were going to reverse; purple hat, red shirt.
If you're unaware, these groups are mostly women who are 50+ and get together socially. Their float used to be ahead of our tie-dyed marching band in one of our local parades.
Red hats = hate! Love that analogy.
Not by coincidence your last name is Grace....😄. Thanks for your comment 👍
You're welcome, Ricardo GRINbank -- dare I say your comment made me...smile :D
I wonder how Trump feels about being the most HATED person in the world right now, the narcissist he is.
Cripes Marlo, he's totally oblivious to the word. He's so proud of himself, he's stuck his mugshot photo in a frame and has it on the hallway wall for all to see. I saw one just like it on an outhouse door while sno-mobiling up in Jackman last week.
The Big Lie began in the 1950s and accelerated under Reagan. The MAGA are truly a circular firing squad with their policies shooting at themselves in the Red States, and finally, Donald Trump is basically a bar stool racist with nuclear weapons.
I saw a tidbit on the news. That King Charles of the UK gave big support to Canadians to resist Trump’s 51st State idea. Can someone out there refresh my memory?
It was yesterday in a statement on the anniversary of the Canadian flag.The King said :
“Today my wife and I join with Canadians across Canada, and around the world, to commemorate an important milestone -
the 60th anniversary of the Canadian flag. On February 15, 1965, the red and white maple leaf was first flown on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Since that time, it has become internationally recognised as a symbol of a
proud, resilient and compassionate country. For my own part, it is a symbol that never fails to elicit a sense of pride and admiration, as I recall with the deepest affection my many
Canadian visits and friendships.”
This even better: https://substack.com/@krassenstein/note/c-93871168?r=48ef0&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I believe the origin of "the Big Lie" was Hitler himself.
HarrisWalzFTW: “The great masses of the people… will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.” Mein Kampf
https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/big-lie/
There we go. I have not read that, and at the moment, I'm not sure I want to. I can't even bring myself to read 1984 again, but then I don't have to: it's here.
I have read Mein Kampf. Definitely not great writing, but considering that it was written by a naive twentysomething in prison, you'd have have to categorise it as competent.
The Oligarchs tried a revolution against FDR, but the military officer they approached turned them in.
Mexico’s President Tells Trump to Shove It: No Military Flights Allowed Without Permission
Mexico's President Puts the U.S. Military in its Place
In a stunning display of backbone and common sense, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivered a well-deserved middle finger to Trump's harebrained deportation plans. According to NBC, Mexico outright refused to allow a U.S. military flight carrying deported migrants to land in their country yesterday. Yep, you read that right—before the damn flight even took off!
Sheinbaum didn’t just say no; she made it clear she isn’t here to play fetch for Trump’s xenophobic circus. The president called out Trump's pathetic attempts to unilaterally dump migrants into Mexico without so much as a heads-up. Her message? Not on my watch, you orange-tinted egomaniac.
In her statement, Sheinbaum straight-up torched Trump’s lack of diplomacy, saying she would not allow U.S. flights to land unless the deportations are properly coordinated with her government. She’s essentially telling Trump: Learn some damn manners and stop acting like you own the place.
What makes this even funnier is how Trump’s team got caught with their pants down. They assumed Mexico would roll over and take it, but Sheinbaum just showed them that real leadership involves, you know, defending your country’s sovereignty. Maybe Trump should take notes, but who are we kidding—he’d probably just use them as a napkin for his Big Mac.
God I wish she was ours too…maybe we can move all the original territory that was Mexico back! Leave Texas of course, and then make the rest Canada.
This Texan agrees.
Yes, all that would be left of the United States would be the country of Texas and any of the French folks left over. Might have been a cool country if it was more like New Orleans. Wasn’t there a country of Texas at one point? What happened? Didn’t;t you ;decide’ to join up? Did we really fight a war to bring you’all in? It’s a bit like thinking about the Civil war and wondering what would have happened if the north had said fine…and without industry, banking, money and trade the South would have floundered and then perhaps began the process of coming back…would we have welcomed them but still required the re-entering states to ban slavery? It was dying out as a practice world-wide on moral/Christian grounds, although I see DOGE and Musky as a form of its return. Control by cruel rich people controlling everything is in fact salary slavery, wage slaves, do ‘own’ themselves for sure so very different yet similar in some practices…fear, power, all to control the labor. And stealing our community land and money. But we love Texas! The second largest state!
Hurrah for her !
That lady has got some nuts. I don't think she has much use for jerkwad. or his rich protege'. If he keeps it up the price of Dodge trucks is gonna double. They're made down there in Mexico. They'll sell em to third-world countries along with all the spare parts.
It will take a lot of concentration camps to house many millions of immigrants with no place to go. It will be expensive to buy the Canadian lumber we will need.
I don't think it will just be immigrants.
Si! se pueda
Do you have a link to verify a source for this, please? I have tried NBC without any items confirming this action. I would really like it to be true, but at the moment cannot find anything to support. :/
I've been saying for a while that this is what Trump voters need to experience -- the destruction of social and economic safety nets in real time -- in order for them to see the light. They must lose jobs, health care, educational benefits, homes, businesses, and all the rest of what is threatened. Unfortunately we all get to experience it along with them. Hopefully there will be more than wet and cold embers left to rebuild our country once the poisonous red tide ebbs.
I'm about as far from a MAGAist as you can get, but I rely largely on disbursements from Treasury in the form of Social Security payments and Medicare, as well as a modest pension as a retired Fed. I have counted on that to support the modest lifestyle I have, confident that it will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
I have little problem with Trump voters getting large holes in their safety nets for their electoral stupidity, but why should I be made to join them, too?
Bob, you shouldn't. None of us should. And my wife and I are also on SS and Medicare. All I'm saying is this is going to hurt most folks across the board and this is what they voted for, whether they trumpists realized it or not. Perhaps they'll see their error and realize that government isn't necessarily the bad guy (unless it's a bad guy in charge.) And if they say “this is great! More pain, please!” then they're more stupid than I thought.
Thanks, Doug. Of course, we don't know what cuts, if any, they will propose to make to disbursements to current recipients. But the uncertainty of it all is very unsettling and undermines the sense of security those programs were meant to provide for everyone.
Time for more letters to my elected representatives. I live in a blue state, so at least I know they will receive a sympathetic reading.
I, too, rely on SS, Medicare, and a modest government pension (state not federal). So do many of my MAGA-affiliated retired cop cohort. I'm not sure they will ever come around.
They use a shotgun where a scalpel is needed.
I've been trying to have little conversations about what's coming with a young-ish woman who is the manager in the office of the apartment building where I live who I come in contact with quite a bit and we often have very friendly chats. I'm sure she voted for T. So far I've told her about the elimination of the head of household filing status that will hit her hard as a single mother of two and about the wish-listed halving of the child tax credit for those two darlings. She listened with interest, said she heard things were getting bad but that she wasn't listening to or watching any politics at all anymore and that, "prices are all so high". So, I'm not holding out a lot of hope that she or the others she works with will actually correlate the bad situation to anything T is doing but instead might just think they'd be even worse off if Dems were in charge. (sigh) I'm not sure if I'll warn her anymore but maybe just for the sake of those kids.
Rebel, given what you're saying here, maybe she's one of the 90 million who didn't vote at all, and not a T voter. It's unfortunate that people don't see the power they have (or had), the power of a single vote aggregated to propel the candidates they most believe will be looking out for them and their interests.
True, she might not have voted, but considering she's worked with the same group of highly, highly MAGAs for nearly 20 years, two family members work here, the owner is religious MAGA, and with some comments she's made (i.e. doesn't like California people), if she's not a voter, she's nonetheless a member of the clan.
Rebel — Then I'd follow MK's advice and ask her about who she voted for, etc.
Rebel it's quite possible that she might think that under a democrat, a bad situation would be worse and I'm quite sure, the masters of deflection, would implant that though by masterfully manipulate disinformation. We need to start planting the seeds of really and reason ASAP with laud and clear messages. Not an easy task.
They think 4% inflation is bad? I remember 18% under Nixon.
The MAGA echo chamber where I live, and in the office especially, is strong indeed. I've been taking peeks at how other societies mended such rifts after their stints with authoritarianism. Took decades... Can't push more cuz it's my housing at stake but seeds planted.
What you described might explain why former East Germany,with few years of experience in democracy, tend to still vote authoritarian parties as in the next, all important election. I have a feeling that the future of Europe depends on the results of this election. Thanks for your reply Rebel.
Rebel...Politely ask her whether she voted for trump. If she says yes, then ask her was this what she wanted. If she doesn't answer, well...
I think you will at least plant a seed in her head.
I think that's a great idea, MK.
Truth is I've actually been taking a risk saying anything at all because this is my housing I'm monkeying with and their MAGA cohesion is strong. The owner of the building is very MAGA of the religious type and she's worked for him for almost 20 years... so for now I've determined I've done what I can there and now I gotta focus on what I'm gonna do to get ready for what's coming and fight in other ways.
No ebbing in Texas
Doug, the sad part is that so many innocent folks, have to experience the destruction too. I grew up in a house of 5 kids. When one did wrong, we all suffered. Hardly just, It hurt more of us …
Nancy, I agree completely -- none of this is just, and I fear those with the least already suffer enough. Just wait until the SNAP benefits get cut. But suffering is coming to us all, one way or the other. Perhaps that will cause the fever to break, as I don't know what else will.
Apologies if you have seen this before, but one way to fight back was promoted on Timothy Snyder's (On Tyranny) substack a while back. The Democrats must get louder and respond as a team to the blitz. They can form form a Democratic People's Cabinet, our best folks fighting, calling out illegalities, and presenting an alternative vision. Please >repost< and sign this petition. Over 7K signers so far!
www.change.org/shadowcabinet
(see https://snyder.substack.com/p/shadow-cabinet)
Yes, someone or a group needs to organize this People’s Cabinet, now!
This is a wonderful idea, but everyone in the shadow cabinet will be subject to persecution, investigation, and prosecution by the Trump injustice department,, which is why it will take incredible courage and fortitude for such a group to form.
Some will be in for that anyways… being a pubic figure could help? They could speak out about persecution too.
I don't think there is any uncertainty about the immediate outcome. Every person in America who is not a multimillionaire is going to face years of financial hardship, and the damage to our educational systems are going to provide a legacy of ignorance for our kids. The damage to the healthcare systems will shorten our lives, The damage to our planet will be exacerbated.
👆this!!!
And there it is then.
Thank you for posting this. One thing I would also point out is that many full-time, long-term, embedded contractors (like me, within HHS) were cut this week, so the cuts and impact on unemployment and families are bigger than what you see beyond the number of employees cut.
I am so sorry you are impacted by this insanity.
Contractors are counted as an expense that's been cut, not a human being that has been "terminated". But you will still show up in the unemployment statistics...
Yes, it is an easy tool to save money, so not totally unexpected with everything going on. (Although nothing seems to be actually based on informed decisions) We were pulled into a meeting and terminated immediately. Obviously there's no severance or anything for us. We aren't the fat cats in the machinery, just your neighbors.
That straight up sucks. I’m so sorry.
💔Damn, Margaret, this makes me fighting mad for all those in your situation. It’s like clusterfu*k on acid…very screwed up and very very weird.
Margaret, that is just awful. I think that for every "federal employee" fired, there are probably between 3-5 individuals falling into other categories that will be impacted but not acknowledged.
Thank you, Professor Richardson for not using the term “Department of Governmental Efficiency” (DOGE) to describe Elon Musk’s attack on democracy. DOGE is not a federal department. “Departments” are part of a larger whole. At best DOGE is a one man consultancy to Trump. A strange consultancy because, unlike real consultants, Musk paid his “client” $200+ million for the privilege of dismantling a government that at least had the trappings of a rational republic before Trump 2.0 and Musk -1.0. So, the media need to simply call Musk’s endeavor “Musk” or “eGOD”, “DOGE” spelled backward and a clear reference to Musk’s sociopathic sense of importance.
Musk wants to cut programs that regulate his business, while telling us he's making the government more efficient.
Maybe this is extreme thinking but I have to wonder if Elmo can just get in and change the codes so that he's the only one that has them and then claim his takeover...like extortion...so he can make demands of drumpf.
Dee, nothing you can come up with is extreme any more. If you’re not thinking like this, you’re behind the curve. Yes, it’s entirely plausible that musk’s flying monkeys are in there rewriting code to his benefit. And it’s entirely plausible that given who has been installed in the Cabinet and high-level agencies, it will take extreme action to turn this thing back around, even after the dictator is gone.
That is a fact that needs to be broad cast at every opportunity! Those are the dots that need to be connected for the citizens of this country. Plain and simple language!
Department Of Gaslighting Everyone.
Bowel Gas…
Hmmmm, Ryan, seems there is enough to help power our energy sector….OMG!….have we just discovered an actual practical use for far-right republicans????
Our professor pronounces it "doggy".
And I love her for that!
Get along little Doggie!. hot Diggity DOGE
I've heard DOGE called, "Destruction of Government by Elon." That's the best description of DOGE I've seen so far.
Hmmmm, thinking it should be the “DODGE”—Dept of Dodging Government Efficiency….since they are NOT being transparent, as they indicated they would be. Don’t know who could have thought that a Wreck-It-Ralph in control of taking a hatchet to our gov’t would turn out to be a good thing…perhaps it could alternatively be Delusional Oligarchs Destroying Government Efficiency????
That’s Joanne suggestion too! Yes, it’s all a dodge, a fake-out, a swerve by the ‘sewer circus and the turds!” Breakin’ it till you fake it!
Doggie!, DOGE Shit more likely! Done and Gone Donny ‘DGDE’, stealing our taxes that we paid for specific services! Breakin’ it to Make it! I keep thinking of the destroy the village to save it…pretty much their tribe!
Closer to $300K.
Wonder if the Republicans and red states will actually realize what Trump is doing to them and start protesting. Or will they just see it as “government doesn’t work for us!” and not put the blame on Trump where it belongs? I think I know… sadly.
FOR SURE Obama-Hilary-Biden caused the problems...Steve Bannon et al are working out the details of the hit job. Remember Covid pathetic response was because 'Obama left the cupboard bare' though Trump had been in office for 3 years and Obama warned them that a pandemic is a high risk event for which he needed to prepare.
I was put the blame at the feet of who left the cupboard bare....REPUBLICANS, who refused to provide the funds to replenish the supplie.
Spot on, Rickey.
We need to beat them to the punch and frame this gop-caused-debacle. Loudly. Every day. In every way.
Lynne Lew: Some Republican legislators have been deluged in phone calls from constituents and are begging 4547 for exemptions.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-rush-soften-trump-cuts-220000057.html
Who knows what they'll do...but trump wants loyalty from all because he wishes to be royal. Loyal = Royal to don-old. General Washington is turning over in his grave!
"He who saves his Country does not violate any Law." - DJT TS
2/15/25, 11:53 AM, the reign of the Mad King begins
Republicans say a lot of things in polls but their actions in voting booths always show what their true values are.
Yeah they are all like Susan Collins, 'I'm very concerned but I think have assurances it will be ok'.
Susan Collins is a spineless idiot.
Think about how many years she has pulled the same scam! Impeachment: 'Trump learned his lesson'. Brett 'The Grope' Cavanaugh: 'I was worried but he assured me'. Same scam over and over! She must be laughing thinking 'unbelievable the public keeps buying this caca.' Hey, if you live in Maine-this is on YOU!
Where is the Calvary of democracy when we need it the most. How a felon and rapist is now allowed to rape this country.
Will we become an internal Ukraine?
We are the actual cavalry Chris. That's terrifying to me but it's the plain truth.
Canada looks like it's set to be the next Ukraine when Trump tries to seize it.
If that happens, I sure hope that Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii secede and become Pacifica in order to defend our northern ally.
OH, don't tell me that!
As a Canadian, this pisses me off! I don’t disagree with you.
Ain’t no one comin’ to save us but ourselves. You only have to step up if you value democracy.
To answer what are (I believe) more than rhetorical questions, the ffotus is allowed to rape the country because of the 34% of the voting population who voted for him have been fed and willingly consumed an unbelievable amount of false, mis, and dis information and taken it as gospel while those of his party are scared spitless to do anything to confront his illegal and unconstitutional actions. We might become an internal Ukraine, but there could be a substantial difference in how that plays out.
Question: Are you asking "where is the Calvary (def: the hill near Jerusalem (see also Jerusalem ) on which Jesus was crucified") or cavalry (def) "source of help or rescue in an emergency, especially as a last resort"?
As someone who is dyslexic, I understand that there is confusion in those terms. Answering what I believe is the question using cavalry, it is us. All of the us in our various places. Some from the real cavalry (US military personnel) some from the civilian groups that are in full protest mode.
My proposal which I have voiced to Indivisible and other groups and people is the County Extension Agency which is in every county. It was created by the LandGrant Acts and for indigenous peoples horrific however they are here with a long history of 4 H Clubs. More rural than not but I was in a so called urban club as a child and loved it. The organization with big push from people could create new clubs not focusing on sewing or gardening or animal husbandry but civil and grassroots organizing and social action in all areas of concern. They could be inter generational and we Enders could be part of a new way of supporting social justice and our offspring. I have yet to hear back from the Illinois people but I think at this point it’s worth a try. Anyone who wants to help let me know. My old club was called Helping Hands of Cleveland , Ohio.