Giving 'soldier of fortune' a new spin, Prince and DeVos personify institutionalizing this lunacy. And not in a good way. Their personal wealth catapulted them to positions where they can weaponize government funds to destroy government. Trump is the coming to fruition of Reagan's *government is the enemy* lie.
It took decades of faceless functionaries, such as Leonard Leo, funneling big money to the little men and women - from the McConnells to the Boeberts - eager to take down government for the chance of gorging themselves on crumbs from the tables of the unconscionably wealthy.
"... ranging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a Monarch's voice cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."
Shakespeare imagining Marc Anthony imagining the dead tyrant Caesar rousing the funeral masses to revenge.
Republicans imagining Trump's January 6 rally. The confines of the Capitol where all hell broke loose at the defeated GOP's command.
Reagan's lie and Trump's insurrection have their roots in the defeated Confederacy's wild rage at the Federal government. Which for generations has sold sedition as a noble cause and metamorphosed historic traitors into heritage heroes. The Birth of the Nation. Inflamed terrorists in bedclothes rather than togas. And now on the high bench of the Supreme Court, their faces hidden from the public, but in their racist decisions their white supremacist sheets peeking out from under their black robes.
The passionate irrationality of religion runs through it. Racial and economic injustice in service of Mammon. From the Supreme Court bench to the banqueting tables. From the rapture of the populist believers to the bunkers of their paymasters.
How to end this lunacy? Pass the KoolAid. Pass it up when they pass it around.
As a Christian theologian, I do not recognize this "religion" that passionately supports the "Politics without Principle" of Trump. It is time for pastors who speak "in Christ" & are not "mere peddlers of God's word", to issue their Barmen Declaration like the Confessing Church in Germany in 1934. History does not repeat itself, but it does instruct.
I too am a believer. And I think religion ritualizes and sets social parameters to human irrationality. The leap of faith is essential in the pew or on the prayer rug. It is toxic to the body politic.
While government can translate the Golden Rule into civic care for the general welfare, it ought not be in the business of instituting religious creed.
I was at my chiropractor's this week and he told me that he had two patients die in the last three weeks, in their 40s, to COVID. Three children each. Were they vaccinated I asked. No. Then it turned out they were members of the COVID central church in our neighborhood. God and horse medicine (which they obtained from some naturopath here in Salem) would save them. This same church had had an outbreak some time ago of something like 83 people and it sounds like they are still going strong. Someone, maybe one of them, brought my chiro antivax literature and he was polite but firm. Then last night someone posted a heads up about something written by a local truck driver who was threatening to join a truck brigade to shut things down. Lots of places are lifting or will soon lift mask mandates, so why now.
Craziness exists everywhere these days. My husband and I have an acquaintance (white male) who is into the Big Lie. I ventured onto his FB page just to see what he was saying. Oh boy, he was just spewing garbage about how ivermectin is the way to go and that he will never ever get any of these Covid shots! These people forget that they were inoculated as babies and kids throughout their very being. So all I can say is “hasta la bye bye” to making idiotic decisions.
makes for weird church going. I sort of subscribe to Mark Twain thought that the "easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also." I try to suspend judgment...
... separation of church and state ... is that written into the Constitution ...? Is that one of the things they want to change with a Constitutional convention? If they succeed in mandating laws that only "true Christians" will be accepted in this society, what will be defining characteristics of what it means to be a "true Christian" ... and who will define and enforce/force those standards ...?
Ask William Barr, who asserts that the Constitution was only intended for people of faith:
"Instead, social order must flow up from the people themselves – freely obeying the dictates of inwardly-possessed and commonly-shared moral values. And to control willful human beings, with an infinite capacity to rationalize, those moral values must rest on authority independent of men’s will – they must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.
In short, in the Framers’ view, free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people – a people who recognized that there was a transcendent moral order antecedent to both the state and man-made law and who had the discipline to control themselves according to those enduring principles."
To appreciate Barr's fallacious rhetoric and sophistry, read his speech. Executive Summary: The Founders believed human beings are stinkers, government is oppressive, only acceptance of god and religion can save society
The Trump regime was (and still is) crammed packed with Christian Nationalists and Evangelical hucksters of every stripe. They are, excuse the expression, Hell bent on making this “Christian Nation” vision of their specific and terrifying Calvinist meets PT Barnum and Torquemada a reality.
Seriously, these are not our parent’s whackos and Bible Thumpers. It is full on Theocracy
Brian Book did not suggest in any way that government 'be in the business of instituting religious creed' as you wrote in your reply to him. If you are open to self-reflection, I recommend that you reread Brian Book's comment and then read your reply to him. Your response implied that he suggested a church-state partnership, which was not the case.
No of course Brian Book did not suggest the church state partnership which you seem to have pulled from thin air. Nor did I suggest he did. In fact, I was contrasting Brian Brook's devout and ethical stance honoring both Christ and the Constitution, with those government officials like Bill Barr, Amy Coney Barrett, et al who do want to use their government positions to institute their own interpretation of Christianity.
You did not differentiate as you now claim. I was not alone in comprehending your response as stated. Another liked my response to you, so, at least the two of us are in agreement. This is not the first time that I experienced and read you initiating and responding with hard, aggressive and misdirected attacks. One wise subscriber recently suggested that you take a 'cold shower'. What is this about? It keeps company with you lin, as far as I know, a focused, hard working person determined to do good. Overdetermined, occurred to me as a possibility. This trait of yours as I see it, is foreboding and mean. While I cannot think of a bridge, your learning and lucidity are appreciated as well. Salud.
What's with the Cat-Fight trying to be disguised by your clumsy patronizing fractiousness.
Play nice, Eh!?
This is a community of intelligent loquacious friends that seek improved knowledge about American democracy and the threat to its existence.
tRump and his minions are not American but, instead are treasonous pigs who do not deserve to live in these United States of America.
We are ALL committed to doing all we can to rid America of every evil minded bigoted R by conducting free and fair elections based upon advocacy to improve a law or legislation.
Fern, if you are so consumed with the negative labeling of the good people supporting this news letter, then, perhaps you will find a better outlet for pontificating your disrespect for us on a maggot, whooops, maga hate spewing link.
It is often difficult to suss out from your writing exactly what you do mean, lin. While occasionally something comes through that people connect with, by and large you generate rambling discourses that sound intellectual but are not: they are distractions. This is not a debate forum, but you seem determined to make it one. I'm sorry for that, because at its best, this forum offers the opportunity for great growth in awareness and to foster real action in the real world. In other words, real change and not just a blather of words that don't quite fit together. I hope you will join us in that. It's clear that you are intelligent, but also that you seem most interested in pulling other people down rather than creating a common bond. I agree with what Fern said (as of my writing her post is below mine, but this being substack that could change).
This is the old, "He said, she said, yadda yadda yadda" discourse about books written for a profit, (and I don't mean of faith).
In discussions of this type the generalizations categorizing people as either government employees or people practicing a shared love in Church is forgetting "They" are all people who may be both govt employed and members of a faith preaching love is the way.
So to argue about Church vs. State misses the point entirely.
In order to speak to this relationship the discussion must be centered upon people not entities composed of people. Entities either of Church or Government do not pray to our FATHER in Heaven or curse one or the other as unfit for a partnership.
It is obviously the people who compose each entity that seek the love that is a Church or the power that is a government.
It is those people who are either the same or anathema to each others proclivities, and it is what they either strive for or pray for that needs to be the point of any such discussion.
The 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 or the 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝟭𝟵𝟯𝟰 (𝗗𝗶𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗿𝗸𝗹𝗮̈𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗴) was a document adopted by Christians in Nazi Germany who opposed the Deutsche Christen (German Christian movement). In the view of the delegates to the Synod that met in the city of Wuppertal-Barmen in May, 1934, the German Christians had corrupted church government by making it subservient to the state and had introduced Nazi ideology into the German Protestant churches that contradicted the Christian gospel.
The Barmen Declaration includes six theses:
1) The source of revelation is only the Word of God — Jesus Christ. Any other possible sources (earthly powers, for example) will not be accepted.
2) Jesus Christ is the only Lord of all aspects of personal life. There should be no other authority.
3) The message and order of the church should not be influenced by the current political convictions.
4) The church should not be ruled by a leader ("Führer"). There is no hierarchy in the church (Mt 20, 25f).
5) The state should not fulfill the task of the church and vice versa. State and church are both limited to their own business.
6) Therefore, the Barmen Declaration rejects the subordination of the Church to the state (8.22–3) and the subordination of the Word and Spirit to the Church.
The force that would prevent people from instituting Jesus Christ as the Fuhrer is Love. Love is the most powerful force. The saving Grace of Love is JESUS's freely given gift to ALL of us.
The “German Christian Movement” was an attempt to make Nazi ideology a state religion. Hey! the established church may have done next to nothing to save the Jews, but by Gawd they were not gonna let the Nazis take their street corner.
I agree with you. As a member of a Lutheran Advocacy group I was encouraged this week to have finally see a bill regarding reducing predatory interest rates finally make it out of Committee. I among others called committee members. It was even noted in the discussion in the House itself of the large volume of calls and contacts made. Some religious groups choose to try to strive for social justice.
ThankYou. As an advocate for the separation of church and state, and the exclusion of faith from politics, I am guilty of overlooking the benefits of religious individuals and communities, inspired by their belief, advocating for just legislation in keeping with civic ethics (as opposed to instituting their own religious creed.)
It is complicated. I do not say this well. An example perhaps, in light of compassion for Mary forced to birth Jesus in a stable, is activism for the full range of government funded essential and emergency services which children need to thrive - rather than outlawing abortion and leaving children to bootstrap themselves up in a dog in the manger economy of unregulated greed.
I also should not overlook the degradation of religion through political machinations - such as American bishops, ignoring Pope Francis' inclusive view of communion, by threatening to essentially ex-communicate Pres. Biden. Or Jewish right wing religious extremists denying justice to Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories; although we are commanded to not just follow after justice but to chase after it.
As you mention usury, it is an artifact of European antisemitism that Jews were excluded from many professions but forced to be money lenders. Christian authorities pretended they were keeping their hands clean, but of course they took their cut. It gets more complicated with a Calvinism which confuses economic injustice with well deserved divine blessing or earned displeasure.
thank you. I appreciate your viewpoint having grown up in a very right wing bigoted family. I don!t know how I changed my viewpoint. Oh wait, I do know how. It was great teachers (even some preachers) who encouraged reading all viewpoints before drawing conclusions. This community of HCR readers is a great experience for me.
Please do go on, lin! Being the daughter of Holocaust victims, raised in a small Baptist town really opened my eyes up. What you say is very true and backed by facts.
And to be clear. I am not opposed to church and state working together in their own way. Government support for church run food banks and shelters. I spent a day at a day care center run by a church inspired activist, which gets government funding to help single teen mothers, themselves often in foster care, finish school, prepare for the job market, learn parenting and self care skills, while their toddlers are cared for in a program emphasizing socialization and language skills. No signs at all of religious indoctrination. Working together to break the cycle of poverty. Good!
"No signs at all of religious indoctrination. Working together to break the cycle of poverty"
INDEED! Lin
Your recollections about Government support for Church... is all about love Lin
Someone in Government created the agency for such support because of the love in their heart for people in need...just like in your heart Lin.
You visited a day care center inspired by Church activist...you used the word inspired and Church and activist.
The Church IS the inspired word of GOD, and GOD is Love.
The activist are the instruments by which you can actually witness GOD's Love in action on Earth.
The separation of Church and State was a creation of society NOT of GOD.
Lin you have witnessed firsthand the natural interrelationship among people of Government and people of Church, some of which were both Church members and Government employees, Eh!?
What you witnessed, Lin, was the perfect indoctrination of the religion of Love.
Love is what religion SHOULD be about. More often than not, it is about war, crusades, jihads, indoctrination, and the wholesale rejection of science and scientific evidence for physical reality.
Talia, the "religion" you reference is NOT religion.
It is societies' distraction from seeking the Love of GOD.
All the negative efforts you categorize are those activities initiated by implicated people deceived into believing the solution to their perceived problem can only be resolved by instituting such negative activities.
The Great Deceiver's craftiness has been the downfall of many misguided "Religions."
The government gave tax dollars to a program created and administered by people of faith, helping people in need. For a shared goal - breaking the cycle of poverty.
OK here is my favorite Jewish joke.
A rabbi has two candidates for one place in his school. He takes them out for a walk through the countryside. They see a magnificent bird flying above some fields. The rabbi turns to a candidate and asks 'What do you see?" The candidate says "I see the pure soul soaring to Heaven to be one with God." The rabbi then asks the second candidate the same question. The candidate says "It is a very large bird. It it drops dead, landing on both sides of the border marking two fields, who is responsible for cleaning up the mess?" The rabbi accepts the second candidate.
I think the commandment of love is much more difficult to comprehend and to put in action than obeying 'every jot and tittle of the law.' If I understand correctly, Christ is the fulfillment of the law. So you all get to eat cheeseburgers. But ... Christ has shown love beyond all understanding of man, and has given His life for man's sins. Whew. How does one live up to that?
Had never heard of the Barmen Declaration before. Thank you for teaching me. I too do not recognize this evil support, and at times, it has shaken my beliefs.
Every time one of us studies the Holy Bible it is interpreted by that person based upon their current level of knowledge.
Some are always more knowledgeable than others.
As we age our knowledge increases, (for most of us), into a better understanding of Holy Scripture.
The Scriptural passage studied years ago will reveal a concept entirely revolutionary from that previously studied passage.
In referencing The Holy Bible, as you seam to be because you capitalized Bible, you may choose to study, (I Timothy 2:5) KJV to hopefully gain a better understanding of how you believe a Christian worships his SAVIOR.
Apparently into the "Republican" Party platform, according to the type of people to whom I was referring. And, yes, I know that platform consists essentially of "we believe in whatever Great Lord Trump believes in." Which was, of course, my point. :-)
lin, BEST quote of the month award goes to you and this post.
"Reagan's lie and Trump's insurrection have their roots in the defeated Confederacy's wild rage at the Federal government. Which for generations has sold sedition as a noble cause and metamorphosed historic traitors into heritage heroes. "
One of the most well written and information packed sentences I have ever read.
Western History is incomplete without Howard Zinn.
Thanks to Howard Zinn, more people learned about "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies", a first hand witness account, written in 1542 by Bartolomé de las Casas, describing conditions of very early enslavement of the native people in Hispaniola, Cuba, and the Caribbean. Since gold was not found, and the Crown had to find a way to pay for these ever expanding expeditions to the west Indies. Native people were forced into slave labor camps (plantations) for exploitation to produce crops like sugar and food staples, sent back to Europe for profit. The natives ran away, they resisted, they were horribly abused, and so many died of disease during this horrible era of genocide by the Spanish Colonization, that Africans began to be enslaved and brought to the Western Hemisphere to replace the "native work force". Zinn introduced us to one of the first abolitionist movements in mid 1500's. In a way, the root of what was to come in the Southern United States.
So any history of North & South America is incomplete with Howard Zinn and Bartolomé de las Casas. The same could be said of the 1619 Project for America.
In his own words, "My history describes the inspiring struggle of those who have fought slavery and racism (Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses), of the labor organizers who have led strikes for the rights of working people (Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, César Chávez), of the socialists and others who have protested war and militarism (Eugene V. Debs, Helen Keller, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, Cindy Sheehan). My hero is not Theodore Roosevelt, who loved war and congratulated a general after a massacre of Filipino villagers at the turn of the century, but Mark Twain, who denounced the massacre and satirized imperialism.[11][12] I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which says that all of us have an equal right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality—and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that."
Bartolomé de las Casas was less gracious describing the horrible conditions of enslavement and petitioned the crowns for more humane treatment of the Native Peoples of the Caribbean.
Zinn is slanted, only towards justice and the idea that we still striving to reach the ideals in our Declaration of Independence.
OMGosh. I can't thank you enough for your comment. Who thought we'd have to defend Zinn, here.
Perhaps you know that Mark Twain wrote an essay on lynching. I did not until I came across it. Twain was horrified by lynchings and the mob mentality. He spoke of how a few courageous individual police officers had stood up to mobs and stopped lynchings.
I am pasting in the Wiki entry.
" The United States of Lyncherdom" is an essay by Mark Twain written in 1901.[1] He wrote it in response to the mass lynchings in Pierce City, Missouri, of Will Godley, his grandfather French Godley, and Eugene Carter (also known as Barrett). The three African Americans were accused in the rape and murder there of Gazelle Wild (or Casselle Wilds) on August 19, 1901,[2] Twain blamed lynching in the United States on the herd mentality that prevails among Americans.[1] Twain decided that the country was not ready for the essay, and shelved it.[1]
Thomas Beloat was a sheriff of Gibson County, Indiana at the turn of the 20th century noted for stopping a lynching in the county seat of Princeton
A redacted version was published in 1923, when Twain's literary executor, Albert Bigelow Paine, slipped it into a posthumous collection, Europe and Elsewhere.[1] In his essay, Twain noted two law enforcement officials who had intervened and prevented lynchings in early 20th-century America. They were Sheriff Joseph Merrill of Carroll County, Georgia,[3] and Thomas Beloat of Gibson County, Indiana.[3]"
You need to get your head out of that place you're keeping it, because what you're smelling in there is not Chanel No. 5. Why don't you go over to FleeceBlock, where bimbos like you can congregate with MTG and worry about the Gaspacho Policy coming for you?
TC, doubtless there are times when hard lines are drawn - tough talk might be useful to intimidate an opponent in times of unavoidable confrontation ... more likely, it can pollute the waters of potential peaceful resolution, inviting a vile response. Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi says to train like a warrior, live like a monk - the first concern is to cultivate peace.
Best Mindset & Life Advice? - Shi Heng Yi (Shaolin Masters Speech)
(Warrior and "Loser")
SHAOLIN MASTER | Shi Heng Yi 2021 - Full Interview With the MulliganBrothers (1:49:10)
Szekely's claims were rejected by biblical scholars. Per Beskow has noted that:
The [Essene] Gospel of Peace is a sheer forgery, written by Szekely himself. It is one of the strangest frauds we know of in the biblical field, as it has been carried through by stages during a whole lifetime and has been built onto an entire body of research based on imagination only.[1]
Richard A. Young has written:
Proof that Jesus was vegetarian is based on The Essene Gospel of Peace, which Szekely claims to have translated from an ancient text he supposedly discovered in the 1920s. Szekely alleges that this ancient gospel text is authentic and that the canonical gospels are forgeries. However, no one besides Szekely has ever seen the manuscript. This and other reasons prompt scholars to conclude that The Essene Gospel of Peace is a disreputable forgery.[2]
Given the vague information on its discovery and the failure in locating the original manuscripts, critics have suggested that the ancient texts never existed and that the Essene Gospel is an entirely modern product of Szekely's imagination. In spite of these criticisms, many have found the Given the vague information on its discovery and the failure in locating the original manuscripts, critics have suggested that the ancient texts never existed and that the Essene Gospel is an entirely modern product of Szekely's imagination. In spite of these criticisms, many have found the book of great inspirational value.
Thank you lin - I'm no expert, but do have the book, "From Enoch To The Dead Sea Scrolls" (makes very good sense to me) - also, have listened to a couple of the tapes - some ring true - some seem overburdened with detailed arguments. I will keep listening to see what is revealed.
It does make sense to me that 'respected biblical scholars' might well reject Szekely's works as 'sheer forgery', since their expertise and status stem from the official scriptures which - from what I can see - also have been transmogrified from original versions and need to be examined for accuracy. Neil Douglas Klotz translates The Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes directly from the Aramaic - with profound differences compared to the Greek>Latin>English interpretations.
Are we to believe The Dead Sea Scrolls did not exist - or have no relevance to interpreting ancient scriptures? From what little I know, that manuscript was a source for much of Szekely's works.
"The passionate irrationality of religion runs through it." As it always has. If you had told me that the religious right would have taken over America back when I was a young lad, I would have said how could that happen? They are a small minority and most people think they are "out there". Observe our complacent folly. Their takeover is almost complete. They have SCOTUS, they have TV networks, they have a con man leader who puts them into a rapture all the while ripping them off. TFG is like a Joel Osteen on steroids! It's a viral mega-church.
And they have the real possibility of marginalizing those of us with compassion for all humans and who understand true democracy. This better be the year of turn out of the compassionate.
Racist Right wing religious extremists did not swallow the GOP whole. They ate the elephant bite by bite. With knives provided by the wealthy who weaponize religion as a wedge issue to carve up the body politic.
Oh! That Karl Rove who is a free walking treasonous republican spook who outed the identity of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame a weapons of mass destruction specialists.
Remember Bush's fake war!?
Rove leaked to the press Plame's identity as a political retribution.
The republicans were pissed off about Democratic Senator Joe Wilson's, (Valerie's husband), New York Times article.
Joe stated doubts about President George W. Bush statement that Saddam Hussein sought significant quantities of uranium, (re: WMD's), from Africa had ever taken place.
To punish Joe & Valerie for embarrassing George's War chant Karl was instructed to destroy Valerie's reputation and force her out of job.
Valerie was smeared in the press and fired publicly.
The government shoots Americans for treason, don't they!?
"How to end this lunacy?" Participating in blogs is fine. Massive political participation is immeasurable. Campaign, write postcards, call and write Congress, register people to vote, drive people to the polls. Massive letter writing to your local representatives, schools boards, Principals, local newspapers concerning book banning give vital support to educators struggling with outside forces taking over their classrooms.
Yes! This is the grunt work by which the Right united to take power. They learned from the Civil Rights movement. While the Left fractured.
It's our turn now. John Lewis' autobiographical 'Walking with the Wind' is an inspiration and road map. BLM has revived the alliance. Another reason so much effort is going into lying about BLM.
Too many of us were complacent, living in our bubble where we thought all was well with the world, unaware of the danger of the rising right. It took the election of DJT to wake us up.
I would say, in my life, starting with the Black Power movement rejecting white allies. With Louis Farrakhan's anti semitism infiltrating and dividing the Left to marginalize Jewish activists. With the Clinton's Wall Street neoliberalism driving a wedge in the Democratic party. With purity tests, pipe dreams of third parties and independent candidate Pied Pipers.
The Democratic Party and the DNC still stand as they did then. Democrats make no secret of the fact that we have a big tent. We must must must be aware of the propensity of Democrats to denigrate their own Party. What good does the constant picking apart do? It emboldens our enemies, dissolves our political resolve and disinvites people to join the Party. It discourages fund raising. It discourages talented people in running for office under the Democratic ticket.
"With purity tests, pipe dreams of third parties and independent candidate Pied Pipers". Lyrical sentences that contain no fact may be fun to compose but they are without substance and harm the Party. I respectfully invite you to reread you comment again and see if you have indeed imposed your own purity test against the Democratic Party.
We are at War. We are fighting for Democracy. Join together now or lose. Rick Wilson said it best in the run up to the 2020 election. "Do you want to be woke or do you want to win?"
The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy fractured my faith just as I was graduating from high school. I lived my life head-down for decades after that.
You must be pretty young to not know of how the Democratic Party fractured in the 60s and 70s. You're the one who needs to go look up the dictionary definition of "fracture." You have no understanding of political history whatsoever, a function of your political illiteracy. I'm writing here from personal experience of going through all that history as a participant.
Does fractured mean, that as Democratic's we have so many different extremes views that fit in the Democratic Party? Like from the Manchins to Bernies? Or that we stopped working together as one movement like during the civil rights movement of the 60s?
I meant that the Left was fractured. The Clintons contributed to leading the Democratic party astray. James Clyburn showed that we could unite and win, with a message of returning to our progressive roots. If he gets Childs on the Supreme Court it will be a great step to showing we have knowledge of and respect for the working class.
That's part of it. And thinking of the civil rights movement as "one movement," one organization, is far from accurate. The civil rights movement was a premier demonstration of "the left" fracturing. (I was there and know what I am talking about)
When did it not? The history of the Left is the history of factionalism, of True Believers splintering and splintering. The history of the civil rights movement is a history of splintering - "I'm more true/radical than you!" It's one of the reasons I left "The Left" 50 years ago - there's no likelihood of those people organizing themselves to send for Chinese takeout, let alone taking power. The factionalism is a function of their powerlessness.
But Jack, you discount the impact one can have sharing HCR's "Letters" and comments from readers like you with many people on our individual email lists. I have gathered over the past 17 years more than 1,000 email addresses on my progressive email lists. At recent Exeter, NH Town Meetings, I setup a table with some copies of Heather's recent missives, asked if people were aware of HCR's "Letters From an American", and offered them one of the copies I had made. It was very good news that many people were following her daily or somewhat regularly. Also on the table, I had a sheet introducing people to Heather's "blog". THis "Choir" continues to educate and inform me...and I choose to share what I learn with people who may benefit from the information and turn info into action! You can do the same. There is no shortage of issues at every level of community to engage with.
While Exeter probably votes Democratic, New Hampshire has a Republican governor and two Republican-controlled legislative houses. Voter repression and who knows what else is on their agenda. I suspect they get boilerplate conservative legislatiion models from ALEC, too. Regaining control of State government is the biggest issue with which you should be engaging in November's election. Don't lose sight of the forest when dealing with the trees.
Agree. Two things come to mind. It is refreshing to be on a blog that is so far different from the media. It can be a good mind boost to go out and to the work of voting. It's a balance for sure.
It is not either/or. As HCR has been quoted 'when we sing to the choir, the choir sings back.' We share ideas here, learn, are inspired, and fortified. And then get on with our acrivism.
All of the above. Plus, those who can, run for local office. The insurrectionists harassed school boards, then ran for them, to enable their current campaign to indoctrinate children so they will stop turning into compassionate adults. More specifically, to indoctrinate straight white children and intimidate all other children.
Barbara, Read my comment today that lists some of the outrageous anti-education Bills passed by the majority Republican Legislature in the NH House. Many NH Republicans came to NH 15-20 years ago as part of the "Free State Project". They correctly figured they would move to the small government state of NH, where they could run for state and local office and exert an outsized influence over public policy and school policy. THey are systematically seeking to remove government from the support of schools...in support of privatizing education via Charter Schools. Herb Moyer
DeVos certainly was pushing for privatization wasn't she. What terrifies me is the movement to take over the teaching of our children, control the subject matter, interject indoctrination and ban books. Thanks for the history of New Hampshire. I didn't know that.
"We" let the Confederates back in with sham promises. "We" let Nixon off the hook to "heal the nation." Please, in the name of all that is holy, DON'T do that again with Cult45.
Not only “pass it up”. Pray for the Light to transform its dark poison. And I spit on its vessel as it passes me by. It serves no one. And it is only an illusion.
And your next challenge is probably on its way, courtesy of Canada. As you probably know, we have been enduring a protest with truckers ostensibly at the centre of it. Ottawa, near its Parliament Buildings, has been occupied for nearly three weeks. Round the clock horn honking drove citizens mad until an enterprising 21 year old pushed for and got a ten day injunction against it.
The whole enterprise is extremely well-organized and is of course funded with dark money. It has metamorphosed now into similar protests at an obscure but important border crossing in Alberta, and worse still to the Ambassador Bridge at Windsor/Detroit - an economic lifeline for both countries.
Police and government responses have ranged from pathetic to terrible. Today’s top headline in the Globe and Mail is “Windsor police won’t end protest over fears of violence.”
Mostly we have had hand-wringing and buck passing amongst the three levels of government. And the vast majority of the non-crazies in Canada are silently smoldering with rage.
Ostensibly it won’t end until all vaccine mandates are off the table and the government is overthrown. This is our version of your 1/6 - and it is being spurred on by American far-righters, including your much beloved ex-President.
If you feel you are missing out on something exciting, never fear. Apparently there are legions of truckers in your country rolling up their sleeves and organizing a copycat “protest”.
They have threatened the Super Bowl. Hmmm…we’ll see about that.
It's time for the authorities up there to "take some action" particularly at the Windsor/Detroit Bridge. I just read there are only 15,000 long distance truckers in Canada. If only 10% are unvaccinated, that's 1,500. There is Something Else going on in the depths of the Vast (world-wide) Right Wing Conspiracy. Those people up there are getting a lot of money from the seditionists and traitors down here. Timothy Snyder's writing about the influence of Putin is most likely right as to the source of all this.
Oh, we are well aware of that. The vast majority of truckers are a) vaccinated and b) not participating.
This protest has enormous misdirection going on. But we’ve caught on to that. It’s hard not to when tow truck drivers refuse to tow away the rigs because they’ve been openly intimidated. And the woman who got the noise injunction was fixed in a day.
Protests such as this one don’t leap around the world unaided in such short order. It’s just that Canada is not at all used to going first. I guess we ‘re number 1! (for fifteen minutes).
Eric, Yesterday, Timothy Snyder's substack column, "Winter Sieges of North American Capitals," proposed an even larger, more insidious force that encourages, even foments behind the scene. That is Putin's Russia. (He was referring to the Ottawa trucker's protest, which, like Jan. 6 is inchoate, a tempest in a teapot, with little truth to the outrage, but like the events listed in this column today, it is magnified by goading from behind.) Mr. Snyder insinuated that Facebook is complicit (I imagine because it allows political discourse among those it deems of like minds, even if it is absurdly inaccurate.) We know that misinformation was cued-up by Putin in the 2016 election, in the outcome of the Mueller report, et al.) I believed Mr. Snyder. It behooves us to be on our toes about the forces small and large in Putin's deviousness. His hackers are constantly exploring the net for signs of Western weakness. It all frightens me, to tell the truth. It is not difficult to unite unlearned people, including so many Republican officials with racist, misogynist, authoritarian dog whistles. Today, I feel small, but I know that information, good information like today's LFAA is our best weapon. Nevertheless, the magnitude of wealth, pig-headedness and obstructionism of the world's right wing is sometimes terrifying. Violence, even war is never far behind.
Anywhere democracy flourishes, even New Zealand! Perilous Putin lives to strong arm the good guys. Along with China, the world's two most authoritarian governments intend to become Empires while pocketing the spoils and natural resources.
There is a very simple, if unrealistic, solution available. All the authorities have to do, is pretend for one day that the marauding truckers are composed of Black men and women and their allies. The police would immediately remember that they are trained and prepared to use force to control unruly citizens. The marauders would be in jail before the sun set.
Oh Canada. I listened to Canadian radio last night. I cannot recall the minister's name. Both diplomatic and well spoken. Clear analysis of the situation, obstacles, and possible response. But also not mincing words about the utter self indulgent destructive stupidity of those appropriating the truckers' situation and preventing them from doing essential work, and terrorizing the community. I have spent a little time in exactly the seat of government area of Ottawa. It is as easy to imagine as if it were DC. I am so very sorry. Thin words but sincerely meant,
Thank you. Our Conservative Party has played nice with the supporters, including its new leader. She is going to regret it. Canadian elections are not won in Alberta. The vast majority of Canadians are either bemused (“Us?”) or deeply infuriated. Our ethos has always been peace, order, and good government, as opposed to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This makes us approximately the most boring country on earth at times :).
But it’s not all that bad a principle on most days.
Our authorities however are timid and befuddled at the moment. It’s getting embarrassing.
There are many psychologists that theorize we may be at a time/era of evolutionary change in the human race. Every 400-600 years the human race has a genomic shift that catapults civilization forward. The Renaissance was one example. This Information Age, all this extra light in the palm of each hand is stimulation, awareness, and learning. The internet is “a new connectedness, where the needs and concerns of one, eventually become the concerns of all.”
I wonder. I am a bit leery of over arching theories. Divisions into historic periods is not fixed. Even in evolution, selecting which shared derived characteristics are significant in determining one species from another are subject to change. I spent some time working in Vertebrate Paleontology helping curate a collection of antelope. There were two species, samples of one existed only of small right antlers and samples of the other only of large left antlers. Then a skull was found with both antlers intact. The animal was not symmetrical - but scientists were so convinced of bilateral symmetry they had overlooked the unlikelihood of finding only right or only left antlers and they lacked the imagination to see beyond their bias.
It always feels good to vent and wax poetic about the woes we are facing. My question is this Lin. What do you propose in concrete actions, we the voters, can and should do now? I am the child of an immigrant Irish Father. When we would be hand wringing, sorrowful or just complaining he would sit and gives us his full ear and listen lovingly. Then he would say one thing. "Now get your Irish up." And we knew that it meant to deal with the matter at hand, take care of business, do something about it etc.
What can and should we do now? We need to frame this fight differently. We start by realizing the Civil War never ended. Appomattox was not a surrender, it was a strategic retreat, followed shortly after by the Battle of Ford's Theater, with one casualty, the return of a Confederate sympathizer to the White House, and the adoption of non-military tactics for all battles thereafter. We have been fighting that war since 1865, except only one side realized the war was still on.
What do we do about it now? We treat the combatants as what they are. Political and social battles require political and social responses. Jail terms for seditionists, and a reassertion of the principles of the Constitution that many people formerly and currently in power have walked away from multiple times since 1861.
It's easy to list the battles of the post-Appomattox Civil War. The end of Reconstruction. The Klan. Jim Crow. "Birth of a Nation". Stone Mountain, which was partially funded by issuance of a commemorative coin by the US Treasury. The battles against civil rights. Redlining. Nixon's Southern Strategy. Reagan's "welfare queens". Trump - all of Trump. January 6th. Book banning, book burning, vote suppression old and new. The rise of the evangelical churches. Subversion of the electoral system before the 2022 and 2024 elections. All of these are battles fought by one side with the tacit permission of the other.
What can and should we do now? Treat the continuing Confederacy as the defeated movement they were and still are, and stop allowing them to eat away at the foundations of the country they were created to subvert. We need the DOJ, Congress and every other branch of the Federal government capable of creating policy to do that, ASAP, and end the Civil War once and for all.
Finally, we need the majority of citizens who care about the United States that was conceived by the Founders, imperfect as they realized it was, to make clear to those policymakers that they should continue the 250 year experiment to build that union better and more perfect, without the interference of the modern-day copperheads doing everything they can to turn back the clock. Make America truly great again, and for the first time.
Mobiguy Many folks still believe in the Lost Cause (the southern rationale that they didn’t lose the Civil War). Then and now this was/is a white/racist rationale that is deep in their bones and is exacerbated by Trump’s white fear’ mantra. Only by teaching the unvarnished history of the United States (regarding Blacks, women, Native Americans, and waves of immigrants) can we begin to chip away at this iceberg of prejudice. Hopefully, this is less of a problem with our younger generation, but the reality process seems mighty slow. Meanwhile, the latest ‘ban those books’ assault is a Luddite effort to ignore change.
This is quite a reply. There is a lot of information to digest here. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wrote a wonderful book on the Reconstruction backlash when it happened and when Barack Obama got elected. That election woke the Southern rage anew according to Gates.
Barbara, many of us who wept with joy when Barack Obama won knew that it would probably end very badly. I prayed that it wouldn’t be an assassination. Living in the south, we felt the smoldering heat of white rage slowly building in some areas, but never could have imagined the way things would turn out as they have. It is no longer a Black President; now it is a multi-racial Vice President and soon a Black Justice, and every other grievance that mostly low functioning people — who actually do the violence for the instigator/financiers — have been nurturing, including “freedom.” Now it spreads to Canada? What? Seriously?
Thanks for this insight. I also (naively) thought the elections of Obama and Biden would herald in new days. And now Canada. Oh Canada. I have a sincere question Gus. What exactly do you think the "it" is that is spreading?
I hope you appreciate the difference between analysis and hand wringing. We need theory and practice. For instance, I have spent many days over the last two weeks walking my rural town collecting signatures of registered voters to get our Democratic governor and House rep on the ballot. Maine. Winter. Do you want to know which inks freeze before the signature is done and which don't?
I kept a regular BIC pen in my mitten, but while people tried to write their name and address it repeatedly froze up and took a while to unfreeze. Felt markers 'bleed' through the paper, so I did not try them. A Pilot G-2 07 performed reliably over 4 hours outside at 10-20F.
Thank you, Madame Lin. I’m going to keep these results as an idea for science fair where kids drive their adults crazy thinking of an idea and hypothesis. We will have to use a freezer in FL rather than a snowy day.
You are one heck of a wordsmith, Lin! Another one for a Letters to The Editor to a broader population. I would love to submit it to our local paper. Are you up for that and for credit?
“Pass it up when they pass it around,” but fear has them hooked. And the paymasters have bought the smirking devils who remember that taste of power and can’t wait to gorge on us all.
It is a pleasure to read this post. I too am a subscriber to your observations. I think they agree nicely with what I call the “long arc of history” which posits that ideologies once assumed to be in the “dustbin of history” are always there and can return like a cancer transported by contemporary zombies.
Lin I suggest passing the KoolAid to those of the 74 million American voters who haven’t realized that Trump is Jim Jones reincarnate (Guyana redux)They could even contribute to Trump’s legal fund before ‘passing.’
Lin From what I have read and seen, a few of Jim Jones' followers were coerced to sip KoolAid by his bully boys, but the great majority drank it dutifully like lemmings jumping over a cliff. Recently I read a poll in which 71% of Republicans still believe in the BIG LIE. That's a lot of lemmings on the Trumptanic, while the orchestra plays Nearer to God.
Deprogramming, as Jeri has shared with us repeatedly, is difficult. Prevention of further spread of the propaganda would be essential, but social media makes that just as difficult.
From expert Dr. Bandy Lee: “Lee compared disabusing someone of the falsehoods in a Big Lie to treating regular delusions. One rule: Don't put them on the defensive.
"Confronting them, or presenting facts or evidence, never works," Lee told Salon. "You have to fix the underlying emotional vulnerability that led people to believing it in the first place. For populations, it is usually the pain of not having a place in the world, which socioeconomic inequality exacerbates. Deprivation of health care, education, an ability to make a living, and other avenues for dignity can make a population psychologically vulnerable to those who look to exploit them." https://www.salon.com/2022/02/03/the-psychological-reason-that-so-many-fall-for-the-big-lie/
Yes. In political training, I was taught arguing only pushes people to dig in deeper to their opinions. By arguing you actually get them to reinforce what you disagree with. Instead try to get them to articulate any one point you might be in agreement on and give them prompts and opportunity to expand on that point.
The populace that I live within has not and will not change except as generations come and go. They are good folk with a mind set that doesn’t care to have you alter their thinking.
What the radical right projects on to others is what they do when they have power- ignorance mixed with malevolence. But I have to say that confusing gestapo with gazpacho is comedy gold.
Funny, I immediately thought of him when I read about the gazpacho! I have compassion for the ignorant and poorly educated, but I can't have much compassion for MTG. I have to say, though, she made this house a place of great laughter last night, something I've missed at least since Nov. 2016...
San Francisco values are creeping out of the dark web with Nancy Pelosi’s Gazpacho police. It is my ciopinnion that’s there’s polenta of sourdough financing this stuff.
A short story from Steve Schmidt, co-founder and former board member of The Lincoln Project:
“It was as if the stars themselves could not burn brightly enough to send a flicker through the black ink of freezing sky above the “Goulash Archipelago.” Fear distills its own sweet scent. The air hung heavy and sticky with it. The MAGA mob, victims all, huddled together in stillness. They were afraid. Who wouldn’t be. Pelosi’s Gazpacho was going door to door. The knock was going to come soon. They hoped for broccoli, prayed for bisque and dreamed of chowder. But they knew it was the Gazpacho that was coming. It was a day that tasted like a Gorka; a lonely day where hope faded to despair faster than Kevin McCarthy could run from @ABC news. The Gazpacho was fierce, deadly and amoral. Yet, they were not invulnerable. After all, they spelled their name with a G. G was a good letter. But it wasn’t Q.
“Even the shallowest breath seemed to make a noise in the basement hideaway, beneath the Rayburn Building, where the Q Caucus huddled in fear. How had it come to this? The thousand year dream that took root as the escalator descended in midtown Manhattan was crumbling. They were surrounded and expecting the knock on the door. They prayed it would not be Pelosi’s Gazpacho. Their prayers would go unheard. The End.“
Hard to reconcile the man that gave us Palin with the man who spoke so eloquently and passionately about our democracy on Ari Melber’s show tonight. Your reminder causes me to wonder if he is able to admit responsibility for his part in all of this. Sometimes I just have to let myself grieve all that we have lost. It’s so much.
I posted this, because it made me laugh. I can’t be certain that Steve Schmidt is sincere in his fervent criticism of the last administration and the current state of his former party, but he sure sounds sincere and he hasn’t wavered in his criticism for the past several years.
Your musing about whether Schmidt had ever taken responsibility for his part in elevating Palin to be McCain’s running mate prompted me to look into whether he had done so. He did, in fact, publicly take some responsibility for the disaster that is Palin in a few different interviews after the McCain/Palin ticket lost. For example, in 2012, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when asked what he had learned from the McCain campaign, he said, “For me and the experience I had on this campaign [the lesson] is that there are worse things than losing…When a result happens that puts someone who’s not prepared to be president on the ticket, that’s a bad result. I think the notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly. And I played a part in that. And I played a part in that because we were fueled by ambition to win… I think there are important lessons to learn. The reality is is that both parties have nominated people in the last decade who are not prepared to be anywhere near the Oval Office. John Edwards in the Democratic Party. Sarah Palin in the Republican Party. And we ought to take a pause and understand how that happened, why it happened and hopefully it’ll never happen again in our lifetimes.”
Of course, it did happen again in catastrophic proportions in 2016, so it seems reasonable to conclude that Schmidt is sincere in his passionate exhortations that we, as voters, hold our political parties and candidates responsible for protecting our democracy and never let such a travesty happen again. Unfortunately, it is evident that a majority of Republicans are placing party over country and are not committed to insuring qualified, ethical people ascend to the highest elected offices through free and fair elections. The work of democracy is never done.
He sounds sincere to me as well, Mary Anne. Thank you so much for finding and posting this. In our current culture it seems especially important to lift up those who can admit their own responsibility for where we are and care enough to work hard to make amends. Seems like Schmidt is doing that. At this point, I’m convinced that those calling themselves Republicans don’t even care about their party, they just want to force an evil dictator on the rest of us.
Not defending Empty Greene, but spellcheck/autosupply coulda done it. She is not the type to proofread. Carelessness seems to be part of her appeal to voters.
Is it not so bizarre that this period of American history's republican attempted anarchy and attempted coup d'etat will be rife with the strangest faux pas and visuals? Gazpacho. Shaman. Yosamight. Cancun. The elected officials who are complete Flipfloppers when Tfg says "Jump!" OMG, there are so many that, in the least, provide us with a little levity and humor at their assinineness. It is embarrassing that our country has to take them seriously. But, seriously, we must. Thank goodness they can make us laugh at the same time.
Someone should write a book of the Alternative Reality's language and historical photos and videos. Unbelievable.
It's what you expect from the typical Small Town Rich(b)itch. The bimbo everyone in school had to bow down to because daddy owned the biggest used car dealership in town and financed the football team. She didn't have to worry about no Book Larnin' to get where she was going.
On Wednesday evenings, for most of the last 15 years, i have gotten together with a group of creative women to chat and craft. Some knit, some crochet, some simply come for the conversation and yes, wine.
In 2020, I dropped out. My husband had been diagnosed with ALS, I couldn’t leave him alone and it was rare that my girls could come over midweek. I mostly dropped out though because the “founder” of the group kept chastising me for talking politics. Since its damn near impossible for me to NOT do that, it was just easier to leave. After Glen died, I was invited to return via Zoom and did so but mostly kept my mouth shut about anything other than which yarn was better for socks (wool. Definitely wool and preferably hand-painted.)
We meet in person again but the group has dropped from a high of 20+ to just five. Three of the five used to call themselves Republicans. The fourth is a moderate Democrat. Then there’s me- the lefty, liberal outlier.
Last night, the only thing we talked about was politics. Our host, who has earned her millions, was furious about everything- supply chain problems, anti mask/ anti vaxxers keeping her family on edge and fraying her nerves with worry, and the; “lying, cheating, adulterous former President and his minions threatening both our democracy and my ability to conduct business” - Kathy’s words.
She had nothing but praise for the job Biden was doing- which was high praise indeed!
The group founder, Chris, chimed in on praising Biden and castigating the bejesus out of Republicans, specifically in this case Rubio, for his BS lies about harm reduction programming. (Chris’s son, now 10 years sober, is a graduate of such a program.) After praising the Dems and condemning Repubs in general, Chris turned to me and started laughing. Then I started laughing. Then, the uncontrolled near hysterical group laughter took over. Oh, sweet irony…..the Repub group leader broke her own rule and talked smack about politics! About damn time.
When I read HCR’s letter this morning, I felt the all-too-familiar pinch of anger, anxiety and repulsion for the lies, the violence, the dangerous and deadly denial people like Navarro and Gosar live in, and the vast wide conspiracy to destroy democracy in this country. I do my little part to promote and protect democracy but as others here have often noted, I just wish there was more I could do to change this dangerous trajectory we are on.
I’m grateful, every day, for LFAA and this island of sanity with all of you. Now that there are two such islands in my life, I can go island hopping (I’m dreaming of warmer climes. We have snow coming later today. Ugh….)
Thanks for this Your friends' "conversion" gives me hope. I'm glad you're getting your group back, and condolences on the loss of your husband. ALS is a freaking thief; takes the body as Alzheimer's takes the mind.
Hi Ally, I am not one-upping ALS at all — it is a nightmare all by itself, but MS takes both body and mind, and it is typically much, much slower.
The only good thing the sociopath in chief ever did for this country (only because Covid was destabilizing his precious stock market) was the warp speed vaxx program. How I long for such a program for neurological diseases, including spinal cord injuries. Such a program would — as with Covid — mandate sharing information among and between Pharma and universities, all of which presently guard their research from one another, incentivized by patents, grants, publishing rights, and profits. Without such cooperation we may continue to have what we have now: advances in treating symptoms and complications but but little hope for finding a causes and cures.
It is too late for my wife, but not for generations of human beings yet to be. My condolences to Sheila and her family as well.
As long as you want to list awful endings, add in Parkinson's. Watching a partner who was "scalpel sharp" become a "butter knife" who can't remember what the butter knife's for is damn hard.
TC, Parkinson’s is another default neurological disease that there are no words to describe. No doubt in my mind that you are doing everything that can be done for your partner, and I, as the former partner of someone who’s attributes would exceed substack’s storage capacity and crash this whole website, for 50 years and 15 days, I understand you, and honor you.
I used to tell Edie that I had MS too, because she had it, and she was me and I was her. It helped her understand, and sometimes even mitigated her extreme feelings of guilt that she had failed me and our daughter. And I meant what I said to her.
What was not said out loud is that, sometimes, in our weaker moments it is actually harder on the caregiver because we have to watch, despite all of our efforts, we must watch the person we love more than life — the creature who is our reason for existing, go through an indescribable disease. That’s all I can say about that right now, my eyes are sweating pretty hard.
So to you TC, and to loving caregivers everywhere, it IS “damn hard.” It is what love is all about. May that love give you strength, even when it’s over, and they take the best part of you with them.
I second what Gus said. So sorry for what you are living through and sending my best coping vibes your way. Glad you can find some peace hanging with Heather's Herd.
Virtu as 'Arete (Greek: ἀρετή) is a concept in ancient Greek thought that, in its most basic sense, refers to "excellence" of any kind. The term may also mean "moral virtue", just to be clear about you, TC.
Hi Gus. You are absolutely right. There are medical conditions as bad as ALS, they can last much longer and wreak even more havoc along the way on the families, as well as those with the disease. I have two friends who live with MS (they have the treatable kind, not the progressive kind) and I know how hard their lives are, not the least of which is figuring out how to pay out $1200 a month or more for medications that make their lives easier and better. Big Pharma's focus on profits is beyond my ability to be reasonable about so I won't go down that rabbit hole for now.
As to your point about a government program focused on neurological conditions like ALS/MS, there is one. Run by the Veteran's Administration, they are focused on determining why upwards of 20% of all people diagnosed with ALS in any one year, are current or former military. When my husband was alive, he was treated at the VA, given experimental treatments designed to delay the onset of symptoms (they worked), and the VA also has a program conducting research on the brains and spines of those willing to will their bodies to science. Glen donated his body to in the hopes that one day, ALS and other neurological conditions like Fronto Temporal Degenerative Disorder (FTD), a form of dementia that accompanies ALS about 25% of the time, can be treated, even cured. I also have hope for the stem cell neurological research being conducted in Israel right now. They are making great strides there.
It isn't the Warp Speed program, but there is high level research being done on the brain. And if we could just get a few Republicans to admit that medical science matters, maybe we could get there before thousands more die a slow, painful suffering death. My deepest condolences to you, Gus, on the loss of your wife.
Coming from you Sheila that means a lot. I didn't mention stem cells and the VA, but they both at the front of my mind as I wrote. It's a shame that we can't go full bore stem cell here. Mrna is going to help in the future as well. My hopes are high for others who may be spared.
Edie changed over to secondary progressive. Stopped the interferon shots I was giving her every day, ineffective against SP MS. She developed leukemia.
Sheila, thank you for sharing this with us. It gives me hope for lost friendships with many of my white evangelical friends during the last administration, especially during the racial protest and riots. My heart hurts for your loss of your husband.
Gus, I second everything you shared. My husband of four years was newly diagnosed w/MS when we met 5 years ago, and I was JUST diagnosed last year in March. I asked the neurologist at my clinical exam/initiation appointment after my MRI that showed scars in my brain, "Dr., are you ABSOLUTELY sure MS isn't contagious?" :-)
MS doesn't always take the mind. My mother had hers until the end, even though she could hardly do anything with her body.
Not known in my mother's day, but large doses of vitamin D does wonders for a lot of people with MS. Get yourself and your husband docs that know about this. We're talking doses of ***at least*** 10,000 IU/day, which is not unsafe. But part of what you need to know is that physicians of a certain age learned in medical school tht it is VERY easy to get a toxic dose (not true). My own physician was appalled tht I was taking 3000 IU/day (for general health, not MS, and since I started that in '04 I almost never get colds or flu). But she has come around. Here is what a friend of mine with MS wrote about D's impact on her life.
From one of my friends, her experience with her MS after taking Vit D. --David
David, you might find it interesting to know that when I was really struggling, even after they switched me from Cytoxan to Novantrone, my neurologist started me on 10,000 IU of D3 daily and then upped it to 20,000 units daily after some of these studies came to light. The blast of D3 made a dramatic difference and put me into remission. At the time, I had been reclassified as progressive, non-remitting and had had no improvement in over 3 years - just a steady decline. I've been doing well ever since.
They dropped me back to 10,000 units daily after a year at the higher dose but a recent level shows me to be just over 100 ng/ml so the've stopped it for a couple of months to get my level just under 100 ng/ml. They want to keep it at the high end of normal but under 100 ng/ml, as that is where I seem to do the best. My guess is that they will resume it at 5,000 IU daily or every other day next month after they do the repeat labs.
In my case, since I lather with a 50 SPF or higher sunblock and wear an SPF rated hat in the garden, I probably get little effect from the sun.
There is no question it has a profound impact on MS and I have benefited greatly from this inexpensive, benign therapy.... quite a switch after too many years of high dose chemo.
And please add the caveat that no one should ingest such high doses of Vitamin D unless they are under a doctor's care and their Vitamin D levels and liver function studies are being closely monitored on a regular basis, as Vitamin D is a fat soluble compound that is stored in the liver. Mine are checked every other month at this point.
It's absolutely critical to know the person's baseline level before treatment is started. Because I develop a rash when I'm in the sun, I have always used strong sun blocks and SPF rated clothing (especially a hat) when out of doors. I don't have any other reliable source of vitamin D in my diet as I have been tube fed for years, so my levels were particularly low. Everyone absorbs nutrients differently and my GI issues certainly affected mine. The fact that I had a very low level to start with definitely affected the amount and duration of my treatment.
All of those dire warnings aside, in this case and in many others that I have seen reported, Vitamin D can make a significant difference for people with aggressive forms of this disease. I was into my 4th year of high dose chemotherapy when they first added the Vitamin D. The change was measurable and even more-so when he increased the dose, which he did several months after I finished the chemo protocol (purely coincidental - he was reading a study in which the 20,000 IU dose was cited just prior to one of my post chemo check-ups.)
The change in my symptoms and level of function improved so much after he started me on the higher dose, after a year or so he reclassified my disease back from secondary progressive, non-remitting to relapsing remitting. I have been completely stable now since 2007 - 5 years. This year, Steve and I started vintage dancing. Not bad, considering I was in a wheelchair with a ventilator in 2006.
A couple of years later, she writes:
You should know that my Vitamin D level rose to a level that my PCP thought was unsafe (just over the upper limit of normal at 107) so he took me off it (temporarily). Six weeks later, I started having major symptoms and my repeat Vitamin D was down to 19. I'm back on 10,000 units a day but I am also back on a ventilator and my return to the symphony as a harpist has also been delayed. ;(
I think it's important to note that most physicians - especially PCP's - have the idea that D levels change slowly over time and that is not the case. My level went from 107 to 19 in just over a month. That is scary. I should also note that while I have not noticed much improvement since we restarted the D, the downward slide has leveled off. They are going to recheck my levels on Monday. I do best when it is between 90-100.
David, It was very wise of you to provide all this information. I hope that JetFaith shows it to her and her husband's doc. That will give them something to work with and might want to contact your friend's doctor if all parties are open to it. Thank for your thoughtful generosity. Salud!
My friend, alas, died of cancer a couple of years ago, and I have no idea who her doctor was. But I've heard of others doing the same thing, and I suspect it's fairly well known among younger docs. If I had MS I'd kick my dose up to 10,000, give it a few months, and kick it up again if that wasn't working. (When you start on D, it takes at least a month and a half to two months to get to the blood level that the dose will maintain. An alternative is to take a very large dose (like 20,000 IU for several weeks and then go back down to 10,000).
Yes, Vit. D was one of the very first of many scripts my neurologist prescribed me since my diagnosis in March 2021.
Last week, I was diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy after a skin biopsy the previous week. I’d been suffering with “burning” feet, ankles, palms, fingertips, arms and legs. Just the touch of a sheet or pants causes pain.
The doc wants to reevaluate my Vit D mg amount along with other nutrients/vitamins like Vit B 12.
There is quite a bit of overlap with MS and neuropathy. What has been your friend’s experience with neuropathy?
My friend never mentioned neuropathy, and neither did my mother.
I've written about neuropathy some in past years, and my impression is there's a fair amount docs can do for it. Email me at supernova1@aol.com, if you want to ask me more about it, and I know people who might know if there are good docs for neuropathy in your area.
JetFaith, just wanted to say how sorry I am to read about your husband and now you, developing MS. Can't imagine how scary that must be. My best to you both; it will be a painful journey at times, but traveling together is better. As for your white Evangelical friends, I have no clue how to reach folks like that anymore. I'm a Catholic, my friend Chris is Jewish, Kathy is also Catholic, the other two members of our little group include one Lutheran and one Methodist. We can talk about, joke about and generally say anything about one another's religious traditions. Doesn't faze any of us. We all celebrate ChristmaHannaKwanzika. (Another words, exchange secret Santa gifts). As for the race riots, my stepdaughter, who is Korean-American, lives a block and a half away from the corner where George Floyd was murdered. Racism is alive and well in the city of my birth but Emkae's generation gives me hope. Sending hope your way too.
Sheila, your post is so encouraging. After such a terrible loss (my sincere condolences go to you and your daughters....and I just attended a funeral Mass for a friend whose husband died of ALS), you are like a Phoenix. Bravo. I also am aware of the myriad things you do to promote and save this democracy. Thank you.
I love this story, and I hope the joy of shared laughter brings you euphoria going forward. Groups like Red Wine & Blue leverage what we do with our little groups of five (or 20) friends. You’re doing your part. And I am so sorry for your loss.
Thank you for this! This brought a much needed smile and feeling of hope. Where there is one group of friends that have opened that closed door to politics, there’s sure to be many many more.
Sheila, thank you for this. Rekindled friendship is doubly heartwarming. I also give you my deep and heartfelt condolences on your loss. I’ve also walked this road, rocky but navigable. God bless you.
Sheila, thank you for sharing. It’s heartening to know people can change, even after years of believing the stories they’ve known were “absolute truths” most likely from their childhood. I too send condolences to you for your loss. And hope.
This gives me hope that someday I can reconnect with those I had to distance from for my own well being. My disappointment in their refusal to accept reality may never go away. I too am grateful for this “island of sanity.”
Stanley, watch the polls concerning suburban Republican-leaning women. My friends may well be anomalies - but polls have been identifying suburban Repub women as a key demographic for a long time.
I joined the LWV a few weeks ago and am impressed with their level of individual expertise and commitment. Since the organization is bipartisan, I figure we have a foot in the door to reach, and potentially influence, suburban republican women voters. About 100, mostly women in two counties south of Denver, are involved in voter registration drives ( including registering newly naturalized citizens on a weekly basis), advocacy, member education, lobbying at the state level, civics programs in local schools. The list goes on. Their mission statement: Empowering Voters, Defending Democracy!
Sounds good! Here in Seattle, when LaBump stole the election (it was rigged for him to win) The League of Women Voters had to close their office because of bomb threats ... pretty sure they are back in action now ... I hardly have wherewithal just to get through the day/night one day at a time, so haven't much to offer there, but am great-full for their sincerity and works.
I’m a lifelong environmental activist, Kathleen. I persist with former employers, postcards to voters, postcards to potential voters to get them to register in time via Field Team 6, am trying to find a safe way to help register Democrats in neighboring Wisconsin in person (Ron Johnson is vulnerable- would be great to help knock him off), worked with my neighbors to get them to vote in last year’s school board elections, and still work part time. LWV does great work but my time is already committed elsewhere.
Likewise Sheila, Just participating on this blog takes more time than I have to commit - while I admire and appreciate the efforts of those who are able to contribute actively, I already am sleep deprived and coping with the consequences ... I heard that angels don't have to sleep - is this what it takes to earn those wings ...?
I wish I had something more substantial to contribute to the conversation this morning, but all I can think of is Marjorie "Traitor" Greene just brought a spoon to a knife fight.
What I find strange about these folks like MTG is their hue and cry that people are spying on them. One of the first things one ought to learn is when one works for the public one’s work is not private, it’s public. The email address the school gave me didn’t belong to me, my desk didn’t belong to me, etc. Public servants serve the public. Donald Trump’s paper output doesn’t belong to him, Representative What’s-his-butt’s white board contents in a congressional office doesn’t belong to him. They belong to the people who elected them to do a job. They appear to me to be acting like an elitist tribe, above the laws of the government (we, the people).
When I was a freshly minted jail deputy 36 years ago, I noted that the only piece of silverware permitted the inmates was a soup spoon. I hope Madame Three Names is getting ready.
I had a friend mark herself safe from the gazpacho police, so social media is busy with gangrene who in reply posted something that made no sense about goulash.
It is ugly out there, I do understand. But I believe LOVE will be stronger if we will feed it persistently & consistently. Alex Vindeman’s wife posted on Twitter about loss of income because of standing up for what’s right. Sadly that’s what happens to so many when they take a stand and don’t sell their soul to the highest bidder. Selling one’s soul for profit has become part and parcel of the American Dream and delivered us a spray painted glitzy gold souless idol
As a self-confessed elite (educated person), after I finished guffawing I wondered if there should be an IQ threshold for public servants. Then I realized how elitist that sounded and laughed some more. Better than crying, I guess…
There are times when I'm close to calling the right wing ignorant pot-stirrers the worst of names. Their catch-all "elitist" term is their name for us, and I visualize rabid cretins red in the face from screaming. I hope you don't absorb their bilious shouts. That's what they want us to do.
There is nothing United about the U.S.A. anymore. These dangerous thugs and nut jobs are working to destroy everything I once thought was my country. I read yesterday in The Guardian that one in five former members of our military join a white supremacist group. Hugely dangerous times as these are Americans. These are their beliefs. And. We are the enemy.
I wonder if the 20% can be applied to antivax health care workers, hospital security guards. I say YES, given observations while accompanying MIL in the ER last night.
Foremost on my mind this evening is a growing fear amongst Democrats that there's a window of opportunity to convict Trump of something, and that our current control of both houses of Congress somehow gives the DoJ and judiciary branch the momentum to do it.
It is very wrong, the judiciary gets no power from Congress.
What DOES empower us to close in on Trump and prosecute him for his crimes is closing in on the underlings and prosecuting them for their crimes. Also, the truth that the January 6 committee is our cultural power to take back control of the narrative. Almost every week, they uncover new and shocking revelations. By now can we recognize that they know what they are doing and let them do it without attacking them with vague, absurd claims of "going to slow?"
So many people calling to arrest Trump, because "isn't it enough?" But its not enough until we know what happened. Imagine if they'd wrapped it up once they had "enough." I don't want "enough," I want all of it.
And the prosecution of Trump is unique, we don't get shot after shot at laying out separate charges and having another go if things fall apart on technicalities--or Republicans in the jury--the first time around.
What's sad is how few people recognize the desperation and flailing of the Republican mindset. If we, the people who see the inherent problems of authoritarian mindset, can't articulate it, we can't win.
But Republican flailing and failing are constantly portrayed in the mainstream news as either: 1) perfectly normal, to be expected as the opposition of Democrats, just as respectable of a position. or 2) sinister and powerful. These narratives are putting Democrats constantly on the defensive, and constantly scared. I have no doubt that Russian troll farms are in overdrive to keep the narratives in our faces on every form of social media, and they are brilliantly successful at it, for now.
Even though I get it, I rely on HCR's letters so that instead of just knowing, I can move forward in that headspace and have new ideas, expectations, and be more fluent in political discussion.
But it all works until it doesn't. Once this !@# show crumbles, it is done. The question is, how long will it take for people to see the cracks?
It's like climate change. It's never done getting worse, it's never too late to stop fighting. But there is still so much urgency, because the scale of destruction that we still have the power to stop is so unfathomably huge.
Rather than think about how long the legal process will take to prosecute Mr. Trump, I revel in the fact of how much of the heavy lifting he is doing in exposing himself, his administration, his devils that fuel his mind. A sociopath cannot ever sit back and not crow like a rooster. Someone on a broadcast made a joke after reporting suggested that he flushed pieces of documents down the toilet to get rid of them. Suggestion made on air was that he probably then also ate pieces of paper if the toilet clogged. My thought was well, even those pieces ended up in the toilet. Mr. Trump cannot escape from his own defecation of his intent, his character, and his morals. And now the Republican Party seems not to be able to shut him up.
"But its not enough until we know what happened. Imagine if they'd wrapped it up once they had "enough." I don't want "enough," I want all of it." AMEN!!!
Desperate traitors are fighting like trapped rats. Vicious lashing out. Increasingly absurd allegations and truth shattering lies. They know the committee will publish the truth of their collusion. Let’s hope voters wake up. Three cheers for suburban moms (and anyone else who pushes back against the cabal of traitors). McConnell and Pence know what’s coming and they finally spoke truth while the Trump faction cling to the sinking ship. Danger ahead. This is going to be ugly.
Oh Canada. With their own foreign money funded terrorist southern border problem. Only their's is real. Brought to you by the same American right wing extremists who are weaponizing our need for a better immigration policy.
Can't somebody take names, and charge these terrorists with the obvious crimes. A loss of their livelihood should get some attention. Or are the majority of truckers terrorists????
Reporting from Canada says these are not truckers terrorizing Ottawa and obstructing essential business. They are our right wing crazies supporting their right wing crazies trying to create chaos and overturn government.
Yes indeed, they sense danger. When danger is sensed, the built in inclinations are to fight or flee. We are seeing both from who have realized the situation their poor judgement has produced for them. The question becomes how to escape or avoid punishment and humiliation.
I love that Moms like Katie Paris (RWB) and Leah McGowan (Politics Girl) are taking to social media to educate and debunk misinformation. They do so with humor and in a manner the average woman (or man) can relate to. And unlike MSM, they also give samples of how issues in other states or DC can influence their lives. Keep sharing these grassroots efforts so we can help promote their efforts.
Do sign up…it’s a great, pro-active group that has literally grown from a few moms to thousands of women wanting to fight against the misinformation, aka lies, by going on the offensive and offers a safe place for discussion and venting.
In Texas, we also have a great group called MAGA….Mothers Against Greg Abbott! It has grown from a small group of suburban mothers to thousands of people united to fight the current “regime” and it’s lies and destructive leadership.
"On Monday night, the Supreme Court okayed racial gerrymandering, making it harder for Black voters to elect representatives of their choice."
The worst possible ruling that could have occurred and in direct conflict with all of the laws on the books since 1964. AND, voted YAY by a black judge coopted by the right wing of the Republican Party with money long ago.
Yes, in Florida and other southern and western states we are rapidly returning to the America described in Isabelle Wilkerson's enormously educational book:
"The Warmth of Other Suns".
Back to a future when Black folks in America were so disenfranchised that it was legal for white folks to capture, torture and then to hang a randomly chosen black man for Sunday afternoon entertainment, in the town square.......children included.
GREAT fun for after Sunday (white, christian) church services. Yep.
But, wait, it gets better. When Black families, scarred by the loss of a loved one to horrible white terrorism, frightened, beaten and partially starved, decided it was better to leave the area and move north?
Yep. Having arrived to the northern promised land, they were roped off into redlined (by the Federal Government) districts and crowded into small parts of cities in substandard housing with nearly no public education. IF those frightened, half starved, fearful and beaten humans stepped out of these boundaries, the police would beat or kill them back into those boundaries. IN THE NORTH.
America......returning to its roots as we speak.
Sadly, Rubio knows better and is such a small, small cowardly (I cannot say man) and so willing to sell his soul that he is not LEADING this charge back in time to the future, he is FOLLOWING. Lying about free crack pipes to black minorities? That little Rubio is just following his Daddy Reagan's script.
Mainstream demonizing of Black Americans has become the ONLY "platform" of the Republican Party now.
All re-initiated in 1980 by the bumbling, dumbling, ever stupid smiling, profoundly evil Ronald Reagan.
Can we please not join hands yet and jump off the cliff? I have been collecting good news. Here are 3.
The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday indefinitely suspended the law licenses of two St. Louis attorneys who waved guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, but it stayed their suspensions and placed them on probation for a year.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections said on Monday that it has the power to block GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn from running for reelection over his role in the January 6 insurrection -- an open legal question at the center of liberal-backed efforts to disqualify him from future office. The bipartisan election board made the assertion in a court filing in a case Cawthorn brought against the board, hoping to shut down the constitutional challenge to his candidacy.
The Ohio Supreme Court once again rejected legislative maps that Republicans drew to disproportionately favor their candidates, sending mapmakers back to the drawing board and Ohio's primary into massive uncertainty.
We are losing some battles and winning others. It's called a War for Democracy. Toughen up folks.
Clarence Thomas did not switch races, he switched classes. One function the awful, pervasive racism present in this country serves is as a mask for classism. Keep poor whites busy oppressing minority groups, and they won't recognize how they're being shafted.
The vast majority of people living in the pre-civil war south did NOT own slaves. They were expensive and priced out of range for poor whites.
In fact, after the horror of Gettysburg, in the Civil wWar, the defection of thousands of poor, non-slave owning Southern Appalachian white troops from the southern army had great positive impact on the Civil War for the north. Those guys finally figured out that dying to protect slavery for rich white men was dumb.
But, after the war, establishing poor whites as "above" poor blacks was key to getting elected.
Yes-and in a “nation of laws” the laws and customs support keeping people with White skin “above” others. It’s a strategy that has worked well and it keeps the elites in power over “we the people”.
LBJ had it right "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Yes-this quote sums it up. LBJ was from Texas and he knew first hand how the system works. He was able to persuade a few southerners to vote for the Civil Rights bills because he understood their thinking and appealed to their self interests. He knew at the time that passing Civil Rights legislation meant that the Democrats would lose the south “for a generation”. If only he could see where we are now!
Mike-thanks for describing these truths. Generations of people with Black skin living in America have been experiencing tyranny since the beginning-and now some folks want to depend on Black folks to save America by voting in large numbers. Stacy Abrams et al have done a tremendous job with mobilizing and organizing voters but I’m not so sure that it will be enough after the ways Republicans are rigging the system. Let’s hope people of goodwill who really care about America and humanity will be able to overcome evil.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer identified 38 tricks, dodges, and chicanery that people resort to in order to be right, even though they are clearly wrong. He said “the same identical tricks and dodges always come back and were very easy to recognize.” They are still being used since they must work against those who aren’t aware of them. How many can we find in the typical GOP drivel?
The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument (1831) is an acidulous, sarcastic treatise written by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. In it, Schopenhauer examines a total of thirty-eight methods of defeating one's opponent in a debate.
“The tricks, dodges, and chicanery, to which they resort in order to be right in the end, are so numerous and manifold and yet recur so regularly that some years ago I made them the subject of my own reflection and directed my attention to their purely formal element after I had perceived that, however varied the subjects of discussion and the persons taking part therein, the same identical tricks and dodges always come back and were very easy to recognize. This led me at the time to the idea of clearly separating the merely formal part of these tricks and dodges from the material and of displaying it, so to speak, as a neat anatomical specimen. He "collected all the dishonest tricks so frequently occurring in argument and clearly presented each of them in its characteristic setting, illustrated by examples and given a name of its own." As an additional service, Schopenhauer "added a means to be used against them, as a kind of guard against these thrusts…."
Great post. I am putting it on hold at the Library.
OK, I looked it up and my library, which has almost everything, does not have this book but Amazon does. I am ordering it.
Thank you for posting this. I know Trump cannot read, so, he has never read this, but, he uses these methods instinctively. I want to know what they are.
I needed elucidation, too. Took a while to find the text online, but found this:
“Stratagem 1
The Extension. — This consists in carrying your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; in giving it as general a signification and as wide a sense as possible, so as to exaggerate it; and, on the other hand, in giving your own proposition as restricted a sense and as narrow limits as you can, because the more general a statement becomes, the more numerous are the objections to which it is open. The defence consists in an accurate state- ment of the point or essential question at issue.
Example 1. — I asserted that the English were supreme in drama. My opponent attempted to give an instance to the contrary, and replied that it was a well-known fact that in music, and consequently in opera, they could do nothing at all. I repelled the attack by reminding him that music was not included in dramatic art, which
covered tragedy and comedy alone. This he knew very well. What he had done was to try to general- ise my proposition, so that it would apply to all theatrical representations, and, consequently, to opera and then to music, in order to make certain of defeating me. Contrarily, we may save our proposition by reducing it within narrower limits than we had first intended, if our way of expressing it favours this expedient.”
gazpacho…Omg. I spit my coffee and laughed so much I terrified the cat. This Soup, soup beautiful soup, soup of the evening beautiful soup will now be called in this household greene soup. Extra nachos and a blended margarita please.
I first read this malaprop from M three names on Jim Wright's page; for years, he has talked of the RWNJ family saying "something, something, gazpacho". To hear one of the seditionists use that term gave me a solid 45 second belly-buster laugh (the editorial comments regarding cold soup were priceless as well.)
The attack on education is also being expressed in Oakland California where they are shutting down public schools in predominantly black neighborhoods. These attacks on public education must stop. Democracy depends on education.
It’s astounding. Where do we start? Cult rule has overtaken Republicans. Vicious color based fascism finds its way everywhere, Mussolini rules Republicans, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews and Muslims are demonized, book banning returns with a vengeance, polling is politicized as poll taxes and jellybeans are replaced by hard laws that criminalize water and ban all sorts of voting, not one campus president raises questions or erupts with cries of fascism, Nazis, the swastika, and the confederate flag wave from the capitol to racist bearded American trucks blocking brudges in Canada, Scotus flips racist, the clergy is quiet, student suicide is soaring, pandemic and masks and vaccines destabilize our politics, we are a one party state, Fox is fascist, a president flushes presidential records down the White House toilet, half of congress lies and dishonors those that saved them from an insurrection, our most wealthy hate cops, murder of capitol police is rationalized, the culture is wracked by racism denied, the evil is lionized and good is trashed, our leaders cannot lead, the DOJ does not know where to start, lying Kevin MacCarthy becomes schizophrenic, congress is respected by 5% of the nation - corrupt party politics violates law and trashes the constitution - and no one raises societal insanity and national emotional illness as a concern. We are at the edge of the mess that led to Hitler. Putin loves this. Trump stole national documents.. the DOJ and DOD were incredibly compromised and seem unable to investigate themselves… and the people are quiet. It’s business as usual at Harvard. Blacks are frightened. Cops in different states are killing Blacks with midnight no knock entry of the wrong house - and outrage is dead. The body politic is obese and unwell. Addictions are surging in The North Country’s armed poor white trash - and I could extend this rant for hours. Meanwhile, we cannot find the words that tell the truth. Denial rules. The sane are talking to themselves.
It was likely the spellcheck function on MTG’s computed/smartphone that took her probable misspelling of gestapo and made it gazpacho and she failed to notice. MTG probably never had a bowl of gazpacho in her life.
However, if the shoe fits…..
It’s good to have HCR in my in-box again. I was beginning to worry.
Well, Ralph, it looks like she got the "g" right, and the "e", "a", "s" and "z" are all close together on my tiny, "smart" keyboard, so it might be easy to mix up those two vowels and consonants, but the "t" and "p" are pretty far away from each other and from the "c" and "h", so in my humble opinion and wearing my Sherlock Holmes double-billed cap, I think MTG probably doesn't know much about the Gestapo and even less about gazpacho and may even think that the spellcheck function corrects for faulty knowledge and is smarter than she is. Therefore, I find her GUILTY of treasonous ignorance and stupidity as charged. I say, "Lock her up".
"There is no end in sight for this lunacy."
Giving 'soldier of fortune' a new spin, Prince and DeVos personify institutionalizing this lunacy. And not in a good way. Their personal wealth catapulted them to positions where they can weaponize government funds to destroy government. Trump is the coming to fruition of Reagan's *government is the enemy* lie.
It took decades of faceless functionaries, such as Leonard Leo, funneling big money to the little men and women - from the McConnells to the Boeberts - eager to take down government for the chance of gorging themselves on crumbs from the tables of the unconscionably wealthy.
"... ranging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a Monarch's voice cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."
Shakespeare imagining Marc Anthony imagining the dead tyrant Caesar rousing the funeral masses to revenge.
Republicans imagining Trump's January 6 rally. The confines of the Capitol where all hell broke loose at the defeated GOP's command.
Reagan's lie and Trump's insurrection have their roots in the defeated Confederacy's wild rage at the Federal government. Which for generations has sold sedition as a noble cause and metamorphosed historic traitors into heritage heroes. The Birth of the Nation. Inflamed terrorists in bedclothes rather than togas. And now on the high bench of the Supreme Court, their faces hidden from the public, but in their racist decisions their white supremacist sheets peeking out from under their black robes.
The passionate irrationality of religion runs through it. Racial and economic injustice in service of Mammon. From the Supreme Court bench to the banqueting tables. From the rapture of the populist believers to the bunkers of their paymasters.
How to end this lunacy? Pass the KoolAid. Pass it up when they pass it around.
As a Christian theologian, I do not recognize this "religion" that passionately supports the "Politics without Principle" of Trump. It is time for pastors who speak "in Christ" & are not "mere peddlers of God's word", to issue their Barmen Declaration like the Confessing Church in Germany in 1934. History does not repeat itself, but it does instruct.
I too am a believer. And I think religion ritualizes and sets social parameters to human irrationality. The leap of faith is essential in the pew or on the prayer rug. It is toxic to the body politic.
While government can translate the Golden Rule into civic care for the general welfare, it ought not be in the business of instituting religious creed.
In many, the leap of faith has jumped the shark
In too many
I was at my chiropractor's this week and he told me that he had two patients die in the last three weeks, in their 40s, to COVID. Three children each. Were they vaccinated I asked. No. Then it turned out they were members of the COVID central church in our neighborhood. God and horse medicine (which they obtained from some naturopath here in Salem) would save them. This same church had had an outbreak some time ago of something like 83 people and it sounds like they are still going strong. Someone, maybe one of them, brought my chiro antivax literature and he was polite but firm. Then last night someone posted a heads up about something written by a local truck driver who was threatening to join a truck brigade to shut things down. Lots of places are lifting or will soon lift mask mandates, so why now.
Craziness exists everywhere these days. My husband and I have an acquaintance (white male) who is into the Big Lie. I ventured onto his FB page just to see what he was saying. Oh boy, he was just spewing garbage about how ivermectin is the way to go and that he will never ever get any of these Covid shots! These people forget that they were inoculated as babies and kids throughout their very being. So all I can say is “hasta la bye bye” to making idiotic decisions.
❤️❤️❤️ You were clear Michele and to, sanity. May yours spread.
Tried to correct where to were with the edit ... No luck.
By definition, it always must jump the shark.
makes for weird church going. I sort of subscribe to Mark Twain thought that the "easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also." I try to suspend judgment...
... separation of church and state ... is that written into the Constitution ...? Is that one of the things they want to change with a Constitutional convention? If they succeed in mandating laws that only "true Christians" will be accepted in this society, what will be defining characteristics of what it means to be a "true Christian" ... and who will define and enforce/force those standards ...?
Ask William Barr, who asserts that the Constitution was only intended for people of faith:
"Instead, social order must flow up from the people themselves – freely obeying the dictates of inwardly-possessed and commonly-shared moral values. And to control willful human beings, with an infinite capacity to rationalize, those moral values must rest on authority independent of men’s will – they must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.
In short, in the Framers’ view, free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people – a people who recognized that there was a transcendent moral order antecedent to both the state and man-made law and who had the discipline to control themselves according to those enduring principles."
To appreciate Barr's fallacious rhetoric and sophistry, read his speech. Executive Summary: The Founders believed human beings are stinkers, government is oppressive, only acceptance of god and religion can save society
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics
Any "blatherer" of such self-righteous religious clap-trap defines himself as a weaponized imbecile in my book.
The Trump regime was (and still is) crammed packed with Christian Nationalists and Evangelical hucksters of every stripe. They are, excuse the expression, Hell bent on making this “Christian Nation” vision of their specific and terrifying Calvinist meets PT Barnum and Torquemada a reality.
Seriously, these are not our parent’s whackos and Bible Thumpers. It is full on Theocracy
I won't be a Koch Christian
Brian Book did not suggest in any way that government 'be in the business of instituting religious creed' as you wrote in your reply to him. If you are open to self-reflection, I recommend that you reread Brian Book's comment and then read your reply to him. Your response implied that he suggested a church-state partnership, which was not the case.
No of course Brian Book did not suggest the church state partnership which you seem to have pulled from thin air. Nor did I suggest he did. In fact, I was contrasting Brian Brook's devout and ethical stance honoring both Christ and the Constitution, with those government officials like Bill Barr, Amy Coney Barrett, et al who do want to use their government positions to institute their own interpretation of Christianity.
You did not differentiate as you now claim. I was not alone in comprehending your response as stated. Another liked my response to you, so, at least the two of us are in agreement. This is not the first time that I experienced and read you initiating and responding with hard, aggressive and misdirected attacks. One wise subscriber recently suggested that you take a 'cold shower'. What is this about? It keeps company with you lin, as far as I know, a focused, hard working person determined to do good. Overdetermined, occurred to me as a possibility. This trait of yours as I see it, is foreboding and mean. While I cannot think of a bridge, your learning and lucidity are appreciated as well. Salud.
Wow!
Fern!
Hold your horses!
What's with the Cat-Fight trying to be disguised by your clumsy patronizing fractiousness.
Play nice, Eh!?
This is a community of intelligent loquacious friends that seek improved knowledge about American democracy and the threat to its existence.
tRump and his minions are not American but, instead are treasonous pigs who do not deserve to live in these United States of America.
We are ALL committed to doing all we can to rid America of every evil minded bigoted R by conducting free and fair elections based upon advocacy to improve a law or legislation.
Fern, if you are so consumed with the negative labeling of the good people supporting this news letter, then, perhaps you will find a better outlet for pontificating your disrespect for us on a maggot, whooops, maga hate spewing link.
Thanks!
It is often difficult to suss out from your writing exactly what you do mean, lin. While occasionally something comes through that people connect with, by and large you generate rambling discourses that sound intellectual but are not: they are distractions. This is not a debate forum, but you seem determined to make it one. I'm sorry for that, because at its best, this forum offers the opportunity for great growth in awareness and to foster real action in the real world. In other words, real change and not just a blather of words that don't quite fit together. I hope you will join us in that. It's clear that you are intelligent, but also that you seem most interested in pulling other people down rather than creating a common bond. I agree with what Fern said (as of my writing her post is below mine, but this being substack that could change).
This is the old, "He said, she said, yadda yadda yadda" discourse about books written for a profit, (and I don't mean of faith).
In discussions of this type the generalizations categorizing people as either government employees or people practicing a shared love in Church is forgetting "They" are all people who may be both govt employed and members of a faith preaching love is the way.
So to argue about Church vs. State misses the point entirely.
In order to speak to this relationship the discussion must be centered upon people not entities composed of people. Entities either of Church or Government do not pray to our FATHER in Heaven or curse one or the other as unfit for a partnership.
It is obviously the people who compose each entity that seek the love that is a Church or the power that is a government.
It is those people who are either the same or anathema to each others proclivities, and it is what they either strive for or pray for that needs to be the point of any such discussion.
Amen. This!
The 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 or the 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝟭𝟵𝟯𝟰 (𝗗𝗶𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗿𝗸𝗹𝗮̈𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗴) was a document adopted by Christians in Nazi Germany who opposed the Deutsche Christen (German Christian movement). In the view of the delegates to the Synod that met in the city of Wuppertal-Barmen in May, 1934, the German Christians had corrupted church government by making it subservient to the state and had introduced Nazi ideology into the German Protestant churches that contradicted the Christian gospel.
The Barmen Declaration includes six theses:
1) The source of revelation is only the Word of God — Jesus Christ. Any other possible sources (earthly powers, for example) will not be accepted.
2) Jesus Christ is the only Lord of all aspects of personal life. There should be no other authority.
3) The message and order of the church should not be influenced by the current political convictions.
4) The church should not be ruled by a leader ("Führer"). There is no hierarchy in the church (Mt 20, 25f).
5) The state should not fulfill the task of the church and vice versa. State and church are both limited to their own business.
6) Therefore, the Barmen Declaration rejects the subordination of the Church to the state (8.22–3) and the subordination of the Word and Spirit to the Church.
"8.27 𝘞𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴, 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘴."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barmen_Declaration
Thank you for your wisdom in sharing the Barmen Declaration with us. It strengthens the resolve of thoughtful believers.
Thank you
... I could live with that so long as the 'authority of Jesus Christ' refers to the voice of truth in the silence of my own heart (Matthew 6:6) ...
What "truly Christian" laws would instruct/allow/invite the murder, rape, torture, vandalization, pillage and disenfranchisement of others ...?
What forces would prevent people from instituting "Jesus Christ" as the "Fuhrer" ...?
The force that would prevent people from instituting Jesus Christ as the Fuhrer is Love. Love is the most powerful force. The saving Grace of Love is JESUS's freely given gift to ALL of us.
... Love, the law - Truth, the ground ... in Proverbs Truth + Love > Wisdom ... not one or the other - both ....
Matthew 22:40...it is all about Love
I wonder whether you might enjoy Derrida's "The Gift of Death." I found it accessible and poignant.
Thank you.
The “German Christian Movement” was an attempt to make Nazi ideology a state religion. Hey! the established church may have done next to nothing to save the Jews, but by Gawd they were not gonna let the Nazis take their street corner.
The word Love is omitted in the 6 theses...
Just being implied is not good enough...
Our FATHER is only Love, and nothing else...
JHVH - Father-Mother-Sister-Son ... Heaven-Earth-Horizon, All Is One ....
I agree with you. As a member of a Lutheran Advocacy group I was encouraged this week to have finally see a bill regarding reducing predatory interest rates finally make it out of Committee. I among others called committee members. It was even noted in the discussion in the House itself of the large volume of calls and contacts made. Some religious groups choose to try to strive for social justice.
ThankYou. As an advocate for the separation of church and state, and the exclusion of faith from politics, I am guilty of overlooking the benefits of religious individuals and communities, inspired by their belief, advocating for just legislation in keeping with civic ethics (as opposed to instituting their own religious creed.)
It is complicated. I do not say this well. An example perhaps, in light of compassion for Mary forced to birth Jesus in a stable, is activism for the full range of government funded essential and emergency services which children need to thrive - rather than outlawing abortion and leaving children to bootstrap themselves up in a dog in the manger economy of unregulated greed.
I also should not overlook the degradation of religion through political machinations - such as American bishops, ignoring Pope Francis' inclusive view of communion, by threatening to essentially ex-communicate Pres. Biden. Or Jewish right wing religious extremists denying justice to Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories; although we are commanded to not just follow after justice but to chase after it.
As you mention usury, it is an artifact of European antisemitism that Jews were excluded from many professions but forced to be money lenders. Christian authorities pretended they were keeping their hands clean, but of course they took their cut. It gets more complicated with a Calvinism which confuses economic injustice with well deserved divine blessing or earned displeasure.
I could go on ...
thank you. I appreciate your viewpoint having grown up in a very right wing bigoted family. I don!t know how I changed my viewpoint. Oh wait, I do know how. It was great teachers (even some preachers) who encouraged reading all viewpoints before drawing conclusions. This community of HCR readers is a great experience for me.
❤️
Love, Eh!?
Please do go on, lin! Being the daughter of Holocaust victims, raised in a small Baptist town really opened my eyes up. What you say is very true and backed by facts.
ThankYou. And please keep sharing your stories, insights, and suggestions. You speak from a place of significant knowledge.
Wow!
What an ugly world, Eh!?...
All that hate is a product of those who became distracted and then deceived by the great Deceiver.
e.g.: NRSV Luke 1:51.
That hate is only the Ying way of choosing to live life.
There also exist the Yang way of living life in Love.
Love always overpowers-vanquishes hate...always.
... the tried and true justification for exclusion from a society of living well ...:
'You made your choices."
New Mexico?
Yes
Everyone can learn from the life and times of Diedrich Bonhoeffer.
Exactly, Karl Barth & he were leaders of the Confessing Church in Germany.
I especially love his essay on the dangers of stupidity.
And to be clear. I am not opposed to church and state working together in their own way. Government support for church run food banks and shelters. I spent a day at a day care center run by a church inspired activist, which gets government funding to help single teen mothers, themselves often in foster care, finish school, prepare for the job market, learn parenting and self care skills, while their toddlers are cared for in a program emphasizing socialization and language skills. No signs at all of religious indoctrination. Working together to break the cycle of poverty. Good!
That is exactly how the Poor Peoples Campaign as lead by Bishop William Barber interprets the Bible, read "We Cry Justice" edited by Liz Theoharis.
ThankYou. Yes.
"No signs at all of religious indoctrination. Working together to break the cycle of poverty"
INDEED! Lin
Your recollections about Government support for Church... is all about love Lin
Someone in Government created the agency for such support because of the love in their heart for people in need...just like in your heart Lin.
You visited a day care center inspired by Church activist...you used the word inspired and Church and activist.
The Church IS the inspired word of GOD, and GOD is Love.
The activist are the instruments by which you can actually witness GOD's Love in action on Earth.
The separation of Church and State was a creation of society NOT of GOD.
Lin you have witnessed firsthand the natural interrelationship among people of Government and people of Church, some of which were both Church members and Government employees, Eh!?
What you witnessed, Lin, was the perfect indoctrination of the religion of Love.
And
Love is what religion is all about.
Love is what religion SHOULD be about. More often than not, it is about war, crusades, jihads, indoctrination, and the wholesale rejection of science and scientific evidence for physical reality.
Talia, the "religion" you reference is NOT religion.
It is societies' distraction from seeking the Love of GOD.
All the negative efforts you categorize are those activities initiated by implicated people deceived into believing the solution to their perceived problem can only be resolved by instituting such negative activities.
The Great Deceiver's craftiness has been the downfall of many misguided "Religions."
The government gave tax dollars to a program created and administered by people of faith, helping people in need. For a shared goal - breaking the cycle of poverty.
OK here is my favorite Jewish joke.
A rabbi has two candidates for one place in his school. He takes them out for a walk through the countryside. They see a magnificent bird flying above some fields. The rabbi turns to a candidate and asks 'What do you see?" The candidate says "I see the pure soul soaring to Heaven to be one with God." The rabbi then asks the second candidate the same question. The candidate says "It is a very large bird. It it drops dead, landing on both sides of the border marking two fields, who is responsible for cleaning up the mess?" The rabbi accepts the second candidate.
I think the commandment of love is much more difficult to comprehend and to put in action than obeying 'every jot and tittle of the law.' If I understand correctly, Christ is the fulfillment of the law. So you all get to eat cheeseburgers. But ... Christ has shown love beyond all understanding of man, and has given His life for man's sins. Whew. How does one live up to that?
"How does one live up to that?"
No one can.
No one ever has.
No one ever will.
We all sin, every day.
But,
We, who believe, are ALREADY forgiven our sins.
Yes, and even those who choose not to believe will be forgiven all of their sins.
INDEED!
A Love that is beyond our capacity to fully comprehend, Eh!?
Wonderful!!!
Had never heard of the Barmen Declaration before. Thank you for teaching me. I too do not recognize this evil support, and at times, it has shaken my beliefs.
That particular type of "Christian" is, in reality, worshipping at the feet of an antichrist. IIRC the Bible doesn't say there can only be one.
Every time one of us studies the Holy Bible it is interpreted by that person based upon their current level of knowledge.
Some are always more knowledgeable than others.
As we age our knowledge increases, (for most of us), into a better understanding of Holy Scripture.
The Scriptural passage studied years ago will reveal a concept entirely revolutionary from that previously studied passage.
In referencing The Holy Bible, as you seam to be because you capitalized Bible, you may choose to study, (I Timothy 2:5) KJV to hopefully gain a better understanding of how you believe a Christian worships his SAVIOR.
... as it evolves ... Into what ...?
Apparently into the "Republican" Party platform, according to the type of people to whom I was referring. And, yes, I know that platform consists essentially of "we believe in whatever Great Lord Trump believes in." Which was, of course, my point. :-)
Standby...it is on its way! Be ready!
lin, BEST quote of the month award goes to you and this post.
"Reagan's lie and Trump's insurrection have their roots in the defeated Confederacy's wild rage at the Federal government. Which for generations has sold sedition as a noble cause and metamorphosed historic traitors into heritage heroes. "
One of the most well written and information packed sentences I have ever read.
Thank you.
Thanks. But whew, you need to get out more. Howard Zinn anyone?
Western History is incomplete without Howard Zinn.
Thanks to Howard Zinn, more people learned about "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies", a first hand witness account, written in 1542 by Bartolomé de las Casas, describing conditions of very early enslavement of the native people in Hispaniola, Cuba, and the Caribbean. Since gold was not found, and the Crown had to find a way to pay for these ever expanding expeditions to the west Indies. Native people were forced into slave labor camps (plantations) for exploitation to produce crops like sugar and food staples, sent back to Europe for profit. The natives ran away, they resisted, they were horribly abused, and so many died of disease during this horrible era of genocide by the Spanish Colonization, that Africans began to be enslaved and brought to the Western Hemisphere to replace the "native work force". Zinn introduced us to one of the first abolitionist movements in mid 1500's. In a way, the root of what was to come in the Southern United States.
So any history of North & South America is incomplete with Howard Zinn and Bartolomé de las Casas. The same could be said of the 1619 Project for America.
In his own words, "My history describes the inspiring struggle of those who have fought slavery and racism (Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses), of the labor organizers who have led strikes for the rights of working people (Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, César Chávez), of the socialists and others who have protested war and militarism (Eugene V. Debs, Helen Keller, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, Cindy Sheehan). My hero is not Theodore Roosevelt, who loved war and congratulated a general after a massacre of Filipino villagers at the turn of the century, but Mark Twain, who denounced the massacre and satirized imperialism.[11][12] I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which says that all of us have an equal right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality—and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that."
Bartolomé de las Casas was less gracious describing the horrible conditions of enslavement and petitioned the crowns for more humane treatment of the Native Peoples of the Caribbean.
Zinn is slanted, only towards justice and the idea that we still striving to reach the ideals in our Declaration of Independence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_Account_of_the_Destruction_of_the_Indies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tTP1TcwyTWPLzFg9JLLyC9PLEpRqMrMy1NIVChIzS_ISVUvVsjILC7JL6oEACryDqk&q=howard+zinn+a+people%27s+history&oq=howard+zinn&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j46i433i512j46i512j0i512l4j46i512j0i512l2.4785j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
OMGosh. I can't thank you enough for your comment. Who thought we'd have to defend Zinn, here.
Perhaps you know that Mark Twain wrote an essay on lynching. I did not until I came across it. Twain was horrified by lynchings and the mob mentality. He spoke of how a few courageous individual police officers had stood up to mobs and stopped lynchings.
I am pasting in the Wiki entry.
" The United States of Lyncherdom" is an essay by Mark Twain written in 1901.[1] He wrote it in response to the mass lynchings in Pierce City, Missouri, of Will Godley, his grandfather French Godley, and Eugene Carter (also known as Barrett). The three African Americans were accused in the rape and murder there of Gazelle Wild (or Casselle Wilds) on August 19, 1901,[2] Twain blamed lynching in the United States on the herd mentality that prevails among Americans.[1] Twain decided that the country was not ready for the essay, and shelved it.[1]
Thomas Beloat was a sheriff of Gibson County, Indiana at the turn of the 20th century noted for stopping a lynching in the county seat of Princeton
A redacted version was published in 1923, when Twain's literary executor, Albert Bigelow Paine, slipped it into a posthumous collection, Europe and Elsewhere.[1] In his essay, Twain noted two law enforcement officials who had intervened and prevented lynchings in early 20th-century America. They were Sheriff Joseph Merrill of Carroll County, Georgia,[3] and Thomas Beloat of Gibson County, Indiana.[3]"
Looking forward to reading Twain’s essay. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this before. Another reason why $5 a month here is priceless.
Zinn is slanted. Not a reliable source standing on its own.
Not only can his work stand on its own, I think it also has wings.
I would suggest Jill Lapore's fairly recent history of the US...These Truths. I learned a lot.
I wish you would expand on that. I would like to know what you mean. I am sorry you have been attacked for your opinion.
You need to get your head out of that place you're keeping it, because what you're smelling in there is not Chanel No. 5. Why don't you go over to FleeceBlock, where bimbos like you can congregate with MTG and worry about the Gaspacho Policy coming for you?
Horrible comment. Nothing she said called for a mean personal attack.
!!X
TC, doubtless there are times when hard lines are drawn - tough talk might be useful to intimidate an opponent in times of unavoidable confrontation ... more likely, it can pollute the waters of potential peaceful resolution, inviting a vile response. Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi says to train like a warrior, live like a monk - the first concern is to cultivate peace.
Best Mindset & Life Advice? - Shi Heng Yi (Shaolin Masters Speech)
(Warrior and "Loser")
SHAOLIN MASTER | Shi Heng Yi 2021 - Full Interview With the MulliganBrothers (1:49:10)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bhdeUspmMP0
https://shihengyi.online
https://shaolin.online
https://shihengyi.online
http://www.facebook.com/shihengyi.online
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oYu0n-O67Do
What informing materials would you recommend? Would the works of Edmond Bordeaux Szekely be useful here ...?
The Living Legacy of Edmond Székely - The Tree of Life and the Teachings of the Essenes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_nZcQ35x5A&feature=emb_imp_woyt
_______
The Essene Book of Creation, Edmond Bordeaux Szekely
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0QJqrJccPpc
_______
From Enoch to the Dead Sea Scrolls , Edmond Bordeaux Szekely
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rVb8GpJHDt4&feature=emb_imp_woyt
https://kennethmdouglass.com/library/teachingsOfTheEssenes.pdf
_______
From the Essene Book of Moses: The Ten Commandments
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TOXhjH4g7-E&list=PLh9Y1CCfpR4pdzVifgPc0MFDe-cVwNPxC&index=9
_______
The Essene Jesus , Edmond Bordeaux Szekely
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OeYwkP4LATg&feature=emb_imp_woyt
_______
Essene Gospel of Peace Book 1 | (Part 1 of 2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7cc3aCAxARY&feature=emb_imp_woyt
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZqP0T-jtt0&feature=emb_imp_woyt
_______
Essene Gospel of Peace Book 1 | (Part 2 of 2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_BEG3ZN89QI&feature=emb_imp_woyt
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r1XrX_7JqPc&feature=emb_imp_woyt
_______
Essene Gospel of Peace Book 2 | FULL BOOK
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4fcRtOPU53Y&feature=emb_imp_woyt
_______
Essene Gospel of Peace Book 3 | (Part 1 of 2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=14pb7WvJWqw
_______
Essene Gospel of Peace Book 3 | (Part 2 of 2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ywbd_Qyw-JA
_______
The Essene Gospel of Peace, Book Three; Part Three
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ENx1IfJYN4I
_______
The Essene Gospel of Peace, Book Four, Complete
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1J0DacSV1b0
_______
Essene Gospel of Peace Book 4 | (Part 1 of 2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HoqUk9Rwp8Q
_______
Essene Gospel of Peace Book 4 | (Part 2 of 2) *FINAL*
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A5pUqzL6yQo
Szekely's claims were rejected by biblical scholars. Per Beskow has noted that:
The [Essene] Gospel of Peace is a sheer forgery, written by Szekely himself. It is one of the strangest frauds we know of in the biblical field, as it has been carried through by stages during a whole lifetime and has been built onto an entire body of research based on imagination only.[1]
Richard A. Young has written:
Proof that Jesus was vegetarian is based on The Essene Gospel of Peace, which Szekely claims to have translated from an ancient text he supposedly discovered in the 1920s. Szekely alleges that this ancient gospel text is authentic and that the canonical gospels are forgeries. However, no one besides Szekely has ever seen the manuscript. This and other reasons prompt scholars to conclude that The Essene Gospel of Peace is a disreputable forgery.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Bordeaux_Szekely
Given the vague information on its discovery and the failure in locating the original manuscripts, critics have suggested that the ancient texts never existed and that the Essene Gospel is an entirely modern product of Szekely's imagination. In spite of these criticisms, many have found the Given the vague information on its discovery and the failure in locating the original manuscripts, critics have suggested that the ancient texts never existed and that the Essene Gospel is an entirely modern product of Szekely's imagination. In spite of these criticisms, many have found the book of great inspirational value.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/szekely-edmond-bordeaux-1980
Thank you lin - I'm no expert, but do have the book, "From Enoch To The Dead Sea Scrolls" (makes very good sense to me) - also, have listened to a couple of the tapes - some ring true - some seem overburdened with detailed arguments. I will keep listening to see what is revealed.
It does make sense to me that 'respected biblical scholars' might well reject Szekely's works as 'sheer forgery', since their expertise and status stem from the official scriptures which - from what I can see - also have been transmogrified from original versions and need to be examined for accuracy. Neil Douglas Klotz translates The Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes directly from the Aramaic - with profound differences compared to the Greek>Latin>English interpretations.
Are we to believe The Dead Sea Scrolls did not exist - or have no relevance to interpreting ancient scriptures? From what little I know, that manuscript was a source for much of Szekely's works.
A brief summary of what Heather, as a historian, has been writing about for over 2 years. Duh.
Rewards, Mike? Maybe in fun. A committee of one? Is that democratic? Do you sense a different perspective?
"The passionate irrationality of religion runs through it." As it always has. If you had told me that the religious right would have taken over America back when I was a young lad, I would have said how could that happen? They are a small minority and most people think they are "out there". Observe our complacent folly. Their takeover is almost complete. They have SCOTUS, they have TV networks, they have a con man leader who puts them into a rapture all the while ripping them off. TFG is like a Joel Osteen on steroids! It's a viral mega-church.
And they have the real possibility of marginalizing those of us with compassion for all humans and who understand true democracy. This better be the year of turn out of the compassionate.
Racist Right wing religious extremists did not swallow the GOP whole. They ate the elephant bite by bite. With knives provided by the wealthy who weaponize religion as a wedge issue to carve up the body politic.
Your descriptive use of words is superb. I hope you are writing op-eds and sharing your acute and often delightful observations with more readers
ThankYou. Yup.
Hear! Hear! Well said MaryB
I remember Karl Rove making churches in my area arms of the republican party in 2004, deliberately and with malice.
Oh! That Karl Rove who is a free walking treasonous republican spook who outed the identity of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame a weapons of mass destruction specialists.
Remember Bush's fake war!?
Rove leaked to the press Plame's identity as a political retribution.
The republicans were pissed off about Democratic Senator Joe Wilson's, (Valerie's husband), New York Times article.
Joe stated doubts about President George W. Bush statement that Saddam Hussein sought significant quantities of uranium, (re: WMD's), from Africa had ever taken place.
To punish Joe & Valerie for embarrassing George's War chant Karl was instructed to destroy Valerie's reputation and force her out of job.
Valerie was smeared in the press and fired publicly.
The government shoots Americans for treason, don't they!?
Rich & powerful Republicans hijacked "Christianity" to increase their power, read "The Power Worshippers", an excellent book.
To be released late April; available now only on Kindle. I ordered it and hate to wait!
I bought this book on Amazon during the past two years. It is eye-opening.
... and spoons ...
Silver spoons and forked tongues.
Oooh!!
Very insightful
Well said Bill.
"How to end this lunacy?" Participating in blogs is fine. Massive political participation is immeasurable. Campaign, write postcards, call and write Congress, register people to vote, drive people to the polls. Massive letter writing to your local representatives, schools boards, Principals, local newspapers concerning book banning give vital support to educators struggling with outside forces taking over their classrooms.
Yes! This is the grunt work by which the Right united to take power. They learned from the Civil Rights movement. While the Left fractured.
It's our turn now. John Lewis' autobiographical 'Walking with the Wind' is an inspiration and road map. BLM has revived the alliance. Another reason so much effort is going into lying about BLM.
Too many of us were complacent, living in our bubble where we thought all was well with the world, unaware of the danger of the rising right. It took the election of DJT to wake us up.
My bubble ended when the media could not stop talking about trump and could not stop slamming Clinton.
No. I don’t think we really woke up until a couple years into the administration.
Exactamente.
When did the left fracture?
I would say, in my life, starting with the Black Power movement rejecting white allies. With Louis Farrakhan's anti semitism infiltrating and dividing the Left to marginalize Jewish activists. With the Clinton's Wall Street neoliberalism driving a wedge in the Democratic party. With purity tests, pipe dreams of third parties and independent candidate Pied Pipers.
Should I go on ...
The Democratic Party and the DNC still stand as they did then. Democrats make no secret of the fact that we have a big tent. We must must must be aware of the propensity of Democrats to denigrate their own Party. What good does the constant picking apart do? It emboldens our enemies, dissolves our political resolve and disinvites people to join the Party. It discourages fund raising. It discourages talented people in running for office under the Democratic ticket.
"With purity tests, pipe dreams of third parties and independent candidate Pied Pipers". Lyrical sentences that contain no fact may be fun to compose but they are without substance and harm the Party. I respectfully invite you to reread you comment again and see if you have indeed imposed your own purity test against the Democratic Party.
We are at War. We are fighting for Democracy. Join together now or lose. Rick Wilson said it best in the run up to the 2020 election. "Do you want to be woke or do you want to win?"
What if "woke"is what wins ...?
The organizations you mention here are not "the left." In fact, you are the political illiterate here.
Yes, Farrakhan, a thorn in my side!
1968. When they assassinated MLK and RFK. When the country had a collective heart attack…
Did that fracture the Democratic Party? Maybe we should define just what fracture means.
The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy fractured my faith just as I was graduating from high school. I lived my life head-down for decades after that.
You must be pretty young to not know of how the Democratic Party fractured in the 60s and 70s. You're the one who needs to go look up the dictionary definition of "fracture." You have no understanding of political history whatsoever, a function of your political illiteracy. I'm writing here from personal experience of going through all that history as a participant.
Does fractured mean, that as Democratic's we have so many different extremes views that fit in the Democratic Party? Like from the Manchins to Bernies? Or that we stopped working together as one movement like during the civil rights movement of the 60s?
I meant that the Left was fractured. The Clintons contributed to leading the Democratic party astray. James Clyburn showed that we could unite and win, with a message of returning to our progressive roots. If he gets Childs on the Supreme Court it will be a great step to showing we have knowledge of and respect for the working class.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/us/politics/michelle-childs-supreme-court.html
That's part of it. And thinking of the civil rights movement as "one movement," one organization, is far from accurate. The civil rights movement was a premier demonstration of "the left" fracturing. (I was there and know what I am talking about)
Exactly my question, Barbara .
When did it not? The history of the Left is the history of factionalism, of True Believers splintering and splintering. The history of the civil rights movement is a history of splintering - "I'm more true/radical than you!" It's one of the reasons I left "The Left" 50 years ago - there's no likelihood of those people organizing themselves to send for Chinese takeout, let alone taking power. The factionalism is a function of their powerlessness.
Sheesh. Civil Rights, Anti War, Womens Movement, AIDS activism, Gay Marriage, LGBTQ rights and BLM!!!! Sheesh. Seriously.
How many postcards could be written during the minutes, if not hours, spent on blogs like this which amount to preaching to the choir?
But Jack, you discount the impact one can have sharing HCR's "Letters" and comments from readers like you with many people on our individual email lists. I have gathered over the past 17 years more than 1,000 email addresses on my progressive email lists. At recent Exeter, NH Town Meetings, I setup a table with some copies of Heather's recent missives, asked if people were aware of HCR's "Letters From an American", and offered them one of the copies I had made. It was very good news that many people were following her daily or somewhat regularly. Also on the table, I had a sheet introducing people to Heather's "blog". THis "Choir" continues to educate and inform me...and I choose to share what I learn with people who may benefit from the information and turn info into action! You can do the same. There is no shortage of issues at every level of community to engage with.
Exactly!
While Exeter probably votes Democratic, New Hampshire has a Republican governor and two Republican-controlled legislative houses. Voter repression and who knows what else is on their agenda. I suspect they get boilerplate conservative legislatiion models from ALEC, too. Regaining control of State government is the biggest issue with which you should be engaging in November's election. Don't lose sight of the forest when dealing with the trees.
Agree. Two things come to mind. It is refreshing to be on a blog that is so far different from the media. It can be a good mind boost to go out and to the work of voting. It's a balance for sure.
It is not either/or. As HCR has been quoted 'when we sing to the choir, the choir sings back.' We share ideas here, learn, are inspired, and fortified. And then get on with our acrivism.
Actually, I use reading and writing here for fuel for my postcard writing.
Me too!
All of the above. Plus, those who can, run for local office. The insurrectionists harassed school boards, then ran for them, to enable their current campaign to indoctrinate children so they will stop turning into compassionate adults. More specifically, to indoctrinate straight white children and intimidate all other children.
Barbara, Read my comment today that lists some of the outrageous anti-education Bills passed by the majority Republican Legislature in the NH House. Many NH Republicans came to NH 15-20 years ago as part of the "Free State Project". They correctly figured they would move to the small government state of NH, where they could run for state and local office and exert an outsized influence over public policy and school policy. THey are systematically seeking to remove government from the support of schools...in support of privatizing education via Charter Schools. Herb Moyer
DeVos certainly was pushing for privatization wasn't she. What terrifies me is the movement to take over the teaching of our children, control the subject matter, interject indoctrination and ban books. Thanks for the history of New Hampshire. I didn't know that.
"We" let the Confederates back in with sham promises. "We" let Nixon off the hook to "heal the nation." Please, in the name of all that is holy, DON'T do that again with Cult45.
The price will be higher than most can imagine.
Your musings are quite magnificent, Lin.
Not only “pass it up”. Pray for the Light to transform its dark poison. And I spit on its vessel as it passes me by. It serves no one. And it is only an illusion.
Salud, Lin.
We must be the new Enlightenment by which the Founders instituted Reason over Religion.
Right wing religious extremists are spinning their illusions into a very real rope to hang us. Individually, if we don't unite.
And your next challenge is probably on its way, courtesy of Canada. As you probably know, we have been enduring a protest with truckers ostensibly at the centre of it. Ottawa, near its Parliament Buildings, has been occupied for nearly three weeks. Round the clock horn honking drove citizens mad until an enterprising 21 year old pushed for and got a ten day injunction against it.
The whole enterprise is extremely well-organized and is of course funded with dark money. It has metamorphosed now into similar protests at an obscure but important border crossing in Alberta, and worse still to the Ambassador Bridge at Windsor/Detroit - an economic lifeline for both countries.
Police and government responses have ranged from pathetic to terrible. Today’s top headline in the Globe and Mail is “Windsor police won’t end protest over fears of violence.”
Mostly we have had hand-wringing and buck passing amongst the three levels of government. And the vast majority of the non-crazies in Canada are silently smoldering with rage.
Ostensibly it won’t end until all vaccine mandates are off the table and the government is overthrown. This is our version of your 1/6 - and it is being spurred on by American far-righters, including your much beloved ex-President.
If you feel you are missing out on something exciting, never fear. Apparently there are legions of truckers in your country rolling up their sleeves and organizing a copycat “protest”.
They have threatened the Super Bowl. Hmmm…we’ll see about that.
It's time for the authorities up there to "take some action" particularly at the Windsor/Detroit Bridge. I just read there are only 15,000 long distance truckers in Canada. If only 10% are unvaccinated, that's 1,500. There is Something Else going on in the depths of the Vast (world-wide) Right Wing Conspiracy. Those people up there are getting a lot of money from the seditionists and traitors down here. Timothy Snyder's writing about the influence of Putin is most likely right as to the source of all this.
Yep. He can’t mess so much with his Trump ‘Merica. Let’s move up to Canada.
Oh, we are well aware of that. The vast majority of truckers are a) vaccinated and b) not participating.
This protest has enormous misdirection going on. But we’ve caught on to that. It’s hard not to when tow truck drivers refuse to tow away the rigs because they’ve been openly intimidated. And the woman who got the noise injunction was fixed in a day.
Protests such as this one don’t leap around the world unaided in such short order. It’s just that Canada is not at all used to going first. I guess we ‘re number 1! (for fifteen minutes).
Eric, Yesterday, Timothy Snyder's substack column, "Winter Sieges of North American Capitals," proposed an even larger, more insidious force that encourages, even foments behind the scene. That is Putin's Russia. (He was referring to the Ottawa trucker's protest, which, like Jan. 6 is inchoate, a tempest in a teapot, with little truth to the outrage, but like the events listed in this column today, it is magnified by goading from behind.) Mr. Snyder insinuated that Facebook is complicit (I imagine because it allows political discourse among those it deems of like minds, even if it is absurdly inaccurate.) We know that misinformation was cued-up by Putin in the 2016 election, in the outcome of the Mueller report, et al.) I believed Mr. Snyder. It behooves us to be on our toes about the forces small and large in Putin's deviousness. His hackers are constantly exploring the net for signs of Western weakness. It all frightens me, to tell the truth. It is not difficult to unite unlearned people, including so many Republican officials with racist, misogynist, authoritarian dog whistles. Today, I feel small, but I know that information, good information like today's LFAA is our best weapon. Nevertheless, the magnitude of wealth, pig-headedness and obstructionism of the world's right wing is sometimes terrifying. Violence, even war is never far behind.
Wickedly interesting thoughts. Thank you for taking the time to express them.
My inner self asks, “Does Putin have time for Canada?” in much the way I’ve wondered in the past whether God cares if the Leafs win the Stanley Cup. 😊
But he has started a machine that produces mid/disinformation and it’s probably on autopilot now. Why not Canada?
Anywhere democracy flourishes, even New Zealand! Perilous Putin lives to strong arm the good guys. Along with China, the world's two most authoritarian governments intend to become Empires while pocketing the spoils and natural resources.
There is a very simple, if unrealistic, solution available. All the authorities have to do, is pretend for one day that the marauding truckers are composed of Black men and women and their allies. The police would immediately remember that they are trained and prepared to use force to control unruly citizens. The marauders would be in jail before the sun set.
I hear they are confiscating and will be restricting access to fuel supplies. That sounds sensible.
A thought for sure, although our police aren’t as well-equipped with surplus military equipment as yours.
Also, we have, in places, significant police accountability boards.
That said, our police have been brutal in more situations than I care to remember.
Oh Canada. I listened to Canadian radio last night. I cannot recall the minister's name. Both diplomatic and well spoken. Clear analysis of the situation, obstacles, and possible response. But also not mincing words about the utter self indulgent destructive stupidity of those appropriating the truckers' situation and preventing them from doing essential work, and terrorizing the community. I have spent a little time in exactly the seat of government area of Ottawa. It is as easy to imagine as if it were DC. I am so very sorry. Thin words but sincerely meant,
Thank you. Our Conservative Party has played nice with the supporters, including its new leader. She is going to regret it. Canadian elections are not won in Alberta. The vast majority of Canadians are either bemused (“Us?”) or deeply infuriated. Our ethos has always been peace, order, and good government, as opposed to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This makes us approximately the most boring country on earth at times :).
But it’s not all that bad a principle on most days.
Our authorities however are timid and befuddled at the moment. It’s getting embarrassing.
Pray for boring.
Peace, order, and good government.
I'll take it any day.
Good Luck.
Agree. ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
🙋🏻🙋🏼🙋🏽🙋🏾🙋🏿
Me too
There are many psychologists that theorize we may be at a time/era of evolutionary change in the human race. Every 400-600 years the human race has a genomic shift that catapults civilization forward. The Renaissance was one example. This Information Age, all this extra light in the palm of each hand is stimulation, awareness, and learning. The internet is “a new connectedness, where the needs and concerns of one, eventually become the concerns of all.”
I wonder. I am a bit leery of over arching theories. Divisions into historic periods is not fixed. Even in evolution, selecting which shared derived characteristics are significant in determining one species from another are subject to change. I spent some time working in Vertebrate Paleontology helping curate a collection of antelope. There were two species, samples of one existed only of small right antlers and samples of the other only of large left antlers. Then a skull was found with both antlers intact. The animal was not symmetrical - but scientists were so convinced of bilateral symmetry they had overlooked the unlikelihood of finding only right or only left antlers and they lacked the imagination to see beyond their bias.
Once again, very well stated, Lin !
It always feels good to vent and wax poetic about the woes we are facing. My question is this Lin. What do you propose in concrete actions, we the voters, can and should do now? I am the child of an immigrant Irish Father. When we would be hand wringing, sorrowful or just complaining he would sit and gives us his full ear and listen lovingly. Then he would say one thing. "Now get your Irish up." And we knew that it meant to deal with the matter at hand, take care of business, do something about it etc.
What can and should we do now? We need to frame this fight differently. We start by realizing the Civil War never ended. Appomattox was not a surrender, it was a strategic retreat, followed shortly after by the Battle of Ford's Theater, with one casualty, the return of a Confederate sympathizer to the White House, and the adoption of non-military tactics for all battles thereafter. We have been fighting that war since 1865, except only one side realized the war was still on.
What do we do about it now? We treat the combatants as what they are. Political and social battles require political and social responses. Jail terms for seditionists, and a reassertion of the principles of the Constitution that many people formerly and currently in power have walked away from multiple times since 1861.
It's easy to list the battles of the post-Appomattox Civil War. The end of Reconstruction. The Klan. Jim Crow. "Birth of a Nation". Stone Mountain, which was partially funded by issuance of a commemorative coin by the US Treasury. The battles against civil rights. Redlining. Nixon's Southern Strategy. Reagan's "welfare queens". Trump - all of Trump. January 6th. Book banning, book burning, vote suppression old and new. The rise of the evangelical churches. Subversion of the electoral system before the 2022 and 2024 elections. All of these are battles fought by one side with the tacit permission of the other.
What can and should we do now? Treat the continuing Confederacy as the defeated movement they were and still are, and stop allowing them to eat away at the foundations of the country they were created to subvert. We need the DOJ, Congress and every other branch of the Federal government capable of creating policy to do that, ASAP, and end the Civil War once and for all.
Finally, we need the majority of citizens who care about the United States that was conceived by the Founders, imperfect as they realized it was, to make clear to those policymakers that they should continue the 250 year experiment to build that union better and more perfect, without the interference of the modern-day copperheads doing everything they can to turn back the clock. Make America truly great again, and for the first time.
Mobiguy Many folks still believe in the Lost Cause (the southern rationale that they didn’t lose the Civil War). Then and now this was/is a white/racist rationale that is deep in their bones and is exacerbated by Trump’s white fear’ mantra. Only by teaching the unvarnished history of the United States (regarding Blacks, women, Native Americans, and waves of immigrants) can we begin to chip away at this iceberg of prejudice. Hopefully, this is less of a problem with our younger generation, but the reality process seems mighty slow. Meanwhile, the latest ‘ban those books’ assault is a Luddite effort to ignore change.
This is quite a reply. There is a lot of information to digest here. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wrote a wonderful book on the Reconstruction backlash when it happened and when Barack Obama got elected. That election woke the Southern rage anew according to Gates.
Barbara, many of us who wept with joy when Barack Obama won knew that it would probably end very badly. I prayed that it wouldn’t be an assassination. Living in the south, we felt the smoldering heat of white rage slowly building in some areas, but never could have imagined the way things would turn out as they have. It is no longer a Black President; now it is a multi-racial Vice President and soon a Black Justice, and every other grievance that mostly low functioning people — who actually do the violence for the instigator/financiers — have been nurturing, including “freedom.” Now it spreads to Canada? What? Seriously?
We are not done with this in any way.
Thanks for this insight. I also (naively) thought the elections of Obama and Biden would herald in new days. And now Canada. Oh Canada. I have a sincere question Gus. What exactly do you think the "it" is that is spreading?
I hope you appreciate the difference between analysis and hand wringing. We need theory and practice. For instance, I have spent many days over the last two weeks walking my rural town collecting signatures of registered voters to get our Democratic governor and House rep on the ballot. Maine. Winter. Do you want to know which inks freeze before the signature is done and which don't?
Yes. Because that doesn’t happen in Florida. As a teacher, I’d love to know. Good science experiment.
I kept a regular BIC pen in my mitten, but while people tried to write their name and address it repeatedly froze up and took a while to unfreeze. Felt markers 'bleed' through the paper, so I did not try them. A Pilot G-2 07 performed reliably over 4 hours outside at 10-20F.
Thank you, Madame Lin. I’m going to keep these results as an idea for science fair where kids drive their adults crazy thinking of an idea and hypothesis. We will have to use a freezer in FL rather than a snowy day.
Christine, I didn't get the context of what you wrote, but I do now!
Hahahahaha. Sometimes I focus on some little known questions in these fascinating threads from commenters.
❤️
That's the kind of practical Info to Action I have been saying about both Heather's articles, and reader responses, which I greatly admire and share!
You are one heck of a wordsmith, Lin! Another one for a Letters to The Editor to a broader population. I would love to submit it to our local paper. Are you up for that and for credit?
Steal this Book!
In the public domain.
“Pass it up when they pass it around,” but fear has them hooked. And the paymasters have bought the smirking devils who remember that taste of power and can’t wait to gorge on us all.
I ought to have specified KoolAide from the racist religious extremist right *and* from the 'I won't and you can't make me' ideologue left.
If in 2022 someone is selling 'vote the person not the party' then they are part of the problem.
Wonderfully appropriate comments; great job !
It is a pleasure to read this post. I too am a subscriber to your observations. I think they agree nicely with what I call the “long arc of history” which posits that ideologies once assumed to be in the “dustbin of history” are always there and can return like a cancer transported by contemporary zombies.
Quite a few quotable quotes here. Thank you.
Lin I suggest passing the KoolAid to those of the 74 million American voters who haven’t realized that Trump is Jim Jones reincarnate (Guyana redux)They could even contribute to Trump’s legal fund before ‘passing.’
They are gullible as well as stupid. And Lord, can it get worse if you’re not on the power/money continuum
The folks at Jonestown actually had guns to their heads. Today's Republicans could make better decisions. How do we get to that?
Lin From what I have read and seen, a few of Jim Jones' followers were coerced to sip KoolAid by his bully boys, but the great majority drank it dutifully like lemmings jumping over a cliff. Recently I read a poll in which 71% of Republicans still believe in the BIG LIE. That's a lot of lemmings on the Trumptanic, while the orchestra plays Nearer to God.
Deprogramming, as Jeri has shared with us repeatedly, is difficult. Prevention of further spread of the propaganda would be essential, but social media makes that just as difficult.
From expert Dr. Bandy Lee: “Lee compared disabusing someone of the falsehoods in a Big Lie to treating regular delusions. One rule: Don't put them on the defensive.
"Confronting them, or presenting facts or evidence, never works," Lee told Salon. "You have to fix the underlying emotional vulnerability that led people to believing it in the first place. For populations, it is usually the pain of not having a place in the world, which socioeconomic inequality exacerbates. Deprivation of health care, education, an ability to make a living, and other avenues for dignity can make a population psychologically vulnerable to those who look to exploit them." https://www.salon.com/2022/02/03/the-psychological-reason-that-so-many-fall-for-the-big-lie/
Yes. In political training, I was taught arguing only pushes people to dig in deeper to their opinions. By arguing you actually get them to reinforce what you disagree with. Instead try to get them to articulate any one point you might be in agreement on and give them prompts and opportunity to expand on that point.
We learn motivational interviewing in health. It’s similar. Challenging.
The populace that I live within has not and will not change except as generations come and go. They are good folk with a mind set that doesn’t care to have you alter their thinking.
Thank you lin, your voice always helps me understand.
Excellent!
What the radical right projects on to others is what they do when they have power- ignorance mixed with malevolence. But I have to say that confusing gestapo with gazpacho is comedy gold.
“𝘚𝘰, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋.𝘊. 𝘫𝘢𝘪𝘭, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋.𝘊. 𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘨, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘗𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪’𝘴 𝘎𝘢𝘻𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘰 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦.” --Representative Margorie Taylor Greene.
“𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵! 𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘷𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘵, ‘𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘗𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪’𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵! 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘕𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘴 𝘚𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 [𝘢𝘨𝘰]. 𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘢𝘻𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘰 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺’𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘩, 𝘴𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭!” --Jimmy Kimmel
Priceless
I can already hear Randy Rainbow- - -
Funny, I immediately thought of him when I read about the gazpacho! I have compassion for the ignorant and poorly educated, but I can't have much compassion for MTG. I have to say, though, she made this house a place of great laughter last night, something I've missed at least since Nov. 2016...
Looking forward to it!
We should call her office and order takeout. She has no committee assignments to keep her occupied and earn her pay.
This is hysterical, Gigi. Thank you for starting my morning off with a laugh. Marjorie three-names is such a fool.
What a brilliant idea. I'm calling to order Chinese with extra blood and MSG.
And a side of gazpacho
Who votes for these people? It’s not these politicians that concern me but the huge population that votes for them. Those are our neighbors!
Foxers, or devoted to the Fox clones.
The Hummer replaced the Chevy Suburban as the Texas State Car.
San Francisco values are creeping out of the dark web with Nancy Pelosi’s Gazpacho police. It is my ciopinnion that’s there’s polenta of sourdough financing this stuff.
LMAOROF Margeret MacKenzie, nicely done!
LOL!!
The ignorance is stunning… yet, so proudly spewed on all of us.
Jeri's is the most succinct explanation/explication I've seen in months. Ignorance with a large side of gazpacho.
I witness it daily, and sadly
It's what you get with a moron who thinks she's a genius.
A short story from Steve Schmidt, co-founder and former board member of The Lincoln Project:
“It was as if the stars themselves could not burn brightly enough to send a flicker through the black ink of freezing sky above the “Goulash Archipelago.” Fear distills its own sweet scent. The air hung heavy and sticky with it. The MAGA mob, victims all, huddled together in stillness. They were afraid. Who wouldn’t be. Pelosi’s Gazpacho was going door to door. The knock was going to come soon. They hoped for broccoli, prayed for bisque and dreamed of chowder. But they knew it was the Gazpacho that was coming. It was a day that tasted like a Gorka; a lonely day where hope faded to despair faster than Kevin McCarthy could run from @ABC news. The Gazpacho was fierce, deadly and amoral. Yet, they were not invulnerable. After all, they spelled their name with a G. G was a good letter. But it wasn’t Q.
“Even the shallowest breath seemed to make a noise in the basement hideaway, beneath the Rayburn Building, where the Q Caucus huddled in fear. How had it come to this? The thousand year dream that took root as the escalator descended in midtown Manhattan was crumbling. They were surrounded and expecting the knock on the door. They prayed it would not be Pelosi’s Gazpacho. Their prayers would go unheard. The End.“
Priceless, mockery is the best response (maybe he is trying to make up for Palin?)
Hard to reconcile the man that gave us Palin with the man who spoke so eloquently and passionately about our democracy on Ari Melber’s show tonight. Your reminder causes me to wonder if he is able to admit responsibility for his part in all of this. Sometimes I just have to let myself grieve all that we have lost. It’s so much.
I posted this, because it made me laugh. I can’t be certain that Steve Schmidt is sincere in his fervent criticism of the last administration and the current state of his former party, but he sure sounds sincere and he hasn’t wavered in his criticism for the past several years.
Your musing about whether Schmidt had ever taken responsibility for his part in elevating Palin to be McCain’s running mate prompted me to look into whether he had done so. He did, in fact, publicly take some responsibility for the disaster that is Palin in a few different interviews after the McCain/Palin ticket lost. For example, in 2012, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when asked what he had learned from the McCain campaign, he said, “For me and the experience I had on this campaign [the lesson] is that there are worse things than losing…When a result happens that puts someone who’s not prepared to be president on the ticket, that’s a bad result. I think the notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly. And I played a part in that. And I played a part in that because we were fueled by ambition to win… I think there are important lessons to learn. The reality is is that both parties have nominated people in the last decade who are not prepared to be anywhere near the Oval Office. John Edwards in the Democratic Party. Sarah Palin in the Republican Party. And we ought to take a pause and understand how that happened, why it happened and hopefully it’ll never happen again in our lifetimes.”
Of course, it did happen again in catastrophic proportions in 2016, so it seems reasonable to conclude that Schmidt is sincere in his passionate exhortations that we, as voters, hold our political parties and candidates responsible for protecting our democracy and never let such a travesty happen again. Unfortunately, it is evident that a majority of Republicans are placing party over country and are not committed to insuring qualified, ethical people ascend to the highest elected offices through free and fair elections. The work of democracy is never done.
He sounds sincere to me as well, Mary Anne. Thank you so much for finding and posting this. In our current culture it seems especially important to lift up those who can admit their own responsibility for where we are and care enough to work hard to make amends. Seems like Schmidt is doing that. At this point, I’m convinced that those calling themselves Republicans don’t even care about their party, they just want to force an evil dictator on the rest of us.
Thanks again for your post 🙏❤️
Wonderful! Thanks for posting this. Love Steve Schmidt.
I agree. I laughed out loud on that one.
Read TC's latest script--hilarious!!
Not defending Empty Greene, but spellcheck/autosupply coulda done it. She is not the type to proofread. Carelessness seems to be part of her appeal to voters.
The Autocorrect guy died. His funnel is tomato.
Hilarious, Ron!
I saw a video of her saying exactly what TCinLA said she said. In fact, TC linked to that video.
And frankly why isnt more made of that kind of ignorance? Publicly?? Certainly makes clear exactly how ignorant that particular "Congressperson" is.
Is it not so bizarre that this period of American history's republican attempted anarchy and attempted coup d'etat will be rife with the strangest faux pas and visuals? Gazpacho. Shaman. Yosamight. Cancun. The elected officials who are complete Flipfloppers when Tfg says "Jump!" OMG, there are so many that, in the least, provide us with a little levity and humor at their assinineness. It is embarrassing that our country has to take them seriously. But, seriously, we must. Thank goodness they can make us laugh at the same time.
Someone should write a book of the Alternative Reality's language and historical photos and videos. Unbelievable.
For posterity perhaps, they are clowns with flamethrowers now. Love this descriptor, stole it from someone. So true
From me, who stole it from Charlie Sykes. :-)
best descriptor ever
Do you remember The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew? A book filled with blank pages.
Ruth I bet that Trump will plagiarize the blank The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew book.
Reminds me of what political cartoons
used to do in newspapers!
She is literally too stupid to insult. Yet, sadly, she speaks for far too many in this country.
It's what you expect from the typical Small Town Rich(b)itch. The bimbo everyone in school had to bow down to because daddy owned the biggest used car dealership in town and financed the football team. She didn't have to worry about no Book Larnin' to get where she was going.
I'd be curious to know how much of what you just wrote is ACTUALLY true?? No criticism; I just wonder about her actual backstory !
On Wednesday evenings, for most of the last 15 years, i have gotten together with a group of creative women to chat and craft. Some knit, some crochet, some simply come for the conversation and yes, wine.
In 2020, I dropped out. My husband had been diagnosed with ALS, I couldn’t leave him alone and it was rare that my girls could come over midweek. I mostly dropped out though because the “founder” of the group kept chastising me for talking politics. Since its damn near impossible for me to NOT do that, it was just easier to leave. After Glen died, I was invited to return via Zoom and did so but mostly kept my mouth shut about anything other than which yarn was better for socks (wool. Definitely wool and preferably hand-painted.)
We meet in person again but the group has dropped from a high of 20+ to just five. Three of the five used to call themselves Republicans. The fourth is a moderate Democrat. Then there’s me- the lefty, liberal outlier.
Last night, the only thing we talked about was politics. Our host, who has earned her millions, was furious about everything- supply chain problems, anti mask/ anti vaxxers keeping her family on edge and fraying her nerves with worry, and the; “lying, cheating, adulterous former President and his minions threatening both our democracy and my ability to conduct business” - Kathy’s words.
She had nothing but praise for the job Biden was doing- which was high praise indeed!
The group founder, Chris, chimed in on praising Biden and castigating the bejesus out of Republicans, specifically in this case Rubio, for his BS lies about harm reduction programming. (Chris’s son, now 10 years sober, is a graduate of such a program.) After praising the Dems and condemning Repubs in general, Chris turned to me and started laughing. Then I started laughing. Then, the uncontrolled near hysterical group laughter took over. Oh, sweet irony…..the Repub group leader broke her own rule and talked smack about politics! About damn time.
When I read HCR’s letter this morning, I felt the all-too-familiar pinch of anger, anxiety and repulsion for the lies, the violence, the dangerous and deadly denial people like Navarro and Gosar live in, and the vast wide conspiracy to destroy democracy in this country. I do my little part to promote and protect democracy but as others here have often noted, I just wish there was more I could do to change this dangerous trajectory we are on.
I’m grateful, every day, for LFAA and this island of sanity with all of you. Now that there are two such islands in my life, I can go island hopping (I’m dreaming of warmer climes. We have snow coming later today. Ugh….)
Thanks for this Your friends' "conversion" gives me hope. I'm glad you're getting your group back, and condolences on the loss of your husband. ALS is a freaking thief; takes the body as Alzheimer's takes the mind.
Hi Ally, I am not one-upping ALS at all — it is a nightmare all by itself, but MS takes both body and mind, and it is typically much, much slower.
The only good thing the sociopath in chief ever did for this country (only because Covid was destabilizing his precious stock market) was the warp speed vaxx program. How I long for such a program for neurological diseases, including spinal cord injuries. Such a program would — as with Covid — mandate sharing information among and between Pharma and universities, all of which presently guard their research from one another, incentivized by patents, grants, publishing rights, and profits. Without such cooperation we may continue to have what we have now: advances in treating symptoms and complications but but little hope for finding a causes and cures.
It is too late for my wife, but not for generations of human beings yet to be. My condolences to Sheila and her family as well.
As long as you want to list awful endings, add in Parkinson's. Watching a partner who was "scalpel sharp" become a "butter knife" who can't remember what the butter knife's for is damn hard.
TC, Parkinson’s is another default neurological disease that there are no words to describe. No doubt in my mind that you are doing everything that can be done for your partner, and I, as the former partner of someone who’s attributes would exceed substack’s storage capacity and crash this whole website, for 50 years and 15 days, I understand you, and honor you.
I used to tell Edie that I had MS too, because she had it, and she was me and I was her. It helped her understand, and sometimes even mitigated her extreme feelings of guilt that she had failed me and our daughter. And I meant what I said to her.
What was not said out loud is that, sometimes, in our weaker moments it is actually harder on the caregiver because we have to watch, despite all of our efforts, we must watch the person we love more than life — the creature who is our reason for existing, go through an indescribable disease. That’s all I can say about that right now, my eyes are sweating pretty hard.
So to you TC, and to loving caregivers everywhere, it IS “damn hard.” It is what love is all about. May that love give you strength, even when it’s over, and they take the best part of you with them.
Thanks much for that, Gus.
I second what Gus said. So sorry for what you are living through and sending my best coping vibes your way. Glad you can find some peace hanging with Heather's Herd.
TC's virtu.
Virtu as 'Arete (Greek: ἀρετή) is a concept in ancient Greek thought that, in its most basic sense, refers to "excellence" of any kind. The term may also mean "moral virtue", just to be clear about you, TC.
Another Official Compliment from Fern! What is it I'm doing? :-)
Watched that with my b-I-L ‘s Dad. I can only imagine how hard that is. ❤️
Hi Gus. You are absolutely right. There are medical conditions as bad as ALS, they can last much longer and wreak even more havoc along the way on the families, as well as those with the disease. I have two friends who live with MS (they have the treatable kind, not the progressive kind) and I know how hard their lives are, not the least of which is figuring out how to pay out $1200 a month or more for medications that make their lives easier and better. Big Pharma's focus on profits is beyond my ability to be reasonable about so I won't go down that rabbit hole for now.
As to your point about a government program focused on neurological conditions like ALS/MS, there is one. Run by the Veteran's Administration, they are focused on determining why upwards of 20% of all people diagnosed with ALS in any one year, are current or former military. When my husband was alive, he was treated at the VA, given experimental treatments designed to delay the onset of symptoms (they worked), and the VA also has a program conducting research on the brains and spines of those willing to will their bodies to science. Glen donated his body to in the hopes that one day, ALS and other neurological conditions like Fronto Temporal Degenerative Disorder (FTD), a form of dementia that accompanies ALS about 25% of the time, can be treated, even cured. I also have hope for the stem cell neurological research being conducted in Israel right now. They are making great strides there.
It isn't the Warp Speed program, but there is high level research being done on the brain. And if we could just get a few Republicans to admit that medical science matters, maybe we could get there before thousands more die a slow, painful suffering death. My deepest condolences to you, Gus, on the loss of your wife.
Coming from you Sheila that means a lot. I didn't mention stem cells and the VA, but they both at the front of my mind as I wrote. It's a shame that we can't go full bore stem cell here. Mrna is going to help in the future as well. My hopes are high for others who may be spared.
Progressive MS is treatable. See my loooong comment a little above yours, on vitamin D, and there are other treatments as well.
I'm sorry to learn your husband died, and of ALS, which must have been painful to watch.
Edie changed over to secondary progressive. Stopped the interferon shots I was giving her every day, ineffective against SP MS. She developed leukemia.
I'm so sorry to hear that Gus. I know from watching my parents, how hard it is to have a spouse with major medical problems (MS in my mother's case).
Sheila, thank you for sharing this with us. It gives me hope for lost friendships with many of my white evangelical friends during the last administration, especially during the racial protest and riots. My heart hurts for your loss of your husband.
Gus, I second everything you shared. My husband of four years was newly diagnosed w/MS when we met 5 years ago, and I was JUST diagnosed last year in March. I asked the neurologist at my clinical exam/initiation appointment after my MRI that showed scars in my brain, "Dr., are you ABSOLUTELY sure MS isn't contagious?" :-)
MS doesn't always take the mind. My mother had hers until the end, even though she could hardly do anything with her body.
Not known in my mother's day, but large doses of vitamin D does wonders for a lot of people with MS. Get yourself and your husband docs that know about this. We're talking doses of ***at least*** 10,000 IU/day, which is not unsafe. But part of what you need to know is that physicians of a certain age learned in medical school tht it is VERY easy to get a toxic dose (not true). My own physician was appalled tht I was taking 3000 IU/day (for general health, not MS, and since I started that in '04 I almost never get colds or flu). But she has come around. Here is what a friend of mine with MS wrote about D's impact on her life.
From one of my friends, her experience with her MS after taking Vit D. --David
David, you might find it interesting to know that when I was really struggling, even after they switched me from Cytoxan to Novantrone, my neurologist started me on 10,000 IU of D3 daily and then upped it to 20,000 units daily after some of these studies came to light. The blast of D3 made a dramatic difference and put me into remission. At the time, I had been reclassified as progressive, non-remitting and had had no improvement in over 3 years - just a steady decline. I've been doing well ever since.
They dropped me back to 10,000 units daily after a year at the higher dose but a recent level shows me to be just over 100 ng/ml so the've stopped it for a couple of months to get my level just under 100 ng/ml. They want to keep it at the high end of normal but under 100 ng/ml, as that is where I seem to do the best. My guess is that they will resume it at 5,000 IU daily or every other day next month after they do the repeat labs.
In my case, since I lather with a 50 SPF or higher sunblock and wear an SPF rated hat in the garden, I probably get little effect from the sun.
There is no question it has a profound impact on MS and I have benefited greatly from this inexpensive, benign therapy.... quite a switch after too many years of high dose chemo.
And please add the caveat that no one should ingest such high doses of Vitamin D unless they are under a doctor's care and their Vitamin D levels and liver function studies are being closely monitored on a regular basis, as Vitamin D is a fat soluble compound that is stored in the liver. Mine are checked every other month at this point.
It's absolutely critical to know the person's baseline level before treatment is started. Because I develop a rash when I'm in the sun, I have always used strong sun blocks and SPF rated clothing (especially a hat) when out of doors. I don't have any other reliable source of vitamin D in my diet as I have been tube fed for years, so my levels were particularly low. Everyone absorbs nutrients differently and my GI issues certainly affected mine. The fact that I had a very low level to start with definitely affected the amount and duration of my treatment.
All of those dire warnings aside, in this case and in many others that I have seen reported, Vitamin D can make a significant difference for people with aggressive forms of this disease. I was into my 4th year of high dose chemotherapy when they first added the Vitamin D. The change was measurable and even more-so when he increased the dose, which he did several months after I finished the chemo protocol (purely coincidental - he was reading a study in which the 20,000 IU dose was cited just prior to one of my post chemo check-ups.)
The change in my symptoms and level of function improved so much after he started me on the higher dose, after a year or so he reclassified my disease back from secondary progressive, non-remitting to relapsing remitting. I have been completely stable now since 2007 - 5 years. This year, Steve and I started vintage dancing. Not bad, considering I was in a wheelchair with a ventilator in 2006.
A couple of years later, she writes:
You should know that my Vitamin D level rose to a level that my PCP thought was unsafe (just over the upper limit of normal at 107) so he took me off it (temporarily). Six weeks later, I started having major symptoms and my repeat Vitamin D was down to 19. I'm back on 10,000 units a day but I am also back on a ventilator and my return to the symphony as a harpist has also been delayed. ;(
I think it's important to note that most physicians - especially PCP's - have the idea that D levels change slowly over time and that is not the case. My level went from 107 to 19 in just over a month. That is scary. I should also note that while I have not noticed much improvement since we restarted the D, the downward slide has leveled off. They are going to recheck my levels on Monday. I do best when it is between 90-100.
David, It was very wise of you to provide all this information. I hope that JetFaith shows it to her and her husband's doc. That will give them something to work with and might want to contact your friend's doctor if all parties are open to it. Thank for your thoughtful generosity. Salud!
My friend, alas, died of cancer a couple of years ago, and I have no idea who her doctor was. But I've heard of others doing the same thing, and I suspect it's fairly well known among younger docs. If I had MS I'd kick my dose up to 10,000, give it a few months, and kick it up again if that wasn't working. (When you start on D, it takes at least a month and a half to two months to get to the blood level that the dose will maintain. An alternative is to take a very large dose (like 20,000 IU for several weeks and then go back down to 10,000).
A very belated thank you, David.
Yes, Vit. D was one of the very first of many scripts my neurologist prescribed me since my diagnosis in March 2021.
Last week, I was diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy after a skin biopsy the previous week. I’d been suffering with “burning” feet, ankles, palms, fingertips, arms and legs. Just the touch of a sheet or pants causes pain.
The doc wants to reevaluate my Vit D mg amount along with other nutrients/vitamins like Vit B 12.
There is quite a bit of overlap with MS and neuropathy. What has been your friend’s experience with neuropathy?
My friend never mentioned neuropathy, and neither did my mother.
I've written about neuropathy some in past years, and my impression is there's a fair amount docs can do for it. Email me at supernova1@aol.com, if you want to ask me more about it, and I know people who might know if there are good docs for neuropathy in your area.
JetFaith, just wanted to say how sorry I am to read about your husband and now you, developing MS. Can't imagine how scary that must be. My best to you both; it will be a painful journey at times, but traveling together is better. As for your white Evangelical friends, I have no clue how to reach folks like that anymore. I'm a Catholic, my friend Chris is Jewish, Kathy is also Catholic, the other two members of our little group include one Lutheran and one Methodist. We can talk about, joke about and generally say anything about one another's religious traditions. Doesn't faze any of us. We all celebrate ChristmaHannaKwanzika. (Another words, exchange secret Santa gifts). As for the race riots, my stepdaughter, who is Korean-American, lives a block and a half away from the corner where George Floyd was murdered. Racism is alive and well in the city of my birth but Emkae's generation gives me hope. Sending hope your way too.
To JetFaith 🪴with loving spirit.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Sheila, You served us the most glorious laughter and you gave us pictures of you of us of struggle of determination and love. Thank you.
Sheila, your post is so encouraging. After such a terrible loss (my sincere condolences go to you and your daughters....and I just attended a funeral Mass for a friend whose husband died of ALS), you are like a Phoenix. Bravo. I also am aware of the myriad things you do to promote and save this democracy. Thank you.
Many thanks Annette. I will add your friend to the prayers list. ALS is beyond tough….
I love this story, and I hope the joy of shared laughter brings you euphoria going forward. Groups like Red Wine & Blue leverage what we do with our little groups of five (or 20) friends. You’re doing your part. And I am so sorry for your loss.
Thank you for this! This brought a much needed smile and feeling of hope. Where there is one group of friends that have opened that closed door to politics, there’s sure to be many many more.
Sheila, thank you for this. Rekindled friendship is doubly heartwarming. I also give you my deep and heartfelt condolences on your loss. I’ve also walked this road, rocky but navigable. God bless you.
I’m so sorry that you have shared that road. As you say-rocky but navigable. But tough, nonetheless. Blessings you you too.
Sheila, thank you for sharing. It’s heartening to know people can change, even after years of believing the stories they’ve known were “absolute truths” most likely from their childhood. I too send condolences to you for your loss. And hope.
Sheila B, thanks so much for this very good yarn!
🤣
This gives me hope that someday I can reconnect with those I had to distance from for my own well being. My disappointment in their refusal to accept reality may never go away. I too am grateful for this “island of sanity.”
I hope this is a predictor of 2022 election results!
Stanley, watch the polls concerning suburban Republican-leaning women. My friends may well be anomalies - but polls have been identifying suburban Repub women as a key demographic for a long time.
❤️🪴
Sheila, I hope so, but until we cross the finish line, I can’t relax.
Very interesting ... is it time to connect with LWV ... or is it better to persist unaffiliated with any official organization ...?
Persist in every way possible, including the League of Women Voters.
I joined the LWV a few weeks ago and am impressed with their level of individual expertise and commitment. Since the organization is bipartisan, I figure we have a foot in the door to reach, and potentially influence, suburban republican women voters. About 100, mostly women in two counties south of Denver, are involved in voter registration drives ( including registering newly naturalized citizens on a weekly basis), advocacy, member education, lobbying at the state level, civics programs in local schools. The list goes on. Their mission statement: Empowering Voters, Defending Democracy!
Sounds good! Here in Seattle, when LaBump stole the election (it was rigged for him to win) The League of Women Voters had to close their office because of bomb threats ... pretty sure they are back in action now ... I hardly have wherewithal just to get through the day/night one day at a time, so haven't much to offer there, but am great-full for their sincerity and works.
I’m a lifelong environmental activist, Kathleen. I persist with former employers, postcards to voters, postcards to potential voters to get them to register in time via Field Team 6, am trying to find a safe way to help register Democrats in neighboring Wisconsin in person (Ron Johnson is vulnerable- would be great to help knock him off), worked with my neighbors to get them to vote in last year’s school board elections, and still work part time. LWV does great work but my time is already committed elsewhere.
Likewise Sheila, Just participating on this blog takes more time than I have to commit - while I admire and appreciate the efforts of those who are able to contribute actively, I already am sleep deprived and coping with the consequences ... I heard that angels don't have to sleep - is this what it takes to earn those wings ...?
I wish I had something more substantial to contribute to the conversation this morning, but all I can think of is Marjorie "Traitor" Greene just brought a spoon to a knife fight.
What I find strange about these folks like MTG is their hue and cry that people are spying on them. One of the first things one ought to learn is when one works for the public one’s work is not private, it’s public. The email address the school gave me didn’t belong to me, my desk didn’t belong to me, etc. Public servants serve the public. Donald Trump’s paper output doesn’t belong to him, Representative What’s-his-butt’s white board contents in a congressional office doesn’t belong to him. They belong to the people who elected them to do a job. They appear to me to be acting like an elitist tribe, above the laws of the government (we, the people).
Well said!
A soup spoon.
😆
When I was a freshly minted jail deputy 36 years ago, I noted that the only piece of silverware permitted the inmates was a soup spoon. I hope Madame Three Names is getting ready.
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🤣
Sharon, I read a comment on another enewsletter calling her
M T (empty) Greene. After the "gazpacho " comment, Empty Greene she is!
Perfect!
I want a t-shirt identifying me as a member of the Gazpacho Police.
We have a title for the radical/stupid wing of the Republican Party: Gazpacho Republicans.
Perfect!
I had a friend mark herself safe from the gazpacho police, so social media is busy with gangrene who in reply posted something that made no sense about goulash.
😂
How in the world did she get her current position?
Never forget! People voted for her 😳. We reap what we sow. People are a resource, that needs nourishment, not poison.
Attacks on the opposing candidates drove them to withdraw.
It is ugly out there, I do understand. But I believe LOVE will be stronger if we will feed it persistently & consistently. Alex Vindeman’s wife posted on Twitter about loss of income because of standing up for what’s right. Sadly that’s what happens to so many when they take a stand and don’t sell their soul to the highest bidder. Selling one’s soul for profit has become part and parcel of the American Dream and delivered us a spray painted glitzy gold souless idol
Soup Nazis!
"No gazpacho for you!"
As a self-confessed elite (educated person), after I finished guffawing I wondered if there should be an IQ threshold for public servants. Then I realized how elitist that sounded and laughed some more. Better than crying, I guess…
There are times when I'm close to calling the right wing ignorant pot-stirrers the worst of names. Their catch-all "elitist" term is their name for us, and I visualize rabid cretins red in the face from screaming. I hope you don't absorb their bilious shouts. That's what they want us to do.
And a cheap, plastic spoon at that!
We could all send her a plastic spoon.
My first real LOL moment of the day this morning! I can't wait to see the memes...
There is nothing United about the U.S.A. anymore. These dangerous thugs and nut jobs are working to destroy everything I once thought was my country. I read yesterday in The Guardian that one in five former members of our military join a white supremacist group. Hugely dangerous times as these are Americans. These are their beliefs. And. We are the enemy.
Mind boggling that an obvious coward can have such an impact. Rupert skews and stews and the fear-based haters glom on to the devil with no clothes.
I wonder if the 20% can be applied to antivax health care workers, hospital security guards. I say YES, given observations while accompanying MIL in the ER last night.
Yep
It's slightly different; one in five applicants to those supremacist groups are ex-military:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/09/white-supremacist-group-patriot-front-one-in-five-applicants-tied-to-us-military
That's what I said.
A sharp analysis of this by Will Bunch from a year ago:
https://www.twincities.com/2021/02/02/will-bunch-biden-could-curb-right-wing-extremism-with-one-tactic-end-the-u-s-forever-war/
thx for these-will have to come back to them after work today!
Foremost on my mind this evening is a growing fear amongst Democrats that there's a window of opportunity to convict Trump of something, and that our current control of both houses of Congress somehow gives the DoJ and judiciary branch the momentum to do it.
It is very wrong, the judiciary gets no power from Congress.
What DOES empower us to close in on Trump and prosecute him for his crimes is closing in on the underlings and prosecuting them for their crimes. Also, the truth that the January 6 committee is our cultural power to take back control of the narrative. Almost every week, they uncover new and shocking revelations. By now can we recognize that they know what they are doing and let them do it without attacking them with vague, absurd claims of "going to slow?"
So many people calling to arrest Trump, because "isn't it enough?" But its not enough until we know what happened. Imagine if they'd wrapped it up once they had "enough." I don't want "enough," I want all of it.
And the prosecution of Trump is unique, we don't get shot after shot at laying out separate charges and having another go if things fall apart on technicalities--or Republicans in the jury--the first time around.
What's sad is how few people recognize the desperation and flailing of the Republican mindset. If we, the people who see the inherent problems of authoritarian mindset, can't articulate it, we can't win.
But Republican flailing and failing are constantly portrayed in the mainstream news as either: 1) perfectly normal, to be expected as the opposition of Democrats, just as respectable of a position. or 2) sinister and powerful. These narratives are putting Democrats constantly on the defensive, and constantly scared. I have no doubt that Russian troll farms are in overdrive to keep the narratives in our faces on every form of social media, and they are brilliantly successful at it, for now.
Even though I get it, I rely on HCR's letters so that instead of just knowing, I can move forward in that headspace and have new ideas, expectations, and be more fluent in political discussion.
But it all works until it doesn't. Once this !@# show crumbles, it is done. The question is, how long will it take for people to see the cracks?
It's like climate change. It's never done getting worse, it's never too late to stop fighting. But there is still so much urgency, because the scale of destruction that we still have the power to stop is so unfathomably huge.
Rather than think about how long the legal process will take to prosecute Mr. Trump, I revel in the fact of how much of the heavy lifting he is doing in exposing himself, his administration, his devils that fuel his mind. A sociopath cannot ever sit back and not crow like a rooster. Someone on a broadcast made a joke after reporting suggested that he flushed pieces of documents down the toilet to get rid of them. Suggestion made on air was that he probably then also ate pieces of paper if the toilet clogged. My thought was well, even those pieces ended up in the toilet. Mr. Trump cannot escape from his own defecation of his intent, his character, and his morals. And now the Republican Party seems not to be able to shut him up.
Mockery a very appropriate response to inanity
...and mockery may be what finally brings Trump down. To be laughed at is his kryptonite.
Trump actually did eat a document. https://hillreporter.com/yes-a-white-house-aide-did-say-donald-trump-ate-a-sensitive-document-124484
"But its not enough until we know what happened. Imagine if they'd wrapped it up once they had "enough." I don't want "enough," I want all of it." AMEN!!!
It’s never done getting worse. Thanks for the second part of that sentence.
And our time table in which to unearth and prosecute it is so short! You speak my mind, S. Mikelle.
Amen! “Imagine if they'd wrapped it up once they had ‘enough.’ I don't want ‘enough,’ I want all of it.“ Yes, yes, yes!
Desperate traitors are fighting like trapped rats. Vicious lashing out. Increasingly absurd allegations and truth shattering lies. They know the committee will publish the truth of their collusion. Let’s hope voters wake up. Three cheers for suburban moms (and anyone else who pushes back against the cabal of traitors). McConnell and Pence know what’s coming and they finally spoke truth while the Trump faction cling to the sinking ship. Danger ahead. This is going to be ugly.
"They know the committee will publish the truth of their collusion. "
We only have this Congressional term. Unless we unite in 2022 for a Democratic majority. Just imagine Republicans in charge of Congress.
It would spur a mass exodus
Oh Canada. With their own foreign money funded terrorist southern border problem. Only their's is real. Brought to you by the same American right wing extremists who are weaponizing our need for a better immigration policy.
Can't somebody take names, and charge these terrorists with the obvious crimes. A loss of their livelihood should get some attention. Or are the majority of truckers terrorists????
The majority of truckers are people trying to make a living -- VACCINATED people trying to make a living.
Some have hate as their major objective it seems...
Reporting from Canada says these are not truckers terrorizing Ottawa and obstructing essential business. They are our right wing crazies supporting their right wing crazies trying to create chaos and overturn government.
I hope someone is recording vehicle license plates. I'd like to see a breakout of Canadian and U.S. registries.
I don't know how i knew that, but I just that from the git go. Suspend their licenses for starters
Yes indeed, they sense danger. When danger is sensed, the built in inclinations are to fight or flee. We are seeing both from who have realized the situation their poor judgement has produced for them. The question becomes how to escape or avoid punishment and humiliation.
Why avoid punishment and humiliation. Those things are what kept me from being the worst arse possible, well somewhat
It is UGLY
I love that Moms like Katie Paris (RWB) and Leah McGowan (Politics Girl) are taking to social media to educate and debunk misinformation. They do so with humor and in a manner the average woman (or man) can relate to. And unlike MSM, they also give samples of how issues in other states or DC can influence their lives. Keep sharing these grassroots efforts so we can help promote their efforts.
If you’re short on time, Politics Girl’s kitchen rants are roughly 3 to 4 minutes and absolutely wonderful.
Find Leah McGowan on instagram - @breakfastrant
and her Politics Girl YouTube rants - 5 minutes or less, and her weekly podcasts, which are in depth.
Mm, I've seen Politics Girl's podcast with Jen Psaki. Good stuff.
Posting Leah McGowan’s last two Political Girl posts. I’ve followed her since she started her podcast. And she is really getting warmed up.
A quick scathing report of the RNC.
https://youtu.be/h1abZJs27eY
And her podcast this week….
https://youtu.be/WRss3qCmk8k
Again I love Katie Paris and RWB! Thanks for the shut out about Politics Girl😊. I just listened to the last podcast. It was great👍
Time for me to sign up with Red, Wine and Blue! I’m an urban mom but maybe they’ll let me join.
I am single and I follow Red, Wine and Blue. They are a great group
Here's the link https://www.redwine.blue
Many thanks for the link. It brings tears to my eyes to see people really stepping up in creative, humorous ways.
Thank you!!
Thank you
Do sign up…it’s a great, pro-active group that has literally grown from a few moms to thousands of women wanting to fight against the misinformation, aka lies, by going on the offensive and offers a safe place for discussion and venting.
In Texas, we also have a great group called MAGA….Mothers Against Greg Abbott! It has grown from a small group of suburban mothers to thousands of people united to fight the current “regime” and it’s lies and destructive leadership.
Maybe Abbott will get confused and think they're in favor of him. LOL!
Will join up. The man is the worst
It was a great place before Rove brought his Bush bull schitt in 1994
It's a good idea! I like the idea of going on the offensive for a change!
"Push back or be pushed over"
Oh, they will..all hands on deck.
Me also
"On Monday night, the Supreme Court okayed racial gerrymandering, making it harder for Black voters to elect representatives of their choice."
The worst possible ruling that could have occurred and in direct conflict with all of the laws on the books since 1964. AND, voted YAY by a black judge coopted by the right wing of the Republican Party with money long ago.
Yes, in Florida and other southern and western states we are rapidly returning to the America described in Isabelle Wilkerson's enormously educational book:
"The Warmth of Other Suns".
Back to a future when Black folks in America were so disenfranchised that it was legal for white folks to capture, torture and then to hang a randomly chosen black man for Sunday afternoon entertainment, in the town square.......children included.
GREAT fun for after Sunday (white, christian) church services. Yep.
But, wait, it gets better. When Black families, scarred by the loss of a loved one to horrible white terrorism, frightened, beaten and partially starved, decided it was better to leave the area and move north?
Yep. Having arrived to the northern promised land, they were roped off into redlined (by the Federal Government) districts and crowded into small parts of cities in substandard housing with nearly no public education. IF those frightened, half starved, fearful and beaten humans stepped out of these boundaries, the police would beat or kill them back into those boundaries. IN THE NORTH.
America......returning to its roots as we speak.
Sadly, Rubio knows better and is such a small, small cowardly (I cannot say man) and so willing to sell his soul that he is not LEADING this charge back in time to the future, he is FOLLOWING. Lying about free crack pipes to black minorities? That little Rubio is just following his Daddy Reagan's script.
Mainstream demonizing of Black Americans has become the ONLY "platform" of the Republican Party now.
All re-initiated in 1980 by the bumbling, dumbling, ever stupid smiling, profoundly evil Ronald Reagan.
Can we please not join hands yet and jump off the cliff? I have been collecting good news. Here are 3.
The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday indefinitely suspended the law licenses of two St. Louis attorneys who waved guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, but it stayed their suspensions and placed them on probation for a year.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections said on Monday that it has the power to block GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn from running for reelection over his role in the January 6 insurrection -- an open legal question at the center of liberal-backed efforts to disqualify him from future office. The bipartisan election board made the assertion in a court filing in a case Cawthorn brought against the board, hoping to shut down the constitutional challenge to his candidacy.
The Ohio Supreme Court once again rejected legislative maps that Republicans drew to disproportionately favor their candidates, sending mapmakers back to the drawing board and Ohio's primary into massive uncertainty.
We are losing some battles and winning others. It's called a War for Democracy. Toughen up folks.
Barbara, Well, I survived the jump and read your post. Very good news indeed.
Thanks!
I guess you bounce! The good news is out there. Let's collect it and cheer each other on.
Clarence Thomas did not switch races, he switched classes. One function the awful, pervasive racism present in this country serves is as a mask for classism. Keep poor whites busy oppressing minority groups, and they won't recognize how they're being shafted.
Repub playbook since Ronnie
Since slavery bagan that has been the playbook.
The vast majority of people living in the pre-civil war south did NOT own slaves. They were expensive and priced out of range for poor whites.
In fact, after the horror of Gettysburg, in the Civil wWar, the defection of thousands of poor, non-slave owning Southern Appalachian white troops from the southern army had great positive impact on the Civil War for the north. Those guys finally figured out that dying to protect slavery for rich white men was dumb.
But, after the war, establishing poor whites as "above" poor blacks was key to getting elected.
my two "confederate" ancestors were not among those who figured it out, sad to say.
Yes-and in a “nation of laws” the laws and customs support keeping people with White skin “above” others. It’s a strategy that has worked well and it keeps the elites in power over “we the people”.
LBJ had it right "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Yes-this quote sums it up. LBJ was from Texas and he knew first hand how the system works. He was able to persuade a few southerners to vote for the Civil Rights bills because he understood their thinking and appealed to their self interests. He knew at the time that passing Civil Rights legislation meant that the Democrats would lose the south “for a generation”. If only he could see where we are now!
This is one reason West Virginia separated from Virginia.
Let’s never forget the other Repug platform item: oppressing and controlling of women.
Well, umm, OK I guess....I mean not controllering women but...umm...sure...right...
:-)
Mike-thanks for describing these truths. Generations of people with Black skin living in America have been experiencing tyranny since the beginning-and now some folks want to depend on Black folks to save America by voting in large numbers. Stacy Abrams et al have done a tremendous job with mobilizing and organizing voters but I’m not so sure that it will be enough after the ways Republicans are rigging the system. Let’s hope people of goodwill who really care about America and humanity will be able to overcome evil.
You write the truth as I have witnessed much of it.
“Gazpacho Police”
Finally, we have found the REAL Soup Nazis
LOl. Indeed!
A good laugh this am!
🤣🤣🤣
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer identified 38 tricks, dodges, and chicanery that people resort to in order to be right, even though they are clearly wrong. He said “the same identical tricks and dodges always come back and were very easy to recognize.” They are still being used since they must work against those who aren’t aware of them. How many can we find in the typical GOP drivel?
The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument (1831) is an acidulous, sarcastic treatise written by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. In it, Schopenhauer examines a total of thirty-eight methods of defeating one's opponent in a debate.
“The tricks, dodges, and chicanery, to which they resort in order to be right in the end, are so numerous and manifold and yet recur so regularly that some years ago I made them the subject of my own reflection and directed my attention to their purely formal element after I had perceived that, however varied the subjects of discussion and the persons taking part therein, the same identical tricks and dodges always come back and were very easy to recognize. This led me at the time to the idea of clearly separating the merely formal part of these tricks and dodges from the material and of displaying it, so to speak, as a neat anatomical specimen. He "collected all the dishonest tricks so frequently occurring in argument and clearly presented each of them in its characteristic setting, illustrated by examples and given a name of its own." As an additional service, Schopenhauer "added a means to be used against them, as a kind of guard against these thrusts…."
The Art of Being Right - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
Great post. I am putting it on hold at the Library.
OK, I looked it up and my library, which has almost everything, does not have this book but Amazon does. I am ordering it.
Thank you for posting this. I know Trump cannot read, so, he has never read this, but, he uses these methods instinctively. I want to know what they are.
My wife is going to LOVE me reading this book!!
Betcha Goebbels knew it well, Mein Kampf has a section on the big lie that is audacious and galling.
I Heart this.
Number 38!
Ah yes.
Number 14
Only at LFAA do you I see posts on Schopenhauer! However,I need elucidation on # 1, The Extension (Dana's Law).
I needed elucidation, too. Took a while to find the text online, but found this:
“Stratagem 1
The Extension. — This consists in carrying your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; in giving it as general a signification and as wide a sense as possible, so as to exaggerate it; and, on the other hand, in giving your own proposition as restricted a sense and as narrow limits as you can, because the more general a statement becomes, the more numerous are the objections to which it is open. The defence consists in an accurate state- ment of the point or essential question at issue.
Example 1. — I asserted that the English were supreme in drama. My opponent attempted to give an instance to the contrary, and replied that it was a well-known fact that in music, and consequently in opera, they could do nothing at all. I repelled the attack by reminding him that music was not included in dramatic art, which
covered tragedy and comedy alone. This he knew very well. What he had done was to try to general- ise my proposition, so that it would apply to all theatrical representations, and, consequently, to opera and then to music, in order to make certain of defeating me. Contrarily, we may save our proposition by reducing it within narrower limits than we had first intended, if our way of expressing it favours this expedient.”
Schopenhauer offers two other examples: https://www.wendelberger.com/downloads/Schopenhauer_EN.pdf
gazpacho…Omg. I spit my coffee and laughed so much I terrified the cat. This Soup, soup beautiful soup, soup of the evening beautiful soup will now be called in this household greene soup. Extra nachos and a blended margarita please.
Genuine home-made greene soup, free of MTG.
I first read this malaprop from M three names on Jim Wright's page; for years, he has talked of the RWNJ family saying "something, something, gazpacho". To hear one of the seditionists use that term gave me a solid 45 second belly-buster laugh (the editorial comments regarding cold soup were priceless as well.)
A laugh out loud moment if ever there was one in this “soup” of evil ingredients that republicans have stirred up.
The attack on education is also being expressed in Oakland California where they are shutting down public schools in predominantly black neighborhoods. These attacks on public education must stop. Democracy depends on education.
Right. That's the whole point in the Right's efforts to dumb down education at all levels. And it's not new, just that now it's on steroids.
It’s astounding. Where do we start? Cult rule has overtaken Republicans. Vicious color based fascism finds its way everywhere, Mussolini rules Republicans, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews and Muslims are demonized, book banning returns with a vengeance, polling is politicized as poll taxes and jellybeans are replaced by hard laws that criminalize water and ban all sorts of voting, not one campus president raises questions or erupts with cries of fascism, Nazis, the swastika, and the confederate flag wave from the capitol to racist bearded American trucks blocking brudges in Canada, Scotus flips racist, the clergy is quiet, student suicide is soaring, pandemic and masks and vaccines destabilize our politics, we are a one party state, Fox is fascist, a president flushes presidential records down the White House toilet, half of congress lies and dishonors those that saved them from an insurrection, our most wealthy hate cops, murder of capitol police is rationalized, the culture is wracked by racism denied, the evil is lionized and good is trashed, our leaders cannot lead, the DOJ does not know where to start, lying Kevin MacCarthy becomes schizophrenic, congress is respected by 5% of the nation - corrupt party politics violates law and trashes the constitution - and no one raises societal insanity and national emotional illness as a concern. We are at the edge of the mess that led to Hitler. Putin loves this. Trump stole national documents.. the DOJ and DOD were incredibly compromised and seem unable to investigate themselves… and the people are quiet. It’s business as usual at Harvard. Blacks are frightened. Cops in different states are killing Blacks with midnight no knock entry of the wrong house - and outrage is dead. The body politic is obese and unwell. Addictions are surging in The North Country’s armed poor white trash - and I could extend this rant for hours. Meanwhile, we cannot find the words that tell the truth. Denial rules. The sane are talking to themselves.
The Democratic Party must be able to translate all this into votes on November 8.
"societal insanity and national emotional illness"--red flags everywhere-we try to blame on Covid-but cause is deeper and systemic.
It was likely the spellcheck function on MTG’s computed/smartphone that took her probable misspelling of gestapo and made it gazpacho and she failed to notice. MTG probably never had a bowl of gazpacho in her life.
However, if the shoe fits…..
It’s good to have HCR in my in-box again. I was beginning to worry.
It's on video, not in a written statement. Hysterical.
I tried to give MTG an out.
“She couldn’t be that stupid,” thought I.
Well…..
She IS that stupid! It's hilarious watching the video
She certainly has provided you with proof!
You didn't fail even a smidgen next to her colossal fail win.
That ought to teach MTG to proofread before she hits send, but she doesn’t strike me as a careful editor of her own words.
it's on a video. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2610531/Video-MTGs-word-soup-Rep-compares-Capitol-cop-Gazpacho-police.html
No doubt, your analysis is correct Ralph!
Well, Ralph, I just watched the video of Three Names spouting Gazpacho. Spellcheck for Speakers must not be turned on.
She actually said it out loud. See link posted by David Holzman.
Well, Ralph, it looks like she got the "g" right, and the "e", "a", "s" and "z" are all close together on my tiny, "smart" keyboard, so it might be easy to mix up those two vowels and consonants, but the "t" and "p" are pretty far away from each other and from the "c" and "h", so in my humble opinion and wearing my Sherlock Holmes double-billed cap, I think MTG probably doesn't know much about the Gestapo and even less about gazpacho and may even think that the spellcheck function corrects for faulty knowledge and is smarter than she is. Therefore, I find her GUILTY of treasonous ignorance and stupidity as charged. I say, "Lock her up".
Me too. Kept going back every five minutes to check.