When we think about the traumas of the last few years, we will remember the people who kept us going, the people who made a difference, the “ordinary” people who reached for the extraordinary and lifted up their fellow citizens with knowledge and thereby somehow made us feel connected to something larger than ourselves. Thank you.
The quiet is beautiful. Taking my run this morning, I had to smile thinking, "This is the last Sunday of the Trump Administration, and hopefully the last Sunday of the Confederacy." As Jean Luc Picard would say, "Make it so."
Yes to the quiet of nature. Agree. I was on a long hike this morning through rolling hills. Not a soul in sight. Very quiet. I stopped, closed my eyes and breathed deeply for a long time. Sun on my face. And felt a peace. A calm.
I had just come from a run-in with a diesel MAGA truck in a store parking lot and thought about that when I was in the hills. And about the last days of Trump and his ilk hogging center stage with their cacophony of nothingness. About how they most likely will never feel a peace like I was walking across public lands. Happy to have paid my taxes to do so.
Tricia, I agree that preserving tracts of land, where we can walk and other species can flourish, is a great use of our tax dollars. Hiking is my therapy (retired from running because Old Person :)
Lucky you! I'm nowhere near public lands but have my own short "hike" on the back of my place up near the woods with my dog - morning & night. Without that I think I would truly not be able to hack it these last 10 months or so.
I live in the PNW (thus my avatar) surrounded by forests and rivers and mountain ranges. 15 min to 90 minute drive from home to thousands of trails and adventures. It is what helps me to stay alive.
I am envious so is my dog! I'm so grateful for my four little acres & living in the country. I keep up with whats going on with wild horses & the roundups & also a few blogs (Wildlife News, etc) so am aware of OUR public lands & how beautiful they are. Nice that you are close enough to take advantage of them - especially now.
Public lands is one of my causes that I keep track of, support, and pay attention to. And yes, because it is my backyard and such a very important part of our nation.
One of my monikers is "PacNWexpat"! Love it, miss it, and my friends and family. They always send me photos of the places and things I love and make me cry. But I'm in Vermont, so am not complaining.
I love it when you tell us you're going to rest. You've got to pace yourself, lady. And yes, it's been so traumatic and exhausting. I appreciate that you name that.
Ah, thanks for confirming my feelings. For me, the trauma began in mid-2016 and never let up, coming to a violent head last week as real relief is so near. It has been exhausting. I am in awe of the consistent high-quality work you have been contributing to this long drawn-out crisis, making your knowledge, perspective, and general sanity so generously available, and I can’t thank you enough!
I am a female middle aged Jew. Chump made me nervous as soon as he sad he was running for President. I believe it’s in my genes to recognize such a danger!
My goodness. Mid-2016 takes me back to President Obama's election 8 years earlier. I sat across the lunch table with a friend of mine at work. He was staunch fundamentalist Christian. I can remember him telling me with a concerned look in his eye, that Barak Obama was the anti-Christ. My jaw almost locked in the open position, but I kept my cool. I don't recall any such accusations when tRump got elected. The years of tRump felt like Groundhog Day, the movie.
On the positive side, if you look at the period of time that we had or will have a Democratic president - from Barak to when President Biden finishes his first term, 12 out of 16 years is an accomplishment. tRump was just an anomaly and a reminder of how we must stay strong. The Republican Party has lost it's way. We can be the shining example on the hilltop to help them find their way in the darkness.
Speaking of the fundamentalist Christian perspective, I’m the lone heathen in my family, who largely follow that persuasion. I’m also the only one with a liberal arts degree, and they tend to view me as somewhat corrupted by it. That said, it was heartening to see reluctance on their part to vote Republican in 2016 (abortion was the key issue), and watch horror grow at Trump’s behavior in office. I saw some lights go on for the first time after George Floyd’s murder: some sheltered white people took a crash course in civil rights! Then my hardheaded, outspoken fundamentalist sister announced on Facebook that she’d “prayerfully” decided to vote for Biden, and I watched in awe as she calmly took flack from her social circles, some Q-leaning, and of course a few end-timers. So, I’m quietly optimistic, and having studied history, too, know how the pendulum swings. Trump certainly trampled the conservative window dressing...and I hope, too, provided space for progressive renewal!
During WWII, we never let the bombs or the chaos stop us from celebrating when celebrating was in order. At our house at noon ET Wednesday, we are going to pop the cork on the champagne and celebrate like crazy!
Today, we honor Rev. Martin Luther King. Here is the text of his 1963 speech on the Mall in Washington, DC. It is an appropriate time to read it again.
"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?"
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our chlidren are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only."
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exhalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
I, until now, do not think I've ever heard or read the entire speech. It's quite moving, and it brought me to tears. Thank you for sharing. It's sad that we still have so far to go. This should, in 2021, just be an important time in our history. Nearly sixty years later, it feels like the speech could be made today.
What wonderful words...words full of hope...words full of love. We're still far from a lot of what King said, and it saddens me. These words are the essence of Christianity, to my mind, but also the words of America's greatest social philosopher. What also strikes me reading these words is how right-wing White Christian Nationalism has so completely twisted and distorted the messages of Christ into something hateful and self-serving. They do NOT represent what Jesus Christ preached and died for. If they truly believed and practiced their supposed "faith", their hearts would not be so hardened and full of hatred. They are following a false and empty faith. King's rich and eloquent words stand in stark contrast, especially now, to what these "Christians" represent. We will continue to hope. We will continue to love. Slowly, inexorably, steadily onward we march toward the light of truth and right. King has showed the way. I'll stand by him, thank you.
Thank you for posting this speech! It brings tears to my eyes every time I read it because I see how far we have yet to go! Regrettably the message may never touch the hearts that need to be touched.
There is a star in the gloomy past year of pandemic and psychopath president; I discovered Heather Cox Richardson. Her "Letter to America" is the bowl of multi-grain cereal with Maine blueberries I feed my brain first thing in the morning.
And all who comment here are my glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.
Sleep well, knowing that you contribute profoundly to our understanding of these moments, that they are not comets appearing out of a void, but threads that connect us with our past and can guide us toward a more humane future. Thank you Heather, and sleep well.
A really well written analysis of 45s coup attempt by Fiona Hill below. Fortunately our institutions held, and those in critical positions honored their oaths.
Fiona Hill lays out a very persuasive argument. Given that we know trump can’t plan ahead or manage, who helped him? Who laid out this step by step scheme?
Good article. I had not seen all these events as a step-by-step scheme, and I'm not convinced of that. But if they have been, I agree that Trump wasn't the planner. Trump, I believe, has been a convenient mouthpiece for more intelligent, more dangerous forces. He believes he is in charge, and he's acted in predictable ways, but I feel sure he is no more than a puppet. But whose puppet? When I saw the documentary, "Get Me Roger Stone," I realized that this man is at least one of his handlers. The Republican party, I believe, has also been hoodwinked. Somebody somewhere is having a good laugh at how all this has gone down. But I would like to understand what is really behind it all. Russia? Who?
I like this. Heather says the same. Today I'm watching a Noam Chomsky interview in which the first question the interviewers is, "Why doesn't Congress deliver necessary relief to the American people?" He answers, "One place to look, always, is where is the money? Who funds Congress?" And then he talks about the remarkable correlation between campaign funding and electability. So that's part of the puzzle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huy82PVaCzs
Follow the power. Money is a clue: it is what pays for power. In this case, look for the people who suddenly had epiphanies when Trump failed to follow the script and things fell apart. Not just the lock-step politicians and hangers on: the people in the private sector who are busily rewriting the story of their involvement with the Trump Administration.
That's interesting. It is certainly a good clue that you're approaching some truth or other when somebody suddenly, inexplicably does a right-turn or about-face. Because lies don't go around corners well.
Some of the Republican Party allowed themselves to be hoodwinked. Some simply looked the other way. Some spoke out (we were paying too much attention to WaDC and failed to listen to the growing resistance at the state and local level governements). There were some Republicans thought they had an opportunity to enhance their careers and are now eating worms. And then there were those who thought they were really onto something and jumped at the chance to get at the spoils. But also a growing number who saw the danger and tried to let their colleagues know: they were methodically shut out.
But most of all, so focused on WaDC, we failed to see the relationship Trump and his handlers were building with the disaffected and outlaws of our own country in spite of the fact that it was happening right in front of us, in plain view. We didn't get it until it happened.
Yes, Trump was a puppet, but we are wrong when we look for something outside our own culture for what happened and how it happened. What happened was quintessentially American: there have been instances of it throughout our history, and there were clear examples in the last few years at the local level.
As to how it happened, that is quintessentially American too. How did we think it would happen? These people have been organizing and practicing for years. They are from our communities, not some foreign power. And yes, they were used, by their own tacticians, but most of all by people in our country who are used to the ways power works, and how to manipulate it.
It went awry for a several reasons: the first one was that Trump didn't fallow the script (he rarely does). Another is that all that crowd energy was so disorganized that the insurrectionists got in each other's way, and the people who thought they were cleverly using them lost total control. The third thing was critical: incredible dedication, courage, and commitment by the outmanned Capitol Police and the Metro Police (especially), aided by what can only be called either damn luck or grace (or both combined). There were times when only a few yards, quick thinking, and fortuitous timing saved the lives of countless of our elected representatives.
But the fact is that the coup failed, and failed spectacularly. And the special irony is that in its failure, it highlighted the very topic that was being exploited: the racism and White supremacy that has been our nations shame. We are looking it right in the face. We can no longer deny that it is and what it has done to us as a nation and as individuals. The challenge now is to deal with it meaningfully.
I don't think anyone is laughing at this point. I do see a lot of my neighbors and colleagues smiling, their faces and bodies not longer rigid with tension.
Thank you for this. I will consider what you say. I do, however, think we need to look outside our country as well as inside. Money and power flow around the world in so many ways.
Remember when 45 started he was just trying to pump up his brand...he didnt really want the job. Kelly Conway got him to settle down and fly straight...so I think she has been key...she came out first utterance of "alternate facts" as I recall. She was sly and bailed before it hit the fan. Putin clearly hated Clinton and saw tRump as pliable given all the money they probably laundered via his real estate. So added together, Stone, Conway, McConnell, Cohen, and his own narcissistic drive and here we are.
Mitch M coached him on packing courts, and has been the only consistent strategist by his side...he surrounded himself with loyalists based on instinct, but the rest was MM I'm guessing
Excellent! Thank You. I reposted on fb and sent to a normally smart trumper friend. How can they not believe the facts in front of them. Heartbreaking what tRump has done to good people, and to a used-to-be-great country.
Exhausted is an understatement. I didn't post anything to the letter from 1/16 (I started a post and deleted it) because I was mentally spent by the time I got to it this morning. I read through about a third of the comments, but I just had to step away from the computer and the news for my sanity. I've been a bit down today for various reasons and these are the kinds of days I find I can best just unplug. I seek out other things to read and occupy my mind (I zipped through the NYT Sunday Crossword in record time...), but even then concentrating is difficult. I find above all I like to listen to music as that helps calm me, ground me, and helps lift my spirits. It can be anything. It moves me even more on days like this because I feel my emotions have bubbled to the surface and been on a knife edge due to events, so it then doesn't take much to touch me deeply. We all have our release valve. Mine is music. Here's to a good night's sleep for everyone, with a hope and a prayer that the coming week can come off without any problems...I don't know if my constitution can take much more. G'night, y'all.
Marcy, my husband and I managed to stretch our Schitt’s Creek watching over a period of months. Just finished Saturday night. We laughed and cried. Thank you to the Levys and co. for this gem. We needed it!
On average, we only get about 25000 days. I’ll reach that number on April 11. I’m drawn to those who make everyday day count. To those who do not sleepwalk through life: poets, artists, philosophers, mystics ... historians. Those who give us reason to open our eyes on the darkness. You held the lamp up at the end of the tunnel Heather. I’m extremely grateful for that. Thank you for you guidance and for showing the uniqueness of everyday.
Beginning on election night and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol. This Axios series by Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu takes you inside the collapse of a president.
Episode 3: The conspiracy goes too far. Trump's outside lawyers plot to seize voting machines and spin theories about communists, spies and computer software.
President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office one day in late November when a call came in from lawyer Sidney Powell. "Ugh, Sidney," he told the staff in the room before he picked up. "She's getting a little crazy, isn't she? She's really gotta tone it down. No one believes this stuff. It's just too much."
He put the call on speakerphone for the benefit of his audience. Powell was raving about a national security crisis involving the Iranians flipping votes in battleground states. Trump pressed mute and laughed mockingly.
"So what are we gonna do about it, Sidney?" Trump would say every few seconds, whipping Powell more and more into a frenzy. He was having fun with it. "She really is crazy, huh?" he said, again with his finger on the mute button.
It was clear that Trump recognized how unhinged his outside legal advisers were. But he was becoming increasingly desperate about losing to Joe Biden, and Powell and her crew were willing to keep feeding the grand lie that the election could be overturned.
They were selling Trump a seductive but delusional vision: a clear and achievable path to victory.
The only catch: He'd have to stop listening to his government and campaign staffs, to cross the Rubicon and view them as liars, quitters and traitors.
Trump promoted Powell as part of his team, and even though he had privately admitted to aides that he thought she was "crazy," he still wanted to hear what she had to say.
"Sometimes you need a little crazy," Trump told one official.
"A day will come at sea when you smell land where there be no land, and on that day Ahab will go to his grave, but he will rise again and beckon, and all save one shall follow." Elijah in the movie, "Moby Dick", apparently a line written by SciFi great, Ray Bradbury
That's actually Melville himself. Ray said many times that every line in the screenplay was in the book, he wasn't going to try and improve on perfection.
I mean, I asked my kids' high school literature teacher why kids were still having to read "The Scarlet Letter". What made it a classic and none of them could answer that either. I think reading that is an example of how abused folks end up abusing in the same way years later. How about Huck Finn instead?
I hated The Scarlet Letter, managed to avoid Moby Dick, and loved Huckleberry Finn. As a school librarian I objected to attempts to censor it because of the N-word. If we can ever get past the obsession with math and language arts scores, I believe it could be the basis for a strong middle school unit collaboration between language arts and social studies, not only viewing society as it was, but leading to a discussion of how far we’ve come and how it’s not nearly far enough.
The only thing worse than reading Hawthorne is reading James Fenimore Cooper. I was once hired to adapt one of his books as a screenplay. It was maddening, he wouldwrite and get to a point in the chapter to the end and just throw everyting into one or two sentences "and then of course they...." I finally figured out that by the end of the day he was getting writer's cramp with that quill pen. Mark Twain once wrote an essay "Fenimore Cooper's Crimes Against Wriiting." He was right on all points.
My teaching mentor (community college) taught Huck Finn for years and finally had to stop because students, especially ESL students, couldn't handle the five 19th century, southern dialects Twain used in the novel.
I wonder when the people who select books for schools will realize that Twain didn't write kids' books. He wrote for adults. Few kids are ready for Twain until they are in their 20s and have some critical thinking skills.
Interesting. I heard Ray get asked that question, and he replied as I wrote. If it is modified from Melville as those notes say, then he might have wanted to keep the credit with the master.
When we think about the traumas of the last few years, we will remember the people who kept us going, the people who made a difference, the “ordinary” people who reached for the extraordinary and lifted up their fellow citizens with knowledge and thereby somehow made us feel connected to something larger than ourselves. Thank you.
"the helpers," as Fred Rogers would say.
Yes. Have loved that man my entire life. Always look for the helpers.
❤️
The "Helpers" as Mr. Rogers called them......"always look for them"....
The quiet is beautiful. Taking my run this morning, I had to smile thinking, "This is the last Sunday of the Trump Administration, and hopefully the last Sunday of the Confederacy." As Jean Luc Picard would say, "Make it so."
Yes to the quiet of nature. Agree. I was on a long hike this morning through rolling hills. Not a soul in sight. Very quiet. I stopped, closed my eyes and breathed deeply for a long time. Sun on my face. And felt a peace. A calm.
I had just come from a run-in with a diesel MAGA truck in a store parking lot and thought about that when I was in the hills. And about the last days of Trump and his ilk hogging center stage with their cacophony of nothingness. About how they most likely will never feel a peace like I was walking across public lands. Happy to have paid my taxes to do so.
Tricia, I agree that preserving tracts of land, where we can walk and other species can flourish, is a great use of our tax dollars. Hiking is my therapy (retired from running because Old Person :)
Lucky you! I'm nowhere near public lands but have my own short "hike" on the back of my place up near the woods with my dog - morning & night. Without that I think I would truly not be able to hack it these last 10 months or so.
I live in the PNW (thus my avatar) surrounded by forests and rivers and mountain ranges. 15 min to 90 minute drive from home to thousands of trails and adventures. It is what helps me to stay alive.
I am envious so is my dog! I'm so grateful for my four little acres & living in the country. I keep up with whats going on with wild horses & the roundups & also a few blogs (Wildlife News, etc) so am aware of OUR public lands & how beautiful they are. Nice that you are close enough to take advantage of them - especially now.
Public lands is one of my causes that I keep track of, support, and pay attention to. And yes, because it is my backyard and such a very important part of our nation.
One of my monikers is "PacNWexpat"! Love it, miss it, and my friends and family. They always send me photos of the places and things I love and make me cry. But I'm in Vermont, so am not complaining.
The “make it so” is a favorite at our house with my Naval Aviator husband!
I always thought that Patrick Stewart should have done ads for Singer or Brother.
I'm gonna guess you have a director's cut of "An Officer and a Gentleman" and maybe "Top Gun".
Yes, we must make it so!
I love it when you tell us you're going to rest. You've got to pace yourself, lady. And yes, it's been so traumatic and exhausting. I appreciate that you name that.
My friends and I are beginning to understand the extent of the exhausting impact of the last few years.
Ah, thanks for confirming my feelings. For me, the trauma began in mid-2016 and never let up, coming to a violent head last week as real relief is so near. It has been exhausting. I am in awe of the consistent high-quality work you have been contributing to this long drawn-out crisis, making your knowledge, perspective, and general sanity so generously available, and I can’t thank you enough!
That has been my experience as well. The combination of the pandemic and the presidential campaign did me in.
I am a female middle aged Jew. Chump made me nervous as soon as he sad he was running for President. I believe it’s in my genes to recognize such a danger!
My goodness. Mid-2016 takes me back to President Obama's election 8 years earlier. I sat across the lunch table with a friend of mine at work. He was staunch fundamentalist Christian. I can remember him telling me with a concerned look in his eye, that Barak Obama was the anti-Christ. My jaw almost locked in the open position, but I kept my cool. I don't recall any such accusations when tRump got elected. The years of tRump felt like Groundhog Day, the movie.
On the positive side, if you look at the period of time that we had or will have a Democratic president - from Barak to when President Biden finishes his first term, 12 out of 16 years is an accomplishment. tRump was just an anomaly and a reminder of how we must stay strong. The Republican Party has lost it's way. We can be the shining example on the hilltop to help them find their way in the darkness.
Speaking of the fundamentalist Christian perspective, I’m the lone heathen in my family, who largely follow that persuasion. I’m also the only one with a liberal arts degree, and they tend to view me as somewhat corrupted by it. That said, it was heartening to see reluctance on their part to vote Republican in 2016 (abortion was the key issue), and watch horror grow at Trump’s behavior in office. I saw some lights go on for the first time after George Floyd’s murder: some sheltered white people took a crash course in civil rights! Then my hardheaded, outspoken fundamentalist sister announced on Facebook that she’d “prayerfully” decided to vote for Biden, and I watched in awe as she calmly took flack from her social circles, some Q-leaning, and of course a few end-timers. So, I’m quietly optimistic, and having studied history, too, know how the pendulum swings. Trump certainly trampled the conservative window dressing...and I hope, too, provided space for progressive renewal!
During WWII, we never let the bombs or the chaos stop us from celebrating when celebrating was in order. At our house at noon ET Wednesday, we are going to pop the cork on the champagne and celebrate like crazy!
We intend to take a pot and spoon, go outside our condo and bang that pot loudly!
Rest well...and thanks for all you do. And thanks to everyone in this community; it helps me stay (close to) sane. 🌺✨
Today, we honor Rev. Martin Luther King. Here is the text of his 1963 speech on the Mall in Washington, DC. It is an appropriate time to read it again.
"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?"
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our chlidren are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only."
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exhalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
I, until now, do not think I've ever heard or read the entire speech. It's quite moving, and it brought me to tears. Thank you for sharing. It's sad that we still have so far to go. This should, in 2021, just be an important time in our history. Nearly sixty years later, it feels like the speech could be made today.
What wonderful words...words full of hope...words full of love. We're still far from a lot of what King said, and it saddens me. These words are the essence of Christianity, to my mind, but also the words of America's greatest social philosopher. What also strikes me reading these words is how right-wing White Christian Nationalism has so completely twisted and distorted the messages of Christ into something hateful and self-serving. They do NOT represent what Jesus Christ preached and died for. If they truly believed and practiced their supposed "faith", their hearts would not be so hardened and full of hatred. They are following a false and empty faith. King's rich and eloquent words stand in stark contrast, especially now, to what these "Christians" represent. We will continue to hope. We will continue to love. Slowly, inexorably, steadily onward we march toward the light of truth and right. King has showed the way. I'll stand by him, thank you.
My high school used to broadcast this speech into the surrounding neighborhood on this day. Maybe they still do. I hope so.
Thank you Jacob.
Thank you Jacob. ❤️
Thank you so much for this.
Thank you for posting this speech! It brings tears to my eyes every time I read it because I see how far we have yet to go! Regrettably the message may never touch the hearts that need to be touched.
There is a star in the gloomy past year of pandemic and psychopath president; I discovered Heather Cox Richardson. Her "Letter to America" is the bowl of multi-grain cereal with Maine blueberries I feed my brain first thing in the morning.
And all who comment here are my glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.
Thank you.
I see myself as more of a cinnamon bun...
Sleep well, knowing that you contribute profoundly to our understanding of these moments, that they are not comets appearing out of a void, but threads that connect us with our past and can guide us toward a more humane future. Thank you Heather, and sleep well.
Rest well, Heather. Thanks for sharing Peter‘s photo of the boat waiting to be freed from the ice around it.
Get some well deserved rest Dr Heather.
A really well written analysis of 45s coup attempt by Fiona Hill below. Fortunately our institutions held, and those in critical positions honored their oaths.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/11/capitol-riot-self-coup-trump-fiona-hill-457549
Fiona Hill is one of my heroes
Thank you for posting the link. She is a hero in my eyes. Very interesting read.
Fiona Hill lays out a very persuasive argument. Given that we know trump can’t plan ahead or manage, who helped him? Who laid out this step by step scheme?
Good article. I had not seen all these events as a step-by-step scheme, and I'm not convinced of that. But if they have been, I agree that Trump wasn't the planner. Trump, I believe, has been a convenient mouthpiece for more intelligent, more dangerous forces. He believes he is in charge, and he's acted in predictable ways, but I feel sure he is no more than a puppet. But whose puppet? When I saw the documentary, "Get Me Roger Stone," I realized that this man is at least one of his handlers. The Republican party, I believe, has also been hoodwinked. Somebody somewhere is having a good laugh at how all this has gone down. But I would like to understand what is really behind it all. Russia? Who?
3 words: Follow the money.
I like this. Heather says the same. Today I'm watching a Noam Chomsky interview in which the first question the interviewers is, "Why doesn't Congress deliver necessary relief to the American people?" He answers, "One place to look, always, is where is the money? Who funds Congress?" And then he talks about the remarkable correlation between campaign funding and electability. So that's part of the puzzle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huy82PVaCzs
Follow the power. Money is a clue: it is what pays for power. In this case, look for the people who suddenly had epiphanies when Trump failed to follow the script and things fell apart. Not just the lock-step politicians and hangers on: the people in the private sector who are busily rewriting the story of their involvement with the Trump Administration.
That's interesting. It is certainly a good clue that you're approaching some truth or other when somebody suddenly, inexplicably does a right-turn or about-face. Because lies don't go around corners well.
Some of the Republican Party allowed themselves to be hoodwinked. Some simply looked the other way. Some spoke out (we were paying too much attention to WaDC and failed to listen to the growing resistance at the state and local level governements). There were some Republicans thought they had an opportunity to enhance their careers and are now eating worms. And then there were those who thought they were really onto something and jumped at the chance to get at the spoils. But also a growing number who saw the danger and tried to let their colleagues know: they were methodically shut out.
But most of all, so focused on WaDC, we failed to see the relationship Trump and his handlers were building with the disaffected and outlaws of our own country in spite of the fact that it was happening right in front of us, in plain view. We didn't get it until it happened.
Yes, Trump was a puppet, but we are wrong when we look for something outside our own culture for what happened and how it happened. What happened was quintessentially American: there have been instances of it throughout our history, and there were clear examples in the last few years at the local level.
As to how it happened, that is quintessentially American too. How did we think it would happen? These people have been organizing and practicing for years. They are from our communities, not some foreign power. And yes, they were used, by their own tacticians, but most of all by people in our country who are used to the ways power works, and how to manipulate it.
It went awry for a several reasons: the first one was that Trump didn't fallow the script (he rarely does). Another is that all that crowd energy was so disorganized that the insurrectionists got in each other's way, and the people who thought they were cleverly using them lost total control. The third thing was critical: incredible dedication, courage, and commitment by the outmanned Capitol Police and the Metro Police (especially), aided by what can only be called either damn luck or grace (or both combined). There were times when only a few yards, quick thinking, and fortuitous timing saved the lives of countless of our elected representatives.
But the fact is that the coup failed, and failed spectacularly. And the special irony is that in its failure, it highlighted the very topic that was being exploited: the racism and White supremacy that has been our nations shame. We are looking it right in the face. We can no longer deny that it is and what it has done to us as a nation and as individuals. The challenge now is to deal with it meaningfully.
I don't think anyone is laughing at this point. I do see a lot of my neighbors and colleagues smiling, their faces and bodies not longer rigid with tension.
Thank you for this. I will consider what you say. I do, however, think we need to look outside our country as well as inside. Money and power flow around the world in so many ways.
Remember when 45 started he was just trying to pump up his brand...he didnt really want the job. Kelly Conway got him to settle down and fly straight...so I think she has been key...she came out first utterance of "alternate facts" as I recall. She was sly and bailed before it hit the fan. Putin clearly hated Clinton and saw tRump as pliable given all the money they probably laundered via his real estate. So added together, Stone, Conway, McConnell, Cohen, and his own narcissistic drive and here we are.
Mitch M coached him on packing courts, and has been the only consistent strategist by his side...he surrounded himself with loyalists based on instinct, but the rest was MM I'm guessing
Excellent! Thank You. I reposted on fb and sent to a normally smart trumper friend. How can they not believe the facts in front of them. Heartbreaking what tRump has done to good people, and to a used-to-be-great country.
Thank you for this Fiona Hill opinion. She continues to be a (s)hero in my book.
Great article! Thank you for posting. I've shared it on fb and Twitter, also.
Exhausted is an understatement. I didn't post anything to the letter from 1/16 (I started a post and deleted it) because I was mentally spent by the time I got to it this morning. I read through about a third of the comments, but I just had to step away from the computer and the news for my sanity. I've been a bit down today for various reasons and these are the kinds of days I find I can best just unplug. I seek out other things to read and occupy my mind (I zipped through the NYT Sunday Crossword in record time...), but even then concentrating is difficult. I find above all I like to listen to music as that helps calm me, ground me, and helps lift my spirits. It can be anything. It moves me even more on days like this because I feel my emotions have bubbled to the surface and been on a knife edge due to events, so it then doesn't take much to touch me deeply. We all have our release valve. Mine is music. Here's to a good night's sleep for everyone, with a hope and a prayer that the coming week can come off without any problems...I don't know if my constitution can take much more. G'night, y'all.
I watched “All Creatures Great and Small” on PBS last night, and “Schitt’s Creek” on Netflix throughout this month. I try to laugh during stress.
Marcy, my husband and I managed to stretch our Schitt’s Creek watching over a period of months. Just finished Saturday night. We laughed and cried. Thank you to the Levys and co. for this gem. We needed it!
It’s subtle humor and throwaway lines are what have entertained me most. I LOVE Daniel Levy’s character!
I, literally, know how you are feeling. Listen to the music - and dance on Wednesday!
Constitution. Right. I don’t know if *our* Constitution can take much more.
On average, we only get about 25000 days. I’ll reach that number on April 11. I’m drawn to those who make everyday day count. To those who do not sleepwalk through life: poets, artists, philosophers, mystics ... historians. Those who give us reason to open our eyes on the darkness. You held the lamp up at the end of the tunnel Heather. I’m extremely grateful for that. Thank you for you guidance and for showing the uniqueness of everyday.
Beginning on election night and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol. This Axios series by Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu takes you inside the collapse of a president.
Episode 3: The conspiracy goes too far. Trump's outside lawyers plot to seize voting machines and spin theories about communists, spies and computer software.
President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office one day in late November when a call came in from lawyer Sidney Powell. "Ugh, Sidney," he told the staff in the room before he picked up. "She's getting a little crazy, isn't she? She's really gotta tone it down. No one believes this stuff. It's just too much."
He put the call on speakerphone for the benefit of his audience. Powell was raving about a national security crisis involving the Iranians flipping votes in battleground states. Trump pressed mute and laughed mockingly.
"So what are we gonna do about it, Sidney?" Trump would say every few seconds, whipping Powell more and more into a frenzy. He was having fun with it. "She really is crazy, huh?" he said, again with his finger on the mute button.
It was clear that Trump recognized how unhinged his outside legal advisers were. But he was becoming increasingly desperate about losing to Joe Biden, and Powell and her crew were willing to keep feeding the grand lie that the election could be overturned.
They were selling Trump a seductive but delusional vision: a clear and achievable path to victory.
The only catch: He'd have to stop listening to his government and campaign staffs, to cross the Rubicon and view them as liars, quitters and traitors.
Trump promoted Powell as part of his team, and even though he had privately admitted to aides that he thought she was "crazy," he still wanted to hear what she had to say.
"Sometimes you need a little crazy," Trump told one official.
"A day will come at sea when you smell land where there be no land, and on that day Ahab will go to his grave, but he will rise again and beckon, and all save one shall follow." Elijah in the movie, "Moby Dick", apparently a line written by SciFi great, Ray Bradbury
That's actually Melville himself. Ray said many times that every line in the screenplay was in the book, he wasn't going to try and improve on perfection.
This source said Bradbury added it to Melville. I never got through the book. Still feeling scarred by having to wade through "The Scarlet Letter". https://classicbeckybrainfood.blogspot.com/2009/10/moby-dick-ahab-and-i.html
I mean, I asked my kids' high school literature teacher why kids were still having to read "The Scarlet Letter". What made it a classic and none of them could answer that either. I think reading that is an example of how abused folks end up abusing in the same way years later. How about Huck Finn instead?
I hated The Scarlet Letter, managed to avoid Moby Dick, and loved Huckleberry Finn. As a school librarian I objected to attempts to censor it because of the N-word. If we can ever get past the obsession with math and language arts scores, I believe it could be the basis for a strong middle school unit collaboration between language arts and social studies, not only viewing society as it was, but leading to a discussion of how far we’ve come and how it’s not nearly far enough.
The only thing worse than reading Hawthorne is reading James Fenimore Cooper. I was once hired to adapt one of his books as a screenplay. It was maddening, he wouldwrite and get to a point in the chapter to the end and just throw everyting into one or two sentences "and then of course they...." I finally figured out that by the end of the day he was getting writer's cramp with that quill pen. Mark Twain once wrote an essay "Fenimore Cooper's Crimes Against Wriiting." He was right on all points.
My teaching mentor (community college) taught Huck Finn for years and finally had to stop because students, especially ESL students, couldn't handle the five 19th century, southern dialects Twain used in the novel.
I wonder when the people who select books for schools will realize that Twain didn't write kids' books. He wrote for adults. Few kids are ready for Twain until they are in their 20s and have some critical thinking skills.
Also, growing up in Tuscaloosa, a red "A" on your clothing just meant that you were a fan of Bear Bryant's team.
Hahahaha...you are so right!
https://www.walterfilm.com/shop/date-added/sep-2018/ray-bradbury-screenwriter-herman-melville-source-moby-dick-screenplay-by-ray-bradbury-20th-may-1954/
Interesting. I heard Ray get asked that question, and he replied as I wrote. If it is modified from Melville as those notes say, then he might have wanted to keep the credit with the master.
‘Moby Dick’... the ONLY book assigned, in school, in which I could not get past the 1st page and I was a voracious reader!
54 hours to the Biden/Harris administration, but who's counting?
I am counting the seconds = 191470 as I write
☺️
I just discovered your newsletter and I’m grateful