Yesterday evening, I read again the total forum response to yesterday’s anti-vax conundrum. A lot of information shared as is par for our course. There was one comment I posted because I became disheartened by the question posed which I know so many ask, including myself….at least once a day. “What in the hell is wrong with these people?” Which can refer to the anti-vaxers, the legislators imposing suppression upon constituents, the insurrectionists still not paying for their treason, trumpists, Fox no news, White supremacists, conspiracy makers and conspiracy takers, greedy corporations, big pharma, anti-freedom SCOTUS decisions, trolls at the bridge, and on and on. Enough to send anyone to a darker side of doubt, frustration, and a cycle of our collective intelligence dissecting “what IS wrong with these people?” I went back through the posts a few minutes ago and grabbed something I posted…. “And what the Heaven are we to do about it? We are figuring out the way to respond to this type of madness. As has been done throughout history. Because it is not new”. I implore us today to not say we don’t get it about these rogue citizens. Or use space figuring out what is wrong with them. Because WE DO GET IT. “They” don’t believe in the same democracy we do. “They” are in lockstep with the former and his band. “They” agree with Mitch…opposition is the only agenda.” There is no guise around their tactics. It’s in our faces. I just think we need to stop figuring out why. And just see it and recognize it for the opposite force it is. HCR gives us historical clues and reference so we can trust that their behavior is not new. Nor intractable. Let’s use as much of what I consider this sacred space to brainstorm, report our moves, share any link that supports progress for democracy. Because I know we can do what must be done to save democracy. And move as a force as citizens have done in the past to fight for common good. Ahhhhhh, I had thought of all of this to say to you today.
AND THEN….the clock had moved past midnight to a new day. My musing about yesterday was interrupted when I saw that HCR had posted today’s letter. You know, intuition is a funny thing. MLK, John Lewis, Barack Obama, James Clyburn…and a few close friends that I consider brilliant, inspirational movers and shakers that dispel racism with a sword…. these kind of people were on my mind a lot yesterday. And I read HCR’s letter. I wept about civil rights and I reveled in the stories that set it right. John Lewis guides us from a different vantage point now. I’m just so grateful I can feel it in my heart. Where a warrior lives. I read the last paragraph and think, well, for heavens sakes. Here I have this bedtime story with a plea I want to make to my fabulous fellow subscribers and my hero John Lewis sums it up….
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair,” Lewis tweeted almost exactly a year before his death. “Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.”
Make a way out of no way. Woooooweeee! That’s something I can get excited about. Yes? N’est ce pas?
I agree and I frequently ask the same question. So perhaps we stop that now - it is exhausting and fruitless. Maybe instead: We have the data and if we don’t have the data, we seek the facts from reliable, credible sources. There is a line of thinking supported by alternative facts on the far right (not all of the right) that is not based in facts, science, or frankly integrity. The garbage coming out of Fox is just that - garbage. It is a sea of manipulated fake despair. Powerful weapons: fear and despair. Fox needs to sustain viewership - I’m wondering if they are increasing viewers AT ALL. It is pouring rain in Vermont this morning. I used the rain as part of my morning meditation - wash away what is binding me - either physically or mentally. Let the water nourish the ground for a strong foundation. >>>> That is something I can do. Far more productive than getting emotionally entangled in some yahoo’s blather.
When I feel tired, or discouraged about Fox and right-wing family and heartless Republicans, I think of Dr. King and John Lewis--and many others whose names I do not know--and I try my best to pick myself up and do something positive: write, call, donate, participate, create. One and one and one +++ make a force for good in the face of evil.
A good friend who leans right and I am sure voted for Trump in at least one election mentioned "isn't it terrible about all of the black on black gang violence in Chicago?"
I suspected this idea came from FOX. Every conversation I have with Republican friends or family, they bring up a statement from FOX or Facebook that isn't true or taken out of context to distract and steer Republicans away from the truth just as southern states made John Lewis out to be the problem, the trouble maker, the violent one when in truth southern state government officials were the source of trouble and violence.
When black on black gang violence is brought up on FOX, its without any social or historical context. It's meant to distract their viewers from the voting rights issue implying that blacks cannot manage their behavior so therefore it doesn't matter if they are impositioned in voting. It is meant to suggest that police killings of blacks is insignificant compared with blacks killing blacks, ignoring that police are supposed to be law enforcement protecting citizens and gang members are often criminals. It is meant to quietly cover over, dismiss and rewrite black history, American history, white supremacy history that changes its form and appearance like vapor intoxicating the white mind into thinking blacks are dangerous when in fact whites are the most dangerous in every nation where race can be used by whites as an instrument for political power.
The number of black history books being written today like "Wilmington Lies" and "Tulsa Burning" along with social justice books like "Just Mercy" and the private videos of police killing blacks are critical to advancing public knowledge about white supremacy both then and now as we work for greater justice and equality.
When citing the violent crimes by race, it seems to me that most of the MASS SHOOTINGS in the U.S. are done by WHITE MEN. Somehow the “what about” ppl never mention that.
I had a similar experience. A friend sent me a video of a friend of his driving around NYC and commenting angrily about the destruction the protests had caused. Windows boarded up in a very fancy section of town. Otherwise, the area was immaculate. My antennae went up as I remembered something from The NY Times. Sure enough, the fancy shops closed due to the pandemic early on and boarded up their big windows. It wasn't due to protests or looting. My further thinking was, this man is more upset that the Louis Vuitton shop had to board up its windows than that people are getting killed by the police for passing a counterfeit dollar.
I am disgusted with “conservatives” decrying black on black crime, the violence of BLM protests, and professing respect for “the thin blue line” and police. We have seen their true nature on January 6, 2021, and will never forget it. They are white supremacist, insurrectionists and deserve all to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There is no room for their views in the American Democratic experiment. When people show who they are, believe them.
It must be particularly difficult to live in a state where Republicans control state government. However, here in Maine, LePage won two terms because Democrats, progressives and independents could not limit the progressive candidates for governor to one. So they split the progressive vote. LePage was so abrasive, angry and nasty that Republican legislators couldn't work with him. Now LePage is moving back from Florida to run again.
Maine has ranked choice voting except for governor. So we are challenged once again by the possibility of a vitriolic hate bating governor getting elected into office by a minority of people attracted to this kind of politics.
Meanwhile Maine is a rural aging state with a low birth rate with our best educated often leaving for higher paying corporate jobs in more progressive cities. As a result Maine isn't able to supply low wage labor for our important tourist industry. Republicans here blame the labor shortage on lazy Mainers who stay home on social while they simultaneously claim there are job shortages because of immigrants. And, Linda Bean, of LLBean, who supported Trump hires immigrants for her summer businesses. This nonsense handicaps all time, energy and thought to solve our real needs.
Me too. If memory serves me, this is the same person who excoriated gays and lesbians. Little does she know how many LGBTQ folks are outdoorsies. Tsk, tsk.
And yet President Biden chooses to take on Facebook for spreading disinformation and all the liberal media follow his lead. Watching the news this morning on CNN and MSNBC, there was much coverage of Biden's accusation that social media costs lives. I would like to see some estimate of the lives lost due to Fox versus those lost due to Facebook. Is it even possible to sort out the second hand effects on social media that originate on Fox? What is it about our journalists that almost universally they underestimate or ignore the manifest evil represented by Fox. Only Brian Stelter of CNN, as far as I can see, accurately pinpoints and responds to the role Fox plays in our country's declining democracy.
Just watched Chris Krebs on Face the Nation. His comment that the anti vaccine information has metasticized,particularly on social media, is due to a combination of causes, including Russian, politician, the Disinformation Dirty Dozen, etc, is frightening.
The twelve people responsible for 65% of Covid vaccination misinformation being spread on the web. Here is a list, but I got it from Reddit and haven't confirmed it:
1. Joseph Mercola 2. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 3. Ty and Charlene Bollinger 4. Sherri Tenpenny 5. Rizza Islam 6. Rashid Buttar 7. Erin Elizabeth 8. Sayer Ji 9. Kelly Brogan 10. Christiane Northrup 11. Ben Tapper 12. Kevin Jenkins
From months ago....a year ago. More needs to be done. Education. Critical Thinking and Media Consumption must become a skill in every citizen's toolbox.
Facebook is at least trying to fix itself. Fox News? Not a bit. A bigger question: what's the relative damage between Facebook and Fox? I'm guessing that Fox is much, much worse.
"The populace enthralled to demagogues has not changed. Their willingness to believe in easy solutions to intractable problems is still with us. People still relish the tough talk, name calling, and scapegoating. They love to be entertained by the bombast, to hear the demagogue shout the things no “gentleman” would say. Most of all, people today are just as willing as they always have been to follow a charismatic leader who promises to solve their problems and deliver the American dream."
Notice that when those on the right discuss the Black Live Matter/George Floyd protests and demonstrations, they refer to them as riots and emphasize the violence that occurred in some cities. That violence is not to be condoned, and it they use it to overshadow the massive participation in peaceful protests that characterized the overwhelming majority of the demonstrations. Those bad actors allow the right to project a false equivalence, even thought the identity and motivation of those violent actors is questionable. It is used in attempts to diminish the insurrection of January 6.
Agreed. For more than two thousand years, people in power and those who support them have always been afraid of good people particularly of leaders of goodness. This is why powerful, power hungry leaders and their follows have always coopted the heros of goodness. I am thinking of Christ. And thinking of Martin Luther King who was abused, threatened and killed by white supremacy and their political facilitators. But today MLK is mentioned and given space by those who continue to practice white supremacy.
Am reading "Tulsa Burning" where a prominent moralizing white supremacist newspaper editor, Jones, who kept a portrait of Lincoln in his office, and quoted Lincoln, used his paper to inflame the white population who then attacked the black community in Tulsa, like killing in the name of God while proclaiming your faith and claiming to be "pro-life".
How many knew and then participated in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act vigils across the country last night? They were sponsored by Indivisible, Common Cause and other local groups. My 90 year old mother keeps saying "Why are we not marching in the streets?" So last night she, my daughter, my husband and I and about 15, all Presbyterian (USA) church friends, attended one in Southlake, Texas, a highly exclusive wealthy community in DFW. I had somehow gotten the impression this one would draw a crowd of at least 1000. Nope. It was the same 150 people who continue to show up, mostly diehard Democrats in this ugly pocket of white smug privilege. We were all surprised, yes discouraged and disappointed, but undaunted. Good Trouble. As we walked with our little electric candles around the squares, my mother and I were passing a big SUV as its owners were getting in from a night out at a local restaurant. One of them said something, none of us understood, except to know it was a disparagement. My little defiant well dressed, beautifully coiffed mother, raised her candle in his direction and said defiantly "Save Democracy." He didn't hear her. But I did. And that is what matters.
I interacted with a group of people gathered to support the Cuban people in their dire situation in downtown Sarasota last night. I asked them to chant loudly for our freedom in America to continue untarnished and that we continue to be able to vote and peacefully protest freely. I will admit to a few loud cheers for democracy. It’s the same fight. I pointed out to them we better get this one done at home to remain as a beacon for brothers and sisters in other countries.
Thank you. And the irony is she never expected to be a role model for anyone or anything except her two daughters which she tried to raise to be kind gracious ladies. It was my father who died three years ago and who was "the live out your values" one and bent the heavy racist historical rod of his southern heritage toward justice. He would be so very proud of her.
I was one of those young kids who went to Mississippi after the registrars were sent to help get folks to register, but we could go home and they were risking everything.
Thank you for your conviction, but your ability to return home wasn't guaranteed. Three boys, James Chaney, a Black Freedom Rider, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, both white, were murdered by the Klan in 1964, as I'm sure you know. What you did was brave and dangerous, and it helped to make a difference. The battle isn't over.
I walked at the edge of the sea yesterday and found three things washed up on the beach. One was a golf ball, one was a small piece of green sea glass, one was a flat rock with some words on it. The words are: " Riot is the language of the unheard".
The words on rock you found washed up on the beach reflect an eternal message: 'Riot is the language of the unheard'. How many rocks have been thrown in anger and desperation by the unheard and trampled upon?
These words of John Lewis are framed on the wall of my office where I refer to them daily. They are a reminder that the battles for equality and justice are multi-generational and a constant struggle. We must all remember these words and not get discouraged or surrender. The fight persists and so must we.
“You must be able and prepared to give until you cannot give any more. We must use our time and our space on this little planet that we call Earth to make a lasting contribution, to leave it a little better than we found it, and now that need is greater than ever before.”
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair,” Lewis tweeted almost exactly a year before his death. “Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.”
I shouldn’t write my opinion today because of pervasive negativity in my view of the world. Or, perhaps I should because it is real. For a week now the Cuban-Americans have been in the streets (Literally breaking the law with impunity that was put in place by the Repugnant Party to prevent BLM from protesting). They want US to get involved to assist the massive protests in Cuba. What, another Bay of Pigs fiasco? Ironically, the majority of Cuban-Americans are in the Repugnant Party, which in Florida as in the rest of the Deep South is disfranchising those who would vote against it by making voter suppression laws against them. They want to bring free, democratic elections to Cuba while suppressing free democratic elections in Florida and the rest of the Repugnant controlled states.
I am tired of the Pervasive Evil that has existed in the shadows of America since the mid 1960s when we thot we had mandated equality. Put in chains and watched by the feds, the pervasive racist evil subsided until the chains were removed by the Supreme Court wrong decision in 2013. Just 3 years later we saw the ignorant, bigoted masses elect a clearly unqualified, mentally defective person to POTUS, and for the next 4 years he proved all our fears to be correct, as those ignorant masses became a cult following. Saner minds were spurred to removed him from office in 2020. But, like a cancer the cult followers believed his Big Lie and actually tried to thwart the democratic process on Jan. 6, 2021.
Now, without constraints of federal oversight, the Repugnant Party in all the old racist, Dixie states are free to reinstate New Jim Crow laws to suppress minority votes. And, despite us thinking we had an equally divided Senate, with a VP tie breaking vote, it is still 52 to 48 in favor of the Repugnant Party due to 2 traitorous Democrats in name only. If we cannot reinstate a new voting rights act half a century after the previous one, democracy in the U.S. may be ending as early as next year and no telling where Pervasive Evil of the Repugnant Party will take us. That is my negative mindset this morning. My best wishes for the ppl in Cuba wanting to be free of oppression, but we in America have our own problems.
It is important to write your opinion today. It needs to be heard, and shared. I also have a perspective like this in my head today, but it is not as clearly articulated as yours, and much more profane.
Good morning Rob. Totally agree. My best wishes too and I join the Cuban people and all around the world for wanting their freedom. Right now, we are fighting for ours. I hope we can, as always, be an example and a beacon.
I spoke with a few of my Cuban Amer friends in FL yesterday and said their protest for Cuba and already impatience of Biden not doing anything for Cuba is “not a good look for freedom”. Let’s get our own house together now. And get their Cuban mops out and help. They had the good grace to laugh and they helped me do some phone banking yesterday.
Many of those who left Cuba after the revolution enjoyed a ‘comfortable’ life style under Batista, who was supported by his many underworld benefactors!
Support for Batista in the federal government was Another example of American foreign policy which looks the other way because the dictator ‘is our friend’!
Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham?
“The mere fact that there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote.” - Samuel Alito.
I think it also refers back to very old "American" attitude towards Native Americans and others....if they want to get ahead they have to become and act like white men.
"Kill the indian to save the man"...this condescending, arrogant sophomania has been around for some time. Alito is a 19th C man in all his glory and his shame.
I usually conceptualize white supremacists as starting with the Ku Klux Klan. But of course the term describes caucasian enslavers, which starts with the European capital venturing colonizers. Followed by the American Founding Fathers, who were white supremacists rebelling against the royalist white supremacists.
The saving grace is that the Founding Fathers, inspired by the Iroquois, successfully established a form of government, the democratic republic, which opened the doors to their own undoing in terms of deadly oppression and exploitation by race, class, gender, gender identity, and able-bodiedness. To keep those doors open, the fights continue against these privileged white supremacist factions.
Slavery is far from being just a "white" phenomena, Elie, far from it...and it most certainly didn't "start" with the Europeans arriving in what was to be called America. Look in China, in India, Africa, Europe/Russia and in pre-Columbian America. The founding fathers merely borrowed a "hallowed tradition from time immemorial.
Of course, and the most egregious history for African Americans is enslavement practices by African tribes, including to procure slaves for the European slave traders. The difference is a matter of degree, of creating an industrialized system in service of profit and power. It's like the difference between mass murder and pogroms in Eastern Europe, and what the Nazis created with the Holocaust--which was industrialized genocide.
Snyder's "Bloodlands" is very much in my mind on the European issue but I think that we would be surprised at the previous organized and structural presence of ""industrialized" slavery elsewhere too. Nothing new on this earth and it's of course no excuse.
And Thomas’s sidekick, his wife. A back room organizer of the insurrection. “Let me rent everything you’ll need for this peaceful protest….Stages, buses, etc.” Puh-lease!
White male Justice Samuel Alito is a Philadephia racist. Harvard produces its share of white male racists, see Florida’s white racist Trump loving governor.
“The rich as well as the poor are forbidden to sleep under bridges.” It means 6 of SCOTUS are again using their power on behalf of [rich, right-wing, supposedly Christian, male, white] supremacy, which is far more important to them than any obligation to apply the actual meaning of the law.
I had watched in horror (for our country) Sen. Sheldon's presentation on Leonard Leo and The Federalist Society, but his article is even more terrifying. Would it not be just desserts if now Attorney General, Merrick Garland, could prosecute these democracy thieves and destroy their imperial cabal?! John Lewis would be telling us not to despair, that we can: "“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Thanks for the reference. Paywall, but found a free access link. I believe it is the same or close. Fine summary. Dark money corrupting the process and no longer needing to be secretive about it. Now that is certainly an ominous observation!
Exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote this line. Loved that speech by the Parkland student. I was so impressed and proud of those students. We call BS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxD3o-9H1lY
This statement was what stood out for me Daria. Thank you. I am trying to think of a reverse impact, on whites for example, but my brain is not cooperating. Isn't impact the point??? isn't impact everything???
You said in your interview with Ed Luce of FT that your occupation in the basement of the Harvard Library (in the occasional company of John Updike) was reading newspaper correspondence. That triggered in me the hope that sometime you will offer some reflections on the Fox News phenomenon in the context of the history of American media—notably the Hearst model and the 19th century models of party “owned” presses. My computer news feed regularly allows me to compare headlines on the same story from, say Fox (Biden blows it again in meeting with. . .), CNN (President confronts Russian leader on. . .), and so forth. Having come to knowledge in the era of the professional media in the 50’s & 60’s, I’m regularly amazed at the altered media role that came in with the movement revolution.
My local Sinclair newspaper headline yesterday of picture of Joe Biden facing reporters before he boards a helicopter: "Biden Trying to Hear Reporters' Questions."
For everyone who thinks Joe Biden is the best thing that's happened, you might want to read this by Ronald Brownstein:
For all the passionate words President Joe Biden delivered in defense of voting rights in his speech yesterday, it was the one word he never mentioned that provoked the strongest response from civil-rights advocates: filibuster.
Nowhere in his remarks did Biden utter what may go down as the political word of the year. The Senate procedure known as the filibuster now stands as the insuperable obstacle to the new federal voting-rights legislation that represents Democrats’ best chance to counter the restrictive voting laws proliferating in red states.
Biden’s refusal to call for changes to the filibuster—or even to promise greater personal involvement in passing voting-rights legislation—reinforced the long-standing concern of many advocates that he remains more personally engaged in passing his economic plans, particularly a bipartisan infrastructure deal, than in countering the red-state offensive against voter access.
If anything, the speech underscored why the intensely partisan, highly racialized battle over voting rights is a difficult issue for Biden politically. The struggle conflicts with the broader political positioning that he and his staff have pursued since he’s taken office. Biden has limited his personal engagement with cultural issues (such as immigration reform and LGBTQ rights) and has focused instead on kitchen-table economic concerns—checks in the pocket, shots in the arm, and more recently, shovels in the ground. As has been the case with the earlier stages of his career, he has stressed his determination to work with Republicans.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill represents the sweet spot for those two priorities: a tangible lunch-bucket initiative that allowed him to slap Republican senators on the back when they emerged from the White House together. Voting rights is almost at the opposite end of that spectrum; it starkly divides the parties and has become a symbol for the larger struggle for power between a racially diverse and urbanized Democratic coalition and a GOP coalition centered on noncollege and non-urban white voters. It’s dissonant for Biden to acknowledge that the GOP is radicalizing on voting and democracy while he’s effectively normalizing the party by seeking agreements with it so ardently. (Even in his speech, he implored “my Republican friends” to rally against the voting restrictions that virtually every GOP state legislator in the affected states has voted for.)
My bets are on President Biden. I think he didn't say the word filibuster because it wasn't yet time to say it. Timing is everything and no one knows the Senate better than President Biden. I think his priority right now is getting the infrastructure bills through -- both of them. Once they are law and rolling forward he will turn his guns on seeing that both the For the People Act and the John Lewis voting act pass with the filibuster carve out. There is a lot going on behind the scenes we are not privy to. Keep your eyes on Senator Clyburn. He'll let us know when the time is right just like the speech where he endorsed candidate Biden and the liberals and moderates all coalesced together to elect him. We the People, all of us this time, need to keep our eyes on the prize -- democracy.
I'd like to believe you're right, but read the Brownstein article. There's a time component to being able to have the federal voting legislation have an effect on the states, since they start redistricting after they get the census info in August. They're treating the voting legislation like it can happen anytime. You'd think the dumbasses would realize that what gets done this year (or doesn't get done) has a direct effect on next year, which has everything to do with whether they keep a majority or not. And if they don't, they can kiss 2024 good-bye no matter how much "extra organizing" they do. When things go to hell over the next two years, any damn Democrat in Washington who wants to ask "how did that happen?" will only need to look in the bathroom mirror for the answer. You'd think having their gravy train on the line would focus their minds.
I read the Brownstein article but I'm still convinced no one knows how to manage this better than President Biden ... and that he himself knows this is his moment in history. I can argue a scenario where President Biden knows the infrastructure bills and their impact on every American economically and emotionally will be key to getting out the vote despite the voter suppression laws and keeping the People's Administration and the House and Senate in 2022 and the White House in 2024. This is a chess game not checkers. The point is to slow down the GOP's solidifying minority rule. Then the next thing is to have the John Lewis bill reestablishing the pre-clearance laws. Then we need the For the People Act while acknowledging that its impact won't be felt overnight. Weaving all these threads together is not going to be easy. In the mean time we need to make sure the violent acts and the potential overthrow of our government to preserve the whites only rule never happens.
We are not to wait, Cathy. Biden has earned our respect and support. Support is getting out there -- marching -- demonstrating -- making our voices heard here around the world and right in Manchin's and Sinema's ears.
I agree and fear that you are right. As Cliff Albright says in your referenced article: “Don’t come relying on activists to out-organize voter suppression to compensate for your legislative failures. This ain’t The Green Mile or Bagger Vance and we are NOT your magical negroes—covering up your mediocrity, lukewarm support & broken promises.” You can organize all you want but it means NOTHING if people CAN'T vote.
I hope you're right, Cathy, but as I recall, good old Casey didn't hit a home run. He struck out.
I voted for Joe Biden, but I remember him as a go-along-to-get-along moderate Democratic Senator. I remain to be convinced he has it in him to do what's necessary.
Who brought Casey into this. We have Babe Ruth. President Biden knows this is his moment of destiny just like Churchill felt his destiny was upon him. I will be part of the non-violent resistance if need be.
Cathy, sorry for the baseball analogy, but I voted for Obama twice, the first time full of enthusiasm for all the things I wanted him to accomplish, the second time weighed down by realism and the need to keep the GOP away from the presidency. Well, Obama had only one important accomplishment, which was to establish the legitimacy of the US Government assisting middle class Americans who could not afford decent healthcare. The Affordable Care Act, by European standards, is way, way short of the goal of universal healthcare, but it is a step in the right direction and was probably the best he could get under the circumstances. He will be remembered for it. But the rest of the Obama presidency (with a couple of exceptions) was pretty mediocre in the way of accomplishments.
Now, the political circumstances are far worse, Trump has not yet been consigned to the dustbin of history, McConnell is still having his way in the Senate and roughly 30-40% of the voting public appear to have lost their collective marbles, which is probably enough to guarantee continued success for the morally bankrupt GOP.
Perhaps I have lived in Europe too long among the charming but cynical Italians, but I find it hard to be optimistic about the Democrats holding power in the Congress in 2022 or to think that Joe Biden will run for a second term unless he has scored game-changing legislative changes well before 2024.
And could divided, angry Democrats nominate anyone able to defeat whichever evil fascistoide the GOP unites behind? Of course, no one knows, and occasionally life throws us a pleasant surprise (like Dems winning both Senate seats in GA), but I think anyone who imagines that the GOP will lend Biden a hand is not properly tuned in. John McCain was the last Republican who ever lent us a hand, and he's dead, bless his otherwise jingoistic, conservative, but patriotic soul.
Barring the hand of God reaching down to pinch the heads of our worst GOP antagonists, only the effective end of the filibuster will permit our country to avoid a very, very long period of darkness that I -- for one -- will certainly not outlive.
Joe Biden is unquestionably a good guy. Far more than Dubya, he's someone to sit down and have a beer with. And he is certainly a fish who knows how to swim and survive in Washington's polluted political waters. But, he has a history of being a Democratic Party hack who has often blended into the background, not a revolutionary boat-rocker. Now he has seen the light, at least some of it, and undoubtedly would be happy to be remembered as our savior (who wouldn't?). I wish him well. If I can ever get back to USA, I will go out into the streets for him. I'll fend off the baton blows and breathe the tear gas for him. But Joe needs to raise the filibuster problem every time he speaks. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Put it front and center. Everyday. All his people, too. All the Democrats in Congress. Move the polls. Fill the streets. The filibuster is the key, the rest is wishful thinking.
Not a day to call Pres Obama mediocre or that he only did one important thing during his presidency of 8 yrs.
Let’s leave our wringing of our hands over the filibuster and keep on making a way! There is something to be said for trusting the timing of things. We cannot know everything of what is going regarding Pres Biden’s timeline.
Christine, I did not "call Obama mediocre". I said his "presidency was pretty mediocre in terms of accomplishments". There's a difference. I greatly admire both his character and his learning, and his public speaking skills are astounding. I regret he lost the Congress for the last 6 years of his time in office, and it was this that made it impossible for him to accomplish more. I hope he will re-enter public life, perhaps as a governor or senator or even a Supreme Court Justice.
I will add that thanks to the Obama presidency, we have had to show our true colors as a nation and begun to find out who we really are. Our national myths are no longer uncontested. This is a very positive and overdue development.
...and there is every reason to demonstrate what the people think.
We don't know the mechanics of Biden's 'timing' and it does not represent a STOP and WAIT sign for us. Pushing and shouting and raising the absolute necessity of passing national voting rights legislation all summer long is GOOD TROUBLE. All elected representatives need to see, hear and feel the force of the American people on this crucial factor in achieving fair and free elections.
The second half of President Obama's first term and all his second term Republicans controlled Congress and then Majority Leader McConnell had no other reason for living than to keep President Obama from accomplishing anything. The Affordable Care Act is a huge accomplishment; one that a lot of Democrat members of Congress sacrificed their careers for; and it will be enduring which is a big thorn in the turtle's foot.
Let’s go back to Stand and Deliver. Two movie messages. From two books. Henry Fonda and a teacher in Southern California. Huge. Racial underpinnings. Stand and Deliver.
If you are remaining to be convinced, that will be your state of inertia. How about being convinced and also sure that the former will never have it in him to do what is necessary for the people of this country.
Agree. If I have a hope, it is voiced in your comment here. I, too, am listening to Clyburn. And putting my « faith » in Ron Klain and Bernie Sanders. Otherwise, my hair’s on fire. 🔥 ❤️🤍💙
Maybe he is relying on millions and millions of folks to March on their respective capitals? oh wait, it's too late for that, the laws have already been passed. Maybe he's relying on millions to March on our big Capitol (peacefully of course)? Maybe he's relying on millions to stand in line and vote anyway? Who will count the votes and certify the results is the dirty detail.
I heard an interview yesterday on NPR with a woman who head a Black get out the vote group (sorry I can't be more specific) who said that many blacks are disappointed with Joe's speech exactly because the "F word" was never mentioned. What's he waiting for?
Hmm. I listened to Brownstein talk on day of speech during a segment on news because I do enjoy his opinions. He’s direct and well informed. He summarized that overall Biden said what needed to be said on that particular morning in Philly. He did bring up that there would be questions about filibuster but Biden’s priorities in that speech were clear. I haven’t read Atlantic article yet. Thanks for sharing TC.
Heather Cox Richardson, I love and respect you for this one. More power to you.
Joe Knows Us, he said.
I needed to hear that, she said.
And Black women, our most elegant and most trashed, saved us on November 3rd, producing the white fear that produced January 6th.
Let’s roll, friends of Heather. Let’s roll.
Sandy
To Heather, to strong women, to John Lewis, to James Clyburn.
Sandy Lewis, you are you; John Lewis is John Lewis. OMG, you both have the same last name!
And my long dead younger brother memorialized in an edited NYT obituary was John Bonnor Lewis, and our 4th of 6, is John Benjamin Lewis.
Sandy Lewis, I love and respect you for this comment...Proud to roll with you.
Sandy, yours is first comment I have read after posting my plea. Thank you! My light saber is ready.
Thank you, Sandy Lewis.
It’s never too late till it is.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Yes. We must and will
Sandy Lewis, let's hope we can all roll together to get this job done.
Yes! Let's roll!
Yes we will roll on out of the sea of despair!
I have to believe there are so many more Americans who feel as we do and they will want to roll with us!
Yesterday evening, I read again the total forum response to yesterday’s anti-vax conundrum. A lot of information shared as is par for our course. There was one comment I posted because I became disheartened by the question posed which I know so many ask, including myself….at least once a day. “What in the hell is wrong with these people?” Which can refer to the anti-vaxers, the legislators imposing suppression upon constituents, the insurrectionists still not paying for their treason, trumpists, Fox no news, White supremacists, conspiracy makers and conspiracy takers, greedy corporations, big pharma, anti-freedom SCOTUS decisions, trolls at the bridge, and on and on. Enough to send anyone to a darker side of doubt, frustration, and a cycle of our collective intelligence dissecting “what IS wrong with these people?” I went back through the posts a few minutes ago and grabbed something I posted…. “And what the Heaven are we to do about it? We are figuring out the way to respond to this type of madness. As has been done throughout history. Because it is not new”. I implore us today to not say we don’t get it about these rogue citizens. Or use space figuring out what is wrong with them. Because WE DO GET IT. “They” don’t believe in the same democracy we do. “They” are in lockstep with the former and his band. “They” agree with Mitch…opposition is the only agenda.” There is no guise around their tactics. It’s in our faces. I just think we need to stop figuring out why. And just see it and recognize it for the opposite force it is. HCR gives us historical clues and reference so we can trust that their behavior is not new. Nor intractable. Let’s use as much of what I consider this sacred space to brainstorm, report our moves, share any link that supports progress for democracy. Because I know we can do what must be done to save democracy. And move as a force as citizens have done in the past to fight for common good. Ahhhhhh, I had thought of all of this to say to you today.
AND THEN….the clock had moved past midnight to a new day. My musing about yesterday was interrupted when I saw that HCR had posted today’s letter. You know, intuition is a funny thing. MLK, John Lewis, Barack Obama, James Clyburn…and a few close friends that I consider brilliant, inspirational movers and shakers that dispel racism with a sword…. these kind of people were on my mind a lot yesterday. And I read HCR’s letter. I wept about civil rights and I reveled in the stories that set it right. John Lewis guides us from a different vantage point now. I’m just so grateful I can feel it in my heart. Where a warrior lives. I read the last paragraph and think, well, for heavens sakes. Here I have this bedtime story with a plea I want to make to my fabulous fellow subscribers and my hero John Lewis sums it up….
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair,” Lewis tweeted almost exactly a year before his death. “Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.”
Make a way out of no way. Woooooweeee! That’s something I can get excited about. Yes? N’est ce pas?
Let’s go!
Thank you, Heather Cox Richardson.
I agree and I frequently ask the same question. So perhaps we stop that now - it is exhausting and fruitless. Maybe instead: We have the data and if we don’t have the data, we seek the facts from reliable, credible sources. There is a line of thinking supported by alternative facts on the far right (not all of the right) that is not based in facts, science, or frankly integrity. The garbage coming out of Fox is just that - garbage. It is a sea of manipulated fake despair. Powerful weapons: fear and despair. Fox needs to sustain viewership - I’m wondering if they are increasing viewers AT ALL. It is pouring rain in Vermont this morning. I used the rain as part of my morning meditation - wash away what is binding me - either physically or mentally. Let the water nourish the ground for a strong foundation. >>>> That is something I can do. Far more productive than getting emotionally entangled in some yahoo’s blather.
Love it, Laurie.
When I feel tired, or discouraged about Fox and right-wing family and heartless Republicans, I think of Dr. King and John Lewis--and many others whose names I do not know--and I try my best to pick myself up and do something positive: write, call, donate, participate, create. One and one and one +++ make a force for good in the face of evil.
Every small, good act has a ripple effect!!
I believe Forrest Gump answered the question - "Stupid is what stupid does."
Succinct John and Forrest.
Yes, oui, si, and beyond, Christine. Onward we go, making a way out of no way💙!
A good friend who leans right and I am sure voted for Trump in at least one election mentioned "isn't it terrible about all of the black on black gang violence in Chicago?"
I suspected this idea came from FOX. Every conversation I have with Republican friends or family, they bring up a statement from FOX or Facebook that isn't true or taken out of context to distract and steer Republicans away from the truth just as southern states made John Lewis out to be the problem, the trouble maker, the violent one when in truth southern state government officials were the source of trouble and violence.
When black on black gang violence is brought up on FOX, its without any social or historical context. It's meant to distract their viewers from the voting rights issue implying that blacks cannot manage their behavior so therefore it doesn't matter if they are impositioned in voting. It is meant to suggest that police killings of blacks is insignificant compared with blacks killing blacks, ignoring that police are supposed to be law enforcement protecting citizens and gang members are often criminals. It is meant to quietly cover over, dismiss and rewrite black history, American history, white supremacy history that changes its form and appearance like vapor intoxicating the white mind into thinking blacks are dangerous when in fact whites are the most dangerous in every nation where race can be used by whites as an instrument for political power.
The number of black history books being written today like "Wilmington Lies" and "Tulsa Burning" along with social justice books like "Just Mercy" and the private videos of police killing blacks are critical to advancing public knowledge about white supremacy both then and now as we work for greater justice and equality.
When citing the violent crimes by race, it seems to me that most of the MASS SHOOTINGS in the U.S. are done by WHITE MEN. Somehow the “what about” ppl never mention that.
Especially those on Fox...
These stats show 66% white and 21% black and are from 1982 - 2021.
I'm curious about this past year specifically if anyone can find those numbers. https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/
Exactly!
I had a similar experience. A friend sent me a video of a friend of his driving around NYC and commenting angrily about the destruction the protests had caused. Windows boarded up in a very fancy section of town. Otherwise, the area was immaculate. My antennae went up as I remembered something from The NY Times. Sure enough, the fancy shops closed due to the pandemic early on and boarded up their big windows. It wasn't due to protests or looting. My further thinking was, this man is more upset that the Louis Vuitton shop had to board up its windows than that people are getting killed by the police for passing a counterfeit dollar.
I am disgusted with “conservatives” decrying black on black crime, the violence of BLM protests, and professing respect for “the thin blue line” and police. We have seen their true nature on January 6, 2021, and will never forget it. They are white supremacist, insurrectionists and deserve all to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There is no room for their views in the American Democratic experiment. When people show who they are, believe them.
It must be particularly difficult to live in a state where Republicans control state government. However, here in Maine, LePage won two terms because Democrats, progressives and independents could not limit the progressive candidates for governor to one. So they split the progressive vote. LePage was so abrasive, angry and nasty that Republican legislators couldn't work with him. Now LePage is moving back from Florida to run again.
Maine has ranked choice voting except for governor. So we are challenged once again by the possibility of a vitriolic hate bating governor getting elected into office by a minority of people attracted to this kind of politics.
Meanwhile Maine is a rural aging state with a low birth rate with our best educated often leaving for higher paying corporate jobs in more progressive cities. As a result Maine isn't able to supply low wage labor for our important tourist industry. Republicans here blame the labor shortage on lazy Mainers who stay home on social while they simultaneously claim there are job shortages because of immigrants. And, Linda Bean, of LLBean, who supported Trump hires immigrants for her summer businesses. This nonsense handicaps all time, energy and thought to solve our real needs.
I'm so sorry to hear he's coming back to your state. I refuse to spend any of my money at LLBean though I used to shop there all the time.
Darn. LLBean? I suppose I should send a note about wht I am not buying from them. Darn.
Me too. If memory serves me, this is the same person who excoriated gays and lesbians. Little does she know how many LGBTQ folks are outdoorsies. Tsk, tsk.
Bruce, I share your disgust. Ain’t it grand to have these diabolical deplorables all around us in TX and TN?!
don't forget Florida!!!!
😔
FOX epitomizes Evil. It’s the worst of MSM. Tucker’s prep school is among the worst of New England. Pathetic.
And yet President Biden chooses to take on Facebook for spreading disinformation and all the liberal media follow his lead. Watching the news this morning on CNN and MSNBC, there was much coverage of Biden's accusation that social media costs lives. I would like to see some estimate of the lives lost due to Fox versus those lost due to Facebook. Is it even possible to sort out the second hand effects on social media that originate on Fox? What is it about our journalists that almost universally they underestimate or ignore the manifest evil represented by Fox. Only Brian Stelter of CNN, as far as I can see, accurately pinpoints and responds to the role Fox plays in our country's declining democracy.
Just watched Chris Krebs on Face the Nation. His comment that the anti vaccine information has metasticized,particularly on social media, is due to a combination of causes, including Russian, politician, the Disinformation Dirty Dozen, etc, is frightening.
Who are the dirty dozen?
The twelve people responsible for 65% of Covid vaccination misinformation being spread on the web. Here is a list, but I got it from Reddit and haven't confirmed it:
1. Joseph Mercola 2. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 3. Ty and Charlene Bollinger 4. Sherri Tenpenny 5. Rizza Islam 6. Rashid Buttar 7. Erin Elizabeth 8. Sayer Ji 9. Kelly Brogan 10. Christiane Northrup 11. Ben Tapper 12. Kevin Jenkins
https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen
From months ago....a year ago. More needs to be done. Education. Critical Thinking and Media Consumption must become a skill in every citizen's toolbox.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/03/25/the-coronavirus-disinformation-system-how-it-works/?fbclid=IwAR0Onqg2ttmYxYYyDzdXjDDZ6YVv7tSEA2ktn9CZUHYhyk74aC_0IZA7w9M
Facebook undermines a free press. And they know it. No free press, no democracy. No Facebook, 😊.
Facebook is at least trying to fix itself. Fox News? Not a bit. A bigger question: what's the relative damage between Facebook and Fox? I'm guessing that Fox is much, much worse.
Tucker Carlson has to go.
"The populace enthralled to demagogues has not changed. Their willingness to believe in easy solutions to intractable problems is still with us. People still relish the tough talk, name calling, and scapegoating. They love to be entertained by the bombast, to hear the demagogue shout the things no “gentleman” would say. Most of all, people today are just as willing as they always have been to follow a charismatic leader who promises to solve their problems and deliver the American dream."
https://fdrfoundation.org/publications/demagogues/
Thank you. The clear explanation in your third paragraph struck me as good truth-telling.
Notice that when those on the right discuss the Black Live Matter/George Floyd protests and demonstrations, they refer to them as riots and emphasize the violence that occurred in some cities. That violence is not to be condoned, and it they use it to overshadow the massive participation in peaceful protests that characterized the overwhelming majority of the demonstrations. Those bad actors allow the right to project a false equivalence, even thought the identity and motivation of those violent actors is questionable. It is used in attempts to diminish the insurrection of January 6.
Agreed. For more than two thousand years, people in power and those who support them have always been afraid of good people particularly of leaders of goodness. This is why powerful, power hungry leaders and their follows have always coopted the heros of goodness. I am thinking of Christ. And thinking of Martin Luther King who was abused, threatened and killed by white supremacy and their political facilitators. But today MLK is mentioned and given space by those who continue to practice white supremacy.
Am reading "Tulsa Burning" where a prominent moralizing white supremacist newspaper editor, Jones, who kept a portrait of Lincoln in his office, and quoted Lincoln, used his paper to inflame the white population who then attacked the black community in Tulsa, like killing in the name of God while proclaiming your faith and claiming to be "pro-life".
Yep.
How many knew and then participated in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act vigils across the country last night? They were sponsored by Indivisible, Common Cause and other local groups. My 90 year old mother keeps saying "Why are we not marching in the streets?" So last night she, my daughter, my husband and I and about 15, all Presbyterian (USA) church friends, attended one in Southlake, Texas, a highly exclusive wealthy community in DFW. I had somehow gotten the impression this one would draw a crowd of at least 1000. Nope. It was the same 150 people who continue to show up, mostly diehard Democrats in this ugly pocket of white smug privilege. We were all surprised, yes discouraged and disappointed, but undaunted. Good Trouble. As we walked with our little electric candles around the squares, my mother and I were passing a big SUV as its owners were getting in from a night out at a local restaurant. One of them said something, none of us understood, except to know it was a disparagement. My little defiant well dressed, beautifully coiffed mother, raised her candle in his direction and said defiantly "Save Democracy." He didn't hear her. But I did. And that is what matters.
I interacted with a group of people gathered to support the Cuban people in their dire situation in downtown Sarasota last night. I asked them to chant loudly for our freedom in America to continue untarnished and that we continue to be able to vote and peacefully protest freely. I will admit to a few loud cheers for democracy. It’s the same fight. I pointed out to them we better get this one done at home to remain as a beacon for brothers and sisters in other countries.
Your mother is a role model for us all. Thank you and your group for marching.
Thank you. And the irony is she never expected to be a role model for anyone or anything except her two daughters which she tried to raise to be kind gracious ladies. It was my father who died three years ago and who was "the live out your values" one and bent the heavy racist historical rod of his southern heritage toward justice. He would be so very proud of her.
Dee, both of your parents did a fine job. Your father's values live on. ❤
And also so kind.
John Lewis is smiling at you, your family and all of us honoring him and Democracy for all. Thank you.
These are terribly kind words.
I was one of those young kids who went to Mississippi after the registrars were sent to help get folks to register, but we could go home and they were risking everything.
Thank you for your conviction, but your ability to return home wasn't guaranteed. Three boys, James Chaney, a Black Freedom Rider, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, both white, were murdered by the Klan in 1964, as I'm sure you know. What you did was brave and dangerous, and it helped to make a difference. The battle isn't over.
The battle has just begun again … and will never be over, never.
Onward soldiers of truth and decency.
How true and how sad.
I walked at the edge of the sea yesterday and found three things washed up on the beach. One was a golf ball, one was a small piece of green sea glass, one was a flat rock with some words on it. The words are: " Riot is the language of the unheard".
The words on rock you found washed up on the beach reflect an eternal message: 'Riot is the language of the unheard'. How many rocks have been thrown in anger and desperation by the unheard and trampled upon?
Since the beginning of recorded time, Fern.
To the memory of Brother John Robert Lewis.
These words of John Lewis are framed on the wall of my office where I refer to them daily. They are a reminder that the battles for equality and justice are multi-generational and a constant struggle. We must all remember these words and not get discouraged or surrender. The fight persists and so must we.
“You must be able and prepared to give until you cannot give any more. We must use our time and our space on this little planet that we call Earth to make a lasting contribution, to leave it a little better than we found it, and now that need is greater than ever before.”
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair,” Lewis tweeted almost exactly a year before his death. “Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.”
Bruce, it's good that people like you are part of Texas' population. You folks will help make the difference.
I shouldn’t write my opinion today because of pervasive negativity in my view of the world. Or, perhaps I should because it is real. For a week now the Cuban-Americans have been in the streets (Literally breaking the law with impunity that was put in place by the Repugnant Party to prevent BLM from protesting). They want US to get involved to assist the massive protests in Cuba. What, another Bay of Pigs fiasco? Ironically, the majority of Cuban-Americans are in the Repugnant Party, which in Florida as in the rest of the Deep South is disfranchising those who would vote against it by making voter suppression laws against them. They want to bring free, democratic elections to Cuba while suppressing free democratic elections in Florida and the rest of the Repugnant controlled states.
I am tired of the Pervasive Evil that has existed in the shadows of America since the mid 1960s when we thot we had mandated equality. Put in chains and watched by the feds, the pervasive racist evil subsided until the chains were removed by the Supreme Court wrong decision in 2013. Just 3 years later we saw the ignorant, bigoted masses elect a clearly unqualified, mentally defective person to POTUS, and for the next 4 years he proved all our fears to be correct, as those ignorant masses became a cult following. Saner minds were spurred to removed him from office in 2020. But, like a cancer the cult followers believed his Big Lie and actually tried to thwart the democratic process on Jan. 6, 2021.
Now, without constraints of federal oversight, the Repugnant Party in all the old racist, Dixie states are free to reinstate New Jim Crow laws to suppress minority votes. And, despite us thinking we had an equally divided Senate, with a VP tie breaking vote, it is still 52 to 48 in favor of the Repugnant Party due to 2 traitorous Democrats in name only. If we cannot reinstate a new voting rights act half a century after the previous one, democracy in the U.S. may be ending as early as next year and no telling where Pervasive Evil of the Repugnant Party will take us. That is my negative mindset this morning. My best wishes for the ppl in Cuba wanting to be free of oppression, but we in America have our own problems.
It is important to write your opinion today. It needs to be heard, and shared. I also have a perspective like this in my head today, but it is not as clearly articulated as yours, and much more profane.
Yup. The f....
Good morning Rob. Totally agree. My best wishes too and I join the Cuban people and all around the world for wanting their freedom. Right now, we are fighting for ours. I hope we can, as always, be an example and a beacon.
I spoke with a few of my Cuban Amer friends in FL yesterday and said their protest for Cuba and already impatience of Biden not doing anything for Cuba is “not a good look for freedom”. Let’s get our own house together now. And get their Cuban mops out and help. They had the good grace to laugh and they helped me do some phone banking yesterday.
With you in action here in Florida, Rob!
Many of those who left Cuba after the revolution enjoyed a ‘comfortable’ life style under Batista, who was supported by his many underworld benefactors!
Support for Batista in the federal government was Another example of American foreign policy which looks the other way because the dictator ‘is our friend’!
Its ok to voice your opinion as many of us agree with you. I keep trying to tell myself that hope floats on the sea of despair.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed-Paulo Freire
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-paulo-freire/1129759657
He was an amazing mentor, as was Maxine Greene and Patricia Moccia at Teachers College, CU. Radical work with love and care.
Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham?
John Lewis
Speech at the March on Washington 1963
Almost 60 years later, where is our party?
Where are the marches?
Flood the zone. Peacefully.
From Georgia Representative John Lewis, there are no better words for us to remember:
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair,”
“Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic.
Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
We will find a way to make a way out of no way.” (The Letter)
Thank you Heather for informing and inspiring us in our work toward a true Democracy for all.
'It's Time For Action':
https://www.votingrightsalliance.org/
For information and organizations addressing Climate Change:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21574164/best-climate-change-charities-biden-policy
Yes it is again time for good trouble.
Gotta love it, Charlie. Like a cool breeze on a hot day!
❤️
Thank you for posting these links Fern. I was just wondering what I can do to help.
Morning Fern! Onward!
Thank you for your thoughts, as always!
Thank you for your thoughts and spirit and hi, there!
“The mere fact that there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote.” - Samuel Alito.
Then what does it mean?
Many thanks, HCR. Enjoy your Sunday.
I think it also refers back to very old "American" attitude towards Native Americans and others....if they want to get ahead they have to become and act like white men.
"Kill the indian to save the man"...this condescending, arrogant sophomania has been around for some time. Alito is a 19th C man in all his glory and his shame.
He’s a throwback, a misanthrope.
I usually conceptualize white supremacists as starting with the Ku Klux Klan. But of course the term describes caucasian enslavers, which starts with the European capital venturing colonizers. Followed by the American Founding Fathers, who were white supremacists rebelling against the royalist white supremacists.
The saving grace is that the Founding Fathers, inspired by the Iroquois, successfully established a form of government, the democratic republic, which opened the doors to their own undoing in terms of deadly oppression and exploitation by race, class, gender, gender identity, and able-bodiedness. To keep those doors open, the fights continue against these privileged white supremacist factions.
Slavery is far from being just a "white" phenomena, Elie, far from it...and it most certainly didn't "start" with the Europeans arriving in what was to be called America. Look in China, in India, Africa, Europe/Russia and in pre-Columbian America. The founding fathers merely borrowed a "hallowed tradition from time immemorial.
Of course, and the most egregious history for African Americans is enslavement practices by African tribes, including to procure slaves for the European slave traders. The difference is a matter of degree, of creating an industrialized system in service of profit and power. It's like the difference between mass murder and pogroms in Eastern Europe, and what the Nazis created with the Holocaust--which was industrialized genocide.
Snyder's "Bloodlands" is very much in my mind on the European issue but I think that we would be surprised at the previous organized and structural presence of ""industrialized" slavery elsewhere too. Nothing new on this earth and it's of course no excuse.
We must remember that he's mortal. Hopefully, he will be replaced by better.
Actually, it means that Justice Alito is a racist shidiot, along with his BFF Clarence Uncle Tom Thomas.
Yes, it does. It's too bad justices are given a "lifetime" appointment. The trash needs to be emptied now and again so the house doesn't stink.
Impeachment of Alito and Thomas and two others would help.
Kavanaugh and his mysterious debt payment.
But of course the R Senators would NEVER go along w/that (just like the TWO proven impeachments of TFG.)!
And Thomas’s sidekick, his wife. A back room organizer of the insurrection. “Let me rent everything you’ll need for this peaceful protest….Stages, buses, etc.” Puh-lease!
Ohhh.
Yes! Thank you — shidiot is my new favorite word!!
One of my nephews made that up!
SHIDIOT!!
This statement has bothered me since first reported. Makes no logical sense to me other than perhaps to serve as a screen for other intentions.
White male Justice Samuel Alito is a Philadephia racist. Harvard produces its share of white male racists, see Florida’s white racist Trump loving governor.
“The rich as well as the poor are forbidden to sleep under bridges.” It means 6 of SCOTUS are again using their power on behalf of [rich, right-wing, supposedly Christian, male, white] supremacy, which is far more important to them than any obligation to apply the actual meaning of the law.
You're correct. If one were to ask for proof. please read Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's piece: https://medium.com/senator-sheldon-whitehouse/the-third-federalist-society-f8a3ff2e19fd
I had watched in horror (for our country) Sen. Sheldon's presentation on Leonard Leo and The Federalist Society, but his article is even more terrifying. Would it not be just desserts if now Attorney General, Merrick Garland, could prosecute these democracy thieves and destroy their imperial cabal?! John Lewis would be telling us not to despair, that we can: "“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
"the arc...only bends toward justice because people pull it towards justice." - Eric Holder
Such a hopeful turn of phrase in dark times.
Reading that piece is scary and depressing -AND hard to fight back against.
Thanks for the reference. Paywall, but found a free access link. I believe it is the same or close. Fine summary. Dark money corrupting the process and no longer needing to be secretive about it. Now that is certainly an ominous observation!
Yes he did lay it all out there! Very disturbing.
I would call it B. S.
I remember that memorable Parkland students line. ❤️🤍💙
Exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote this line. Loved that speech by the Parkland student. I was so impressed and proud of those students. We call BS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxD3o-9H1lY
I believe he's saying we have a "level playing field," which, to quote Cathy Learoyd is "B.S."
This statement was what stood out for me Daria. Thank you. I am trying to think of a reverse impact, on whites for example, but my brain is not cooperating. Isn't impact the point??? isn't impact everything???
That stopped me too … say what?
Right. Go peddle your wares, Alito. We’ve got others to sell. In a bigger market and from much bigger wagons; plural, thank you very much.
You said in your interview with Ed Luce of FT that your occupation in the basement of the Harvard Library (in the occasional company of John Updike) was reading newspaper correspondence. That triggered in me the hope that sometime you will offer some reflections on the Fox News phenomenon in the context of the history of American media—notably the Hearst model and the 19th century models of party “owned” presses. My computer news feed regularly allows me to compare headlines on the same story from, say Fox (Biden blows it again in meeting with. . .), CNN (President confronts Russian leader on. . .), and so forth. Having come to knowledge in the era of the professional media in the 50’s & 60’s, I’m regularly amazed at the altered media role that came in with the movement revolution.
I second that request!
My local Sinclair newspaper headline yesterday of picture of Joe Biden facing reporters before he boards a helicopter: "Biden Trying to Hear Reporters' Questions."
I wonder how they sleep at night!
Each week I write Maine’s two US Senators and call on them to enact both the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act.
Bravo! Call their offices. Repeatedly.
For everyone who thinks Joe Biden is the best thing that's happened, you might want to read this by Ronald Brownstein:
For all the passionate words President Joe Biden delivered in defense of voting rights in his speech yesterday, it was the one word he never mentioned that provoked the strongest response from civil-rights advocates: filibuster.
Nowhere in his remarks did Biden utter what may go down as the political word of the year. The Senate procedure known as the filibuster now stands as the insuperable obstacle to the new federal voting-rights legislation that represents Democrats’ best chance to counter the restrictive voting laws proliferating in red states.
Biden’s refusal to call for changes to the filibuster—or even to promise greater personal involvement in passing voting-rights legislation—reinforced the long-standing concern of many advocates that he remains more personally engaged in passing his economic plans, particularly a bipartisan infrastructure deal, than in countering the red-state offensive against voter access.
If anything, the speech underscored why the intensely partisan, highly racialized battle over voting rights is a difficult issue for Biden politically. The struggle conflicts with the broader political positioning that he and his staff have pursued since he’s taken office. Biden has limited his personal engagement with cultural issues (such as immigration reform and LGBTQ rights) and has focused instead on kitchen-table economic concerns—checks in the pocket, shots in the arm, and more recently, shovels in the ground. As has been the case with the earlier stages of his career, he has stressed his determination to work with Republicans.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill represents the sweet spot for those two priorities: a tangible lunch-bucket initiative that allowed him to slap Republican senators on the back when they emerged from the White House together. Voting rights is almost at the opposite end of that spectrum; it starkly divides the parties and has become a symbol for the larger struggle for power between a racially diverse and urbanized Democratic coalition and a GOP coalition centered on noncollege and non-urban white voters. It’s dissonant for Biden to acknowledge that the GOP is radicalizing on voting and democracy while he’s effectively normalizing the party by seeking agreements with it so ardently. (Even in his speech, he implored “my Republican friends” to rally against the voting restrictions that virtually every GOP state legislator in the affected states has voted for.)
Read it all:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/07/biden-filibuster-voting-rights/619431/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=masthead-newsletter&utm_content=20210717&silverid=%25%25RECIPIENT_ID%25%25&utm_term=Subscriber%20Only%20Weekly%20Newsletter
My bets are on President Biden. I think he didn't say the word filibuster because it wasn't yet time to say it. Timing is everything and no one knows the Senate better than President Biden. I think his priority right now is getting the infrastructure bills through -- both of them. Once they are law and rolling forward he will turn his guns on seeing that both the For the People Act and the John Lewis voting act pass with the filibuster carve out. There is a lot going on behind the scenes we are not privy to. Keep your eyes on Senator Clyburn. He'll let us know when the time is right just like the speech where he endorsed candidate Biden and the liberals and moderates all coalesced together to elect him. We the People, all of us this time, need to keep our eyes on the prize -- democracy.
I'd like to believe you're right, but read the Brownstein article. There's a time component to being able to have the federal voting legislation have an effect on the states, since they start redistricting after they get the census info in August. They're treating the voting legislation like it can happen anytime. You'd think the dumbasses would realize that what gets done this year (or doesn't get done) has a direct effect on next year, which has everything to do with whether they keep a majority or not. And if they don't, they can kiss 2024 good-bye no matter how much "extra organizing" they do. When things go to hell over the next two years, any damn Democrat in Washington who wants to ask "how did that happen?" will only need to look in the bathroom mirror for the answer. You'd think having their gravy train on the line would focus their minds.
I read the Brownstein article but I'm still convinced no one knows how to manage this better than President Biden ... and that he himself knows this is his moment in history. I can argue a scenario where President Biden knows the infrastructure bills and their impact on every American economically and emotionally will be key to getting out the vote despite the voter suppression laws and keeping the People's Administration and the House and Senate in 2022 and the White House in 2024. This is a chess game not checkers. The point is to slow down the GOP's solidifying minority rule. Then the next thing is to have the John Lewis bill reestablishing the pre-clearance laws. Then we need the For the People Act while acknowledging that its impact won't be felt overnight. Weaving all these threads together is not going to be easy. In the mean time we need to make sure the violent acts and the potential overthrow of our government to preserve the whites only rule never happens.
Cathy great to meet you yesterday and learn you got married in a church close by. I also trust Biden and his team.
Yes, the Old North Church. What a beautiful day that was. The bride and groom get to ring the church bell announcing their marriage.
Yes I bet it was memorable—it’s a great church.
Thank you ❤️🤍💙
Indeed. Read Federalist 10.
We are not to wait, Cathy. Biden has earned our respect and support. Support is getting out there -- marching -- demonstrating -- making our voices heard here around the world and right in Manchin's and Sinema's ears.
'MAKE SOME NOISE AND GET IN GOOD TROUBLE'
In a way we are already making some of this noise!
I have not heard it. How about more noise, so that Manchin and Sinema and all the other senators and representatives hear it all summer long?
I agree and fear that you are right. As Cliff Albright says in your referenced article: “Don’t come relying on activists to out-organize voter suppression to compensate for your legislative failures. This ain’t The Green Mile or Bagger Vance and we are NOT your magical negroes—covering up your mediocrity, lukewarm support & broken promises.” You can organize all you want but it means NOTHING if people CAN'T vote.
Morning Bruce. Agree but don’t fear. “They” are not as strong as we are. “We” will prevail.
Dejá vous all over again?!
I hope you're right, Cathy, but as I recall, good old Casey didn't hit a home run. He struck out.
I voted for Joe Biden, but I remember him as a go-along-to-get-along moderate Democratic Senator. I remain to be convinced he has it in him to do what's necessary.
Who brought Casey into this. We have Babe Ruth. President Biden knows this is his moment of destiny just like Churchill felt his destiny was upon him. I will be part of the non-violent resistance if need be.
Cathy, sorry for the baseball analogy, but I voted for Obama twice, the first time full of enthusiasm for all the things I wanted him to accomplish, the second time weighed down by realism and the need to keep the GOP away from the presidency. Well, Obama had only one important accomplishment, which was to establish the legitimacy of the US Government assisting middle class Americans who could not afford decent healthcare. The Affordable Care Act, by European standards, is way, way short of the goal of universal healthcare, but it is a step in the right direction and was probably the best he could get under the circumstances. He will be remembered for it. But the rest of the Obama presidency (with a couple of exceptions) was pretty mediocre in the way of accomplishments.
Now, the political circumstances are far worse, Trump has not yet been consigned to the dustbin of history, McConnell is still having his way in the Senate and roughly 30-40% of the voting public appear to have lost their collective marbles, which is probably enough to guarantee continued success for the morally bankrupt GOP.
Perhaps I have lived in Europe too long among the charming but cynical Italians, but I find it hard to be optimistic about the Democrats holding power in the Congress in 2022 or to think that Joe Biden will run for a second term unless he has scored game-changing legislative changes well before 2024.
And could divided, angry Democrats nominate anyone able to defeat whichever evil fascistoide the GOP unites behind? Of course, no one knows, and occasionally life throws us a pleasant surprise (like Dems winning both Senate seats in GA), but I think anyone who imagines that the GOP will lend Biden a hand is not properly tuned in. John McCain was the last Republican who ever lent us a hand, and he's dead, bless his otherwise jingoistic, conservative, but patriotic soul.
Barring the hand of God reaching down to pinch the heads of our worst GOP antagonists, only the effective end of the filibuster will permit our country to avoid a very, very long period of darkness that I -- for one -- will certainly not outlive.
Joe Biden is unquestionably a good guy. Far more than Dubya, he's someone to sit down and have a beer with. And he is certainly a fish who knows how to swim and survive in Washington's polluted political waters. But, he has a history of being a Democratic Party hack who has often blended into the background, not a revolutionary boat-rocker. Now he has seen the light, at least some of it, and undoubtedly would be happy to be remembered as our savior (who wouldn't?). I wish him well. If I can ever get back to USA, I will go out into the streets for him. I'll fend off the baton blows and breathe the tear gas for him. But Joe needs to raise the filibuster problem every time he speaks. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Put it front and center. Everyday. All his people, too. All the Democrats in Congress. Move the polls. Fill the streets. The filibuster is the key, the rest is wishful thinking.
(In my ever humble opinion)
Not a day to call Pres Obama mediocre or that he only did one important thing during his presidency of 8 yrs.
Let’s leave our wringing of our hands over the filibuster and keep on making a way! There is something to be said for trusting the timing of things. We cannot know everything of what is going regarding Pres Biden’s timeline.
Christine, I did not "call Obama mediocre". I said his "presidency was pretty mediocre in terms of accomplishments". There's a difference. I greatly admire both his character and his learning, and his public speaking skills are astounding. I regret he lost the Congress for the last 6 years of his time in office, and it was this that made it impossible for him to accomplish more. I hope he will re-enter public life, perhaps as a governor or senator or even a Supreme Court Justice.
I will add that thanks to the Obama presidency, we have had to show our true colors as a nation and begun to find out who we really are. Our national myths are no longer uncontested. This is a very positive and overdue development.
...and there is every reason to demonstrate what the people think.
We don't know the mechanics of Biden's 'timing' and it does not represent a STOP and WAIT sign for us. Pushing and shouting and raising the absolute necessity of passing national voting rights legislation all summer long is GOOD TROUBLE. All elected representatives need to see, hear and feel the force of the American people on this crucial factor in achieving fair and free elections.
The second half of President Obama's first term and all his second term Republicans controlled Congress and then Majority Leader McConnell had no other reason for living than to keep President Obama from accomplishing anything. The Affordable Care Act is a huge accomplishment; one that a lot of Democrat members of Congress sacrificed their careers for; and it will be enduring which is a big thorn in the turtle's foot.
Let’s go back to Stand and Deliver. Two movie messages. From two books. Henry Fonda and a teacher in Southern California. Huge. Racial underpinnings. Stand and Deliver.
Fight!
Fight!
If you are remaining to be convinced, that will be your state of inertia. How about being convinced and also sure that the former will never have it in him to do what is necessary for the people of this country.
Christine, this sounds like an interesting reply, but I'm not sure what sort of inertia you are talking about. And who is "the former"? Trump?
I feel the same way. Joe is meticulous. He will find the right time and place to say that “f” word.
Agree. If I have a hope, it is voiced in your comment here. I, too, am listening to Clyburn. And putting my « faith » in Ron Klain and Bernie Sanders. Otherwise, my hair’s on fire. 🔥 ❤️🤍💙
Good to meet you yesterday— I get your passion.
Likewise. And, I appreciated your eloquence on the situation in Washington.
Mutual admiration is a good thing.
I agree, Cathy. I’ve said before that speech did not have the room for the fili word. Behind the scenes is right.
❤️
Cathy, my take on Biden is similar to yours. He meticulously presents one thing, then another, after the first is accomplished.
I hope you're right.
Me tooooooooooo
Maybe he is relying on millions and millions of folks to March on their respective capitals? oh wait, it's too late for that, the laws have already been passed. Maybe he's relying on millions to March on our big Capitol (peacefully of course)? Maybe he's relying on millions to stand in line and vote anyway? Who will count the votes and certify the results is the dirty detail.
We support Biden Harris. Firmly.
I heard an interview yesterday on NPR with a woman who head a Black get out the vote group (sorry I can't be more specific) who said that many blacks are disappointed with Joe's speech exactly because the "F word" was never mentioned. What's he waiting for?
Hmm. I listened to Brownstein talk on day of speech during a segment on news because I do enjoy his opinions. He’s direct and well informed. He summarized that overall Biden said what needed to be said on that particular morning in Philly. He did bring up that there would be questions about filibuster but Biden’s priorities in that speech were clear. I haven’t read Atlantic article yet. Thanks for sharing TC.
Biden has been clear from the getgo that he is reluctant to trash the filibuster.
Hasn’t Biden stated, on a few issues including filibuster, that he’s staying out of Congress’ business?
Agree. See Federalist 10.
Justice Samuel Alito Is suffering from an acute rectal- cranial inversion.
This is a chronic condition for him and perhaps a couple of others on the SCOTUS
It’s worse, may be terminal.
Dare we hope?