Many in our current Congress need reminders of their humanity. Be LOUD! 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
FINDING THE TRUTH... LIES, dressed in camo, march into the sandstorm of Trump's illusory war... While TRUTH, spattered in blood, fights on-seeking an oasis from the regime that desires its death...
"President Trump has called news coverage of the war 'criminal' and 'unpatriotic', while FCC chairman (Brendan Carr) threatens broadcasters' licenses." (Huff. Post) Pete Hegseth:"The sooner David Ellison takes over CNN, the better." "CBS will end its nearly 100 year-old Radio News Service. (Politico) "Pete Hegseth's attempt to shut press out of Pentagon doesn't hold up in court." (Brian Tyler Cohen) The Communications Act grants the President certain National Emergency powers over radio emissions and wired networks.(Act needs reform)
Our biggest National Emergency sits in the White House... It's up to us to support Independent Media with our hearts and souls and pocketbooks. Think what it would be like(Putin's Russia, for example) to live in the total darkness of lies. "To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis on which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.(Timothy Snyder/On Tyranny) Snyder's latest post on why MARCH 28 Protest matters is outstanding! https://snyder.substack.com/p/no-kings-freedom We may be exhausted, but we are not done...
And it's no longer just FOX. The money people are buying up all of media. Soon, the only way to get true and accurate information will be to get it from overseas sources such as Guardian, Economist, or Reuters. Perhaps, The CBC can hold out but it appears that the BBC is crumbling to the Josef Goebbels wannabes.
Same. And, selectively, from Australian media. There is an excellent news program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ("ABC") channel, titled "Planet America," which aims to explain US current events and politics to an Australian audience. Balanced reporting and frequent input from US politicians, experts, lawmakers and historians. I frequently wish my US family and friends would watch and learn.
Besides the sources you mention, except the BBC, I subscribe to two Japanese language sources (in English), The Japan Times and The Japan News (Yomiuri). The Japan News mostly reprints Reuters and AFP-Jiji. To date, NYT is still an excellent source. I recently cancelled my subscription to WaPo. Their decline is one of the saddest things I've seen in media.
I get my news from Substack, from Professors Richardson and Krugman, from the Contrarian, Bulwark, Quora Digest, Medusa, and from many on YouTube as well as Al Jazeera, the Guardian, etc.
Cable TV is losing millions of subscribers every year and yet the fools like Ellison are buying the network and cable news.
How about FREE SPEECH TV which I've been watching for many years. Stephanie Miller at 6:am, Thom Hartman at 9am and then Rick Smith at noon many more all day/night
Well, I live in Japan so my access to American TV is (happily) limited. It also helps being deaf so all I know, I know from reading and silent video clips on Japanese TV. All this has definitely helped lower my blood pressure.
Unfortunately, this is very true. We know from personal experience that friends who watch Fox News are mostly ignorant of things actually going on in the country, because Fox News leaves them in a comfortable fact-free universe.
We also need to restore real, respectful debates among citizens who disagree though, because that's the very fabric of any democracy. Without that, neofascists will always easily be able to grab power and contaminate others with their propaganda.
Thomas Jefferson was once asked if he had to choose between having a free government or a free press, which would he insist on, which would he give up? He didn't hesitate -- a free press was paramount (excuse the obvious pun). With it, you may one day get a free government (and keep it), without it, you're simply doomed.
Back then, "free" simply meant unburdened by state censorship. Today, it so obviously means media not under the control of a few oligopolies. Yet Skydance-Paramount just won their bidding war for control over HBO, CNN and Warner Bros, giving new meaning to "infotainment" -- a truly powerful, insidious form of censorship by another name. At the same time, Trump and his cronies have wasted no time in gutting PBS as a symbol of something "independent" they could not control.
The biggest wallet, the most blinding lights indeed.
Fortunately, although PBS was "defunded", aspects of it are still thriving. My car radio is tuned to NPR, our only TV news show is the PBS NewsHour. Solid so far. We boosted our monthly donation. That plus a curated list of Substack authors...all set.
Our TV news show is Maine PBS. And on Fridays nights PBS also has the excellent Washington Week with the Atlantic Magazine, hosted by Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
The problem began 140 years ago in 1886, when the Supreme Court constructed a doctrine known today as corporate personhood. It began in Santa “Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company”, 118 US 394. The Court arrogantly refused to hear arguments against its decision of one of the most important matters to ever come before the Court, whether the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment secures a corporation as a person with equal protection of the laws. The Court wrote its decision in a mere headnote of a case decided on a totally different issue. That headnote reads, “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which for bids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.” In all truth, the Fourteenth Amendment was a direct response to the Court’s 1857, holding in “Dred Scott v. Sandford”, 60 U.S. 393 (hereinafter, “Dred Scott”) which pushed America into Civil War. In “Dred Scott” the Court held that Mr. Scott, a person, was property with no rights. In “Santa Clara” the Court held that a corporation, property, is a person with rights. Thus "Paramount, a Skydance Corporation", is claimed by the Supreme Court to have equal protection of the laws.
Jefferson wrote, “I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.” Thus he never intended freedom of the press to be transferred to the aristocracy of our monied corporations. Freedom of expression was intended to be secured as one of the rights of all individual persons, not a creature of the State. On page 12 of my "Memorandum to We the People" I explain how the Supreme Court worked like a street hustler playing a fast shell game with words as they created the corporate personhood lie. Please download, read, share and discuss my Memorandum. You can also download the logo for the No Kings march at UnitedWeAmend.org
@Albert. The Court did nothing of the kind. What happened is that their decision, which did not address whether corporations are people, was mis-stated in the headnote.
The Author: The headnote was written by J.C. Bancroft Davis, the Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions and a former railroad president.
The "Statement": Before oral arguments began, Chief Justice Morrison Waite remarked that the Court did not wish to hear argument on whether the 14th Amendment applies to corporations because "we are all of opinion that it does".
Legal Weight: Davis included Waite's oral comment in the headnote as if it were a formal holding of the Court. However, the official written opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan did not mention corporate personhood or the 14th Amendment.
I've been arguing that coram nobis should be applied. Subsequent courts, starting with Smyth v. Ames (1898), relied on the Santa Clara headnote to treat corporate personhood as "settled law". It eventually formed the basis for modern decisions like First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti and Citizens United v. FEC.
No. The Court reporter’s job is to report the “official opinion of the Court.” It is not published as such unless the Court agrees. That headnote is a part of the final official opinion of the “Santa Clara” (1886) case. Second, you ignore the case of “Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania,” 25 U.S. 181, decided by the identical members of the Supreme Court just two years later in 1888. In an 8 to 0 opinion Justice Stephen J. Field delivered the opinion of the Court writing as to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, “Under the designation of person there is no doubt that a private corporation is included. Such corporations are merely associations of individuals united for a special purpose ...”. For more on this topic, and the many other problems the Court has caused, please read, share and discuss the facts and the resolve in my Memorandum at UnitedWeAmend.org.
And yet there seems to be the mythical notion that the free press of Jefferson's day was non-partisan journalism.
You know it was anything but.
You remember Jefferson was instrumental in financing Philip Freneau's The National Gazette in response to the Federalist's support of The Wasp. And Hamilton's defense of Harry Croswell in his partisan attacks on Jefferson, a defense that would be enacted in law.
Jefferson was great man, but we should remember that the partisan press has always been with us. A free press implies a partisan press.
It is up to us the be the devout skeptics of what we see and read.
The issue is not, and should not, be the political opinion expressed in the press, but rather what is the press? IOW, is the expression a product by a creature of the State (a private corporation) or the opinion of an individual person? My point above is that the First Amendment is focused on the equal rights of all individual persons, not corporations. As I state in my Memorandum, "Imagine Chief Justice John Marshall in 1801, holding The East India Co., which owned those three ships loaded with tea in Boston Harbor in 1773, is a person with equal protection of the laws. The Court probably would have been tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail by the Sons of Liberty. I discuss all of this in my Memorandum w/ a model amendment at UnitedWeAmend.org.
It seems to me that we’re moving alarmingly fast to what I would call Neo-Feudalism. And that much of the so-called news media is "obeying in advance" and allowing "Democracy to Die in Darkness".
Michele2., Thank you for mentioning Tim Snyder. And isn’t this quote more and more pertinent as the gang is wallpapering the airways, papers in every possible way with lies?
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Yeah, me too. I finally had to make a list and expiration date for my various newsletters, etc. Now that I’ve had some time with them all, I’m culling.
Stephanie, it seems to me that Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi, owners of Substack could – and SHOULD – develop a quantity discount for subscribers to multiple Substacks.
The content creators, such as HCR, receive only a portion of the subscription price. I believe the owners could afford to take smaller dips from the pockets of their multi-subscribers. But where there's media, there's greed.
Thanks. I also watched a great conversation yesterday between Strongman author Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Nina Burleigh, whose Freak Show Substack addresses the subjugation of women.
''From Backlash to Breakthrough: How the Trump-MAGA Era Could Give Birth to a Deeper American Democracy''
Can a democracy survive by restoring what already failed? This essay argues that the post-MAGA future must go further, toward decentralized participatory democracy and Resourceism, where power, stewardship, and public life move back into the people. https://essayx.substack.com/p/from-backlash-to-breakthrough-how
Excellent article... and beautifully written...At this point, the concept of "resourceism" (which was a new term to me) seems almost a necessity for any social order going forward if the planet's ecosystem is to survive. How we accomplish that is the question.. Thank you for sharing your article!
I read HCR, Hubbell, Joyce Vance, Jay Kuo. I watch Stephen Colbert and sometimes Kimmel. When commuting 3x/week, I listen to NPR. I still don't get enough news, but I have limited time! (Also, no TV - we don't have reception!)
Public Servant, I will be at a No Kings Rally in Germany. My Indivisible Abroad group was one of the original 3 to plan a NK3 rally, and now 9 cities in Germany will be having one. New Indivisible Abroad groups are springing up in Germany. We started our Indivisible Abroad group at the end of January, and since then we have been working tirelessly on this rally. Here is the link tree, but it is not complete.
We have invited a former German politician to speak, and an Iranian professor, and we have student involvement as well. Our rally will be small and we are a small group of people but we will be inviting Germans to join our small group of Americans in standing up to the Trump regime and all of its tyranny.
Indivisible Abroad has made a statement against the war that our groups have signed on to. https://indivisibleabroad.org/
I was in Chicago at the first NO Kings Rally. Then, I helped organize a second one here in Bremen. We were not Indivisible sponsoring it, but it was the theme of a regular creative get together for Democracy. People came even from neighboring countries. Some people came from Belgium. They came from neighboring states as well. Here is our Insta. Please follow us. https://www.instagram.com/indivisiblebremen?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Thank you, Linda! Thank you for your activism with Democrats Abroad, too. I live in Portugal, and am planning to join the No Kings/No Tyrants rally in Lisbon.
That is great Abbie! I see you are meeting at the Praça do Comércio. That is a lovely place to meet. I was in Lisbon 2 years ago in Spring. We had a wonderful time and met up with friends from Chicago who had just moved there. Now they have had their first child and are really glad to be raising her in Portugal.
I was just reading in Spy News how Hegseth, and Rubio are hiding in Bunkers on Base in DC right now. People in DC should talk about how they hide while putting a target on the backs of all Americans.
samani, thank you. I am glad to have chosen a city of activists here in Germany. I actually know activists around the country at this point as we have been collaborating on our rallies.
I work at a local NPR station where we host a talk show every day. We have had Iranian Americans as guests. Some support the war, some do not.
Typically citizens rally around their flag in times of war, something Trump counted on that with Americans but did not figure on with Iranians. Americans are not buying this one, and nothing unites a people like being bombed upon. If ever a nation needed a reason to develop a nuclear weapon to defend itself we just gave it to Iran. As awful as they are, this war is pushing them even further down a dark hole.
Good luck with your rallies, our former allies need to stand up to Trump and give him his much needed comeuppance.
Gary, I agree with what you are saying here. Thanks for the link.
I have been watching Malcolm Nance (former US intel) and Jacob Kaarsbo's (former Danish Intel, Station Chief) in the region on their Substack podcast each day for updates about the war. Sometimes they have a Saudi Arabian guy who is a political analyst on as well, telling them the chatter on the internet from different countries that are allied with Trump in the region. In any case, the person who is speaking at our rally is not for the war. I think many people who were happy about the Ayatollah being gone now have realized this is not regime change this is a fight for survival of Iran. Venezuelans also have realized they have nothing to be grateful for. Let us hope more US voters realize that too.
Thanks. This was the second comic I have seen from China making fun of Trump. Someone else posted one Chinese and one Iranian, but I cannot remember who did that. Perhaps Jeff Tiedrich.
Exactly the ideals expressed that I grew up with… so proud that we had put those other “selfish & Bigoted” excuses behind us in a civil war. NO GOING BACK!
I’m not sure where to begin. My interpretation of certain original documents informs me that the Founders many of them and perhaps not all (John Adams being one), but many were arguing for freedom from taxation without representation and not much more. Come on, that highly intelligent businessman Thomas Jefferson figured out early on how to extract the maximum use of his slaves in his nail factory; how many nails could be forged from the metal in one day, how much each enslaved ate and the housing costs. Who the fuck was this guy to tell history and me that he was in favor of equality of the races? Who?
We have deceived ourselves thinking those many founders gave a shit about enslavement. They wanted freedom from taxation. It was a very imperfect founding with some good seeds to grow and sprout if allowed.
Now we live in the 21st century and suddenly I’m being accused of privilege for having mostly white skin. ( I do claim partial African roots due to my Sicilian side that had Egyptian bloodlines.) And through our slicing and dicing of our sub groups, reverse racism is enshrined in DEI which btw, I am equally against. I was brought up to believe that we are all or should be equal no one better than the other and I’m personally sick and tired of DEI and you might not believe me but I’m a raging liberal whatever that means, lol. And through inventions like DEI, we get a backlash from a large segment of “privileged” educated young white men who revenge vote at the polls and help elect the antichrist of the ages. Try and square that peg hole please.
Of course it’s much more complicated than I have just described. And as I write this at 1:07 AM, I’m sitting on the floor of a side room watching over a mama cat again not eating as she lactates for her 4 offspring and frankly I don’t give a hoot about humanity right now since this family of cats is more important to me that the Straits of Hormuis. They have quieted down now and are sleeping. I probably won’t get much sleep.
Bill, being WOKE does not mean implementing DEI. It means people with Brown skin, often called Black, and formerly this applied to Italians and Irish too, need to be more careful than others about their safety so be aware of who is around you and what the situational dynamics are. It comes from a Leadbelly song if I am not mistaken. I have always been Woke in that sense even though I have a "white" mother. She is woke too, as having Brown skinned children makes people.
Here is a friend sharing her research after I pointed out that DeSantis misuses the term.
"originating from the 1938 protest folksong 'Scottsboro Boys' by Lead Belly
Lead Belly advises '...best stay woke, keep their eyes open'
"'..woke and staying woke explicitly referred to the need for Afro-Americans to be acutely aware and conscious of the dangers and threats that were inherent to a white-dominated racist America (from the article; see selection below).' "
I used to teach my students what WOKE meant through a book of poetry forms and we were working on making a better world. That included having different groups recognized in our curriculum and environmental protections. We did a unit on poetry at the same time that we did activism on the environment (Another "Woke" topic) and we used this "Dictionary for a Better World" to learn different forms of poetry. https://lernerbooks.com/shop/show/19476?srsltid=AfmBOooVc6Jf0VVQnhVp_8vnXJBedHZ9KsPRKED8H0GXR7z9VuON8vVb
From this our students did an ad campaign using poetry and turning them into jingles in videos where they were taking on different aspects of Great Lakes Stewardship.
I am tired of being an activist on many days, but I would have less energy for life if I did not allow my activism to help me to be hopeful. I can do my little part. I could have been sleeping in too. All of my Indivisible group here in Bremen did not see spending their lives doing active resistance against the Trump regime, and any other fascist regime that happens to follow. However, this is what life has offered us. In fact, we have people who have joined our little group who never did any activism before. Advertising the No Kings rally has made those who are growing WOKE, to want to do something to resist.
Fantastic, Linda, thank you for this. I love diversity, I love equality, I love inclusion. Stephen Miller and his acolytes have made DEI a bad "word" but it is, in my view, a step forward in social evolution to level the playing field. Does it make some people uncomfortable? Hell yeah. To that I say, walk in mile in the shoes of someone who doesn't have your unearned privileges.
I agree signe. When the term woke came out I struggled to figure out what it really meant. I didn't even know which side it referred to. Then I started thinking what would be the opposite of being woke. I came up with the words asleep, unconscious, not evolved, ignorant. I decided I would much rather be WOKE!
And least my comments to equality and being against racism are questioned in any way, as a child I had the biggest fist fight with a childhood chum when he used the “N” word to describe the new neighbors. I asked him to stop using that word and he proceeded to yell it repeatedly at me until I lunged at him and a horrible fight ensued. I almost killed him that day. As I walked home he continued shouting that nasty word and I can still hear him yelling it. Sometimes when I drive down that street I more clearly hear him shouting it.
When I was 7 both N words were applied to me. My mom had to explain to me what a Nazi was. I did not know what the boy in my class, who was always in trouble had called me. I understood the other N word though. My mom just told me that people who use it do not feel good about themselves and they try to spread their bad feelings to other people. Well, it was successful.
The problem is that being woke became a parody of itself. When it went from being cognizant of issues faced by certain populations to being virtue signaling and a purity test it committed suicide.
The same with DEI. Being labelled a racist in America is a negative assessment of one's character. Labelling every White American a racist was the undoing of the purpose of DEI.
Gary, I would disagree. Being WOKE is a language within a community that is still valid. It is those who appropriated it and tried to make it their own who have destroyed it for themselves and those to whom the word does not belong anyway.
I posit that the stupidity of the stupid White people who decided they had to get in on the use of the word, and feel the need to always make everything relevant to themselves is the problem. DEI is not the problem, the problem is the problems DEI is trying to solve. The term has not solved the problems, but neither has anything else. I don't blame the term, but the people misusing it. I know enough for a lifetime. Yet, the words themselves have meanings and awareness is key.
I would make the argument that every White person who embraces the identity of being "White" is racist. Otherwise they would not be "Passing." They would not divide the human species up into divisions based on unclear shades of skin.
No DEI initiative labels all white people as racist. That is a canard pushed by Fox News, right wing talk radio and social media, and slime politicians such as Ron Desantis. Why you gus live to have your buttons pushed is beyond me.
Yes it is much more complicated than what you describe Bill.
The Founders, I believe did want equality for all people, but in their frame of reference that did not include black people or women. Not all of those men were slave owners. That makes those that did, flawed…not bad.
It was in the 80 years following the American Revolution this country came to recognize the true evil of slavery… and later recognizing that the subjugation of women was wrong.
The Founders said “in order to create a more perfect union”… they knew there was work to be done.
As to DEI… as a white woman of a certain age I can tell you that the cards were stacked against my demographic until we stood up and said “this is wrong.”
DEI takes that further to include many other groups, who were not allowed full participation. It says that EVERYONE should be considered and that the BEST person for a job or school, should get it.
That is what the Founding Fathers were seeking… a nation that considered that ALL people were created equal.
Then and now the only people who seem to have a problem with that are white men who were used to the easy road.
Interestingly the 15th and 19th Amendments did not grant Blacks and women the right to vote. They prohibited the states from denying them the right. That is a significant difference. It implies the right always existed.
One argument that I cannot penetrate this hardened wall of DEI is that it, among other issues, has served to divide us US. That in itself should be the reason to bury it. It really separates us. I can’t litigate the past as justification of it today. Of course women were NOT (added) accepted as full citizens sounds ridicules today. Afrocentric people were less than a full person. Either live in the 18th, 19th or 20th centuries. Or the 21st century. We’ve come a long way baby…
Now let me personalize it. I made a huge mistake applying to be a vendor at the democratic national convention in 2024. I skipped over the “virtual” application. It was only a data collection exercise so we could be hounded to death for donations. But stupid me, I thought I was going to the convention to sell art and my book. So I applied and I reached the app when it asked me; 1. Are you woman-owned?, 2. Are you Union friendly?, 3. Are you LBGTQ?, 4. Something else I don’t recall. Not once did they ask me if I was a single proprietor or the size of my business. I was so pissed off that day I could have easily just moved and joined MAGA. Oh, holy shit no shit Dick Tracy. That wasn’t going to happen. Others have no doubt. I actually thought to lie and say I was gay just to be favored.
I have a Black woman acquaintance of mine who was able to get into a convention-like annual event to showcase our products and services. She got in for free but there was a charge for me because I’m white. Oh, no shit.
I will be against this form of reverse discrimination until the day I die. And btw, this woman in question has a business larger and more successful than mine. I wish her all the success. So you may carry your social guilt where ever it pleases you. I don’t have any. I was raised to see people all people as equals. There is no reason for me to change at this point in my life.
On one hand you are correct, yes, certain populations have had it harder than others. But to assert that white men have necessarily had "it easy" is a dismissal of a perspective that needs to be taken into account.
Where DEI went too far was in the broad brush labelling of every White person as a racist responsible for the sins of their fathers.
It is an involved conversation, unfortunately when we hear things such as "we need to have a hard conversation" it usually implies that someone is assumed wrong and needs correction rather than an involved or open conversation.
Actual DEI initiatives are pretty mild stuff. To the extent that DEI is a wall, it’s because the right wants it that way (they are great at building walls).
Ginning up sanctimonious outrage over DEI allows certain white people to perform a moral jiu jitsu in which they are self-pitying victims of people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ people—I.e., the most powerless people in our country. Under other circumstances, it would be laughable.
Some were reasonable and others weren't. Some included Ronin DeAngelo's statements on White people and his stereotyping all White people as racists, in particular he demeans White progressives as the worst racists.
This claim that all White people are evil and racist was not unheard in some DEI programs.
Then there is this, the propaganda that diversity necessarily promotes creativity or increases productivity turned out to be nonsense with no data behind it. It was feel good poppycock that when uncovered for what it was, a lie, turned thinking people off of its value. Even NPR got that right, unless you want to argue NPR is a lackey for conservative thought.
Whatever its good moral intentions were, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and so it was with DEI. Good riddance to bad garbage. Let's hope the next efforts at addressing biases are better thought out and honest.
And let's not miss the point, the reaction we're seeing to Bill is one factor that got Trump elected. This sanctimonious smugness on the part of the extreme left of the Democratic party is why so many trust them less than Republicans.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but blaming the right for every failure of the left just isn't working.
One point of clarification, there was a recognition that slavery was wrong long before the 1850's. The New York Manumission Society was formed even before the Constitution was written. Jefferson although a product of his times wrote of the evils of slavery and foresaw its end.
Agreed that the Constitution was an ideal to be achieved, do not forget that it was only because of the efforts of White men that the 15th and 19th Amendments passed. The populations they enfranchised were dependent upon their recognition of such movements to create the better union that they were brought to fruition. The wholesale demonization of White men is partially the reason we have Trump in power.
Gary, it’s had to make them understand this wise thought. But you stated correctly when you said that we behave the same as the MAGA member when it comes to criticism of our own.
So Bill you’re opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion. Does that mean you support homogeneity, inequities and exclusion?
The only reason the concept of DEI was a thing is because for more than 200 years people with darker skin were excluded from many aspects of American society. People with white skin were “privileged” because they were (are) included in all aspects of society.
Do you like what you see in the Republican Party and the Trump administration? Homogeneity, inequities and exclusion galore.
This is a problem on both sides; any questioning of a program, idea or concept is taken as if DEI were a zero-sum game. If one questions whether the program went too far, as it did in some cases, then one must necessarily be racist, misogynist, or a white Supremacist.
One can legitimately question that in some DEI programs labeling every White person, including White women, a racist, and every man a misogynist by accident of birth was it's own undoing.
And remember, the right does the same thing. Every "Libtard" supporting Harris necessarily favored "open borders" and the mutilation of children.
No you misread as I would expect most here to do. I am in favor of equality for all. That’s where I land and that’s where I stand. I stopped being in fashion after my Carnaby Street clothing fad ended even though I still have my pinstriped jacket and my Tom McCain black suede Beatle boots which I never wear. They are not comfortable. And never were. And my hip hugging bell bottomed slacks were not exactly comfy but they looked so cool.
One of the best examples of DEI I can remember of seeing how much better people can do than those in the groups they had previously been excluded from is the case of the Tuskegee graduates in the Red Tail bomber escorts of the 332nd Fighter Group.
Benjamin O. Davis as I recall was the only living Black graduate of West Point at the time he became its commander. He defended their continued use by keeping statistics on the bombers lost when escorted by different units, showing there was little comparison since essentially no bombers were lost (I believe from aerial attack, though two might have been lost to ground fire).
He did it by insisting his pilots stay close to the bombers to protect them and never go off chasing enemy fighters for personal scores (like so many other units had been doing). He had the whole tail painted Red so both the enemy and bomber crews could see who they were, and had them fly close enough so the bomber crews could see their faces and appreciate that Black pilots were the ones that kept so many of them safe enough to make it home.
I met 5 of the Airmen at a Black History month parade in San Bernardino back in the 1990s, and as a rare White person (who happened to be wearing a Kodak owned company badge), got to sit a few seats down from Rosa Parks in the review stand. My son was a Civil Air Patrol Flag Bearer, I'd intended to just drop off on my way to put in some overtime, but stayed when I saw Rosa, the Tuskegee Airmen, and the celebrities from shows like "Tour of Duty." The youngsters wanted to hear of Black aces, of which there were none.
One of 332nd, I believe Robert Friend, whom I've met half a dozen times later, told me they weren't allowed to chase fighters like the non-black pilots could until very late when it was possible to do it with out risking bombers.
Early in the war the fighters didn't have the range to escort the bombers to the furthermost targets so, to me, there were periods where they tried to shoot down as many German fighters as possible, especially the best German pilots. That may have worked until the less well trained pilots waited until the escorts had to turn back and the bombers became easier target. We eventually heavily out numbered them with many more fighters that also became longer range capable with drop tanks (plus having a lot more experienced pilots with much more higher octane fuel available).
To me Davis' earlier concentration on preventing bomber losses left him with far more meaningful statistics (and many bomber units that tried their best to get them as escorts when it counted most). It enlightened me on weighing who was more effective in reaching the end goals with the right tactics at the right time.
Fundamentally, does not DEI simply mean the same thing as the national motto: E PLURIBUS UNUM?
The problem is not with the principle but with the bureaucratic schoolmarmery of its application via a mass of pettifogging regulations and the imposed requirement that access to any post of responsibility must depend on formally signing up to statements that confine the First Amendment to a straitjacket.
An extreme irritation even to to those who uphold the underlying principle.
I am strangely reminded of how, at age 8 in South Africa, I saw how the incoming Afrikaner nationalist Malan government changed the physical landscape in which I lived.
Even before the key word Apartheid, literally "aparthood", meaning separate racial development, became omnipresent, large notices sprouted everywhere proclaiming regulations, and said regulations physically separated white from "non-white".
What had hitherto been a matter of custom became subject to intrusive regulation.
Originally, "woke" was a completely natural development, a deep, ancient abscess broke surface, suppurating. Considering the depth and the centuries of extreme injustice underlying the phenomenon, the physical reaction was -- unlike, say, the Watts riots -- surprisingly peaceful. But it was enough to arouse deep fears among a certain class of whites, and their political representatives like the governors of Florida and Texas ordered the unsightly abscess to get back to where it came from... deep in long-suffering bodies and minds.
Then came that secondary development which I call "whitewoke" (close to whitewash), shame among white would-be progressives giving rise to the ideological straitjacket of political correctness enforced by intrusive regulation and preachy bullying... Bullying reminiscent, at worst, of Fascist squadrismo, Nazi brownshirts, the Red Guards' thamzing, or "struggle sessions"...
Here, I'll switch metaphors to the stinking corpse of the albatross hanging from the neck of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner...
When you speak of John Adams, I can't help remembering the cast-iron complacency of the man and how, despite (perhaps because of?) his marriage to the highly intelligent Abigail, he rejected out of hand as a crazy abstraction the contention of the great French philosopher Condorcet that women are males' equals.
That strain of Neanderthal prejudice is still as present as ever in today's America -- a compensation for the grave deficiency in young white men's self-respect and self-confidence?
Our country was built on the backs of slave laborers. It continues to do so with prison slave labor thanks to the 13th Amendment. In a reinvented USA, after we get rid of the right wing branch taking over our government, that needs to be readdressed.
Ya I just read that section 1 of the 13th. Sure looks like an invite to me. As to Peter’s comment on John Adams, I referred to his anti slave sentiment and being unaware of his feelings toward women.
Agreed with your first statement, but I'm not convinced the US economy is based on prison labor. Is mass incarceration a problem? Of course, but that our economy is built upon prison labor seems an exaggeration.
John Roberts said after the court struck down the end of affirmative action: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race." However, I have read that since that ruling Black students have been underrepresented in many prestigious universities and by extension will Blacks be underrepresented in other leadership positions? And the wealth gap grows. So DEI was supposedly not a quota but a modest factor in a holistic assessment of each individual applicant who, historically, had been left out of access. I'm a mere messenger here. These do not necessarily represent my opinion....
“Now we live in the 21st century and suddenly I’m being accused of privilege for having mostly white skin.”
Wah. Whine. Boo hoo. I have it so tough because I’m white. I make more money, I have more money, I’m healthier, I’m safer, I’m better educated. From cradle to impending grave I’ve had more opportunities. Geez, I’d have had to work harder to screw up than to get ahead. Naturally, DEI has me quaking in my boots.
BTW, there’s no such thing as reverse racism. It is a contradiction in terms.
It is a fact that in general white people make more money, have more wealth, have better access to health care, have better educational opportunities, and more opportunities in general. Period.
Again, there is no such thing as reverse racism. It is a contradiction in terms.
I agree. The Founders were creating a system for the wealthy, white and educated to rule. And the system is still set up that way. Hello..Voter suppression.
I'm reading the book "The Wrath to Come. Gone with the Wind and the lies America tells" ,by Sarah Churchwell. She explains how the power of the book Gone With the Wind teaches us how mythmaling works. Summaries how race, gender,the Lost Cause, the American Dream,fascism, the prison industrial complex all culminated with J6. Highly,highly recommend listening to any interview/ podcast she's been on. Just search by her name.
She really pulls the blinders off of how deeply the roots of racism reach. It would be fascinating to hear an interview with HCR and Sarah Churchwell
All by himself, our megalomaniac president, who fashions himself King of America and King of the World, has taken us to war with Iran. From from every perspective except the battlefield, we are losing the war. Public opinion, world opinion, financial impact on the US and on the rest of the world, disruption of energy supplies, leadership of the free world, destruction of the anti- American world, and so forth.
When the hostilities stop, the war's legacy will be a nightmare.
1. Terrorism returns to the US.
2. Putting decapitation at the forefront of his battle strategy, Donald Trump and his immediate family will be wearing targets on their backs for the rest of their lives.
Merrill, I have a couple thoughts about your comment. The first is a suggested edit. Donald hasn't "taken us to war with Iran." He has made war ON Iran. The preposition, "with," implies that two adversaries have mutually escalated their hostilities to a state of war. That isn't the case with Iran, which is certainly not a friend of the U.S. But contrary to Donald's false claims, Iran was in effect, "minding their own business" when he decided to attack.
Second, if Donald and his family are now "wearing targets on their backs for the rest of their lives," I think that's a positive outcome. Hopefully, they won't have to wear those targets too long.
It is apparent that the country didn't leave the principles of inequality behind after the fifteenth Amendment was ratified, Jim Crow laws were implemented until 1965, and the wealthy citizens have always had favorable treatment over everyone else. Corporations are considered to be persons and given more incentives, including paying living wages and being responsible for the safety and well-being of their employees and the communities where they are located than real people as far as taxes and instead of paying their fair share of taxes, they spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars lobbying to end any regulations of any aspect of their business. And don't forget about the Republicans' use of the Southern Strategy from the moment the Equal Rights Act was passed, which is still used by every Republican today, and has brought the country to the lowest point in our history since the Civil War.
has a link to 5 calls under the topic "Call Your Representatives," which for all of us are long distance calls, but we do it anyway, but not every day.
Also, see our No Kings Marches Abroad located on their website. This is also not up to date. https://www.nokings.org
It lists 7 of the 9 German ones, but Berlin (the capital) and Wiesbaden (with the heaviest concentration of Americans) are missing from the map. I also don't see the one in Ecuador and I believe there is one other South American country on the list. I have been in meetings with people from all over the world, and all of them sound so creative in what they are doing. I also know there are more in Italy. I know that Bologna is having one, and there may be other cities as well.
and on on this Link Tree which is also incomplete only having 7 of the 9 German ones and someone else told me one in Nice, France is missing.
Please let people you know abroad to find out if there is a No Kings near them, and join it if they can. Also, please follow our Insta in Bremen, which also has a link tree link to the No Kings Rallies.
She's a west coaster like me; I hope to get several of us here in the northwest section of Oregon together soon. We're in Keiser, Salem, Hood River, Portland area, Lake Oswego, and Eugene. As soon as I can drive again (I'm off the pain meds 3 days tomorrow morning) and I will be cleared to drive by Wednesday I want to set up a Portland area meet and greet. It will be dependent on Megan's schedule.
Thankfully she posts a lot before I go to bed. Ally is right I’m on the west coast :)
However the past 3 weeks I’ve been a bit better managing my time and no longer stay up past 11pm to catch the posts. It was impacting my sleep for school ❤️🩹 She posts on Facebook about 30 minutes before here so that helps me then catch it here fast 🤣
Oh yes. Sleep is important. I must admit I taught sleep deprived after my daughter was born. I think it had something to do with wanting to fit too much into my days. Thank you for your work Megan.
I fully agree with Heather’s argument, and I think it can be pushed further. Her letter today shows that periods of open reaction can end not in the triumph of hierarchy, but in the refounding of democracy on deeper moral ground. She reminds us that Alexander Stephens believed the Confederacy had inaugurated a new political order built on inequality, yet history remembers that era instead through Lincoln and through the constitutional transformation that followed: the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. In other words, an age of attempted domination became the furnace in which a stronger democratic ideal was forged.
The Trump-MAGA era may prove to be a similar rupture. Its contempt for pluralism, its authoritarian impulse, and its service to concentrated wealth could produce not merely a democratic backlash, but a democratic renovation. The lesson of history is not that democracy automatically saves itself. It is that crisis can force a people to clarify what freedom, equality, and self-government must actually mean.
That clarification should go beyond elections alone. A stronger post-MAGA America may need a decentralized participatory democracy, one in which power is pushed downward and outward into communities, councils, assemblies, and local institutions rather than hoarded in distant capitals, party machines, and billionaire networks. Democracy becomes stronger when people do not merely vote every few years, but actively shape the conditions of common life.
Resourceism points in that direction. It envisions a decentralized, resource-based social order organized around shared stewardship, universal access to life’s necessities, ecological balance, and democratic participation at every level. Paired together, participatory democracy and Resourceism would not simply restore the republic. They would disperse power, deepen freedom, and begin to build a more human future. I value your opinions: https://www.resourceism.com/
Michael, you're a great writer, and I always read your posts because they are of such high quality.
I read the primary document at the link you provided. Early on, the author (you?) makes the statement: "This is not a utopian dream but an ethical and practical necessity." But in fact, it is a utopian dream.
Nowhere in the piece is there any description of how an order based on resourceism would deal with the reality of human selfishness and greed.
I believe that all the orders tried so far would work well if every human were of noble, unselfish, generous character. Sadly, many of us are not.
In fact, just as the squirrel instinctively collects and hides nuts as a hedge against future seasonal scarcity, we humans are programmed to accumulate whatever resources we can to "tide us over" through coming periods of scarcity. The squirrel's ability to hoard is limited by nature and intellect. We humans, however, have the intelligence to devise schemes to accumulate and hoard more than we need, sometimes at the expense of our neighbors.
Likewise, those revered "Founding Fathers" of the U.S. Government thought they'd covered all the bases in their design of a democratic republic. But clearly, they never dreamed that the capitalism they understood would metastasize into a driving force that would distort every feature of a representative government. They never dreamed that the nation's highest court would be filled with greedy opportunists who would distort the provisions in our beloved Constitution to protect those who exploit others and hoard resources.
Although the Founding Fathers thought they'd established a system that excluded a king, they mistakenly designed a system of representation and leadership that assumed that leaders and representatives would always be chosen because of their noble character. They never, in their wildest dreams, imagined that the electoral system they created would be exploited to put a convicted criminal in the highest office. Yet, here we are.
To my understanding, resourceism doesn't address that reality any better than the Founding Fathers did. It's a great idea, but needs a lot more work.
You’re right to press on that point. Resourceism is not a finished doctrine; it is a developing framework, and one of the hardest questions is exactly how any just system restrains greed, hoarding, and power capture. The current work argues that transparency, participatory democracy, commons governance, and science-based resource tracking are part of that answer, but it is still a work in progress, not a final blueprint. The declaration itself says it is “only the beginning,” and I think real implementation would take experimentation, revision, and likely multiple generations to mature fully. So yes, the vision is serious, but the institutional design still has to deepen. https://www.resourceism.com/
Correction. They only represent themselves and their PAC donors. His base has shrunk to around 25-30%. See everyone at NO KINGS MARCH 28. This is our opportunity to show them exactly who they do represent.
BTW. Before you call these folks on Ms. Rothery's list go to:
Yes! And I’ve learned how to get around not getting my messages through -
My first round of emails from the contact me links had a lot bounce back saying I wasn't a constituent so it either didn't get sent or basically wouldn't be read. So I changed the way I sent messages. I use one of their own in state addresses (listed on my spreadsheet to help with this) on the address line because technically it doesn't say "my" address. I also don't want to misrepresent myself any more than that, so in my messages I typically put (at the bottom) that while I'm not a constituent, I am reaching out because (insert name) does represent me on the (insert committee that fits the topic my message is about).
Another thing I do is call after hours. I don't leave my name or address/zip code so my voice doesn't go towards a count, but the more they hear from us, the better.
I also send faxes using faxzero.com (5 free/day). I don't send a lot of letters, but when I do I put the same “while I’m not a constituent” blurb I do in my emails
It's remarkable that racism hasn't been cleansed from our thoughts and actions after two centuries plus. Even after Brown v. an overwhelming majority of southern whites considered the prospect of racial integration repugnant. And we know that the admission of a single Black student in previously all-white schools was enough to create an exodus of white families. And now there's discussion of implementing vouchers again. Because republican donors want them.
It is remarkable. In schools the kids I teach understand our color comes from different levels of melanin in our body and that we’re all people. I’m not sure when the switch happens for some from their families or what they see in society ❤️🩹
And yet a fair number of Black people favor vouchers.
It's not at all settled that vouchers are racist by nature. There is a legitimate debate in the Black community as to whether the lack of vouchers is in fact racist.
Very inspiring Public Servant! No better way to celebrate the greatness that is Heather Cox Richardson and how she will be remembered during these difficult times.👌
Mike, I attended a 2 1/2 hour coffee with my state Senator and two state legislators yesterday. For the entire meeting no one mentioned any of the Washington cadre of fools.
I was excited to hear that the ME legislature will pass the plug-in solar which provides from 400 to 1200 watts of power during daytime hours. Germany has pioneered their use and it has been very successful there. Utah pioneered this legislation a year ago and 20 states are considering it this year.
CA already requires solar panels on new construction but this type of solar is portable so it can be used by people that rent as well as people that want to install renewables at a reasonable price without involving your electric utility and an electrician.
The south wasn't trying to hide their racism during Lincolns time and they were just as persistent and dangerous as the republican party is now. Sometimes I feel the time for rhetoric is dangerously over.
The Republican Party of today were the southern Democrats of the 1800’s. Richard Nixon just facilitated their name change to Republican. They are the same greedy, selfish people who were southern planters and Gilded robber barons and now tech bros. They consider themselves superior and entitled to more resources than anyone else. The political labels are immaterial. They just intend to steal from any and everyone. They must be taxed out of existence.
Crushing racist magats is a tall order. We did it once before, of course, and it was brutal. We had to kill a few hundred thousand of them, and they still managed to get around the law with impunity for a century, to the 1960s, and they have continued with substantial success since then, now with the full backing and malign intent of the Roberts court, which has by now pretty much emasculated legislative progress made in the 1960s. Yes, let’s by all means crush them, but we have to be cognizant of the enormity of the task. There are at least 77 million of them, and they are scattered throughout all 50 states. It will take a monumental effort and lot of luck, with many discouraging setbacks and a substantial amount of violence, some of which we are now seeing from ICE, from other DHS operations, from the Border Patrol, from a great many racist county sheriffs and their deputies, from vigilante militias, and many other sources. Saying we have crush them is one thing. Actually crushing them is another matter entirely.
This is what concerns me. I'm almost 69, a recent widow, with no children. I'll be out there protesting on March 28th but to what end? These despicable people are wearing me down. I believe I'll continue the fight to my dying day but there are many times I want to throw my hands in the air and say fuck it. Bury me here. After being a caregiver for 5 years and losing my husband - who attended all protests in his wheelchair, no matter the condition of the streets - I'm really damn tired, and sad.
I continue to protest for future generations. There were Civil rights marches when I was carried in my mother's womb, I walked anti war protests as a teenager, attended pro women's rights gatherings in college, still wearing that necklace with that damn coat hanger charm my mother gave me in 1974. Seriously? Still? Damn I'm sick of it, sick of them, sick of all of it.
Okay, maybe I'm having a bad day. 59 days a widow. My sweetheart is gone and that despicable noxious gasbag lives on, spewing his toxic fumes, poisoning the world.
I know I'll continue the fight. Pity party rant over.
I am so sorry for your loss, Dorian -- I am on the precipice of it myself. I have been my husband's caregiver for the last 4 years - and I can see that we are reaching the end of the road. Peace and strength to you over your loss -- and to all of us for what the world has become.
Laurie - so sorry for your situation. My mother-in-law lives with us and is 88 years old. My sister-in-law is her caregiver and gave up her career as a graphic artist to take care of her. We are so blessed that my mother-in-law (Little Bit to her friends) is still able to go to lunch twice a week with a group of friends at a local community center. She is a joy to be around but definitely needs a caregiver.
Hang in there. I'm with you in spirit and enjoy your posts.
Dorian…I’ve posted this song here a number of times…but think we sometimes need to listen to it frequently (as I do): Jackson Browne’s Til I Go Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmzimxfqgfw. If I could fit under my bed, I’d probably be there most of the time….but but but…I find the gatherings, the “juice” they bring, the camaraderie they instill are welcome and, indeed, needed by me. Kinda seems like “all this” is what is meant by a “groundswell”. You bet!!!! 💔no words come to me that express the ache I feel for what you are going through….🙏☮️
So Sorry for your loss and hang in there. We all feel the rage at this administration tearing every progress we have made as a society down. Every day is a struggle these days. Try to practice self care, turn off the news and try to find some joy somehow, as hard as that is these days.
It is ok and healthy to take a break from the madness. Taking a breather allows you to take time for grieving, and get some of your batteries recharged. I definitely do that! You deserve to rest and recover from all you've been through.
Dorian, I think we all can relate to the sadness and frustration you feel. While we fight these seemingly insurmountable injustices , real events in our everyday lives that don't have to do with politics need our attention. My little dog was attacked by a coyote the other day. He survived , but it seemed like one more real life event that almost put me over the edge, on top of dealing daily with this governments atrocities. My condolences on the loss of your husband. We fight on.
I am so sorry fly your loss and five years is a long time of caregiving including wheelchair duty. The in and outs! As a widow time helps one process and bad days come and go. You both were far more active than us! I use my car as a cone of silence to release some of my anger about many things and also find peace every now and then even in this now especially in nature or artwork. Take care.
Holding you in my heart. I have two close friends, recently widowed, who are about a year ahead of you in the process. Find a support group, mentor, grief buddy to help guide you through the process.
I will be out there on the National Mall on March 28th, marching right alongside you and millions of others. But your story will be the one that will stick in my heart when I do. It sounds like I won't be alone, either. Blessings.
So sorry for your loss. So many caregivers working so hard to serve their loved ones with dignity and respect. And you are clearly one of those Dorian! 💔
If we really understand and accept our nation’s true history then we’d be better equipped to dismantle racism. Most people accept racism as a scientific fact. It is not. It is man made to enslave and oppress certain people using skin color as justification.
To defeat racism people need to wake up from this stupor. Skin color is merely a tool to divide and conquer the masses. Racism doesn’t serve any of us because as Fannie Lou Hamer reminds us “until she’s free none of us are free”.
Forced desegregation was making progress towards reducing racism, but the racists got that project entirely shut down in about ten years. So we have about half a generation of people with better racial tolerance than the rest of the population.
Who benefits from the Federal Minimum Wage set at $7.25 an hour? If you have a business and you are paying your employees $7.25/hr you're doing it wrong or you're not even doing it yourself, you're trying to get others to do it for you.
Of course, Trump and his cabinet of incompetent bozos have caused gas and diesel prices to jump by 60 cents or more a gallon, food costs are skyrocketing, airlines are taking a huge hit in fuel costs and raising prices and shortages are likely.
With Trump taking his military advice from Putin and Bibi, we are all screwed.
Didn't I read somewhere recently that Trump has floated the idea of a special lower-wage rate for immigrant workers, since the farmers can't get anyone to work the fields? Can you imagine trying to live on less than $7.25/hour? Impossible in this country. It's a de facto return to slave labor.
MAGA confederates are the cancer America harbors. They rear their diseased heads approximately every 80 years or so. They are cancerous cells that metastasize over time because it is impossible to stamp them all out.
It's good that you share these posts, Heather, that remind us that the path we are on today is rooted in the ones those who came before us trod first. We must never forget that Lincoln understood the power of recognizing the value and worth of the people, and we must strive to maintain that power. No one will "give" it to us. It's our responsibility to exercise it to maintain our democracy.
In the past Heather has posted a video where she mentions that when soldiers of opposition forces invade the territory of the people they are opposing, it sparks an intensification of resistance. She used as an example the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War when the advance of the Confederate Army into Pennsylvania motivated the Northerners to fierce resistance. She meant this at least in part as a caveat for today when Trump is using ICE/militarized violence to provoke reactive violence in the US population so he can justify invoking the Insurrection Act and and declare martial law. Heather is the expert on the Battle of Gettysburg, but I will take the liberty of expanding on what she has said to include a famous vignette of the battle.
In the US Civil War Colonel Joshua Chamberlain commanded the 20th Maine Volunteer Regiment in defending the extreme left flank of the Union Army which was on Little Round Top in the pivotal battle of Gettysburg, PA. Estimates put the Confederate Army at 4,650 and the Union Army at 3,000. If the Confederates could outflank and get behind the Union troops the battle would be lost and perhaps too the war. The Battalion Commander of the Union troops on Little Round Top, Colonel Strong Vincent, ordered Joshua Chamberlain to hold his position at all costs - that he could not retreat. As the battle progressed and the Confederates had mounted multiple attacks up the hill at his Maine soldier’s positions, his soldiers ran out of ammunition and were suffering significant casualties. Colonel Chamberlain had been told that no reinforcements or resupply of ammunition was possible. But he did not retreat or just wait to see what would happen. He ordered his troops to fix bayonets and led them in a charge down the hill against the advancing Confederates. Seeing the Union troops charging spooked the Confederates and they retreated. The left flank of the Union line was protected and the days battle was won. In a later battle in Petersburg Chamberlain was severely wounded while leading his troops but survived. He was promoted to Brigadier General, awarded the Medal of Honor for “daring heroism and great tenacity against repeated assaults”, and given the honor of commanding the Union troops at the surrender ceremony for the infantry of Robert E. Lee’s Army at Appomattox Court House, VA. He later was elected to be Governor of Maine and became President of Bowdoin College.
This is an example of the historic tradition of defending our democratic republic that the US military, the citizens of Maine and of this country have. Maine Senator Angus King (Independent) has used the metaphor of Paul Revere notifying the citizens of Massachusetts of the tyranny of the British troops coming to arrest their citizens and confiscate their arms and ammunition. Joshua Chamberlain’s bravery can also be a metaphor for today. He did not give up or just wait to see what would happen. He fixed bayonets and charged.
Now is the time when our republic, our democracy, is being attacked and destroyed, to (metaphorically speaking) fix bayonets and charge. As Heather has suggested: email, call or write to your representatives in Congress and in your State government especially with personal stories about how you and your families lives have been affected. Participate in government functions, attend demonstrations as much as you can, etc.. Let them know how you the people feel about what Heather Cox Richardson is telling you is happening everyday. Don’t wait. Everyday that passes makes it more difficult to defeat the tyranny.
I'm always down for a paean to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. A professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin, and as Burns' fabulous documentary informs us, teaching every subject prior to his becoming President of the College, save for math! He lived a long life, in spite of his war wounds, and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettsburg. AND, had a helluva 'stache!
The future of democracy is diversity. We must vote for candidates who look like America such as Kamala, Zohran, and AOC. White men are a lost cause with their confederate racism, sexism, and bigotry.
Public servant, you paint with too broad a brush. I agree with your first 2 sentences. However, you should write about "some" or "many" or even "most" white men. I am a "White" man who is neither a racist nor a sexist nor a bigot. Your "diversity" must necessarily include me.
David-Your point is important. The idea and meaning of diversity includes everyone. All White men ca not be condemned. It’s the system that allows mostly White men to govern, make policy and obtain wealth that has propelled us to a place where we count and classify people according to skin color.
Yes, we all read Public Servant's posts and I don't think he believes that literally all white men are lost causes. He might have been writing in the heat of the moment; I just don't think that PS thinks every single white male is a lost cause. And is PS also a white male?
Your Substack is called "Democracy Defender" and yet you just wrote "White men are a lost cause with their confederate racism, sexism, and bigotry." Perhaps you need to re-write that? I want to believe that is not what you mean to say.
Col. Robert Gould Shaw oversaw the training of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment until they were a disciplined unit ready for combat. Then he led them as the first wave of the assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, on July 18, 1863. He died alongside many of those brave Black troops that night. Col. Shaw was a White man.
John Brown was executed by hanging on December 2, 1859, for leading a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. His plan was to steal weapons to ignite an armed slave insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery. Four other men (Two White and two Black) were executed also for participating with John Brown who was a White man.
President Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock Central High School in September 1957, to enforce public school desegregation. Ike was a White man.
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was killed in Alabama in 1965 after he foresaw a racist attack by a White part-time deputy sheriff and pushed a 17-year-old Black girl out of the way of a shotgun blast saving her life.
What I am trying to point out, however, is that many white men, myself included, have worked for equal rights for all. Some have been killed for doing so. and some have simply wore out their shoes knocking on doors. In my "Memorandum to We the People" I have included a model amendment to address the many wounds the Supreme Court and Trump have committed against our Constitution. In Section 1, I begin with words that are written as an all inclusive Equal Rights Amendment. The first clause states,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, All individual persons are endowed with
equal non-transferable rights, To secure these rights the Government of the
United States of America has been granted just powers from the consent of the
governed, The Governments of the United States, every State, and every insular
area within the jurisdiction of the United States has no powers to create, grant,
apply or transfer any of these equal non-transferable rights of individual persons
to an assembly thereof, or to property, private sector enterprises, creatures of the
state, anything manufactured, artificial intelligence, or to allow any property, private sector enterprises, or creatures of the state to endorse or provide support for,
or against, any candidate for public political or judicial office or ballot measure,
or to engage in any form of political expression within the United States, every
State, and every insular area within the jurisdiction of the United States." Please read, share and discuss my Memorandum posted at UnitedWeAmend.org.
That is exactly correct. How many voices out there are making that explicit connection? The descendants of same people, even the same geography, the same denialism, the same falsehoods, the same cruelties, lies and delusions. Sometimes history doesn't just echo, it practically screams.
And yesterday, as we all now know, former FBI Director Robert Mueller died -- the principal investigator of Russian influence in our 2016 elections. Former Attorney General Barr lied when he claimed Mueller had exonerated Trump. Just the opposite is true. And our criminal scumbag in the White House could not resist gloating: "I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people" (meaning he can no longer investigate Trump's many repeated, exhausting, criminal malfeasances, high crimes and misdemeanors).
Perhaps Dump's worst legacy is the ugliness in our own society he has given free rein to -- all the freak flags crawling out of dark spaces who would never have done so without his explicit encouragement, draped in the false flag of patriotism.
It will take years to re-win this new (old) Civil War he has unleashed on us, long after his wretched departure from this earth -- which cannot come soon enough.
Robert Mueller, a good man and sterling public servant….’Rump must keep Mueller’s name outta his mouth and may his fingers shrink and spasm should he ever again try to post about him. Classy vs tacky, honor vs grift.
Muller was a man of integrity with a brilliant intellect. However he didn't seem at the top of his game at the end of his career, as he issued his report and later testified before the Congressional committee. He in fact ended his career abruptly after that. I wondered if he had Parkinson's, which has a dementia component, because he definitely didn't show his usual sharpness when testifying.
Parkinson’s folks still have their intellect, they just have troubles expressing themselves. It’s an extremely frustrating situation. I’m sure that’s why he was reluctant to testify, but he did his best. Similar to Biden during the debate… he had Covid and was a stutterer - all in all, not his best.
The other point about President Biden’s debate fiasco that he was early into his COVID infection (he had “just a cold” symptoms) and had just returned from back-to-back trips to France for the 80th D-Day anniversary , Italy for a G7 meeting , and Los Angeles for a fund raiser (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/02/biden-debate-excuse-travel-00166372).
And, Karen, either ONE of them would run rings around Metamucillini (shout out to the person who coined this moniker!!) in character, honesty, compassion, and integrity.
Too many among us are not only out of touch with our fellow Americans in working-class red states, but nowhere near understanding how seriously Donald and his fellow criminal class play their game to keep themselves unaccountable.
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." -- Lincoln
I wonder if the S.A.V.E. Act will act like the *NAZI-crammed enabling law of 1933. Instead of rigging the legislature by chasing away legislators, as Hitler did, Trump would do it through I.C.E. being at voting sites to disenfranchising others, not already excluded by the S.A.V.E. Act. Trump would claim Federal enforcement powers. 😱
If I were a governor concerned about these elections, I would 'mobilize' the national guard indefinitely right now, not deploy them. If Trump tried to federalize the national guard of my state I would, "Sorry, Mr Pretender-in-Chief, the guardsmen are unavailable, since I have previously mobilized them." 🖕
When the elections came, the state militia would be on hand, if need be, to secure 'voting' perimeters from I.C.E.-atzgruppen.⚖️
SAVE is headed for nowhere in the Senate, thankfully. What we see is a huge game of bluff taking place where the most despicable Republican Senators are trying desperately to cram anti-trans legislation into their anti-voter bill, and failing utterly to do even that. They don't have even a majority, let alone 60 votes. Thune's embarrassing efforts to link this goofy attempt to stop the tens of millions of transgirls (give me a break) from entering high school locker rooms -- as though this had ANYTHING to do with trying to suppress voters --- isn't succeeding in hiding the obvious: SAVE will hurt Republican voters (who mostly do not have passports and who rely on mail-in voting) far more than Democratic ones. And Thune knows this, too.
SAVE is the attempt to break in the house through the heavily guarded front door. Scores of attorneys (and state attorney generals) aren't about to allow these assholes to violate the Constitution like that. More dangerous are the less guarded, unlocked back doors of state legislatures and local voting districts who will try to play footsie with the number and location of precincts, new laws (mostly against women whose last names may not match exactly what registrars have on their books), and who will take advantage of new USPS policies on date-stamping and the like. Be prepared....
I agree. However, Ned's thoughts are valid for at least one thing; Those states who don't protect the vote, along with certain congress critters will reveal themselves for all to see and history to record.
Thanks to each of you for the compliments, I.H.C.T.T. and D4N. I am humbled with gratitude. Yet the credit comes right back to all participants in this sub-thread -- you two as well as JDinTX, Arctic Stones, Bill, and Ally -- for expanding upon my bare-bones idea and putting some flesh on it. 🫱🏻🫲🏽💡🙏🏾⚖️✌🏼
Indeed Ned; We have some very great, seriously involved minds herein. I'm blown away everytime I go through the comments, to say nothing of HCR's essays and the method she chooses to educate us further.
Thank you, D4N, for your kind support. I am with It's Come To This on this one. I had not followed the details (e.g., the anti-trans provisions). It is the state level, particularly the legislatures, that may try to suppress the vote, as I-H-C-T-T observes keenly. That state-level oppression is what happened with Blacks' voting rights in South.
"SAVE will hurt Republican voters (who mostly do not have passports and who rely on mail-in voting) far more than Democratic ones."
I disagree with this for one simple reason. Your statement assumes an even-handed enforcement of the provisions in the SAVE Act. We know that would not be the case; enforcement would be heavily focused on Blue cities and Blue states – and it would likely be draconian.
That will definitely form a part of their back-door, inconsistent approach. Like no southern white voters were ever asked how many jellybeans there were in the jar or were made to take literacy tests in the Jim Crow era.
I have occasionally perused the comments section Fox News. I honestly don’t know which frightens me more, the extremism and ignorance, or the illiteracy.
Well, axually, you both are right. In theory and even-handed practice the Reds get bled red as I.H.C.T.T. points out, yet, and I.H.C.T.T. has sounded a similar alarm calling inconsistent practice and other chicanery the 'back door'.
With Shelby County versus Holder, you are focussed on the epicenter of voter suppression. Gladly, I think the S.A.V.E. Act will fail. I had not understood all of the 'kitchen-sewer' details of this odious legislation.
Interesting point. I published an open letter to out CT governor asking him to inform our national guard to protect its residents. I think a follow up letter including this bit is worth a go. And btw, he did announce that our guard has the right to protest us and not sure if my letter that I also sent him directly as well as our senators and congressman. I’d like to think it had an effect.
I will be writing several governors, too, plus Senators and Representatives. Great idea, Bill; good job walking the walk. To quote mid-twentieth century American philosopher, Fred Flintstone, "Glad I thought of it."
l love the logical sequence; we have to figure out a way to laugh hysterically at this bitter, brittle man so that he can hear it. That will get the little chicken-scheiße running to the bunker faster than anything.
Exactly; The more I rolled it around in my leaky jar, the better I liked what the optics would reveal. (plus the bonus of having them unavailable for federal whims_)
Thank you again, D4N. You have the right formula upstairs: laugh Dagwood Trumpish, über-nebbish, right off the stage. Trump thinks he is an über-mensch; he is an über-stench.
Sad to say, Alexander Stevens was reborn as DJT. And, as a country, the embarrassment of that, the shame of that, does not bother as many Americans as it should.
Heather's podcast earlier today had more or less the same theme as her column now.
In her podcast today, Heather returned to her theme of what prompted the original Republicans.
A great theme, the larger one in her podcast, whether from Heather there, or her column, being more specific, or from Abraham Lincoln opposed to the enslaving classes, and their enslaving way of life yet malignantly possible back then.
Lincoln famously saw how the federal government could help people – all people, roads, canals, railroads, schools, clinics, and other services all could use.
The enslaving class, with its slaves then, and its corporate elites today, wanted no role for government at the national level, very little immigration, and no taxes from them to support “others.”
“Others,” fellow Americans of all regions, all income levels, become just units, numbers, in the same way that our standardized testing lets us reduce all life, all others, to numbers today. With us limited to hoping ourselves but as of better numbers than all below us.
I’m glad Heather returns to this theme. For the same reason I appreciate Lincoln’s having signed the Justin Morrill 1862 land grant college bill. I said the American people wanted to live together in a nation where all had available better means of agriculture and mechanics, but recognition of America as a place for people of all kinds.
Rather as Timothy Snyder, in his latest Substack, says he’ll pause where he’s speaking on March 28’s No Kings Day, "to ask people to introduce themselves to those around them."
Donald, his master Putin, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Bukele, Orban, Sisi, Kim, Erdogan, and more haven't changed. They're still reptiles.
But 160 years ago "we" saw all others as savages, barbarians, apostates, and other terms for othering by stereotypes, groups, and imaginative packages.
Our elites of standardized testing still do this -- still select their choice conceits for rationalities based on grouping, categorizing, packaging. But then, too, those pathetics never experienced any schools where humanities replaced all varieties of the age-old hoary vulgar.
To me, it's so strange how the color of a person's skin was such a big f-ing deal to people back then... and is STILL a big f-ing deal to so many people today. Eyesight is the factual cause of this. If humans did not have eyes (I know... but this is a "thought experiment" so go with me here), I feel discrimination wouldn't exist. I mean.... bigots look at a person... see dark skin... and go "they're not as good as me"... completely ignoring the many INVENTIONS and other ACCOMPLISHMENTS of Black people (see the motion picture "Hidden Figures" for an example).
We are such a messed up species! SMH
PS I know back then, racism was ALSO about "we took them from a foreign country so we would have free labor". But we don't do that anymore (except when we use prisoners to make things for almost zero money.)
But we CAN change! It starts with TRULY following the concept of "love thy neighbor".
I’ve alway thought, Steve, that the color of one’s skin is about the (literally!) most shallow reason to “other” someone….somewhere about 1mm in thickness. 🤦🏻♀️
Steve-Most Americans don’t understand the origin of race. We’ve been conditioned for centuries to believe that skin color matters. The caste system we live with is effectively causing our nation to self destruct from within. If you analyze our nation’s history many of the upheavals had to do with racism (Civil War, Civil Rights, etc).
For centuries the law has been (is being) used to establish and enforce racism. Unless and until we honestly recognize the detriment that racism is to our world-and not just for Black people, but for all of us-we’ll never have a true democracy. We need more history, more education and more connection to each other.
My dog sometimes goes into defensive mode when something is just "different" than it was, even sometimes an inanimate object. I think our evoltionarily older forebrain reacts that way too. Our later to arrive cortex in more analytical, so there seems to be that. Yet divide and conquer seems to be the oldest trick in the book. and predatory humans have used it for centuries to shatter liberating solidarity. It's key to establishing a stratified society, and who really benefits from that? Certainly not the antebellum working class competing with unpaid labor, yet. foreshadowing MAGA, thousands such died protecting their right to be thus exploited. A black historian I read long ago argues that racism was methodically cultivated in society by the Alexander Stephens, "same old serpent" plutocrats who fund social inequity today. Even the French Revolution and communists ruled by dispensing privilege and terror, and many will fiercely defend a pathetic share of privilege and security against an more egalitarian system.
Add to that the personal effort and responsibility relentlessly required to keep a collaborative self-government successfully operating and the siren-song of easier answers. Lincoln called it "the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world." We know it don't come easy.
I think there is the "Mr. Hyde" side of human nature that is more active in the character of some people than others. On one level, we need each other, and maybe even love each other, though at times, even in marriage, the other may be seen as an impediment, and some people's life strategy is predatory. On the one hand we are obliged to be civil and on the other, we may look for excuses to withhold our social obligations from one set of people or another. Appearance might be one such excuse, but anything will do; ethnicity, religion, national origin, etc, etc, etc. There is no science in it, just narcissism.
I think some people perceive anyone who is different from them in any way - be it color, ethnicity, sexuality, language, religion - as a potential threat. The way they deal with that psychologically is to demean and try to control the threat by claiming superiority to that person. Raising a kid in NYC had its challenges - but the best part about it was that our son grew up with such an array of different people that a highly diverse community is what is normal life for him. I celebrate the city for that too, though I was raised in the midwest.
Robert Lewis Stevenson argued that we all harbor "Jekyll and Hyde" Billy Joel sang about "The Stranger" in us all. We are obliged to calculate self-interest, but is our self interest to be "enlightened" and civilized, or predatory? Given the range of variation in mammalian personalities and talents, I suspect that there may be a genetic component of our capacity for compassion, individually, and in our our species' enduring patterns of behaviors, but I think its more a matter of nurture in the end, and the values that societies decide to celebrate. We as a society made a choice about chattel slavery that the Founders neglected. We came to redefine the social definition of women, etc. That means a reduction of privilege for some, some of whom will fight to retain it. Follow the privilege, follow the self-serving clubs of privilege, follow the money.
We are social, and yes tribal, even on these pages. Tribes can war with one another, yet also cooperate. I think deeper than tribe is the scope of our own ego. At one end of the spectrum are the great and salient humanitarians and at the other, malignant narcissists. In some ways the narcissists have the advantage since empathy is arguably burdensome, yet the quality of the outcomes differs so starkly, and there are choices.
Absolutely. They are thoroughly entangled. I suspect that for the most part, authoritarianism begins at home, but then that's another chicken or the egg.
If you have not yet listened to the “Seeing White” podcast series, I highly recommend it! Very good insights into the origins and repercussions of racism in America.
The Founders gifted us a future of our own determination. That gift has been disparaged and threatened again and again and yet has come down to us through 250 years. We owe it to those before us and to those to come to pass that gift forward, improving it as we are able.
And yet, we seem to have many still promulgating the view of inequality in our country, making clear their ideology that only Christian-nationalist white men should have power, denying the role of women or people of color or those who worship differently or don't worship at all in our society. Their refusal to honor the principles on which our democracy is based threatens all of us. When Donald J. Trump can post, upon learning about Mueller's death ""Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!" the message is clear that this regime maintains that honesty and integrity are no longer values they share with we, the people.
The people of the United States may have tried to enshrine the end of the era of slavery into law through the 14th, 15th, and 16th Amendments, but the Supreme Court has spent the last 150 years diligently chipping away at the idea that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law, until finally the Roberts courts ended the charade entirely by saying that the President of the United States is a king, and his actions cannot be illegal, as long as he says they are part of his responsibilities.
The fact that we have allowed these corrupt and conservative jurists to undo the outcome of the civil war to protect the enslavers, the robber barons, and the oligarchs of the day show the shortsightedness of our forefathers in allowing the south to continue to exist after the civil war, and not demanding that the slave states be readmitted only AFTER the debts of the war bonds had been paid, and after they had paid restitution to the enslaved.
"the Supreme Court has spent the last 150 years diligently chipping away at the idea that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law,"
I don't know about that, but the hand picked servants of plutocrats in the current Roberts' court are massively eroding equal protection and justice. It was what they were sent to do.
Let’s not forget that privileged white boy, Justice Kavanaugh, thinks it’s perfectly okay for masked men to detain people based on how they look or speak.
The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. Plessy versus Ferguson was handed down in 1896. The ink was still wet when they were rolling back the rights the Union had won through blood.
The battle with human predators has never ceased, but some branches of progress occurred in my lifetime and before, expanding rights and economic gain to larger portions of society. That began to stall after Reagan was elected.
My future son-in-law grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He pushes back hard when people suggest writing off the South. There are many good people there, across the political spectrum. He’s a young Progressive, with an Iraqi dad and a mom from the U.S. heartland. He’s a kind, smart, hard-working engineer. Let’s not write off the south. FWIW, I grew up in supposedly liberal Massachusetts. There are lots of MAGA racists there, too.
Apologies, Dave. I definitely didn't mean to suggest all Southerners are "deplorables." Any more than I'd suggest that all Northerners are intelligent humanitarians. (Our president is Exhibit No. 1 refuting that.) But I have wondered lately about the unintended consequences of forcibly uniting two systems which seem so permanently, deeply opposed to each other's respective values. Societies will never be completely homogeneous but we haven't mastered accommodating the heterogeneity. Maybe we're more like Yugoslavia (RIP) than we realize.
This argument always amuses me, because it implies that A. people realize these would be failed nations if not for the benefits handed down from Blue States to Red states, and B. Think it would be unfair or unreasonable for Red states to have to survive on their own merits without the benefits being accorded to them by exploiting states that are willing to organize themselves to be fair and efficient.
This is literally an example of the kind of argument that inundates conservative feelings: "I can't survive without my unearned privileges, other people should be forced to prop me up despite my hardworking pull myself up by my bootstraps mentality and clear superiority to the people who are paying the costs of my privileges."
For the record, I grew up in Louisiana, and I still think the world would be a better place if Sherman had depopulated the South of everyone who had the right to vote in the Confederacy, and we had still forced them to pay off their war debts and the North's war bonds before allowing them to be re-admitted.
People seem to say "never again" and then drift into old proclivities. Could we FINALLY decide to head that one off in the early stages? We may have to if our species is to persist as our world gets more complicated and "smaller".
It’s shocking to me to realize that for today’s young people, the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust feel as ancient as the Civil War did to me when I grew up in the 1950s. For my generation the 1930s and 40s were recent and real and Never Again had an immediacy that demanded commitment. Not so for the post-millennium population. It seems that human beings simply can’t pass on wisdom from one generation to another without direct experience, and so we keep making the same tragic mistakes over and over.
How soon we forget, or put the past behind us instead of learning its lessons. A whopper mistake on a personal level ad well as a national level. Now on a global level ..
In lieu of direct experience, Heidi, how might you feel about indirect experience?
That is, how vital might you see it that more teachers K-12 -- especially for the older kids there -- could be free to choose novels, memoirs, and histories they feel as relevant for their students?
I hear you, Phil. For many years I used Jane Yolen’s award-winning book “Encounter” to teach my 4th-graders about author perspective and the development of characters in writing. It is a fictional account of Columbus and his first “encounter” with indigenous people, from their perspective. It is based, in part, on his own log entries. Though it was not part of the official curriculum, I’d read it on Columbus Day. I always stressed that Columbus had traits considered to be positive. For example, he was brave to sail across the ocean in relatively small wooden ships, he was persistent in getting the funding needed for his voyages, he was smart enough to navigate without much technology, and he certainly influenced the course of human history. But he was also a bloodthirsty, greedy, white supremacist who thought nothing of slaughtering and “taking” some of the indigenous people back to Spain to serve as “servants” to the king and queen. A few years ago, in Florida “Encounter” was on a long list of books being “reviewed “ and potentially banned from its classrooms. I did not teach in Florida, but I imagine I would have continued using Yolen’s book, running the risk of suspension or dismissal. Having a working spouse would have made that a lot easier to do. Not every teacher—and especially those who are new to the profession and often saddled with college debt—has that option. When I first started teaching I had a lot autonomy in the classroom, but canned curricula and the system’s obsession with standardized testing chipped away at that freedom over the years. After 22 years, I retired.
I think you speak on behalf of too many good souls, decent people, and excellent teachers whom we should prize especially. It's not just a matter of money, but of according respect to those with pluck, autonomy, and probably good rapport with colleagues, too.
When we do our own accounting for the demented Donald years into which we've fallen, we're going to have to restore teachers to their fitting place over the packaging bureaucratized who've too long been deadening all.
Thank you for your work, Dave. I understand why you retired. My Mom lasted 4 years as a teacher of English. She did not liked the canned, formulaic curriculum (she taught her "last chance English" classes how to read middle English, and when they read several pieces by Chaucer, she taught them how to swear in middle English.)
I believe her parting words were "no wonder you have mediocre students; your curriculum ensures that."
I taught through Covid and the year we returned to in-person learning. I think we made a grave mistake by not giving students and parents the option of repeating the Covid year. Many of my post-Covid 4th graders were essentially third-graders academically and socially. We insisted on teaching them a curriculum for which they were unprepared. They became frustrated and discouraged, but I was told to stay with the canned curriculum’s timeline. This was particularly counterproductive in math, which builds on previously learned skills. I just could no longer be a part of a system that was making many kids feel “dumb” and hate school.
"The shaping of the next era belonged not to him, but to others with a clearer view of both the meaning of the United States of America, and of humanity."
Seems to me that we have our work cut out for us. We need a project 2029 to outline the repairs, corrections & improvements that will be required to not only return us to a democratic republic but to reform some of the old 'ways' & create a more perfect union. Our children & grandchildren will have a lot to do, as I fear that this will take years to do, much like it will take years to get oil production & delivery back to a semblemce of normal.
We let loose that dog of war & I think the world will give us the bill to repair the damages that this war is causing worldwide so instead of making America great again, he has plunged us into more & more debt. Let's not forget that he told us: "I love debt!" I suspect he loves debt because he never plans to repay anyone or anything. Well, this is one debt that will have to be repaid. And he can't mint some million dollar platinum coin like he wanted to do. And we can't pay it with crypto as that is a nebulous & ethereal as a rainbow! Maybe our patriotic tech bros will step up?! On that hilarious note I think that I'll call it a day!
The Enlightenment! The result of Galileo’s science! The escape from medieval superstitions. The THINKING of the Greeks which liberated. We rest on the shoulders of a moral-intellectual Revolution. Lincoln, the reader and debater recognized that slavery was not a foundation for America. Unfortunately the current controlling Mafia, does not find this truth “self evident,” much as
the followers of the Don would prefer to make slaves of their fellow Americans.
The oligarchs? Luckily most are blinded by greed and therefore un-enlightened Americans. That’s why I’m advocating for the draft in order to eliminate bone-spur thinking. Let’s do a service to America that puts everyone together for a couple of years so that rich and poor are acquainted with each other and there is a role even for those with minor physical problems. You can’t march: do exercises you can do, then desk jobs. There’s a job for everyone! Imagine Congress with this background.
It was good Virginia that I was drafted into semi-socio economic mix in 1970. We had a very small contingent of college grads who were more than buried under a landslide of poor black draftees from Chicago neighborhoods. There was no parity in that the poor made up the vast majority of us draftees. I think your idea to mix it up is brilliant. Just leave out preparing the participants for war. Instead let’s prepare them for peace. Seeking avenues of peace. An entirely new idea that could incorporate foreign exchange as well. My daughters wanted a foreign exchange student from France. Not the playboy they had in mind rather an intellectual physicist came to pass. My son the future nuclear engineer benefitted the most. Imagine a world-wide society learning languages, sharing fundamental equality while pursuing projects that bring stability and growth. I’m convinced that preparing future generations for war should give way to a focal point of public service.
Pat, yes! Peace Corp, AmeriCorp, Conservation Corp….a required 1-2 years post high school (maybe earn college credits or stipend?) of “service” in some type of youth corp that will get folks out of their silos…sometimes college, apprenticeships, etc., will do that if the place of learning is also not “siloed”.
For me the point is that it is required because this civic or military service underlines that our rights and responsibilities extend to ALL Americans. Not just wealthy who pad their resume with some almost volunteer work. ALL. Required service is more true than not of many other democracies. I think it is a wonderful idea.
I would NOT require 2 years of service - I would make it so attractive to our young citizens that a majority would "enlist" as I did in the National Health Service Corps. Many young folks are in circumstances where this service would be a real hardship on their families. And, I fear what a president like Trump would do with all his "enlistees."
MaryPat, there are people, even young people, who just don't ever see service to others as attractive. (One of those types is now sitting in the Oval Office.) Sometimes they only learn the lesson that service is its own reward after someone shoves a mop and bucket into their hands and says "Get to work!" Yes, it would be wonderful if every one of us were naturally altruistic. In the meantime, while we're waiting for that great evolution, we'd be doing the n'er do wells a great service by saying, "Lucky you, this is the day you get to begin your national service."
I have to back you up Donna. My college days were secure. There was a war on. I used my head and kept a deferment. I was safely wrestling my way through higher education. Dint even need a bone spur. Safe and smug until a couple friends died. I don’t know what happened to me. Maybe it was those hippie girls in the late sixties. You know the ones like that crazy Doctor from California who nurtured her husband after his Viet Nam exposure. I gotta admit her words here healed some raw spots with me too. At any rate I did expand my conscience. I was drafted and I did serve my country and I never would have otherwise. I’m not going to let slip that marvelous woman’s name but she did help many of us bigly.
Jeeze MaryPat we are not thinking of Hitler Youth here, rather the growth in to adulthood. A growth consistent of pretty much all you represent. As I understand you are a nurse as was my mother. Can you imagine a graduate nurse in an Alaskan village or a Siberian village plying her knowledge? How many would choose ?
Pat, a TV show riff on this was Northern Exposure…where the doctor who went to the rural Alaskan village did so to “work off” his medical college student loans (even crushingly huge in those days)….and the Doc became an integral part of the community. I assume programs like this still exist (they did when I worked in the college student aid field before I retired)…most were Federal, but some state & local gov’t also got on board as incentives to work in rural or underserved communities. A whole other expanded education!
Yes, Pat Cole! That’s the idea. Draftees in service to America. No one escapes the two years. You could do them after medical school (we need free medical school for qualified candidates), or after graduate school, but you have to do it! The Peace Corps can be part of the plan. The important learning is a second language requirement in high school and/or college to sharpen minds and get exceptionalism out of our heads. Of course the state of US at this time may give all but the most racist and oligarchical a different look at ourselves.
I served for 2 years in the National Health Service Corps in 8 poor counties in West Virginia, after the government paid for my masters degree in community health nursing. I felt like I gained much more from those good people than I gave. I wouldn't require it of every young citizen, but I would greatly expand the program. Maybe it could be from funds transferred OUT of the Defense Department.
No, sorry, compulsory service of any kind should be as verboten as slavery. People should WANT to serve their country, but in a free country, NO ONE should be forced to do so. That is the definition of slavery and if you fail to see that, you are just part of the problem.
I see your point, Jon--to a point. Many things in life are compulsory; mutual obligations are part and parcel of living in community. A national service program wouldn't be any more slave-like than compulsory education is.
Well, sorry but I disagree. Mutual obligations are completely different from any kind of compulsory program. As for compulsory education...
Compulsory education isn't TRULY compulsory. Parents can withhold their children from it if they choose. And the purpose of the edict for whatever compulsory education you think exists is to teach the person themselves, NOT to use them in the service of others. And again, this happens BEFORE the age of 18. Once you reach the age of 18, you have the right (or should have the right) to make those decisions for yourself and there is no compulsory program of any kind other than if you are incarcerated for committing a crime after you turn 18.
I guess we'll disagree, Jon. I don't see national service as slavery. Even when children are home-schooled, that's an alternative to in-school compulsory education. There are standards to meet. Formal education benefits the individual, yes, but it also benefits society, which is why it's compelled, either in a communal setting or at home. At 18 people do have the right to make most decisions for themselves. But often the decisions we make, e.g. whether to have a driver's license, depends on meeting requirements that are compelled by law. We're compelled to do that, and many other things.
" Mutual obligations are completely different from any kind of compulsory program." Because obligatory and compulsory are different words doesn't change the character of the underlying reality, Jon. We're required/ obligated/ compelled to do many things. That doesn't make us enslaved. When you suggest this I think you cheapen what enslavement is and was.
Agree, Jon. Not only should young people WANT to serve this country, but that service should be a choice, of many choices this country could offer. My 2 years in the National Health Service Corps in Appalachia, after the program paid for my masters degree in nursing, was of great benefit to me, to the school, and (I hope) to the people I served in West Virginia, and then to all my patients in my 47 year career after that. We should seek a Better America.
My idea is for two years mandatory service between high school and college. Military, Peace Corps, or a modern iteration of the CCC where construction, heavy equipment, electrical, plumbing, and other hands on skills are taught. Get sent to a different region of the country, and insure that race, gender/gender identity, culture, and socioeconomic status are diverse. Then go to college to learn, train, play sports, and come away with a degree that matters.
I think exchange students and high school years abroad are fantastic - and what a way to open a young person's eyes to the world that is broader and often more culturally rich than America. I remember the exchange students who came to my town in high school - what a wonderful program.
Response to Pat Cole: I've believed that conflicts should be decided not with the use of weapons but by let's say a chess game or a ping-pong gam--that is, something non-violent. Why in the world did homo sapiens ever decide to pick up a tree branch or a stone to settle a dispute?
Because a club was easier to make than a rolling pin? I always thought you should put the leaders in leotards and televise their wrestling matches. One can’t tell a big dog what to do, but one can tell a lot by what they do. Loser has to give the winner a foot massage and a back scratch and quit smoking what Mary Pat and Jon are using this morning.
I'm thinking maybe a year-and-a-half of field work, Virginia, combined with diary keeping.
Maybe several stints of two or three months each, or three or four months each, for all 16- and 17-year-olds. With choices including forestry, animal husbandry, lab work, orcharding, hot house and green house cultivation, and other areas in health care, elder care, and child care.
A return to high school could conclude with the 18-year-olds forming teams with each other to turn diaries into either extended essays -- with reading citations included -- or speeches given as teams, with students citing each other's field experience on the same team.
Maybe best of all: they could all be free of testing during all this time.
He doesn’t get to say. He will be in the cell next to other verboten losers. I once worked a deal with an Iranian prince back in the 1980’s. It was to feed their sheep. Seems like they have to have feed rations produced by entities that have religious requirements. Montana was okay in their book. The port of Butte was newly minted and 100 car trains of complete feed could be manufactured in Great Falls. They would ship to the then Gulf of Mexico. I even arranged a shipping captains route through the Straits of Hormuz which was tricky and by his approval only. And that was clear back then. My cousin was an international lawyer in Havre. He arranged the charter. All was a go. Nope the wise men on the board said. We don’t dare piss off the people who buy our feed. We will just limp along in the red like we are now. I thought the young prince attending MSU agricultural school in Bozeman was the real meal deal what with an intact intelligence and a balanced humanity. But the republicans ruled against and went home to their water pipes and that was that. My insight into Iran formed my basis for finding Iranians to be human too. Boy was I wrong. Apparently we need to kill them all starting with their daughters. God forbid they should live to breed.
If he wants them he will take them, whether or not there is a compulsory service program. Right now he has instituted a well-paid group of thugs to take over our cities. Mercenaries. Bounty-hunters. When he wants 'recruits' he'll have them, one way or another.
I’ve had enough of his bullshit. In fact I just hand shoveled 5 loads into my manure spreader and as we say “flailed the shit out of it.” Sadly my loader tractor is in pieces as I rebuild the motor, transmission, hydraulic pump, and fuel injection pump. Keeps me out of the pool hall. I have another 10 loads of Trump to hand shovel. No problem.
Many in our current Congress need reminders of their humanity. Be LOUD! 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
Thank you, Megan! Let’s make more good trouble at the next no kings protest on March 28. Here is the no kings anthem that we can sing together: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/no-kings-anthem
FINDING THE TRUTH... LIES, dressed in camo, march into the sandstorm of Trump's illusory war... While TRUTH, spattered in blood, fights on-seeking an oasis from the regime that desires its death...
"President Trump has called news coverage of the war 'criminal' and 'unpatriotic', while FCC chairman (Brendan Carr) threatens broadcasters' licenses." (Huff. Post) Pete Hegseth:"The sooner David Ellison takes over CNN, the better." "CBS will end its nearly 100 year-old Radio News Service. (Politico) "Pete Hegseth's attempt to shut press out of Pentagon doesn't hold up in court." (Brian Tyler Cohen) The Communications Act grants the President certain National Emergency powers over radio emissions and wired networks.(Act needs reform)
Our biggest National Emergency sits in the White House... It's up to us to support Independent Media with our hearts and souls and pocketbooks. Think what it would be like(Putin's Russia, for example) to live in the total darkness of lies. "To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis on which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.(Timothy Snyder/On Tyranny) Snyder's latest post on why MARCH 28 Protest matters is outstanding! https://snyder.substack.com/p/no-kings-freedom We may be exhausted, but we are not done...
The people to religiously watch FOX already live in total darkness. We just need to be sure that darkness doesn't spread any more than it already has!
And it's no longer just FOX. The money people are buying up all of media. Soon, the only way to get true and accurate information will be to get it from overseas sources such as Guardian, Economist, or Reuters. Perhaps, The CBC can hold out but it appears that the BBC is crumbling to the Josef Goebbels wannabes.
I get mine from Guardian, Economist, Reuters, BBC (world news isn't crumbling at all, as far as I can detect), Le Monde and Al Jazeera.
Same. And, selectively, from Australian media. There is an excellent news program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ("ABC") channel, titled "Planet America," which aims to explain US current events and politics to an Australian audience. Balanced reporting and frequent input from US politicians, experts, lawmakers and historians. I frequently wish my US family and friends would watch and learn.
Besides the sources you mention, except the BBC, I subscribe to two Japanese language sources (in English), The Japan Times and The Japan News (Yomiuri). The Japan News mostly reprints Reuters and AFP-Jiji. To date, NYT is still an excellent source. I recently cancelled my subscription to WaPo. Their decline is one of the saddest things I've seen in media.
I subscribe to the Guardian and find its news and editorials to be excellent, objective and definitely leans toward truth and evidence.
And what of NPR?
I get my news from Substack, from Professors Richardson and Krugman, from the Contrarian, Bulwark, Quora Digest, Medusa, and from many on YouTube as well as Al Jazeera, the Guardian, etc.
Cable TV is losing millions of subscribers every year and yet the fools like Ellison are buying the network and cable news.
I also pounce on every podcast by Bernie.
Not Civil Discourse - by Joyce Vance? Another good one.
How about FREE SPEECH TV which I've been watching for many years. Stephanie Miller at 6:am, Thom Hartman at 9am and then Rick Smith at noon many more all day/night
Well, I live in Japan so my access to American TV is (happily) limited. It also helps being deaf so all I know, I know from reading and silent video clips on Japanese TV. All this has definitely helped lower my blood pressure.
Aha, you're on the west coast Julie. I love Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartman but John Fugelseng is my favorite on progress radio.
Massed pinpoints of light will do much.
Unfortunately, this is very true. We know from personal experience that friends who watch Fox News are mostly ignorant of things actually going on in the country, because Fox News leaves them in a comfortable fact-free universe.
Best description of the Fauxled that I have ever seen!
@ return. The majic word is EPSTEIN!
We also need to restore real, respectful debates among citizens who disagree though, because that's the very fabric of any democracy. Without that, neofascists will always easily be able to grab power and contaminate others with their propaganda.
Thomas Jefferson was once asked if he had to choose between having a free government or a free press, which would he insist on, which would he give up? He didn't hesitate -- a free press was paramount (excuse the obvious pun). With it, you may one day get a free government (and keep it), without it, you're simply doomed.
Back then, "free" simply meant unburdened by state censorship. Today, it so obviously means media not under the control of a few oligopolies. Yet Skydance-Paramount just won their bidding war for control over HBO, CNN and Warner Bros, giving new meaning to "infotainment" -- a truly powerful, insidious form of censorship by another name. At the same time, Trump and his cronies have wasted no time in gutting PBS as a symbol of something "independent" they could not control.
The biggest wallet, the most blinding lights indeed.
Fortunately, although PBS was "defunded", aspects of it are still thriving. My car radio is tuned to NPR, our only TV news show is the PBS NewsHour. Solid so far. We boosted our monthly donation. That plus a curated list of Substack authors...all set.
Our TV news show is Maine PBS. And on Fridays nights PBS also has the excellent Washington Week with the Atlantic Magazine, hosted by Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
The problem began 140 years ago in 1886, when the Supreme Court constructed a doctrine known today as corporate personhood. It began in Santa “Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company”, 118 US 394. The Court arrogantly refused to hear arguments against its decision of one of the most important matters to ever come before the Court, whether the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment secures a corporation as a person with equal protection of the laws. The Court wrote its decision in a mere headnote of a case decided on a totally different issue. That headnote reads, “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which for bids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.” In all truth, the Fourteenth Amendment was a direct response to the Court’s 1857, holding in “Dred Scott v. Sandford”, 60 U.S. 393 (hereinafter, “Dred Scott”) which pushed America into Civil War. In “Dred Scott” the Court held that Mr. Scott, a person, was property with no rights. In “Santa Clara” the Court held that a corporation, property, is a person with rights. Thus "Paramount, a Skydance Corporation", is claimed by the Supreme Court to have equal protection of the laws.
Jefferson wrote, “I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.” Thus he never intended freedom of the press to be transferred to the aristocracy of our monied corporations. Freedom of expression was intended to be secured as one of the rights of all individual persons, not a creature of the State. On page 12 of my "Memorandum to We the People" I explain how the Supreme Court worked like a street hustler playing a fast shell game with words as they created the corporate personhood lie. Please download, read, share and discuss my Memorandum. You can also download the logo for the No Kings march at UnitedWeAmend.org
@Albert. The Court did nothing of the kind. What happened is that their decision, which did not address whether corporations are people, was mis-stated in the headnote.
The Author: The headnote was written by J.C. Bancroft Davis, the Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions and a former railroad president.
The "Statement": Before oral arguments began, Chief Justice Morrison Waite remarked that the Court did not wish to hear argument on whether the 14th Amendment applies to corporations because "we are all of opinion that it does".
Legal Weight: Davis included Waite's oral comment in the headnote as if it were a formal holding of the Court. However, the official written opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan did not mention corporate personhood or the 14th Amendment.
I've been arguing that coram nobis should be applied. Subsequent courts, starting with Smyth v. Ames (1898), relied on the Santa Clara headnote to treat corporate personhood as "settled law". It eventually formed the basis for modern decisions like First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti and Citizens United v. FEC.
No. The Court reporter’s job is to report the “official opinion of the Court.” It is not published as such unless the Court agrees. That headnote is a part of the final official opinion of the “Santa Clara” (1886) case. Second, you ignore the case of “Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania,” 25 U.S. 181, decided by the identical members of the Supreme Court just two years later in 1888. In an 8 to 0 opinion Justice Stephen J. Field delivered the opinion of the Court writing as to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, “Under the designation of person there is no doubt that a private corporation is included. Such corporations are merely associations of individuals united for a special purpose ...”. For more on this topic, and the many other problems the Court has caused, please read, share and discuss the facts and the resolve in my Memorandum at UnitedWeAmend.org.
And yet there seems to be the mythical notion that the free press of Jefferson's day was non-partisan journalism.
You know it was anything but.
You remember Jefferson was instrumental in financing Philip Freneau's The National Gazette in response to the Federalist's support of The Wasp. And Hamilton's defense of Harry Croswell in his partisan attacks on Jefferson, a defense that would be enacted in law.
Jefferson was great man, but we should remember that the partisan press has always been with us. A free press implies a partisan press.
It is up to us the be the devout skeptics of what we see and read.
The issue is not, and should not, be the political opinion expressed in the press, but rather what is the press? IOW, is the expression a product by a creature of the State (a private corporation) or the opinion of an individual person? My point above is that the First Amendment is focused on the equal rights of all individual persons, not corporations. As I state in my Memorandum, "Imagine Chief Justice John Marshall in 1801, holding The East India Co., which owned those three ships loaded with tea in Boston Harbor in 1773, is a person with equal protection of the laws. The Court probably would have been tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail by the Sons of Liberty. I discuss all of this in my Memorandum w/ a model amendment at UnitedWeAmend.org.
It seems to me that we’re moving alarmingly fast to what I would call Neo-Feudalism. And that much of the so-called news media is "obeying in advance" and allowing "Democracy to Die in Darkness".
It was ever thus. https://lorenbliss-outsideagitatorsnotebook.blogspot.com/2025/10/censorship-lessons-from-nader-and.html
Michele2., Thank you for mentioning Tim Snyder. And isn’t this quote more and more pertinent as the gang is wallpapering the airways, papers in every possible way with lies?
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
— Henry David Thoreau
Great quote! Thank you...
I'm supporting many substacks all the way to the poor house.
Yeah, me too. I finally had to make a list and expiration date for my various newsletters, etc. Now that I’ve had some time with them all, I’m culling.
Stephanie, it seems to me that Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi, owners of Substack could – and SHOULD – develop a quantity discount for subscribers to multiple Substacks.
The content creators, such as HCR, receive only a portion of the subscription price. I believe the owners could afford to take smaller dips from the pockets of their multi-subscribers. But where there's media, there's greed.
The Ministry of Propaganda will be an arm of Truth Social. Or is it reversed. Whatever Putin says…..
For what it’s worth, Professor Richardson is hosting an interview with Timothy Snyder this week, March 25th at 1pm.
Thanks. I also watched a great conversation yesterday between Strongman author Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Nina Burleigh, whose Freak Show Substack addresses the subjugation of women.
''From Backlash to Breakthrough: How the Trump-MAGA Era Could Give Birth to a Deeper American Democracy''
Can a democracy survive by restoring what already failed? This essay argues that the post-MAGA future must go further, toward decentralized participatory democracy and Resourceism, where power, stewardship, and public life move back into the people. https://essayx.substack.com/p/from-backlash-to-breakthrough-how
Excellent article... and beautifully written...At this point, the concept of "resourceism" (which was a new term to me) seems almost a necessity for any social order going forward if the planet's ecosystem is to survive. How we accomplish that is the question.. Thank you for sharing your article!
I read HCR, Hubbell, Joyce Vance, Jay Kuo. I watch Stephen Colbert and sometimes Kimmel. When commuting 3x/week, I listen to NPR. I still don't get enough news, but I have limited time! (Also, no TV - we don't have reception!)
Public Servant, I will be at a No Kings Rally in Germany. My Indivisible Abroad group was one of the original 3 to plan a NK3 rally, and now 9 cities in Germany will be having one. New Indivisible Abroad groups are springing up in Germany. We started our Indivisible Abroad group at the end of January, and since then we have been working tirelessly on this rally. Here is the link tree, but it is not complete.
https://linktr.ee/IndivisibleAbroadNoKings3
We have invited a former German politician to speak, and an Iranian professor, and we have student involvement as well. Our rally will be small and we are a small group of people but we will be inviting Germans to join our small group of Americans in standing up to the Trump regime and all of its tyranny.
Indivisible Abroad has made a statement against the war that our groups have signed on to. https://indivisibleabroad.org/
I was in Chicago at the first NO Kings Rally. Then, I helped organize a second one here in Bremen. We were not Indivisible sponsoring it, but it was the theme of a regular creative get together for Democracy. People came even from neighboring countries. Some people came from Belgium. They came from neighboring states as well. Here is our Insta. Please follow us. https://www.instagram.com/indivisiblebremen?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Thank you, Linda! Thank you for your activism with Democrats Abroad, too. I live in Portugal, and am planning to join the No Kings/No Tyrants rally in Lisbon.
That is great Abbie! I see you are meeting at the Praça do Comércio. That is a lovely place to meet. I was in Lisbon 2 years ago in Spring. We had a wonderful time and met up with friends from Chicago who had just moved there. Now they have had their first child and are really glad to be raising her in Portugal.
In solidarity!✌🏾
I've passed this to my good German friends in Bremen.
Thank you Peter.
I was just reading in Spy News how Hegseth, and Rubio are hiding in Bunkers on Base in DC right now. People in DC should talk about how they hide while putting a target on the backs of all Americans.
Linda Weide, I’m in awe of and applaud your intelligent pov and leadership abroad. The Germans certainly know all too well about tyranny.
Of course heg & rub are cowering. Bravado like theirs is the giveaway for cowardice.
samani, thank you. I am glad to have chosen a city of activists here in Germany. I actually know activists around the country at this point as we have been collaborating on our rallies.
It's downright disgusting! Ah, the names I could come up with - but I'm sure everyone here has a few of their own!
Agreed.
Impressive! The world needs to speak loudly against this regime. What is happening in the US will affect them!
I agree.
I work at a local NPR station where we host a talk show every day. We have had Iranian Americans as guests. Some support the war, some do not.
Typically citizens rally around their flag in times of war, something Trump counted on that with Americans but did not figure on with Iranians. Americans are not buying this one, and nothing unites a people like being bombed upon. If ever a nation needed a reason to develop a nuclear weapon to defend itself we just gave it to Iran. As awful as they are, this war is pushing them even further down a dark hole.
Good luck with your rallies, our former allies need to stand up to Trump and give him his much needed comeuppance.
https://www.wxxinews.org/show/connections
Gary, I agree with what you are saying here. Thanks for the link.
I have been watching Malcolm Nance (former US intel) and Jacob Kaarsbo's (former Danish Intel, Station Chief) in the region on their Substack podcast each day for updates about the war. Sometimes they have a Saudi Arabian guy who is a political analyst on as well, telling them the chatter on the internet from different countries that are allied with Trump in the region. In any case, the person who is speaking at our rally is not for the war. I think many people who were happy about the Ayatollah being gone now have realized this is not regime change this is a fight for survival of Iran. Venezuelans also have realized they have nothing to be grateful for. Let us hope more US voters realize that too.
Linda, thanks for your effort. We need everyone.
In Solidarity Sara! ✌🏾
Thank you!
In Solidarity JudiLI! ✌🏾
💥💥💥 DON'T MISS VIDEO! 🧨🧨🧨 See how the official Chinese government TV channel presents the Iran War to its citizens.
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/dont-miss-video
It's splendid, isn't it! Interesting graphic technique.
Can't watch it. Not allowed by Gmail.
Powerful, and painfully accurate.
Excellent video.
spot on
Thanks. This was the second comic I have seen from China making fun of Trump. Someone else posted one Chinese and one Iranian, but I cannot remember who did that. Perhaps Jeff Tiedrich.
Exactly the ideals expressed that I grew up with… so proud that we had put those other “selfish & Bigoted” excuses behind us in a civil war. NO GOING BACK!
I’m not sure where to begin. My interpretation of certain original documents informs me that the Founders many of them and perhaps not all (John Adams being one), but many were arguing for freedom from taxation without representation and not much more. Come on, that highly intelligent businessman Thomas Jefferson figured out early on how to extract the maximum use of his slaves in his nail factory; how many nails could be forged from the metal in one day, how much each enslaved ate and the housing costs. Who the fuck was this guy to tell history and me that he was in favor of equality of the races? Who?
We have deceived ourselves thinking those many founders gave a shit about enslavement. They wanted freedom from taxation. It was a very imperfect founding with some good seeds to grow and sprout if allowed.
Now we live in the 21st century and suddenly I’m being accused of privilege for having mostly white skin. ( I do claim partial African roots due to my Sicilian side that had Egyptian bloodlines.) And through our slicing and dicing of our sub groups, reverse racism is enshrined in DEI which btw, I am equally against. I was brought up to believe that we are all or should be equal no one better than the other and I’m personally sick and tired of DEI and you might not believe me but I’m a raging liberal whatever that means, lol. And through inventions like DEI, we get a backlash from a large segment of “privileged” educated young white men who revenge vote at the polls and help elect the antichrist of the ages. Try and square that peg hole please.
Of course it’s much more complicated than I have just described. And as I write this at 1:07 AM, I’m sitting on the floor of a side room watching over a mama cat again not eating as she lactates for her 4 offspring and frankly I don’t give a hoot about humanity right now since this family of cats is more important to me that the Straits of Hormuis. They have quieted down now and are sleeping. I probably won’t get much sleep.
Bill, being WOKE does not mean implementing DEI. It means people with Brown skin, often called Black, and formerly this applied to Italians and Irish too, need to be more careful than others about their safety so be aware of who is around you and what the situational dynamics are. It comes from a Leadbelly song if I am not mistaken. I have always been Woke in that sense even though I have a "white" mother. She is woke too, as having Brown skinned children makes people.
Here is a friend sharing her research after I pointed out that DeSantis misuses the term.
"originating from the 1938 protest folksong 'Scottsboro Boys' by Lead Belly
Lead Belly advises '...best stay woke, keep their eyes open'
"'..woke and staying woke explicitly referred to the need for Afro-Americans to be acutely aware and conscious of the dangers and threats that were inherent to a white-dominated racist America (from the article; see selection below).' "
I used to teach my students what WOKE meant through a book of poetry forms and we were working on making a better world. That included having different groups recognized in our curriculum and environmental protections. We did a unit on poetry at the same time that we did activism on the environment (Another "Woke" topic) and we used this "Dictionary for a Better World" to learn different forms of poetry. https://lernerbooks.com/shop/show/19476?srsltid=AfmBOooVc6Jf0VVQnhVp_8vnXJBedHZ9KsPRKED8H0GXR7z9VuON8vVb
From this our students did an ad campaign using poetry and turning them into jingles in videos where they were taking on different aspects of Great Lakes Stewardship.
I am tired of being an activist on many days, but I would have less energy for life if I did not allow my activism to help me to be hopeful. I can do my little part. I could have been sleeping in too. All of my Indivisible group here in Bremen did not see spending their lives doing active resistance against the Trump regime, and any other fascist regime that happens to follow. However, this is what life has offered us. In fact, we have people who have joined our little group who never did any activism before. Advertising the No Kings rally has made those who are growing WOKE, to want to do something to resist.
Fantastic, Linda, thank you for this. I love diversity, I love equality, I love inclusion. Stephen Miller and his acolytes have made DEI a bad "word" but it is, in my view, a step forward in social evolution to level the playing field. Does it make some people uncomfortable? Hell yeah. To that I say, walk in mile in the shoes of someone who doesn't have your unearned privileges.
I agree signe. When the term woke came out I struggled to figure out what it really meant. I didn't even know which side it referred to. Then I started thinking what would be the opposite of being woke. I came up with the words asleep, unconscious, not evolved, ignorant. I decided I would much rather be WOKE!
Same! Here's my take:
W = Wise
O = Open-minded
K = Kind
E = Empathetic
I'd rather be that, any day.
Thanks. I agree Signe.
And least my comments to equality and being against racism are questioned in any way, as a child I had the biggest fist fight with a childhood chum when he used the “N” word to describe the new neighbors. I asked him to stop using that word and he proceeded to yell it repeatedly at me until I lunged at him and a horrible fight ensued. I almost killed him that day. As I walked home he continued shouting that nasty word and I can still hear him yelling it. Sometimes when I drive down that street I more clearly hear him shouting it.
When I was 7 both N words were applied to me. My mom had to explain to me what a Nazi was. I did not know what the boy in my class, who was always in trouble had called me. I understood the other N word though. My mom just told me that people who use it do not feel good about themselves and they try to spread their bad feelings to other people. Well, it was successful.
The problem is that being woke became a parody of itself. When it went from being cognizant of issues faced by certain populations to being virtue signaling and a purity test it committed suicide.
The same with DEI. Being labelled a racist in America is a negative assessment of one's character. Labelling every White American a racist was the undoing of the purpose of DEI.
Pogo.
Gary, I would disagree. Being WOKE is a language within a community that is still valid. It is those who appropriated it and tried to make it their own who have destroyed it for themselves and those to whom the word does not belong anyway.
I posit that the stupidity of the stupid White people who decided they had to get in on the use of the word, and feel the need to always make everything relevant to themselves is the problem. DEI is not the problem, the problem is the problems DEI is trying to solve. The term has not solved the problems, but neither has anything else. I don't blame the term, but the people misusing it. I know enough for a lifetime. Yet, the words themselves have meanings and awareness is key.
I would make the argument that every White person who embraces the identity of being "White" is racist. Otherwise they would not be "Passing." They would not divide the human species up into divisions based on unclear shades of skin.
No DEI initiative labels all white people as racist. That is a canard pushed by Fox News, right wing talk radio and social media, and slime politicians such as Ron Desantis. Why you gus live to have your buttons pushed is beyond me.
Yes it is much more complicated than what you describe Bill.
The Founders, I believe did want equality for all people, but in their frame of reference that did not include black people or women. Not all of those men were slave owners. That makes those that did, flawed…not bad.
It was in the 80 years following the American Revolution this country came to recognize the true evil of slavery… and later recognizing that the subjugation of women was wrong.
The Founders said “in order to create a more perfect union”… they knew there was work to be done.
As to DEI… as a white woman of a certain age I can tell you that the cards were stacked against my demographic until we stood up and said “this is wrong.”
DEI takes that further to include many other groups, who were not allowed full participation. It says that EVERYONE should be considered and that the BEST person for a job or school, should get it.
That is what the Founding Fathers were seeking… a nation that considered that ALL people were created equal.
Then and now the only people who seem to have a problem with that are white men who were used to the easy road.
Interestingly the 15th and 19th Amendments did not grant Blacks and women the right to vote. They prohibited the states from denying them the right. That is a significant difference. It implies the right always existed.
One argument that I cannot penetrate this hardened wall of DEI is that it, among other issues, has served to divide us US. That in itself should be the reason to bury it. It really separates us. I can’t litigate the past as justification of it today. Of course women were NOT (added) accepted as full citizens sounds ridicules today. Afrocentric people were less than a full person. Either live in the 18th, 19th or 20th centuries. Or the 21st century. We’ve come a long way baby…
Now let me personalize it. I made a huge mistake applying to be a vendor at the democratic national convention in 2024. I skipped over the “virtual” application. It was only a data collection exercise so we could be hounded to death for donations. But stupid me, I thought I was going to the convention to sell art and my book. So I applied and I reached the app when it asked me; 1. Are you woman-owned?, 2. Are you Union friendly?, 3. Are you LBGTQ?, 4. Something else I don’t recall. Not once did they ask me if I was a single proprietor or the size of my business. I was so pissed off that day I could have easily just moved and joined MAGA. Oh, holy shit no shit Dick Tracy. That wasn’t going to happen. Others have no doubt. I actually thought to lie and say I was gay just to be favored.
I have a Black woman acquaintance of mine who was able to get into a convention-like annual event to showcase our products and services. She got in for free but there was a charge for me because I’m white. Oh, no shit.
I will be against this form of reverse discrimination until the day I die. And btw, this woman in question has a business larger and more successful than mine. I wish her all the success. So you may carry your social guilt where ever it pleases you. I don’t have any. I was raised to see people all people as equals. There is no reason for me to change at this point in my life.
This conversation would be too involved to have here.
You are complaining about and to, the wrong audience.
On one hand you are correct, yes, certain populations have had it harder than others. But to assert that white men have necessarily had "it easy" is a dismissal of a perspective that needs to be taken into account.
Where DEI went too far was in the broad brush labelling of every White person as a racist responsible for the sins of their fathers.
It is an involved conversation, unfortunately when we hear things such as "we need to have a hard conversation" it usually implies that someone is assumed wrong and needs correction rather than an involved or open conversation.
I’m expressing my opinion sorry to displease you.
So sorry your white male privilege card isn't being honored the way you think it should.
Welcome to how many of us live in a regular basis.
Try adopting a cat.
That assumption of Bill is the same kind of thinking adherents of MAGA exhibit.
Your response to Bill is not an argument but a school yard retort.
Bill never asked for privilege, that's an inaccurate articulation of his postion.
Actual DEI initiatives are pretty mild stuff. To the extent that DEI is a wall, it’s because the right wants it that way (they are great at building walls).
Ginning up sanctimonious outrage over DEI allows certain white people to perform a moral jiu jitsu in which they are self-pitying victims of people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ people—I.e., the most powerless people in our country. Under other circumstances, it would be laughable.
Not all DEI programs were the same.
Some were reasonable and others weren't. Some included Ronin DeAngelo's statements on White people and his stereotyping all White people as racists, in particular he demeans White progressives as the worst racists.
This claim that all White people are evil and racist was not unheard in some DEI programs.
Then there is this, the propaganda that diversity necessarily promotes creativity or increases productivity turned out to be nonsense with no data behind it. It was feel good poppycock that when uncovered for what it was, a lie, turned thinking people off of its value. Even NPR got that right, unless you want to argue NPR is a lackey for conservative thought.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/03/nx-s1-5281168/corporate-america-dei-trump-diversity-business-stakeholder-capitalism
Whatever its good moral intentions were, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and so it was with DEI. Good riddance to bad garbage. Let's hope the next efforts at addressing biases are better thought out and honest.
And let's not miss the point, the reaction we're seeing to Bill is one factor that got Trump elected. This sanctimonious smugness on the part of the extreme left of the Democratic party is why so many trust them less than Republicans.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but blaming the right for every failure of the left just isn't working.
Pogo.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/58159636-white-fragility-why-it-s-so-hard-for-white-people-to-talk-about-racism
Since when are gay and lesbian people discriminated against. Oh God give me a break.
One point of clarification, there was a recognition that slavery was wrong long before the 1850's. The New York Manumission Society was formed even before the Constitution was written. Jefferson although a product of his times wrote of the evils of slavery and foresaw its end.
Agreed that the Constitution was an ideal to be achieved, do not forget that it was only because of the efforts of White men that the 15th and 19th Amendments passed. The populations they enfranchised were dependent upon their recognition of such movements to create the better union that they were brought to fruition. The wholesale demonization of White men is partially the reason we have Trump in power.
Gary, it’s had to make them understand this wise thought. But you stated correctly when you said that we behave the same as the MAGA member when it comes to criticism of our own.
So Bill you’re opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion. Does that mean you support homogeneity, inequities and exclusion?
The only reason the concept of DEI was a thing is because for more than 200 years people with darker skin were excluded from many aspects of American society. People with white skin were “privileged” because they were (are) included in all aspects of society.
Do you like what you see in the Republican Party and the Trump administration? Homogeneity, inequities and exclusion galore.
This is a problem on both sides; any questioning of a program, idea or concept is taken as if DEI were a zero-sum game. If one questions whether the program went too far, as it did in some cases, then one must necessarily be racist, misogynist, or a white Supremacist.
One can legitimately question that in some DEI programs labeling every White person, including White women, a racist, and every man a misogynist by accident of birth was it's own undoing.
And remember, the right does the same thing. Every "Libtard" supporting Harris necessarily favored "open borders" and the mutilation of children.
"A plague on both their houses." ~Mercutio
Thank you you have illustrated these points better than I have.
No you misread as I would expect most here to do. I am in favor of equality for all. That’s where I land and that’s where I stand. I stopped being in fashion after my Carnaby Street clothing fad ended even though I still have my pinstriped jacket and my Tom McCain black suede Beatle boots which I never wear. They are not comfortable. And never were. And my hip hugging bell bottomed slacks were not exactly comfy but they looked so cool.
One of the best examples of DEI I can remember of seeing how much better people can do than those in the groups they had previously been excluded from is the case of the Tuskegee graduates in the Red Tail bomber escorts of the 332nd Fighter Group.
Benjamin O. Davis as I recall was the only living Black graduate of West Point at the time he became its commander. He defended their continued use by keeping statistics on the bombers lost when escorted by different units, showing there was little comparison since essentially no bombers were lost (I believe from aerial attack, though two might have been lost to ground fire).
He did it by insisting his pilots stay close to the bombers to protect them and never go off chasing enemy fighters for personal scores (like so many other units had been doing). He had the whole tail painted Red so both the enemy and bomber crews could see who they were, and had them fly close enough so the bomber crews could see their faces and appreciate that Black pilots were the ones that kept so many of them safe enough to make it home.
I met 5 of the Airmen at a Black History month parade in San Bernardino back in the 1990s, and as a rare White person (who happened to be wearing a Kodak owned company badge), got to sit a few seats down from Rosa Parks in the review stand. My son was a Civil Air Patrol Flag Bearer, I'd intended to just drop off on my way to put in some overtime, but stayed when I saw Rosa, the Tuskegee Airmen, and the celebrities from shows like "Tour of Duty." The youngsters wanted to hear of Black aces, of which there were none.
One of 332nd, I believe Robert Friend, whom I've met half a dozen times later, told me they weren't allowed to chase fighters like the non-black pilots could until very late when it was possible to do it with out risking bombers.
Early in the war the fighters didn't have the range to escort the bombers to the furthermost targets so, to me, there were periods where they tried to shoot down as many German fighters as possible, especially the best German pilots. That may have worked until the less well trained pilots waited until the escorts had to turn back and the bombers became easier target. We eventually heavily out numbered them with many more fighters that also became longer range capable with drop tanks (plus having a lot more experienced pilots with much more higher octane fuel available).
To me Davis' earlier concentration on preventing bomber losses left him with far more meaningful statistics (and many bomber units that tried their best to get them as escorts when it counted most). It enlightened me on weighing who was more effective in reaching the end goals with the right tactics at the right time.
Fundamentally, does not DEI simply mean the same thing as the national motto: E PLURIBUS UNUM?
The problem is not with the principle but with the bureaucratic schoolmarmery of its application via a mass of pettifogging regulations and the imposed requirement that access to any post of responsibility must depend on formally signing up to statements that confine the First Amendment to a straitjacket.
An extreme irritation even to to those who uphold the underlying principle.
I am strangely reminded of how, at age 8 in South Africa, I saw how the incoming Afrikaner nationalist Malan government changed the physical landscape in which I lived.
Even before the key word Apartheid, literally "aparthood", meaning separate racial development, became omnipresent, large notices sprouted everywhere proclaiming regulations, and said regulations physically separated white from "non-white".
What had hitherto been a matter of custom became subject to intrusive regulation.
Originally, "woke" was a completely natural development, a deep, ancient abscess broke surface, suppurating. Considering the depth and the centuries of extreme injustice underlying the phenomenon, the physical reaction was -- unlike, say, the Watts riots -- surprisingly peaceful. But it was enough to arouse deep fears among a certain class of whites, and their political representatives like the governors of Florida and Texas ordered the unsightly abscess to get back to where it came from... deep in long-suffering bodies and minds.
Then came that secondary development which I call "whitewoke" (close to whitewash), shame among white would-be progressives giving rise to the ideological straitjacket of political correctness enforced by intrusive regulation and preachy bullying... Bullying reminiscent, at worst, of Fascist squadrismo, Nazi brownshirts, the Red Guards' thamzing, or "struggle sessions"...
Here, I'll switch metaphors to the stinking corpse of the albatross hanging from the neck of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner...
P.S. Bill Katz
When you speak of John Adams, I can't help remembering the cast-iron complacency of the man and how, despite (perhaps because of?) his marriage to the highly intelligent Abigail, he rejected out of hand as a crazy abstraction the contention of the great French philosopher Condorcet that women are males' equals.
That strain of Neanderthal prejudice is still as present as ever in today's America -- a compensation for the grave deficiency in young white men's self-respect and self-confidence?
Our country was built on the backs of slave laborers. It continues to do so with prison slave labor thanks to the 13th Amendment. In a reinvented USA, after we get rid of the right wing branch taking over our government, that needs to be readdressed.
Ya I just read that section 1 of the 13th. Sure looks like an invite to me. As to Peter’s comment on John Adams, I referred to his anti slave sentiment and being unaware of his feelings toward women.
Agreed with your first statement, but I'm not convinced the US economy is based on prison labor. Is mass incarceration a problem? Of course, but that our economy is built upon prison labor seems an exaggeration.
John Roberts said after the court struck down the end of affirmative action: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race." However, I have read that since that ruling Black students have been underrepresented in many prestigious universities and by extension will Blacks be underrepresented in other leadership positions? And the wealth gap grows. So DEI was supposedly not a quota but a modest factor in a holistic assessment of each individual applicant who, historically, had been left out of access. I'm a mere messenger here. These do not necessarily represent my opinion....
“Now we live in the 21st century and suddenly I’m being accused of privilege for having mostly white skin.”
Wah. Whine. Boo hoo. I have it so tough because I’m white. I make more money, I have more money, I’m healthier, I’m safer, I’m better educated. From cradle to impending grave I’ve had more opportunities. Geez, I’d have had to work harder to screw up than to get ahead. Naturally, DEI has me quaking in my boots.
BTW, there’s no such thing as reverse racism. It is a contradiction in terms.
The idea that every White guy makes more money, is healthier, is safer, better educated and given unlimited opportunities is reverse racism.
It is the assigning of a character to entire class of people based on race.
When the racism toward a class of people id reversed it is reverse racism, hardly a contradiction of terms.
Let us strive toward MLK's goal or eliminating racism in all its forms.
It is a fact that in general white people make more money, have more wealth, have better access to health care, have better educational opportunities, and more opportunities in general. Period.
Again, there is no such thing as reverse racism. It is a contradiction in terms.
Hahahahahahaha.
Damn, do you have to dredge the sewers for shit on our founders. Their flaws are well known. Pet your kitties and chill
Hay… hay… hay…. Texas. Stop slaughtering cattle they are beautiful animals, lol.
Obviously, CATS watch over us.
I agree. The Founders were creating a system for the wealthy, white and educated to rule. And the system is still set up that way. Hello..Voter suppression.
I'm reading the book "The Wrath to Come. Gone with the Wind and the lies America tells" ,by Sarah Churchwell. She explains how the power of the book Gone With the Wind teaches us how mythmaling works. Summaries how race, gender,the Lost Cause, the American Dream,fascism, the prison industrial complex all culminated with J6. Highly,highly recommend listening to any interview/ podcast she's been on. Just search by her name.
She really pulls the blinders off of how deeply the roots of racism reach. It would be fascinating to hear an interview with HCR and Sarah Churchwell
It was much more than that.
Taxation was only one issue. And less we forget the New York Manumission Society. Even Jefferson knew slavery was on its last legs and would end.
Kitty! Kitties!
So Bill Katz is watching over his cats….cute. ❤️
Meow. My book, “Katz on Cats and Other Animal Tails” will soon be published.
All by himself, our megalomaniac president, who fashions himself King of America and King of the World, has taken us to war with Iran. From from every perspective except the battlefield, we are losing the war. Public opinion, world opinion, financial impact on the US and on the rest of the world, disruption of energy supplies, leadership of the free world, destruction of the anti- American world, and so forth.
When the hostilities stop, the war's legacy will be a nightmare.
1. Terrorism returns to the US.
2. Putting decapitation at the forefront of his battle strategy, Donald Trump and his immediate family will be wearing targets on their backs for the rest of their lives.
So goes PAX Americana.
Merrill, I have a couple thoughts about your comment. The first is a suggested edit. Donald hasn't "taken us to war with Iran." He has made war ON Iran. The preposition, "with," implies that two adversaries have mutually escalated their hostilities to a state of war. That isn't the case with Iran, which is certainly not a friend of the U.S. But contrary to Donald's false claims, Iran was in effect, "minding their own business" when he decided to attack.
Second, if Donald and his family are now "wearing targets on their backs for the rest of their lives," I think that's a positive outcome. Hopefully, they won't have to wear those targets too long.
It is apparent that the country didn't leave the principles of inequality behind after the fifteenth Amendment was ratified, Jim Crow laws were implemented until 1965, and the wealthy citizens have always had favorable treatment over everyone else. Corporations are considered to be persons and given more incentives, including paying living wages and being responsible for the safety and well-being of their employees and the communities where they are located than real people as far as taxes and instead of paying their fair share of taxes, they spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars lobbying to end any regulations of any aspect of their business. And don't forget about the Republicans' use of the Southern Strategy from the moment the Equal Rights Act was passed, which is still used by every Republican today, and has brought the country to the lowest point in our history since the Civil War.
Hooray, Megan! Thank you for all your hard work in creating and maintaining this document!!!❤️✨️
Ditto. Megan it is great that you stay up or get up to make this the first post on HCR LFAA.
I also want to point out that on the Indivisible Abroad Website, https://indivisibleabroad.org/
under the link at the top that says "Actions,"
https://indivisibleabroad.org/actions.html
has a link to 5 calls under the topic "Call Your Representatives," which for all of us are long distance calls, but we do it anyway, but not every day.
https://5calls.org/
Also, see our No Kings Marches Abroad located on their website. This is also not up to date. https://www.nokings.org
It lists 7 of the 9 German ones, but Berlin (the capital) and Wiesbaden (with the heaviest concentration of Americans) are missing from the map. I also don't see the one in Ecuador and I believe there is one other South American country on the list. I have been in meetings with people from all over the world, and all of them sound so creative in what they are doing. I also know there are more in Italy. I know that Bologna is having one, and there may be other cities as well.
and on on this Link Tree which is also incomplete only having 7 of the 9 German ones and someone else told me one in Nice, France is missing.
https://app.slack.com/client/T08R1C8C5EG/C08RLNFDFFS
Please let people you know abroad to find out if there is a No Kings near them, and join it if they can. Also, please follow our Insta in Bremen, which also has a link tree link to the No Kings Rallies.
https://www.instagram.com/indivisiblebremen?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
She's a west coaster like me; I hope to get several of us here in the northwest section of Oregon together soon. We're in Keiser, Salem, Hood River, Portland area, Lake Oswego, and Eugene. As soon as I can drive again (I'm off the pain meds 3 days tomorrow morning) and I will be cleared to drive by Wednesday I want to set up a Portland area meet and greet. It will be dependent on Megan's schedule.
Keep me posted! Yay for being able to drive again soon! My mother in law broke a toe and not being able to drive is hard!
So, so hard. A good way to make sure I'm off the pain meds in a timely manner.
Sounds like a great idea. I hope you are pain free soon.
Thankfully she posts a lot before I go to bed. Ally is right I’m on the west coast :)
However the past 3 weeks I’ve been a bit better managing my time and no longer stay up past 11pm to catch the posts. It was impacting my sleep for school ❤️🩹 She posts on Facebook about 30 minutes before here so that helps me then catch it here fast 🤣
Oh yes. Sleep is important. I must admit I taught sleep deprived after my daughter was born. I think it had something to do with wanting to fit too much into my days. Thank you for your work Megan.
Toward a Better and Brighter America
I fully agree with Heather’s argument, and I think it can be pushed further. Her letter today shows that periods of open reaction can end not in the triumph of hierarchy, but in the refounding of democracy on deeper moral ground. She reminds us that Alexander Stephens believed the Confederacy had inaugurated a new political order built on inequality, yet history remembers that era instead through Lincoln and through the constitutional transformation that followed: the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. In other words, an age of attempted domination became the furnace in which a stronger democratic ideal was forged.
The Trump-MAGA era may prove to be a similar rupture. Its contempt for pluralism, its authoritarian impulse, and its service to concentrated wealth could produce not merely a democratic backlash, but a democratic renovation. The lesson of history is not that democracy automatically saves itself. It is that crisis can force a people to clarify what freedom, equality, and self-government must actually mean.
That clarification should go beyond elections alone. A stronger post-MAGA America may need a decentralized participatory democracy, one in which power is pushed downward and outward into communities, councils, assemblies, and local institutions rather than hoarded in distant capitals, party machines, and billionaire networks. Democracy becomes stronger when people do not merely vote every few years, but actively shape the conditions of common life.
Resourceism points in that direction. It envisions a decentralized, resource-based social order organized around shared stewardship, universal access to life’s necessities, ecological balance, and democratic participation at every level. Paired together, participatory democracy and Resourceism would not simply restore the republic. They would disperse power, deepen freedom, and begin to build a more human future. I value your opinions: https://www.resourceism.com/
Michael, you're a great writer, and I always read your posts because they are of such high quality.
I read the primary document at the link you provided. Early on, the author (you?) makes the statement: "This is not a utopian dream but an ethical and practical necessity." But in fact, it is a utopian dream.
Nowhere in the piece is there any description of how an order based on resourceism would deal with the reality of human selfishness and greed.
I believe that all the orders tried so far would work well if every human were of noble, unselfish, generous character. Sadly, many of us are not.
In fact, just as the squirrel instinctively collects and hides nuts as a hedge against future seasonal scarcity, we humans are programmed to accumulate whatever resources we can to "tide us over" through coming periods of scarcity. The squirrel's ability to hoard is limited by nature and intellect. We humans, however, have the intelligence to devise schemes to accumulate and hoard more than we need, sometimes at the expense of our neighbors.
Likewise, those revered "Founding Fathers" of the U.S. Government thought they'd covered all the bases in their design of a democratic republic. But clearly, they never dreamed that the capitalism they understood would metastasize into a driving force that would distort every feature of a representative government. They never dreamed that the nation's highest court would be filled with greedy opportunists who would distort the provisions in our beloved Constitution to protect those who exploit others and hoard resources.
Although the Founding Fathers thought they'd established a system that excluded a king, they mistakenly designed a system of representation and leadership that assumed that leaders and representatives would always be chosen because of their noble character. They never, in their wildest dreams, imagined that the electoral system they created would be exploited to put a convicted criminal in the highest office. Yet, here we are.
To my understanding, resourceism doesn't address that reality any better than the Founding Fathers did. It's a great idea, but needs a lot more work.
You’re right to press on that point. Resourceism is not a finished doctrine; it is a developing framework, and one of the hardest questions is exactly how any just system restrains greed, hoarding, and power capture. The current work argues that transparency, participatory democracy, commons governance, and science-based resource tracking are part of that answer, but it is still a work in progress, not a final blueprint. The declaration itself says it is “only the beginning,” and I think real implementation would take experimentation, revision, and likely multiple generations to mature fully. So yes, the vision is serious, but the institutional design still has to deepen. https://www.resourceism.com/
"I only represent my constituents" issues."
Correction. They only represent themselves and their PAC donors. His base has shrunk to around 25-30%. See everyone at NO KINGS MARCH 28. This is our opportunity to show them exactly who they do represent.
BTW. Before you call these folks on Ms. Rothery's list go to:
AIPAC Tracker and integrityindex.us
Tell them the amount of PAC money they receive and the number of stocks they hold. We need to let these people know the game is up.
Yes! And I’ve learned how to get around not getting my messages through -
My first round of emails from the contact me links had a lot bounce back saying I wasn't a constituent so it either didn't get sent or basically wouldn't be read. So I changed the way I sent messages. I use one of their own in state addresses (listed on my spreadsheet to help with this) on the address line because technically it doesn't say "my" address. I also don't want to misrepresent myself any more than that, so in my messages I typically put (at the bottom) that while I'm not a constituent, I am reaching out because (insert name) does represent me on the (insert committee that fits the topic my message is about).
Another thing I do is call after hours. I don't leave my name or address/zip code so my voice doesn't go towards a count, but the more they hear from us, the better.
I also send faxes using faxzero.com (5 free/day). I don't send a lot of letters, but when I do I put the same “while I’m not a constituent” blurb I do in my emails
Thank you for your work. I recommend your spreadsheets far and wide.
Thank you Megan!
Thank you!
It's remarkable that racism hasn't been cleansed from our thoughts and actions after two centuries plus. Even after Brown v. an overwhelming majority of southern whites considered the prospect of racial integration repugnant. And we know that the admission of a single Black student in previously all-white schools was enough to create an exodus of white families. And now there's discussion of implementing vouchers again. Because republican donors want them.
It is remarkable. In schools the kids I teach understand our color comes from different levels of melanin in our body and that we’re all people. I’m not sure when the switch happens for some from their families or what they see in society ❤️🩹
And yet a fair number of Black people favor vouchers.
It's not at all settled that vouchers are racist by nature. There is a legitimate debate in the Black community as to whether the lack of vouchers is in fact racist.
This is worth watching,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkS0gnR6c6c
Thank you...terrific resource!
Republican members of Congress lack humanity and decency.
Almost all of them seem to. I agree
We must crush the racist maga confederates again. Heather always illuminates historical context with wisdom and bravery. I wrote a song for her in her honor: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/heather-cox-richardson-song-letters
Very inspiring Public Servant! No better way to celebrate the greatness that is Heather Cox Richardson and how she will be remembered during these difficult times.👌
Mike, I attended a 2 1/2 hour coffee with my state Senator and two state legislators yesterday. For the entire meeting no one mentioned any of the Washington cadre of fools.
I was excited to hear that the ME legislature will pass the plug-in solar which provides from 400 to 1200 watts of power during daytime hours. Germany has pioneered their use and it has been very successful there. Utah pioneered this legislation a year ago and 20 states are considering it this year.
CA already requires solar panels on new construction but this type of solar is portable so it can be used by people that rent as well as people that want to install renewables at a reasonable price without involving your electric utility and an electrician.
Thanks. Going to research because of you.
Happy to hear this
The MAGAs aren’t even trying to hide it, electing a man who is openly racist.
The south wasn't trying to hide their racism during Lincolns time and they were just as persistent and dangerous as the republican party is now. Sometimes I feel the time for rhetoric is dangerously over.
The Republican Party of today were the southern Democrats of the 1800’s. Richard Nixon just facilitated their name change to Republican. They are the same greedy, selfish people who were southern planters and Gilded robber barons and now tech bros. They consider themselves superior and entitled to more resources than anyone else. The political labels are immaterial. They just intend to steal from any and everyone. They must be taxed out of existence.
Very sad and very true Chris.
And willfully ignorant!
Crushing racist magats is a tall order. We did it once before, of course, and it was brutal. We had to kill a few hundred thousand of them, and they still managed to get around the law with impunity for a century, to the 1960s, and they have continued with substantial success since then, now with the full backing and malign intent of the Roberts court, which has by now pretty much emasculated legislative progress made in the 1960s. Yes, let’s by all means crush them, but we have to be cognizant of the enormity of the task. There are at least 77 million of them, and they are scattered throughout all 50 states. It will take a monumental effort and lot of luck, with many discouraging setbacks and a substantial amount of violence, some of which we are now seeing from ICE, from other DHS operations, from the Border Patrol, from a great many racist county sheriffs and their deputies, from vigilante militias, and many other sources. Saying we have crush them is one thing. Actually crushing them is another matter entirely.
This is what concerns me. I'm almost 69, a recent widow, with no children. I'll be out there protesting on March 28th but to what end? These despicable people are wearing me down. I believe I'll continue the fight to my dying day but there are many times I want to throw my hands in the air and say fuck it. Bury me here. After being a caregiver for 5 years and losing my husband - who attended all protests in his wheelchair, no matter the condition of the streets - I'm really damn tired, and sad.
I continue to protest for future generations. There were Civil rights marches when I was carried in my mother's womb, I walked anti war protests as a teenager, attended pro women's rights gatherings in college, still wearing that necklace with that damn coat hanger charm my mother gave me in 1974. Seriously? Still? Damn I'm sick of it, sick of them, sick of all of it.
Okay, maybe I'm having a bad day. 59 days a widow. My sweetheart is gone and that despicable noxious gasbag lives on, spewing his toxic fumes, poisoning the world.
I know I'll continue the fight. Pity party rant over.
I am so sorry for your loss, Dorian -- I am on the precipice of it myself. I have been my husband's caregiver for the last 4 years - and I can see that we are reaching the end of the road. Peace and strength to you over your loss -- and to all of us for what the world has become.
Such a hard road. Holding you in my heart.
Very compassionate replies Barbara Keating, John, and others above. Well said.
Laurie - so sorry for your situation. My mother-in-law lives with us and is 88 years old. My sister-in-law is her caregiver and gave up her career as a graphic artist to take care of her. We are so blessed that my mother-in-law (Little Bit to her friends) is still able to go to lunch twice a week with a group of friends at a local community center. She is a joy to be around but definitely needs a caregiver.
Hang in there. I'm with you in spirit and enjoy your posts.
A powerful rage, Dorian.
Reads more like a gripping poem than a ‘’pity party rant’’ a poem that strikes at the heart of loss and anger with strong truth at its core.
Thank you for sharing it.
Dorian…I’ve posted this song here a number of times…but think we sometimes need to listen to it frequently (as I do): Jackson Browne’s Til I Go Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmzimxfqgfw. If I could fit under my bed, I’d probably be there most of the time….but but but…I find the gatherings, the “juice” they bring, the camaraderie they instill are welcome and, indeed, needed by me. Kinda seems like “all this” is what is meant by a “groundswell”. You bet!!!! 💔no words come to me that express the ache I feel for what you are going through….🙏☮️
Thank You, Barbara.
Well said, Barbara!!
Big hug.
So Sorry for your loss and hang in there. We all feel the rage at this administration tearing every progress we have made as a society down. Every day is a struggle these days. Try to practice self care, turn off the news and try to find some joy somehow, as hard as that is these days.
It is ok and healthy to take a break from the madness. Taking a breather allows you to take time for grieving, and get some of your batteries recharged. I definitely do that! You deserve to rest and recover from all you've been through.
Sorry for your loss.
Dorian, I think we all can relate to the sadness and frustration you feel. While we fight these seemingly insurmountable injustices , real events in our everyday lives that don't have to do with politics need our attention. My little dog was attacked by a coyote the other day. He survived , but it seemed like one more real life event that almost put me over the edge, on top of dealing daily with this governments atrocities. My condolences on the loss of your husband. We fight on.
I am so sorry fly your loss and five years is a long time of caregiving including wheelchair duty. The in and outs! As a widow time helps one process and bad days come and go. You both were far more active than us! I use my car as a cone of silence to release some of my anger about many things and also find peace every now and then even in this now especially in nature or artwork. Take care.
Holding you in my heart. I have two close friends, recently widowed, who are about a year ahead of you in the process. Find a support group, mentor, grief buddy to help guide you through the process.
May his memory be a blessing, and may your courage be rewarded 💙🩵
I will be out there on the National Mall on March 28th, marching right alongside you and millions of others. But your story will be the one that will stick in my heart when I do. It sounds like I won't be alone, either. Blessings.
So sorry for your loss. So many caregivers working so hard to serve their loved ones with dignity and respect. And you are clearly one of those Dorian! 💔
If we really understand and accept our nation’s true history then we’d be better equipped to dismantle racism. Most people accept racism as a scientific fact. It is not. It is man made to enslave and oppress certain people using skin color as justification.
To defeat racism people need to wake up from this stupor. Skin color is merely a tool to divide and conquer the masses. Racism doesn’t serve any of us because as Fannie Lou Hamer reminds us “until she’s free none of us are free”.
Forced desegregation was making progress towards reducing racism, but the racists got that project entirely shut down in about ten years. So we have about half a generation of people with better racial tolerance than the rest of the population.
Especially since some are, or were, loved ones. The Civil War was not civil
Recently watched 12 Years a Slave again on Netflix. Powerful reminder of the above.
Who benefits from the Federal Minimum Wage set at $7.25 an hour? If you have a business and you are paying your employees $7.25/hr you're doing it wrong or you're not even doing it yourself, you're trying to get others to do it for you.
Of course, Trump and his cabinet of incompetent bozos have caused gas and diesel prices to jump by 60 cents or more a gallon, food costs are skyrocketing, airlines are taking a huge hit in fuel costs and raising prices and shortages are likely.
With Trump taking his military advice from Putin and Bibi, we are all screwed.
Didn't I read somewhere recently that Trump has floated the idea of a special lower-wage rate for immigrant workers, since the farmers can't get anyone to work the fields? Can you imagine trying to live on less than $7.25/hour? Impossible in this country. It's a de facto return to slave labor.
MAGA confederates are the cancer America harbors. They rear their diseased heads approximately every 80 years or so. They are cancerous cells that metastasize over time because it is impossible to stamp them all out.
Write On, Public Servant! And Sing On Too! 💙🇺🇸💙
It's good that you share these posts, Heather, that remind us that the path we are on today is rooted in the ones those who came before us trod first. We must never forget that Lincoln understood the power of recognizing the value and worth of the people, and we must strive to maintain that power. No one will "give" it to us. It's our responsibility to exercise it to maintain our democracy.
In the past Heather has posted a video where she mentions that when soldiers of opposition forces invade the territory of the people they are opposing, it sparks an intensification of resistance. She used as an example the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War when the advance of the Confederate Army into Pennsylvania motivated the Northerners to fierce resistance. She meant this at least in part as a caveat for today when Trump is using ICE/militarized violence to provoke reactive violence in the US population so he can justify invoking the Insurrection Act and and declare martial law. Heather is the expert on the Battle of Gettysburg, but I will take the liberty of expanding on what she has said to include a famous vignette of the battle.
In the US Civil War Colonel Joshua Chamberlain commanded the 20th Maine Volunteer Regiment in defending the extreme left flank of the Union Army which was on Little Round Top in the pivotal battle of Gettysburg, PA. Estimates put the Confederate Army at 4,650 and the Union Army at 3,000. If the Confederates could outflank and get behind the Union troops the battle would be lost and perhaps too the war. The Battalion Commander of the Union troops on Little Round Top, Colonel Strong Vincent, ordered Joshua Chamberlain to hold his position at all costs - that he could not retreat. As the battle progressed and the Confederates had mounted multiple attacks up the hill at his Maine soldier’s positions, his soldiers ran out of ammunition and were suffering significant casualties. Colonel Chamberlain had been told that no reinforcements or resupply of ammunition was possible. But he did not retreat or just wait to see what would happen. He ordered his troops to fix bayonets and led them in a charge down the hill against the advancing Confederates. Seeing the Union troops charging spooked the Confederates and they retreated. The left flank of the Union line was protected and the days battle was won. In a later battle in Petersburg Chamberlain was severely wounded while leading his troops but survived. He was promoted to Brigadier General, awarded the Medal of Honor for “daring heroism and great tenacity against repeated assaults”, and given the honor of commanding the Union troops at the surrender ceremony for the infantry of Robert E. Lee’s Army at Appomattox Court House, VA. He later was elected to be Governor of Maine and became President of Bowdoin College.
This is an example of the historic tradition of defending our democratic republic that the US military, the citizens of Maine and of this country have. Maine Senator Angus King (Independent) has used the metaphor of Paul Revere notifying the citizens of Massachusetts of the tyranny of the British troops coming to arrest their citizens and confiscate their arms and ammunition. Joshua Chamberlain’s bravery can also be a metaphor for today. He did not give up or just wait to see what would happen. He fixed bayonets and charged.
Now is the time when our republic, our democracy, is being attacked and destroyed, to (metaphorically speaking) fix bayonets and charge. As Heather has suggested: email, call or write to your representatives in Congress and in your State government especially with personal stories about how you and your families lives have been affected. Participate in government functions, attend demonstrations as much as you can, etc.. Let them know how you the people feel about what Heather Cox Richardson is telling you is happening everyday. Don’t wait. Everyday that passes makes it more difficult to defeat the tyranny.
No Kings rally, Saturday, March 28. Go to https://www.nokings.org or indivisible.org
“Don’t give up the ship”
I'm always down for a paean to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. A professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin, and as Burns' fabulous documentary informs us, teaching every subject prior to his becoming President of the College, save for math! He lived a long life, in spite of his war wounds, and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettsburg. AND, had a helluva 'stache!
Thank you, Fred! So true!
"Now is the time when our republic, our democracy, is being attacked and destroyed, to (metaphorically speaking) fix bayonets and charge. "
Fred, I wonder if soon the "metaphorically speaking" part of your statement will need to be excised and we also will need to fix bayonets.
I fault Colonel Vincent for not giving more arms and/or men to the left flank if it was that important. He should have been demoted.
MAGA will be the new “lost cause.” It is the last gasp of the white guy.
The future of democracy is diversity. We must vote for candidates who look like America such as Kamala, Zohran, and AOC. White men are a lost cause with their confederate racism, sexism, and bigotry.
The Lost Cause lasted 100 years. Let’s hope MAGA dies a much quicker death.
The Lost Cause is still around. The problem is too many don't see that.
Absolutely, TC. Sometimes I think Maga & Trump are the revenge of the Confederacy.
Spot on, TC. Both sentences.
Public servant, you paint with too broad a brush. I agree with your first 2 sentences. However, you should write about "some" or "many" or even "most" white men. I am a "White" man who is neither a racist nor a sexist nor a bigot. Your "diversity" must necessarily include me.
David-Your point is important. The idea and meaning of diversity includes everyone. All White men ca not be condemned. It’s the system that allows mostly White men to govern, make policy and obtain wealth that has propelled us to a place where we count and classify people according to skin color.
I take that as poetic licence. To me, the broader meaning was clear enough.
Yes, we all read Public Servant's posts and I don't think he believes that literally all white men are lost causes. He might have been writing in the heat of the moment; I just don't think that PS thinks every single white male is a lost cause. And is PS also a white male?
Your Substack is called "Democracy Defender" and yet you just wrote "White men are a lost cause with their confederate racism, sexism, and bigotry." Perhaps you need to re-write that? I want to believe that is not what you mean to say.
Col. Robert Gould Shaw oversaw the training of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment until they were a disciplined unit ready for combat. Then he led them as the first wave of the assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, on July 18, 1863. He died alongside many of those brave Black troops that night. Col. Shaw was a White man.
John Brown was executed by hanging on December 2, 1859, for leading a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. His plan was to steal weapons to ignite an armed slave insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery. Four other men (Two White and two Black) were executed also for participating with John Brown who was a White man.
President Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock Central High School in September 1957, to enforce public school desegregation. Ike was a White man.
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was killed in Alabama in 1965 after he foresaw a racist attack by a White part-time deputy sheriff and pushed a 17-year-old Black girl out of the way of a shotgun blast saving her life.
What I am trying to point out, however, is that many white men, myself included, have worked for equal rights for all. Some have been killed for doing so. and some have simply wore out their shoes knocking on doors. In my "Memorandum to We the People" I have included a model amendment to address the many wounds the Supreme Court and Trump have committed against our Constitution. In Section 1, I begin with words that are written as an all inclusive Equal Rights Amendment. The first clause states,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, All individual persons are endowed with
equal non-transferable rights, To secure these rights the Government of the
United States of America has been granted just powers from the consent of the
governed, The Governments of the United States, every State, and every insular
area within the jurisdiction of the United States has no powers to create, grant,
apply or transfer any of these equal non-transferable rights of individual persons
to an assembly thereof, or to property, private sector enterprises, creatures of the
state, anything manufactured, artificial intelligence, or to allow any property, private sector enterprises, or creatures of the state to endorse or provide support for,
or against, any candidate for public political or judicial office or ballot measure,
or to engage in any form of political expression within the United States, every
State, and every insular area within the jurisdiction of the United States." Please read, share and discuss my Memorandum posted at UnitedWeAmend.org.
Not this white man!
"Some" white men. I do know plenty who are not lost causes, nor racist, nor misogynistic.
Good thing I have known and loved some wonderful old white men.
The loss of the 2020 election is the new lost cause: they’re determined that Trump won and was cheated out his victory.
That is exactly correct. How many voices out there are making that explicit connection? The descendants of same people, even the same geography, the same denialism, the same falsehoods, the same cruelties, lies and delusions. Sometimes history doesn't just echo, it practically screams.
And yesterday, as we all now know, former FBI Director Robert Mueller died -- the principal investigator of Russian influence in our 2016 elections. Former Attorney General Barr lied when he claimed Mueller had exonerated Trump. Just the opposite is true. And our criminal scumbag in the White House could not resist gloating: "I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people" (meaning he can no longer investigate Trump's many repeated, exhausting, criminal malfeasances, high crimes and misdemeanors).
Perhaps Dump's worst legacy is the ugliness in our own society he has given free rein to -- all the freak flags crawling out of dark spaces who would never have done so without his explicit encouragement, draped in the false flag of patriotism.
It will take years to re-win this new (old) Civil War he has unleashed on us, long after his wretched departure from this earth -- which cannot come soon enough.
Robert Mueller, a good man and sterling public servant….’Rump must keep Mueller’s name outta his mouth and may his fingers shrink and spasm should he ever again try to post about him. Classy vs tacky, honor vs grift.
Muller was a man of integrity with a brilliant intellect. However he didn't seem at the top of his game at the end of his career, as he issued his report and later testified before the Congressional committee. He in fact ended his career abruptly after that. I wondered if he had Parkinson's, which has a dementia component, because he definitely didn't show his usual sharpness when testifying.
Parkinson’s folks still have their intellect, they just have troubles expressing themselves. It’s an extremely frustrating situation. I’m sure that’s why he was reluctant to testify, but he did his best. Similar to Biden during the debate… he had Covid and was a stutterer - all in all, not his best.
The other point about President Biden’s debate fiasco that he was early into his COVID infection (he had “just a cold” symptoms) and had just returned from back-to-back trips to France for the 80th D-Day anniversary , Italy for a G7 meeting , and Los Angeles for a fund raiser (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/02/biden-debate-excuse-travel-00166372).
And, Karen, either ONE of them would run rings around Metamucillini (shout out to the person who coined this moniker!!) in character, honesty, compassion, and integrity.
Barr should be excoriated for his evil. Wish it were against the law to lie. He would wilt and die under oath.
Ironic that it was his father who started Epstein's career.
Why was the full Mueller report not released?
He got played, Anne-Louise. Dems got played.
Too many among us are not only out of touch with our fellow Americans in working-class red states, but nowhere near understanding how seriously Donald and his fellow criminal class play their game to keep themselves unaccountable.
Yes, it’s the same people. They’re also STILL denying that Russia interfered in the election.
It's not new, it's merely a new manifestation.
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." -- Lincoln
Bravo JL, bravo ~
"He" won't be happy until the history books are re-written to declare himself the winner in 2020.
Did he and his minions attempt to fix the results and that is why he can’t let it go?
Yes, not only did he lose the election but he lost the attempt to overturn the election results after the fact. So much winning...
Really? "the last gasp of the white guy"?
Wasn't Abraham Lincoln white?
This kind of stereotype is what got us Trump. And even now you can't move beyond it?
I wonder if the S.A.V.E. Act will act like the *NAZI-crammed enabling law of 1933. Instead of rigging the legislature by chasing away legislators, as Hitler did, Trump would do it through I.C.E. being at voting sites to disenfranchising others, not already excluded by the S.A.V.E. Act. Trump would claim Federal enforcement powers. 😱
If I were a governor concerned about these elections, I would 'mobilize' the national guard indefinitely right now, not deploy them. If Trump tried to federalize the national guard of my state I would, "Sorry, Mr Pretender-in-Chief, the guardsmen are unavailable, since I have previously mobilized them." 🖕
When the elections came, the state militia would be on hand, if need be, to secure 'voting' perimeters from I.C.E.-atzgruppen.⚖️
SAVE is headed for nowhere in the Senate, thankfully. What we see is a huge game of bluff taking place where the most despicable Republican Senators are trying desperately to cram anti-trans legislation into their anti-voter bill, and failing utterly to do even that. They don't have even a majority, let alone 60 votes. Thune's embarrassing efforts to link this goofy attempt to stop the tens of millions of transgirls (give me a break) from entering high school locker rooms -- as though this had ANYTHING to do with trying to suppress voters --- isn't succeeding in hiding the obvious: SAVE will hurt Republican voters (who mostly do not have passports and who rely on mail-in voting) far more than Democratic ones. And Thune knows this, too.
SAVE is the attempt to break in the house through the heavily guarded front door. Scores of attorneys (and state attorney generals) aren't about to allow these assholes to violate the Constitution like that. More dangerous are the less guarded, unlocked back doors of state legislatures and local voting districts who will try to play footsie with the number and location of precincts, new laws (mostly against women whose last names may not match exactly what registrars have on their books), and who will take advantage of new USPS policies on date-stamping and the like. Be prepared....
I agree. However, Ned's thoughts are valid for at least one thing; Those states who don't protect the vote, along with certain congress critters will reveal themselves for all to see and history to record.
Ned’s thoughts are always valid.
Yes they are. His, as well as yours are always highly relevant and fodder for consideration. Bravo ~
Thanks to each of you for the compliments, I.H.C.T.T. and D4N. I am humbled with gratitude. Yet the credit comes right back to all participants in this sub-thread -- you two as well as JDinTX, Arctic Stones, Bill, and Ally -- for expanding upon my bare-bones idea and putting some flesh on it. 🫱🏻🫲🏽💡🙏🏾⚖️✌🏼
Indeed Ned; We have some very great, seriously involved minds herein. I'm blown away everytime I go through the comments, to say nothing of HCR's essays and the method she chooses to educate us further.
Thank you, D4N, for your kind support. I am with It's Come To This on this one. I had not followed the details (e.g., the anti-trans provisions). It is the state level, particularly the legislatures, that may try to suppress the vote, as I-H-C-T-T observes keenly. That state-level oppression is what happened with Blacks' voting rights in South.
Nowhere do I disagree with him here Ned. Seldom ever.
This is just the first volley
"SAVE will hurt Republican voters (who mostly do not have passports and who rely on mail-in voting) far more than Democratic ones."
I disagree with this for one simple reason. Your statement assumes an even-handed enforcement of the provisions in the SAVE Act. We know that would not be the case; enforcement would be heavily focused on Blue cities and Blue states – and it would likely be draconian.
That will definitely form a part of their back-door, inconsistent approach. Like no southern white voters were ever asked how many jellybeans there were in the jar or were made to take literacy tests in the Jim Crow era.
I have occasionally perused the comments section Fox News. I honestly don’t know which frightens me more, the extremism and ignorance, or the illiteracy.
Well, axually, you both are right. In theory and even-handed practice the Reds get bled red as I.H.C.T.T. points out, yet, and I.H.C.T.T. has sounded a similar alarm calling inconsistent practice and other chicanery the 'back door'.
With Shelby County versus Holder, you are focussed on the epicenter of voter suppression. Gladly, I think the S.A.V.E. Act will fail. I had not understood all of the 'kitchen-sewer' details of this odious legislation.
Interesting point. I published an open letter to out CT governor asking him to inform our national guard to protect its residents. I think a follow up letter including this bit is worth a go. And btw, he did announce that our guard has the right to protest us and not sure if my letter that I also sent him directly as well as our senators and congressman. I’d like to think it had an effect.
I will be writing several governors, too, plus Senators and Representatives. Great idea, Bill; good job walking the walk. To quote mid-twentieth century American philosopher, Fred Flintstone, "Glad I thought of it."
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l love the logical sequence; we have to figure out a way to laugh hysterically at this bitter, brittle man so that he can hear it. That will get the little chicken-scheiße running to the bunker faster than anything.
And our mayor stated that our city police will intercept any illegal activities of the feds in our city. That statement was startling.
Hooray, not a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court, but Connecticut Yankees in Cringing Trump's face! 🥳🗽🖕⚖️😇
Good thought re: mobilizing the NG.
Exactly; The more I rolled it around in my leaky jar, the better I liked what the optics would reveal. (plus the bonus of having them unavailable for federal whims_)
Thank you again, D4N. You have the right formula upstairs: laugh Dagwood Trumpish, über-nebbish, right off the stage. Trump thinks he is an über-mensch; he is an über-stench.
Nice to hear from you, sweet Ally.
Sad to say, Alexander Stevens was reborn as DJT. And, as a country, the embarrassment of that, the shame of that, does not bother as many Americans as it should.
Shame is passé for magats
Heather's podcast earlier today had more or less the same theme as her column now.
In her podcast today, Heather returned to her theme of what prompted the original Republicans.
A great theme, the larger one in her podcast, whether from Heather there, or her column, being more specific, or from Abraham Lincoln opposed to the enslaving classes, and their enslaving way of life yet malignantly possible back then.
Lincoln famously saw how the federal government could help people – all people, roads, canals, railroads, schools, clinics, and other services all could use.
The enslaving class, with its slaves then, and its corporate elites today, wanted no role for government at the national level, very little immigration, and no taxes from them to support “others.”
“Others,” fellow Americans of all regions, all income levels, become just units, numbers, in the same way that our standardized testing lets us reduce all life, all others, to numbers today. With us limited to hoping ourselves but as of better numbers than all below us.
I’m glad Heather returns to this theme. For the same reason I appreciate Lincoln’s having signed the Justin Morrill 1862 land grant college bill. I said the American people wanted to live together in a nation where all had available better means of agriculture and mechanics, but recognition of America as a place for people of all kinds.
Rather as Timothy Snyder, in his latest Substack, says he’ll pause where he’s speaking on March 28’s No Kings Day, "to ask people to introduce themselves to those around them."
The land grant bill was partly funded by taking land from indigenous tribes.
Yes, indeed, Eric -- but no "partly" at all.
Really? I didn't know that. Should be called the land grab bill.
We've changed as a species, Eric.
Donald, his master Putin, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Bukele, Orban, Sisi, Kim, Erdogan, and more haven't changed. They're still reptiles.
But 160 years ago "we" saw all others as savages, barbarians, apostates, and other terms for othering by stereotypes, groups, and imaginative packages.
Our elites of standardized testing still do this -- still select their choice conceits for rationalities based on grouping, categorizing, packaging. But then, too, those pathetics never experienced any schools where humanities replaced all varieties of the age-old hoary vulgar.
To me, it's so strange how the color of a person's skin was such a big f-ing deal to people back then... and is STILL a big f-ing deal to so many people today. Eyesight is the factual cause of this. If humans did not have eyes (I know... but this is a "thought experiment" so go with me here), I feel discrimination wouldn't exist. I mean.... bigots look at a person... see dark skin... and go "they're not as good as me"... completely ignoring the many INVENTIONS and other ACCOMPLISHMENTS of Black people (see the motion picture "Hidden Figures" for an example).
We are such a messed up species! SMH
PS I know back then, racism was ALSO about "we took them from a foreign country so we would have free labor". But we don't do that anymore (except when we use prisoners to make things for almost zero money.)
But we CAN change! It starts with TRULY following the concept of "love thy neighbor".
Here's a clip from "Hidden Figures"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNK8FCFpmm4
I’ve alway thought, Steve, that the color of one’s skin is about the (literally!) most shallow reason to “other” someone….somewhere about 1mm in thickness. 🤦🏻♀️
The most shallow
Steve-Most Americans don’t understand the origin of race. We’ve been conditioned for centuries to believe that skin color matters. The caste system we live with is effectively causing our nation to self destruct from within. If you analyze our nation’s history many of the upheavals had to do with racism (Civil War, Civil Rights, etc).
For centuries the law has been (is being) used to establish and enforce racism. Unless and until we honestly recognize the detriment that racism is to our world-and not just for Black people, but for all of us-we’ll never have a true democracy. We need more history, more education and more connection to each other.
My dog sometimes goes into defensive mode when something is just "different" than it was, even sometimes an inanimate object. I think our evoltionarily older forebrain reacts that way too. Our later to arrive cortex in more analytical, so there seems to be that. Yet divide and conquer seems to be the oldest trick in the book. and predatory humans have used it for centuries to shatter liberating solidarity. It's key to establishing a stratified society, and who really benefits from that? Certainly not the antebellum working class competing with unpaid labor, yet. foreshadowing MAGA, thousands such died protecting their right to be thus exploited. A black historian I read long ago argues that racism was methodically cultivated in society by the Alexander Stephens, "same old serpent" plutocrats who fund social inequity today. Even the French Revolution and communists ruled by dispensing privilege and terror, and many will fiercely defend a pathetic share of privilege and security against an more egalitarian system.
Add to that the personal effort and responsibility relentlessly required to keep a collaborative self-government successfully operating and the siren-song of easier answers. Lincoln called it "the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world." We know it don't come easy.
Terrific scene from a fine film.
I'm glad you enjoyed it
Thank you. I’ve seen in a couple of times, but not in awhile.
I think there is the "Mr. Hyde" side of human nature that is more active in the character of some people than others. On one level, we need each other, and maybe even love each other, though at times, even in marriage, the other may be seen as an impediment, and some people's life strategy is predatory. On the one hand we are obliged to be civil and on the other, we may look for excuses to withhold our social obligations from one set of people or another. Appearance might be one such excuse, but anything will do; ethnicity, religion, national origin, etc, etc, etc. There is no science in it, just narcissism.
I think some people perceive anyone who is different from them in any way - be it color, ethnicity, sexuality, language, religion - as a potential threat. The way they deal with that psychologically is to demean and try to control the threat by claiming superiority to that person. Raising a kid in NYC had its challenges - but the best part about it was that our son grew up with such an array of different people that a highly diverse community is what is normal life for him. I celebrate the city for that too, though I was raised in the midwest.
We are tribal long after tribal was a necessary trait for survival, seems to me…
Yes -- but too bad that primal instinct is still so strong in some!
Robert Lewis Stevenson argued that we all harbor "Jekyll and Hyde" Billy Joel sang about "The Stranger" in us all. We are obliged to calculate self-interest, but is our self interest to be "enlightened" and civilized, or predatory? Given the range of variation in mammalian personalities and talents, I suspect that there may be a genetic component of our capacity for compassion, individually, and in our our species' enduring patterns of behaviors, but I think its more a matter of nurture in the end, and the values that societies decide to celebrate. We as a society made a choice about chattel slavery that the Founders neglected. We came to redefine the social definition of women, etc. That means a reduction of privilege for some, some of whom will fight to retain it. Follow the privilege, follow the self-serving clubs of privilege, follow the money.
We are social, and yes tribal, even on these pages. Tribes can war with one another, yet also cooperate. I think deeper than tribe is the scope of our own ego. At one end of the spectrum are the great and salient humanitarians and at the other, malignant narcissists. In some ways the narcissists have the advantage since empathy is arguably burdensome, yet the quality of the outcomes differs so starkly, and there are choices.
What human nature is vs what children are taught is a big subject … for another time. (Nature vs Nurture) But thanks for mentioning this.
Absolutely. They are thoroughly entangled. I suspect that for the most part, authoritarianism begins at home, but then that's another chicken or the egg.
One of my favorite movies. Of. All. Time.
If you have not yet listened to the “Seeing White” podcast series, I highly recommend it! Very good insights into the origins and repercussions of racism in America.
This is magnificent, so simply, beautifully, succinctly and clarifyingly expressed, HCR. Such a gift. Thank you!
The Founders gifted us a future of our own determination. That gift has been disparaged and threatened again and again and yet has come down to us through 250 years. We owe it to those before us and to those to come to pass that gift forward, improving it as we are able.
And yet, we seem to have many still promulgating the view of inequality in our country, making clear their ideology that only Christian-nationalist white men should have power, denying the role of women or people of color or those who worship differently or don't worship at all in our society. Their refusal to honor the principles on which our democracy is based threatens all of us. When Donald J. Trump can post, upon learning about Mueller's death ""Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!" the message is clear that this regime maintains that honesty and integrity are no longer values they share with we, the people.
DJT is the epitome of crudity and classlessness.
At long last, no decency whatsoever.
The people of the United States may have tried to enshrine the end of the era of slavery into law through the 14th, 15th, and 16th Amendments, but the Supreme Court has spent the last 150 years diligently chipping away at the idea that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law, until finally the Roberts courts ended the charade entirely by saying that the President of the United States is a king, and his actions cannot be illegal, as long as he says they are part of his responsibilities.
The fact that we have allowed these corrupt and conservative jurists to undo the outcome of the civil war to protect the enslavers, the robber barons, and the oligarchs of the day show the shortsightedness of our forefathers in allowing the south to continue to exist after the civil war, and not demanding that the slave states be readmitted only AFTER the debts of the war bonds had been paid, and after they had paid restitution to the enslaved.
These jurists are anything but conservative. They are extreme ideological activists, turning history backward.
Well, neo-feudalism for the 21st Century.
"the Supreme Court has spent the last 150 years diligently chipping away at the idea that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law,"
I don't know about that, but the hand picked servants of plutocrats in the current Roberts' court are massively eroding equal protection and justice. It was what they were sent to do.
Let’s not forget that privileged white boy, Justice Kavanaugh, thinks it’s perfectly okay for masked men to detain people based on how they look or speak.
The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. Plessy versus Ferguson was handed down in 1896. The ink was still wet when they were rolling back the rights the Union had won through blood.
The battle with human predators has never ceased, but some branches of progress occurred in my lifetime and before, expanding rights and economic gain to larger portions of society. That began to stall after Reagan was elected.
Lately I've wondered whether we should have just let those states secede.
My future son-in-law grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He pushes back hard when people suggest writing off the South. There are many good people there, across the political spectrum. He’s a young Progressive, with an Iraqi dad and a mom from the U.S. heartland. He’s a kind, smart, hard-working engineer. Let’s not write off the south. FWIW, I grew up in supposedly liberal Massachusetts. There are lots of MAGA racists there, too.
Apologies, Dave. I definitely didn't mean to suggest all Southerners are "deplorables." Any more than I'd suggest that all Northerners are intelligent humanitarians. (Our president is Exhibit No. 1 refuting that.) But I have wondered lately about the unintended consequences of forcibly uniting two systems which seem so permanently, deeply opposed to each other's respective values. Societies will never be completely homogeneous but we haven't mastered accommodating the heterogeneity. Maybe we're more like Yugoslavia (RIP) than we realize.
This argument always amuses me, because it implies that A. people realize these would be failed nations if not for the benefits handed down from Blue States to Red states, and B. Think it would be unfair or unreasonable for Red states to have to survive on their own merits without the benefits being accorded to them by exploiting states that are willing to organize themselves to be fair and efficient.
This is literally an example of the kind of argument that inundates conservative feelings: "I can't survive without my unearned privileges, other people should be forced to prop me up despite my hardworking pull myself up by my bootstraps mentality and clear superiority to the people who are paying the costs of my privileges."
For the record, I grew up in Louisiana, and I still think the world would be a better place if Sherman had depopulated the South of everyone who had the right to vote in the Confederacy, and we had still forced them to pay off their war debts and the North's war bonds before allowing them to be re-admitted.
I would rather that the people who are anti-democracy and admire Russia to move there and enjoy their Fascism.
This ugly viper raises its vicious head every 60 years or so. It skips generations. The right people will always be there to defend against it.
Trying to be optimistic.
People seem to say "never again" and then drift into old proclivities. Could we FINALLY decide to head that one off in the early stages? We may have to if our species is to persist as our world gets more complicated and "smaller".
It’s shocking to me to realize that for today’s young people, the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust feel as ancient as the Civil War did to me when I grew up in the 1950s. For my generation the 1930s and 40s were recent and real and Never Again had an immediacy that demanded commitment. Not so for the post-millennium population. It seems that human beings simply can’t pass on wisdom from one generation to another without direct experience, and so we keep making the same tragic mistakes over and over.
How soon we forget, or put the past behind us instead of learning its lessons. A whopper mistake on a personal level ad well as a national level. Now on a global level ..
In lieu of direct experience, Heidi, how might you feel about indirect experience?
That is, how vital might you see it that more teachers K-12 -- especially for the older kids there -- could be free to choose novels, memoirs, and histories they feel as relevant for their students?
I hear you, Phil. For many years I used Jane Yolen’s award-winning book “Encounter” to teach my 4th-graders about author perspective and the development of characters in writing. It is a fictional account of Columbus and his first “encounter” with indigenous people, from their perspective. It is based, in part, on his own log entries. Though it was not part of the official curriculum, I’d read it on Columbus Day. I always stressed that Columbus had traits considered to be positive. For example, he was brave to sail across the ocean in relatively small wooden ships, he was persistent in getting the funding needed for his voyages, he was smart enough to navigate without much technology, and he certainly influenced the course of human history. But he was also a bloodthirsty, greedy, white supremacist who thought nothing of slaughtering and “taking” some of the indigenous people back to Spain to serve as “servants” to the king and queen. A few years ago, in Florida “Encounter” was on a long list of books being “reviewed “ and potentially banned from its classrooms. I did not teach in Florida, but I imagine I would have continued using Yolen’s book, running the risk of suspension or dismissal. Having a working spouse would have made that a lot easier to do. Not every teacher—and especially those who are new to the profession and often saddled with college debt—has that option. When I first started teaching I had a lot autonomy in the classroom, but canned curricula and the system’s obsession with standardized testing chipped away at that freedom over the years. After 22 years, I retired.
Thank you for the report, Dave.
I think you speak on behalf of too many good souls, decent people, and excellent teachers whom we should prize especially. It's not just a matter of money, but of according respect to those with pluck, autonomy, and probably good rapport with colleagues, too.
When we do our own accounting for the demented Donald years into which we've fallen, we're going to have to restore teachers to their fitting place over the packaging bureaucratized who've too long been deadening all.
Thank You for your important service, Dave A.
Thank you for your work, Dave. I understand why you retired. My Mom lasted 4 years as a teacher of English. She did not liked the canned, formulaic curriculum (she taught her "last chance English" classes how to read middle English, and when they read several pieces by Chaucer, she taught them how to swear in middle English.)
I believe her parting words were "no wonder you have mediocre students; your curriculum ensures that."
I taught through Covid and the year we returned to in-person learning. I think we made a grave mistake by not giving students and parents the option of repeating the Covid year. Many of my post-Covid 4th graders were essentially third-graders academically and socially. We insisted on teaching them a curriculum for which they were unprepared. They became frustrated and discouraged, but I was told to stay with the canned curriculum’s timeline. This was particularly counterproductive in math, which builds on previously learned skills. I just could no longer be a part of a system that was making many kids feel “dumb” and hate school.
There's always hope.
"The shaping of the next era belonged not to him, but to others with a clearer view of both the meaning of the United States of America, and of humanity."
Seems to me that we have our work cut out for us. We need a project 2029 to outline the repairs, corrections & improvements that will be required to not only return us to a democratic republic but to reform some of the old 'ways' & create a more perfect union. Our children & grandchildren will have a lot to do, as I fear that this will take years to do, much like it will take years to get oil production & delivery back to a semblemce of normal.
We let loose that dog of war & I think the world will give us the bill to repair the damages that this war is causing worldwide so instead of making America great again, he has plunged us into more & more debt. Let's not forget that he told us: "I love debt!" I suspect he loves debt because he never plans to repay anyone or anything. Well, this is one debt that will have to be repaid. And he can't mint some million dollar platinum coin like he wanted to do. And we can't pay it with crypto as that is a nebulous & ethereal as a rainbow! Maybe our patriotic tech bros will step up?! On that hilarious note I think that I'll call it a day!
Go for sanity.
Kinda like a riff on the WWII Marshall Plan….only I guess we’d call this one the “Oppsie, Our Bad! Recovery Plan”…
The Enlightenment! The result of Galileo’s science! The escape from medieval superstitions. The THINKING of the Greeks which liberated. We rest on the shoulders of a moral-intellectual Revolution. Lincoln, the reader and debater recognized that slavery was not a foundation for America. Unfortunately the current controlling Mafia, does not find this truth “self evident,” much as
the followers of the Don would prefer to make slaves of their fellow Americans.
The oligarchs? Luckily most are blinded by greed and therefore un-enlightened Americans. That’s why I’m advocating for the draft in order to eliminate bone-spur thinking. Let’s do a service to America that puts everyone together for a couple of years so that rich and poor are acquainted with each other and there is a role even for those with minor physical problems. You can’t march: do exercises you can do, then desk jobs. There’s a job for everyone! Imagine Congress with this background.
It was good Virginia that I was drafted into semi-socio economic mix in 1970. We had a very small contingent of college grads who were more than buried under a landslide of poor black draftees from Chicago neighborhoods. There was no parity in that the poor made up the vast majority of us draftees. I think your idea to mix it up is brilliant. Just leave out preparing the participants for war. Instead let’s prepare them for peace. Seeking avenues of peace. An entirely new idea that could incorporate foreign exchange as well. My daughters wanted a foreign exchange student from France. Not the playboy they had in mind rather an intellectual physicist came to pass. My son the future nuclear engineer benefitted the most. Imagine a world-wide society learning languages, sharing fundamental equality while pursuing projects that bring stability and growth. I’m convinced that preparing future generations for war should give way to a focal point of public service.
Pat, yes! Peace Corp, AmeriCorp, Conservation Corp….a required 1-2 years post high school (maybe earn college credits or stipend?) of “service” in some type of youth corp that will get folks out of their silos…sometimes college, apprenticeships, etc., will do that if the place of learning is also not “siloed”.
For me the point is that it is required because this civic or military service underlines that our rights and responsibilities extend to ALL Americans. Not just wealthy who pad their resume with some almost volunteer work. ALL. Required service is more true than not of many other democracies. I think it is a wonderful idea.
I would NOT require 2 years of service - I would make it so attractive to our young citizens that a majority would "enlist" as I did in the National Health Service Corps. Many young folks are in circumstances where this service would be a real hardship on their families. And, I fear what a president like Trump would do with all his "enlistees."
MaryPat, there are people, even young people, who just don't ever see service to others as attractive. (One of those types is now sitting in the Oval Office.) Sometimes they only learn the lesson that service is its own reward after someone shoves a mop and bucket into their hands and says "Get to work!" Yes, it would be wonderful if every one of us were naturally altruistic. In the meantime, while we're waiting for that great evolution, we'd be doing the n'er do wells a great service by saying, "Lucky you, this is the day you get to begin your national service."
I have to back you up Donna. My college days were secure. There was a war on. I used my head and kept a deferment. I was safely wrestling my way through higher education. Dint even need a bone spur. Safe and smug until a couple friends died. I don’t know what happened to me. Maybe it was those hippie girls in the late sixties. You know the ones like that crazy Doctor from California who nurtured her husband after his Viet Nam exposure. I gotta admit her words here healed some raw spots with me too. At any rate I did expand my conscience. I was drafted and I did serve my country and I never would have otherwise. I’m not going to let slip that marvelous woman’s name but she did help many of us bigly.
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Jeeze MaryPat we are not thinking of Hitler Youth here, rather the growth in to adulthood. A growth consistent of pretty much all you represent. As I understand you are a nurse as was my mother. Can you imagine a graduate nurse in an Alaskan village or a Siberian village plying her knowledge? How many would choose ?
Pat, a TV show riff on this was Northern Exposure…where the doctor who went to the rural Alaskan village did so to “work off” his medical college student loans (even crushingly huge in those days)….and the Doc became an integral part of the community. I assume programs like this still exist (they did when I worked in the college student aid field before I retired)…most were Federal, but some state & local gov’t also got on board as incentives to work in rural or underserved communities. A whole other expanded education!
Yes, Pat Cole! That’s the idea. Draftees in service to America. No one escapes the two years. You could do them after medical school (we need free medical school for qualified candidates), or after graduate school, but you have to do it! The Peace Corps can be part of the plan. The important learning is a second language requirement in high school and/or college to sharpen minds and get exceptionalism out of our heads. Of course the state of US at this time may give all but the most racist and oligarchical a different look at ourselves.
I served for 2 years in the National Health Service Corps in 8 poor counties in West Virginia, after the government paid for my masters degree in community health nursing. I felt like I gained much more from those good people than I gave. I wouldn't require it of every young citizen, but I would greatly expand the program. Maybe it could be from funds transferred OUT of the Defense Department.
No, sorry, compulsory service of any kind should be as verboten as slavery. People should WANT to serve their country, but in a free country, NO ONE should be forced to do so. That is the definition of slavery and if you fail to see that, you are just part of the problem.
I see your point, Jon--to a point. Many things in life are compulsory; mutual obligations are part and parcel of living in community. A national service program wouldn't be any more slave-like than compulsory education is.
Well, sorry but I disagree. Mutual obligations are completely different from any kind of compulsory program. As for compulsory education...
Compulsory education isn't TRULY compulsory. Parents can withhold their children from it if they choose. And the purpose of the edict for whatever compulsory education you think exists is to teach the person themselves, NOT to use them in the service of others. And again, this happens BEFORE the age of 18. Once you reach the age of 18, you have the right (or should have the right) to make those decisions for yourself and there is no compulsory program of any kind other than if you are incarcerated for committing a crime after you turn 18.
I guess we'll disagree, Jon. I don't see national service as slavery. Even when children are home-schooled, that's an alternative to in-school compulsory education. There are standards to meet. Formal education benefits the individual, yes, but it also benefits society, which is why it's compelled, either in a communal setting or at home. At 18 people do have the right to make most decisions for themselves. But often the decisions we make, e.g. whether to have a driver's license, depends on meeting requirements that are compelled by law. We're compelled to do that, and many other things.
" Mutual obligations are completely different from any kind of compulsory program." Because obligatory and compulsory are different words doesn't change the character of the underlying reality, Jon. We're required/ obligated/ compelled to do many things. That doesn't make us enslaved. When you suggest this I think you cheapen what enslavement is and was.
Agree, Jon. Not only should young people WANT to serve this country, but that service should be a choice, of many choices this country could offer. My 2 years in the National Health Service Corps in Appalachia, after the program paid for my masters degree in nursing, was of great benefit to me, to the school, and (I hope) to the people I served in West Virginia, and then to all my patients in my 47 year career after that. We should seek a Better America.
And just imagine what a president like Trump would do with "compulsory service for all 18 year olds."
My idea is for two years mandatory service between high school and college. Military, Peace Corps, or a modern iteration of the CCC where construction, heavy equipment, electrical, plumbing, and other hands on skills are taught. Get sent to a different region of the country, and insure that race, gender/gender identity, culture, and socioeconomic status are diverse. Then go to college to learn, train, play sports, and come away with a degree that matters.
What was it we used to say, “Right on!”
"Right on Brother John" here!
I’m in too.
I think exchange students and high school years abroad are fantastic - and what a way to open a young person's eyes to the world that is broader and often more culturally rich than America. I remember the exchange students who came to my town in high school - what a wonderful program.
Response to Pat Cole: I've believed that conflicts should be decided not with the use of weapons but by let's say a chess game or a ping-pong gam--that is, something non-violent. Why in the world did homo sapiens ever decide to pick up a tree branch or a stone to settle a dispute?
Because a club was easier to make than a rolling pin? I always thought you should put the leaders in leotards and televise their wrestling matches. One can’t tell a big dog what to do, but one can tell a lot by what they do. Loser has to give the winner a foot massage and a back scratch and quit smoking what Mary Pat and Jon are using this morning.
I like this edited post even more yugely!
:) :)
I'm thinking maybe a year-and-a-half of field work, Virginia, combined with diary keeping.
Maybe several stints of two or three months each, or three or four months each, for all 16- and 17-year-olds. With choices including forestry, animal husbandry, lab work, orcharding, hot house and green house cultivation, and other areas in health care, elder care, and child care.
A return to high school could conclude with the 18-year-olds forming teams with each other to turn diaries into either extended essays -- with reading citations included -- or speeches given as teams, with students citing each other's field experience on the same team.
Maybe best of all: they could all be free of testing during all this time.
NOT compulsory service. A president like Trump would send all our budding 18 year old forester to Iran.
He doesn’t get to say. He will be in the cell next to other verboten losers. I once worked a deal with an Iranian prince back in the 1980’s. It was to feed their sheep. Seems like they have to have feed rations produced by entities that have religious requirements. Montana was okay in their book. The port of Butte was newly minted and 100 car trains of complete feed could be manufactured in Great Falls. They would ship to the then Gulf of Mexico. I even arranged a shipping captains route through the Straits of Hormuz which was tricky and by his approval only. And that was clear back then. My cousin was an international lawyer in Havre. He arranged the charter. All was a go. Nope the wise men on the board said. We don’t dare piss off the people who buy our feed. We will just limp along in the red like we are now. I thought the young prince attending MSU agricultural school in Bozeman was the real meal deal what with an intact intelligence and a balanced humanity. But the republicans ruled against and went home to their water pipes and that was that. My insight into Iran formed my basis for finding Iranians to be human too. Boy was I wrong. Apparently we need to kill them all starting with their daughters. God forbid they should live to breed.
I appreciate your allegorizing, Pat. To juxtapose Penn Jillette's question, did you give me enough clues that I got that right?
I will not deny nor confirm. I will simply say she has no idea how bigly she has mattered to so many.
Also I too am going to vote Democrat in the next election and “ that’s all you need to know.”
If he wants them he will take them, whether or not there is a compulsory service program. Right now he has instituted a well-paid group of thugs to take over our cities. Mercenaries. Bounty-hunters. When he wants 'recruits' he'll have them, one way or another.
I’ve had enough of his bullshit. In fact I just hand shoveled 5 loads into my manure spreader and as we say “flailed the shit out of it.” Sadly my loader tractor is in pieces as I rebuild the motor, transmission, hydraulic pump, and fuel injection pump. Keeps me out of the pool hall. I have another 10 loads of Trump to hand shovel. No problem.
Yikes!
But even Galileo was excommunicated by the church for his scientific findings!
A good reason to reject religion