Are you ready to give up without a fight? If not, then--not to put too fine a point on it--it wastes time and energy to talk about how powerful the enemy is.
Please, Lisa, do not repeat that defeatist nonsense. We have NOT already lost the 2022 midterms. If you listen to any of the democratic strategists, especially Joe Trippi who has joined the Lincoln Project, there is much to be optimistic about. (1) after thinking the Dems would lose a ton of seats in the House due to redistricting, it looks like we actually will gain a few. (2) the Republicans are on track to nominate real wingnuts in the primaries who could very much lose in the general elections. So don't call the game before the final buzzer.
Hi Lisa. I have read a number of replies, and frankly I didn’t get my buttons pushed by your position. I have been reading your comments for months, and I respect you and your opinion. I do disagree with you, however, that it’s a foregone conclusion that the Republicans win the midterms. They are in more disarray than I’ve ever seen that party, and they are more clearly and with greater conviction viewed as fascist, pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine, racist, sexist, and homophobic than ever before. I also take into consideration that there was a strong backlash to having Trump reelected. A lot of new voters came out of the woodwork for record-breaking voting totals in 2020. Anyway, it’s speculation, no one really knows, but my gut is leaning 60-40 towards the Democrats keeping their majority in Congress. Of course the Senate is up for grabs again.
I fully agree. There is the proverbial lifetime before the midterms. I hold to the position that an effective weeks-long, televised exposé by the House Committee will send shockwaves through America. Effectively they will be a first draft of history and Americans will be riveted.
The cultists will never be won over. That’s a given. However there are millions of reasonable, sensible Americans who will realize that the government must be purged of rot, and voting in wild-eyed R’s will not serve that purpose. And then there are the Democrats who are going to fight like it’s their last free election.
I am convinced that the rancid, revolutionary Republican movement has about run its course. The KBJ hearings are one more nail in the coffin.
Trump no longer has the grip he once had on America. Slowly he’s becoming more and more irrelevant. We see this from the increasingly serious challenges coming at him from others hoping to assume his mantle. But they are wolves in wolves’ clothing and people on the right are going to be split between those who want to preserve the real thing, and those who want someone new and shiny to articulate their increasingly absurd shows of anger.
Perhaps it is a good thing that the DOJ has been SLOW. A martyred Trump might be dangerous. Although in truth, the sloth like pace of this agency has left me in a mood to tear my hair out all too often.
As far as the Biden “gaffe”, it wasn’t. The White House going into overdrive about it was another example of the mindful nannying behavior that the Democrats have turned into an ugly art form.
It was a simple truth. Look at the state of Ukraine today and consider that this is all because of one man’s war. Of course Putin should not remain in power. What would he have to do beyond the horrors already inflicted to deserve the comment Biden delivered.
Yes, the nuclear threat hovers over us, and if carried out to its extreme the world would be annihilated. So the Americans and NATO have been prudent in their response - prudent but fierce nonetheless.
But what if Russia had slam-dunked on Ukraine in a week? What if they had them gone on to the Moldova, the Baltic States, and/or Poland? There would certainly be conventional war then. In the midst of that, Putin would undoubtedly issue nuclear threats. Would we then try to ‘negotiate’?
Biden’s message was hard-hitting and direct. Putin rarely hears home truths. I cheered it and hated the inevitable tortured cleanup.
Brilliant, Eric. Your comments are always exceptional and brilliantly stated. I agree with every word, and could hardly begin to state it so well.
Gaffe my ass. I’m delighted at all the opinion pieces pushing back against the idea that Biden did anything other than speak for humanity. In my life I am surrounded by kind, gentle people who think always of treating others well. My own wife said weeks ago that Putin needs to be offed. When WOMEN are calling for disposing of someone, that tells you something.
Biden himself was told, by women fleeing the war, that they would strangle Putin.
“In my life I am surrounded by kind, gentle people who think always of treating others well”.
Roland, that comes out in your writing. And I am positive that they live that way in part because you do to.
As I age, I feel more and more drawn to observing that same fact in my own life. My wife is a loving, gentle matriarch and our four children are brilliant, active and celebrate their parents (more than they serve in one case :).
And don’t get me started on my grandchildren. 😊
Thank you for your generous comment. It is wonderful to wake up to someone who reaches out in that way.
I read, listen to, and watch people doing their level best to sort out the terrible mess we have blasted ourselves into. It is unfathomable really. People can explain parts of it coherently in a way that nurtures my understanding. They can speculate on other parts, with rather less success in general.
I find myself thinking that nobody goes far enough in their analysis. They can and do arrive at proximate causes. But I find myself thinking more and more that we are not connecting the dots.
Ultimately the pundits do not go far enough. The simple truth is that not enough people have had the good fortune that we have - and it is in large part the luck of the draw - to be born into, and nurtured by families who put love first and that as their highest people. Those children then go in to nurture and love in the same way they were.
Nowadays it seems to me that in too many homes the stresses on individuals are so acute as to make them live either mostly in their head or never in their head. Parenting slowly becomes just one more thing to do in the intervals between texting, Netflix, and self-medication. It is terribly sad (there but for the grace of God go I), and in obsessing over the huge problems we ignore this root cause at our peril.
Great talking directly to you Roland. I know you are a good man.
Given what and how you both spoke, Eric and Roland, I present myself as that child from an unloving, violent home, AND I have and am breaking the cycle. I can now relate with 100% certainty from my decades of exhaustive experience, that there is ONE LOVE shared by each of us from our Creator (or whatever name/word man has thought of for such an entity). I offer two instrumental books that helped me to see with clarity the ego damage caused by my sick family of origin, and unhesitantly recommend them to read by as many folks as I can, knowing the human reality behind them. The first is the Updated and Revised version of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog (2017) written by Dr. Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and coauthored by Maia Szalavitz. Perry's 2006 version is fine as well, I'd imagine, yet the 2017 update is required reading by anyone who has any human relationships, full stop. The second is another book by Perry, coauthored with Oprah Winfrey (2021) called What Happened to You? This book is best heard on Audible because both collaborators speak as themselves. People like me who suffered from severe Developmental Trauma, being held hostage by dissociation and disconnection from self and others, know well the hell I lived in isolation (that is if they don't suicide/kill another, or to your point, perpetuate and project their self-hatred onto others, first). It is a condition in which the awareness of and dismantling of generational fear mongering is accomplished through enacting God's unconditional love into ourselves and others. This is how we end human suffering forever. My conviction about God's Love and Truth is coming from yet a very different source: its acroynm is ACIM, and it is a spiritual guide that has answered ALL MY questions about what I am and what this world of illusion is (our egos). Thanks for letting me share. I hope you and others in this group have your curiousity piqued and if interested, check these books out and see for yourself why I know what I offer is legitimate to our cause for Salvation before we destroy ourselves entiredly. Peace!
I was horrified by your account of your upbringing and amazed at your resilience and courage in shaking off the shackles. As a classroom teacher of 4+ decades, I saw plenty of children who had had no fighting chance in life. (And interestingly money was not a common factor. Many came from well to do homes). It was easy to anticipate adolescent problems before they occurred and sad to speculate how these children would turn out as adults. And then wreak havoc on their children, acting out what they knew. And of course I was often the target for displaced anger, especially if the worst offender was a father.
Your story of redemption is only too rare. Without really knowing the circumstances, I can only shake my head in admiration for how you overcame so much and broke the cycle. That is magnificent.
I was interested in the books that have so greatly influenced your life. I had not heard of ACIM and so I looked it up and read some sections. I was impressed by the calm certitude that the text presented. It was well-written, sequential in thought, and did not give off any huckster vibes to me.
I read some criticism of it as well. There are some limitations which would be hard for me to get past (esp. the concept of Creationism), which has long struck me as ludicrous. (Sorry)
Other criticisms were less significant to me, so in general I ended up believing that there was much of substance. I read a tiny bit on their theology of sin, and found there was food for thought in it.
All of the above is very superficial of course and I apologize for that. I was raised a firm Catholic and then went from doubting to lapsed. I have trouble with the predatory aspects of all organized religion and am not especially sure of the existence of God.
No matter. This has obviously been a huge blessing to you in your life (and to many others it seems). Whatever has given you the strength to live in a way that defies your upbringing must have something solid to answer.
My general feeling is that we are all broken in one way or another and most of us do our best to hide that from others - which of course can make one’s own brokenness harder to endure.
Today’s world has lost the capacity/time for reflection, so we make monumentally bad decisions and are addicted to time-constrained, simplistic solutions. In this manner we ended up with a Donald Trump (qualified “we”, as I am Canadian). If America does recover, it will take generations. I am not an optimist by nature.
Thank you for reading what we wrote and for your sharing - a deeply courageous act in my view.
Maybe…but I think there has been fear - real deal-seated fear - to be the one in the glare of the horde. That’s what motivated the SDNY to pull out a few weeks ago. Pomerantz, a recognized expert, was positive they had Trump dead to rights and retired after Byrnes’ decision to not prosecute.
Maybe I’m splitting hairs with what you articulated.
That, Lisa, is a chilling thought. But perfectly logical when it is examined. The world is now hurtling forward and our opportunities for reflection are severely constrained. Evil has exploded out of the box we normally contain it in and we are poorly equipped to deal with so many manifestations of it.
I had a professor in college (a very long time ago) who said that his aunt thought that the Philippine Insurrection was the greatest war the US had ever fought--her husband was killed in it. Are you certain that what you hear is not the complaints of people at the supermarket or on the bus, and that it really represents as solid majority even in your state?
When voters are restricted and the class action suits begin, autocracy will need to be fully declared. Lets see how many Americans tear up the Constitution
WSJ ........reported an independent registered nurse in Scottsdale stated because of diaper and grocery price increases she will likely vote R. That short sightedness concerns me as I think it indicative of a large number of voters. My hope is the R's have done enough crazy that it will pull in a landslide of new voters and maybe a number of the opposite side to vote dem. Thin thread of hope for certain.
All of which is anecdotal, the antithesis of statistical analysis, analogous to heresay , used by propagandists and commonly trashed by those actually serious about reality
I don't believe they are lost at all. A lot depends on what happens with the majority of Americans who are not MAGA subscribers. The sum total of presidential voters in the last election was about 156 million, suggesting that there are at least another 50-75 million who did not vote. There's lots of ground to plow amongst the electorate. Why not imagine a congress in which moderates in both parties would rather work with one another to accomplish things than with the extremists on either side, then work to see that vision become reality.
If people like you won’t get out and fight for democracy this year, then—and only then—you will be right.
Are you ready to give up without a fight? If not, then--not to put too fine a point on it--it wastes time and energy to talk about how powerful the enemy is.
Please, Lisa, do not repeat that defeatist nonsense. We have NOT already lost the 2022 midterms. If you listen to any of the democratic strategists, especially Joe Trippi who has joined the Lincoln Project, there is much to be optimistic about. (1) after thinking the Dems would lose a ton of seats in the House due to redistricting, it looks like we actually will gain a few. (2) the Republicans are on track to nominate real wingnuts in the primaries who could very much lose in the general elections. So don't call the game before the final buzzer.
Agree 100%
Hi Lisa. I have read a number of replies, and frankly I didn’t get my buttons pushed by your position. I have been reading your comments for months, and I respect you and your opinion. I do disagree with you, however, that it’s a foregone conclusion that the Republicans win the midterms. They are in more disarray than I’ve ever seen that party, and they are more clearly and with greater conviction viewed as fascist, pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine, racist, sexist, and homophobic than ever before. I also take into consideration that there was a strong backlash to having Trump reelected. A lot of new voters came out of the woodwork for record-breaking voting totals in 2020. Anyway, it’s speculation, no one really knows, but my gut is leaning 60-40 towards the Democrats keeping their majority in Congress. Of course the Senate is up for grabs again.
I fully agree. There is the proverbial lifetime before the midterms. I hold to the position that an effective weeks-long, televised exposé by the House Committee will send shockwaves through America. Effectively they will be a first draft of history and Americans will be riveted.
The cultists will never be won over. That’s a given. However there are millions of reasonable, sensible Americans who will realize that the government must be purged of rot, and voting in wild-eyed R’s will not serve that purpose. And then there are the Democrats who are going to fight like it’s their last free election.
I am convinced that the rancid, revolutionary Republican movement has about run its course. The KBJ hearings are one more nail in the coffin.
Trump no longer has the grip he once had on America. Slowly he’s becoming more and more irrelevant. We see this from the increasingly serious challenges coming at him from others hoping to assume his mantle. But they are wolves in wolves’ clothing and people on the right are going to be split between those who want to preserve the real thing, and those who want someone new and shiny to articulate their increasingly absurd shows of anger.
Perhaps it is a good thing that the DOJ has been SLOW. A martyred Trump might be dangerous. Although in truth, the sloth like pace of this agency has left me in a mood to tear my hair out all too often.
As far as the Biden “gaffe”, it wasn’t. The White House going into overdrive about it was another example of the mindful nannying behavior that the Democrats have turned into an ugly art form.
It was a simple truth. Look at the state of Ukraine today and consider that this is all because of one man’s war. Of course Putin should not remain in power. What would he have to do beyond the horrors already inflicted to deserve the comment Biden delivered.
Yes, the nuclear threat hovers over us, and if carried out to its extreme the world would be annihilated. So the Americans and NATO have been prudent in their response - prudent but fierce nonetheless.
But what if Russia had slam-dunked on Ukraine in a week? What if they had them gone on to the Moldova, the Baltic States, and/or Poland? There would certainly be conventional war then. In the midst of that, Putin would undoubtedly issue nuclear threats. Would we then try to ‘negotiate’?
Biden’s message was hard-hitting and direct. Putin rarely hears home truths. I cheered it and hated the inevitable tortured cleanup.
Brilliant, Eric. Your comments are always exceptional and brilliantly stated. I agree with every word, and could hardly begin to state it so well.
Gaffe my ass. I’m delighted at all the opinion pieces pushing back against the idea that Biden did anything other than speak for humanity. In my life I am surrounded by kind, gentle people who think always of treating others well. My own wife said weeks ago that Putin needs to be offed. When WOMEN are calling for disposing of someone, that tells you something.
Biden himself was told, by women fleeing the war, that they would strangle Putin.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10655075/amp/Hes-butcher-Biden-slams-Putin-visiting-Ukrainian-refugees.html
“In my life I am surrounded by kind, gentle people who think always of treating others well”.
Roland, that comes out in your writing. And I am positive that they live that way in part because you do to.
As I age, I feel more and more drawn to observing that same fact in my own life. My wife is a loving, gentle matriarch and our four children are brilliant, active and celebrate their parents (more than they serve in one case :).
And don’t get me started on my grandchildren. 😊
Thank you for your generous comment. It is wonderful to wake up to someone who reaches out in that way.
I read, listen to, and watch people doing their level best to sort out the terrible mess we have blasted ourselves into. It is unfathomable really. People can explain parts of it coherently in a way that nurtures my understanding. They can speculate on other parts, with rather less success in general.
I find myself thinking that nobody goes far enough in their analysis. They can and do arrive at proximate causes. But I find myself thinking more and more that we are not connecting the dots.
Ultimately the pundits do not go far enough. The simple truth is that not enough people have had the good fortune that we have - and it is in large part the luck of the draw - to be born into, and nurtured by families who put love first and that as their highest people. Those children then go in to nurture and love in the same way they were.
Nowadays it seems to me that in too many homes the stresses on individuals are so acute as to make them live either mostly in their head or never in their head. Parenting slowly becomes just one more thing to do in the intervals between texting, Netflix, and self-medication. It is terribly sad (there but for the grace of God go I), and in obsessing over the huge problems we ignore this root cause at our peril.
Great talking directly to you Roland. I know you are a good man.
Given what and how you both spoke, Eric and Roland, I present myself as that child from an unloving, violent home, AND I have and am breaking the cycle. I can now relate with 100% certainty from my decades of exhaustive experience, that there is ONE LOVE shared by each of us from our Creator (or whatever name/word man has thought of for such an entity). I offer two instrumental books that helped me to see with clarity the ego damage caused by my sick family of origin, and unhesitantly recommend them to read by as many folks as I can, knowing the human reality behind them. The first is the Updated and Revised version of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog (2017) written by Dr. Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and coauthored by Maia Szalavitz. Perry's 2006 version is fine as well, I'd imagine, yet the 2017 update is required reading by anyone who has any human relationships, full stop. The second is another book by Perry, coauthored with Oprah Winfrey (2021) called What Happened to You? This book is best heard on Audible because both collaborators speak as themselves. People like me who suffered from severe Developmental Trauma, being held hostage by dissociation and disconnection from self and others, know well the hell I lived in isolation (that is if they don't suicide/kill another, or to your point, perpetuate and project their self-hatred onto others, first). It is a condition in which the awareness of and dismantling of generational fear mongering is accomplished through enacting God's unconditional love into ourselves and others. This is how we end human suffering forever. My conviction about God's Love and Truth is coming from yet a very different source: its acroynm is ACIM, and it is a spiritual guide that has answered ALL MY questions about what I am and what this world of illusion is (our egos). Thanks for letting me share. I hope you and others in this group have your curiousity piqued and if interested, check these books out and see for yourself why I know what I offer is legitimate to our cause for Salvation before we destroy ourselves entiredly. Peace!
Hello Diana Zak. I’m pleased to meet you :)
I was horrified by your account of your upbringing and amazed at your resilience and courage in shaking off the shackles. As a classroom teacher of 4+ decades, I saw plenty of children who had had no fighting chance in life. (And interestingly money was not a common factor. Many came from well to do homes). It was easy to anticipate adolescent problems before they occurred and sad to speculate how these children would turn out as adults. And then wreak havoc on their children, acting out what they knew. And of course I was often the target for displaced anger, especially if the worst offender was a father.
Your story of redemption is only too rare. Without really knowing the circumstances, I can only shake my head in admiration for how you overcame so much and broke the cycle. That is magnificent.
I was interested in the books that have so greatly influenced your life. I had not heard of ACIM and so I looked it up and read some sections. I was impressed by the calm certitude that the text presented. It was well-written, sequential in thought, and did not give off any huckster vibes to me.
I read some criticism of it as well. There are some limitations which would be hard for me to get past (esp. the concept of Creationism), which has long struck me as ludicrous. (Sorry)
Other criticisms were less significant to me, so in general I ended up believing that there was much of substance. I read a tiny bit on their theology of sin, and found there was food for thought in it.
All of the above is very superficial of course and I apologize for that. I was raised a firm Catholic and then went from doubting to lapsed. I have trouble with the predatory aspects of all organized religion and am not especially sure of the existence of God.
No matter. This has obviously been a huge blessing to you in your life (and to many others it seems). Whatever has given you the strength to live in a way that defies your upbringing must have something solid to answer.
My general feeling is that we are all broken in one way or another and most of us do our best to hide that from others - which of course can make one’s own brokenness harder to endure.
Today’s world has lost the capacity/time for reflection, so we make monumentally bad decisions and are addicted to time-constrained, simplistic solutions. In this manner we ended up with a Donald Trump (qualified “we”, as I am Canadian). If America does recover, it will take generations. I am not an optimist by nature.
Thank you for reading what we wrote and for your sharing - a deeply courageous act in my view.
*deserve rather than ‘serve’. Sadly I can’t blame that on autocorrect.
The depth of empathy and humanity shown in your words is inspiring, Eric and Roland.
That’s a lot of credit you’re giving them.
Maybe…but I think there has been fear - real deal-seated fear - to be the one in the glare of the horde. That’s what motivated the SDNY to pull out a few weeks ago. Pomerantz, a recognized expert, was positive they had Trump dead to rights and retired after Byrnes’ decision to not prosecute.
Maybe I’m splitting hairs with what you articulated.
Liked your comments today btw, but the Like button wouldn’t reply to my smashing. :(
We’re all having the same problem. Reply with “heart” or “❤️“
That, Lisa, is a chilling thought. But perfectly logical when it is examined. The world is now hurtling forward and our opportunities for reflection are severely constrained. Evil has exploded out of the box we normally contain it in and we are poorly equipped to deal with so many manifestations of it.
I had a professor in college (a very long time ago) who said that his aunt thought that the Philippine Insurrection was the greatest war the US had ever fought--her husband was killed in it. Are you certain that what you hear is not the complaints of people at the supermarket or on the bus, and that it really represents as solid majority even in your state?
Who told you that? The media?
Our challenge is the vote
When voters are restricted and the class action suits begin, autocracy will need to be fully declared. Lets see how many Americans tear up the Constitution
WSJ ........reported an independent registered nurse in Scottsdale stated because of diaper and grocery price increases she will likely vote R. That short sightedness concerns me as I think it indicative of a large number of voters. My hope is the R's have done enough crazy that it will pull in a landslide of new voters and maybe a number of the opposite side to vote dem. Thin thread of hope for certain.
Why do you believe that?
All of which is anecdotal, the antithesis of statistical analysis, analogous to heresay , used by propagandists and commonly trashed by those actually serious about reality
I don't believe they are lost at all. A lot depends on what happens with the majority of Americans who are not MAGA subscribers. The sum total of presidential voters in the last election was about 156 million, suggesting that there are at least another 50-75 million who did not vote. There's lots of ground to plow amongst the electorate. Why not imagine a congress in which moderates in both parties would rather work with one another to accomplish things than with the extremists on either side, then work to see that vision become reality.