Yesterday, the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency, Brigadier General Kyrylo Budanov, told Military Times that he expects Russia to attack his country in late January or early February.
The African American population in the US is 12.4%, the transgender population probably less than 0.5% and immigrants can’t vote. The only demographic strong enough to resist the trend towards authoritarianism or the restoration of a white male 19th century “republic” are women. Women do make up a majority of the population.
Personally, I think the greatest perceived threat to the old order is the society-wide rebalancing of male-female power. The GOP is not blind to this. Note the “Proud Boys”, note Yale educated Sen.Hawley saying feminists are forcing men to watch porn, note the impunity of pussy-grabbing bragging, note abortion-vigilante Texas. Thankfully --and it is probably no coincidence--- some of our best leaders and thinkers are women. Thank you Nancy P. thank you Stacey A., thank you Amy K, thank you Heather and many others. You are our best hope for the survival of a decent, sustainable society.
Yep--and thank you VP Harris. Don't forget her. Never forget that her job includes completely reshaping the image of what an "executive" in government looks like. The problem (this is a common conversation among historians, especially those that look at the ways in which gender is defined historically) is that status usually trumps (sorry: pun kinda intentional) gender when it comes to those who support the status quo and those who oppose it. This is why affluent white women have been joining their male partners and family members: this is called the "patriarchal bargain" in my world because it focuses on accepting their continued oppression as a way of gaining access to power. Women who are still raising or hoping to raise children they have personally produced are often willing to make that compromise; single women and post-menopausal women tend to be more radical. This is a phenomenon that has been traced historically for thousands of years.
I would also quibble (and it is a little quibble) with one characterization of the creators of the US Constitution and the authors of American "independence" from Britain. Those men were well aware--as were men throughout western civilization--that women were and are fully capable of competing with men in every way that really counts (I don't think athletic prowess counts). This is why they restricted women's access to education, made sure that their legal status was akin to that of children, the insane, and the intellectually challenged, controlled their access to financial independence, and created volumes of rhetoric proclaiming the ways in which women were "inferior" or "depraved" or (in Aristotle's words) "deformed." Men don't go full-bore hateful about people they truly think are not a threat. They do so only when they perceive a challenge to (as John Adams said to his wife, Abigail) their "masculine institutions."
An interesting example is the early Islamicate world: the claims of western historians that Islam changed women's status for the worse in the areas they conquered (previously under the aegises of the Byzantine and Sassanid Persian Empires) are in fact false. Women in Byzantine law had no rights to property, inheritance, divorce, or status. Under Islamicate rule they actually gained access to all of these. In addition, the requirement to be covered up did not originate in Islam--it was a component of Byzantine Christian law, derived from ancient Greek law that required women to be covered from head to toe in public to be considered "respectable." Influence from the Byzantine world made Islamicate rule far more misogynistic than were likely the intentions of the founders of that political system.
Thank you for the reminder about Abigail Adams and also your commentary about early Islam. It's my understanding that both Muhammed and his influential wife Aisha were strong proponents of women's education and more or less equal roles in spiritual learning. But as happened with Christianity (e.g. the role of the "apostles' apostle", Mary Magdalene), it didn't take long for distortion and amnesia to set in.
Let me give you one more, although I haven't yet read it (on my "order" list). As readers on this forum know, I often listen to the Lincoln Project podcasts where I get a ton of information. This is where I found the fabulous book by David Pepper, "Laboratories of Autocracy, a Wake Up Call from Behind the Lines". I have now listened to another with David Pell. His book is "Please scream inside your heart". Here is the link. Once you listen to it, I'm sure you'll want to get the book. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/please-scream-inside-your-heart-with-dave-pell/id1551582052?i=1000542156330
Thank you for this knowledgable post on the treatment of women throughout the ages. In ancient Athens women were never considered to be adults and were either under the control of their fathers, husbands, or another male relative. Part of this tight control is always the problem in a patriarchy where men must know that their children (only sons count) were in fact theirs. As we always know who mother is, this is not a problem in a matriarchy. Some African societies were matriarchal as are one of our nearest primate relatives, bonobos.
I have always thought and said this. It is the motivation behind the anti-abortion movement. Not because of a true belief in the sanctity of life (aka, the right to birth movement), but because, if you control a woman's reproductive choices, you control the woman.
It amazes me and disgusts me that some want to tell a woman what to do with their bodies. I suspect if men could get pregnant this would not be an issue.
Thanks Bill. Also note that the #MeToo movement has legs not because so many people are suddenly 'woke', but because women now have significant economic, political, and social power in our society.
If we like-minded women can remain cohesive, and value the care of children, there will always be those who will care for the children while their warrior mothers take up the fight.
Keep it up Bill. You’re going to be extremely popular with that view. 😁
Seriously: I happen to agree with you. In my cursory and very amateurish studies of ancient history, I came across references suggesting that the early pharaonic dynasties of Egypt were actually female-centric and matriarchal, the reverse of what we have today. Men wore make-up, dressed to be attractive, and did all the behaviors that in our older sexist tradition we attribute to women. Seems that behavior is the behavior of the underclass.
I believe it is the deeply ingrained cultural biases (read “sexism”) of historians that makes it impossible for them to see this reality. So, if my assessment of ancient society is correct, the world might be cycling back around to a place it has already been, OR world society is moving towards a new place, a power-sharing balance between the female and the male.
"The world might be cycling back around to a place it has already been, OR world society is moving towards a new place, a power-sharing balance between the female and the male".
Against wild, demented demented resistance.
We can expect worse still, yet we need to remember that it is when the most oppressive regimes are coming to an end that they become even more rigid and extreme, lashing out in all directions.
Thanks, Roland, for these wise comments, and let us hope that the madness we are now seeing in so many places is a sign of the passing of an old, terminally sick paradigm and the coming of a new, healthier one.
There is an interesting fictional take on the opposite process in ancient England, M. Z. Bradley's, The Mists of Avalon where Celtic feminine power gives way to a masculine Roman Christianity . Thanks for the ancient Egypt reference --- I'm doing a deep dive there in February and will look for what you reference
Roland, you should read Kara Cooney's book When Women Ruled the World. It explains how women in ancient Egypt helped to preserve their dynastic line by holding power until a son/brother/husband (and often some combination of those) was old enough to assume the role of pharaoh.
To ancient history is where my mind searches for parallels, too...but even further back in time. Do current leaders strive to be Alexander The Great - destroying Utopian cultures of Persia with the arts/architecture/agriculture . Ghenghis Khan assembling huge armies battling their way across the globe. The Crusades & Inquisition in the name of fear-based religion ? The slaughter of the Cathars . We are again witnessing the warrior culture which is part of our history since the dawn of man.. I reflect that nothing has changed, yet, somehow these times may be different due to our 'recent' history of proclaiming democracy & the citizens hold onto the hope that we have a say . The tfg appeared to be Caligari - although he probably did not even know who he was ! But it felt/ feels like gladiator sports now again - throw the heathen citizens into the arena & the crowd cheers. My Utopian ideals were dashed at a young age. Today, the anniversary of JFK's murder marks the day I really lost much hope...just a kid, but we all felt the wind go out of our sails.
I think you meant Caligula, the Roman Emperor. But the Caligari reference works, too. Caligari was a fictional character in a 1920 German film, "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari," about the director of an insane asylum obsessed with the (fictional) 18th century Caligari, who used a sleepwalker named Cesare to commit murders for him. The doctor does experiments on patients to get them to murder for him. Jan 6, anyone?
You've said it, Leslie, I remember every detail of the moment when the news came through. And how it altered for good my view of the United States and the world. Must be the same for most of us who lived through that terrible event.
Yes, the pillars of power are shifting and those who are privileged by the status quo are fighting back. It appears they’ve moved from “family values”, “morning in America”, “trickledown economics”, “Constitutional Originalism” and “freedom” as their rallying cries to full on Authoritarians.
They have largely failed at persuading us and therefore have moved on to destroying what they can no longer control.
It’s time to call them what they are, Radical Republican Operatives determined to dismantle our Constitution. Their Radical Republican assaults on democracy must be called out every time. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I wonder about the demographics of the 80 million who don't vote. Would it be 50/50 between those who believe voting doesn't matter - those in the know re gerrymandering/electoral college /the entrenched political machine...vs. those who don't care/have a clue ? I did voter registration in the 90's & there were many I wasn't fishing for to sign up. Voter turnout is crucial but we already have way too many voting for the tyrants.
But really, Leslie, you ask good questions: Who are the non-voters and why are they non-voters. To me, the answer seems obvious - I can hear people saying: "Why vote if nothing is really going to change or make my life better?" It seems reasonable to me that decades of empty promises, lack of parity and equality are enough to turn some (potential) voters off.
And then you have my brother, a Vietnam vet, who doesn’t vote because he distrusts and hates politicians and anyone in D.C…although he also hates the liberals and progressives more than the trumpers….go figure
Absolutely spot-on, Bill. Women also brought an end to The Troubles in Ireland under a female head of state. John Knox wrote tracts against female rule in Europe in the 16th century, but Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Catherine the Great, and Marie de Medici proved how misguided he was.
Ah yes, love the title, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Rule of Women. Poor John. And I think you might mean Catherine de Medici as the power behind the throne in France. Women were absolutely excluding from ruling. Elizabeth I was very good at manipulating things in a man's world and kept everyone off balance because power depended upon her good will as she once reminded Robert Dudley. And she played the marriage game for as long as she could. She is my favorite historical female.
You are so right, Michele—I do mix up my Medici women. The 16th century was so bloody in Europe with guilt for the massacres shared by Protestants and Catholics of most countries equally. The Virgin Queen was magnificent considering her contemporary monarchs. There was simply no one quite like her, and few of her intelligence.
Yep, nailed it. Fragile white, male egos are threatened. Deep down inside they know they (as a group) have more power and status than they are owned in a civil society. They are acting out with outward hostility and masochistic behaviors. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_emotions. Especially Kemper and Hochschild.
Takes off professor hat and puts on baseball cap. "Deep down they know they are undeserving assholes". What comes out of their mouths is simultaneously projection and confession.
Concerned, however that no matter how many of us vote, we have passed the point of no return—republican legislators will change the outcome to suit their objectives.
Laughable that feminists are forcing men to watch porn. It's the same mentality that says Eve was at fault, that every woman that is raped is at fault. Now I am wondering if Hawley secretly watches porn.
I believe(d) this also, but then I come across too many "conservative" women, and the fact that a majority of white women voted for trump over Biden. And I cannot fathom why, though I try. Is it worth trying to understand these women and "wake" them?
It seems religious beliefs are a prime motivator of these women. And beliefs by definition don't require reasoned justification. But why the sense of righteous superiority? Is it ego? A lack of empathy?
I can only guess… I believe they think they are among the few who are “right” and they will be rewarded when Armageddon comes and the rest of us are destroyed. These are not my beliefs. It’s what I have been able to cull by trying to talk to them, which no longer happens, sadly.
Thanks for sharing, Carla. I’m sorry for the split in your family. I can empathize because I am facing a similar scenario. My sister and I are pretty much complete opposites, but managed to maintain a relationship based on shared history and my relationship with kids.
But then, she breached trust and endangered our entire family by refusing the Vax and then contracting COVID… after telling everyone she was going to get vaxxed.
Sorry this got OT, but seems it’s common occurrence these days, and it’s heartbreaking.
The Oregonian just had a story about not getting vaccinations in southern Oregon which is a very red part of the state. Some seem to have learned the lesson the hard way when they lost husbands; others did not.
Thanks for sharing. Sorry for the loss of your sisters in that way. I no longer communicate with one of my brothers, so this is happening in many families. Still unbelievable to me, but there it is.
Yes, happening in many families and impacting holiday gatherings and other events. Hard to keep the "family bonds" strong in the face of the strong feelings and positions.
Deeply conservative religious beliefs upholding male dominance represent the only security these women have ever known. Again, it's about fear - of loss, of displacement, of the unknown.
In fundamentalist X-tianity, the belief is that the 'saved' are the chosen, the righteous, the 'salt of the earth' who shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. It is a purely self-righteous stance, unexamined.
You and I have the same worries, Margaret. I recall marching for the ERA early on when we passed a Methodist church where "ladies" were gardening. They booed us down. There are more believers in the traditional roles of women among all classes and ethnicities of women than there are of us liberated, mostly white women. Now I cringe at the loud-mouthed mothers who bully teachers about not teaching values to their kids.
I often wonder if that comes from a lack of early education and only being prepared for being a housewife and mother. They stay in marriages where their husbands have affairs or visit prostitutes because they need someone to take care of them. It is hard to break away from being pushed down constantly. If the right has it’s way I see it headed down a path of separate schools for men and women so the only ones that learn are the men.
Except for a group of Neanderthal white males and some evangelicals who I consider estranged from Jesus, I find few solid voting blocs in America. Bill, when you speak of women, I believe that their voted are stratified by locale and education. Overall white women in 2020 probably voted more than 60% against the ‘Second Coming’ candidate. The voters who most puzzle me are Hispanics (Latinos) who outnumber Blacks. They edged closer to Trump in the 2020 election. It appears to me that President Biden and his professional team are doing far more than have recent ‘Republicans’ to provide meaningful assistance to a broadly diverse American population and that this is a’ rainbow’ rather than a white approach. So why isn’t there greater appreciation from suburban white females (who were less enthusiastically Democratic in the November VA elections) and from beneficiaries of all that the Biden administration is enacting and implementing. As an optimist, I am hoping that such recognition will be reflected in the 2022 elections, but I seem. A voice in the wilderness compared to doom-and-gloom analysts and. Pollsters.
One of the problems that I have encountered here in Salem are Bernie types who cannot or will not understand the positive things that the Biden administration is doing in terms of progressive values. I am in a conversation with one of them and I have suggested that she inform herself of what some of those positives are and start pushing them to ordinary voters as well as the others in her echo chamber.
Yes, there is a disconnect between being a Bernie Supporter and a Berner. The Berner’s are what damaged him all along. They have a tear down and build mentality that doesn’t take real life into account. They refuse to listen to others and even Bernie made statements that sounded like he wouldn’t work with others. Insurance is a great example. I get Medicare for All but how do we get there. Will they close the doors to traditional insurance companies and put so many people out of work. It could be a million if you think of all the companies, sales forces, administration and claims payers. I sent a letter asking the campaign about this more than once with no response. Made it impossible for me to vote for him.
As for Latinos, (I am one on my Dad's side), my take is that many Latinos are not sure where there political home really is: (1) Biden has no really close Latino friend/advisor that I know of; (2) Latinos were taken for granted during much of the campaign and given sparse speaking representation at the convention; (3) their diversity was not well understood; (4) many particularly in FL were alienated by the feeling that Dems were soft on left-wing dictators such as Maduro and Ortega; (5) there is a strong social conservatism and machismo in some of the US Latino cultures; (6) established Latinos don't identify with new illegal, immigrants and like nearly everybody else don't want to feel that they are at the bottom of the social ladder.(See E. Wilkerson's Caste.) Appointing an Afro-Asian-American to solve the border problem was also viewed by some as a slight.
Bill, thanks for your thoughtful insights. With a Cuban grandmother and a British mother, who could categorize this 88-year-old who was on the Nixon White House Enemies List? I hope that there are people in the Biden administration who understand what you said and are reacting to it.
"Women do make up a majority of the population." Yes, and while educational, economic, and political power is becoming more prevalent for women, moving the meter of change is still proceeding at a snail's pace.
With the continuous violent militaristic "solutions" at home and globally, we all may run out of time for a chance at that "decent, sustainable society". The 1970's/80's slogan "one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day" resonates in my head when the "superpowers" ratchet up the stakes.
And is signaling that they're planning to attack Ukraine in January or February. Some believe Putin is saber-rattling/testing the hunger for power vs the abhorrence of bloody war by the world community.
"You [women] are our best hope for the survival of a decent, sustainable society."
I believe this. Women are the greatest resource in this country and others for making real changes. But for those who have been compromised through their ambitions in the pig pen of politics, I have to wonder if they've come away unscathed or if they're more committed to their positions and perks in the political spectrum than they are to using their intelligence, compassion, and empathy to form a better world.
I'd love to see a woman president in the U.S. But not simply because she's a woman. And not one whose primary allegiance is to the political party which sponsors her. We need a "Wonder Woman" in the top position. Personally, I thought Tulsi Gabbard was the best candidate for President in 2020. Her qualifications were numerous--a woman of color; intelligent; honest (my judgment and as well as millions of other people); a veteran and combat veteran with 2 tours in Iraq; 4 terms in congress; and exemplary character without a flaw to be found. She was a Bernie supporter in 2016, but the DNC didn't like that. Political parties don't like someone who stands on principle because they can't be controlled by the party.
Here I'll pay tribute to an incredibly brave group of women in Argentina over 40 years ago. There was a military coup and 30,000 people considered leftist were rounded up and tortured or simply killed and gotten rid of. (Earlier, in September, 1973, President Nixon and Sec. of State Kissinger had instigated and supported the overthrow and murder of Chilean President, Salvador Allende.) So, in Argentina, 14 mothers whose sons and daughters, began a protest by marching in front of the military headquarters. They wanted answers and wouldn't give up. The mothers' lives were truly at risk of being killed by the military. More women joined the march which went on daily. Forty years and 2,037 marches later, a thousand of the torturers and killers had been brought to trial and 700 had been sentenced. Here is a following story in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/28/mothers-plaza-de-mayo-argentina-anniversary
Women here in the U.S. could bond together that way and dismiss all political affiliations in forming that bond. They could move on to become the strongest force known. They need to focus on what all of them have in common and set aside the rest of the issues. All in all, I consider women smarter than men, as indicated by the endless tasks which they take on or are assigned to them. Having a remarkable mother and four sisters, I'm always in their corner and in support of them, regardless of any and all hardships they face.
And in Chile too women were central in protesting the Pinochet regime. That included the well-known "arpillera" (tapestry) workshops whose work depicted the harshness of the regime. In my childhood in Colombia a women's march was important in the overthrow of the Rojas Pinilla dictatorship.
What a great practice--the arpillera workshops to record history and injustice. I just saw an anti-Pinochet arpillera for sale on ebay.
The U.S. has done some terrible injustices in South America as well as Central America, and they've been done by both political parties. The Nixon-Kissinger corruption of the traditionally apolitical Chilean military was followed by the murder of President Salvador Allende, a democratically-elected physician and socialist who was very popular with the people. Americans should see the movie "Missing" with Jack Lemon which shows part of what happened in Chile. Then, there was Pres. Reagan's interference in El Salvador and the murderous , U.S.-backed contras. That was well demonstrated in the film "Salvador" directed by Oliver Stone.
When Americans currently argue over the problem of immigration at our border with Mexico, they should really back up and find out exactly who these people are and what caused them to be desperate enough to make that dangerous trip north. When they discover that dictators in Central America have made their countries fearful and hopeless, then Americans might begin to understand why the migrants are fleeing northward. When Americans realize that our president and congress have armed and financially-backed those dictators--as long as those dictators agree to be severely anti-communist--then our government doesn't care what else the dictators do to their people. Hence, desperate people at our doorstep as a result of our government's policies. So it goes....
Thanks Bill for your timely and deeply appropriate reminder.
Maybe I'll be misunderstood, yet I feel strongly that the gender aspect of the issue is the major symptom of our disease rather than its main cause.
This, I see as the extreme bias towards the masculine principle in our societies and the corresponding sidelining of the feminine, an imbalance that persists despite women gaining more and more positions of power and responsibility.
This leads to a society in which everything is on the surface -- a telescreen surface -- and there's nothing behind it.
Such a society can only be a deeply sick one.
Another insight into the masculine mind, provided by a major French philosopher:
“This world, in which reason is more and more at home, is not habitable. It is hard and cold like those warehouses filled with goods that cannot satisfy: neither clothe the naked, nor feed the hungry; it is as impersonal as those factory sheds and industrial zones where manufactured things remain abstract, their only truth, statistical, borne on the anonymous circuit of the economy, the outcome of skilful planning decisions that cannot prevent disasters, but prepare them. There we have it, the mind in its masculine essence, living outside, exposed to the violent, blinding sun, to the trade winds that batter and beat it down, in a land without folds, rootless, solitary, wandering and already alienated by the very things it has produced, things that remain untameable and hostile.”
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I speak of sick societies and wish I did not have now to express deep condolences to Americans following events in Wisconsin last night that are painfully similar to the horror my city, Nice, in France, suffered at the hands of a mad fanatic on July 14th 2016.
Similar too, I fear, to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
We shall have to beware now of attacks on America from within coordinated with Russian moves against Ukraine and Chinese ones against Taiwan.
Thank you for the Levinas quote, a great description of the empty world of "rational" materialism, unanchored in the heart and in human exchange. Others have pointed out that the world "mercy" and "mercantile" have a common Etruscan root. What Levinas describes is a sickness to be sure but the repression of the feminine predates our modern, materialist world and often takes its most virulent form in more "spiritual traditions. Depressingly, we may be sickened by two separate, potentially fatal illnesses.
Thank you for recovering Emmanuel Levinas' name from the large library you seem to hold in your mind. I am not familiar with Levinas, but you have provided me with an excellent opening. His description seemed very appropriate. Another thank you, Peter, for selecting it.
I was once told that Lenin had never read Marx and Engels, just the prefaces. I wouldn't know about that, but I do know that all too often I have spent years sitting on a book half read or barely opened because I had been drawn to a passage in it. I'm a magpie, lining my nest with bright aphorisms filched or simply picked up alone the way, and that can make me a bore because I tend to repeat the same material... often from Lichtenberg's fascinating Waste Books...
Another image: it's rather like having a collection of road signs pointing to places where I spent a day or two... and all too often to places I'd like to visit but never got to. In other words, when I have read works of philosophy I rarely got beyond a first reading.
Peter, Good morning. The exchanges that you had with Bill and Eric here were not the first time my mind became glued to your thoughts. This time, I felt the wisdom, poetry and moderation you expressed. Emmanuel Levinas' quote evoked an embedded and uncomfortable aspect of America. It was so precise and visual in its rendering. In another passage of yours, humanity and regard of one human being for another was both exacting and generous. You rendered purity as in fresh water, and it is good to tell you so. However you gather, Peter, the results can be limpid.
But just a passing note: rereading that passage of Levinas, I remembered the flightpath descending towards Dallas-Fort Worth, mile upon mile of sheds. And the way I felt about what I saw.
Yes. “Civilizing” the white “wild” west, populated by many (probably) PTSD civil war men, was done by the gradually rising population of females according to some accounts. Women have been the anchors for stability for a long time — with perhaps the exception of mother’s who buy illegal firearms for their children and then drive them into danger.
Disclosure: I am a believer in Christ, a Christian of the more progressive beliefs which include not mixing the church with secular power. Therefore I cringe whenever I hear the nationalists from the pulpit and the halls of government wanting a "Christian nation". They do not want a Christian nation, only the power of imposing all people their brand of Christianity on all, including other Christians who do not believe exactly as they do. I have family members of the evangelical bent who believe that Democrats (of which I am one) are the scum of the earth, that women should stay in their place (another strike against me), and so forth and so forth. They will accept gays to some extent as one of my nephews is gay and in a monogamous relationship. And some people of color are okay as two of my grandnieces have a father of darker pigmentation. When they say they want a "Christian nation" I like to refer them to Jesus's teaching of feed the hungry, cloth the poor, be humble, and the rest. When they rail against the "Socialists", I refer them to the prophets railing against the king (the government) and the wealthy of not taking care of the poor and the foreigner within the country. I am no theologian but I do know that mixing the church with secular government usually comes to a bad end, especially for the church.
Thank you, Rebecca. I could have written what you have written here. I am a Lutheran pastor, PhD in worship and preaching. Your letter well describes the gulf between the "Christian" right-wingers (anti-women, anti-gay, anti-government, anti-taxes) and Christian progressives (pro-choice, pro-government, favoring equity and care for the poor). The early Christians were said to have shared their means for the welfare of the community. (Book of Acts of the Apostles)
The views of progressives are voiced in the media by people like Rev. William Barber, Jim Wallis, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Kaine, and many others. Both Stacey Abrams and Hilllary Clinton are strongly tied to the United Methodist Church. But these people argue for policies rather than showing us their religious beliefs. Some ideas just can't be sloganized. Real faith is deep and complex.
It seems to me that "Christian" right wingers do not subscribe at all to the New Testament. They certainly do not seem to have read any of it. I don't know how they get away with their misuse of "Christian" since their rhetoric appears to come straight out of the Old Testament, or if anything the obscure Book of Revelation, which they creatively interpret however they choose.
As a Christian, I do not understand the position of “Evangelical Radicals” which ignores the Content of Jesus’ Gospel and its context; eschewing the parts one might claim as “liberal, progressive, humanitarian empathy” and replacing it with strict Authoritarian Rule of White Men
What was that warning? “Beware of False Prophets?” These Radicals could not have wandered further from the Context of the Gospel if they tried
"In today’s America, those who call themselves “conservative” are the very opposite of conservative:" The same, unfortunately, can be said for all-too-many who call themselves "Christians." I'd like to see it put in quotes more often, or the phrase "so-called" placed before it (as at least one other commentator has, I see.)
This is among the very best letters. It helps me fully grasp the global context of what's happening abroad and at home. And it's frightening. The tragic irony is that hordes of self-professed, flag-waving freedom lovers either don't understand or support the true freedom on which the nation was founded. In fact, they believe freedom is under assault. They could be in for a rude awakening if the "soft fascists" ultimately win.
Michael, you're right that should this country fall to the rule of white rich men, those who currently feel their freedoms are being taken away will be in for a very rude awakening.
If any religion embodies the Biblical injunctions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, and live in community, it has to be the traditional Black churches of the U.S. The very idea that they should be marginalized while today's gun-toting white evangelicals are held up as the norm, is preposterous.
Agree. Watching through the lens of Roland Martin's online program, I am reminded of the deep faith African Americans demonstrate through their beliefs and practices. The demonstration of religious leaders at the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial is one shining example.
One name which does not appear at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence is that of John Dickinson, although he was a member of the Continental Congress and one of the architects of the American revolution. Not the least through his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, although he was in fact a solicitor and one of the wealthiest men in the British American colonies. A true conservative, Dickinson always hoped for reconciliation with Britain, and that the British monarch rather than indulging in his own tyrannical impulses would listen to the reasonable arguments of the colonists. Ha! As if. A man of integrity, and although opposed to violent revolution, rather than sign the Declaration, Dickinson left the Congress and, as an officer of the Pennsylvania militia, led 10,000 soldiers to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to protect that area against British attack from Staten Island. I know most of this from the musical 1776 with some help from Wikipedia.
Now compare that to today's American conservatives from America's first Hitler fanboys Joseph Kennedy and Henry Ford to, well, America Firster Nazi fanboys such as Donald Trump - none of whom put their lives on the line for America. And who rather than oppose tyrants want to join their ranks by indulging their own authoritarian impulses - at the expense of all the Founders believed in and at the expense of Americans' independence.
But don't take my word for that. Consider John Dean's (yes that John Dean) Conservatives Without Conscience, conceived in collaboration with Barry Goldwater. The book is "dedicated to unmasking what he sees as the new and dangerous breed of “tough, coldblooded, ruthless authoritarians” who have “co-opted” conservatism." Dean builds on "the theoretical concept of right-wing authoritarianism that was introduced in 1981 by the Canadian-American social psychologist Bob Altemeyer, as a refinement of the authoritarian personality theory originally pioneered by University of California, Berkeley, researchers Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford."
What? No mention of Hannah Arendt?
A key concept of whose Origins of Totalitarianism "was the application of Kant's phrase "Radical Evil", which she applied to the men who created and carried out such tyranny [as Nazism and Stalinism] and their depiction of their victims as "Superfluous People"." And whose hold on power "invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty." Arendt notes that "autocratic regimes seek only to gain absolute political power and to outlaw opposition, while totalitarian regimes seek to dominate every aspect of everyone's life as a prelude to world domination." Which folks is what we have in the Republican party as the bastard child of the plutocrats and the religious extremists dominating American 'conservatism'.
Given how it turned out, with Canada declining to revolt but ending up woth a much better political system than the US, maybe the Declaration boys didn’t really do us a favor.
Maybe you would like my fantasy country, Canada++: Canada+WestCoast+Mexico, with Canada’s political and legal systems. World’s second largest economy. Maybe third, at about the same GDP as China.
There are times one wishes that US "intelligence" at Can't Investigate Anything had known back in 1952 that the Soviet Union had 10 A-bombs and no delivery system, while the US had 400 A-bombs and a delivery system in SAC that could place them anywhere in the USSR, and had acted with the Soviet Union from that position of power (yes kids, all those drills about hiding under desks to protect from A-bombs that gave you nightmares were ridiculous - the Russians weren't coming because they couldn't). I don't mean World War III, but they could have been "dealt with" more effectively with that knowledge. Interestingly, they knew those facts, and managed through the 50s to created a "Potemkin threat" that had us spending over $2 billion in 1950s dollars to create the "Century series" of interceptors, the DEW Line, and all the rest - and engage in a self-destructive act of political demagoguery to oppose a domestic Left that was even less powerful - to oppose the "Communist threat" that didn't exist, as was discovered in the 1990s when the Soviet archives were opened to researchers. And now, when they're even weaker, they unfortunately have 2,400 nuclear weapons and delivery systems for them, so they can't be "dealt with."
"In today’s America, those who call themselves 'conservative' are the very opposite of conservative: they are dangerous radicals seeking to bring us to our knees by attacking the grand philosophy that made this nation great—and which, if we could finally make it a reality, could make it greater still—replacing it with the stunted beliefs of petty tyrants."
It breaks my heart to witness this downward spiral into totalitarian ideology. What was the point of WWII -- the horrendous loss of life -- if not to restore the German people and European sanity and well-being from the throes of fascism? The move toward heightened and unconscionable bigotry, racism, white supremacy, and injustice -- as though they didn't already lurk in the shadows and around every dark corner in this country -- is terrifying to observe first hand. We mustn't allow it to gain momentum and overtake our country -- one which has been built on liberal -- although decidedly flawed -- foundations.
Rowshan, I keep thinking Now it is our turn, our turn to defend democracy, our democracy. Pardon my Christian allusion (if necessary) but "the powers of darkness" do indeed lurk within every mind and institution, the unfettered greed for wealth and power and domination over others. It's always going to be a fight to keep those tendencies in human beings at bay. I don't think the world will ever be rid of them. Our job is to keep up the fight against them -- we can't ever take our democratic system for granted. The dark farces must be beaten down constantly by insistence on good laws and voting for honorable leaders.
Again, I find myself limited in bandwidth, plus limited in time this morning (leaving to drive a friend 2 hours to Portland for a post shoulder replacement post op, in freezing fog). You hit the nail on the head when you said "In today’s America, those who call themselves “conservative” are the very opposite of conservative: they are dangerous radicals seeking to bring us to our knees by attacking the grand philosophy that made this nation great—and which, if we could finally make it a reality, could make it greater still—replacing it with the stunted beliefs of petty tyrants."
THIS is what I have been thinking/feeling/believing that the Republiscum have become. Thank you for those words.
It’s been a combination of aging parent, trying to juggle music commitments, and 2 trips to Portland with a friend who needs a ride to medical appointments. Takes up bandwidth…. I am well, and thank you.
The Rachel Maddow show has a website for contributions and ideas. I went there and WaPo and NYT to contribute a particular idea relative to Trump and receiving finances from Russia. TRMS was inspired, they ended up with a full segment. But of course HCR has to decide for herself. Why the hell would she want to be a target in this environment? I don’t think anybody in their right mind would want to be on a major network right now. Just sayin’
I always post her Letters to Twitter and frequently tag certain anchors. Maybe if more of us did this, something would rise to the top of their "in baskets" and an aide would pay attention?
That sounds like a bit too much, even for someone like Putin. I have very little knowledge of warfare, tactics, or modern weaponry, but tell me - from a purely logistical angle, how would such a scenario play out? And what do you envision the possible outcomes are?
If he took over Crimea, why would he not do it again to Ukraine -- if he could get by with it. I'm wondering if there are different forces at play now that would stop him compared to 2014 in Crimea. ??????
Ah, I misunderstood you. When you said "invade", I thought you were referring to the United States - as though that were his endgame, after Ukraine and who knows how many others. How dreadfully US-centric of me... and a good illustration of where my head is at, I suppose. Especially in regards to predicting where everyone else's heads may be...!
Yes, and much of the Republican party, all wooed with a financial prize, too. Putin has an oligarch's twisted mind and he's ruthless. He hates the success of democracy and like Nero, enjoys the failures of the people. He's adept at partnering with autocrats and will pull all stops to weaken the rule of law. I am certain one of his weapons is encouraging mass migrations. How else to force our contradictions of freedom when the tired and oppressed demand entry to democratic countries by the droves?
Thank you Heather! You have summed it up so well. All of my scattered thoughts and worries about the direction our country is going in is truly frightening. And Knowledge is power. And the knowledge you share is so important and powerful. There are so many people that are indifferent and/or in the ignorance is bliss state. How do we wake them up? I read the Washington Post online and their logo “Democracy dies in Darkness” has a profound effect on me every time I read it.
Thank you so much Ellie for sharing this inspiring article. It is excellent and I will probably read it many more times. Although I haven’t joined a grassroots organizations, I do give recurring monthly donations to Indivisable, CREW, and Truthout. Right now this is the best way for me to contribute as my time is so limited working full time plus, and having time for myself and family. One of these days when I retire I look forward to being more actively involved.
From threatening clashes in Central and Eastern Europe and the deaths in Waukesha, Wis. to the clamor in the House of Representatives and the battle over the future of Liberal Democracy -- but that's not all. There is the humanitarian crisis in Mozambique; the severe hunger crisis in the Democratic Republic Congo; the economic crisis in Venezuela; the risk of famine in Yemen, and the world’s fastest-growing displacement crisis in Burkina Faso. But that's not all. There's the Pandemic -- The COVID-19 Vaccination Gulf Widens Between Wealthy, Developing Countries -- Less than 10% of African countries to hit the key COVID-19 vaccination goal and, of course, there's the Climate Catastrophe. The world is not a safe place and neither is America. HCR's Letter ended with the following:
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776. THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
And that is not all, we are now fifty United States of America.
Is this just some quaint old relic, 'an object, custom, or belief that has survived from an earlier time but is now outmoded' or a declaration of our commitment to the future of American Democracy? That is a huge question.
This is the first existential crisis liberal democracy has faced since the Battle of the Bulge. We have grown complacent through winning: the defeat of Fascism, the defeat of McCarthyism, the success of Civil Rights, the rise of Feminism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the election of Barack Obama, all took place within the span of a single lifetime. All of it was based in large part on the ideas put forth in the founding documents of this nation.
Our Constitutional Republic is either about to die or reinvent itself into a more perfect union. The intellectual, moral, and spiritual underpinnings of our democracy are sound. It is not a relic.
Those who are attempting to destroy our republic have chosen to do so by corrupting our institutions: the courts, elections, media, education. Right now, we need a coalition to save the republic. That needs to be our primary purpose. None of the issues you mentioned above will be addressed if we become a one party state next November.
Steve, In the United States, part of the reason we're at this juncture stems from the fact that while gains have been made in certain areas they were and are not complete, in some cases they are merely superficial. On paper civil rights and women's right may have been achieved to some extent but in practice not so much – the most glaring continues to be the lack of economic parity because BIPOC and women still struggle to achieve equal pay, equal buying power, equal access to credit.
The other gap which significantly impacts our ability to embrace true democracy is unequal justice under the law, for BIPOC imparticular. It has always been this way and remains so today. The numbers of incarcerated in the US, particularly Black men, is staggering. We see the imbalance reported every single day by the media.
And the glue that holds the right together in their war against Democracy? Their very twisted interpretation of Christianity. Make no mistake, the inclusion if God in our pledge and on our money in the 1950s was no trifling action. The National Day of Prayer, signed into law by Harry S Truman in 1952, NEVER should have happened. These actions gave legitimacy to the incursion of church into state.
Because the gains you mention have never been fully realised, the loopholes and chinks in the wall have started to become gaps. The right is using those gaps to further drive a wedge into what little social stability we have. You're right, we do need a coalition to save the Republic, however, unless Progressives, Democrats and Independents band together this very minute we will fail.
I'm sorry. I know I will be accused of being negative again but how much longer are we going to turn our backs on the real reasons we're falling apart?
Daria, once again you have hit the nail on the head. The rethuglicans have created the ever widening gaps, and know they can use these gaps to their advantage. Sadly, racism and misogyny are still very alive in this country.
Pew found that among “the four Republican-oriented typology groups, no more than about a quarter say a lot more needs to be done to ensure equal rights for all Americans regardless of their racial or ethnic background; by comparison, no fewer than about three-quarters of any Democratic group say a lot more needs to be done to achieve this goal.”
This from an opinion piece in today's WaPo by EJ Dione.
Daria Spot on. There is no resting on our laurels. This is a national elevator. Historically we can boast about how voting rights have been expanded to ‘all Americans,’ but, in reality, this is precisely what is not happening today in nearly a dozen Republican-controlled states. Regarding civil rights, there is clear evidence of backsliding and the creation of a modern KKK (white supremists ). As a professional historian, I can point to the opening up of professional research into the South and slavery 60 years ago while today there is an asinine discussion over critical race theory (CRT). After sustained immigration discrimination for many generations, there was the breakthrough 1965 immigration legislation. There has been severe backsliding on immigration in the recent past and current activity.
Keith, thank you. I appreciate you reading my comment and responding. Your use of the term "backsliding" is appropriate with regards to not only the topics you mention but so many other issues facing us today. We do gave a long way to go.
Steve, We haven't 'won' the Civil Rights Battle. That claim in so far from the truth, perhaps, you have forgotten our protests against police killings; how's it going now; how's the 'justice' system working for minorities and what about the murders by white supremacists of people of color, to name just a few examples??? Did you read Mike S. Rochester's comment a few days ago? You remember why he plans to leave this country of his birth? And labor, Steve, what happened to labor unions and communities in the Midwest - practically vacant Main Streets with a church or two, a bar and a luncheonette? Check into the Pew Research Center and other reliable sources to learn what has happened to wages in this country since the late 70's, and while you're at it, learn how much the middleclass has shrunk, Do you know about the enormous transfer of wealth that has taken place in this country? We the People have been losing since the 1980's. As Trump said, 'We're going to win so much, you'll be sick of it...' Oh, we are plenty sick of it.
'Over the last 20 years, states have put barriers in front of the ballot box — imposing strict voter ID laws, cutting voting times, restricting registration, and purging voter rolls. These efforts, which received a boost when the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013, have kept significant numbers of eligible voters from the polls, hitting all Americans, but placing special burdens on racial minorities, poor people, and young and old voters'(Brennen Justice Center)
It has been my fear, since I was informed by a Southern reenactor in a Charleston bar the night before South Carolina would celebrate their victory at Fort Sumter, that our conservatives (especially led by the Southern Caucus) will not cede until the United States becomes a Confederacy as it was before the Constitutional Convention of 1787. For them, that is real originality, I am certain, they mean when their talk of hewing to the founding father's vision and constitutional document.
Yes, Fred, that vein runs deep in our country, and its been strongly excited. Your reply reminded me of when I was about 9 or10 years old. Two Italian siblings, older than me, lived on a corner of the block. They screamed epithets at me once when I passed by. This block in Queens, NY. was comprised of mostly Jewish people, of which I was one. The corner houses were owned by Christians. I was baffled by attack. It was frightening, and I simply continued to walk home That corner and the house are still alive in my mind as a horrid menace. There have been a some other incidences in my life, but that one stands out.I was young and unprepared.
Cornerstone memories that shape what we pay attention to and ... sadly, hold fears about even as a 10-year-old who might not realize the enormity of the enmity that is hate.
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world": it was George Washington's Farewell Address to us. The inaugural pledge of Thomas Jefferson was no less clear: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none." Fern do you think an alliance we have through NATO with Victor Oban exemplifies what our founders warned?
Thank you HCR for that last paragraph. It eloquently sums up what you have been saying over and over---and has an implicit call to action. Action it will need to be---getting out the vote, suing in court to overturn deceit and grabs for power, raising the proud banner of true liberalism (and getting the neo-liberals back in the barn or wherever :-) ). Liberty strides forward with a flowing flag---a proud image; time to reclaim it!!!!
The problem is that the courts are primarily filled with Trumpist and otherwise Republican appointed judges who often seem to issue decisions based on political reasoning rather than based on law. I am not sure how we overcome that delimma.
With all due respect, do you have a citation to support your statement that courts are "primarily" filled with Trumpist/Republican non-law based decision makers?
As she always does, six days a week, Heather spells out in clear terms what is going on and what is at stake. And yet, just three weeks ago, we saw Virginia, a state that polls +12 points more Democratic than the national average, elect a Republican governor. And no, it wasn't because of voter suppression (yet). It was because the (still) single biggest reason these regressive half-wits are in or coming to power is US. Yes, us, the people of this country who love to blame but not look in the mirror. Because Democratic voter turnout in the Virginia election, while strong, wasn't AS strong as Republican. Why? Why, one year after choosing Biden for president is this the case? Answer: there is ZERO excuse other than we simply can't be bothered. Too many of us anyway. Until we, as a people, get tired of the ass-kickings, we'll see this worsen. Until we INSIST, with every means we can muster (we're still only trying with one hand behind our backs, if we're being honest with ourselves), we will continue to get what we deserve. We can still do WAY more and WAY better. Get involved, write your congressperson, donate money, and for the love of God, VOTE.
I'm thinking this next election cycle will be about apathetic voters (q.v. Virginia). My energies are going toward registration and getting people off their backsides to vote.
I'm getting the picture that there is this mass of folks between the rabid right and the sensible who just shut off politics and abdicate their right and responsibility as citizens. IMHO, this represents a tide-turning majority.
Yes, the women, but frankly, really? Yes the Black women, but tired! The Democratic party with its grassroots organizing, wherefore art thou? Perhaps quietly, but certainly firmly, the persistence of this work, bringing non-voters into the fold, and networking neighborhoods is where the next elections will be decided.
Yesterday I rode my bike from my place in the Bayview district on the east side of San Francisco out through Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach on the west side. I'm not a depressive person but the politics in this country are pushing me close to the edge and the Pacific usually brings me peace. As I sat taking it in I had this thought: The US needs to have a MARCH FOR DEMOCRACY well before the primaries next year. Republicans, Independents, and Democrats moderate, liberal and progressive, MARCH TOGETHER to support OUR DEMOCRACY. No more silence from the MAJORITY! I have a book that has a chapter INTO ACTION. That's what we all need to do.No more crazy people, including California's Kevin McCarthy, thinking they are in some majority.
We've watched as the electoral college and the Supreme Court have put Republicans in the presidency while loosing the popular vote, we've seen gerrymandering destroy voting districts, and watched as one criminal named Mitch McConnell helped another criminal put democracy on shaky ground.
Yesterday there weren't enough endorphins to make me feel better.
I agree completely! If we all, the majority got out and marched no only once but again and again. I think it would make a big difference -- let McCarthy and his ilk see they are not the majority and that we know what's at stake and are willing to get out and fight for it.
What jumps out for me is that the economy of Russia is the size of the Texas economy and that of Hungary is the size of Michigan. Should these minority anti-Democratic forces prevail in the US we will have true minority rule. Maybe we need to coin a new word: “tinyminority”. The Tinyminority would dictate to large majority states like California and New York. The Tinyminority would control through force of arms and greater willful mastery of politics the lives of most of us. That is so in these authoritarian countries - and also true in China. A few men with guns can dictate what happens to a large group who have no guns. The Rittenhouse case shows that guns are being legitimized as a response to legitimate protest against abusive misuse of police enforcement powers.
When the Democrats in the House passed the BBB bill, they danced and whooped and hollered in celebration. That image stays with me. The image of healthy governing for the good of the people. Meanwhile the Republicans act like joyless zombie ghouls, only grimly happy when they are in control.
We must find a way to stop this Tinyminority rule and keep alive the joyful celebrations of success in working for the good of all.
"When the Democrats in the House passed the BBB bill, they danced and whooped and hollered in celebration. That image stays with me."
Me too. I hung on to that image for a few days like an old family photo. Ah look. Happy times.
Until we are able to get the media to stop the drum beat of violence, tyranny and bias towards Republicans we are dead in the water.
For example: Why keep calling it the spending bill? Why keep saying no toys for Christmas? Why the constant unnerving coverage of trump and the less coverage of Biden? People say Biden must speak out. He is. He is not getting the coverage trump gets. Why the over emphasis on Manchin and Sinema as a divisive Democratic Party? And on and on.
Corporate media in America will push the Republican narrative because it benefits them.
My hope? Remember the silent majority the Republicans always claimed? Maybe it is now those Democracy minded voters.
Barbara, I couldn’t agree more. Even the MSNBC coverage doesn’t look at the whole picture - just the “weak” Dems. Not all our reps are strong & visible, but neither are the far right reps. Only the “loudest voices” get the coverage.
and last Thursday, Nov. 18, on MSNBC, Chris Hayes popped up a shot of her book and a picture of Sen. Charles Sumner getting caned. Of course, the title of her book is The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress, and for the media, "if it bleeds, it leads."
The African American population in the US is 12.4%, the transgender population probably less than 0.5% and immigrants can’t vote. The only demographic strong enough to resist the trend towards authoritarianism or the restoration of a white male 19th century “republic” are women. Women do make up a majority of the population.
Personally, I think the greatest perceived threat to the old order is the society-wide rebalancing of male-female power. The GOP is not blind to this. Note the “Proud Boys”, note Yale educated Sen.Hawley saying feminists are forcing men to watch porn, note the impunity of pussy-grabbing bragging, note abortion-vigilante Texas. Thankfully --and it is probably no coincidence--- some of our best leaders and thinkers are women. Thank you Nancy P. thank you Stacey A., thank you Amy K, thank you Heather and many others. You are our best hope for the survival of a decent, sustainable society.
Yep--and thank you VP Harris. Don't forget her. Never forget that her job includes completely reshaping the image of what an "executive" in government looks like. The problem (this is a common conversation among historians, especially those that look at the ways in which gender is defined historically) is that status usually trumps (sorry: pun kinda intentional) gender when it comes to those who support the status quo and those who oppose it. This is why affluent white women have been joining their male partners and family members: this is called the "patriarchal bargain" in my world because it focuses on accepting their continued oppression as a way of gaining access to power. Women who are still raising or hoping to raise children they have personally produced are often willing to make that compromise; single women and post-menopausal women tend to be more radical. This is a phenomenon that has been traced historically for thousands of years.
I would also quibble (and it is a little quibble) with one characterization of the creators of the US Constitution and the authors of American "independence" from Britain. Those men were well aware--as were men throughout western civilization--that women were and are fully capable of competing with men in every way that really counts (I don't think athletic prowess counts). This is why they restricted women's access to education, made sure that their legal status was akin to that of children, the insane, and the intellectually challenged, controlled their access to financial independence, and created volumes of rhetoric proclaiming the ways in which women were "inferior" or "depraved" or (in Aristotle's words) "deformed." Men don't go full-bore hateful about people they truly think are not a threat. They do so only when they perceive a challenge to (as John Adams said to his wife, Abigail) their "masculine institutions."
An interesting example is the early Islamicate world: the claims of western historians that Islam changed women's status for the worse in the areas they conquered (previously under the aegises of the Byzantine and Sassanid Persian Empires) are in fact false. Women in Byzantine law had no rights to property, inheritance, divorce, or status. Under Islamicate rule they actually gained access to all of these. In addition, the requirement to be covered up did not originate in Islam--it was a component of Byzantine Christian law, derived from ancient Greek law that required women to be covered from head to toe in public to be considered "respectable." Influence from the Byzantine world made Islamicate rule far more misogynistic than were likely the intentions of the founders of that political system.
Thank you for the reminder about Abigail Adams and also your commentary about early Islam. It's my understanding that both Muhammed and his influential wife Aisha were strong proponents of women's education and more or less equal roles in spiritual learning. But as happened with Christianity (e.g. the role of the "apostles' apostle", Mary Magdalene), it didn't take long for distortion and amnesia to set in.
I learn something every day on this forum. My book list is now likely longer than the time I have left to read them. Thank you all.
Let me give you one more, although I haven't yet read it (on my "order" list). As readers on this forum know, I often listen to the Lincoln Project podcasts where I get a ton of information. This is where I found the fabulous book by David Pepper, "Laboratories of Autocracy, a Wake Up Call from Behind the Lines". I have now listened to another with David Pell. His book is "Please scream inside your heart". Here is the link. Once you listen to it, I'm sure you'll want to get the book. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/please-scream-inside-your-heart-with-dave-pell/id1551582052?i=1000542156330
Thank you for this knowledgable post on the treatment of women throughout the ages. In ancient Athens women were never considered to be adults and were either under the control of their fathers, husbands, or another male relative. Part of this tight control is always the problem in a patriarchy where men must know that their children (only sons count) were in fact theirs. As we always know who mother is, this is not a problem in a matriarchy. Some African societies were matriarchal as are one of our nearest primate relatives, bonobos.
Long live “Lysistrata”!
Thanks for this…added to my growing list of “things I did not know”!
You are SO right. Thank you for aiming “patriarchal bargain.” I have observed it and felt it, but now have its name.
Indeed, the Quran and Muhammad were/are quite forward-thinking about the roles of women.
I think you described me! LOL
I have always thought and said this. It is the motivation behind the anti-abortion movement. Not because of a true belief in the sanctity of life (aka, the right to birth movement), but because, if you control a woman's reproductive choices, you control the woman.
It amazes me and disgusts me that some want to tell a woman what to do with their bodies. I suspect if men could get pregnant this would not be an issue.
Yes forced pregnancy. Recommended Reading, Trust Women by Rebecca Todd Peters (focus on progressive Christianity, theology and ethics)
Thanks Bill. Also note that the #MeToo movement has legs not because so many people are suddenly 'woke', but because women now have significant economic, political, and social power in our society.
If we have safe quality child care
If we like-minded women can remain cohesive, and value the care of children, there will always be those who will care for the children while their warrior mothers take up the fight.
WE CAN DO IT!
That is absolutely correct, Kim.
United. 🙋🏻🙋🏼🙋🏽🙋🏾🙋🏿
Keep it up Bill. You’re going to be extremely popular with that view. 😁
Seriously: I happen to agree with you. In my cursory and very amateurish studies of ancient history, I came across references suggesting that the early pharaonic dynasties of Egypt were actually female-centric and matriarchal, the reverse of what we have today. Men wore make-up, dressed to be attractive, and did all the behaviors that in our older sexist tradition we attribute to women. Seems that behavior is the behavior of the underclass.
I believe it is the deeply ingrained cultural biases (read “sexism”) of historians that makes it impossible for them to see this reality. So, if my assessment of ancient society is correct, the world might be cycling back around to a place it has already been, OR world society is moving towards a new place, a power-sharing balance between the female and the male.
"The world might be cycling back around to a place it has already been, OR world society is moving towards a new place, a power-sharing balance between the female and the male".
Against wild, demented demented resistance.
We can expect worse still, yet we need to remember that it is when the most oppressive regimes are coming to an end that they become even more rigid and extreme, lashing out in all directions.
Thanks, Roland, for these wise comments, and let us hope that the madness we are now seeing in so many places is a sign of the passing of an old, terminally sick paradigm and the coming of a new, healthier one.
There is an interesting fictional take on the opposite process in ancient England, M. Z. Bradley's, The Mists of Avalon where Celtic feminine power gives way to a masculine Roman Christianity . Thanks for the ancient Egypt reference --- I'm doing a deep dive there in February and will look for what you reference
Roland, you should read Kara Cooney's book When Women Ruled the World. It explains how women in ancient Egypt helped to preserve their dynastic line by holding power until a son/brother/husband (and often some combination of those) was old enough to assume the role of pharaoh.
Hi Jennifer. Bill Willis, Conway, SC.
Thank you Jennifer 🙏
To ancient history is where my mind searches for parallels, too...but even further back in time. Do current leaders strive to be Alexander The Great - destroying Utopian cultures of Persia with the arts/architecture/agriculture . Ghenghis Khan assembling huge armies battling their way across the globe. The Crusades & Inquisition in the name of fear-based religion ? The slaughter of the Cathars . We are again witnessing the warrior culture which is part of our history since the dawn of man.. I reflect that nothing has changed, yet, somehow these times may be different due to our 'recent' history of proclaiming democracy & the citizens hold onto the hope that we have a say . The tfg appeared to be Caligari - although he probably did not even know who he was ! But it felt/ feels like gladiator sports now again - throw the heathen citizens into the arena & the crowd cheers. My Utopian ideals were dashed at a young age. Today, the anniversary of JFK's murder marks the day I really lost much hope...just a kid, but we all felt the wind go out of our sails.
I think you meant Caligula, the Roman Emperor. But the Caligari reference works, too. Caligari was a fictional character in a 1920 German film, "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari," about the director of an insane asylum obsessed with the (fictional) 18th century Caligari, who used a sleepwalker named Cesare to commit murders for him. The doctor does experiments on patients to get them to murder for him. Jan 6, anyone?
yes, they both ring true....you made my day ! thank you. As tragic as these characters are - this somehow brings some levity - you made me smile.
Brilliant -- the Caligari reference lost me...
You've said it, Leslie, I remember every detail of the moment when the news came through. And how it altered for good my view of the United States and the world. Must be the same for most of us who lived through that terrible event.
Thank you Bill Espinosa
Yes, the pillars of power are shifting and those who are privileged by the status quo are fighting back. It appears they’ve moved from “family values”, “morning in America”, “trickledown economics”, “Constitutional Originalism” and “freedom” as their rallying cries to full on Authoritarians.
They have largely failed at persuading us and therefore have moved on to destroying what they can no longer control.
It’s time to call them what they are, Radical Republican Operatives determined to dismantle our Constitution. Their Radical Republican assaults on democracy must be called out every time. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I call them far right radical regressives. They are no longer conservatives, but are now the party of death.
Unfortunately, there are 74 million of them, almost all white, and they carry guns,
All the more reason to publicize the radical nature of their movement.
Hear hear!
I wonder about the demographics of the 80 million who don't vote. Would it be 50/50 between those who believe voting doesn't matter - those in the know re gerrymandering/electoral college /the entrenched political machine...vs. those who don't care/have a clue ? I did voter registration in the 90's & there were many I wasn't fishing for to sign up. Voter turnout is crucial but we already have way too many voting for the tyrants.
But really, Leslie, you ask good questions: Who are the non-voters and why are they non-voters. To me, the answer seems obvious - I can hear people saying: "Why vote if nothing is really going to change or make my life better?" It seems reasonable to me that decades of empty promises, lack of parity and equality are enough to turn some (potential) voters off.
Whether things change or not, my mother always said “If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.”
And your mother was 100% correct.
And then you have my brother, a Vietnam vet, who doesn’t vote because he distrusts and hates politicians and anyone in D.C…although he also hates the liberals and progressives more than the trumpers….go figure
Oy!
Absolutely spot-on, Bill. Women also brought an end to The Troubles in Ireland under a female head of state. John Knox wrote tracts against female rule in Europe in the 16th century, but Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Catherine the Great, and Marie de Medici proved how misguided he was.
Ah yes, love the title, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Rule of Women. Poor John. And I think you might mean Catherine de Medici as the power behind the throne in France. Women were absolutely excluding from ruling. Elizabeth I was very good at manipulating things in a man's world and kept everyone off balance because power depended upon her good will as she once reminded Robert Dudley. And she played the marriage game for as long as she could. She is my favorite historical female.
You are so right, Michele—I do mix up my Medici women. The 16th century was so bloody in Europe with guilt for the massacres shared by Protestants and Catholics of most countries equally. The Virgin Queen was magnificent considering her contemporary monarchs. There was simply no one quite like her, and few of her intelligence.
Yep, nailed it. Fragile white, male egos are threatened. Deep down inside they know they (as a group) have more power and status than they are owned in a civil society. They are acting out with outward hostility and masochistic behaviors. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_emotions. Especially Kemper and Hochschild.
Takes off professor hat and puts on baseball cap. "Deep down they know they are undeserving assholes". What comes out of their mouths is simultaneously projection and confession.
Charlie I like the baseball cap side of you 😁
Roland, Thanks. That's the more comfortable side.
And getting women to vote in massive numbers, along with persons of color, will win in 2022!
There is no other path to maintaining Democratic control of Congress.
Concerned, however that no matter how many of us vote, we have passed the point of no return—republican legislators will change the outcome to suit their objectives.
Bingo
Laughable that feminists are forcing men to watch porn. It's the same mentality that says Eve was at fault, that every woman that is raped is at fault. Now I am wondering if Hawley secretly watches porn.
It’s a no brainer that he does.
And which flavor?
For Hawley, likely BDM.
I can see that. He really likes to whip himself up into a frenzy. /s
... And female dominant porn, at that!
I believe(d) this also, but then I come across too many "conservative" women, and the fact that a majority of white women voted for trump over Biden. And I cannot fathom why, though I try. Is it worth trying to understand these women and "wake" them?
As a sister of two of these women…it’s impossible. They’re firmly seated on their “religious” high horse and look down on misguided progressives.
It seems religious beliefs are a prime motivator of these women. And beliefs by definition don't require reasoned justification. But why the sense of righteous superiority? Is it ego? A lack of empathy?
I can only guess… I believe they think they are among the few who are “right” and they will be rewarded when Armageddon comes and the rest of us are destroyed. These are not my beliefs. It’s what I have been able to cull by trying to talk to them, which no longer happens, sadly.
Thanks for sharing, Carla. I’m sorry for the split in your family. I can empathize because I am facing a similar scenario. My sister and I are pretty much complete opposites, but managed to maintain a relationship based on shared history and my relationship with kids.
But then, she breached trust and endangered our entire family by refusing the Vax and then contracting COVID… after telling everyone she was going to get vaxxed.
Sorry this got OT, but seems it’s common occurrence these days, and it’s heartbreaking.
The Oregonian just had a story about not getting vaccinations in southern Oregon which is a very red part of the state. Some seem to have learned the lesson the hard way when they lost husbands; others did not.
I know. Both of my sisters have refused to be vaccinated and have told me I will die in two years because I have been vaccinated.
Thanks for sharing. Sorry for the loss of your sisters in that way. I no longer communicate with one of my brothers, so this is happening in many families. Still unbelievable to me, but there it is.
Yes, happening in many families and impacting holiday gatherings and other events. Hard to keep the "family bonds" strong in the face of the strong feelings and positions.
Deeply conservative religious beliefs upholding male dominance represent the only security these women have ever known. Again, it's about fear - of loss, of displacement, of the unknown.
In fundamentalist X-tianity, the belief is that the 'saved' are the chosen, the righteous, the 'salt of the earth' who shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. It is a purely self-righteous stance, unexamined.
The 30 women I know who voted for the former guy voted one issue.
And the thing that really gets me is quite a few of them had abortions.
You and I have the same worries, Margaret. I recall marching for the ERA early on when we passed a Methodist church where "ladies" were gardening. They booed us down. There are more believers in the traditional roles of women among all classes and ethnicities of women than there are of us liberated, mostly white women. Now I cringe at the loud-mouthed mothers who bully teachers about not teaching values to their kids.
The ERA! You are a veteran. Thank you for your service. The beat goes on...
I often wonder if that comes from a lack of early education and only being prepared for being a housewife and mother. They stay in marriages where their husbands have affairs or visit prostitutes because they need someone to take care of them. It is hard to break away from being pushed down constantly. If the right has it’s way I see it headed down a path of separate schools for men and women so the only ones that learn are the men.
What a wonderful man!
Except for a group of Neanderthal white males and some evangelicals who I consider estranged from Jesus, I find few solid voting blocs in America. Bill, when you speak of women, I believe that their voted are stratified by locale and education. Overall white women in 2020 probably voted more than 60% against the ‘Second Coming’ candidate. The voters who most puzzle me are Hispanics (Latinos) who outnumber Blacks. They edged closer to Trump in the 2020 election. It appears to me that President Biden and his professional team are doing far more than have recent ‘Republicans’ to provide meaningful assistance to a broadly diverse American population and that this is a’ rainbow’ rather than a white approach. So why isn’t there greater appreciation from suburban white females (who were less enthusiastically Democratic in the November VA elections) and from beneficiaries of all that the Biden administration is enacting and implementing. As an optimist, I am hoping that such recognition will be reflected in the 2022 elections, but I seem. A voice in the wilderness compared to doom-and-gloom analysts and. Pollsters.
One of the problems that I have encountered here in Salem are Bernie types who cannot or will not understand the positive things that the Biden administration is doing in terms of progressive values. I am in a conversation with one of them and I have suggested that she inform herself of what some of those positives are and start pushing them to ordinary voters as well as the others in her echo chamber.
Yes, there is a disconnect between being a Bernie Supporter and a Berner. The Berner’s are what damaged him all along. They have a tear down and build mentality that doesn’t take real life into account. They refuse to listen to others and even Bernie made statements that sounded like he wouldn’t work with others. Insurance is a great example. I get Medicare for All but how do we get there. Will they close the doors to traditional insurance companies and put so many people out of work. It could be a million if you think of all the companies, sales forces, administration and claims payers. I sent a letter asking the campaign about this more than once with no response. Made it impossible for me to vote for him.
Berners are very naive about politics in my experience and they were so bad in 2016 that I have disliked him ever since.
Same here. Two young men decided not to vote cause the election was stolen from him.
One is listening the other who knows.
As for Latinos, (I am one on my Dad's side), my take is that many Latinos are not sure where there political home really is: (1) Biden has no really close Latino friend/advisor that I know of; (2) Latinos were taken for granted during much of the campaign and given sparse speaking representation at the convention; (3) their diversity was not well understood; (4) many particularly in FL were alienated by the feeling that Dems were soft on left-wing dictators such as Maduro and Ortega; (5) there is a strong social conservatism and machismo in some of the US Latino cultures; (6) established Latinos don't identify with new illegal, immigrants and like nearly everybody else don't want to feel that they are at the bottom of the social ladder.(See E. Wilkerson's Caste.) Appointing an Afro-Asian-American to solve the border problem was also viewed by some as a slight.
Bill, thanks for your thoughtful insights. With a Cuban grandmother and a British mother, who could categorize this 88-year-old who was on the Nixon White House Enemies List? I hope that there are people in the Biden administration who understand what you said and are reacting to it.
"Women do make up a majority of the population." Yes, and while educational, economic, and political power is becoming more prevalent for women, moving the meter of change is still proceeding at a snail's pace.
With the continuous violent militaristic "solutions" at home and globally, we all may run out of time for a chance at that "decent, sustainable society". The 1970's/80's slogan "one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day" resonates in my head when the "superpowers" ratchet up the stakes.
Like Putin, who's amassing 92K soldiers @ the Ukraine border.
And is signaling that they're planning to attack Ukraine in January or February. Some believe Putin is saber-rattling/testing the hunger for power vs the abhorrence of bloody war by the world community.
"You [women] are our best hope for the survival of a decent, sustainable society."
I believe this. Women are the greatest resource in this country and others for making real changes. But for those who have been compromised through their ambitions in the pig pen of politics, I have to wonder if they've come away unscathed or if they're more committed to their positions and perks in the political spectrum than they are to using their intelligence, compassion, and empathy to form a better world.
I'd love to see a woman president in the U.S. But not simply because she's a woman. And not one whose primary allegiance is to the political party which sponsors her. We need a "Wonder Woman" in the top position. Personally, I thought Tulsi Gabbard was the best candidate for President in 2020. Her qualifications were numerous--a woman of color; intelligent; honest (my judgment and as well as millions of other people); a veteran and combat veteran with 2 tours in Iraq; 4 terms in congress; and exemplary character without a flaw to be found. She was a Bernie supporter in 2016, but the DNC didn't like that. Political parties don't like someone who stands on principle because they can't be controlled by the party.
Here I'll pay tribute to an incredibly brave group of women in Argentina over 40 years ago. There was a military coup and 30,000 people considered leftist were rounded up and tortured or simply killed and gotten rid of. (Earlier, in September, 1973, President Nixon and Sec. of State Kissinger had instigated and supported the overthrow and murder of Chilean President, Salvador Allende.) So, in Argentina, 14 mothers whose sons and daughters, began a protest by marching in front of the military headquarters. They wanted answers and wouldn't give up. The mothers' lives were truly at risk of being killed by the military. More women joined the march which went on daily. Forty years and 2,037 marches later, a thousand of the torturers and killers had been brought to trial and 700 had been sentenced. Here is a following story in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/28/mothers-plaza-de-mayo-argentina-anniversary
Women here in the U.S. could bond together that way and dismiss all political affiliations in forming that bond. They could move on to become the strongest force known. They need to focus on what all of them have in common and set aside the rest of the issues. All in all, I consider women smarter than men, as indicated by the endless tasks which they take on or are assigned to them. Having a remarkable mother and four sisters, I'm always in their corner and in support of them, regardless of any and all hardships they face.
“Political parties don't like someone who stands on principle because they can't be controlled by the party.”
Nail on the head, Heydon.
And you may be on to something with a women’s movement such as you describe!
And in Chile too women were central in protesting the Pinochet regime. That included the well-known "arpillera" (tapestry) workshops whose work depicted the harshness of the regime. In my childhood in Colombia a women's march was important in the overthrow of the Rojas Pinilla dictatorship.
What a great practice--the arpillera workshops to record history and injustice. I just saw an anti-Pinochet arpillera for sale on ebay.
The U.S. has done some terrible injustices in South America as well as Central America, and they've been done by both political parties. The Nixon-Kissinger corruption of the traditionally apolitical Chilean military was followed by the murder of President Salvador Allende, a democratically-elected physician and socialist who was very popular with the people. Americans should see the movie "Missing" with Jack Lemon which shows part of what happened in Chile. Then, there was Pres. Reagan's interference in El Salvador and the murderous , U.S.-backed contras. That was well demonstrated in the film "Salvador" directed by Oliver Stone.
When Americans currently argue over the problem of immigration at our border with Mexico, they should really back up and find out exactly who these people are and what caused them to be desperate enough to make that dangerous trip north. When they discover that dictators in Central America have made their countries fearful and hopeless, then Americans might begin to understand why the migrants are fleeing northward. When Americans realize that our president and congress have armed and financially-backed those dictators--as long as those dictators agree to be severely anti-communist--then our government doesn't care what else the dictators do to their people. Hence, desperate people at our doorstep as a result of our government's policies. So it goes....
Thanks Bill for your timely and deeply appropriate reminder.
Maybe I'll be misunderstood, yet I feel strongly that the gender aspect of the issue is the major symptom of our disease rather than its main cause.
This, I see as the extreme bias towards the masculine principle in our societies and the corresponding sidelining of the feminine, an imbalance that persists despite women gaining more and more positions of power and responsibility.
This leads to a society in which everything is on the surface -- a telescreen surface -- and there's nothing behind it.
Such a society can only be a deeply sick one.
Another insight into the masculine mind, provided by a major French philosopher:
“This world, in which reason is more and more at home, is not habitable. It is hard and cold like those warehouses filled with goods that cannot satisfy: neither clothe the naked, nor feed the hungry; it is as impersonal as those factory sheds and industrial zones where manufactured things remain abstract, their only truth, statistical, borne on the anonymous circuit of the economy, the outcome of skilful planning decisions that cannot prevent disasters, but prepare them. There we have it, the mind in its masculine essence, living outside, exposed to the violent, blinding sun, to the trade winds that batter and beat it down, in a land without folds, rootless, solitary, wandering and already alienated by the very things it has produced, things that remain untameable and hostile.”
#
I speak of sick societies and wish I did not have now to express deep condolences to Americans following events in Wisconsin last night that are painfully similar to the horror my city, Nice, in France, suffered at the hands of a mad fanatic on July 14th 2016.
Similar too, I fear, to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
We shall have to beware now of attacks on America from within coordinated with Russian moves against Ukraine and Chinese ones against Taiwan.
Sorry: accidental blanking of the French philosopher's name: Emmanuel Levinas, writing in Difficile Liberté.
Thank you for the Levinas quote, a great description of the empty world of "rational" materialism, unanchored in the heart and in human exchange. Others have pointed out that the world "mercy" and "mercantile" have a common Etruscan root. What Levinas describes is a sickness to be sure but the repression of the feminine predates our modern, materialist world and often takes its most virulent form in more "spiritual traditions. Depressingly, we may be sickened by two separate, potentially fatal illnesses.
Thank you for recovering Emmanuel Levinas' name from the large library you seem to hold in your mind. I am not familiar with Levinas, but you have provided me with an excellent opening. His description seemed very appropriate. Another thank you, Peter, for selecting it.
Thank you, Fern, but... just a correction.
I was once told that Lenin had never read Marx and Engels, just the prefaces. I wouldn't know about that, but I do know that all too often I have spent years sitting on a book half read or barely opened because I had been drawn to a passage in it. I'm a magpie, lining my nest with bright aphorisms filched or simply picked up alone the way, and that can make me a bore because I tend to repeat the same material... often from Lichtenberg's fascinating Waste Books...
Another image: it's rather like having a collection of road signs pointing to places where I spent a day or two... and all too often to places I'd like to visit but never got to. In other words, when I have read works of philosophy I rarely got beyond a first reading.
Peter, Good morning. The exchanges that you had with Bill and Eric here were not the first time my mind became glued to your thoughts. This time, I felt the wisdom, poetry and moderation you expressed. Emmanuel Levinas' quote evoked an embedded and uncomfortable aspect of America. It was so precise and visual in its rendering. In another passage of yours, humanity and regard of one human being for another was both exacting and generous. You rendered purity as in fresh water, and it is good to tell you so. However you gather, Peter, the results can be limpid.
Fern, pardon me, I can't find words.
But just a passing note: rereading that passage of Levinas, I remembered the flightpath descending towards Dallas-Fort Worth, mile upon mile of sheds. And the way I felt about what I saw.
Thank you for your encouragement.
Yes. “Civilizing” the white “wild” west, populated by many (probably) PTSD civil war men, was done by the gradually rising population of females according to some accounts. Women have been the anchors for stability for a long time — with perhaps the exception of mother’s who buy illegal firearms for their children and then drive them into danger.
Disclosure: I am a believer in Christ, a Christian of the more progressive beliefs which include not mixing the church with secular power. Therefore I cringe whenever I hear the nationalists from the pulpit and the halls of government wanting a "Christian nation". They do not want a Christian nation, only the power of imposing all people their brand of Christianity on all, including other Christians who do not believe exactly as they do. I have family members of the evangelical bent who believe that Democrats (of which I am one) are the scum of the earth, that women should stay in their place (another strike against me), and so forth and so forth. They will accept gays to some extent as one of my nephews is gay and in a monogamous relationship. And some people of color are okay as two of my grandnieces have a father of darker pigmentation. When they say they want a "Christian nation" I like to refer them to Jesus's teaching of feed the hungry, cloth the poor, be humble, and the rest. When they rail against the "Socialists", I refer them to the prophets railing against the king (the government) and the wealthy of not taking care of the poor and the foreigner within the country. I am no theologian but I do know that mixing the church with secular government usually comes to a bad end, especially for the church.
Thank you, Rebecca. I could have written what you have written here. I am a Lutheran pastor, PhD in worship and preaching. Your letter well describes the gulf between the "Christian" right-wingers (anti-women, anti-gay, anti-government, anti-taxes) and Christian progressives (pro-choice, pro-government, favoring equity and care for the poor). The early Christians were said to have shared their means for the welfare of the community. (Book of Acts of the Apostles)
The views of progressives are voiced in the media by people like Rev. William Barber, Jim Wallis, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Kaine, and many others. Both Stacey Abrams and Hilllary Clinton are strongly tied to the United Methodist Church. But these people argue for policies rather than showing us their religious beliefs. Some ideas just can't be sloganized. Real faith is deep and complex.
It seems to me that "Christian" right wingers do not subscribe at all to the New Testament. They certainly do not seem to have read any of it. I don't know how they get away with their misuse of "Christian" since their rhetoric appears to come straight out of the Old Testament, or if anything the obscure Book of Revelation, which they creatively interpret however they choose.
As a Christian, I do not understand the position of “Evangelical Radicals” which ignores the Content of Jesus’ Gospel and its context; eschewing the parts one might claim as “liberal, progressive, humanitarian empathy” and replacing it with strict Authoritarian Rule of White Men
What was that warning? “Beware of False Prophets?” These Radicals could not have wandered further from the Context of the Gospel if they tried
"In today’s America, those who call themselves “conservative” are the very opposite of conservative:" The same, unfortunately, can be said for all-too-many who call themselves "Christians." I'd like to see it put in quotes more often, or the phrase "so-called" placed before it (as at least one other commentator has, I see.)
So-called Christian military leaders will one day wear the cross on their uniforms right next to their stripes.
Rebecca, we must be kin! *whatwouldJesusdohereandnow*
This is among the very best letters. It helps me fully grasp the global context of what's happening abroad and at home. And it's frightening. The tragic irony is that hordes of self-professed, flag-waving freedom lovers either don't understand or support the true freedom on which the nation was founded. In fact, they believe freedom is under assault. They could be in for a rude awakening if the "soft fascists" ultimately win.
“This is among the very best letters”
🎉🏆🎉🎉🏆🎉🎉🏆
Although I often get that feeling after reading the newest LFAA, ty HRC
Agree.
Michael, you're right that should this country fall to the rule of white rich men, those who currently feel their freedoms are being taken away will be in for a very rude awakening.
If any religion embodies the Biblical injunctions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, and live in community, it has to be the traditional Black churches of the U.S. The very idea that they should be marginalized while today's gun-toting white evangelicals are held up as the norm, is preposterous.
Agree. Watching through the lens of Roland Martin's online program, I am reminded of the deep faith African Americans demonstrate through their beliefs and practices. The demonstration of religious leaders at the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial is one shining example.
One name which does not appear at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence is that of John Dickinson, although he was a member of the Continental Congress and one of the architects of the American revolution. Not the least through his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, although he was in fact a solicitor and one of the wealthiest men in the British American colonies. A true conservative, Dickinson always hoped for reconciliation with Britain, and that the British monarch rather than indulging in his own tyrannical impulses would listen to the reasonable arguments of the colonists. Ha! As if. A man of integrity, and although opposed to violent revolution, rather than sign the Declaration, Dickinson left the Congress and, as an officer of the Pennsylvania militia, led 10,000 soldiers to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to protect that area against British attack from Staten Island. I know most of this from the musical 1776 with some help from Wikipedia.
Now compare that to today's American conservatives from America's first Hitler fanboys Joseph Kennedy and Henry Ford to, well, America Firster Nazi fanboys such as Donald Trump - none of whom put their lives on the line for America. And who rather than oppose tyrants want to join their ranks by indulging their own authoritarian impulses - at the expense of all the Founders believed in and at the expense of Americans' independence.
But don't take my word for that. Consider John Dean's (yes that John Dean) Conservatives Without Conscience, conceived in collaboration with Barry Goldwater. The book is "dedicated to unmasking what he sees as the new and dangerous breed of “tough, coldblooded, ruthless authoritarians” who have “co-opted” conservatism." Dean builds on "the theoretical concept of right-wing authoritarianism that was introduced in 1981 by the Canadian-American social psychologist Bob Altemeyer, as a refinement of the authoritarian personality theory originally pioneered by University of California, Berkeley, researchers Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford."
What? No mention of Hannah Arendt?
A key concept of whose Origins of Totalitarianism "was the application of Kant's phrase "Radical Evil", which she applied to the men who created and carried out such tyranny [as Nazism and Stalinism] and their depiction of their victims as "Superfluous People"." And whose hold on power "invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty." Arendt notes that "autocratic regimes seek only to gain absolute political power and to outlaw opposition, while totalitarian regimes seek to dominate every aspect of everyone's life as a prelude to world domination." Which folks is what we have in the Republican party as the bastard child of the plutocrats and the religious extremists dominating American 'conservatism'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxaAw2viEIQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dickinson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_a_Farmer_in_Pennsylvania
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/books/review/30gillespie.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism
Absolutely brilliant comment. Thank you, lin.
Reading your comments, I ironically thought “what would Ayn Rand think of her heroes now?”
Given how it turned out, with Canada declining to revolt but ending up woth a much better political system than the US, maybe the Declaration boys didn’t really do us a favor.
Very interesting idea.
Maybe you would like my fantasy country, Canada++: Canada+WestCoast+Mexico, with Canada’s political and legal systems. World’s second largest economy. Maybe third, at about the same GDP as China.
I could live in your fantasy country, Canada++, just fine!
Wow. Thought about writing a book? This is brilliant.
There are times one wishes that US "intelligence" at Can't Investigate Anything had known back in 1952 that the Soviet Union had 10 A-bombs and no delivery system, while the US had 400 A-bombs and a delivery system in SAC that could place them anywhere in the USSR, and had acted with the Soviet Union from that position of power (yes kids, all those drills about hiding under desks to protect from A-bombs that gave you nightmares were ridiculous - the Russians weren't coming because they couldn't). I don't mean World War III, but they could have been "dealt with" more effectively with that knowledge. Interestingly, they knew those facts, and managed through the 50s to created a "Potemkin threat" that had us spending over $2 billion in 1950s dollars to create the "Century series" of interceptors, the DEW Line, and all the rest - and engage in a self-destructive act of political demagoguery to oppose a domestic Left that was even less powerful - to oppose the "Communist threat" that didn't exist, as was discovered in the 1990s when the Soviet archives were opened to researchers. And now, when they're even weaker, they unfortunately have 2,400 nuclear weapons and delivery systems for them, so they can't be "dealt with."
Thank you for the history lesson about the A-bombs, TC, I did not know that.
"In today’s America, those who call themselves 'conservative' are the very opposite of conservative: they are dangerous radicals seeking to bring us to our knees by attacking the grand philosophy that made this nation great—and which, if we could finally make it a reality, could make it greater still—replacing it with the stunted beliefs of petty tyrants."
It breaks my heart to witness this downward spiral into totalitarian ideology. What was the point of WWII -- the horrendous loss of life -- if not to restore the German people and European sanity and well-being from the throes of fascism? The move toward heightened and unconscionable bigotry, racism, white supremacy, and injustice -- as though they didn't already lurk in the shadows and around every dark corner in this country -- is terrifying to observe first hand. We mustn't allow it to gain momentum and overtake our country -- one which has been built on liberal -- although decidedly flawed -- foundations.
The dead of WW2 are spinning in their graves
No doubt!
Rowshan, I keep thinking Now it is our turn, our turn to defend democracy, our democracy. Pardon my Christian allusion (if necessary) but "the powers of darkness" do indeed lurk within every mind and institution, the unfettered greed for wealth and power and domination over others. It's always going to be a fight to keep those tendencies in human beings at bay. I don't think the world will ever be rid of them. Our job is to keep up the fight against them -- we can't ever take our democratic system for granted. The dark farces must be beaten down constantly by insistence on good laws and voting for honorable leaders.
I believe so!
Again, I find myself limited in bandwidth, plus limited in time this morning (leaving to drive a friend 2 hours to Portland for a post shoulder replacement post op, in freezing fog). You hit the nail on the head when you said "In today’s America, those who call themselves “conservative” are the very opposite of conservative: they are dangerous radicals seeking to bring us to our knees by attacking the grand philosophy that made this nation great—and which, if we could finally make it a reality, could make it greater still—replacing it with the stunted beliefs of petty tyrants."
THIS is what I have been thinking/feeling/believing that the Republiscum have become. Thank you for those words.
That part was my 2nd choice as a lead-in when I posted to fb….”stunted beliefs of petty tyrants” indeed
Safe travels
Hope all is well, Ally.
It’s been a combination of aging parent, trying to juggle music commitments, and 2 trips to Portland with a friend who needs a ride to medical appointments. Takes up bandwidth…. I am well, and thank you.
WHY, WHY are you not interviewed on the media outlets? MSNBC, PBS, CNN? We know F-X wouldn’t have the guts to interview you … but, the others?
The Rachel Maddow show has a website for contributions and ideas. I went there and WaPo and NYT to contribute a particular idea relative to Trump and receiving finances from Russia. TRMS was inspired, they ended up with a full segment. But of course HCR has to decide for herself. Why the hell would she want to be a target in this environment? I don’t think anybody in their right mind would want to be on a major network right now. Just sayin’
I agree. I worry enough already about Dr. Richardson's safety.
I always post her Letters to Twitter and frequently tag certain anchors. Maybe if more of us did this, something would rise to the top of their "in baskets" and an aide would pay attention?
Does anyone else remember when Putin said that he had something much better than nuclear weapons to stop the United States? Trump is Putin's chew toy.
Yes, he will invade, as we implode from within.
That sounds like a bit too much, even for someone like Putin. I have very little knowledge of warfare, tactics, or modern weaponry, but tell me - from a purely logistical angle, how would such a scenario play out? And what do you envision the possible outcomes are?
q.v., Belarus
If he took over Crimea, why would he not do it again to Ukraine -- if he could get by with it. I'm wondering if there are different forces at play now that would stop him compared to 2014 in Crimea. ??????
Ah, I misunderstood you. When you said "invade", I thought you were referring to the United States - as though that were his endgame, after Ukraine and who knows how many others. How dreadfully US-centric of me... and a good illustration of where my head is at, I suppose. Especially in regards to predicting where everyone else's heads may be...!
Yes, and much of the Republican party, all wooed with a financial prize, too. Putin has an oligarch's twisted mind and he's ruthless. He hates the success of democracy and like Nero, enjoys the failures of the people. He's adept at partnering with autocrats and will pull all stops to weaken the rule of law. I am certain one of his weapons is encouraging mass migrations. How else to force our contradictions of freedom when the tired and oppressed demand entry to democratic countries by the droves?
Helsinki proved that beyond doubt. But it was obvious from the first…
Thank you Heather! You have summed it up so well. All of my scattered thoughts and worries about the direction our country is going in is truly frightening. And Knowledge is power. And the knowledge you share is so important and powerful. There are so many people that are indifferent and/or in the ignorance is bliss state. How do we wake them up? I read the Washington Post online and their logo “Democracy dies in Darkness” has a profound effect on me every time I read it.
Are you engaged with any grassroots organizations? "Democracy lives in Light."
This article posted by Robert Hubbell has 10 good tips on challenging climate crisis that also applies to saving democracy--without losing hope:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/18/ten-ways-confront-climate-crisis-without-losing-hope-rebecca-solnit-reconstruction-after-covid?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Rebecca Solnit, the author of the linked article above, is, like HCR, an American treasure and so prolific! They bring the light.
Thanks Ellie.
I was just feeling like a speck of dust trying to hold back a sand storm!!! Then the next moment I reach your comment. Thank you. Hope rejuvenated.
Thank you so much Ellie for sharing this inspiring article. It is excellent and I will probably read it many more times. Although I haven’t joined a grassroots organizations, I do give recurring monthly donations to Indivisable, CREW, and Truthout. Right now this is the best way for me to contribute as my time is so limited working full time plus, and having time for myself and family. One of these days when I retire I look forward to being more actively involved.
From threatening clashes in Central and Eastern Europe and the deaths in Waukesha, Wis. to the clamor in the House of Representatives and the battle over the future of Liberal Democracy -- but that's not all. There is the humanitarian crisis in Mozambique; the severe hunger crisis in the Democratic Republic Congo; the economic crisis in Venezuela; the risk of famine in Yemen, and the world’s fastest-growing displacement crisis in Burkina Faso. But that's not all. There's the Pandemic -- The COVID-19 Vaccination Gulf Widens Between Wealthy, Developing Countries -- Less than 10% of African countries to hit the key COVID-19 vaccination goal and, of course, there's the Climate Catastrophe. The world is not a safe place and neither is America. HCR's Letter ended with the following:
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776. THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
And that is not all, we are now fifty United States of America.
Is this just some quaint old relic, 'an object, custom, or belief that has survived from an earlier time but is now outmoded' or a declaration of our commitment to the future of American Democracy? That is a huge question.
This is the first existential crisis liberal democracy has faced since the Battle of the Bulge. We have grown complacent through winning: the defeat of Fascism, the defeat of McCarthyism, the success of Civil Rights, the rise of Feminism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the election of Barack Obama, all took place within the span of a single lifetime. All of it was based in large part on the ideas put forth in the founding documents of this nation.
Our Constitutional Republic is either about to die or reinvent itself into a more perfect union. The intellectual, moral, and spiritual underpinnings of our democracy are sound. It is not a relic.
Those who are attempting to destroy our republic have chosen to do so by corrupting our institutions: the courts, elections, media, education. Right now, we need a coalition to save the republic. That needs to be our primary purpose. None of the issues you mentioned above will be addressed if we become a one party state next November.
Steve, In the United States, part of the reason we're at this juncture stems from the fact that while gains have been made in certain areas they were and are not complete, in some cases they are merely superficial. On paper civil rights and women's right may have been achieved to some extent but in practice not so much – the most glaring continues to be the lack of economic parity because BIPOC and women still struggle to achieve equal pay, equal buying power, equal access to credit.
The other gap which significantly impacts our ability to embrace true democracy is unequal justice under the law, for BIPOC imparticular. It has always been this way and remains so today. The numbers of incarcerated in the US, particularly Black men, is staggering. We see the imbalance reported every single day by the media.
And the glue that holds the right together in their war against Democracy? Their very twisted interpretation of Christianity. Make no mistake, the inclusion if God in our pledge and on our money in the 1950s was no trifling action. The National Day of Prayer, signed into law by Harry S Truman in 1952, NEVER should have happened. These actions gave legitimacy to the incursion of church into state.
Because the gains you mention have never been fully realised, the loopholes and chinks in the wall have started to become gaps. The right is using those gaps to further drive a wedge into what little social stability we have. You're right, we do need a coalition to save the Republic, however, unless Progressives, Democrats and Independents band together this very minute we will fail.
I'm sorry. I know I will be accused of being negative again but how much longer are we going to turn our backs on the real reasons we're falling apart?
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2978-national-day-prayer-1952
Daria, once again you have hit the nail on the head. The rethuglicans have created the ever widening gaps, and know they can use these gaps to their advantage. Sadly, racism and misogyny are still very alive in this country.
Pew found that among “the four Republican-oriented typology groups, no more than about a quarter say a lot more needs to be done to ensure equal rights for all Americans regardless of their racial or ethnic background; by comparison, no fewer than about three-quarters of any Democratic group say a lot more needs to be done to achieve this goal.”
This from an opinion piece in today's WaPo by EJ Dione.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/21/gop-bets-resentment-over-problem-solving/
resentment is SO much easier than working to solve a problem...or to govern
Yes, it is.
A lot more....
Indeed
Daria Spot on. There is no resting on our laurels. This is a national elevator. Historically we can boast about how voting rights have been expanded to ‘all Americans,’ but, in reality, this is precisely what is not happening today in nearly a dozen Republican-controlled states. Regarding civil rights, there is clear evidence of backsliding and the creation of a modern KKK (white supremists ). As a professional historian, I can point to the opening up of professional research into the South and slavery 60 years ago while today there is an asinine discussion over critical race theory (CRT). After sustained immigration discrimination for many generations, there was the breakthrough 1965 immigration legislation. There has been severe backsliding on immigration in the recent past and current activity.
We’ve come a long way and have a long way to go.
Keith, thank you. I appreciate you reading my comment and responding. Your use of the term "backsliding" is appropriate with regards to not only the topics you mention but so many other issues facing us today. We do gave a long way to go.
I'm gonna pass the hat now, so we can take up a collection for this Pro-Demo-In Coalition! You are rockin, Daria!
Thanks, Kim. YOU Rock!
Don't apologize; you are correct.
Steve, We haven't 'won' the Civil Rights Battle. That claim in so far from the truth, perhaps, you have forgotten our protests against police killings; how's it going now; how's the 'justice' system working for minorities and what about the murders by white supremacists of people of color, to name just a few examples??? Did you read Mike S. Rochester's comment a few days ago? You remember why he plans to leave this country of his birth? And labor, Steve, what happened to labor unions and communities in the Midwest - practically vacant Main Streets with a church or two, a bar and a luncheonette? Check into the Pew Research Center and other reliable sources to learn what has happened to wages in this country since the late 70's, and while you're at it, learn how much the middleclass has shrunk, Do you know about the enormous transfer of wealth that has taken place in this country? We the People have been losing since the 1980's. As Trump said, 'We're going to win so much, you'll be sick of it...' Oh, we are plenty sick of it.
Both of your responses, well said. I was writing mine when you posted your.
You GO, Fern! ♥️
So glad to see you. You go, too, KIM!! You always put a smile on my face.
blushing
Whose voting rights are being suppressed?
'Over the last 20 years, states have put barriers in front of the ballot box — imposing strict voter ID laws, cutting voting times, restricting registration, and purging voter rolls. These efforts, which received a boost when the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013, have kept significant numbers of eligible voters from the polls, hitting all Americans, but placing special burdens on racial minorities, poor people, and young and old voters'(Brennen Justice Center)
Am I willing to fight for those who would turn back the clock on women's lib? For the proud boy racists rigging our elections?
That is the question.
Who the F #$* are we?
That is the question. I felt it keenly when I wrote the 'United' States of America.
Fight against those who would turn back the clock, not for...right?
I feel like we are currently fighting against those now. the question is, will a war against (fill in the blank) unite me with the repugnantans?
Marianne Williamson's daily prayer today: to pray for the power/wisdom to change my mind. Amen.
I understand now. Thank you.
It has been my fear, since I was informed by a Southern reenactor in a Charleston bar the night before South Carolina would celebrate their victory at Fort Sumter, that our conservatives (especially led by the Southern Caucus) will not cede until the United States becomes a Confederacy as it was before the Constitutional Convention of 1787. For them, that is real originality, I am certain, they mean when their talk of hewing to the founding father's vision and constitutional document.
Yes, Fred, that vein runs deep in our country, and its been strongly excited. Your reply reminded me of when I was about 9 or10 years old. Two Italian siblings, older than me, lived on a corner of the block. They screamed epithets at me once when I passed by. This block in Queens, NY. was comprised of mostly Jewish people, of which I was one. The corner houses were owned by Christians. I was baffled by attack. It was frightening, and I simply continued to walk home That corner and the house are still alive in my mind as a horrid menace. There have been a some other incidences in my life, but that one stands out.I was young and unprepared.
Cornerstone memories that shape what we pay attention to and ... sadly, hold fears about even as a 10-year-old who might not realize the enormity of the enmity that is hate.
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world": it was George Washington's Farewell Address to us. The inaugural pledge of Thomas Jefferson was no less clear: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none." Fern do you think an alliance we have through NATO with Victor Oban exemplifies what our founders warned?
Advise to avoid this one
Fern. You are better than this you know.
Uh oh
United???
Thank you HCR for that last paragraph. It eloquently sums up what you have been saying over and over---and has an implicit call to action. Action it will need to be---getting out the vote, suing in court to overturn deceit and grabs for power, raising the proud banner of true liberalism (and getting the neo-liberals back in the barn or wherever :-) ). Liberty strides forward with a flowing flag---a proud image; time to reclaim it!!!!
Peace and Courage.
The problem is that the courts are primarily filled with Trumpist and otherwise Republican appointed judges who often seem to issue decisions based on political reasoning rather than based on law. I am not sure how we overcome that delimma.
The Pew Research Organization points that 28% of the currently active federal judges were appointed by Trump. The report also details their diversity composition—mostly white males, for sure. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/13/how-trump-compares-with-other-recent-presidents-in-appointing-federal-judges/?amp=1
This is damning, to be sure.
Thank you, Rose, for finding this statistic, which is scary significant.
Thanks for posting this, Rose!
With all due respect, do you have a citation to support your statement that courts are "primarily" filled with Trumpist/Republican non-law based decision makers?
Didn’t we watch Mitch’s fevered effort to do just that. It was/is his reason for living…
Mitch’s legacy
As she always does, six days a week, Heather spells out in clear terms what is going on and what is at stake. And yet, just three weeks ago, we saw Virginia, a state that polls +12 points more Democratic than the national average, elect a Republican governor. And no, it wasn't because of voter suppression (yet). It was because the (still) single biggest reason these regressive half-wits are in or coming to power is US. Yes, us, the people of this country who love to blame but not look in the mirror. Because Democratic voter turnout in the Virginia election, while strong, wasn't AS strong as Republican. Why? Why, one year after choosing Biden for president is this the case? Answer: there is ZERO excuse other than we simply can't be bothered. Too many of us anyway. Until we, as a people, get tired of the ass-kickings, we'll see this worsen. Until we INSIST, with every means we can muster (we're still only trying with one hand behind our backs, if we're being honest with ourselves), we will continue to get what we deserve. We can still do WAY more and WAY better. Get involved, write your congressperson, donate money, and for the love of God, VOTE.
https://twitter.com/Girl55Desert/status/1461749807664541696?s=20
Just sayin'
Damn right!
Perfect! New (old?) party slogan?
How easy is that one!
Love it!
I'm thinking this next election cycle will be about apathetic voters (q.v. Virginia). My energies are going toward registration and getting people off their backsides to vote.
I'm getting the picture that there is this mass of folks between the rabid right and the sensible who just shut off politics and abdicate their right and responsibility as citizens. IMHO, this represents a tide-turning majority.
Yes, the women, but frankly, really? Yes the Black women, but tired! The Democratic party with its grassroots organizing, wherefore art thou? Perhaps quietly, but certainly firmly, the persistence of this work, bringing non-voters into the fold, and networking neighborhoods is where the next elections will be decided.
Yesterday I rode my bike from my place in the Bayview district on the east side of San Francisco out through Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach on the west side. I'm not a depressive person but the politics in this country are pushing me close to the edge and the Pacific usually brings me peace. As I sat taking it in I had this thought: The US needs to have a MARCH FOR DEMOCRACY well before the primaries next year. Republicans, Independents, and Democrats moderate, liberal and progressive, MARCH TOGETHER to support OUR DEMOCRACY. No more silence from the MAJORITY! I have a book that has a chapter INTO ACTION. That's what we all need to do.No more crazy people, including California's Kevin McCarthy, thinking they are in some majority.
We've watched as the electoral college and the Supreme Court have put Republicans in the presidency while loosing the popular vote, we've seen gerrymandering destroy voting districts, and watched as one criminal named Mitch McConnell helped another criminal put democracy on shaky ground.
Yesterday there weren't enough endorphins to make me feel better.
I agree completely! If we all, the majority got out and marched no only once but again and again. I think it would make a big difference -- let McCarthy and his ilk see they are not the majority and that we know what's at stake and are willing to get out and fight for it.
Judith that is BRILLIANT 💫💎💥🎶🎉🏆🏆🏆🏆
What jumps out for me is that the economy of Russia is the size of the Texas economy and that of Hungary is the size of Michigan. Should these minority anti-Democratic forces prevail in the US we will have true minority rule. Maybe we need to coin a new word: “tinyminority”. The Tinyminority would dictate to large majority states like California and New York. The Tinyminority would control through force of arms and greater willful mastery of politics the lives of most of us. That is so in these authoritarian countries - and also true in China. A few men with guns can dictate what happens to a large group who have no guns. The Rittenhouse case shows that guns are being legitimized as a response to legitimate protest against abusive misuse of police enforcement powers.
When the Democrats in the House passed the BBB bill, they danced and whooped and hollered in celebration. That image stays with me. The image of healthy governing for the good of the people. Meanwhile the Republicans act like joyless zombie ghouls, only grimly happy when they are in control.
We must find a way to stop this Tinyminority rule and keep alive the joyful celebrations of success in working for the good of all.
"When the Democrats in the House passed the BBB bill, they danced and whooped and hollered in celebration. That image stays with me."
Me too. I hung on to that image for a few days like an old family photo. Ah look. Happy times.
Until we are able to get the media to stop the drum beat of violence, tyranny and bias towards Republicans we are dead in the water.
For example: Why keep calling it the spending bill? Why keep saying no toys for Christmas? Why the constant unnerving coverage of trump and the less coverage of Biden? People say Biden must speak out. He is. He is not getting the coverage trump gets. Why the over emphasis on Manchin and Sinema as a divisive Democratic Party? And on and on.
Corporate media in America will push the Republican narrative because it benefits them.
My hope? Remember the silent majority the Republicans always claimed? Maybe it is now those Democracy minded voters.
Great point. Media should cover some Democratic Senators who strongly support the bill. They are invisible except for Schumer.
Barbara, I couldn’t agree more. Even the MSNBC coverage doesn’t look at the whole picture - just the “weak” Dems. Not all our reps are strong & visible, but neither are the far right reps. Only the “loudest voices” get the coverage.
So unfair.
happy feet moment - HCR's co host Joanne Freeman was on MSNBC speaking about the minority resorts to extremes.
and last Thursday, Nov. 18, on MSNBC, Chris Hayes popped up a shot of her book and a picture of Sen. Charles Sumner getting caned. Of course, the title of her book is The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress, and for the media, "if it bleeds, it leads."