After reading the news that Vice President Pence's (and his staff) congressional access cards were all turned off AND he was asked to get into a car with an unknown driver - it occurred to me that the intent was to kidnap him until the election was overturned. I know this is far out there but that's the vision that came into my head.
@lynnventura I follow her on Twitter, which is partly why I posted her blog here. The only reason I would need to be talked off a ledge is if the cynicism and doom-saying continue to invade this forum. No offense intended, but saying things like "If the Dems grow a spine" isn't exactly a positive or supportive statement. I realize there is a history behind that statement, but it just grind my gears that in this case, the automatic assumption is laziness, inability, or incompetence on the part of the D's, especially coming from people who work in the courts and know how long, tedious, and difficult it can be to get things done when procedures are properly and correctly followed instead of doing it TFG's way.
I think we can, in a loving way, show examples (such as Terri's awesome tweets) of why we should resist succumbing to cynicism and despair, while at the same time being a safe space for people to voice their feelings -- good and bad. I think as a community we can do and be both. It may be our superpower. :)
Anyone have anything on the reconciliation bill? I feel like it’ll take one more cut but still pass. I’d love to get a read on the child tax credit extension specifically. That’s been so great for us (and we were doing okay before it) - I can’t imagine what it’s doing for those who aren’t where we are in our lives.
I was reading an Ursula K. Leguin novel this weekend and meditating on her ability to create fully imagined worlds. I then heard a voice say "If you want to meet beings from a different world, then you have to make a different world for yourself." This message from spirit aligns with what some of us have seen about how extraterrestrials know about us but won't reveal themselves until we advance enough. The point is we have to develop our creative potential as we step into a new paradigm rather than relying on a savior for help.
@tgraf66 thank you for posting the info on Terri K. I am a Pollyanna, and I truly appreciate her take on things. While it's taking much longer than I anticipated, since the time Mueller was appointed, I've felt the scales of Justice would prevail. I saw TFG in prison stripes since just after his election. I don't know if that is a literal or metaphorical vision, I just feel that deep down that's how history will record his tenure. Not everyone will see it- for goodness sake there were folks in Dallas last week waiting for JFK Jr. to announce he'd be 45's next running mate, so yeah- not everyone will understand. But going forward, their opinions that don't align with history will be their problem.
I was wrong and very happily so! Bannon has been indicted. ?
This isn't a response to any one person or a topic recently discussed here. But I've noticed a tendency on this site that seems to crop up whenever large numbers of people from the American left gather together.
We're all aware of the phenomenon of American exceptionalism. But its seeming opposite, constantly talking about how awful America is, also constitutes American exceptionalism. When you're saying "My country is the worst country in the world," you're still making your country the center of attention at the expense of everyone else. Wrapped up in this rhetorical trap is the assumption that countries (nation-states) are the only lens through which we can look at the planet and all its people. But the nation-state as we know it emerged in 17th century Europe with the Peace pf Westphalia and has been exported to the rest of the world through the processes of colonialism. That is what Namwali Serpell was conveying when she wrote in the opening pages of her novel The Old Drift, "This is the story of a nation — not a kingdom or people — so it begins, of course, with a white man."
The cosmic energy that has been coming to Earth at least since 2007 but especially since 2011 is much less conducive to the enterprise of the nation-state. I expect that within my lifetime I will see more creative expressions of government rise up as nations collapse under their own weight (nations can also amicably devolve into more confederated forms, which is what I see happening in the US). Eventually, I see nation-states being supplanted by networks of sovereign communities, where no one will need passports because imaginary political borders won't exist. Most communities will cooperate and still be aware of what's going on globally, but without the need for so much centralized government (less centralization aligns with the rising feminine).
If you've lived most of your life in the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century (which is most of us), when the US was at the peak of its power, then disparaging America may have been subversive, but not so much anymore. I think what is subversive is relegating the US to the status of "just another country" whose years are numbered.
Rittenhouse.
OMG.
I was actually thinking one of those counts would be a hung jury. Expected he would get off on most counts because of how the trial went. I can't believe not one member of the jury felt he was guilty of on anything though. I wonder how much of this result is from the judge. The judge was a piece of work.
What form of vigilantism will this now usher in? Do we not have consequences for our actions?
I am sickened.
We are in serious trouble as a country if we have a similar result in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial.
That kid is not going to have a good life. He's going to be used by the right wing (it's already happening) and he will not have any incentive to reflect on his behavior, both past and future. He may do this kind of thing again, and the next time he may not be so lucky. He'll also likely be sued in civil court by the families of the men he killed and the one he injured. Even if he wins those cases (which I think is unlikely) he'll be defending lawsuits for years. So the future isn't going to be great for him, although that's of little solace to the people whose lives he stole and ruined, and to the greater society that is rightfully sickened by what he did and how he seems to have gotten away with it, at least for now.