AMERICA!

Yes, friends, I'm getting tired of the daily hate too, although the choice of words between hate and anger or perhaps outrage I hear gives a hint, a whiff of tendentiousness, if I'm not being oversensitive.

"Hate" reflects poorly on the person who is against something, while outrage brings in the possibility of the feeling being justified. I'm also tired of the situation, the outrage, even the horror of the Trump "Putsch" just as you are,  although I can't avoid thinking it's the biggest disaster since the Civil War and perhaps the beginning of the end of anything about the USA we could honestly call great.

So I have to sympathize. I'm also already sick of turning on the TV or going to the newspaper websites every morning with the usually fulfilled expectation of some new horror, some new crime to be explained away by some ministry of disinformation and to be accepted by the nodding heads and nitwits of America.

Yes, sure, call me a hater for hating hate, for hating corruption, for hating the murder of things I hold fundamental, self-evident: for hating the summary destruction of the infrastructure of our former Republic and you're right, I hate Donald Trump and I hate the people who support his outrages and I hate them to the point where the word itself is strained to the point of breaking. It may be your right to withdraw, to close your eyes and wait for the end times and whatever they may bring. Just understand that to me it's the patriot's duty, the citizen's burden and the obligation of the honest man to oppose and to be seen to be opposing the rise of tyrannical corruption and the acts of treason we will have to endure if you do.

 It's up to us and only to us and there so one, no country, no army, no miracle to save us while there are so many who will profit obscenely when we sink into the pit that's being dug for us.

 “A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.” ― Samuel Adams

WOMEN'S MARCH OF 2017 - THE CALL HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD

It began with a FB post in Hawaii and then it grew... it was the Women's March on Washington DC and then it added the Sister Marches, city by city and then Sisters around the world heard our story and took to their streets in solidarity.
 

And that was a big feature of the March, to solidify the base, not just women but men, strong enough and man enough to stand up with women in our fight for equality and the fight to keep the gains we had already made.

But it was not just about our equality struggles but also the equality struggles of all the diverse members of our society, of our country that has always made America great in the eyes of the world.

The goal was to give voice not only to women but to persons of color, Black, Hispanic, Native Americans, Asian, born here and immigrants. Black lives matter, all lives matter.  And give voice to those in the LBGT community who always seem to be on the fringe of society. And a voice to those who would identify as nonChristian, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists. They have a place here too. We cannot and should not separate ourselves from each other.

The Women's March mission statement reads, "We stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families - recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country."

What was it like on the ground? Many of you attended a March somewhere in the world. I went to Washington DC. For such a huge crowd it was surprisingly cheerful and patient. If you had to cut across lines, folks would smile and let you through. Toilet lines were long mostly due to the porta potties in several locations that were locked up. Why, no one knows. While it was boisterous and sometimes a bit irreverent, it was always peaceful and contained. The March itself stretched for miles. It wound throughout the city. And while there was jocularity and camaraderie, there was also a seriousness as everyone carried with them that day the weight of an administration gone wild, bent on destroying democracy, environmental protections and the constitutional rights of great swathes of our nation.

Men frequently carried signs saying I'm marching for - my mother, my sister, my daughters, etc. And that was a common theme among all marchers. I marched for me but also for my granddaughters because I want them to have a strong female role model and for my Mother. Although we have never gotten along all that well, she is one of the bravest women I know.

We are calling out a leadership that cares nothing for us, over half the citizens of this country. We are calling out voters who care for no one but themselves and voted out of spite and ignorance and laziness. We are calling out the base to get busy and MAKE yourself be heard! Maybe what you say will fall on deaf ears, maybe none of it will make a difference but doing nothing is far worse and failing to reach an apathetic administration.

STRONGER TOGETHER - that was a sign I saw. And it is the rallying cry of a movement that will continue to fight the attacks on equality, protections and diversity until we have turned the tide. It could take years but a Movement has been born and while politicians and Trump voters try to downplay our importance we keep moving until our importance steamrolls right over top of them.

About the pink hats, this was another grassroots idea that, if you have seen the photos from across the country, grew into a massive pink hat wave. Called the Pussy Hat Project, you can learn more about the empowerment created by wearing the hat.

There are many ways to get involved. There are postcard writing campaigns, calls being made, visits to legislators offices and more rallies and marches in every state.

Resources to look for:
 Indivisible Guide can be downloaded and there is a local groups link for groups currently forming and organizing events.
Women's March isn't finished either. 10 Events in 100 Days. Go to their website and sign up for alerts.
NAACP join and use the site to find a local chapter. Many of them, like our local NC chapter are scheduling events. (And no you do not have to be black to join)
Moveon.org is a clearinghouse of campaigns and events.

As time goes on, I think we will see groups merge to become one stronger entity, and a national site to coordinate all groups so we can be stronger, organized and powerful.

JOIN THE RESISTANCE NOW!

THIS INAUGURATION IS A FRAUD

For decades, Hillary Clinton has been ridiculed for her sterling qualifications, her public service, and the indiscretions of her husband. When sensationalism and sexism conspire in the news, sleazy soundbites are amplified.

One key word is ‘projection’ — a tactic used to turn tables and malign the reputation of any challenger. Briefly defined, a bad actor blames his bad actions on an opponent. The bully belittles, berates, defames, and smears his adversary with such frequency and ferocity, the repetition of cheap shots creates a phantom reality. Horse and rider change places as projections turn an innocent person guilty and a guilty person innocent.

That Hillary chose to salvage her marriage is a personal and private choice (and none of our business). We may even argue that her forgiveness of Bill is a credit in her favor. Yet, we hold Lewd Gingrich, Rudely Giuliani, Snark Sanford, and Groper Don to a lower standard. All are infamous scoundrels untainted by their indiscretions.

Condemnations in the kangaroo court of public opinion. Suspicions and derisions. Witch hunts without merit. From Bill to Benghazi and beyond, Hillary has been blamed for misdeeds she never committed (but the taint of hearsay never goes away). “Crooked Hillary.” “Lock her up.” The words of a reprobate and Pawn of Putin confirm the double standard: American culture is steeped in misogyny and sexism.

How do partisan cheap shots stick glue-like in the minds of the public? Perhaps this tendency of people to react irrationally in binary terms: Tribe against tribe, us versus them, better him than her. Binary reasoning is the wellspring of bigotry, divisiveness, sexism, verbal abuse.

Repetitious soundbites build over time and play continuously in the mind like an old radio jingle. In American politics, this is how the mendacious and disputatious demagogue won.

It's MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY, goddamn it!

Last night (ironically, the first Friday the 13th of the new year), the mayor of Biloxi put out a tweet that rather specifically did not call Monday's holiday "Martin Luther King Day."

It was a fascinatingly specific error (yes, let's just call it an "error," shall we?), but they left it up overnight, finally deleting it this morning, and a lot of the Twitterverse noticed. My personal favorite response was this.

when u see what @CityofBiloxi did for the day acknowledging you pic.twitter.com/C6PufnXECK

— Large ☀️☀️of Anarchy (@JumpinJackFlask) January 14, 2017

Let's remember that Biloxi, Mississippi was the site of the infamous "wade-ins" in 1960, to protest the fact that the miles of available beach in Biloxi were "whites only," with only tiny "colored" bits of beach available. (That one didn't end well for the protesters in Biloxi, by the way, although it did bring the city to national attention).

Of course, the whole state has a terrible history in the civil rights annals - they didn't call the movie "Alabama Burning," after all.

And let's add this little detail to that list of Mississippi's record on civil rights:

1. In 1910, the state passed a law to honor January 19 as Robert E Lee's birthday.


2. In 1983, Reagan made Martin Luther King's Day a federal holiday, observed on the third Monday in January


3. In 1987, calling it a "cost-saving measure," the state of Mississippi combined the two holidays, in a move that most people understand was a backhanded insult to King (MLK Day was already a Federal holiday - you want to lose a holiday? Accept that you probably shouldn't have a day honoring somebody who committed treason.

And then, in 2017, the mayor of Biloxi decided that the combined holiday needed a name, since everybody was still referring to it by the name of that Negro. A move which he probably regrets, since he's been trying to walk it back all day.

Remember, as we enter the Trump Era, undercover racists are going to keep trying to do this kind of crap.

Golden Showergate

The news this morning is full of prostitutes, urine and Trump.

The story began making the rounds at Washington dinner parties late last summer: Donald Trump had been caught in a compromising sexual position by Russian intelligence agents during a business trip to Moscow. According to one version, told by a high-ranking Obama administration diplomat, Russian intelligence services, acting on Trump’s well-known obsession with sex, had arranged an evening for him with a bevy of hookers, with hidden cameras and microphones recording all the action. The jaw-dropping detail that topped the story? Trump had somehow engaged in “golden showers,” sex acts involving urine.

Now, the guy getting blackmailed by Russia says it's all a lie. And the country doing the blackmailing says it's all a lie. Of course, the intelligence report says otherwise, but it's become obvious that Donald Trump doesn't use intelligence.

I feel I should point out that there's nothing in the Constitution requiring a compromised president to step down: I mean, a man with principles would, but I think we've established pretty clearly that the GOP didn't elect one of those.

Think about it for a second: if Donald Trump steps down in the face of these golden shower allegations, his brand is dead. He's spent his entire life selling himself. Building up his name as a symbol of wealth and privilege. And if he just admits it's true, he just pisses all that away.

So Trump's going to try and brazen this out, which will just precipitate a constitutional crisis further down the road. Remember that Russia's goal for decades has been to damage the credibility of the United States, in order to increase their own. So now, whatever Russia has will be slowly leaked out, a little bit at a time, by a giggling Vladimir Putin.

What happens now? Well, if the President steps down before taking his oath of office, nothing says that the Vice President-elect gets to take over. By definition, the Vice President was not the person elected President. Ironically, Trump's beauty contest has a clearer plan of succession for a situation like this than the US Constitution.

If the winner, for any reason, cannot fulfill her duties as Miss Universe, the 1st runner-up takes over.

All this time, we thought Trump's weird orange skin was due to cheap bronzer, not to the fact that Russian prostitutes don't hydrate properly.

It's weird that the White House staff now has to study up on removing urine stains. But this whole thing has brought a new light to that infamous solid gold toilet that Trump has.

All this kind of explains that pissy look on Trump's face all the time. Do you think anybody ever be willing to shake Trump's hand from now on? I'm betting that sales of hand sanitizer in DC are going to go through the roof.

So, it's time to start a new birther theory: Donald Trump has always claimed to have been born in Queens. But it looks now like he might have been closer to Flushing.

GOLDEN SHOWERS MEAN URINE TROUBLE

This NYT article is more carefully worded with more customary “unsubstantiated” and “unverified” disclaimers than usual. How trustworthy is last week’s intelligence report? To what degree has Donald Trump been compromised by Vladimir Putin?
In my view, the shadowy world of clandestine operations is poorly understood. Lawyers, for whom evidence must be convincing beyond a reasonable doubt, tend to dismiss such reports on legalistic grounds. A politician may compromise valid security concerns with denials, distractions, and cheap shots to serve a partisan purpose. All miss this point: Clandestine connotes secrecy and stealth with room for plausible deniability. 
Most noteworthy are troubling inconsistencies surrounding Michael Cohen, a lawyer and advisor of Donald Trump. Did Cohen travel to Prague, or not? Either way, a shill is still a shill.
Journalists also fail miserably. Their work is often marred by faulty research, errors of omission, faulty nuance, and conclusions based on false equivalences. For instance, Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald dismissed recent CIA reports on the basis of past failures — such as the bogus WMD claim that was used to justify the Iraq war.
Their error? The CIA did not embellish or mischaracterize the WMD data; the Bush administration did.
Shall one intelligence failure cast suspicion on all intelligence reports? For Taibbi and Greenwald, one rotten apple means all apples are rotten. Sometimes lawyers, politicians, and journalists are ego-invested in their own words and subject to motivated blindspots.
The hacking of DNC computer servers, Cyrillic fingerprints on trace metadata, the steady drip of embarrassing (but not incriminating) email, direct funding of National Front groups in Europe by Russia, and FSB/GRU efforts to destabilize the European Union … sometimes pervasive patterns of subversion speak louder than any smoking gun. Reader, beware.

Piss, Lies and Borscht

Don't miss the point of the infamous "dossier" accusing Trump of, amongst other things, paying Russian women to pee on him. It's Karma.

Plausible and even not-so-plausible accusations are always true enough to demand special investigators and committees and prosecutors.  There are so many anecdotes and stories and insinuations about secret alliances and deals and money-laundering and bailouts involving Trump and Russian oligarchs that a hundred buckets of piss are irrelevant.  His reptilian hissing and spitting and midnight fits only make him look more guilty even if you missed awareness of his admission of enjoying sex crimes and the long list of accusations thereof.

Listen -- I've had my fill of "Benghazi, Benghazi" and "Lock her up." It's time to walk Trump through the same gantlet. Let him spend years defending himself against a daily flood of new accusations, repeated libels and slanders -- and who gives a damn if it's the whole truth, half a truth or depravity. Let loose the prosecutors!  Lock him up!

PUTIN’S PAWN

Is political power worth the price of treason?

Friday’s intelligence report disclosing the Russian hack attack of our election should be troubling enough. More troubling are the dismissals and denials along party lines … most especially from Trump himself. 

Senate Majority Leader McConnell and House Speaker Ryan debunked U.S. intelligence reports outright. Agent Orange denounced the DNC … but not Russia’s FSB … while omitting one all-important detail:

RNC computer servers were also hacked, but the Russians refrained from releasing these data to Wikileaks.

All told, the Russians hacked the DNC, rigged our election, and successfully undermined confidence in our democracy (while holding the RNC hostage to future blackmail). Donald Trump has now become the Quisling of Vladimir Putin.

King of the World!

"Merry Christmas to all!"

Blurts the RNC official Christmas message. and the expanding ripples of unanswered questions expand outward. Is this the kind of message that an inclusive political party about to take over the reigns of the USA should be sending or is this a somehow mislabeled missive from the Vatican?

"Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends."

Questions and more questions: Are we talking about a king of the United States? Why do we have a political party making historically unfounded statements of faith, supporting sectarian mythology as truth and a mythology that does not represent American citizens as a whole? 

I'm sorry, you've been calling an unfulfilled ancient myth "good news" for longer than CNN hangs on to "breaking news" and there has been no new king of a united Hebrew Nation since Solomon and there is and never has been a king of the world. Sorry Leo and sorry for the rest of us: those who don't celebrate a holiday Christians have often banned and which has it's roots in pagan mythologies and department store lobbies are Americans and voters too and our rights protected under a Constitution that forbids kings as well as State religions.

And sorry RNC, a party worthy of the name would wish good tidings to all Americans not just those who celebrate a dressed up pagan holiday. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and not claiming you're comparing Trump to Jesus although a clarification and assurance is in order. Isn't it funny though, how often the things you say and do have to be explained away like the contradictions in the Bible? Contradictions such as the fact there is no mention of Three wise men?

As a literate person, should I be further insulted by a Sunday School, Bible Stories for Children version of the story?  No matter, the horror of watching the first secular democratic republic become the first to fall to barbarians overwhelms all else.

Fake News

We're just starting to see some lip service paid to the cornucopia of fake news, libel and fraud that we call social media. The first I encountered this morning was a picture of a table in the shape of a swastika in a article that made it look like it came from The Daily Mail. It tells us it's something new from Ikea. Of course it's not and it apparently has appeared in other countries made to look like other legitimate newspapers printed it.  The picture is of a work of art done by a Berlin artist in 2011 and intended to be a cynical look at the false promises of Fascism, but someone doesn't like Ikea and goodness knows, in our lawless cyber world, anything goes.

There's a real observation called Gresham's law which says the good currencey is driven off the market by bad currency.  Likewise, real news, is driven off the market by fake news. There are no longer constraints on or impediments to the libel and slander of fake information. 

There is no bottom and even the notorious National Enquirer seems encouraged by the anarchy as you can see in the current issue smearing Malia Obama:

I'm sure Ikea is outraged and hot to punish whomever
did this and the Obama family should also be, but they really have no recourse because the legacy of the Web is chaos, lawlessness and loss of civilization.  Efforts to control it, as Facebook has claimed will be made are likely to be useless given the volume and the viciousness and the appetite for hate now warming up faster than the Arctic latitudes.

As you probably know, I'm an atheist. gods, spirits and a universe that has purpose and sentience are completely absurd to me, but that doesn't mean I don't wish there were an Enlil to drown mankind once again. If only he could do it and leave the innocent animals alone.